Willie Dixon – Wang Dang Doodle at the Montreal International Jazz Festival,   with Arthur Dixon on piano, John Watkins on guitar, Johnny Tillman on drums, Sugar Blue on harmonica and Freddie Dixon on bass guitar;

or

The Grateful Dead – Wang Dang Doodle with John Popper on harp at the Bill Graham Memorial Concert, San Francisco, November 03, 1991?

What’s on your mind tonight?

In his typed answers to the Outlines questionnaire, Obama clearly stated he was in favor of same-sex marriage, which he has since opposed on the public record during both his U.S. senate run and his campaign for president:

Israel has to at the very least stop the missiles, permanently. Ideally it has to install Fatah as a puppet government. If it fails to do at least one of those things it has lost the war, no matter what the casualty ratios. And since if Hamas is still in charge it’ll keep launching rockets till it gets what it wants, the only way the Israelis win is if they can get Fatah into Gaza and have Fatah exterminate the remains Hamas for them. So this operation is all about weakening Hamas enough that Fatah carpetbaggers can finish the job.

On New Year’s Eve, Oscar Grant was executed by a transit police officer in Oakland, California. He was shot in the back while face-down on a subway platform, unarmed and posing no threat.

How does that old saying go?  “When you’re a complete blithering idiot, stop digging”?  Anyway, something like that.  Unfortunately, Joe The Plumber Author War Correspondent has apparently never heard it, something he demonstrates on a daily basis. And as much as I hate to extend his sixteenth minute of fame, The Stupid is just too burny.

When accepting her Golden Globe award on Sunday, Tina Fey had a few choice words for blog commenters at The Envelope:

1) Do it while it’s cheap

2) Provide a direction private industry and individuals can get behind

3) Restructure to allow unfettered growth in the future

4) Spend directly or give to people who will spend

5) Shift from low return policies to high return policies

Along with the Israeli admitted of the use of cluster bombs, their forces are also using White Phosphorous in Gaza – but it’s OK since “members of NATO” use the same weapons. Could they mean the US?

I was on a call today with Anthoy Romero and Caroline Frederickson of the ACLU, talking about their efforts to push rule of law issues to the fore with the incoming Obama Administration and the 111th Congress. They’ve posted a link to their full agenda here, including a link to ACLU’s recommendations to the transition team. The report itself outlines any number of issues we’ve been talking about for ages as needing reform, including broad-brush emphasis on: “The branches of our government, co-equal in theory, are out of balance. The executive branch has overreached – engaging in unlawful and immoral torture, conducting warrantless wiretapping, illegally detaining innocent individuals without judicial authority, spying on citizens based on race, ethnicity, religious or political views. The legislative branch has acquiesced in many of these efforts and failed until recently to exercise its oversight authority to call the administration into account….”

Larry Summers assures Congress that Obama will use TARP to get money in the hands of small businesses and consumers. That’s good–because we already have proof that doing so will help the economy.