Over the weekend

* Anthony Shadid of the Washington Post has a relatively comprehensive report on how the "election" in Iraq turned out. The media coverage today has, overwhelmingly, stressed the positive, and, for the sake of Iraqis, let's hope such optimism is warranted. My better instincts tell me that the rosy image we're now seeing is crass propaganda, but we'll have to wait for events to play themselves out. See also: "The Iraq Election 'Bait and Switch.'"

* Tomorrow's the last day of the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre, Brazil. Catch up on what's happened over the past few days via TerraViva. Also note the contrast with events in Davos, Switzerland.

* Buzzflash: "Paul Bremer's Occupation Regime Misplaced $9 Billion. Was Anyone Keeping Track Of What His Heritage Foundation Bumblers Were Doing With Your Money?"

* Via War In Context comes two interesting articles, one from the Chronicle of Higher Education on the lack of attention given to the Lancet survey of Iraq war fatalities and another from the New Statesman on the fate of the "Middle East's Generation X."

* Kurt Nimmo breaks down the new plea for more troops and military toys from the PNAC.

* Eliot Weinberger's heard a bunch of things about Iraq. Check his list over in the LRB.

* Here's an essay by Mahmood Mamdani that nicely summarizes the argument he puts forth in Good Muslim, Bad Muslim.

* In Dissent, Andrei S. Markovits traces the trajectory of the European and American Left since 1945.

* In an analytic piece, Jim Lobe discusses the centrality of the Holocaust to the neoconservative worldview.