Quick hits

* Looks like we're still engaged in a "war on terror" that, err, creates more terror.

* As ever, what's important isn't whether the US does bad things; it's that the American people are kept safely in the dark about them. Also, via Drum, we learn of the new meme from the pro-Bush blogosphere about rendition.

* Regime Change 101 via Democracy Now!'s interview with Stephen Kinzer, who's hawking his new book Overthrow.

* CBS' 60 Minutes continues to be a place where high-level folk speak out against the Bushies. But, typically, to no avail. This week Tyler Drumheller reminds us that there was no intelligence failure on Iraq.

* Al-Maliki in, al-Jaafari out as Iraqi PM.

* Kevin Zeese has a useful review of the "base reality" of the US' long term presence in Iraq.

* Army suicides are at their highest level in more than 10 years.

* Woops. Condi Rice has been fingered in her own Israel lobby leak. Of course, her people deny this.

* John Brown wonders, as no doubt many do: How do you sleep at night, Mr. President?

* The world rediscovered New Orleans again over the weekend with the city's mayoral primary, what the Black Commentator described as a "generation defining event." The incubent, Ray Nagin, finished first, mostly on account of the black vote.

* Check out State of the Planet -- a graphical look at what we've done and where we're going.