Washington Post news and opinion digest for Saturday April 18 2009

Washington Post news and opinion digest for Saturday April 18 2009

Barack TV

POTUS has become part of my morning routine. I have a lot of things to get done at an early hour--read the newspapers, surf the Net, file this column--but when I get to the office and flip on the cable channels, by 10:30 or 11, there he is.

Reading the Tea Leaves

Tea Time

Most Viewed Opinion Articles

Next Choler, Please

Finished With Facebook

You'll Love Diversity -- Or Else

Landing a Job When Your Résumé's Too Good for It

Top 35 Opinion Articles

Most Popular on washingtonpost.com

Most Viewed Articles

Updated 12:00 a.m. ET
1) Family of 5 Is Found Dead By Dad's Hand, Police Say By Matt Zapotosky and Michelle Boorstein Washington Post Staff Writers April 18, 2009 2:24 PM
MIDDLETOWN -- Homicide has come to this tiny town in northwest Maryland for the first time in at least two decades. Police called to a pale yellow house yesterday found the bodies of a mother, a father and their three small children.

2) Race a Dominant Theme at Summit By Scott Wilson Washington Post Staff Writer April 18, 2009 7:21 PM PORT-OF-SPAIN, Trinidad and Tobago, April 18 -- In presenting himself at a summit here as an equal partner to Latin America, President Obama is drawing on his race as evidence of U.S. social progress and of his own affinity for the region's poor.

3) Next Choler, Please By Dana Milbank April 17, 2009 5:03 PM
Why is the choler from the left still more vitriolic than that from the right?

4) A Golden Age for Cheapskates By Nancy Trejos Washington Post Staff Writer April 18, 2009 12:50 AM Jill Berry is always on the lookout for free things.

5) Beset by Troubles, S. Africa's Voters Are Divided Over Zuma By Karin Brulliard Washington Post Foreign Service April 18, 2009 6:49 PM JOHANNESBURG -- One week before this country's fourth democratic elections, South Africa's main opposition party has unveiled a last-ditch campaign slogan that minces no words: "Stop Zuma."

6) Gun-Trafficking Crackdown Hits Hurdle By Karl Vick Washington Post Staff Writer April 18, 2009 8:43 AM PHOENIX -- It seemed a fortuitous alignment of justice and politics, George Iknadosian's trial beginning just as President Obama called for new attention to the flow of weapons from the United States to the drug cartels inside Mexico. The Phoenix gun dealer stood charged with selling hundreds of...

7) Capitals' Hole Grows Deeper By Tarik El-Bashir Washington Post Staff Writer April 18, 2009 3:50 PM New York goalie Henrik Lundqvist outplays Simeon Varlamov, above, as the Rangers shut out the Capitals, 1-0, on Saturday to take a 2-0 series lead.

8) Chavez Gives Obama Book on Latin American History By Scott Wilson Washington Post Staff Writer April 18, 2009 11:43 AM PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad and Tobago, April 18 -- With the media watching their every gesture, President Obama and President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela continued their getting-to-know-you phase with a gift and another handshake, this one for more than one camera.

9) For GOP, Tea Protests Offer An Alluring, but Risky, Lifeline By Dan Balz April 18, 2009 10:49 AM The tea bag protests that marked tax day on Wednesday represented an opportunity and a risk for the Republican Party. Opportunity because they offered a jolt of energy for a battered party after two dismal elections. Risk because they supplied at best only a partial answer to what ails the GOP....

10) Nice Party, But Not So Revolutionary By Benjamin L. Carp April 17, 2009 5:15 PM We like the spectacle of drowning tea for the same reason kids like knocking over building blocks.

Most Viewed Opinion Columns and Editorials

1) Next Choler, Please Why is the choler from the left still more vitriolic than that from the right?
By Dana Milbank

2) Finished With Facebook What started with the occasional link up with friends turned addictive. I'm now on a road to recovery. By Kristen Hansen Brakeman

3) You'll Love Diversity -- Or Else Racial and ethnic diversity is the key to happiness, success in the global marketplace and, not least, an interesting life. By Kathleen Parker

4) Landing a Job When Your R?sum?'s Too Good for It You've lost your job. But you don't immediately panic. After all, you have an undergraduate degree and perhaps an advanced degree. You either saved or more likely borrowed heavily to earn this get-out-of-unemployment-free card. So with your beefy r?sum?, you begin applying for jobs confident that... By Michelle Singletary

5) The Love That Bo Knows When the dog begs for the South Lawn it's time to put world peace on hold. By Colbert I. King

6) Demon Denim What the nation's obsession with denim says about the national psyche. By George F. Will

7) The Sting, In Four Parts If only his big ideas for health care and deficit reduction weren't constructed over sand. By Charles Krauthammer

8) CAROLYN HAX Adapted from a recent online discussion. Dear Carolyn: By Carolyn Hax

9) Where Tinkerers Take Control of Technology At a recent HacDC get-together, Tim Collins displays his latest toy to a visitor. It's a microcontroller, a $6 mini-computer on a chip smaller than his thumb. "This has more computing capacity than my first computer, which cost thousands of dollars," he observes. By Mike Musgrove

10) GPS Units Plug Into the Web, but We're Not There Yet A typical GPS unit has its eyes on the stars and its feet set in concrete: It can fix its location anywhere within reach of Global Positioning System satellites but then must refer to maps that are months or years out of date. By Rob Pegoraro

11) Fertile 'Gardens' Edith and Edie Beale, commonly called Big Edie and Little Edie, have the potential to be ridiculously pathetic characters, a mother and daughter living on dreams and delusions in the midst of rot and ruin -- and dozens of cats. By Tom Shales

12) Potemkin Country America's "progressive" president has some peculiarly retro policies. Domestically, his reactionary liberalism is exemplified by his policy of No Auto Company Left Behind, with its intimated hope that depopulated Detroit, where cattle could graze, can somehow return to something like the 1950s.... By George F. Will

13) CAROLYN HAX Dear Carolyn: My 29-year-old daughter is dropping hints that she will soon be engaged. I have hopes (maybe expectations) that her intended will ask her father, and they will marry in the Catholic Church, preferably, or in a religion they would both choose to practice. By Carolyn Hax

14) Help File: Using Routers Q Verizon seems to be telling me that I have to use the wireless router they provide. I'd rather keep my Apple AirPort router. Can I? By Rob Pegoraro

15) The Dream She Dreamed Susan Boyle took an accurate measure of her worth and put it to the test of reality TV. By Jeanne McManus

16) Rights Case Gone Wrong Corporations shouldn't be held liable for foreign governments' human rights violations. By Curtis A. Bradley and Jack L. Goldsmith

17) 'You've Got to Execute' When President Obama finished announcing his Afghanistan-Pakistan policy on March 27, he turned to the advisers gathered behind him and said: "Okay, now you've got to execute." By David Ignatius

18) Tax Fantasies of the Right and Left I almost choked on my scrambled egg whites yesterday morning when I read The Post's story about the April 15 "tea party" protests promoted by Fox News and other conservative organizations. By Steven Pearlstein

19) Look Homeward MEXICO CITY -- And now a little heresy from your friendly foreign affairs columnist for President Obama: Stay focused on fixing the American economy. Avoid pleasant distractions created by dealing with foreign leaders and crises without congressional interference. Stay out of the honey-tree trap of... By Jim Hoagland

20) A Cuba Policy That's Stuck On Plan A An experiment in stopping communism continues after nearly five decades of failure. By Michael Kinsley

21) Fedorov's Late Shifts It might be good to see Sergei Fedorov now, because you never know when the great ones will go -- and Fedorov more than qualifies. By Mike Wise

22) Mad as Hell at Teatime Mad-as-hell Americans reflect a sentiment the Republicans might use to attack Obama. By Eugene Robinson

23) Obama Is Just Not Their Cup of Tea As a tea party, what happened in Lafayette Square across from the White House yesterday was a washout. By Dana Milbank

24) CAROLYN HAX Dear Carolyn: Am I completely unreasonable in thinking that having a neurotic dog for the last two years has somewhat prepared my spouse and me for a baby? Our first is due in August, and I'm starting to freak that we won't be able to handle it. By Carolyn Hax

25) Reading the Tea Leaves T-Day wound up as something of a Rorschach test, taking on a different shape depending on your political views and the media you consume. By Howard Kurtz

26) 'Idol' Math: 2 Judges + 2 Judges = A Big Fat Zero Allowing "American Idol" star Simon Cowell to critique only half the show's competitors will go down in the history books as the dumbest idea ever hatched to "tweak" the most watched television show in the country. By Lisa de Moraes

27) The Obama Doctrine Somali pirates and the president's measured approach to force. By E.J. Dionne Jr.

28) Red Faith, Blue Faith Newsweek's cover story declaring the 'fall of Christian America' is accurate, but incomplete. By Michael Gerson

29) 'Judge Parker' Wins His Case More than 750 calls, e-mails, and letters were heard. The comic strip is back. By Andrew Alexander

30) The Minister's E-Mail Trespasses Dear Miss Manners: Our new minister has a practice that I find disturbing and inappropriate. When he is notified that a congregant is ill or had surgery, he sends an e-mail (with details) to a list of about 30 people, including the entire staff and officers.

31) Hackers Test Limits of Credit Card Security Standards The number, scale and sophistication of data breaches fueled by hackers last year is rekindling the debate over the efficacy of the credit card industry's security standards for safeguarding customer data. All merchants that handle credit and debit card data are required to show that they have met... Brian Krebs

32) NAMES & FACES It's nice to know you'll be missed: After seven years, Ann Jordan is signing off as chairwoman of the National Symphony Orchestra's board -- and the NSO and Kennedy Center sent her off in style.

33) World's First Mac Botnet? Not Quite. This morning, as I scrolled down the list of security Web sites I normally check via my RSS reader, I noticed several items referencing news about the "world's first Mac botnet." As I read on, it became clear this was neither news nor a first. Ryan Naraine from ZDNet.com writes about a paper... Brian Krebs

34) Microsoft Fixes 23 Software Security Flaws Microsoft on Tuesday issued eight security updates to plug at least 23 security holes in its Windows operating systems and other software. The patches are available through Windows Update or via Automatic Updates . One patch fixes six flaws in Internet Explorer 6 7 (the flaws are not present in IE8... Brian Krebs

35) Glut of Stolen Banking Data Trims Profits for Thieves A massive glut in the number of credit and debit cards stolen in data breaches at financial institutions last year has flooded criminal underground markets that trade in this material, driving prices for the illicit goods to the lowest levels seen in years, experts have found. For a glimpse of just... Brian Krebs

20090418 WaPo news and opinion digest for Saturday April 18 2009

Kevin Dayhoff www.kevindayhoff.net http://kevindayhoff.blogspot.com/