Plus Ça Change + Nichols on Ellison & Jefferson's Koran

And so it continues:

(Note the irony of the "related" headline at bottom right:)

Yahoo! has no official comment about the screw up.... (Thanks TPM Café)

Nichols on Ellison and Jefferson's Qu'ran
In The Nation, John Nichols blogs about Muslim Representative Keith Ellison's (D-MN) decision to use a Koran at his private swearing-in ceremony, and the symbolism and significance of his selection of Thomas Jefferson's personal copy. I am sure this is making Virginian US Representative Virgil Goode (R-VA), who has been sounding off with increasingly ignominy of late about Muslims and his own religious intolerance, burst into flames just thinking about it, and, although Nichols is convinced that Jefferson would be proud of Ellison's actions, given the abysmal esteem in which the sage of Monticello held Negroes, I'm not so sure. (If you doubt me, just take the sage of Maryland Benjamin Banneker's word for it.) I'm very happy for Ellison, whose politics strongly recommend him, and would love to be in Washington to see him sworn in. (My own new representative is Albio Sires, of West New York, who won in a landslide to replace the newly minted Senator Bob Menendez.) Perhaps someone will be kind enough to regularly forward Mr. Goode photos of the Hon. Mr. Ellison's hand on that Koran on a daily basis, just for good measure.

Quick News: Lula 2.0
Brazil's scandal-plagued president, (former?) Socialist Luiz Inacio "Lula" da Silva, inaugurated his second term on Monday, though with almost no foreign dignataries present. He promises to do more to aid the poor of his country, though his conservative economic policies have benefited and delighted the country's bankers and its debtors. Several of his social programs, such as "Zero Hunger," have strengthened the national safety net, and their effectiveness and his broad popularity were enough to overcome several waves of outrageous Workers' Party-related scandals and the challenge from former São Paulo mayor Geraldo Alckmin. He'll have to work with a less-than-cooperative Congress, however, to make some of his more ambitious progressive initiatives law.