Odds and Ends

Here's some articles and websites that have caught my attention over the past couple of days...

• The Law Library of Congress has put up a database of legal resources related to Judge Sotomayor, including links to articles, cases, and transcripts of her previous confirmation hearings. Very useful.
• Amazingly enough, Washington, DC is #1 on the American Fitness Index (AFI) of healthy cities. I'm impressed-- but I guess access to good public transportation, plenty of green places, and lots of doctors helps somewhat.
• I think I might have found my home on the web...I received a "follow" request on my Twitter today from The Purple Youth, "a group of teenagers writing about things that matter"-- meaning politics, and done in a very bipartisan way. The writing is good-- it seems to basically be a group blog. I'm considering contacting them about joining their group of writers. We'll see what happens.
• Apparently former President George W. Bush considers Canada the safest place for him to do speaking engagements (the last time I heard about his activities, he was in Alberta)-- he and former President Clinton were in Toronto yesterday doing a joint speaking engagement. To the disappointment of the crowd, the two appeared to get along just fine.
• Continuing the tensions on the peninsula, North Korea today appeared to be moving a long-range missile to a launchpad. From Singapore, Secretary of Defense Bob Gates announced that the US and the rest of the world would "not stand idly by as North Korea builds the capacity to wreak destruction on any target in Asia-- or on us."
• Now is a good time for my friends who are studying Arabic-- CIA Director Leon Panetta today announced plans to improve language proficiency by recruiting operatives who are fluent in languages such as Arabic, Farsi, and Urdu.
• And for a smile: President Obama took his wife on a date yesterday night-- to New York City for dinner and a Broadway show. To me, this is a pleasant reminder that the First Couple are still (a) human and (b) a couple; to the Republican National Committee, which saw fit to issue a statement, this was a waste of time and money. So much for supporting "family values"...I guess that only counts if you're not the president.