Today's edition of quick hits:
* It was yet another dreadful day on Wall Street, with the Dow and S&P dropping to their lowest levels in 12 years.
* Bloodshed in Baghdad: "The U.S. military in Iraq says three U.S. soldiers and an interpreter have been killed in combat north of Baghdad. A statement says the soldiers and their interpreter were killed Monday in Diyala province."
* Karl Rove didn't show up for today's House Judiciary Committee hearing on the U.S. Attorney purge scandal.
* Former Gov. Gary Locke (D) of Washington state has emerged as the likely choice to be Commerce Secretary.
* Officials from across the country seem pretty anxious to claim the stimulus money a handful of far-right Republican governors don't want.
* CNBC's Rick Santelli, following up on last week's bizarre class-war tirade, is now sounding kind of paranoid.
* Fascinating story in the NYT today about U.S. "military advisers and technical specialists" working with the Pakistani military on fighting in lawless tribal areas of the country. The initiative began several months ago and "is a much larger and more ambitious effort than either country has acknowledged."
* Sounds like the Pentagon owes for stop-loss troops some bonus money.
* Philadelphia Newspapers L.L.C., which owns The Inquirer and the Philadelphia Daily News, has filed for Chapter 11.
* I can't quite figure out the rationale for this: "The Obama administration, siding with former President George W. Bush, is trying to kill a lawsuit that seeks to recover what could be millions of missing White House e-mails."
* Do the hosts of "Morning Joe" listen to their own show?
* President Obama's approach to budget honesty, at this point, strikes me as very encouraging.
* Where is this "do-over" talk coming from?
* When a cabinet nominee is confirmed 75 to 21, only Fox News could characterize that as getting in "by the skin of his teeth."
#board-2412
"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act, but a habit." - Aristotle
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