Welcome to this weeks slightly late Carnival of the Liberals! Obama has been in the White House for a month or so, but prisoners are still being abused in Gitmo, U.S. forces are still fighting the War-Formerly-Known-As-The-War-On-Terror, humanity is still farting CO2 from every orifice, and the economy is lower than Dolly Parton's unsupported nipples. On the plus side, Europeans now like America again, although not your plague of hamburger franchises.

I don't want to dwell on Obama, because at the end of the day he's just one politician, but in "Obama Ratings High, But Caution Advised", the always excellent Ames stares at his crystal balls, and asks how long it will take to undo the damage wrought by the Bush administration, and whether the public's patience will extend that far.

DWSUWF on the other hand takes a more pessimistic view. A libertarian-leaning Democrat, he's annoyed that "Obama Embraces the Bush/Cheney Unitary Executive. Again and again and again." It's an interesting criticism, and included here to start a bit of debate and controversy.

Concluding a triplet of Obama-related posts I would like to present Jason's "Obama Comics". While playing on the internet one day, Jason found a cache of images of a Japanese Obama action-figure that bore an uncanny resemblance to various Blaxpoitation stars of years gone by. The inevitable comic strip resulted, and you can see this week's episode, "Vol 1 No 12 - Coming Soon to a Radio Near You", in which Obama deals with Rush Limbaugh, who I gather is famous in America.

But - to quote any of a number of anguished Republicans - enough Obama. To make up for the light-weight comic strip, here's a bit of economics. Jason Zuckerman argues that "Stimulating Art Stimulates the Economy", and wants to see bailout money going to art projects, not just to bankers and incompetent American car manufacturers.

Aetius Romulous continues the economics theme with "The Hunt For The Guilty", in a post which I like for its acceptance of the responsibility of wider society for the economic crisis: "For a generation wealth, status, and beauty have defined the American dream. We celebrated excess, and held it’s winners high. We gloried in its wonder and perfection, and shoved it down the throats of Heathens and Idolaters’, burning their villages to the ground in order to save them."

Let's talk justice now. Yet another Jason (seriously, can we have a bit of variety people?) sent in the post, "1924: Gee Jon, debuting the gas chamber", from his fascinating blog "Executed Today". This is one of the most unique blogs I've discovered recently - in the words of the author: "Executed Today is a daily chronicle — each day the story of an historical execution that took place on this date, and the story behind it." Fascinating, and you should all bookmark it.

Continuing the justic theme, Marcella Chester presents History Of Using Rape Victims As Excuse For Injustice Against Black Men. I love bloggers who tackle stories from new and interesting angles, the the story of the link between rape and race relations is a fascinating one. That white males "blacked-up" before raping victims in order to pass blame on to black people, and sometimes in a premeditated attempt to provoke race riots, is a chilling fact about a very dark period in American history.

Apparently they also have injustice in New Zealand, as well as hobbits and Liv Tyler (it's true, I saw it in a film). Idiot/savant argues that New Zealand's new "DNA bill breaches BORA." The take home message is that people picked up for almost any offence could be forced to have DNA samples taken. "Eventually it will be expanded to include any imprisonable offence - which means (for example) disorderly behaviour (a standard charge for protestors), breaching the RMA, and blasphemous libel." Fancy having your DNA lifted for blasphemy? Me neither.

Speaking of blasphemy, the inimitable Greg Laden presents "The Bible as Ethnography." This is a poor title for an awesome post, in which Greg deals with the idea "that a good chunk of the old Testament is telling a story about nomadic pastoralists", linked to Southeast African cultures. In other words, could the old Testament be an "African thing"? It's a fascinating idea.

Finally, Ron Britton of the Bay of Fundie presents a fascinating review of 20th century educator Angelo Patri's starkly-titled manual: "Child Training." It is a fascinating insight into the mind of a religious fundamentalist who believes that children should have no sympathy for those smited (smitten? smought?) by God. As Ron asls: "What sort of monster can we expect this child to turn into? How can we cope with this amoral child that you’ve created?"

Well that's all for this issue. The next edition will be held on March 11th at The Greenbelt, but in the meantime stay happy, and try not to break the economy or anything. Peace out.