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The papers have a story today on a UN report which says that if rich countries upped their foreign aid contributions from 0.25% of GDP to 0.5% of GDP, global poverty could be halved within the next 10 years. The report also says that only 30 cents out of each aid dollar actually go to help the poor. When you look at the massive overconsumption that defines American culture, it’s hard to accept that we can’t do more to help people who are dying in mass numbers due to preventable disease and malnutrition. (The US has further to go than some other countries, we only allocate 0.15% of our GDP to foreign aid.) ...

Ed Cone has been all over this tempest in a teacup surrounding the Dean campaign’s hiring of Jerome Armstrong and Markos Mulitsas Zuniga. Read what he says. I find it disappointing that the perception is that people can toss some money at webloggers and buy their support, but that’s all that’s going on here. The controversy being cited by Bill O’Reilly and others is completely ginned up. Update: Salon has a War Room post explaining why the equivalency drawn between the Armstrong Williams dustup and the blogging for dollars scandal is specious. Scott Rosenberg also comments. ...

The Trademark Blog urges you to subscribed to its RSS feed unless your RSS reader happens to run on somebody else’s Web server. The difference between reading the site through Bloglines (currently prohibited) and reading it through NetNewsWire or FeedDemon or any other RSS reader? You tell me.

Chris Suellentrop has a Slate piece on how political campaigns are using bloggers to advance their agenda. He wonders whether some of the campaigns that had Markos Moulitsas on the payroll were the same ones that Kos was shilling for on his site, and mentions that John Thune in South Dakota had a couple of bloggers on the payroll as well. In that case, he planted stories on the weblogs to channel them into the mainstream press. Here’s how he sums up the new game: ...

Former Howard Dean Internet director Zephyr Teachout says flat out that they hired various prominent lefty bloggers as “consultants” with the goal of getting positive coverage from them on their Web sites.

When Microsoft announced its plans for a new version control system to replace the creaky and widely despised SourceSafe, I needled SourceGear CEO Eric Sink for his pro-Microsoft ways, being that Microsoft was creating a product that could crush his company’s flaghship product. Now Eric has announced that his company will be coming out with a client for Microsoft’s new version control system that will run outside Visual Studio. What can I say, he’s a smart guy. ...

Let’s say you’ve written a test script for a customer in VBScript. In the wild world of spam and malware, how do you get it to them? Attachments ending in .vbs are a total loss, and putting the file in a Zip file doesn’t seem like much of an improvement. I can password protect the file, but then it really starts looking like a virus. It’s amazing the degree to which scumbags have ruined email. Update: The obvious answer is changing the extension to .txt. ...

The Rockridge Institute posted a piece on creating a values system shared across the progressive movement: What is needed is a focus on creating a progressive values movement that recognizes the shared values that define who progressives are, and that encompasses the work done by groups working on many different issue areas and programs. Recognizing the importance of higher-level values, principles, and policy directions can help progressives overcome common differences about policy details and tactics so that more enduring progressive goals can be achieved. Sounds like a good idea to me. ...

In light of the proposed changes to Social Security, it’s interesting to theorize on what the ideal retirement system would look like. Well, for me it’s interesting to see what informed people think, since I’m not knowledgeable enough to get beyond basic principles. Anyway, from the liberal side, here’s Mark Schmitt’s ideal, and from the libertarian/conservative side, here’s Zimran Ahmed’s opinion. When the Bush administration comes out with a proposal (assuming it ever does), it will be interesting to see whether it resembles either of the two ideals proposed. ...

No one person can tell you how bad things really are in Iraq, it’s a big country, it’s impossible to get good information, and it seems like everyone has their agenda. My gut feeling is that this assessment is pretty close to the truth. Update: The US seems determined to repeat every bad idea ever brought to bear in a guerilla war.