LANGLEY, VA—A report released Tuesday by the CIA's Office of the Inspector General revealed that the CIA has mistakenly obscured hundreds of thousands of pages of critical intelligence information with black highlighters.

CIA Director Porter Goss.

According to the report, sections of the documents— "almost invariably the most crucial passages"—are marred by an indelible black ink that renders the lines impossible to read, due to a top-secret highlighting policy that began at the agency's inception in 1947.

CIA Director Porter Goss has ordered further internal investigation.

"Why did it go on for this long, and this far?" said Goss in a press conference called shortly after the report's release. "I'm as frustrated as anyone. You can't read a single thing that's been highlighted. Had I been there to advise [former CIA director] Allen Dulles, I would have suggested the traditional yellow color—or pink."

Goss added: "There was probably some really, really important information in these documents." (From The Onion)

As this NYT story says, the business interests of The Grateful Dead are clashing with the band's heritage as the original open-source jam band.

Writer Michael Massing sums up several currents of influence on the U.S. mainstream media in The End of News? a two-part essay in the New York Review of Books (H/T to Zerby).

And with this morning's dropping of the writ, CTV has unveiled its election site.

Yes, there will be blogging there.

If you want to revisit the polling "fiasco" of 2004, and why it could happen again, read my feature.

The Beeb's backgrounder on Central Asia's 'stans' -- Kazakhstan, Kyrgystan, Tajikstan, Uzbekistan, and my personal favourite -- Turkmenistan! (there's also a complete Central Asia indepth page.)

I would like to visit Turkmenistan and North Korea back-to-back, just to see which one is the weirder cult-of-personality state.

A former Texan, raised on a ranch and and a one-time hunter, is the new editor of Harper's Magazine, the erudite, foundation-supported journal of ideas.

Ah, the dark side of citizen journalism: You do the work, we keep all the rights and profit. This Media Guardian article airs complaints about the Telegraph in the UK with respects to rights-grabbing.

Club soda and tonic water come in similar-looking containers and are in fact similar-looking fluids. However, they taste quite different.

Make sure your literacy skills are sufficient to distinguish between the labeling describing the two different products.

If they are not, swallow your pride and ask a clerk for assistance. Otherwise, you might find yourself swallowing tonic water when in fact you wanted club soda.

This BBC interactive is predicated on the fact that 12 Latin American countries will be having elections between November and the end of 2006.

Find it here.

The European Union's top justice official has issued a warning that any member state found to be hosting a secret CIA jail could lose its voting rights.

Opposition MPs, mainly the Bloc Quebecois, have been pestering the government about possible CIA-linked flights in Canada.

My friend Stevie Cameron, one of this country's finest investigative reporters and authors, has come under criticism for her relationship with the RCMP during her work on the Airbus and Eurocopter investigations. The latest salvo came this weekend. She fires back at her critics.

Darshan Singh is looking for work today. An Aussie newspaper printed the name and photo of Singapore's executioner on the eve of his having to hang a Vietnamese-born Aussie citizen for drug trafficking.

Haroon Siddiqui, the Toronto Star's editorial page editor emeritus, has a somewhat different perspective on Robert Fisk than does the Globe's Marcus Gee.

There is nothing like a subway accident and a surface shuttle bus packed with screamers to get one's day off to a good start.

The Edmonton Eskimos, the CFL team that represents the city of my birth, won its 13th Grey Cup on Sunday, edging the Montreal Alouettes 38-35 in a wild, wild game.

How wild? There were 62 points scored in the second half and OT. The Esks retook the lead with just over a minute left but the Als tied it with nine seconds left -- and might not have done so had two Edmonton defenders not bobbled the same possible interception.

Montreal was on the move after a one-pint first half -- until the Esks' Tony Tompkins set a CFL record with a 96-yard kickoff return.

Games like those are why I love CFL football! (Please don't tell anyone in Toronto about this; it's a bad carryover from my prairie upbringing. I'm trying to break the habit so as to better fit into this vast zone of near-total CFL apathy).

So, way to go Esks! But hold your head high, Montreal; you played a hellofa game too.

The Globe and Mail's Marcus Gee wrote on Saturday about a recent interview he had with Robert Fisk, the longtime Middle East correspondent.

A proposed new law from the governing Liberals would prevent even those accused of a crime of seeking Canadian citizenship.

Journalist John Pilger trumpets the success of some alternative media outlets in forcing stories like the use of white phosphorus onto the agenda.

Just when I'm thinking I don't post enough right-wing stuff, along comes a juicy morsel like this, from Daniel Johnson of the New York Sun.

David Ludwig stands accused of shooting his 14-year-old girlfriend's parents to death. He's also a huge Christian rock fan, particularly of the group Pillar, described in a Salon article as playing "rap-core, a furiously propulsive mash-up of hard rock and rap."

This puts the Christian culture community in a bit of a bind, writes Daniel Radosh in Salon.

Some U.S. soldiers who've lost limbs in Iraq, or suffered other horrible wounds, say they've emerged from their travails as better people.

This NYT story is based on a series of 75 cross-country interviews with people who voted for Dubya in 2004. They generally don't feel their man is doing the job.

Cartoonist Martin Rowson of Britain's The Guardian talks about the pluses and minuses of seeing his work distributed globally.

Wadah Khanfar, al-Jazeera's director general, has travelled to London. He wants to see the memo that claims U.S. President George W. Bush raised the possibility of bombing the Doha, Qatar headquarters of the Arab satellite TV news network during an April 2004 meeting with British PM Tony Blair.

If you don't want to break BBC impartiality rules, don't admit in your news report you started crying when you saw a world leader was apparently in the end game of his life.

Toronto news junkies who like their fix served on newsprint are in for a treat. The NYT will be printed at the same Mississauga plant as The Globe and Mail, meaning it will be available in T.O. first thing in the morning.

Last week, the U.S. Senate shot down a motion proposing to congratulate Bruce Springsteen on the 30th anniversary of his Born to Run album, one of the great records of the 1970s or rock history, for that matter.

It's really no suprise why.

It's nice to know that even Richard Nixon and Henry Kissingers, otherwise fairly amoral practitioners of realpolitik, were queasy about the thought of all-out nuclear war.

The Toronto Star reported today that Lord Black of Attica, er Crossharbour, wants back the Canadian citizenship he renounced in order to become a British lord.

One advantage of Canadian citizenship is if you're convicted of corporate fraud in, say, the U.S., you can serve it here -- something you can't do if you're a Brit.

I guess one has to make plans in case the unthinkable happens and an innocent man is convicted.

The New York Observer blurb: Where Was the Media Between Invasion and Murtha? Networks Gave Vietnam War Twice the Minutes Iraq Gets; Baghdad Bureaus Cut Back; Amanpour: ‘Patronizing’

The musicians who made up New Orleans' unique musical culture are scattered to the four winds, with no place to live and no place to play. Lovers of Nawlins music wonder if they'll ever make it home -- and what will happen if they don't.

Lara Logan, a swimsuit model in her native South Africa, will become CBS News's leading foreign correspondent. While people have muttered about her looks, Logan has also proven her courage in the field.

Artists from filmmakers to rappers warned of a coming storm among the neglected people of the banlieues, but French politicians apparently don't go to movies or listen to rap.

Update: A French MP has accused French rappers of inciting the violence, according to this BBC story.

Lord Black of Crossharbour, the self-described Darwinian capitalist, predicted complete vindication of himself when his corporate fraud case is eventually heard.

A brave declaration, and who knows, maybe he'll ultimately be proved right. But the ball hasn't exactly been bouncing Conrad's way lately. And with David Radler, his right-hand henchman pleading guilty, well ... .

Here's the CTV.ca story.

As CBC's new afternoon show Freestyle ended for another day, I found my heart singing with relief.

It is simply not a very good show. The music sucks and Kelly Ryan and Cameron Phillips have not gelled yet as hosts.

Do a Technorati search on Freestyle CBC to see what I mean. This discussion at Rabble.ca is one to which I could have contributed. As it is, I can only concur.

Apparently Ryan said the following in a Globe and Mail article:

We're playing lots of music. Music that doesn't normally make it on the CBC,' such as Madonna, Elton John and Top 40, Ryan added. 'This is the kind of show you can have on in the background at work, in the dentist office, moms at home ..."

Newsflash: I don't go to the dentist's office to listen to music. Why does CBC Radio One want to compete with crap rock stations for earshare in dentists' offices or other musical dead zones?

Methinks future afternoons at home will be see my receiver tuned to pretty much anything but Freestyle.

Update

The Globe and Mail reported on Jan. 18, 2007 that Freestyle would be killed.

The rootsy U.S. band Marah produced a top-10 11 list for recording a Christmas single (it showed up in my inbox).

Former prime minister Brian Mulroney, who never met a microphone he didn't like, has launched a lawsuit for breach of confidence against Peter Newman, author of The Secret Mulroney Tapes: Unguarded Confessions of a Prime Minister.

"Exit with honour" is becoming a new buzzword as the Bush administration realizes it doesn't have support for an open-ended commitment to keeping large numbers of troops on the ground in Iraq.