This is some of what’s caught my attention in the past hours:

• CIA Director on Open Source Spying | cryptome – The CIA still likes newspapers: “We have found, pushing analysts forward into the area in which they report, the things they think about, accelerates this experiential curve.  And why does it accelerate the experiential curve?  Because the first newspaper they read in the morning is a local newspaper in the local language; the last thing they look at, at night before they go to bed is the local news in the local language. They know whether things are comfortable or uncomfortable, the population is tight or relaxed because they’re on the metro with them, I mean, all of those things that an attaché can absorb, we’re trying to do that for our analysts as well.”
• Why newspapers matter | The Daily Page -“[W]hy are our papers struggling, given that they are staffed with talented and hard-working people and providing critical information? I’m rejecting the public’s attempts to blame the product. I think it’s because too many people no longer think it’s important to pay attention to what is happening in their communities.One of the most disturbing things I’ve heard in recent years was what Dane County District Attorney Brian Blanchard told me about the difficulty of picking a jury in Dane County for the first trial of former Assembly Speaker Scott Jensen. Guess what? It wasn’t the least bit difficult. Blanchard had no problem finding potential jurors who were not prejudiced in their view of the case because they knew nothing at all about it. Here was one of the state’s top legislative leaders, charged with multiple felonies for misconduct in office, and for most of the people who responded to the summons for jury duty that day, it was, ironically, news to them.”
• Book Review: Nudge | O’Reilly Radar – “Nudge is an interesting take on cognitive biases and behavioural economics but the long, detailed, and ever-optimistic unveiling of the authors’ plans to solve the burning questions in money, health, and even same-sex marriages, turn the work into a study of hubris. And that’s before it falls into the hands of someone whose political ends you don’t agree with ….” Indeed.
• FT.com / Lex / Technology, media & telecoms – ITV in play – “With the shares up a fifth in the past week alone, ITV1 might as well be running ads for itself alongside cars and washing powder.”
• ABC News anchor Charles Gibson flummoxes Sarah Palin in their first interview | Jack Shafer – Vote Gibson: “Palin can’t blame her muddled responses on Gibson, who treats her fairly and conducts himself professionally. Never mind about her not being ready to be president. She wasn’t even ready for this interview.”
• Daily Brief Comments | EastSouthWestNorth – Do they mean us? “[T]he western media wants to promote its own form of democracy according to its own ideas.  They don’t care what happens to a country afterwards.  For example, the United States went into Iraq to promote democracy.  When things don’t work out, they bail out.  What does democracy in Iraq matter to the United States?  In the past, Great Britain and France have promoted democracy in Africa, until the continent became the Third World within the Third World?  What does democracy in Africa matter to Great Britain and France?The promotion of these double standards has only exposed their hypocrisy in front of the Chinese and foreign people.”