For instant analysis of a rather unsubstantive speech with many weak and redundant questions, see the caucus.

This morning Live Earth announced its partnership with Magnify.net — and to begin with a bang — we’re putting out a call for video submissions for the 2009 Green Inaugural Ball! (Live Earth is Executive Producer). Shira Lazar came by to shoot this great promo last night — check it out for more info and ideas on how your video/film can be included in the project — the best submissions will be screened at the Green Ball hosted by Al Gore and attended by dozens of celebs, musicians (to be announced), and leaders of the environmental movement and the new green economy.

(Click here if you wish to download the original video file to publish / share / spread the word using your preferred video platform and here to embed from Blip). You can upload your video to YouTube or any other video site you choose but please be sure to tag the video GIB09 so we can find it.

One week until the Inauguration of President-elect Barack Obama. Six days until the 2009 Green Inaugural Ball. Less than THREE days to submit your video to the 2009 Green Inaugural Ball video project!

Please tag all videos / posts GIB09

Bust in Obama Swiftboating, originally uploaded by revolute.

2 fired at State Dept. for breaching Obama’s passport files.

Were these McCain’s or Clinton’s people?

And who blew the whistle?

How stinky is this story and the State Dept’s lame explanation?

More here. Timeline of events here.

UPDATE: 12:35AM 3/21 — Richardson Endorses Obama. Here’s Richardson’s endorsement letter.

I thought she was gonna cry again toward the end as she waxed sentimental in a way reminiscent of her pre-New Hampshire speech. But it was a strong closing in that she sounded warm and almost likeable even as she shifts her speech from saying “I will” to “I would …. as president.”

But in my opinion Clinton shot herself in the foot with the poorly-timed and horribly-received “change you can Xerox” line. CNN and AP immediately seized on this line, with AP calling it an accusation of “political plagiarism.”

In a typical two-faced HRC maneuver, however, she followed the Xerox line by arguing “If you look at the YouTube of these videos, it does raise questions.” (No really, look at the YouTube below….) I actually admired the iconoclastic paradigm presented by Clinton’s careless phrasing and felt a bit of jealousy (of Obama’s gift for rally gab) in her tone.

It’s not officially over until after Texas and Ohio in a couple weeks at the very least. But is she subconsciously conceding the race? Is it, for all intents and purposes, over?

Many people on all sides think so.

Debate screenshots via Dave Winer‘s flickr.

From Library of Congress’ Flickr. Jack Delano. General view of one of the classification yards of the Chicago and Northwestern Railroad, Chicago, Ill. 1942 Dec.

This is GREAT news, the Library of Congress today announced a pilot project with Flickr to populate an account with millions of images marked “No known copyright restrictions.” From the Library’s blog:

The project is beginning somewhat modestly, but we hope to learn a lot from it. Out of some 14 million prints, photographs and other visual materials at the Library of Congress, more than 3,000 photos from two of our most popular collections are being made available on our new Flickr page, to include only images for which no copyright restrictions are known to exist.

Visit the Flickr Commons project.

What if — after years of tracking and nearly capturing the man (before giving up last year) — Osama bin Laden was captured/arrested within days of the attacks he masterminded? How incredibly different our cultural, media, military and political landscape would be…. perhaps….

Certainly George W. Bush would be a genuinely proud man, not the facetious, naive, and stubborn loser he will always be remembered as. In last week’s video, bin Laden dissed the U.S. for not just losing Iraq, but making it worse. You’d expect this to inspire rage within President Bush, however, somehow the fool interpreted these remarks as vindication for his planless obsession with staying in Iraq. Instead of vowing to find bin Laden, or imploring the public to ignore him outright, our foolish leader scratched his chin and opined: “I found it interesting that on the tape Iraq was mentioned, which is a reminder that Iraq is a part of this war against extremists.” Bush’s team’s only defense was to somehow take away from the video that the healthy and in control bin Laden was “virtually impotent.” There’s no way these people possibly see themselves in the mirror each day… talk about “virtually impotent.”

It is downright shameful to see military leadership (Crocker & Petraeus) pawned as spokesman promoting the most implausible and ridiculous “strategy” of beginning to withdraw the additional 30,000 troops that were sent earlier this year by the middle of next year and trying to spin it as “progress.” Their “successes” are defined by unsourced PowerPoint‘s and hardly challenged by Congress or the lapdog media. Even George Will did the math and is left scratching his head: Send in 30,000 troops on cost-plus missions, begin redeploying them 15 months later after incurring more losses and attaining absolutely no political stability and call it “progress?”

Yes, the entire world wants to kick us today as OBL carries on with his terror and pokes fun at how America has fucked so much shit up around the world in the name of one pithy terrorist attack. Sure we haven’t been attacked since, but we also tend to forget the numerous attacks that have taken place in Europe, the UK and elsewhere, like in Algeria, where suddenly suicide bombings are the new hip thing among teenagers. Plain and simple, OBL isn’t lying when he broadcasts his disturbing propaganda. Meanwhile the Petraeuses and Crockers are only kidding themselves, and, by extension, us.

Let’s begin again.

‘Buying the War’ airs tonight at 9 PDT and may be available online afterwards — as usual, the PBS site is already chock-full-of extra interviews, a blog, etc.

WaPo’s TV critic Tom Shales wrote:

Tonight’s edition of ‘Bill Moyers Journal’ on PBS is one of the most gripping and important pieces of broadcast journalism so far this year, but it’s as disheartening as it is compelling…. In this 90-minute report, called ‘Buying the War,’ Moyers and producer Kathleen Hughes use alarming evidence and an array of respected journalists to make the case that, in the rage that followed the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the media abandoned their role as watchdog and became a lapdog instead.

More to come after it airs (9 PDT out west) Meanwhile, here’s a glimpse at bloggers’ reactions around the Web:

UPDATE: Moyers is great, as is Rather, who is featured throughout (and to whom I gave much love last month). I’ve been hearing these same references — Landay/Strobel, etc — it makes me cringe. Surely, the refrain will ring out long after this war is behind us. Larisa, who feared Russert was about to go all fetal-position, posted a succinct, 8-point review of the program here.