Outside the Beltway

The IRS wants to license tax preparers but exempt lawyers and CPAs from the requirement.

Yet another study shows what any of us who’ve ever spent any time around soldiers already knew: Our Army is not comprised of stupid people who couldn’t find a decent job.

Tonight’s topic: America’s rising income inequality and what, if anything, we ought to do about it.

Tonight’s topics: Democrats’ infighting, the continued Tea Party “takeover” of the GOP, the Obama administration’s following of its predecessor’s lead on executive power, and the degree to which America’s economic competition is fair.

White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel is leaving his job at week’s end to run for mayor of Chicago.

Tonight’s topics: Bob Woodward’s new book, the Murkowski write-in bid, the weird race in Delaware, and the end of the Great Recession.

Christine O’Donnell is buying ads on posts arguing that the party screwed itself by voting for her in yesterday’s Republican primary.

Will appointing Elizabeth Warren to head a consumer protection agenda unleash an eruption of Democratic votes in November?

Tonight’s topics: The Gallup poll and the vanishing 10-point Republican lead, whether we overreacted to 9/11, Mike Castle and the RINO/DINO problem, income inequality, and the retirement of Chicago Mayor Richard Daley.

Comments sections on larger blogs seem inevitably to turn into cesspools. Is it worth trying to stop it happening?

AP staff have been instructed “combat in Iraq is not over, and we should not uncritically repeat suggestions that it is, even if they come from senior officials. The situation on the ground in Iraq is no different today than it has been for some months.”

The AP will now start mentioning bloggers whose work they use in their stories. Fat lot of good that will do.

Tonight’s topics: President Obama’s speech, Tony Blair’s book, Glenn Beck’s rally, and the GOP’s steady rise in the polls.

Epic flooding in Pakistan is a humanitarian crisis which dwarfs the combined devastation of the 2004 Asian tsunami, the earthquake in Pakistan in 2005, and the 2010 Haiti earthquake. Why aren’t we paying attention?

Tonight’s topics: Anything but that damned mosque. Possibilities include: Tuesday’s primaries, the continued economic malaise, and the flooding in Pakistan.

Your Tweets, Facebook wall posts, and FourSquare announcements obviously provide a lot of insights into your life. But so does what you’re not posting.

America’s mission in Iraq is shifting from an active combat role to a smaller security presence. But the war that gripped our attention for years is now off the radar screen.

The Daily Mash combines two topics that have taken up entirely too many pixels at OTB and elsewhere of late with their parody article “OUTRAGE OVER PLANS TO BUILD LIBRARY NEXT TO SARAH PALIN.”

Tonight’s topics: the Blagojevich verdict, whether lying about military awards should be protected speech, the politics of the Cordoba House project, the coherence or lack thereof of the Obama administration, and whether the United States should be more like Germany.

When professors blog, they send signals to their students about their attitudes. Where do we draw the line between free expression and unprofessional conduct?

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, appearing on San Francisco’s KCBS radio, called for an investigation in the efforts to stop the building of a Muslim cultural center at the hallowed Burlington Coat Factory location blocks from Ground Zero.

We’ve moved OTB to a new server. Let me know if you see anything unusual.

The secret to getting big traffic on the Internet is to target bored office workers and crazy people.

Tonight’s topics: Yesterday’s primary elections, the cost of hiring workers in the public and private sectors, anti-Muslim sentiment, and the move to repeal birthright citizenship.

Despite 9.5% unemployment, American firms are struggling to find qualified applicants for job openings.

Should we abandon the notion of civil marriage? Would doing so end the clash over homosexual unions?

That attitudes towards gay marriage varies by state won’t surprise you. The degree to which it does just might.

My SiteMeter statistics have suddenly become much less useful. Any suggestions on how to fix this?

Does anybody here know anything about slide or film scanners or 8mm conversion?

The first in a multi-part series on the Electoral College.

Topics include the WikiLeaks episode and its fallout, the DISCLOSE Act, filibuster reform, and the possibility that the economy has already recovered as much as it’s going to.

Contrary to what you read on bumper stickers, retired Lt. Col William Astore argues that not every soldier is a hero. He’s right.

There are some lessons for the blogosphere in this week’s Andrew Breitbart dust-up.

Conservatives have long complained about liberal media bias. But conservative media seems to be much worse.

Yet another “hidden” provision of ObamaCare is revealed to hold nasty surprises for America’s small business owners.

Is Google manipulating its search results to keep competitors down? And does its market dominance mean the government should step in?

Topics include the state of the social contract, the terrorist attack by an al Qaeda affiliate in Uganda, claims al Qaeda is racist, and the new Black Panther Party.

Pakistan is the world-wide leader in internet porn searches. And they have some strange tastes over there.

For those readers who haven’t warmed up to the magazine layout of the front page, something more akin to the standard blog layout is one click away.

Topics include the continuing dismal state of the economy, including the lack of jobs and business investment. On the lighter side: Afghanistan.

Topics include the Kagan hearings, the Dave Weigel brouhaha, and Russian spies.

Congrats to Steve Clemons, whose “Washington Note” has been named one of TIME’s Best Blogs of 2010.