These go to 11.

First Trimester 2007 mixtape (in particular order):

01 Black Rebel Motorcycle Club / "Weapon of Choice"
02 Beanie Sigel & Jay-Z / "Two Glock Nines (Ratatat Remix)"
03 The Maccabees / "X-Ray (Filthy Dukes Society Remix)"
04 The Little Ones / "Lovers Who Uncover (Crystal Castles Remix)"
05 Dead Disco / "Automatic"
06 Mika / "Relax, Take It Easy"
07 Sloan / "Everything You've Done Wrong"
08 Laura Veirs / "Wandering Kind"
09 Travis / "Big Chair"
10 The Maccabees / "Precious Time"
11 Kings of Leon / "On Call"
12 Wilco / "Either Way"
13 The Rosebuds / "When the Lights Went Dim"
14 Andrew Bird / "Heretics"
15 Dear and the Headlights / "It's Gettin' Easy"
16 Patrick Wolf / "The Magic Position"
17 Black Rebel Motorcycle Club / "All You Do Is Talk"

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PBS has a very interesting feature about the role of private contractors in Iraq. Lost amid the debate of how to get the troops home is that Iraq is currently home to nearly as many private contractors (125,000) as US soldiers (155,000). If you don't feel like reading all of it, check out the Peter Singer interview.

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Random Linkage:

• This eBay feedback page is the funniest thing I've seen in a while. Just read the comments.
• Under Armour employees don't mess around.
• One of the weirder soccer goals you'll see.
• NFL players are athletic.
• It's never to early to give you guys Christmas gift ideas.
• Stock photos: fun AND educational!
• With most animals this should be extremely cute, but instead this is kind of creepy in my book.
• It's a computer mouse. Quite literally.
• Here's a list of weird animal mating habits. This list taught me a lot, most notably that animals are gross.
• The top ten ESPN commercials. Maybe.
• I want no part of angry magicians.
• My boy Tiff Needle takes the new Audi R8 for a track spin. Pretty awesome how he manages to fly around without disturbing a single cone.
• Larry Summers on climate change and carbon regulation. While you might think economists would favor the sort of market cap/trade systems that have worked well for SO2 and NOx emissions, my sense is that most economists favor a (relatively) straight forward carbon tax.