My recommended must read:

By Chris Floyd at Empire Burlesque, Hope Abandoned: Obama Protects and Promotes CIA Torture Mavens

But hope must be grounded in reality; and it must be invested in the right place. When reality gives it the lie, then it must be abandoned. There is no hope to be found in the Obama Administration: no hope for genuine change, no hope for a clean break (or any kind of break) from the relentless and ruthless promotion of empire, oligarchy and militarism. By his own choices — his appointments, his policies, his court actions, his rhetoric — Barack Obama has demonstrated beyond all doubt his sincere and abiding commitment to "continuity" in the most pernicious and corrosive elements of America’s lawless hyper-state. To place one’s hope in such a figure is a crippling, disastrous folly.

The only hope that can be associated with the Obama Administration is the long-shot, rapidly fading, outside chance that they could be forced — very much against their will — into at least slowing the militarist-oligarchic juggernaut by strong, sustained, massive, informed political opposition from the public. (And no, not the "tea-bag" fantasies of the fascistic Right, whose only real complaint about Obama — aside from the unspoken one about his skin color — is that he is not militarist and oligarchic enough.)

some more links:

• The Larger Meaning of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, by Bernard Chazelle at A Tiny Revolution
  (I agree with commenter Carl. Also, semi-related: today would have been Rachel Corrie’s 30th birthday.)
• What Next For Banks?, by Simon Johnson at The Baseline Scenario
  (I agree with commenter selise. Shocking, I know *g*)
• Who’d a thought it? Unemployment leaps 0.5% in a month [in Australia], from Steve Keen’s Debtwatch
  (Aussie heterodox economist who writes on Australian and USA economics)
• Ten principles for a Black Swan-proof world, by Nassim Nicholas Taleb in the Financial Times
• G-20: Welcome to the Multi-Polar World, by Mark Weisbrot at CEPR
  (from a few days ago, but an interesting alternative take on the G20 meeting)
• A New Way Forward, on Democracy Now! today.
  (Help break up the banks tomorrow, Saturday April 11, at 2pm EST.)

x-posted at oxdown