Economist Paul Krugman scoffs at political leaders, particularly President Barack Obama's secretary of the Treasury Department, Tim Geithner, for telling Americans that the economy is recovering when workers are clearly suffering high unemployment and continue to struggle with bad credit ratings and home foreclosures. Leaders are putting "smiley faces on a grim picture," Krugman writes in The New York Times, calling for more intervention to help workers: "This isn't a recovery, in any sense that matters... All of this is obvious. Yet policy-makers are in denial. Tim Geithner says, 'We're on the road to recovery.' No, we aren't."

The old saying that one man's terrorist is another's freedom fighter comes to mind upon first glance of the latest document to be released by the controversial WikiLeaks website. While the three-page CIA document isn't as red-hot as the tens of thousands of pages WikiLeaks recently posted pertaining to Army operations in the Afghanistan war, the document may confirm the theories of more than a few political science geeks who believe that the proverbial carrot is better for foreign policy than the proverbial stick. The CIA report states that the United States could be viewed by some groups as an "exporter of terrorism" if it is too aggressive in its pursuit of radicals. If so, the perception could harm CIA operations abroad -- even result in the arrest of agency operatives.

After years of success and critical acclaim in films such as "Gladiator," "Hotel Rwanda," and "Walk the Line," Joaquin Phoenix famously announced in 2008 that he would retire from film so that he could focus on his rap career. It seemed the actor was having a nervous breakdown -- or was he? Phoenix is due to return to film next month in "I'm Still Here: The Lost Year of Joaquin Phoenix" and the critics are absolutely baffled. The main question: Was Phoenix's seeming breakdown the real thing captured on film by his brother-in-law, Casey Affleck? Or was the entire thing, from the time Phoenix announced his retirement from film, a grand hoax in the name of art? 

Tilting at Windmills

The problem for Trinidad is she wants to be the socialist candidate for the Comunidad de Madrid, the autonomous regional assembly that governs the national capital and its surrounding area.