Those were the topics of discussion on the Thom Hartmann Program yesterday. It seems as if some Googlers have landed on this site while attempting to learn more about them, which is great, of course. So, a few notes on each:

• Internal auditors from the World Bank are saying that the bank's approach to agriculture in Africa in the '80s, '90s, and early '00s failed. I described them -- industry deregulation, privatization, and open markets -- as Reaganesque/conservative economics, but Thom correctly pointed out that the rest of the world calls this neo-liberalism. Here's the internal Bank study, here's management's response (in pdf), and here's a New York Times piece on the report.
  
  
• The references to transgender and gender identity have been dropped from the Employment Non-Discrimination Act that Congress is considering. Those who support dropping them from the bill -- like Rep. Barney Frank -- argue that they just can't get an inclusive bill passed. Opponents of dropping them -- like the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force -- insist that the transgender/gender-non-coming can't be left behind just for the sake of political expediency. Rep. Frank's take is here, the Task Force's take is here, and here's the bill itself.
  
  
• There have been attempts to enact federal source protections for working journalists for years and years, and there's a good chance that one will succeed soon. But the protections only extend to journalists who earn substantial income from their endeavors, which excludes a lot of bloggers and other citizen journalists. As Thom pointed out, it also leaves out people working in the context of foundations or on a freelance basis -- which is exactly where a lot of good investigative journalism is coming from these days. Here's a good take on it.

The co-guest for Thom's "Best of the Rest" was the inimitable Matt Stoller, most recently of OpenLeft. The audio is below. I was much less jittery on the radio this time. The trick? Writing stuff down...