As my colleague Laura Rozen just reported on The Cable, Jeh Johnson is Obama's pick for DoD general counsel. It's a fantastic choice. I worked for Jeh when he was chairman of the Judiciary Committee at the New York City Bar Association, and found him to be nothing less than brilliant, incredibly fair, and an all-around nice guy.

Johnson brings a long resume to the job. He spent three years as federal prosecutor, was general counsel for the Air Force under Clinton, and was the first black partner at New York firm Paul, Weiss. He was also special counsel to John Kerry's campaign in 2004 and served as an advisor and fundraiser to Obama from beginning of Obama's run.

Johnson "is an exceptional legal mind," says one former Pentagon intelligence official in an e-mail. Congrats to Johnson. This is a great pick from the transition team in a week that could use a few more.

Richard Dawkins -- famed evolutionary biologist, bestselling atheist, and delightful interviewee -- has launched a new campaign in Britain to get atheists to "come out." All over central London, the tube, and on the sides of buses will be the following slogan:

There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life"

Don't you feel better already?

Leon Neal/AFP/Getty Images

In a hush-hush deal, the British government just sold its last shares in the country's nuclear weapons plant to a U.S. company. California-based Jacobs Engineering Group paid an undisclosed amount for the government's one-third stake in the only plant in the UK that manufactures nuclear weapons, including Trident warheads. Lockheed Martin owns another third of the plant, and a British business services company the remaining third.

The sale wasn't announced to Parliament, leaving some MPs to speculate that the government sold the plant at below market rates to get some much-needed funds for the Treasury. Critically, it means that all production, design, and decommissioning of nuclear weapons in the UK is privately owned, with U.S. companies having a majority stake.

Photo: Getty Images

Petroleum Intelligence Weekly's annual ranking of the world's top oil companies - based on criteria like reserves, refining capacity, and sales - was just released, and there is just a bit of shuffling near the top. Four of the five top oil companies now are state owned - Saudi Aramco, Iran's NIOC, Venezuela's PDV, and China's CNPC. A few highlights:

• Saudi Aramco remains No. 1, and China's CNPC surpasses BP and Shell.

• Russia's Rosneft makes biggest jump, from 24th to 16^th.

• Majority state-owned national oil companies now make up 27 of 50.

Incredibly, just one.

That's way down from the monthly average of 21 deaths since May, and given that 2008 has already been the deadliest year for U.S. troops in Afghanistan, a single death is a notable figure. But it's probably unlikely that security there is any making solid, long-term gains: A U.S. military spokeman told the LA Times that insurgents scale back operations during the colder months, which might have led to fewer deaths last month.

And notably, Spc. Jonnie L. Stiles died in mid-November when a suicide bomber struck his convoy. As Obama and Petraeus hone in on a new strategy for Afghanistan, suicide attacks, which have been the terror tactic of choice there for just the past few years, are sure to remain the primary threat to U.S. troops.

Photo: John Moore/Getty Images

Gloomy forecasts from the IMF today: Developed economies will shrink by 0.3 percent next year, the first collective contraction since 1945.

More analysis from the WSJ's economics blog:

The U.S. forecast was cut to 1.4% growth this year and a 0.7% contraction in 2009, down from last month’s estimates for growth rates of 1.6% in 2008 and 0.1% in 2009.

The euro area is expected to grow 1.2% this year and contract 0.5% next, compared with the previous forecast for growth of 1.3% in 2008 and 0.2% in 2009.

Japan’s estimate was trimmed to 0.5% growth this year and a 0.2% contraction next, compared with the previous estimate for growth of 0.7% in 2008 and 0.5% in 2009.

Forecasts for emerging and developing economies were adjusted even more sharply, with the 2008 growth estimate falling to 6.6% from 6.9% and the 2009 forecast dropping to 5.1% from 6.1%.

Here's an interesting stat about the U.S. election, via Global Dashboard:

The election cost $4.2bn ($5.3bn if you include the congressional and senate races). 120-130m Americans voted. So that’s nearly $35 spent for every vote cast.

Newsweek is reporting today that both the Obama and McCain campaign Web sites were hacked over the summer by what the FBI called a "foreign entity" looking for information on policy positions:

At the Obama headquarters in midsummer, technology experts detected what they initially thought was a computer virus—a case of "phishing," a form of hacking often employed to steal passwords or credit-card numbers. But by the next day, both the FBI and the Secret Service came to the campaign with an ominous warning: "You have a problem way bigger than what you understand," an agent told Obama's team. "You have been compromised, and a serious amount of files have been loaded off your system." The following day, Obama campaign chief David Plouffe heard from White House chief of staff Josh Bolten, to the same effect: "You have a real problem ... and you have to deal with it."

The Feds told Obama's aides in late August that the McCain campaign's computer system had been similarly compromised. A top McCain official confirmed to NEWSWEEK that the campaign's computer system had been hacked and that the FBI had become involved.  

Officials at the FBI and the White House told the Obama campaign that they believed a foreign entity or organization sought to gather information on the evolution of both camps' policy positions—information that might be useful in negotiations with a future administration. The Feds assured the Obama team that it had not been hacked by its political opponents. (Obama technical experts later speculated that the hackers were Russian or Chinese.)

There are more slaves on the planet today than at any time in human history. But a landmark case in West Africa this week should give thousands of them a rare dose of hope. A court in Niger found the country's government guilty of failing to protect the rights of Hadijatou Mani, a 24-year-old woman sold into slavery at the age of 12.

Mani says she was sold as a young girl to a man for $500 and forced into domestic and agricultural work for a decade. Her master raped her repeatedly, and she bore him three children. She was freed in 2005 and, with the help of Anti-Slavery International, brought the case against the government for failing to protect her. In the judge's decision, he ordered the government to pay Mani about $20,000.

Niger officially abolished slavery in 1960, but the practice persists throughout the country, with an estimated 43,000 people enslaved. There are believed to be tens of thousands more in bondage across West Africa. Niger's government repeatedly contends that it does all it can to eradicate the practice, but this is the first time a court has held it responsible for looking the other way. There's little chance of thousands more slaves being so lucky as to be freed and rewarded, but if this compels the government to enact (or enforce) more stringent laws, all the better.

Photo: Boureima HAMA/AFP/Getty Images

Afghans are about to get a path to riches that has nothing to do with poppy fields. A Kabul-based production company has just bought the rights to produce an Afghan version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.

A run of 52 episodes is slated to start filming next month. The winnings won't be quite seven figures; the main prize will be 1 million Afghanis, or about $21,000. Given the country's woeful literacy rates, I'm curious to see what types of questions they'll develop, but I have no doubt the show could catch the attention of a large number of Afghans, who have embraced television in droves since the fall of the Taliban.

I just can't wait to see who the Afghan Regis will be.

Back in August, we noted the popular firestorm in Iran over Interior Minister Ali Kordan's clearly faked Oxford law degree. The document, which Kordan used to help him bolster his credentials and gain his current position in the Iranian cabinet, is riddled with misspellings and punctuation errors and claims that Kordan's research at the university opened a "new chapter...to our knowledge in [Britain]." As if those weren't red alarms, Oxford has publicly disavowed the document.

It took Kordan until Wednesday to admit that the diploma was a fake, but he wasted no time in blaming an anonymous con artist. Iranian lawmakers are once again calling for Kordan's resignation, on the grounds that if he can't tell that a blatant fabrication isn't the real thing, he'll be easily duped when he serves as the overseer of the Iranian presidential contest next year. He's supposed to guard against election fraud and forgery. 

GIANLUIGI GUERCIA/AFP/Getty Images

AIDS activists had reason to celebrate last Friday. South Africa's Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang -- the woman FP named one of the world's worst advisors this summer -- was fired by the country's new president. In a country with one of the world's highest AIDS rates, it was Tshabalala-Msimang who stated publicly that she did not support antiretroviral medicines and that a diet of lemon, beet root, and garlic could effectively treat the disease.  

Although South Africa's woeful AIDS policy hasn't been all Manto's doing, it's still good news that she's no longer at the helm. It's unclear how much health experience her successor Barbara Hogan has, but as one MP put it last week: "Anyone is better than Manto."

I have to wonder if John McCain and Barack Obama ever ask themselves if they really want the job they're campaigning so hard for. Because on the victor's first day in office, there won't be much popping of champagne corks.

From today's Washington Post:

An intelligence forecast being prepared for the next president on future global risks envisions a steady decline in U.S. dominance in the coming decades, as the world is reshaped by globalization, battered by climate change, and destabilized by regional upheavals over shortages of food, water and energy.

The report, previewed in a speech by Thomas Fingar, the U.S. intelligence community's top analyst, also concludes that the one key area of continued U.S. superiority -- military power -- will "be the least significant" asset in the increasingly competitive world of the future, because "nobody is going to attack us with massive conventional force." 

The remarks are based on the forthcoming report Global Trends 2025, prepared by the U.S. intelligence community to anticipate threats to America in the next few decades. Most of the predominant challenges identified aren't surprising: shrinking U.S. economic influence, weaker international institutions, energy insecurity and competition, and political and economic upheaval around the world due to climate change.

What is more interesting, perhaps, as the Post notes, is the absence of terrorism on that list. Fingar's remarks seem to ignore any threat from Pakistan, focusing instead on the perils of nuclear-armed Iran. That does seem to smack of the intel community taking its eye off the ball.

Straight from FP contributor Robert Reich's blog:

Labor Day should remind us how many shitty jobs still exist.

As recently as this morning, McCain advisers were telling the NYT that Sarah Palin's lack of experience -- she's been in office only 18 months -- would undercut McCain's criticisms of Obama's short record.

As reports circulated on television and cable networks on Friday morning that Senator John McCain might have selected Ms. Palin as his running mate, McCain advisers expressed bewilderment. One adviser said that while Mr. McCain thinks highly of Ms. Palin, who is opposed to abortion rights and would be welcomed by Christian conservatives, her less than two years in office would undercut one of the McCain campaign’s central criticisms of Senator Barack Obama — that he is too inexperienced to be commander-in-chief.

“While it’s a dramatic and interesting choice, it would make the argument he’s making difficult to make,” said one McCain adviser.

John McCain must be wishing Gustav will go away. The tropical storm is gaining strength and headed for the U.S. Gulf Coast. Forecasters say it will be a hurricane before the end of the day.

Two reasons for McCain to worry. One: If Gustav hits Louisiana, Gov. Bobby Jindal, the GOP's young rising star, might cancel his speech at the Republican convention in Minneapolis next week. Jindal has already declared a state of emergency in preparation for the storm's landfall. And two: Katrina hit New Orleans three years ago this week. If the storm veers just to the right of its current path, it could hit make a direct hit on the city. And the last thing McCain wants is a crisis in the Crescent City reminding everyone how incompetent the Bush administration's response in 2005 was. That sound you hear is the Obama campaign readying spots featuring Bush, McCain, and the infamous "heckuva job, Brownie" line.

Living under a totalitarian regime requires a daily suspension of disbelief. Nowhere is that more true today than in North Korea, where otherwise ethical people contort themselves into untenable moral positions because they’ve bought into the oft-repeated notion that their country is “Paradise on Earth.”

That's just a snippet of Kim Hyun Sik's fascinating secret history of Kim Jong Il in the latest issue of FP. As the Dear Leader's former teacher, Kim offers a rare portrait of the dictator as a young man, and the suspension of reality that he demands his countrymen participate in every day.

An important element of that effort is, of course, fear, but also a bombardment of propaganda. The California Literary Review recently published a handful of incredible propaganda posters from North Korea, and you might imagine that there's a common theme: Death to the United States. More posters have recently been compiled in this volume by art collector David Heater.

Here are some of the best posters from the CLR's collection with translations:

“When provoking a war of aggression, we will hit back, beginning with the US!”

“Let’s extensively raise goats in all families!”

“Do not forget the US imperialist wolves!”

Madonna, lover of all types of attention, kicked off her world tour on Saturday. Guess we know how she'll be voting in November:

The BBC reported that the two-hour show took a political turn when, in a lead-in to a remixed version of "Like a Prayer," a video sequence showed flashing images of destruction followed by pictures of Hitler, Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe and then Senator John McCain. Senator Barack Obama popped up in another video interlude, but his montage included Gandhi, John Lennon and Al Gore. The tour arrives in North America on Oct. 4.

In other seriously dumb arts news, Visit London featured a portrait of notorious English murderer Myra Hindley in a promotional video at a London 2012 event in Beijing. Can't wait for those games!

Say it ain't so:

Ireland's drinks industry is suffering from withdrawal with pubs closing at the rate of one a day, as the party years of the Celtic Tiger boom become a blurred memory. The economic downturn allied to a changing drinking culture has led to 400 pubs closing over the past year, according to Michael Patten, chairman of the drinks industry representative body.

(Hat tip: Passport reader Eric Jon Magnuson)