Tuesday Links

• Do yourself a favor and watch this 33-minute interview with Jon Stewart and Bill Moyers on PBS's Bill Moyers Journal. Stewart is obviously one of the most gifted political and social commentators of our time, and when he's not busy trying to be self-deprecating he's incredibly thoughtful and insightful. Here's hoping that Stewart continues on the path he seems to have taken recently, in which he gets a little more serious while remaining hilariously biting in his commentary on the tragedy that has been the Bush Administration and the debacle in Iraq.

• Wisconsin is rolling out the nation's most expansive guarantee of higher education to students in hopes of raising aspirations and improving preparedness. The program is similar to those in Indiana, Oklahoma and at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill that educators say have helped keep college affordable. All three target low-income students.

• The number of people killed around the world in terror attacks rose by 40% last year to more than 20,000, the US State Department has said. The increase is mostly due to greater violence in Iraq. So, repeat after me: The war in Iraq has made the world less safe. The war in Iraq has made the world less safe. The war in Iraq has made the world less safe.

• Senator Dianne Feinstein introduced a measure Monday to force the Pentagon to close the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and move the trials of Al Qaeda suspects to the United States.

• The Senate homeland security committee plans to hold hearings this summer on the Bush administration's handling of offers of foreign aid after Hurricane Katrina, senators. Of $854 million offered after the storm -- in cash and oil that was to be sold for cash -- only $44 million has gone to disaster victims or reconstruction so far.