President Obama named Denis McDonough new chief of staff today. Here's a little more information about McDonough, courtesy of The Washington Post:

McDonough, 43, has spent the past two years as the No. 2 official in the National Security Council, helping guide some of the administration’s most high-profile decisions, including the military drawdowns in Iraq and Afghanistan, the response to earthquakes in Haiti and Japan and the aftermath of the terrorist attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, last September.

The president said McDonough has been a leader in the National Security Council and always holds himself accountable. Obama also touched on how supportive McDonough is of military troops.

“He’s visited our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan repeatedly,” Obama said on CNN. “That’s the kind of focus, but also the kind of heart that I want in the white house”

Obama addressed McDonough's family in his speech telling them he would be spending more time away from home than he did before due to his new position. But the president was sure to remind the family that he only does it because he cares about them and about making the world a better place.

During his sappy speech honoring McDonough, Obama joked about the new chief of staff not being allowed to ride his bike to work.

• Photo by Michael McKisson

It seems like bike thieves are working overtime lately. Check out our stolen bike listings to see if you've spotted any of these bikes.

The editor of Bicycling magazine visited Tucson this week for the Ride On. Tucson event. The day before, local advocates took him for a ride to see Tucson's best bike infrastructure. See where they went and what he thought about the ride.

A local mountain bicyclist heads to Phoenix for a race and comes home with a repeat title. Read about the race and check out the photos.

This won't likely come up in Arizona, since Romney got the electoral votes here, but the Republican plan that Josh Marshall described on TPM yesterday is some wildly sinister stuff:

To review, here’s how it works. The US electoral college system is based on winner take all delegate allocation in all but two states. If you get just one more vote than the other candidate you get all the electoral votes. One way to change the system is go to proportional allocation. That would still give some advantage to the overall winner. But not much. The key to the Republican plan is to do this but only in Democratic leaning swing states — not in any of the states where Republicans win. That means you take away all the advantage Dems win by winning states like Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan and so forth.

But the Republican plan goes a step further.

Rather than going by the overall vote in a state, they’d allocate by congressional district. And this is where it gets real good, or bad, depending on your point of view. Democrats are now increasingly concentrated in urban areas and Republicans did an extremely successful round of gerrymandering in 2010, enough to enable them to hold on to a substantial House majority even thoughthey got fewer votes in House races than Democrats.

In other words, the new plan is to make the electoral college as wired for Republicans as the House currently is. But only in Dem leaning states. In Republican states just keep it winner take all. So Dems get no electoral votes at all.

I might be one of the few people who actually believes the Electoral College largely works in its existing form, but this sort of super-gerrymandering is ridiculous. Here's a simpler pro-tip for the Republican Party: if you'd like to win the presidency, don't run somewhat-clueless candidates that don't reflect modern America. Might be a bit easier than rewriting state constitutions across the country.

Actually, maybe not. I take it back, this might be the best strategy, even though it sucks.

Today, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta announced to the media that he has opted to lift a ban that had been in place since 1994, allowing women to join combat, saying that "if they can meet the qualifications for the job, then they should have the right to serve."

Those qualifications include standards for physical fitness, which Panetta said will not change.

From NBCNews:

The decision replaces a 1994 military policy memo signed by Les Aspin, a defense secretary under President Bill Clinton, that excluded women from assignments to units below the brigade level if the unit would be engaged in direct combat.

The change is expected to open 230,000 front-line positions to women.

...

The secretary said that there would be a review period for each of the armed services to see if there are any jobs that should be excluded. He wants recommendations on his desk by May 15.

But Pentagon officials said it might be next year before specifics are worked out and women can begin applying for the newly opened positions.

I want to preface this by saying that this has been my favorite YouTube video that I've watched this year (though, considering how often I trudge through YouTube, that's not that big a deal)—and that it's unsafe for work unless you wear headphones on the job.

Game...blouses.

This weekend, the Tucson Peace Center is holding a vegetarian spaghetti dinner, on Saturday, Jan. 26.

The event is at 6 p.m., at First Christian Church, 740 E. Speedway Blvd, at the corner of Speedway Blvd. and Euclid Ave.

The dinner is free, though TPC requests that attendees donate $7—well worth it for a night of spaghetti and the musical stylings of Garvin Yee.

For more information, head to peacecalendar.org or call 235-0694.

Often, our dear Assistant Editor Irene Messina has the problem of having far too many books sent to her than our writers can review. Typically, we at the Weekly make an effort to do something constructive with them for the community (donations to charity, leaving them in bookstores to confuse the employees, etc.[note: only one of those is true],) but we've decided that we're going to be sharing the latest batch with our lovely readers.

Therefore, we're giving out four sets of four books, including a number of works by William W. and J.A. Johnstone, as well as books by Matthew Flynn, Elif Shafak and Matthew Parker.

If you're interested in having some extra reading material, send me a note at [email protected] with the subject "TW Book Giveaway!" The first four emailers will get their claim in the grab bag.