USA Today has a great story on retired generals and admirals being paid big bucks to mentor current generals and admirals. One wag called this triple dipping: the retirees are being paid for mentoring while collecting retirement and working for defense firms that work with or for the mentees.

I was particularly intrigued by this assertion: ""I lose money when I do it," McKissock says of serving as a mentor. He
was paid $166,500 plus expenses as a mentor in 2009, Marine records
show."

Campaign finance watchdog Joe Sinsheimer is urging Gov. Beverly Perdue to remove Ruffin Poole, a former top aide to Gov. Mike Easley, from the Golden LEAF board because he refused to testify at last month's state elections board hearing.

Sinsheimer, a Democratic political consultant who has emerged as an advocate of transparent government and campaign finance reforms, also said Perdue should release all reports on missing travel records from 2005. Perdue has so far refused.

In addition, he asks for a review of the permitting process surrounding a controversial cement plant near Wilmington, citing ongoing revelations about the state's environmental agency.

There was no immediate response from Perdue.

(Full text of letter follows.)

The Associated Press has an interesting story on a wrinkle in the tobacco market: "With a simple marketing twist, tobacco companies are avoiding hundreds of millions of dollars a year in taxes by exploiting a loophole in President Barack Obama's child health law." The companies simply relabel cigarette tobacco as pipe tobacco and see the tax drop from $24.78 to $2.83 per pound. 

Our colleague Scott Mooneyham, who edits the Insider, has a fascinating piece on former State Treasurer Richard Moore:

Six months before former state Treasurer Richard Moore left office, the North Carolina pension fund that he oversaw invested more than $500 million in the hedge fund firm that now employs him. Moore was named a managing director at San Diego-based Relational Investors in April of this year. The office of current Treasurer Janet Cowell confirmed that in July 2008 the pension fund signed an agreement to make a substantial investment with Relational Investors. The investment, as of Sept. 30,
was valued at $508,623,784. It was the pension fund's first and only investment with the firm.

Here's a story for the 'whoodathunk?' category: U.S. tax dollars funding the Taliban's operations via private contracts:  "In fact, US military officials in Kabul estimate that a
minimum of 10 percent of the Pentagon's logistics contracts--hundreds of
millions of dollars--consists of payments to insurgents."

USA Today has been focusing on coach pay at universities this week, building on earlier work to obtain data from the 100-plus major schools that field football teams. It's interesting to note that information was not available from UNC-Chapel Hill on the extra income, such as from shoe contracts, for coach Butch Davis. He's listed as being paid about $1.7 million, though his actual pay is much higher. N.C State's Tom O'Brien is listed at $1.2 million, including the extra pay.

The series continues on Thursday at usatoday.com.

The UNC Board of Governors plans to take up the issue of paid leaves for administrators at its meetings Thursday and Friday, addressing concerns that the often six-figure payments to campus officials have gotten out of hand.

The leaves are intended to help administrators prepare for a return to teaching, but The News & Observer reported in August that paid leaves had been given to campus administrators who then retired, got jobs elsewhere or were shown the door. Some leave deals also violated UNC system policies.

Here's more from staff writer Eric Ferreri's Campus Notes blog. 

Documents:

Our DC colleague Jonathan Landay is one of the best national security reporters working that difficult beat. He just published this article on how Taliban fighters in Afghanistan have learned to cripple the expensive armored vehicle that give U.S. troops the best protection against roadside bombs.

The good folks at Duke are continuing to push the conversation about how watchdog journalism can be saved.

 A new report from
The DeWitt Wallace Center for Media and Democracy examines ways that
can make smaller numbers of reporters more efficient at combing through
piles of documents or large databases. The 20-page report has an
intimidating title: "Accountability Through Algorithm: Developing the
Field of Computational Journalism," but it's written so that even the
most hard-bitten of journalists can follow along.

Reporter J. Andrew Curliss and I appeared this morning on WAFE 90.7 FM in Charlotte to discuss The News & Observer's coverage of former Gov. Mike Easley.

I'll warn you: The program, "Charlotte Talks," is an hour long. But here's the link if you'd like to listen.

 Steve Riley