Good morning, folks. A Malaysian man tried to bring 95 snakes on a plane. Now, your morning constitutional: The U.S. shed 54,000 jobs in August, raising the unemployment rate to 9.6% percent. The job losses were actually the result of public sector firing; while the private sector added 67,000 jobs, the Census let go of 114,000 temporary workers as state and local governments dropped 10,000. By historical standards, the labor market is actually recovering rapidly, as job growth began earlier than past recessions. Hurricane Earl is weakening as it approaches Massachusetts. The U.S. auto industry is smaller...
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Arizona Governor Jan Brewer wants to … uh … keep being your governor. Or something.
[This post used to have a video that is no longer on the internet] Jan Brewer became the governor of Arizona last year when now-Secretary Janet Nepolitano left to join the Obama cabinet. She had been seen as a sort-of seat-filler since then, and there were plenty of Republicans waiting to jump into the primaries this year. Yet, in April she signed the infamous SB1070, the bill that would have given police special powers to enforce immigration (most of the law has been thrown out by a federal judge), and immediately became so popular she’s now the...
Continue reading..."You got the Belgians running Europe?"
Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s memoir is on sale today, alongside a lengthy profile/preview of the book in the Washington Post. Based on the tidbits from the profile, I may just have to snag A Journey: My Political Life (What an original and totally interesting title!). The Post piece mostly centers on the backstabbingly close relationship Blair had with his successor Gordon Brown. There’s this little tidbit regarding how Blair felt about Presidents Clinton and Bush, both of whom with which he shared close relationships. Blair first visited with George W. Bush at Camp David in...
Continue reading...Yes, it's hot outside, but the Potomac River is really not a good place to go swimming
As if we needed another reason to avoid swimming in the Potomac River, now we have to be afraid of…sharks? Willy Dean has an incredible fish tale to tell. On Tuesday, he caught a shark while on the Potomac River in St. Mary’s County, Md. Don’t believe him? He has the pictures to prove it. Dean put out a net Monday at Cornfield Harbor in the Potomac three miles north of Point Lookout with hopes of catching cow-nosed rays for a Solomons Island Marina biologist. When he checked Monday night everything seemed normal. But when he checked again Tuesday...
Continue reading...Another reason why Queen was/is awesome
As if you really needed more, right?, since Queen is pretty much one of the most kick-ass bands of all time. Yet, from Letters of Note (follow it, you’ll thank me later), come to find out that Freddy Mercury was the type of gentleman who actually wrote thank-you letters: In 1973, just as Queen finished recording their second album, 27-year-old Freddie Mercury, ever the gentleman, politely wrote the following letter of thanks to Jac Holzman, founder of their U.S. label, Elektra Records; Holzman had fought hard to bring the band to his label in 1971, and his faith in them hadn\’t gone unnoticed by Mercury....
Continue reading...New York Times Columnist Line of the Day
If you’re one of the four-or-so frequent readers of this here blog, chances are you also occasionally check out the New York Times op-ed page. You may even know the names: Thomas “Friedman’s Just Another Word For Nothing Left to Lose” Friedman, Gail “The Colander” Collins, Nicholas “The Dark Crystal” Kristof, &c. This is a daily feature dedicated to these folks: one line that is either awesome, funny, insightful, intelligent, ridiculous, or utterly divorced from reality. I hope you enjoy. Today\’s is from Nicholas \”The Dark Crystal\” Kristof, who in his column \”Cleaning the Henhouse,\” takes on...
Continue reading...Why did Murkowski lose?
David Weigel offers a post-mortem, as well as how it was her ability and willingness to work across the aisle that brought her down: The post-election gloating over Murkowski’s problems revealed the problems conservatives had with her. She voted for the Troubled Asset Relief Program in 2008. In October 2009 she said she was “open” to compromise on cap-and-trade legislation if it expanded drilling and nuclear power. She had a moderate record on abortion, siding with liberals on some matters of federal funding for the procedure. And she occasionally spoke dismissively of Sarah Palin. Tell me if I’m missing...
Continue reading...No more printed Oxford English Dictionary?
Sad news for bibliophiles: The Oxford English Dictionary as we know it may never be printed (in full) again. Nigel Portwood, the CEO of the Oxford University Press, told the Sunday Times (behind a pay-wall, damn you Murdoch), via the Telegraph: “The print dictionary market is just disappearing, it is falling away by tens of per cent a year,” Nigel Portwood, the chief executive of OUP, told the Sunday Times. Asked if he thought the third edition would be printed, he said: “I don’t think so.” The current printed dictionary, the second edition, which was released in...
Continue reading...Great Moments in Campaign Advertising: What has Nixon done for me?
Since you may have never seen a Hubert Humphrey advertisement. For a little background, most of Humphrey’s advertising was negative, since he was in the uncomfortable position of being the sitting vice president in a terribly unpopular administration (and had been nominated above other Democrats who were far more popular, despite winning zero primaries). So, the general aim of the campaign was the paint Nixon as out of the loop and untrustworthy. Here, we see a tactic that pre-dated Karl Rove by decades. Nixon’s biggest strength, at least in his last run in 1960, was his experience....
Continue reading...Morning Constitutional – Tuesday, 31 August 2010
Good morning, folks. Bristol Palin and David Hasselhoff are going dancing. Now, your morning constitutional: The war is over. Reliable security, a functioning moderate West Bank government, and a growing Palestinian economy are encouraging signs as preparations intensify for a Palestinian-Israeli summit at the White House on Thursday. Mexico fires 3,200 police officers as it invokes new rules to weed out corruption. Hurricane Earl, now at Category 4 strength after edging Puerto Rico, moves toward the U.S. east coast and could affect the Carolina coast later this week. As the military deals with more overweight and physically...
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