Rahm Emanuel's Run for Chicago Mayor - The Daily Beast
Within 24 hours of Richard Daley's stunning announcement that he will abdicate next May, news accounts had identified more than 30 who might be interested in his job, a list that hasn't yet shrunk. One half expects Oprah Winfrey to make it shortly.
From the Hubble Telescope Live-Blogging Obama's News Conference - NYTimes.com
“I am constantly thinking about how do we create ladders for communities and individuals to climb into the middle class,” he says. But “if we can grow the economy faster and create more jobs, then everybody is swept up into that virtuous cycle.”
Dude, this is a whole new industry being born!
Pentagon Plan - Buying Books to Keep Secrets - NYTimes.com
WASHINGTON — Defense Department officials are negotiating to buy and destroy all 10,000 copies of the first printing of an Afghan war memoir they say contains intelligence secrets, according to two people familiar with the dispute.
Now if you can't make it selling celebrity airport body scans all you need to do is write a book with a secret or two in it and get the government to buy the whole press run. And tell me, what's magic about 10,000 copies? Why not 20,000? Or 50,000?
And then, of course, we will need an awards show.
Op-Ed Columnist - Things Could Be Worse - NYTimes.com
It’s hard to overstate how destructive the economic ideas offered earlier this week by John Boehner, the House minority leader, would be if put into practice. Basically, he proposes two things: large tax cuts for the wealthy that would increase the budget deficit while doing little to support the economy, and sharp spending cuts that would depress the economy while doing little to improve budget prospects. Fewer jobs and bigger deficits — the perfect combination.
How is it, here in the 21st century, a person in public life can say something like this, in public, and not get immediately laughed right out of the room?
Barbour: There's 'Not Much Known' About Obama's Childhood And College Years | TPMDC
Barbour, the Republican governor of Mississippi flirting with a presidential bid in 2012, told reporters today that Americans know less about President Obama than "any other president in history."
(We know, for example, Barbour said, George Washington chopped down a cherry tree.)
OK. It's my own fault. Apple came through with an iOS update today and one of the things they did was add an app called Game Center and if I'd just been grown up enough to keep my fingers off it this never would have happened. But of course. I wasn't. And it did. So now I have an account at the game center but no games, no friends, and no accomplishments. I think I am going to have to figure out how to un-join although, given that, when prompted, I entered my actual birth date, un-joining may be unnecessary after all.
'Fried beer' wins Big Tex award - Local News - Houston, TX - Click2Houston.com - msnbc.com
Dallas — The best fried recipes were crowned Monday at the "Big Tex Choice Awards."
This winner of the "most creative" fried food was "Fried Beer."
Obama's 'don't call it a stimulus' economic development plan - CSMonitor.com
When is a stimulus plan not a stimulus plan?
When there’s a midterm election coming up and you’re getting hit hard about big government spending, that’s when.
The Obama administration this week is rolling out a multipart economic, um, development program...
In a survey of 27 nations conducted from 1998 to 2001, the country where the highest proportion agreed with the statement "people are rewarded for intelligence and skill" was, of course, the United States. (69 percent). But when it comes to real as opposed to imagined social mobility, surveys find less in the United States than in much of (what we consider) the class-bound Old World. France, Germany, Sweden, Denmark, Spain—not to mention some newer nations like Canada and Australia—are all places where your chances of rising from the bottom are better than they are in the land of Horatio Alger's Ragged Dick.
Election Spending Sets Records: No Recession Here
This year's volatile election is bursting with money, setting fundraising and spending records in a high-stakes struggle for control of Congress amid looser but still fuzzy campaign finance rules.
Still fuzzy. But looser.
Wait. What?
Inventor sets world record for 'fastest piece of furniture' - Telegraph
Perry Watkins, an inventor from Buckinghamshire, is thought to have set a
world record for the fastest piece of furniture after driving his dining
table down a racetrack at more than 113mph.
I've been reading newspapers since I was six - since, in fact, the third day of Dick and Jane (dude! that story is booooring!) when I decided to look at the newspaper at home that evening (we subscribed to two, a morning and an evening paper, like a lot of other people did in the mid-40s) just to see if there were any words there I knew. Turned out, there were. There were lots of words there I knew or could figure out pretty easily and what's more, there was a story there that was a whole lot more interesting than Dick and Jane. It was called World War II. And it had pictures and maps and went on for years.
So it came as a shock to me to notice the other day that at the iTunes store, the iPhone app for the New York friggin' Times is rated 12+ for, among other things, "Infrequent/Mild Mature/Suggestive Themes," (a description that makes Infrequent/No Sense At All, but WTF). That means, children, somebody thinks you have to be 12 years old or better before you should be allowed to read the news.
But the Boston Globe app is rated 4+. Seriously, I don't know whether to laugh or cry.
Safe, Retiring House Democrats Owe More Than $2 Million In DCCC Dues
As the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) battles to keep ahead of the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC), a handful of Democrats who are either in solidly safe seats or retiring have yet to pay their dues to the House fundraising arm -- funds that would go toward boosting the election chances of their vulnerable colleagues.
The Huffington Post obtained the dues sheets for several of these House members. In total, they owe $2,134,509 in unpaid dues to the DCCC. All members, except Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.), have enough cash on hand to cover the balance....
