Would somebody please take the mike away from Il Dippy? Please?

The doorbell rang.

"I'll get it, honey," Uncle Sam said to Lady Liberty as he rose from his comfortable chair and strode towards the door. He peered through the peephole.

"Damn it," he cursed under his breath.

So John Boehner, Congressman from Ohio, has won the race to succeed Tom DeLay as House leader.  And who is John Boehner?  Well, he's been around the House for about 15 years, and he's the Chair of the House Education & the Workforce Committee.

Among many things that lead me to think that things are not likely to get better in the House is the fact that Boehner is the guy who issued a public statement about his own tremendous reaction to the President's State of the Union speech, saying, "The years ahead are colored in shades of hope and opportunity...As for me, I'm with the President."

Cindy Sheehan was arrested at the State of the Union address last night.

I never ever, not ever never thought I'd ever be in agreement with the freepers, but they do have one valid point....

[Six here. After the day we had today, this piece from Crisis Papers says it too damned well....]

I've had problems finding good information on part time workers in the U.S., since the government's statistical sampling survey that it uses to compute unemployment (see WTW story) apparently does not compile statistics on how many people were employed only part time.

I did finally track down some a Bureau of Labor Statistics series that covers various reasons for working part time. If I read it correctly, the number of people who regularly worked part time--not temporarily because of slow work, or the like--was 11,182,000 in 1976, 19,214,000 in 2005.  That's an increase of 8,032,000 in that 29 years.

I wonder what the numbers would be for people working temp jobs?

Sounds like things just got a lot trickier/scarier/more dangerous in the world, especially the Middle East, as the various "sides" start searching for ways to stop Iran from developing a nuclear weapon, while Iran searches for ways to keep going and/or convince everyone that they don't want a bomb.

Paul Weyrich.  Formerly of the heritage Foundation, currently of the Free Congress Foundation.  Widely recognized as one of the moral leaders of the those people known on the right as "people of Christian values," and known by most of the rest of us as the "lunatic right fringe."

Which perspective is closer?  Well, Paul Weyrich is the author of the quote: "We are different from previous generations of conservatives. We are no longer working to preserve the status quo. We are radicals, working to overturn the present power structure of this country."

And moral leader Weyrich just 'fessed up to some behavior that he had unequivocally denied only a short time before.

It somehow seems odd to come across a headline "Vatican Charges Publisher $18,000 for Quoting Pope," on a religious news wire service.  

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