Job creation by private companies grew at the slowest pace of the year in May, even while the hiring of temporary census workers drove overall payrolls up 431,000. The unemployment rate dipped to 9.7 percent as many people gave up searching for work.

SNIP

All told, 15 million people were unemployed in May.

The Steak-Scented Billboard: Advertising's Stinking Future

So basically, they've got some big vats of beef-scented chemicals and some fans, and they're just indiscriminately blasting the whole area with meatstink? Are there laws against this? Think of the poor clerk in that gas station, forced to work in the heavy fog of fake meat odor all day! Or, even worse, if you lived nearby?

I'm optimistic, but I hate the 2-3-2 format. Spending a week in Boston won't be easy for the Lakers, but if they head east up 2-0, it becomes much more manageable.  With the 2-3-2 format, game 2 now becomes HUGE for both teams. Not that any finals game isn't huge.

And the memoir blog is back. THE EARLY DAZE INTERRUPTED - MEMORIAL DAY.

At some point, Hams got on top of the victim and was choking him with both hands around his neck, Patterson said. When two sheriff's deputies tried to pull Hams off the victim, Hams continued choking him with one hand and attempted to resist the deputy's efforts with his other hand, Patterson said.

Why?

They want to simplify the English language.  For example, they want to drop the "w" in words like "slow".  They want to change "fruit" to "froot".

Report: Knotts Called Haley 'F---ing Raghead,' Attacked Her Religion, Family

It sounds like South Carolina State. Sen. Jake Knotts' "raghead" comments last night are even worse than first reported.

Knotts says he believed Haley has been set up by a network of Sikhs and was programmed to run for governor of South Carolina by outside influences in foreign countries. He claims she is hiding her religion and he wants the voters to know about it.

"We got a raghead in Washington; we don't need one in South Carolina," Knotts said more than once. "She's a raghead that's ashamed of her religion trying to hide it behind being Methodist for political reasons."

Laura Ingraham appeared last night on the O'Reilly Factor to discuss the Gulf oil spill, and at first it starts off with both agreeing that Barack Obama is blowing it. When it comes to holding Obama's team accountable, however, Ingraham can hardly believe her ears when O'Reilly says that he wants to give Janet Napolitano some "slack" because she's not responsible for the cleanup. Ingraham reminds O'Reilly that Napolitano runs the Department of Homeland Security, which includes FEMA -- the agency tasked with the federal response to emergencies such as the Deepwater Horizon blowout. Ingraham calls the show a "spin zone," and O'Reilly accuses her of blind partisanship

SAYLORSBURG, Pa.--Imam Fethullah Gülen, a controversial and reclusive U.S. resident who is considered Turkey's most influential religious leader, criticized a Turkish-led flotilla for trying to deliver aid without Israel's consent.

President Obama intends to nominate Gen. James Clapper (Ret.), the current undersecretary of Defense for intelligence, as Director of National Intelligence.

Pending weather, the announcement will be made in the Rose Garden tomorrow. Clapper would be the fourth DNI since the position was created five years ago to oversee the intelligence community's 16 agencies.

He is a former Army intelligence officer who rose to head the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency before he was forced out by the Bush administration over his support for a strong DNI position. He is also a former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency. Clapper was rehired as the second USDI after Stephen Cambone resigned in 2007, reflecting a chance of consensus about intelligence within the Bush administration. He spent the intervening period as a defense contractor.

Clapper has had some tense relationships with members of Congress, particularly Rep. Peter Hoekstra, whose top intelligence aide said today that Clapper's nomination would not fix problems within the intelligence community. Other members of Congress are concerned about Clapper's willingness to brief them on key developments.

Clapper has deep relationships across the intelligence community and is friendly with senior managers at the Central Intelligence Agency, which will look forward to working cooperatively with him.

Link

Question... is this sexist?

The "Go on Green" mural, which covers two walls outside Miller Valley Elementary School, was designed to advertise a campaign for environmentally friendly transportation. It features portraits of four children, with a Hispanic boy as the dominant figure.

R.E. Wall, director of Prescott's Downtown Mural Project, said he and other artists were subjected to slurs from motorists as they worked on the painting at one of the town's most prominent intersections.

"We consistently, for two months, had people shouting racial slander from their cars," Wall said. "We had children painting with us, and here come these yells of (epithet for Blacks) and (epithet for Hispanics)."

Wall said school Principal Jeff Lane pressed him to make the children's faces appear happier and brighter.

Truely amazing.