Dancing condoms and Debates

Domestic

• Not just Galveston…. 54% of schoolchildren in the South are low-income and qualify for free or reduced school lunches. In 1990, the only state with a majority of schoolchildren that were low-income was Mississippi. Now this poverty belt stretches from California to South Carolina. (” I don’t know how many times I’ve heard public schools are just for black kids“). Welcome to the future.
• Do you want a job that pays $53,000 and with overtime can reach $100,000 and can’t be outsourced? Well, why don’t you become an electrical worker and go up fixing electrical lines. Seems that there is a dire shortage of line technicians, and current workers will soon all retire. Why don’t young people want to do this job? Is doing blue-collar work just not cool? Or can no one do the math involved these days? I’m coming from from a very blue-collar area, so I really wouldn’t know what people think in the rest of the country. What about construction or plumbing? Or working the docks? Shit, a lot of these guys make more money than a lot of starting primary care doctors.
• A model demands to be paid in euros because the value of a dollar is falling through the floor in currency markets. [Thanks to wannabe Hawaiian Jordan Abel]
• “If I wuz pres-i-dent….”, would I stop the war? (Anti-war rankings for the presidential candidates by former state senator Tom Hayden who was a big anti-Vietnam activist in his day). Kucinich and then Edwards are on top while Hillary is (who would guess) vague.
• If you didn’t catch the Halloween Democratic presidential debate, you might want to watch it. Hillary gets it in the nose for the first hour by anyone not named Barack Obama particulary on her Iran vote. Edwards looks stellar, and I was liking Dodd and hating Joe Biden a little less. Obamamania better get its act together because I’m just not seeing it happen. Watch Hillary try to answer the illegal immigrant drivers license question both ways.
• Indian-American Republican Catholic Bobby Jindal becomes governor of Louisiana. And I defer judgement this time.
• The Nation says that Kentucky and Virginia have been steadily trending Democratic since 2001 and that these two states could be won in the presidential race by a Democrat. And if this is to be believed (and I’m skeptical but hoping), Sen. Mitch McConnell (the GOP minority leader and overall sleazy anti-campaign finance reformer) may be at risk of losing his seat next year via the Kentucky antiwar movement. [DitchmitchKY.com]

International

• Richest man in the world is Indian…. but just before he was Mexican. “Yo quiero Todo Bell. “
• Saudi King Abdullah visits England and the Guardian writes “Welcome to Britain. But don’t mention bribery or corruption. This is business. ” If you don’t know, BAE (British Aerospace) was under investigation for bribing the Saudi government officials in the 1980s to win a military contract. Tony Blair quashed the investigation because he thought it might upset the Saudis. Blair buried the story by making the announcement on the day a big report came out on Princess Diana’s death when all the media would be focusing on that.
• And if you like the Guardian, they just started an American edition at GuardianAmerica.com
• The biggest company in the world (at least for a day) is/was PetroChina which you may have heard is responsible for irresponsible oil drilling in a place called Darfur, Sudan. The Asia Sentinel says that the hype was manufactured by issuing very little stock to the public to artificially drive up the price while Communist Party leaders enriched themselves on their discounted pre-release shares. Privatization benefiting the people who run the government? I’ve never heard of that [wink, wink].

Funny stuff

• What do you mean I can’t get laid on a plane? Why else should a plane have private suites with beds?
• Chopstick bras! Reducing the 25 billion disposable chopstick used in Japan a year by making a re-usable chopsticks that fit into a trendy bra.
• Dancing condoms singing in Telegu. No, really.