Ari

He certainly is milking his 15 minutes: The Ohio man who became a household name during the presidential campaign says he is heading to Israel as a war correspondent for the conservative Web site pjtv.com.

But not surprising: That the White House choose to prioritize the former prime minister of Australia over the incoming President of the United States emphasizes Bush’s sense of loyalty. Howard, a darling of the right wing, was one of Bush’s biggest cheerleaders whom Bush has called his “mate of steel” for standing with him on Iraq and being the only leader of an industrialized nation — besides Bush, of course — to

More bad news: The ADP National Employment Report, which is calculated based on payroll data, reported that the private sector shed 693,000 jobs on a seasonally adjusted basis in December.

Unfortunately this will go on for a while: Republican Norm Coleman, who received 225 fewer votes than DFLer Al Franken in the U.S. Senate recount, will challenge the result in court. He told reporters at a state Capitol news conference that a lawsuit, known as an election contest, would proceed. Coleman said he respects the process but added:

It seems there are not many perks to being Vice President: He's a heartbeat away from the presidency, but that apparently didn't help Joe Biden get a movie ticket Saturday night. Employees at the Regal Brandywine Cinemas say the vice president-elect and his wife, Jill, tried to attend the 7:45 showing of "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" at the theater on Concord Pike but left after they were told the movie

Joshuah Bearman found this great video:

has a change of heart: In 1996, as a freshman member of the House of Representatives, I wrote the Defense of Marriage Act, better known by its shorthand acronym, DOMA, than its legal title. The law has been a flash-point for those arguing for or against same-sex marriage ever since President Clinton signed it into law.

No surprise, album sales in 2008 down: (But digital sales and sales of vinyl albums are up)• Total album sales fell to 428.4 million units, a drop of 8.5% (2007 = 500.5 million). • Physical album sales fell 20% to 362.6 million (from 450.5 million) • Digital album sales rose 32% percent to 65.8 million units; • Digital track sales were up 27%, breaking the 1 billion mark for the first time at

New York Times: The Internet overtook print newspapers as a news source this year, according to a report by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, which asked more than a thousand people where they got “most of” their national and international news.

It would be funny if it weren't so sad: The Washington Post’s Al Kamen reports today that outgoing Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne recently spent about $235,000 in taxpayer funds to renovate the bathroom in his fifth-floor office. The renovations included “installing a new shower, a refrigerator and a freezer and buying monogrammed towels.” An internal investigation by the department’s inspector general, however, found no wrongdoing on Kempthorne’s part “because the GSA had