BREVITAS

OBAMALAND

Daily Kos - President Obama struck a blow to the abstinence-only community, cutting all of their funding streams in his new 2010 budget. Obama made it clear that our government should no longer fund these failed programs that promote misinformation, misogyny, discrimination and, of course, juggling and cinder block wielding abstinence clowns.

REASONS TO STAY AWAY FROM. . .

WISCONSIN - Where an appeals court has ruled that police can attach GPS to cars without a search warrant.

INDICATORS

Economic Policy Institute - April marked the 16th month of the current recession, matching the longest since the Great Depression. Statistics showed that while the pace of job loss is exhibiting signs of slowing-losing 539,000 in April compared to an average of 707,000 per month in the first quarter-today's labor market is still shedding jobs at a breathtaking pace. Since the start of the recession, the economy as a whole has shed 5.7 million jobs, totaling 4.2% of total employment.

DRUG BUSTS

Maine has upped the amount of marijuana possession treated a civil violation from 1.25 ounces to 2.5 ounces.

ON CAMPUS

Chronicle of Higher Education - As [college] papers have begun digitizing their back issues, their Web sites have become the latest front in the battle over online identities. Youthful activities that once would have disappeared into the recesses of a campus library are now preserved on the public record, to be viewed with skeptical eyes by an adult world of colleagues and potential employers. Alumni now in that world are contacting newspapers with requests for redaction. For unlike Facebook profiles - that other notable source of young-adult embarrassment - the ability to remove or edit questionable content in these cases is out of the author's hands. . .
Policies forbidding revisions in the absence of provable factual errors are generally derived from similar policies at professional newspapers and rooted in lofty principles. . . Aside from journalistic stands against changing history, "there's certainly no legal reason to do it," says Adam J. Goldstein, a lawyer with the Student Press Law Center. Lawsuits are sometimes threatened, he says, but rarely carried out.

FURTHERMORE. . .

A 137 pound orangutan almost escaped from an Australian zoo by short circuiting an electric fence and piling up debris to climb over a wall. Once at the top, she sat for about 30 minutes, trying to decide what to do next. Then she returned to her cage. Said zoo curator Peter Whitehead, "You're talking about an animal that's highly intelligent, We've had issues with her before in normal day-to-day operations where she tries to outsmart the keepers. She's an ingenious animal."