I randomly found these awesomely cute pictures of a polar bear cub at Vanity Fair and thought you should, you know, check ‘em out. Or something.

Also, Annie Liebowitz shot them.

Kinda weird:

If you and your wife both work then you’ll enjoy this write-up of our modern predicament:

I don’t know how it’s going for my sisters, but as my 40s and Verizon bills and mortgage payments roll on, I seem to have an ever more recurring 1950s housewife fantasy. In this magical Technicolor world, the breadwinner husband, Brad, leaves home (where his duties are limited to mowing the lawn and various minor home repairs) at 7 a.m. When he returns from work at 6 p.m., aside from a savory roast with mashed potatoes, his homemaker wife, Nancy, has pipe, slippers and a tray of Manhattans ready.
…
What can turn into a second shift is not just negotiating the splitting of this labor with another person, but the splitting of decision-making authority. Two co-workers in the home also have the opportunity to regularly evaluate each other’s handiwork, not always to a positive effect… in the domestic equation, the work I do at home is no longer a gift, but the labor of a mediocre colleague whose performance could be better.

Me and Julia have both endured periods of unemployment (voluntary and involuntary) and we have found that without a doubt a household runs smoother if someone stays home to run it. The stress level on everyone is immediately lowered because all those things that are constantly squeezed into that brief window between 6pm and 11pm are simply done. After dinner everyone’s evening becomes free because one partner already took care of all the chores. As parents we are free to spend time with our kids. As spouses we are free to spend time with each other. And as individuals we can pursue our interests.

“You know,” DeLay said, “there is an argument to be made that these extensions of these unemployment benefits keeps people from going and finding jobs.” When CNN’s Candy Crowley described his argument as “a hard sell” to the public, DeLay replied, “It’s the truth.”

Economically speaking Delay and the rest are wrong wrong wrong.  No one is really putting off getting a job because they’d rather have an unemployment check.  And extending unemployment benefits helps the unemployed and actually creates jobs by injecting cash into the market.

* I know that the GOP is going to win a lot of seats in November.  But it’s not because of arguments like this.  It’s because the Democrats are retarded.

This doesn’t mean every homophobe is secretly gay or anything. Just the ones who are insanely over the top about it.

We haven’t done the Monday Jam in a while! Let’s fix that shall we?

Lately I’ve been listening to P.J. Harvey’s Good Fortune whenever I need a lift. Hopefully you feel the same way.

Exclusive: RNC document mocks donors, plays on ‘fear’ - Ben Smith - POLITICO.com.

*You already know what I’d say anyways.

Culture of Old Europe Is Uncloaked in an Exhibit at N.Y.U. - NYTimes.com.

Back to the Land - And the Pursuit of Happiness Blog - NYTimes.com.

To find overlooked New Yorkers, researchers even considered using water bills to estimate how many times toilets were flushed and gauge population based on average human needs. But, Dr. Salvo said, “That is too unreliable, from an empirical standpoint.”

New York City’s Hidden Homes Pose Challenge in 2010 Census - NYTimes.com.

But there were obstacles. Google’s synonym system understood that a dog was similar to a puppy and that boiling water was hot. But it also concluded that a hot dog was the same as a boiling puppy. The problem was fixed in late 2002 by a breakthrough based on philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein’s theories about how words are defined by context. As Google crawled and archived billions of documents and Web pages, it analyzed what words were close to each other.

Exclusive: How Google’s Algorithm Rules the Web | Magazine.

Who knew that Wittgenstein is behind one of the key improvements to Google?  Let me tell you, those people are very very very very smart.

Following Hughes’s sudden death, at age 59, last summer, the author delves into his intense connections and sudden breaks with his Brat Pack actors, as well as the essential anomaly of his brief Hollywood reign.

Terrific piece on John Hughes in Vanity Fair this month.  Details about his rise to fame, his relationship to his early proteges, and what he did after Hollywood.

Paige Williams reconnects with Dolly Freed the author of Possum Living a book about how to “Live well without a job and with (almost) no money.

In a time when 1 out 5 of us are unemployed or underemployed this book might as well be required reading.