• YES believe it or not; it was in Portland, Oregon source

Weekly Address: Jobs Creation from White House Weekly Address on Vimeo.

• For people who think that avant garde music and film is completely stupid, The Onion agrees with you. They agree with you so much, in fact, that they created this spot-on parody of the avant-garde movement, using Obama’s weekly video addresses as a vector. It’s the funniest non-good-timing thing they’ve done in a while. source

• 40minutes, the length of the interview David Patraeus got

• six days ago, the White House got some fact-checking calls from Rolling Stone
• 48 hours ago, the article came out (though Rolling Stone sat on the hit machine at first, idiots)
• <30 number of minutes it took Obama to talk it through with Stanley McChrystal source

• Spitzer, a Democrat who resigned as governor in March 2008 after acknowledging visiting a prostitute, is a well respected political mind and a take-no-prisoners prosecutor who has been often referred to as the ‘Sheriff of Wall Street.’
• A CNN press release • Regarding the move to take the former New York governor and put him on their 8 p.m. slot against Keith Olbermann and Bill O’Reilly. Spitzer, who we admit to be willing to give a second chance, will be joined by conservative Washington Post columnist Kathleen Parker. All told, the stunt-casting should get CNN some of eyeballs that Campbell Brown’s show never did. (Maybe.) Now, next step: Filling that 9 p.m. slot with someone other than Larry King. source

• Conan O’Brien has a new doppelganger. Julia Gillard, who replaced Kevin Rudd as Australian prime minister just a little while ago, is one of the Labor Party’s leading lights, and might have a better chance of winning in an election. And she’s not even from Australia! She was originally born in Wales, just like all the truly awesome people out there. (We’re not Welsh.) source

• We were always going to set up the organization. We have across the Gulf Coast, people that are there, temporary, rotating in and out. We’re going to bed this down now. We’re in for the long haul and we’re going to make sure that it’s sustained and efficient.
• BP top staffer Robert Dudley • Regarding his role in the oil spill cleanup, along with the changes BP is making. The company has put together a command center, based in Houston (a bit off, but close enough), to deal with the spill. Why? And why now? Dudley says they needed “a more sustainable organization” to see things through. We have to agree with that. They’ve looked pretty disorganized so far. source

• 13 European countries, including Turkey, raised their hands source

• Is this the future? Or at least a good approximation of it? For our friends at Gourmet Magazine, the demise of the publication was sudden and painful. But a phoenix appears to be rising out of the ashes in the form of this iPad app, coming this fall. “We closed the magazine last fall but we did not close the brand,” said Conde Nast’s president of consumer marketing, Robert Sauerberg. Curious to see how this experiment works out. source

• This initiative sponsored by greedy Texas oil companies would cripple California’s fastest-growing economic sector, reverse our renewable energy policy and decimate our environmental progress for the benefit of these oil companies’ profit margins. … I will not allow this to happen on my watch.
• California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger • Reacting with disgust about the addition of a ballot initiative which would limit a global warming bill from getting enacted until the unemployment rate, currently at 12 percent in the state, was at 5.5 percent for at least a year. Which is total crap, because the bill’s designed to create new kinds of jobs. Who’s behind the initative? Texas oil giants Valero Energy Inc. and Tesoro Corp. That’s right. Big oil is trying to make a global warming initiative go away. They’ve spent $3 million on it and have painted it as an “energy tax.” Which isn’t what the bill is at all. Unbelievable. source