Wednesday Night!

* So many amazing things happened today, from the simultaneous implosion of both the Perry and Cain campaigns to Occupy Cal and Occupy Harvard to riots at Penn State in support of Joe Paterno (of all people). And I can’t give proper attention to any of these amazing things because I spent 6 hours hanging out with John Hodgman on behalf of the Regulator Bookshop. Here’s a nice interview with the man himself from Independent Weekly‘s Zack Smith.

* Not to pile on poor Rick Perry, but abolishing the Department of Energy doesn’t make sense even on his own terms.

* Needing a weatherman to know which way the wind blows: Young adults agree that college is becoming increasingly unaffordable in today’s economy even as it is becoming more important, according to a recent poll released on Wednesday by Demos and Young Invincibles, two research and advocacy groups.

* For people looking to transition #Occupy back into traditional electoral politics—and for people who want to make sure that doesn’t happen—Occupy Des Moines is going to be pretty important.

* LGM celebrates Wake County’s repudiation of de-integration.

* Some podcasts from the ASA, including my advisor Priscilla Wald’s presidential address on Henrietta Lacks.

* Cormac McCarthy’s Yelp page.

* A Conspiracy of Hogs: The McRib as Arbitrage.

* Howard is one of the chief architects of the “Cleveland Model” — an effort to create good jobs in depressed urban neighborhoods by fostering for-profit cooperatives founded on a principle of environmental sustainability. The neighborhoods targeted by Howard’s Evergreen Cooperative Initiative suffer from 40 percent unemployment, but he suggests tossing out any preconceptions one might have about whether or not desperately poor people care about the environment. Howard recounts one cooperative worker telling him, “I thought I’d have to move to Portland to become part of the green revolution, and now I can say that we lead the way in Cleveland.”

* The bastards have stolen your honey.

* And some breaking news via Bitter Laughter: The odds that you’d exist at all are practically zero. So enjoy it! A wise man once said, it ain’t no sin to be glad you’re alive.