Anyone else starting to get worried that this economic situation could be worse than we fear (even though we fear like a sonofabitch)?

I mean, it’s everywhere.

A longtime newsman steps down and reflects on his career and the state of the industry he departs. Howard Weaver provides some really interesting takes. He’s a guy I’ve come to know from a series of email exchanges and from us perusing each others’ blogs. Just one of those weird web acquaintances that we’ve all come to take for granted. Too much so.

Howard, if you’re reading, the timing of your retirement couldn’t be worse for me. I was just about to ask you for a job as a columnist. It occurred to me that I knew this big time dude in big time journalism, so what the heck?

Hey, remember all those news images we saw of children and women killed or injured and in the hospital during the initial phases of shock and awe?

Yeah, me neither.

Is it a fair way to cover war? Maybe it is. It’s certainly the way we cover Israel. But it’s not the way we cover it when we’re doing the bombing. Somehow a battle (and we won’t even get into who started that battle and whose tactics really lead to the civilian toll) that has resulted in a few hundred deaths looks a whole lot more brutal and bloody on TV than the one that led to a few hundred thousand deaths (minimum). Worth considering.

So here we are, a few weeks after the overly aggressive news conference held by the much-esteemed prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald and it’s looking like Lightening Rod Blagojevich’s pick for the Senate seat will end up joining that body.

Blagojevich didn’t buckle under the pressure to resign. The Senate doesn’t appear to have a legal method to keep Roland Burris from his seat. During the Nessian, over the top news conference in which Fitzgerald announced his findings, he proclaimed that the governor’s conduct, “would make Lincoln roll over in his grave.” In the short term, Abe may roll back over to keep from having to watch cable news.

This from The New York Times:

Amid the housing slump, skateboarders are finding a surplus of deserted pools in which to perfect their aerials.

Funny, I don’t feel better.

Addictomatic got a nice plug in the New York Times today.

They did not include a link though (is that still possible in 2008?). Here’s one.