Day: May 17, 2010

Sophisticated City Dwellers Have Greater Well-Being than Rural Goobers

Buck Banks

pitchfork_carrying_mob

According to a recent survey by the Gallup Organization, people who live in large metro areas demonstrate a higher level of health and general well-being than their small-town counterparts. Across six domains of wellbeing, only in the Work Environment domain do inhabitants of small towns and rural areas have scores superior to their counterparts who live in big metro areas.

For instance, in the well-being composite score, city dwellers hit 66.7 to rubes’ 64.2, a difference of 2.5. On the Life Evaluation domain, it was sophisticates 48.6 to goobers’ 40.1, or a whopping 8.5 difference. On the all-important issue of physical health, metros scored 78.0 to 74.1 for the hicks — a difference of 3.9.
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Rima Fakih Crowned Miss USA 2010, First Muslim (Sort of) to Hold Title

Jon Ponder

Miss USA 2010
Rima Fakih, Miss USA 2010
Update: Hold the presses. The pageant is investigating charges that Rima Fakih is a former champion pole dancer. (Not kidding.)

Last year, the Miss USA pageant was at the center of a proverbial firestorm of publicity after celebrity judge Perez Hilton asked Miss California USA, Carrie Prejean, to state her views on gay marriage. As everybody knows, she said she was against it — albeit for reasons that were completely false.

“Well I think it’s great that Americans are able to choose one way or the other,” said Prejean. “We live in a land where you can choose same-sex marriage or opposite marriage.”

Which, of course, we do not. Prejean lost the title, and later said she believed her statement cost her the crown. That point is moot, of course, because she would have lost it anyway when it was revealed that she’d starred in several self-made solo sex tapes.

This year, Rima Fakih, 24, a member of a powerful Lebanese Shiite family, was crowned Miss USA 2010:

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Verbatim

Buck Banks

We’re all Arizonans now and we say with clear unity: “Mr. President, do your job. Secure our border.”

— Sarah Palin, perfectly crystallizing the ongoing immigration debate in another one of her weird but oddly compelling-to-a-certain-percentage-of-the-populace catchphrases.

Verbatim

Buck Banks

You can win an election on screaming and anger, but you cannot hold and govern for a significant period of time on screaming and anger.

— Sen. Robert Bennett (R-UT), in an interview with ABC News, on being defeated for the Republican Senate nomination in Utah last week.

Arkansas Candidate Gets It, Even Facebook

Trish

I admit the first thing that attracted me about Arkansas Dist. 1 candidate Ben Ponder (D) was his name. But after I “liked” him on Facebook, I was impressed, even inspired, by his campaign.

He’s funny (just watch the video), he’s smart (because you can’t be truly witty without some gray matter), and he does something almost no one running for office does: he says what he thinks. Yes, if he wins, Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL8) would actually have some company!

Ponder’s notes from the campaign trail: “Never underestimate the South’s ability to deep fry things that were already bad for you”

Jon and I were lamenting earlier around the virtual water cooler the lack of leaders within the Democratic party. One reason for that, I think, is that Pres. Obama is the party’s leader and anyone offering up their take on issues could be seen as competing. But the other reason is people just aren’t willing to tell it straight anymore. Like U.S. Senate candidate Rep. Kendrick Meek (D-Fla.), they’d rather play it safe by offering voters biography, biography, biography. And with tea bagger hostility staying just this side of lethal, who can blame them?

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