shanapreferspajamas asks: Please tell me what the "es" tag means that I see so frequently on your post? Does it have something to do with your posts also being written in Spanish? Please tell me, it's killing me.
» SFB says: As we run a group blog on a primary account, those tags basically enable our theme to set an author for the post using CSS.
Key for those playing at home: “ES” = Authored by Ernie Smith; “SC” = Authored by Scott Craft; “CT” = Authored by Chris Tognotti; “SM” = Authored by Seth Millstein; “SAM” = Authored by Sami Main. :) — Ernie @ SFB
Josef Oehmen, an MIT scientist with some strong cred, says that the situation in Fukushima isn’t that big a deal. “There was and will *not* be any significant release of radioactivity,” he writes. “By ‘significant’ I mean a level of radiation of more than what you would receive on — say — a long distance flight, or drinking a glass of beer that comes from certain areas with high levels of natural background radiation.” He was also very critical of the mainstream media’s coverage of the disaster, going so far as to say some articles had errors in every paragraph (ouch!). Oehman wrote a lengthy piece — initially as a personal e-mail to members of his family — explaining exactly what is going on. Now, the first question, of course, is wether or not this guy is legit. He appears so. He has a Twitter. And a long list of research. Lots of people have read his explanation but it hasn’t been picked up by the mainstream press yet. (Will they pick it up?) Rather than summarize it, we feel you should read everything. It’s pretty well-explained. (thanks Benjamin Harrison) source
ilyagerner said: The BLS explanation in their release was that previous months’ job numbers were underestimated. Inability write their press releases in plain English is a problem for the BLS (yglesias.thinkprogress….)
» We say: Worth noting that this is true. You’d think that with a government the size of ours, they’d cut through the clutter and explain this in a meaningful way. Possibly they should considering hiring us to explain their next report?
andres-se asks: Can you please briefly summarize the whole Egypt story and current situation?
We admit to loving a challenge. And while we’re not going to go too crazy here, here’s a bunch of bullet points explaining the main points of this whole mess. In terms of the political background, we’re just going to refer you to this article. Otherwise, here goes:
» What’s happening right now? Tomorrow, a massive march, called the Million Egyptian March, is planned, which protesters feel might be enough to push Mubarak out of power. The Mubarak regime, in reaction, has crimped the communication lines even further. Meanwhile, Americans are trying to leave Egypt and an eight-year-old Saudi girl knows what’s up.
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