pav dot quest

I’ll say that again: Shirley Chisholm, the first black woman in Congress, and George Wallace, the most notorious segregationist politician of the 20th century, worked together to raise wages for domestic servants, probably the most abused and unregulated sector of the workforce. (Chisholm’s immigrant mother, in fact, had been a domestic worker, while her father…

I am the organizer for the world’s largest annual convention of elevator manufacturers. Although our attendance rates have their regular ups and downs, Rebecca Watson has been the number one reason that our attendance rates have dropped significantly. She keeps putting down elevators and it’s starting to push all my buttons. What used to be…

TO JUDGE solely by its high number of blasphemy cases, Pakistan seems to be a nation of wanton profanity where the Koran is routinely desecrated and the prophet Muhammad insulted. Yet given that the crime of blasphemy is punishable by death, that 97% of Pakistanis are Muslim, and that the remainder are an intimidated and…

Last year, there were more than two dozen Android tablets launched into the marketplace, and nobody bought ‘em. Why? Because they’re gadgets, and people don’t want gadgets anymore. They want services that improve over time. They want services that improve every day, every week, and every month. Jeff Bezos Like Jobs, he gets that it’s…

Clinton calls for a round of applause for W – and gets it. Magic. David Frum on Twitter last night.

[I]t’s apparent that Democratic conventioneers remain more enthusiastic about Barack Obama than Republican convention-goers ever got about Mitt Romney. Deval Patrick wins the night’s up-and-comer laurels, but Michelle Obama out-shined the entire line-up by a few billion lumens. Mrs Obama’s speech was paint-by-numbers, but the painting happened to be the Mona Lisa. Wil Wilkinson: The…

I think that I’m a better speechwriter than my speechwriters,” Mr. Obama told Patrick Gaspard, his political director, at the start of the 2008 campaign, according to The New Yorker. “I know more about policies on any particular issue than my policy directors. And I’ll tell you right now that I’m going to think I’m…

If Obama survives, the shifting composition of the electorate will also be a—and perhaps the—critical factor. In 1984, whites without a college degree represented 61 percent of all voters, and college-educated whites just 27 percent. But by 2008, noncollege whites had plummeted to just 39 percent of all voters, and college-educated whites increased to 35…

We’re in a panic, as a nation, that we don’t work hard enough, and blame this iniquity for our “decline.” God—the one who blesses America—is withdrawing his favor. Hence the sanctimoniousness with which the topic of work is approached. If you don’t work as hard as people think you should, you’re not just morally inferior,…

Romney advisers so trusted Mr. Eastwood, 82, that unlike with other speakers, they said they did not conduct rehearsals or insist on a script or communicate guidelines for the style or format of his remarks. Romney Aides Scratch Their Heads Over Eastwood’s Speech – NYTimes.com Political malpractice of the highest order. I had to wonder…

Matthews said he told the rowdy group, “What’s this, a douchebag convention? Chris Matthews gets into confrontation with GOP delegates – The Hill Why, yes it is.

… the principals don’t seem to be experiencing much joy as they go through their market-tested paces. A kind of faux-ness permeates everything this year in a way that it hasn’t been quite so consuming in the past. The effect has been anesthetizing and made it difficult to take any of the day’s supposed gaffes,…