Only three types of human come from Rhode Island: Portuguese people; descendants of fancy old-money white people with comical names like “Claiborne”; and dope fiends. A new study proves it! MORE »

Hey did you know that if you are a failure at third grade, the government just assumes that you’ll be a criminal forever? No? Well good, because that isn’t true anyhow. For many moons, Democratic candidates have repeated this old saw about states using third-grade reading scores as a predictor for how many prison beds they’ll need in 15 years. This sounds like exactly the sort of sad, spooky metric that governments would use to determine how doomed its citizens are, but apparently nobody actually uses it. MORE »

You’ve done it, America! You have already shed so many jobs that you are running out of remaining jobs to lose. That means new unemployment filings for last week were not quite as awful as unemployment filings for the previous week, and were the lowest since late January! We have turned a corner, etc! MORE »

NO JOBS LEFT TO LOSE: New jobless claims fell this week, hooray, due to the number of jobs in the US forming an asymptote with zero. Continuing jobless claims, meanwhile, are just staggering and awful, a wretched 5.47 million and counting. Start growing your Victory Gardens now, because otherwise you might not have food next winter. [MSNBC]

Well FINALLY we have a state we can make fun of here on the Wonkette because none of its fourteen (14) residents have time to read this dumb Web site — they’re all still busy staying employed, at actual jobs! (The recession, which loses velocity as it cools, has not yet crept into the snowy north.) So let’s talk some shit about North Dakota while all those lamers toil at the wheel of industry. Let’s see, uh, North Dakota is the Mexico of Canada! Also, all of its politicians are crooks, all two of them. MORE »

Wow! One might have guessed, given his charmingly nerdsome appearance and general blinky “how do I translate from numbers into English?” mannerisms that Nate Silver would be somewhat conflict averse. But no man he BRINGS IT. He interviewed some guy who commissioned a Zogby poll that proved, factually, that Obama voters are all a bunch of ignorant black Muslims. There’s even a YouTube to prove it! Anyhow Silver called up this very shirty gentleman John Ziegler to discuss his survey methods. Ziegler called him a pinhead and said many hilariously nasty things. MORE »

Well HA now you don’t have to feel so bad about actually watching the news and having opinions about who the president should be! You, the “decided voter,” are actually just as important as the undecideds. This mythical group of undecided dunderheads with a mystical power to sway elections through the force of their procrastinatory ignorance is actually not that important, because they do not tend to break overwhelmingly toward one candidate or the other. Or if they do, there aren’t enough of them to really change the picture. MORE »

HOW SCREWED IS MICHELE BACHMANN? DETAILS AT 11: SurveyUSA will release a tasty new poll for Minnesota’s District 6 at 11pm Eastern tonight. Prediction: Bachmann is winning by 50 points, at least. [SurveyUSA]

NYT/CBS NEWS POLL RESPONDENTS IN THE TANK: “As voters have gotten to know Senator Barack Obama, they have warmed up to him, with more than half, 53 percent, now saying they have a favorable impression of him … But as voters have gotten to know Senator John McCain, they have not warmed, with only 36 percent of voters saying they view him favorably.” Fact: Many American voters are anti-American, and should be investigated by Michele Bachmann post haste. [New York Times]

OBAMA LEADS BY 14 POINTS AMONG LIKELY VOTERS: “The Obama-Biden ticket now leads the McCain-Palin ticket 53 percent to 39 percent among likely voters, a 14-point margin. One week ago, prior to the Town Hall debate that uncommitted voters saw as a win for Obama, that margin was just three points. ” Too bad he’s a robot! Pointy-headed intellectual Nate Silver suggests the CBS News poll result may be “a modest outlier,” so do not get your panties in a lather just yet. [CBS News]

JOHN McCAIN ONE-THIRD DEAD ALREADY: “There is a roughly 1 in 3 chance that a 72-year-old man will not reach the age of 80, which is how old McCain would be at the end of a second presidential term. And that doesn’t factor in individual medical history, such as McCain’s battles with potentially lethal skin cancer.” This is why it’s so important to get him elected as quickly as possible, before pieces start falling off. [Politico]