Unified Agenda, May 2008 Edition: "The Unified Agenda summarizes the rules and proposed rules that each Federal agency expects to issue during the next six months."
"Executive Order 12866 (58 FR 51735) and the Regulatory Flexibility Act (5 U.S.C. 602) require that agencies publish semiannual regulatory agendas describing regulatory actions they are developing or have recently completed. Agencies of the United States Congress are not included. The agendas are published in the Federal Register, usually during April and October each year, as part of the Unified Agenda of Federal Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions. The Unified Agenda has appeared in the Federal Register twice each year since 1983 and is available electronically on GPO Access from 1994 forward."

Ohio AG Marc Dann on May 2 vowed at a news conference to stay in office and “repair the damage caused” by his affair with a staffer and an ensuing sexual-harassment investigation that ended with four people losing their jobs. Here are stories from the Cleveland Plain-Dealer and the AP. (HT: Above the Law) The Plain Dealer followed up with an editorial on Sunday calling for Dann’s resignation.
According to the Plain-Dealer, the affair with his 28-year-old former scheduler emerged out of a probe into harassment charges against one of his top managers. Dann partly blamed his inexperience and surprise at winning the 2006 election. “I was not as well prepared for office as I should have been, and I am heartbroken by that and I take responsibility for that,” he told the Plain-Dealer. That said, he’s apparently not sure whether he violated his own office policies by having the relationship, which he said came during a difficult time in his marriage.
“I don’t know what it [the policy] says,” an emotional Dann said at the news conference. “A consensual affair is not necessarily a violation of the sexual harassment policy in my office.”
WSJ Law Blog May 5, 2008

Ohio Democrats talk impeachment
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5i3k2Ps5iqvjW-e9pCQ9OoaIajAFQD90G2JN00

Digital Directory for 800 Telephone Companies Sparks Concern
The Ultimate Little Black Book - One Firm Routes All Phone Calls in North America, by Ellen Nakashima, Washington Post.
"Sterling-based NeuStar is the carriers' digital directory for all phone calls in North America. More than 800 telephone companies have numbers in the database...NeuStar's databases are so powerful that the FBI a few years ago sought direct, unfettered access to one containing 310 million phone numbers in the United States and Canada. The telephone companies that pay NeuStar to run the database denied the FBI's request, but they did allow NeuStar to create a site where authorized law enforcement officials with court orders can obtain carrier information on telephone numbers. NeuStar is part of an evolving telecom industry that is creating caches of information attractive to the government without clear guidelines governing who may have access and under what circumstances. Its registries fall under international, U.S. government and trade association rules, including those set by the Federal Communications Commission."

Changes to the Old Bailey Website in April 2008
"The addition of the 100,000 trial accounts published between 1834 and 1913 represents the single biggest change to this website. We have, however, taken advantage of the opportunity to update many of the technical and historical features of the website and to introduce a new, improved overall design...The old website, last updated in November 2007, will remain available at a separate URL until December 2008, when it will be withdrawn."
 The Proceedings of the Old Bailey, 1674-1913 - A fully searchable edition of the largest body of texts detailing the lives of non-elite people ever published

Charting An Average Consumer's Spending
New York Times chart and data - All of Inflation’s Little Parts: "Each month, the Bureau of Labor Statistics gathers 84,000 prices in about 200 categories — like gasoline, bananas, dresses and garbage collection — to form the Consumer Price Index, one measure of inflation. It’s among the statistics that the Federal Reserve considered when it cut interest rates on April 30. The categories are weighted according to an estimate of what the average American spends, as shown [in the chart]."

On May 6, 1935, President Franklin D. Roosevelt created the Works Progress Administration to provide jobs for unemployed Americans during the Great Depression. More than 8.5 million people were paid an average monthly salary of $41.57 to build roads, paint murals, and record American folklore. Republicans called the WPA "We Pick Apples" or "We Piddle Around." When people asked why the government would give jobs to artists, Harry Hopkins, the man in charge of the program, said, "Hell! They've got to eat just like other people."
The Writer’s Almanac

A new column from the founder of Wordsmith: Sherbet With No R-tificial Ingredients
http://encarta.msn.com/encnet/Features/Columns/?article=AnuSherbet

Q. What is the state bird of Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, North Carolina, Ohio, Virginia and West Virginia
A. The cardinal or redbird/red-bird/red bird or Virginia nightingale
http://www.50states.com/bird/cardinal.htm

Red Bird (lune)
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by Marianne M.
February 04, 2008

red bird against snow
scarlet flash
in winter's garden

LUNE: A thirteen syllable form arranged 5/3/5 in three lines, invented by Robert Kelly in the 1960s.
http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.jsp?articleId=281474977248665

Tanka, renga, hokku and haiku
http://www.ahapoetry.com/haidefjr.htm
“In Japanese a haiku is traditionally 5-7-5 sound syllables. All languages cannot duplicate this method of counting syllables . . . “