Rules issued by presidents in their final months in office, like most issued by federal agencies, need no congressional approval, and a phrase has been coined to describe them. They became known as “midnight regulations,” after the “midnight judges” appointed by John Adams in the final hours of his Presidency. Under an obscure law passed in 1996, Congress has the power to revoke recently imposed rules. That law has been used successfully only once.
http://www.newyorker.com/talk/comment/2008/11/24/081124taco_talk_kolbert

Congressional Research Service Report: Midnight Rulemaking: Considerations for Congress and a New Administration, November 18, 2008
"Summary: At the end of every recent presidential administration involving a change in the party controlling the White House, the level of rulemaking activity by federal agencies tends to increase. On May 9, 2008, White House Chief of Staff Joshua B. Bolten issued a memorandum to the heads of executive departments and agencies stating that regulations to be finalized in this Administration should be proposed no later than June 1, 2008, and final regulations should be issued no later than November 1, 2008.

Google has released a new feature, called SearchWiki, that allows users to vote search results up or down, remove them entirely, or leave notes with their thoughts. While the rankings appear to only affect the account of the user who made them for now, the notes are public and readable by anyone. http://venturebeat.com/2008/11/21/google-proves-its-search-methods-arent-set-in-stone/

THE 2008 NATIONAL BOOK AWARDS WINNERS
Fiction: Peter Matthiessen, Shadow Country (Modern Library) - Interview
Nonfiction: Annette Gordon-Reed, The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family (W.W. Norton & Company) -Interview
Young People's Literature: Judy Blundell, What I Saw and How I Lied (Scholastic) - Interview
Poetry: Mark Doty, Fire to Fire: New and Collected Poems
(HarperCollins) - Interview
http://www.nationalbook.org/

Phrase to remember in winter: “. . . below-zero air as bracing as champagne . . .”
Robert Service (1874-1958) Canadian writer (born in England) from Yukon Gold

Archives at University of Michigan
The Longone Center for American Culinary Research consists of the Janice Bluestein Longone Culinary Archive augmented by the rich Americana holdings of the Clements Library, catalogued for their culinary content. There are thousands of menus from restaurants, private dinners and banquets, especially from the Columbian Exposition in 1893. http://www.clements.umich.edu/culinary/about.html

mythologem (mi-THOL-uh-jem) noun
A basic theme of a myth, for example, revenge, honor, betrayal, etc.
From Greek mythologema (mythical narrative), from mythologein (to tell mythical tales), from mythos (myth) + -logos (word or speech) A.Word.A.Day

On November 23, 1783, Annapolis became the U.S. capital and remained so until June 1784. http://www.brainyhistory.com/events/1783/november_23_1783_43785.html

On November 23, 1889 the Jukebox made its debut at the Palais Royale Saloon in San Francisco. It was called a "nickel-in-the-slot player" and was built by the Pacific Phonograph Co. Later that year, jukeboxes were installed in other places around the city and on ferries that traveled back and forth across the bay between San Francisco and Oakland. The jukebox consisted of an electric phonograph inside a free-standing oak cabinet. The technology for amplifiers hadn't been perfected yet, so there were headphones, which looked like stethoscopes. Up to four people could listen to a song at any given time. In 1927, the Automatic Musical Instruments Company introduced the first jukebox with amplifiers. The Writer’s Almanac