Election Eve – You are Warned

The best investigative reporting of 2011 worthy of a Pulitizer | Talking Points Memo. Let’s be honest: Most investigative reporting doesn’t get widely read because it’s dense, inaccessible and not very compelling. It lands with a thud and isn’t heard from again. That’s why I was rooting for a couple of guys this time around for Pulitzers whose work was doggedly reported, widely read, and forced the powers that be to react.

Controversies Over Mosques and Islamic Centers Across the U.S. – Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. This map shows the locations of 35 proposed mosques and Islamic centers that have encountered community resistance in the last two years. Click on a location for a brief overview of the project based on news reports. In many cases, the opposition has centered on neighbors’ concerns about traffic, noise, parking and property values – the same objections that often greet churches and other houses of worship as well as commercial construction projects. In some communities, however, opponents of mosques also have cited…

Rent Affordability on Minimum Wage – NYTimes.com. But even if you quibble with how exactly the Coalition put the chart together, it’s clear that there’s a mismatch between the minimum wage and the cost of living (or at least a decent cost of living). In New York, which is in the midst of a fight over raising the minimum wage, two individuals would need to work 68 hours a week each to manage the rent on a two-bedroom unit. If they have kids, the 70 percent of their paychecks left after rent won’t get them very far.