Dutch finds gainful employment!

Starting today, Dude Weather is continuing over at the Rake. Go check him out there.

Note from underground: Changes…

Dear Mole readers and friends,

The rumors, first reported last week by David Brauer and Brian Lambert, are true: Beginning on February 19, I will be joining Minnesota Monitor. The Mole is going on hiatus starting today, likely to re-emerge as a personal site with a more arts/culture orientation.

It’s been a lot of fun doing the Daily Mole during the past three months-plus. I want to thank all of you for the interest and support that allowed us to build from 2000 or so page views a day during the early part of public beta to 8,000-10,000 a day over the last few weeks–all without paid promotion or mainstream media exposure.

Trying to raise start-up funding in this climate has not been so gratifying. Neither has working in relative isolation every day as we bootstrapped the start-up. I’m very grateful to the world’s finest interweb weatherman, Jimmy “Dutch” Gaines, to my wife Cecily Marcus and our family, and to music contributor Jon Hunt.

And I look forward to working alongside the folks at Minnesota Monitor to ensure the site is one of the most useful and provocative sources of local news and campaign 2008 coverage. Some of the stories and the content departments we’ve been working on here will move to the Monitor, which, I’m excited to say, is in the process of expanding its resources and its coverage.

Hope you’ll join me and the Monitor’s growing roster of contributors there. And once again, thanks for reading and thanks for your support, encouragement, and criticisms.

Dude Weather 2/05

Gossip Morning

• Jamie Spears, Britney’s father, will maintain control over his daughter’s affairs because a judge has ruled that she is not competent. Oh, and her estate is worth 40 million dollars.
• Lindsay Lohan gives a p.r.-perfect interview to Glamour Magazine about life after rehab. Among the highlights: she likes staying home now, and it hard to be around certain friends because they have “gone down a different path.” Gag me.
• Ellen Page wears something other than black to some red carpet event. She still won’t really smile, though. 
• Patrick Swayze spent the weekend at Stanford Medical Center to be treated for a “gastrointestinal procedure.” He is now resting comfortably at home, I am happy to report. 

Gossip Morning

• Britney Spears is extending her stay at UCLA Medical Center for 14 days, unless she protests the hold.
• What Spears is protesting is her father’s control over her estate, which he acquired on Friday.
• Michelle Williams releases a very sad public statement. Really. 
• Singer Lily Allen was dumped by her boyfriend two weeks after having a miscarriage. The couple had recently returned from a $6000 a night vacation in the Maldives. 

Movies opening this week

The Eye

Strange Wilderness

Below the jump: Over Her Dead Body

read on »

Festivus Friday: Air your grievances, large or small

Every Friday at the Daily Mole, we ask you to air your grievances from the week gone by.

Eligible targets: bosses, spouses, politicians, co-workers, favorite teams, BFFs gone bad, media, celebrities (real or local), other people’s pets and children, or anyone/anything else that has caused you aggrievement or dyspeptitude in the previous seven days.

Use some common sense. If you’re talking about private individuals you know personally or work with (if it’s a personal story, that is), change names–and don’t provide identifying details that would violate their privacy, because the sad fact of American jurisprudence is that even scoundrels have privacy rights.Beyond that, let them have it.

Big Deep Questions: What’s the weirdest thing you ever bought or sold on eBay?

Tell us all about it. And if you’re able and inclined to send a picture of it, please do: steve [at] dailymole [dot] com.

Crowd check: The economy at street level

The Mole is no economist, and chances are you aren’t either. But while professional economy watchers continue to debate whether we’re in a recession yet, the air of panic among analysts, investors, and people on the street grows more unmistakable by the day. Earlier this week, the stock market fell nearly 500 points in morning trading before the Fed revived it–for how long, we’ll see–with an emergency rate cut. The real estate crisis shows no sign of reaching bottom anytime soon (Behind the Mortgage blogger Alex Stenback said in a recent Molecast that he thought the bottom was still 12-18 months away); consumer debt, government deficits, and foreign trade deficits stand at record levels; and the dollar is so weak that experts are speculating about when it will fall from its throne as the world’s benchmark currency (previous Mole post).

Our question: What’s your dread level about all this? Does it strike you as just another one of those cyclical downturns we go through periodically, or something worse? Again, we’re not asking for expert speculation here. Just your gut sense, and whatever you’ve been saying or hearing about it.

More: The Molecast I did two weeks ago with economics journalist Doug Henwood is the clearest rundown of current economic indicators I’ve heard from any source. I highly and immodestly recommend you check it out, if you didn’t listen at the time.