Collective Conscious

At home:

You wouldn’t guess it from the fight on in Wash­ing­ton these days, but it turns out that the White House did some­thing right: The eco­nomic stim­u­lus pack­age passed last year has cre­ated between 1.6 mil­lion and 1.8 mil­lion jobs accord­ing to the best-​​known eco­nomic –esearch firms, and in the end that num­ber will rise to 2.5 mil­lion. Mean­while, The Wall Street Jour­nal points out that two-​​thirds of the stim­u­lus is yet to be spent. With Con­gress con­tem­plat­ing another jobs bill, David Leon­hardt writes that “The last year has shown—just as econ­o­mists have long said—that aid to states and cities may be the sin­gle most effec­tive form of stim­u­lus. Unlike road– or bridge-​​building, it can hap­pen in a mat­ter of weeks.”

And abroad:

A Tal­iban leader known to offi­cials as the “shadow gov­er­nor” of Afghanistan’s Kun­duz province has been cap­tured in Pak­istan, Newsweek reports. Pak­istani author­i­ties, work­ing in con­cert with U.S. offi­cials, caught Mul­lah Abdul Salam about a week ago, around the same time that Mul­lah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the Taliban’s sec­ond in com­mand, was cap­tured. Three other mil­i­tants were also detained along with Mul­lah Salam. It is not yet clear whether Mul­lah Salam is linked to Mul­lah Baradar, though sources say the two had planned to meet right before Mul­lah Salam was cap­tured. “Thanks to solid intel­li­gence work and some coura­geous part­ners in Pak­istan, this hasn’t been a good time for the lead­er­ship of the Afghan Tal­iban,” a coun­tert­er­ror­ism offi­cial said.

What’s not to like about this guy?