“…Over my past four years, I’ve outsourced more business jobs then I thought possible and more personal tasks than some would consider appropriate… and I cannot imagine doing it any other way – and not to mention, it’s been a blast. Sound intriguing? …”

“…I believe the biggest mistake in the “mindset” of people today is thinking that enough exercise can get them the weight loss they want and should be their top priority. I was reminded of this recently by a person I see in the gym who is doing at least 2+ hours of daily cardio and some weights. He is in there 4-5x a week and I kid you not, brings food to the gym to snack on while he works out. I’ve consulted with him in the past and told him that he needed to focus less on working out and more on eating correctly, yet his response was “Oh…I can’t do that, I like to eat too much…so I need to workout instead”. Wrong……wrong….wrong. …”

“Bishop Macram Gassis shepherds the founding of a civilization … And he does it through action: Life-endangering charity and clarity. Gassis is the Catholic bishop of El Obeid, which includes Darfur, and is less than 2 percent Catholic…”

“A conservative blog posts 2 minutes, 38 seconds of video clips of a black federal agriculture official saying she didn’t do everything she could to help a white farmer. The blogger labels it racism. Calls grow for the Obama administration to remove her. No one at the Agriculture Department or the White House checks further. The official is forced to resign. Monday ends, but not the story…”

“At 2:10 p.m. ET, Spitz issued this statement:

‘I made poorly considered remarks about Rush Limbaugh to what I believed was a private email discussion group from my personal email account. As a publicist, I realize more than anyone that is no excuse for irresponsible behavior. I apologize to anyone I may have offended and I regret these comments greatly; they do not reflect the values by which I conduct my life.’ …”

“…From my very existence to my recent attainment of my PhD, there is no one more directly responsible for my being here and being as I am than my mom. It is the sort of enormous debt one can never pay back but only ever hope to pay forward to children of one’s own. And no one could ever have my interests more purely at heart than she does. And no one, not even I, could be more unabashedly proud of me or anything I accomplish than she is.

“Nearly every good trait I have is either a variation or poor imitation of hers and it always brings me great pride to discover a way that I emulate her. Through whatever combinations of genetic and interpersonal influence, I have inherited, learned, and continue to aspire to acquire her icebreaking gregariousness, disarmingly self-deprecating sense of humor, open-book honesty (even with utter strangers), fierce loyalty, appreciation of people, mature self-awareness, emotional resilience, dogged principledness, reflexive hospitality, utter openheartedness, bottomless ability to forgive, scrupulous work ethic, clear-headed perspective, unshakable moral uprightness, and full-hearted, full-time devotion to love…”

“In a mostly blue state where Democrats control the Legislature, Mr. Christie, a Republican, won election last year mostly because of the deep unpopularity of his opponent, Gov. Jon S. Corzine. Mr. Christie, a former federal prosecutor known for aggression rather than deal-making, took office to predictions that his hard-charging style would not work in the labyrinth of Trenton, where factions of party, region and interest group would slow him down.

“Instead, he confronted the powerful public employees’ unions and won, cutting future pensions and benefits, and persuaded voters to defeat hundreds of local school budgets. He got nearly everything he wanted in the state budget, making the deepest cuts in generations. And the Assembly is expected this week to give final passage to one of his cherished goals: a cap on local property taxes. …”

“…Behind the scenes, it was even worse. The night before Obama announced the administration’s housing plan on Feb. 18 in Arizona, Sperling e-mailed the final documents at 3 a.m. and asked for comments. Five people responded immediately.

Martin Moore-Ede, a former Harvard University professor, calls it the “iron man” syndrome and says the American political workplace is one of the few that still resists a mechanism for ensuring people get rest.

One study conducted for the British Parliament found that “mental fatigue affects cognitive performance, leading to errors of judgement, microsleeps (lasting for seconds or minutes), mood swings and poor motivation.” The effect, it found, is equal to a blood alcohol level of .10 percent — above the legal limit to drive in the United States.

Obama administration officials, and their predecessors, shrug off such warnings, citing the adrenaline rush. They insist that their bodies have grown strangely accustomed to the rhythms of the job. But they acknowledge that the routine in the White House is more grueling than most had anticipated.

The staff is beginning to take a few breaks. One deputy press secretary found time to get away to Hawaii for a few days. Gibbs went to his high school reunion in Alabama, the first weekend away that he can remember.

But, he says, it is not enough.

“You go down to the mess. You have your coffee at five in the afternoon, and it just doesn’t do anything,” Gibbs lamented. “Because you realize you’re so far behind [in sleep] that a jolt — you don’t even feel it.”

George MacDonald Fraser, R.I.P. — Scott Johnson, Powerline
George MacDonald Fraser, R.I.P. — Sam Munson, The Horizon on Commentary Magazine
To Fraser (And Flashman)! — Max Boot, The Horizon on Commentary Magazine.