Various in the Mississippi papers, and a Folo contest [folo]

“Holbrook Mohr of the AP has a decent summary of the Langston letters controversy, apparently written before Sandra Knispell weighed in.

The Clarion Ledger puts the will-Nutt-leave rumors to rest (one hopes– although one Nutt quote is honest but not necessarily reassuring about this: ’‘It’s business,’ Nutt said. ‘As good of friends as we are here, it’s business, it’s business, it’s business. Now you want to do the best job you can. I’m very appreciative of the salary.’’) with a story about the $2.5M incentive in the contract extension he was given. The story suggests Nutt is not reading over our shoulders here on the intertubes: ’‘I’m a real pro with the Internet,’ Nutt said kiddingly. ‘I can’t even turn one on, but I know that stories are out there and blogs are out there. But we [he and Pete Boone] haven’t had an argument. We haven’t had a sit-down brawl. That’s so far from the truth.’’

Another article about Mississippians’ take on the effort for clemency for Bernie Ebbers. One theme that’s supported is that Ebbers just didn’t understand the illegal schemes his finance subordinate was hatching. Is anyone still buying that? Others are that he’s being punished harsher than similar criminals, that he’s paid his due, and that he wouldn’t have been convicted in Mississippi. How much of his sentence has he served? Less than a fifth? Twenty-five years is a long time, but Ebbers hasn’t made it any easier by his (and his supporters) persistent refusal to acknowledge what he did that led to the conviction.

Folo contest: I’ll buy a drink at the get-together for Folo for the foloer who first identifies the hidden implied Scruggs-saga reference in the Clarion Ledger Ebbers story! It’s like finding the baby in the king cake!

We’re number one. Oh, no. Mississippi is leading the nation in mortgage delinquencies and headed that way in foreclosures.

In the Daily Journal, Roger Wicker is quoted saying he likes Hillary Clinton at State and Bill Richardson at Commerce, he’s still a skeptic on the auto industry bailout, but that he will work to filibuster the Employee Free Choice act (which the paper states would allow a union to win a union representation vote by getting over 50% of the employees to sign a card card agreeing to union representation).”