Economic Green Shoots; Punk Rock Raid; Syria at War, and Stingy States: Reason Evening Links

Jon Corzine strikes out. Former New Jersey senator and governor limps through his testimony to the House. 

Unemployment claims down. New jobless claims lowest in three years. Hasty media declare recovery. Grain of salt: Dig the workforce participation level. 

Syria's army may be falling apart. Rebels claim military defectors have killed "27 soldiers and secret policemen." Border violence get worse as enemy-rich Assad regime tries to block aid to dissidents. Regime attempts to buy support with subsidy-rich 59 percent increase in spending. 

Next stop, Nowhere: Authorities in Indonesia's Aceh province raid punk rock concert, arrest 65 youths, shave off boys' Mohawks and restyling girls' hair into bobs. The unlucky music fans will be subjected to extensive retraining in order to instill proper Islamic values. "We're not torturing anyone," a police chief tells AP. "We're not violating human rights. We're just trying to put them back on the right moral path."

Jacques Tootite. Former French President Jacques Chirac convicted of embezzlement and violating public trust in scandal over no-show jobs for party members during his tenure as mayor of Paris.

More Paris institutions: Shakespeare and Company owner George Whitman dies at 98. The Left Bank bookstore, a successor to the original English-language shop started by Sylvia Beach, has hung on as a literary center for nearly 60 years.

Good country people. Red states dominate 247wallst.com's ranking of most charitable states. Maine, home to undertaxed-millionaire horrormeisters, is nation's cheapest state. 

A bunch of movies you probably haven't seen get Golden Globe nominations from the preposterous "Hollywood Foreign Press Association." 

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