Dogs, Not Barking

Things not in the news, which makes them newsworthy.

1. I often stick news about American and coalition war casualties in these items; the news media constantly ignores fluctuations that I certainly think are pretty important. The news here dates back to last week. There were only 8 coalition troop deaths, and 3 US deaths, in Afghanistan  in January. That's the fewest for coalition deaths there since February 2008, and the fewest for US deaths since December 2008; in fact, it's the first time that  US number dropped below 10 since April 2009.

Also: that means it's the lowest combined Afghanistan plus Iraq totals for both coalition and US deaths since before the Iraq War began in March 2003. In other words, this makes the fewest coalition troop deaths from these wars since February 2003, and the fewest US troop deaths since December 2002.

Now, part of that is that fighting in Afghanistan is highly seasonal, with far fewer casualties in winter, but it's still down quite a bit from recent Januaries. Oh, and so far, zero coalition troop deaths in February; there were 24 last year.

2. Minimum wage.

3. I think it's enough of a thing to count: lesser cabinet appointments. The big one here is Commerce, vacant since June. The rest just opened up, but surely those who are leaving gave the president some notice, no?

4. Ummmm...I don't know what goes here any more. I certainly can't do Obama Administration gun control attempts. There's still no sign of a revival of the Fairness Doctrine, but alas it seems that conservatives have accepted that the Fairness Doctrine is really, truly dead. I suppose I could include wild fringe conspiracy theories of stuff the government is supposedly going to do any minute now and note they haven't happened, but it's not really any fun unless it's less on the fringe. Anyone have any ideas? I'll take lefty fringe, too, but only (on both sides) if there's some sign that elected officials and other regular party actors embrace it.