Rotundus.com

See this story from Buffalo News. The lead-in:

His first day back to work was a bit surreal.

Less than two months ago, he was prime minister of Somalia. He battled terrorists, pirates and warlords. He addressed dignitaries from the United Nations.

Now, Mohamed A. Mohamed is back at his old job at the state Department of Transportation downtown, back to his little cubicle with a window overlooking Swan Street.

There's even a Tim Hortons reference in the story, which further added to the oddity.

The New York Times had an article entitled Putting an Antebellum Myth to Rest, arguing against the statement that "a child born into slavery in 1860 was more likely to be raised by his mother and father in a two-parent household than was an African-American baby born after the election of the USA’s first African-American President" from a Marriage Vow that a few Republican candidates sign.

The point of the New York Times piece seems to be that... well... slavery sucks and that slaves had very few rights. This included the lack of a right to a legally recognized marriage apparently.

it was 150 years ago, soon after the war began, that the government started to respect the dignity of slave families. Slaves did not live in independent “households”; they lived under the auspices of masters who controlled the terms of their most intimate relationships. ... Back in 1860, marriage was a civil right and a legal contract, available only to free people. ... Though slaves could not marry legally, they were allowed to do so by custom with the permission of their owners — and most did. But the wedding vows they recited promised not “until death do us part,” but “until distance” — or, as one black minister bluntly put it, “the white man” — “do us part.”

The article makes the legitimate point that slaves might be sold to an alternate owner, breaking up families, but none of this refutation includes statistics. It's those statistics that you'd need to examine to verify or dispute the claim.

I don't know what the answer is - the US Census Data shows a significant difference in household status by race, with a minority of black households being of the two-parent sort. I'm not sure what percentage of the children of slaves grew up with two parents accessible to them.

Slavery is a terrible thing. I agree. However, that's not the specific claim here. I still haven't seen a full refutation of it just as I still haven't seem evidence in support of the original claim.

I've typically found the Colbert Report to be one of the more nuanced shows out there, but particularly in reference to the show's comments on the U.S. debt ceiling discussions that seems to be crumbling. He's been pretty consistent at staying in character as a satirical play on the over-the-top Republican commentator, but on the debt ceiling he seems to have lost that element in favour of boring old Democratic party line.

The assertions you are find that it's the end of the economy, Democrats are doing nothing but caving to every demand, etc. Are most of his writers on vacation or something? There are lots of things that could be noted here, ranging from a certain Illinois senator's words in 2006 on why the debt ceiling shouldn't be raised, or that rather than the Republicans insisting on draconian cuts, the rating agencies are reporting that neither plan makes sufficient cuts - it seems to simply decrease the rate at which spending increases.

What happened to the more nuanced Colbert? Looking at studies of the show's impact, one found a boost in fundraising to Democrats (but not Republicans) who appeared on the show, while simultaneously another study reported that:

when young adults are exposed to The Colbert Report's humor, they are not led to be more critical of the far right. Instead, the opposite happens, and there is an increased affinity for President Bush, Republicans in Congress, and Republican policies. Ironically, Colbert's attempts to poke fun at conservative commentators may be helping those same commentators spread their message.

Both the Wall Street Journal and New York Times have articles looking at this issue - why did it take the police so long to respond. Per the New York Times most police there are unarmed, and that could be one reason why a police officer at the camp there wound up being one of the first to get shot.

In addition to unarmed police, there were other issues. The New York Times gives the generic statement that "A police helicopter was unable to get off the ground", whereas the Wall Street Journal supplies the details that this was because "its crew members were on vacation." Why was there no backup crew? And then after they drove the shore opposite the camp, their boat broke down according to the Wall Street Journal.

The New York Times notes that

It took police SWAT units more than an hour to reach the camp, on Utoya Island, after reports of the shooting came in. Officers had to drive to the shore across from the site of the shooting attack, and use boats to get to the island. A police helicopter was unable to get off the ground; news crews that reached the island by air could only watch as the gunman continued the massacre.

Seems like a somewhat self-serving quote on the part of journalists to me. If the journalists could make it to the island by air, presumably they could have allowed the police to hop on their helicopter as well. "Could only watch" seems like a bit of a false statement.

Anne Holt, Norway’s former justice minister, told the BBC: “That makes him a person that killed one person every minute. If the police had actually been there just a half an hour earlier, then 30 young lives would have been saved.”