Adults and teens will spend nearly five months (3,518 hours) next year watching television, surfing the Internet, reading daily newspapers and listening to personal music devices. That’s only one of thousands of nuggets of information on Americana and the world in the U.S. Census Bureau’s Statistical Abstract of the United States: 2007.

According to projections from a communications industry forecast, people will spend 65 days in front of the TV, 41 days listening to radio and a little over a week on the Internet in 2007. Adults will spend about a week reading a daily newspaper and teens and adults will spend another week listening to recorded music. Consumer spending for media is forecasted to be $936.75 per person. (U.S. Census Bureau News)

From Maureen Dowd’s interview with Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert in the current issue of Rolling Stone.

Stewart: “The cornerstone of politics these days is grievance. It’s really hard to keep that going when you’re in power. I’ve admired their ability to hold on to that idea of being aggrieved while maintaining almost absolute control of all functions of government. I love it.”

Colbert: “I think the way you said it the other day on your show was “Bush is not dumb. He speaks to us like we’re dumb.”

Stewart: “It was sort of like his trip to Baghdad. He went for four hours into the Green Zone and comes back and says Iraq is making great progress. It would be like if we went to the Olive Garden and started going, “I understand Italy.”

Stewart: “I still don’t consider myself political. People confuse political interest with interest in current events. The political industry is devoted to the electing and un-electing of officials, and that can be corrosive. If the Republicans don’t lose either house, people will talk about Karl Rove’s genius. There’s no genius. It will be the triumph of machine and money and strategy over reality. I don’t think that’s anything to honor or enjoy.

Edit note: My original post earlier today included the first Q and A as placeholder until I could purchase and read the full Rolling Stone article.

Working late tonight. Had my dinner at my desk while watching ABC’s World News Webcast. Ran almost 17 min with no commercials except for a little spot at the beginning and end. Perfect. It had a more relaxed feel but that might have been my imagination. The quality of the video was exceptional and the 320 pixel video is fine when you’re 18 inches away. I paused a couple of times while I tended to other business. If you think you’re pretty fast on the Blackberry, watch this piece from the webcast.

Our networks are streaming our newscasts but –as Mark Ramsey warns– simply repurposing your existing programming won’t be enough. Not by a long shot.