Good morning, City Desk readers, and welcome to another installment of Freedom Friday! It’s 72 degree right now with a projected high of 84. It’s still sweatshirt weather in some parts of the country, or so I’ve heard, but not here. After three nice (some would say “so-so”) weekends, D.C. moved immediately into butt-sweat season. And with that physical discomfort comes discomfort of another kind: Hill interns! The anecdotes are pouring in at Spotted: DC Summer Interns: Interns who studied alchemy. Interns with alcoholism. Interns who bitch. Add your own!

Street art, the deficit, the recession, and a rush of blood to the District, after the jump.

• Banksy, the British graffiti artist who dared tag The Wall, recently installed a massive display under cover of darkness in his hometown of Bristol. Only a few of his fans managed to figure out what he was up to. His only clue? “Speculation began among Banksy‘s online followers earlier this week, after the artist replaced his official website with a single unsavoury image of an ice cream cone dropped in a pile of dog mess.” I hear England is a lot like the United States, except the weather is piss-poor and the shawarma costs more. But hell, I’d visit to see a Banksy display.
• The federal government’s job portal is packed with up-and-comers, according to a recent Reuters article: “Some of the appeal of Washington simply reflects the grim reality of graduating in the midst of the worst recession in decades. The U.S. unemployment rate jumped to 9.4 percent in May, which means new graduates are competing with a large pool of older unemployed workers for a limited supply of jobs….”Students don’t see the private sector as being as viable this year,” said Edwin Koc, director of strategic and foundation research for the Pennsylvania-based NACE.” The only possible upside to all of this is fewer dullards in charge. (Because, let’s not kid ourselves, pre-recession, the best of the best sure as hell weren’t coming here first.) (H/t to the Agitator.)
• Howard Kurtz makes a long overdue point about the inability of the MSM to communicate important information: “The media, though, have put [the deficit] way on the back burner. It’s complicated. It’s boring. It takes place mostly in the out-years.” Kurtz dedicates a lot of ink to massive ALL-CAP quotes from people like Glenn “Instapundit” Reynolds (take note Maureen). The long and short of it is that the media spends so little time addressing the deficit that when it comes time to talk about it again (like, once every 7 years, or something), no one knows where to point. KNOWING WHERE TO POINT IS A BIG DEAL! WE HAVE TO BLAME SOMEONE! Newspaper editors, also take note: Employment is about to reach 10% because you all suck at watch-dogging almost as bad as Citigroup/AIG/WHOMEVER suck at banking.
• Lastly, I prefer to plug libtards and fiscal conservatives in these here roundups, but I’ve found a completely apolitical blog that I now have to read every single day: WaPo’s “Half a Tank: Along Recession Road.” Written by Theresa Vargas and shot by Michael Williamson, this stuff will choke you up.