News Nuggets 1030

DAYLEE PICTURE: Sunset high in the Wind River Range in Wyoming.  From Smithsonian Magazine.

UP-FRONT INSPIRING RADIO/MOVIE NUGGET!!
Unfortunately, the Bob Edwards radio program is only available to SiriusXM subscribers.  If you can download this program DO SO!!  The discussion of this upcoming documentary is profoundly moving!!  If you can see the documentary, DO SO!!
"Searching For Sugar Man" on PRI's Bob Edwards' Weekend program
"In 1970, a Mexican-American folk singer named Rodriguez released his debut album and hardly anyone noticed. ... Following the disappointments, Rodriguez decided to return to his reality - a modest life of hard work doing construction and demolition in Detroit. Amazingly, his music somehow made it to South Africa where the songs became an inspirational soundtrack for those deciding to stand up against Apartheid. ...  In South Africa, Rodriguez became as well-known as Jimi Hendrix and Elvis Presley — and as far as these new fans knew, Rodriguez was just as dead."

Christian Right Historian David Barton in Freefall Over ‘Jefferson Lies’ (Michelle Goldberg) from the Daily Beast
"David Barton has been a hero to the right for claiming the founding fathers wanted a Christian nation. But now even his conservative peers are disowning his work."
Yeah, but I'll bet this third-rate historian made a BUNDLE during his brief tenure as conservative "hero."  Isn't that usually the point for these writers and pseudo-scholars who go down this path?

If You Read This Book, You Will Not Get Married (Melissa Holbrook Pierson) from the Daily Beast
"A new memoir about divorce is so powerful, dark, and raw that you will run away from marriage just reading about it. Melissa Holbrook Pierson on the radical honesty of Rachel’s Cusk’s Aftermath."

AND NOW -- reactions to Romney's VP pick:
Mitt Romney will name Paul Ryan as his VP. Here’s what that means. (Ezra Klein) from the Washington Post
Check out Kelin's entire analysis!
"It’s not just that Romney now has to defend Ryan’s budget. To some degree, that was always going to be true. What he will now have to defend is everything else Ryan has proposed. Ryan was, for instance, the key House backer of Social Security privatization."
Additional point: the REST of the GOP (and their candidates) will have to defend the Ryan budget -- or the Tea Party wingnuts and the Romneybots will hear the reason why not!  This pick will seriously divide the GOP as candidates in moderate/Democratically leaning states will feel pressure to tow the line.

Think this doesn't put Romney in a box, see here how Romney is ALREADY running away from the Ryan budget.
Mitt Romney: Paul Ryan Budget Is Not His, Candidate 'Putting Together His Own' (Sam Stein) from the Huffington Post
If you don't align with Ryan's budget, WHY did you pick him?!
"Within minutes of tapping Paul Ryan as his vice presidential nominee, presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney was distancing himself from the congressman's controversial budget, which includes steep cuts to government programs and changing Medicare into a voucher-like program."

Also see this item from earlier this year:
Catholic Bishops Say Ryan Budget Fails Moral Test from the Huffington Post 
"A week after House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan claimed his Catholic faith inspired the Republicans' cost-cutting budget plan, the nation's Catholic bishops reiterated their demand that the federal budget protect the poor, and said the GOP measure "fails to meet these moral criteria.""

A Risky Rationale Behind Romney’s Choice of Ryan (Nate Silver) from the New York Times
"When is it rational to take a big risk? ... When a prudent candidate like Mitt Romney picks someone like Representative Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin as his running mate, it suggests that he felt he held a losing position against President Obama. "

Michael Tomasky on Romney’s Stunning, Terrible Choice of Ryan for VP (Michael Tomasky) from the Daily Beast
"So much for Romney making a pick that says something about his own views (whatever they are). Instead, he feared what Bill Kristol might say and buckled under. As always."

Democrats say Ryan is an Enemy of the Middle Class (Aamer Madhani and Catalina Camia) from USA Today
With Mitt Romney's pick of Rep. Paul Ryan as his Republican running mate, Obama surrogates immediately sought to define the congressman as a wild-eyed ideologue set on slashing Medicare and other popular entitlement programs."

The Illogic of Romney Picking Paul Ryan for Vice President from US News and World Report
"He doesn't have a vision for America of his own so he decided to embrace someone else's. What then is the raison d'etre for a Romney presidency if it's a Ryan agenda?"

Rep. Paul Ryan VP Choice Draws Criticism From Some Conservatives (Howard Fineman) from the Huffington Post
The critiques from these conservatives are very interesting and largely on point.
"Despite general cheer among conservatives, some in that camp are apoplectic at Mitt Romney's choice of Rep. Paul Ryan as his vice presidential running mate, though they are reluctant to say so publicly. Here -- anonymously, by his request -- is a critique of the choice by one of the country's most prominent and influential conservatives, who sent this analysis to close friends:"

Why Ryan? (David Frum) from the Daily Beast
"This election—which Romney once intended to make a referendum on Obama's record—will now become a referendum on Paul Ryan's bold budget ideas. Why would Romney make such a choice and take such a risk?  5 hypotheses: ... Economic conditions are so tough—the Obama reelection proposition is so weak—that Romney may win anyway. But wow, the job just got harder."

Veepstakes, Finally Over (Craig Crawford) from his blog
"WI Rep. Paul Ryan’s plan to privatize Medicare is about as politically toxic as it gets. In picking this darling of conservative elites Romney is spread eagle on the third rail. Now we know he knows it. This decision shows just how insecure he is about holding his party’s base. He got bullied into this, the most telling sign yet that he is desperate."

Paul Ryan Choice Could Ignite Ideological War (Rick Klein) from ABC News 
"Choosing Ryan is a tacit acknowledgment by the campaign that its initial assumptions about the race – that it’s a coin flip, that Romney’s biography and experience could speak for itself, that making the race a referendum on President Obama was enough – no longer apply."

With Paul Ryan, Romney Makes the VP Pick Obama Wanted (David Corn) from Mother Jones Magazine
"Romney has helped Obama in his No. 1 mission: shape the election not as a referendum on the sluggish economy but as a sharp clash between opposing sets of values and programs for the future."

Obama Team Salivates Over Ryan Pick (Major Garrett) from the National Journal
"... senior advisers to President Obama's re-election campaign believed, long before presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney picked Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan as his running mate, that Romney had been oddly and helpfully "collaborative" in making the Obama case against him. ... From team Obama's perspective, the Ryan choice transforms this imagined and perceived collaboration into a virtual partnership."

We are Winning (Markos Moulitsas) from Daily Kos
"... being the Reality Based Community, the fact that we have to work hard all the way through Election Day doesn't prevent us from noting that yes, we're kind of kicking their butts."

The New Christine O’Donnells? Hard-Right Nominees Endanger GOP Senate Hopes from Talking Points Memo
"Two years ago, even as the Republican Party stormed into power in the House, a crop of hard-right Senate nominees flamed out and cost the party valuable seats. Now, it might be déjà vu as Democrats happily compare several new conservative Senate candidates to Christine O’Donnell, the tea party darling who infamously cost Republicans what should have been a surefire seat."

News Nuggets 1029

DAYLEE PICTURE: The ancient silk road wound its way through this wild and remote territory of south Kyrgystan, one of the former soviet republics.  From National Geographic.

UP-FRONT CONVENTION NUGGET!!
Exclusive: Obama to Include Republicans in Hard-hitting Convention from Politico
"Advisers to President Barack Obama are scripting a Democratic National Convention featuring several Republicans in a prime-time appeal to independents — and planning a blistering portrayal of Mitt Romney as a heartless aristocrat who “would devastate the American middle class,” Democratic sources tell POLITICO."

How Muslims Really Think about Islam (Marc Lynch) from Foreign Policy Magazine
"Contrary to the conventional wisdom that the Middle East is being reshaped by a rising Islamist generation, Muslims older than 35 are significantly more religious than those under 35. They are more likely to pray several times a day, to attend mosque, to read the Quran daily, and to say religion is important in their lives. And the margins are pretty wide."
Interestingly, one sees the same generational divide among devout Christians in the US.

Trying to Identify the Next Far-Right Extremist Before He Shoots (Eliza Shapiro) from the Daily Beast
"It’s easy to see the crazed race hatred of a violent white supremacist after the fact… but getting them before they kill is an imperfect science at best. Eliza Shapiro reports on the race to stop the next mass murderer before he strikes."

How Apple and Amazon Security Flaws Led to My Epic Hacking (Mat Honan) from Wired Magazine
"In the space of one hour, my entire digital life was destroyed. First my Google account was taken over, then deleted. Next my Twitter account was compromised, and used as a platform to broadcast racist and homophobic messages. And worst of all, my AppleID account was broken into, and my hackers used it to remotely erase all of the data on my iPhone, iPad, and MacBook."

Valley of Denial: Some Penn State Supporters Just Don't Get It from the Editorial Board of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
"The child abuse scandal will fester as long as Penn State's staunchest defenders refuse to accept the penalties."

90 Days Until the Election—And Obama Has the Advantage (Nate Cohn) from the New Republic
"... a close race, which is what the polls show, is not the same as a dead heat. Romney is an imperfect candidate who has been poorly served by a strategy that has failed to contest Obama’s predictable attacks, leaving him poorly positioned heading into the conventions."

National and Battleground Polls Align, as Tax Returns Story Goes National (Markos Moulitsas) from Daily Kos
"The most plausible theory was that Obama was doing better in the battleground states because that's where he was focusing his campaign—both in paid media and campaign appearances. That theory just got a major boost, as the national polling has finally caught up to the state-level polling."

Romney Campaign Contests Polling Numbers (Zeke Miller) from BuzzFeed 
"Mitt Romney's presidential campaign is at a loss to explain a series national polls showing the candidate slipping to President Barack Obama. "It's the middle of summer, it’s the doldrums. It’s the Olympics. There has not been any national news that would push these numbers from -3 to -9," a senior Romney adviser told reporters on Friday at a briefing in campaign headquarters."

Mitt Romney and the Return of the Repressed (Joan Walsh) from Salon 
"Not even the Mittness protection program to hide his past can keep Romney and team from sometimes telling the truth."

Jon Huntsman Sr., Longtime Romney Backer, Calls on Him to Release Tax Returns (Greg Sargent) from the Washington Post
"The internet is alive with speculation that the secret source Harry Reid claims to have on Mitt Romney’s tax returns is Utah industrialist Jon Huntsman Sr. He is the founder of Hunstman Corporation and the father of the former GOP presidential candidate — and the speculation is based on the fact that his profile fits with much of what we publicly know about Reid’s presumed confidante."

Romney Wants his Taxes, Business Record Off Table (Maggie Haberman) from Politico
"What is surprising is hearing a candidate say, essentially, "stop hitting me." As the folks at First Read note, this would seem to be something of a concession that the negatives are bothering the candidate, whom a round of new national polls shows running at a deficit that exceeds the margin of error."

Top Romney Aide Whines that Mitt's the Victim of Big Bad Barack Obama (Jed Lewison) from Daily Kos
"It's obvious that Fehrnstrom isn't really outraged. Instead, he's scared. He's not indignant—he's freaked out. Fehrnstrom is doing his best to turn two of Mitt Romney's biggest liabilities—his tax return secrecy and his ruthless pursuit of his own self-interest—into assets."

Why Mitt Romney is Losing (Reihan Salam) from CNN
"Romney's failure to surpass Barack Obama this summer stems in no small part from his reluctance to make any bold moves on policy, and this reluctance is a direct product of the beating he's taken from conservative critics for much of the last year."

The Welfare Gambit (Charles Blow) from the New York Times
"I smell desperation. ... Politifact said that what voters got from the Romney campaign “is a falsehood.” In other words, a lie. What could push a man to hang his hat on so sharp a nail? Fear, that’s what."

Romney’s Strategy Isn’t Working (John Podhoretz) from Commentary Magazine 
This from one of the most doctrinaire, GOP-cheerleading conservatives on the planet...
"The line from Romney headquarters last month was “every day we’re not talking about the economy is a day we lose.” ... given that there’s no good reason whatever for Obama to be leading, one can only presume that Romney’s strategy in July and now in August is not working. Which is why the “we only talk about the economy” line, while superficially clever, was and is so foolish—stupid, even.

And this from another hard-core conservative:
The Killing: The Battle to Define Mitt Romney is Over—and Romney Lost (Matthew Continetti) from Free Beacon
"The chief objective of any candidate is to define himself positively and his opponent negatively. Romney has allowed the Obama team to define him in their terms.  ... The mystery is why the GOP nominee allowed himself to fall into this trap. ... ... One has rather had the impression of a campaign overwhelmed by the volume and salaciousness of Obama’s smears."

That Obama!!  He's SO mean!

News Nuggets 1028

DAYLEE PICTURE: Lightning striking off of Long Beach, California.  From Smithsonian Magazine.

UP-FRONT CAMPAIGN NUGGET!!
On The Trail, A Campaign's Style Can Reveal A Lot About Substance (Ari Shapiro) from NPR's All Things Considered
"While President Obama and Mitt Romney offer competing visions every day on the campaign trail, there's also a more superficial aspect to their campaigns. And on the surface, Obama and Romney events feel completely different."

Plots Are Tied to Shadow War of Israel and Iran from the New York Times 
"Analysts say the plots have more in common with the cloak-and-dagger maneuverings of the C.I.A. and the K.G.B. during the cold war than the publicity-hungry campaign of Al Qaeda."

Religiosity Plummets In Ireland And Declines Worldwide; Atheism On The Rise from the Huffington Post
"...this week, a new global survey on faith and atheism has revealed that the crisis of faith in Ireland may be much worse than previously thought. According to the poll released by WIN-Gallup International, the traditionally Catholic country has seen one of the steepest drops
worldwide in religiosity."

The Texas Drought Seen Firsthand from the Eyes of Ranchers (Malcolm Jones) from the Daily Beast
"Last year panhandle ranchers Phillip and Doris Smith suffered through the worst one-year drought in Texas history. A year later, they tell Malcolm Jones, it’s only gotten worse."

Susan G. Komen Founder Nancy Brinker To Leave CEO Role from Reuters via the Huffington Post
"Susan G. Komen for the Cure founder Nancy G. Brinker plans to leave her CEO position as part of a number of leadership changes, but will stay on in a management role, the organization said on Wednesday. It also said that President Liz Thompson would leave Komen in September and board members Brenda Lauderback and Linda Law were leaving the board."

The Wacky GOP Primary Voters (Gail Collins) from the New York Times 
"...the most cheerful place this side of Disney World is the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. ... The Tea Party is once again giving Democrats a new lease on life."

Polls: Voters Dividing Along Familiar Lines, -- With One Surprise (Ronald Brownstein) from National Journal
""To me that's the most important development of the summer politically," Garin said. "For working class women, who really feel like every day is a struggle economically, they've just decided Romney is not going to look out for them at all." The result is that a gender gap now exists both among college-educated and non-college whites."

Romney’s Tax Plan Makes No Sense (Robert J. Samuelson) from the Washington Post
"There seems to be a Democratic mole inside Mitt Romney’s campaign. Could it be Romney himself? Well, of course not. But considering the campaign’s behavior, it might just as well be. President Obama and his allies have cast Romney as a wealthy fat cat who’s out of touch with everyday
Americans and who would use his presidency to enrich the already rich. To counter this damning image, the last thing you’d expect Romney to do is embrace a tax plan favoring the super-rich. Which is exactly what he has done."

Economists to Romney Campaign: That’s Not What Our Research Says (Ezra Klein) from the Washington Post
"...so I contacted some of the named economists to ask what they thought of the Romney campaign’s interpretation of their research. In every case, they responded with a polite version of Marshall McLuhan’s famous riposte. The Romney campaign, they said, knows little of their work. Or of their policy proposals."

The Moment All the Doubts About Romney Resurfaced on the Right (Erik Erikson) from Redstate.com
"Priorities USA was damaging itself and Barack Obama over its mind numbingly insane ad painting Mitt Romney as a killer. Then the Romney campaign decided to sabotage itself with a mind numbingly bit of spin that may mark the day the Romney campaign died."

Conservatives Blast Romney on Health Care (Rosalind S. Helderman and Aaron Blake) from the Washington Post
"Mitt Romney has drawn new fire from conservative allies on a familiar topic — health-care reform — as his spokeswoman offers unusual praise for his efforts on the issue as Massachusetts governor."

On Mitt Romney’s Crazy Bill Clinton Gambit (Michael Tomasky) from the Daily Beast
"There was not and is not a single major Obama initiative that Clinton has gone on the record opposing. But now the insinuation is racial: Clinton made those lazy blacks work, and Obama wants to go back to giving them “free stuff.”"

Picking Through the Romney VP Chatter from the Wall Street Journal 
"NBC’s First Read on Wednesday morning wrote that it has a “high degree of confidence” that the VP picks “largely come down” to former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, Ohio Sen. Rob Portman, and Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin. "

CHALLENGING COLLEGES NUGGET!!
College Rankings 2012: Most Rigorous Schools (Photos) from Newsweek 
"...  these are the colleges where accepted students find the workload most difficult when normalized by the aptitude of the student body."
Columbia is #1.  In our region: Allegheny College (#20): and CMU (#19).  

JAMES BOND NUGGET!!
Britain To Get 24-Hour James Bond Channel from NPR's Morning Edition 
"British broadcaster BSkyB is launching the channel for the month of October to mark the 50th anniversary of the Bond franchise. The first movie to be shown in high definition will be the 1962 film, Dr. No."

PUBLIC ART NUGGET!!
3D Street Art: 13 Amazing Optical Illusions Created By Chalk Artists (PHOTOS) from the Huffington Post 
"When it comes to admiring 3D street art, it's often a matter of
perspective -- look at a street artist's design from one angle and it appears flat and distorted, but from another the illustration comes alive."

News Nuggets 1027

DAYLEE PICTURE: A giant squid eye (the largest in the animal kingdom) on display at the Smithsonian in DC.  From National Geographic.

UP-FRONT CAMPAIGN NUGGET!!
Obama Embraces Health Care Law After Supreme Court Ruling from the Huffington Post
It's ABOUT TIME!!
"President Barack Obama, emboldened by the Supreme Court's affirmation of his health care overhaul, is now embracing the law while campaigning for re-election, just as Republican rival Mitt Romney steps back from it."

Today's Strikes by the Egyptian Army Show that National Security Trumps Jihadist Extremists (Michael Burleigh) from the Daily Mail [of the UK]
"Judging from today's strikes by the Egyptian army, the Islamist regime in Cairo has decided that Egyptian national security trumps sympathy for jihadist extremists. That is a sign of progress, of a sort."

China on Wrong Side in Syria Fight (Frank Ching) of the China Post [of Taiwan in English]
"It is fine for China to talk about a diplomatic solution involving all the parties in Syria, but unless it can use its influence to bring this about, it should seek to work with the West and bring about the Annan solution: a peaceful transfer of power and the avoidance of a collapse in Syria. Anything less than this makes China part of the problem rather than part of the solution."

Iran Preparing for Post-Assad Era in Syria (Zvi Bar'el) from Haaretz [of Israel in English]
If you are Assad, it's not good when you hear the rats planning HOW they will jump ship.
"Though Iran is still loyal to the Syrian regime, the time has come to start considering other options – Iran’s recent political maneuvers show that it is doing just that."

Iran’s Big Crisis: The Price of Chicken (Meir Javedanfar) from the Bloomberg News Service
"The rising price of this food staple is the cause of such anxiety among Iranian officials that last month, Iran’s police chief, Esmail Ahmadi-Moghaddam, urged the country’s TV stations not to broadcast images of people eating the birds. He was worried it could lead to social unrest."

Canada Has to Master the Complexity of the U.S. Political System
(Gottlieb, Kergin, and Robertson) from the Globe and Mail [of Toronto] 
"We will be deeply affected by the results, whatever the political stripe of those who occupy the White House and take control of the two houses of Congress. Like it or not, Canadians do have a “dog in this hunt.” Geography, history, economics and culture have created a deep integration that goes far beyond a typical foreign relationship."

Why the Reaction Is Different When the Terrorist Is White (Conor Friedersdorf) from the Atlantic
"Atrocities like the attack on the Sikh congregation in Wisconsin introduce terrifying dissonance into America's post-9/11 mindset."

Another Bad Day For Romney (Joe Klein) from Time Magazine
"How incompetent is the Romney campaign? They keep coming up with these stupid gambits–the last was the lie that Obama opposed early voting for members of the military in Ohio–that are shot down instantaneously (everywhere but in Fox-Rush land). And worse, the Democrats–who seem to have a superior oppo team–can often produce counter-stories, like the Herald item, that make things even worse for Romney. But there is a larger question here: How stupid does he think we are?"

Mitt Romney Lost the Summer: Tax Returns, Overseas Gaffes, & More (Robert Shrum) from the Daily Beast
"Labor Day is weeks away, but the battle of the summer is over—and Obama won. Robert Shrum on the unreleased tax returns, easily foreseen Bain attacks, Olympic stumbles, inept tax plan, and other calamities that sank Romney."

Mitt Romney's Favorability Still Lags Behind Barack Obama's from the Huffington Post
"Mitt Romney still faces a public that views him more unfavorably than favorably, and the gap between the two opinions has grown in recent months, according to a Washington Post/ABC News poll released Wednesday."

ABC/WaPo: Romney Favorability Levels Off At Lowest Mark For A Presumptive Nominee from Talking Points Memo
"Compounding matters for the presumptive Republican nominee: the percentage of the public who view him unfavorably has jumped from 45 percent to 49 percent. Romney’s standing is even lower among independents, with only 37 percent of the bellwether voting bloc viewing him favorably compared with 50 percent who view him unfavorably."

Democrats Run the Table in Last Night's Primaries (Josh Kraushaar) from National Journal
"Last night's primaries in Michigan, Missouri, Washington state and Kansas couldn't have gone much better for Democrats."

Krushaar gets a two-fer today!!
Expect Romney to Surprise With Running Mate Pick (Josh Kraushaar) from National Journal
"I’m having an increasingly difficult time reconciling the buzz that Sen. Rob Portman of Ohio and former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty are the clear favorites, even as I’m finding it harder to see what they add to the ticket. Given Romney’s tendency to play it safe, GOP operatives insist they’re the front-runners, but my gut instinct and contrarian nature make me think we could be in for a preconvention surprise."
I disagree with Kraushaar -- Romney has yet to show any courage or spring any real surprises in his last five years of campaigning - but the columnist's theory is interesting nonetheless.

BEST BANG FOR THE BUCK COLLEGE NUGGET!!
College Rankings 2012: Most Affordable Schools (Photos) from Newsweek 
"... the schools that landed atop of our most affordable list may not have the lowest sticker price, but when measured through a lens of the potential earnings with a degree from each insititution as well as the average debt level of graduates, these are the schools where students are most able to shoulder the cost of their degree—and where the education has a proven record of being a valuable investment relative to other schools."
UMASS Amhearst at No. 20? No way.  At the flagship university of the UMASS system, students have way too much trouble getting into their required courses for their majors -- and they are becoming a university taught largely by adjuncts.

News Nuggets 1026

DAYLEE PICTURE: A park devoted to fireflies -- in Japan.  From National Geographic.

UP-FRONT ENVIRONMENTAL NUGGET!!
Climate of Failure (Roger Pielke) from Foreign Policy Magazine
"Environmentalists are just now waking up to the reality that if we're going to stop global warming, we're going to have to be a lot more politically savvy."
I have been waiting for YEARS for someone to say what Pielke says here.  As I've said here many times, on global warming, environmentalists and those concerned about global warming have basically lost the debate.  GW critics began in the early 1990s to deal with the issue NOT as a scientific or even a public policy issue -- but as a political issue which could be framed by the rhetoric of left verses right.  And this strategy has been a winning one.  I see no hope for real GW reforms until the current generation of lawmakers and their baby-boom supporters pass from the political scene.  The younger generation is light years ahead of older voters on this subject.  Sadly, even after the drought and heat we've had this summer, I don't see GW critics and their right-wing dittohead supporters altering their views. Period.

UP-FRONT OBAMA SMACKDOWN NUGGET!!
'Romney Hood' Slam: Obama Derides Mitt's Tax Plan from the Huffington Post 
"President Barack Obama is labeling opponent Mitt Romney's tax plan as "Romney Hood," saying it takes from the poor and gives to the rich. Speaking Monday night at a campaign event in Connecticut, Obama said the GOP plan "is like Robin Hood in reverse.""
See the video -- Obama's deadpan is HILARIOUS!!

In Europe, 'A Front Line Between North and South' from Der Spiegel [of Germany in English]
"In a SPIEGEL interview, Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti says Europe is showing traces of a "psychological dissolution" in the debt crisis and that leaders are doing too little to stop it. He also warns that governments cannot allow themselves to become "fully bound" to parliament in determining policies to save the euro."

Lights Out in India (Niall Ferguson) from Newsweek
"India’s massive blackout is just the beginning."

A Difference Beyond Question (Richard Cohen) from the Washington Post 
"Still, for all the caveats, Arabs themselves recognize that they have a cultural problem. The Arab Human Development Report of 2002 singled out three “deficits” of Arab society that are “obstacles” to progress."

Defense Industry Leans On Congress — Avoid Cuts, Even If It Means More Taxes from Talking Points Memo
"The very real possibility that defense programs will suffer deep, across the board spending cuts early next year has major defense contractors and their allies making an unusual plea to members of Congress: Put everything on the table to avoid the so-called sequester — including higher taxes."

Radical Tea Partiers Won't Negotiate (Froma Harrop) from the Providence Journal via Real Clear Politics
"When traditional Republicans tell their tea party wing that they have to negotiate with Democrats, the radicals' frequent response is: No, they don't. One side has to win. But before that fistfight at the edge of the falls can take place, one side has to win within the Republican Party. Civil wars are not pretty. The tea party movement has become the dead bad-luck bird hanging around the GOP establishment's neck."

White Men Are Fleeing Congress (Joshua Green) from Businessweek
"...here’s a prediction that’s all but ironclad, and reflects a largely unappreciated change that could have just as much influence on the direction of the country: After the election, white men will constitute a minority of the Democratic House caucus for the first time in history."
Given that this is how the electorate is trending, I see this as a good thing in the long term.

Why 2012 is Not 1980 (Greg Sargent) from the Washington Post
"... the comparison to 1980 struck me as flawed. I checked in with former Reagan adviser Ed Rollins, who worked communications on that campaign, and he agrees — there are very significant differences that make a last minute swing far less likely."

Dream, Baby, Dream! (Roger Cohen) from the New York Times
"Romney has been piling on the foreign policy foolishness. ... Romney suffers from S.C.I.P.S. — sudden collapse into passive syndrome. As you try to pin him down, the declarative, transitive sentences vanish as fast as vapor trails."
Good to see a Cohen column again!

Sometimes, You Almost Want to Feel Sorry for Mitt Romney (David Horsey) from the Baltimore Sun
"The intent of Mr. Romney's excursion abroad was to increase his street cred as a potential world statesman, but even if there had been no mini-media storms, it is hard to see how anyone would be overly impressed by his play-it-safe itinerary. Traveling to Great Britain, Israel and Poland is about as risky for an American politician as a tour of country clubs would be for an executive from Bain Capital."
I will feel sorry for Romney after he loses this election.

Reid Wins (Mark Halperin) from Time Magazine
"... the Obama campaign and the White House will continue to laugh and laugh and laugh at how easily they have hijacked the debate, moved the spotlight off the economy, and put Romney on the defensive; and polls will show a mixed verdict on if the matter is hurting Romney or not."

How Mitt’s Tax Returns Show His Character Defect (Michael Tomasky) from the Daily Beast
"Why does it matter that Mitt won’t release his tax returns? Because it’s yet another sign that the man suffers from a pathological mixture of insecurity and entitlement."

Romney Risks a Worse VP Pick Than Palin by Going With Boring Choice (Michelle Cottle) from the Daily Beast
"Republican fears over Mitt Romney’s potential running mate have shifted from another Sarah Palin–style flameout to something even more dangerous—a dull white guy like Rob Portman."

Ducking The Donald (Frank Bruni) from the New York Times
"The big tents of the political conventions can’t fit every clown."

OLYMPICS NUGGET!!
Once-Powerful Russia Far Behind in Gold Medal Race from the Associated Press via the Bennington Banner
"After a miserable first week in the gold medal stakes, traditional powerhouse Russia is showing signs of a revival - though not enough to avoid its lowest Olympic finish in 60 years. While some of Russia's strongest events are still to come, the team is set to wind up outside the top three in golds for the first time since the Soviet Union began competing at the games in 1952."

News Nuggets 1025

DAYEE PICTURE: A creative use for umbrellas at the Agitagueda Festival in Agueda, Portugal.  From the Daily Mail of the UK.

UP-FRONT JAILHOUSE NUGGET!!
China's Double Jeopardy (Geoffrey Sant) from Slate
"In China, the rich and powerful can hire body doubles to do their prison time for them."
WOW!  Now there's some real entrepreneurial creativity at work there!!  Give that man a RAISE!!

Syria Prime Minister Riad Hijab Defects from the BBC
"Syrian Prime Minister Riad Hijab has defected from President Bashar al-Assad's government to join "the revolution", his spokesman says."
What next?  Assad himself defects?

The Teddy Bear Bombers in Belarus from Foreign Policy Magazine
"Foreign Policy speaks with the Swedish activists who dropped a planeload of stuffed animals into Belarus, Europe's last dictatorship."

Reminder: This Recovery Stinks, and So Did the Last One (Derek Thompson) from the Atlantic
""In January 2001, Bill Clinton's final month in office, 132.4 million Americans were employed," Jim Tankersley writes. "Eleven years and six months later, that number has grown all the way to 133 million." Since the turn of the Millennium, the U.S. economy added more than 30 million working-age people, but total jobs grew by only 600,000. That's a lost decade. And it's come after two lost recoveries."

The Social and Economic Reasons for Generation Squeezed (Robert J. Samuelson) from the Washington Post
"I worry about the future — not mine but that of my three children, all in their 20s. It is an axiom of American folklore that every generation should live better than its predecessors. But this is not a constitutional right or even an entitlement, and I am skeptical that today’s young will do so. Nor am I alone."

Sandra Day O'Connor Says Public Disapproval Of Roberts Court ‘A Great Disappointment' (VIDEO) from the Huffington Post
"“There’s been some suggestion that the trend down began with the Bush v. Gore decision,” O’Connor said. “That could be something that triggered public reexamination.”  Yet O’Connor told Schieffer that she doesn’t regret the vote she cast in that case, one of the court's most
controversial."

First Thoughts on the Election: Reaching the Saturation Point (Chuck Todd et al.) from MSNBC
"We often struggle to find the words to describe UNBELIEVABLE amounts of money being spent on this presidential race. But close to $50 million in a week is absolutely stunning. It's also unchartered territory. Are there diminishing returns on this advertising? Do ads become less effective? How do you break through the clutter? We just don't know. But here's one thing we do know: At some point, no matter how much more water you put on a towel, it becomes harder to make it wetter. That's why they call it saturation."

GOP to Reid: You're Next (Charlie Mahtesian) from Politico
"...the actual term ‘liar’ crosses a line that’s seldom breached, signaling a widespread GOP belief that, even by the diminished standards of contemporary political debate, Reid has violated a code. ... the GOP has indicated it plans to make it personal. Between the loaded language and Priebus’s pointed reference to Reid’s Ritz-Carlton abode – an issue that surfaced in the senator’s 2010 re-election campaign – Republicans just sent the clearest signal to Reid yet that he needs to either produce the evidence, stand down or prepare for an extended public discussion of his own finances."
After the GOP's nasty 2010 campaign against Reid in Nevada, I'm sure Reid is quaking in his boots.  You have to read the entire piece ... and ask yourself: what "line" are they talking about?  There is nothing they are accusing Reid of doing that they have not been doing to Obama since 2008 (and to a much greater degree than anything Reid has said).  Moreover, what's the difference between one GOP lawmaker shouting out "you lie" during a state-of-the-union address and another GOPer calling Reid a "dirty liar" on a Sunday talk show?

Harry Reid's Master Plan (Ta-Nehisi Coates) from the Atlantic
"I would like to say that reporters really should press Reid on his alleged source, and question him aggressively. Except those reporters often use the same tactics."

Gabby Douglas Isn't Jingoistic Enough for Fox News (Conor Friedersdorf) from the Atlantic
"The Olympic gold medalist was one target of criticism in a segment that included the dumbest remarks on American exceptionalism yet broadcast. One curse of American life, dramatized in the following clip, is the fact that American exceptionalism and patriotism are invoked most often by people who've reflected on them least..."

COLLEGE RANKINGS NUGGET!!
College Rankings 2012: Top Party Schools (Photos) from Newsweek
"To compile the list of the best schools in the nation at which to party down, we limited the pool of colleges to those that were considered “best-fit” for students interested in attending a “big-time party school” according to CollegeView."

OUTER SPACE NUGGET!!
Voyager 1 Prepares to Leave our Solar System After Traveling Eleven-billion Miles during 35-year Journey from the Daily Mail [of the UK]
 "On the same day NASA makes a historic encounter with Mars, one of Man's
earliest rockets is setting it's own truly historic record."

TREEHOUSE NUGGET!!
My Secret Hideaway: Stunning Photos Show How American couple Created a Treehouse Village in Costa Rican Rainforest from the Daily Mail [of the UK]
"Mateo and Erica Hogan initially visited Costa Rica hoping to find a surf shack and instead became the creators of a treehouse village sitting on 600 acres of rainforest."

News Nuggets 1024

DAYLEE PICTURE: A knob-tailed gecko in Australia.  From National Geographic.

UP-FRONT OUTER SPACE EXPLORATION NUGGET!!
Mars Rover Curiosity Set to Land in ‘7 Minutes of Terror’ on Monday (Marc Kaufman) from the Washington Post
This is a big deal.
"Approaching at 13,200 mph after a 354 million-mile trip, its landing will be among the riskiest ever tried."

UP-FRONT CAMPAIGN ANALYSIS NUGGET!!
Hey Mitt, Now You Know How It Feels to be a Democrat from No More Mister Nice blog
"Logic tells us that Reid couldn't possibly have heard this from multiple sources, so he's just blowing smoke. And yet, even if it's a lie, Reid's put Romney on the spot, because what he's saying sounds plausible to a lot of people. Y'know, it's a bit like saying that the current president is a secret Muslim socialist who lied about his U.S. birth and has a fake Social Security number and is secretly plotting to take away all privately owned guns if he's reelected, either before or after he finishes the job of deliberately destroying American capitalism."

A more nuanced take:
Right Where You Want Him (David Kurtz) from Talking Points Memo
"... in the spectrum of vicious political attacks, this doesn’t rank. It’s not the unprovable, unknowable, can’t-wash-off-the-stink, scurrilous savagery that any candidate is defenseless against. That’s the beauty of it, if you’re an Obama partisan like Reid is. Romney’s best, most logical defense is simply to release the taxes. Case closed."

Get It Right on Gas (Thomas Friedman) from the New York Times
"We can have a natural gas revolution that transforms our whole country or one that just transforms the electric grid. What’s it going to be?"

On the (Possible) Coming Obama Landslide (Michael Tomasky) from the Daily Beast
"Liberals don’t want to jinx it. It terrifies the right. And the press would prefer a nail-biter. But the fact is that finding Romney’s path to victory is getting harder every day."

Why Harry Reid Keeps Attacking Mitt Romney from Politico
"“What Republicans don’t get is the more they fire back at Reid, the more he will fight,” said another top Reid confidante. “And in the end, what will the topic be? Romney and his taxes.”"

Mitt's "Culture" War (Erik Nielson) from Salon
"His comment about Palestinians wasn't a gaffe: It was part of his concerted efforts to demonize his opponents."

Pew: Obama Lead Persists, Now Ahead 51-41 (DemFromCT) from Daily Kos 
"Think this is a tie race, a dead heat as the media would have you believe? Not so, says Nate Silver."

How The Obama Campaign Is Spinning A Boring Report Into Campaign Gold from Talking Points Memo
"Chopping the study’s key finding — that Romney’s tax plan will raise taxes on just about everyone except the exceptionally wealthy — into a convenient take home-size was a central focus of the Obama campaign this week and it used every method available to it to do so, including the president himself."

Cause for Concern (Bill Kristol) from the Weekly Standard
"...doesn't it seem likely that the Obama attack on Romney is working where it is deployed in full measure? I think many analysts have erroneously concluded that because the national tracking has not moved, the Obama attack on Romney's wealth, Bain, taxes, etc. is not effective. The results in these states suggest otherwise. (And the partisan splits in the polls may be following the ballot test in these states—if you're turning away from Romney, you're less likely to self-identify as a Republican. So the polls aren't necessarily bad. The real trends could well be bad.)"

Romney’s Overseas Trip: The Real Toll (Peter Beinart) from the Daily Beast
"Voters won’t remember the disastrous details of Romney’s overseas jaunt, Peter Beinart writes in Newsweek, but they’ll remember that it didn’t go well, and that’s the real damage."

Romney’s ‘Kiss My…’ Spokesman Takes Time Off Campaign Trail from ABC News 
Finally ... FINALLY we see someone in the Romney campaign pay a price for inflicting damage on their own campaign!!  For Romney supporters, they should hope that more high-level people will be taking "time off".
"Spokesman Rick Gorka, whose curse-laden flap with the press in Poland rounded out the news reports culminating Romney’s trip, is “taking some time off the trail” after a week abroad, per a Romney aide. Gorka normally serves as the traveling spokesman for Romney on all his campaign trips."

The Long, Lawless Ride of Sheriff Joe Arpaio (Joe Hagan) from Rolling Stone Magazine
A long-read look at this corrupt figure.
"Locking up the innocent. Arresting his critics. Racial profiling. Meet America's meanest and most corrupt politician."

99 Ways to Be Naughty in Kazakhstan: How Cosmo Conquered the World from the New York Times
"Cosmopolitan magazine is often spurned as "mindless," but it has also grown into 64 editions worldwide, and a readership of 100 million teens and young women in more than 100 nations—including those "where any discussion of sex is taboo":"

NEW YORK CITY NUGGET!!
New York’s Forgotten Tunnels (Sharon Blumberg) from Salon
"Exploring the city's abandoned infrastructure with journalist Steve Duncan, subway and sewage system."

ENTERTAINMENT NUGGET!!
Celebrities Who Are Alive and Well -- Post 80 (Pat Gallagher) from the Huffington Post
I hate to say it -- I could have sworn most of these people had passed away years ago!
"Baby boomers have great memories. Our recollection of making mud pies in the back yard, watching television together with the whole family in our living rooms, going to the movies to see our favorite movie stars or listening to our favorite Top 40 AM radio station in the car are just part of the fabric of our lives that we now refer to as the "good ol' days." Curiosity is a brain teaser, so I researched to see who is still with us from our "happy days" when we were all growing up in the Tinker Toy generation"

WALRUS NUGGET!!
Alaska SeaLife Center Walrus Calf Charms Caretakers (VIDEO) from the Huffington Post
"He’s sweet, snuggly and loves a good bottle. At 200 pounds, the orphaned walrus who’s getting around-the-clock care from staff members at the Alaska SeaLife Center is also one very big baby."

News Nuggets 1023

DAYLEE PICTURE: A house in the middle of the Drina River near the town of Bajina Basta in Serbia.  From National Geographic.

U.S. and Israel Intensify Talks on Iran Options from the New York Times 
"...after a flurry of high-level visits, including one by Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta to Israel on Wednesday, a number of administration officials say they remain hopeful that Israel has no imminent plans to attack and may be willing to let the United States take the lead in any future military strike, which they say would not occur until next year at the earliest."

The Euro Crisis: Collapse from the Economist [of London]
"NEW data on manufacturing conditions across much of the world are out today, and the figures are just brutal. Things look particularly grim for the euro area ..."

Capitalism, Not Culture, Drives Economies (Fareed Zakaria) from the Washington Post
"Ironically, the argument that culture is central to a country’s success has been used most frequently by Asian strongmen to argue that their countries need not adopt Western-style democracy."

Romney Hasn’t Done His Homework (Jared Diamond) from the New York Times 
"It is not true that my book “Guns, Germs and Steel,” as Mr. Romney described it in a speech in Jerusalem, “basically says the physical characteristics of the land account for the differences in the success of the people that live there. There is iron ore on the land and so forth.” That is so different from what my book actually says that I have to doubt whether Mr. Romney read it."

The Hiring of the President (Todd S. Purdum) from Vanity Fair
"It’s Mitt Romney’s mantra: America needs a leader with strong business credentials. Yet history shows the opposite—private-sector successes flopped in office. Meanwhile, there is one important kind of experience Romney may not have."

Case in point:
Romney's CEO Style Rankled Mass. Lawmakers from the Associated Press 
"Unlike his three GOP gubernatorial predecessors, the politically inexperienced Romney was never at ease in the chummy world of trading favors for votes. He bypassed rank-and-file Democrats and dealt mostly with the party's legislative leaders during his four-year term, though he did work with Democrats to pass the state's health care overhaul."

On Mitt Romney’s Naïve Evasion Strategy (Michael Tomasky) from the Daily Beast
"From his tax returns to his slippery policy proposals, Romney is doing everything he can to fend off serious scrutiny. Can a master of prevarication make it into the White House?"
Naive?  I would not call this strategy at all naive. Deeply cynical, yes.  And it has been a surprisingly successful strategy if you look at the 2010 congressional elections and Sarah Palin's rise.  I think this election will be the real test as to who is "naive".

Harry Reid Doubles Down On Romney Tax Charge (Luke Johnson) from the Huffington Post
"Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) didn't back down Wednesday from his accusation, made in an interview with The Huffington Post, that he heard that Mitt Romney didn't pay taxes for a decade. "I am not basing this on some figment of my imagination," he told Nevada reporters on a conference call, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal. "I have had a number of people tell me that." He declined to name his source."

'Kiss My Ass': Fear and Loathing in the Romney Campaign (Joe Conason) from Real Clear Politics
"The emerging truth about the man who will soon accept the Republican presidential nomination is that -- like Sarah Palin -- his handlers cannot trust him to cope with unscripted questions. That was particularly true on this trip, where his plenteous gaffes would only have multiplied if anyone had been able to ask a tough question."

Negative Talk About Romney Spikes After Gaffes (Alex Roarty) from National Journal 
"Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s gaffe-filled foreign trip did some political damage stateside, according to a poll from Conversation Nation, a joint project of National Journal and the survey research firm Keller Fay Group."

Roarty gets a two-fer today!
It's Not Just the Economy, Stupid (Alex Roarty) from the National Journal 
"A trip that should have been perfunctory for a presidential nominee has elicited fierce blowback, first from the British authorities and later from Palestinians. As former White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel put it, Romney "made a mess of being a tourist.""

Olympics Badminton Scandal Rocks China (Dan Levin) from the Daily Beast 
"The badminton scandal isn't only a blow to the Olympics, but for China—a nation obsessed with gold medals, stars, and the 'feather hair ball'—it’s devastating, writes Dan Levin."

Romney’s New Auto-bailout Ad Swings and Misses (Jennifer Rubin) from the Washington Post
"In short, I don’t get the point of the ad. It seems to be written for the Obama campaign team and not the voters. On a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being Reagan’s “Morning in America,” this is a 2. Maybe a 1."

For God, Texas and Golf (Gail Collins) from the New York Times
"It’s so ironic, people. The national electorate is totally turned off by partisan standoffs. You can almost hear the public imploring, will you guys please just make some back-room deals? And, at that same moment, the Republican candidates are being pushed into being more and more intractable."

CLASSIC MOVIES NUGGET!!
The Top 50 Greatest Films of All Time from the British Film Institute 
Not one vote for Casablanca?! WTF!
"846 critics, programmers, academics and distributors have voted – and the 50-year reign of Kane is over. Our critics’ poll has a new number one." http://www.bfi.org.uk/news/50-greatest-films-all-time

OWL VIDEO NUGGET!!
BIZARRE!!
Shapeshifting Owl from YouTube

CUTE ODD ANIMAL VIDEO NUGGET!!
Pygmy Jerboa from YouTube

News Nuggets 1022

DAYLEE PICTURE: Life in Semporna in Malaysia.  From Smithsonian Magazine.

Syria Government's Aleppo Assault Stalls from the Daily Telegraph [of the UK]
"The Syrian government's assault on Aleppo appeared to have stalled on Tuesday night as rebels claimed new victories against the increasingly demoralised troops of Bashar al-Assad."

China Knows the Party Can't Last Forever (Satyajit Das) from the Australian
"If the old illusion about China was that it was growing strongly then the new illusion is that it has the resources to stimulate its economy to maintain that growth. ... As growth slows, Beijing's options to re-ignite growth are increasingly constrained."

China and India Today: Diplomats Jostle, Militaries Prepare (Mohan Malik) from World Affairs Journal
" Tensions between the two powers have come to influence everything from their military and security decisionmaking to their economic and diplomatic maneuvering, with implications for wary neighbors and faraway allies alike. The relationship is complicated by layers of rivalry, mistrust, and occasional cooperation, not to mention actual geographical disputes."

Is Democratic Convention Keynote Speaker Julian Castro the Next Obama? (Eleanor Clift) from the Daily Beast
"A nearly unknown minority rising star is picked to deliver the keynote address at the Democratic convention. No, it’s not 2004—this year’s chosen one is Julian Castro, San Antonio’s mayor. Eleanor Clift on how he could mirror Obama."

Poll: Obama Leads Key Swing States, Nearly 9 in 10 Say Mind is Made Up (Jed Lewison) from Daily Kos
"The good news for President Obama is that he's leading these polls. The even better news is that the vast majority of likely voters say their mind is already made up, validating his campaign's decision to start advertising early and heavily in order to define the campaign—and Mitt Romney."

Obama Hits 50% In Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Quinnipiac University/CBS News/New York Times Swing State Poll Finds from Quinnipiac University 
"President Barack Obama hits the magic 50 percent mark against Gov. Mitt Romney among likely voters in Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania, with wide support for his plan to hike federal income taxes on upper-income voters, according to a Quinnipiac University/ CBS News/New York Times Swing State Poll released today.  This is the first measure of likely voters in these swing states and cannot be compared with earlier surveys of registered voters. Matching Obama against Romney in each of these key states - no one has won the White House since 1960 without taking at least two of them - shows: "

Why Not in Vegas? (Thomas Friedman) from the New York Times
"Much of what is wrong with the U.S.-Israel relationship today can be found in that Romney trip. In recent years, the Republican Party has decided to make Israel a wedge issue. In order to garner more Jewish (and evangelical) votes and money, the G.O.P. decided to “out-pro-Israel” the Democrats by being even more unquestioning of Israel."

What follows are a series of devastating postmortems on Romney's foreign adventure.
Too Much Baggage: Mitt Romney Needs to Fire his Foreign-Policy Team. Yesterday. (David Rothkpf) from Foreign Policy Magazine
"If Romney were following the advice of his staff when he made either his London gaffe or his Israel blunder, he should fire them. If they didn't advise him to say these things, but failed to give him useful advice about what not to say, he should fire them. And even if they did give him smart things to say and useful guidance about what not to say, he should fire them ..."

How Romney Achieved the Impossible (Michael Hirsh) from the National Journal
"I'm trying to think if there is a precedent for the disaster that was Mitt Romney's little tour abroad -- culminating in a press aide's obscene explosion at the traveling press in Poland on Tuesday -- and it's really hard to come up with anything."

After Gaffe-Filled Foreign Tour, Europe Asks: ‘Is Mitt Romney a Loser?’ (Bruce Cumley) from Time Magazine
"Mitt Romney’s trip to Europe and Israel may not have been a complete disaster. Yet it was close enough to a risible calamity that the presumptive Republican candidate has to be glad it’s over — and dreaming of returning to American turf and topics less likely to blow up in his face like a loaded cigar. How bad was it?"

That’s Mitticulous! (Matt Miller) from the Washington Post
Miller is not one of the standard left-leaning pundits out there -- he is usually a nicely measured moderate in his views.  And his review of Romney's trip is extraordinary!
"Romney’s penchant for remarks and behaviors that are false, dumb, tone-deaf, ill-advised, pandering, implausible, awkward, regressive, out of touch or some blend of the above — and which unfold with no apparent awareness of their having the aforementioned qualities but instead are swiftly defended or sidestepped with an arrogance or haughtiness that compounds the offense — has brought us to the cusp of a linguistic breakthrough."

Mitt Romney Vice President Hunt Has Key Goal: Avoid #VeepFail (Howard Fineman) from the Huffington Post
"Romney's team are likely to take a political Hippocratic oath: Do no harm."

Harry Reid: Bain Investor Told Me That Mitt Romney 'Didn't Pay Any Taxes For 10 Years' (Stein & Grim) from the Huffington Post
"Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has what he says is an informed explanation for why Mitt Romney refuses to release additional tax returns. According a Bain investor, Reid charged, Romney didn't pay any taxes for 10 years."
If true, this would be something the Romney people would be wise to keep under wraps.  This is pretty cleaver on Reid's part.  Now Romney will continue to be peppered with tax questions until he releases his returns.


CITIES NUGGET!!
Pictures: Floating Cities of the Future from National Geographic
The pictures are quite amazing!
"A larger-than-life lure, the Plastic Fish Tower would attract plastic instead of marine life in an effort to reduce the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, also known as the Eastern Pacific Garbage Patch."