Corporate misconduct: Monsanto, Telcos, Cars, Critics, GameStop

Monsanto

• Monsanto and the mortal danger to traditional agriculture
• WikiLeaks: Bush Diplomat Asked For 'Talking Points' To Defend Monsanto Corruption
• USDA quietly hands Monsanto all unregulated rights to grow genetically modified Kentucky bluegrass.
• USDA downplays own scientist’s research on ill effects of Monsanto herbicide
• Hungary Destroys All Monsanto GMO Maize Fields
• Mexico Doesn't Need Monsanto's Wonder Seeds, Either
• India's biodiversity agency to sue Monsanto

Telcos

• FCC to fight 'cramming' on phone bills--"[A] Senate Commerce Committee investigator was told repeatedly that customers wanted services like online games and $14.95/month voicemail."
• AT&T Accidentally Tells Truth, Shoots Self in Foot--Buying T-Mobile is a sham which they lied about to the Democrats.
• Comcast Shuts Down Customer That Exceeded Bandwidth Cap
• AT&T Now Charging You For Not Using Enough Long Distance
• Verizon Takes Away FTP Access, Charges For It

Cars

• How Automakers Abuse Intellectual Property Laws To Force You To Pay More For Repairs
• How The U.S. Government Killed The Safest Car Ever Built
• New engine shakes up auto industry--Will it ever reach the consumers?

Critics

• How To Make A Mockery Of Your Own Law School: Sue Your Critics
• Atos moves to shut down criticism
• Demand Media sics its lawyers on DemandStudiosSucks.com
• Doctors and dentists tell patients, "all your review are belong to us"
• Blogger jailed over critical restaurant review--In Taiwan.

GameStop

• GameStop opening Deus Ex boxes, removing free game code--Contemptuous behavior.
• GameStop apologises to Deus Ex buyers, offers $50 gift cards--So you can buy more of their shit.
• New Store Policy--More or less sums up what GameStop really thinks of its customers.

Wall Street, Civics Lessons, Better Red than Dead, Rich vs. Poor, Mortgages

Wall Street

• Obama Goes All Out For Dirty Banker Deal--They "put their heads together, and cooked up a deal that would allow the banks to walk away with just a seriously discounted fine from a generation of fraud that led to millions of people losing their homes."
• The Destructive Power of the Financial Markets--Speculators are betting against the euro, banks are taking incalculable risks and the markets are in turmoil. Three years after the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy, the financial industry has become a threat to the global economy again. Governments missed the chance to regulate the industry, and another crash is just a matter of time.
• NY Attorney General Booted from Mortgage Company Settlement Task Force--He was adamant in opposing any deal that favored the banks (NYT).
• Daily Kos: Why is The Obama Administration Pressuring NY Atty General to Cover Up Financial Crimes?
• S.E.C. Illegally Destroyed Documents, Whistle-Blower Alleges--Anyone shocked that they're defending this? NYT

Civics Lessons

• America Is In Decline Because Of The Institutionalization Of Stupidity
• 11 Bizarrely Wrong Beliefs Americans Have About Themselves
• Don’t know much about history--"Not even a quarter of American students is proficient in US history, and the percentage declines as students grow older."
• 5 Satirists Attacked by People Who Totally Missed the Point--Plus 4 More Satirists Attacked By People Who Missed The Point
• American Students Not Proficient In History The Onion

Better Red than Dead

• Too many Americans ignorant about their use of government programs
• 75 Ways Socialism has Improved, Saved, and Shaped America
• Bill Maher Outs America And Exposes Our Secret Love of Socialism
• Lactate Intolerance: Fox News' Megyn Kelly returns from maternity leave with a more liberal perspective on mandated benefits and entitlement programs.
• Americans Love Socialism: Bernie Sanders Is The 3rd Most Popular US Senator

Rich vs. Poor

• Don’t look down: The poor like taxing the rich less than you would think--"In keeping with the notion of 'last-place aversion', the people who were a spot away from the bottom were the most likely to give the money to the person above them: rewarding the 'rich' but ensuring that someone remained poorer than themselves."
• Land of the Free, Home of the Poor--"And if we were to compare us with African countries, dictators in different places, you know, taking a lot of the wealth from normal people, we would be among the top half of the African countries of inequality. So, the U.S. really has reached an extraordinary level of income inequality."
• Republicans To Oppose Tax Cut For Working People--Silly plebes, tax cuts are for rich people (Salon).
• The Daily Show: World of Class Warfare--Warren Buffett vs. Wealthy Conservatives and The Poor's Free Ride Is Over
• A hot air balloon fight in the Coachella Valley

Mortagages

• A Huge Housing Bargain -- but Not for You--"The largest transfer of wealth from the public to private sector is about to begin. The federal government will be bulk-selling the massive portfolio of foreclosed homes now owned by HUD, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to private investors -- vulture funds."
• A 96-Year-Old's Mortgage Fraud Nightmare--Lillie Mae Washington may have been conned into an outrageous mortgage by a firm that had its license revoked. Ocwen Financial wants to evict her anyway.
• Homeowner says Bank of America foreclosure notice doesn't add up
• Credit Union Decides To Clear Out Foreclosed Home Five Days Early
• Chase Bank Sells Off Soldier's Home On The Very Same Day He Returns From Iraq

Riot Acts, News Corpse, Surveillance, Facebook and Your Privacy, Net Exposure

Riot Acts

• Looting with the lights--"We keep hearing England's riots weren't political – but looters know that their elites have been committing daylight robbery."
• London rioters point to poverty and prejudice
• Britain Will Force Convicted Rioters to Clean Up NYT
• England riots: pair jailed for four years for using Facebook to incite disorder--"Two men – whose posts did not result in riot-related event – sentenced at Chester crown court after arrests last week." And Cameron defends this so-called 'tough message'.
• Facebook ban for teenager who encouraged rioters

News Corpse

• News of the World reporter's letter reveals cover-up--"Goodman claims that phone hacking was 'widely discussed' at editorial meetings at the paper," despite assurances on the contrary.
• James Murdoch admits 'hush money' payout
• News of the World Hollywood reporter is arrested
• A life unravelled … whistleblower who incurred wrath of the Murdoch empire
• For all you need to know about Rupert Murdoch, look at his lawyers--"As Nixon's counsel during Watergate, I can tell from the cost of News Corp's legal team the scandal will not be contained long."

Surveillance

• Privacy Groups Protest Massive DHS Database of Secret Watchlists
• Warrantless "emergency" surveillance of Internet communications by DOJ up 400%
• Senator vows to block surveillance bill over privacy concerns
• Bill Would Force Intel Chief to Renounce ‘Secret Patriot Act’
• Is Your Senator Using The Distraction Of The Debt Ceiling To Support The Feds Secret Interpretation Of Spying Laws?
• The Government Just Admitted For The First Time It Is Using Cell Phone Data To Track Your Location--But they'll get back to you on that.
• House panel approves broadened ISP snooping bill--Not hard to guess who'd been pushing for it.
• JRRT Slams Governments ISP Data Retention Snooping Database
• Pushing the limits of state surveillance
• On the dangers of crowdsourced surveillance

Facebook and Your Privacy

• When Facebook Gets Creepy
• Facebook Pushing To Require Everyone’s Online Activity Be Tracked By The Government
• Zuckers! Facebook Has Secretly Been Giving User Info to Cops
• 4Chan's 'Moot': Zuckerberg's Single Identity Is 'Totally Wrong'
• Faccebook facial recognition software violates privacy laws, says Germany

Net Exposure

• Cisco Sued By Chinese Political Prisoners Over 'Golden Shield'
• Need a warrant to unmask Internet users? Not if Canada gets its way
• Ontario Court Orders Website To Disclose Identity of Anonymous Posters
• Google and weekly paper ordered to identify online posters
• Twitter unmasks anonymous British user in landmark legal battle

Economy, Politics, Strikes, Business Unusual, Corporate Personhood, ALEC

Economy

• Warren Buffett: Stop Coddling the Super-Rich NYT
• The Four Horsemen--"We will not return to 'business as usual'. The Four Horseman is an independent feature documentary which lifts the lid on how the world really works."
• It's Time To Kick Farmers Off The Federal Dole--"The majority of payments go to farms with average annual revenue exceeding $200,000 and net worth around $2 million."
• Are we in a lost decade?--"The problem for businessmen right now isn't that their government is borrowing too much and they can't get a loan. The problem is, folks aren't coming into their stores and buying stuff."
• Obama Proposes Tax Increase On Meanest 2% Of Population The Onion

Politics

• Americans downgrade Congress to historic low 13% job approval
• American idiocracy: The civil war in Washington, DC, is damaging American business
• You Want Compromise? Sure You Do NYT
• Are Republicans at war with reality?
• If Americans Really Paid Attention, Republicans Would Never Win Elections

Strikes

• Strike hits Verizon as 45,000 walk out--Company demanding 1 billion in concessions while receiving government subsidies. Verizon has just canceled benefit plans of striking workers.
• Hyatt Apologizes For Heat Lamps Used On Protesters--In 40°C weather at that.
• Chile: Starbucks Baristas Hunger Strike for Higher Wages--A cup of Starbucks is worth more than the barista's hourly wage.

Business Unusual

• Cenk Uygur and the ethos of corporate-owned media--Cenk left MSNBC rather than sacrifice his journalistic integrity. Salon
• The Double Irish: How Companies Are Bypassing The U.S. High Income-Tax Rate
• A pound of flesh: how Cisco's "unmitigated gall" derailed one man's life

Corporate Personhood

• "Corporations are People, Too!" — Mitt Romney, August 11, 2011
• Banning Corporate Personhood: How Communities Are Taking the Law Back from Big Companies
• Russ Feingold Is Emerging as a Significant Force Against Corporate Control of Our Government

ALEC

• A little more information on ALEC
• ALEC: The Koch Connection
• Energy firms helping write laws via legislative group
• ALEC Exposed: Rigging Elections
• "How a Bill Really Becomes a Law" - corporate influence in bill-making, explained

420, War on Drugs and Decriminalization

420

• So How Is This Different From Armed Robbery?--"Earlier this month, police in Oakland County, Michigan raided a medical marijuana dispensary in the town of Oak Park. [...] They made no arrests, but they did clean the place out. The confiscated all of the dispensary's cash on hand and—in a particularly thuggish touch—also took all of the cash from the wallets and purses of employees and patients."
• Rep. Polis on debt: tax pot, gambling--"The federal government should legalize and tax marijuana and Internet gambling to help get the country out of the current debt crisis, writes Rep. Jared Polis, a second-term Colorado Democrat...."
• White House admits marijuana has ‘some’ medical value
• For wounded veteran, medical marijuana's been a godsend
• How Marijuana Could Save The Economy
• Why Legalize Now?
• Gary Johnson: Face reality, legalize pot
• Medical Marijuana Will Move Forward Despite New Threats from the Obama Administration
• Obama Administration Overrides 2009 Ogden Memo, Declares Open Season on Pot Shops in States Where Medical Marijuana Is Legal
• New Zealand Party Guarantees Access To Marijuana If Elected
• "Thanks for Marijuana Prohibition" Says Mexican Marijuana Gangster to U.S. Leaders
• Israel approves guidelin es for medical marijuana
  
  

War on Drugs

• The War on Drugs is a Failure so Give Drug Policy Back to the States
• NAACP Passes Resolution Calling For End To Drug War
• ATF loses track of 1,400 guns in criticized probe--"Federal agents can't account for more than 1,400 guns after a widely criticized operation aimed at tracing the flow of weapons to Mexican drug gangs, sources with knowledge of the investigation tell CNN."
• Obama admin intimidating witnesses in ATF gun probe
• ATF, Dept. of Justice supplied drug cartels with weapons
• The “War On Drugs” Is A $2.5 Trillion Racket: How Big Banks, Private Military Companies And The Prison Industry Cash In
• Federal Agents Allowed Tons Of Cocaine To Be Smuggled Into The U.S. In Exchange For Information

Mexico

• At Least 40 Dead After Mexican Drug Gangs Battle
• Mexican police: Drug gang leader says he ordered 1,500 killings
• Mexico town's entire police force quits after officers gunned down--Drug gangs blamed as 20-strong squad resigns in Ascension after series of targeted attacks on new force

Europe

• Portugal drug law show results ten years on, experts say
• Liberal Democrats want inquiry into decriminalising drug possession--"Motion based on Portuguese reforms said to have reduced problematic drug use expected to be passed at party conference"
• Decriminalization of Drug Use in Greece

London Burning, News Corpse, Censorship, Free Speech, Patently Absurd

London Burning

• Mark Duggan death: IPCC 'may have misled journalists'
• London rioters point to poverty and prejudice
• The World from Berlin: 'Riots Reveal the Decay of British Society'
• "If We Don't Riot, You Don't Listen to Us": The Case for Chaos
• Big Brother isn't watching you: Dismissing rioters as mindless is futile rhetoric. However unacceptable the UK riots, we need to ask why they are happening

News Corpse

• Roger Ailes and the rise of Fox News--"Even Rupert Murdoch is afraid of Roger Ailes, the paranoid boss of Fox News. But 'the Chairman' is using his power to make Americans more rightwing, more ignorant and ever more terrified "
• Rupert Murdoch's American Scandals--"All the corruption exposed in England – hacking, political payoffs, dirty cops, hush-money settlements – is also happening here."
• How Bad Is News Corp.?
• New Arrest in Britain’s Phone Hacking Scandal NYT
• Phone hacking: 'Rupert Murdoch tells Rebekah Brooks to travel the world'

Censorship

• British Prime Minister Does a 180 on Internet Censorship--Wanted to sacrifice liberty for security.
• Bahrain protests to Qatar over al-Jazeera film--"Doha-based news channel under fire over documentary showing how Facebook was used to target pro-democracy activists." And now it's being censored.
• Google chairman warns of censorship after Arab Spring

Free Speech

• Israel's Knesset struggles with free speech 
• Vague Anti-Stalking Law Threatens Protected Speech Online
• Urging Obama’s Assassination Is Lawful Online Speech, Divided Appeals Court Says
• Neo-Nazi Freed, Online Speech Protected
• American Facing Indefinite Prison Term in New Zealand Over Free Speech Challenge
• Philip Pullman on censorship and free speech -- pithy and wonderful
• "Free Speech"--Irony.

Patently Absurd

• When Patents Attack!
• The Trouble with Nathan Myhrvold’s Pro-Patent Arguments
• 1+1 (pat. pending) — Mathematics, Software and Free Speech --Why Software and Patents Need To Get a Divorce
• Kodak's patent spat threatens photo web sites
• Nice try, Amazon: 'One-click' payment too obvious to patent
• What app developers need to know about Lodsys and the in-app upgrade button patent problem--Good to see Apple planning to interverne in this matter on the developers' behalf.
• The Rise and Fall of the Independent Developer
• App developers withdraw from US as patent fears reach 'tipping point'
• Are your genes somebody else's property? A federal court ruled on Friday that companies could hold patents for human genes.--Absolute horseshit. Salon
• Kootol sends legal notice to Apple, others, claiming patent infringement
• Patent Troll Lawyers Smacked Down, Made To Pay Sanctions, For Mass Lawsuits Followed By Quick Settlement Offers
• Intellectual property: Patents against prosperity

Obama, Politics, Economy, HCR, Unhealthy, Workin' it out

Obama

• Obama isn't weak (he just isn't a liberal) Salon
• Why the center-left is fed up with Obama
• New GOP Strategy Involves Reelecting Obama, Making His Life Even More Miserable The Onion

Politics

• "There have been several instances since the mid 1990s in which I genuinely believed Republican politics couldn’t possibly get more blisteringly ridiculous. I was wrong; they just keep getting worse."
• Countdown with Keith Olbermann: Our Broken System
• Dylan Ratigan: I'm Mad As Hell. How About You?--He's clearly touched a nerve.

Economy

• New CNN Poll: Majority want tax increase for wealthy and deep spending cuts
• How the rich use religion to keep the poor in their place: "Over the past 50 years...a rise in [income] inequality one year tended to lead to an increase in religion the next"
• "Economic Armageddon and You"
• Fareed Zakaria: The Debt Deal's Failure
• The Economy After the Debt-Ceiling Agreement
• High Taxes Don't Drive Out the Rich, Study Says
• America's Credit Rating

HCR

• U.S. Appeals Court Upholds Obama Health Care Law
• First Study of Its Kind Shows Benefits of Providing Medical Insurance to Poor NYT
• Uninsured Californian: I'm Stuck With $40K Medical Bill After Being Taken To Hospital Against My Will--"But one paramedic explains to CBS Sacramento that head trauma is one of those situations where responders are effectively required to take the patient to the hospital regardless of what they say."

Unhealthy

• Why Americans can't afford to eat healthy?--"The real reason Big Macs are cheaper than more nutritious alternatives? Government subsidies." Salon
• Why are unhealthy people so reluctant to change their lifestyles?
• Is Sugar Toxic?
• Wendy's Natural-Cut Fries Not So Natural After All
• Tests find 80% of chickens in Seattle-area groceries carry pathogens
• Patent dispute threatens US Alzheimer's research
• Man Drops Dead While Playing 'Wii Fit'
• We'll flood market with cheap cigarettes, says British American Tobacco chief David Crow
• Canada wins battle to keep asbestos off hazardous list

Workin' it out

• W.T.F MAXIMUS? - German Fitness Camp Tarted Up With Gladiatorial Accoutrements
• Why Married Life Brings Weight Gain And How Bodybuilding Can Change That!
• Best of the Past: Trainer Tells All – What I Have Learned About Health and Fitness
• Exercise Can Be Like Heroin, "Gym Rats" Show
• Health-Club Employee Stops Going To Work After Two Weeks The Onion

Debt, Military, Wisconsin, Fat Tuesday, 9-11 Responders

Debt

• What Happened to Obama's Passion? NYT
• Obama’s role in debt-ceiling talks scrutinized
• $1 Billion bet in July of US downgrade brings questions of insider information
• S&P Blames GOP For U.S. Credit Problem, Associated Press, Politico Cover It Up
• Dollar Weakens to Record Versus Franc as S&P Lowers U.S. Rating
• Our view: S&P confirms what everyone already knew--"And still Republicans and Democrats act like two men fighting desperately for control of a raft that's headed for Niagara Falls."
• Why S.&P.'s Ratings Are Substandard and Porous NYT 

Military

• DefSec Panetta: We must cut Social Security and Medicare in order to protect the military budget. Salon
• Rep. Frank: Military Spending ‘Biggest Reason’ for US Downgrade
• Military spending threatens America's future strength

Wisconsin

• 7 Things to Know About Tuesday's Recall Elections--Go out and vote!
• Wis. GOPer: If You Don’t Like What We Did, Wait For 2012 Instead Of Recalling Me
• Walker, Ryan absent in run up to recalls

Fat Tuesday

• Obesity: America just keeps getting fatter, report says
• IT Night Shift Workers: Overweight and Undersexed
• Cookie Monster curbs cookie habit

9-11 Responders

• Program won't cover 9/11 responders for cancer
• The Daily Show: I Thought We Already Took Care of This S@#t--The 9/11 Health Care Bill for Ground Zero first responders covers coughing, laryngitis, and carpal tunnel syndrome -- but not cancer.
• Cancer-stricken WTC worker gets $0 settlement check

UK: Hacking, British Army, Secret Agents, The Daily Show

Hacking

• Tom Watson: 'Phone hacking is only the start. There's a lot more to come out'
• Hacking whistleblower was ignored
• Hugh Grant: How I exposed hacking

British Army

• British sniper nails two Taliban from world record 8,120 feet
• Dead Men Risen: The snipers' story--"In one remarkable feat of marksmanship, two insurgents were dispatched with a single bullet."
• Queen decorates Nepali for Afghanistan heroics--"A Nepalese soldier in the British army has been given a top bravery award by Queen Elizabeth II for his heroics in Afghanistan, where he single-handedly saw off more than 30 Taliban fighters."

Secret Agents

• MI6 'used bodily fluids as invisible ink'
• Bletchley Park Turing archive saved after campaign--The Father of Computer Science was one hell of a codebreaker.
• British spies replace Al Qaeda bomb instructions with cupcake recipe

The Daily Show on England

• Have No Fear, England's Here
• Dude, British Parliament is fucking awesome.
• Parliament Slight

Debt, The Onion, Games, DRM, Used Games, Reviews

Debt

• S&P Downgrades U.S. AAA Bond Rating To AA+, Outlook Negative
• How Republicans Screwed the Pooch--"Republicans say they want to save the country from Obama’s reckless spending. But as Paul Begala argues, it’s the GOP’s policies that have driven the nation into the ground."
• Public Views Congress as Top Culprit in Debt Debate, Poll Finds--"A record 82 percent of Americans now disapprove of the way Congress is handling its job.... More than four out of five people surveyed said that the recent debt-ceiling debate was more about gaining political advantage than about doing what is best for the country." NYT
• For lesson in shared sacrifice, send Congress to boot camp
• Bill Maher and Michael Dyson want President Obama to show some anger
• Why are we in this debt fix? It’s the elderly, stupid.
• Food stamp use rises to record 45.8 million

The Onion

• Obama: Debt Ceiling Deal Required Tough Concessions By Both Democrats And Democrats Alike
• Drunken Ben Bernanke Tells Everyone At Neighborhood Bar How Screwed U.S. Economy Really Is
• Obama Turns 50 Despite Republican Opposition

Let the Games Begin

• Supreme Court strikes down violent game-banning California law
• Does Being More Vocal In Video Game Violence Debate Mean You Have The Better Argument?
• Fox News Bulletstorm Controversy--The author is complaining about her review
• Paper: "moral panic" behind attempts to link games, violence
• Penn and Teller compare video games to football

DRM

• Ars Guide: How to ruin your PC port in five easy steps
• Constant net connection required to play Assassin's Creed 2 on PC
• Diablo 3 Will Require Players to be Online When Playing--"I want to play Diablo 3 on my laptop in a plane, but, well, there are other games to play for times like that." How fucking condescending.
• Nintendo 3DS license: We'll brick your device if we don't like your software choices, you have no privacy, we own your photos
• Good Old Games: DRM drives gamers to piracy
• Wacky copy protection methods from the good old days
• A Cyclical Argument With A Literal Strawman

Used Games

• Lionhead: Pre-owned worse than PC piracy
• Capcom tries to kill used video game sales with the one-save game --They're saying this "feature" wasn't meant to prevent the resale of games but to offer an arcade-style experience.
• PSN Pass Confirmed; Online Verification Will Launch With Resistance 3

Game Reviews

• How Today's Game Review Scores are Distributed
• Dragon Age II Dev Rates His Own Game On Metacritic, EA Bets Obama Voted For Himself Too--Astroturfing, pure and simple.
• The Greatest Game Review of All Time

Middle East, Whistleblowers, War on Terror, Oil

Middle East

• Gaddafi is stronger than ever in Libya
• Libya Allying With Islamists, Qaddafi Son Says NYT
• Islamists threaten to outmanoeuvre secularists in post-revolution Egypt
• Syria: Video shows armed pro-regime enforcers attacking demonstrators--Leaving 'scores dead'.
• Turkey's entire military command quits over row with government
• Nothing liberal yet: The Saudi rulers are running against the Arab grain of freedom
• Boycotting fascism? Policies that have frustrated Palestinians for years are now being applied to middle-class Israelis, too.

Whistleblowers

• Judge blasts prosecution of alleged NSA leaker
• Obama's war on whistleblowers suffers two defeats Salon
• Fired Army Whistleblower Receives $970K for Exposing Halliburton No-Bid Contract in Iraq

War on Terror

• Former Intel Chief: Call Off The Drone War (And Maybe the Whole War on Terror)--"Ground the U.S. drone war in Pakistan. Rethink the idea of spending billions of dollars to pursue al-Qaida. Forget chasing terrorists in Yemen and Somalia, unless the local governments are willing to join in the hunt."
• Did the FBI Bury Oklahoma City Bombing Evidence?--Right-wing perpetrated domestic terrorism doesn't seem to be hitting the headlines.
• "America Looks at Neighbors"--The shoe is on the other foot.

Oil

• Obama: New rules reduce foreign oil imports
• BP reports quarterly profit of $5.3bn--"The results were worse than expected, sending BP's share price down during morning trading."
• Exxon 2Q earnings rise 41 percent
• Nigeria: The Cost of Oil
• Right aims to pin pump pain on Obama

Debt Debacle, Democrats, Economy, Murdoch, Wisconsin

Debt Debacle

• What we wish Obama had said--Rather than surrending. Salon
• Why the Debt Ceiling Deal Sucks
• Wake up GOP: Smashing system doesn't fix it
• Zakaria: Tea Party held America hostage
• Anyone Who Thinks The Debt Deal Is A Victory For America Understands Neither Economics Nor Politics
• What We Learned from the Debt Ceiling Deal Debate
• Debt ceiling deal to hit grad students hard--And supposed savings is worth just 3 months in Afghanistan.
• Ben Stein blames debt crisis on careless people--Ben Stein puts the blame of the debt ceiling crisis on "a stupendous pileup of immensely careless people who have been heading for trouble for a decade now
• Mitch McConnell Vows To Hold Debt Ceiling Hostage In The Future: ‘We’ll Be Doing It All Over’
• Democrats, Republicans Celebrate Pitiful Excuse For Common Ground The Onion

Democrats

• Debt Ceiling Deal: The Democrats Take a Dive
• Tuning Out the Democrats--"Oddly, many voters prefer the policies of Democrats to the policies of Republicans. They just don't trust the Democrats to carry out those promises." NYT
• An Open Letter To The Democratic Party: I Hate You
  
  

Economy

• Tycoons Laughing All the Way to the Bank--"Cancelling the loophole would save the treasury $20 billion over 10 years, and the public would surely be unmoved by the pain inflicted on hedge fund managers — the top 25 of whom took home an average pay last year of $880 million each."
• Socialism for the Rich - Capitalism for Everyone Else
• Fault Lines - The Top 1%
• $230,000 For a Guard Dog: Why the Wealthy Are Afraid Of Violence From Below
• Major Study Links Decline of Unions to Rising of Income Inequality

Murdoch

• Murdoch Hacked Us Too--"Excoriating attack on News Corp. Not just a UK issue. And there's a lot more to it than mere tabloid vulgarity and right-wing attack-dog politics."
• Phone given to missing girl's mother by Rebekah Brooks then hacked by News of the World--But wait, there's more. Salon
• Murdoch's News International ordered tech firm to mass-deleted emails
• New moves by British parliament to shield the Murdochs
• What Rupert Murdoch Means For You Personally

Wisconsin

• Wisconsin recall: Conservatives sending Dems absentee ballots with instructions to return them late
• Fire destroys downtown buildings on Jay Street--Where We Are Wisconsin had its headquarters in the city. Curious.
• Wisconsin GOPer Admits She Compared Public Schools To Nazi Germany