PAGANS AND THE TEA PARTY. “As a liberal Pagan, I think I have enough in common with the Tea Party Movement to engage in respectful, serious, and practical dialogue about how to solve the problems facing our nation.”

UH OH: Inquiry on Harvard Lab Threatens Ripple Effect. “Harvard’s slow-motion inquiry about the laboratory of Marc Hauser, one of its star academics, has cast a shadow over the several different fields in which Dr. Hauser and his students published papers.”

TOM MAGUIRE: Obama On The Mosque – The Backpedaling Begins.

ROBERT COSTA: Can Charlie Rangel Hold On?

WINE GIZMO with sound effects.

BARNEY FRANK AND the code of ethics for government service.

CLAIM: Water On Moon Not As Likely As Thought. This is less exciting than I thought, though, as they’re talking about water on the moon when it was formed, not now.

SALVATION THROUGH GOVERNMENT: German Millionaire Criticizes Private Charity: “The donors are taking the place of the state. That’s unacceptable.”

GUARDIAN: Jobless millions signal death of the American dream for many. “The headline jobless figure of 9.5% is bad enough but does not begin to convey the problem as it fails to measure those who have stopped looking for work. Over the past three months alone more than a million Americans have fallen into that category: effectively giving up hope of finding a job and dropping out of the official statistics. Such cases now number some 5.9 million and their ranks are likely to grow as millions more find their jobless status becoming a permanent state of hopelessness. . . . America appears to be a society splitting down the centre, shattering the middle class that long formed the cultural bedrock of the country and dividing it into a country of haves and have-nots.” Hope and change!

BLOGGERS ORGANIZING AND standing up to the “Righthaven” lawuits. It’s generally a bad idea to threaten bloggers.

SCOTT BUDMAN: Silicon Valley’s New “It” Company.

L.A. TIMES: 9/11 families and GOP’s Boehner, Palin react strongly to Obama’s support of a Ground Zero mosque.

Christian Science Monitor: Obama mosque dispute: In backing plans, he parts with many Americans. You have to give him credit here: Instead of going along with the polls, he’s standing up for his beliefs.

UPDATE: Oops, not so much.

AT AMAZON, markdowns on kitchenware.

BE FREE, MY FRIENDS: Why It’s OK For Men To Judge Women On Their Looks. “Would the world be a better place if being 60 lbs overweight didn’t matter? Sure. Would the world be a better place if 5’4″ men fared as well as 6″ tall men? Absolutely. Wouldn’t it be great if a male second grade teacher had as much status and appeal as the C.E.O. of a Fortune 500 company? Yep. But that’s not the world we live in.”

THEY TOLD ME IF I VOTED FOR MCCAIN, WE’D BE WAGING AN ENDLESS AND EXPANDING SHADOW WAR AGAINST TERRORISTS: And they were right!

JEFFREY GOLDBERG ON ISRAEL AND IRAN: A roundup of reactions.

RON RADOSH: Obama’s Indecision And the Iranian Bomb.

RATS ON THE WEST SIDE, BEDBUGS UPTOWN: “TVNewser has learned the human resources department of TBS Inc. has sent out an email this afternoon alerting staffers of a bed bug problem in their New York City offices at Time Warner Center — home to CNN, CNNMoney.com and other Time Warner entities.” Bringing back DDT would solve this problem. . . .

UPDATE: Reader Jonathan Bailey writes: “A bedbug infestation at TimeWarner Center may just be the savior of the developing world. When the elites are made to live with he consequences of their misguided policies, things change. Quickly.”

MISTER WE’VE got a man like Herbert Hoover again.

MAYBE IT’S JUST ME, but I don’t find her that attractive: The America’s Next Top Model star, 6ft2in, whose waist can be held in a man’s hands.

“COFFEE PARTY” GROWS COLD.

THEY’RE LIVEBLOGGING THE SINGULARITY SUMMIT at Next Big Future and The Speculist.

AT AMAZON, a Back-to-School Watch Sale.

PJTV: Dana Loesch’s This Week in Tea: Potty Mouthed Haters Start New Anti-Tea Party Movement

I NOW PRONOUNCE YOU ANNOYING: Wedding Trends That Need To Go. I love this part:

I love how every single time I go to a wedding someone’s uncle or someone’s cousin or some married jackass tells me that women are horny at weddings, as if they’re the first people to ascertain this essential fact. First of all, women — and men, for that matter — are horny at weddings because there’s usually an open bar. Put an open bar at an “Antiques Road Show” and people would be telling you, “Dude, chicks are horny as hell at antique road shows.”

Heh.