“SURPRISINGLY GREEN:” New Australian Desert Located.

EUROPE: Fiddling As The Euro Burns.

GOVERNMENT HEALTHCARE: Legless man denied wheelchair. “A man from Nyköping in eastern Sweden has been denied a power wheelchair despite having had both of his legs amputated as the local health authority remained ‘uncertain if the impairment was permanent’.”

FROM REMY: An Ode To The Incandescent Light Bulb.

It’s still not too late to stock up!

GOING GALT: Kennewick Construction Company Auctions Itself Off.

It took Bob Bertsch 25 years to build his construction business and just a day for it all to go away.

Bertsch’s Kennewick-based Ashley-Bertsch Group went on the auction block Friday at 9 a.m. By 4 p.m., Booker Auctions had sold off almost two dozen vehicles and trailers, tons of power tools and supplies, even the gas-fired fireplace in the office.

Bertsch, 65, said he is down-sizing because the tax burden got too expensive to stay in business.

After a quarter of a century of building a successful enterprise at 5903 W. Metaline Ave., Bertsch sat back and watched as about 200 people bid on what was left of his company — boxes of electrical parts, a drafting desk, high-end office furniture, TVs, computers and even the phone system.

Anything that could be carried away, was.

“I am tired of carrying all the tax load,” Bertsch said. “I renew 13 licenses here every year just so I can spend money in this city.”

Bertsch makes no attempt to conceal his frustration with the costs government imposes on small businesses like his.

“Government is killing small business. We used to have 24 employees at our peak. Now, all of those people who used to work here are in unemployment lines,” he said.

Hope and change.

#OCCUPYFAIL: Occupy Hartford Tried to Keep Sexual Assault Quiet.

FASTER, PLEASE: FDA speeds development of artificial pancreas systems.

CAN YOU WRITE A FULL-LENGTH STORY ABOUT WEAKENING SUPPORT FOR GLOBAL-WARMING REMEDIES AND NOT MENTION CLIMATEGATE? You can if you’re Neela Banerjee in the L.A. Times.

WALTER RUSSELL MEAD: It All Begins With Football.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Study finds faults in S.C. colleges and universities. “Many South Carolina public colleges and universities are excessively expensive and have strayed too far from their core mission: educating students, according to a recent study by a Columbia-based think tank. Tuition is rising faster than household income in South Carolina, says the study of eight colleges and universities by the S.C. Policy Council, a public policy research and education foundation that advocates for more limited government.”

KATIE GRANJU: Read It For Yourself: Investigative File in Judge Baumgartner Case. “Remember that as full of information as this 150 page chunk of the TBI file is (your jaw will drop when you read what’s in it), this is only 1/10th of the complete file, which has not been released publicly. And there are quite a few redactions in this piece of the file. So as bad as this stuff is, there’s more of it. . . . The basic question that now must be asked until there are definitive answers is this one: what did those with these special obligations to protect the integrity of our criminal justice system know, and when did they know it?”

WHERE BLACK STUDENTS FROM ELITE SCHOOLS GO TO WORK: “Black students who graduate from elite colleges consistently gravitate toward less prestigious – though by no means less important – jobs in fields perceived as directly addressing social and racial inequities, such as education, social work and community and nonprofit organizing, the author found.” Oh, I think they probably are less important. But I also think they’re fields where affirmative action is likely to play a bigger role in hiring.

AT AMAZON, bestselling books in Science Fiction.

Also: Today only: Up to 60% off on select fitness equipment.

#OCCUPYFAIL: MAN FOUND DEAD AT OCCUPY DENTON ENCAMPMENT.

THE AYN RANDING OF AMERICA: Lululemon Athletica Combines Ayn Rand and Yoga. “Lululemon Athletica, the retailer of yoga pants and hoodies, has long decorated shopping bags with slogans that appear to have been lifted from self-help books. But this month its bags have asked a question that some may find more provocative: ‘Who is John Galt?'” Somewhere, Ms. Rand thanks Barack Obama.

REGIME UNCERTAINTY: “Are economic and policy uncertainty discouraging businesses — and small businesses in particular — from hiring? Is such uncertainty a factor discouraging economic recovery? A new analysis by Mark Schweitzer of the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland and Scott Shane of CWRU’s Weatherhead School of Management suggests some pundits and policymakers have been too quick to dismiss this possibility.”

TRANSPARENCY: Energy Committee to consider contempt citation against White House for Solyndra stonewalling.

ASKING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS: If Everyone Else Is Such An Idiot, How Come You’re Not Rich? “When internet commentators see odd behavior that they don’t understand, why do they assume that the most parsimonious explanation is that management must be a bunch of drooling morons?” Isn’t the “drooling morons” explanation the go-to for pretty much anything for Internet commentators?

#OCCUPYFAIL: Some Occupy L.A. arrestees feel traumatized, might seek therapy.

EVERYTHING’S AMAZING AND NOBODY’S HAPPY:

HEH: The Revenge of the Nerds: How the 80’s movie foretold the rise of Geek Culture. It probably did, but this piece doesn’t do an especially good job of making that point.

DAN FROOMKIN: Suskind’s Confidence Men Raises Questions About Obama’s Credibility.

Barack Obama is heading back onto the campaign trail, running as a champion of the middle class and even hoping to harness the Occupy movement’s public anger at Wall Street.

But the higher he soars with his populist rhetoric, the more he calls attention to the enormous gap between the promise of hope and change that he campaigned on in 2008 and the actions he has taken as president — especially regarding the economy, which is still stagnating, and Wall Street, which remains unpunished and unbowed even after causing the biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression.

As a result, voters will inevitably be asking themselves: Who is this guy, really? Does he mean what he says? Will he do what he says? And would a second-term Obama be different?

Yes. He’d be worse.

SWATI PANDEY: How The Snowglobe Went Global.

MICHAEL YON: The Army Ain’t Dumb.