HOPEY-CHANGEY: Has the European Virus Infected Germany? “Take a look at the latest grim economic data from Europe: Industrial output in Spain dropped for the tenth straight month, and now the German economy appears to be spluttering.”

Related: Americans Expect Worsening Economy.

SUNLIGHT: Bipartisan Group Of Legislators Demands Stronger Probe Into Delphi Pension Scandal. “Twelve lawmakers wrote to House oversight committee Chairman Rep. Darrell Issa and Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Sen. Joe Lieberman asking that they expand current probes into a Department of Treasury scandal that left 20,000 non-union Delphi retirees without their pensions after the 2009 General Motors bailout. . . . This renewed investigation call comes in the wake of emails The Daily Caller obtained and first published on Tuesday showing that senior White House and Treasury officials were behind the termination of pensions for 20,000 non-union Delphi salaried retirees.”

SEXISM IN HIGH PLACES: Janet Napolitano-run Homeland Security treated male staffers like lapdogs, federal discrimination lawsuit charges. “A blistering federal discrimination suit accuses agency honcho Janet Napolitano of turning the department into a female-run ‘frat house’ where male staffers were banished to the bathrooms and routinely humiliated. James Hayes Jr., who now is New York’s top Homeland Security cop, claims Napolitano filled top spots in Washington, D.C., with two of her gal pals who were bent on tormenting male employees. . . . Hayes claims that after he reported the abuse to the Equal Employment Opportunity office, Napolitano launched a series of misconduct investigations against him.”

UPDATE: Related: Janet Napolitano’s DHS Commences Witch Hunt Against Whistleblowers.

HOW THE BRAIN makes sense of sentences.

JIM GERAGHTY: “We have an administration where the Secretary of Health and Human Services believes she is fighting a war and the Secretary of Defense does not.”

THE BAD NEWS: Software Runs the World: How Scared Should We Be That So Much of It Is So Bad?

JOHN PODHORETZ: Romney’s Strategy Isn’t Working.

HOW’S THAT HOPEY-CHANGEY STUFF WORKIN’ OUT FOR YA? (CONT’D): Optimism about economy down, poll shows. “The number of people who say the economy is starting to recover has dropped 5 points since April, from 24 percent to 19 percent, while the number who say that the economy remains in a downturn is up 6 points to 39 percent, a CNN/ORC International poll released Friday shows.”

AT AMAZON, IT’S the Kindle Deal of the Day.

Also, today only: $110 off on the Kindle DX.

ALTERNATE HISTORY: Elections since 1964 if JFK hadn’t been assassinated.

BYRON YORK: Romney and conservatives remain uneasy partners.

DARLEEN CLICK JUMPS ON THE REPEAL THE HOLLYWOOD TAX CUTS BANDWAGON: Why not start with a 20% excise tax on the film industry?

GALLUP: Why Too Many U.S. Federal Employees Are Tax Cheats and Rule Breakers. “Federal workers are generally well compensated and receive more vacation days and better healthcare and retirement packages than many private sector employees — yet they remain disengaged and work within a growing culture of rule breaking.”

RON RADOSH ON taste in heroes.

HOW LAW SCHOOLS systematically underreport student debt.

21ST CENTURY RELATIONSHIPS: Creepy New Website Lets You Build Your Dream Guy From Scratch. “Online dating/procrastination site iDreamofU allows you to ‘build your own Christian Grey’ (their lingo, not ours), choosing which features — facial shape, eye color, the works — you find most attractive, and then matching you with a real, live individual who looks like the dream guy you’ve created.”

NANOTECHNOLOGY UPDATE: “Georgia Tech models swimming, cargo-carrying nanobots. “The nanobot war is escalating. Not content to let Penn State’s nanospiders win the day, Georgia Tech has answered back with a noticeably less creepy blood-swimming robot model of its own, whose look is more that of a fish than any arachnid this time around. It still uses material changes to exert movement — here exposing hydrogels to electricity, heat, light or magnetism — but Georgia Tech’s method steers the 10-micron trooper to its destination through far more innocuous-sounding flaps.”

I THINK IT SHOULD BE BASED ON DELICIOUSNESS: Deer Infestation Calls for a Radical Free-Market Solution. “The most promising reform could be legalizing the sale of venison and hides to small manufacturing enterprises. If the state allowed a commercial market for deer products, more deer would be killed. Farm markets can sell local beef, so why shouldn’t they be able to market local venison?”

HOPEY CHANGEY: Civilian Deaths Drop in Afghanistan; Still Triple 2008 Rate.

“I KISSED A REPUBLICAN.” And I liked it!

WALTER RUSSELL MEAD: Green Fail: UN Carbon Trading Scheme Increases Pollution. “Behold a green failure so colossal even Via Meadia is surprised: a UN carbon-credit trading program intended to reduce global concentrations of greenhouse gases has instead led a handful of factories in the developing world to massively increase them.”

HOPEY-CHANGEY: Obama’s Counterterror Chief: What War in Yemen?

ANOTHER REASON NOT TO MOVE YOUR BUSINESS TO CAYMAN: Jail time for sexual harassment proposed. I love Cayman, but I wouldn’t locate a business there under the current government.

PROF. JACOBSON: “The Rachels built America. The Sandras just feed off of it.”