In contrast to the loud backlash of anger from journalists over the remarks of Thomas and Sanchez, few have condemned the remarks from Peretz or Kilmeade. Could the double standards in our discourse be any more glaring?

The soils in large areas of the Southern Hemisphere, including large parts of Australia, Africa and South America, have been drying up in the past decade, a new study finds. The study is the first major one of its kind to look at the movement of water from the land to the atmosphere, called "evapotranspiration," on a global scale.

At a town hall meeting Sunday afternoon in Anchorage, U.S. Senate campaign GOP nominee Joe Miller was asked a long question on how we should keep illegal immigrants out. His short answer: "If East Germany can do it, we can do it!"..........Last Monday, under increasing pressure from the Alaska press to release more details of why his employment as an attorney for the Fairbanks North Star Borough (FNSB) ended in controversy, Miller scheduled, canceled, then rescheduled a press conference. At that event, Miller closed, stating: We’ve drawn a line in the sand. You can ask me about background, you can ask about personal issues — I’m not going to answer. I’m not. During this past week, press hostility toward Miller understandably grew. As a result of Miller's refusal to sign a release allowing the FNSB to release his employment records, the former mayor of Fairbanks, Republican Jim Whitaker made a public statement on Miller's job performance there: Republican U.S. Senate candidate Joe Miller was nearly fired from his job as a borough attorney in 2008 after using borough computers in an attempt to oust the chairman of the Republican Party of Alaska, former borough Mayor Jim Whitaker said Wednesday...... Alaska legal blogger, Wickersham's Conscience made a case that Whitaker's information indicates Miller engaged in criminal activity in his abuse of co-workers' computers...

Is the outsourcing tide finally turning? “Twenty years ago we were in the process of moving every appliance manufacturing job to China or Mexico,” Jeff Immelt, chief executive, said earlier this year. “[But]...when I open up the safe under my desk I can’t find the pennies that we have saved ... So the next generation of products are going to be made in the US.”

This year has been a steamy one so far, with the first nine months tied for the warmest on record with the same period in 1998, according to a new report looking at combined land and ocean surface temperatures. The global average land surface temperature for January-September was the second warmest on record, behind 2007; and the global ocean surface temperature for that stint was also the second warmest on record, behind 1998.

The U.S. Army, under the accumulating stress of nine years at war, is suffering an alarming spurt of drug abuse, crime and suicide that is going unchecked, according to an internal study that depicts an Army in crisis. A small but growing number of soldiers who perform credibly in combat turn to high-risk behavior, including drug abuse, drunken driving, motorcycle street-racing, petty crime and domestic violence, once they return home.

I just started a new job, after being out of work for three years. I signed up with the Company provided PPO. $355.87 per month out of my pocket plus $1,500 deductible. Total including the Company paid portion is $545.87 per month. It really doesn’t cover much. About 6 weeks after signing up (they’ve already start deducting) I received the following:

With the elections coming closer and the need for Democrats to come together who are the Democrats who make it hardest to inspire progressives? Is there a distinction between the parties anymore?

In addition to Christine O'Donnell's effusive praise for Obama's Terrorism and war actions in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen, Bush CIA and NSA Director Michael Hayden has repeatedly praised Obama's "powerful continuity" with Bush/Cheney in these areas; torture choreographer Condoleezza Rice came out of a meeting with the President on Friday and praised his foreign policy and hailed him as "a defender of America's interests"; and one of the most ardent defenders of Obama's assassination program is the incomparably unhinged anti-Muslim fanatic Andrew McCarthy of National Review.

24 Percent: Voters who told pollsters for the New York Times they planned to vote for GOP-tea bagger candidate Carl Paladino for governor, compared with 59 percent who said they would vote for Attorney General Andrew Cuomo. When asked to say a word that came to mind when hearing Paladino’s name, voters said things like “angry,” “bigoted” and “obnoxious.” (And remember, these are New Yorkers talking.)

An excerpt: "An equally fallacious corollary to "Social Darwinism" is often phrased this way: the rich are rich because they are better, work harder and are more intelligent. George W. Bush put it more crudely: “The poor are poor because they are lazy!” In the same vein, the conservative economist Joseph A. Schumpeter likened recessions to a "douche". Significantly, it is only those made poor by these policies who get 'douched'. Those 'douched' include millions made homeless by Ronald Reagan's depression of some 2 years or more."

Scores of Republicans and conservative Democrats who voted against the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act subsequently wrote letters requesting funds for projects in a massive, behind-the-scenes letter-writing and phone call campaign, documents obtained by the Center show. Those asking for money include Tea Party favorites like freshman Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown and Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Dumber than Dirt., former presidential candidates Ron Paul and John McCain and Republican congressional leaders like Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and Rep. Mike Pence of Indiana.

Watching Republican candidates this year, we have become accustomed to a wide variety of outrageous expression, running the gamut from inane to insane. But even within this set of misfits, this man is just vile.

If Republicans take the House next month, the “wave” of seats flipping from blue to red in the Rust and Bible belts will stop at Nevada’s western border. Within the state’s 53-seat House delegation, just three seats are up for grabs and one of them is held by Dan Lungren, a Republican. Democratic Rep. Loretta Sanchez, one of the most prominent members of the California delegation, is in a competitive race for the first time since she was elected in 1996, and Rep. Jerry McNerney, the other Democrat, is opposed by the tea bagger who made news last week calling for closing all public schools in America.

While Americans die in Afghanistan, the democracy we're attempting to instill there is but an abstraction to most Afghans.

The revelations came after a report Friday by ProPublica and the Washington Post that the FBI had been warned about Headley’s terrorist ties three years before the Mumbai attacks. Headley wasn’t arrested until 11 months after the attack. After Headley was arrested in a 2005 domestic dispute in New York City, his wife told federal investigators about his long involvement with the terrorist group Lashkar-i-Taiba and his extensive training in its Pakistani camps. She also told them he had bragged about being a paid U.S. informant while undergoing terrorist training.

Who can forget the campaigns of 2004 and 2008 when Crawford Caligula and McConJob kept their audiences pure by refusing access to anyone who might criticize them. When it comes to the press, the Republican Senate nominee runs from them at an obtuse angle. But the Alaska Senate nominee has set the bar for defining freedom of the press, Republican style.

Carly Fiorina has proven her worth by taking a once fine company and driving it to the doorstep of bankruptcy. It should therefore be no surprise that she’s a perfect fit for the party of no, especially no new ideas. But she was so intent on misrepresenting the old Republican standard of destroying the safety net for millions of Americans, that she could not even handle the softball approach of Chris Wallace.

"Tony Hopfinger, editor of the online Alaska Dispatch, tells KTUU-TV that security pushed him as he tried to question Joe Miller on Sunday. He says he pushed back and that guards then detained him, accusing him of trespassing at the public event in Anchorage......The Anchorage Daily News reports that "Hopfinger was handcuffed by the guards and detained in a hallway at Central Middle School until Anchorage police came and told the guards to release him."

China's search for a greater role in international trade and diplomacy has resulted in some innovative thinking. An example of this arrived at the east African port of Mombassa last week. It was the first overseas medical mission for Peace Ark, which set sail from Zhejiang province in east China on August 31. Other ports of call include stops in Djibouti, Tanzania, the Seychelles and Bangladesh. At each port they provide free medical treatment for locals with problems ranging from tumours to infant malnutrition.