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Burton and his colleagues spent the early months of 2012 trying out the pitch that Romney was the most far-right presidential candidate since Barry Goldwater. It fell flat. The public did not view Romney as an extremist. For example, when Priorities informed a focus group that Romney supported the Ryan budget plan — and thus championed “ending Medicare as we know it” — while also advocating tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, the respondents simply refused to believe any politician would do such a thing. What became clear was that voters had almost no sense of Obama’s opponent. While conducting a different focus group — this one with non-college-educated Milwaukee voters on the eve of Wisconsin’s April 3 primary — Burton and Sweeney were surprised to learn that even after Romney had spent months campaigning, many in the group could not recognize his face, much less characterize his positions. Compounding

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This is the Zulg River in Switzerland. Apparently this river has a history of flooding like this, and the town is quite prepared. Police are quick to block off low lying areas and bridges.

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It was a case of ‘Yabba Dabba Don’t’ for Flintstones nut Sebastian Trager after police banned his custom built motor from German roads.

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Of course, you may already be familiar with the nutso statistic that more British troops have been deployed for the Olympics than are serving in Afghanistan.

And on the one hand, this feels hugely positive: it looks as if we have far more chance of subjugating sports fans than we do Johnny Taliban.

Indeed, it will surely be some comfort to any military personnel bleeding out after a Helmand ambush to know that they might have sacrificed their backup to a nobler cause – like stopping people bringing off-brand water bottles anywhere near the velodrome. And medalwise, the Olympics shouldn’t just be about gold, silver and bronze. Let’s hope the confiscation of unauthorised marketing material guarantees the combatant at least a Military Cross.

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When Duke Energy announced its merger with Progress Energy last year, the two companies agreed that Progress CEO Bill Johnson would assume the same position at the combined company. So he did: On June 27, Johnson signed a three-year contract to helm Duke. When the merger went into effect on July 2, he assumed the position of CEO.

And then, on July 3 at midnight, Johnson resigned.

[..]

Despite his short-lived tenure, Mr. Johnson will receive exit payments worth as much as $44.4 million, according to Duke. That includes $7.4 million in severance, a nearly $1.4 million cash bonus, a special lump-sum payment worth up to $1.5 million and accelerated vesting of his stock awards, according to a Duke regulatory filing Tuesday night.

Back in the days of normal CEO pay packages, stock options didn’t vest for years as an incentive to stick around. But these days, they all suddenly have “accelerated vesting” options…

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Recently on his radio show, Limbaugh took a call from a man who wanted to blame Obama’s 2008 election on uninformed youth. Limbaugh interrupted him and said……drumroll…..

“Ehhh, I can do one better than that. When WOMEN got the right to vote is when it all went downhill. Because that’s when votes started being cast with emotion and uh, maternal instincts that government ought to reflect …….”

All of a sudden, Rush stops talking mid-sentence as if he’s realized what a horrible mistake he’s just made. His caller took advantage of the silence and continued talking about how young people are the ones ruining elections. Limbaugh interrupts his caller, who he was clearly not listening to, as he tries to figure out how to extract his foot from his BIG MOUTH and said:

 “Yeah…I…Look, I’m joking about the women’s vote. I just got a little frustrated here…”

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Mitt Romney has been frustratingly tight-lipped about his search for a running mate thus far, but his wife isn’t as guarded. In an interview with CBS News that was broadcast Thursday, Ann Romney leaked that her husband’s campaign is considering choosing a female vice presidential candidate.

Oh, pleeeeaase pick Michelle Bachmann!

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In Louisiana, Republican Governor Bobby Jindal pushed for a voucher program that would allow state funds to be used to pay for religious schools. It’s unconstitutional, it’s a way to use taxpayer money to fund someone’s faith, and it was a bad idea to begin with.

But it passed.

Now, one of the state legislators, Rep. Valarie Hodges (R-Watson), just made a shocking discovery, though: Christianity isn’t the only religion!

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“Lemon. Wet. Good.”

– Mitt Romney, quoted by ABC News, when asked how a glass of lemonade tasted.

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In fact, the impact of the War on Drugs has been so racially biased that although only 14% of all illicit drug users are black, blacks make up about half of those in prison for drug offenses.  (When you adjust for the fact that the Department of Justice simply throws prisoners who identify as mixed race half-black and half-white out of their data, the proportion is well over half.)  A black man is eight-times as likely as a white man to be locked up at some point in his life. And by 2006 America had, proportionally, almost six-times as many blacks locked up as South Africa did at the height of Apartheid.

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Countrywide Financial, once the nation’s largest mortgage lender, bought influence on Capitol Hill by issuing hundreds of sweetheart loans for members of Congress, their staffs and other government employees, according to a report issued by the House of Representatives Thursday.

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As the scandal unfolds, it’s becoming clear that Liborgate is bigger than Barclays. Bank of America, Citi, and JP Morgan are also under investigation. The independence and integrity of the Central Bank was also called into question after Barclays released a memo of a 2008 phone call Diamond had with Bank of England Deputy Governor Paul Tucker. During the conversation, it appeared that Tucker hinted Barclays should lower its rates. Tucker is scheduled to appear before Parliament on Monday.

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“To our complete surprise, we found several red dwarf binaries with orbital periods significantly shorter than the 5 hour cut-off found for Sun-like stars, something previously thought to be impossible”, said Dr Bas Nefs of Leiden Observatory in the Netherlands, lead author of a paper accepted for publication in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. “It means that we have to rethink how these close-in binaries form and evolve.”

The best scientific outcry isn’t “Eureka!”, it’s “hmm… that’s odd?”

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House Republican leader Mike Turzai acknowledged the law’s political implications at a Republican State Committee meeting last month.

“Voter ID – which is going to allow Gov. Romney to win the state of Pennsylvania – done,” Turzai told the crowd, which burst into applause, as he listed legislative accomplishments under GOP control.

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Posner said some industries, like pharmaceuticals, had a better claim to intellectual property protection because of the enormous investment it takes to create a successful drug.

Advances in software and other industries cost much less, he said, and the companies benefit tremendously from being first in the market with gadgets – a benefit they would still get if there were no software patents.

“It’s not clear that we really need patents in most industries,” he said.

Also, devices like smartphones have thousands of component features, and they all receive legal protection.

“You just have this proliferation of patents,” Posner said. “It’s a problem.”