• Meanwhile...

    - Meet Steven Klein, the man who helped "inspire" Sam Bacile's Nakoula Basseley Nakoula's Innocence of Muslims. Yep, the same film that caused riots in the Islamic world and led to the deaths of three U.S. diplomats and one ambassador.

    - Gary Brecher of the Exiled Online explains why Barack Obama makes a damn good president, but a piss poor cheerleader of bloodthirsty American masses.

    - Chicago Public Schools and the Chicago Teachers Union have reportedly reached a tentative deal that may bring a close to a five-day teachers strike, the first to occur in 25 years. Anyone looking for background info should check out this Metafilter post.

    - In Britain, a whistle-blower tells what most of us already know about the price of fuel.

    - A group of peace activists, including an 82-year-old nun, exposes lax security at a nuclear materials storage facility.

    - Chris Brown gets a shitty tattoo. Story at 11.

    Finally, Clint Eastwood could give a hairy fuck what anyone thinks of his legendary speech at the Republican National Convention:

    "One advantage of being my age is that you know what can they do to ya?" said Eastwood, 82. "You just have fun and do what you think and then you can say what you think, you don't have to edit yourself."

    Which lends credence to my own personal suspicions that ol' Clint deliberately torpedoed the convention and along with it, Mitt's chances for anything resembling a win this November by playing the "confused old coot" role. Keep in mind the man is an actor and a pretty damn good one at that.