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“This deregulatory effort cannot be defended.” —Representative Henry Waxman [Los Angeles Times: EPA May Drop Lead Air Pollution Limits]

18,000 votes for Congress disappeared by Florida e-voting machines. [Christian Science Monitor: Election controversy hits Florida, again]

The Iraq Study Group recommends privatizing Iraq’s oil industry for foreign investors.

• As soon as possible, the U.S. government should provide technical assistance to the Iraqi government to prepare a draft oil law that defines the rights of regional and local governments and creates a fiscal and legal framework for investment. Legal clarity is essential to attract investment.
  [PDF file: The Iraq Study Group Report]

Also:

• The United States should encourage investment in Iraq’s oil sector by the international community and by international energy companies.
• The United States should assist Iraqi leaders to reorganize the national oil industry as a commercial enterprise, in order to enhance efficiency, transparency, and accountability. [Ibid.]

Man Attends Event— which Your Montag can only make sense out of if I hold, as a matter of faith, the belief that it is nothing more than a brutally clever triumph of satirical comedy —Grows Balls Enough to Stand Up Under Oppression.

In this case, the oppression of an on-duty Anal-Mart employee:

A few weeks later, Stephenson, 43, is still not sold on profanity. But he has ditched the nice-guy reflex of always turning the other cheek. When he spots a Wal-Mart clerk writing “Happy Holidays” on a window, he boldly complains: It should say “Merry Christmas.”

The clerk erases the offending greeting. Chalk one up for Christian testosterone.

“I wouldn’t have done that before,” Stephenson says proudly. “I am no longer a doormat.” [LA Times: Manliness is next to godliness — Via: TBWSDIFS]