SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 8:45 P.M. ET:

ZAKARIA ZAPPED – Fareed Zakaria, whose belief in his own wisdom knows no bounds, has been nailed for plagiarism and suspended for a month by both TIME and its sister company, CNN.  Zakaria lifted a paragraph from a New Yorker piece on gun control.  As NewsBusters points out, he has also been caught using the same college commencement address over and over.  Earlier this year Zakaria told both Duke and Harvard graduates, “You don’t need an ethics course to know what you shouldn’t do.’’  I guess Zakaria actually does.

HILARIOUS, IF IT WASN'T SO SAD – Gallup reports that its Economic Confidence Index was negative in all 50 states in the first half of 2012...but positive in the District of Columbia.  Of course.  That's where the federal government is.  I mean, do you laugh or do you cry?  The only place in America where people feel confident about the future is the federal government.  Have the feds noticed that there's a country out there?  Please send them maps.  Small ones will do.

MORE VOTING IN WISCONSIN – Readers are alerted to a critical primary coming up Tuesday in Wisconsin, to select the Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate.  (The election in November will decide who will succeed retiring Senator Herb Kohl, a responsible Democrat.)  It was assumed early in the Republican primary that popular former Governor Tommy Thompson was a shoo-in for the nomination, and that the GOP would easily take this seat from the Democrats.  But the primary has turned into a real battle, with uncertain results.  Thompson, though, is still slightly ahead in the polls.  And surveys show he would be the strongest candidate against the Democratic nominee, Congresswoman Tammy Baldwin, a certified whack job from the People's Republic of Madison.  She must be kept out of the Senate, lest we see Lenin's Tomb moved to Capitol Hill.

WARNING FROM THE U.S. – In a stern statement unlike most of the mush that comes from the Obama administration, the State Department's counterterrorism coordinator warned that Hezbollah, the Iranian-controlled group based in Lebanon, could attack Europe at any time, with little or no warning.  Daniel Benjamin issued the caution soon after the U.S. Treasury announced new sanctions against Hezbollah, which supports the murderous Assad regime in Syria. 

August 10, 2012