As President Obama and congressional leaders work feverishly to negotiate an end to the debt ceiling impasse, I am sure most Americans are keeping our fingers crossed that the parties reach a meaningful agreement that allows the country to avoid a ruinous default and credit rating downgrade.
If a deal is struck, news media pundits will promptly declare who came out a “winner” and who came out a “loser” in this torturous process. They may contend that President Obama was a loser because his call for increased taxes as part of a “balanced” approach was unsuccessful. They may argue that the Republicans were losers because they were maneuvered into a last-second backroom deal that doesn’t make enough spending cuts. Or perhaps the mantra will be that Harry Reid and Senate Democrats were marginalized during the final hours, or that “Tea Party” Republicans looked too uncompromising and unrealistic, or that progressives in Congress have lost their clout as the debate focuses totally on spending cuts.
The insistence on declaring triumphal winners and abject losers, with no middle ground, may be one reason why it has become so difficult for Washington to reach agreements. No one wants to be a “loser” because they know that General George Patton was right: Americans celebrate winners and despise losers. In this case, however, it’s hard to see how anyone comes out of this ridiculous process covered with glory. Our political leaders have failed to govern responsibly for so long, irrespective of which party has been in power, that there should be plenty of “loser” status to go around.
Update: As predicted (except this writer finds a lot of “winners” in the process).
The good news comes from data gathered by NASA satellites, which have evaluated the release of heat by the Earth’s atmosphere into space. The data, from 2000 through 2011, 
As I sit here tonight, amazed that President Obama and congressional leaders have taken us to the brink of apparent default, I wonder: If the debt ceiling is not increased, if the United States defaults, and if ratings agencies downgrade the investment value of United States government securities — with the likely negative ripple effect of those developments throughout the economy — does anyone doubt that the stock market will plunge and our carefully considered long-term investments are going to take a huge, unnecessary hit? And if that inevitable hit occurs, how long will it take for our retirement funds to recover from it — if ever?
This year’s New York State Fair will be serving up the Big Kahuna Donut Burger. This quarter-pound burger is served between slices of a grilled glazed doughnut. With cheese, bacon, and the fixin’s, The Big Kahuna Donut Burger comes out to about 1,500 calories: a true, over-the-top gutbuster. What will they think of next? Couldn’t they have worked a deep-fried Snickers bar into the mix somehow?
Meanwhile, what’s happening in the Senate? Nothing
On a bleak day when 
Who’s number 1? The wine-swigging French? Nope, they barely crack the top 15, finishing at number 14. What about Ireland? That would be wrong, too — the Irish barely beat out the French, finishing at number 13. How about our vodka-guzzling Russian buddies? Closer, but not quite. The Russians finish at number 4. No, the top three are Hungary, the Czech Republic, and overall winner Moldova. The studly Moldovans pound down 18.22 liters of alcohol per capita and they apparently aren’t picky, either: they drink about as much spirits (4.42 liters) as beer (4.57 liters) and wine (4.67). In short, Moldovan partiers will be happy to drink just about anything you put in front of them before they collapse.
Pryor, who will not be using his last year of eligibility at Ohio State — he was suspended for the first five games, anyway — wants to enter the NFL supplemental draft. In order to establish his eligibility for that draft, he has to show that he cannot return to OSU. As a result, his attorney asked for a letter confirming that Pryor could not return to the Buckeyes. 
For a time, it was thought that photons might be able to travel faster than the speed of light. That prospect left open some tantalizing possibilities, because under Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity, if an object could travel faster than the speed of light it could evade principles of causality. That is, an event’s effect, by traveling faster than the speed of light, could theoretically precede its cause, and time travel conceivably could occur. The most recent experiments have ruled out that possibility, as least as it relates to photons.
In the livestock barns, 4-H kids will be showing animals they have raised and fed and tenderly cared for since birth. The poultry pavilion will be a cacophony of cackling and quacking and honking by often-exotic looking fowl. Delicious fresh ice cream and milkshakes will be sold at the dairy building, next to the traditional butter cow and butter calf. Other buildings will house concession stands that hawk garage sale items and curious products you normally see only on TV. On the Midway, there will be vomit-inducing rides and a rich display of tattoos. And everywhere there will be 
So, what to do to try to end this apparent impasse? Why, give a speech, of course! 
