Harry Belafonte — Turn The World Around, from episode 314 of The Muppet Show.

Tonight is the peak night of the Perseid Meteor shower! It is one of my favorite things of the whole summer, the night when you either stay up really late or get up really early, go to some darkened field and watch little flecks of fire streak across the sky.

Now, not everyone can get out of their Mega-City to watch this yearly occurrence; but not to worry, the guys at NASA will hook you up! That is what we have at the top of this post a live composite of the meteors that have streaked across the sky.

Attacking the opponents of a candidate I can’t stand feels kind of awkward, but it’s just so hard not to.

Keeping a meme aloft is hard work in America’s constantly shifting political landscape. David “Axe” Axelrod must have thought the “Mitt’s weird!” message was in danger of sinking below the waves of Minnesota Not-Nice during yesterday’s FOX/GOP (but I repeat myself) debate in Iowa.

So Body Spray Dave did what all good campaign advisers do: he went on Morning Joke to “tamp down” the rumors that the Obama campaign, bereft of a decent economy or a motivated base, would organize itself around Mitt’s weirdness.

Apparently, the postal service often makes dire predictions like this before contract negotiations. I doubt that 120,000 postal employees will be laid off in one shot. However, there’s at least a couple things to take seriously here.

First, the decline in mail volume is real. Practically every company with a monthly bill encourages their customers to pay automatically or online. That significantly reduces mail output. The move of Netflix to streaming from mail service is probably a big blow. The rise of email over personal letters is another factor. The postal service has become a way to get Amazon orders out and to get birthday cards with $10 wedged in them from grandparents to grandchildren.

It has become a less crucial communications factor in American life. And because the postal service operates under a mandate to serve every home in America, even ones in the most rural outposts, which simply cannot be reached without a federal subsidy, their budget is more and more difficult to reach.

Because of that failure to finger, and a striking lack of proactive ideas in general, Obama’s Monday White House matinee served up a nothing-burger deluxe—not at all rare these days, I’m afraid, and also not well done. He wasn’t selling the steak, he wasn’t selling the sizzle, and he wasn’t telling a very good story in structural terms, either.

But the president very much needs to tell a story—to construct a narrative—because he very much needs to sell something: himself.

Various explanations for the riots in London in the past week have been flouted. Diversity, white liberals who control the media, rap music, people who scream racism, multiculturalism, infantilism, victim-centers narcissistic politics, black people, liberal dogma, the breakdown of family, no threat of capital punishment or deportation to Australia for the underclass and the “social engineering industry” have all been suggested by various right-wing commentators. Others contend UK austerity measures, including the closing of youth clubs, are partly to blame.

UK Prime Minister David Cameron says gangs are responsible for the chaos and disorder in London over the past days.

Rather than looking to reduce benefits the more obvious way to go with Medicare is to reduce the cost of care. The United States pays more than twice as much per person for its health care as the average for other wealthy countries. If we could get our costs down to those of other countries we would be facing huge long-run budget surpluses, not deficits. One way to get lower costs would be to allow Medicare beneficiaries to buy into the more efficient health care systems in other countries. The enormous potential savings could be split between the government and the beneficiary.

The Appeals Court of the 11th Circuit just ruled that the individual mandate in the new Affordable Care Act is unconstitutional. The ruling does, though, leave the rest of the law intact.

There should be little doubt now that the issue will end up before the Supreme Court.

[Editor's Note: David Dayen has more, 11th Circuit Rules Individual Mandate Unconstitutional.]

It’s pretty clear that this is how Washington works. Powerful members of Congress are subject to a special interest feeding frenzy. As soon as the lobbyists and the wealthy contributors find out who has the ability to advance their interests, they run to those members with wallets in hand.