(1)  I recommend Facebook Lite.  It's Facebook's clutterless version.

(2)  9/11 tribute?  None from me today.  I'm not sure what can be said this year that wasn't said in any prior year. Commemorate amongst yourselves.  I think kitchy 9/11 tributes get worse and worse every year (picture below is from 2002)

(3)  Rob Miller, the Democratic challenger to Joe Wilson (R-SC) in 2010, had only $48,000 in his campaign account at the end of June.  Since Wilson's "You lie" outburt, Miller's cofferes have rose to over $750,000.  Now Wilson is begging for money.

(4)  I'm not impressed with the hurricanes this year.

(5)  I think Ellen Degeneres as an American Idol judge is a nice idea, and might boost ratings for a while, and I like her, too.  But what qualifies her to be a judge in a singing competition?

(6)  Hahaha!  Speaking of Joe Wilson, remember a few years ago when the Dixie Chicks were unpatriotic because they criticized the president during a time of war at one of their own concerts?  Good times.

(7)  And relatedly, remember when wearing an anti-Iraq War T-shirt to a presidential State of the Union speech would not only get you thrown out, but arrested???  Sigh.  Those were the days.

(8)  The U.S. Census Bureau has just announced that the poverty rate for 2008 was 13.2%. This means the number of people in poverty has increased by about 2.5 million, to 39.8 million. To give you some perspective, 2.5 million is more than the number of people who live in Detroit and San Francisco combined.

(9)  Glenn Greenwald looks at incivility versus indecency, and how incivility (using swear words, calling the president a liar, etc.) gets treated with indignation, while indecency discussed in soft and civil tones (i.e., torture) gets a pass:

As long as one adheres to Beltway decorum, one can advocate the most amoral and even murderous policies without any repercussions whatsoever; it is only disruptive and impolite behavior that generates intense upset.  Beltway culture hates "incivility" (public use of bad words) but embraces full-scale substantive indecency (torture, lawbreaking, unjustified wars, ownership of government by corporations, etc.).