Have you been looking for a new “biz opp”? One that would enable you to get paid to “defend our freedom” and, oh, maybe “stop Liberal Tyranny!!”? Well look no further, because now your dream has come true: An enterprise called The TeaPartyBizOpp is offering “the first ever patriotic home based business opportunity” to help you think and grow rich while you restore America’s honor. All you have to do is convince some Teabaggers to read things.

That should be easy, right? Teabaggers love words — the angrier, the better! Judging by TeaPartyBizOpp’s website (one of those fancy “.info” sites), they sound poised to deliver:  Read more...

Cockroaches, the creepy critters reviled for invading kitchens the country over, might be modern medicine’s best option for fending off dangerous, drug-resistant bacterial infections.

British researchers at the University of Nottingham’s School of Veterinary Medicine and Science are behind the discovery, which entails harnessing molecules from the tissues of cockroaches and locusts to combat bacteria like E. coli and MRSA (drug-resistant staph infections).

“Superbugs … have shown the ability to cause untreatable infections and have become a major threat in our fight against bacterial diseases,” Dr. Naveed Khan, who supervised the work of lead researcher Simon Lee, said in a press release. “Thus, there is a continuous need to find additional sources of novel anti-microbials to confront this menace.”  Read more...

Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley, who has presided over the nation’s third-largest city for 21 years, like his father did before him, announced Tuesday that he will not run for a seventh term, saying the time “just feels right.”

Daley, 68, said he’d been thinking about not running for several months and became comfortable with his decision over the last several weeks.

“It just feels right,” Daley said at a news conference, his smiling wife Maggie standing by his side. “I’ve always believed that every person, especially public officials, must understand when it’s time to move on. For me, that time is now.”  Read more...

Several hundred Afghans chanting “Death to America” rallied outside a mosque in the Afghan capital on Monday to protest against an American church’s plan to burn a copy of the Koran on the anniversary of the September 11 attacks.

The protesters, mostly students from religious schools, gathered outside Kabul’s Milad ul-Nabi mosque to condemn plans by the Gainesville, Florida-based Dove World Outreach Center to burn copies of the Koran to mark the ninth anniversary of the attacks against the United States.

“We call on America to stop desecrating our Holy Koran,” student Wahidullah Nori told Reuters. He said the street protests condemning the church would continue “every day.”  Read more...

Joining many ignorant and intolerant right-wingers, Donald Trump has taken the position that all Muslims were responsible for the World Trade Center terrorist attack. Appearing on The Late Show with David Letterman, Trump responded to a question about the non-mosque that is not at ground zero:

Letterman: Does this suggest that we are in fact officially at war with Muslims?
Trump: Well, somebody knocked down the World Trade Center. [...] Somebody’s blowing us up. Somebody’s blowing up buildings, and somebody’s doing lots of bad stuff.  Read more...

Bracelets promoting breast cancer awareness are causing a stir at school districts across the country, leading some educators to ban them from classrooms for a message that some say is in poor taste.

Printed on the bracelets? “I love boobies.”

USA Today reports that South Dakota’s Baltic High School just decided to ban the bracelets, joining schools from California to Florida.

“When we had an assembly the first day of school, I basically told the students we were not insensitive to the cause,” Baltic High Principal Jim Aisenbrey told USA Today. “I do think there are more proper ways to bring this plight to the attention of people, and I don’t think this is a proper way.”  Read more...

The number of U.S. children in foster care has dropped 8 percent in just one year, and more than 20 percent in the past decade, according to new federal figures underscoring the impact of widespread reforms.

The drop, hailed by child-welfare advocates, is due largely to a shift in the policies and practices of state and county child welfare agencies. Many have been shortening stays in foster care, speeding up adoptions and expanding preventive support for troubled families so more children avoid being removed from their homes in the first place.  Read more...

When Apple gave its highly publicized explanation of the iPhone 4 antenna issues to the press back in July, CEO Steve Jobs said that Apple would give all iPhone 4 users a free case as an interim solution while the company researched the problem further. An executive with Mexican mobile carrier Telcel has now claimed that after September 30, Apple will release revised iPhone 4 hardware that does not exhibit the same signal attenuation flaw.  Read more...

Rick Sanchez referred to Barack Obama as the “cotton picking president” on CNN Monday (h/t Mediaite).

Sanchez made the comment in a discussion with CNN correspondent Jessica Yellin on “Rick’s List” about the many falsehoods that have been spread about Obama, such as the claim that he is a Muslim or that he is not a citizen of the United States. His voice rising in frustration, Sanchez asked Yellin why people continued to believe the false rumors:  Read more...

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