Do enough Democrats want to extend Bush tax cuts? (The Week)
The Week - With increasing numbers of moderate Democrats balking, Obama's plan to let tax cuts for the rich expire hits a serious snag

Mideast peace talks: Reason to be optimistic? (The Week)

The Week - The U.S.-brokered talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority got off to a better-than-expected start — but is resolution really within sight?

Is the GOP ready for prime time? (The Week)
The Week - All signs point to big Republican gains in November, enabling the GOP to implement its agenda. But what agenda is that?

Quote of the Day: Why Internet Debates Are So Awful (The Atlantic Wire)
The Atlantic Wire - "I have thought a lot about why people get so hostile online, and I have come to believe it is primarily because we live in a society with a hypertrophied sense of justice and an atrophied sense of humility and charity, to put the matter in terms of the classic virtues. ... In our online debates, we not only fail to cultivate charity and humility, we come to think of them as vices: forms of weakness that compromise our advocacy. And so we go forth to war with one another."--Alan Jacobs, professor of English at Wheaton College, writing at Big Questions Online. (Via ArtsJournal.)

Newt's Faint Presidential Prospects (RealClearPolitics.com)
RealClearPolitics.com - On Friday, at a town hall in small town Oklahoma, conservative Sen. Tom Coburn said Newt Gingrich is "the last person I'd vote for, for president." Gingrich is "a super-smart man but he doesn't know anything about commitment to marriage." Gingrich lacks, in Coburn's view, "the character traits necessary to be a great president."

Throw this on the Labor Day grill: tax cuts for small business (The Christian Science Monitor)
The Christian Science Monitor - This Labor Day weekend, the jobs outlook appears about as inviting as leftover potato salad. But President Obama found encouragement Friday in the jobs report for August.

Schneiderman for Attorney General (The Nation)
The Nation - The Nation -- "Transformational politics is the work we do today to ensure that the deal we can get on gun control or immigration reform in a year—or five years, or twenty years—will be better than the deal we can get today. Transformational politics requires us to challenge the way people think about issues, opening their minds to better possibilities."

The Latest Oil Platform Accident Is a Grim Reminder of Our Energy Challenges (Huffington Post)
Huffington Post - Read Sen. Tom Carper's other articles on HuffingtonPost.com

Election 2010 surprise: rise of black Republicans (The Christian Science Monitor)
The Christian Science Monitor - In June, a Charleston businessman named Tim Scott won the Republican nomination for South Carolina's First Congressional District, defeating Paul Thurmond, the son of state political legend Strom Thurmond, with nearly 70 percent of the primary vote.

Labor Secretary Asserts 'There Are Jobs Out There' (The Atlantic Wire)
The Atlantic Wire - A Friday op-ed from labor secretary Hilda Solis tries to strike a delicate balance. At USA Today, Solis attempts to acknowledge the bad unemployment rate, point to how far we have come, encourage workers to retrain, and assert that "there are jobs out there." That's a tough set of points to make while hitting the right tone, particularly on a day when a terrible July jobs report is released. Did she pull it off? Over at National Review, Jonah Goldberg summarizes the piece as "maybe you're not looking hard enough," which probably isn't the message the administration wants to send. Here's the breakdown so you can see for yourself:

Happy Hour Vid: Rachel Maddow and Jimmy Fallon Mix Up Some Sazeracs (The Atlantic Wire)
The Atlantic Wire - Just in time for the long weekend, Rachel Maddow stopped by Late Night to teach Jimmy Fallon the proper way to mix a sazerac, that most beloved of New Orleans blackout specials. Maddow's ideal version of the drink? One that tastes "like liquorice and I'm-not-hung-over-anymore." That sounds reasonable to us. Very reasonable.

Should all the Bush tax cuts be extended? (The Christian Science Monitor)
The Christian Science Monitor - No: Tax relief for the wealthy is bad stimulus The Bush tax cuts, which cost $1.7 trillion between 2001 and 2008, are set to expire at year’s end, posing several critical questions: Which tax cuts should be extended and for whom? Will permanent cuts boost the economy?

Young Adults Shy Away From 'Democrat' Label (The Atlantic Wire)
The Atlantic Wire - Citing a Pew Research Poll, The New York Times' Kirk Johnson surmises that college students, who once swooned for President Obama, are now beginning to distance themselves from the Democratic Party. The "college vote," which traditionally skews Democratic, may be marginalized this year as young adults become disillusioned with the administration. The trend comes at a particularly poor time for Democratic candidates, as Republicans and Tea Party "insurgents" have been building momentum toward significant congressional gains this November. Pundits parse the numbers, explaining the implications of the latest electoral wrinkle.

White House Ponders Business Tax Cuts (The Atlantic Wire)
The Atlantic Wire - Stagnant Jobs Reports Says It All, comments The Washington Post's Ezra Klein, reviewing numbers released today. "No wonder the White House is looking for further stimulus measures."

When Apple and Facebook Clash (The Atlantic Wire)
The Atlantic Wire - Ping, Apple's new foray into social networking, is already driving a wedge between Facebook and the Cupertino company. At first, Apple's new social network was partially integrated with Facebook, allowing users to connect with their Facebook friends who had also signed up for Ping. Facebook has since blocked Ping from accessing its API, rendering the feature useless and forcing Apple to dismantle it. In a surprisingly candid interview with All Things Digital, Apple CEO Steve Jobs said negotiations to further integrate with Facebook broke down because of the "onerous terms" set by Facebook. So what happened and is this just the beginning of a longer feud?

Why NASA Would Now Like to Visit the Sun (The Atlantic Wire)
The Atlantic Wire - While many have lamented the end of the space-shuttle era, NASA has quickly turned to dreaming up the next grand space adventure: sending an unmanned solar probe to "plunge" into the Sun's atmosphere and investigate its properties. The mission, which is slated for 2018, will equip the Solar Probe Plus with a heat shield able to withstand temperatures over 2,550 degrees Fahrenheit, aiming to "provide answers" to questions that scientists have wrestled with for decades. Pundits explain what exactly the mission will entail:It's No Theatrical Stunt reports Kit Eaton at Fast Company. The Solar Probe Plus will have five missions as it ventures near the sun: it "will measure electrons, protons and helium ions in the solar wind, produce amazing wide-field 3-D images of the Sun's corona, detect the electromagnetic shock-wave concussions and fields in the solar atmosphere, sample and detect the elements in the atmosphere and attempt to work out the heliosphere's origins." Plus, "sheer curiosity" is always at the root of such "awesome" missions.Aiming 'for the Heart of the Sun (Literally)' writes Rebecca Doyle gleefully at Popular Science. The main thrust of the "five missions" the Solar Probe will undertake is studying solar radiation. "Improved solar storm forecasts could protect future long-distance space explorers who would not be protected by Earth’s magnetic field," she notes. "NASA’s goals are to figure out why the sun’s corona is several hundred times hotter than the surface and why it produces an accelerating solar wind....The only way to do it is to go to the source, NASA says."'It's A Region No Other Spacecraft Has Ever Encountered' marvels Mashable's Stan Schroeder. The four million mile trip is slated to leave sometime before 2018 and will hope to "solve" two key questions. Dick Fisher, director of NASA’s Heliophysics Division in Washington names them: "why is the sun’s outer atmosphere so much hotter than the sun’s visible surface and what propels the solar wind that affects Earth and our solar system?"Astronomers Have Dreamed About This For a Half-Century since "the National Academy of Science's 'Simpson Committee' in 1958 recommended a probe to investigate," observes Charles Cooper. "Several studies were subsequently carried out to test the feasibility of the project, but nothing came of them." Until now, that is.