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A complicated salvage operation is set to begin Monday at the site of the Costa Concordia, the luxury cruise ship that ran aground off Italy in 2012. Even if it succeeds, it will be a long time before things return to normal on the island of Giglio, where the ship wrecked last January.

A large team has gathered to try to move the wreck of the ship, which measures 952 feet in length and weighs more than 114,000 tons. NPR's Sylvia Poggioli filed this report for our Newscast unit:

"The old nautical term for the operation is called parbuckling. Over a 10- to 12-hour period, the ship – now slumped on its side on a sloping reef – will be slowly rotated as dozens of pulleys will pull it upright.

"The big unknown is the condition of the side of the ship lying on the jagged reef, which juts into the hull by some 30 feet. But the engineers in charge are confident that the operation will be successful — so confident that there's no plan B.

"The option of breaking up the ship on site was discarded because the shipwreck lies in the Tuscan marine sanctuary, Europe's biggest, a haven for whales, dolphins and the last surviving monk seals.

Secretary of State John Kerry and his Russian counterpart have reached a deal that calls for Syria to destroy all of its chemical weapons. The plan, which Kerry announced in a news conference with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, gives Syria a week to detail its chemical arsenal. And it is backed by a threat of possible military action.

"The world will now expect the Assad regime to live up to its public commitments," Kerry said. "And as I said at the outset of these negotiations, there can be no games, no room for avoidance, or anything less than full compliance by the Assad regime."

The apparent breakthrough comes on the third day of talks between Kerry and Lavrov, which began in Geneva Thursday. It includes a contingency plan to authorize sanctions on Syria if the country does not comply with the deal's requirements that it list, and then destroy, its complete stockpile of chemical weapons.

Syria would have until the middle of 2014 to finish destroying all of the weapons, Kerry said Saturday. He said that international inspectors must be given access to the arsenal by November.

Any possible sanctions would stem from a U.N. Security Council "Chapter 7" resolution, meaning that they could include military or non-military measures. Chapter 7 of the U.N. charter deals with preserving international peace and security.

"Any violations... would be looked at by the Security Council and if they are approved, the Security Council would take the required measures, concrete measures," Lavrov said. "Nothing is said about the use of force or about any automatic sanctions. All violations should be approved by the Security Council."

In the discussions held at a Geneva hotel, the U.S. and Russia also agreed on the total number of chemical weapons Syria's President Bashar Assad possesses, as well as the method for destroying them.

The Syrian government has denied that it deployed chemical weapons against its own citizens; it had not publicly acknowledged its chemical stockpile until Tuesday, when it promised to open storage sites to inspectors.

As The Washington Post reports, "Assad sent a letter Thursday to U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon saying that on Monday he will sign the international accord banning chemical weapons."

Kerry says that the efforts to eliminate Syria's chemical weapons holdings are directly linked to the push for peace talks to end the country's civil war, which has killed thousands since it began more than two years ago.

A new computer school in Paris has been overwhelmed by some 60,000 applicants.

The school, called 42, was founded by a telecom magnate who says the French education system is failing young people. His aim is to reduce France's shortage in computer programmers while giving those who've fallen by the wayside a new chance.

In the hallways of 42, suitcases and sleeping bags are piled, and people are stretched out on mattresses in some of the corners. There are showers and dozens of colorful bath towels.

Living here for the next month are some of the 4,000 potential students who already made the first cut by passing cognitive skill tests online.

Now they have to clear another hurdle. They're thrown together and challenged with computer problems for 15 hours a day. Only 800 students will get a place, says 42's director, Nicolas Sadirac.

"It's very, very intensive," Sadirac says. "It's a kind of selection, but (for) the long term. So we don't just do an examination. We spend four weeks choosing each student."

The only criteria for applying is to be between the ages of 18 and 30. Applicants don't need money, or a particular level of academic achievement. A third don't even have high school diplomas.

Sadirac says they're not looking for how much students know, but how they think. One of the school's main goals is to unearth talent in poor areas, where kids don't fit into the traditional French academic mold.

Youth unemployment in France is at a 14-year high. At the same time, French companies cannot find enough IT specialists, and thousands of young computer enthusiasts can't get training. That prompted 42's founder Xavier Niel to invest $90 million of his own money in the school.

Niel, the creator of France's third largest telecommunications company, Free, says the social elevator in France is broken.

"If you're the son of a blue collar worker, you're going to be a blue collar worker," Niel says. "Children of elites stay elite. We have 200,000 kids a year who drop out of the French school system and have no hope. They become a drag on society. We want to help these young people take control of their lives."

The school's name is taken from the science fiction classic, The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, where 42 is the answer to the question of life.

Sadirac is sure that graduates of 42 will have the real life IT skills to get a job, even though the school's methods are a complete departure from France's highly centralized education system. There are no teachers. Students learn by solving problems.

"We don't want to teach them stuff," he says. "We want them to find solutions on problems, because we don't know the problem in the future. So we are creating students able to learn by themselves."

Sadirac says in the next 20 years the world will change at a staggering pace. 42 is looking for young people who can think outside the box. He says formal academic training can sometimes hinder that.

"Because when you go to academic, you are trained to follow models, reproduce models, and not to create new ones," he says. "You are so much trained that you are not able anymore to create new. So if we want to make people innovative, or creative, we need to get out of this system."

Talking Is Key To Suceeding

During their final year, 42's students will work together on a huge project known as a masterpiece. Much like an apprenticeship, they build their talents and learn from each other.

Candidate Lloyd Cochet, 18, loves the school's philosophy.

"I had a hard time following in school," Cochet says. "They forbid us to talk in class. And here, talking together and passing along tips is the key to succeeding."

Outside on the sidewalk, Omar Marzougi, 27, is taking a break. His parents emigrated from Tunisia. Many young people with North African roots say they face discrimination in France. It's a complicated issue, says Marzougi, but he's sure of one thing:

"There's no discrimination at this school, because getting in isn't based on your education level or social status. It's a true melting pot."

Not a slow news week in the world of technology and culture. But as we do each Friday, we've collected the stories you might have missed from NPR and our friends in the tech reporting universe.

We usually separate the week's big conversations from what you might have missed on NPR, but since we covered the major topics of conversation, here's one big roundup:

This week started with a landmark case on net neutrality before a D.C. federal court — we laid out the issues here on All Tech. Tuesday, Apple announced new iPhones and Steve Henn explained the implications of the new iPhone 5s' finger scan "On" button. Our Weekly Innovation this week is Sprayable Energy, a topical caffeine spray that the creator says will give you steady stimulation instead of the energy roller coaster of a cup of joe.

On the air, Laura Sydell reported for Morning Edition Twitter's news that it would soon go public, and we considered some of the ways it will make money. Steve reported on the life-logging possibilities of smart watches, Laura reminded us that smart watches are actually an "old" innovation, and I explored the "brogrammer," sometimes sexist culture in Silicon Valley.

The gender problem in tech got a huge stage when TechCrunch Disrupt was disrupted by a pair of offensive apps. (One of them, Titstare, makes it easy to share photos of yourself staring at breasts.) The next day, Business Insider's CTO was forced out after his long-running misogynistic, racist and downright absurd tweets got wide notice. I covered the issue on All Things Considered, and on the blog, we featured ideas from guys and gals on how to address cultural problems.

What Else Caught Our Eye

Google: Galapagos Island on Street View

If you can't get to Ecuador's gorgeous islands in real life, you can now explore the striking landscape on Google Street View. Makes me want to get a ticket for South America, ASAP.

New app: Fantasy Buzzer

Your NPR tech reporting team happens to be full of NFL fans, so we've been pretty psyched that football is back. So here's a fantasy football app that could help you track your team. It's called Fantasy Buzzer, and it scans your team and immediately starts sending you news and tweets about your players and making recommendations on whom to pick up and trade.

Before we even had a chance to tell you he was up, Jonathan Trappe is down.

"Hmm, this doesn't look like France," says the American aviator on his Facebook page.

Trappe left from Caribou, Maine, on Thursday on a bid to fly across the Atlantic in a small boat hanging beneath about 300 helium-filled balloons. Think Up.

No one's ever made that trip using a "cluster balloon" rig.

But less than a day and only about 350 miles later, Trappe is down on dry land in Newfoundland, Canada.

Trappe, 39, was "foiled by what his team have called a 'technical issue,' " according to The Guardian. It adds that:

"Kevin Knapp, speaking from the command centre overseeing Trappe's flight, told Aero News Network, the cluster balloon was never able to achieve a stable altitude and developed a yo-yo effect — rapid descents with the aircraft hitting the surface of the water, followed by rapid ascents to altitudes as high as 21,000ft or more."

Dell Inc. shareholders, as expected, have approved founder Michael Dell's $25 billion offer to take the company private, ending a protracted battle that saw billionaire investor Carl Icahn mount his own takeover bid for the computer maker.

The Round Rock, Texas-based company notes that: "Dell stockholders will receive $13.75 in cash for each share of Dell common stock they hold, plus payment of a special cash dividend of $0.13 per share to stockholders of record as of a date prior to the effective time of the merger, for total consideration of $13.88 per share in cash."

Icahn said earlier this week that he was giving up his takeover attempt. He wrote in a letter to shareholders, The Associated Press reported, "that he still thinks Michael Dell's bid to take his company private undervalues the business and freezes shareholders out of any future gains. But Icahn also said it would be 'almost impossible' to defeat that offer." Dell is joined in the buyout by Silver Lake, a technology investment firm.

Of the company's future, Reuters writes that:

"Michael Dell has argued that revamping his company into a provider of enterprise computing services in the mold of IBM is a complex undertaking best performed outside the spotlight of public markets.

"It remains to be seen if Dell can build its storage, networking and software portfolios to vie with Hewlett Packard Co and others. Some analysts think it may be too late, since a large swathe of the corporate market has been locked up by IBM and HP.

"But with the PC market expected to shrink again in 2013, investors say the company has little choice."

Before we even had a chance to tell you he was up, Jonathan Trappe is down.

"Hmm, this doesn't look like France," says the American aviator on his Facebook page.

Trappe left from Caribou, Maine, on Thursday on a bid to fly across the Atlantic in a small boat hanging beneath about 300 helium-filled balloons. Think Up.

No one's ever made that trip using a "cluster balloon" rig.

But less than a day and only about 350 miles later, Trappe is down on dry land in Newfoundland.

Trappe, 39, was "foiled by what his team have called a 'technical issue,' " according to The Guardian. It adds that:

"Kevin Knapp, speaking from the command centre overseeing Trappe's flight, told Aero News Network, the cluster balloon was never able to achieve a stable altitude and developed a yo-yo effect — rapid descents with the aircraft hitting the surface of the water, followed by rapid ascents to altitudes as high as 21,000ft or more."

Informant

Director: Jamie Meltzer

Genre: Documentary

Running Time: 81 minutes

Not rated

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World Cafe

I'm Not Jim: A Literary Music Workshop

Evidently it was quite fortuitous. Just couple of days after MTV's Video Music Awards, Oxford Dictionaries Online released its quarterly list of the new words it was adding. To the delight of the media, there was "twerk" at the top, which gave them still another occasion to link a story to Miley Cyrus's energetic high jinks.

And why not add "twerk"? It's definitely a cool word, which worked its way from New Orleans bounce music into the linguistic mainstream on the strength of its expressive phonetics, among other things. It won't linger — the names of dance styles rarely do — but we'll have a historical record of it in the section reserved for forgotten forbidden dances, along with "lambada" and "turkey trot." Now that dictionaries are online, space is unlimited; you're never going to have to ask the outdated words to give up their spots to make room for the new ones coming on.

All the dictionaries periodically release a list of their new words, most of them provocatively cute and fleeting. Chambers Dictionary announces they've got "mocktail." Merriam's counters with "man cave." Collins includes "squadoosh," an Italian-American slang word that means "zilch." And Oxford's recent list included "selfie," "fauxhawk" and the exclamations "derp!" and "squee!," not to mention the abbreviation SRSLY, as in "seriously." If you haven't picked up on all of these yet, I wouldn't worry. None of them is likely to outlive your hamster.

True, the dictionaries are also adding durable new items like "cloud computing," "systemic risk" and baseball's "walk off." (It mystifies me that it took 150 years to come up with a word for that.) But it's the ephemeral and faddish ones that generate the most arresting media headlines: "It's official! Oxford declares 'selfie' a real word!"

The dictionaries themselves disavow any official role in defining a "real word" — these are just items that we've been noticing a lot, they say. But they know perfectly well that the only reason the announcements get picked up is that people still believe that dictionaries are gatekeepers whose inclusion of a word confers approval.

There was a time when dictionaries were expected to restrict themselves to words that had reputable literary credentials. Back in 1961, Merriam-Webster set off a cultural firestorm for opening the columns of its new unabridged to parvenus like "litterbug," "wise up" and "yakking." Critics accused Merriam's of "subversion" and "sabotage," and The New York Times charged that the dictionary was accelerating the deterioration of the language.

More From Geoff Nunberg

Technology

Bracing For Google Glass: An In-Your-Face Technology

The Obama administration is getting assistance from outside allies also trying to sell Congress on authorizing a military strike against Syria. Among the most prominent: strong backers of Israel.

Casino magnate and top GOP contributor Sheldon Adelson surprised many recently by offering to help President Obama get a resolution passed on Syria. And Capitol Hill was blanketed this week by some 300 lobbyists with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC.

Israel's advocates have close ties with many lawmakers. According to the interest-group tracking website Maplight, Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin is the sixth biggest recipient in Congress of campaign contributions from pro-Israel political action groups.

Like many other Democratic lawmakers who receive such funds, Durbin cites Israel in explaining his support for military action against Syria. "When it comes to the nation of Israel, our closest and best ally in the Middle East, they understand what we are trying to do with chemical weapons in Syria," Durbin said earlier this week in a Senate floor speech. "And they've made it clear through their friends in the United States and other ways, that they support it without fear of retaliation by Syria."

That's the same kind of message lawmakers have been getting in person this week from AIPAC's fleet of lobbyists. American University congressional expert James Thurber ranks AIPAC among Washington's top special interest groups. "If you look at the support for Israel by the United States, they are a key part of that," says Thurber. "They've been very successful on all the major issues related to Israel."

As a 501(c)4 organization, AIPAC cannot make campaign contributions — but it's seen as influencing many pro-Israel groups that do. (AIPAC declined a request to comment on the record for this report.)

For most lawmakers, Thurber says, loyalty to Israel and its supporters has been a given — except when it comes to a military strike against Syria. "They've voted with AIPAC, AIPAC gives them high ratings in terms of loyalty," he says, "but right now they're split, because their constituents are going in another direction."

Indeed, as AIPAC's lobbyists swarmed Capitol Hill on Tuesday, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell — the third biggest beneficiary in Congress of pro-Israel contributions — went to the Senate floor to announce that the resolution the Foreign Relations panel approved last week authorizing military action against Syria did not pass muster. "So I will be voting against this resolution. A vital national security risk is clearly not at play," McConnell said, adding, "there are just too many unanswered questions about our long-term strategy in Syria."

McConnell is up for re-election next year in his home state of Kentucky. Longtime Kentucky political analyst Al Cross isn't surprised by McConnell's decision to break ranks on this issue with pro-Israel contributors. "He's a party leader who wants to remain party leader, and his party is clearly, the majority of his party is against this," says Cross, "and he faces an opponent in the primary who's against it."

Number two Senate Republican John Cornyn, who's also seeking re-election next year, has also come out against the Syria resolution.

University of Chicago political scientist John Mearsheimer, who co-authored a book on the pro-Israel lobby's influence in Congress, says AIPAC has limited clout on Syria. "It almost always gets its way on issues like the Israel-Palestine conflict, on foreign aid to Israel, and on protecting Israel in the united nations," says Mearsheimer. "But when it comes to pushing the United States to use military force against another country because it's seen as being in Israel's interest, the lobby does not always get its way."

Even lawmakers who do agree with AIPAC on Syria say its lobbying has not influenced them. "I voted before AIPAC took a position on this," says Maryland Democratic Sen. Ben Cardin, a member of the panel that passed the Syria resolution last week, "so I have supported the resolution from the beginning."

So too have most other congressional leaders — from both parties. Still, American University's Thurber says there's a good reason why that resolution was pulled yesterday from the Senate floor. "It looks like they're not going to get the votes," says Thurber, "and so it is something, at least on this issue, that's rare, that you have all those people together, and rare that it looks like they may lose."

Which would also be a rare outcome for AIPAC's lobbyists.

Washington, D.C., Mayor Vincent Gray has vetoed a controversial "living wage" bill that would have forced large retailers such as Wal-Mart to pay a 50 percent premium on the district's $8.25 per hour minimum wage.

When the bill was approved by the city council in July, Wal-Mart said it would abandon three of the six stores it planned to build in the district, claiming the required minimum $12.50 it would have to pay was too much.

Since then Gray, a Democrat, has been mulling whether to sign the Large Retailer Accountability Act, as the bill is known. On Thursday, he ended weeks of speculation and vetoed it.

Council Chairman Phil Mendelson, a supporter of the act, said he was "disappointed" by the mayor's decision, which he said was "not good for workers."

A letter sent by Mendelson to Gray said the bill was "not a true living-wage bill, because it would raise the minimum wage only for a small fraction of the District's workforce," according to The Washington Post.

The Post quotes Wal-Mart spokesman Steven Restivo as saying the veto is "good news for D.C. residents," saying Gray chose "jobs, economic development and common sense over special interests."

He said that if the council fails to override the veto, "all stores are back on."

Other major retailers, such as Target and Home Depot, also opposed the bill.

In a statement from the National Retail Federation, spokesman David French thanked Gray "for his leadership on this important issue. With a stroke of his pen, the Mayor brought power back to D.C.'s 'Open for Business' sign."

With the current focus on Syria it's easy to miss that things are getting worse again in Iraq. Since the spring, the country has been pounded by waves of attacks on civilians and security forces by extremists with links to al-Qaida. Three car bombs in the Iraqi city of Baquoba killed 10 people Tuesday.

Iraq is one of those slow-boil crises — not as dynamic or transformational as a military coup in Egypt or a civil war in Syria. Refugees aren't creating havoc on the borders. Iraq's government doesn't seem on the verge of falling. Instead, Iraqis are stuck in a middle ground: A daily life wracked with danger but without enough upheaval to raise international alarm.

However, that could change if the bloodshed continues at current levels. U.S. troops withdrew in late 2011 but the country is still at the heart of important U.S. interests — oil, counter-terrorism and regional stability amid the ongoing friction between Sunni and Shiite Muslims.

Statistics kept by the Baghdad bureau of Agence France Presse show the monthly number of deaths jumping from between 200 and 300 at the start of the year to almost 900 in July and nearly 700 last month.

The count kept by the United Nations office in Iraq show higher totals with two or three times as many dying in the last couple months as were dying at the start of the year.

Last month, a U.S. State Department official said in a background briefing that suicide bombings had increased from five or 10 a month early in the year to about 30 a month now.

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World Cafe

I'm Not Jim: A Literary Music Workshop

One such collaborator was Sir Arthur Evans, whose imaginative restorations of a palace at Knossos, Beard says, "have only an indirect connection with the second millennium BC." His restoration of an idyllic painting of a young boy picking saffron fit well into his vision of the peaceable, nature-loving Minoans — though it fit less well when it turned out the painting was actually supposed to be of a bright blue monkey.

Similarly, Thucydides' edicts on power and politics are "repeated in international relations courses the world over," but Beard illustrates how many of these maxims are the result of too-liberal translations. She writes, "As a general rule, the catchier the slogans sound, the more likely they are to be largely the product of the translator rather than of Thucydides himself."

In a work of such sprawling ambition, mistakes are inevitable, though they're generally not so much errors as small elisions: Beard, like her ancient colleagues, can be the victim of narrative gaps. In leaping cavalierly from place to place, she occasionally leaps over scholarly debate. On the one hand, this is liberating – on the other, it feels a little irresponsible.

More From Mary Beard

Seriously, if you were being attacked by zombies, you might yell out the word f- - -! But no one does on The Walking Dead. When it comes to language in this golden age of basic cable dramas, the rules are idiosyncratic and unclear.

"It's so arbitrary, hon," says Kurt Sutter. "It's just basically people in suits making up the rules."

Sutter created the biker-gang drama Sons of Anarchy on F/X, and if you've ever looked at his Twitter feed, his language might put you in mind of another program: the famously profane Deadwood on HBO, where for three seasons pretty much anything went, cursewise.

Sutter says he's not allowed to use the F-word. Or the word "retard." He also can't use his very favorite swear word. It's probably the most vulgar reference to female anatomy you can think of.

"But we can use the word 'gash,' which I think is far worse," he observes.

“ They want to be able to say 'bull- - - -,' which is a really hard word to substitute for. It's hard to find anything else that feels as good.

The closer we get to the end of Breaking Bad, the less I want to read about it.

I'm not calling for a moratorium on Breaking Bad content from now until the finale (and not only because of ... you know, fultility.) From now until then, I expect an avalanche of recaps, interviews, think pieces, retrospectives, speculations and so forth. That's exactly as it should be with any show coming to a close, let alone a show as great as this one.

And I'm not even sick of the coverage that's taken place and the coverage to come. On the contrary, being tangentially aware of the sheer quantity of critical engagement is stoking my excitement about the last few episodes. I wouldn't want Breaking Bad talk to dry up.

I just don't want to participate in it myself.

The window for me to engage in discussions about this show is currently closed. It won't open until the credits on the finale roll (and probably a few hours or even a day or two after). I want to let the show do its work. If there's a code, I don't want to crack it. If there's a method, I want it to play out on screen, on Sunday nights, the way it's intended. Anything else — anything, for instance, like the current Entertainment Weekly, with the filthied, bloodied faces of Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul shouting at me from the cover — is just going to jank up the momentum that the story's built up as it hurtles towards its conclusion.

I am swimming against the tide, of course, trying to shut down the criticism-consuming part of my mind at this stage of Breaking Bad's run. That Entertainment Weekly cover story is especially tantalizing. This is the rare show that's infiltrated not only every entertainment outlet you can find, but most of the news outlets as well. But as we inch closer and closer to Vince Gilligan's (and Walter White's) endgame, I'm finding that it only gets in the way of my enjoyment to indulge in my usual habit of inhaling as much as I can as fast as I can about any show interesting enough to justify it.

Part of the reason for that I'm not trying to get ahead of Gilligan. It's hard to talk about each new episode in any capacity without, on some level, attempting to figure out how it fits in with the conclusion toward which we're now barreling at high velocity. And since the show seems pretty well locked down, we're forced to speculate.

Speculation isn't the same as spoilers, of course. But even so, there reaches a point where the distinction is academic. Take, for example, this Wired piece about how Breaking Bad could end. (Disclosure: I have not read it, because ... well, if I had, that'd make me a liar.) If it's anything like the similarly themed Vulture post from a year ago (which I did read back then but have not looked at since), it attempts to catalogue, in broad terms, every possible way Breaking Bad could end.

Since it's not informed by actual intel, it's only educated guesswork, so it's not as though it's actually giving anything away. But running down all the possibilities, even without fixing on one in particular, brings them all into the conversation. Someone's bound to hit the nail on the head, giving the ending, when it comes, less of an impact than one I haven't already considered.

Worse, if the ending happens to be one of the less satisfying theories, or if Gilligan somehow comes up with something that nobody saw coming, then I run the risk of being disappointed by a conclusion that's not as good as someone else's fanfiction.

So how do I think Breaking Bad going to end? I don't need to think about how it's going to end. It's ending. All I need to do is let it end and watch, without getting in my own way.

I don't need to goose my own interest; I'm already fully invested. I'm at the point where, if this were a book, I'd be eagerly plowing through to the final page without getting a snack, checking e-mail, going to the bathroom, talking to other people or, God forbid, going to Wikipedia to compare my own take with others that I might not have considered.

There'll be time enough for that later. For now, it's just me and Breaking Bad. I'll jump back into the conversation on September 30.

Marc Hirsh is a writer in Somerville, Mass., and wishes to make it clear that he's doing other stuff right now as well, not just living in a darkened bunker waiting for the next episode.

Democratic Gov. Jay Nixon used some fancy footwork to ensure his veto of a tax cut stayed in place — even though it faced a supermajority of Republicans in the Missouri House and Senate

Nixon said he vetoed the tax cut because the $700 million price tag was "unaffordable." But he knew in doing so, he was up against a lion of a legislature, with a veto-proof majority in both chambers.

Lawmakers on Wednesday failed to override Nixon's veto.

Dan Ponder, a political scientist at Drury University, says the governor had a decidedly uphill battle.

"He was able to put together a coalition of educators and chambers of commerce, businesses, to be able to make the case that, Ok, if this tax cut were to go into effect, it could potentially devastate education, and therefore, the workforce," Ponder says.

That "coalition" included about 150 groups, ranging from teachers to first responders.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry ran ads in Missouri criticizing Missouri's governor, and urging businesses to relocate to the Lone Star State.

Joe Henchman of the non-profit Tax Foundation says about 20 states are wrangling with tax issues.

"The Missouri bill was a bit flawed," Henchman says. "A lot of the proposals, especially the ones that have been successful, have been broader tax reforms that reduced rates, but also closed carve-outs."

Governor Nixon's unlikely victory may influence the fight over taxes in other states.

Russian President Vladimir Putin made an unusual and direct appeal to the American people Wednesday night to reject President Obama's calls for possible use of force against Syria, using an op-ed in The New York Times to counter many of the arguments Obama made 24 hours earlier in a speech to the nation.

"The potential strike by the United States against Syria, despite strong opposition from many countries and major political and religious leaders, including the pope, will result in more innocent victims and escalation, potentially spreading the conflict far beyond Syria's borders," Putin warned. "A strike would increase violence and unleash a new wave of terrorism. It could undermine multilateral efforts to resolve the Iranian nuclear problem and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and further destabilize the Middle East and North Africa. It could throw the entire system of international law and order out of balance."

Countering Obama's historical references justifying possible "limited" U.S. strikes to damage Syrian President Bashar Assad's chemical weapons, Putin painted his own picture of an international community endangered by the use of U.S. military might.

"It is alarming that military intervention in internal conflicts in foreign countries has become commonplace for the United States. Is it in America's long-term interest? I doubt it," wrote Putin. "Millions around the world increasingly see America not as a model of democracy but as relying solely on brute force, cobbling coalitions together under the slogan 'you're either with us or against us.'"

In many respects, Putin seemed to echo the arguments from critics of Obama's call for military strikes, including Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky. Putin also seemed to be playing to the fears many Americans have expressed in polls that show an overwhelming opposition to a military strike on Syria.

In a prime time address to the nation Tuesday, Obama described the history of chemical weapons dating from World War I, and said a failure to act forcefully against Assad could be read by some world leaders as a sign that the international community would turn a blind eye to future use of such weapons.

But Obama also used the speech to announce that he had asked Congress to delay voting on his call for authorization for a military strike to give time for an 11th hour diplomatic solution to work. The deal, which would require Assad to turn chemical weapons over to an international body, has been brokered in party by the Russians.

Putin directly challenged Obama's claim that the use of sarin gas on Damascus suburbs, which killed more than 1,400 civilians on Aug. 21, came directly and inarguably from Assad's forces. Wrote Putin:

"No one doubts that poison gas was used in Syria. But there is every reason to believe it was used not by the Syrian Army, but by opposition forces, to provoke intervention by their powerful foreign patrons, who would be siding with the fundamentalists. Reports that militants are preparing another attack — this time against Israel — cannot be ignored."

China's premier Li Keqiang has pledged to treat foreign multinational companies on a par with the country's own state-owned enterprises, but warned that an economic rebound remained fragile.

Li, speaking at a business forum in the northeastern city of Dalian on Wednesday, cautioned that the global economic outlook was a "complex situation" and outlined a series of steps designed to keep the country on a moderate but sustainable growth path.

"China will continue to encourage foreign companies to invest and do business in China, and ensure that all companies have equal access ... and equal treatment," he said.

Li acknowledged that China is at "a critical stage of restructuring and updating its economy" and that it can only sustain growth by transforming its model, including a move toward converting the currency, the yuan.

China's phenomenal growth rates have flattened, partly as a function of a dampening globally, but partly because, as we reported last month, China is at a stage of economic growth that every fast-growing country eventually reaches.

As The Wall Street Journal notes, China "is in the midst of putting together a reform plan that's aimed at avoiding what happened to countries like Brazil and Mexico – one-time growth champions whose economies slowed before they made it to the ranks of wealthy nations."

Li, who took office this year, has been pushing for getting away from a credit, investment and export driven economy and moving toward one fueled more by domestic consumption.

In Dalian, he said slower growth rates were an acceptable price to pay in order to achieve reform.

Li said Beijing was on target for the 7.5 percent growth it aimed for this year, which is substantially slower than the 10 percent annual growth rates it has posted in the past.

The deadly attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi, which took place a year ago Wednesday, symbolized the violence, chaos and struggles that have defined Libya since the ousting of dictator Moammar Gadhafi two years ago.

The country is split along regional and tribal lines. The government of Prime Minister Ali Zeidan, who is considered a liberal, has little control over either security or the various militia groups that are often better armed than police. The economy has stalled as oil production plummeted recently, and is now at about 10 percent of capacity. As Reuters notes, "many Libyans feel little has changed since the 2011 war that toppled" Gadhafi.

Here's a look at where things in Libya stand today:

Politics

Zeidan's government appears to be on the verge of collapse. Critics say he has failed to rein in militias and Islamist groups, or to end a strike by workers and guards at oil facilities that has crippled the economy of North Africa's top largest oil producer.

This week, Mohammed Sawan, the head of the political arm of the Libya's Muslim Brotherhood, said Zeidan, who was elected last October, hadn't done enough to tackle corruption or the militias. He said he was considering withdrawing five ministers of his Justice and Construction Party, from the Cabinet. Libya has a broad-based consensus government that includes liberals and Islamists.

"We have waited months for Zeidan's government," Sawan told Reuters. "Had we believed there was a chance for success of even 10 percent, we would... (wait). The problem is that for Zeidan to stay in power will only worsen this failure."

He said there was growing support for a no-confidence motion against the Zeidan government in the 200-member National Assembly.

He isn't alone in his criticism. Libya's top cleric called on Zeidan's government last week to be sacked for incompetence.

Security

Security is still fragile. A car bomb went off Wednesday near the Foreign Ministry building in Benghazi. There have been drive-by shootings, bombings and kidnappings. The Washington Post reports:

"Even minor disputes escalate into frequent gun violence on the streets. Kidnappings and armed robberies are increasing, and government officials and others have been assassinated with guns and bombs. Militants and arms smugglers easily cross poorly protected borders shared with Niger and Chad.

"The murky security situation is threatening stability in a desert nation with North Africa's largest oil reserves. And it is causing new jitters in a region already on edge over rising violence in neighboring Egypt and the looming prospect of U.S. military strikes in Syria.

"As the postwar government struggles to rebuild after 42 years of dictatorship, it has left security primarily in the hands of hundreds of private militias, which are far larger and better armed than the country's poorly trained and equipped police and army.

"The militias, most of which were formed to oust Gaddafi in the 2011 revolution, range from ragtag outfits of a couple of dozen men to organized forces of thousands of fighters."

With the highly anticipated Syria speech behind him, the path ahead for President Obama's effort to get congressional authorization of military strikes in Syria is no easier than before. In fact, post-speech, it seems more obstacle-strewn and steeper than ever.

The speech put Congress no closer to voting to authorize strikes. Even the timing of when Congress will hold votes is now an open question. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., postponed a planned Wednesday test vote and set no new date. House GOP leaders never announced a date for a vote and perhaps now won't have to.

The problem for the president is that whatever uncertain impetus there was for Congress to approve military strikes, it was slowed by Russia's proposal that the Assad regime place its chemical weapons under international supervision and that the UN be involved.

The paradox is that it was the big stick of threatened U.S. military strikes that apparently led Syria to officially acknowledge, for the first time, its possession of chemical weapons.

Now Obama wants the even bigger stick of a congressional authorization to keep pressure on Syria.

But that would mean a congressional vote. And many lawmakers are absolutely thrilled that there's an alternative to casting politically risky Syria votes that could come back to haunt them. (Another paradox is that the Russians gave both the Syrians and Congress an escape route.)

So, the congressional thinking goes, why not wait until the diplomacy string plays out especially since every major poll shows sizable majorities of Americans oppose military strikes against Iraq? (Give diplomacy a chance was the recurring theme in much of the congressional reactions after the speech.)

That means Obama and his national security team face days, perhaps weeks, of the challenge of countering this attitude that Congress need not act on an authorization until diplomacy has run its course.

What Obama needs now as much as anything else is more lawmakers like the bipartisan group of congressional leaders — including Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, and Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., who have supported his request. Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-MD), the House Minority Whip, represents that view. He told a group of journalists Tuesday before the president's speech:

"I think it's important that we give the president credibility as the leader of our country, as the principal person for making foreign policy as well as the commander-in-chief... I don't think there's any doubt that the failure to do so will weaken our country, create a more dangerous international environment and to some degree undermine the president of the United States."

The gap between the 1 percent and the 99 percent is growing, according to an analysis of IRS figures by an international group of university economists, and it hasn't been so wide since 1928.

The incomes of the very wealthiest 1 percent of Americans increased by 31.4 percent from 2009 to 2012. By contrast, the bottom 99 percent saw their earnings in the same period go up by just 0.4 percent. In 2012, the top 1 percent collected 19.3 percent of all household income and the top 10 percent took home a record 48.2 percent of total earnings, The Associated Press reports.

The result, according to the analysis by economists from the University of California, Berkeley, the Paris School of Economics and Oxford University, who looked at 1913 onward, is the broadest income gap between super-rich and everyone else since just before the Great Depression.

The AP says:

"The top 1 percent of American households had pretax income above $394,000 last year. The top 10 percent had income exceeding $114,000.

"The income figures include wages, pension payments, dividends and capital gains from the sale of stocks and other assets. They do not include so-called transfer payments from government programs such as unemployment benefits and Social Security.

"The gap between rich and poor narrowed after World War II as unions negotiated better pay and benefits and as the government enacted a minimum wage and other policies to help the poor and middle class.

"The top 1 percent's share of income bottomed out at 7.7 percent in 1973 and has risen steadily since the early 1980s, according to the analysis."

Apple unveiled its replacement for the iPhone 5 — one for the top end of the market that features an innovative new fingerprint security device, a faster processor and longer battery life; and a second budget phone that will retail for as low as $99.

CEO Tim Cook was joined by other Apple executives at the Cupertino, Calif., headquarters for the long-anticipated and hyped announcement of the iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c.

The iPhone 5s will include Touch ID, a new home button that reads a user's fingerprint to unlock the phone instead of relying on a cumbersome pass code. It includes a new, 64-bit processor, called the A7, which Apple says will be "up to twice as fast" as the A6 processor in the current iPhone 5.

The 5s will be available in silver, gold and "space gray," and provide battery life "as good as or better than the iPhone 5" — 250 standby hours as opposed to the 225 standby hours for the iPhone 5.

The iPhone 5s also features an advanced camera and a "motion coprocessor" for sports and exercise applications. The 16 gigabyte version will sell for $199; the 32 gigabyte for $299; and a 64-gigabyte version for $399. The iPhone 5s will release on Sept. 20.

The new device is 56 times as fast as the original iPhone released in June 2007, Cook said.

The iPhone 5c will largely match the capabilities of the current iPhone 5, but at a lower price. It will sport a plastic case with the option for a variety of colors. A 16 gigabyte version of the iPhone 5c will sell for just $99, while a 32-gigabyte version will retail for $199.

Phil Schiller, senior vice president of worldwide marketing at Apple, said the new iPhone 5s is "the most forward-looking phone we have ever created."

The budget 5c, which still uses the A6 processor, will be available for preorder on Sept. 13 in five colors — green, blue, yellow, pink or white.

Cook called the phone "absolutely gorgeous," and "more fun and colorful" than any other iPhone.

Apple's new iOS 7 operating system will be available for free download on Sept. 18, and will be compatible with all devices that are iPhone 4 or more advanced. Craig Federinghi, head of software at Apple, said downloading the iOS 7 will be "like getting an all new device."

With increasingly stiff competition from smartphones running Google's Android operating system — especially Samsung's Galaxy line, Apple will be banking on success for its newly unveiled line.

The cheaper iPhone 5c, seems to be aimed partly at the overseas market, where the iPhone's premium price tag has turned off cost-conscious consumers. NPR's Krishnadev Calamur, writing for the Parallels blog, says Apple has been losing marketshare in China. As Krishnadev notes, China represents the world's largest smartphone market, but the less expensive Samsung models and a phone made by Xiaomi, "a company that's dismissed by some as an Apple knockoff," have been making steady inroads.

The first note I sent out after Apple announced it was including a fingerprint scanner in the new iPhone 5s was to Charlie Miller.

Miller, who learned how to hack at the National Security Agency and now works in security for Twitter, has hacked connected cars, wireless connections and NFC devices. But what he's best known for — what he seems to enjoy more than almost anything else — is hacking into Apple.

So I was curious. If Apple is rolling out a fingerprint scanner as a way to replace passwords, exactly how long would it be until Miller got to work trying to figure out how to exploit the system?

It is undeniable that passwords are only a half-effective form of security. They are a pain. Apple says roughly half of iPhone users don't even bother to set them up. Your password could be guessed, broken with brute force or stolen.

No one will mourn the end of the password, which no doubt is why Apple is pinning its hopes for the 5s to a fingerprint scanning system, called Touch ID, that could make passwords obsolete.

Apple spent more than $350 million to buy AuthenTec last year. AuthenTec owned a number of security patents, including some covering fingerprint scans.

But Apple isn't the first smartphone manufacturer to try this — and fingerprint scanning isn't foolproof.

In 2011 Motorola release a phone with a scanner. Joshua Topolsky, then writing for Engadget, had this to say:

"As far as truly unique hardware goes, the fingerprint scanner seems fairly novel — but in practice it's a little frustrating. It does work as advertised, but being told to re-swipe your finger if it doesn't take when you're trying to get into the phone quickly can be a little bothersome. Unless you really need the high security, a standard passcode will suffice for most people."

Seriously, if you were being attacked by zombies, you might yell out the word f- - -. But no one does on The Walking Dead. When it comes to language in this golden age of basic cable dramas, the rules are idiosyncratic and unclear.

"It's so arbitrary, hon," says Kurt Sutter. "It's just basically people in suits making up the rules."

Sutter created the biker-gang drama Sons of Anarchy on F/X, and if you've ever looked at his Twitter feed, his language might put you in mind of another program: the famously profane Deadwood on HBO, where for three seasons pretty much anything went, cursewise.

Sutter says he's not allowed to use the f-word. Or the word "retard." He also can't use his very favorite epithet — probably the first one that comes to mind when I say "slang for female anatomy."

"But we can use the word 'gash,' which I think is far worse," he observes.

“ They want to be able to say 'bulls- - -,' which is a really hard word to substitute for. It's hard to find anything else that feels as good.

China will jail anyone caught using social media to spread "slanderous rumors" or "false information" for up to 10 years, according to a new legal interpretation of Internet restrictions, the official Xinhua news agency reports.

A court's interpretation says the spread of such rumors could automatically incur a three-year prison term, but if the post is read by 5,000 or more people and/or shared more than 500 times, the penalty could jump to 10 years in jail.

"People have been hurt and reaction in society has been strong, demanding with one voice serious punishment by the law for criminal activities like using the internet to spread rumors and defame people," court spokesman Sun Jungong said speaking at a news conference quoted by the People's Daily website.

"No country would consider the slander of other people as 'freedom of speech,'" he said.

The Telegraph quoted Mo Shaoping, a leading human rights lawyers, as saying he "hoped the measures would help prevent 'absurd' cases such as one where a micro-blogger was arrested for tweeting that nine people had died in an accident when, in fact, the true number was only seven."

"[But] if not handled properly, this might have negative effect on freedom of speech and the online fight against corruption," he added. "I believe that in the near future online free speech and the exposure of corruption will be suppressed."

Yuan Yulai, another rights lawyer who has over 1.3 million followers on China's Twitter-like microblog Weibo, complained that the interpretation had been published "too hastily" and without public consultation.

It's still officially wintertime in Buenos Aires, but the city is in a record heat wave. Tuesday's high was 34.4 degrees Celsius (94 degrees Fahrenheit), the hottest temperature recorded in September since 1940, La Nacion reports.

"The unusually high temperatures are expected until tomorrow and may reach the maximum of 40 degrees," the Buenos Aires Herald reports.

That's 40 degrees, again, in Celsius — so, around 104 degrees Fahrenheit. And it looks like the area could be in for a roller-coaster ride: Forecasters say that on Thursday, things could cool down to a high of 15 degrees — or 59 degrees Fahrenheit.

As we looked into this story, we noticed that Argentina set another record today, in the financial sector.

The country's MERVAL index, based on 13 companies in core industries such as banking, metals, and utilities, rose to a new high of 4,477.81 points Tuesday — equal to "an increase of 53 percent so far this year," The Herald says.

For more of our reporting on this story, please see our recent column in the New York Times Magazine, and the latest episode of This American Life.

This morning, we reported on a charity called GiveDirectly that's trying to help poor people in the developing world in an unusual way: It gives them money with no strings attached. This is a somewhat radical idea in the charity world.

Most charities, of course, get money from donors and spend it on things they think will help people. They build schools, provide medicine or give people cows.

When we were in Kenya recently, we visited a village where people had been given cows by a group called Heifer International. And, we can report, these were very impressive cows. They looked strong and healthy.

And, like lots of charities, Heifer also spends money to provide training. Working with another group called Send a Cow, Heifer teaches people to make sure their cows get the right nutrition and to keep detailed logs tracking milk production. People visited the village to make sure everything was going well. And all this really helped. One woman told us her cow produces 15 times as much milk as local cows — and she sells most of the milk.

That's a traditional charity. GiveDirectly, on the other hand, takes money from donors and just gives it to poor people. (For more on how GiveDirectly works, see our story from this morning.) This is something of a challenge to other charities. Paul Niehaus, one of the group's founders, is pretty blunt about it.

"We would like to see organizations make the case that they can do more good for the poor with a dollar than the poor can do for themselves," he says. "And I think some may be able to make a convincing case. But if you go to the websites, today I don't think you're going to be seeing that argument being made. Nobody even bothers."

Neihaus says charities should be clear about how much they're spending and how much it's helping. And to figure this out, he says, charities should do actual experiments. In GiveDirectly's case, independent researchers are conducting a randomized, controlled trial. Basically, there are two groups of villagers. One group gets money, the other doesn't. The researchers do a detailed survey to compare the two groups and see what difference getting money makes. The results from the study are due out later this year. And they'll be made public.

If you were trying to compare giving cows and training with giving cash, you could take the same approach. Give people in one village cows and training; in the next village over, take the money you would have spent on cows and training and just give it to people.

Not surprisingly, Niehaus loved this idea. We called up Heifer International to see what it thought, and we talked to Elizabeth Bintliff, vice president of Heifer's Africa programs.

"As an African woman, that sounds to me like a terrible idea," she said. "It sounds like an experiment, and we're not about experiments. These are lives of real people." The world is "just not that linear," she said. "It's not an equation. It's an ecosystem."

Still, she said, Heifer has worked with independent researchers to measure its programs. "The University of Western Michigan evaluates Heifer's projects and has found that there's very positive return to families in terms of income, nutrition and other indicators," she told us.

Bintliff said she could send us those evaluations. After the interview, though, we got an email from a Heifer official. After thanking us for our interest she wrote: "As the sources cited are unpublished, we're not able to provide further information publicly at this time."

Until pretty recently, the charity world has been about doing stuff that helps, without really asking: How much does it help exactly, and how much does it cost? But there does seem to be this shift that's starting to happen. Philanthropy is getting nerdier; people are paying more attention to data.

Last year, the GiveDirectly guys gave a presentation at Google's corporate charity office. They didn't show any pictures of people. But they showed charts and studies and numbers. The people at Google were impressed. They gave $2.4 million to GiveDirectly and told them to figure out how to give money to lots more people.

Apple unveiled its replacement for the iPhone 5 – one for the top end of the market that features an innovative new fingerprint security device, a faster processor and longer battery life and a second budget phone that will retail for as low as $99.

CEO Tim Cook was joined by other Apple executives at the Cupertino, Calif., headquarters for the long-anticipated and hyped announcement of the iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c.

The iPhone 5s will include Touch ID, a new home button that reads a user's fingerprint to unlock the phone instead of relying on a cumbersome passcode. It includes a new, 64-bit processor, called the A7, which Apple says will be "up to twice as fast" as the A6 processor in the current iPhone 5.

The 5s will be available in silver, gold and "space grey" and provide battery life "as good as or better than the iPhone 5" — 250 standby hours as opposed to the 225 standby hours for the iPhone 5.

The iPhone 5s also features an advanced camera and a "motion-co-processor" for sports and exercise applications. The $16 gigabyte version will sell for $199; the 32 gigabyte for $299 and a 64-gigabyte version for $399. The iPhone 5s will release on Sept. 20.

The new device is 56 times as fast as the original iPhone released in June 2007, Cook said.

The iPhone 5c will largely match the capabilities of the current iPhone 5, but at a lower price. It will sport a plastic cases with the option for a variety of colors. A 16 gigabyte version of the iPhone 5c will sell for just $99, while a 32-gigabyte version will retail for $199.

Phil Schiller, senior vice president of worldwide marketing at Apple said the new iPhone 5s is "the most forward-looking phone we have ever created."

The budget 5c, which still uses the A6 processor, will be available for preorder on Sept. 13 in five colors — green, blue, yellow, pink or white.

Cook called the phone "absolutely gorgeous" and "more fun and colorful" than any other iPhone.

Apple's new iOS 7 operating system will be available for free download on Sept. 18 and will be compatible with all devices that are iPhone 4 or more advanced. Craig Federinghi, head of software at Apple, said "downloading the iOS 7 will be "like getting an all new device."

With increasingly stiff competition from smartphones running Google's Android operating system – especially Samsung's Galaxy line, Apple will be banking on success for its newly unveiled line.

The cheaper iPhone 5c, seems to be aimed partly at the overseas market, where the iPhone's premium price tag has turned off cost-conscious consumers. NPR's Krishnadev Calamur, writing for the Parallels blog, says Apple has been losing marketshare in China. As Krishnadev notes, China represents the world's largest smartphone market, but the less expensive Samsung models and a phone made by Xiaomi "a company that's dismissed by some as an Apple knockoff" have been making steady inroads.

After years of sticking close to home, more Americans are eager to shake off the recession's remnants and have a final summer adventure, according to experts who track travel.

"We've noticed that vacation plans increased quite a bit in August," compared with June, said Chris Christopher, an economist who focuses on consumer markets for IHS Global Insight, a forecasting firm.

Christopher said he looked more deeply into data released Tuesday by the Conference Board, a business research group. The Conference Board's Consumer Confidence Index showed a slight gain overall. But the random sample of consumers reflected a notable uptick in travel plans in recent weeks.

"It's somewhat tied to gas prices," Christopher said. Back in mid-July, gas prices were running around $3.68 a gallon. But this month, they eased down by about a dime a gallon, according to the website Gasbuddy.com.

As gas prices have settled back, consumers have started to feel a bit more comfortable, Christopher said. "And nothing really bad happened in August to get people worried, so consumer confidence is relatively elevated," he said.

That upbeat assessment of travel plans is in line with what AAA Travel sees happening. The auto club estimates 34 million Americans will travel more than 50 miles from home over the long Labor Day holiday weekend — a 4.2 percent jump over last year and the highest number since before the recession began in late 2007.

The Two-Way

Economy Was Stronger Than Thought In Second Quarter

On his grandmother's faith and political beliefs

"What [a] tormenting situation, to be an intellectual woman of her generation and grow up with this enormous identity, but it was an identity founded on belief that she couldn't sustain. She was violently secular. She loved culture and she loved books and all sorts of things that Jews care for, but she couldn't believe in the Jewish God, or any God, and she felt terrible about it.

"She felt enraged that other people didn't see the obviousness all at once, but she substituted, I think, at some point, other kinds of beliefs — belief in ... humanism, and I think if she was at any point seriously a Communist ... that was a belief. And as anybody who studied the history of communist movements knows ... it's analogous [to religion]; it draws passion out of people and sometimes irrational passion.

"So all of these things are muddled up for her. And maybe some of those later beliefs become disappointed, violently disappointed, as well. Other gods die: The god [of] literature fails her, the god of socialism fails her.

" ... I was very interested in the book in writing ... about someone who was so into so many kinds of theoretical freedoms. She embraced such diversity. ... Diversity was heroic to her."

On growing up on a commune where nudity was common

"You shouldn't overlook the human ability to partition things and make special categories and create exemptions.

" ... For me there were the typical teenage fascinations with the mysteries of the bodies of the girls I was going to school with, where to glimpse a bra strap might've blown my mind. And at the same time, I'd go home and I'd go up to my dad's studio and sit there with him and draw from a naked model for a few hours. But that was art; that was another thing.

"Or I might take a shower with my cousin at her commune because they had a group shower and that was interesting to me, too, and probably titillating. But I kept these things very tightly organized in order to function. So each thing was its own separate reality."

The Record

Jonathan Lethem On The Song That Puts The Fear Into 'Fear Of Music'

Brent Rosenberg was an early and enthusiastic Barack Obama supporter at a place and time when it mattered most: Iowa 2008, in the run-up to the first-in-the-nation presidential-nominating contest.

"I worked hard during the caucuses," said Rosenberg, a Des Moines lawyer and lifelong Democrat. "I led all my friends and relatives to him."

So it's with evident pain that he now speaks about the president, on the eve of Obama's speech on military action against Syria, with disappointment, if not regret.

"This has been a squandering of a historic opportunity," Rosenberg said, referring to the promise he believed Obama — whose road to the White House was paved by those 2008 Iowa caucuses — brought with him to the presidency.

His discontent embodies perhaps the biggest complication the president faces Tuesday night: Obama's toughest, most skeptical audience is stocked with once-ardent supporters struggling to reconcile the man they see presiding over the weeks long, herky-jerky move to military action, with the young anti-war senator they worked tirelessly to put in office.

One of Obama's strongest allies, MoveOn.org, has gone so far as to campaign against the president's plan. On Monday, the big progressive organization launched its latest stay-out-of-Syria salvo, a television ad that urges members of Congress to vote no on the administration's call for military action.

Taking on Obama so directly hasn't been easy for MoveOn.org.

"Our members do not relish opposing the president," says Executive Director Anna Galland. "They worked their hearts out for him — including an early endorsement in 2008."

"It's with sadness, respect and resolve that we are saying no to military action," she says.

Even some Democrats who say they would have supported quick military action in Syria, without congressional approval, view the unfolding drama as eroding the president's standing and undermining the party's ability to move forward on the debt ceiling, immigration and Obamacare this fall.

"Watching all this from afar, it has looked very untidy," says Garry South, a California-based Democratic strategist. "I get a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach; it's been a very bad first nine months of the second term."

Disenchanted, But For Different Reasons

What South says has surprised him is that the president's wavering path to Syria has seemed out of sync with his previous military and foreign policy decisions — including the 2011 raid that led to the capture and killing of Osama bin Laden.

"He has shown as commander in chief a surprising amount of decisiveness for someone who is a pretty liberal Democrat," South said. "That's why I don't understand what I'm seeing here — someone rife with indecision."

"It bothers me, as a Democrat, if I'm for a Syrian strike or not," he said. "An American president cannot look weak. If this were a President Reagan or Clinton, these strikes would have already been over and the speech would be about what just happened, not what's going to happen."

Rosenberg agrees with South's assessment that the president has been weakened by the drawn-out debate. He argues that Syria, and other Middle East conflicts, present presidents with "historically unresolvable" dilemmas.

"Syria, in my mind, is a quagmire and it's a mistake to think there is a right answer," he said. "There isn't."

"A stronger president could have gotten through this without a lot of carnage, and, now, I'm not sure he can," Rosenberg says. "It struck me as problematic that all of a sudden he pulled up after the British Parliament said no, and then kicked it to Congress — that looked very weak."

Galland, the MoveOn.org leader, says it's her hope Congress won't approve Syrian military intervention, and the president "will use other levers at his disposal to respond to the horrific reports of chemical weapons in Syria."

Those levers? Diplomacy and humanitarian aide, she said, "nonviolent alternatives."

Complicating The Agenda

Galland insists that her members' opposition to the president's Syrian plan won't affect their commitment to working for the full implementation of Obamacare or, for example, supporting the president's clean air goals.

"I don't think our members are going to say they're going to oppose Obamacare because of military strikes," she said.

That said, Galland and other Democrats say they are deeply concerned about the broader political environment, and the deleterious effect this national and intraparty debate on Syria will have for the president's agenda.

"If he wins on this vote, we'll be launching military strikes against Syria that the progressive base opposes," she said. "And if he loses the vote, I worry that political commentators will see him as weakened."

It's not an irrational worry.

"The president loses a gun control fight in Congress," said South. "Immigration reform has gone nowhere in the House, and now he goes back to the same Congress that wouldn't give him anything?"

"It just doesn't make any sense to me," he said.

South argues that Obama has to launch a Syrian strike, however, even if Congress doesn't approve.

"The toothpaste is out of the tube; he has to do something," South said. "If not, he looks like a paper tiger, and that's not only bad for the U.S., that's bad for the world."

As the administration continues to monitor a Russian proposal to have international monitors take control of Syrian chemical weapons in an effort to avoid a military strike, some Democrats characterized it as the best opportunity for Obama to salvage a bad situation.

"If the president is smart he will get down on his knees and thank Mr. Putin who, in the process of reasserting Russian power in the Middle East, has given Mr. Obama a way to get through this episode intact," said California-based Democratic strategist and lawyer Darry Sragow. "The best outcome: Congress grants the president the ability to intervene, he doesn't use it, giving time for peaceful initiatives work, and they do."

In any case, few of the president's supporters go so far as to say they regret voting for him in 2008 or in 2012.

"I can only look back at what my choices were in 2008, and in 2012, and think they were the right choices," Rosenberg, the Iowa lawyer, said.

But he worries that the Syria muddle's damage could be lasting — perhaps even extending to the 2016 presidential election and damaging Hillary Clinton, the Democrat he sees emerging as the nominee and one he would support.

President Obama is ratcheting up pressure on lawmakers to support his request for limited U.S. military strikes in Syria. The White House says the Syrian government is responsible for a chemical weapons attack last month near the capital, Damascus.

On Sunday night, the president stopped by a dinner Vice President Joe Biden was holding for Republican senators.

Guests included Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Susan Collins of Maine, Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire, Bob Corker of Tennessee, Saxby Chambliss of Georgia and Deb Fischer of Nebraska.

Obama met with the senators for nearly an hour and a half, according to the White House pool report.

Ahead of his prime-time address to the American people on Tuesday, the president and his advisers have scheduled a series of meetings to try to sway lawmakers over to his side on Syria.

Obama has six network interviews scheduled Monday. He plans to meet with Senate Democrats on Tuesday, according to an unidentified official who spoke to The Associated Press.

In Tuesday's speech, Obama will try to convince the public that limited air strikes in Syria are necessary to respond to the alleged use of chemical weapons by the Assad regime.

Before the address, White House officials will also be out defending the president's message on Syria.

National Security Adviser Susan Rice will deliver a speech on Syria to the New America Foundation on Monday. She also is expected to meet with members of the Congressional Black Caucus.

White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough appeared on five network shows Sunday and is scheduled to meet with the House Democratic Caucus on Tuesday.

On Capitol Hill, classified briefings for members of Congress will be held Monday and Wednesday.

The Senate is scheduled to begin voting on a Syria resolution Wednesday, and a final vote may come at the end of the week. The House is expected to vote next week.

A survey by The Associated Press finds that House members who have staked out positions are either opposed to or leaning against Obama's plan for a military strike by more than a 6-1 margin.

The survey found nearly half of the 433-member House and a third of the 100-member Senate remain undecided.

Syrian President Bashar Assad also has been getting his message out. In an interview that will air Monday morning on CBS, Assad denied that he used chemical weapons on his people.

A U.N. study released Tuesday of 10,000 men in six countries across the Asia-Pacific region found nearly one in four acknowledged raping a woman.

The report found:

"Men begin perpetrating violence at much younger ages than previously thought. Half of those who admitted to rape reported their first time was when they were teenagers; 23 percent of men who raped in Bougainville, Papua New Guinea, and 16 percent in Cambodia were 14 years or younger when they first committed this crime.

"Of those men who had admitted to rape, the vast majority (72-97 percent in most sites) did not experience any legal consequences, confirming that impunity remains a serious issue in the region.

"Across all sites, the most common motivation that men cited for rape was related to sexual entitlement - a belief that men have a right to sex with women regardless of consent. Over 80 percent of men who admitted to rape in sites in rural Bangladesh and China gave this response.

"Overall, 4 percent of respondents said they had perpetrated gang rape against a woman or girl, ranging from 1 to 14 percent across the various sites. This is the first time we have data from such a large sample of men on the perpetration of gang rape."

Michael Ferguson sometimes jokingly refers to himself among colleagues as "the other black brewer."

That's because Ferguson, of the BJ's Restaurants group, is one of only a small handful of African-Americans who make beer for a living. Latinos and Asian Americans are scarce within the brewing community, too.

"For the most part, you've got a bunch of white guys with beards making beer," says Yiga Miyashiro, a Japanese-American brewer with Saint Archer Brewery in San Diego.

Sure, there are prominent exceptions — like Garrett Oliver, the brewmaster at Brooklyn Brewery, and Celeste and Khouri Beatty, the owners and operators of Harlem Brewing Company. There are a few others, too — but that's out of more than 2,600 breweries nationwide.

So how did American craft brewing end up so lacking in diversity?

It's a puzzle, agrees Wall Street Journal beer reviewer and author William Bostwick, who is now working on a global history of beer to be titled "The Brewer's Tale." He says that virtually every culture in the world's human history has made alcoholic beverages.

"It's one of the few things that all cultures share, so why it's now dominated here in the U.S., and maybe in Europe and Australia, by white males is something I can't explain," Bostwick says.

Frederick Douglas Opie, a food historian at Babson College, says that cultures in western and central Africa have "a long history of artisan brewing." People of the region, he says, made beer from sorghum and millet, as well as palm wine – which, he says, was considered by some a luxury product.

"So, why that discontinues in America after the Atlantic slave trade, I don't know," Opie says. Blacks, he notes, often made moonshine liquor and bootleg beer in the 1920s and '30s. But these days, they're all but absent from the craft beer scene. "It could be that beer is like a lot of things in the food industry which, as they grow popular, become very hip, yuppie and white."

Looking at the nation's community of homebrewers also sheds light on the matter, says brewer Jeremy Marshall, of Lagunitas Brewing Company.

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"I've always felt hip-hop as a culture hasn't really yet embraced its international roots." That's something that Blitz the Ambassador is working to change. Born Samuel Bazawule in Ghana, he grew up listening to Public Enemy. Now, he's a rapper in the U.S. His sound blends his rap influences like Chuck D with the Afrobeat sounds of Fela Kuti and the high-life music of his home.

All these influences helped to create his identity. "The more I traveled, the more I realized that there's a specific role that I need to be playing, and that role is about bridging gaps and expanding the culture that I've been so blessed enough to be a part of," he tells NPR's Michel Martin. "That's why I went with the Ambassador."

Blitz's Afropolitan Dreams will be out early next year. It's a continuation of his musical journey documenting the African immigrant experience in America. He's just released an EP The Warm Up as a taste of what's to come.

A song like "African in New York" is "really just an assertion that we're here. There are Africans in New York." Blitz says he has always wanted someone to write a song about their experience, "selling bootlegs, or graduating from medical school, or driving cabs. It's all these things that are part of our life and our culture as immigrants that need to be celebrated."

The Syria conflict was initially part of a wave of uprisings in 2011 known as the Arab Spring, which began in part as a cry for political freedom and more economic opportunity. Fast-forward to today, when unemployment in some of these countries is among the highest in the world.

The Burger King doesn't stay king by resting on his laurels. No, he stays king by constantly innovating (and by executing dissenters). New on the menu is the French Fry Burger, which is, you may have guessed, a burger topped with french fries. It costs $1, which should be considered a value and a red flag.

Peter: Since they're exactly $1 each, they can legally be used as currency.

Ian: And you can use actual dollars as napkins!

Mike: Dollar Menu is fast-food shorthand for "Day Old."

Miles: And "exciting new burger concept" is shorthand for "RUN! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!"

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We're following several stories regarding Syria Sunday, including new comments from Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. There are also reports that an Islamist group with ties to al-Qaida has seized a town with a large Christian population. Elsewhere, officials in the U.S. and its allies are debating how to respond to the conflict that began in 2011, as President Obama's administration tries to shore up support for military action.

We'll update this post with news as it emerges today.

Update at 5 p.m. ET: Sampling Of Political Debate

As the Obama administration pushes for congressional support for its plan to punish Syria, White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough appeared on all five major Sunday talk shows today.

Below, we've collected a sampling of opinions that aired Sunday, using transcripts from the Federal News Service.

McDonough, speaking on NBC's Meet the Press:

"Nobody doubts the intelligence. That means that everybody believes that Bashar al-Assad used chemical weapons against his own people to the tune that you just said of killing nearly 1,500 on August 21st.

"So the question for Congress this week is what are the consequences for his having done so? How Congress chooses to answer that question will be listened to very clearly in Damascus but not just in Damascus, also in Tehran and among the Lebanese Hezbollah."

... Later in the show, discussing the Obama administration's plan:

"Here is what this is not: No boots on the ground; not an extended air campaign; not a situation like Iraq and Afghanistan; not a situation even like Libya. This is a targeted, limited, consequential action to reinforce this prohibition against these weapons that unless we reinforce this prohibition will proliferate and threaten our friends and our allies."

New Mexico Sen. Tom Udall, a Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, speaking on Meet the Press:

"I haven't changed my mind, and I think the most important thing here is we all know, first of all, that what he did, Bashar Assad, was a heinous act. It's despicable. My heart is broken when I see that video, and you see women and children dying as a result of chemical weapons....

"But the big question for the Congress right now is what is the most effective way to move forward? And I think the American people don't want to be embroiled in a Middle Eastern civil war. This is an act of war that we're going to take. We haven't exhausted all of our political, economic, and diplomatic alternatives, and that's where I want to be focused. "

... Later in the show, discussing other options:

"I think what we're talking about is moving much too rapidly down the warpath and not trying to find a political solution through the international community. And Russia — we haven't even made them vote. You know, everybody says, well, Russia is going to veto it. They keep saying they haven't seen the intelligence. We ought to show them the intelligence. We ought to take the intelligence to the world and like has been done in the past, at the United Nations and the Security Council, a presentation as to exactly what has happened here and why Russia is complicit in all of this.

"And I think we have a real chance to move us forward in a very, very positive vein."

New York Rep. Peter King, a Republican on House Panels on Intelligence and Homeland Security, speaking on Meet the Press:

"I would vote yes in spite of the president's conduct."

... Later in the show, discussing regional concerns:

"I do believe, though, that there is a real axis between Syria and Iran that for Syria to be allowed to use chemical weapons, to continue to have their chemical weapons, at the same time, we're issuing a red line to Iran not to go ahead with nuclear weapons. That makes that Iran/Syria an axis predominant in the Middle East. It endangers Jordan, it endangers Israel, and that necessarily endangers our national security.

"I just wish president had laid this out better. I wish he'd quit backing away from his own red line, and I wish he was more of a commander-in-chief than the community organizer."

Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, a Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, speaking on Fox News Sunday:

"Well, the interesting thing is when I see the horror of those attacks, my first impulse is that whoever would order that deserves death. I mean, someone who is a war criminal who would execute citizens and kill innocent people with any kind of weapon deserves death. But the question is the attack as I've seen the plan, as I've heard about the plan from the administration is not to target Assad, not to target regime change and to really be so surgical and so specific that it doesn't affect the outcome of the war.

... Later in the show, discussing possible outcomes:

"The worst case scenario is that the stockpiles of sarin gas begin to move about the country and maybe they go to Hezbollah and they go into Lebanon and become more of a threat to Israel. I think that is more likely to happen if we attack Assad than if we don't attack Assad.

"With regard to North Korea, I think the North Koreans know and should know absolutely if gas or conventional weapons were used on our troops ever that there would be an overwhelming response against them. They're completely separate situations."

Update at 11:30 a.m. ET: Assad Speaks To Charlie Rose

In an interview that will air on Monday, Syria's President Bashar al-Assad tells CBS News' Charlie Rose about the looming threat of a U.S. military strike and the claims that he used chemical weapons against his own citizens.

Speaking from Beirut, Rose described the interview on Face the Nation Sunday morning, saying that Assad repeated his denial of having ordered a chemical weapons attack. Assad also said the U.S. hasn't shown evidence of such an attack.

CBS News reports:

"'He does accept some of the responsibility' for the attack that killed almost 1,500 Syrian civilians — including hundreds of children, Rose said. 'I asked that very question: 'Do you feel any remorse?' He said, 'Of course I do,' but it did not come in a way that was sort of deeply felt inside. It was much more of a calm recitation of anybody who's a leader of a country would feel terrible about what's happened to its citizens."

Two large investors — Ares Management LLC and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board — have reached a deal to purchase Neiman Marcus for $6 billion, the companies said Monday. The two buyers will hold equal shares of Neiman, which is based in Dallas.

"This investment fits with our longstanding approach of accelerating growth in companies in the consumer and retail sectors," said David Kaplan, co-head of the Private Equity Group of Ares, in a news release announcing the deal.

The two large investors will take over the luxury retailer from Warburg Pincus and TPG Capital. The transaction would be finalized late this year.

"Neiman's private-equity owners TPG Capital and Warburg Pincus LLC paid about $5.1 billion for the Dallas-based retailer in 2005," reports The Dallas Morning News.

In the release announcing the purchase, Ares lists its other business holdings: "Floor & Decor, General Nutrition Centers, House of Blues, Maidenform Brands, Samsonite, Serta, Simmons, Smart & Final and 99 Only Stores."

Neiman Marcus says it has 79 stores, including 41 Neiman Marcus stores, two Bergdorf Goodman locations in Manhattan and 36 Last Call outlet centers, in addition to its online offerings that include the upscale Horchow housewares site.

On the character of Douglas, whose unexpected death brings the friends together

"Douglas is one of these characters who turns up who has what you might call limited charisma, or charisma limited to a particular circle of people, but with ambitions for it to be broader. ... Ned and the others, too, in each of their own ways, were susceptible to the antic opposition persona presented.

"... [They'd] fallen under a spell and gotten with a kind of unstated program, an oppositional program, opposition to the culture."

On Ned's wife, Nina, who is trying to get Ned to have a baby with her

"The problem for Nina with Ned is that he's been brought along to the point of being willing to do it. But she wants him to want to do it, and that means embracing the possibility of the child living in a decent world, a happier world, a better world, a world that would be [nurturing] and decent. ... He's struggling with the feeling."

Read an excerpt of Subtle Bodies

The weekend brings some higher-profile screenings, and my schedule on Saturday and Sunday reflects that. If some of the Thursday/Friday films were an opportunity to see what you may never hear about again, some of the Saturday/Sunday films are a chance to get a jump on the next four or five months of chatter.

12 Years A Slave (directed by Steve McQueen; screenplay by John Ridley): It's not for nothing that everybody is talking about how tremendous this film is and how earth-shaking is the lead performance from Chiwetel Ejiofor as a free black man in 19th century New York who's kidnapped, stripped of his identity, and sold into slavery. It really is that good. The rare film about American slavery that manages to be primarily about black people's experiences and not white people's, 12 Years is wrenching, awful, moving, beautifully rendered, and sorely needed.

Gravity (directed by Alfonso Cuaron; screenplay by Alfonso and Jonas Cuaron): The story of two astronauts (Sandra Bullock and George Clooney) who encounter serious trouble in space, Gravity is a jaw-dropping display of visual imagination and technical achievement, and it's well worth the attention it's receiving on that basis. The script is somewhat beside the point, but it does unfortunately lapse with some frequency into schlock. Nevertheless, the performances — especially from Bullock — hold up, and it's one of the best and most thoughtful uses of 3D since the technology leaped forward a few years ago.

Can A Song Save Your Life? (directed by John Carney; screenplay by Carney): John Carney's first film, Once, made him a hero to people who like musical films and sweet romances. It's a little jarring to see him making a film with stars as big as Mark Ruffalo and Keira Knightley — The Hulk and Lizzie Bennet! — not to mention an interesting turn from, of all people, Adam Levine. Nevertheless, while it lacks the delicate touch and the rough surface of Once, Can A Song Save Your Life? still shows off Carney's reverence for music, friendship, happy bands of conspirators, and complicated connections. For a movie that could have come off like a Hollywood version of something beautiful and tiny, it's actually quite successful.

The F Word (directed by Michael Dowse; screenplay by Elan Mastai): The "F" word, you see, is "friends." This romantic comedy from Michael Dowse, who most recently directed the hockey comedy Goon, stars Daniel Radcliffe and Zoe Kazan as dear pals who may or may not be destined for some greater, or at least different, bond. While it occasionally tips into indie preciousness, for the most part, The F Word (based on a play by T.J. Dawe) represents a heartfelt and very funny telling of a story that's been told a million times in the movies, usually badly and glibly. It's not perfect, but it's really a lovely piece of work, and it benefits from fine performances, including from Adam Driver, who has maybe the best delivery of a line about nachos you'll see this year.

The Double (directed by Richard Ayoade; screenplay by Ayoade): Adapted from Fyodor Dostoevsky's novella of the same name, The Double stars Jesse Eisenberg as a miserable clerical worker adrift in anonymous misery until the arrival of his doppelganger, a more assertive, successful, confident man than he's ever been. Ayoade builds a grim, greenly lit world that seems to exist at no particular moment in time other than what is suggested by the stubbornly analog technology and low-quality video, and Eisenberg is strong as both the cocky guy he usually plays and the quiet, contemplative guy he rarely plays anymore. It's a very odd, genuinely offbeat film (there were a noteworthy number of walkouts, though that can have as much to do with the timing of other screenings as the reaction to the film), but it burbles and crackles with imagination.

Life Of Crime: (directed by Daniel Schechter; screenplay by Schechter): An Elmore Leonard adaptation starring Jennifer Aniston as a wealthy woman kidnapped by two criminals, Life Of Crime is only okay, unfortunately. It always seems like it wants to be more fun than it is, and although there are a few nice moments, the conspicuous playfulness that elevates the best Leonard adaptations never emerges.

On his grandmother's faith and political beliefs

"What [a] tormenting situation, to be an intellectual woman of her generation and grow up with this enormous identity, but it was an identity founded on belief that she couldn't sustain. She was violently secular. She loved culture and she loved books and all sorts of things that Jews care for, but she couldn't believe in the Jewish God, or any God, and she felt terrible about it.

"She felt enraged that other people didn't see the obviousness all at once, but she substituted, I think, at some point, other kinds of beliefs — belief in ... humanism, and I think if she was at any point seriously a Communist ... that was a belief. And as anybody who studied the history of communist movements knows ... it's analogous [to religion]; it draws passion out of people and sometimes irrational passion.

"So all of these things are muddled up for her. And maybe some of those later beliefs become disappointed, violently disappointed, as well. Other gods die: The god [of] literature fails her, the god of socialism fails her.

" ... I was very interested in the book in writing ... about someone who was so into so many kinds of theoretical freedoms. She embraced such diversity. ... Diversity was heroic to her."

On growing up on a commune where nudity was common

"You shouldn't overlook the human ability to partition things and make special categories and create exemptions.

" ... For me there were the typical teenage fascinations with the mysteries of the bodies of the girls I was going to school with, where to glimpse a bra strap might've blown my mind. And at the same time, I'd go home and I'd go up to my dad's studio and sit there with him and draw from a naked model for a few hours. But that was art; that was another thing.

"Or I might take a shower with my cousin at her commune because they had a group shower and that was interesting to me, too, and probably titillating. But I kept these things very tightly organized in order to function. So each thing was its own separate reality."

The Record

Jonathan Lethem On The Song That Puts The Fear Into 'Fear Of Music'

On the character of Douglas, whose unexpected death brings the friends together

"Douglas is one of these characters who turns up who has what you might call limited charisma, or charisma limited to a particular circle of people, but with ambitions for it to be broader. ... Ned and the others, too, in each of their own ways, were susceptible to the antic opposition persona presented.

"... [They'd] fallen under a spell and gotten with a kind of unstated program, an oppositional program, opposition to the culture."

On Ned's wife, Nina, who is trying to get Ned to have a baby with her

"The problem for Nina with Ned is that he's been brought along to the point of being willing to do it. But she wants him to want to do it, and that means embracing the possibility of the child living in a decent world, a happier world, a better world, a world that would be [nurturing] and decent. ... He's struggling with the feeling."

Read an excerpt of Subtle Bodies

Monday's Labor Day holiday shortened our week, but there was no shortage of news in the tech space. Herewith, our weekly roundup to help catch you up.

ICYMI

Over the airwaves, the week started with news of Microsoft's purchase of Nokia, and Steve Henn discussed the implications on Morning Edition and All Things Considered. NPR's Jeff Brady explored the Amish and their relationship with technology, concluding that it's complicated.

This week on All Tech, your favorite post featured I Forgot My Phone, the short film that so aptly shows our cultural obsession with our ubiquitous smartphones. A marketing data company launched a site to let you see all the income, biographic and shopping history data that marketers have about you. We wondered about the curious Craigslist market for empty iPhone and MacBook boxes. The Weekly Innovation pick was the Case Coolie, a cooler sleeve for your beers that doesn't require ice. Just in time for tailgating!

The Big Conversation

Another week, another set of revelations about government monitoring of citizens. A story jointly published by The New York Times, ProPublica and The Guardian uncovered the National Security Agency's extensive efforts to break into encrypted communication online. The stories were based on the documents released by Edward Snowden. Reuters, meanwhile, reported that the U.K. government asked The Times to destroy its Snowden material.

The Times also reported that the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration has access to a larger set of phone records than even the NSA, and German news outlet Der Spiegel reported (from the Snowden documents) that the NSA spied on Al-Jazeera.

What's Catching Our Eye

TechCrunch: Pew: 86 Percent Of U.S. Adults Make Efforts To Hide Digital Footprints Online; Fear Of Creeping Ads And Hackers Outweighs Spying

The Pew Internet & American Life Project released one of its studies this week on anonymity, privacy and security online. TechCrunch sums up some of the key privacy and security findings.

The Washington Post: Jeffrey Bezos, The Washington Post's next owner, aims for a new "golden era" at the newspaper

The Amazon founder and new owner of The Post spoke to his paper about his plans. " 'We've had three big ideas at Amazon that we've stuck with for 18 years, and they're the reason we're successful: Put the customer first. Invent. And be patient,' he said. 'If you replace 'customer' with 'reader,' that approach, that point of view, can be successful at The Post, too.' "

The Wall Street Journal: Forgot Something? Tokyo Cabs Want to Make Sure You Don't

A Tokyo taxi company plans to equip its cabs with cameras to record images of the back seat before and after a passenger enters. "If a passenger leaves the car forgetting an item that wasn't there before getting in, the system sounds an alarm," The Journal says.

It sounds like something out of a sitcom; in this case, the original British television version of The Office: job seekers being compelled to dance for a chance at a sales position at a U.K. electronics retailer.

Applicant Alan Bacon, who hoped for a position at a Currys Megastore in Cardiff, was made to do "rubbish robotics in my suit in front of a group of strangers" to the French electronic duo Daft Punk's "Around the World."

Bacon was quoted by The Mirror as saying that "another middle-aged guy looked upset as he danced to a rap song."

"Everyone thought it was a joke. But they were serious," Bacon said.

The applicant said he'd spent the week before the interview researching the company "and looking forward to being able to express myself and talk about what I love doing."

Instead, it might have made more sense for him to hit the nightclubs and brush up on the latest moves.

"It was degrading, but I am desperate for work, so I just smiled and got on with it," Bacon said, adding that he told his father it was "like a scene out of The Office."

Currys Megastore issued a statement Thursday apologizing for the hiring incident:

"We are extremely disappointed that one of the management team at the store in question did not follow our official recruitment processes.

"We are extremely sorry to those interviewees impacted; all are being asked to attend another interview where they will be given a proper opportunity to demonstrate how they can contribute to our business."