The Nightowl Newswrap - A roundup of stories that you might have missed

Someone tell Rick Davis...that the salads they sell at McDonald's contain Arugula.


Win, even if you have to mock common sense That seems to be the mantra of the rethugs. Now, apparently, they are against routine car maintenance and, yes, common sense.


Please, please, please let McVanity pick Romney...because it will unleash a torrent of vitriol at the republican ticket. Before he was elected governor of Massachusetts, Romney was a star player in the private equity world where big investors routinely buy struggling companies, overhaul them — often in part through layoffs — and then sell them off for huge profits, and all that matters is the bottom line of the bloodsuckers like Romney. Last year the private equity sector was targeted by Congressional Democrats for insults and tax increases. With a Romney vice presidential nod, those charges would go national. "There's no doubt it will come up," says Mark Mellman, a key strategist for Massachusetts Democrat Sen. John F. Kerry's 2004 presidential campaign. "This is an economy where people are on edge about things like downsizing and getting laid off and here's a guy who has wielded that knife."


Details ironed out for Libya to compensate victims of terrorist bombings Before adjourning for the summer break, Congress approved the details of an arrangement that allows Libya to start paying out hundreds of millions of dollars to U.S. victims of bombing attacks that Washington blames on Tripoli.

Amen to that...Former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, whose office was a target of the anthrax attacks in 2001, said Sunday the suicide of the government's main suspect does not mean the case is over. Daschle said the FBI has not given him any new updates. He also raised questions about the quality of the investigation, noting that the government recently paid out almost $6 million to a former Army scientist, Steven Hatfill, who accused authorities of unfairly targeting him in the anthrax case. "From the very beginning I've had real concerns about the quality of the investigation," Daschle said in a broadcast interview. "Given the fact that they already paid somebody else $5 million for the mistakes they must have made gives you some indication of the overall caliber and quality of the investigation." Five people died and 17 others were sickened when anthrax-laced letters began showing up at congressional offices, newsrooms and post offices soon after Sept. 11, 2001. The case re-emerged in the news this past week as investigators prepared to charge a government scientist Bruce Ivins in the case. Ivins died Tuesday in what has been ruled a suicide.

Torture, Chilean style...During the darkest years of this country's military dictatorship, Mariana Callejas was an up-and-coming writer and the hostess of the era's most glamorous literary salon. Chile's leading authors trekked up to Callejas' hillside mansion every Thursday night to talk literature, have a few drinks and sometimes dance until the next morning. The salon offered a respite from the fear and violence of Gen. Augusto Pinochet's Chile, in which nearly 3,200 dissidents died or disappeared at the hands of government agents. Writer Carlos Iturra, who attended the meetings, said in an e-mail that he'd always remember those nights for "the good writers who were formed there" amid the "dances, drinks, laughs and debates." Horror lay just below the glittering surface, however, as it often did during the 1973-90 military dictatorship.

What? How are the Beijing Olympics contributing to a worldwide shortage of vitamin C? In their efforts to curb air pollution for the upcoming games, the Chinese shut down manufacturing plants in and around Beijing — including cutbacks at factories producing 80 percent of the world’s ascorbic acid, more commonly known as vitamin C. Experts say the shortage and resulting price increases will not likely spark an outbreak of scurvy, the nemesis of Old World sailors on extended voyages without fresh fruits and vegetables. But ascorbic acid is crucial to modern food and beverage production, and is an important vitamin supplement in the United States and worldwide.

It'll only end in tears you idiots...House Republicans will be back on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives again Monday to continue the unprecedented protest that began last Friday, when dozens of Republicans joined hundreds of American citizens on the House floor to protest Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA) decision to send Congress home for the rest of the summer without a vote on legislation to lower gas prices and move America toward energy independence. In an urgent memo sent to GOP Members and staff Saturday (“A Call to Action on American Energy”), Republican Leader John Boehner (R-OH) and Whip Roy Blunt (R-MO) hailed Friday’s action, which was led by Reps. Mike Pence (R-IN), Lynn Westmoreland (R-GA), Tom Price (R-GA), and others, and encouraged House Republicans to return to the Capitol beginning Monday morning to help keep the historic effort going. “It’s not a request we make lightly. But the American people are suffering,” Boehner and Blunt said in the memo. “The consequences of continued congressional inaction on gas prices are unacceptable. We’ve called on the Speaker to call Congress back into an emergency session this month and schedule a vote on the American Energy Act. We must continue to make a stand until the Speaker complies.” What a bunch of idiots--it's called a recess. Remember when Boehner was running things? And they worked a day and a half per week? What were you doing then about the problems we face now? Answer--even with your quaint ideas about "working," you were doing nothing for Americans, and everything for whoever had a wad of cash. Now quit complaining and take your hardly-earned little vacation.