He Speaks  —  Video highlight: Perry says he has decided he wants to be president.  —  Video highlight: Perry on 43's advice to him. Transcript of Mark Halperin's Interview with Rick Perry  —  Halperin: Tell me what being a Texan means to you.  —  Perry: (Laughs.)

Romney gets in heated exchange with hecklers at Iowa State Fair  —  Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney's (R) exchange with a few hecklers turned into somewhat of a shouting match while he was stumping Thursday in Iowa.  —  Romney faced aggressive inquiries with a liberal bent at the top …

DeMint calls administration ‘anti-American’  —  Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) shared his unique take on the Obama administration yesterday. … Honestly, it's as if Jim DeMint has suffered some kind of head trauma, which prevents him from perceiving reality.  None of his condemnation makes any sense at all …

Cameron's Broken Windows  —  OUR son lives next to a Turkish mosque on Kingsland Road in Hackney, where some of London's worst mob violence has occurred.  When looters rampaged through Hackney last weekend, there were few police officers to stop them and residents had to chase them off with butcher knives, truncheons and baseball bats.

Peter King on Osama bin Laden movie: ‘I hit a sensitive nerve’  —  Rep. Peter King begs to differ with White House press secretary Jay Carney's jab that it's “ridiculous” for the congressman to suggest the Obama administration could be endangering national security by cooperating with filmmakers working on a movie about Osama bin Laden.

Romney's Pitch to S&P Boasted of Revenue Raisers  —  Former Gov. Mitt Romney boasted this week that when he led Massachusetts, he presided over an increase in the state's bond rating, a contrast to President Barack Obama, who saw Standard & Poor's downgrade U.S. debt.

Pa. judge gets 28 years in ‘kids for cash’ case  —  SCRANTON, Pa. — A longtime northeastern Pennsylvania judge was ordered to spend nearly three decades in prison for his role in a massive juvenile justice bribery scandal that prompted the state's high court to toss thousands of convictions.

D.C., Hawaii Most Democratic, Utah Most Republican State in '11  —  North Dakota and Louisiana tilt more Republican than they did in 2010  —  PRINCETON, NJ — Hawaii shows the largest advantage for the Democratic Party over the Republican Party among U.S. states, along with the District of Columbia, in the first half of 2011.

John Podhoretz Is Not A Very Intelligent Person  —  I don't normally read books that seem like they'd be terrible, but once upon a time I had a work-related assignment to read John Podhoretz's Bush Country: How George W. Bush Became the First Great Leader of the 21st Century—While Driving Liberals Insane.

Years of liberal dogma have spawned a generation of amoral, uneducated, welfare dependent, brutalised youngsters  —  A few weeks after the U.S. city of Detroit was ravaged by 1967 race riots in which 43 people died, I was shown around the wrecked areas by a black reporter named Joe Strickland.

Attorney for Graves, Rogers: Bank is at fault  —  CALHOUN — While U.S. Rep. Tom Graves was calling for fiscal responsibility in Washington his attorney was arguing in a lawsuit that a North Georgia bank is at fault for issuing Graves a $2.2 million loan the bank knew he could not repay.

More Educated People Spend More On Booze  —  Your Bureau of Labor Statistics trivia fact of the day is that educational attainment is strongly correlated with alcohol expenditures:

George Soros sued by ex-girlfriend for reneging on real estate promise  —  A beautiful Brazilian soap star has the lead role in her own daytime drama, which casts George Soros, the billionaire financier of lefty causes, as a heavy who not only broke her heart, but also reneged on a promise …

Recent Decline In State/Local Tax Revenue Was The Worst Ever  —  Another look at the fact that our economy, far from suffering from an outburst of socialism, is actually suffering from a collapse of state and local government employment is offered by this chart of state and local tax revenue:

In Auto Test in Europe, Meter Ticks Off Miles, and Fee to Driver  —  EINDHOVEN, the Netherlands — As Sander Van Dedem recalled watching the charges tick up every 10 seconds on the dashboard meter on the way to the airport, he resolved to try public transportation next time.

Islam has always been part of our American family: Obama  —  Welcoming guests at the annual White House Iftaar party, US President Barack Obama said, Islam has always been part of the American family and Muslim Americans have long contributed to the strength and character of our country in all walks of life.

England Used to Be a Country of Men  —  With London succumbing to looters and muggers, it's time to ask what happened to the once-manly English people.  The August 9 issue of the Daily Mail, for example, includes a photo of a young man taking off his pants on the street as an impatient looter waits …

America's debt is not its biggest problem  —  For a few days there it seemed like President Obama was the master of the bond market.  This is a Triple-A nation, he intoned on Monday, and always will be a Triple-A nation no matter what some rating agency says.

The Same Financial Crisis: Stocks Falling Due to Same Mortgage Problems from 2008  —  I guess news outlets are still pushing the line that the S&P debt downgrade is what has driven the stock market volatility over the past week or so.  They have to neglect that the market was falling …

Claire McCaskill Comes Out Against Further Unemployment Benefits [UPDATE] … During a Tuesday visit to a factory in St. Charles, Mo., Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill said she opposed extending federal unemployment benefits.  —  “I'm not for extending the unemployment benefits any further …

White House photo sparks protest  —  WASHINGTON (AP) — A White House photographer was allowed to take and widely distribute a photo from the ceremony Tuesday for the return of the remains of 30 American troops killed in a weekend helicopter crash in Afghanistan despite the Pentagon's claim …

Panel Calls for More ‘Fracking’ Rules  —  The use of hydraulic fracturing to drill for natural gas poses risks to air and water quality, and should be subject to tighter rules and more disclosure, an advisory panel to the Department of Energy said in a report to be released Thursday.

Anarchy and Austerity: Why London Won't Be the Last City to Burn  —  The Great Recession gave birth to a lost generation across the world, where youth unemployment rates stretch into the 20s, 30s and even 40s.  Those millions have responded with violence.  —  REUTERS