Cain's support dips after sex accusations: poll  —  (Reuters) - Allegations that Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain sexually harassed women in the 1990s have begun to damage his bid for the White House, a Reuters/Ipsos poll found.  —  The poll showed the percentage of Republicans …

DECLINE AND FALL  —  Sometime in the future, when a twenty-first-century Gibbon searches for a moment to use as a starting point for a chronicle of American decline, he or she might want to alight on the late-October and early-November days of 2011.  Not that there is much to be gained …

Here Comes the Sun  —  For decades the story of technology has been dominated, in the popular mind and to a large extent in reality, by computing and the things you can do with it.  Moore's Law — in which the price of computing power falls roughly 50 percent every 18 months …

IAEA says foreign expertise has brought Iran to threshold of nuclear capability  —  Intelligence provided to U.N. nuclear officials shows that Iran's government has mastered the critical steps needed to build a nuclear weapon, receiving assistance from foreign scientists to overcome key technical hurdles …

The Rising Age Gap in Economic Well-Being  —  The Old Prosper Relative to the Young  —  Older adults have made dramatic gains relative to younger adults in their economic well being during the past quarter century, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis of data from two key U.S. Census sources.

Romney just dramatically raised the stakes vs. Obama  —  The Day of Reckoning is here, or will be in 2013.  The next president and Congress will need to make huge decisions about taxes and spending.  And those actions will help determine whether America's economic future will be one of a) …

On electoral map, Obama still has routes to victory in 2012, despite low ratings  —  There's no question that President Obama faces one of the most challenging political environments in modern memory as he prepares to try to win a second term next November.  —  But with one year …

Head and Body Lice Outbreak Announced at #Occupy Portland Squatters Camp (Video)  —  Can we join?... Please, please, please!  —  A lice outbreak was announced at the #Occupy Portland squatters camp this weekend.  —  Head AND Body lice.  —  Hat Tip South Texian

A Hidden Toll as States Shift to Contract Workers  —  GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — Like many states and local governments struggling to cut costs, Michigan hopes to replace some government employees with contract workers who will do the same job for less.  —  Ginny Townsend, 41 …

The Next Fight Over Jobs  —  The way the job market is going, it will never be robust enough to bring down the unemployment rate, now at 9 percent, or 13.9 million people.  Monthly job growth has slowed to an average of just 90,000 new jobs a month over the past six months …

The big college scam  —  It's bad enough; the president's loan initiative will make it that much worse  —  The biggest consumer ripoff in America today — and the next economic bubble to burst — is higher education.  —  Tuition and fees at colleges and universities rose 439 percent between 1982 and 2007.

The Municipal Bond Market Is Imploding  —  Moody's Credit Rating Service just announced the ominous trend that credit quality in the municipal bond market is falling at the fastest rate since the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008.  Data released showed that 5.3 times as many municipal bonds …