Today’s edition of quick hits:
* Legal setback for OWS: “A New York judge has upheld the city’s dismantling of the Occupy Wall Street encampment, saying that the protesters’ first amendment rights don’t entitle them to camp out indefinitely in the plaza. Supreme Court Justice Michael Stallman on Tuesday denied a motion by the demonstrators seeking to be allowed back into the park with their tents and sleeping bags.”
* It’s pretty remarkable to see how many journalists got caught up in New York arrests.
* Syria: “As foreign pressure intensified on the Syrian government on Tuesday, rights activists said that the death toll from violent clashes there on Monday was much higher than first reported. They estimated that 50 to 71 people were killed, including 34 soldiers in clashes with army defectors. The total nearly matched the 72 deaths on April 22, the bloodiest day of the Syria uprising so far.”
* The continuing resolution Congress passed to keep the government open expires this week, but a spending deal is in place to keep the lights on through mid-December.
* I’ll take good economic news where I can find it: “U.S. retail sales rose in October as Americans spent their dollars at electronics stores and on the Internet, a sign that consumers are willing to open their wallets ahead of the all-important holiday shopping season.”
* Economists at the Federal Reserve Board of San Francisco, looking at the Eurozone crisis, believes the threat of a U.S. recession in the near term is greater than 50%.
* And would Europe’s mess be such a problem here? A lot of it has to do with the exports the U.S. sells to Europe.
* Not sure why this decision couldn’t have come sooner: “The builders of the controversial Keystone XL tar sands pipeline agreed Monday to reroute it around Nebraska’s ecologically fragile Sandhills in the hope the move would shorten any delay in the project, which has posed political complications for the Obama administration.”
* A fascinating piece from Jonathan Cohn on the “Two-Year Window,” examining what science tells us about babies, brain development, and why it matters in the fight against poverty.
* I’m not clear on exactly why Rush Limbaugh attacks First Lady Michelle Obama quite as often, and as furiously, as he does.
* Why universities are buying new top-level domain names, .xxx, intended for pornography providers.
* After an uproar, a real anti-bullying measure will be approved in Michigan.
* The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel‘s Washington bureau chief, Craig Gilbert, reflects on what happened after Herman Cain’s disastrous interview: “I thought we had a moment that could be pretty incendiary. We came out of there, we discussed it, and all kind of looked at each other and shook our heads about the way he handled that one question [about Libya]. You never know how something like that is going to be perceived by people, [but] we were prepared for it to generate a lot of attention.” Mission accomplished.
Anything to add? Consider this an open thread.
