Those of you who are watching the events from Egypt on television should feel free to register impressions of what’s going on in the comment thread. Even with live-blogs, it’s hard to follow with half of one’s attention.

Here are some midday items to gnaw on during another otherwise slow August news day:

* Pentagon’s plan to extend benefits to same-sex military couples next month expanded to provide leave for those needing to travel to states that issue marriage licenses without discrimination.

* Salon‘s Josh Eidelson reports fast-food strikes about to expand “massively.”

* In court filing, Google says Gmail users have no legitimate expectation of complete privacy.

* Jonathan Chait mocks Richard Cohen for criticizing Hillary Clinton’s lack of a message for a non-existent campaign.

* TAP’s Matthew Doss weighs the impact of new Israeli settlements on the peace talks beginning in Jerusalem today.

And in non-political news:

* New York Times website goes down for two hours today. Cause said to be “internal.”

Wouldn’t be Outlaw Country Day without some Waylon, so here he is performing “I’ve Always Been Crazy.”

YouTube video

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Ed Kilgore is a political columnist for New York and managing editor at the Democratic Strategist website. He was a contributing writer at the Washington Monthly from January 2012 until November 2015, and was the principal contributor to the Political Animal blog.