Romney and Ryan, like Reagan before them, rip a page directly from the time-tested Southern Strategy playbook of Richard Nixon for GOP presidential candidates. The strategy has always had two prongs. One is to attack the liberals and bloated and tax-and-spend big government. The second is to firmly lock down the majority popular and electoral vote in the 11 old Confederate and Border states. 

The modern world has long thought of refugees in strictly political terms, victims in a world driven by competing ideologies. But as climate change continues unabated, there is a growing population of displaced people whose homes have been rendered unlivable thanks to a wide spectrum of environmental disasters. Despite their numbers, and their need, most nations refuse to recognize their status.

Dr. Tawfik Hamid, author of the book Inside Jihad: Understanding and Confronting Radical Islam, had once experienced a sinister type of religious and political conversion. Fortunately, he was able to escape that life and has since spoken frequently of his time as a former member of Jamaa Islamiya (an Islamic terrorist organization led by a member of Al Qaeda, Dr. Aiman Al-Zawahiri).  He recently spoke with contributing writer Snapper Ploen. 

Misoprostol, which requires a prescription in the United States, is used primarily for ulcer prevention here and is not prescribed, on its own, for abortions. American doctors and clinics do sometimes pair it with the drug mifepristone (formerly known as RU-486) to produce a “medical abortion,” a method considered more effective than using misoprostol by itself. But the World Health Organization has said that using misoprostol alone can be highly effective as an abortion method.

In an apparent off-the-cuff remark, Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan gushed that he thought it was a “cool thing” that an African-American was president. But Ryan’s rapture with President Obama didn’t last past the first sentence. In the next breath he quickly added that he didn’t like much else about Obama. The much else was how much Obama has spent on health, education and job development programs that would help the poor and minorities. That spending has been fiscal heresy for Ryan.

Mars has become a very busy place, being orbited by satellites and crisscrossed by Land Rovers. As if that's not enough, Curiosity, a roving science laboratory, just successful landed at the planet's ancient crater to probe for signs that the planet was life-friendly in the past. Indeed, we are mapping and processing our neighboring planet so extensively that it feels as if Mars has already been colonized. 

The Great Drought of 2012 has yet to come to an end, but we already know that its consequences will be severe. With more than one-half of America’s counties designated as drought disaster areas, the 2012 harvest of corn, soybeans, and other food staples is guaranteed to fall far short of predictions. This, in turn, will boost food prices domestically and abroad, causing increased misery for farmers and low-income Americans and far greater hardship for poor people in countries that rely on imported U.S. grains.

“The gunman is worse than the one at the theatre a couple of weeks ago because he targeted an entire community," said a worshipper who witnessed the tragic shooting at his local gurdwara in Oak Creek, Wis., Aug. 5. What matters more is what the two shooters shared in common: the possession of lethal weapons. The kind that allowed one individual to wreak disproportionate harm, take multiple lives in a matter of seconds, allowed him to live out his most violent fantasies. Focusing on the “hate” angle distracts from the far greater crime: the appalling state of gun laws in the United States.

Mexicans have long grown weary of their country’s prolonged War on Drugs. Now, with President-elect Enrique Peña Nieto set to take office in December, it appears change may finally be in the offing. That change, however, may not be what most Mexicans were expecting. “A transnational phenomenon requires a transnational strategy,” Óscar Naranjo, Colombia’s former director of the National Police and current advisor to Peña Nieto, told reporters last week. 

India has not had any problems producing a birthrate to support the world’s second-most populous nation. They have a highly educated workforce. Anyone, from anywhere, that has needed tech support knows their telecommunications infrastructure works. They are creating their own products to meet the growing material demands of Indian citizens.  Since the turn of the century, India has become a hotbed for computing innovations. First, they assisted American companies to avoid any Y2K complications. Today, Indian technology entrepreneurs are creating intellectual property to compete on the global market.