Here are a few other news stories and interesting reads.

Tennessee Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey, currently running third in the state's Republican gubernatorial primary race, has noted that he is not sure that Islam is a religion and that thus he's not sure if Constitutional guarantees of freedom of religion apply to Muslims. The full story with video from Talking Points Memo.

President Barack Obama is scheduled to visit on the Whoppi Goldberg hosted and female oriented daytime talk show "The View" on Thursday. Executive producers Barbara Walters and Bill Geddie said in making Monday's announcement that it will mark the first time a sitting U.S. president has visited a daytime talk show. Obama's interview will touch on topics including jobs, the economy, the Gulf oil spill and family life inside the White House. It is scheduled to be taped on Wednesday.

The Denver Post reports that former GOP Congressman and immigration zealot will run for Governor of Colorado on the American Constitution Party ticket.

BP CEO Tony Hayward is to step down by the end of the year. He will also get an immediate annual pension worth about £600,000 ($930,000) when he leaves according to the BBC. Meanwhile, the Miami Herald reports that Hayward will take a new job with a BP joint venture in Russia. Also see Nathan's expanded post.

The National Journal has a story on the nation's rapidly changing demographics entitled The Gray And The Brown: The Generational Mismatch. A snippet:

At the root of the generational mismatch are federal policies that severely reduced immigration from the 1920s until Congress loosened the restrictions in 1965. With immigration constrained, whites remained an overwhelming majority of American society through the mid-20th century, including the years of the post-World War II Baby Boom. (Demographers date the Baby Boom from 1946 to 1964, the year before the restrictions on immigration were eased.) The result was a heavily white generation of young people.

"Most Boomers grew up and lived much of their lives in predominantly white suburbs, residentially isolated from minorities," Frey wrote this spring. They are now graying into a senior generation that is four-fifths white, according to census figures.

Since 1965, however, expanded immigration and higher fertility rates among minorities have literally changed the face of America, particularly on the playground. As recently as 1980, minorities made up about one-fifth of the total population and one-fourth of children under 18. Today, the Census Bureau reports, racial minorities represent about 35 percent of the total population and 44 percent of children under 18. Whites make up 56 percent of young people and 80 percent of seniors. The 24-point spread between the white percentage of the senior and the youth populations is what Frey calls the cultural generation gap.

This split has widened rapidly over the past quarter-century. In 1980, it stood at just 14 percentage points, according to calculations performed by the Census Bureau for National Journal. The gap expanded to 18 points by 1990 and 23 points by 2000. Today, it is visible across a wide swath of the U.S. In 31 states, the difference between the white share of the senior and youth population is at least 19 percentage points.

The article goes on to discuss the political implications of this racial and generational divide. Another somewhat related story below.

Climate refugees are already a fact of life. But a new study suggests that the number is to grow exponentially. As many as 7 million Mexicans could migrate to the U.S. by 2080 as climate change reduces agricultural production in Mexico, according to a new study being published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. More from the Los Angeles Times.

Proudly crossposted from Motley Moose

tarheel74 posted an excellent diary yesterday about The View interviewing Mr and Mrs McCain. My Mother asked me if I had seen the episode, and then told me it was the toughest interview she has ever seen with the McCain's. This prompted me to watch the full interview and read tarheel74's diary. The only problem I had was s/he did not include the full interview. I think everyone in American should see this.

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Some in the media and in Washington -- even Democrats -- persist in their deluded claims that John McCain is too "honorable" to have authorized the dishonest attacks that his campaign has levied against Barack Obama. "Surely John McCain did not know about the ad claiming that Barack Obama was calling Sarah Palin a pig!", they cry, "he has way too much integrity!"

In the last 24 hours, McCain himself has left no doubt that whatever integrity he once had is in tatters on the floor.

Last night at the candidate forum on service, John McCain acknowledged the bitter tone of the campaign but, as he did with David Broder in August, passed the buck and blamed it on, of all people, Barack Obama.

First of all, this is a tough business. Second of all, I think the tone of this whole campaign would have been very different if Senator Obama had accepted my request for us to appear in townhalls all over America.

So much for personal responsibility, eh John?

Then this morning, on The View -- which, it should be noted, was perhaps the hardest hitting interview John McCain has been subjected to -- McCain addressed the lipstick on a pig ad and, not surprisingly, gave his full seal of approval (you hear that Tweety? Carville?):

MCCAIN: Actually they are not lies and if you've seen some of the ads that are running against me...Senator Obama chooses his words very carefully, OK? He shouldn't have said it. He shouldn't have said it. He chooses his words very carefully and this is a tough campaign.

For me, any shred of integrity McCain had was gone well before 2008, but certainly he sealed it with his comments earlier this summer that Barack would "rather lose a war than an election." So, it's nice to see the Obama campaign turn McCain's own words against him in response to McCain's defense of his indefensible ad on The View today.

Today on "The View," John McCain defended his campaign's latest ad campaign, which has been debunked repeatedly as both false and sleazy. In running the sleaziest campaign since South Carolina in 2000 and standing by completely debunked lies on national television, it's clear that John McCain would rather lose his integrity than lose an election.

Notice how they manage to go after his integrity while also tying him to Bush? This is, I think, a far more effective attack on McCain than the out of touch thing, particularly because it goes to his character and his entire "Country First" narrative -- in other words, it goes after his perceived strengths. Perhaps more important, it also taps into the disgust many former McCain supporters are already feeling toward him right now. Even before the Obama campaign released the above statement, a lifelong Republican I know -- and new Obama supporter -- wrote this to me this morning in response to McCain's persistently dishonest campaign:

It makes me sick! McCain used to be the standard for integrity in the Republican Party. Now, it seems that he has become just another party hack. "Country First?" No, it appears to be "Election First!" What happened to "I rather be right that elected."

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I have never seen the View, but I have seen Barbara Walters doing interviews of other people. She is soft spoken and non-combative. Here she mauls McCain. Watch:

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This story here caught my attention today:

http://www.reuters.com/article/televisio nNews/idUSN1847324020080618

The particular part that raised my eyebrows was this statement from Michelle Obama:

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