News Headline: “Why conservatives are obsessed with Obama’s college grades: 4 theories.”
1. They are trying to distract from Mitt Romney’s tax returns.
2. They are trying to distract from Mitt Romney’s tax returns and foreign bank accounts.
3. They are trying to distract from Mitt Romney’s tax returns and foreign bank accounts and the dog on the roof and Bain Capital and laid-off steelworkers and rotating issue positions and elevators for cars and… .
4. They are trying to distract from Mitt Romney.

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QT Worldwide Man-Bites-Dog Pinpoint Locator:
As of the 38th dog day of summer, there have been no new reports of a man biting a dog.
But Olympic tennis medalist Andy Murray briefly placed his two medals on his two dogs.
There are two dog days to go.
And three days to go for the Olympics.
So there is still time for Michael Phelps to bite a dog.

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News Headline: “Inquiry after unofficial condoms found in Olympic Village.”
News Headline: “Can you name all 302 London Olympic events in 20 minutes?”
Come to think of it, QT can name 303.

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From a Chicago suburban library newsletter:
“Your specially trained information scientist is waiting.”
Kevin O’Brien, an Oak Park reader, wants to know when reference librarians became specially trained information scientists, and when can we have reference librarians back?
And… .

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A Fox News Tea Party guest complaining about the lack of stars and stripes on U.S. Olympic uniforms:
“What we’re seeing is this kind of soft anti-American feeling that Americans can’t show our exceptionalism.”
No.
What we’re seeing is the United States not acting like the guy at the end of the bar who won’t stop talking about all the ways he’s the greatest and better than anybody else.
As others in the bar ask the bartender to cut him off.

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News Item: “President Obama took ‘American exceptionalism’ to a whole new level after he suggested that the United States was the greatest country on Earth, and every other country would happily trade places… ."
Bartender!

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New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg introducing the new Domain Awareness System, a supercomputer that uses cameras, detectors, license plate readers and crime reports for unprecedented surveillance:
“We are in the next century. We are leading the pack.”
OK.
And just know that if we collapse into a police state someday, it will be the greatest, best-equipped police state in the world.

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News Headline: “Poll: Gun laws won’t stop shootings.”
That’s it. That’s enough.
No one ever said gun laws would stop shootings.
There is no law anywhere of any kind that can stop anything.
Laws only make it more difficult to do some things.
In other news, the U.S. Department of Agriculture reported a nationwide hay shortage due to the overproduction of straw men in an election year.

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Lest We Forget that the Dark Ages Were a Faith-Based Initiative:
The new Missouri “Right to Pray” constitutional amendment will allow schoolchildren to refuse to participate in science classes that challenge their religious training.

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News Headline: “What’s on a Ku Klux Klan membership application?”
Pssst. It’s a trick application.
If you can fill in the blanks with words, you don’t get in.

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QT What Passes for Miracles These Days Update:
A man in Beeville, Texas, discovered an image of Jesus on a half-eaten breakfast taco he had just hit with a flyswatter.

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News Headline: “Voter IDs, if implemented fairly, can work.”
And voter IDs, if not implemented fairly, can work, too.
If you are trying to work a few fixed elections.
But heavens to Betsy, who thinks the Republicans would try something like that?

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M.L., a Towson, Md., reader, regarding part-Hawkeye QT’s noting that the best thing out of Iowa is I-80, writes:
“You reminded me of an old Ernie Kovacs line about Indiana: A lot of smart people come from Indiana—and the smarter they are, the faster they come from there.”
It was Wisconsin native Harry Houdini who was quoted as saying:
“The greatest escape I ever made was from Appleton, Wis.”
Thank goodness there are no Illinois jokes.

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Modern Education + the Criminal Mind =
A man being chased by police in Shreveport, La., ran into the Caddo Parish Correctional Center looking for a place to hide out.

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News Headline: “Naked man covered with cooking spray complains his shorts were too big.”
There is probably an interesting story behind that.

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QT Grammar R Us Seminar on the English Language:
News Headline: ”… has a weekend immune system… ."
News Headline: ”… those with a weekend immune system… ."
Yet another reason to look forward to Fridays.
“Sheikh” rhymes with “cake,” by the way.

Write to QT at qt@wbez.org
QT appears Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.