From USA TODAY: The global output of heat-trapping carbon dioxide jumped by the biggest amount on record, the U.S. Department of Energy calculated, a sign of how feeble the world’s efforts are at slowing man-made global warming.

From the PITTSBURG POST-GAZETTE: …Gov. Tom Corbett’s Revenue Department is planning to include a new line on the 2011 income tax forms that will require filers to report what they spent on online purchases that went untaxed. Pennsylvanians who don’t want to do the math will be allowed to use an estimate based on their income.

NEW YORK TIMES: After a tumultuous day of political gamesmanship, Prime Minister George A. Papandreou called off his plan to hold a referendum on Greece’s new loan deal with the European Union and vowed to continue in office despite rumors he would resign and growing pressure from within his own party to do so.

In an address to his party’s central committee on Thursday evening, Mr. Papandreou said there was no need for a referendum now that the opposition New Democracy Party had said for the first time on Thursday that it would back the loan deal.

HARRISBURG (Nov. 2) – A nearly 130-page Marcellus Shale bill, supported by House GOP leadership, was voted out of the House Finance committee on party lines after about an hour of debate between lawmakers. “I think it’s time to get moving,” House Finance Chairman Kerry Benninghoff, R-Centre.

From the HUFF POST / REUTERS: The Federal Reserve on Wednesday slashed its forecast for economic growth, raised projections for unemployment, and suggested Europe’s debt crisis posed big downside risks to the U.S. economy…

From FT.COM: European leaders suspended an overdue tranche of €8bn in international aid to Athens and demanded Greece make a clear decision on whether it wanted to leave the eurozone at a dramatic meeting on the sovereign debt crisis on Wednesday night.

From the WASHINGTON POST:…First, programs funded by U.S. generosity have been a core component of this 50-year project of raising living standards around the world.

Aid is targeted to fill specific gaps in development. The most important of these gaps is innovation. When the private sector doesn’t have incentive, and poor governments don’t have the money, smart aid pays for breakthrough solutions. The green revolution that fed a billion people in the 1950s and ’60s never would have happened without advanced agricultural science funded by U.S. aid. In just the past 10 years, millions of children have been saved from diseases such as measles and whooping cough by vaccines that Americans paid for through their contribution to an organization called the GAVI Alliance. Immunization is a great example of how aid can be effective. Thirty-six cents worth of measles vaccine protects a child for a lifetime.

From NEWSMAX: …President Barack Obama and the U.S. Congress agreed to a deal in August that requires as much as $450 billion in cuts to security-related spending over 10 years, compared with previous Pentagon projections. Big U.S. defense contractors like Lockheed Martin Corp , Boeing Co and Northrop Grumman Corp are anxiously awaiting details of the Pentagon’s plans to gauge the impact on big weapons programs.

From the PITTSBURGH POST-GAZETTE: … “The story of the 2009-2010 elections and their aftermath in state legislatures in 2011,” the report says, “reveals a coalescing national campaign that seeks to intimidate America’s state judges into becoming accountable to money and ideologies instead of the constitution and the law.”

From USA TODAY: Medicare inspectors must do a better job of tracking reports of serious mistakes in care at the nation’s hospitals, as well as of informing rating agencies of the errors, according to a report released Tuesday by the agency’s inspector general.

Policy discussions and governmental actions have a way of tip toeing around the edges of problems. We miss the obvious answers as we drown in timid proposals.

Three examples:

1) In “Republic, Lost: How Money Corrupts Congress–and a Plan to Stop It”, Harvard Law School Professor Lawrence Lessig explains how Supreme Court rulings based upon its interpretation of First Amendment rights of free speech and enabled the richest 0.05% of the population to unduly determine the nations agenda to the detriment of the general population. His remedy: A Constitutional Convention to address campaign financing. Either Congress or the States can initiate the process. Other than a highly unlikely reversal of prior opinions by the Supreme Court, there is no other practical remedy. We will write more on this when we have read the book.

From USA TODAY: … In China, still the world leader at 1.34 billion people, Li Bin, director of China’s State Population and Family Planning Commission, told state news agency Xinhua on Sunday the government will maintain its current, strict policies on family size.

According to the Lancaster Sunday News in an article entitled “How interior work at train station was derailed” huffs on “Amtrak station renovation work shockingly didn’t cover the inside public areas. Full steam ahead to come up with a plan … and money.”

The article continues “Why that work was not included in the original contract remains a mystery, particularly since the station, used by more than 500,000 passengers a year, is the second-busiest station (behind Philadelphia) on the Keystone Line.”