Midday Open Thread

• NY-26: Rumors are swirling that one-time GOP up-and-comer Tom Reynolds - who barely won re-election last year amid his attempted cover-up of the Mark Foley scandal - might retire. Dems have a challenger ready to go, Iraq war vet and teacher Jon Powers.
• Digby stays on Tweety's obsession with Hillary Clinton's gender:

  Matthews and the rest of the MSNBC varsity club don't have any self-awareness, so I know they also don't have a clue about what's driving this pathetic show of misogyny, but these particular comments are not new to me. I suspect I'm not alone in having been told by men over the years to "correct" my voice --- that it's too strident, too shrill, too grating. That I was being "emotional" and a little bit "hysterical." "Shhhh", "Tone it down, you're hurting my ears." "Settle down." I would guess that most opinionated, smart women who've worked in corporate America (or had a bad boyfriend) know what I'm talking about.

  It took me a long time to realize that it tends to happen when I'm winning an argument and that it's actually a bit of misdirection which often, depending on your personality and self-confidence, results in either getting spitting mad or wilting. It can be extremely effective at derailing a good point --- and infantalizing women, particularly when it's done in public.

• Romney is being targeted by anti-Mormon push polls. Or is he? Why would someone attacking Romney hire a call center owned by a friend of his? Could the calls be intended to gin up sympathy for Romney?
• Want a Ron Paul dollar coin? Too late - the FBI seized them. Thinking about making Ron Paul coins? You're a libertarian wackjob.
• In Michigan, the EPA has ordered an emergency cleanup of part of the Saginaw river for record levels of dioxin:

  The discovery of the highest level of the feared chemical compound dioxin ever in the Great Lakes region has prompted the EPA to order an emergency cleanup in the Saginaw River in Saginaw and the state to issue new warnings about eating fish from the river.

  The chemical hot spot was found in river-bottom sediment near a city park popular among shoreline anglers. Dow Chemical Co., whose plant in Midland was the source of the likely decades-old dioxin, found the chemicals as part of a larger sampling program.

• Which states are projected to lose seats in Congress after the next census, and which will gain? Click here for a roundup.
• What's Dickipedia? A "wiki of dicks." Check it out.
• Remember how Peabody Energy, the embodiment of Big Coal, attacked Kathleen Sebelius as making Hugo Chavez happy by turning down coal-burning power plants? Well, uh, Peabody Energy is a partner with Chavez in a Venezuelan coal mine.