Midday open thread

• The number of immigrants living in the United States remained flat after 40 years of increases, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
• John Cole has a question about what, exactly, Obama "lost" by pitching Chicago as an Olympic venue:

  Finally, what prestige did he lose? Did they take away the football? Will they no longer call him President? Will he have to give up Air Force One? Was he kicked out of the White House? Will members of his secret service detail think to themselves "Yesterday, I would have taken a bullet for him. Now, with the stench of defeat all over him, I’m not so sure." What foreign leader who would have answered a call from the White House yesterday will today refuse because Chicago did not get the Olympics? Same for members of congress? Or fundraisers? If the White House said they would like for Ben Smith to conduct an interview, would Ben say "No thank you, your diminished status as President leaves me no choice but to decline."

• Wired has an inspiring story about an African teenager, persistence and good old-fashioned know-how that brought wind energy to an impoverished village and changed lives forever.
• Eric Kleefeld over at TPM has an insightful post about how the GOP's new foreign policy seems to be to undermine American diplomacy:

  An interesting pattern has been emerging in the Republican Party's handling of foreign policy: Individual GOP officials are now making a regular point of not only formulating an alternative foreign policy, to be presented to the American people and debated in Congress -- they're acting on it too, and undermining the official White House policies at multiple turns....

• What would happen if the modern office operated like Mad Men, with drinks being served all day long? Jacob Weisberg at Slate decided to find out.
• Are generation gaps hogwash?
• The brain processes facts and beliefs in exactly the same way, a a new study shows."We seem to be doing the same thing when we accept a proposition about God or the virgin birth as we do about astronomy," according to neuroscientist Sam Harris, author of The End of Faith.
• And yes, yet another study: Political activism is good for you.
• Funny stuff:

  WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report) - Congressional Republicans received key backing today for their health care plan, picking up support from the National Association of Undertakers.

  The funeral directors' group, which represents undertakers, embalmers and hearse drivers across the country, gave the GOP plan a big thumbs up, saying in a press release, "Finally, a health care plan that works for us."

• Flowing Data offers "30 Resources to Find the Data You Need." Definitely bookmark material.