Midday open thread

• Daily Kos radio has launched! Catch Armando and David Waldman (Kagro X) on Sirius/XM channel 127, Saturdays at 10 AM ET. If you are not a subscriber, you can get a free web trial here.
• Sad news from Iran:
  

  Two American men arrested more than two years ago while hiking along the Iraq-Iran border have been sentenced to eight years in prison for espionage and illegally entering Iran, state TV reported Saturday.

  The announcement appeared to dash hopes for the imminent release of Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal after Iran’s foreign minister suggested earlier this month that the trial could clear the way for their freedom.

• Karl Rove thinks Sarah Palin will run for president. And of course he's never been wrong.
• Is Jon Huntsman trying to lose? Because he's certainly not going to get far if he keeps it up with this kind of crazy talk:
  

  Considering the impact of the nation's economy on world markets, the 2012 GOP presidential candidate said he couldn't fathom how Republican colleagues discussed the possibility of defaulting on the country's debt during the heated debate surrounding whether the borrowing limit should be increased.

  "I thought it was the height of irresponsibility," he said.

  Uh, Mr. Huntsman, you have met today's Republican Party, right? Irresponsibility is a badge of honor.

• Oh my god, he really is trying to lose:
  

  The minute that the Republican Party becomes the party - the anti-science party, we have a huge problem.  We lose a whole lot of people who would otherwise allow us to win the election in 2012.  When we take a position that isn't willing to embrace evolution, when we take a position that basically runs counter to what 98 of 100 climate scientists have said, what the National Academy of Science - Sciences has said about what is causing climate change and man's contribution to it, I think we find ourselves on the wrong side of science, and, therefore, in a losing position.

• Best wedding pictures ever.
• Best roommate ad ever.
• Uh ... what?
  

  PETA knows how to raise eyebrows. The animal rights group's memorable campaigns have entailed everything from celebrities posing nude for its anti-fur campaign to scantily clad women having an erotic moment with their vegetables to support veganism.

  Now, PETA has pulled out all of the stops with a XXX porn site for its next clever marketing endeavor, reports The Register.

  PETA confirmed the XXX site in a phone interview with The Huffington Post.

  "We live in a 24 hour news cycle world and we learn the racy things we do are sometimes the most effective way that we can reach particular individuals," said PETA spokeswoman Lindsay Rajt.

• Please Join the Foes of the Tar Sands Pipeline: Blogathon & DC Civil Disobedience Action this week at Daily Kos to try to stop this Canadian pipeline that will cause harmful if not deadly impacts to our health, economy, environmental resources and wildlife while TransCanada satisfies its greed.

  If "tar sands are thrown into the mix, it is essentially game over," says Dr. James Hansen, director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies.