In reverse order of importance:
Miley Cyrus got her hairs cut.
Shia LaBeouf says he might perform “real sex” in his new movie. I don’t know much about these things, but at what point do increasingly “edgy” movies become indistinguishable from pornos?
Mitt Romney didn’t release any more tax returns, but he did claim to have paid at least 13% every year for the years in question, which to me sounds just as plausible if not significantly more plausible than Harry Reid’s claim that he paid nothing. (Is Romney purposefully letting Democrats waste weeks on this issue before finally revealing returns that show nothing controversial? That’s the theory of Dave at Classical Values.)
US carbon dioxide emissions dropped to a 20-year low, thanks largely to the natural gas boom.
Julian Assange was granted asylum in Ecuador. (If you haven’t been following along, Assange founded Wikileaks, which, among other things, released thousands of secret diplomatic cables in 2010, putting him on the good side of activists concerned about government secrecy but also putting him on the very bad side of governments concerned about government secrecy. Allegations of rape complicated Assange’s life, which has lately been spent running around the world trying to steer clear of big governments who are very interested in catching him.)
Someone who didn’t like the Family Research Council’s stance on homosexuality walked into their HQ with a gun and fortunately didn’t cause any damage besides shooting a guard in the arm. This sparked lots of debate about how unequally the media treats right-wing violence vs. left-wing violence.
Scientists invented a bendy camouflage robot. They also discovered that the sun is the most perfectest sphere that we know of. Meanwhile, Curiosity finished its software upgrade, sent back a few more cool pictures, and is finally ready to start moving around and shooting its laser.
The eurozone reported a decline in growth, but the currency is continuing to stagger on. Meanwhile, the US reported higher retail sales than expected, and I’m continuing to see signs of recovery; either the market doesn’t fear the fiscal cliff or it’s pricing in an expected extension. We’ll know soon enough.