Pretty Much Bad News All Around For Afghanistan

• Pretty solid sounding suspicions of fraud arose after officials discovered that 23,900 out of 23,900 ballots from a certain area were all cast for incumbent president of Afghanistan Hamid Karzai. [ New York Times ]

• There is no one left to serve on America's juries, as the only people who can afford gas and cars are the finance executives awaiting trial. [ New York Times ]

• Back to school shopping is still at relatively low levels. This already has people who work in stores and people who buy things from stores worried about holiday spending. [ Wall Street Journal ]

• The Taliban is destroying Afghanistan's Western-built infrastructure in exciting new ways and more successfully than ever. [ Washington Post ]

• Big jump for car sales in August, mostly because of government incentive programs that allow people to afford cars. Good economic news! or... bad news for people called to jury duty? [ Reuters ]