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July 18, 2012 | | SUICIDE BOMBER Did the killing of President Bashar al-Assad's top lieutenants on Wednesday mark a turning point in the Syrian crisis—or is it just another twist in the country's long and bloody history of intrigue? The Daily Beast’s Christopher Dickey on how the mysteries that surround almost every aspect of the conflict make it treacherous ground for any attempt at diplomatic solutions. MINIMAL FUNDS WikiLeaks is low on dough. Cash reserves for Julian Assange’s information aggregator have dropped from $983,600 in December 2010 to less than $122,370 at the end of last month. Unless it receives an influx of donations—"a minimum of €1 million immediately"—the site is prepared for its well to run dry “within a few months.” WikiLeaks has blamed its financial woes on Visa and Mastercard for not allowing their users to donate to the site. “Visa and Mastercard are contractually barred from directly cutting off merchants through the Carte Bleue system,” argued WikiLeaks in a statement, noting that a fund through Carte Bleue, the French credit-card system, has been set up for the website to solicit donations. RAPE-JOKE FALLOUT On The Daily Show Monday night, comedian Louis C.K. said the controversy over Daniel Tosh’s rape joke boils down to “a fight between comedians and feminists, which are natural enemies.” Media critic Jennifer L. Posner talks to nine comedians about the funnymen—and whether feminism and comedy are truly at odds. VEEPSTAKES Mitt Romney better choose wisely because, according to a new CBS News/New York Times poll, voters say who they cast their ballot for depends a lot on a candidate’s running mate. Twenty-four percent of registered voters surveyed said the VP choice has a big influence on who they vote for, 74 percent said it matters either a lot or somewhat, and 48 percent said the candidate’s pick matters somewhat. Only 25 percent don’t care at all who their candidate chooses. While the poll finds that Republican voter enthusiasm has grown from 36 percent in March to 49 percent since Romney secured the nomination, Democratic enthusiasm has begun to wane. Overall, though, voters aren’t as psyched about the election as they were in 2008. DEAD HORSE Back in March, investigators for controversial Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio said they had probable cause for believing that President Obama’s long-form birth certificate was computer-generated and faked. Now they say they have proof of the forgery. According to Mike Zullo, Arpaio’s chief investigator, the issue is that numeric codes on certain parts of the birth certificate indicate that those sections were never filled out, yet a section asking for the race of Obama’s father was completed using the identifier “African,” which was not used until 1989, 28 years after Obama was born—indicating, according to Zullo, that someone had tampered with the document. Hawaii state officials refuted Arpaio’s claim on Tuesday, confirming Obama’s citizenship. The White House released Obama’s birth certificate in April 2011, responding to “birthers” who believe that the president was born in Kenya, not Hawaii, and therefore ineligible for office. | | 
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