This is a guest note by Emma Green who works for The Atlantic and is a 2012 graduate of Georgetown University.

Joe Cirincione, one of the nation’s sharpest minds on nuclear weapons policy, just highlighted in Foreign Policy yet another big gulp moment in the viral video of Mitt Romney triggering shock and awe (wrong kind of awe though) across the political world.

First of all, Oakley the Amazing Weimaraner has turned 10 and is in fantastic shape.

Reuters Mitt Romney’s selection of Paul Ryan has accomplished something quite important. At both conventions, in the corner rooms of Charlotte and Tampa organized by media groups and political activist outfits, serious discussions unfolded about the real state of the economy and the different policy approaches Americans needed to consider.

Reuters I thought President Obama’s decision to surge troop levels in Afghanistan was a strategic mistake and only deepened the black hole of costs in blood and treasure that the US had already invested and raised expectations in Afghanistan of an equilibrium in their lives that that would tilt more toward jobs and hope than…

Reuters/Benoit Tessier The New Yorker has just published a gripping, must read piece for those following the horrible convulsions inside Syria titled “The War Within” by Jon Lee Anderson on the diverse array of bosses, ideologues, thugs and strategists animating the Syrian opposition today.

I don’t speak Arabic — though I recently ordered the beginner module from Rosetta Stone which still sits in its wrapper on my desk shelf. (I am in the Arab world a lot however and learning more each trip.) Perhaps after the conventions.

Reuters Mitt Romney has just made the same mistake John McCain made in picking a vice presidential candidate that folks will talk more about than they will talk about the top of the ticket.

AP On Wednesday, Assistant Secretary of State for Political-Military Affairs and long-time Hillary Clinton foreign policy advisor Andrew Shapiro will give a talk at the Center for Strategic and International Studies titled:  “Ushering in a New Era in State-Defense Cooperation.

Margaret Carlson gets the quote of the week for her Bloomberg commentary on Mitt Romney’s wealth blind spots and not getting that dressage may not be the kind of business tax deduction he wants a lot of economically-strapped political independents to read about.