The company, Real Bronx Tours, has taken largely white foreign tourists around the Bronx. The tour guide was caught mocking the Bronx by Post reporter Candice Giove.

“Last week, on the first stop of the $45 tour, guide Lynn Battaglia, from Pittsburgh, pointed out a housing project. She then mocked the Grand Concourse, modeled after a Parisian boulevard,” reports Giove.“‘Do you feel like we’re on the Champs-Elysées?’ she teased a couple from Paris.”

The tour also included a drive near a food pantry at a church. Battaglia wondered out loud, “I don’t know what that line’s about, but every Wednesday we see it. We see them go in with empty carts, and we see them come out with carts full.”

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The Guardian reports that a Denver-based company, Elite Sterling Security, has sold 300 bulletproof backpacks over the last two months. The company has also received inquiries about their backpacks from 2,000 families across the U.S. And the company is in talks with schools in Colorado about “equipping them with ballistic safety vests, a scaled-down version of military uniforms designed to hang in classroom cupboards for children to wear in an emergency,”The Guardian reports.

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Mitt and Ann Romney gave Chris Wallace of Fox News Sunday the honor of hearing them babble. From blaming minorities’ love of Obamacare to whining about their election loss, the interview was chock-full of ridiculous moments and quotes.

Here are six of them.

1. Blaming Minorities’ Love for Obamacare

Given the fact that the Republican Party staked out a totally anti-Obamacare political position throughout the 2012 campaign, it’s striking to see their former standard-bearer blame the legislation for his loss. It is admitting political failure of the highest degree.

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A group of students who attend the Texas Christian University have created an atheist organization, and they now want official recognition from their school. TheChristian News Network reports that the group is called the “Freethinking Frogs,” a reference to the school mascot.

The group was formed by 32-year-old transfer student Alexis Lohse. She told the Christian news outlet that the organization is for people who are agnostic and secular. She also told The Fort News Weekly that she wanted to form a group to support students who thought outside the Christian box.

University officials say that they have received the application for official recognition, and that a decision will be made soon.

Lohse’s group has about 30 members.

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The plan will be instituted starting March 1, and residents of Missouri City are none too happy.

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Social mobility is limited in the U.S. 58 percent of Americans born into the bottom fifth of income earners in the country move out of that economic strata--a rate lower than most of Europe.

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The Associated Press reports that the bill, which is headed to a floor vote, would change the state’s definition of “private parts” to include “the nipple, or any portion of the areola, or the female breast.” The bill stipulates that the punishment a woman receives if she exposes her breasts depends on why the woman did so. “Depending on whether such exposure is judged to be ‘for the purpose of arousing or gratifying sexual desire,’ the woman could be charged with a felony, punishable by up to six months in prison for first-time offenders. More mundane exposure would be a misdemeanor meriting up to 30 days in jail,” the AP reports.

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Kawana Young, a single mother of two kids, was arrested in Michigan after failing to pay money she owed as a result of minor traffic offenses. She was recently laid off from her job, and could not pay the fees she owed because she couldn’t find another source of employment. So a judge sentenced her to three days in jail. In addition, Young was charged additional fees for being booked and for room and board for a place she did not want to be. In total, she has been jailed five times for being unable to pay her debts.

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A new report published by a liberal think tank offers an intriguing solution to the problem of global warming: work less, and carbon emissions will be reduced. That’s what the Center for Economic Policy and Research says in a new study, according to a report in U.S. News and World Report.

If people around the world switched to a “more European”-like work schedule, it could “prevent as much as half of the expected global temperature rise by 2100,” the study says, as the publication notes. A “more European”-like schedule includes working far fewer hours and taking longer vacation time.

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Uygur had DeWolf on to talk about how people get sucked into Scientology. “How do they do it?” asked Uygur.

DeWolf said that Scientology leaders “prey on narcissism....[You’re] told you’re a God-like creature.”

DeWolf also explained how Scientology specifically tries to rope in celebrities, though they are often “insulated from the nastier aspects of it.” DeWolf said Elvis Presley turned down an offer to join Scientology.

“Is it a case study in how you can gradually brainwash people?” asked Uygur. “I think it’s one of the most brilliant and devious systematic brainwashing systems that’s ever been invented,” responded DeWolf.

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The orders would “restore the standards of due process and the core constitutional values that have made this country great even in the midst of war, even in dealing with terrorism,” said Obama.

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These fear-mongers won’t be able to spread their hysteria from the bully pulpit of a House seat any longer. But that doesn’t mean that the House Republican caucus has rid themselves of the scourge of anti-Muslim politicians who stoke that sentiment for political gain. On the contrary, the House Republican caucus remains the place where the ugly head of Islamophobia rests comfortably.

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But there’s another group working hand-in-glove with the NRA that deserves scrutiny: the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). ALEC, the Koch Brothers-backed group that is funded by big corporate interests, first attracted attention in the wake of the Trayvon Martin killing. The group, which brings together corporate interests, right-wing lobbyist groups and conservative politicians, passes model legislation that politicians take back ready-made to their state. The NRA has funded ALEC and co-chaired ALEC’s “Public Safety and Election Task Force,” which passes model bills on guns.

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In any case, December 21 has become shorthand for “apocalyptic end of the world scenarios.”

People around the world have reacted to the impending date of doom with seriousness. So here are 5 hysterical reactions to the Mayan calendar ending--”hysterical” in both senses of the word.

1. Luxurious Bunkers

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On Friday, Medvedev joked during an interview that “each Russian leader gets two folders with information about extraterrestrials that visited our planet — and stayed here,” one news report said.

“Along with the briefcase with nuclear codes, the president of the country is given a special 'top secret' folder. This folder in its entirety contains information about aliens who visited our planet,” Medvedev said during an interview with Ren TV. “Along with this, you are given a report of the absolutely secret special service that exercises control over aliens on the territory of our country.”

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The GOP’s opposition to the treaty was reinforced by right-wing media freaking out over yet another United Nations effort. The pattern is well-established: take a UN treaty the US is thinking of signing, twist the language to make it seem nefarious, and then gin up hysterical opposition to it based on non-existent provisions in the treaty.

So here are five ways the right has jumped the shark over the UN.

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The geneticist, Gerald Crabtree, has published two journal articles on this hypothesis. According to the publication PopSci, Crabtree argues that “human intelligence may have actually peaked before our ancient predecessors ever left Africa...Genetic mutations during the past several millennia are causing a decline in overall human intellectual and emotional fitness...Evolutionary pressure no longer favors intellect, so the problem is getting exponentially worse.” Crabtree argues that this process, like other evolutionary processes, take a long time to emerge.

Crabtree’s central thesis to back his claim up is, according to PopSci , that “each generation produces deleterious mutations, so down the line of human history, our intelligence is ever more impaired compared to that of our predecessors.”

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The debacle started after Mitt Romney’s election loss. Myers, a blogger on books for Commentary, published two pieces exploring whether the Republican Party should quit opposing gay marriage. It was the second post, “The Conservative Case for Gay Marriage,” that allegedly led to his firing.

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And Akin also reportedly has ties to "one of the most radical antiabortion activists of the 1990s" and a right-wing militia in Missouri, according to Salon. Akin has ties with Tim Dreste, formerly of the 1st Missouri Volunteers militia, and who is also "one of the most infamous antiabortion activists in the state, known for threatening abortion doctors," according to the Salon report.

But while Akin’s antics are bad, his rhetoric is even worse. The most infamous of Akin's comments came during the summer. During a televised interview, Akin responded to a question about abortion by saying, "if it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.”

There's plenty more comments where that came from.

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