An unprecedented amount of money is sloshing around this year's midterm elections. The Center for Responsive Politics now predicts that more than $4 billion dollars could be spent by candidates, political parties and so-called outside groups. Although the Democratic Party has raised more money than the Republican Party, Republican-leaning special interest groups like Karl Rove's American Crossroads have been clobbering the Democratic-leaning groups in fundraising and spending. Recently, liberals began waking up. We speak with Dan Eggen, national reporter for the Washington Post.

The Food and Drug Administration is reviewing the latest craze in alcoholic beverages: fruit-flavored, carbonated drinks that look like a sports drink or soda, but contain up to four times the alcohol of a beer and as much caffeine as several cups of coffee. The cans have been banned on certain college campuses because they're sending people to the emergency room. We talk to an emergency room doctor from Lancaster, Penn. who has treated more than a dozen cases of alcohol poisoning attributed to these drinks.

Rescuers searching islands ravaged by a tsunami off western Indonesia raised the death toll to more than 340 as more bodies were found. The death toll is likely to climb higher because hundreds of missing people may have been swept away. Elsewhere in Indonesia, the volcano that killed 33 people this week began erupting again, though there were no reports of new injuries or damage. Mourners held a mass burial today during a lull in Mount Merapi's rumblings. The BBC's Rachel Harvey reports.

We open the Here & Now mailbag and hear from listeners on our recent stories about political lingo, how climate change is affecting bees as well as leaves and Mark Twain's best-selling autobiography.

Is the sex scandal dead? When presidential hopeful Gary Hart was caught "monkeying around" his career was ruined. Now recently disgraced former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer is back on prime time and South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford has high approval ratings. The scandal redemption cycle seems to be getting shorter, writes Louise Roug, an editor at the Daily Beast.

This week's announcement from the Sony Corporation that it will cease producing the Walkman Personal Audio Cassette Player in Japan got Nate DiMeo from the Memory Palace thinking about the connection between music and our lives.

John Stirratt and Pat Sansone are probably best known as part of the alt-rock band Wilco. But the two are also founders of The Autumn Defense, a band with more of a seventies-tinged sound. They've released four CD's, their latest, "Once Around," comes out next week. We speak with bassist and lead singer/songwriter John Stirratt.

• Peter Dixon, "Nagog Woods"
• Radiohead, "In Limbo"
• Sonny Rollins, "Get Happy"
• Fred Hersch, "Desafinado"
• Jeff Tweedy “Either Way” performed by Willco
• Pat Sansone “Once Around” performed by The Autumn Defense
• “Make it Through the Summer” The Autumn Defense
• John Stirratt “Step Easy” performed by The Autumn Defense
• John Stirratt, Pat Sansone “Allow Me” performed by The Autumn Defense
• Jeff Tweedy “Wilco (The Song)” performed by Wilco
• John Stirratt, Pat Sansone “Huntington Fair” performed by The Autumn Defense