September 06, 2008

A PHONY BOOKBANNING LIST from the Obama campaign?

IS THERE A THERE THERE? CNN on Troopergate, or Tasergate, or whatever.

HURRICANE IKE IS BACK TO A CATEGORY 4: More news from Brendan Loy.

ROGER SIMON on Oprah, politics, and the culture of narcissism.

AT THE TRUTH ABOUT CARS, A REVIEW of the 2009 Honda Accord NX. About 15 years ago, Bill Stuntz told me that what was amazing wasn't how good the $50,000 cars were, but how good the $20,000 cars were. Adjust for inflation and he's even more right today.

UNVEILED: The movie poster for Oliver Stone's W. That's probably as much of the move as I'll wind up seeing.

THIS IS WHY I WANT MORE MEDICAL RESEARCH NOW:

Nearly one in five U.S. adults (46 million people) has arthritis and an estimated 67 million people will be affected by 2030. Osteoarthritis, the most common type of arthritis, currently affects more than 27 million people in the U.S. . . . Add in rheumatoid arthritis, decaying spinal disks, and other joint problems and your odds of eventually living in pain from skeletal pains become quite high. If you aren't living in pain now you probably will eventually - barring big advances in biomedical science and biotechnology.

Ugh. Aging is a disease, and romanticizing it in terms of the great wheel of life or something is just a species of denial.

MORE ON CHRYSLER'S PLUG-IN HYBRID PLANS: "Press didn't elaborate on a timeline for releasing the plug-ins -- which further makes us wonder how real they are -- but Reuters says Envi should have its first product in showrooms within three to five years. According to Chrysler spokesman Nick Cappa, the first vehicles out of Envi will have an electric-only range of 40 miles. Considering the Chevrolet Volt is on track to hit dealerships by the end of 2010 and just about everyone else is working on plug-ins and EVs, Chrysler may once again be so late to the party that the hosts already have passed out. Of course, that might be when the party's just getting good."

OPRAH'S DECISION TO BAN SARAH PALIN is getting her roasted in the comments on her website: Just keep scrolling. (Via Jessica's Well). Click "read more" for a few representative examples, or follow the link to read 'em all.

Read More »

OBAMA REACHES TO HILLARY TO COMBAT PALIN, but Jules Crittenden comments: "Obama may want to do the math on that 'enemy of my enemy is my friend' thing and make sure he’s figured it right."

MORE ON Star Wars: The Force Unleashed. I guess I'm glad to see the franchise do well, but honestly I haven't had much interest after the first three films.

MOVING TOWARD OFFSHORE WIND POWER: "The Interior Department, the agency that handles oil-and-gas leases in U.S. waters, is preparing to lease swaths of the outer continental shelf to companies that want to erect massive wind turbines. With the public-comment period for the proposal scheduled to end Monday, competition is heating up to develop wind projects on the shelf, the same underwater formation largely covered by an oil-drilling ban that has become a contentious issue in the presidential race. The federal program signals the start of a broad push to develop offshore wind energy in the U.S. The country often is dubbed by renewable-energy experts as 'the Saudi Arabia of wind' because of its vast, windy expanses, particularly in the Western plains. Now, rising interest in renewable energy is spurring exploration of the ocean."

Two thoughts. First, nobody tell Ted Kennedy! Second, this is probably also a stealth way to advance oil drilling -- once there are lots of offshore wind turbines, who'll complain about a few oil rigs mixed in among them? Seems like a good idea, though.

UPDATE: Reader James Egan emails: "Why not put the wind turbines ON TOP of the off shore oil rigs : )" Good idea!

PROGRESS IN UNDERSTANDING MEMORY: "Scientists have for the first time recorded individual brain cells in the act of summoning a spontaneous memory, revealing not only where a remembered experience is registered but also, in part, how the brain is able to recreate it."

My question is, why is there so much room? I was listening to Santana's Moonflower in the car a while ago, which I've barely listened to since college, and not only did I realize that all the licks were stored in my brain, I actually found myself noticing when skips that were present on my original vinyl version didn't appear in the new one. What a waste of brain cells! And yet, I often have trouble remembering more mundane things, and always have. Seems like the storage part is easier than the retrieval part. (In high-school, we used to joke about Write-Only Memory). This might prove a major handicap if people live longer, requiring some sort of memory training. Or we could do what the Google generation does, and not try to remember anything, since you can just look it up . . . .

JAMES JOYNER: "New" Europe Outworks "Old."

TOM MAGUIRE: The Smell of Fear.

All you need, in Dan Rather's words, is courage.

LAWRENCE SOLOMON ON OIL SANDS: "Russia’s energy supplies enabled their aggression, Canada’s supply could be the placating alternative."

USING FACEBOOK TO CREATE A zombie army.

IN THE MAIL: Somaly Mam's The Road of Lost Innocence: The True Story of a Cambodian Heroine.

ANN ALTHOUSE: "The artistic qualities of this McCain ad completely distracted me from whatever words were spoken or shown." That's not a problem that Republican candidates usually face.

A FIRST LOOK at the new Dell Mini 9 tiny laptop.

POLITICO: Crowds Turn Out for Palin. More on that here, with photos.

STILL MORE ON THOSE UNDERFUNDED PUBLIC PENSIONS:

The American Academy of Actuaries is considering new standards that would require local governments to provide two estimates of returns on investments made on behalf of public employee pension funds, The Washington Post reported Friday.

Most municipalities estimate returns on investments at 8 percent, about twice the amount federal regulations permit for private firms, the Post reported.

But, the estimate may be too high. The number of public pension budgets considered underfunded jumped fivefold to 40 percent in 2006, compared with 2000, the Government Accountability Office reported.

Pension fund managers are reportedly unhappy, but this seems like a good move to me. Much more on the story here. The goal of politicians, of course, is to promise as much as possible to government workers so as to get their support, while putting as little as possible away to fulfill those promises, so as to have as much money available to do other things they want to do. Seems like they've been getting their way too much. And the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac examples should illustrate what happens when future risk involving public money isn't properly accounted for.

MORE PROBLEMS for Charles Rangel. Perfectly timed for an anti-Congress campaign by the G.O.P., too, unless I miss my guess.

REMEMBER IRAQ? Here's some news.

SOMEBODY HAS SET UP A SARAH PALIN SEXISM WATCH BLOG. It's already got quite a few posts.

Plus, a fake Sarah Palin bikini photo. Nice photoshop work, though. And I have to say that the photoshopped Sarah Palin looks better than the original model . . . .

UPDATE: Ed Morrissey notes another Palin smear that's exploded and comments: "Just spitballing here, but what stereotypes of naughty women have the media and the lunatics missed? So far, they’ve made her out to be a slut, a b***h, a beauty-queen airhead, and an unfit mother. She’s obviously not frigid, so that smear won’t work. How many other demeaning gender-based slurs can they throw her way?"

They'll be analyzing her walk by Monday.

ANN AND NANCY WILSON OF HEART are unhappy with the RNC's use of their Barracuda. But despite the obvious tie-in with Sarah Palin's basketball nickname of "Sarah Barracuda," it's a bad campaign song anyway since, if you listen to the lyrics, it's about a manipulative phony who'll say whatever people want to hear: "Smiles like the sun, kisses for everyone, and tales, it never fails . . . . And if the real thing don't do the trick, you better make up something quick." At least, it's a bad campaign song if it's supposed to be about Sarah Palin.

And congrats to Howard Mortman for remembering that Crazy on You is the best Cold-War inspired oral-sex song ever.

UPDATE: Reader Gerry Daly says I'm wrong: "The song was in response to ugly, unfounded sexual rumors being spread about the Wilson sisters. In that regard, it is extremely fitting for Palin. Honestly, can you think of a more fitting rejoinder to her foes in politics and the media than 'And if the real thing don't do the trick, you better make up something quick'?" Good point.

VIDEO: Sally Quinn's apology.

(Via Michael Silence, who originally blogged it live.). She's showing her age with that "George Romney" slip, though.

Semi-related item here.

"COUNTRY FIRST:" A fascist idea? Wasn't that a line from Mussolini? "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country." (Translated from the original Italian . . . . "Non chiedere cosa il tuo paese può fare per voi, chiedete cosa potete fare per il tuo paese.")

UPDATE: Les Jones says it was a different Italian.

FOR OBAMA, an existential crisis?

PROFESSOR BAINBRIDGE: Technology Killed Socrates.

BRIAN WANG: U.S. and Canadian Natural Gas Production Will Increase. Good.

BOB OWENS is blogging Hanna.

BITES FROM THE APPLE: A roundup of Apple computer, iPhone, etc. news from all over.

Plus, a spy photo of the new iPod nano? Possibly.

ARE MEN AFRAID TO SUPPORT A "STRONG WOMAN?" Some thoughts.

PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE IOWAHAWK is standing up for community organizers everywhere.

UPDATE: Related item here.

DOES CAPITALISM CAUSE HOMOPHOBIA? Seems rather like most tolerant societies are capitalist, to me.

September 05, 2008

ED MORRISSEY: Data points of desperation.

MICHAEL PETRELIS has the full text of the National Enquirer's Sarah Palin article. Not exactly John Edwards level stuff, but you can read it for yourself. Deceiver notes another difference. Stay tuned.

THOUGHTS ON THE G.O.P. FROM BILL WHITTLE.

As for the notion that the G.O.P. is Wile E. Coyote running in midair -- I don't think that's now, I think that was in 2005. Or maybe 2006.

ABC NEWS: Obama Campaign National Finance Committee Member Criticizes Palin's Parenting.

BARACK OBAMA: The new Ronald Reagan? "Obama's path to high office bears an uncanny resemblance to Reagan's in at least this regard: like Reagan, Obama understands that inexperience can be an asset, not a liability." Though Reagan did have that background as Governor. I wish people would get things settled on whether inexperience is good or bad, though. Seems to depend on which candidate they're talking about.

SO IS THIS GOOD NEWS, OR BAD NEWS? Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac to be Put Under Federal Control, Sources Say.

UPDATE: More on Fannie and Freddie here.

A BIGGER TV AUDIENCE FOR JOHN MCCAIN than for Barack Obama? "That means McCain's speech is now the most-watched in convention history -- 41% higher than President Bush's acceptance speech four years ago, and 1% higher than Obama's address last week." Go figure.

SALLY QUINN apologizes.

DANIEL DREZNER on blowback for Russia over Georgia. But, of course, you need to know that Drezner is a stooge of "the elite NATO foreign policy criminals like Albright, Kissinger, and Soros."

MORE STORM NEWS FROM BRENDAN LOY: Hanna to pack a punch; Ike a threat to Keys, Gulf.

TALKING TO DAVID LAT about ex-Hillaryites for Palin.

THOUGHTS ON RADICAL EGALITARIANISM and engineered longevity.

WHO WORKS MORE? Rich people, or the working class?

UPDATE: Link was bad before. Fixed now. Sorry!

WHO'S YOUR FAVORITE Movie President?

ANOTHER UNDERFUNDED PUBLIC PENSION FUND, this time in Cobb County, Georgia.

More on that problem here, and here. I suspect that we're only beginning to guess at the extent of this situation nationally.

UPDATE: Reader Dave Ivers emails:

I teach Public Budgeting (aimed mostly at sub-state level budgeting) and have for the past 9 years in a Masters of Public Administration. You wouldn't believe (well, maybe you specifically would) how many current or would-be local government employees have no idea how much money from the current budget it takes to fund future retirement benefits. It's going to eat entire local budgets alive. I've been preaching this for the past nine years. Even a couple of my colleagues who should know better don't usually address the problem much.

Roughly speaking, it's not unusual for 2/3 or so of local operating budgets to be devoted to employee compensation, current and future. It's also not uncommon to fund future benefits as meagerly as possible, counting on the growth of future revenues to bail the system out. At least 3 Michigan cities in the past decade have gone bankrupt and bailed out on their pension 'promises'. It's probably going to happen to more.

Getting local politicians *and* local unions to think more than a year or two is all but impossible. Do you realize that practically no local jurisdictions even have a Liabilities Budget?

Sheesh. It's like banging your head against the wall.

Yeah. I think I may be glad that my retirement is all in 403(b) and related funds, not a state retirement system.

JAMES TARANTO: "The most striking thing about this convention is that the vice presidential nominee stole the show."

HEH: "I’m from Alaska, or as Senator Obama calls it the 57th State."

NANOTECHNOLOGY: STUDYING THE IMPACT OF NANOMATERIALS on the environment.

Better actual studies than bogus reports. Some related thoughts on nanotechnology and nanomaterials here.

FARMING IN THE SKY: Reinventing agriculture.

OBAMA: Disillusioned with community organizing.

GREYHAWK: Defending Obama, Debunking Lindsey Graham.

ARTHUR CHRENKOFF on Georgia and the dangers of Putinism.

MICHAEL MALONE ON what Google wants.

COMPARING MCCAIN-PALIN WITH OBAMA-BIDEN on aviation policy.

MARC AMBINDER: Obama Surrogates Urged to Mention Eagleton. If this is really their strategy, they may want to rethink. I'm just taking a guess here, but I'll bet that if Eagleton had polled as the most popular national-ticket politician in 1972, McGovern would have kept him.

Of course, McGovern later said he should have kept him anyway. And Ann Althouse comments:

I remember the McGovern campaign. I was a big supporter of McGovern's, and I hated Nixon, as did all of my friends. And the scenario then was completely different from what you are seeing now. We were never excited about Eagleton in the first place. We just wanted McGovern to win. Eagleton didn't infuse new energy into the McGovern campaign or jazz up am important subset of voters. He was just some boring Senator that got slotted in. . . .

The Palin candidacy has virtually nothing in common with the Eagleton scenario, and the people who are saying it does are displaying their desperation. Obviously -- I'm not the first to say this -- if you want McCain to lose and you think she's so terrible, you should be happy to see Palin as the VP nominee. It will help defeat McCain.

Yes.

ANN ALTHOUSE VS. JANE HAMSHER on Bloggingheads TV.

DAVID BERNSTEIN on daddies, mommies, politicians and double standards.

Plus, Eugene Volokh on Gloria Steinem on women's political opinions.

SCIENCE, ER, MARCHES ON: "A new study found that trained sexologists could infer a woman's history of vaginal orgasm by observing the way she walks." There could be a lucrative sideline in teaching single men what to look for here . . . . (Via Randall Parker).

Meanwhile, you can reportedly also spot terrorists by their walk. Could you narrow it down to spotting the orgasmic female terrorists? I'm guessing that's a pretty small cohort. . . .

THIS IS WHY IT'S IMPORTANT: A reader emails:

I never really paid attention to your talk about vaccinations until my (vaccinated) boyfriend came down with whooping cough. Whooping cough is one of those diseases making a comeback in the last 5 years because of parents irresponsibly refusing to get their kids vaccinated. What's worse is that the vaccine itself is only effective for 10 years, so most adults are vulnerable to outbreaks. My boyfriend has coughing attacks every day where he vomits and can't breath, and this is going to last for about 2 months. The only reason he hasn't caused an outbreak at our college is because he identified the disease online almost right away (even though doctors didn't believe him) and took precautions.

She sent me her name but I'm leaving it off on general principles here. And yes, as I noted in my column, vaccines aren't perfect, which is why we need the "herd immunity" effect that protects even those whose vaccinations didn't take, or expired.

TODD ZYWICKI says that the McCain/Palin ticket has a Western-Libertarian vibe. "What is the 'western' vibe? This is purely subjective, but to me it is the feeling of no-nonsense, self-reliant, egalitarian, outsiderism, sort of Barry Goldwater-ish. Is it libertarian? Not exactly, but it does have that sort of feeling to it, to me at least."

In the London Times, Gerard Baker agrees and reports this joke:

“What's the difference between Sarah Palin and Barack Obama?”

“One is a well turned-out, good-looking, and let's be honest, pretty sexy piece of eye-candy.

“The other kills her own food.”

But read the whole thing, which has some serious observations as well.

LARRY SOLUM: "Is John McCain eligible to serve as President of the United States? Here are two new papers on the McCain's eligibility under natural born citizen clause." As with questions about Obama's citizenship, I predict this will go nowhere, though it's produced some interesting legal scholarship. Of course, if McCain somehow did get kicked off the ticket, it would just move Sarah Palin to the top. Some Republicans might be okay with that . . . .

MORE PROGRESS ON Neighborhood Electric Vehicles: "At least 40 states have now passed laws to permit NEVs to operate on many state roads with more working on new regulations. Meanwhile, some 40,000 NEVs are operating nationwide, says the Electric-Drive Transportation Association. Kentucky and Massachusetts are considering regulations to permit low-speed vehicles (LSVs) on state roads. LSV is a federal designation that includes NEVs, and also some gas-powered vehicles." Tennessee has already liberalized its laws.

Since short trips are (1) common; and (2) the setting in which cars get the worst mileage as the engine warms up, widespread adoption of these would make a real difference. On days when I don't go into the office, I could probably do 80% or more of my driving (usually short runs to the grocery store, post office or nearby restaurants) in an NEV. That would drastically cut my gas usage, and I'll bet I'm not that unusual. Er, in that respect, anyway.

MORE THOUGHTS ON POLITICAL TRIBUTE VIDEOS: I agree with Megan McArdle that we ought to do away with them. When did this custom start? The first one I remember is the one with Mike Dukakis and the snowblower but I don't know if it was actually the first.

FABIUS MAXIMUS WRITES that crash programs won't solve "peak oil."

A "HALF-TERM GOVERNOR" VS. A "ONE-THIRD TERM SENATOR?"

G.M.'S HYBRID SALES are picking up.

IN THE MAIL: Bernard-Henry Levi's Left in Dark Times: A Stand Against the New Barbarism. From the blurb:

In this unprecedented critique, Bernard-Henri Lévy, one of the world’s leading intellectuals revisits his political roots, scrutinizes the totalitarianisms of the past as well as those on the horizon, and argues powerfully for a new political and moral vision for our times. Are human rights Western or universal? Does anti-Semitism have a future, and, if so, what will it look like? And how is it that progressives themselves–those who in the past defended individual rights and fought fascism–have now become the breeding ground for new kinds of dangerous attitudes: an unthinking loathing of Israel; an obsessive anti-Americanism; an idea of “tolerance” that, in its justification of Islamic fanaticism, for example, could become the “cemetery of democracies”; and an indifference, masked by relativism, to the greatest human tragedies facing the world today?

Looks quite interesting.

RASMUSSEN: Sarah Palin the most popular politician in America. Expect more negativity in response.

UPDATE: Link was bad before. Fixed now. Sorry!

ANNOUNCING THE MICHAEL MOORE AWARD FOR ANTI-AMERICANISM. It's a dishonor just to be nominated!

INSTA-POLL:

Who had a better convention?
	The Democrats
	The Republicans
	I'm voting "Present" on this one
pollcode.com free polls

JIM LINDGREN -- WHO LOVES HIM SOME NUMBERS -- DOES AN ANALYSIS and concludes that in spite of the press treatment, Obama's speech included more negative attacks than Palin's. But girls are supposed to be nice. His conclusion: "By continuing to spread false memes about the nature of Sarah Palin's speech as if they were true, the press marches forward in the most biased season of political reporting I've seen since at least 1998." Absolutely.

And a reader emails:

My casual discussions with ladies around the hospital where I work indicates that they have never heard of ACORN and have never heard of Bill Ayers. I suspect that they don't know anymore about Tony Rezko either. But everyone seems to know about Bristol Palin's fiance.

Has there ever been a time in the history of our presidential politics where the press has so willfully chosen to do what they can to elect a specific candidate to the presidency?

If the Obama-Biden ticket loses, this will be the final nail in the coffin of the main stream media. The credibility of the MSM will be irreparably damaged, and Americans across the board will come to trust the alternative media for real, working information.

Prediction: PJTV will easily eclipse the viewership of every one of the MSNBC talking heads within the first year of broadcasting.

That would be nice. Meanwhile, David Bernstein looks at a New York Times article and observes: "You would think that the author would at least mention somewhere in this article that the Democrats control both houses of Congress. You would be wrong."

UNLEASHING THE ABZUG BRIGADE? That's a little harsh, Don.

TIME TO PLAY "name that Christianist!"

WELL, OBAMA IS OPRAH'S GUY: "Oprah Winfrey may have introduced Democrat Barack Obama to the women of America -- but the talkshow queen is not rushing to embrace the first woman on a Republican presidential ticket! Oprah's staff is sharply divided on the merits of booking Sarah Palin, sources tell the DRUDGE REPORT." Oprah already took a ratings hit from women angry over her support of Obama over Hillary. This probably won't help.

"HAVEN'T HEARD A WORD?" That's just not true.

DOG BITES MAN: Study Shows ‘No Connection’ Between Measles Vaccine, Autism. Again. Meanwhile, here's my column on vaccines from last month.

QUESTIONS ABOUT flu vaccine for older people: "A growing number of immunologists and epidemiologists say the vaccine probably does not work very well for people over 70, the group that accounts for three-fourths of all flu deaths." But studies are complicated by the fact that healthier older people are more likely to get vaccinated. Assuming this is true, I wonder if the vaccine could be reformulated to be more effective in older recipients, or if older immune systems just don't respond as well.

JOE BIDEN DEMOTES PALIN to Lieutenant Governor of Alaska? What's the matter, Joe, can't imagine that a woman could hold the top job?

ELECTIONS: GOOD FOR TRAFFIC! Over 432,000 pageviews yesterday, and over 9 million pageviews last month. Just a dollar per pageview, that's all I ask . . . . If only!

MICKEY KAUS: "I predicted McCain's would be a good speech. Wrong again. That makes two successful conventions ending with weak final acts." Yeah, McCain's speech, like Obama's, was too long and had the laundry-list/State of the Union aspect that Obama's had. Both were upstaged by others -- McCain by Sarah Palin, Obama by Bill Clinton.

PALIN RIVALED OBAMA IN TV VIEWERS: "Barack Obama apparently isn't the only 'rock star' in presidential politics this year. After days of intense media coverage about Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin's qualifications, more than 40 million Americans tuned in Wednesday to see for themselves what they thought of her. . . . Nearly 2 million more women were watching Palin than men, Nielsen said. Viewers were far more interested in Palin than Democratic vice presidential candidate Joe Biden. Biden's speech to Democrats last week was seen by an estimated 24 million people." All the media attacks mostly just built up the audience.

OIL PRICES CLOSE at a five-month low.

MORE ANALYSIS: Running Palin and McCain's's speeches through the Word Cloud.

DAVID BERNSTEIN ON RELIGIOUS PREJUDICE IN AMERICA: "Even though studies consistently show that conservative evangelical Christians are no more likely to be anti-Semitic than others (the ADL, for example, notes based on years of study that neither religion nor political ideology drive anti-Semitism), many American Jews, especially liberal, secular American Jews, have a disturbing tendency to suspect all evangelical Christians of being hostile to Jews." I wonder why that is?

DELL ENTERS the tiny laptop market.

JIM TREACHER SPOTS SOME ASTROTURFING. Plus this: "Hey, you know who else was a community organizer? Don Corleone." Ouch.

UPDATE: Reader Thomas Prewitt emails that the astroturf is biblically inaccurate: "Jesus was actually not a community organizer. He was the Messiah, and he left the organizational stuff to the apostles who started the early church. The true organizer of the New Testament was actually Paul. His letters to the different churches mentored those communities. And, he lived a life much more like that of John McCain. Many of his letters were written from prison where he was beaten." Well, that last comparison may be a stretch . . .

EXCLUSIVE PJTV VIDEO of last night's Code Pink protester at the RNC being escorted out. It's free, but you may have to register. Though I understand that some lefty blogs were claiming she was mishandled, the video -- which tracks her for quite a while -- demonstrates otherwise. Plus, some comments by James Lileks on the lameness of the antiwar protests in St. Paul.

HMM: Height Linked With Prostate Cancer Risk.

AN EMAIL FROM MICHAEL YON IN AFGHANISTAN: "Lots of fighting here. In some areas (for instance where I have been), there is about 80% chance of getting into combat when you step off the FOB. Morale among British soldiers is very high. Even higher, I would say, than I saw in Iraq."

September 04, 2008

MCCAIN'S SPEECH: Not bad. But, like Obama, he was overshadowed -- Obama by Bill Clinton, McCain by Sarah Palin.

UPDATE: Thoughts on the speech from Professor Bainbridge. And more from Megan McArdle. Meanwhile, on TV Karl Rove is saying "It's the best speech he's given on a Teleprompter, but it's not that great. . . . It was a workmanlike speech but it's not what we saw last night."

John Hinderaker on PJTV: "This was not a speech that was pitched to political sophisticates at all. It was aimed at the middle."

HERE'S THE FULL TEXT OF MCCAIN'S SPEECH. And I didn't have to go to The Corner to get it this time! Click "read more" to read it.

Read More »

OKAY, THE MCCAIN BIO VIDEO was pretty weak. I can't believe they didn't do a better job given what they had to work with.

UPDATE: On the other hand, Ann Althouse liked it: "Excellent film presentation of the story of John McCain." Seemed weak to me.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Megan McArdle liked it too. Maybe it was designed to appeal to women?

ANN ALTHOUSE IS liveblogging the RNC.

UPDATE: Josh Trevino: "I am considerably less excited about his big speech this evening than I was about Sarah Palin’s. This partly because we know McCain, and there is no anticipation of the new; and it is partly because I am doubtful that he can match Palin in delivery or ease."

OBAMA: SURGE SUCCEEDED BEYOND ‘WILDEST DREAMS’:

“I think that the surge has succeeded in ways that nobody anticipated,” Obama said while refusing to retract his initial opposition to the surge. “I’ve already said it’s succeeded beyond our wildest dreams.”

Actually, I think it succeeded in ways that John McCain anticipated. And General Petraeus, who was mocked by Obama-supporting MoveOn as "General Betrayus."

WELL, JOHN MCCAIN MAY HAVE A HARD TIME outshining Sarah Palin, but he shouldn't have much trouble outdoing Tom Ridge.

VIRGINIA POSTREL on Sarah Palin and Cowgirl Glamour.

UPDATE: Sportschicks for Palin.

FINISHED NEAL STEPHENSON'S ANATHEM a bit ago, which is a good thing since I have a review due tomorrow. It'll be a positive review.

A GOLD MEDAL for Joe Biden.

DANIEL DREZNER on Russia, Georgia and the balance of power.

WITH VIOLENCE, AND AN IRRETRIEVABLY CORRUPT POLITICAL LEADERSHIP, I think we should just pull out of Chicago: "Nearly 125 Shot Dead In Chicago Over Summer. Total Is About Double The Death Toll In Iraq."

A BIG SALE OF DVDS for Emmy-nominated TV shows.

"INDEPENDENT" VOTERS?

RASMUSSEN: "51% Say Reporters Are Trying To Hurt Palin; 39% Say She Has Better Experience Than Obama." And this was before her speech.

CBS POLL: McCain Closes Eight-Point Gap From Poll Taken Last Weekend.

THE STREAMING COVERAGE OF THE RNC will start about 7 at PJTV.

UPDATE: Here's Roger Simon and Jeri Thompson talking about the press, privacy and politicians. It's free to nonsubscribers, but you may have to sign in.

MORE STORM AND HURRICANE NEWS, from Brendan Loy.

MAKING HYDROGEN FUEL with nanotechnology.

MEGAN MCARDLE FIGHTS ASTHMA to weigh in on last night's Sarah Palin speech.

UPDATE: I think Megan is exaggerating Sarah Palin's feminine domesticity. I mean, this is more Sarah Connor than June Cleaver. . . .

MOVING FROM BOOKS TO MULTIMEDIA: Video On Demand from Amazon.

ANN ALTHOUSE on criticism of Palin for being sarcastic. "When a man agonizes that a woman is 'brutally cutting,' I reach for my Freud text."

Her criticisms seemed much milder than Rudy Giuliani's, to me. Related item here.

Plus, "hit by a cruise missile from Middle America."

UPDATE: Busting the no-teleprompter myth.

PROGRESS ON THE ZUBRIN PLAN: "A bipartisan group of senators has drafted a new energy bill that includes a mandate that all vehicles sold in the United States would have to be flex-fuel capable by 2020. During the GM BioFuels summit last Friday in Detroit, one of the subjects that came up was the use of flex-fuel vs. dedicated ethanol vehicles. When Brazil first started moving to ethanol in the 1970s, manufacturers built cars that only ran on ethanol. Due some volatility in fuel prices these proved to be unpopular. It was only when everyone started to make flex-fuel vehicles so that drivers could select the fuel that was most affordable that such cars and use ethanol really took off. Now more than 90 percent of new cars in Brazil are FFVs."

GREAT SPEECH, KID! DON'T GET COCKY. Rove: Palin's Toughest Days Are Still Ahead.

"She had a test last Friday and she nailed it," Rove told a crowd gathered for a breakfast panel discussion in St. Paul, Minneapolis. "She had a test last night and she nailed it. But being the newest player on the stage, she will also be the most tested and the most judged on the stage. Everyone is going to ask: 'When is she going to appear on a Sunday talk show program?' 'When is she doing to do an interview?' 'When is she going to give an unscripted speech?' 'When will she do a townhall meeting?' 'When will she answer questions on foreign policy?' 'How will she perform in a debate?'"

"And we're going to hear more questions about her performance than about any of the other candidates," said Rove. "The media is going to wonder, 'How can we make this an easy storyline and the easy storyline is, 'Can she do it?'"

Indeed.

SOME NEW ELECTRIC CAR DESIGNS from Chrysler. They're pretty.

AN UNFAIR HIT ON OBAMA'S RECORD: Alex Knapp is right to point out that Obama actually does have some legislative accomplishments, particularly the Coburn-Obama Transparency Act, which John McCain also cosponsored. Meanwhile, here's a roundup of other critical Palin speech reactions from his co-blogger James Joyner.

FIGHTING CHOLERA via satellite.

REPUBLICANS FOR OBAMA.

SMALL IN NUMBERS BUT MORE SOPHISTICATED: A look at U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals, from Joe Pappalardo.

"I LIED UNDER OATH:" Kwame Kilpatrick resigns. And the story provides another chance to play Name That Party!

UPDATE: Thoughts on the guilty plea from Prof. Ellen Podgor at the White Collar Crime blog.

IN THE MAIL: Randall Stross's Planet Google: One Company's Audacious Plan To Organize Everything We Know.

INSTA-POLL:

How did Sarah Palin do last night?
	Knocked it out of the park.
	A solid success.
	Adequate.
	Mediocre.
	Lousy.
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JOAN HEMINWAY: Is The "Reasonable Investor" a Woman?

KINDA EXPENSIVE: "As much as $25 billion in foreign capital may have left Russia since the Georgia conflict started, they said: while their growth forecasts were little changed at 7.5 percent, the crisis sharply cut the liquidity of the banking system."

MAJOR JOHN TAMMES: Some Parting Thoughts from Major Thomas Sadiq.

PHYLLIS CHESLER agonizes over Obama, McCain and abortion rights. I'd worry about that, except that we're certain to have a two-house Democratic majority anyway, insuring that the legislative stasis on this subject that has prevailed for decades will continue.

OKAY, SURVEYING ALL THE REACTIONS TO PALIN'S SPEECH, I see a problem for McCain -- whatever he says tonight is likely to come across as an anticlimax, unless he gives a better speech than he's ever given before. See for example, this:

From now on, when a Democrat says "But what if McCain drops dead on his first day in office?!?!?!" I'm going to say "dude -- don't tease me like that."

That's kind of a mixed blessing . . . .

UPDATE: Just heard, via Tenn. State Sen. Jamie Woodson (a former student -- yes, I've been teaching that long) and Hallerin Hill that they're changing the stage around for McCain's speech. Is this a subliminal effort to discourage comparisons?

MORE: A strong review from Tom Shales of all people. "If the Republicans win the presidential election in November, it may well be said that they won it last night -- the night that John McCain's brilliantly screwy choice for a running mate changed from laughingstock to national star." I don't remember the 1980s as a time when Reagan was universally loved, though. I seem to recall a fair number of people who thought he was a senile warmonger. Shales' impressions of Giuliani's speech match my own.

Plus, Ouch.

TOM MAGUIRE: "Obama was wrong about the surge while McCain was right, but by and large I think the case could be made (but not by me!) that Obama is by far the more thoughtful and reflective of the two candidates and far more disposed to listen to a range of advice. My guess is that he would have a broader and arguably better decision making proess than McCain. It's only at the moment of decision that he worries me - I don't know if he was trapped by lefty advisers, lefty instincts, or lefty pandering but he was wrong, wrong, wrong on the surge."

MICKEY KAUS: "What we're witnessing, I think, is the death of a media paradigm that we lived with comfortably for, oh, the last year or two. And John Edwards is to blame!"

POLITICO: Clinton aides: Palin treatment sexist. " Sarah Palin found some unlikely allies Wednesday as leading academics and even former top aides to Hillary Rodham Clinton endorsed the Republican charge that John McCain’s running mate has been subject to a sexist double standard by the news media and Democrats."

A LOOK AT TVA'S wind power program.

ERIC POSNER on the European Court's elevation of E.U. law over international law: "Nothing remarkable here for an American lawyer, who is accustomed to the idea that constitutional rules take precedence over international law. The European Court is a creature of the European treaty system, not the UN; what else is it to do when European law and international law conflict? However, Europeans have long complained of the American practice of declaring that all U.S. treaty obligations are limited by the U.S. Constitution. And it takes a bit of legerdemain to convert regional treaty obligations into a "constitution," but this is an old story. It turns out that Europeans, too, will not allow international law to supersede their fundamental values. Good for them!"