Dear Michael Moore: Go to hell, motherfucker. This isn't a political treatise. This is an impending tragedy for hundreds of thousands of people, and for you to take glee in the event shows just what a partisan hack you are, rather than someone who purports to seek truth.

Heat potentials in the Gulf. Nerdtastic.

A 12-part investigative report. The only reason Levy ever left the headlines was 9/11. Sad.

When the reporter went back to the police chief:
 
Stambaugh's response was to read part of the letter given to him. ''Although I appreciate your service as police chief, I've decided it's time for a change. I do not feel I have your full support in my efforts to govern the city of Wasilla. Therefore I intend to terminate your employment. . . . '' ''If that's not a letter of termination, I don't know what is,'' he said.

So Palin lied, as she did, by her own admission, in the later firing of police chief Monegan. Stambaugh eventually sued for wrongful dismissal. Palin won -  because the judge ruled that a mayor can legally fire a police chief for any reason she wants, political payback or otherwise:

Singleton said that under state law, police chiefs serve at the behest of the mayor unless otherwise specified by city ordinance. Stein, the former mayor, had worked out an agreement with Stambaugh forbidding termination without cause, but the city council never voted on it…" OUCH.

"Let's assume that Sarah Palin is exactly as smart and disciplined as Barack Obama. But instead of the year and a half of nonstop campaigning he has behind him, and Joe Biden's even longer toughening-up process, she comes into the most intense period of the highest stakes campaign with absolutely zero warmup or preparation. If she has ever addressed an international issue, there's no evidence of it in internet-land."

You can get the raw model plots from here; NHC.noaa.gov won't show you these [with good reason].

"The very same people who, only yesterday, insisted that Obama's resume was too dangerously thin to entrust him with the oversight of our national security, today are celebrating Palin's accession as a triumph for conservatism (evidently this is because she is hostile to both abortion and polar bears). Their hypocrisy is staggering–they truly do believe in nothing but their own entitlement to power by any means.

And I'm very much afraid I must conclude this is as true of McCain as it is of his ghastly cheerleaders, the Limbaughs and the Hannitys. Nothing else could explain the elevation of a woman so singularly unqualified in every aspect save gender." I don't think it's this dire, but I think it's not a good thing, either. I was hoping and expecting Joe Lieberman to be McCain's choice—and apparently fears over angering the base was what stopped them. Like the GOP base is going to 1) stay home and let Obama win or 2) vote for Obama? WTF ever.

"What’s the Vice Presidency for, anyhow? Arguably, it’s not for anything at all. There’s no need for a specific officer to be “President in waiting” without official duties; we could perfectly well have a system where, when the President dies in office, his party picks a successor, or the House elects a successor, or some other selection process, with the Secretary of State serving as interim President until the successor is chosen. In practice, the Vice President is usually selected for political purposes: to unite a divided party (Johnson, Bush Sr), to placate a particular faction unhappy with the nominee (Nixon, Kemp), to extend the reach of the ticket geographically or demographically (Bentsen, Edwards), and so forth.

The worst VP choice in recent memory was Dick Cheney, a man with enormous experience, fully qualified to be President – indeed, so much more qualified than the Presidential nominee …"

"I'm sure that some people will consider raising this subject a cheap shot, since the child was born healthy and it all worked out for the Palins. But you have to question the judgment of a person who took so many risks with her life and that of her baby." Just wacky. [Note: this is not about her choice to have the child. This is about how the pregnancy occurred.]

If nothing else, this is a tacit admission by the campaigns that Wikipedia matters.

Subtle!

"It was obvious anyway, but became beat-you-over-the-head-with-a-two-by-four obvious when Palin referenced the ‘glass ceiling’ line, that this choice is a blatant pander to women. I would like to believe that women will actually feel insulted by this. Yes, it would have been historic if Hillary had gotten the nomination. It was historic that she made it as far as she did. Yes, it would be great to have a woman in the oval office, or in the VP slot if they are the right woman…a woman who got there with her own drive, grit, determination, intelligence, skill and merits. When you’re hand-picked by a man to win votes simply because you are a woman, that doesn’t count, and it doesn’t break any kind of ceiling. Would we have had a Stan Palin as our VP pick? No. So choosing a woman because you think her gender will get votes is insulting." The whole thing is a damning oppo piece from an Alaskan, and worth reading regardless of how you feel about Palin, McCain, or Obama.

As much as AP loves their advocacy stuff, they admit that it just doesn't scale.

DED.

"Here's why: Wind and solar power have their place, but because they are intermittent and unpredictable they simply can't replace big baseload plants such as coal, nuclear and hydroelectric. Natural gas, a fossil fuel, is too expensive already, and its price is too volatile to risk building big baseload plants. Given that hydroelectric resources are built pretty much to capacity, nuclear is, by elimination, the only viable substitute for coal. It's that simple." Here you have a major player in Greenpeace pushing nuclear power. Never thought I'd see the day, but I welcome it!

FUN! I sent him something.

"(As a related sidenote, how does this principled stand on the part of the GOP not mean that the party should also be strongly and firmly against in-vitro fertilization? The process generally involves creating more than one embryo, and likewise generally does not involve transferring all of them, meaning that there are left-over embryos that are put into liquid nitrogen tanks and saved. After some amount of time, a significant number of these remaining embryos never get used, and end up being discarded by the families and IVF clinics — how is this somehow better than doing research on their stem cells?)" I've never understood this or the GOP stance on the death penalty.

Amen.

I'm sure that the people that follow me on Twitter want a pause button from time to time.

via Alex King … note, Ethan works for Warner, so … yeah.

Here's my gut feeling, as a NASA [specifically ISS] contractor: 1) We're flying past 2010 2) we'll make that decision in the next three months 3) the re-cert will solve the force drawdown problems that are logistically necessary but financially unpopular 4) posturing too much with the Russians means the Iranians get ICBMs 5) the US will encourage manned capabilities from Europe and Japan, possibly funding them.

Should be interesting…