This evening's Rescue Rangers are Purple Priestess, HoosierDeb, shayera, grog, and claude with shayera editing.

• Free Chicken and Beer proposes an idea on what he'd like to do and asks us for our advice in A Pivotal Turning Point: Journalism, Activism, or Vagrancy?. (Purple Priestess)
• Ojibwa and his Dam Indians: The Columbia River. The latest in a superbly written ongoing saga chronicling Native America's collision with Europe and the rest of the world, a train wreck that continues to this day. (claude)
• GothmogIV reflects on America's poor and the overwhelming demand for housing assistance in On Conscience. (grog)
• Mokurai invites us to consider hatred; ours for others and others' for us, and suggests a path out of the morass: Middle East Compassion Meets Rage. (claude)
• gjohnsit brings us some Fairy Tales and History Rhymes. (shayera)

jotter has High Impact Diaries: August 13, 2010.

carolita has Top Comments 8-14-10 – Fear and Loathing Edition.

Enjoy and please promote your own favorite diaries in this open thread.

Fifteen days and 3659 miles later, your intrepid curator of the Wrap has returned from far-flung places. It's good to be back, of course, although the in-box did swell to fairly preposterous proportions in my absence.

With that in mind, consider this return edition of the Wrap to be the "clearing out the in-box" edition of the Wrap. No campaign stories in this edition, folks--this one is pure data. Allow this to be a pretty comprehensive compendium of the polls that have accumulated over the past two weeks. A special tip o' that hat to both Swing State Project and DC's Political Report for filling the gaps.

With that, head below the fold for all of the numerical goodness that has stacked up on the front porch in my absence...

One of the things that science fiction and fantasy do well is to take a moral dilemma and recast it in terms that get past our lifetime of built up prejudices. Given the right twist, good writers can sneak up with us on tales that talk right to our problems with race, with gender, with age and do it in a way that slides past that crust of accumulated expectations. Sometimes it takes an elf or an alien to point out the oddities of human behaviors and beliefs.

But there's another kind of alien -- and they're all around us. They're called children.

When we think about young characters, we often think of them in terms of children's books, but some of the most important literature in history comes with a child or young adult providing the viewpoint. The reason this works so well is partly the same reason that playing out Cold War politics with Klingons works, but they also bring in another element.

When we're moving along the Mississippi with Huck Finn, it's not just that we feel his confusion in looking at the world. We also feel the shame and difficulty that we would have in trying to explain that world. Huck doesn't just see the world from a perspective untainted by an adult's responsibilities, he sees it from a position unstained by decades of compromises. Seeing the institutions around us examined by young eyes can make us reappraise decisions we made long ago. A young narrator can't quite give us back the years, but sometimes she can manage to peel away the varnish.  

Huck's far from alone on that literary raft. He needs to slide over all give space for Holden Caufield, Mattie Ross, and plenty of room for Scout Finch. Young characters have been a staple of some of the most popular (and most significant) books from Jane Ayre to Katniss Everdeen. Here are a few other youngsters who have some very precocious things to say to their adult readers.

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
by Mark Haddon
At 15, Christopher John Francis Boone is the oldest of the four protagonist on this list. He may also be the oddest. Boone's condition is never given a label in the book, but it seems clear from the first person account that he is somewhere along the broad spectrum of autism-related disorders. In some ways, Boone is a savant, able to untangle mathematical puzzles at a glance. He's also an admirer of Sherlock Holmes, so when he finds the body of a neighbor's dog, it seems only right to Boone that he should put his own considerable deductive skills toward solving this murder. Unfortunately, every gift that Boone has at math is matched by a total inability to decipher the emotional life and motivations of those around him. The investigation of the dog's death unravels a long list of lies -- some small, some large -- and ultimately they bring down Christopher's world. All the while Christopher remains the detached eye at the middle of the storm he is helping to create. Whether the viewpoint here is actually like that of someone suffering from autism is impossible to say -- but it does make for a very interesting read.

The Lovely Bones
by Alice Sebold
Susie Salmon is one of the most appealing characters in literature. She's also dead. At several points in Sebold's tale, those two facts make it nearly impossible to continue. We're crushed under the weight of "what if," lanced by the thought that Susie will never go to the prom, never go to college, never grow old. Susie might be able to move on from her own death, but for the reader (and her family members) that movement is much more difficult. There is an ongoing ache to not just catch the rapist and murderer who ended Susie's life, but to make right what can never be made right. What makes this ghost-story-told-by-the-ghost work, what makes it possible to get through the pain of the story and into the joy, is the absolutely lyrical prose. Just jaw-dropping, beautiful stuff on the page. Emotions, actions, and decisions of the highest possible consequence painted out in the blazing colors you can only get from the intensity of a young teenager -- and the talent of a very gifted writer.

When You Reach Me
by Rebecca Stead
If you pick your books by weight, this slim volume won't catch your eye. Go back and look again. Think of this book like one of the good M. Night Shyamalan movies. Every word of every sentence in this book is doing double or triple duties. There are subtle hidden meanings lurking on every page, and every action -- every action -- has its consequences. Strange anonymous notes begin appearing in the life of sixth-grader, Miranda. Suddenly everything in her Upper West Side neighborhood seem connected in a way that they didn't before, and that connection only gradually becomes clear. Unlike the other books on this list, this book is really aimed at a young audience, but adults will not find the mysteries easily dismissed. There's time travel at work in this tale, only not quite like you might expect.

Bee Season
by Myla Goldberg
This has been one of my favorite novels since the moment it appeared. It's  right up there with the non-fiction work Into Thin Air in terms of the sheer number of copies I've purchased to hand to friends. Anyone standing near me who admits to not reading this book, is in danger of finding it gifted to them. That said, the feedback I've received on the book is far from universal praise. This is not the easiest or most uplifting of novels. Eliza Naumann, 11, appears at the outset of the novel to be the least accomplished member of a highly accomplished family. Her older brother is a fine student and a talented musician. Her mother is a successful lawyer. Her father is both cantor in the local synagogue and a religious scholar. But as the novel progresses we get to see that there's both a good deal less -- and a hell of a lot more -- to all these characters than what we saw at the outset. Each of them is, in a way unique to themselves, on a quest to find God -- quests that take them past failure, rebellion, and madness. And it may just be that Eliza is the one who can complete the journey... though the power of spelling bees. I'm cheating a bit with this one, as not all of the novel is told from Eliza's viewpoint. I don't care.  Just assume I've handed you a copy and said "read this."

Via Climate Progress, CNN's long time climate change skeptic and purveyor of every wingnut talking point on global warming in the book, Chad Myers, finally admits the truth:

Is it caused by man? Yes. Is it 100% caused by man? No. There are other things involved. We are now in the sun spot cycle. We are now in a very hot sun cycle. there are many other things going on. But, yes, a significant portion of this is caused by greenhouse gases keeping heat on the shore, on the land, in the atmosphere that could have escaped without those greenhouse gases, so, yes, it’s warmer. . ..

No doubt we're now supposed to applaud Myers for ending his long reign of misinformation and energy industry apologetic -- assuming that is what this signals -- and just forgive him. Which might still be possible, but would have been a lot easier if not for the stuff I've emphasized above. And that kind of material is all too representative of the ghost of Myers' past denial. That bold statement is not only wrong, it's not just a common, discredited climate change denier talking point, it is 100% empirically wrong. Below are the sunspot and solar irradiance cycles plotted on the same graph courtesy of NASA.

As you can see, both sunpots and solar irradiance move together and both are just barely coming out of a deep minimum. The sun has been in the coolest part of its cycle, with the least number of sunspots, for the last two years (2010 hasn't finished out yet, but record heat on top of the recent solar minimum is yet another reason to be worried). In meteorology circles, this is high school level stuff. Which means either Myers, who is CNN's purported national weather expert, has a poor understanding of the science in his field, or he intentionally lied on "America's most trusted" news network.

Half a millennium ago in blogger time, back on Dec. 4, 2004, a Kossack with the moniker jotter took a moment to applaud another Kossack named Newsie8200 for putting together The Week's Best Diaries You Didn't Read. Jotter, who arrived with the first wave of Daily Kos registrants in November 2003, also put together his own list of the hundred most recommended diaries from the previous week. And he ran a poll asking if he should do it again. In one way or another, 96 percent of the 33 respondents said yes.

Thus began one of the most valued and long-running features at Daily Kos.

Jotter initially focused on "most recommended," posting reports about the Top 25 recommended diaries. But it soon became apparent to him that this didn't really cover the diary universe effectively. So he added "notables" – a report about diaries that had received a lot comments but hadn't made the Recommended List.

But that wasn't quite satisfactory either. So, on April 10, 2005, he announced an "experimental list, using a combined measure of recommendations and comments that I'm calling (for now) impact. The unit of diary impact is, naturally, the C&J, or as I prefer to call it, the bharns. One bharns is supposed to be the equivalent of the impact of one Industry Standard C&J diary." Those were the days before Bill in Portland Maine slipped over to the Front Page.

Jotter's experiment engendered what today are still known as High Impact Diaries, both a daily feature and a weekly wrap-up of the diaries that collectively catch the most recommendations, most comments and most eyeballs.

From time to time, jotter also takes a deeper look, the first of which was Comparing Kosmopolitans 2004-2005, the impact of the Downing Street Memos on Daily Kos, the impact of diaries over a year, the effect of networks on recommending diaries and On cliques and cabals (and peer review).

Just how much many of us have come to rely on jotter was made clear this past June when a team of volunteers took over for him while he enjoyed some time away from the digital world. That was followed by Jotter Appreciation Day (see comments).

Jotter is 58 and hails originally from Nashville, Tenn., which is why he prefers "y'all" to "you people," even though he has lived in the San Francisco Bay Area since 1980. He's employed in biotech/pharma, using computational tools to analyze experimental results. He's not sure whether Bioinformatics or Computational Biology is the most direct academic counterpart.

What follow are excerpts from my interview with him earlier this year. But, first, let him answer a question that has been asked at least 63,000 times since Daily Kos introduced diaries to the political blogosphere nearly seven years ago: What is the best time to post?

There is no "best time" ... Do your best, cast your bread upon the waters, preferably every day.

How did this project come about?

Jotter says he's been keenly interested in blogging since the early days, for instance, Dave Winer's Userland circa 1998 or so). But ...

I didn't find friendly blogging soil until I came across Daily Kos, a lifeline back to reality in weird times. I think I may have come there from Atrios, or was it the other way around? Anyway, I was searching the internet for friendly political discussions. In 2003 I watched as Daily Kos switched over to Scoop, and finally signed up Nov. 20, 2003.

My first diary appeared July 2004 garnering only two comments. One from MaryScott O'Connor, one from Malacandra. Well, it was high impact for me!"

MB: What spurred you to take this on in the first place?

jotter: It was a bit of a roundabout journey. I originally set up the page scraping code to test an idea I had for avoiding the dreaded "duplicate diary," which was the scourge of early days at Daily Kos.  I published a diary about that in November of 2004, in the aftermath of that crushing election. Once I had that system in place it was a relatively simple extension to use it to download an entire days worth of diaries unattended, and construct a summary. This was something I wanted for myself because there was otherwise no way I could keep up with the action otherwise.

I am not a speed demon. I always felt that other people must have some intuitive sense of what was happening, but I needed a little help. So, with a system that was working pretty well for me, the next step was recognizing that others would benefit from the lists, then finding a way to publish them.

MB: How much effort did it take to set up the programming?

jotter: A reasonable amount. More than a couple of days, but not all at once.  I had the time, it was an interesting challenge to get it to work reliably and I knew it would be useful. Did I mention I was unemployed?

After I installed full text search for Daily Kos (an entirely different story), I was given read-access to parts of the Daily Kos "back end" database.  I rewrote everything to take advantage of that access and dropped the more error-prone page scraping. That was a big job. The result was (I hope) a much more robust and useful report.

MB: What have you learned about the process since you began the most influential diary round-up?

jotter: That rankings have a dual nature: good and evil. There is the "worthy" community benefit of providing access and history to a group which is temporally discontinuous, and the "tawdry" Top 10 contest aspect. I've learned, I hope, to embrace both. We can do good AND have fun. People seem to love top 10 lists and "friendly" competition.

MB: What kind of changes have you seen in diary list since you began? Have early changes subsequently changed themselves?

jotter: The final form of the list took place rather gradually, with a lot of help and input from community about nearly all aspects - how many diaries to post, how to sort them, how to make a good looking table, etc. The biggest change resulting from access to the database was the invention and adoption of a measure of how much notice a diary got, combining number of people who either recommended the diary or commented in the diary.

Using this "impact" measure as a cutoff score, followed by sorting by number of recommendations, allows the list to contain the diaries that showed up on the front page rec list, the "midlist" diaries that are candidates for rescue and contain many many gems, and, at the bottom of the list, those diaries that while unrecommended, garnered many comments, aka train wrecks.  Here you will find many an amusing or maddening diary.  The ones that everyone seems to know about, but I never did until I started the lists! The "one year ago" and "two years ago" features were good community suggestions that I adopted.

MB: And the diarists themselves?

jotter: Although there are many recognizable steady contributors, a surprisingly large proportion of the Rec List is occupied by the occasional diarist with something to say about a particular area, often from personal experience. Daily Kos is the only place I know where someone with detailed knowledge of an otherwise obscure area or event that suddenly comes to attention has a very good chance of writing about it and being heard.

MB: Other thoughts about this project you've been running for nearly six years?

jotter: I consider myself very fortunate to have found something I can do with what skills I have that seems to make a difference to many, and I look forward to whatever comes next for high impact diaries.

A word to steady readers, recommenders, and commenters. You make my day, every day. Thanks for dropping by.

A final shout out to Markos for running a singular shop. I can say for certain that there were few other web sites where the lists could have been developed (for technical reasons) and fewer still that would have encouraged them.

For the latest installment of High Impact Diaries, go here. See another interview with jotter by LaughingPlanet here. (h/t smileycreek.)

^{[photo of jotter trying out his metrics in Las Vegas at Netroots Nation 2010 taken by navajo]}

What's coming up on Sunday Kos ....

• Mark Sumner will explain why the "free market" is Un-American.
• DarkSyde will review the critical juncture faced by the US space program.
• Laurence Lewis will explore the troubling political play of the ethics investigations of two prominent Democrats.
• DemFromCT will take a closer look at Rep. Paul Ryan’s budget roadmap to nowhere, and wonders why anyone would take it seriously.
• Dante Atkins will examine the Republican election-year messaging transition from "scary gay people" to "scary brown people."
• Brooklybadboy will take the fight to the Republicans over immigration, arguing that Harry Reid's frontal assault is the way to go.

The primary between Orange to Blue candidate Ann McLane Kuster and Katrina Swett is just a month away, and the momentum is with Kuster.

MoveOn, which has more than 20,000 New Hampshire members, endorsed Kuster this week, saying (via email) "Ann McLane Kuster is a genuine progressive running a powerful grassroots campaign."

The subscription-only Cook Political Report, while rating the race a toss-up for the general election, called Kuster the favorite in the primary:

Most insiders say Kuster has the momentum as the "fresh face" in the race and that as the result of several failed bids, the Swett name isn't what it used to be among Democratic primary voters in this half of New Hampshire.

And things got interesting in the past week. Katrina Swett has had one big charge against Kuster: "Lobbyist." Kuster has long been a lobbyist at the state level, and Swett has worked hard to tie Kuster by implication to federal lobbying. Too bad for Swett it recently came out that she is a registered federal lobbyist. Since the L word was pretty much all Swett seemed to think she had against Kuster (based on the volume of press releases in which she used it), the facts of her own record are pretty devastating here.

Meanwhile, Kuster released her first ad -- and it leads with one of the state programs she lobbied for.

You can help keep that ad on the air and set the Kuster campaign up for a strong final push to the primary by contributing. And if you're in the district, sign up to volunteer or attend an event.

Ann McLane Kuster for Congress
Contribute to Ann McLane Kuster

From a pool report today, Obama commented on his speech about the Ground Zero mosque:

"Well, my intention was simply to let people know what I thought. Which was that In this country we treat everybody equally and in accordance with the law, regardless of race, regardless of religion. ..."

Obama's remarks about the mosque near Ground Zero have struck a chord across America. Even some of the skeptics are taking note. This is from Walter Dellinger:

Bravo, Mr. President -- Not 24 hours ago I was despairing over the president's silence on the so-called "Ground Zero Mosque" controversy. This was a clear, simple test of principle and courage, and I assumed the president would fail. I was wrong.

...

President Obama took a strong stand in defense of one of the most valued of all American principles: the freedom to practice religion without interference from the government. And he did it in the toughest of circumstances, clear in the knowledge that (because the group in question happened to be Muslim) he would pay a price for this defense of religious liberty that no other national figure would be required to pay.

Bravo, Mr. President.

Let's cite two things to highlight why this is so important, one historic and one modern.

The historic one is Dwight David Eisenhower, running for President and stopping in Wisconsin for a speech. Wisconsin happened to be the home state of Tailgunner Joe McCarthy, a popular figure who had just denounced George Marshall as a serial liar. From PBS:

Dwight Eisenhower found Joseph McCarthy's demagoguery reprehensible. As a military man he had been able to distance himself from petty political crusades in the name of the greater cause. But in 1952, as a first time candidate for the office of the presidency, he found it would be a good deal more difficult to maintain his political purity. When McCarthy delivered a blistering attack against former Secretary of State George C. Marshall, calling him "a man steeped in falsehood," candidate Eisenhower was faced with a dilemma. A popular member of his own party was publicly disparaging a man Ike considered a valued mentor. Eisenhower's personal and political instincts came into conflict during a campaign stop in McCarthy's home state of Wisconsin. Eisenhower was prepared to deliver a defense of Marshall, praising him "as a man and a soldier," and condemning the tactics of McCarthy as a "sobering lesson in the way freedom must not defend itself." But noble intentions gave way to political reality. Aware of McCarthy's huge base of support and not willing to risk losing votes in a crucial state, Eisenhower delivered his speech minus the defense of Marshall and the condemnation of McCarthy. It was a decision that would haunt him for the rest of his life.

Obama did what Ike didn't. Bravo.

Our modern cite shows why it's so important Obama did this. The setting is Tennessee:    

Residents demand construction on Mosque be halted

  Several county residents spoke at Thursday night's monthly Rutherford County Commission meeting in opposition to a proposed Islamic Center on Veals Road.

   Most demanded construction be halted and stopped short of demanding the buried body of a Muslim on their property be exhumed.

   The 52,000-square foot Islamic Center of Murfreesboro was approved earlier this year by the Regional Planning Commission under a new state law that allows religious institutions to build whatever they want in residential neighborhoods as a "use of right."

   Residents who spoke want the county commission to reconsider their approval claiming Islam is not a religion and expressing fear that Islamic Sharia law will be imposed on Murfreesboro citizens.

Sharia law will be imposed on locals? Like I said, Obama's remarks were essential.

By tackling this early and forcefully, Obama has made clear what American principles are, and it’s important to do so now and in the future. In places far from Ground Zero, locals are fighting mosque building with an incredible amount of ignorance, hatred and bigotry (fear of being made subject to Sharia law , among other false claims.) Obama’s remarks represent the best of America, while parochialism, prejudice and fear represent the worst.

He'll take flak from the nutters and haters, and there'll be more fear and prejudice that can't be fixed with a single speech, but the President has to set the standard. On this issue, that's exactly what happened.

Update [2010-8-14 19:31:16 by DemFromCT]::

Statement from Bill Burton on POTUS's mosque comments today:

"Just to be clear, the President is not backing off in any way from the comments he made last night.

It is not his role as President to pass judgment on every local project.

"But it is his responsibility to stand up for the Constitutional principle of religious freedom and equal treatment for all Americans.

What he said last night, and reaffirmed today, is that If a church, a synagogue or a Hindu temple can be built on a site, you simply cannot deny that right to those who want to build a Mosque.

• A class act of pure political courage on the part of President Obama is generating the equal and opposite reaction on the part of Republicans:

  "President Obama is wrong," he said.

  "It is insensitive and uncaring for the Muslim community to build a mosque in the shadow of ground zero," he said. "While the Muslim community has the right to build the mosque they are abusing that right by needlessly offending so many people who have suffered so much." - Rep. Peter King (R-LI)

  No class and cowardice. I'm offended by that.
  

• Charlie Rangel had an 80th birthday party at the Plaza Hotel this week. Top New York political leadership came out to the party from the Governor to the Mayor to Senator Gillibrand. Al Sharpton too. Reporters noted no heads were hung in shame. Melanie Sloan questions the timing of the cases against Rangel and Waters. I say it is not difficult to avoid ethics violations in the first place.
  

• There is a huge humanitarian disaster in Pakistan. The floods have left millions homeless and an outbreak of cholera. More rain is coming.

  In related news, Al Gore noted the U.S. Government "has failed us."
  

• PhysOrg:

  Archaeologists working on Stone Age remains at a site in North Yorkshire say it contains Britain's earliest surviving house. A team from the Universities of Manchester and York reveal today that the home dates to at least 8,500 BC - when Britain was part of continental Europe.

  LL

• Life itself may have begun between the sheets. Of mica.LL

• The first time I fell in love was 1984 at the age of 11. I was sitting at home secretly listening to a cassette tape given to me by a friend from school. This was taking a big risk. The only music allowed in my house was jazz and gospel. Everything else was considered sinful. On that cassette tape was a mixture of youthful music from The Bronx, Queens, Brooklyn and Harlem. Thus began my love affair with hip-hop and underground mixtapes. The documentary Mixtape, Inc. tells the story of the mixtape.
  

• Now India is talking about banning BlackBerry. What is going on?
  

• David Bodanis teaches the Ten Commandments.
  

• Rand Paul, he doesn't campaign so good. - SG

  
  

Time to see what the cat dragged in this week.

John McCain, on August 3rd:

TPMDC asked, "Do you support the Minority Leader's push for hearings into the repeal of birthright citizenship?"

"Sure, why not?" McCain said briefly.

"Do you support the idea itself?"

"I support the idea of having hearings," McCain said.

"Do you have a problem with the 14th amendment?" another reporter asked.

"You're changing the constitution of the United States," McCain said. "I support the concept of holding hearings."

"I support the concept of holding hearings," McCain repeated, turning to the rail car conductor.

"Let's go!" he snapped.

"I don't have anything to add to that."

["And get off my lawn!!!"]

John McCain on August 13th:

The Republican Arizona senator told The Associated Press that despite the current flurry of news stories on the topic and a statement he made last week that was widely interpreted as saying he supported hearings on the matter, he remains unconvinced that such a change is needed.

Instead, he argued that fully securing the border would "dramatically reduce" the problem.

McCain says he's not calling for hearings on the matter, but will listen to a debate if one is held. But he says he is fundamentally in favor of leaving the Constitution as it is.

So he's not "calling for hearings" on the matter, but "supports the concept" of holding hearings and will listen to the debate? What leadership!

BTW, any legislation that would be the result of those hearings McCain may or may not be calling for would be unconstitutional. But you can't let a little thing like that get in the way of the wedge issue du jour.

One thing we can’t afford to do though is privatize Social Security – an ill-conceived idea that would add trillions of dollars to our budget deficit while tying your benefits to the whims of Wall Street traders and the ups and downs of the stock market.

Forget privatizing Social Security. Just forget it, President Obama said in this morning's weekly address.

That agenda is wrong for seniors, it’s wrong for America, and I won’t let it happen. Not while I’m President. I’ll fight with everything I’ve got to stop those who would gamble your Social Security on Wall Street. Because you shouldn’t be worried that a sudden downturn in the stock market will put all you’ve worked so hard for – all you’ve earned – at risk. You should have the peace of mind of knowing that after meeting your responsibilities and paying into the system all your lives, you’ll get the benefits you deserve. 

Using the opportunity offered by the 75th anniversary of the landmark program, President Obama reminded listeners of the origins of the safety net program, recommitted to the mission of Social Security and blasted Republican efforts to get the funds moved from the public sector and into the private. He also tied recent GOP attacks on the program to the conservative party's determination to overlook the benefits the health care reform legislation has extended to Medicare.

But some Republican leaders in Congress don’t seem to have learned any lessons from the past few years. They’re pushing to make privatizing Social Security a key part of their legislative agenda if they win a majority in Congress this fall. It’s right up there on their to-do list with repealing some of the Medicare benefits and reforms that are adding at least a dozen years to the fiscal health of Medicare – the single longest extension in history.

That "if they win a majority" bit is a good indication the White House sees preserving Social Security as a great issue for Democrats as we move into full-blown campaign season.

He finished off with a historical flourish … and a promise progressives everywhere should mark and pressure him to keep:

Seventy-five years ago today, Franklin Roosevelt made a promise. He promised that from that day forward, we’d offer – quote – “some measure of protection to the average citizen and to his family against…poverty-stricken old age.” That’s a promise each generation of Americans has kept. And it’s a promise America will continue to keep so long as I have the honor of serving as President. Thanks for listening. Thanks for watching. And have a nice weekend.

The full transcript can be found at the White House website and beneath the fold.

Amid all the flash and glitter online, you can learn alot. Even from comments, like this one on the Space Politics site:

[Human spaceflight] has never transitioned to being just another form of transportation for the general population being run by private companies. Unless that happens, all we will ever have is token efforts by a government agency that are constantly changed every new political cycle. In other words, what we have now.

Coming up in September will be a knock-down bare-knuckle grudge match between the aerospace wing of the traditional military-industrial complex (That's companies like Lockheed or Alliance Techsystems, etc.) and newer, smaller commercial space companies (That's companies like SpaceX or Serra Nevada, etc.) competing for government dollars. I don't know who will come out on top this go around, but the fact that Newspace has gotten this far against those legendary behemoths is damn near a miracle.

• PZ Myers gets all pessimistic and grumpy, and sends me off to read a very well written post by sci-fi writer Charlie Stross who is not optimistic about manned travel and colonization of the solar system.
• July 2010 global land-sea temperature data  (.pdf) in context. Source James Hansen.
• Medical journal retracts Religious Miracle paper, and you know what that means: conspiracy!
• Climate of the late Ordovician Period, about 445 MYA, was surprisingly similar to present day. Especially considering what transpired before that time and between now and then.
• Via A Tribute to Carl Sagan.

Saturday opinion.

Bob Herbert:

The Obama administration seems to be feeling sorry for itself. Robert Gibbs, the president’s press secretary, is perturbed that Mr. Obama is not getting more hosannas from liberals.

Spare me. The country is a mess. The economy is horrendous, and millions of American families are running out of ammunition in their fight against destitution. Steadily increasing numbers of middle-class families, who never thought they’d be seeking charity, have been showing up at food pantries.

Charles Blow:

Maybe we should just let the children run the country, at least until the recession is over. They appear to be the only people not bubbling over with anger, anxiety and frustration.

let them run Congress. It'd be an upgrade.

Gail Collins:

The story in American history I most like to tell is the one about how women got the right to vote 90 years ago this month. It has everything. Adventure! Suspense! Treachery! Drunken legislators!

But, first, there was a 70-year slog.

Which is really the important part. We always need to remember that behind almost every great moment in history, there are heroic people doing really boring and frustrating things for a prolonged period of time.

Gallup:

Americans continue to express near-record-low confidence in newspapers and television news -- with no more than 25% of Americans saying they have a "great deal" or "quite a lot" of confidence in either. These views have hardly budged since falling more than 10 percentage points from 2003-2007.

Thank you, Fox News, for lowering the bar.

Clarus Research Group (.pdf):

A new nationwide survey of Republican voters finds that support for former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin to win the GOP’s 2012 presidential nomination has fallen by one-third since March, sliding from 18 points to 12 points. Palin is now running in fourth place for the nomination behind former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.

In all three Clarus polls testing the 2012 nomination strength of a changing roster of potential candidates, Romney and Huckabee have topped the GOP field...

"Palin gets more attention from the national media than presidential support from Republicans," said Ron Faucheux, president of Clarus. "The major change since March is that Gingrich has now edged out Palin for third place, even though the two are running well within the statistical margin of error."

Wide open field. No consensus, since Romney leads but the Huckabee and Tea Party factions hate him.

Bradley Blakeman (Republican strategist):

For Republicans to have the greatest chance of success this November they should stay focused primarily, if not exclusively, on the economy. Getting people back to work, reducing government spending and slashing the deficit should be their prime focus. The attorney general of Florida is doing what he does best: focusing on the law. That’s fine if you want to stay an attorney general, but, if you want to be a governor, you best be concerned with governing and leave the prosecutions to someone else. While being tough on illegal immigrants may get you a headline, it will not get you elected.

Another in a series of sane Republicans, a small but vocal group that would like to not lose the Latino vote forever.

Some selections from the September Harper's Index (not yet on-line):

• • • • •

At Daily Kos on this date in 2009:

Tonight's Rescue Rangers are claude, Louisiana 1976, srkp23, sunspark says, vcmvo2 and Got a Grip.

This evening's selections are:

• In a diary that begins by calling out the GOP on its lies about welfare but ends up on an extremely personal, painful note, Vyan describes the policy of Blaming the Victim: Mike the Mechanic & Reverse Robin Hood. (sunspark says)
• Avenging Angel examines and explains how the GOP's Paul Ryan Doubles Down on Medicare Rationing. (Got a Grip)
• piratedan urges us to look past those "This is Good News - For John McCain!" affectations to find the truth in the AZ Senate - a not so lost cause. (Got a Grip)
• Something the Dog Said wrote about the "ground zero mosque" controversy and managed to get under the skin of the wingnut media. His proof? Holy Moses! I've Been Called Out By Newsbusters! Twice! (sunspark says)
• Cali Scribe reports on how times and prejudices are changing, even in the sports world, in Jeff Pearlman Stands Up To Homophobia. (vcmvo2)
• Democrats Ramshield shares a dramatic firsthand account in On March 31 2010 While in the German city of Aachen I Was Transported back to a WW2 Bomb Threat. (srkp23)
• Ojibwa continues this excellent education series with Indians 101: The 2nd Seminole Indian War. (sunspark says)
• partialobs gives us a first-hand account of the pros and cons and then asks us to Consider the Electric Bike. (Got a Grip)
• FishOutOfWater predicts rising sea levels and continued climate change in eKos: Mississippi Delta Will Drown by 2100 w/o Action. (Louisiana 1976)

jotter rounds up yesterday's High Impact Diaries.

emeraldmaiden has Top Comments 8/13/10 - How to Quit a Job.

Please use this open thread to promote your own diaries or your favorites of the day.