GUSTAV AND NEW ORLEANS: Apocalypse Not. Well, good. Plus, this important point:

Cable news is buffoonish. This should surprise no one. What matters, though, is this: the forecasts were not “hype,” and the evacuations were not “hype.” Gustav had the legitimate potential to be far worse than this, and decisions had to be made at a time when we could not depend on the more favorable scenario that has instead occurred.

Better safe than sorry, but watching the TV folks doing the usual standup-in-the-wind routine this morning I just thought how stale that shtick has become. Stay in the studio and just tell us what’s happening. We’ve all seen newscasters with the wind in their hair now.

THOUGHTS ON evolution and human nature from David Friedman:

People who say they are against teaching the theory of evolution are very likely to be Christian fundamentalists. But people who are against taking seriously the implications of evolution, strongly enough to want to attack those who disagree, including those who teach those implications, are quite likely to be on the left.

I guess it’s equal-opportunity ignorance. (Via Futurepundit, who comments: “I think we are on the verge of an enormous explosion of discoveries about human genetics and the roles genes play in causing differences in cognitive function, athletic performance, health, and other aspects of human function. People who anchor their political beliefs in either supernatural religious or secular religious belief systems are going to find the foundations of their beliefs blown away by this coming torrent of discoveries.”)

TALKLEFT reminds us that it’s Labor Day.

MICKEY KAUS: “Note to Cass Sunstein and internet alarmists who argue that the Web results in partisans who listen only to their own facts, reinforcing their extreme opinions, etc. A Daily Kos blogger is refuting the Kos-fueled Palin-baby rumor with a photo found on right-wing site Free Republic, of all places. Moral: The Web encourages encourage cocooning but (unlike other cocoon-generators like cable TV, or gerrymandered congressional districts) it’s also the solvent of cocooning. . . . In this case, viciously partisan Kos bloggers seem to have investigated and knocked down a bit of undernews that many of them would have dearly liked to be true. What’s wrong with that? As of this writing, it looks like they got to the truth pretty rapidly.”

Feminist lawprof Ann Bartow is less pleased.

UPDATE: Ann Althouse is not amused either.

JENNIFER RUBIN thinks that the Gustav-inspired convention changes aren’t so bad for McCain, and I’ve heard more than a few people saying that it won’t do any harm to McCain’s chances that Bush and Cheney won’t be at the Convention.

Meanwhile, I filled my time yesterday by going to see a screening of An American Carol, the new Zucker film that premieres in October. It’s a sort of Christmas Carol remake, with a thinly-disguised Michael Moore in the role of Scrooge (played by Kevin Farley), and visits from, among others, the ghost of George S. Patton (played by Kelsey Grammer), and George Washington (played by Jon Voight). I thought it was quite amusing, with a lot of slapstick humor in Zucker’s trademark Airplane / Naked Gun style. The version I saw wasn’t a final cut, and frankly I think it would be better if they ditched a couple of scenes, but I predict that it will do pretty well at the box office.

Here’s a picture of Roger Simon interviewing Jon Voight for PJTV.

GUSTAV WEAKENS: Brendan Loy has more. Let’s hope the weakening process continues.

A HURRICANE APOLOGY:

Former Democratic National Committee Chairman Don Fowler apologized Sunday for recently joking Hurricane Gustav’s expected landfall on the same day as the opening of the Republican National Convention suggested God was on the Democrats’ side.

A YouTube video of the comments posted by the conservative blog RedState.org and showed Fowler joking with South Carolina Rep. John Spratt about the timing of the hurricane while on a flight from the Democratic National Convention back to South Carolina. The person who filmed the conversation is not identified.

What’s interesting is that the apology came before the story was picked up by the traditional media. It was just blogs and Drudge, but it forced a public apology.