A FAREWELL LETTER from General Petraeus.

OFFSHORE DRILLING COMING TO A VOTE: “Congressional Democrats, balancing political reality against a policy they have long opposed, are on the cusp of approving legislation that would open the Atlantic and Pacific oceans to oil drilling as close as 50 miles offshore.” Seems like one thing we want to do is to avoid having too much of our drilling concentrated in the Gulf of Mexico, where one hurricane can disrupt a big fraction of the production. Also, 50 miles seems pretty far offshore to me.

IS GOOGLE GETTING TOO POWERFUL? “As Mr. Savage saw it, Google’s near monopoly in search ads (its market share is approaching 70 percent) put it in a position to decide which business models it would tolerate and which ones it wouldn’t.”

HERE COME THE DROIDS.

OH NO: They’ve ruined SiteMeter. I agree that they should make SiteMeter classic an option. Also, right now it’s demanding a login, and I want open stats. Any recommendations for other free open counters?

FADING AWAY IN EUROPE: “After spending over half a century years in Europe, the headquarters of the U.S. 7th Army headquarters is reorganizing as a deployable unit (meaning it can be ordered to another part of the world to supervise major military operations.) . . . During the Cold War, there were over 300,000 U.S. troops in Western Europe, now it’s about 40,000, and headed for 33,000 in five years. And if there’s a crisIs somewhere else on the planet, there won’t even be an army headquarters there to command what’s left of American forces.” The Europeans will have to start thinking about defending themselves, I guess.

A MISSION TO THE NORTH POLE: “In anticipation of opened oil wells beneath the melting arctic, an ownership-mapping mission makes its way across the seabed.”

DON’T TRUST THE MEDIA (CONT’D): “Controversial celebrity photographer Jill Greenberg, a self-professed ‘hard-core Dem,’ deliberately took a series of unflattering shots of Republican nominee John McCain for the current cover of The Atlantic – and then bragged about it on a blog.” The Atlantic has a brand that most magazines envy. But recent behavior is putting it at risk. I guess it’s gone from bring your own camera, to bring your own photographer. The Atlantic’s editor, James Bennet, — who I know somewhat and think is an honest guy — says they don’t vet photographers for their politics, and they shouldn’t. But this kind of pettiness and unprofessionalism is absolutely beyond the pale. Sadly, it’s marked much of the media this election cycle.

As Andrew Breitbart said on PJTV the other night, you can hardly overstate the extent to which Big Media and the Democratic Party are one and the same these days.

I’D RATHER BE LUCKY THAN GOOD: “A study published in Science suggests the dinosaurs ruled the roost for some 135 million years not so much because they were superior to the competition, but because they were lucky.”

IN THE MAIL: The Living Dead. All zombies, all the time, with contributions by Neil Gaiman, George R.R. Martin, Clive Barker, and more.

Plus, how to survive “the inevitable zombie epidemic.”

DRUGS FOUND IN TENNESSEE RIVER: But in parts-per-trillion levels. Missing from the story is any evidence that such minuscule concentrations pose any hazard to anyone, so this may mostly be a tribute to the sensitivity of modern testing techniques.

OIL REFINERIES seem to have come through Hurricane Ike in better condition than was feared.

INSTA-POLL: A question suggested by reader Neil Blaney, in response to the media focus on Sarah Palin vs. Barack Obama.

UPDATE: From the comments: “Joe Biden? Joe Biden’s running for Vice President? Who knew?” Heh.

FROM MERYL YOURISH, ten questions for pundits.

THE TEN most generous celebrities. Oprah and Rush Limbaugh appear, along with Herb Alpert, who I’ve always heard is a very nice guy.

JONATHAN ADLER: Conservatives shouldn’t block a President Obama’s judicial nominees: “So if we get a President Obama, and he nominates accomplished left-leaning lawyers and judges to the Supreme Court and federal appellate courts, I hope most conservatives and Republican Senators let them go through without much of a fight. This is how most Republicans treated President Clinton’s nominations of Stephen Breyer and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and equally qualified Obama nominees deserve nothing less. If this means that a President Obama gets to place several quite ‘liberal’ jurists on the bench, so be it. Republicans have long argued that Senate Democrats have treated President Bush’s judicial nominees unfairly. They’re right, but the proper principled response is to set the right example, not to respond in kind, let alone to make our excessively politicized judicial confirmation process even worse.”

OBAMA AND the Woods Fund. “Obama joined the board of the Woods Fund in 1993 and remained until 2002. But Obama didn’t merely use the Woods Fund to help his fellow man — he used it to further his career.”

THE PRESS IS OBSESSED: 60% of Washington Post’s Biden Tax Story Devoted to Palin. Reader C.J. Burch comments: “This is also a factor in the all Palin all the time thing. She wouldn’t be such a rock star if the Dems and the press didn’t depsise her so viciously. They’re going to get worse. She’s going to get more popular.” Yes, if they’d greeted her nomination with a yawn, things would have been much different.

Meanwhile, Ed Morrissey looks at her management style and popularity in Alaska. From the national press coverage, you’d never know she has sky-high approval ratings back home. Meanwhile, still waiting for this kind of exhaustive inquiry into Obama’s background. For contrasts between Obama’s words and deeds, you have to go to the London Times. “The essential problem coming to light is a profound disconnect between the Barack Obama of the candidate’s speeches, and the Barack Obama who has actually been in politics for the past decade or so.”

UPDATE: “You really want to believe the media acts in good faith. But when you get into the weeds it’s clear that the opposite is true.”

THINGS YOU MIGHT WANT TO PRINT OUT, OR AT LEAST ABSORB, when you have power:

Survival Guide: Living Without Power.

Some Tips to Make Your Life Bearable After the Storm.

Here’s another blackout survival guide. And here’s some advice on home generator safety.

DANNY GLOVER: Barack Obama’s high-tech blunder. “Obama hasn’t actually listened to the netroots much on substantive policy matters during the presidential campaign, and his flip-flops on issues like anti-terrorism surveillance (against it before he was for it) actually have aggravated liberal bloggers. But this play came straight from the netroots playbook.” Related thoughts from James Joyner.

MORE ON AIRBORNE WI-FI:

You can read. You can watch the movie or, on a few airlines, enjoy live satellite television. You can work, eat, drink or sleep. And now, thanks to new technology by Aircell, you can get broadband Internet service on your laptop.

But one thing you may not do is use that Internet hookup for VoIP, the voice over Internet protocol services provided by companies like Skype. In other words, you may not use your newly empowered laptop connection in flight to make a voice phone call, even though the technological capability to do so is there.

Reflecting the continuing battles over cellphone use in other public settings, Aircell and American Airlines — so far the only airline offering Aircell’s in-flight Internet access, called Gogo — have erected technological barriers to block Skype and similar software programs from enabling voice calls in the insulated environment of the airplane cabin. American Airlines began offering Gogo last month.

You can always IM. As for the airborne wi-fi, all I can say is, it’s about time.

TOM SMITH: The mountain has labored and brought forth a mouse:

All this, taken together, goes far beyond Maureen Dowd’s searing revelation that Sarah Palin wears shoes that are really intended for much younger women. Now we know that far from a pit bull with lipstick, Governor Palin is a merely human politician who rewards friends, punishes enemies and plays “hardball” just like one of the guys. Who does she think she is? And, she’s ambitious. She confided to a friend that she wants to be president someday. Should such a person be allowed inside the White House?

But, seriously now, if the NY Times wants to bring down their favorite hockey mom, they are going to have to do a lot better than this. Forget about sending anybody to Chicago to go through Sen. Obama’s record with a similarly fine toothed comb. Or more like a manure fork. I know that’s not going to happen. Politics in Alaska is a lot like everywhere else, with friends, enemies, grudges, favors made and repaid, and those who get ahead often have sharp elbows. If Palin does become VP she will need every bit of those skills she may have.

What? They won’t investigate Obama as carefully?

DEAD SILENCE at Columbia.

PALINMANIA? 10,000 Show Up For 3,500 Seats in Carson City . Plus, creating sympathy for McCain? “Sarah Palin hasn’t just instantly won the hearts of many in the GOP, she’s seemingly spurred the base to finally stick up for McCain, too.”

IN RESPONSE TO MY EARLIER THOUGHTS ON TAKING A CAMERA TO THE INTERVIEW, reader John Barnes writes:

Glenn: Bravo for your column on the need for politicians to make their own record of interviews. I am a corporate communications consultant and I routinely advise my clients not to agree to taped interviews. If a taped interview is unavoidable, I tell them that when the news crew arrives and starts setting up its cameras and microphones, the interview subject should set up his own cameras and microphones. A few have taken my advice, but many do not, thinking it will tick off the media even more. I tell them the media is not your friend under any circumstances and you are foolish to trust it.

I must say, though, on the few occasions when my advice was heeded, I wished I had a camera of my own to record the priceless expressions on the reporters’ faces as we set up our own cameras. “What are those for?” one asked nervously. “Oh, we just have a policy of making our own record,” I said nonchalantly. He seemed a bit perturbed, but went ahead with the interview, which turned out tough, but reasonably fair. I can’t help but think that having our own record made at least some difference.

It couldn’t hurt. Meanwhile, more questions about ABC’s editing. And it’s not just politicians who should take this precaution.

UPDATE: Related thoughts here.