A VIGNETTE FROM THE IOWA DEMOCRATIC CAUCUSES:

He grabs his coat, but before he can leave, an Edwards campaign ambassador approaches. “What do you guys hang from the ladders at firefighters’ funerals?” he asked the men in yellow. An awkward moment ensues. “The American flag!” he answers his own question. Then, he points right at Mrs. Sorenson, and declares: “Obama doesn’t salute the American flag.” For good measure, he adds that Obama was sworn in to the Senate on the Koran. (Not true, but all’s fair in the heat of a caucus moment.)

Didn’t work. But read the whole thing.

MORE ON THE PARASITE / ALLERGY HYPOTHESIS: “People know that something isn’t right. They keep their kids in the cleanest environments and they get asthma. We get all of these things that were rare becoming common. And a lot of it comes down to hygiene. Excessive hygiene can potentially lead to disease.” D’oh! Plus, the advantages of letting your kids play in the dirt, and the big, big question: “Will people be afraid to take a worm pill?”

LOTS OF INTRIGUING PRIMARY SPECULATION from Mickey Kaus.

GLOBAL COOLING NEWS FROM GREENLAND: “Did the Norse colonists starve? Were they wiped out by the Inuit – or did they intermarry? No. Things got colder and they left.” Okay, it’s pretty old news.

THOUGHTS ON THE child support obligations of sperm donors.

DO FACEBOOK FRIENDS EQUAL VOTES?

MR. JUSTICE CLINTON: “Presumably the Supreme Court needs to do something about our draconian sexual harassment laws.” Indeed.

MEGAN MCARDLE: “Did anyone else notice that where Hilary Clinton had carefully positioned Madeleine Albright looking over her left shoulder as she faced the camera, Mike Huckabee had put Chuck Norris in the key position? This seems, in some way that I can’t quite verbalize, to be a perfect metaphor for this campaign.”

MAX BOOT REMEMBERS George MacDonald Fraser.

UPDATE: More here.

STEVE JURVETSON on the nanotechnology startup ecosystem.

HILLARY booed in New Hampshire.

HUCKABEE’S PROBLEM IN NEW HAMPSHIRE: “His aides are wary of New Hampshire. ‘It’s all no tax, no government there,’ said Bob Wickers, a top strategist. ‘It’s not ideal.'”

SONY DITCHING DRM:

In a move that would mark the end of a digital music era, Sony BMG Music Entertainment is finalizing plans to sell songs without the copyright protection software that has long restricted the use of music downloaded from the Internet, BusinessWeek.com has learned. Sony BMG, a joint venture of Sony (SNE) and Bertelsmann, will make at least part of its collection available without so-called digital rights management, or DRM, software some time in the first quarter, according to people familiar with the matter.

Sony BMG would become the last of the top four music labels to drop DRM, following Warner Music Group (WMG), which in late December said it would sell DRM-free songs through Amazon.com’s (AMZN) digital music store. EMI and Vivendi’s Universal Music Group announced their plans for DRM-free downloads earlier in 2007.

Good idea.

THE DVDS THAT PEOPLE ARE WATCHING as they wait out the writers’ strike.

SLIPPERY SLOPES: “Switzerland is introducing speed cameras on the slopes to try to reduce the increasing number of accidents. The first such nationwide controls will treat skiers like cars on the motorway. Speeders will be caught with hand-held radar devices carried by hidden personnel.” They’re going after anyone going faster than 19 mph.

Well, you could see that kind of thing coming. And, come to think of it, I did.

HILLARY RESPONDS TO THE LOSS, badly.

MILLIONS LOSE POWER IN CALIFORNIA:

A fierce storm swept through central and northern California on Friday, cutting power to more than 1 million homes and businesses, closing major roads and canceling flights at several airports.

The storm may dump as much as 6 to 8 feet (1.8 to 2.5 metres) of snow through the weekend in the higher elevations of the Sierra Nevada, and up to 2 feet (0.6 metre) at the popular tourist spot of Lake Tahoe, forecasters with the U.S. National Weather Service said.

Southern California braced for possible flash floods and mudslides in areas that burned in the October wildfires. Total rainfall could reach 5 inches (12.5 cm) in Los Angeles and 10 inches (25 cm) in the mountains of Southern California — the most significant rainfall in the region since January 2005, and on the heels of the driest year on record.

“It is very important, since there is so much land that has burned, that we are prepared for mudslides,” Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said after being briefed by the Office of Emergency Services.

Hope they’ve done their disaster-preparedness in advance, because it’s too late now.

UPDATE: Snow in Mexico?

ANOTHER UPDATE: Readers think this storm is being, er, overblown:

Being here in the brunt of the storm, I can attest that this is the biggest storm to hit California since, oh, March.

I’m not sure what the news here is. Yes, the winds have toppled trees all over town. This happens EVERY year. The TV reporters were measuring the depth of the water in the gutters; it was up to 4 inches. (Sacramento people usually dump yard waste in the street, causing storm drains to be clogged. Again, this happens EVERY year.) We joke – but it isn’t really a joke – that in California, our four seasons are Earth, Air, Fire and Water; mudslides, Santa Ana winds, forest fires and floods.

This isn’t _disaster_ preparedness, Glenn; this is _winter_ preparedness. EVERY year we have wildfires. EVERY year, we have mudslides when the rains soak the fire-ravaged hillsides. EVERY year we have strong winds, generally starting about now, that blow down a few trees and power lines. Every year, hikers and skiers get trapped by “unexpected” snowstorms in the mountains and have to be rescued. And any person with an IQ in triple digits knows enough to have flashlights, battery powered radios, and the minimal basics of storm preparedness.

You remember the old children’s song about the “Eeensy Weensy Spider”? That’s us.

Ah, to live in idyllic California! And reader Rodney Graves emails:

Here in South San Jose the area around us is without power (including my data center [about a mile from here], which is still running on generator power), while our new housing development is powered.

The storm has been very windy, and we had some gusts I would estimate at more than 50kts here on our hill. Rainfall has also been heavy.

But…

Not all that unusual for our rainy season here. Worst in six years, twelve worse than this in the last fifty. More of a pain in the posterior than a threat to life and limb for most.

Bad weather news overhyped? Say it ain’t so! And speaking of weather alarmism, John Tierney has some thoughts: “It would be nice to think that we, unlike the ancients who propitiated the gods with human sacrifices, could accept the fact that it’s natural for unusual weather to occur — that the weirdest year of all would be one in which no record was set anywhere.”

MORE: Dr. Stanley Tillinghast emails:

In the few hours my MacBook Pro’s battery has left, I went first, of course, to Instapundit.

I appreciated the dose of reality from your Sacramento reader. This is our winter; we won’t freeze to death, but may get wet.

My wife and I are cocooned very snugly, thank you, in our vacation home on the northern California coast. Last night the storm was howling, today the surf was high, but we had a little breakthrough sun just before sunset.

Our necessary ‘survival’ equipment so far has included: (1) an Aladdin oil lamp that puts out a light via its mantle that is bright enough for comfortable reading; (2) a Coleman propane stove; (3) our Lopi wood-burning stove. The Mountain Green LED lantern is very useful but not as cozy as the Aladdin lamp.
We do have the two cookbooks you recommended for when the power goes out, but are too lazy to actually cook up anything as long as the canned soup and PB&J makings hold up.

We don’t quite have the emergency radio thing worked out, though. I think the local radio station lost power too.

Power outages are expected here on the coast; the full-timers have their generators, but we’re very happy with our books and the light to read them by.

Just finished reading Robert Zubrin’s Energy Victory, BTW, and highly recommend it.

I have one of these hand-crank radios. But the radio station should have a generator. . . .

LIKABLE, YES. BUT ELECTABLE? Kerry Howley looks at Mike Huckabee. Of course, if he’s likable enough, he’s probably electable.

JONAH GOLDBERG ON OBAMA AND DISAPPOINTMENT: “Imagine the Democrats do rally around Obama. Imagine the media invests as heavily in him as I think we all know they will if he’s the nominee — and then imagine he loses. I seriously think certain segments of American political life will become completely unhinged. I can imagine the fear of this social unraveling actually aiding Obama enormously in 2008. Forget Hillary’s inevitability. Obama has a rendezvous with destiny, or so we will be told. And if he’s denied it, teeth shall be gnashed, clothes rent and prices paid.”

He’s right. And as I’ve noted before, Hillary runs a smaller-scale version of this risk in the nomination battle — if she outmaneuvers Obama rather than beating him straight-up, that’ll probably alienate a lot of people and cause them to stay home in November.

UPDATE: Bill Quick: “If Huckabee beats Obama, everything you’ve seen during the past eight years of Bush Derangement Syndrome will become nothing more than a mild neurosis. Bottom line, though, is that the real threat of a Huckabee candidacy is not that he’ll defeat Obama, but that he’ll destroy the GOP coalition in trying.”

ANOTHER UPDATE: Ryan Hartman thinks this is about urban riots. I’m thinking more an extended chattering-class hissy fit. Yes, it’s hard to believe that people could get more deranged than they’ve been since the 2000 elections, but I think they’ve got it in them.

Meanwhile, Hartman should note that the “secret Muslim” claims about Obama come from other Democrats, in the form of Hillary and Edwards proxies.

BLOGGER ANDREW OLMSTED has died in Iraq. (Via Blackfive). He left a last post for publication in this event; you can leave a note of condolence for his family in the comments, but please, nothing political. Here’s his blog, always worth reading. (Bumped to top).

JOSE PADILLA sues John Yoo.

PERRY DE HAVILLAND ON the American legal psychosis. Surely it’s mere neurosis, isn’t it?

CHINESE COUNTERFEIT GOODS: A national security angle.

NORMAN HSU UPDATE: Democratic Fundraiser Norman Hsu Sentenced to 3 Years in Calif. Fraud Case.

I DIDN’T HEAR LIMBAUGH TODAY, but reader Doug Hutson emails: “I notice that Rush Limbaugh is concerned that most Republican candidates for POTUS are not true conservatives in that they are for open borders, increased spending, higher taxes, etc. He is saying in his anti- Huckabee monologues that Huckabee is no conservative. He is now adopting your reasoning prior to November 06 that ideas matter more than party. You won!” Well, he wasn’t very happy with my GOP pre-mortem, but it’s held up pretty well. So, for that matter, has this, alas.

UPDATE: In response to a couple of readers, let me be clear: I don’t think that I changed Limbaugh’s mind. I think that events did. After the election, Limbaugh said he felt “liberated” — I think that before that he felt obliged to put the best face on things. Now he doesn’t. And, once he looks at the problem honestly, it’s no surprise to me that he sees a lot of the problems that I saw. That’s not because of me, it’s just because that’s how things are.