GASSING UP WITH GARBAGE:

After years of false starts, a new industry selling motor fuel made from waste is getting a big push in the United States, with the first commercial sales possible within months.

Many companies have announced plans to build plants that would take in material like wood chips, garbage or crop waste and turn out motor fuels. About 28 small plants are in advanced planning, under construction or, in a handful of cases, already up and running in test mode.

For decades scientists have known it was possible to convert waste to fuel, but in an era of cheap oil, it made little sense. With oil now trading around $125 a barrel and gasoline above $4 a gallon, the potential economics of a waste-to-fuel industry have shifted radically, setting off a frenzy to be first to market.

If I were, say, the Saudis, I’d try to push prices down just long enough to bankrupt all these new alternative-energy schemes. Then, back over $100 a barrel again.

“RUDE TRUTHS” on Fannie Mae.

WHEN REPORTERS fall in love.

Plus, beware of “Jewish neocons.”

HELLO, DALAI: Why McCain’s Meeting With Dalai Lama Should Be Big News.

NOAH POLLAK: Nicholas Kristof’s moral tourism.

MICKEY KAUS: “At this point, does Barack Obama want John Edwards to even show up in Denver, much less give a prime time speech? . . . If you’re an Obama strategist, mightn’t you conclude that the best thing for your candidate would be if the press weighs in quickly and definitively concludes that Edwards is guilty, with the result that he and his whole sordid story go away until after November?” If so, just pass the word and the L.A. Times will be all over the story. With memos to bloggers encouraging them to cover it!

OBAMA TALKS ABOUT LIFTING A CHILD IN BANGLADESH FROM POVERTY: But John McCain actually did it: John and Cindy McCain adopted Bridget McCain… From Bangladesh.

OOPS: Anti-Patriot Act Poster Boy Kidnaps Own Kids. “The crushing reality, however, is that all of the legal maneuvers, media advocacy, and political grandstanding surrounding Al-Jailani’s case were predicated on a lie. And the Gordian knot of the matter is rent asunder by the inescapable truth that the three most innocent and helpless victims in this story, Amina (12), Layla (10), and Sami (8) Al-Jailani, are now imprisoned under their father’s control in Yemen — the very man that had served as the anti-Patriot Act poster boy. Adding to this tragedy is the fact that the same parties who championed Ashraf Al-Jailani’s cause are nowhere to be found concerning the ongoing plight of the abducted Al-Jailani children.”

THE THUG ECONOMY in Russia.

TELLING BLOGGERS TO ignore the elephant in the room.

UPDATE: Related thoughts from Dodd Harris. “Now, the only thing about the Hunter story that actually interests me is the inside baseball: The fact that it might have the beneficial side effect of preventing Edwards from being appointed to an Attorney General position for which he is supremely unqualified in an Obama Administration. . . . No, the reason I mention this ban is to point out that the Times was not hobbled by any such scruples when John McCain was accused — on much thinner evidence — of having possibly, maybe, sort of having had an inappropriate relationship with Vicki Iseman almost a decade earlier. In fact, a search of the Times website for her name brings up 101 results. Doubtless they’d argue that the Enquirer isn’t a credible source. But the same could be (and was) said of the two anonymous and admittedly disgruntled former aides who were peddling the Iseman story. One needn’t leap to any conclusions here; one need only take a small step and there conclusions are.”

As usual, journalists’ concerns about “ethics” are self-serving.

HMM: Nader submits paperwork to get on Tennessee ballot.

MILBLOGS TV: Anbar Rising.

IN SEARCH OF SUBSTANCE.

MCCAIN HITS HARD.

HOMELAND SECURITY meets The Sopranos.

I think my early misgivings have been borne out. Related item here.

UPDATE: Stewart Baker, whom I’m inclined to trust — our podcast interview with him is here — is “calling bullshit” on this story. Stay tuned. I note, however, that my earlier misgivings remain, regardless.

HAPPY HOT FUDGE SUNDAE DAY. But why is Sundae day on a Fridae?

WELL, GOOD: Oil’s 2-week nosedive shows up at the pump. “In the trading pits, oil continued on a two-week sell-off. Light, sweet crude for September delivery fell $2.23 to settle at $123.26 a barrel in on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Earlier the contract dropped as far as $122.50, its lowest point since June 5.”

UPDATE: Reader Spec Bowers emails:

Is there nobody who will point out that oil’s 2-week nosedive began almost precisely when Bush lifted the executive order on offshore drilling?

Opponents of drilling argue that it will take 5-10 years for that oil to become available. What they ignore is that current prices are affected by the perception of future prices. If sellers of oil begin to think that oil will be priced at say $90 per barrel 5 years from now, they realize that they are better off selling now at $80 instead of leaving the oil in the ground.

If the world becomes convinced that the U.S. will indeed drill offshore, drill in ANWR, drill for shale oil in the Rockies, start building nuclear plants, then the price will drop even lower – just as soon as sellers become convinced, not just 5-10 years later.

Well, you just did!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO LOUISE BROWN, the first test-tube baby. My old band in college, Etc., wrote a song in response to this event, which was well-received around the Strip — years later, the drummer, Doug Weinstein, is the father of two boys conceived via IVF.

INDEED: Officials: Search for HIV vaccine needs overhaul.

A.P.: McCain rejects ‘audacity of hopelessness’ for Iraq.

HOT AIR: Senate Republicans hold the line on energy; Update: Reid falls apart.

ROGER SIMON: The Enquirer Files a Criminal Complaint in Edwards Love Child Case.

REPORTING FROM THE London Motor Show.

ECO-FRIENDLY CLUBBING: Including “a piezoelectric floor that captures dancers’ energy to power the club.” Video at the link.

WHAT BATMAN HAS IN COMMON WITH . . . George W. Bush?