A BOUNCE FOR OBAMA after all, 3 to 6 points depending on who you believe.

TROPICAL STORM GUSTAV threatens energy infrastructure. Meanwhile, Brendan Loy notes that the models are uncertain.

BABY BARIATRICS? Ugh. What worries me is that it may be satire now, but so many things like that wind up becoming reality a few years later . . . .

THE GREENING OF FRESH KILLS: Turning a landfill into a park.

IN NEW YORK, saving energy with green roofs: “This month, Gov. David A. Paterson approved tax abatements to developers and building owners who install green roofs, or a layer of vegetation and rock that absorbs rainwater, insulates buildings and extends the lives of roofs. . . . Temperatures on buildings with green roofs are up to 30 percent lower during the daytime in the summer than they are on those with conventional roofs, which means that tenants on the floors below do not have to run their air-conditioning as much.”

A CROSS-COUNTRY TRIP in a full-sized electric car.

TAYLOR MARSH: “Bill Clinton’s speech last night reminded us why Democrats love him and Republicans hate him.”

IS THE HYDROGEN ECONOMY NEARER THAN WE THINK? I hope so, but “hope” is the key word.

NEWS FROM DENVER: Protesters denied access to attorneys, forced to march in leg shackles, ACLU charges. So maybe the ABC News thing wasn’t an aberration.

UPDATE: On the ABC News item, Marc Danziger has The Brown Palace’s side.

IN THE MAIL: Bob Schieffer’s America. By Bob Schieffer, but you probably figured that out.

ANN ALTHOUSE CALLS THIS MCCAIN AD “devastating.” She adds: “I want to post devastating Obama ads too. Please point me to some!” Weirdly, McCain seems to have taken a lead in the rapid-delivery YouTube department. I wouldn’t have predicted that. The Obama stuff, meanwhile remains in this vein. It’s well-produced and star-studded, but it’s not hitting the key points. As Phil Bredesen suggests, he should get more specific.

OOPS: Somehow I neglected to mention that Randy Neal has been blogging the DNC. Just keep scrolling. Lots of cool photos, too.

MYTHBUSTERS ON MOON LANDING CONSPIRACY THEORIES:

For Hyneman and Savage, taking on the moon landing conspiracy was a no-brainer. “They’ve been on our radar for a long time, because it’s something everybody knows about, and it’s not something you can go there yourself to check it out—at least not very easily,” Hyneman told PM last week. “When we started to look into all the suspicions that were there, there was a lot of meat for us to dig into. Especially since it’s sort of centered on special effects—that’s our daily work, so we got into it.” Though other people have tackled the moon conspiracy, “We felt that we couldn’t put it to bed until we put our own stamp on it,” Savage says.

It’s not likely to satisfy the conspiracy theorists, though.

AN INSTA-POLL: Regarding Bill Clinton’s speech last night, Robert George commented: “In short, his appearance demonstrates why, a half-century later, Republicans must still think that the most significant legislation they ever got passed was the 22nd Amendment. Otherwise, that guy may well have been finishing his fourth term.” What do you think?

MANDATORY VOLUNTEERISM? I’m against it.

WORRIES ABOUT PEOPLE WHO WANT TO send political opponents to jail.

READER KEVIN PEDRAJA EMAILS:

I’m curious, I’ve been reading a large amount of coverage on Instapundit that offers criticisms of Obama, his campaign and his proposed policies. I understand it’s mostly a reaction to what you perceive as fawning portrayals of Obama in the mainstream media. But I’m not seeing a whole lot of material from you (or that you’re linking to) that offers a reason to vote FOR McCain.

Well, as I’ve said before, this is an opinion blog, not a political blog-machine like Kos, and you’re right that it’s focused on media criticism. I don’t tell people who to vote for, and I don’t see putting people in the White House as part of my mission — or something that a blog can do anyway. (My occasional talk about endorsing Obama — though it worried some readers — is a joke, as I don’t endorse people; endorsements seem kinda presumptuous for a blogger, in my opinion.) McCain will have to give you the reasons to vote for him, and that will probably start to happen more next week. At least if he wants to win. My take on Obama, as I’ve said before, is that he’s not really ready to be President, and that he didn’t think he’d get this far when he started this campaign — what’s followed has been brilliant improvisation, propped up by a lot of media sympathy. That media sympathy hasn’t been entirely good for him, though, as I think it’s encouraged some mistakes that a more experienced, or more careful, candidate would have avoided. He might still make a good President — some people with great credentials and experience have made lousy Presidents, and some people with weak resumes have made good ones. But it’s quite irritating to see just how in-the-tank the press is for Obama, an irritation that quite a few Democrats have noticed as well. I don’t mind ’em having opinions, I just wish they’d put ’em on the opinion pages. Or start blogging!

MSNBC: Two, Two, Two Networks In One!

VICE PRESIDENTS: Obama has picked Biden. McCain will announce his running mate soon. But whichever winds up President, he might want to think of giving his Vice President a less active role than Dick Cheney has enjoyed. I’ve argued elsewhere that such a strong role might be unconstitutional, but I’m pretty sure — for reasons also set out there — that it’s a bad idea. The Vice President’s most important role is as a replacement President, one who can start fresh. Too much day-to-day executive responsibility can limit that — while you don’t want someone kept in the dark as Truman was about the atom bomb, you don’t want the VP involved in policies, etc., that might go bad and compromise his/her ability to come in as a fresh leader if the President dies, resigns, or is impeached. Just a thought. Will anyone listen? Doubtful.

NOW HERE’S A SUGGESTION: “There’s only one way to resolve this 3 am thing: reality TV. Set up a TV program where each candidate is called unexpectedly at 3am and tell them of some impending crisis in their campaign and see how they react. That would be much more revealing than any debate.” Why not? It seems like everything is turning into reality TV anyway.

GREEN ENGINEERING AT BLACKWATER: “Many of the vans at Blackwater run on vegetable oil.” Interestingly, they’re also working on wind power and the like, because delivering fuel for generators in remote areas is such a logistical burden.

ADVICE TO OBAMA FROM PHIL BREDESEN: Get more specific.

DON “BRIDGE TO NOWHERE” YOUNG is still hanging on in a too-close-to-call-yet primary. Radley Balko says that if he makes it, it may be because of Ron Paul’s endorsement. As with Ted Stevens, I think the Republicans should have eased him out, and if he’s nominated they’ll deserve to lose the seat.

JIM LINDGREN notes that the Obama campaign seems much more upset by Stanley Kurtz’s actions than by Bill Ayers’. And Marc “Armed Liberal” Danziger is unhappy with the campaign’s effort to silence critics.

UPDATE: Here’s an editorial in Investor’s Business Daily. The Ayers connection itself is less interesting to me than the campaign’s over-the-top response. It seems to me that they could have put this behind them already, but instead their reaction seems to be fanning the flames.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Going after a Chicago radio station for hosting a broadcast on the subject. As I say, fanning the flames.

MORE: Still more on The Obama Campaign vs. WGN radio. Two items from Lindgren are worth breaking out here, too: “If Obama or his campaign had ever denounced Ayers with the fervor that his campaign has now used in denouncing Kurtz, Obama wouldn’t be having trouble on his connection to Ayers. ”

Also, “The Obama campaign response is so unusual (the wording used against a member of the press and their contacting TV advertisers on stations running the TV ad) that I wonder if they have polled the issue and they discovered that voters give this whole issue a lot more credence than I think it merits.” Either that or they’re trying to deliver a brush-back against future attacks or scandals. But I’d guess the former.

MORE: Reader George Hancock sends a link to the WGN show’s audio. (Bumped).

TIGERHAWK ON building a better power grid in a hurry. “From the discussion in news media, it does seem that one need not believe in anthropogenic global warming to support a reconstruction of our national power grid. Not only is it essential to the exploitation of energy that will reduce our dependence on foreign oil (a salutory goal in and of itself), but it would save an enormous amount of energy regardless of its source (making the economy much more efficient). The question is, how do you rebuild the grid in a hurry?” He has some thoughts.