HERITAGE FOUNDATION: Obama Continues Airing False Ad.

OBAMA FLUNKS A POP-CULTURE TEST, but the bigger gaffe, as a reader notes, is this: “Didn’t Obama realize Fred Sanford & George Jefferson are both Small Business Owners?”

THE POPULAR MECHANICS EDITORS announce their ten favorite cars.

L.A. TIMES REVEALS CONTENTS of explosive political tape.

UPS IS TESTING hydraulic hybrid delivery vehicles. Cool.

BOB KRUMM notices something funny about the polls.

DEAN KAMEN IS WORKING ON an extended-range electric vehicle with a Stirling Cycle engine.

IN THE MAIL: From Elizabeth Moon, The Serrano Connection. Is it just me, or has space opera come back in a big way?

UPDATE: Several readers note that this is a reissue of two previously-published novels. I couldn’t tell that from the cover. People should take a lesson from Baen and make that plain.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Mark Reardon emails: “Much as I love Baen, Serrano connection is one of theirs.” D’oh!

RAND SIMBERG: Prove Me Wrong, L.A. Times. Heh.

RYAN SAGER: Have libertarians been driven out of the GOP? I have to say that this prediction of mine seems to have been borne out. So, alas, was this.

UPDATE: Reader Stan Brown writes:

If the libertarians are disgusted with the GOP and conservatives are disgusted with the GOP (see e.g. Mark Tapscott and others who have floated the idea of a new party), is there a theory which would explain both trends? Yes. I think you can blame the MSM. Seriously.

GOP politicians are still politicians and they learn early not to fight with those who buy ink by the barrel. Conservatives who expect that the GOP is going to step in front of the MSM-driven train to defend principle are destined for a letdown. Few are going to commit political suicide and those
who do aren’t around next term to do it again. Conservatives don’t need a new party. They need a new news media.

I think the libertarian discontent with the GOP is also driven by the MSM. Let’s face it, libertarians who voted for Reagan are not leaving the GOP over gay marriage. Can anyone summarize all the legislation and regulation that the GOP has enacted which has alienated libertarians? There’s nothing much there. What there has been is a constant drumbeat from the MSM and Hollywood to demonize conservatives. The standard cultural portrayal is a cartoon. But over time, it seeps into the subconscious and becomes perceived fact. I really think the disenchantment is due more to the cartoon than reality.

Well, we certainly need a new and improved news media setup.

A REPORT ON Armadillo Aerospace at the Lunar X Prize.

PAINFUL CUTBACKS AT THE NEW YORK TIMES: Bill Keller is flying coach. I told you things were grim.

THE DANGERS OF MULTITASKING:

But despite what many of us think, you cannot simultaneously e-mail and talk on the phone. I think we’re all familiar with what Dr. Hallowell calls “e-mail voice,” when someone you’re talking to on the phone suddenly sounds, well, disengaged.

“You cannot divide your attention like that,” he said. “It’s a big illusion. You can shift back and forth.” . . .

A 2005 study, “No Task Left Behind? Examining the Nature of Fragmented Work,” found that people were interrupted and moved from one project to another about every 11 minutes. And each time, it took about 25 minutes to circle back to that same project.

Interestingly, a study published last April, “The Cost of Interrupted Work: More Speed and Stress,” found that “people actually worked faster in conditions where they were interrupted, but they produced less,” said Gloria Mark, a professor of informatics at the University of California at Irvine and a co-author of both studies. And she also found that people were as likely to self-interrupt as to be interrupted by someone else.

I actually do my intense writing — books, law reviews, etc. — in a different room and on a different computer, with the email turned off. It helps. Some. On the other hand, blogging and column-writing seem to thrive on an environment where there’s more going on, like coffee shops or bars. Not sure why.

WASHINGTON POST: “Sen. Barack Obama’s presidential campaign is allowing donors to use largely untraceable prepaid credit cards that could potentially be used to evade limits on how much an individual is legally allowed to give or to mask a contributor’s identity, campaign officials confirmed. Faced with a huge influx of donations over the Internet, the campaign has also chosen not to use basic security measures to prevent potentially illegal or anonymous contributions from flowing into its accounts, aides acknowledged. Instead, the campaign is scrutinizing its books for improper donations after the money has been deposited.”

MORE ON THOSE SUSPICIOUS JOE THE PLUMBER BACKGROUND CHECKS IN OHIO: “She claims that sudden public notoriety is enough to generate an investigation of someone’s status. I can’t wait to hear what the ACLU makes of that explanation.” Neither can I . . . .

POLITICO: Obama donors get access to top advisers. Change you can believe in!

JENNIFER RUBIN: None Of The (Really Bad) News Is Fit To Print. Have you noticed how journalistic “ethics” seems mostly to involve not telling the customers what they need to know?

IT’S ENRON FANNIE MAE ACCOUNTING FOR THE ELECTORAL SYSTEM: “Mississippi’s voter situation is hard to believe. Places like Madison County have over 123% more registered voters than people over the age of 18.” We’re seeing a lot of that, and I’m worried that we’ll wind up with a crisis in confidence in the electoral system that will be worse than the financial crisis. In both cases, inside players have an incentive not to address the problem, but the consequences are likely to be dire for the rest of us. Really, 2000 should have been the wake-up call.

Of course, some of us have been sounding the warning for a while. Not to mention John Fund’s warning. Much good it’s done. . . .

ACCORDING TO DRUDGE, Gallup now has Obama at only +2, and Rasmussen at +3. Could the polls be wrong? I have no idea. They’ve certainly seemed unusually volatile this cycle, and it’s an election that’s kind of sui generis. Certainly nobody on either side should slack off based on good, or bad, polls at this point.

NEW YORK: A preview of things to come. And the Dems want to extend this approach to governance nationwide . . . .

FAIR WARNING: “Is Joe Biden the foot-in-mouth candidate – or is he the Obama campaign’s designated teller of inconvenient truths?”

CAN LORNE MICHAELS MOVE POLL NUMBERS?

THOUGHTS ON WINDOWS AZURE: “Do we really want a complete service model where everything is developed, downloaded, purchased and tracked through the same process?”

MORE MEDIA RETRENCHMENT: Gannett will cut 10%. Time, Inc, announces job cuts and major restructuring. And Newsweek is hemorrhaging revenue: “Newsweek net income results for the first half of the year went from $133.2 million in 2007 to $36.5 million, which isn’t so much a ‘moderately weakened’ business, so much as a ‘holy sh*t, time to fire everyone’ business.” Reader Michael Albrecht emails: “Wow! It’s like people don’t want the product anymore. Or, more likely, people are not buying what they are selling.”

Yeah, I really think this is why they’ve been so willing to squander their remaining credibility in support of Obama. They figure they won’t be around to swing an election in four years, so it’s now or never. Of course, by doing so they accelerate the trend.