CHARLES RANGEL UPDATE: Rep. Charles Rangel denies he made inappropriate pitch for funds.

DOC SEARLS on the delights of air travel. As far as I can tell, the only really significant perk of being rich as opposed to upper-middle-class is flying on private jets instead of flying commercial.

GO NORTH, YOUNG MAN. Joel Kotkin advises Obama to form a North American Energy Agreement:

A U.S.-Canada energy consortium — with the eventual involvement of Mexico — provides us out from our fundamental geopolitical dilemma: how to grow our economy while reducing our dependence on imported energy and, over time, carbon-emitting fuels. This could take the form of something like a North American Energy Community, which would help coordinate research, development and environmental resources across the continent.

This approach would offer a way to shift our economic interests away from unreliable and unfriendly regimes towards countries with whom we have far better personal, political and economic ties. Current estimates indicate we will increase oil imports from 12.6 million barrels a day today to 16.4 million in 2030. More than half of that is expected to come from OPEC suppliers, with much of the rest from Russia and the Central Asia autocracies.

A continental strategy would halt this dangerous slide. Taken together, the resources of our three countries are both immense and extraordinarily diverse. Overall, North America ranks second only to the Middle East in proven oil reserves. Canada, for example, has the world’s second largest proven crude oil reserves, outpaced only by Saudi Arabia; the United States ranks 11th and Mexico 14th. The three North American states rank in the top fifteen in natural gas production, as well.

This alliance can work both in the short run on fossil fuels and will, over time, blossom with the shift to renewables.

Read the whole thing. Especially if you’re Barack Obama.

HEH: ISRAELI AIR STRIKES KILL CUTE KITTENS AND HAMAS TERRORIST LEADERS. But mostly Hamas terrorist leaders.

Plus, an Israeli/Palestinian thought experiment.

NAT HENTOFF ON “OBAMA’S BLACK WIDOW:” Thanks to Bush and Obama, the National Security Agency now knows more about you. Hey, wait — I thought all this “spying” stuff would change after the election! And how come Hentoff got laid off right after this column came out . . . .?

MOVIE-SET HUMANITARIANISM:

RESIDENTS of a model housing estate bankrolled by Hollywood celebrities and hand-built by Jimmy Carter, the former US president, are complaining that it is falling apart.

Fairway Oaks was built on northern Florida wasteland by 10,000 volunteers, including Carter, in a record 17-day “blitz” organised by the charity Habitat for Humanity.

Eight years later it is better known for cockroaches, mildew and mysterious skin rashes.

Ouch.

VOTING “PRESENT?” Obama keeps silent on explosive Gaza conflict. More charitably, perhaps he’s just giving Bush space to deal with the crisis, given that, you know, Bush is still President and everything.

Plus, has he really been “silent?”

AT THE L.A. TIMES, more on Harry Reid and Rod Blagojevich.

UPDATE: Reid’s certainly getting hit over this, even at Democratic Underground:

On one hand, we have Dems threatening not to seat an African American duly appointed to serve in the US Senate by a sitting governor; an African American who has worked his way up from local office through statewide office before this appointment.

On the other hand, we have Dems cheering the naming of a wealthy white woman who has never held public office, interviews badly, but has an important surname and the “right” pedigree.

No further comment needed.

Ouch.

SOMETHING FOR EVERYONE (TO HATE): The politically-impossible TigerHawk plan for the economy. We could do worse — and probably will! I like the “money haven” plan in the comments, too . . . .

HUNTING: It’s not a “sport,” it’s “sustainable protein.”

THE NEW BROWN SHIRTS.

A RATHER NEGATIVE TAKE on the economy.

TAM HAS THOUGHTS ON VALKYRIE: “As far as I’m concerned, enough machine guns and dead Nazis will cover for nearly any movie-making sin. I can’t think of a single movie, from It’s A Wonderful Life to Mary Poppins, that wouldn’t be improved by a whole bunch of machine guns and dead Nazis.”

NATIONAL SECURITY, “STRATEGIC SHOCKS,” AND INTERNAL DISORDER. A citizen-based response would do better than a military one here, and would be more consistent with constitutional principles.

REFRAMING A DRUG PROBLEM in terms of multiculturalism.

HUFFINGTON POST: Mr. Gore: Apology Accepted.

UPDATE: Apostasy Now: Why is the HuffPo finally questioning global warming?

TODD ZYWICKI NOTES an error in an A.P. mortgage story: “There is an Associated Press story that has been running around the country on mortgage walkaways and state anti-deficiency laws. Here is the long version of the story. The story accurately quotes me but then provides a list of states that the reporter on the story claims are the ‘full list’ of states that have anti-deficiency laws and the positioning of the list in the story makes it look like the reporter got the list from me. He did not. And based on my understanding, the list provided is highly inaccurate.”

ELENA KAGAN, KATHLEEN SULLIVAN under consideration for Obama Solicitor General spot. I think that either would be an excellent choice. I don’t know Elena Kagan personally, but by all accounts she’s been an excellent Dean. I know Kathleen Sullivan a bit better, and I think she’s smart, fair-minded and thoughtful, as well as being a Constitutional Law scholar and Supreme Court litigator of some note.

RACISM, HARRY REID, AND A double standard?

OUCH: Auto sales for ’08 may have plunged 3M vehicles.

SOME THOUGHTS ON GAZA.

I’VE OFTEN ARGUED that the relationship between blogs and Big Media should be thought of as symbiotic rather than competitive, and here’s some more evidence. Jack Lail, managing editor of the Knoxville News Sentinel, emails that InstaPundit sent them nearly a million pageviews last year, and holds two spots (for instapundit.com and pjmedia.com/instapundit) on their list of top 20 referrers. Smart news people — like Lail — are more interested in getting bloggers to deliver traffic than in complaining about blogger competition. And smart news organizations will take advantage of new technology to facilitate their hard-news reporting ability via the “Army of Davids” approach, rather than complaining that people who post breaking-news reports on blogs or Twitter don’t have journalism degrees.

It’s interesting to me that we see far more anger from Old Media folks aimed at bloggers, etc., than at Craigslist, even though Craigslist has done far more economic harm to the newspaper industry than bloggers, who probably add eyeballs rather than (as Craigslist does) subtracting them. My suspicion is that the Old Media folks care more about prestige and position than money, and bloggers have hurt them in the prestige and position department. Of course, caring more about prestige and position than money isn’t a formula for a flourishing business . . . .

Meanwhile, here’s more on how bloggers and Big Media can work together in covering an issue.

UPDATE: Steven Den Beste emails: “Craigslist is stealing revenue, but most reporters and editors don’t worry about revenue. Bloggers are challenging the MSM’s function as gatekeepers of the news, and in particular the MSM’s ability to suppress stories. That DOES directly affect reporters and editors.” Indeed. And that’s not lost on readers.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Thoughts on Craigslist from Ron Coleman.

WEATHERBLOGGER ALAN SULLIVAN has been keeping track of the Yellowstone earthquakes and what they might mean. I view this as a rather remote risk, but I could be wrong. Here’s more on the subject. Question: What would you do, and what should the state and federal governments do, if we knew that a major eruption was highly likely?

Meanwhile, if you want to get ahead of the curve, here’s a guide to volcano survival and response, drawing on USGS and FEMA documents. Don’t know if it’s any good, but I’ve ordered one in case this story picks up.

MARS ROVERS hit 5-year mark.

DON SURBER: “Democrat Joe Biden loses his solid gold Senate cufflinks, and we’re supposed to trust him with national secrets?” I don’t think Obama is trusting him with very much . . . .