SO I JUST WATCHED THE CHESLEY SULLENBERGER DOCUMENTARY BRACE FOR IMPACT, on TLC and it was really good. All I can say is, he deserves the rock star sex.

GOOD QUESTION: Why Are New York Democrats So Afraid Of Harold Ford, Jr.?

UPDATE: Charlie Martin writies: “Obviously, because he’s a light skinned African American who doesn’t speak with a negro dialect.” Oh, right.

OUCH: Reader Dan Friedman writes: “This bitter, ham-fisted loser would probably have spelled David Axelrod in a McCain administration. In retrospect, makes you wonder whether we got the lesser of two jerks after all.”

DEMS WORRIED ABOUT COAKLEY: “When ‘senior Democratic strategists’ are anonymously moaning to the WaPo, you know that all is not well in Charlestown (Coakley HQ).” Yeah, shades of Creigh Deeds.

INSIDE THE VAST LEFT-WING CONSPIRACY?

TOP DEMOCRAT Defends Reid for “Negro” Remark.

A BUNCH OF INTERESTING food links.

WILLIAM JACOBSON: Nothing To See On January 19, Move Along. “Democrats of Massachusetts, listen up. The special election is all but over. Martha Coakley has won.”

UPDATE: More from Sissy Willis.

FLYING BARELY: “They make you turn off your telephone, so I didn’t get any pictures…”

HEH: How To Brew A Good Cup Of Coffee.

MAUREEN DOWD LOSING INTEREST IN OBAMA? “Dowd and her colleagues complain now — but he was their kind of guy.”

UPDATE: Why Obama Is Faltering.

JONATHAN ADLER ON TED OLSON ON GAY MARRIAGE. Plus some further thoughts from Dale Carpenter. My take is similar to Dale’s, I think — I favor gay marriage and would enact it myself if allowed to, but I don’t believe that litigation is the way to go at present; it’s unlikely to succeed and it’s likely to generate backlash if it does. I think that acceptance of gay marriage is only a matter of time, and not a while lot of time at that, and that changes via litigation are less likely to be seen as legitimate than changes via legislation. Of course, with an anti-gay-marriage President in the White House, I guess it’s hard to put a lot of faith in electoral politics right now . . . .

UPDATE: Thoughts from Andrew Marcus. Yeah, separating marriage and state would be best, but I see that as the least likely outcome, alas.

LOW-COST SOLAR INVADES KENYA.

People think that these low-cost solar light kits are only for the poor. They’re wrong. I use them, as do many middle-class Kenyans if they can get their hands on them. The market is bigger than just the “bottom of the pyramid”.

Finally, I’m greatly pleased to see legitimate businesses, not NGOs, leading this charge. The quickest way to ruin this fledgling industry is by false ceilings imposed by development/aid subsidies around these products.

(Via Toby Buckell, who speculates about leapfrogging.)

PROGRESS: John Scalzi finds an old floppy disk and observes: “The real irony of this disc is that the amount of memory you can write to it (1.44 MB, if memory — heh – serves) isn’t enough to store the jpeg of the picture of it which came out of my camera (1.49 MB). That’s progress for you.”

IN CANADA, Rex Murphy booted for “climate change denial.”

UPDATE: Link above is now returning “Forbidden” for some reason. Here’s the cached version.

TEST-DRIVING A fuel-cell Mercedes. I test-drove a fuel-cell Chevy a while ago, but . . . it wasn’t a Mercedes, you know.

SO I FIGURED THE DEMAND-SMOOTHING ASPECT OF OVERNIGHT CHARGING would make it easier for utilities to cope with plug-in electric cars. But now there’s this: “Most utilities employ undersized transformers, which are designed to cool overnight. Without time to cool, sustained excess current will eventually cook a transformer’s copper windings, causing a short and blacking out the local loads it serves.”

HOPE: White House Economic Adviser: Jobs Picture is ‘Still Terrible.’ “Council of Economic Advisers chief Christina Romer said it’s devastating that some workers have been unemployed for two years and that job losses were continuing nearly a year after passage of the so-called stimulus bill.”

CUBAN DOCTORS defecting to the U.S. via Venezuela.

STARTING: A 20-Year Mini Ice Age?

The bitter winter afflicting much of the Northern Hemisphere is only the start of a global trend towards cooler weather that is likely to last for 20 or 30 years, say some of the world’s most eminent climate scientists.

Their predictions – based on an analysis of natural cycles in water temperatures in the Pacific and Atlantic oceans – challenge some of the global warming orthodoxy’s most deeply cherished beliefs, such as the claim that the North Pole will be free of ice in summer by 2013.

According to the US National Snow and Ice Data Centre in Colorado, Arctic summer sea ice has increased by 409,000 square miles, or 26 per cent, since 2007 – and even the most committed global warming activists do not dispute this.

Brr. I don’t want a mini ice age.

PATTERICO: Harry Reid’s History Of Racial Posturing.

CALIFORNIA ON THE VERGE OF BECOMING “A FAILED STATE.” George Will looks at why.

AMTRAK’S “TRAIN FROM HELL.”

TRAILER: Justice League: Crisis On Two Earths.

SO, HOW’S THAT SIGNING-STATEMENT PROMISE WORKING OUT?

I am sure that I am not alone in noticing that the White House webpage hasn’t had a new constitutional signing statements posted since last summer.

This article by the NY Times’ Charlie Savage Friday sheds new light on why that is. According to the article, the Administration has a new policy on signing statements that it has adopted in the wake of last summer’s kerfuffle with Congress. In short, it will still take the position that certain provisions of newly enacted laws would unconstitutionally infringe on Executive Branch prerogatives (or would otherwise be unconstitutional). It just won’t say so in signing statements.

I can’t imagine that those in Congress who objected to this practice will consider this an improvement. Although the Bush Administration was openly mocked in some quarters for saying its practice promoted transparency, it may be regarded as better than the alternative.

Perhaps some fresh mockery is in order now?