The fight over the environment continues. Round 1: Palin vs. Judd. In one corner we have the beautiful actress Ashley Judd, and in the other corner, there’s Alaska Governor Sarah Palin. These ladies are not sparring off on presidential politics. No, this time it’s all about wolves and bears—or rather, killing them from airplanes. Judd is the new spokesperson for Defenders of Wildlife. She’s in a video where she goes off on Palin and Alaska’s predator control program.

Obama is making more moves on the energy front. This week, President Obama ordered the Energy Department to revise the energy standards of nine appliances: ovens (including microwave ones), lamps, beverage vending machines, residential dishwashers, commercial boilers and commercial air conditioners. These changes will make the appliances more energy efficient and reduce global warming emissions for the planet. And the Prez is thinking about consumers’ pockets too.

“This will save consumers money, this will spur innovation and this will conserve tremendous amounts of energy,” Obama said in remarks at the Energy Department, where he briefed staff on his plan for a new energy economy.

Way to go President O on the energy front.

Extinct. Resurrected. Extinct Again. That’s the story of the Spanish Ibex, a member of the mountain goat species. The Ibex was declared extinct back in 2000 after the last one was found dead in Spain. However, before it’s death, scientist preserved some of its DNA (yes..a bit weird). The scientists then used domestic goat genes in eggs to clone a female Pyrenean ibex (or bucardo). Tah dah! Dead extinct animal cloned..well not quite. Sadly, the baby ibex kid died shortly after birth. A little spooky but this experiment gives hope to scientists that want to clone animals on the brink of extinction.

Obama’s stimulus plan has creeped its way to almost $800 billion. The President-elect is reacting to news of an ever-worsening economy and projections that 3.5 million people could lose their jobs in the next year. Some are fearing the stimulus plan could open the door to Congressional pet projects rather than programs that will really drive economic recovery. Vice President-elect Joe Biden defended the plan with a staid response: only bold moves will rescue the economy.

For what it’s worth, Washington hospitality workers will have jobs. With numerous inauguration events planned, the need for waiters and bartenders is up. Probably no consolation for the actors and artists in Los Angeles who make their living the same way.

Biden and Cheney aren’t getting along as well as Bush and Obama. In a bout of back-and-forth criticism, Biden has called Cheney the most dangerous Vice President in history, and in a Fox News interview (below, about halfway through), Cheney responded by criticizing Biden’s knowledge of the Constitution. Christmas cheer, anyone?

Blago’s “Individual D” revealed, and seeks immunity. There have been no accusations of wrongdoing from the authorities, but businessman Raghuveer P. Nayak has apparently sought legal protection in exchange for cooperating in the ongoing investigation into Governor Rod Blagojevich’s alleged scheme to sell President-elect Barack Obama’s now-vacant Senate seat. Blago apparently wanted to appoint Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. and pressured Nayak to pony up campaign money. The Chicago drama is getting more interesting by the day.

VHS: An Obituary. Before the entertainment industry was panicking over competition from DVD sales, there was the videocassette. It revolutionized the entertainment industry, and this Christmas will likely be the last one you’ll be able to find one anywhere other than a 99-cent store, as the L.A. Times reports. So, a big THANK YOU to VHS for ushering in the era of movies-on-demand and personal movie libraries. I wonder how long Blu-ray will last.

In preparation for Christmas, an homage to the Man Behind the Story. If you haven’t seen A Christmas Story, you can catch it during the annual marathon on Dec. 25. For now, you can learn everything you ever wanted to know about Jean Shepherd, the writer, radio personality and narrator from the movie who wrote the stories on which the film was based.

Is “Palin-ized” the hot political put-down? Politicians have said New York Senate candidate Caroline Kennedy is “Sarah Palin-ized” because of the way she and her team are handling the media, including asking reporters to submit questions in writing first. Somehow Palin has managed to leave a permanent mark on American politics.

And Time magazine’s Man of the Year is…(drum roll, please): President-elect, Barack Obama. As if there was any surprise that Obama would be selected. The general consensus in the media world (bloggers and mainstream) is that his choice is one big DUH. Time magazine wrote, “Obama overcame a lack of experience, a funny name, two candidates who are political institutions, and the racial divide to become the 44th President of the United States.” America’s next president has dominated the headlines since his nomination for the presidency. It’s only fitting that he would take this coveted award too.

And did you check out Obama’s (dare I say hot) photos from his freshman year at Occidental College included in the Time magazine pictorial? A sneak peek is below but you should see them for yourself.

But what about Time magazine’s runner-ups? Alaska Governor Sarah Palin was on the short list to win Time’s Wo(man) of the Year. No. Really? Well, this soccer mom did take America by storm. Others under consideration included Secretary of State Henry Paulson, France’s President Nicolas Sarkozy, and creator of the opening ceremonies (The Birds Nest) at the Beijing Olympics, Zhang Yimou.

In other non-Obama related news….The United States’ first-ever complete (80%) face transplant was performed on a woman at The Cleveland Clinic. The woman, who was described as horribly disfigured, now has the face of a donated female cadaver. The patient only retained her own chin, lower lip, forehead and upper eyes. Before the operation, the patient couldn’t smile, taste or smell due to an accident. Since the surgeons also grafted facial nerves and muscles, the woman will be able to smile and perform normal face functions. “Our patient was called names and humiliated,” said Dr. Maria Siemionow, who led that team that performed the 22-hour operation two weeks ago. “You need the face to face the world.”

And on the allegedly corrupt Illinois Governor front. According to an ABC News report Wednesday, Blagojevich is going to break his silence and tell his side of the story in a press conference toward the end of the week. Although arrested over a week ago, Blago hasn’t responded to the charges that he tried to sell President-elect Obama’s former Senate seat. The governor said he couldn’t wait to address the people of Illinois.

And the sad, sad American dollar. The U.S. currency has “declined the most against the euro since the 15-nation currency’s 1999 debut.” And the dollar is at a new 13-year low versus the yen despite an almost zero percent interest rates. Perhaps, the dollar’s value has something to do with America’s increasing budget deficits, which isn’t actually prompting more global investors. Although, the dollar is $1.4437 per euro, the U.S. could be looking at a $1.50 exchange rate for one euro or more! Uh-oh, the current economic plans don’t appear to be working. Attention Bernanke: The dollar is sinking.

Introducing ASSME, The American Society of Shitcanned Media Elites. (Aha! So you do think you’re elite! Sarah Palin is coming!) Started by a unnamed group of people, but suspiciously emailed to me by ex-Radar executive editor Aaron Gell (full-disclosure: he’s my former ed there), under “Our Mission, it says: “Through time-tested methods (alcohol, social interaction), we seek to sustain and inspire this beleaguered professional subclass.”

Under events, they implore: “One of the most challenging aspects of the often painful transition from gainful employment to sitting home watching The View is social isolation, with the attendant lethargy, poor grooming and weight gain (the so-called “Freelance Fifteen”). Don’t be a victim.”

New Yorkers can join ASSME by showing up to their party December 17 (the flyer says: “Still employed? You’re buying the first round!”

Besides, as they say: “Drinking was all we had left.”

http://assme.org

Slate V has the outtakes from other turkey interviews Palin has given. They’re bloody good!

A funny thing happened after Barack Obama got elected. Everyone suddenly liked John McCain. His concession speech, they said, was a return to the “old McCain,” the one everyone applauded when he bucked the system way back in 2000 and challenged Republican front-runner George W. Bush during the GOP primaries. Everyone liked that McCain, and said he had disappeared during the course of his 2008 campaign. The narrative went that his campaign had been hijacked, the candidate himself had been muzzled, and another ‘they’—Schmidt etc. al—were controlling the “real McCain” and twisting his beloved maverick image.

The lovefest for the “old McCain,” began with the Alfred E. Smith dinner, and continued with the Saturday Night Live appearance the weekend before the election, where it seemed he was willfully poking fun at his attention-starved, power-hungry Vice Presidential pick, Sarah Palin. He seemed to be saying to the lefty American public, we’re on the same side, you and me. The McCain image overhaul culminated with this week’s all-in-good fun appearance on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno, where he joshed and joked: “I’m sleeping like a baby. I sleep two hours, wake up and cry.”

Perhaps his reversal to the “Old McCain” was calculated. But i think we’re just as complacent. We want to remember the “old McCain,” not the one who dominated the campaign, throwing out invectives about socialism and Bill Ayers and all the other wag the dog tales of woe. I call this pre-emptive revisionist nostalgia—that is, nostalgia for an event that didn’t happen at all and for a time that isn’t even over yet.

Sarah Palin, just a few days ago, remember, was a dangerous pick, a terrible hatemonger, a fraud dressed in a $150,000 wardrobe. Faster than you can say “community organizer,” Sarah Palin was tarred and feathered by her own camp, derided for supposed ignorance about world affairs—not knowing Africa was a continent, or which countries signed the North American Free Trade Agreement—making all those arguments about sexism in the media suddenly valid. Faster still, she retreated to her home state and gave interviews with the local reporters, speaking competently about energy reform in complete sentences, properly using the English language. Her look suddenly lost the slick polish we had gotten used to—her hair was a little frizzier, less done, her clothes a little more frumpy, and Sarah Palin, suddenly stopped seeming like Cruella Deville, and was almost….sympathetic.

Did someone spike my drink?

It’s happening with the rest of the Republican guard, too. Bush’s open arm embrace of Obama’s transitional period is being viewed as supremely kind—”generous”— as if he has any other choice, given the state he’s brought our country into. Never forget, these are the final days of his presidency, and Bush wants to be remembered better than he is certain to be remembered—as a total, utter, failure.

Bush’s cooperation with the man who will be President is being hailed as a monumental achievement; likewise, the rest of his administration’s images are being getting softened with this post-electoral nostalgic glow. Condi Rice, once considered by the left to be as evil and as fiercely right wing as her boss, held a press conference, in which she essentially praised Obama’s win as an awesome achievement that made her very proud. You could hear the collective liberal swoon. Awwwww. How soon we forget, it was she who helped pushed the Iraq War to the American public. After she appeared at the Glamour magazine awards with a new, fresh updo, Huff Post readers gushed, “I’ve always admired her for what she has accomplished. I don’t care for her politics, but she’s a great role model.”

They say time heals all wounds, but the didn’t mention that it can happen in seconds.

Colin Powell, too, gets a pass. After four years out of the administration, he’s forgiven for his unfortunate WMD at the UN moment, and we look askance at what those actions helped bring, because he endorsed the right man.

Pre-emptive revisionist nostalgia might be a way to feel less hateful toward our current administration and help cleanse ourselves of our dark thoughts over the past eight years, but we should never forget.

A reflection on the current state of racial politics in the U.S. after this historic election or just a heinous black and white dress? You be the judge.

Obama picked his “bad cop” chief-of-staff. Chicago native U.S. Rep. Rahm Emanuel is the lucky victim and he accepted the position today. Rahm and Obama go way back as buddies, but more importantly, Rahm doesn’t mess around. He has a reputation for being a “tough partisan fighter” on Capitol Hill. As expected, a few Republicans are already in a tizzy. But CNN political analyst David Gergen says this is a strategic attempt to set up a good cop/bad cop scenario in the White House—so everyone needs to just . . . chill.

Can you guess what folks are now naming their babies in Kenya? C’mon. Don’t make me state the obvious.

The hockey mom may not be the next Veep, but she’s still haunting our public consciousness. Palin returned to Alaska and stepped off the plane to a crowd of folks cheering “2012! 2012! 2012!” A chant for Palin to run for prez in four years? Hardly! Those Alaskans just want to shove her in the White House, lock the door, and keep the woman as far out of their state as possible. We’re onto them.

Something I totally support: a West Hollywood Prop. 8 protest rally! The ban on legalized gay marriage in California passed on Tuesday—don’t. get. me. started.—so 2,500 peeps gathered in WeHo last night to put up a fight. LAPD showed up, a handful of protesters got arrested, and none of it changed the fact that this state has officially made an arse out of itself. First—the Governator. Now—this.

One small DNA sequence for scientists, one giant leap for cancer research. A million dollar science project may have put us a step closer to finding a cure. Scientists at the University of Washington in St. Louis decoded the genetic sequencing of a deceased leukemia patient. They compared the DNA found in the patient’s cancerous tissue with that of the patient’s healthy tissue and discovered a set of 10 mutations that may have caused the cancer. Woot! Woot! This isn’t an immediate cure, of course, but the discovery can lead to new therapies and help doctors make more informed decisions from here on out.

Michael Ramirez cartoon for November 6, 2008, Investor's Business Daily.

No finger-pointing, just take time to regroup. That’s the major push of a piece by the editors of National Review. They find hope in the fact that voters haven’t rejected conservative ideals outright (President-elect Barack Obama only won by a six-point margin, after all). Now is the time to devise a clear agenda and make a new pitch to voters in advance of the elections in 2010 and 2012. But one dissenter in their ranks sees Tuesday as a wholesale disaster.

Republicans should stop trying to appeal to moderates and beef up their conservative platform. Right-wing blogger John Hawkins lays out his top seven reasons why the party needs to move to the right. In brief, moderates don’t have a uniform ideology, so it’s impossible to build a platform around them; moderates don’t give as much money to campaigns; and moderates tend not to know much about politics, so they’re easily swayed by the left-wing media.

Reluctant concessions from the right. Talk radio personality Hugh Hewitt congratulated Obama on his victory, though his prayer for Obama’s wisdom and judgment and “for his safety and the safety of his country, and for the continued prosperity and greatness of America” seem a subtle warning that we’re going to need it. Bill Dyer, a guest-blogger for Hewitt’s Townhall page, was not so subtle.

Obama is bad for the economy, and it showed when the stocks dropped after news of his victory, writes John R. Hinderaker. His broker attributes some of the decline in the market in recent months to investors’ apprehension of an Obama presidency. So Hinderaker expresses surprise that so many employees on Wall Street invested in the Obama campaign. Of course, the nation is in a recession, and another bit of news was at play: analysts are expecting a Labor Department employment report on Friday to be bleak.

Obama may have bought the election with a fundraising campaign that broke records and employed questionable tactics, including accepting money from foreign donors. An article in Newsmax claimed the press was lax for not holding Obama accountable after he reneged on his commitment to talk to John McCain about using public financing. It also referred to an investigation by its own correspondent back in September which uncovered thousands of dollars donated using fictitious names like Good Will. Bloomberg reported that Obama’s fundraising campaign may forever change the way presidential election campaigns are financed in the future.

Sarah Palin takes more heat, as previously off-the-record news about quarrels and questionable behavior with McCain staff and her spotty knowledge of geography were uncovered. Fox News correspondent Carl Cameron appeared on the conservative show “The O’Reilly Factor” to report what he knew, and while the the typically pugnacious and quick-witted Bill O’Reilly challenged some of Cameron’s findings, he didn’t seem to be on his game in defending her.

Be careful what you ask for: Barack Obama won the US presidency in convincing fashion, taking 53% of the popular vote and snagging the lion’s share of the electoral college (349 with North Carolina and Missouri still hanging out there, according to CNN). With plenty of “this is breaking down racial barriers” stories already on tap for the immediate news of his win, the media is turning to the “now what?” question. The answer is a resounding “this man has a lot of work to do and an uphill battle to get it done,” despite Democrats having almost total control over both houses of Congress (they just missed the filibuster-proof 60 seat majority in the Senate). What is clear is that Obama has the support of his country and his planet like no one this generation has ever seen.

Bittersweet Victory: Californians (as well as Floridians and Arizon…ians?) elated with the symbolic progress their country made last night by electing the first African-American president had a short honeymoon when they awoke to discover Proposition 8, which writes a ban on gay marriage into the state constitution, passed by a narrow margin. The nation appears to have moved beyond the racism that suppressed Black America just 50 short years ago, but has replaced it with a church-sanctioned form of bigotry. Between the vast financial support of the Mormon Church (you know, the people exiled to their own state because of intolerance) and the supposed “Obama Effect” of socially conservative minority voters showing up in droves for Barack and voting for Prop 8, I think we can all agree that gay is the new black in this country.

Oh yeah, those guys: So what is on tap for the GOP? For starters, the real John McCain finally made an appearance last night during a magnificent concession speech where booing at the mention of Obama’s name epitomized everything wrong with his party. Conservative writers lament Obama’s electoral landslide as a referendum on Republican economic policy, but as Elizabeth Dole would probably tell you, it was more a definitive death-blow to the Atwater/Rovian/Schmidt style of smear tactics and voter-intimidation by fear.

Oh yeah, her: The real enigma of the GOP is Sarah Palin. McCain gave her a full-throated endorsement for 2012 in his speech last night, even though she apologized for costing him votes. But Steve Schmidt equivocated when asked early on Election Day if Palin was to blame for his campaign’s eventual loss. Not exactly the unified front we are used to seeing from a party that had won seven of the past 10 national elections. She tickled the base, but the Moral Majority might be no more and one has to think that Republican strategists are already concocting ways of replacing the requisite pandering to the Religious Right with a broader appeal. Whether or not she studies up in the next four years will determine if she is her party’s savior, or its John Edwards.

And the award for the most shamless election night technological gimmick goes to: CNN. No shocker here, coming from the network with more giant flatscreens than a Cribs marathon. After several teases by a purple-tie-wearing Wolf Blitzer as “something you have never seen on television before,” Jessica Yellin was beamed into the election center as a hologram for conversation with the political reindeer himself. Why have we never seen this on live TV before? Because it’s absolutely f***ing worthless. “Help me Ander-San Cooper, you’re this network’s only hope.”

Award for most interesting, non-racial, non-freak-out at the uphill battle, post-election slant: McClatchy’s story on how Obama plans to utilize his 3 million strong volunteer database as president.

January 2007: Hillary: “I’m in it to win it”

March 2007: New York Times cover photograph of Mark Warner kills his campaign. Before it even started.

June 2007: Obama Girl

December 2007: everyone wondered: Prez Huckabee?

January 2008: Not if the Comeback Kid could help it.

January 2007: Hillary cries. People realize she’s human, after all.

January 2008: Bill Clinton’s mouth is stuffed with his foot. Tells voters in South Carolina, “Jesse Jackson won in ‘84 and ‘88.”

Don’t forget the “fairy tale.”

January 2008: Barack tells Hillary she’s “likable enough” in the New Hampshire debates.

February 2008: Barack Obama’s Speech on Race in America in response to the Reverend Wright Controversy.

March 2008: Hillary Clinton’s 3 a.m. ad.

April 2008: Stayin’ Alive. Hillary Clinton defeats Barack Obama in Pennsylvania, giving her campaign extended life.

June 2008: John Edwards reveals himself to be a slutbasket.

June 2008: “A million cracks in the ceiling.” Hillary concedes.

August 2008: Bill Clinton addresses the Democratic National Convention for Obama. Shows everyone how it’s done.

September 2008: The world is introduced to Sarah Barracuda.

September 2008: America wonders if maybe they got too drunk when they went home with Sarah Barracuda.

October 2008: Joe the Plumber arrives.

October 2008: Wardrobe-Gate

October 2008: Tina Fey Meets her Maker.

November 2008: John McCain does SNL.

Last August, when Scott Davis of Providence, R.I., heard that Hillary Clinton lost to Barack Obama for Democratic presidential nominee, he was devastated. To him, the strong-willed New York senator would be the only presidential candidate that would be worth his vote.

Now, as a “personal protest,” Davis is holding true to his promise and will not be casting his vote for president on Tuesday.

Davis, 37, is a writer and musician who has been living on disability income since 1997. The father of one was in a near-death train accident a year before, sending him into a coma for one month. Also an epileptic, doctors performed a temporal lobectomy after his head suffered severe damage that increased his episodes of seizures. It is a surgery that he says saved his life.

Despite his disabilities, Davis has been a regular voter since 1992 and believes that every citizen plays crucial role in maintaining the country’s democracy. But for the first time, instead of participating, he has decided to sit back and watch the historic race unfold.

Though there were speculated reports of bitterness after her loss, Hillary Clinton and husband Bill joined the Democratic presidential campaign to urge undecided voters to cast their ballots for Obama. But because of the obvious tension between the passionate senators throughout the primaries, some of Hillary’s supporters saw her loss as personal.

In effort to possibly seize the opportunity, John McCain’s vice presidential choice, Sarah Palin, has gained the support of women voters who initially supported the former first lady.

Davis understands their point of view, but he says that his opposition to Obama runs deeper than hard feelings or feminist values, and it would take more than an endorsement from the Clintons to get him to vote.

Davis is an outspoken Democrat who claims to be “as liberal as they come” and has “dabbled with Libertarianism.” An occasional volunteer at local homeless shelters and soup kitchens in Providence, there is no doubt that he understands the ongoing hardships of lower-to-middle class Americans.

But, although he is firm on his decision to not vote this year, he believes that McCain might be the better pick, and he assured me that it’s not because Sarah Palin is an “attractive woman.”

Why did you vote for Clinton during the primaries?

“I voted for Clinton because she and her husband ran this country once and did a spectacular job. Unemployment was almost nil, taxes were low, and there was a general good feeling about being an American. There was also no war going on [with the United States].”

Do you typically vote for Democratic candidates?

‘Yes. Thomas Jefferson said it best: ‘When you sacrifice your liberty for safety, you wind up with neither.’ I have voted Democrat in the past because “liberal” means “free.” Free to make my own choices and free to live as I believe is best. The Republicans have really done a number on the personal freedoms for individuals. To refer, the Patriot Act by G. W. Bush is more ironic than anything else.”

But after Clinton’s loss, you decided not to vote for Obama in the upcoming election. Why?

“I do not believe the country is prepared for what an Obama administration would mean right now. He’s inexperienced. Imagine someone who is not old enough to drink alcohol running rampant in a liquor store, then finding out how much money it will cost to pay for all of the damage done. He seems paranoid and does not have a definitive plan. I don’t care about the gender, color, or age of a candidate, only what I think will happen if they are elected.”

Are there any specific instances that made you come to this conclusion?

“During the debate, I watched the split screen and noticed that he [Obama] was paying much more attention to looking good than focusing at the issues at hand. He also mentioned ‘preparing for the next war.’ There was a chill that ran down my spine because it reminded me of Bush’s victory speech. If he could hear himself talk, he would recognize that his own speeches are reminiscent of George W. Bush. Education is great in its place, health care is a misnomer and the anti-everything ads are more than annoying. I got the feeling that he was only looking for the right people to pander to.”

So Clinton’s plea for the undecideds to vote for Obama did not convince you in the least?

“I think Clinton is going to vote for McCain. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if that’s what she did. I respect her and her husband but I refuse to vote for someone just because someone else recommended them.”

Had Obama chose Hillary as his running mate, would you have voted for him then?

“Yes. Because she’s a determined lady and therefore I’d know who was really running the show. Besides, she’s a lot more intelligent than Sarah Palin. The Clintons ran this country once and did a spectacular job. Unemployment was almost nil, taxes were low, and there was a general good feeling about being an American. Also, there was no war [with the United States] going on.”

Are you completely indifferent as to who becomes president?

“Personally, I would like to see John McCain win. After carefully observing the two, McCain seems more relaxed and composed. A grandfatherly approach would be the best description I can think of, whereas Obama seems restless and people-pleasing.”

What would you like to say to the people who are voting on Election Day?

“I would like everyone to know and understand that Obama is trying to play a game that he is not ready for just yet. He is a very articulate and well-spoken man, however, he’s also got a lot to learn. After he learns his lessons and pays his dues, he may make a fine president. McCain, on the other hand, has paid his dues and knows the ins and outs of Washington. Therefore, I believe that he’s ready for all of the responsibility that comes with being president.”

Voters don’t know what socialism means, anymore. Hop to it, McCain. In the 21st part of an on-going series entitled “The Audacity of Socialism,” Investor’s Business Daily argues that the post-Cold War generation doesn’t really understand what socialism’s about, so when Republican candidate John McCain decries Democratic rival Barack Obama’s policies as socialist, he better explain what he means. IBD takes a minute to educate us while maintaining that, yes, Obama does appear to be a socialist.

Too many pundits and politicians practice wackonomics. That’s the tendency to explain the complex beast of economics in the simplest terms of greed, according to economist Walter E. Williams. When the price of oil goes up, these wackoeconomists blame greedy executives, so as the price of crude oil dropped gradually from $147 to $64 a barrel after July, the natural conclusion should have been that the same executives were feeling less greedy. Of course, that’s not what happens, and wackonomics doesn’t really add to anyone’s understanding of the economy.

Sarah Palin takes a lot of heat—Obama and Biden deserve as much or more, writes Victor Davis Hanson. After all, recalling FDR on TV in 1929 or referring to Hezbollah as out of Lebanon doesn’t exactly inspire confidence. Hanson lays out more reasons to ridicule the Obama-Biden ticket and wonders why the two aren’t getting more heat in the mainstream media.

Conservatives who bash Sarah Palin are in it for themselves. Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan writes that after seven weeks on the campaign trail, Palin doesn’t seem to have what it takes to be vice president and that “she doesn’t think aloud. She just . . . says things.” Pam Meister, editor of Family Security Matters expressed confusion over why “beautiful, accomplished women” like Noonan would want to attack another beautiful, accomplished woman like Sarah Palin for no other apparent reason than that she drops her G’s and says “moms and dads” instead of “mothers and fathers.” Meister implied Noonan’s major motivation for criticizing Palin is that she may be under consideration for press secretary in an Obama administration (according to Meister’s unnamed source, of course). The blog RedState takes an even harder line toward such conservative turncoats: they should never be listened to or employed by any Republicans or conservatives ever again.

More Republicans call for Senator Ted Stevens to resign after he was convicted on seven felony counts including corruption. However, many seem to think it would be better if he waits until after winning his re-election so that the Republican Party can appoint his successor. That’s classy, people.

Early Wednesday morning a 6.4 magnitude earthquake struck southwestern Pakistan, killing at least 170 people and leaving an estimated 15,000 people homeless. Rescuers are currently digging and searching for survivors in the a remote valley in Baluchistan, a province bordering Afghanistan. The worst hit was a British hilltop village of Ziarat and eight surrounding villages. “There is great destruction,” said Ziarat Mayor Dilawar Kakar to Associated Press. “Not a single house is intact.”

With less than a week until the presidential election, many people have decided to vote early. And in key swing states like North Carolina, Nevada and Colorado, the number of Democrats early ballots outweigh Republicans ballots nearly 2 to 1.

So, does the electoral math add up to an Obama landslide? According to the most recent Associated Press-GfK poll, Barack Obama is leading or tied with John McCain in eight key states: Colorado, Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia. This poll also showed Obama winning in states among early voters. Furthermore, “the polling shows Obama holding solid leads in Ohio (seven percentage points), Nevada (12 points), Colorado (9) and Virginia (seven), all red states won by Bush that collectively offer 47 electoral votes.” Based on these results, if Obama wins these four states or a magical combination of two or three of them with significant amount of electoral votes, he would almost certainly become president.

When in doubt, disclose … Alaskan senator Ted Stevens was convicted Monday by a federal jury of hiding more than $250,000 of free home renovations from an oil contractor and other expensive gifts. The Anchorage Daily News has a great account of the courtroom scene as the senator waited for the jury’s decision. By all accounts, Stevens’ strategy of asking for a speedy trial and taking the stand in his own defense backfired. The senator will fight his conviction, saying to his wife as he left the courtroom, “It’s not over yet.”

What does that other Alaskan think? Governor Sarah Palin guarded her words in a statement after Stevens’ conviction was announced. “This is a sad day for Alaska and a sad day for Senator Stevens and his family … I ask the people of Alaska to join me in respecting the workings of our judicial system and I’m confident that Senator Stevens from this point on will do the right thing for the people of Alaska,” Palin said. She didn’t call for Stevens to resign or halt his re-election campaign, but it looks like the senator’s bid for an eighth term might be toast. Most polls taken before the conviction had Stevens’ democratic challenger Mark Begich ahead.

No substitute for on-the-ground reporting … A cross-border raid into Syria on Sunday by U.S. special forces killed an Iraqi militant known for smuggling men and weapons into Iraq, an American official confirmed Monday. More details come from two Associated Press reporters who filed a story Tuesday from the town where the raid occurred. They write, “At the targeted building, the floor was bloodstained Monday, with abandoned tennis shoes scattered amid pieces of human flesh.” No security presence in the town suggests the Syrian government wants details of the attack to come out.

Get to know the candidates … or not. The Los Angeles Times‘ campaign beat writers each filed reflections Tuesday about covering John McCain and Barack Obama. Each Times story has some juicy anecdotes, and we’re likely to get a bunch more of these “tales from the trenches” stories over the next week as the presidential campaign comes to a close. Maeve Reston talks about the part she played in changing McCain’s relationship with the press when she asked him in July if it was unfair for some health insurance companies to cover Viagra but not birth control. McCain was more reticent to talk with reporters after that incident. Peter Nicholas says after covering Obama for 18 months he’s rarely seen the senator let his guard down and that Obama “can be sort of a bore.”

Baseball loves its statistics and records, so here’s another one: Monday night’s game in Philadelphia was the first World Series game to be suspended. And for good reason, too. When the Phillies and Tampa Bay Rays started playing it was raining lightly, but that turned into a downpour. By the time the game was suspended there was standing water on the base paths.