On Climate:

• Is It Weird Enough Yet? – NYTimes.com Thomas Friedman—
  

  “Every time I listen to Gov. Rick Perry of Texas and Representative Michele Bachmann of Minnesota talk about how climate change is some fraud perpetrated by scientists trying to gin up money for research, I’m always reminded of one of my favorite movie lines that Jack Nicholson delivers to his needy neighbor who knocks on his door in the film “As Good As It Gets.” “Where do they teach you to talk like this?” asks Nicholson. “Sell crazy someplace else. We’re all stocked up here.”

  Thanks Mr. Perry and Mrs. Bachmann, but we really are all stocked up on crazy right now. I mean, here is the Texas governor rejecting the science of climate change while his own state is on fire — after the worst droughts on record have propelled wildfires to devour an area the size of Connecticut. As a statement by the Texas Forest Service said last week: “No one on the face of this earth has ever fought fires in these extreme conditions.”…”

• Tom Friedman on Rick Perry, Global Weirding, Solyndra, and Why a Carbon Price is Patriotic | ThinkProgress
• New Lows: Sea Ice and “Steven Goddard” credibility « Climate Denial Crock of the Week
• Arctic sea ice low – what does it really mean?
• Facts Don’t Persuade Climate Skeptics–So What Does? | The Intersection | Discover Magazine
• Chris Mooney | Want to Sway Climate Change Skeptics? Ask About Their Personal Strengths (And Show Pictures!)

The Politics of Climate Change

• Al Gore on Colbert, chatting about climate reality and Rick Perry [VIDEO] | Grist

  The Colbert Report
  Get More: Colbert Report Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,Video Archive

• Separating Issues from Myths in Obama’s Solyndra Situation – NYTimes.com
• Steve Horn | Solyndra Solar Panel Corporation Scandal Ablaze – ThinkProgress Sets Record Straight
• Solyndra’s Failure Shouldn’t Tar Green Investments, But It Will – Business – GOOD
• The Phony Solyndra Scandal | NationofChange
• Found this over on HuffPo:
  

All The Other Stuff (Politics,News, Opinion, etc.)

• U.S. Census Shows 1 in 6 Americans Are Poor And 1 in 5 Children Live in Poverty | NationofChange
• No Disaster Relief for Hurricane Vics | The X Blog.
• Ten Thousand Years of Speed Bumps | Blue Collar Atheist
• Yes!!! Just let the uninsured die!!! | The X Blog
• Post-Debate Handicapping | Dispatches from the Culture Wars
• Perry: Unprepared, Underwhelming | FrumForum
• The ultimate homeopathic remedy : Respectful Insolence
• The Contagion of conspiracy mongering and pseudoscience : Respectful Insolence
• xkcd: Working.
• Troy Davis And The Politics of Death | NationofChange
• How to Create More Jobs By Lowering Wages: Texas and America | NationofChange — Robert Reich
  

  “…If governors try hard enough, though, they can create lots of lousy jobs. They can drive out unions, attract low-wage immigrants, and turn a blind eye to businesses that fail to protect worker health and safety.

  Rick Perry seems to have done exactly this. While Texas leads the nation in job growth, a majority of Texas’s workforce is paid hourly wages rather than salaries. And the median hourly wage there was $11.20, compared to the national median of $12.50 an hour.

  Texas has also been specializing in minimum-wage jobs. From 2007 to 2010, the number of minimum wage workers there rose from 221,000 to 550,000 – that’s an increase of nearly 150 percent. And 9.5 percent of Texas workers earn the minimum wage or below – compared to about 6 percent for the rest of the nation, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The state also has the lowest percentage of workers without health insurance. Texas schools rank 44th in the nation in per-pupil spending….”

• It’s not often that I cite editorials in the NY Post for praise but Robert Goldberg is right on the mark in his criticsm of Michele Bachmann, Ron Paul, Rick Santorum and the psuedo-science driven anti-vacinnation movement with his op-ed: Michelle Bachmann’s vaccine lunacy–Robert Goldberg – NYPOST.com
• and more on that topic from Ed Brayton here—Bachmann’s Anti-Vax Nonsense | Dispatches from the Culture Wars
• and PZ too — Michele Bachmann: pseudo-scientist and anti-vaxxer | Pharyngula.
• and perhaps best of all Orac — Michelle Bachmann’s anti-vaccine statements cross the political pseudoscience divide : Respectful Insolence For all intents and purposes we can pretty much stick a fork in Michelle Bachmann because if she ever had a chance to be a Presidential candidate she’s certainly done now.
• 7 Reasons Why I Label Myself An Atheist Rather Than An Agnostic | Camels With Hammers.
• 3quarksdaily: The Responsibility of Intellectuals, Redux.