Round-up of observations during the down time.

I had my doubts about Elizabeth Warren, in part due to the reasons cited here, although that article is a bit inaccurate in its demographics.  But it seems like she is making the right moves wooing the working class natives, but ironically that may hurt here with Cambridge/Amherst liberals.  One thing that is often missed is that there is antipathy in Ye Olde Ivory Tower in Massachusetts towards local blue-collar types for reasons rooted deep in the Bay State's past. You see Harvard was a seat of Yankee power and culture, one that looked with horror at the invading Celtic hoards. Deep in the subconscious cultural psyche of the Yard and much of New England this bigotry remains, explaining the aversion towards populism. I mean for God's sake they didn't want the Kennedy presidential library in Cambridge because of this.

The Rs in Pennsylvania want to do away with the winner take-all allocation of electoral votes, instead going by congressional district.  Now I think this a better system, but of course they are doing it only because they believe it benefits the party and not the people (and Ds oppose it for the same reason), proving once again that the entrenched parties are the true obstacles to fair elections. The irony is that it may not benefit the GOP!

Ta-Nehisi Coates is great, Andrew Sullivan picked up on this where he lambastes liberals who bash Obama and others for not doing enough while not doing anything themselves:

People who talk of primarying Obama need to pick smaller targets--and thus elicit bigger results.

But being taken seriously involves actual work. It means a poverty tour that doesn't just bark (Obama the black mascot) but bites (voter registration in swing districts.) If you don't like the current iteration of America, you need to remember that you are America. The failure to build a more progressive America isn't merely a testimony to dastardly evil, it's a testimony to the failure of progressives.

Depending on whose metric you use, 2011 was had the lowest or second lowest amount of Arctic Sea ice. The previous record year? Way back in 2007...move on, nothing to see here.

Satellite measurement of Arctic Sea ice from NSIDC. Click for larger image.

And the worldwide temperature anomalies from GISTEMP for August:

Nearby the old school house in Philly it was the wettest August on record...before Hurricane Irene! So it wasn't even due to the tropical systems, which are random, uncommon events here. Put that in yer pipe...

Seems like more people who aren't survivalists of treehuggers are accepting Peak Oil, including those who plan to make a buck off of it in true Randian fashion.

Speaking of Rand-holes, the cheering for Ron Paul's let 'em die type comment at the Tea Party debate was the most authentic fascist moment in recent American politics.

Ahh, but this is all depressing, let's talk about the Sox...on the other hand let's not.

Pats won, that's good.