So reports are that Der Mittster is gonna speak to the wingnut-welfare kings of the ConservativePAC and announce that they are all bastard people and should go to hell and die* and he’s quitting and going home.

The bet here: he’ll sing the praises of John McCain, never mention the Huckster’s name, and work out a VP deal. Unite the “moderate” and “real wackaloon-but-not-Jeebusite” wings of the party, etc.

Dogs everywhere don’t know why but suddenly wag their tails and smile.

*okay, that’s what he’d like to say, like “where were you mean people when I was looking for some kind of electoral return on my money, dadgummit??” but he probably won’t really.

Fortune Magazine describes the next likely oil disaster: pipeline leaks and breaks along the Gulf Coast.

Full disclosure: I remember Ixtoc I, the exploratory well off the Mexican coast owned in part by then-Governor Bill Clements.
This thing spewed ten to thirty THOUSAND barrels of crude a day into the Gulf, and  Read more 

Ooooh, nice smack from Josh Marshall on the attempt by conservatives to run away from Bush. Smack some more, Josh. Smack, smack smack:

Balanced budgets and shrinking the size of government hasn’t been part of conservatism — or to be more precise, Movement Conservatism — for going on thirty years. The conservative movement and the Republican party are the movement and party of deficit spending. And neither has any claim to any real association with limited or small government. Just isn’t borne out by any factual record or political agenda. Not in the Reagan presidency, the Bush presidency or the second Bush presidency. The intervening period of fiscal restraint comes under Clinton.  Read more