If you care to join me in remaining a John Edwards supporter, what would you hope for him to do, and when, to manifest his return, to win the 2008 race to the Oval Office?

I kinda like this one, but I have another idea, a few inches below the fold.

I mean, srsly, we can see by reports in the rec list how much mainstream corporate media is reporting on the investigation of the betrayal of Valerie Plame Wilson (not much, compared to the font of goodies being tracked by dear old DKossacks.)

Much less have small farmers up against the wall, forced to RFID their livestock, while AgriBusiness gets off with a single group/lot ID number for  hundreds of animals?

What happened with all of the arrests?  Seems like there are no new diaries on this topic.

Following up to chriscol's excellent diary about a Zogby poll that shows only 8% of Americans are nuts, here are some articles with specific poll questions and detailed results to share with your doubting friends:

Near Universal Demand to See the Votes Counted

In some states, members of the public have the right to view the counting of votes and verify how that process is working. In other states, citizens are in effect barred from viewing vote counting even if they would like to view the process. Which of the following two statements are you more likely to agree with - A or B?

Anyone got a link or three to reports on legal minimums for US stockpiles of food?

To facilitate cross-aisle dialog, I believe it vital that we each ask one SOTU question of at least one friend or relative that hails from the FoxNews-watching / spin-buying side of the country:

What did you like about the State of the Union address last night?

What makes this particular question important?  For one, answers to the query can provide useful information about What Works.  How was the speech effective at providing warm fuzzies, if at all?  

January 16th, Martin Luther King Jr Day (Monday), the Lower 9th Ward of New Orleans needs hundreds if not thousands of warm, cheering bodies.

Join the Parade!

Also helpful would be any news that any of you might have on traveling to New Orleans.  Are the airlines flying there, yet?  Other tips or first hand reports of traveling to the city in the past few months?

Please spread the word.

My friend Johan suggested this elsewhere and so I wanted to take the risk of posing it to Kossacks.

Assume 1 million cars exiting Houston (and not getting very far) while also burning let's say 20 gallons of gas per car over Wednesday and Thursday last week.  With a gallon of burnt gas producing 125,000 BTU, and 1,000,000 cars burning 20 such gallons, the combined traffic jam would locally produce 2,500,000,000,000 (2.5 trillion) BTU.  A BTU is defined as the amount of heat required to raise the temperature of one pound of water by one degree Fahrenheit -- 2.5 trillion BTU is a LOT of heat.

Could that much heat released into the atmosphere local to Houston have strengthened the area of high pressure over the region enough that Rita turned eastwards, avoiding Houston? If so, the process of evacuation itself may have had a positive impact!