TPM takes a look at the struggling political fortunes of North Carolina's other Senator, Richard Burr, up for reelection in 2010. He ran a pretty odious campaign against Erskine Bowles in 2004, but really has accomplished almost literally nothing since that time.

Friday night! Let's linkdump.

* If you sent a letter to Whole Foods about the John Mackey Wall Street Journal editorial, you probably got a response tonight. I'd post what I received, but the small print at the bottom instructs me I cannot:

This email contains proprietary and confidential material for the sole use of the intended recipient. Any review, use, distribution or disclosure by others without the permission of the sender is strictly prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient (or authorized to receive for the recipient), please contact the sender by reply email and delete all copies of the message.

I certainly appreciate their crafting a non-apology apology for my sole use. I don't know how Daily Kos got a hold of it.

* NJ-GOV blogging: TPM, TPM, FiveThirtyEight.com.

* Also in Jersey news: Bob Dylan hassled by local NJ cop.

* NC-SEN blogging: Everyone hates Richard Burr.

* Airlock Alpha speaks the truth: it's obviously too early for another Battlestar Galactica reboot.

* 'Amusing Ourselves to Death': Huxley vs. Orwell.



* From Betsy to Rush to Sarah Palin to Chuck Grassley to your own old relatives forwarding you crazy shit.

* SF on HBO?

* Joe Siegel's heirs have won rights to a few more early Superman stories.

* Whitney Phillips at Confessions of an Aca/Fan tracks down the provenance of the recent Obama/Joker/SOCIALISM graffiti. Of course, it was 4chan.

* Obama sips it. Paris Hilton loves it. Mary J. Blige won't sing without it. How did a plastic water bottle, imported from a military dictatorship thousands of miles away, become the epitome of cool?

Wednesday night links.

* Duke Energy CEO Jim Rogers was on Colbert last night. The reporting Jaimee and I did for the Indy's green issue this year sadly convinced me that Rogers's "responsible CEO" schtick is 90% PR, and this clean-coal-centric interview didn't sway that opinion a bit.

* Meanwhile, health-insurance CEOs agree: they totally have the right to screw you out of coverage you paid for once you actually need it.

* A reality check on Twitter and the protests in Iran.

* A good sign for 2010: Richard Burr trails Generic Democrat by 3 points.

* Who could have predicted that the NSA's domestic surveillance program would be abused?

* Alice and Kev, homeless Sims. Via Kotaku.

* Darkseid without New Gods.

North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper will not run against Richard Burr in 2010. Too bad.

Getting everything together for the big roundtable this Friday is keeping me fairly busy, so it's just links tonight.

* Sad news: Eve Sedgwick has died.

* Matt Yglesias luxuriates in the deliciousness of Richard Burr's low approval ratings. So say we all.

* 'Pentagon Prioritizes Pursuit Of Alternative Fuel Sources.' With the military-industrial complex at our back, we can't fail!

* St. Augustine vs. the pirates.

In the "City of God," St. Augustine tells the story of a pirate captured by Alexander the Great. The Emperor angrily demanded of him, "How dare you molest the seas?" To which the pirate replied, "How dare you molest the whole world? Because I do it with a small boat, I am called a pirate and a thief. You, with a great navy, molest the world and are called an emperor." St. Augustine thought the pirate's answer was "elegant and excellent."

* The mutants walk among us: 'Woman has developed an imaginary, but useful, third arm.'

* New fiction on the way from the late, great Kurt Vonnegut.

* 7 (Crazy) Civilian Uses for Nuclear Bombs. What could possibly go wrong?

* Can poetry save the Earth?

Voinovich's announcement comes just a few days after Missouri's Kit Bond (R) announced his retirement. The Republican Party no doubt hoped to keep retirements to a minimum in order to conserve campaign resources and maximize likely victories. And yet, in addition to Voinovich and Bond, Mel Martinez (Florida) and Sam Brownback (Kansas) are also not seeking re-election, and Kay Bailey Hutchison (Texas) is planning a gubernatorial campaign that will create a fifth Republican open-seat contest.

What's more, with three more Republican incumbents likely to face major challenges next year -- Burr in North Carolina, Gregg in New Hampshire, Specter in Pennsylvania -- these announcements make the 2010 cycle that much more difficult for the GOP. (A topic we've discussed once or twice before.)

Steve Benen covers the Republican exodus: five GOP Senators up for reelection in 2010 have already announced their retirement, making any sort of GOP comeback that year significantly more difficult. The question more people should be asking is why so many. Is it that being in the minority just isn't as much fun? that they expect the GOP to fall on increasingly hard times? that they think they'll lose a reelection bid anyway? Are these outgoing Senators so shamed by their conscienceless support of the Bush administration that they're nobly falling on their swords? Why so many?

If the 2010 Senate election were held today, Democratic Attorney General Roy Cooper would handily beat Republican Richard Burr. Via Triangulator.

The list of Senators whose terms expire in 2010 shows a strong playing field for Democrats to try and build on their gains in 2006 and 2008. Three in a row?

Al Franken is now just 236 votes down in Minnesota, pre-recount. If he takes the lead pre-recount, will Coleman do the right thing and waive the recount for the good of the "healing process"? Stay tuned.

Meanwhile, the Triangulator is looking forward to 2010, where North Carolina's other terrible Senator, Richard Burr, faces reelection with a 27% approval rating. BlueNC likes North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper as the challenger.