Friday night infodump of all the links I want to keep out of the papers.

* SciFiWire says the new Prisoner disappoints.
* Salon says it's time to bring back Marx. He went somewhere?
* NASA says that explosion last month turned up quite a bit of water on the Moon.
* Jermaine Clement says Flight of the Conchords was almost completely different—but it seems clear to me he's joking.
* And the RNC says it's not subsidizing abortions—anymore.

The headline reads, "NASA to Bomb the Moon."

Junk we left on the Moon. (via Gynomite)

io9 has caught space-elevator fever—and there's only one cure.

Thursday night!

* President Edwards prepares to resign the presidency tonight after admitting he had lied about the fathering of Rielle Hunter's baby during the third debate with John McCain. Vice President Barack Obama is expected to assume the presidency tomorrow morning.

* Paul Krugman, legendary futurist?

* Luck, math, and how to win at gambling.

* What's hot: potbellies!

* Multitask: the game. Note: you will hate this game.

* On the cinematography of Mad Men. Nice video to get you ready for the third season.

* Behold, NASA's secret plan to move the Earth.

Hence the group’s decision to try to save Earth. ‘All you have to do is strap a chemical rocket to an asteroid or comet and fire it at just the right time,’ added Laughlin. ‘It is basic rocket science.’

The plan has one or two worrying aspects, however. For a start, space engineers would have to be very careful about how they directed their asteroid or comet towards Earth. The slightest miscalculation in orbit could fire it straight at Earth – with devastating consequences.

What could possibly go wrong? (Not a hoax. Via Occasional Fish.)

* Behold, the banned Family Guy episode.

* Nerdivore points out District 9 is getting great reviews.

* GLAAD flunks SyFy.

* And a physicist at Slate says The Time Traveler's Wife checks out.

The LRB blog highlights the little-known second sentence spoken on the Moon, as well as the last, while 3 Quarks Daily remembers the Apollo 11 Plan B.

In hindsight, the answer is obvious. NASA had neglected to recruit a corps of philosophers.

All is quiet on New Year's Day.

* As the Bush administration blessedly draws to a close, it's important to remember the casualties of the War of Terror, people like Alberto Gonzales. (via)

* More people get their news from the Internet than from newspapers. More importantly:

The percentage of people younger than 30 citing television as a main news source has declined from 68% in September 2007 to 59% currently.

That's good, good news.

* Howard Dean, Vermonter of the Year. Maybe next year, Ben and Jerry.

* Batman casting rumors you can believe in: Philip Seymour Hoffman as the Penguin.

* It's the future, and Microsoft still sucks.

* Top 10 space stories of 2008. A different 10.

* Top 10 cryptozoology stories of 2008.

* James Howard Kunstler's predictions for 2009. Prediction: Pain. Via MetaFilter.

* Thank god for philosophy grad students, the only graduate demographic upon Lit students can look down.

The Big Picture has your daily dose of space shuttle porn. In 2009 I'm going to switch things up and link to The Big Picture only when it isn't completely great.

Sunday.

* Uncool: A U.N. resolution on the right to food passed 180-1. Via Lenin's Tomb.

* Lots of links floating around to this revisionist interpretation of It's a Wonderful Life:

“It’s a Wonderful Life” is a terrifying, asphyxiating story about growing up and relinquishing your dreams, of seeing your father driven to the grave before his time, of living among bitter, small-minded people. It is a story of being trapped, of compromising, of watching others move ahead and away, of becoming so filled with rage that you verbally abuse your children, their teacher and your oppressively perfect wife. It is also a nightmare account of an endless home renovation.

... Take the extended sequence in which George Bailey (James Stewart), having repeatedly tried and failed to escape Bedford Falls, N.Y., sees what it would be like had he never been born. The bucolic small town is replaced by a smoky, nightclub-filled, boogie-woogie-driven haven for showgirls and gamblers, who spill raucously out into the crowded sidewalks on Christmas Eve. It’s been renamed Pottersville, after the villainous Mr. Potter, Lionel Barrymore’s scheming financier.

Here’s the thing about Pottersville that struck me when I was 15: It looks like much more fun than stultifying Bedford Falls — the women are hot, the music swings, and the fun times go on all night. If anything, Pottersville captures just the type of excitement George had long been seeking.

* Will Obama gut NASA? Nice followup to last week's discussion on Poli-Sci-Fi Radio.

* On the plus side, Obama pledges allegiance to science.

* Ultimately, these disputes can't really be resolved until Obama is in office. Only then will we know whether Obama's embrace of every establishment and even right-wing figure he can find is a reflection of what the substance of his governing will be, or whether -- as many of his supporters claim -- it's a master strategy designed to diffuse tension and hostility in order to enable easier enactment of his progressive agenda. If Obama devotes genuine efforts to repealing DOMA and don't-ask-don't-tell, I doubt anyone will care how many times he hugs Rick Warren -- just as if Obama really closes Guantanamo, withdraws from Iraq and forges a diplomatic peace with Iran, few people will care how much he embraces Joe Lieberman -- though obviously those are very, very large "ifs." Only time will tell. Via Open Left.

* Arctic melt 20 years ahead of climate models. Response to global warming 20 years behind rational policy-making.

* Hadley Center study warns of “catastrophic” 5°C warming by 2100 on current emissions path. Did I mention we're screwed?

Space News!

* 'Moon could hold water for lunar base.'

* 'New Mexico's Spaceport America is two steps closer to becoming a reality and not just a dream.'

* 'Report urges timetable for human mission to Mars.'

(via Mac)

Last week I mentioned Japan's renewed interest in the construction of a space elevator, so I'd be remiss to skip this CNN article on NASA's own plans to try and build one. The artist's conception, at least, is lovely. Via The House Next Door.

In the Guardian, John Gray takes the Wall Street crisis alongside the first Chinese spacewalk as a watershed moment: the end of American hegemony. I'd say that's still a bit premature—for one, the turnover of administration will restore at least some of America's luster internationally and reorient our still-immense wealth towards more productive ends, and second the sheer interconnectivity of the global economy means that our financial crisis threatens to take everybody else down with us—but we're certainly moving towards a truly multipolar world, with all the good and bad that will bring.

And we're moving there faster and faster: the Japanese are working on a space elevator, while the Chinese say they can complete an "impossible" Emdrive for use in space. This puts Obama's support for NASA in particular (and science research in general) in context—this stuff really does matter.

Evening links.

* McCain is still hinting that he won't show up at the debate tomorrow. (This campaign has become so insane, I can hardly stand it. What the hell is this? Are they really serious?) What we're seeing now is exactly the consequence of Obama's warning not to inject presidential politics into delicate legislative negotiations—McCain's fake campaign suspension has done nothing but derail the process.

* He's not too busy to be on the teevee, of course.

* And of course this is all Obama's fault for not agreeing to the town halls. John, I'm begging you, just shut up.

* Barbara Boxer doesn't hold back in her anger over what's happening.

* Sarah Silverman makes her bid to save America with the Great Schelp.

* Al Gore blows my mind with a call for civil disobedience against the building of additional coal plants.

“If you’re a young person looking at the future of this planet and looking at what is being done right now, and not done, I believe we have reached the stage where it is time for civil disobedience to prevent the construction of new coal plants that do not have carbon capture and sequestration,” he said at the third annual meeting of former President Bill Clinton’s initiative, which arranges partnerships between the very rich and the very needy.

* And here's why: Global carbon emissions jumped 3% in 2007.

* On a more optimistic note, Obama supports NASA.

* Obama and Biden will be coming to Greensboro on the *only day for the next month I'll be out of North Carolina*. Damn you, Obama! There's a reason for this visit: North Carolina looks to be right on the brink of flipping. More at Facing South in two parts.

Completely unserious links.

* Ask yourself: What would Don Draper do? What would Joan Holloway do?

* Take the Zombie Survival Quiz. I got a Z+.

* Behold the Hand Drawn Map Association.

* Three's a trend: Is The Dark Knight cursed?

* Two good posts from Cosmic Variance: Obama backing off of plans to cut NASA’s budget and what will the Large Hadron Collider find?

* And is Michael Cera the greatest comic mind of this generation, "the Bob Newhart of the 21st century"? You know where I stand on this.

Celebrate NASA's 50th the right way with this huge archive of space-program photographs at Project Apollo Archive. Via Cynical-C.

Random midday politics links.

* From kottke I find out NASA is fifty years old today.

* The Environmental Protection Agency is warning its pollution enforcement officials not to talk directly to congressional investigators, reporters and even the agency's own inspector general, according to an internal e-mail provided to The Associated Press. Just another day in George Bush's America, 174 more days to go.

* And the presidential race is still close here in North Carolina:

The new numbers from Public Policy Polling (D): McCain 47%, Obama 44%, and Barr 3%, with a ±3.4% margin of error. Four weeks ago, it was McCain 45%, Obama 41%, and Barr 5%.

The Big Picture knows what works: they have another NASA post up, this time of Jupiter and its moons.

Edgar Mitchell, the sixth man on the moon, says the aliens are real. Via Boing Boing.

Exactly 20 years after warning America about global warming, a top NASA scientist said the situation has gotten so bad that the world's only hope is drastic action.

Burning fossil fuels like coal is the chief cause of man-made greenhouse gases. Hansen said the Earth's atmosphere has got to get back to a level of 350 parts of carbon dioxide per million. Last month, it was 10% higher: 386.7 parts per million.

Hansen said he'll testify on behalf of British protesters against new coal-fired power plants. Protesters have chained themselves to gates and equipment at sites of several proposed coal plants in England.

"The thing that I think is most important is to block coal-fired power plants," Hansen told the luncheon. "I'm not yet at the point of chaining myself but we somehow have to draw attention to this."

Frank Maisano, a spokesman for many U.S. utilities, including those trying to build new coal plants, said while Hansen has shown foresight as a scientist, his "stop them all approach is very simplistic" and shows that he is beyond his level of expertise.

The year of Hansen's original testimony was the world's hottest year on record. Since then, 14 years have been hotter, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Two decades later, Hansen spent his time on the question of whether it's too late to do anything about it. His answer: There's still time to stop the worst, but not much time.

"We see a tipping point occurring right before our eyes," Hansen told the AP before the luncheon. "The Arctic is the first tipping point and it's occurring exactly the way we said it would."

Hansen, echoing work by other scientists, said that in five to 10 years, the Arctic will be free of sea ice in the summer.

In more positive news, Honda is releasing a hydrogen-fuel-cell vehicle, while wind power is outpacing nuclear power 10-to-1, with China leading the pack.