DEAD HEAT: Obama 49, McCain 48.

ANN ALTHOUSE: “The insane obsession with Sarah Palin’s pregnancy rages on. This will all go down in the annals of feminism, people. So think before you write.”

NOEMIE EMERY: What Gustav does.

IT’S AN UN-CONVENTIONAL CONVENTION. What will I talk about tomorrow? I guess lots of folks are asking the same. At least it’s not the same-old same-old.

ROGER SIMON: The social issues are not the same.

THE NEWS ON GUSTAV IS LOOKING BETTER: Brendan Loy is keeping track.

RASMUSSEN: Bounce Disappears.

JEEZ.

THE WASHINGTON POST REPORTS that the Palin Pick was in the works for a while. Ed Morrissey has some thoughts.

NEW WAYS TO sift data.

SO IS THIS GOOD NEWS OR BAD NEWS FOR THE MCCAIN CAMPAIGN? Camille Paglia hearts Palin:

“We may be seeing the first woman president. As a Democrat, I am reeling,” said Camille Paglia, the cultural critic. “That was the best political speech I have ever seen delivered by an American woman politician. Palin is as tough as nails.”

I’m scoring it as good, but with an asterisk. . . .

SCIENCE THAT SATISFIES: Exploring the reaction of Diet Coke and Mentos in zero gravity. With video. (Via Slashdot).

POLITICAL INTELLIGENCE, THE WIKIPEDIA WAY: “If you’d been watching Wikipedia you might have gotten an advance tipoff of Friday’s announcement that McCain was selecting Sarah Palin. ‘At approximately 5 p.m. ET (Thursday), the company’s analysts noticed a spike in the editing traffic to Palin’s Wiki page, and that some of the same Wiki users appeared to be making changes to McCain’s page.'” So the smart thing to do would have been to make some edits to Romney and Pawlenty, too . . .

I’M HERE, and it didn’t take me quite as long to get through security as it took to fly from Knoxville, but it felt like it took longer. I’m at the Pajamas TV booth, overlooking the Xcel Center where the convention will take place. They’re still setting up and testing equipment, while everybody wonders what’s going to happen in response to Gustav.

ED DRISCOLL: The Macaca Boomerang.

HABITATS FOR HUMANITY: “‘Design for extreme environments’ sounds like a new cable show, but it’s actually a class at RISD that focuses on building habitats for truly challenging locations—like the moon. Last fall, NASA asked the students to design a mobile dwelling for its next manned mission to the moon, scheduled for 2020.”

CHARLES CRAWFORD on Kosovo and Georgia.

MYTHBUSTERS’ ADAM SAVAGE on 3 ways to fix science education.

IN THE MAIL: Jim Sciutto’s Against Us: The New Face of America’s Enemies in the Muslim World.

HURRICANE BLOGGING from the New Orleans Airport.

THANKS TO THE MIRACLE OF SCHEDULED POSTING, new stuff will keep popping up today. But I’m en route to Minnesota where I’ll be a TV pundit for Pajamas TV. It should be fun. I’ve never been to a political convention, and never planned to go to one, but how often do you get to be a TV talking-head at a national political convention? And I think this Internet TV thing has a future, so it’s fun to see it at the beginning. [Are they paying you to do this? — ed. As much as I get paid for any of the TV appearances I do! Which means, er, no.]

INSTA-POLL: In light of Hurricane Gustav.

KEEP CHECKING BRENDAN LOY for more information on Gustav. And you can get video streams from New Orleans here.

POLITICIANS BEWARE: “High Definition spares no one.”

UPDATE: Advantage — women? “Thanks for the technology, guys. We will now use it to rule the world.”

I’M NOT SURE THIS IS SUCH A GOOD IDEA, but Mark O’Malley emails that he’s staying in New Orleans and blogging Gustav. Really, Mark, I’d rather you didn’t. . . .