1. Political debates, polls and all that jazz
Last week, an event referred to as a "Presidential Debate" took place. As a former high school debater in the UK, I can tell you that I have not seen any event of this type that was a real debate ever. I watched US Presidential debates from 1980 up to and including 2004, and not one of those was anything like a debate. Frankly, if any of those candidates (with the possible exception of John Anderson) had tried to debate like that in front of us in high school, the debate moderator would have ripped them a new one and told them to STFU and start, you know, debating properly.
I passed on watching this week's debate because a talking points Punch and Judy show is not my idea of fun. However, it was difficult to avoid the post-debate agonizing. Predictably, each side of the political spectrum whined about How Awful The Other Guy Was and furiously spun Their Guy as either the winner or at least holding his own (whatever that means).
A lot of hot air was expended post-debate on how the debate had influenced the chances of either candidate being elected POTUS. Most of the hot air was just that, because it is disconnected from any discussion of credible information sources. Both sides quote their favorite polls or pollsters, and denigrate or dismiss other sources of information while providing no arguments. The media, as usual, retreated into the "horse race" framing and narrative, otherwise known as The View From Nowhere.
Fortunately we have access to a website that, like some of the polling companies, actually has a track record of being close to fully correct when predicting the results of US elections. InTrade, where people can wager on who will win electoral contests, was remarkably close to accurate when predicting the 2008 Presidential Election results. Currently InTrade shows Obama ahead of Romney; he is shown as having a 63.6% chance of winning at present. This is s drop from 73% last week, which shows that Romney scored a significant post-debate bounce.

2. Confronting junk science - recent developments in the UK
In the UK a junk science magazine is being distributed quite freely in news and other stores, and there seems to be limited pushback concerning its contents. Ken from Popehat has a thoughtful analysis of the good bad and potentially ugly in this situation. Part of the problem is that current UK libel laws give much more power and leeway to potential plaintiffs.

3. Useless predictions #2 - Christian doomsayers from 2008 and a Letter from God in response
Ever since I was old enough to follow politics in the UK, I have ended up wearily listening to Dire Predictions from regressives about societal or political change. Shopping on Sundays, declining church attendance, homosexuality etc. etc. - there is always a long laundry list of Terrible Developments that regressives think are Very Bad Things That Will End Civilization As We Know It.
My own personal observation is that here we are 40 years later, most of those Terrible Developments have taken place, and civilization as we know it still seems to exist, despite some people's dystopian fanstasies.
In the US, regressive Christian groups have led the way (along with conspiracy theory wackaloons) in forecasting The Impending End Of Civilization. When Barack Obama was first elected POTUS, Focus On The Family, one of the more aggressive groups of censorious Christian nitwits, issued a prediction letter. In it they forecast all manner of Terrible Things that would happen in the first Obama term as POTUS. Rather predictably, almost none of them actually came true. The track record of Focus On The Family may even be worse than the track records of mainstream media talking heads and pundits.
Steve Dutch took a different tack when responding to the doom-laden later, writing a "God Replies" response.
The bottom line is that just about every doom-laden prediction for what will happen in the future by people who are scared of change never comes true. Back in 2000 I read similar predictions when George W. Bush was confirmed as POTUS, and most of the predictions at the time never came true (including the one that he would somehow abolish the 2008 Election and stay in office for ever). This is especially true in 2012, where the internet has become a locus for just about every wackadoodle conspiracy theory known to man (and then some). If I believe a fraction of what is out there, then the Illuminati control the entire world economy, Barack Obama is a mooslem Marxist Socialist alien, the Moon landings were faked, the US government blew up the Twin Towers...all vaccines are a conspiracy by Big Pharma...I get an acute migraine after a few minutes of wading through this crap.

4. Recent eviscerations from Stonekettle Station
Jim over at Stonekettle has been writing his usual biting and acerbic dismantlements of utter idiocy. Here and Here are two posts originally written in 2008 which he recently updated. The phenomenon that he writes about in both of these commentaries is a constant in modern American political discourse.

5. A Member of the House Science Committee believes...WHAT?
In which Rep. Paul Broun (R-Ga) admits that he is a Young Earth Creationist, among his other Christian-derived beliefs. I am not sure which is more worrying - the fact that an elected representative with no understanding of or respect for science-based explanations of the world is actually on the House Science Committee, or the fact that he is unopposed in his bid for re-election in 2012. Where the hell is an organized opposition to his nonsensical twitterings in Georgia? Fortunately, Bill Nye has waded into Rep. Broun's utterances.