Although born and raised in a small town in the Finger Lakes region of New York, I'm the hybrid child of an upstate New York father and a mother from Texas -- they met at Fort Hood (then Camp Hood) during World War II. And you thought different species couldn't mate.

Oliver Willis brings word of yet another panel of scientists announcing that there is no link whatsoever between the M.M.R. vaccine and autism. “The M.M.R. vaccine doesn’t cause autism, and the evidence is overwhelming that it doesn’t,” said Dr. Ellen Wright Clayton, who knows what she's talking about despite not being a celebrity.

"Joe the Plumber," a man named Sam who is not a plumber, may run for Congress. Joe, a briefly famous desperate attempt by the John McCain campaign to paint Barack Obama as an enemy of the working man, is mulling a run against Rep. Marcy Kaptur, D-Ohio, who's been in the House since 1983. Joe told Yahoo's "The Ticket" his thoughts on the potential campaign:

Labor Day is traditionally a time for picnics and parades. But this year is no picnic for American workers, and a protest march would be more appropriate than a parade.

There's a reason why George Pataki seems to be moving toward a presidential campaign, but "because Republicans want him to" is not it.

Unlike at this point in the presidential election cycle in 2007 (when we were looking at a Fred Thompson versus Hillary Clinton campaign), we basically know who the contenders will be next year. Barack Obama versus Mitt Romney or Rick Perry. Like this point in the last election season, though, we know what states it'll come down to: the "Swing States," roughly Florida, Ohio, Virginia, Colorado, North Carolina and Wisconsin. And maybe Nevada. And Pennsylvania and Iowa. But mainly the first list.

Should President Obama get credit for the imminent fall of the Moammar Gadhafi regime in Libya? Or should President’s George W. Bush’s neoconservative foreign policy be credited? True to form, Washington has boiled the complex issues surrounding the Libya intervention down to a simplistic question. But it’s a false choice. More than anything, Libya -- and the Arab Spring as a whole -- is showing the limited influence of the United States when compared to the power of the people in the region when they take charge of their own destiny.

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Having recently written that many Republicans yearn for a tough-guy presidential candidate because they yearn to punish somebody, I knew what to expect: a barrage of insulting emails from anonymous tough guys yearning to punish me personally.

Apple Inc. says Steve Jobs resigning as CEO, effective immediately.

Politico recently switched the commenting system on its blogs to one requiring a Facebook account, in order to encourage more polite discussion and discourage trolling and racism. Thankfully for fans of awful comments, they did not make the switch on the articles, a completely meaningless distinction in 2011 but one that allows us to sample the responses of the Politico commentariat to this story, about Barack Obama hanging a famous painting in the White House. The painting is Norman Rockwell's "The Problem We All Live With," and it depicts "U.S. marshals escorting Ruby Bridges, a 6-year-old African-American girl, into a New Orleans elementary school in 1960 as court-ordered integration met with an angry and defiant response from the white community."

Three weeks ago, a black candidate earned enough votes to advance to the run-off for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination in Mississippi -- the first time in the state's history this had ever happened in either party. And on Tuesday night, that candidate, Johnny DuPree, won the run-off, defeating a white businessman by 10 points, another historic first.

Erick Erickson is a popular and influential Republican blogger because his name is fun to write and say. At least I think that's why he's popular and influential. It certainly isn't because he's a deep thinker or brilliant strategist or compelling writer or independent voice. He masquerades as the last one, but Ben Smith today brings word of Erickson aiding a consummate hack establishment Republican politician because Erickson's bosses are regulars on the dreaded cocktail party circuit.

[UPDATED BELOW]

Wikileaks released several new tranches of State Department diplomatic cables today, primarily covering Middle Eastern countries.

A compelling question from the Atlantic's Conor Friedersdorf: What would be the "worst-case scenario" of a Ron Paul presidency?

SAN JOSE -- Right-wing radio host Rush Limbaugh once vowed to flee to Costa Rica if President Barack Obama's health care reforms took effect.

It has been a week since Congresswoman Michele Bachmann told the country that she would bring gasoline prices down to under $2 per gallon if she were president. The reaction has run from "Wow! Can she really do that?" to "There is no way a president can determine the cost of gasoline." Candidate Bachmann has been pilloried by the left for her hubris, grandiosity, cynical political posturing and failure to grasp the realities of a world petroleum market.

This afternoon's earthquake had barely stopped before the online jokes started.

The safe bet remains that Sarah Palin is simply engaged in a long and tiresome tease. Every few weeks comes some new sign of her supposedly imminent entry into the GOP presidential race, but nothing ever seems to happen.