Late Lunch Links

You might remember the post I did a while back about oddsmakers making book on the 2012 Presidential election. In the six weeks since, the betting line has moved. President Obama is — surprisingly — even more of a favorite to win than he was in July, being offered at -140 now.

Even more surprising, to me at least: Sarah Palin is no longer the favorite among Republicans. Mitt Romney has rocketed past her and is now being offered at +650 compared to Palin at +900.

Oddsmakers underestimate the impact of Romney’s Mormonism among conservative voters, I think. Especially when evangelicals like Richard Land can show up at Beck’s rally and still pitch bigoted nonsense about Mormons not being Christians.

Dr. LAND: And look, Glenn knows this. He said, look, I’m a Mormon. Most Christians don’t think that I’m a Christian. And so, you know, I’ll quote the pope, when he’s talking about liberation theology.

I do not think Mormonism is an orthodox Christian faith, with a small O. I think perhaps the most charitable way for an evangelical Christian to look at Mormonism is to look at Mormonism as the fourth Abrahamic faith.

SIEGEL: Not a Christian faith.

Dr. LAND: Not a Christian faith.

Need your passport renewed? Why not go for an Antarctica World Passport? I hear they don’t have Glenn Beck in Antarctica.

If someone tells you that “no one could have predicted” the devastatingly misguided nature of the Iraq war, send them this. People that were marginalized as peaceniks and non-serious at the time have been proved right again and again — but their point of view is remarkably still marginalized.

Even Bjorn Lomborg, who has written the second-worst “mainstream” book ever penned about the environment, now believes global warming is “one of the chief concerns facing the world today.” This debate’s been over for a long time to anyone paying attention.

Incidentally, the worst “mainstream” book ever penned about the environment is Gregg Easterbrook’s “A Moment on the Earth,” which is so aggressively ill-reasoned I thought it was satirical at first.