HOT AIR: “According to a report from Ohio today, a member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee has asked the ACORN-tainted Ohio Secretary of State, Jennifer Brunner, to investigation ACORN’s voter registration work in the state.” Hot Air does lots of dot-connecting.

THE 2009 GEEK PARENT GIFT GUIDE.

KIM ZIGFELD: Putin Murders Another Lawyer.

ANDREW BREITBART:

In response to the Columbia Journalism Review’s accusing me of “blackmailing” the Attorney General of the United States, I must take notice that the mainstream media as a journalistic establishment IS paying attention to the ongoing ACORN scandal. Good. I thought so.

What the Columbia Journalism Review is doing is very similar to what Media Matters is doing: protecting the Democrat-Media Complex, the natural alliance of the Democratic Party and the mainstream media. This ACORN investigation has been going on for two months and Hannah, James, and I have proven to be truth-tellers every step of the way, while the Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now has been proven time and again to be liars.

And CJR has become harder and harder to distinguish from The Nation. Except that The Nation will, occasionally, take on the establishment.

IF YOU MISSED IT ON XM/SIRIUS RADIO, the new PJM Political is now online.

PROTESTING OBAMACARE in St. Louis.

GADGETS THAT I LIKE: We’ve had the universal package opener for quite a while now, and while it’s not perfect, it’s close. It lives in the kitchen drawer and gets used all the time.

Another one that we’ve had for a while is this light bulb changer, which makes changing bulbs in high fixtures a lot easier. Every couple of years I have to get a new one as the suction-cup rubber hardens with age, but it’s worth it.

Unfortunately, bulbs in the chandelier in the foyer go in upside-down, so you can’t use this for that. I keep thinking of getting a winch installed to lower it, but that would probably be prohibitively expensive. Though kind of cool.

UPDATE: A couple of readers recommend the Giraffe system. Not as cool as a motorized winch, but . . . .

GLENN BECK OFFERS a 100 year plan.

OH, GOODY: Drug-resistant swine flu.

SOMETHING NEW: The Insta-Wife interviews Jessica Custer of the Network Of Enlightened Women.

JOHN LOUDON: Congress, we don’t trust you with health care at all.

THEY’RE RALLYING AGAINST OBAMACARE AT THE L.A. FEDERAL BUILDING this afternoon. Reader Lowell Brown sends this pic.

JOHN HINDERAKER HAS MORE on that global warming data-fudging scandal. Making a fool of Andrew Revkin?

CHEVY VOLT UPDATE: Still needs some refinement.

BITES FROM THE APPLE: A roundup of news from the Apple empire. Including more iTablet talk. . . .

A STIMULUS CONSENSUS?

How do economists reach consensus? Do they confer and corroborate like climate scientists? Or is the consensus achieved through a newspaper editorial process of strategically collecting quotes and designating the speakers as “dispassionate”? Or is it more a matter of slapping a headline on an article that doesn’t make a convincing case for consensus at all?

I’m guessing it’s that last.

RATING CARS BASED ON “cost to own” instead of MPG.

SINCE SOMEBODY ASKED, here’s my recipe for Thanksgiving leg of lamb.

That’s me taking it off the grill last year. (Hey, image-recycling is all the rage these days.) Note that I had already carved off a slice to “test” it. Test passed!

Hope it turns out as well this year.

BOB OWENS: The unrequited dream of smart guns. “They look wonderful in theory but fail miserably in practice.”

FROM 1952: POPULAR MECHANICS looks at Robert Heinlein’s new house. (Via reader Robert Racansky, who saw it at Jerry Pournelle’s.).

HEAVY BREATHING at a nuclear weapons plant.

A SUMMARY OF THOSE LEAKED GLOBAL-WARMING DOCUMENTS. (Via Volokh).

IN THE MAIL: From Gary Hull, Muhammad: The “Banned” Images. Containing the pictures that Yale was afraid to print, plus a ringing statement in favor of free speech.

SHOCKING NEWS: Report: ACORN Mismanaged Grant Money.

COST CONTAINMENT: “We’ll save even more money if we just get these women who are bitching about pain to hold their boyfriend’s hand or look at a picture of their kid. . . . And those silly Pap tests that had us thinking we needed a pelvic exam every year?The official word has come that you don’t need that testing so early or so often.”

Plus this: “Although women tend to love the notion of government control more than men do, it is women who will be told they’ll have to cut back. On treatments. And years. You know we’ve been taking more than our share.”

UPDATE: A reader emails:

My ex wife has spent her life in health care, and is now involved with clinical trials in cancer research. I asked her what she thought about the new guidelines on mammograms and Pap smears. She said, “Well, if they die sooner, I suppose that will save a lot of money in the long run.” She also commented on how many women they see in their 30s and 40s who have breast cancer.

They do seem to be turning on a dime regarding the early screening and detection stuff, don’t they?

UPDATE: Reader Jon Barlow, an orthopedic surgeon, writes:

Evidence that we are overscreening has been documented in the literature in various manners for the past 10 years or so. One excellent example is breast self exams for women. Evidence has shown in a fairly reproducible manner that breast self exams do not improve mortality, but do lead to unnecessary procedures (for cystic change, etc). In any system, we should do what is right for patients. I don’t know the literature on mammography, but we need to ensure that we are doing what is right for the majority of people. That’s the rationale behind evidence based medicine. To cite that one knows “many women in their 30s” with breast cancer doesn’t imply that we should all get mammograms at 30. I am as vehemently opposed to the current health care reform as you are….we just need to be certain that we continue to use facts as our basis rather than feelings.

Well, it’s true that there’s a genuine dispute over the value of early screening. But it’s also true that the turnabout on this seems to be happening quite suddenly. And that timing gives rise to a worry that the shift, perhaps just from one plausible approach to a different plausible approach, is taking place now because of politics. Perhaps that’s harmless — they’re both plausible approaches, right? — but it’s still troubling.

It’s also true, as Ann Althouse points out above, that any politically inspired limits on health care will affect women more, because women are considerably bigger consumers of health care services. That’s something we’d be hearing a lot about, if the usual suspects weren’t lined up firmly behind ObamaCare.

MORE: Reader Tim Johnson writes:

I’m a fourth year med student going into Ophthalmology (eyes). The medical community seems to have known for a while that breast self-exams weren’t effective. But as recently as Breast Cancer Month last month, we were telling women to self exam monthly. The real reason for the seeming quick turnaround is where the debate occurred. Like I said, while the medical community has debated this for a while, we continued to tell women to keep self-examining as if nothing had changed. I think this episode really offers lessons for future controversies and guidelines. As new data debunk prior assumptions, slow transitions in the lay community should reflect those in the medical community, so as to avoid the whiplash we’re seeing now.

When experts try to present a united front to the public despite doubts within the profession, it usually produces less, not more, credibility in the end.

ENTREPRENEURS go on strike? (Via Michelle Moore)

MICHAEL TOTTEN: A Third Lebanon War Could Be Much Worse Than The Second.

TOM MAGUIRE: “Work with me here – suppose we get a conviction on some terrorist who then discovers that his former defense attorney has been active on his case at the DoJ. Why wouldn’t that be grounds for a mistrial? If attorney-client privilege is an issue at all, it is an issue for the defendants, who have the right to assurance that their former defenders are not now aiding in the prosecution.”

UPDATE: Bush-era Justice Department alumni Jim Comey and Jack Goldsmith defend Holder’s decision. “Mohammed is many things: an enemy combatant in a war against the United States whom the government can detain without trial until the conflict ends; a war criminal subject to trial by military commission under the laws of war; and someone answerable in federal court for violations of the U.S. criminal code. Which system he is placed in for purposes of incapacitation and justice involves complex legal and political trade-offs.”

JAMES TARANTO: Failure Is Not An Option: Obama and Holder’s Assault On Due Process. “Obama’s and Holder’s assurances that KSM will be convicted (and, according to the president, “put to death”) make a mockery of due process. Nothing is more fundamental to America’s criminal justice system than the presumption of innocence, and if terrorist detainees are to be treated as criminal defendants, they are entitled to that presumption. For the sake of political expediency, Obama and Holder are refusing even to make a pretense of respect for due process. If KSM & Co. are convicted and put to death, America’s critics and enemies will point to Obama and Holder’s assurances in arguing that the defendants were subjected to sham justice. Nice work restoring America’s moral standing, Mr. President.”

“BOMBSHELL:” John Hinderaker has been reading those leaked global warming documents. “What they reveal, more than anything, is a bunker mentality. . . . They also suggest that pro-global warming scientists fudge data to get the results they are looking for.”

GPS UPDATE: Reader Frank Brown writes, “Please give an update on your new Garmin GPS. How is it?”

Still fine. (Most impressively, it’s stayed suction-cupped to the windshield the whole time without coming loose once. The old one would barely stay up an hour.) The “traffic” feature works fairly well, though driving home yesterday I noticed that the Interstate was backed up (luckily on the other side) and it didn’t show up on the traffic display. I’m not sure how they gather information or update it, but in general it’s been pretty good.

For those who missed it, I got the Garmin 1390t.

WHAT SHOULD YOU DRINK ON THANKSGIVING? Glorious American Cabernets.

FIRST CHINA, NOW THIS: Germany warns US on market bubbles.

WILL JOHN MCCAIN need Sarah Palin to save him in Arizona? J.D. Hayworth is polling well against him, and would likely enjoy Tea Party support in the primary . . .

SPOILED RICH KIDS?

First and foremost, the protests are about privileged kids demanding subsidies from working people. The UC system will continue to be heavily subsidized by taxpayers, and the students who attend are among the most naturally gifted, with the highest future earning potential, in the country. This is especially true at the system’s flagship schools of Berkeley and UCLA, where the protests have been most intense. Narcissism and self-absorption are the norm on college campuses, but it really is pushing the limits to throw such a tantrum at the idea that you will be getting a smaller amount of free money taken out of the paychecks of strapped taxpayers, most of whom could never dream of the advantages and opportunities you enjoy.

Read the whole thing.

IPHONE OWNERS demand to see Apple source code.

ANOTHER FAKE CANDIDACY FOR A FAKE DISTRICT: Dodd Harris emails: “I announced my candidacy for Kentucky’s new 00th (Zero-Zeroth or Aught-Aughth?) a couple of days ago on Facebook. I live in KY-03, but it seems pretty obvious there’s no residency requirement.”

STILL MORE ON “CLIMATEGATE,” FROM Charles Martin and Richard Fernandez.

NOBODY TELL ANDREW SULLIVAN: The Sarah Palin’s Uterus Blog.

AT AMAZON, it’s the Friday Sale.

GEORGE LOPEZ, JOY BEHAR: Stay-at-home dads are “bums.” Ah, the progressive Obama era . . . .

“CLIMATEGATE?” Well, stay tuned and we’ll see. It does look bad, though.

And it’s made The New York Times: Hacked E-Mails Fuel Climate Change Skeptics. “Hundreds of private e-mails and documents hacked from a computer server at a British university are causing a stir among global warming skeptics, who say they show that climate scientists conspired to overstate the case for a human influence on climate change.”

TALKING ABOUT TIM GEITHNER’S FUTURE, OR LACK THEREOF, over at The Hill.

THE GREG CRAIG “Debacle?”

BIG GOVERNMENT: Whistleblower Video Reveals SEIU Ballot Fraud.

TOM BLUMER: Big, Bigger, Biggest: Three Examples of Government-Induced Failure.

CAMERA TECHNOLOGY IS NICE but you still need talent. Dang. Can’t I just get an app for that?

CLIMATE RESEARCH DATA UNIT HACKED, embarrassing data leak out.

UPDATE: Tim Blair: “If true . . . the phrase ‘hide the decline’ may mark something of a turning point.”

A LITTLE ANXIETY MAY BE GOOD FOR YOU.

FOR THE FIRST TIME, Obama drops below 50% on Gallup.

CANDIDATE ENTERS RACE FOR NEW HAMPSHIRE’S FICTIONAL 00TH DISTRICT: “Even a fake district needs real leadership.” Heh. Press conference video at the link.

CAR LUST: Remembering the 1968-1974 Chevy Nova. I had a ‘76 Nova when I practiced law in Washington; it was a hand-me-down from my grandparents. Living in DuPont Circle and walking to work, I didn’t need a car much, but it was nice to have something, and my apartment came with underground parking. The Nova was reliable, and held a lot of people, groceries, or Ikea furniture. It didn’t impress women who thought that a lawyer at a big-name firm should be driving something fancier, but for the most part I regarded that as a feature, not a bug.

SO IF YOU’RE IN L.A. TONIGHT, you can go see The Smart Set at the Hotel Cafe in Hollywood. I interviewed Rick Torres and Brandi Emma of The Smart Set here.

POPULAR SCIENCE: So Do Prosthetic Limbs Give Sprinters An Advantage Or Not?

THE SOLAR SYSTEM ain’t what it used to be. Personally, I miss the one where Venus had steamy jungles inhabited by lightly-clad barbarian princesses.

MEMOREX’S NEW HD POCKET CAMCORDER GETS A BAD REVIEW: “a shameless Flip wannabe that does nothing to surpass — let alone keep up with — the competition.” Ouch. They prefer the Kodak Zi8. I’ve got one of those, and I like it.

JOHN SCALZI: Education Is Not the Answer for Star Trek’s Bad Science.

MICKEY KAUS: Does Harry Reid’s Health Care Bill Create a “Fed” for Medicare?

MORE GOOD NEWS. “Drinking alcohol every day cuts the risk of heart disease in men by more than a third, a major study suggests. The Spanish research involving more than 15,500 men and 26,000 women found large quantities of alcohol could be even more beneficial for men.”

IN THE MAIL: From Victor Davis Hanson, How The Obama Administration Threatens Our National Security.

ANDREW KLAVAN: Limbaugh And Coulter And Beck: Oh My!

UH OH: Congressional Report: Rhee did ‘damage control’ after sex charges against fiance Kevin Johnson. “A congressional investigation of the volunteer organization AmeriCorps contains charges that D.C. schools chief Michelle Rhee handled ‘damage control’ after allegations of sexual misconduct against her now fiance, Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson, a former NBA star and a prominent ally of President Obama, The Washington Examiner has learned.”

KEITH HENNESSEY: Breaking the no middle class tax increase pledge (again). With helpful-reminder video.

ADVICE TO MEGAN FOX: Trashing Your Audience Is A Bad Idea.

TIM CAVANAUGH ON HOLLYWOOD’S STIMULUS: Why $23 million creates just 21 jobs.

JAMES TARANTO: TAKE COMFORT. A president who knew what he was doing could do lots more damage.

TOBY YOUNG ON STATUS ANXIETY. “No, the only people who take offence if you Anglicise foreign words are upper-middle-class Caucasian Americans. They imagine that other, less fortunate people will be insulted by your ‘imperialist’ attitude and they get offended on their behalf. In fact, to imagine that non-English-speakers are a poor, victimised group, requiring the protection of the American elite, is far more condescending than mispronouncing non-English words.”

CONGRESS TO INVESTIGATE FAKE DISTRICTS.

AMBUSHED BY Norah O’Donnell.

JOHN DICKERSON: Does it matter that Obama is behind schedule on most of his major plans?

I’M GETTING KINDA TIRED OF VAMPIRE STUFF. Besides, Fred Saberhagen’s Dracula could take ‘em all.

UPDATE: John Lunde emails: “Too true. What male reader of Ann Rice hasn’t exclaimed at some point, ‘Damnit, man, shut up and bite someone!’” Ann Rice has male readers?

BLOGGINGHEADS TV: Ann Althouse and Michelle Goldberg on Sarah Palin.

TIM GEITHNER: Everything’s peachy. Really.

BETTER DO WHAT HE SAYS, ERIC: Breitbart to AG Holder: Investigate ACORN or We’ll Release More Tapes Just Before 2010 Election.

Meanwhile, there’s more out from L.A. And it’s already snared L.A. Times columnist James Rainey.

INTERESTING unemployment data.

ABC NEWS: Did The Chinese Government Crack Down On An Obama Interview?

CATHY YOUNG ON MEN’S RIGHTS: Feminism should be about equality–for males too.

CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER on the KSM trial. “Everyone knows that whatever the outcome of the trial, KSM will never walk free. He will spend the rest of his natural life in U.S. custody. Which makes the proceedings a farcical show trial from the very beginning. . . . In his congressional testimony Wednesday, Holder was utterly incoherent in trying to explain.”

PITTSBURGH wants to tax tuition.

MORE PRESSURE ON TIM GEITHNER to resign? Actually, I think the GOP should want him to stay on until the election. . . .

MOE LANE: “It is no doubt rude of me to point out that this outbreak video represents two years’ worth of a Democratic-controlled Congress, and one year’s worth of a Democratic-controlled government.”

MORE ON THE NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY INNOCENCE PROJECT STORY.

BUYING MARY LANDRIEU’S VOTE for $100 million. Hey, why should they care what it costs — it’s your money, not theirs. . . .

HMM: St. Louis County Counselor Redington: Gladney Beating ‘Has Not Been Swept Under the Rug’.

MARKDOWNS ON DVDs and Blu-Ray.

MOE LANE: Sen. Schumer’s (D, NY) unsurprising tribunal reversal.

IN RESPONSE TO MY EARLIER BLOOD DONATION POST, a reader emails:

As a career blood banker I wanted to write to thank you not just for the donation but for the publicity. The average donor is getting older and a lot of younger people can’t donate because they have tattoos or piercings.

You aren’t seeing things, the questionnaire IS getting longer. We are also looking at more testing (they are considering mandating a test for Babesiosis) and if that wasn’t enough, Obama’s tax on medical devices will add $2.50 to the cost of producing a unit of blood. That cost is passed on to the patient and at 15 million units of blood each year you can do the math. He’s going to kill a vital part of the health care industry for the sake of his ideology.

Okay, that’s a new one. And, yeah, the tattoo/piercing thing is obviously an issue, as are lots of other exclusions.

TENNESSEE’S DEMOCRATIC GOVERNOR PHIL BREDESEN: Every member of Congress should have to sit through state budget hearings to appreciate how much extra expense they will be adding to State Budgets because of Congress’s healthcare “reform” proposals.

NOW THIS IS JUST SAD.

UPDATE: Reader Dave Ivers writes: “Honestly. She just drives them insane, doesn’t she? Not a rational thought in the bunch. I’m not that wild about Palin, but I wonder what effect a couple of more years of this idiocy will have.”

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: When Andrew Attacks.

PATTERICO: L.A. Times Columnist Uncritically Quoted Star of Latest ACORN Video. “In September, L.A. Times columnist James Rainey wrote a column in which he uncritically quoted ACORN worker Lavelle Stewart suggesting that she had turned Hannah Giles and James O’Keefe out of her office . . . It’s too bad Rainey never received that warning. Because guess who is the star of Giles and O’Keefe’s latest ACORN video? . . . I now publicly ask the question Rainey would not answer privately: having written a misleading column that falsely suggested that ACORN in L.A. was clean — and that Giles and O’Keefe were dishonest — is James Rainey now going to write a new column and correct the record?”

It’s amazing how Breitbart mousetraps them again and again.

POLLS: Obama’s approval among independents down to … 34/51; Support for ObamaCare down to 40/52.

Message to Dems: That makes ObamaCare considerably less popular than Sarah Palin.

UH OH: Sarah Palin approval 47, Barack Obama approval 46.

ANN ALTHOUSE: Memo to CBS and Katie Couric: Release the unedited Palin video. “Sarah Palin criticizes CBS for editing long interviews into the most damaging soundbites and making her look stupid and irritable. There’s an easy solution: Release the unedited video. There is a lot of material in the book making assertions about all sorts of trenchant comments Palin supposedly made. Palin says she was asked the same questions over and over in an effort to elicit a bad answer. She says that some of her answers were clipped after some simple beginning and before she delved into details that would have made her look smart and knowledgeable. It would be very easy to check if we had all the video. Put it up on line.”

This is why Sarah should have brought her own camera.

THE INSTA-DAUGHTER ON WATCHING PALIN: “Sarah Palin’s got to stop blaming the media soon. It’s like Obama blaming George W. Bush for everything. It works for a while and then it gets old.”

L.A. STORY: Another ACORN video from Big Government. And some people thought this had ended . . . .

VIRGINIA POSTREL: Andy Stern Should Back This Cause.

JOE PAPPALARDO: Hopes Stirring at NASA for Ares I Vindication.

SHAHNAZ HABIB REVIEWS Richard Bernstein’s The East, the West, and Sex: A History of Erotic Encounters.

VIDEO: Meet Dr. Megavolt.