QUANTUM OF ANNOYANCE: When product placement goes horribly wrong.

MY LATEST POPULAR MECHANICS COLUMN: Why I hope there’s no life on Mars.

SHOULD WE PAY DETROIT to bring their gas-sipping foreign cars home to the U.S.A.? Maybe.

CHARLES RANGEL RESPONDS to the New York Times. Are you persuaded? Time for an Insta-Poll!

IN THE MAIL: Lois McMaster Bujold’s Miles, Mutants and Microbes. Includes her Falling Free, which isn’t a Vorkosigan story at all, but which was my first exposure to Bujold. If you’ve never read the Vorkosigan stories, you might want to start with Young Miles, which collects the earliest Miles Vorkosigan stories in one fat-but-cheap paperback. They’re good fun.

CALIFORNIA’S POLITICAL CLASS looks out for Number One.

THE PERILS OF “healthy” food.

FROM POPULAR MECHANICS, some tool-and-gadget gift advice.

IF YOU’RE IN D.C., there’s a 40th Anniversary happy hour for Reason Magazine scheduled for tonight.

JAMES TARANTO: Georgia Voters Bury a McCarthyite Smear. “Chambliss’s victory assures the GOP of at least 41 Senate seats. It also lays to rest one of the nastiest McCarthyite smears of recent times: the repeated assertion by Democrats and the media that former senator Max Cleland’s patriotism is in question.”

ELEVEN CLEVER TIPS for digital camera owners.

A POLITICAL FIRING at the University of Toledo.

HERE’S A REVIEW of the Panasonic Lumix LX-3.

BILL RICHARDSON, DOZING BEHIND THE WHEEL until he gets a little help from Obama:

As I’m chatting with Obama, the moderator says, “Governor Richardson, what do you think of that?” And I look at him like a deer in the headlights. I was about to say that I hadn’t heard, when Obama puts his hand over his mouth and says, “Katrina.” So I gave my four-point plan on Katrina. When I was done and the debate moved on, I looked over and said, “Thanks, you’re okay.” He said, “Nothing to it, brother.”

A friend in need . . . .

HMM: Poll: 61% oppose auto bailout. “A full 70% of respondents indicated that a bailout is unfair to taxpayers.” Plus, funny photo caption here.

CREATING A body-swapping illusion.

PROGRESS IN preventing and treating esophageal cancer.

RANGEL UPDATE: Government Watchdog Group Wants New Allegations Included In Ethics Probe Of Rep. Charles Rangel. “A watchdog group, Common Cause, has called for the ethics investigation of Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY) to include new allegations that he had helped preserve a tax shelter for an oil-drilling company, whose chief executive at the time was pledging $1 million to a school named after him.”

WASHINGTON POST: Ethics Questions Still Hounding Rangel.

DO BADLY BEHAVED DOCTORS contribute to medical mistakes?

A REVIEW OF 10 cordless drills. I’ve had this small Bosch for a few years, and I like it better than the bigger one (I think it was a Ryobi) that I had before.

HEART OF DARKNESS: The Mudville Gazette on different views of Iraq.

MY COUSIN STACEY EMAILS TO SUGGEST that the way to save the economy is to buy her chocolate-covered cherries. “It’s well known that a bite of decadent chocolate boosts endorphin levels & serotonin, and will therefore help America cope!!” Makes as much sense as a lot of other things I’m hearing . . . .

HOW TO get your Significant Other into gaming.

NICK GILLESPIE AND MATT WELCH: The Libertarian Moment: “Despite all leading indicators to the contrary, America is poised to enter a new age of freedom.” I certainly hope so.

ATTACKS ON SPEED CAMERAS are happening all over.

IN THE MAIL: Big Boy Rules: America’s Mercenaries Fighting in Iraq. Favorably blurbed by Tom Ricks. Now that Iraq seems to have moved into the “win” column, will attitudes on this sort of thing change? Maybe they should . . . .

CAITLIN FLANAGAN: What Girls Want: Thoughts on the meaning of the Twilight novels. Personally, I think the best vampire books are Fred Saberhagen’s, but then I’m not a teenage girl.

LIVING ON MARS: A conversation with Bob Zubrin.

THEY HAVEN’T GIVEN UP: Here are some post Black Friday Amazon Deals.

VITAMIN D: Vital for the heart.

FOUR DECADES of defending self-defense.

T.J. RODGERS ON the opacity of modern financial statements. It’s almost as if they were designed to obscure, rather than reveal.

A REPORT ON Romania’s anticorruption fighters.

HMM: Germany Wants One Million Electric Cars on the Road by 2020. Of course, they’ve got a few years.

ERIC POSNER: “Obama supporters should probably root for Bush to issue pardons. Bush might be just ornery enough to refuse.”

YEAH, IT’S BEEN A LITTLE SLOWER THAN USUAL. I’m taking a semi-vacation from blogging this week. Still online some, but less than usual. Email in particular, isn’t getting the usual attention. Just ready for a post-election break.

LOOKING FOR BOOKS to give kids for Christmas or Hanukkah? Check out the Books for Kids Blog for lots of reviews and recommendations.

SOME GIFT IDEAS from Dave Barry.

DPREVIEW.COM REVIEWS digital cameras under $150. Meanwhile, I know I promised a review of the Panasonic LX-3, but I haven’t had time to do a proper writeup. I’m happy with the pics I’ve gotten from it so far. Here’s one.

MICKEY KAUS: “Holder’s Defense: ‘I was played for a sucker by a lobbyist!’” Plus, observations on the Mumbai coverage.

A TERRORISM SURVIVAL BUNDLE for Windows Mobile.

FEARS OF A MEASLES EPIDEMIC IN BRITAIN:

There have been more than 1,000 measles cases so far this year – putting Britain at risk of a deadly epidemic, health officials say. The Health Protection Agency blamed unfounded fears about the combined MMR jab for the increase and urged parents to vaccinate their children.

In the first ten months of 2008, there were 1,049 confirmed cases in England and Wales – the highest level since the early 1990s.

I had a column on this problem a little while back.

ROGER KIMBALL: Political Freedom Dies in Great Britain.

VAMPIRE MOVIES that don’t suck.

SETH BARRETT TILLMAN AND STEVE CALABRESI DEBATE the constitutional status of Presidents and Vice Presidents.

IS VALLEJO, CALIFORNIA’S FISCAL FREEFALL the beginning of a trend? More problems with those underfunded/overgenerous public employee pensions:

But the largest share of the blame in Vallejo has centered on public-safety salaries and benefits, which make up about 75 percent of the city’s general fund budget. Base pay for firefighters is more than $80,000 per year and employees can retire at age 50 with a pension equal to 90 percent of their salary, the result of a retroactive pension increase several years ago. . . . The California Professional Firefighters union proclaims, “If allowed to stand, Vallejo’s attack on its own employees would send shock waves throughout the labor movement.”

Read the whole thing.

HARRY REID SPENDS THE TAXPAYERS’ MONEY, WHILE DISRESPECTING THE TAXPAYERS: We won’t have to smell the tourists anymore.

BITES FROM THE APPLE: A roundup of news from the Apple empire.

INDEED: “But what if the government were held to the same standard as private management? If the government were a private company it would be too broke and uncreditworthy to continue operating. . . . Yet who among the political class – the very managers who remorselessly oversee the financial train wreck in their own institution – has called for a pay or benefit cut for the President or Congress, let alone actually taken one? Which officials have curtailed travel by private jet, forgone their annual salary, or cancelled scheduled retreats and vacations? . . . So in a show of good faith, I would like to see our federal leaders take the lead in fiscal accountability by refusing to accept a salary until, as they’ve demanded of the automakers seeking a bailout, they can demonstrate a plan to bring their enterprise into the black and repay their debt.”

THE MUMBAI ATTACKS: A case of operational metamorphosis?

CHEAP PLASTIC SOLAR CELLS are getting more efficient. If they’re cheap enough, of course, they don’t have to be that efficient to be worthwhile.

IN THE MAIL: From Steve White, Saint Antony’s Fire. Not to be confused with St. Elmo’s Fire.

VERONIQUE DE RUGY: Are You Better Off Than You Were 40 Years Ago? “Government has grown, but freedom has grown faster.”

IT’S TIME TO ORDER THIS YEAR’S Festivus poles! Ah, there’s nothing like seeing the little kids’ eyes light up when you bring one of these beauties into the living room. . . .

Time for a Festivus Pole Insta-Poll!

INTERESTED IN SUPPORTING LONGEVITY RESEARCH? Here’s a suggestion.

ER, THEN WHAT’S THE POINT, EXACTLY? British Testimony: Lap Dances ‘Not Sexually Stimulating’. Maybe things are different over there . . . .

REVIEWING THE REVIEWERS: A roundup of book reviews from all over.

ED DRISCOLL: Won’t Get Fooled Again. “If the New York Times and its writers and editors can’t see the difference between an unfortunate shopping incident and the Spanish Civil War, one wonders what what value the newspaper has as an information source to be trusted by their readers.”

A ROUNDUP OF REACTIONS to the James Jones appointment.

WELL, GOOD: Silicon Could Give Lithium Ion Batteries 10X More Capacity. Faster, please.

QUESTIONING WHETHER THE MUMBAI ATTACKS were really aimed at foreigners.

CARLETON COON IS SPINNING IN HIS GRAVE: Anthropologists and the military.

SOME NO-FRILLS TOYS That Every Child Should Have. They left out the Johnny Astro, though . . . .

FROM BOB OWENS, reflections on six months of carrying concealed.

THEY TOLD ME THAT IF GEORGE W. BUSH WERE RE-ELECTED, harmless conversations could get you suspected of terrorism. And they were right!

THE CARNIVAL OF RECIPES is up!

STRATEGYPAGE: The bad news from Africa. “The problems in Africa are pretty basic, but most Western leaders are unwilling to deal with them head on.”

SLOW-COOKER ADVICE: In response to some earlier recipe posts, people asked me about my All-Clad slow cooker. I like it, but it’s discontinued and the new model is awfully pricey. I got mine as a gift, but I don’t think I’d spend that much money on one, especially as Consumer Reports liked this Hamilton Beach better for under fifty bucks.

I do recommend this cookbook for slow-cookers, and here’s my recipe for Lamb-and-Guinness stew.

QUESTIONS ABOUT Sirtuin-enhancement drugs for aging.

HOMELAND SECURITY: “The U.S. military expects to have 20,000 uniformed troops inside the United States by 2011 trained to help state and local officials respond to a nuclear terrorist attack or other domestic catastrophe, according to Pentagon officials. . . . There are critics of the change, in the military and among civil liberties groups and libertarians who express concern that the new homeland emphasis threatens to strain the military and possibly undermine the Posse Comitatus Act, a 130-year-old federal law restricting the military’s role in domestic law enforcement.”

TRYING TO STOP DEFENDANT’S LAWYER FROM being paid? Doesn’t seem like part of a prosecutor’s job to me, but what do I know?

SOME THOUGHTS ON WHAT TO DO about those overgenerous / underfunded public pensions: “Why Isn’t Anyone Talking Later Retirement for Government Workers? . . . The irony is that much of the news around GM, Ford and Chrysler involves their huge defined benefit obligations. Much of the debate around whether to put more government money into these companies tends to come back to the issue of pension and health care payments to those companies millions of retirees. Private workers may end up working longer to balance out the good news that they are living longer. Yet there is virtually no discussion of this with regard to government and public sector workers. I imagine that is because government workers tend to be the ones who vote on their own retirement ages.”

GOOD QUESTION: With Hillary Clinton at State, who gets her N.Y. Senate seat? Well, Eliot Spitzer’s free . . .

GOOD NEWS! “Edmunds (via Dow Jones Newswires) estimates that the American new car market is down 28 percent in November, but up 1.9 percent from October.”

HIGHER EDUCATION and a “looming affordability challenge.” Will higher ed be the next bubble to burst, with student loans providing the easy credit that inflated it?

IF G.M. GOES DOWN, what will happen to the Corvette?

DETROIT-TO-DC CARAVAN, cancelled. “Remember the growing movement to caravan a few hundred of Detroit’s most fuel efficient vehicles to the automaker’s next meeting with Congress? Not happening. Interestingly, it wasn’t for lack of support. In fact, it was just the opposite.”

A RANGEL ROUNDUP: In case you were busy, you know, having a life over the weekend, don’t miss the editorials calling for Rangel to step down — here, here and here — and, by way of background, this scandal roundup. Plus, shades of pay-to-play.

ADVANCING PHOTONICS using nanomechanical devices.

SPACE TOURISM lifts off.

JENNIFER RUBIN: Mazel Tov, Hillary!

IN THE MAIL: Matthew Alexander’s How to Break a Terrorist: The U.S. Interrogators Who Used Brains, Not Brutality, to Take Down the Deadliest Man in Iraq. Interesting, and undoubtedly relevant. As the Mumbai attacks illustrate, the terror wars are far from over.

INSTA-POLL: After “Black Friday” comes “Cyber Monday” — but I think that was a bigger deal back when people had high-speed Internet at the office, but not at home. Am I right?

OOPS: Government flex-fuel mandates increased fuel consumption. “Problem was, replacement flex-fuel vehicles had larger engines in their predecessors and often ran on gasoline, usually due to difficulty obtaining E85.”

MORE AUTO INDUSTRY WORRIES: “The agency that protects pension plans raised new concerns about Detroit’s three auto makers, saying their use of pension funds to pay for restructuring threatens to drain the funds and leave the agency footing the bill.”

WE’RE ALL JOE THE PLUMBER: Widespread database abuse in Delaware. We’ve had similar problems in Tennessee.

EDITORIAL: Rep. Rangel may prove Democrats’ albatross amid party’s loud claims of public integrity. Well, along with William Jefferson, Chris Dodd, Kent Conrad, Barney Frank . . . .

IF YOU’RE IN D.C., you might want to check out this discussion with Nick Gillespie and Russ Roberts on The Price of Everything, at the Cato Institute, at noon today.

AND NOW, A word from our Sponsor. Heh.

HMM: In Lean Times, Online Coupons Are Catching On. I bought my Dell Inspiron laptop with the help of a $500-off coupon a reader told me about. More like that, please!

ANDREW BREITBART: Six Degrees of Imran Khan. And check out this photo. “Like their Hollywood counterparts, the Bollywood thespians appear predisposed to blame everyone but the culprit.”

HOW MUCH SHOULD WE trust Google? Less than we are trusting Google, I’d say.

NOW THAT THE END IS IN SIGHT, should someone make a sequel to No End in Sight? Why not?

GEORGE WILL on politics on campus.

THE MOST ETHICAL CONGRESS EVER? “Shades of Pay-to-Play.”

JUSTIN HIGGINS: How the G.O.P. can take back the youth vote.

OUCH: British Couple at Taj Hotel: “We Thought We Were Safe, Then CNN Stepped In.” Ouch.

SCORCHED EARTH: Activists Seek Revocation of Tax Exempt Status of Churches That Supported Prop 8.

FIGHTING CRIME, THE OLD-FASHIONED WAY: Victim shoots man during robbery try. “An armed robber who tried to stick up a man Monday night ended up getting shot when the victim pulled out his own gun, police said.” (Via Gun Pundit).

AT DAILYKOS, worries about famine in 2009. I thought that Obama was going to fix all of that. Instead, it’s sounding more like a John Ringo scenario. Can this be right?