GOING CHEAPER: In response to yesterday’s GPS post, readers wonder what’s cheaper and still good. Well, Consumer Reports liked the Garmin Nuvi 200, which is under $150, and the similarly priced TomTom One 130. And reader Duncan T. Black emails: “love your blog, glenn, but in these economic times…why do you need anything more than mapquest? i happen to drive 20 to 30 thousand miles a year in mexico and the u.s….this product is cool, and hip, and totally unnecessary.” Well, MapQuest is fine if you know exactly where you’re going when you set out. It’s less flexible than a GPS, though.

Meanwhile, reader Bill McKinnon writes:

You mentioned today your only complaint with the Garmin is your suction cup. Your solution is here.

I can’t recommend this highly enough. It’s sort of like a heavy bean bag with a high friction bottom and sits anywhere on your dash. Curved dashboard, sloped dash, no problem. It stays where you put it, even in fairly sharp maneuvering. Best $25 I’ve ever spent.

P.S. I bought a Garmin 660 after reading your post about it last year and love it.

Hmm. Might be worth a try. And reader Mark Zettel offers this inexpensive solution: “Before you put the suction cup to the windshield, you have to lick it, or make sure there is some moisture applied before sticking it up.”

SCOTT RASMUSSEN: The Polls Show That Reaganism Is Not Dead. “Barack Obama won the White House by campaigning against an unpopular incumbent in a time of economic anxiety and lingering foreign policy concerns. He offered voters an upbeat message, praised the nation as a land of opportunity, promised tax cuts to just about everyone, and overcame doubts about his experience with a strong performance in the presidential debates. Does this sound familiar? It should. Mr. Obama followed the approach that worked for Ronald Reagan. His victory confirmed that voters still embrace the guiding beliefs of the Reagan era. . . . Down the campaign homestretch, Mr. Obama’s tax-cutting promise became his clearest policy position. Eventually he stole the tax issue from the Republicans. Heading into the election, 31% of voters thought that a President Obama would cut their taxes. Only 11% expected a tax cut from a McCain administration.”

CONGRESS: “Pay As You Go” is gone.

ERIK SOFGE: How Gears of War 2 raises the bar for military simulators.

THE ISSUES THAT DIVIDE AMERICA:

Q. A number of people posted really nasty comments about your review, including a number that include swearing at you, racial slurs, calling you stupid, a loser, and much worse. This stuff usually doesn’t happen on this blog—-why now?
A. It happens anytime you write something negative about Apple, no matter now minor.

Q. I also noticed that a number of PC users posted angry anti-Apple comments. Why is that?
A. It happens anytime you write something positive about Apple, no matter now minor.

Heh.

HOW DO WE TRACK DOWN zombie voters?

A SIDE-BY-SIDE COMPARISON: New Mac Operating System vs. Windows 7.

CAR STUFF: Loads of pictures and reporting from SEMA.

LOOKING AHEAD TO the great tax revolt of 2012.

MUSLIMS’ FREE SPEECH THREATENED: “Governments across Europe must do more to safeguard freedom of speech for Muslim reformers who face threats from extremists, a think tank has warned.”

MICKEY KAUS: “I hate to make invidious solidarity-eroding comparisons between competing UAW shops, but Detroit’s cars aren’t uniformly inferior to their Japanese competitors. Ford’s products have been consistently less unreliable, in recent years, than the other two members of the Big Three. . . . P.S.: If the automakers react the way GM reacted when its Saturn subsidiary actually started making good cars, their legislative strategy is clear: Figure out a way to punish Ford!”

THIS SOUNDS PROMISING: Fountain of Youth: Drug Restores Muscles. “A daily dose of an investigational medication has been found to restore muscle mass in the arms and legs of older adults and improve some of their biochemistry to levels found in healthy young adults, suggesting an anti-frailty drug has been found.” I hope this pans out.

STAR POWER:

Who’s the hottest property now being sought by talent agents who can almost taste making a bundle for a book deal….or a high-profile TV show? Is it MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow? Is it Fox News’ new star Mike Huckabee? John McCain after his smash Letterman and SNL gigs? Joe the Plumber?

No, it’s Sarah Palin. There may be a debate raging on both sides about whether her future is bright or not, and whether if she runs for President she has a chance or not, but there is one certainty today: she’s The One agents want to sign.

Heh.

HOPE AND CHANGE! Minorities at war on Obamaland’s Western shore. “Even as Barack Obama’s Tuesday election to the presidency was being hailed as a triumph for social justice throughout most of the United States, it was sowing discord in California, where ballot Proposition 8 forbidding gay marriage under the state constitution surged to a surprising victory and turned the state into a powderkeg.” Personally, I’d like to see the separation of marriage and state, taking this stuff out of the political realm entirely.

COMMERCIAL SPACE UPDATE: “Space Exploration Technologies held an invitation-only meeting at its Hawthorne, Calif.-based headquarters on Friday for potential customers of its new DragonLab, a free-flying version of the reusable Dragon capsule the company is building for international space station resupply missions.”

JENNIFER RUBIN: The GOP gets off to a bad start. “Sniping, whining, and bickering isn’t the way to to revive a party after a stinging defeat.”

WHAT’S WRONG WITH weapons procurement?

APPARENTLY, they don’t expect low gas prices to last: GM increases spending on Volt, fuel-saving initiatives.

IN THE MAIL: Ben Bernanke’s Essays on The Great Depression, with a note from the folks at Princeton that it’s “timely.” Gulp.

CHINA’S WASTELAND of toxic consumer electronics.

POLITICO: That huge voter turnout? Didn’t happen.

Tom Smith comments: “Given the large effort and immense money spent by the Dems, this is striking. Fewer GOP showed up as well. There’s a ‘long term disengagement problem.'”

I guess I wasn’t the only one asking if this was the best we can do.

INTERNET ATTACKS ARE GETTING more potent and complex. “A survey of 70 of the largest Internet operators in North America, South America, Europe and Asia found that malicious attacks were rising sharply and that the individual attacks were growing more powerful and sophisticated, according to the Worldwide Infrastructure Security Report.”

ASK DR. HELEN: LOOKING FOR CONSERVATIVE CULTURE.

WHAT NOT TO DO: Home Edition.