CLIMATEGATE: Phil Jones’ suspension makes the New York Times.

ORIN KERR: Rethinking Blogging-As-Scholarship. “I think the legal academic culture has changed. In the past five years, legal blogs have become an acknowledged and accepted part of the world of legal scholarship.”

SONJA SCHMIDT: Get the Race Card Advantage!

THIS IS INTERESTING: Tennessee gubernatorial candidate Roy Herron is switching to run for John Tanner’s congressional seat. Herron writes:

Professor Reynolds,

Tonight, my longtime friend and Congressman, John Tanner, announced he will not seek re-election to Tennessee’s 8th District.

Given the challenges facing this nation, this state, and this congressional district, I feel like I can help make a difference by serving in Congress. And so, I want to let you know immediately of my decision to run.

You deserve a much fuller explanation of my decision than I can give at this late hour. I will be back in touch with you soon to share more. For now, I respectfully ask for your consideration, your support, and your prayers.

Stay tuned. When I saw the subject line on the email — “Running For Congress” — I first thought he was writing to encourage my run for Tennessee’s 29th District. . . .

JAMES PETHOKOUKIS: Why the U.S. may have a long-term unemployment problem.

BIG HOLLYWOOD: NEW DOCUMENTS REVEAL: White House, NEA Had Big Plans In Motion Before Being Exposed.

THE AMERICAN PHYSICAL SOCIETY: What Is Science?

Science is the systematic enterprise of gathering knowledge about the universe and organizing and condensing that knowledge into testable laws and theories.

The success and credibility of science are anchored in the willingness of scientists to:

1. Expose their ideas and results to independent testing and replication by others. This requires the open exchange of data, procedures and materials.
2. Abandon or modify previously accepted conclusions when confronted with more complete or reliable experimental or observational evidence.

Adherence to these principles provides a mechanism for self-correction that is the foundation of the credibility of science.

Indeed.

LARRY KUDLOW: An open letter to Tiger Woods.

IS A NEWSPAPER BAILOUT IN THE WORKS? “What might be the results of an old media, or Newspaper bailout? Well, FTC Chair Jon Leibowitz’s wife would likely stay employed, for one. . . . I’d keep an eye on this one, folks. Government (read politicians) would love to be able to pick winners and losers in the news media.”

ASSOCIATED PRESS: Troops, families mixed over Obama’s Afghan surge.

An ex-Marine himself, Thomas said he supports Obama’s surge strategy. But he shook his head when the president announced a 2011 transition date to begin pulling out troops.

“If I were the enemy, I would hang back until 2011,” Thomas said. “We have to make sure that we are going go stay until the job is done. It ain’t going to be as easy as he thinks it is.”

Yeah, if he were dealing with a real enemy — like, say, Fox News — he wouldn’t tip his hand so easily . . . .

A CAYMAN ECONOMIC INDICATOR? Tourism arrivals plummet. “Tourist air arrivals dropped again in October compared to the same month in the previous year, continuing a trend that has lasted 14 months now. . . . The latest tourism statistics for the Cayman Islands show that October 2009’s air arrivals are down 13 per cent on the same month the previous year to 13,018 while cruise arrivals for October 2009 are down 6.85 per cent on the previous year, to 98,610.” Most tourists come from the United States.

THE AUSTRALIAN VERSION OF CAP-AND-TRADE is dead.

HEH: Who’s winning the stonewalling contest? Tiger vs the local police, or the MSM vs the idea that Climategate’s a major story?

That’s from Roger Von Oech, the Ball Of Whacks guy.

NON-FALSIFIABLE ECONOMICS:

Economic output and employment in the spring and summer of 2009 were lower than CBO had projected at the beginning of the year. But in CBO’s judgment, that outcome reflects greater-than-projected weakness in the underlying economy rather than lower-than-expected effects of [the stimulus].

Alternatively, nobody has the slightest idea what’s going on.

ANYONE IN CHICAGO LOOKING TO save a cat?

TA-NEHISI COATES: A bum rap for Huckabee. “I think it’s important for liberals concerned about criminal justice to speak up on principle. That it’s Mike Huckabee–whose views on gay rights, abortion and the Confederate flag, I find deplorable–pursuing that principle shouldn’t change things. We keep saying we want conservatives to be ‘reasonable’ about these issues. It strikes me as unhelpful to knife one for short-term partisan gain.”

Here’s the thing: If you grant clemency much, the odds will catch up with you eventually. Some of those people will be recidivists, no matter how solid or heartstring-pulling the story, and some of that recidivism will be dreadful. I don’t know enough about the merits of this case to say whether this was a bad call, but if politicians get hammered a lot when the odds catch up with them, then they won’t issue many pardons or commutations. But, as I noted in criticizing Bush’s stinginess with pardons, executive clemency is supposed to play an important role in mitigating the inevitable injustices of the criminal justice system.

JOHN TANNER (D-TN) TO RETIRE: “If incumbents begin to believe this will not be a good year for their party, a wave of retirements could materialize. . . . After all, the thinking goes, if a longtime leader of the Blue Dogs decides now is the time to hang it up, what does that say for others in his position (like MO’s Ike Skelton, AR’s Marion Berry or WV’s Alan Mollohan)? They’ve all skated to re-election in recent cycles, yet all saw their CDs go quite strongly to McCain.”

ANDREW REVKIN: Climategate inquiries spread.

25 TOYS under 25 bucks.

MEGAN MCARDLE: ClimateGate III: The Mystery Of The Missing Data.

CANADA: A “corrupt petro-state?”

OUCH: “Chris, he’s commander-in-chief.”

HORSE HAVEN OF TENNESSEE IS LOOKING FOR HELP. My sister emails:

Can you post this link? These are the 80+ horses that were brought in last week in Cannon County. We’re getting 15 of them next week, and we’re hard up for $$$, foster homes, and feed. The idiots who had them bought about 100 horses to fatten up for slaughter, but I guess they didn’t realize that fattening up requires feeding.

I didn’t realize that people fattened up horses for slaughter at all.

STEPHEN GREEN IS drunkblogging Obama’s Afghanistan speech.

Related: Paul Rahe: Can Obama Save His Presidency?

UPDATE: Here’s the full text of Obama’s speech. Word-search says “victory” does not appear.

ANOTHER UPDATE: “Not nearly enough.”

More comments from Dana Loesch.

Plus, a word count: “‘I’ – 45, ‘Afghanistan’ – 39, ‘Victory’ – 0.” Though he does talk about defeating Al Qaeda.

Ann Althouse: “He sounded oddly stern, like he was lecturing us. Annoyed at us. The words were meant to be inspirational but there was no lift… no lift of a driving dream. Is he tired of being Obama? Or was it the vibe in the room?”

Tunku Varadarajan: Obama’s Eeyore Act. “It was elegant, but would it kill him to endorse winning?”

Plus, “Weirdly defensive.”

And here’s video of Chris Matthews’ West-Point-as-enemy-camp routine.

And note this from Stephen Green, above: “The tough talk about cross-border killing in Pakistan is tough, smart, and right.”

Tom Maguire: “I liked the George Bush passages on American exceptionalism the best; yes, Obama was achingly phony, but I figure he was even more annoying to lefties.”

Ouch: “OK, so he’s not as good a speaker as GWB, but he did the best he could.”

And Sarah Palin weighs in. “As long as we’re in to win, and as long as troop level decisions are based on conditions on the ground and the advice of our military commanders, I support President Obama’s decision.”

INSTAVISION: I talk with John Birmingham, author of the Axis of Time novels and, most recently, Without Warning, about writing, how to make it in science fiction without really trying, and what would happen to the world if America disappeared — and is that happening now anyway?