FRANK LUNTZ: “More people believe scientists will discover life in outer space than believe the current health-care plan won’t add a penny to the deficit.”

A DOUBLE-DIGIT LOSS FOR The Washington Post? “Indeed, in this case, the Post may have done nothing but distract and befuddle their own favored candidate, who, like the Post, became obsessed with a 20-year-old college paper. He and the Post both forgot that campaigns are about voters’ current problems and hopes for the future.”

BELMONT CLUB: The Lordlings. “The one thing no generation of parents can protect their children from is reality. No inheritance can withstand the foolishness of heirs. The harsh arithmetic on the frontier, the terrible outflow of dollars and cents, the gradual and then sudden loss of credibility as people see they are dealing not with serious people but with gilded fools cumulate their irresistible effects.”

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT YESTERDAY, here’s my Washington Examiner column on NY-23. The main point — it’s not the election that matters, but what happens afterward.

UPDATE: “Do you hear us now?”

IS A TELEVISED BREAST SELF-EXAM a case of “milking the ratings?”

AYN RAND’S We The Living is now out on DVD. It gets a good review over at Big Hollywood. (Bumped).

FDIC CLOSES NINE MORE BANKS. “The closings boost the number of failed U.S. banks this year to 115. The nine banks closed Friday were the most the agency has shut in one day since the financial crisis began taking down banks last year.”

Related: Fannie Mae Delinquency Rate Skyrockets.

SCOTT JOHNSON: The Flying Imams Win: And The Rest Of Us Lose.

I wonder why we don’t see more “lawfare” from folks on the right?

VIDEO: Mike Flynn Talks Big Government on the Kudlow Report.

FORCED BORROWING FROM THE TAXPAYERS: California to withhold a bigger chunk of paychecks. Well, when you’re basically bankrupt it’s easier to borrow from people who don’t have a choice.

DON’T FORGET TO SET YOUR CLOCKS BACK for the end of Daylight Savings Time.

I wish it went year-round.

ALI ETERAZ’S Children of Dust: A Memoir of Pakistan gets a review in the Washington Post.

MARK STEYN: Obama Makes Bush His Blame Czar.

WANT MORE TERROR-WAR NEWS? Visit Fred Pruitt’s Rantburg.com.

MAKING FRANK RICH nervous.

THE POLITICAL IMPLICATIONS of smartphones.

FROM PUBLISHER’S WEEKLY, the top 10 books of 2009.

STUFF WHITE PEOPLE don’t like.

SHOCKER: British nuclear expert’s 17th floor UN death plunge ‘was not suicide’.

SOME CHEESY Halloween pickup lines sorted by costume. Emphasis on the cheesy . . .

ANN ALTHOUSE: “Kirsch, like so many others — most of us Baby Boomers? — is, I think, deeply invested in the notion that businessmen are boring and uncreative.”

UPDATE: Tom Maguire: Now, If Book Reviewers Read The Books… “The review would be even more interesting if the reviewer, Adam Kirsch of The New Republic, showed a token familiarity with Ms. Rand’s work, or even with life here in reality.”

JOHN HINDERAKER: Bush-Era Leaks Were Dangerous After All. “Many commentators have noted that this is one more instance where the Obama administration, now that it is in possession of the facts and charged with responsibility for the nation’s security, has acted in full concert with much-reviled policies of the Bush administration. That’s a valid point, and Holder’s press release on the subject, which you can read here, is almost humorous in its labored attempt to create the impression that use of the state secrets privilege by the Obama administration is somehow different from the identical use of the identical privilege by the previous administration. . . . But the administration’s decision merits a closer look because of the nature of the Shubert case.”

GREEN JOBS! Huge Texas Wind Farm’s Turbines Will Be Made in China.

“COME FOR THE CULTURE WAR, stay for the chicks.” “The primary reason our womenfolk are at war with the looming spectre of the nanny state is because you can’t buy Jimmy Choos in a socialist paradise.” This should provoke a reaction.

PETER SUDERMAN: $900 Billion House Health-Care Reform Bill Likely to Cost More than $900 Billion. Well, if by “likely” you mean “pretty damn certain.”