MURKOWSKI LEADS PORK REVOLT. I hope the Alaska Tea Party folks will give her the Ben Nelson treatment whenever she returns to Alaska. Though I’m sure she’s more comfortable in D.C. anyway. But she should henceforth be referred to as Lisa “Porkowski” wherever she appears.

Meanwhile, reader Don Killmer writes to say that turnabout is fair play:

One (sad) result of the Bork confirmation hearings back during the Stone Age of American politics is the descriptive verbing of the proper noun Bork. This concept morphed into “Borking” to refer to the use of political hit teams to derail senate confirmations.

Maybe its time for a new verb, as in: “Lets Murkowski him/her…” This would refer to tactic of forcing a candidate to spend the time and money on a primary race in their own party, and then run against them anyway in the general election as a write-in or independent candidate. The irony is that this tactic would work better for Tea Party candidates than main stream republicans like Murkowski. Her situation is a fluke, but who’s to say this can’t become a legit tactic of slash and burn politics.

What really sucks here is that the Tea Party candidates could have run as independents and third party candidates. This would have split the tickets and then who knows how the election may have turned out. Instead, most of the Tea Party people played within the two-party system rules and won legitimate victories in their local primaries, and then party hacks like Murkowski turn around and run a sour grapes campaign as a write-in candidate.

At the very least, Murkowski should have her name associated with sore loser tactics by the verbing of her name in the same spirit as getting Borked.

Well, they said before that it would be the Tea Party candidates who would act like spoiled babies. But as Charlie Crist, Lisa Murkowski, Mike Castle, etc. demonstrate, it’s the establishment that thinks of itself first. No big surprise there, but keep reminding them. These folks live for ego as much as for power. Deny them those rewards at least.

A ROUNDUP OF cookbooks and more.

PEJMAN YOUSEFZADEH can now be found here.

CHEVY VOLT GETS “CAR OF THE YEAR” from Motor Trend and Automobile.

FALLING INTO THE TRAP: China buys more U.S. debt.

HOPE: Minneapolis airport considering private screeners instead of TSA?

WILL OBAMA’S PICK FOR ATF DIRECTOR face a confirmation fight? “We don’t need a guy from Chicago running an agency that deals with guns.” Well, Chicago has been at the forefront of Second Amendment infringement.

UPDATE: An “anti-gun extremist?”

ANOTHER UPDATE: Who Is Andrew Traver?

More here.

SO IS THIS THE HOPE, OR THE CHANGE? “Airport security stops one airline pilot because he’s carrying a butter knife. Elsewhere, crews opt for pat-down searches because they fear low-level radiation from body scanners could be harmful. And in San Diego, one traveler is told he can’t fly at all when he likens an intrusive body search to sexual harassment.”

ROGER SIMON: Blood Libel: Philippe Karsenty’s Battle To Reveal The Truth About The Al-Durrah Incident.

HARRY POTTER AND THE PERIODIC TABLE.

THE SCIENCE OF extreme animal modification.

DO NON-RELIGIOUS PEOPLE have more brand loyalty? You gotta serve somebody, says Bob Dylan.

JUST IN TIME FOR THE CHRISTMAS SEASON: Holiday markdowns on video games.

CHANGE: GM Makes Money But Closes Factories.

THE CERTAINTY of uncertainty.

BEAMING 4G SIGNALS from space.

LOSING WEIGHT BY drinking water before meals.

BUICK LACROSSE HYBRID AIN’T NO HYBRID.

VIDEO: A demo of the Olympus PEN E-PL1, with underwater housing, done by one of my high-school classmates who is an excellent underwater photographer.

A WRIST-SLAP WILL ENSUE: Rangel convicted of 11 ethics violations.

ALAN BOYLE: Where do I plug in my Nissan Leaf?

UPDATE: Bill Dyer emails: “I’m surprised that with your link to Alan Boyle’s article on msnbc.com about his test-drive of a Nissan Leaf, you didn’t comment on his obliviousness to the fact that he was stealing electricity from a nearby parking garage that had a convenient electric plug.” Hmm. Well, “stealing” is strong — we’re talking about a public outlet in a public place — though hooking up a laptop that draws, say, 65 watts or a trouble light that draws 100 is a whole different proposition from hooking up a car that draws kilowatts.

ANOTHER UPDATE: A surprising number (well, a couple, but that’s surprising to me) say that it’s stealing regardless. I don’t see it. It’s all about scope of consent. Put up a water fountain and you’re consenting to have people drink from it, but not to run a hose to water their garden across the street. Same principle here. At any rate, if there are lots of plug-in vehicles out there, these outlets will either disappear, be locked, or be metered to deliver no more than a trickle.

MICHAEL YON: Heavenly Shower.

INTERESTING: Airports Can Opt-Out of TSA Screening in Favor of Private Companies. I heard Boortz talking about this as I drove into work this morning. I wonder if airport managers will start hearing from their frequent flyers?

IN THE MAIL: From John Ringo, Live Free or Die: Troy Rising I.

AMID AIRPORT ANGER, GOP takes aim at screening.

UPDATE: A foolproof way to end the screenings: “Have Arizona pass a law saying that illegal aliens will be subject to these procedures as well! The federal government would immediately ask a judge to ban full-body scans.”

ANOTHER UPDATE: A Memo From The Council On American-Simbergic Relations (CASR).

MORE: Reader Richard Samuelson has some other suggestions for the GOP:

How about pushing for a some quick small victories?
Repeal the ban on the incandescent bulb.
Repeal the limit on the size of toilet tanks in our homes.

Those are the first two that come to mind for me. I am sure there are many others.

Good ideas. These would be hard to oppose, and would create a sense of momentum.

STILL MORE: A suggestion from reader Jim O’Neill:

It can be called the “Protecting Children From Mercury-Contaminated Wetlands and Domestic Lightbulb Manufacturer Employment Act of 2011.”

Heh.