INSIDE THE DARK WORLD OF illegal Segway tours. Not for the faint of heart.

WALTER RUSSELL MEAD: Science Fiction is a Genre That Everyone Should Read. Well, yes.

UPDATE: Here’s a post with some recommendations.

SOME KITCHEN ESSENTIALS FOR A FIRST APARTMENT.

MARC AMBINDER: Media will help Democrats’ messaging about the Tea Party.

That’s one of those admissions, like Evan Thomas’s famous “fifteen percent” remark, that’s worth highlighting.

UPDATE: Reader Roger Byrne writes: “What is even more pertinent on your point about Evan Thomas and media bias is the fact that Newsweek was recently sold for $1.00. So their journalistic practices have bankrupted their distribution mechanism of their ideology.” But they don’t care, because they value the ideology more.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Ralph Tacoma emails:

Your point about this being consistent with Evan Thomas’s “fifteen percent” remark, and the resultant cheapening of the market value of traditional media is certainly valid; but I think that the cheapening of value also applies to the effectiveness of the traditional media.

Assuming that Thomas was correct about the “fifteen percent” I suspect that the equivalent effect to day is more in the 1-5% range. Witness the lack of effect that their playing of the “race card” has had to date.

We’ll know more on 11/3/2010.

Indeed we will.

CAMPAIGNING AGAINST A GOLFING FATCAT.

PEOPLE TEND TO TRAVEL IN THE DIRECTION OF GREATER FREEDOM: State Migration Trends, 1993-2008: From Blue States to Red States.

WASHINGTON EXAMINER: “Every two years for the past decade and more, reports of voter fraud have been on the increase during election campaigns around the country. That is not coincidental.”

DER SPIEGEL: Obama Has Underestimated the Frustration in the Country.

SUSPICIOUSLY THUGGISH: CANADIAN BLOGGER ARRESTED FOR CRIMINAL LIBEL. “RCMP have laid five charges against a Calgary man related to the operation of a website highly critical of Calgary police officers.”

MATT WELCH: Loathsome Columnist of the Month: Courtland Milloy. It’s a first-rate rant about the ruining of DC’s educational system, and more.

LISA MURKOWSKI: The Face Of The Combine. “In the final analysis, The Combine’s allegiance is not to a party, but to their pocketbooks. They’re about making money off the taxpayers. . . . Lisa Murkowski’s family, and her career, exist because of the Combine. Her interest is in preserving the existing game. She is preserving her stake and her family’s stake in a game they have benefitted from. There is no mystery about this at all. There is no need for psychiatry to understand why she is trying to stop Joe Miller. He threatens the game.”

DOCTOR ZERO ON HOW THINGS HAVE CHANGED:

Let me put this bluntly: virtually no one in America gives a damn what Barack Obama says about anything at this point. What could be more predictable, and less interesting, than Obama’s opinion on any given subject? Who wants to contemplate the economic wisdom of a guy who looted the Treasury for a trillion dollars, with less benefit than we could have achieved by stuffing hundred dollar bills into random cereal boxes? Who’s excited to hear about the next plan to convert taxpayer dollars into Democrat campaign funds? Who’s hungry for another hour of tedious excuses about permanently broken markets and the titanic dead hand of George W. Bush? Who wants a lecture on ethical business practices from the titular head of the party that gave us Charlie Rangel and Maxine Waters? What use is another hollow foreign-policy speech from a man who sees no global adversary to rival the menace of Arizona? Even Obama’s supporters don’t hear anything he says any more. There’s nothing left to hear.

Ouch.

FROM THE GALLERY OF unfortunate business names. But memorable!

MARKDOWNS ON DVD and Blu-Ray.

WASHINGTON EXAMINER: Memo to GOP: Don’t drop earmark ban.

In March, House Republicans made an important move to restore their credibility as the party of fiscal discipline when every one of them voted to ban earmarks. “Now House Republicans are going to the American people and saying we want a clean break from the runaway spending in the past. And that’s going to be quite a contrast from this Congress and the administration,” House Republican Conference Chairman Mike Pence crowed.

That was then. This is apparently now: “With their eyes on a House majority, Republicans are leaving the door open to allowing earmarks after a one-year party-imposed moratorium,” reported Politico on Friday. Republican leaders such as House Minority Leader John Boehner and Whip Eric Cantor are suddenly hedging on the issue. Perhaps we need to remind the would-be House leadership why they should continue to steer clear of earmarks.

Besides the obvious — earmarks lead to corruption — I should note that if the GOP leadership had paid attention to the PorkBusters movement back in 2005, they might not have lost the Congress in 2006. But they were too busy stuffing their pockets to do that, with predictable results. What kind of fools are these people? First class . . . .

Republicans have one last chance to save themselves, or Americans’ growing enthusiasm for a third party will catch up to them — not only in the 2012 presidential elections, but in a lot of Congressional districts. And Democrats, don’t get too excited about that, because you’re not very popular, either . . . .

PUNISHED: Missouri State Auditor Defunds Speed Trap City. “A notorious Missouri speed trap town was busted Wednesday by the state auditor for violating the law. Randolph, Missouri has a population of just 47 people, but the police department last year dished out 3132 fines — nearly all speeding tickets issued to motorists passing through on Highway 210. A formal examination of the city’s book uncovered the fact that Randolph made more than thirty-five percent of its revenue from freeway traffic ticket, in violation of the Macks Creek law, an anti-speed trap statute named for a town that went bankrupt after its ability to issue speeding tickets was revoked.” All you need is a law providing that ticket revenue goes to the state’s general fund. . . .

WHAT CAUSED San Francisco’s Gas Pipeline Explosion?

SPEEDING TRAFFIC ALONG with adaptive stoplights.

HOW NOT TO HANDLE A TRAFFIC STOP.

LIST: Best Missing TV Shows On DVD.

ROSS DOUTHAT: Do Reporters Know How To Write About Religion? Not so much.

Journalists are more skeptical — and often less religious — than the average American, Douthat said in a conversation with Diane Winston, the Knight Chair in Media and Religion at Annenberg. That skepticism helps reporters cover politics, business and local government. But that same skepticism hinders them from understanding, let alone covering, the religion beat.

“It would be odd for business reporters to think that balance sheets are silly, or to not believe in Wall Street,” Douthat said. “But in religion, you get that all the time.”

This may be too charitable to business reporters, but he has a point. Plus this:

Journalistic ignorance about religion is only matched by religious institutions’ distrust of the American media, he said. And the result is a gaping divide between two main American institutions. Douthat’s suggestion: get educated. Treat the beat the same you would any other. Pick up a book or five, read different viewpoints, learn about religious organizations and how they work. Come prepared.

Good advice on any subject, but all too often ignored.

WASHINGTON POST: Was politics behind the government’s decision to preserve the UAW’s pensions? Yes. Next question?

JIMI HENDRIX DIED 40 years ago today.

ALZHEIMER’S DRUG improves perceptual learning in healthy adults.

IF IT’S FROM A GAS GIANT, WOULD YOU USE LIQUID METHANE? Pope’s astronomer would be pleased to baptize an alien “no matter how many tentacles it has”.