TODAY ONLY: Earphones marked down from $399.99 to $94.99.

UPDATE: Reader Michael Crane writes:

Thank you for the pointer.
I like the UE headphones. I have the UE11 IEMs and am in awe of its clarity and natural presence of sound. I used the Shure 530 until moving to the UE11. My partner is in need of headphones and a $300 discount is too good to pass up.

Yeah, I think I may crack and buy some too.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Too late! Next time, I’ll buy first, then post . . . .

MORE: Now Amazon’s offering a consolation sale to make up for the sell-out.

GOOD FOR THEM: Teenagers adrift in Pacific for 50 days reach land.

AT AMAZON, the Black Friday sales continue through the weekend.

SPEED CAMERAS making millionaires.

HMM: 45% OF SOUTH KOREANS SUPPORT MILITARY ESCALATION.

HOW DOES THIS GRAB YOU? Jim Dunnigan on Airport Security. “The main criticism is that many of the security measures adopted since September 11, 2001 have been more for show than for effectiveness. An increasing number of potential passengers are no longer flying because of these new methods, which have, so far, not caught a single terrorist. This is described as a sign of how effective the new measures are. But the new techniques would not have detected the ‘underwear bomber’ of last Christmas, who secreted explosives in his underwear. Moreover, there have been many cases where passengers got weapons past security, usually by accident. . . . Finally, as was demonstrated recently with two airfreight bombs coming out of Yemen, air freight in general is very vulnerable, especially since a lot of this freight ends up in the cargo holds of passenger aircraft. Thus for determined and well organized terrorists, there are more vulnerable areas to get a bomb onto an aircraft than via a passenger. These more vulnerable areas are given less attention partly because they are less visible, and thus provide less visibility for politicians seeking to demonstrate that they are ‘doing something’ about airline security.”

SHOCKER: Report: ‘Issues of Culture, Ethnicity and Identity’ Raised in U.K. Rape-Gang Case.

FAILED TERROR ATTEMPT AT TREE-LIGHTING IN OREGON: “The FBI thwarted an attempted terrorist bombing in Portland’s Pioneer Courthouse Square before the city’s annual tree-lighting Friday night, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Oregon. A Corvallis man, thinking he was going to ignite a bomb, drove a van to the corner of the square at Southwest Yamhill Street and Sixth Avenue and attempted to detonate it. However, the supposed explosive was a dummy that FBI operatives supplied to him, according to an affidavit in support of a criminal complaint signed Friday night by U.S. Magistrate Judge John V. Acosta. Mohamed Osman Mohamud, 19, a Somali-born U.S. citizen, was arrested at 5:42 p.m., 18 minutes before the tree lighting was to occur, on an accusation of attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction.”

HOUSE MAY BAN honorific resolutions. “Celebratory bills — honoring historical figures, or a town’s anniversary, or a major local attraction — are a big part of House business. Incoming Republican leaders say they’re a waste of time.” What, no more National Goat Week?

“GERMANY GETS IT. OBAMA DOES NOT.”

NEW JERSEY: Anti-Violence ‘Activist’ Arrested for Inciting a Riot.

ROGER KIMBALL on Democracy in Europe.

SUBWAY SERVICE TO HOGWARTS?

ALAN SIMPSON: The Greediest Generation.

CHANGE: Iceland elects ordinary folk to draft constitution. More thoughts here.

UPDATE: Reader Bjarni Olafsson writes:

Hey Glenn,

Regarding the Icelandic constitutional convention. I’m Icelandic and I’m very apprehensive about the whole thing. To you American Tea Party people this might sound like an awesome idea, but then you live in a country where one fifth of the country identifies as a tea partier and more than half has a positive view of the tea party. In Iceland, on the other hand, the electorate is much further to the political left. I’m not going to smear my countrymen and call them all socialists – because they’re not – but there are strong socialist trends in the electorate, especially after the crash. I’m afraid that the outcome will be a constitution that will have a massively engorged bill of rights, packed with the sort of “rights” people like you and me are not overly fond of. I’m also afraid that property rights will take a beating, especially when it comes to ownership of natural resources. The system of transferable fishing quotas – which has made the Icelandic fishing industry one of the few in the West to operate in the black – is very likely going to be gutted (no pun intended).

This sounds like a good idea on paper, but when you have 520 people running for 25-31 seats (the exact number of delegates will be decided after the election to ensure gender equality – it’s that kind of convention) it really isn’t much more than random chance who gets in and who doesn’t. Sure the first ten will be the most recognizable people on the ballot but seats 20+ will be essentially random.

Also, I’m not entirely sure, but I guess that Madison took a bit longer than 2 months to write your constitution, and he didn’t have to fight with 24-30 other people all the time while he did it.

There are some bright spots – quite a few of the candidates want to strengthen the separation of powers. We essentially have a British style parliamentary system, where the same party controls the parliament and the executive. If the result of the convention is more in the direction of the US system (special elections for PM/President) then something good will have come out of it, but I’m not holding my breath.

Well, Bjarni, you just need to get involved and push for pro-market reforms. The future belongs to those who show up. After all, things didn’t look so great here a couple of years ago. Then the Tea Party appeared. Only it didn’t just “appear.” It was created by people who were told they were outnumbered and unimportant. They demonstrated otherwise.

WORD OF THE DAY: Eleutherophobia: A fear of freedom. There seems to be a lot of that out there, often accompanied by Oikophobia.

MICHAEL PETRELIS: “The SPLC’s new 2009 IRS 990 filing shows they have a bank account in the Cayman Islands. Now, stop for a good long minute and ask yourself what the hell is a supposed poverty-fighting Alabama-based tax exempt organization doing with such an account. Then ponder this: how much money is in it. . . . Assets for the organization are listed at $190 million, a nice chunk of change in these economic hard times. When was the last time this group, with almost $190 million in assets, did a damn worthwhile thing about, um, poverty?” Well, nobody who works for them is poor. . . .

UPDATE: SPLC: The Wolf Who Cried Hate.

CHANGE: Irish Banks Get Downgraded As Bailout Fears Grow.

Related: Irish Relief Fleeting as `Day of Reckoning’ Nears. “Borrowing costs for Europe’s most indebted nations are at record highs as Ireland’s capitulation in accepting a bailout of its banking industry stokes concern that other countries also will have to seek aid.”

THE PARANOID STRAIN IN AMERICAN POLITICS: Liberals resort to conspiracy theories to explain Obama’s problems. “Following two years of poor economic performance and electoral repudiation, liberalism is casting around for narratives to explain its failure – narratives that don’t involve the admission of inadequacies in liberalism itself.” Is it fair to compare these pundits to Nazis for peddling a stab-in-the-back theory of the economy? Well, that sort of thing has been done.

BLACK FRIDAY: Up to 70% off Movies & TV.

UPDATE: Reader Janet Tague writes: “Hi Glenn — I am a daily (at least once) visiter to your blog. In fact, you were my very first bookmarked blog. I noticed your link to Amazon and, in my quest to participate in Black Friday but at all costs to avoid the mall, linked through both yesterday and today, purchasing about $600 of books, DVDs and cooking stuff. I hope many other readers of your blog did the same and that your very small percent of a big number turns out to be, well, a big number!” I thank you, and my family thanks you!

VOTERS TO THE GOP: “We’re watching you.”

U.S. / SOUTH KOREA RELATIONS: Michael Yon just got there. If I were Korean, I’d consider that a bad portent. . . .

SIGH: MSNBC Inspires Left-Wing Hate Hoax.

TEA PARTY TARGETS BIG BUSINESSES THAT SUPPORTED OBAMA AGENDA. Buy some stock and disrupt a stockholders’ meeting. Lefty groups have done it for years. It seems to be fun . . . .

SLEEPWALKING THROUGH HISTORY. “Most presidents don’t arrive at the White House so bored with the quotidian details of the American people.”

UPDATE: Reader Eugene Dillenburg emails: “This may explain why Obama spends so much time golfing and, to a lesser extent, playing basketball. You can believe you are the smartest person in the room, and you can surround yourself with people who tell you that you are the smartest person in the room. But the ball is not impressed. On the green, or on the court, you have to actually perform, and no amount of spin can turn a bogey into an eagle. Sports seems to be the one area of his life where right and wrong are not predetermined by how closely they align to his own thoughts.”