JOHN PODHORETZ ON THE WEINER-SEAT ELECTION: Oy, Such Tsuris for Obama and the Democrats.

It’s the most Jewish district in the country, and a great many of its Jews are religious Jews. In choosing Weprin to run for the seat, Democrats thought the fact that he sports a kippah would carry the day with his fellow Orthodox Jews.

It’s not happening that way, and even the notion that it would testifies to the ignorance of pols, including Jewish pols, who think religious Jews are like other ethnic voters.Weprin may be an Orthodox Jewish Democrat, but as such he is now actually in the minority among Orthodox Jews. And the commonality of their religious practice apparently does not provide sufficient cover for his being a representative of the Democratic party in the age of Obama.

The one thing we have been able to determine over the past 20 years is that the more “Jewish” you are—meaning the more you attend synagogue, the more you keep kosher, the more you send your kids to day school and Jewish camp, and the more you commit yourself to living a Jewish life with some fealty to the rules of the religion—the less politically liberal you are likely to be. Owing to Anthony Weiner’s foolhardiness, we are now getting a real-world test of this proposition in the one district in the country where it can actually be tested.

Read the whole thing.

CAN THIS BE FOR REAL? “The CleanWave Sanitizing Wand is a convenient, all-in-one sanitizing solution for your home or office. It safely eliminates 99.9 percent of germs, viruses, bacteria, allergens, and flea and dust mite eggs from any household surface and deodorizes upholstery, carpets, and fabrics.” Sounds too good to be true.

UPDATE: Reader Bob Evans emails: “Damn, Glenn, even Harry Potter’s wand isn’t that powerful.”

HEY, WAIT A MINUTE: PBS ALTERS TRANSCRIPT TO HIDE OBAMA LINCOLN GAFFE.

UPDATE: Byron York emails that they’re lazy, not dishonest: “On the pbs obama transcript thing…I looked at the text of the speech that the white house sent out before it was delivered…and the transcript of the speech that the white house sent out after it was delivered…and he adlibbed the ‘founder of the republican party’ line…it wasn’t in the original text…it seems pretty clear to me that pbs simply posted the text of the speech on its website and went home…and the new york times posted the transcript of the speech, which is what he actually said…pbs was wrong, but i don’t think they altered the transcript.”

ANOTHER UPDATE: On the other hand, reader Mike Macedonia writes: “PBS still has not fixed and the moderator is deleting comments about it.” They should really post a note; the page says it’s a “transcript,” not a “prepared text,” and there’s a difference. And if they’re deleting comments without posting an explanation, well, that’s tacky.

LATER: They’ve updated, with an explanation.

ANNOUNCING THE 1960 Ford Automobiles.

CHANGE: The Five Biggest Sacrifices Obama Wants Us To Make ‘Right Away.’

JEFF MACKE: Why The Obama Jobs Program Is A Loser.

FISH, BARREL: James Taranto mocks E.J. Dionne.

MOE LANE: Post-surgery recovery: kind words, clear fluids, and drinking my enemies’ pain.

STACY MCCAIN: Who You Calling Tasteless, Ping-Pong Ball Boy?

SAN DIEGO BLACKOUT FOLLOWUP: Sewer, water problems highlight utility weak spots. “Thursday’s electrical outage did more than expose vulnerabilities in the region’s power system. It also highlighted the lack of backup power at some sewer and water pump stations across the county. Boil water orders were issued in several San Diego neighborhoods and more than 2 million gallons of sewage fouled the city’s coastline when key pieces of infrastructure failed.”

I’ve written about the need to harden systems against breakdowns so that they fail gracefully if they fail. Send these guys a book on resilience engineering. (I actually have this one. It’s pretty good).

Meanwhile reader Roger Bogh writes: “Finally all that Y2K yak provided some benefit. I work at a computer center and was the Y2K czar before the proliferation of czars under the current White House occupant – known as ‘The Black Swan Event President’. When I heard that power would be interrupted for 12+ hours I warned the folks to fill their tubs and buy bottled water. My friends thought I was nuts! Now, I can ask them how they like tasty organic matter traipsing about in their ‘precious bodily fluids’.”

And here’s a post on low-budget disaster preparedness.

ECONOMIC REFUGEES: Americans flee north of the border for jobs. “Americans make up the second-largest group of temporary workers in Canada, only behind Filipinos, most of whom work as nannies.”

How’s that hopey-changey stuff workin’ out for ya?

ONE-PARTY GOVERNMENT MAKES YOU STUPID (CONT’D): Former Mass. speaker DiMasi sentenced to 8 years on corruption charges. “Noting that DiMasi was the third Massachusetts House speaker in a row to be convicted in federal court, Wolf also said he was disturbed that DiMasi still had support from some lawmakers who felt he had done nothing wrong. Wolf said he felt the case showed that corruption was a regular occurrence on Beacon Hill.”

Stupid and crooked.

IS GOOGLE A POWER HOG? “Google disclosed Thursday that it continuously uses enough electricity to power 200,000 homes, but it says that in doing so, it also makes the planet greener. . . . Up to now, the company has kept statistics about its energy use secret. Industry analysts speculate it was because the information was embarrassing and would also give competitors a clue to how Google runs its operations.”

CHANGE: More Leeches!

AT AMAZON, new releases on Blu-Ray.

SOLARGATE UPDATE: White House Video Praising Solyndra as a Recovery Act Success Story.

UNIONS: Longshoreman Gives Rational and Coherent Statement to Media…Just Kidding, He Threatens Everyone There.

Best line: “You’re not on the PR staff, are you?”

This is the face of one of Obama’s core constituencies. This is what you voted for when you voted for “hope and change.” He can’t even curse creatively.

UPDATE: John Hinderaker: “Has any Tea Partier ever acted in such a violent, threatening, disgusting manner? No. You might think that the union member is a low-life from the gutter, but the remarkable thing is that in all probability, he makes more money than you do.”

But probably not for much longer.

INFLATION IN CHINA: “When China reports this week that the consumer price index rose at an annualized rate of about 6 percent in August, economists may say inflation has peaked. They said the same last year, when the C.P.I. was running half as fast. The problem isn’t bad forecasting: China’s headline inflation measure is flawed.”

DOUG WEINSTEIN ON HOW THEY’VE RUINED THE TENNESSEE FOOTBALL EXPERIENCE.

THE DEATH STAR AS cautionary defense-purchasing tale. “It’s embarrassing enough that the galaxy’s supposedly most fearsome weapon was felled by crappy duct work. But it was entirely predictable. A project so big and complex, Ward writes, will invariably stretch the oversight capabilities of acquisition staff. In this case, it led to manufacturing delays and prevented the Empire from realizing that one of its thermal-exhaust ports was a de facto self-destruct button. Moreover, for all the expense poured into it – $15.6 septillion and 94 cents, to be precise — the Death Star is destroyed twice, and in its two iterations only ever manages to get off a few shots.”

HIGHER EDUCATION UPDATE: Long Island U.’s Brooklyn Campus Revokes Health-Care Coverage for Striking Faculty. “Striking faculty members at Long Island University’s Brooklyn campus were informed by e-mail that their health-care coverage through the university has been canceled but that they could continue coverage at their own expense under the terms of the federal Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act, or Cobra. Brian Harmon, the campus’s public-relations director, said that the university stopped faculty members’ health-care coverage when the strike began, on Wednesday, the first day of fall classes, because it is permissible to do so under the institution’s policies on benefits. The coverage, he added, can be reestablished once the professors go back to their classrooms.”

CHANGE: Chris Matthews’ Social Security admission: ‘It is a Ponzi scheme.’ Boy, the narrative control is really breaking down.

AMONG THE TRUE BELIEVERS, dreams from their 2008 Obama.

MAURICE STUCKE AND ALLEN GRUNES talk about the AT&T/T-Mobile merger and the Justice Department’s response.

CREDENTIALED, NOT EDUCATED: “Palin knew Revere better than Obama knew Lincoln. . . . Obama inaccurately called Abraham Lincoln the founder of the Republican Party.”

Plus: “It’s even worse, because Palin’s (accurate) comments were made in an on-the-fly interview whereas Obama’s were in a prepared speech.”

UPDATE: From the comments: “History? He can’t even remember that his first stimulus was a spectacular failure.” Heh.