AT AMAZON, Home & Kitchen Outlet Deals.

Also, today only: Two Richard Castle mystery novels for $1.99 each on Kindle.

ARE WE ABOUT TO WITNESS THE DEATH OF THE EV? Over at Powerline, Steven Hayward surveys the recent news and concludes a Green Weenie is in order. I survey the same scene and am inspired to revive the old blog where I once pronounced without restraint my two-cents worth about cars, carmakers, car experts, car killers (mostly in Washington and California) and related car topics. So if anything unpleasant follows from this little anticipated revival, it’s all Hayward’s fault!

IPHONE MUGGINGS on the rise in NYC. How long before someone sues Apple for encouraging these by not making iPhone’s more theft-proof?

JAMES LINVILLE: In the Middle East, where is the indispensable nation?

REMEMBER EVAN THOMAS’S FAMOUS “FIFTEEN PERCENT” REMARK FROM 2004? “The media, I think, wants Kerry to win and I think they’re going to portray Kerry and Edwards I’m talking about the establishment media, not Fox. They’re going to portray Kerry and Edwards as being young and dynamic and optimistic and there’s going to be this glow about them, collective glow, the two of them, that’s going to be worth maybe 15 points.”

Thomas later revised his estimate to five points. So the media’s trying much harder this time around, and Obama and Romney are basically tied. Does that mean that without the media’s help, Obama would be 5 points behind?

SEX STRIKES & POLITICAL/LEGAL REFORM:   Geez, all this time I thought political and legal change required passion, commitment and sustained effort.  Turns out, as women in many African nations have recently discovered, all it takes is not putting out for a little while.   Feel the power, sisters!  LOL.

And… a good reason to vote for Romney.

NEWS YOU CAN USE: Why People Hate Cyclists.

All those of you who want Romney to attack, note what happens when he so much as makes a joke.

CSI: BENGHAZI: Betsy Newmark on why the State Department has to attack CNN and BuzzFeed:

What struck me in the exchange between the State Department spokesman and the Buzzfeed reporter was that the spokesman referred to the consulate as a “crime scene.”

Though you might want to ask CNN if they took anything else from the crime scene that they haven’t yet told anyone about.

A crime scene? This was an al Qaeda attack on American soil. Our embassies and consulates around the world are American soil. Why do you think they attacked our ambassador there? They wanted to demonstrate their power to attack us on 9/11 and the administration spent a week saying it was all because of a video and then started to refuse to answer questions because there was an FBI investigation going on.

CNN is now reporting that, despite concerns about the radical groups swarming into the reasons, the diplomatic mission in Benghazi did not have even standard security protections.

Read the whole thing.

PAUL MIRENGOFF: How megalomania explains Obama’s response to the Arab Spring.

NOW THAT’S CONCERN-TROLLING: Advisor to Romney’s failed 2008 presidential bid turned CNN talking head Alex Castellanos doesn’t like Mitt Romney’s big crowds.

TRENDY NEW COSMETIC SURGERY: The “Butt Job.”

AT AMAZON, bestsellers in Comics & Graphic Novels.

Also, today only: Madden NFL 13, $39.99. With better officiating than the real thing! (Bumped).

I WOULDN’T MIND THE OPTION, HOWEVER: 5 Reasons Why Being Immortal Would Suck.

RALPH NADER: Obama’s A War Criminal.

It’s no surprise that Ralph Nader isn’t a fan of former President George W. Bush. After all, the longtime activist ran against him in both 2000 and 2004. But Nader’s even less a fan of President Barack Obama, if only because he thinks Obama was capable of so much more.

On issues related to the military and foreign policy, Obama’s worse than Bush, “in the sense that he’s more aggressive, more illegal worldwide,” Nader told POLITICO, going so far as to call Obama a “war criminal.”

They told me if I voted for John McCain, they’d . . . oh, hell, you know the rest.

CALIFORNIA TO LET EARLY SPACE ADVENTURERS KILL THEMSELVES, AS LONG AS THEY ARE INFORMED ABOUT RISKS: As Katherine Mangu-Ward notes at Reason, Jerry Brown “signed a bill on Friday limiting the liability of private space companies:”

In this, California follows the lead of the federal Commercial Space Launch Amendments Act, which treats space adventurers more like scuba divers or paragliders than airline passengers. Space companies are still liable for harm caused to bystanders, but for the guys and gals who choose to suit up and ship out, informed consent is all that’s required.

So why is California going out of its way to offer a space-company friendly environment? The reasoning is right there in Section 1 of the legislation, A.B. 2243:

Over the past few decades, California has lost much of its human space flight industry to other states, such as Alabama, Colorado, Florida, New Mexico, and Texas.

I doubt many politicians in Sacramento watch the videos produced by PJTV’s Bill Whittle, but he mentioned that very point recently:

[youtube J9HzwA7Oi6M]

California, which once brought the world the X-1, the X-15, and the Space Shuttle – not to mention Star Trek and Star Wars — is more into going Back to the Future these days – rather than, you know, the actual future.

However, plenty of people in California are finding their own methods of reaching escape velocity, one way or another.

MORE HOPE & CHANGE!:   Median U.S. household income declined an additional 1.1% in August.  Since President Obama took office, the decline has been a staggering 8.2%.

WHITE HOUSE: BAD CALL IN FOOTBALL GAME A ‘PRESSING MATTER’ AND ‘VERY DISTRESSING:’ Clearly, given the angry mood of a mob shouting death threats over a distressing YouTube video that insults the very nature of their religion, the White House is working overtime to assuage a seething Midwest on the brink of exploding yet again.

EMPTY CHAIRS AND THE INTELLECTUAL EMPTINESS OF POLITICAL CORRECTNESS:  So a guy in Colorado decides to pull an Eastwood and hang an empty plastic lawn chair in a tree.  Admittedly in bad taste because it evokes symbolism of lynchings.  And while the guy may be a real jerk (I don’t know), this is classic political speech fully protected by the First Amendment. In the chair owner’s words, “The current administration in Washington is an empty chair,” Jacobsen said. “They just aren’t doing their job for America.”   Now the progressive political correctness crowd is calling it “hate speech” and trying–in typical fashion–to bully him into taking it down.

HORROR: The Patriarchy’s Newest Brutal Tool of Oppression: Tilted Heads in School Pictures. Stupid patriarchy. It’s always up to something.

TWO HILLARYS IN ONE:

“It is a fact that around the world the elites of every country are making money. There are rich people everywhere, and yet they do not contribute to the growth of their own countries.”

— Hillary Clinton, at the “Clinton Global Initiative” gathering on Monday.

“[Hillary] Clinton Adopts Steve Jobs’ ‘Think Different’ Motto to Take On China.”

— Headline, Chicago Daily Herald, October 14th 2011, a week after Jobs’ death.

I THINK THAT, YOU KNOW, AS PRESIDENT I BEAR RESPONSIBILITY FOR EVERYTHING, TO SOME DEGREE. Plus, this:

The future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam. Yet to be credible, those who condemn that slander must also condemn the hate we see when the image of Jesus Christ is desecrated, churches are destroyed, or the Holocaust is denied.

And yet, “Obama Silent Over Calls to Denounce ‘Piss Christ’ Artwork.”

REASON TV: Imagine (There’s No YouTube).

IF SOMEBODY WANTS TO BUILD A COAL-POWERED PLANT, THEY CAN. IT’S JUST THAT IT WILL BANKRUPT THEM.