WAIT, I THOUGHT THE HOUSING “RECOVERY” WAS SUPPOSED TO LAST UNTIL THE ELECTION: Mortgage Applications Slump. “Applications for U.S. home mortgages fell sharply last week, registering the biggest percentage decline in a year as demand for both purchase loans and refinancings tumbled, data from an industry group showed on Wednesday. The Mortgage Bankers Association said its seasonally adjusted index of mortgage application activity, which includes both refinancing and home purchase demand, fell by 12 percent in the week ended Oct. 19. The seasonally adjusted purchase index, which measures loan requests for home purchases, fell 8.3 percent over the previous week. Demand for purchase loans is a leading indicator of home sales.”

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

ANOTHER FAKE HATE CRIME: Police: Black Woman Lied About KKK Setting Her On Fire.

GRRRRANDMOTHER POWER: Grandmothers gave humans longer lifespans.

PURE EVIL I TELL YOU: Don’t You Just Love . . . How People Jump On The Amazon Is Evil Bandwagon?  (Well, when it’s in your business interest to have people avoid Amazon, you do what you can.)

LUDDITES ALL THE WAY DOWN: “Reading a Daily Beast article on the decline of the Netroots is like getting a telegraph on the decline of the horse-drawn carriage.”

CASSETTE TAPES: The Future of Big Data Storage.

POST-APOCALYPTIC NOVELS: 299 Days: The Preparation, and 299 Days: The Collapse.

I WAS EIGHT BEFORE I COULD RECOGNIZE FACES: Including my mother’s.  I used to memorize what people were wearing every morning.  Which is… odd.  This might explain it: key to facial blindness located in brain.  Clearly the problem fixed itself, but it’s interesting anyway.

HOW MANY UNDERCOVER OPERATIVES DOES JAMES O’KEEFE HAVE? @ProjectVeritas_ : Jim Moran’s (D-Va.) Field Director Conspires to Commit Voter Fraud, Forge Docs.

BOB KRUMM: A choice, or a referendum?

YES WE ARE: Tossing men out with the bathwater.

THE BELLICOSE WOMEN HAVEN’T GONE AWAY: Botox and Bullets: Women’s weekend mixes shooting, spa. “I love shooting guns, and I run a med spa, and I thought, ‘Botox and bullets! How fun would that be?'”

TECH IS REMAKING OUR WORLD: And this pretty much agrees with my position that government cannot stop it, it can only make it painful.    (But it can make it VERY painful.)

HOW’S THAT HOPEY-CHANGEY STUFF WORKIN’ OUT FOR YA? (CONT’D): Netroots Bloggers Mark 10th Birthday in Decline and Struggling for Survival. Just for the record, InstaPundit’s traffic is at a record high.

MICHAEL MANN claims to have won Nobel Peace Prize. Of a piece with his other declarations, I’d say.

DON’T GET COCKY, KIDS: Gallup Tracking: Romney 50, Obama 47.

TRANSPARENCY: Reason writers on who they’re voting for. Mostly Gary Johnson among those who are voting at all, but most think Obama would be worse than Romney. The “Liberaltarianism” and “Obamatarianism” bubbles of 2008 seem to have quite thoroughly burst.

OF ALL CONSPIRACY THEORIES: This one was always the most credible. Because the KGB REALLY did things like this.

FISH OIL, and a lesson in happiness. “It’s not just the absolute amount of omega-3s that you take in, but also the amount relative to your levels of omega-6 fatty acids. The risk for depression may increase with a high ratio of omega-6 fatty acids — found in corn, safflower, and soybean oil, and common in processed foods — to omega-3s.”

THIS COULD BE THE BEST CONSUMER-FRAUD CLAIM SINCE THE NEVERENDING STORY: Mickey Kaus: Newsweek Still Selling 1-Year Subscriptions. “There is some fine print at the bottom. I figured it might disclose the detail that Newsweek will actually cease printing its magazine in a little over 2 months. But no. . . . Aren’t there laws against, say, selling someone a year’s lease in a building that’s about to be knocked down? Maybe laws with large penalties attached! The concept of consumer fraud seems relevant here. Where is Eliot Spitzer when you need him?”

THAT’S GOING TO LEAVE A MARK: New ad by Clint Eastwood: An Obama rerun would not make my day.

TOM MAGUIRE: A See-No-Evil CEO for the New York Times? “The October Surprisers are enduring quite the October surprise themselves – the NY Times incoming CEO, Mark Thompson, is embroiled in one of the largest scandals ever to rock the BBC. . . . Hmm, would the Times hire the former Penn State Athletic Director to run their sports desk? Inquiring minds want to know.”

DAVE KOPEL: How Syria Is Iran’s Route To The Sea. “If you’re a journalist or a commentator, there’s no reason be ashamed just because a Washington Post writer reported a story much better than you did. But when you find yourself being outclassed by Yahoo! Answers, perhaps it’s time to rethink your assumptions that you’re much smarter and better informed than Mitt Romney.”

UPDATE: Benghazi, the media, and the sounds of silence. “There should be resignations because of all the lying, and the cover-ups. . . . Last night, on twitter, I saw members of the press–not bloggers, not new media folk in pajamas but members of the mainstream press, writers from the NY Times and elsewhere, completely ignore breaking news of these emails and the utter collapse of the president’s preferred narrative; they chose to pretend that this story did not exist.”

SCHLOCK: So at The New Republic, Eliza Griswold writes a story about neo-Nazism in Greece, but can’t resist a Tea Party comparison. Pathetic.

FOR ALL:  Obama Campaign Manager Jim Messina Says He Doesn’t Know About Ft. Hood Terrorism Controversy.