Smoke, Mirrors and Publisher self-delusion, oh, my.

SAN FRANCISCO VOTER KIT CONTAINS PSAs FOR BOTH AIDS TESTING AND WILD ANIMAL AWARENESS:

Toward the back of the toolkit was a full-page ad promoting HIV testing from the Department of Public Health, using an election theme and image that was impossible to ignore:

I’ve been looking at San Francisco’s voter toolkits since 1995 and don’t recall seeing such an ad before. Opposite the HIV testing ad was a safety message about coyotes in the city, which was from the Recreation and Parks Department:

Click over for photos of the voter kit. As the Professor would say, David Baron, call your office. Considering that their next column has just written itself, Mark Steyn and/or Theodore Dalrymple should call in as well.

MICHAEL MOYNIHAN on Holocaust agitprop in Berlin: “[T]he most controversial work of the show is ‘Berek,’ a short film Zmijewski made in 1999 that features a group of smiling, naked people playing a game of tag in a Nazi gas chamber.”

MITT’S MEN DON’T PLAN TO FAIL, Stacy McCain writes in the American Spectator (with a brief reference to your humble guest-narrator near the end of the article). Of course, right around this time in 2008, John McCain’s camp was looking pretty good as well, what with their mastery of YouTube (along with their ability to ahem, rob the Blogosphere of good video ideas when inspiration failed them) in much the same way that Mitt’s men have seemingly mastered the speed of Twitter, this year’s new e-medium.

The real test will be who controls the narrative in the fall, and in contrast, who has a public meltdown after the conventions, a sure sign that a campaign is about to crash against the icebergs in November, if the elections in 2004 and 2008 are any indication.

RELATED: “The Origins of A False Narrative: Leave No Establishment Consultant Behind.”

DID DINOSAURS CAUSE CLIMATE CHANGE? “Huge creatures may have contributed to their own demise because they produced so much flatulence.” Actually, I can see the validity of this hypothesis; which one day could ultimately doom modern man.

THE DEAD DREAM of the dirigible. Is it really dead?

ANSWERING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS: Which Muppets do members of Congress resemble?

(H/T: Bridget Johnson.)

PJ O’ROURKE CALLED IT IN 2008:

France is a treasure to mankind. French ideas, French beliefs, and French actions form a sort of loadstone for humanity. Because a moral compass needle needs a butt end. Whatever direction France is pointing in—toward Nazi collaboration, Communism, existentialism, Jerry Lewis movies, or President Sarkozy’s personal life—you can go the other way with a clear conscience.

But a tip of the fedora on the way out is always good manners.

RELATED: “We Socialists Have To Stick Together: Obama Calls France’s New President-Elect.”

GENDER POLITICS GONE WILD: “It takes mom to get people back together. That’s how families do it.” (I don’t like to self-link while guest blogging, but if you want a place to talk about the Scott Walker recall primary, which is tomorrow, here‘s the post with the same link over at Althouse.)

ALL FALL DOWN: “The temple of postmodern liberalism was rocked these last few weeks,” Victor Davis Hanson writes, “as a number of supporting columns and buttresses simply crashed, leaving the entire edifice wobbling.” Read the whole thing.™

JOHN HAWKINS: Mitt Romney’s Top 30 Potential Picks For Vice-President.

Oops, I see Ann posted on this earlier. Well, two Insta-links is probably better than one!

GOODBYE TO GOOBER. “Goober is every man… Everyone finds something to like about ol’ Goober.”

HOW DEMOCRATS USED TO TALK ABOUT DEFICITS AND UNEMPLOYMENT: “As you hear Democrats and members of the media insisting that an unemployment rate of 8.1 percent isn’t that bad — ignoring how much of the drop from the peak is driven by Americans ending their job searches and leaving the workforce — recall how they greeted economic times that look positively bountiful compared to our current state.”

That was different. Then there was a Republican in the White House.

“PONCHOS AND SOMBREROS: Partygoers don ‘insensitive’ attire despite student efforts.”

JUST A REMINDER: Arthur C. Brooks, The Road to Freedom: How to Win the Fight for Free Enterprise is out this week.

THE “OUTRAGEOUS LOOPHOLE” that let Scott Walker “operate in lawless fashion”? Funny, when what you’re calling “lawless” is, well… a law.

“It’s offensive to say it’s a loophole. It’s a clear statute,” said Mike Wittenwyler, a Madison political law attorney. “If that’s a loophole, then the entire state statutes are a loophole.”

NO. NEXT QUESTION, PLEASE: Does the Internet Need a Global Regulator? As Adam Thierer writes at Forbes, “It comes as some relief, then, that the next major Net policy battle will unite almost everyone in a common cause: stopping the United Nations from taking over the Internet.”

This has long been a goal of the UN, as this 2003 article at Tech Central Station highlighted. If I recall correctly, Glenn was blogging about this topic as well in the early days of Instapundit.

TOP 30 POTENTIAL ROMNEY VP PICKS. I think he’s right about #1.

INTERVIEW: JONAH GOLDBERG DISCUSSES THE TYRANNY OF CLICHES: Part One of my podcast (and accompanying transcription) is now online at Ed Driscoll.com; part two will appear tomorrow.

THE CLOWARD-PIVEN STRATEGY IS WORKING PERFECTLY — in Europe.

RELATED: “Voter backlash revives Europe debt fears,” and Germany’s Angela Merkel “loses power in state election.”

MORE: Understatement alert! “History has shown that when Germany is economically isolated and placed in debt, they do not just accept it.”