FOUR YEARS, ONE STORM.  EYES ON THE BALL: The storm before the storm?

THE CHILDREN’S CRUSADE: Michelle Obama: ‘I’ve had 10-year-olds who are on a phone bank’ for Barack.  This explains some of the calls I’ve had.  Not particularly literate ten year olds.  My name is apparently impossible to pronounce.  My first name.

PHOTOS: Superstorm Slams East: 245 photos of the devastation caused by Sandy, at the Weather Channel.

YOU HAVE TO KILL A FEW OF THOSE BRAIN CELLS NOW AND THEN, POUR ENCOURAGER LES AUTRES: Do More Intelligent People Drink More Alcohol?

NO, ROMNEY WOULD NOT ABOLISH FEMA:  You’d think they would be playing these gotcha games with more important stuff like… Benghazi.  No?  No, neither would I.  I no longer expect even normal decency from our so called Main Stream Media. At one time I wanted to be a journalist.  Now I just want their model to die.

AT AMAZON, coupons galore in Home & Kitchen.

BILL CLINTON DEFINITELY WANTS TO WIN THIS THING: “The only question is: For whom?”

JUST NBC THE HATE: MSNBC Ridicules Romney for Collecting Food and Supplies for Sandy Victims.

ROGER KIMBALL: “Well, it was grim, Hurricane Sandy. We were prepared for something bad, but this storm, as we were warned, turned out to be like nothing I had ever seen.”

CALIFORNIA: Dems nervous, GOP upbeat as vote nears. “In this most unpredictable of campaigns, an emotional role reversal is happening in California. Republicans, who hold no statewide offices and are only 30 percent of registered voters, are more upbeat and enthusiastic. Liberals, on the other hand, keep checking the polls.”

PROGRESSIVES AGAINST PROGRESS: We all have our vision of the ideal Manhattan. For some, it’s the Miesian early 1960s world of Don Draper or Roger O. Thornhill. For others, it’s Annie and Alvy in the mid-’70s. For Occupy Wall Street it’s…Waterworld:

No subways. No electricity. No chains. #capitalism #sandy #nyc

— Occupy Wall Street (@OccupyWallSt) October 30, 2012

So, Visualize Industrial Collapse, and rooting for hurricanes, in other words.

But if they’re really celebrating reprimitivization in general and the lack of electricity specifically, why are they Tweeting about it?

DAILY LIFE IN ISLAMIST NORTHERN MALI: The Islamists better enjoy this while it lasts, because it’s not going to:

A checkpoint set up by the Islamist police on the road to Gao marks the beginning of the region controlled by the new rulers of northern Mali. Adolescents wielding Kalashnikovs stand at the barrier with their legs apart. The oldest one keeps repeating the same instructions through a megaphone: “No cigarettes, no CDs, no radios, no cameras, no jewelry,” an endless loop of prohibitions, a list of everything that’s haram, or impure, with which this journey to the north begins. The men stand guard in the name of the Prophet Muhammad.

With arrogant gestures, they stop the few long-distance buses still coming from southern Mali. One of the men, holding his weapon at the ready, inspects the busses by walking down the aisle and checking to make sure everyone is in compliance with the Islamists’ rules: Are women and men sitting in separate areas? Are the women wearing the hijab? And are the men wearing trousers that reach to their ankles, the kind of trousers that radical Muslims believe the Prophet favored? They are now obligatory in Gao.

The driver and the passengers submit to the procedure in silence. When it’s over, the inspector jumps out of the back door, still wielding his Kalashnikov, and calls out “Salam alaikum,” the greeting commonly used in the Muslim world. The bus has now been cleared to pass through the checkpoint.

FASTER, PLEASE: Scientists Move Closer to a Lasting Flu Vaccine. “Dr. Nabel and other flu experts foresee a time when seasonal flu shots are a thing of the past, replaced by long-lasting vaccines.”

OBAMA: “WE LEAVE NOBODY BEHIND”:   Yep– you heard that right.  Our commander-in-chief, he of Benghazi-gate, told reporters at a photo-op at the Red Cross today that “we leave nobody behind.”  At least not after a hurricane a week from the election.  But in far away Benghazi, well, that’s another question entirely.  I know this is graphic, folks, but sometimes graphic pictures drive a point home in a way words never can:

IN THE MAIL: Mies van der Rohe: A Critical Biography, New and Revised Edition, by Franz Schulze and Edward Windhorst. Schulze’s original 1986-version was the definitive history of this landmark modernist architect and this new edition is extensively revised and updated from the original version, with numerous new illustrations, to boot.

Earlier this year, I scanned a few of my photos from my 2000 trip to Mies’s 1929-era Barcelona Pavilion, and uploaded a 1987-vintage BBC Design Classics look at Mies’ Barcelona Chair to the PJ Lifestyle blog. And my July of 2001 National Review Online article on Mies is still visible, here.

SCIENCE FICTION LAND: This might be a worthwhile Kickstarter project.

[youtube 89BM2J7liWc]

Science Fiction Land is the latest from director Judd Ehrlich, a two-time Emmy-nominated filmmaker (Run for Your Life, Mayor Of The West Side, Magic Camp). [It] tells the mind-bending true story behind Ben Affleck’s Argo. Production on our film began years before the Hollywood version. We don’t have big stars or a big budget, but we have an extraordinary story to tell. After filming dozens of interviews and accumulating a bounty of archival materials, with your support, we will be able to complete this unique film and share the real-life events that are truly stranger than fiction.

They’ve raised about 75 percent of the money they need, but they only have four days left.

KAUS:  A Machiavellian four-step plan for the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the final pre-election October employment statistics. “There is precedent for this maneuver…”

#BENGHAZI: “The big reason is fear of failure, a big public failure,” Michael Ledeen writes, with an assist from his late friend, James Jesus Angleton of the CIA. It was easier for the Obama administration “to live with tragedy and even a perception of indecisiveness-verging-on-cowardice, than with an AC-130 gunship going down in flames.”

I have a free short story out for the next five days on Amazon (I forgot to put in the description that it is a short story.  I’m a little busy with election stuff and more confused than normal.)  Wait Until The War Is Over.  It was published in the DAW anthology Gateways.

ALTERNATIVES: Pinterest For Dudes.

TO BE EMBARRASSED THEY’D NEED THE ABILITY TO TELL RIGHT FROM WRONG: The Benghazi Coverup: Are Reporters Embarrassed?

I’VE GOT A BAD FEELING ABOUT THIS: Disney to acquire Lucasfilm, Ltd. for 4.05 billion dollars. As part of the deal, Star Wars: Episode 7 announced for 2015.

No doubt, with this latest Star Wars film, the new partnership will maintain the same rigorous controls over plotting and dialogue that Lucas brought to bear on the previous decade’s trio of Star Wars prequels.

LONGEVITY: Modern humans found to be fittest ever at survival, by far. “Modern humans have gotten incomparably good at survival, doing more to extend our lives over the last century than our forebears did in the previous 6.6 million years since we parted evolutionary ways with chimpanzees, according to a new study. In fact, humans in societies with plentiful food and advanced medicine have surpassed other species used in life-extending medical research in stretching our longevity and reducing our odds of dying at every point along our ever-lengthening life spans, the study finds.”

Faster, please.

AT AMAZON, it’s the Holiday Toy List.

HUGH HEWITT: Did POTUS just say we leave nobody behind? #Benghazi.