THE SCARLET MANIFESTO?:  Dr. Peggy Drexler argues that the increasing social and economic parity of men and women is a proximate cause of equalizing rates of adultery across genders.  Unsurprising conclusion: “Women have more choices, and they are acting on them.”

CLINT EASTWOOD’S CLAIRVOYANCE: Biden a “grin with a body behind it.” “I didn’t pay much attention to that line in the speech, but man, was Clint on target.”

HILLARY, UNDER-BUSED: Obama Bites The Hand That Feeds Him. “Hillary’s leverage is at its peak now, when Bill is leading the Obama reelection charge and when a sudden resignation would represent a huge setback for Obama. The Clintons can try to use this leverage to halt White House efforts to scapegoat Hillary. Then, they can hope the issue blows over. However, the Benghazi story isn’t likely to blow over. And after November 6, the Clintons can do nothing to avoid the scapegoating of Hillary by the Obama administration.”

A DEMOGRAPHIC SEA CHANGE: “Finally, buried deep in the report is the most telling number of all: In the last year the number of “first” births dropped to the lowest level ever recorded in America. What does that mean? It means that we’re slowly bifurcating into a country where there are two kinds of adults: people who have children, and people who do not. The people who have children are inclined to have seconds and thirds. But for the first time in our nation’s history, we’re growing a sizable cohort of adults who remain childless their entire lives. And a sea change like that never happens without consequences.”

I FORESEE A GOLF-BASED PARODY AD: New Obama ad: Few presidents have faced so many challenges. Sand traps, golf carts stuck in mud, balls in the rough. . . .

UPDATE: Reader Dan Naden writes:

My first thought? The last president faced a lot of challenges.

It’s insulting that Obama would dare to make such a claim while President Bush faced the Dot Com crash, 9/11, Katrina, etc. All while Democrats pulled out all the stops in undermining him and everything he ever supported (including our troops overseas).

Obama should probably pull that ad because, aside from sounding like a whiner, aside from being an outright lie, the ad is a slap in the face for America.

Well, that’s the whole Obama presidency, really.

THAT DOESN’T FIT THE NARRATIVE: Contra His Incessant Whining, Obama Was Handed an Economy in Recovery.

UPDATE: Lloyd Tackitt emails: “Obama didn’t inherit a bad economy, he applied for the job of fixing it. He literally begged to get his hands on it so he could fix it. He ran a competitive campaign to get the job of fixing it and shouted about how bad of a condition it was in. Now he twists it so that it sounds like it was something dumped on him he didn’t really want. He has gone from bragging that only he could fix it, to whining that it was worse than he expected. Why is it that no one calls him out on this? I haven’t heard even the most conservative of pundits call him on this.”

DOING THE MATH on what counts as “middle income.”

I THOUGHT THE HARRY POTTER SERIES WAS BOARDING SCHOOL STORIES WITH MAGIC: Because I grew up on British boarding school stories, I didn’t find HP wildly inventive.  I did however find it engaging.  I haven’t had the nerve to try her grown-up mystery yet.  Reviews like this aren’t helping: J. K. Rowling and the Deadly Tedium.  The reviewer reminds us of Flannery O’Connor’s observation that “the writer can choose what he writes about, but he cannot choose what he is able to make live.”   In my experience, not only is that true, but first efforts in any genre are best kept from public eyes or very thoroughly re-written after you get your bearings.  Each type of story has a language/rule set of its own. (Update: yes, even if you read a lot of the genre, the first time you write it you’ll still be clumsy.)

PBS’S GILDED CASTLE: Big Bird’s Big-Bucks Boosters.

HOW CELLPHONE DATA could slow the spread of malaria.

DESIGNERS DIVIDED ON New Arby’s Logo. Funny, I was just talking with someone a few weeks ago about how bravely they’d stuck with the old one and how well it worked. . . .

STOP DISTRACTING PEOPLE FROM BIG BIRD: Mark Steyn: ‘Politicized’ Benghazi distracts from Big Bird.

BLACKLISTED:  John Fund at National Review Online discusses “The New Blacklist.”  On it?  Anyone who disagrees with progressive/liberal causes, particularly gay marriage.  Whatever one thinks about such issues, the aggressive intimidation tactics– outings, firings, etc.–are this generation’s McCarthyism.

BENGHAZI BLOG-COMMENT OF THE DAY:

This seems to be a real test of the American media.

They have dined out for decades on the role of the Watergate investigation in removing a president from office as proof of their value in policing the government and holding those in power accountable to the court of public opinion.

Well, it wasn’t exactly easy, but the media didn’t share a lot of ideological views with Nixon, and he didn’t go out of his way to be friends with them. But how much harder must it be now, for the media to be in a position to hold an administration accountable when it contains the people they are simpatico with. How much harder must it be, when they don’t know if the trail will end with Clinton or Obama, frustrating even their internecine bias. How much harder must it be, right before a presidential election?

Indeed.

LIBERAL BIAS IN LAW SCHOOL HIRING– A TEST CASE:  A first-of-its-kind trial begins Monday in Iowa, claiming that the University of Iowa law school violated the First Amendment rights of Teresa Wagner, a conservative woman turned down for a faculty position there.  Like most law schools, Iowa’s faculty was overwhelmingly Democrat, with 46 of 50 faculty members registered as such.  As an earlier study published in The Georgetown Law Journal in 2005 analyzed 11 years of federal campaign contributions by professors at the top 21 law schools as ranked by U.S. News & World Report.  Of those who gave $200 or more, the study found, 81 percent gave wholly or mostly to Democrats, while 15 percent gave wholly or mostly to Republicans. The percentage contributing to Democrats were shockingly lopsided at the most prestigious law schools: 91 percent at Harvard, 92 at Yale, 94 at Stanford.

The left-leaning nature of law faculties is undeniable (as with the rest of the academy).  In addition to a possible (probable) bias in hiring, one has to wonder:  What effect does this unbalanced, one-sided view of things have on lawyers’ learning of the law, particularly the Constitution?

OHIO COAL MINERS TO OBAMA: Quit Lying About Us!

ART AND TOTALITARIANISM: Is there any act so absolutely heinous that the works of a great artist who commits it should be permanently banned from circulation?

That’s the question that Terry Teachout asked back in 2006 in a lengthy post that he linked to this past week. It seems especially timely given Camille Paglia’s article in the Wall Street Journal, and upcoming book on the history of art. If I’m understanding her comments in her podcast interview at Ricochet (which isn’t easy at times given their machine gun rate of delivery) much of her diagnosis for an artistic revival is based around the notion of replacing morality with aesthetics. While we definitely need a better class of artist, art doesn’t always lead to great civilizations, as Teachout notes. (See also: post-Wagnerian Germany, D.W. Griffith and Woodrow Wilson, pioneering Soviet filmmakers, etc.)

RELATED: Ronald Radosh on “The Case of Eric Hobsbawm: Can a Stalinist be a Good Historian?”

UPDATE (FROM GLENN): Totalitarians as failed artists — a blast from the InstaPundit past. “Art kills.”

POP QUIZ: Which one of these charts is Obama’s Intrade contract, and which is the 2001 Nasdaq bubble/burst?

I think that should be the 2000 Nasdaq bubble burst, but well played, nonetheless.

THE INTOLERANCE OF INTOLERANCE:  Jonathan Turley has a great piece at the Washington Post about the decline of free speech in the western world over the last few decades.  He correctly observes, “It appears that the one thing modern society can no longer tolerate is intolerance.”

LOOK BACK IN MAGMA: Evidence that Democrats are in “Last Days of Pompeii” mode.

Great metaphor, kid — but, as our Insta-host is wont to say, don’t get cocky.

THE GENDER GAP NARROWS:  In this interesting piece from Melinda Henneburger at the Washington Post, she observes that the post-debate gender gap is narrowing, with more women breaking for Romney.  In part, this is because the Obama Administration’s primary selling point to women has always been abortion and contraceptives. Yet women are–like the country as a whole–deeply divided on abortion, with 49 percent self-identifying as pro-choice, 45 percent pro-life.   It’s the economy, stupid.

HEH.™

HOW MUCH SPACE IS THERE UNDER THAT BUS? No More Bonhomie for Bubba and Barry?

RETRO-TECH: A Look At The 1950s Flying Saucer the Air Force Wanted to Build.

HOW’S THAT “SMART DIPLOMACY” STUFF WORKIN’ OUT? August 2012 US Report Shows Libya on the Road to Becoming A Failed Islamist State. Too bad nobody thought this might mean our ambassador needed security or something.