FUNDAMENTALLY UNSERIOUS:  Next Debate Topics Announced. Unfortunately for Obama, the Minaj/Carey Feud is Not on the List

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VODKAPUNDIT’S WEEK IN BLOGS.

AND THE CHALLENGE OF SELLING A SECOND TERM ON NO ACCOMPLISHMENTS:  New Obama ad: Few presidents have faced so many challenges. 9/11? Cold War?  WWII?  That’s nothing.  He had to face Republicans!

TOMORROW’S POST-ELECTION MSM APOLOGIAS TODAY: Back in late 2004, Rush Limbaugh had lots of fun playing an interview that Tina Brown (now editor of Newsweek) had on her little-seen CNBC show with David Westin, then the president of ABC News, who said that the media needed to send the equivalent of foreign correspondents to the Red States, to witness firsthand how these strange people in the hinterlands live out their exotic day-to-day existences, and why they rejected the suave and debonair John Kerry for that hayseed George W. Bush:

WESTIN: I think we don’t do that enough, and I’m not just talking religious communities. I’m talking all sorts of communities across the country. I think that… You understand this, Tina, living in New York or in Los Angeles, we have busy jobs. We go into the office every day. We tend to socialize with the same people, or the same types of people, and I think it’s terribly important for journalists to get out whether it’s overseas or domestically and try to understand.

As Rush quipped, paraphrasing Westin, “We need more foreign correspondents in Alabama! We need more foreign correspondents north of Palm Beach County in Florida! We need embeds to go to church, find out what’s going on with these holy rollers! Ah, folks, you can’t know how much I love this.”

Also in November of 2004 after the election was concluded, when Brian Williams replaced Tom Brokaw, then-NBC president Jeff Zucker attempted to sell Williams to the public, by proclaiming to USA Today that “No one understands this NASCAR nation more than Brian.”

You can just smell the condescension in that statement can’t you? And it didn’t take long for it to begin to appear repeatedly in Williams’ broadcasts. (In some cases what didn’t appear in Williams’ broadcasts was equally worthy of comment.)

(Not coincidentally, Jeff Zucker’s Wikipedia page has this ignominious subhead regarding Zucker’s tenure at the network: “President & CEO of NBC Universal: NBC Goes from First to Last in Ratings.”

At Red State this week, Erick Erickson has a lengthy essay on the vast disconnect between the MSM and its consumers — or as Erickson notes — increasingly, their former consumers:

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WOW: Al Arabiya reports that Hezbollah’s chief financial officer has just fled to Israel with five million dollars, classified information, and maps.

RENT DINESH D’SOUZA’S 2016: OBAMA’S AMERICA for just $3.99.

IT PROBABLY INVOLVES A TURNIP: The True History of the Black Adder by J F Roberts: extract  and in an hilarious twist, you might have some trouble reading the book, since it’s out of print a month before being released. (This happens, as I’ve found, when you enter the wrong date for publication but it’s such a Black Adder-worthy touch.  I’m sure they have plan around this.)

BUT OF COURSE: Powers That Be Trying To Bring Digital Rights Management to 3D Printers.

AT AMAZON, bestsellers in Barware.

Also, homebrewing and wine-making supplies.

And today’s Kindle Daily Deal is Octavia Butler.

MARY KATHARINE HAM AND KELLY MAHER: The War On Bacon.

THE SOFT BIGOTRY OF LOW EXPECTATIONS, now in easy to follow statistical forms.

RELATED: To their credit, the NAACP concurs, finding itself in agreement with both George and Jeb Bush.

PORTENTS OF THE EU NOBEL PEACE PRIZE: At PJM, Claudia Rosett writes:

With the EU enterprise lurching from one crisis to the next, with the Greeks and Spanish rioting over austerity, with the French and Germans bickering over bailouts (and with American power, perhaps not so coincidentally, in decline), much of the reaction to this prize defaulted to the rationale that the Nobel Committee was trying to give the EU a nudge away from the precipice. Or, as the the New York Times summed it up: ”The decision sounded at times like a plea to support the endangered institution at a difficult hour.”

Does that bode well for the EU?

Not if things work out the same way for the EU as some of the more disastrous picks by the Nobel committee have, as Claudia goes on to note.

(For some background on how the Nobel Prize came to be, and additional details of some of their more ignominious moments, I interviewed Jay Nordlinger of National Review, and author of the recent book, Peace, They Say: A History of the Nobel Peace Prize, the Most Famous and Controversial Prize in the World a few months ago. Click here to listen.)

RELATED: Still not sure how Obama earned a Nobel Peace Prize after less than two weeks in office?

ROMNEY’S BEST POLLING DAY YET? No wonder Dems are seeming desperate.

UPDATE: Columbus Dispatch: Romney On The Rise In Ohio.

WELL, YES: “I can pretty much guarantee that this man photographed at a Romney rally in Lancaster, Ohio, is not in fact a Republican, but rather is a plant sent out by the Democrats as a dirty trick.”

Whenever the Dems are in trouble, they start this sort of thing. They’re in trouble now. Expect the bylined Democratic operatives formerly known as journalists to help as much as they can.

RELATED (From Ed): It’s time to print up new versions of signs such as these, which were rather effective in pointing out false-flag plants at the Tea Parties in 2010:

AMBROSE EVANS-PRITCHARD: The wrong Europe wins the Nobel Peace Prize. “The Nobel Prize comes, in short, as events have shown that the Hegelian push for breakneck integration – the supranational assault on the ancient nation states of Europe – has proved to be an unmitigated disaster.”

IT’S NICE TO KNOW THAT WESTERN CIVILIZATION HAS A HOME SOMEWHERE. Advocate of Western Civilization Finds a Home for His Ideas at Texas Tech’s Honors College.

HAPPY CROCKTOBER: Markdowns on Slow Cookers.

Also, today only: Remington King of Shaves 5-Blade Razor Kit with 15 Cartridges, $13.99.

GARY COLLINS DEAD AT 74: The HuffPost dubs the TV host and actor “legendary,” which seems rather over the top, but he certainly was ubiquitous in a Troy McClure sort of way in the 1970s and ’80s.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Borrowing Without Information. “More than 40 percent of students and recent graduates with high levels of student debt report that they never received the loan counseling required by federal law, according to a new survey released by NERA Economic Consulting and Young Invincibles.”

Any other industry behaving this way would face a firestorm of criticism and regulation.

WHIPLASH HWANG LIVES! Except he’s made his way from Korea to Russia. Which is why if you’re ever driving there, make sure you have a video camera on your dashboard at all times, for reasons this video makes absolutely clear.

(Headline inspired by a character in one of M*A*S*H’s best episodes.)

‘MYSTIC GIVER:’ “So, in that apparently disastrous and embarrassing appearance at the GOP, did Clint have anything to say about Joe Biden? Why, yes, he did…”

BECAUSE WOMEN DIDN’T FIND REGULAR HEELS UNCOMFORTABLE ENOUGH: Sky-High “Front Heels” Teeter on the Edge of Fashion. Good grief.

DEJA VU ALL OVER AGAIN: Looking back at Earth In The Balance: The First Draft:

Before there was Al Gore, there was George Mitchell. Politicians have been casting themselves as environmental crusaders, saving the planet, for two decades.

George J. Mitchell spent 15 years in the US Senate, between 1980 and 1995. In 1991 his book, World on Fire: Saving an Endangered Earth, appeared.

So what were politicians saying about the environment 21 years ago? Pretty much the same things they say today. The planet was “under siege.” An environmental “Holocaust” was underway.

Which is also exactly what they were saying 35 years ago today as well, as Zombie noted in January:

I just finished reading a terrifying new book about climate change. I learned this:

• Climate change is happening faster than we realize and it will have catastrophic consequences for mankind.
• There’s very little we can do to stop it at this late stage, but we might be able to save ourselves if we immediately take these necessary and drastic steps:

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NEWS YOU CAN USE: Minutes of Hard Exercise Can Lead To All-Day Calorie Burn. “In a new study, researchers show that exercisers can burn as many as 200 extra calories in as little as 2.5 minutes of concentrated effort a day—as long as they intersperse longer periods of easy recovery in a practice known as sprint interval training. The finding could make exercise more manageable for would-be fitness buffs by cramming truly intense efforts into as little as 25 minutes.”