MICHAEL MANN’S BOGUS NOBEL TRICK.

In public, Dr Mann is a-huffin’ an’ a-puffin’ that this is just more smears from Koch-funded climate deniers. But, behind the scenes, a lot of quiet airbrushing of the record seems to be going on. Two days ago, his Penn State bio said he had been “co-awarded” the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize, now merely that he “contributed… to the award” (whatever that means). Over at Wikipedia, they’re arguing over ever more unwieldy rewrites. Editing a false legal complaint is trickier but by now someone may have snuck into the DC court clerk’s office with a gallon of White-Out and amended “defamation of a Nobel prize recipient” to “defamation of a man who received one of two thousand photocopies of a commemorative thank-you certificate run off at the IPCC branch of Kinko’s”.

So let’s see: A week ago, Michael Mann accused us of damaging his reputation – and seems to have made it a self-fulfilling prophecy. A week ago, he was a “Nobel prize recipient”. Now he’s not. Great work, Mike!

Heh.

TWO CRUMBLING MODELS ARE BETTER THAN ONE: The Telegraph fails to see why two traditional publishers merging together will not make them better.  When Amazon and Apple rule the roost in publishing, being bigger is not the path to success — being innovative is.  But hey, publishing mergers worked (badly) in the eighties.  So they should work today.

WELL, THAT DIDN’T TAKE LONG: Early on Friday morning, I wrote:

CHANGE: White voters poised to abandon Obama in droves.

If so, here’s a sneak preview of how the postmortems will read.

The “sneak preview” was a link to Jonathan Last’s November 1st, 2010 article in the Weekly Standard, which compared and contrasted the warm light in which liberal journalists bathed their fellow countrymen in November of 2008, with the anger the same journalists viewed their customers just two years later. The cause of such a dramatic mood shift was traced to the sudden and debilitating case of oikophobia the MSM developed beginning in mid-2009. These symptoms began to appear concurrent with the formation of the initial Tea Parties. Despite its early diagnosis that year by Reason’s Jesse Walker, the initial case of oikophobia, left untreated,  metastasized to near fatal conditions the following year, as it became increasingly apparent in Beltway and Manhattan newsrooms that the GOP was likely to recapture at least one house of Congress.

Today, as Jazz Shaw writes at Hot Air, “AP survey finds Americans still a bunch of racists… even if they don’t realize it:”

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FIRST REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL ENDORSEMENT IN 40 YEARS: Des Moines Register Endorses Romney.

Key bit: “The president’s best efforts to resuscitate the stumbling economy have fallen short. Nothing indicates it would change with a second term in the White House.”

DOG PINCHES MAN: New York Times Endorses Obama; No GOP Endorsements in 50 Years.

UPDATE: 1956 — The Last Time the New York Times Endorsed a Republican.

CREEPY: Even for Halloween this commercial from the Obama Campaign is over the top.  Having kids sing about how bad life will be under your rival is not exactly hope — or a change anyone wants. You know what it reminded me of, that anti-global warming  ad with children exploding.  This is what happens when you lock yourself in an echo chamber.

OOPS: Losing From Behind. “On September 11, 2012, Rasmussen Reports had President Obama’s job approval at 52 percent approve, 47 percent disapprove. Today, October 27, the numbers have reversed—47 percent approve, 52 percent disapprove. The economic news over these past six weeks has been on the whole a bit better than expected, so it’s hard to believe that’s the cause of the change. The campaign and the debates could of course have played a role. But the main real-world event that might have affected voters’ approval or disapproval of President Obama’s job performance is Libya.”

UPDATE: Related: “There are two plausible explanations for Obama’s current slide: voters may be disgusted by the mean, petty campaigning he is running, or they may disapprove of his handling of the Benghazi crisis. Or both. While the details of what happened in Benghazi are murky–probably impenetrably so to the average voter–the impression that the Obama administration 1) failed to protect adequately our personnel in Libya, and 2) tried to deceive Americans about what happened, is both strong and correct. To the extent that either or both of these factors are driving Obama’s falling approval ratings, it is hard to see what he can do in the next week to turn the situation around.”

GALLERY: Most Spectacular Shots From 50 Years of Robotic Solar System Exploration.

CAREERS IN THE ERA OF HOPE AND CHANGE: “I had no clue what manner of blogging would occur for a porn company, but it sounded like a better job than folding ironic T-shirts for minimum wage.”

Also: “Let me add to that quote that if you are thinking of being a porn blogger, be sure to have plenty of synonyms for ‘vagina’ at your disposal. Also, you should really love alliterations.” Of course, that rule now also applies to working at Organizing For America.

STORM-PREP BLOGGING from The Anchoress.

UPDATE: Reader Paige Bullock writes: “My brother has been driving west on highway 70 (VA to IN) for the last nine hours and says the highway is packed with electrical trucks and tree-trimming rigs heading to the coast in preparation for the hurricane. He says they’ve literally (not the Joe Biden kind) passed hundreds of them.”

Yes, the utility companies support each other and pre-position as close to the storm as they safely can. The key, of course, is getting the roads open in the storm-damaged area as quickly as possible so that they can get in to fix things.

WINTER IS COMING: At Amazon, markdowns in Blankets & Bedding.

Also, today only: ReVIVE Series Solar ReStore External Battery Pack with Universal USB Charging Port for Portable E-readers , MP3 Players , Smartphones & More USB Powered Devices, $21.99. (Bumped).

PUNCHBACK: Navy SEAL Group Will Air Anti-Obama Ads During Harvey Weinstein’s ‘SEAL Team Six’ Film.

ANN ALTHOUSE: David Weigel debunks a video that has never been bunked in the first place. “He who laughs at morons should look to it that he himself does not become a moron. And when you gaze long into the idiocracy the idiocracy also gazes into you.”

UPDATE (From Ed): I don’t care what anybody says — I know in my heart that the president is secretly a Keynesian.

RHODE ISLAND: Republican upset brewing in RI-01 (Patrick Kennedy’s former seat).

THE HUNT FOR OSAMA BIN LADEN: This looks promising. Zero Dark Thirty, a new film by Katherine Bigelow, director of The Hurt Locker.

[youtube YxC_JNz5Vbg]

NICHOLAS JOHNSON: Applying the Undue Burden Standard to Restrictions on Gun Rights.

WHEN DOES PETRAEUS SPEAK OUT? “If Petraeus wants to run for president some day (presumably as a Republican), working for Obama is a surmountable problem. Being part of a cover-up of this kind of scandal in the October before an election? Not so much.”

#BENGHAZI: TEN QUESTIONS FOR THE WHITE HOUSE, from Bill Kristol.

UPDATE: Some parsing from Prof. Stephen Clark:

There’s been much commentary swirling around the recent CIA and NSC statements that paraphrased amount to saying: No one denied requests for assistance and, it can be argued, that assistance was given. However, there are sins of commission and sins of omission: what does deny mean in this case?

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Steve Eimers writes:

I decided to take my 8 year old son Vitali and picket in front of the Democrat HQ in Loudon County and near the early voting location in Lenoir City. I held a sign that said ‘What Happened in Benghazi?’ on one side and ‘Obama Unfit for Command.’

I had 15 people honk and give a thumbs up and 5 people flicked me and my eight year old son off. One woman came out and dropped the f-bomb on me and continued to curse me out in front of my son. Definitely could have used some ubiquitous video today. Next time I will have my camera!

You always want a camera.

There is an active and a passive meaning associated with that word. It is argued that assets were present and overhead during the attack on the annex: C130 gunships, drones, for example. Either they were or they weren’tAs evidence for the affirmative it is argued that Tyrone Woods, a former Navy SEAL, illuminated a mortar position, at severe risk of comprising his own position, and would have done so only with the knowledge that those assets were overhead. He either illuminated or not. Illumination suggests a direct request for use; was the request made?

Now, use of those assets has to be authorized – no passive meaning here. At any point in time, use of those assets can be denied actively; or passively by simply not issuing an authorization for use. There is no need for an order stating: “Do not use”. In this circumstance, note that it even can be argued that a request for use was not ignored or that there was a failure to respond, since the response would be no response. Remember, you’re dealing with word parsers in a situation now demanding much CYA in the wake of a FUBAR scenario.

All questions put must assume possible active or passive meanings to words. So, was direct authorization to use specific overhead assets in relief of the compound, or annex, issued during the time of the attacks: Yes, or no? If, “No”, then was a specific order to not use such assets issued: Yes, or no? If, “No”, then you have your passive denial of use.

I think the key bit is: “Remember, you’re dealing with word parsers in a situation now demanding much CYA in the wake of a FUBAR scenario.”

#STANDDOWN: U.S. Had Two Drones, AC-130 Gunship, and Targets Painted in #Benghazi.

RELATED: “Yesterday the CIA said they didn’t say no to a rescue mission for Ambassador Stevens and other Americans under attack. Today the White House said it wasn’t Obama. Hey DoD…the music is slowing down and you don’t have a chair.”

HMM: Navy replaces admiral leading Mideast strike group. “The Navy said Saturday it is replacing the admiral in command of an aircraft carrier strike group in the Middle East, pending the outcome of an internal investigation into undisclosed allegations of inappropriate judgment. . . . It is highly unusual for the Navy to replace a carrier strike group commander during its deployment.”

I wonder if there’s any connection with this story relating to the Benghazi response? Or maybe I should say “non-response.”

Related: Bing West: If Obama Really Gave the Order to Secure Libya Personnel, ‘There’s a Paper Trail.’

UPDATE: At Ace’s, they report that there’s nothing to these stories.

EMBRACE THE MACHINES: Don’t rage against the kitchen machines: Innovations in kitchen technology have helped to keep traditional cuisines alive. A sufficiently advanced culinary science is indistinguishable from magic.

BLOGGING ABOUT what it’s like making calls for Romney. “537 votes decided the presidency in Florida in 2000. I don’t want Obama to win a close election by a few hundred votes because I was too lazy. The process was even simpler than I expected. I signed up here in a few minutes, and I was immediately making calls! Didn’t cost me a penny.”

It’s all about showing up.

REASON TV: Celebs Pledging to Serve Barack Obama: 2012 Update.

RESEARCHING THE BENGHAZI COVERUP.

IF YOU MISSED IT EARLIER, Check out Steve Crowder’s Lena Dunham Parody Video. Currently #5 On YouTube in humor.