SORRY, BUT NOT EVEN “SHOWERPOOLING” can make AXE cool. “Unilever, one of the world’s largest consumer product makers, this week will unleash a controversial online ad campaign for its edgy Axe brand of men’s grooming products that urges college students to shower with a friend, or ‘an attractive stranger.'”

PROGRESS: ‘Three-parent baby’ fertility technique could be made legal. “A fertility treatment which eliminates hereditary disease by engineering babies to carry healthy DNA from a third biological parent could be legalised next year.”

NANOTECHNOLOGY UPDATE: AI for synthetic chemistry may provide more building blocks for nanotechnology.

LOWER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: School systems want to compensate on “merit.” But are government bureaucracies actually capable of measuring such a thing?

PORTRAIT OF A MODERN FEMINIST: Dr. Helen Smith. “I absolutely think there’s a war on men.”

MONETARY POLICY: “It’s a remarkable spectacle in a way: the Fed is printing money that nobody wants.”

CAPTION THIS: Debbie Wasserman Schultz Wrote Something On Her Hand, Too. What is this, middle school?

UPDATE: Meanwhile, on the just-plain-creepy side: Actress Jessica Alba asks voters to pledge allegiance to Obama. I understand that actors are generally none-too-bright, and none-too-educated, but still. . . .

Related: Your Viral Image Of The Day. (Via email from Iowahawk.)

Amazed nobody at Obama HQ noticed this, especially with all the hand-stuff.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Gateway Pundit sure did. I guess the handwriting is on the wall.

MORE: David Harsanyi: A Short Visual History of the Creepy Obama Cult.

READER JOSEPH WHITE EMAILS:

Dear Dr. Reynolds,

An interesting comparison:

1942: Der Fuehrer’s Face, produced by Walt Disney, winner of the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film
2012: Innocence of Muslims, produced by “Sam Bacile”, producer arrested and film denounced by the federal government

From courageous defenders of liberty to cringing lickspittles in just seventy years. Impressive.

Please feel free to print my name; I won’t give these bullying bastards an inch.

Good for you.

But when I went to YouTube to find the video, I saw this. Note the “context-sensitive” ad:

Is YouTube trying to tell us something?

Certainly the press has been saying for a while that not to love Obama is a great disgrace. Just ask Chris Matthews!

MORE OF THIS, PLEASE: “An Iranian cleric said he was beaten by a woman in the northern province of Semnan after giving her a warning for being ‘badly covered.'”

ED MORRISSEY: Romney’s “Victims” vs. Obama’s “Cash Cows.”

AT AMAZON, bestsellers in Jewelry.

Also, today only: Essential Albums on MP3 for $3.99.

UNEXPECTEDLY! More Americans Than Forecast Filed Jobless Claims Last Week. “Jobless claims decreased by 3,000 in the week ended Sept. 15 to 382,000, Labor Department figures showed today in Washington. The median forecast of 49 economists surveyed by Bloomberg projected 375,000.” And if history is any guide, they’ll be revised upward next week.

UPDATE: More: “Today’s initial claims print was the 5th week out of 6 in which expectations missed: instead of coming in at the consensus number of 375K, down from last week’s 382K, the BLS reported a miss to expectations of 7K, resulting in a seasonally adjusted number of 382K, or what is now once again secular shift higher. But, wait big miss was actually good news: why? Because the ever data-massaging BLS was kind enough to revise last week’s print upward (for the 86th week in a row) from 382K to 385K (just as we predicted last week) which in turn led to such farcical headlines as U.S. weekly jobless claims drop slightly to 382,000 from the WSJ.” Yeah, this pattern with the revisions is so consistent, it’s almost suspicious. Note the damning graph on headlines vs. revisions at the link.

MANAGEMENT: Probe of Secret Service prostitution scandal may cite White House advance staff involvement.

Shocking to think that such attitudes reached that high:

Pictured on the left, above, is Jon Favreau, who still works for the White House at a salary of $172,200 a year. According to the linked article, Obama calls him his “mind reader.”

FOREIGN AID: Clinton to battle Tea Party over foreign aid to Egypt and Libya. “Lawmakers have expressed dismay that it took Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi, the newly elected leader from the Muslim Brotherhood, about 24 hours to criticize a protest at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo. The demonstration culminated in the burning of the American flag on the anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.”

LOOKING FOR WAR ON TERROR NEWS? Check out Fred Pruitt’s Rantburg.

A CULTURE OF DEPENDENCY: Under Obama, Food Stamp Costs Growing Much Faster than Food Stamp Rolls.

THE FURTHER DECLINE OF MALE SPACE: Is the Toilet the Only Place a Man Can Get Some Peace and Quiet?

IS IT TIME FOR TOMMY THOMPSON to go negative?

ANDREW KLAVAN: Media To Romney: Stop Telling The Truth. “One more ‘disastrous’ week for Romney and he could win by a landslide!”

FINANCE: What Does It Mean When You Can’t Trust The Numbers?

“WE’RE LIVING IN THIS BORROWED FANTASY WORLD.”

Related: Media poised to pretend economy bottomed out just in time for Barry.

WELL, THAT’S A REAL PROBLEM: New Wisconsin ad slams Obama over high black unemployment.

OVERSIGHT: Congressional Tension Revealed in CIA Files.

THE HILL: Harry Reid’s Mitt-Bashing Broke Senate Rules. “Republicans say Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) flouted the spirit of ethical prohibitions against political activity on federal property Wednesday after he ripped Mitt Romney on the Senate floor.”