JOSH BOAK: Why The Bully Pulpit Can’t Save Obama On Syria. “Obama’s past speeches have been less than persuasive. The Fiscal Times examined three of his most prominent addresses: his 2009 remarks to Congress about health care, his 2011 speech about the economy, and his meditation last year after the Newtown shootings. As compelling as Obama can be from the stump, his presidential speeches have seldom had a lasting impact on public opinion.”

The only really effective speech he’s given is the one he gave in 2004. And that speech was fundamentally a lie.

END OF THE ROAD FOR SPEED TRAPS? “Politicians, driver advocacy groups and even the police are trying to outlaw speed traps, not only because they’re annoying, but because when speed limits are too low, roads become more — not less — dangerous.”

All you have to do is provide that all traffic-ticket revenue goes to the state’s general fund. No more speed traps.

Plus: “Less surprisingly, a CBS station in Detroit hosted an Internet poll asking if drivers support or oppose an 80 m.p.h. statewide speed limit, and thus far about two-thirds of voters are in favor.” That’s because more than 2/3 of drivers go that fast anyway.

RALPH BENKO: How Aaron Swartz, ‘The Irresistible Force,’ Plus Darrell Issa And Ron Wyden, ‘The Immovable Object,’ Saved The Internet: Part I.

WHEN GOVERNMENT FAILS: In Mexico, self defense groups battle a cartel.

An audacious band of citizen militias battling a brutal drug cartel in the hills of central Mexico is becoming increasingly well-armed and coordinated in an attempt to end years of violence, extortion and humiliation.

What began as a few scattered self-defense groups has spread in recent months to dozens of towns across Michoacan, a volatile state gripped by the cultlike Knights Templar, a drug gang known for taxing locals on everything from cows to tortillas and executing those who do not comply.

The army deployed to the area in May, but the soldiers are mostly manning checkpoints. Instead, Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto is facing the awkward fact that a group of scrappy locals appears to be chasing the gangsters away, something that federal security forces have not managed in a decade.

They include a 63-year-old pot-bellied farmer mindful that he can run only 30 yards; a skinny 23-year-old raised in Oregon who said he had never used a gun before; and a man who wears a metal bowl stuffed with newspaper as a helmet. A 47-year-old bureaucrat, who is sure that she will be killed if the gang retakes her town, said of her decision to join the cause: “I may live one year or 15, but I will live free.”

Very interesting. They even seem to be organizing into a well-regulated militia of sorts. Read the whole thing.

MEGAN MCARDLE: Just One Weird Trick To Get You To Read This Article.

AT AMAZON, it’s the Fall Outlet Event.

Also: The Kids’ Halloween Store.

Plus, markdowns on select Kidde fire safety products. Smoke alarms, escape ladders, and carbon monoxide detectors.

WELL, THAT DIDN’T TAKE LONG: Russia Backing Away from Fake Syria Weapons Deal.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE, LEGAL EDUCATION EDITION: ABA Seeks Comments on Proposed Changes to Law School Accreditation Standards.

Related: The Case For An Interdisciplinary Law Degree For Non-Lawyers.

RESISTANCE: This Is What Happens When Citizens Get Fed Up Over Speed Cameras. A little 21st century Pauline Maier.

NEWS YOU CAN USE: HOW TO TRACE A SARIN ATTACK.

A DELUGE OF DRONES invading US airspace.

CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY: EU Ethanol Fuels Boondoggle Raising Global Food Prices. “Getting rid of biofuel programs would cut Europe’s food costs in half by 2020, and lower global food prices by 15 percent.”

Hey, it’s not me calling it a crime against humanity. It’s a United Nations expert.

CHARLES CRAWFORD: Syria, chemical weapons, and the worst day in Western diplomatic history. Yesterday it was all, “Hey, this is a Munich Moment.” Today the same people are all “We’ve got a deal that means peace in our time!”

POLL: Americans Rate Obama’s Foreign Policy Same Or Worse Than Bush’s.

UPDATE: From the comments: “That’s pretty harsh on Bush.” Yeah, but that’s what’s striking — Bush’s image is filtered through a decade of nonstop media negativity; Obama’s through nearly a decade of nonstop media promotion. And yet Obama only scores “Same or Worse.”

HMM: Hyperactivity Linked To Inner-Ear Defect.

FROM MARGARET DREW AND ANDREW MORRISS: Clinical Legal Education & Access to Justice: Conflicts, Interests, & Evolution.

TAXPROF ROUNDUP: The IRS Scandal, Day 124.

DISPATCHES FROM CUBA: Michael Totten Launches A Kickstarter Project. I donated — his work is always worth reading.

PUTIN’S FIG LEAF ACCEPTED: Syria Backs Russian Plan for Weapons. If the problem was minor enough that this solution is acceptable, then it wasn’t worth getting all heated-up about with bombing threats and Holocaust analogies to begin with.

UPDATE: “It’s scary to see all the political reporters praise Obama while all the national security reporters cringe.”

ANOTHER UPDATE: Climbdown complete — Obama agrees to UN debate on Putin plan. President Emily Litella.

MORE: The New Republic: Amateur Hour: Obama Got Played by Putin and Assad. I’d love to hear the NSA intercepts of Putin’s conversations with Assad: “Can you believe this is working?!” Of course, the quote from a Congressional staffer in the TNR piece is pretty good: “an unmitigated clusterfuck.”

Obama may be able to sell this as a win to low-information voters, but the DC establishment — in both parties — knows better and will adjust its estimation of Obama, and its plans for the future, accordingly. As, of course, will our friends, and our enemies, abroad.

WELL, THAT’S QUITE SENSIBLE: Poll Shows South Koreans Worry About Norks & China More Than Japan.

Since Shinzo Abe entered office, Japan and South Korea haven’t gotten along. His administration’s nationalism and hawkishness, as well as its apparent blindness to the suffering of Japan’s colonial subjects in the past century, have certainly taken a toll on the official relationship. The clearest sign that all was not warm and fuzzy was new South Korean President Park Geun-hye’s decision to make Beijing, rather than the customary Tokyo and Washington, the destination for her first official trip abroad.

But what do ordinary Koreans think about the relationship with Japan? If a new poll by the Asan Institute for Policy Studies, a Korean think tank, is to be believed, the Korean public is more willing than its leadership to mend fences with Japan.

Well more than half (58 percent) of South Koreans, the poll found, would support a presidential summit between Seoul and Tokyo. Slightly more (60 percent) say a military communication agreement, which South Korea canceled after advanced discussions in 2012, should be signed. And South Koreans support both of these positions without preconditions such as Japan’s giving ground on territorial disputes or apologizing for historical wrongs. That suggests that South Koreans are still more spooked by the Norks and by China than by big bad Abe.

I mean, I would be too.

FUNDAMENTAL TRANSFORMATION: Anne-Marie Slaughter envisions an America where caring is as important as competing.

AT AMAZON, Warehouse Deals in Video Games.

Plus, deals on Road Trip Essentials.

Also, today only: Save 69% on the “Harry Potter Wizard’s Collection.” “This new limited and numbered 31-disc collection contains all eight Harry Potter movies on Blu-ray, DVD and UltraViolet Digital Copy and more than 37 hours of special features including all previously released materials and more than 10 hours of new to disc bonus content, and 5 hours of never-before-seen material.”

MY USA TODAY COLUMN: Obama Diplomacy Is Making Him A Laughingstock. And that was written before yesterday afternoon’s absurd new developments.

IT’S COME TO THIS: Help Kickstart World War III. “Why? Because Obama.”