HOW MARINES TRAIN for an enemy like North Korea.

CHANGE: A Flexible Keyboard With Buttons That Feel Clickable.

NEWS YOU CAN USE: Disappointed woman offers lessons in how to propose.

ROAD TRIP? The 50 Fattiest Foods In 50 States.

READER BOOK PLUG: Shakespeare’s Unorthodox Biography: New Evidence of an Authorship Problem. Actually, it’s by a reader’s wife — but all the more reason for a plug!

SHOULD THE NOBEL PRIZE FOR LITERATURE go to Google?

THE SECRET LIFE OF CATS: What You Can Learn By Putting a GPS on Your Kitty.

JACOB SULLUM: Abusing Dead Children: Obama’s Gun-Control Push.

Also: Manchin and Toomey have a deal, but the NRA has aready rejected it.

UPDATE: NRA Fires Back.

HMM: Where Does Anthony Wiener’s Money Come From?

UPDATE: More questions.

INSTITUTE FOR JUSTICE: Puppies & Kittens & Censors…Oh my! Government Muzzles Internet Pet Vet.

DOES THIS SOUND LIKE SOMEONE WHO’S WINNING THE POLITICAL DEBATE? The New Republic: Senators Should Stop Listening To Constituents.

Related: Survey suggests law enforcement united against gun control. “Almost 96 percent said that a ban on standard capacity magazines would not reduce violent crime.”

WALTER RUSSELL MEAD: Divine Intervention? Why the US Is No. 1 in Shale.

America is the leader of the global shale energy boom, and the rest of the world is racing to catch up. But countries like China and Australia are having difficulty replicating the successes of the US. Whether due to providence, dumb luck, or plain old technological prowess, the US shale revolution just isn’t easily exported. Writing for Forbes, Jeff McMahon explains why.

First of all, America’s existing pipeline infrastructure has been a boon to shale production. The US has the most extensive network of pipelines in the world, and though the system needs updating, it has allowed wildcatters to bring hydrocarbons to market relatively quickly. The US also benefits from world-class drilling expertise, which is in short supply elsewhere around the globe.

But the most interesting point McMahon makes is the role that US mineral and land rights have played in the shale boom. “Individual landowners in the United States can lease mineral rights to their property, a right landowners do not possess in some other nations.” . . .

This is an important point, and it helps explain why oil discoveries Nigeria lead to land confiscation and rioting while similar discoveries in America are more likely to create more wealthy Clampetts.

Of course, all of this is happening despite, not because of, Administration policy.

LEGAL EDUCATION UPDATE: Is Georgetown’s Desire to Hire the ‘Pick of the Litter’ of Faculty Proof of Discrimination Against Older Applicants? Given the future of legal education, law schools should probably be looking to hire older people, since they’ll retire sooner. . . .

IT WASN’T PERSONAL, JUST BUSINESS: Obama Supporters: All Those Racism Complaints About Hillary in 2008? Never mind.

HOWARD KURTZ: Washington Is Waiting for Godot as President Obama’s Second-Term Agenda Stalls.

AT AMAZON, Coupons Galore In Home Improvement.

Also, today only: Markdowns on AC Delco wiper blades.

JAMES TARANTO: Blather, Rinse, Repeat: Obama perseverates again. Meanwhile, cops don’t think much of his antigun ideas. “Obama’s speech, at once demagogic and pathetic, reminded us of Mayor Michael Nutter’s efforts to censor a different kind of magazine, which we noted last month. Like Nutter, Obama is seeking to restrain law-abiding individuals from exercising their constitutional rights in ways the liberal left disapproves. And like Nutter’s effort, Obama’s is unlikely to succeed.”

UPDATE: Prof. Stephen Clark writes:

Over time, I’ve read opinion pieces in which the writer ponders the question of why Obama persists in pushing gun-control legislation: Is he sincere and actually believe his own BS, or is it simply to gin up his base? Well, probably both. But the real issue continues to be that guns have taken center stage in an ongoing cultural war. In particular, any legislation passed will be something to defend against the depredations of the cultural other. Look at the distorting effects of Roe v Wade over the years. In how many venues have supporters of abortion rights amplified criticism of the decision into a general assault to be resisted at all costs.

From this point forward, criticism of any control legislation will be demagogued; the critic painted as one indifferent to the murder of children.

The best reason for unyielding opposition to any of the legislation being contemplated is that the legislation is terrible on its face – even failing to address the advertised concerns of those supporting it. However, running a close second to that reason is this: Nothing is to be gained and much is to be lost by appeasing those who simply dislike you. They will continue to dislike you, and all that they think you represent, regardless.

Indeed.

ANDY KESSLER: The Pension Rate-of-Return Fantasy: Counting on 7.5% when Treasury bonds are paying 1.74%? That’s going to cost taxpayers billions. “The right number is probably 3%. Fixed income has negative real rates right now and will be a drag on returns. The math is not this easy, but in general, the expected return for equities is the inflation rate plus productivity improvements plus the expansion of the price/earnings multiple. For the past 30 years, an 8.5% expected return was reasonable, given +3%-4% inflation, +2% productivity, and +3% multiple expansion as interest rates plummeted. But in our new environment, inflation is +2%, productivity is +2% and given that interest rates are zero, multiple expansion should be, and I’m being generous, -1%.”

AN UNDERGROUND OBAMAVILLE IN THE ERA OF HOPE AND CHANGE: The mole people: Police find ‘homeless city’ where vagrants – including kids – live in labyrinth of tunnels 25ft below Kansas City.

WAPO/ABC POLL: Who likes taxes? Democrats, and no one else. “A clear majority of Americans have an unfavorable view of the federal income tax system, according to new Washington Post-ABC News polling. But, in a somewhat remarkable finding, a majority of Democrats view the tax system in a positive light while Republicans and Independents carry the exact opposite view.”

The GOP is supposed to be taking positions that split independents away from the Democrats, right?

NOBEL PEACE PRIZE UPDATE: Obama’s drone war kills ‘others,’ not just al Qaida leaders.

Contrary to assurances it has deployed U.S. drones only against known senior leaders of al Qaida and allied groups, the Obama administration has targeted and killed hundreds of suspected lower-level Afghan, Pakistani and unidentified “other” militants in scores of strikes in Pakistan’s rugged tribal area, classified U.S. intelligence reports show.

The administration has said that strikes by the CIA’s missile-firing Predator and Reaper drones are authorized only against “specific senior operational leaders of al Qaida and associated forces” involved in the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks who are plotting “imminent” violent attacks on Americans.

“It has to be a threat that is serious and not speculative,” President Barack Obama said in a Sept. 6, 2012, interview with CNN. “It has to be a situation in which we can’t capture the individual before they move forward on some sort of operational plot against the United States.”

Copies of the top-secret U.S. intelligence reports reviewed by McClatchy, however, show that drone strikes in Pakistan over a four-year period didn’t adhere to those standards.

Not adhering to announced standards seems to be a pattern with these people.

MEDIA PRIORITY: At all costs, protect Hillary from Benghazi fallout.

WELL, HE WAS THE “VICE MAYOR,” AFTER ALL: Headline of the Day: ‘Man drove 90 mph with genitals hanging out the window.’

NEWS YOU CAN USE: Why You Should Be A Writer.