THEY TOLD ME IF I VOTED FOR MITT ROMNEY . . . The LAPD Allegedly Handcuffed And Detained A “Django Unchained” Actress For Kissing Her White Husband.

From the comments: “Why so much racism in places that are run by Democrats?”

NOW THEY TELL US: After 30 Years Of Lies, NY Times Admits “Assault Weapons Are A Myth.”

UPDATE: Eugene Volokh emails to note that this is an op-ed, not an editorial. True, but I still regard it as an admission.

SMART DIPLOMACY: Yet Another U.S.-Backed Syrian Rebel Group Makes Peace with ISIS. We sure can pick ’em.

NEWS YOU CAN USE: How To Stop Money From Killing Your Marriage.

Traditional marriages seemed to have two main modes of managing money: Dad handed over his paycheck to Mom as soon as he got it, and she gave him an allowance for beer and cigarettes. Or money was a man’s business, and Mother had an allowance for clothing and household operations but had to beg her husband for big purchases such as a washing machine.

I’m not saying that either of these systems was better; obviously, if I thought they were better, I’d be agitating for my household to use one of these methods. But they were simpler. They cut down on the losses, in time and money, that are created when you blow up the fixed boundaries.

Couples have created any number of alternative systems to try to get around these problems. All of them have drawbacks.

We split the bills, with occasional adjustments if things get out of whack. We’ve never had a joint checking account, as I remember a friend’s parents constantly fighting over who was responsible for bounced checks.

I did see someone on Twitter the other day define “rich” as “when you can both spend out of the joint account as you like without any problems.”

UPDATE: This post on finances from a while back may be worth reading.

WANT TO BE SMARTER AND HAPPIER? Exercise. I’ve had good luck with the Rippetoe approach, but it’s much more important that you do something vs. nothing, than that you do any particular kind of exercise. Even just getting off the couch more via a Fitbit is good. For the average American, there’s a lot of low-hanging fruit there.

UPDATE: Here’s a post on exercise from a while back. I’ve gone a bit harder-core on the Rippetoe stuff since then, but it’s basically the same.

AT AMAZON, Fall Deals on Men’s Shoes. Also, Women’s Shoes.

Plus, Generators and Portable Power for Storm Season. Winter is coming.

A BLOG ABOUT DOGS: The Puparazzo.

THE HILL: Obama Clings To Air Power.

President Obama is solidifying his legacy as the air war president with his strategy for taking on the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

The escalated use of airstrikes in Iraq and potentially Syria is just the latest example of the president finding it strategically and politically expedient to choose missiles over manpower when fighting enemies abroad.

So if there are no boots on the ground in our war, does that make it a bootless struggle?

UPDATE: From the comments: “Why are folks surprised that an emperor without clothes fights wars without boots?”

Matt Drudge called it a while back:

IN OBAMA’S ECONOMY, there will be plenty of people happy to take a job at Chipotle.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE, LEGAL EDUCATION EDITION: Where Are All The Law School Applicants?

Rumor has it that it’s not just law schools, but even some large state universities — not mine, at least not yet — that are having trouble filling seats, as the higher education bubble continues to deflate. I’m sure those sex-policing rules aren’t helping, either.

All is proceeding as I have foreseen.

I’M IN FAVOR OF STRICT OBSERVANCE OF THE POSSE COMITATUS ACT: Child pornography conviction overturned because the government violated the Posse Comitatus Act. But isn’t what’s really troubling, that a single Naval investigative agent could search every computer in a state at all?

Agent Logan’s search did not meet the required limitation. He surveyed the entire state of Washington for computers sharing child pornography. His initial search was not limited to United States military or government computers, and, as the government acknowledged, Agent Logan had no idea whether the computers searched belonged to someone with any “affiliation with the military at all.” Instead, it was his “standard practice to monitor all computers in a geographic area,” here, every computer in the state of Washington….

The record here demonstrates that Agent Logan and other NCIS agents routinely carry out broad surveillance activities that violate the restrictions on military enforcement of civilian law. Agent Logan testified that it was his standard practice to “monitor[] any computer IP address within a specific geographic location,” not just those “specific to US military only, or US government computers.” He did not try to isolate military service members within a geographic area. He appeared to believe that these overly broad investigations were permissible, because he was a “U.S. federal agent[]” and so could investigate violations of either the Uniform Code of Military Justice or federal law.

The extraordinary nature of the surveillance here demonstrates a need to deter future violations. So far as we can tell from the record, it has become a routine practice for the Navy to conduct surveillance of all the civilian computers in an entire state to see whether any child pornography can be found on them, and then to turn over the information to civilian law enforcement when no military connection exists.

That seems like the buried lede here.

REMEMBER: MALE TEACHERS ARE RARE BECAUSE PEOPLE ARE AFRAID MEN ARE SEXUAL PREDATORS. Chemistry Teacher Arrested For Bringing Date Rape Drug Recipes To School. “An Oak Ridge High chemistry teacher is in big trouble, and her students know it because she was arrested at school. . . . Her arrest came after deputies executed a search warrant at her Woodlands apartment. According to the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office, deputies found more recipes, methamphetamine, marijuana, numerous prescription medications and Gamma-Hydroxybutyrate, a compound used in date rape drugs.” Note: Oak Ridge in Texas, not the one in Tennessee.

SPENGLER ON what Ross Douthat doesn’t understand. “An analogy might be useful: Evangelical Christians are among Israel’s strongest supporters in America, yet some Jews–including liberals as well as Christianophobic ultra-Orthodox–reject this support. That is hysteria. Israel’s supporters in America are among the strongest defenders of Middle Eastern Christians, yet some Middle Eastern Christians reject this support. That is also hysteria. Jews who reject Christian support are crazy, and Middle Eastern Christians who reject Jewish support are crazy. It’s the job of leaders to tell them so.”

SALON PUBLISHES AN ALL-FEMALE ENEMIES LIST.

AT AMAZON, bestsellers in Military History.

Also, coupons galore in Vitamins & Dietary Supplements.

And, 100 Albums for $5.

WELL, THAT’S COMFORTING: Chinese See War With Japan as Inevitable. If Obama hadn’t flushed the Pax Americana, this would be much less of an issue.

THIS WHOLE “MAKE A DESERT AND CALL IT PEACE” THING IS BEGINNING TO MAKE SENSE: BREAKING: ISIS Beheads British Aid Worker David Haines.

LIFE IN OBAMA’S POSTRACIAL AMERICA: Black People And Asian Men Have A Much Harder Time Dating On OKCupid. More here.

21ST CENTURY RELATIONSHIPS: Yes, I have a Friend With Benefits. No, I’m not a slut. Well, that seems right. Sleeping with a FWB isn’t “sleeping around,” right?

JOHN WRIGHT: Your Book Of Gold. “If you only write one book in your whole life, and only sell 600 copies or less, nonetheless, I assure you, I solemnly assure you, that this book will be someone’s absolutely favorite book of all time, and it will come to him on some dark day and give him sunlight, and open his eyes and fill his heart and make him see things in life even you never suspected, and will be his most precious tale, and it will live in his heart like the Book of Gold.”

INTERVIEW: Luis Fortuño to PJM: Puerto Rico Statehood Before Immigration Reform. On the other hand, a lot of Americans might want to go the other way: “Puerto Ricans currently pay Social Security and Medicare taxes but not federal income taxes.”

MAYBE I SHOULD QUIT BLOGGING: Even small stressors may be harmful to men’s health, research shows. Alternative hypothesis: Healthier men find life less stressful, report less stress.

NOT ACTUALLY ABOUT JOHN KERRY: The Week In Drones.

IT JUST GETS FUNNIER: Obama Sees 2002 Iraq War Resolution As A Legal Basis For Airstrikes.

SILICON VALLEY HYPOCRISY: Puritanical Elites Limit Their Kids’ Use of Tech They Create. “These parents are, of course, more successful in protecting their children from the harmful side-effects of technology overuse than lower class parents working two jobs are. This is a classically American phenomenon in some ways: We don’t really hide the important stuff, we just don’t make it easy to find. In this way, the successful upper middle class just quietly teaches their kids not to listen to all the hedonistic crap pumped out into the culture.”