HMM: Man opens fire near Iowa Marine recruiting center, shoots himself: cops. Doesn’t actually seem to have anything to do with the Marines; it happened in a nearby law office.

Related: Chattanooga Retired Marines Call for Recruiters to be Armed.

MARTIN O’MALLEY: ‘CLINTON HAS CHANGED HER POSITION ON VIRTUALLY EVERY DEFINING ISSUE.’ Curiously, he doesn’t mean it as a compliment, despite appearing on Democrat house organ MSNBC:

“A weathervane shifts its positions in the wind. Effective leaders do not. I am clear about my principles I know where I stand. I was against the Trans Pacific Partnership 8 months ago. Hillary Clinton has changed her position on virtually every defining issue in this race – except for one, and that’s to protect the big banks on Wall Street and go about with business as usual. I don’t think that’s what the people of our country are looking for. I have the independence, I have the backbone, to stand up for what our nation needs. That’s what people are going to see now that it’s down to a three person race.”

O’Malley knows he’s competing in a three-person race to win the support of the Democrat base, doesn’t he? Because from Iraq to gay marriage to health care to trade agreements to gun control, Democrat voters view flip-flops and being lied to as a sign of strength from their politicians. Or as Mark Steyn noted six years ago:

Democrats win by pretending to be to the right of who they really are. Their base understands and accepts this. Thus, when Democrat candidates profess to believe that “marriage is between a man and a woman” or to be “personally passionately opposed to abortion” or even to favor “the good war” in Afghanistan and if necessary invade Pakistan, their base hears this as a necessary rhetorical genuflection to the knuckledragging masses but one that will be conveniently discarded on the first day in office.

In modern terms, it’s a phenomenon that dates at least back to the aftermath of Walter Mondale getting creamed in 1984 after promising to raise taxes, and arguably to Jimmy Carter’s centrist campaign in 1976 – though its roots date much, much further back in time than that.

IMPOSSIBLE! PRESIDENT OBAMA TOLD THEM TO STOP. Apparently China Is Still Hacking US Companies.

JOURNOLISM: Media Mass Squee: Hillary Clinton Just Had the Best Ten Days Ever!!!!!!

Related: Donald Trump Finally Treats an Opponent with Respect and Good Faith.

Two guesses as to which one.

More: “Washington news is a script.  Washington politics is a script.  It is written for people in Washington, in the media, and people in political parties, those that are famous and have a role in talking and reaching the public, they have roles to play.”

AT AMAZON, shop the Holiday Toy List.

Plus, deals on Select Halloween Candy.

MY USA TODAY COLUMN: No, Judge Judy Is Not A Supreme Court Justice.

NEWS YOU CAN USE: Unlikely lessons from Keith Richards on growing old gratefully.

A word of warning, though — Keith cannot be killed by conventional weapons; not everyone is as indestructible.

QUICK! RAISE THE MINIMUM WAGE AND ADMIT MORE LOW-SKILLED IMMIGRANTS! Robots Expanding Into More Warehouse Work.

IN THE FUTURE, EVERYONE WILL BE BARACK OBAMA FOR 15 MINUTES: Michael Walsh writes that “Marco Rubio [is] the GOP’s Very Own Barack Obama:”

This story in today’s Washington Post ought to give even the most ardent Rubio supporters pause:

Marco Rubio is a U.S. senator. And he just can’t stand it anymore. “I don’t know that ‘hate’ is the right word,” Rubio said in an interview. “I’m frustrated.”

This year, as Rubio runs for president, he has cast the Senate — the very place that cemented him as a national politician — as a place he’s given up on, after less than one term. It’s too slow. Too rule-bound. So Rubio, 44, has decided not to run for his seat again. It’s the White House or bust.

“That’s why I’m missing votes. Because I am leaving the Senate. I am not running for reelection,” Rubio said in the last Republican debate, after Donald Trump had mocked him for his unusual number of absences during Senate votes.

Meanwhile, Jeff Jacoby writes, “Of all the candidates running for president, the one who most resembles the incumbent is not Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders or Martin O’Malley. To be sure, the Democrats’ policy views largely overlap with Obama’s. But when it comes to attitude and self-image, it’s Obama and Trump who are birds of a feather:”

Everyone knows about Donald Trump’s bottomless narcissism; this is a man who has affixed the name “Trump” to everything from hotels to golf courses to cologne. Asked the other day which world leaders he would reach out to upon being elected, Trump replied that he wouldn’t need to call anyone: “I think I’d probably have them call me.”

But Obama’s march to the White House also involved startling displays of self-glorification, from Greek-style columns to a triumphal foreign tour to his own official seal (complete with Latin motto). From the earliest days of his presidency, it was clear that Obama was deeply enamored of himself, and had no doubt that the rest of the planet was just as smitten. “I am well aware,” he told the UN General Assembly, “of the expectations that accompany my presidency around the world.” He gifted the queen of England with an iPod that included his own speeches. Obama’s addiction to the first-person singular pronoun — “I,” “me,” “my” — has been remarked on by many; he has even referred to “my military” and the troops “fighting on my behalf.”

Anyone who finds such vanity attractive should relish the prospect of a Trump presidency. Trump, after all, never doubts his own brilliance. He’s always the smartest person in the room; just ask him. Sound familiar?

Why yes, yes it does.

And of course earlier this month, Hillary locked on to all of Obama’s far left positions advocating gun confiscation, blocking the Keystone Pipeline, etc., in an effort to freeze out Bernie Sanders and keep Joe Biden out of the race. It’s certainly boob bait for the bobos, but unless her GOP opponent truly believes the press releases put out by her operatives with bylines, it will — hopefully — backfire later.

THIS WILL END WELL: China Surpassing Japan As Top Asia-Region Navy.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE, DIVERSITY-PROBLEM EDITION: 99.51% of top liberal arts prof. contributions go to Dems.

According to FEC third quarter reports released October 16, 47 professors at the top 50 liberal arts colleges in the country, as ranked by U.S. News & World Report, have given to presidential campaigns. Of those 47 professors, Hamilton College History Professor Robert Paquette was the sole donor to a Republican candidate, giving $150 to Carly Fiorina’s campaign.

The remaining 99.51 percent went to Democrat candidates Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders. The 46 other professors collectively donated $20,875 to Hillary Clinton and $8,417 to Bernie Sanders. Professors donating to Clinton have given an average of $1,043.75. Those giving to Sanders donated an average of $323.73.

“I do believe these numbers give an accurate representation of the political leanings of faculty on most college campuses,” Paquette wrote in an e-mail to Campus Reform, “especially allegedly elite liberal arts colleges like Hamilton College,” where he claims to be the “only out-of-closet conservative in a faculty of 200.”

After 35 years of experience in higher education, Paquette believes that the business “has become a racket monopolized by the academic left.”

And heavily subsidized by the taxpayers, like most leftist rackets.

THE DEATH OF EUROPE — HOW THE MOHAMMED RETIREMENT PLAN WILL KILL EUROPE: “Critics pointed out in the past that a multicultural America can’t afford the welfare states that European countries have. Now that those same countries are turning multicultural, they can’t afford them either,” Daniel Greenfield writes. “Why should 23-year-old Mohammed work for four decades so that Hans or Fritz across the way can retire at 61 and lie on a beach in Mallorca? The idea that Mohammed would ever want to do such a thing out of love for Europe was a silly fantasy that European governments fed their worried citizens.”

As James Bennett of UPI wrote over a decade ago, “In considering the Holocaust, most attention has been given to its direct victims, as is appropriate. However, we must also consider that it was a form of self-administered lobotomy for Continental European culture.” If not, the Mohammed Retirement Plan should finish the job.

Europe in 1914: The von Schlieffen Plan. The bloody aftermath of which ultimately led to the Cloward and Piven plan. What could go wrong?

(Via SDA.)

SWEDEN’S PERIOD SONG: DANCING TAMPONS USED TO DESTIGMATIZE MENSTRUATION — VIDEO.

So they’re not just for earrings anymore?

READER BOOK RECOMMENDATION: Reader Teresa Mendoza recommends Learn to Swim, by Joseph Edward Haeger.

SO IF CHINA SO CLEARLY VIEWS OUR CARRIERS AS A THREAT, DOES THAT MEAN WE SHOULD BUILD MORE, OR DIVERSIFY OUR PORTFOLIO? China’s New Spy Airship Hunts Aircraft Carriers From the Edge of Space.

WHY THIS MOM BANNED BARBIE DOLLS: “I hate that hard-bodied little tart.”

Related: Why it’s time to kick Barbie to the curb:

In a fierce attempt to save the Barbie brand, toy manufacturer Mattel Inc. in February announced next month’s rollout of a new, decidedly creepy Hello Barbie, a $74.99 beastie equipped with artificial intelligence.

Hello Barbie is to be capable of delivering 8,000 lines of conversation. So if a young one tells the doll that he or she is feeling “bad,’’ Barbie would reply, “I’m sorry to hear that.’’

If you think the doll is disturbing in silence, wait until your child swaps emotions with an 11½-inch-tall hulk.

What could go wrong?

SETH BARRETT TILLMAN on the decline of American martial culture. “Query: What percentage of our academic class is composed of veterans, and how does that compare to our population as a whole?”

MY USA TODAY COLUMN: No, Judge Judy Is Not A Supreme Court Justice.

TACKLING THE IMPORTANT ISSUES: The Best Donut Shop in Every State.

(Found via Iowahawk’s Twitter feed.)

WHERE HAVE ALL THE DINERS GONE? Rising costs, changing tastes and a reluctant next generation of owners spell trouble for a classic corner of New York’s food culture.

I’m sure Mike Bloomberg, Bill de Blasio, and Andrew Cuomo all look at the shrinking numbers of New York diners – down from over 1000 a generation ago to 398 today – as good news from their socialist nanny state perspective.

TAXPROF ROUNDUP: The IRS Scandal, Day 900.

NOBEL PEACE PRIZE UPDATE: Niall Ferguson: Think Kissinger was the heartless grandmaster of realpolitik? What about Obama?

WALTER RUSSELL MEAD: When God Goes Away, Superstition Takes His Place.

People who think themselves too rational for religious belief end up believing in “astral forces”, ghosts and other phenomena. Sometimes these superstitions take the deadly form of political ideologies that fanatical believers take up with religious fervor—communist atheists murdered tens of millions of people in the 20th century in the irrational grip of an ugly ideology. They scoffed at the credulity of religious believers even as they worshipped the infallible insights of Stalin. Similarly, the Nazis presented their faith as an alternative to the “outgrown superstitions” of historic Christianity.

It’s something very much worth remembering: a world without faith in God wouldn’t be a more rational or more humane place.

In his famous Analog essay on memes, Keith Henson wrote:

I have picked dangerous examples for vivid illustrations and to point out that memes have a life of their own. The ones that kill their hosts make this hard to ignore. However, most memes, like most microorganisms, are either helpful or at least harmless. Some may even provide a certain amount of defense from the very harmful ones. It is the natural progression of parasites to become symbiotes, and the first symbiotic behavior that emerges in a proto-symbiote is for it to start protecting its host from other parasites. I have come to appreciate the common religions in this light. Even if they were harmful when they started, the ones that survive over generations evolve and do not cause too much damage to their hosts. Calvin (who had dozens of people executed over theological disputes) would hardly recognize Presbyterians three hundred years later. Contrariwise, the Shaker meme is now confined to books, and the Shakers are gone. It is clearly safer to believe in a well-aged religion than to be susceptible to a potentially fatal cult.

In this regard, I think that even doctrinaire atheists might prefer to live in a world in which most people believe in some well-established Christian religion.

IF YOU LIKE TRUTH, DON’T WATCH TRUTH: Megan McArdle watches the movie in which Robert Redford portrays the face of a newsroom working diligently to topple a Republican presidency — no not that one, the new one — and responds, “The original sin of the movie was trying to make Mary Mapes the hero:”

[Writer-director James Vanderbilt] could have told a great story about someone who made a terrible yet basically understandable mistake, and who suffered horribly for it. Instead, he wanted to make a movie about someone who did a good job in a good cause, and suffered anyway. Since this story is not compatible with reality, he had to do what Mapes did: believe six impossible things before breakfast, to avoid facing one, glaringly obvious fact that doesn’t reflect well on our hero. The result doesn’t really work on any level as a movie.

As a metanarrative, on the other hand, it couldn’t be more perfect: Just like his hero, James Vanderbilt got taken by a source.*

Heh, indeed. Read the whole thing.™

* Not the first time that’s happened to a journalist portrayed by Redford; which unintentionally makes Truth an appropriate bookend to Redford’s career.