ABC NEWS: Obama Shuns Press Conferences, Sits With ‘EXTRA!’s’ Mario Lopez. Hey, now that the press has given its all to elect him, he doesn’t need them any more. So why take the chance that somebody might ask a tough question. Sure, it’s not likely, but . . . .

INFIGHTING ON California and gay marriage.

SIX ALABAMA COUNTIES have more registered voters than voting-age people. Plus this: “Well, considering a dog here in Pike County received a personally addressed voter registration form this month from the Alabama Democratic Party, we’d have to say there’s legitimate cause for concern.”

What’s the big deal? We’ve had “yellow dog Democrats” in the South for years. But I wonder if the voting system is like the credit system, with same-day registration and limited ID requirements kind of like those “no doc” loans, and questionable voting machines being like the dubious credit-rating schemes. As with the credit system, lots of insiders are making out too well from the current system to want to fix it, but when the inevitable crash comes the rest of us will pay the price . . . . Or is that analogy too much of a stretch?

HALF-PRICE cookware. I like half-price.

JUST TO BE CLEAR, the “Glenn Reynolds of Martinsville, Virginia,” quoted by the Huffington Post isn’t me. In fact, I’m pretty much in favor of miscegenation. And of cegenation, generally! Er, if that’s a word, anyway. (Apparently not.) Plus, I’m on record as being proudly pro-sodomy! Not sure what the other Glenn Reynolds thinks of that.

Apparently, there’s a lot of name confusion going on . . . .

YET GEORGE W. BUSH LOOKS CALM AND HAPPY: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad can’t take it anymore.

UPDATE: A reader emails: “Ahmadinejad probably took a look at this chart.“

GREG MANKIW FOCUSES ON WHAT’S IMPORTANT: “Here is a question that you may have been thinking about: How do the different candidates’ tax plans affect Greg Mankiw’s incentive to work?”

If there were no taxes, so t1=t2=t3=t4=0, then $1 earned today would yield my kids $28. That is simply the miracle of compounding.

Under the McCain plan, t1=.35, t2=.25, t3=.15, and t4=.15. In this case, a dollar earned today yields my kids $4.81. That is, even under the low-tax McCain plan, my incentive to work is cut by 83 percent compared to the situation without taxes.

Under the Obama plan, t1=.43, t2=.35, t3=.2, and t4=.45. In this case, a dollar earned today yields my kids $1.85. That is, Obama’s proposed tax hikes reduce my incentive to work by 62 percent compared to the McCain plan and by 93 percent compared to the no-tax scenario. In a sense, putting the various pieces of the tax system together, I would be facing a marginal tax rate of 93 percent. The bottom line: If you are one of those people out there trying to induce me to do some work for you, there is a good chance I will turn you down. And the likelihood will go up after President Obama puts his tax plan in place.

Perhaps this will lead a lot of people to “go John Galt.”

SARBANES-OXLEY AND OBAMA CAMPAIGN FUNDRAISING: “If it were a public company it would have to disclose a material weakness, and its auditors would wonder whether its ‘tone from the top’ had actually encouraged the practices in question. Fortunately for politicians of all parties, we do not hold government to anything like the same standard of accountability that applies to private businesses with public stockholders.”

A REVIEW OF Speed Racer on Blu-Ray.

FIRST IT WAS “I AM JOE THE PLUMBER.” Now it’s I am Bill Ayers.

DOG BITES MAN: High School Musical 3: Senior Year eviscerates W. at the box office. “And speaking of W., the Oliver Stone film sank like the proverbial stone. High School Musical 3 out-grossed it by something like 8 to 1 domestically. And that’s not including foreign, which, according to Nikki Finke, made the musical–at 82 million dollars for the weekend– the first American worldwide number one since The Dark Knight. (W. dropped 49.3 percent on its second weekend – disastersville.)”

THE USUAL END-OF-ADMINISTRATION REGULATORY RUSH: “The Bush administration is hurrying to push through regulatory changes in politically sensitive areas such as endangered-species protection, dismaying opponents on the left, just as conservatives were irritated by rules rushed out at the end of the Clinton administration.” (Via Administrative Law Profs).

A MAP OF newspaper endorsements in the United States. (Via Jack Lail).

THOUGHTS ON SEXISM IN THE CAMPAIGN:

I cannot predict who will win the presidential campaign, but I already know who will lose big: all women.

I realized this when I saw a 20-something male student who attends a class in the community college where I teach, wearing a T-shirt that read, “Sarah Palin is a C-.” He wore it in public, in broad daylight, and without shame or even consciousness of what he was doing. . . .

It was the encounter with the young man that woke me up, but there were signs all along the campaign trail. First, with the candidacy of Sen. Hillary Clinton, who won 18 million popular votes from the people of the United States and was ridiculed, marginalized, and put in her place when she wasn’t even offered the vice presidency slot.

But the really big attack on women occurred when John McCain selected only the second woman in history to be on a major-party ticket. He chose a governor of a state critical to our energy crisis. She is a very popular governor with an 80-percent approval rate. She was elected on her own merit without previous political ties. She is her own political creation, not the wife, daughter, sister or mistress of a politician.

I thought Americans would be proud of her nomination, whether we agreed or disagreed with her on the issues. Was I in for a shock.

Like Crusaders heading for the Holy Land, when you campaign for The One all sins are forgiven in advance. (Via TGW).

UPDATE: Related thoughts here.

DOG BITES MAN: At the U.N., Many Hope for an Obama Win.

MURTHA AND MORE, on Saturday Night Live. “The best Bill Russell campaign commercial you’ll ever see. A nationally televised seven-minute goof on Murtha as a demented crank a week before the election? Thanks, Lorne!”

Mark Hemingway thinks it’ll hurt Murtha in his district, too. We’ll see.

IN THE HARTFORD COURANT: Dodd’s Campaign Money Shift Raises Questions.

Sen. Christopher Dodd’s bewildering odyssey of entitlement, evasions and deceptions continued last week. He shed more credibility as he staggered through new excuses for concealing from the public documents related to his cut-rate mortgages of nearly $800,000 from subprime giant Countrywide Financial.

On Wednesday, Dodd announced he wants to wait until the Senate Ethics Committee completes its investigation of his mortgage deals. There’s no Senate rule requiring Dodd to remain silent during the investigation. There’s no legitimate reason for Dodd to withhold from the public the array of documents, e-mails and letters from the mortgage swag bag Countrywide gave him.

A Senate investigation isn’t like a Countrywide mortgage: It’s expensive to prove there’s nothing there.

Dodd has caught a lucky break, as senators often do. The Federal Elections Commission allows Dodd to use campaign funds from the Friends of Chris Dodd re-election committee to pay his legal and other expenses incurred in the ethics investigation.

Yeah, Senators have amazing luck in all kinds of ways . . . .

Plus this: “In their distress, the humbled financial wizards of Wall Street should spare a moment to revel in their smartest investment paying off in their darkest hours. They contributed the money that Dodd may be using to pay for his defense, and he supported putting taxpayers on the hook for $700 billion for them.”

ARE YOU CONNECTED? A new dispatch from Michael Yon.

ROGER KIMBALL: Europe on the brink? (And Russia close behind?) I hope not. And I’m worried about China, too.

WASHINGTON POST: Obama’s Take Raises Questions About Web: “Sen. Barack Obama’s record-breaking $150 million fundraising performance in September has for the first time prompted questions about whether presidential candidates should be permitted to collect huge sums of money through faceless credit card transactions over the Internet.”

ZOMBIES IN ASHEVILLE: But they pose no threat.

HMM: Prosecutors widen Chicago police torture probe. Since it can’t be used against Bush, I don’t expect this story to have much media traction. (Via NewsAlert).

THE KNOXVILLE NEWS-SENTINEL endorses McCain.

HOW DID I MISS THIS? New poll shows Russell over Murtha, 48-35. Booting Murtha would not only be a consolation prize for a lot of Republicans even if Obama wins, it might also encourage a degree of circumspection in the new Congress. If a guy like Murtha can lose in a Democratic year, then nobody can feel too safe. Here’s Russell’s site.

EVEN D.C. OFFICIALS ARE GETTING arrested for taking photos of the police.