HAVE A HAPPY SAMHAIN!

TIM BLAIR: “Bill Maher thinks he’s so politically incorrect. Then let’s see him in Mike Chaika’s Halloween costume.”

I mean, if you want to be brave and transgressive and all.

WHY THE REPUBLICANS think they can win.

MY EARLIER NEWS about the Addams Family coming out on DVD leads Fritz Schranck to email:

BTW, F Troop is also out in DVD, and my wife bought a couple copies.

Can Max Headroom be far behind?

Fritz has been waiting for that to happen for a while.

As for Max Headroom, I never watched that show much.

UPDATE: Peter Ingemi emails that he wants McHale’s Navy — and not the lame Tom Arnold film.

A LOOK AT the Panama Canal, version 2.0.

FOR A CONSTRUCTIVE RESPONSE TO KERRY’S REMARKS, how about donating to project Valour IT, which provides voice-activated laptops for injured troops?

You know, lemons, lemonade, etc.

HEH.

CAMPAIGNS HIRING BLOGGERS: Daniel Glover has a roundup of who’s hiring who.

MARY KATHARINE HAM posts a special Halloween edition of Ham Nation.

THE HOTLINE BLOG ASKS:

By making himself an issue, did Sen. John Kerry do the GOP a favor by giving them an issue to motivate their base? (Independents may not care, but the base hates Kerry… hates him.)

If Kerry is happy to let America know that he’s not going to take sleights, are Democrats happy to have Kerry in the spotlight seven days before the election?

Couldn’t Kerry have taken care of this imbroglio by admitting that he mangled his words?

Is it smart for any Democrat right now to take the spotlight? Shouldn’t the Dems want to keep the spotlight solely and totally on Bush and Iraq?

Does Kerry know how and when to pick his battles?

Lots more questions, basically boiling down to this one: “What was he thinking?”

Austin Bay comments:

In the spare space of 24 hours Kerry has resurrected the Vietnam Syndrome –at least his and the left wing of the Democratic Party’s Vietnam (loser’s) Syndrome. This is stupid but particularly stupid in the last week of a national election. Doubly stupid in the midst of a long, grinding war. Kerry is trapped, in an odd sort of amber. He’s stuck on stupid and stuck in the past simultaneously. . . .

Why didn’t Senator Kerry just apologize? “I’m sorry for what I said. I meant to crack a joke and it came out sounding like an insult to US troops. Forgive me. We owe our defenders so much.”

But we know why.

Some questions answer themselves.

UPDATE: More:

I’ll bet Senator Clinton absolutely loves watching her potential ’08 rival shoot himself in the foot.

BTW, I’m another National Merit Scholar serving in the active duty military. I missed 4 questions on the SATs. But the real insult to my intelligence came when Senator Kerry tried to pretend he was talking about Bush.

That was a pretty unconvincing response. I don’t think he’s used to the power of YouTube in politics. Bill Frist, meanwhile, joins those demanding an apology.

And here’s some more background on the quality of the forces in Iraq:

Our review of Pen­tagon enlistee data shows that the only group that is lowering its participation in the military is the poor. The percentage of recruits from the poorest American neighborhoods (with one-fifth of the U.S. population) declined from 18 percent in 1999 to 14.6 percent in 2003, 14.1 percent in 2004, and 13.7 percent in 2005. . . .

In summary, the additional years of recruit data (2004–2005) sup­port the previous finding that U.S. military recruits are more similar than dissimilar to the American youth population. The slight dif­ferences are that wartime U.S. mil­itary enlistees are better educated, wealthier, and more rural on aver­age than their civilian peers.

Recruits have a higher percent­age of high school graduates and representation from Southern and rural areas. No evidence indicates exploitation of racial minorities (either by race or by race-weighted ZIP code areas). Finally, the distri­bution of household income of recruits is noticeably higher than that of the entire youth population.

Just don’t wind up a clueless U.S. Senator.

Meanwhile, the American Legion is demanding an apology from Kerry, too.

MORE: Donald Sensing responds to Kerry:

In about 30 minutes I wll leave to attend the funeral of Marine Lance Cpl. Richard Buerstetta, killed in action in Iraq two weekends ago. He was a2004 graduate of Franklin High School, where both my sons knew him. He and my eldest son were actually scehduled to go to boot camp at Parris Island, SC, the same day, but a change by their recruiter sent them on different days. Lance Cpl. Buerstetta was a Marine reservist, enrolled in college at Middle Tennessee State University, when his callup came. Without a flicker of hesitation at being yanked from his college courses, he shouldered his seabags and went off to war. “His bags stayed packed,” according to a family member. He died about a month after arriving in Iraq.

Got that? High school graduate. College student. US Marine. Iraq. . . .

I dare you, Senator Kerry, to come to Lance Cpl. Buerstetta’s funeral and tell that to his parents. Tell them that their son, high school graduate, college student, was just too uneducated and too stupid to avoid enlisting in an all-volunteer military.

Read the whole thing.

STILL MORE: Brendan Loy is defending Kerry:

This is yet another example of a political kerfuffle where the response to the mistake is worse than the mistake itself. If Kerry had spared us the vitriolic bluster and just apologized for a poor choice of words — explaining that he absolutely, obviously never meant to insult the troops — this story might be dead by now. Instead, he’s given right-wing propagandists like Drudge a golden opportunity to run context-free headlines such as “I APOLOGIZE TO NO ONE,” implying that Kerry stands by an insult that he never intended to deliver. This is the very definition of an unforced error.

So, in conclusion, John Kerry an idiot. But he doesn’t think our troops are idiots. I mean, c’mon. Like Bush, he’s stupid, not evil.

Loy’s commenters don’t seem to be buying it. Tom Maguire notes a similar claim on Kerry’s behalf and comments:

As to the “context” question, the quote was clear enough and Kerry’s non-apology was absurd enough. The real explanation – the quip was a Bush-basher that went awry – is probably true, but how would we have known that (Kerry has not used a similar formulation in our presence)?

As to believing that Kerry meant this as a troop-basher – well, it is hard to believe that he would have reflected carefully and said this.

But, he notes, Kerry hasn’t been shy about bashing troops in the past. His bottom line:

Kerry should apologize for not being able to speak English as well as the typical recruit. But enough already with Kerry delivering “dumb” jokes.

Or, in another take: ” A Democratic congressman told ABC News Tuesday, ‘I guess Kerry wasn’t content blowing 2004, now he wants to blow 2006, too.'”

Indeed. Or are the Karl Rove mind-control rays just that overpowering?

FINALLY: Here’s a big roundup on this story, from Pajamas Media. And Chip Mathis reminds us that Kerry’s grades at Yale were worse than Bush’s. This explains a lot . . . .

And Ann Althouse comments:

The John Kerry “stuck in Iraq” story is dominating the news today. It’s rather unfair to the Democrats who are actually running in the election. I’d love to hear the behind-the-scenes cursing he so richly deserves. (And let me add that Kerry is outrageously lying when he says he wasn’t referring to the troops. This is only prolonging his time in the spotlight, when he should get out of the way and let actual candidates speak.) . . . . I’ve seen the video of the whole context, and it’s obvious what he was saying. His attempt to interpret it away is outrageous. It only makes it worse. I know exactly what he was saying and it is the sort of thing that antiwar people say, that the volunteer military is full of unfortunate, deluded souls.

They managed to stifle Dukakis. They can’t seem to keep Kerry quiet.

HUBBLE REPAIR APPROVED: “The 11-day rehab mission, likely launching in May 2008 using space shuttle Discovery, would keep Hubble working until about 2013. Its estimated cost is $900 million.”

NORTH KOREA agrees to return to the negotiating table regarding its nuclear weapons program.

A HALLOWEEN LOOK AT “slutty children’s characters fantasy costumes.” Which seem to be in plentiful supply these days.

NOW THIS IS A COOL HALLOWEEN PRESENT: I’ve complained in the past about The Addams Family not being available on DVD.

But now the first season is out, and presumably the rest of the show is coming. Woohoo!

JOHN KERRY — a gift that keeps on giving. Unfortunately, it’s a gift for the Republicans. . . .

Kerry’s suggestion that the troops in Iraq are dumb failures is not only reprehensible, but false on the facts. In other words, a typical Kerry performance, just in time for the elections. Democrats must be wondering what they were thinking to nominate him in 2004, and why he won’t go away now.

UPDATE: John McCain’s office sends this demand for a Kerry apology from Sen. McCain:

Senator Kerry owes an apology to the many thousands of Americans serving in Iraq, who answered their country’s call because they are patriots and not because of any deficiencies in their education. Americans from all backgrounds, well off and less fortunate, with high school diplomas and graduate degrees, take seriously their duty to our country, and risk their lives today to defend the rest of us in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere. They all deserve our respect and deepest gratitude for their service. The suggestion that only the least educated Americans would agree to serve in the military and fight in Iraq, is an insult to every soldier serving in combat, and should deeply offend any American with an ounce of appreciation for what they suffer and risk so that the rest of us can sleep more comfortably at night. Without them, we wouldn’t live in a country where people securely possess all their God-given rights, including the right to express insensitive, ill-considered and uninformed remarks.

A major blunder for Kerry and the Democrats, timed to do maximum damage to them and maximum good for the Republicans.

Philip Klein observes: “What struck me about this comment beyond the obvious fact that it is insulting to our troops, is just how politically incompetent John Kerry is. Here we are, a week before Election Day, Democrats are favored to win back control of the House and possibly the Senate . . . But in this video Kerry, the party’s most recent candidate for President and one of its most recognizable figures, is out there calling troops fighting in Iraq a bunch of morons.”

MORE: Kerry responds to his critics: It’s a meltdown.

FIRST, they came for the gays. . . .

IN THE MAIL: Jesse Sage and Liora Kasten’s Enslaved: True Stories of Modern Day Slavery.

DAVID BROOKS: Down on conservative bloggers? Well, thanks to Times Select, they can’t send him any traffic. . . .

UPDATE: Ali Bubba is blaming David Brooks for the GOP’s problems. Both assessments of blame seem a bit, um, narrow to me.

ANOTHER ELECTION POLL: It’s a week away, so let’s see how InstaPundit readers think things will turn out.

For comparison, here’s last week’s poll.

UPDATE: Hmm. With over 5,000 votes in so far, 60% of InstaPundit readers think the GOP will keep both houses. 34% see a split decision and only 6% think the Dems will take both. That’s actually slightly more optimistic than last week’s poll — and both polls see the GOP’s chances more favorably than I do, or the political futures markets do. So who’s right? We’ll see.

I FINISHED Arthur Chrenkoff’s new book last night. It’s terrific, with an interesting twist on the grandfather paradox at the end.

FRANK WARNER OBSERVES the eighth anniversary of the Iraq Liberation Act.

THOUGHTS ON TRUST, ELECTRONIC VOTING, AND MORE: My TCS Daily column is up!

AN INTERESTING STORY ON LONGEVITY RESEARCH in the New York Times starts off with calorie restriction but quickly moves on to the larger topic:

Recent tests show that the animals on restricted diets, including Canto and Eeyore, two other rhesus monkeys at the primate research center, are in indisputably better health as they near old age than Matthias and other normally fed lab mates like Owen and Johann. The average lifespan for laboratory monkeys is 27.

The findings cast doubt on long-held scientific and cultural beliefs regarding the inevitability of the body’s decline. They also suggest that other interventions, which include new drugs, may retard aging even if the diet itself should prove ineffective in humans. One leading candidate, a newly synthesized form of resveratrol — an antioxidant present in large amounts in red wine — is already being tested in patients. It may eventually be the first of a new class of anti-aging drugs. Extrapolating from recent animal findings, Dr. Richard A. Miller, a pathologist at the University of Michigan, estimated that a pill mimicking the effects of calorie restriction might increase human life span to about 112 healthy years, with the occasional senior living until 140, though some experts view that projection as overly optimistic.

According to a report by the Rand Corporation, such a drug would be among the most cost-effective breakthroughs possible in medicine, providing Americans more healthy years at less expense (an estimated $8,800 a year) than new cancer vaccines or stroke treatments.

That’s absolutely right. Calorie restriction is unlikely to work in humans — and I’m not sure it’s worth it anyway — but drugs that mimic its effects are another thing entirely.

Of course, some critics say that this is going for the low-hanging fruit when we should be working on stopping or reversing aging, not just slowing it down. I figured I’d find a discussion of that issue over at FightAging.org, and sure enough I was right. I think, though, that it’s nice to see that people are getting interested in this field at all, and if there’s a prospect of antiaging drugs that work better, lots of companies will jump on it as the financial incentives are huge.

Via FightAging I see that there’s also an article in the Wall Street Journal today (subscription required, but this link may work for nonsubscribers). Excerpt:

Still, some experts on aging doubt that enough is known about CR to guide the development of drugs that mimic its effects. “We know a lot about CR’s effects,” says Edward Masoro, a leading gerontologist. “But what bothers me is that I don’t think we’ve figured out CR’s basic mechanism yet.”

Dr. Sinclair’s idea that resveratrol mimics CR has come under heavy fire. His main adversaries are two researchers who used to rub elbows with him when they all studied together with MIT’s Dr. Guarente. The skeptics maintain that resveratrol’s mode of action is still murky; instead, they are looking at other mechanisms that may account for how CR works.

The resveratrol doses used in the life-span-extension studies in animals were far higher than the amount people can get by drinking wine — they were roughly equivalent to hundreds of glasses a day. Resveratrol is available as a dietary supplement, but to replicate the doses used in the studies, a person would need to take scores of pills a day. (Sirtris says it is developing prescription drugs that work like resveratrol but are hundreds of times more potent.) The dietary supplements haven’t been tested in clinical trials, so their efficacy isn’t proven, nor is it clear what dose might make people live healthier or longer. And although they seem safe at modest doses, megadoses may not be.

Nevertheless Dr. Sinclair, a 37-year-old Australia native, thinks taking small doses over time may yield health benefits and has been taking the supplements for three years. . . .

Sirtris, the company Dr. Sinclair co-founded, says it has made progress. Test-tube and animal studies suggest that its early-stage drugs may help treat various neurological killers as well as diabetes, says Dr. Westphal. The company plans soon to begin testing a drug in people with MELAS syndrome, a rare metabolic disorder that afflicts youngsters with potentially fatal brain and muscle deterioration.

At a recent meeting on aging research, a Sirtris scientist reported that SIRT1-activating compounds, including resveratrol, dramatically lowered blood levels of glucose and insulin in mice that get diabetes on high-fat diets, as well as helped to keep their weight down — just as CR does.

It’s easy to get overexcited about early research, but let’s hope that this succeeds. The economic boost of extending people’s healthy lifespans would be huge, and of particular value to countries with big unfunded pension obligations and low birthrates, which is most industrial countries. Such research is likely to be politically popular with an aging electorate, too. (But note the usual man-wasn’t-meant-to-do-this line from Leon Kass at the end of the NYT story.)

I’ve got a pretty lengthy discussion of the topic in An Army of Davids, and I’ve also addressed it in articles here and here, and in a lengthier review essay here. It’s a huge issue for coming decades.

GRAND ROUNDS is up!

A PRE-ELECTION PODCAST INTERVIEW with Jonah Goldberg.