VISITING AN ACORN / MoveOn Rally.

L.A. TIMES: Obama must rethink rethinking Afghanistan: His strategy deliberations are starting to look like dangerous indecision. Indeed.

IN ST. LOUIS, WHERE STUFF IS ALWAYS HAPPENING, they had a “rolling Tea Party” this weekend.

“SMART DIPLOMACY:” Japan expert to ABC: Yes, Obama’s bow made him look like an idiot.

HEH: KSM Sounds LIke An Early 90s Techno Band Name. Kinda like KLF. On which there’s an interesting story involving “comandante Glenn Reynolds.”

ROBERT X. CRINGELY PROPOSES a space garbage scow to clean up orbital debris.

Some related thoughts here.

WALL STREET JOURNAL: Concerns Rise Around Obama Trip. “President Barack Obama arrived here late Sunday to press China on issues from climate change to economic restructuring, amid rising concerns that his first swing through Asia as president will yield more disappointment than progress on trade, human rights, national security and environmental concerns.”

WALL STREET JOURNAL: Melanie Kirkpatrick reviews Sarah Palin’s Going Rogue.

A TEA PARTY PROTEST IN SALT LAKE CITY: Reader David Kirkham emails:

Saturday we had the most important Tea Party in Utah to date! We have a delegate system here in Utah. If a candidate wins 60% of the delegate votes at the convention they become the party nominee and there is NO PRIMARY election–the winner immediately advances to the general election. This delegate process levels the playing field and allows for challengers with relative little money to take on an entrenched incumbent like Senator Bennett.

We (Tea Party and 912ers) decided it was time to put down our protest signs and start to organize for the convention. Notice there are no signs in the pictures. This was strictly business. We got all our email lists together and put out a call to action for a Tea Party/912 event to train people how to become delegates. During the event, I asked how many people were currently delegates…no more than 8-10 people raised their hands. There were all NEW people to the political process.

We had the Utah State Capitol people (GREAT guys) set up 500 chairs and it was standing room only. There must have been 600 people at the event–they all drove through a snow storm to be there. Everyone one of them wants to be a delegate. There are only 3,300 delegates in the state. We gathered names and emails and are currently breaking them down into the precincts. We are setting up precinct captains for further training mobilization. A State Representative told me he simply could not believe the turn out. The most telling comment of the day came from another State Representative, “Bennett’s toast.”

No media–oh well. We’ll do it without them.

I guess I’m a community organizer now LOL.

Those are springing up everywhere lately. Pic below.

POLITICO: President Obama takes heat on Afghan timing. “President Barack Obama made no effort to conceal his irritation when his press corps used the first question of his maiden Far East trip to ask what was taking him so long on Afghanistan.”

UPDATE: Why does he hate us?

ANOTHER UPDATE: President Obama: The Great Procrastinator.

SHOCKER: Lindsey Graham tumbling in the polls. I’d call him a weathervane, but to be honest the wind seems to be blowing the other way now.

L.A. TIMES: “ROCK STAR” HANNAH GILES trains new activists.

DOG BITES MAN: Extremism and Anti-Semitism at London School of Economics.

AMAZON: Best Books of 2009, as picked by editors and customers.

UPDATE: Yes, Mark Levin’s Liberty and Tyranny is #2 on the customer-favorites list. Between Dan Brown and Glenn Beck, which is a pretty good place to be on any book list . . . .

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: Thoughts From The Later Republic.

SUN-TIMES: Dems At Risk of Losing Obama’s Old Senate Seat.

A TEA PARTY PROTEST IN HARRISBURG, PENNSYLVANIA:

The Pennsylvania Tea Party took its message of limited government to this capital city Saturday.

Hundreds of protesters from regional groups that came from as far as the Ohio and New Jersey borders gathered at Harrisburg’s City Island early yesterday afternoon for a march through the city to the Capitol.

Twisted Sister’s “We’re Not Gonna Take It,” blared over a loud speaker as the protesters, a mixed bag of blue jean-clad participants sprinkled with some activists in camouflage and colonial garb, signed petitions and waved flags while they waited to march. A handful of people wore holstered handguns.

“Can you hear me now? Can you hear me now?” they chanted in response to organizer Diana Reimer as she called the group to action with a bullhorn.

The Tax Enough Already Party — TEA — that grew out of a series of April 15 Tax Day rallies, joined forces with more than three-dozen like-minded regional groups, for its first march on Harrisburg. Capitol police estimated that 1,500 to 2,000 protesters ultimately massed on the Capitol steps where the march ended.

This stuff just keeps going on, underneath the national-media radar.

CLARICE FELDMAN: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed Trial Will Be A Three-Ring Circus.

COME BACK IN HALF AN HOUR, and I’ll give you another look at it.

BITES FROM THE APPLE: A roundup of news from the Apple empire. Including more reports on the “iTablet.”

VIDEO: Al Gore met by hundreds of protesters. This kind of thing just keeps happening.

INTERNING: A chance to work really hard for no pay!

MICKEY KAUS:

Things you thought you were getting in the auto bailout. … Chrysler’s showy electric and hybrid cars? Forget them. Now that Chrysler has your money, they’re dead. … GM’s 2010 IPO? The one that was going to raise money to repay taxpayers? It’s receding rapidly into the future. “It depends on how quickly we become profitable. … I can’t promise a date,” says GM Chairman Ed Whitacre. Translation: Not going to happen. … Suckers!

Dang. Fooled again.

SHOCKING NEWS: Local Man Claims Responsibility For Own Problems.

SINO-INDIAN RIVALRY heating up Nepal? “Inexorably and almost invisibly, Nepal has emerged as the focus of the competition between India and China to seize the strategic advantage along the Himalayas.” But the Nepalese Maoists look on the Chinese as backsliders.

IN THE MAIL: Decoding The Lost Symbol: The Unauthorized Expert Guide to the Facts Behind the Fiction.

POLITICO: CMS: House bill increases health care costs. “Democrats have promised that health reform would reduce health care costs, but legislation the House passed last week would increase costs over the next decade by $289 billion. By 2019, health costs would rise to 21.1 percent of GDP compared to 20.8 under current law, according to an actuarial report prepared by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.”

FRUITS OF THE AUTO BAILOUT: Federal Officials Demand Free Passes to Detroit Auto Show.

HOPE, CHANGE, AND doing the impossible in economics.

TOM MAGUIRE: Finding An Impartial Jury for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed Should Be Easy.

UPDATE: How KSM looks from Baghdad: “Will KSM beat the Americans at their own game? This is what Iraqis are asking about the case of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks. It’s hard to say how many are paying close attention, but some Iraqis are watching the developments. The most common answer I’m hearing is that yes, KSM will win.”

GO BAREFOOT FOR GAIA!

NATIONAL PICKLE DAY? Why wasn’t I told?

IF THERE WERE A PILL PROVEN TO PREVENT CANCER, WOULD PEOPLE TAKE IT? Apparently not.

UPDATE: A reader emails:

I was on finasteride a few months ago. A couple of points regarding this
drug:

1. It was not prescribed as cancer preventative. My doctor never even
mentioned that it could help prevent cancer.

2. It brought my libido down to zero.

These two points may help explain why finasteride isn’t used more widely.

You know, I thought Gina Kolata was a little quick to write these drugs off. Cancer prevention isn’t even an approved use of finasteride, and I’d never heard of that use.

IS LAW SCHOOL a good investment?

ARMED LIBERAL: “At some point it would be nice if there was a decent amount of transparency around what Soros is doing; if he genuinely believes in open societies, he ought to lead it, but since he doesn’t – perhaps a decent journalistic project would be to connect the dots and create a map of his involvement in US and foreign affairs.”

QUESTIONING THE “First Pacific President” assertion.

MORE THAN EVER, YOU CAN SAY THAT ON TELEVISION:

It is not simply that the language is becoming more raw on broadcast networks but that the language, violence and sex that formerly was restricted to the 10 p.m. hour has migrated to earlier time slots.

Recent research by Barbara K. Kaye of the University of Tennessee and Barry S. Sapolsky of Florida State University found that in 2005 television viewers were more likely to hear offensive language during the 8 p.m. and 9 p.m. hours than at 10 p.m. Technically, there has not been a “family hour” since 1976, when the United States Supreme Court struck down the imposition of such a policy by the Federal Communications Commission. But broadcast networks observed the practice long after that. No more, it seems.

I’m untroubled by this, but I can see how others might feel differently.

CHANGE: China dissidents ‘detained ahead of Obama visit’.

AMAZING AERIAL PHOTOS from a homemade gas-powered paraglider.

THE MOST UNUSUALLY PACKAGED DVDS: I hate to admit it, but I kind of like the Terminator 2 “endoskull” packaging . . . .

ED DRISCOLL: In The Future, Everyone Will Be Emanuel Goldstein for 15 Minutes.

LADY GAGA GETS the Geek Treatment.

By Molly Lewis.

Plus, breaking up with Wikipedia. “You’re sometimes vague and often inconsistent. . . . and I tell you you know zilch about romance.”

JOHN LEONARD: Race, Violence, and the Columbia Professor.

HOW TO clean dust off your DSLR sensor.

TIME TO ditch cable for Internet TV? Well, I think I watch more TV on the Internet than on cable, but I’m probably unusual.

TOP 20 toys under 20 bucks.

POLIWOOD: Are the Oscars corrupt?

ER, NO. Is law school non-partisan?

GIZMODO: At what point would our cyber-selves cease to be human?

SMACKDOWN: Droid vs. iPhone.

AT HARVARD, a glimpse of an alternate academia.

WHAT TO DO WHEN YOU’RE LAID OFF. Of course, prudent planning starts when you’re not laid off yet, with building up savings, paying down debt, etc. I’m always amazed on these financial call-in shows when people have all kinds of credit lines but no actual money in the bank. Credit is not a substitute for cash.

THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING LAW SCHOOL?

I should note that nuts-and-bolts law is good, but when I was a law clerk (on the Sixth Circuit for Judge Merritt) there were three times when the judge asked me about an obscure legal point and I was able to give a correct black-letter answer off the top of my head, and those answers came from courses in International Human Rights Law, Law Science and Technology, and . . . Law And Sexuality. Thanks, Harlon Dalton! So you never know. But this bit is absolutely true: “Years into practice, I still found myself remembering something from law school and saying ‘so that’s what the professor was talking about.’”

I also think that one thing law professors do is model ways of looking at problems — modeling how a lawyer’s mind works. I still hear Burke Marshall’s voice in my head sometimes, and yet I don’t think I was especially dazzled by him at the time. In retrospect, though, I really learned a lot.

ROGER KIMBALL: Where are the Purple Hearts? Some truths about Fort Hood.

IN THE MAIL: From Frank Schaefer, Patience with God: Faith for People Who Don’t Like Religion (or Atheism).

THE QOR: It’s Lileks-approved!

NO SURPRISE HERE: State Finance Directors Warn of More Trouble Ahead.

CHRIS DODD UPDATE:

Dodd’s lengthy record of ethical questions has clearly taken its toll.

Among his transgressions:

* In 2003, Dodd received two cut-rate mortgages totaling nearly $800,000 from subprime-mortgage lending giant Countrywide Financial.

The special mortgages apparently came about because the senator was dubbed a “Friend of Angelo,” Countrywide co-founder Angelo Mozilo.

A Senate ethics committee determined last summer that Dodd violated no rules. But home-state voters appear unwilling to let Dodd off that easily.

* In 1994, Dodd purchased a one-third share of an Irish vacation home; the other two-thirds were bought by businessman William Kessinger, partner of one Edward Downe, who pleaded guilty to insider trading the same year.

In 2001, Dodd successfully lobbied the Clinton White House for a presidential pardon for Downe. A year later, Dodd took full ownership of the Irish property from Kessinger — at a mere fraction of its appraised value.

* In February, Dodd introduced an amendment to the stimulus package that guaranteed that executives from firms receiving government bailouts — including AIG — remained eligible for bonuses.

With such baggage, no wonder 53 percent of Connecticut residents say Dodd doesn’t deserve re-election.

Ouch.

AGNEW VS. THE MEDIA: 40 years later, Michael Socolow says that Agnew won.

FORT HOOD, PROXIMATE KNOWLEDGE, and when not to blog.

WHY IS THIS MAN BOWING?

UPDATE: Reader Thomas Hoyt writes:

I lived in Japan for seven years and have a BA and almost an MA (still working on the thesis – sigh) in East Asian Studies.

Obama’s bow to the Saudi king was a breach of etiquette and a horrible symbolic act, but bowing in Japan is like shaking hands in America. Anytime you introduce yourself to someone, you bow, regardless of whether it’s the plumber come to fix your sink, your new assistant in the office, or the emperor. It is a common courtesy that has none of the meaning of bowing to a monarch that we have in the West. Refusing to bow, whether to your new assistant or the emperor, has the same insulting connotation as refusing to shake hands does in the US.

The faux pas here, if there is one, is shaking hands while bowing. This is a somewhat common and humorous problem when an American meets a Japanese person in Japan. The American bows and the Japanese person reaches out to shake hands, each trying to anticipate the cultural expectations of the other.

While all humans are created equal, not all bows are. This one seems appropriate.

Several others sent similar observations, though quite a few also noted that after the Saudi-bow debacle, Obama’s protocol people should have worked something out here. . . .

ANOTHER UPDATE: On the other hand, here’s The New York Times criticizing Bill Clinton for bowing to Akihito in 1994. Plus, this delightfully Whoopi-Goldberg-esque defense from the Clinton White House:

Administration officials scurried to insist that the eager-to-please President had not really done the unthinkable.

“It was not a bow-bow, if you know what I mean,” said Ambassador Molly Raiser, the chief of protocol.

Well, okay then.

VIRGINIA POSTREL: Why Amelia Bombed. “Glamour and charisma are two different things.”

SLATE TESTS BREADMAKERS, and likes this Panasonic the best. I’ve always sort of wanted a breadmaker, but the Insta-Wife has nixed it because . . . we’d eat more bread. Hard to argue.

TEA PARTIERS making a difference in Utah.

THE MUDVILLE GAZETTE: Morale Check.

MARK STEYN: Why newspapers are dying. “Wow. That’s ten ‘AP writers’ plus Calvin Woodward, the AP writer whose twinkling pen honed the above contributions into the turgid sludge of the actual report. That’s 11 writers for a 695-word report.”

TWO SUNKEN JAPANESE SUBS FOUND OFF HAWAII:

One of the Japanese craft, the I-201, was capable of speeds of about 20 knots while submerged, making it among the fastest diesel submarines ever made. Like other Japanese subs, it had a rubberized coating on the hull, an innovation intended to make it less apparent to sonar or radar.

The other, the I-14, was much larger and slower and designed to carry two small planes, Aichi M6A Seirans. The aircraft, which had folding wings and tails and could carry a torpedo or 1,800-pound bomb, were housed in watertight hangars inside the submarine. They could be brought onto the deck and launched by a catapult.

I had no idea that the Japanese had subs this advanced — though these didn’t manage to do any damage before being sunk. More background here. And this article says the planes were intended to launch germ warfare attacks. That’s a plausible role for small-plane attacks on big cities, and the Japanese, of course, had an extensive biowar research program. Another reason to be glad the war ended when it did. . . .

HEH: “A company is replacing 28 unionized workers in New York with cheaper, non-union workers in Florida. If anyone else did this it would be a cue for an editorial in the New York Times denouncing ‘greedy corporate interests,’ but in this case, the company doing it is the New York Times.”

MEGAN MCARDLE: “It seems that the more we talk about health care reform, the less popular it gets.”

OLD WAPO HEADLINE (VIA GOOGLE NEWS): Holder Steps Into Another Controversy. New WaPo headline: For Holder, much wrestling over decision. The original was better, I think. He’s certainly stepped into something . . .

UPDATE: WSJ: “Mr. Holder has honored mass murder by treating it like any other crime.” [Originally attributed to Charles Krauthammer because I misread the post. Sorry; fixed now.]

AT AMAZON, it’s the Friday Sale.

BOB BAUER’S JOB: Erasing ACORN tracks?

DOLLAR DECLINES AS TRADE GAP GROWS.

LOOKING FOR CHRISTMAS PRESENTS? What’s better than an InstaPundit t-shirt, or tote bag, or even thong panty — from the InstaPundit store? With a logo designed by none other than James Lileks himself.

DON’T-MISS VIDEO: Incredible Look at U.S. Airways Flight 1549.

UH OH: Barack Obama ‘risks Suez-like disaster’ in Afghanistan, says key adviser. “A key adviser to Nato forces warned today that Barack Obama risks a Suez-style debacle in Afghanistan if he fails to deploy enough extra troops and opts instead for a messy compromise. David Kilcullen, one of the world’s leading authorities on counter-insurgency and an adviser to the British government as well as the US state department, said Obama’s delay in reaching a decision over extra troops had been ‘messy’. He said it not only worried US allies but created uncertainty the Taliban could exploit.”

GOODBYE, EQUITY: Hello, hazardous waste.

WHY DOES CAR MILEAGE drop in winter?

THREE SCIENCE-FICTION-WORTHY TECHNOLOGIES that you can buy.

WILLIAM “FREEZER CASH” JEFFERSON gets 13 years in the cooler.

SONJA SCHMIDT: Rogue Warriors.

JOHN MAHONEY: In Defense of Cyborg Athletes. The picture is of runner Aimee Mullins, who’s blogging at Gizmodo.

BONNIE ERBE: Are women becoming more violent?

IS JUSTICE SERVED FASTER FOR DEMOCRATS IN MISSOURI? “Three months after Kenneth Gladney and Kelly Owens were assaulted in the Bernard school parking lot following Russ Carnahan’s town hall the charges still remain in hibernation at the County Counselor’s office. Upon contacting Bob McCullough, I was told that Gladney’s charges fall into Patricia Redington’s jurisdiction.”

J. STORRS HALL on The Bad Robot Takeover. If robots are going to take over, can’t they at least be Fembots?

REP. PETE HOEKSTRA: Why Bring KSM to the United States?

BIG FREEZE: Mini Ice Age Took Hold of Europe in Months.

COOL: NASA Moon strikes found “significant” water.

BEST Horror movies and TV of 2009.

AT BIG GOVERNMENT: ACORN–The LA Story, Part II: ‘We knew we were gonna put in Obama.’

WHO IS JOHN GALT? October deficit bigger than expected; revenues down 18%. “What better way to kick off Barack Obama’s first full budget year as President than with a deficit that exceeded the White House’s own projections as well as analysts’ expectations? The federal government busted the budget worse than last October by $20 billion with a deficit of $176.36 billion for the month. That used to be considered a decent deficit target … for an entire year.”

UH OH: US Consumer’s Mood Worsens On Worries About Jobs, Money. “US consumer sentiment fell in early November to the weakest in three months amid grim expectations for job and income prospects, a survey showed on Friday. The Reuters/University of Michigan Surveys of Consumers said its preliminary index of sentiment for November fell to 66.0, the lowest since August, from 70.6 in October. This was well below economists’ median expectation of a reading of 71.0, according to a Reuters poll.”

HELPING STROKE VICTIMS REGAIN FUNCTION with at-home Robo-Rehab.

PICTURES OF pollution in China.

TOM MAGUIRE: So Now Khalid Sheikh Mohammad Is A 9/11 “Suspect.”

OVER AT WIRED, Ted Greenwald is blogging from Singularity University.

AIRLINERS: Flying disease carriers?

ER, WOULDN’T IT BE EVEN BETTER FOR THE PLANET IF THOSE BIKINIS WERE STILL SMALLER? Photos from the Miss Earth 2009 Contest. Say No! to excessive packaging!

IN THE MAIL: Be the Change: How Meditation Can Transform You and the World. With a foreword by the Dalai Lama.

TRAILER: Crowder Visits Gitmo.