HMM: Pancreatic Cancer Develops For 20 Years Before Killing. “Pancreatic cancer has long been viewed as a rapidly developing cancer because life expectancy from day of diagnosis is usually less than 3 years with 95% of those diagnosed dead within 5 years. But use of DNA sequencing technology has enabled researchers Christine Iacobuzio-Donahue, Bert Vogelstein, and evolutionary biologist Martin Nowak to determine that most pancreatic cancers [take] almost 20 years to develop enough to kill their victims. . . . Cancerous intestinal polyps are pretty easy to discover with colonoscopy. Unfortunately the pancreas isn’t as easy to inspect as the colon. But we need the ability to remove the pancreatic equivalents of colon polyps.”

RAND SIMBERG: YOU JUST MIGHT BE A MARXIST.

WELL, THAT’S ONE CURE FOR “RANGE ANXIETY:” Nissan Leaf road tour gets help from a diesel truck with 440V chargers.

CHANGE: CIVIL RIGHTS COMMISSION REPORT: “High-level” political officials interfered in NBPP case, forced withdrawal.

KATIE GRANJU: Hell freezes over: I defend Christine O’Donnell. “The obnoxious first person accounting from the anonymous asshat who says he went on a single date with her three years ago – and whom Gawker admits to paying ‘in the low four figures’ for the story and photos – actually tells the tame tale of a woman who DID NOT have sexual intercourse during what Gawker describes tantalizingly as a ‘one night stand.’” Yeah, everybody’s piling on this lame hitjob, all across the partisan divide. Nick Denton is a uniter, not a divider!

ROBOTS WITH GUNS.

IN THE MAIL: The Big Questions: Tackling the Problems of Philosophy with Ideas from Mathematics, Economics, and Physics.

POLIWOOD: A Nightmare in Poliwood: The Best Scary Movies of All Time.

UH OH: Social Security Cash Flow Deficit Worse Than Expected.

JOE PAPPALARDO: Wikileaks Provides Another Clue That Iranian Missiles Are In Iraq.

WALTER RUSSELL MEAD: “Part of any trip to Georgia getting the most out of local color: the food, the scenery, the Stalin Museum. But there’s another dimension to Georgia: geopolitics. Divided, occupied in part by Russian troops, Georgia is one of the world’s most at-risk countries and the shadow of new crises with Russia hangs over everything in the country.”

A VICTORY FOR FREE SPEECH: University Of Virginia Repeals Its Speech Code. “I’m pleased to read from FIRE that my law school alma mater UVA has repealed its speech code and now has a Green rating from FIRE. UVA joins William & Mary, which already had a Green rating. I’m disappointed that I cannot say the same about George Mason, which still has a Red rating.”

THE HORROR: “Margarine Is My Nemesis.”

THE NEW REPUBLIC: Four Myths About The Tea Party.

A LOOK AT faculty political donations and where they go.

THOUGHTS ON THE RAND PAUL RALLY and attempts to assassinate Gerald Ford.

A NOVEL DEFENSE: MY CLIENT DIDN’T TAKE THE WHOLE BRIBE: HE ONLY TOOK A LITTLE! “The jury sitting in judgment of City Councilor Chuck Turner began deliberations yesterday after a final bizarre twist in the trial — the accused pol’s lawyer said in his closing remarks that his client took no more than $200 of an alleged $1,000 bribe, that FBI informant Ronald Wilburn pocketed the rest and that Turner never did anything for Wilburn.”

Somehow that reminds me of this: “‘We’re not going to break them,’ he added of colleges’ endowment funds. ‘We just want a little.’” They just want to wet their beaks a little. And then a little more.

NEVER-NEVER LAND: Elizabeth Warren has office at an agency she doesn’t work at.

GOOD GRIEF: Is Tuesday looking so bad that even Dennis Kucinich is an endangered species? Yeah, I got the plaintive email from Kucinich, too.

ERIC HOLDER WAS UNAVAILABLE FOR COMMENT: “Remember when Arizona Governor Jan Brewer was ridiculed for saying headless bodies were being found in the desert? Well, now they’re turning up in the Phoenix area. It’s curious how the Democrats aren’t running against her this election cycle. They obviously realize what a losing issue they support. Speaking of losers, has anyone seen Eric Holder lately?”

He was sighted at an awards dinner, I think.

READER KIM SOMMER WRITES: “Poll watching. Ubiquitous cameras. Remind ‘em.” Ok. Done!

Related: Voter Fraud Watch Video Exclusive: Poll Watcher Witnesses Misconduct in Houston. Plus, University of Texas at Brownsville asks faculty to end class early and walk students to vote.

And if you’re interested in reporting voting fraud, there’s an app for that.

UPDATE: Election complaint filed in Nevada.

WELL, ONE HOPES: GOP Insurgents May Disrupt Leaders’ Plans and Go Rogue.

Related item here.

TAXES ARE FOR THE LITTLE PEOPLE (CONT’D): DNC Repeatedly Delinquent On Property Taxes.

The Democratic National Committee and the party’s private club in the nation’s capitol have been delinquent with tax payments on sixteen separate occasions over the last seven years, PJ Media has learned.

According to District of Columbia government records, since 2004 the Democrats’ main political committee and its National Democratic Club — an exclusive restaurant and hideaway on Capitol Hill where prominent Democrats and their guests dine — have been hit with fines and interest penalties in excess of $115,000 for failure to pay their property taxes on time.

They don’t pay taxes. They spend taxes.

MAKING FOOLS OF THEMSELVES: Syracuse’s Lords of Political Correctness Hunt Down Law Student Bloggers.

SCANDAL: DOJ Voting Section Deputy Chief Misled Civil Rights Commission on Black Panthers Case.

Reader C.J. Burch writes: “Don’t normal Americans get indicted for this type of thing? Miguel Tejada, Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds did.” False statement laws, like taxes, are for the little people.

RASMUSSEN: Most Americans Say Tax Cuts Trump Increased Government Spending.

FREEDOM: Sheila Jackson Lee wants DOJ to monitor tea partiers at polls. “The King Street Patriots have also gone after Jackson Lee, saying Jackson Lee is asking for votes right outside polling places. They’re now inviting the Justice Department to come to its poll watching training meetings, saying they have nothing to hide.”

DOUBLING DOWN: Political-Class Republicans who backed Obama say they may vote for him again. “The Hill contacted 17 prominent Republicans and members of ‘Republicans for Obama’ groups that launched across the country two years ago. Most of them defended the president and indicated they might vote for him again in two years.” But is “Obamican” Robert Monk’s comparison of Obama to a chimpanzee playing a piano the kind of support Obama wants?

Then there’s Colin Powell, whose continued support is no surprise:

Colin Powell, who served as Bush’s secretary of State, recently said on NBC’s “Meet the Press”: “I think he is a transformational figure. Some people don’t like what he’s done in transformation, and it’s caused him some difficulty.”

Yep. “Transformation” can come in all sorts of forms. Meanwhile, some people are just hunkering down:

Susan Eisenhower, the granddaughter of former President Dwight Eisenhower who spoke at the Democratic convention in 2008, declined to comment. Others who didn’t respond to The Hill’s request for comment included former Rep. Jim Leach (R-Iowa), former Rep. Claudine Schneider (R-R.I.), White House intelligence adviser Rita Hauser and economist David Friedman.

How’s that hopey-changey stuff working for you guys?

IN ECUADOR, A WITCH HUNT? More like a purge.

ILLINOIS: Bobby Schilling Stops To Energize Supporters.

IRA STOLL: Vanguard Blogger Is Democratic Donor. “The Vanguard mutual fund official responsible for the pre-election Vanguard blog post crediting the Obama stimulus bill passed by Congressional Democrats with averting a second Great Depression has given $11,600 in campaign contributions over the past seven years — every last cent of it to Democrats.”

ANYBODY SEEN BILL AYERS LATELY? The FBI said on Thursday that it has linked a shooting at a Marine Corps recruiting station in a Virginia suburb outside the U.S. capital to two other shootings at the Pentagon and a Marine Corps museum.

THEY’RE ALREADY SAYING IT’LL BE A COLD WINTER: Russia’s Kamchatka volcanoes spew giant ash clouds.

JIM TREACHER: Keith Olbermann wants to save the world from rich white guys who can’t handle dissenting opinions.

“DUDE.”

GAWKER FAIL: Lefty gossip site somehow unites entire blogosphere behind Christine O’Donnell. “It’s not quite the entire blogosphere that’s cringing, but … it’s pretty close, including former Gawker editors, Media Matters fellows, and feminist bloggers. Even Donna Brazile has the dry heaves over it.”

ANN ALTHOUSE: L.A. Times on the Jon Stewart rally: “Nearly 225,000 people had RSVP’d on the event’s Facebook page as of Thursday morning.” “Why do journalists keep writing the RSVP number like that? Look at the Facebook page. The number who say they are attending is (currently) 10,019. 239,164 RSVP’d to say they are not attending. 112,812 say — are they just being polite? — they are “Maybe Attending.” Hey, me too. I’m maybe attending!“

CHANGE: FTC Drops Investigation of Google Less Than a Week After Company Exec Hosts Obama Fundraiser.

KEITH RICHARDS KNOCKED OFF by “online flash mob.”

DAVE KOPEL: Ronald Reagan, Extremist Collaborator.

THE STEWART/COLBERT RALLY: “‘Here we are now, entertain us’ was a great lyric for a song. As a political slogan, it is decidedly wanting.”

Related: “Once upon a time jesters courted kings. Now enfeebled kings court jesters.”

FLORIDA: Clinton pushed the black guy to get out. (Via Drudge).

UPDATE: L.A. Times: Once again, Bill Clinton tries unsuccessfully to nudge an inconvenient Democrat out of a Senate race.

Politico need not reveal its source to reveal its source. Given the names, times and details provided, it clearly was the Clinton-Obama camp playing hardball the Chicago Way.

Yes, sure, Meek was a loyal, useful African American trooper all over the country in Hillary Clinton’s unsuccessful fight against Obama for the Democrats’ presidential nomination in 2007-08.

But — nothing personal just business — if Meek won’t step aside voluntarily, get rid of him involuntarily. Leak word to the hungry press and hope enough of their readers give up on Meek and jump to Crist. Meek’s doomed either way.

Indeed.

WOW: Charlie Cook moves Barney Frank’s seat from “likely Democratic” to “lean Democratic.” Plus this: “Remember, as of just a few weeks ago, this seat wasn’t even on the board.” Frank’s opponent, Sean Bielat. seems to be surging.

ADVICE ON HOW BUSINESSES SHOULD respond to customer criticisms online. Seems sound to me.

TV CRITIC DISAPPOINTED IN JON STEWART:

What was so revealing, however, about this portion of the show for me was not Obama’s predictable “we-inherited-all-the-trouble” rhetoric as he tried to defend his failures, but what a dogmatic leftist critique of Obama’s presidency Stewart clearly embraces.

Maybe I was deluding myself because I like the intelligence of Stewart’s humor, but I really believed he had a more balanced and centrist take on American life. If the White House was looking for the court jester and mouthpiece of the folks senior White House officials described as the “professional left,” they found him. He was sitting across from the president Wednesday night prodding him with all the White House had not done. . . . But he never once seemed to be able to even conceive of a question that would come at the president from right of center — or even center-center. Think how enriched this interview would have been by even one question from right of center asking about unintended consequences or huge federal spending programs that came nowhere doing what Obama had promised they would. . . .

I wish Stewart had not given the president 15 minutes of a free ride on the eve of such a hotly contested and potentially monumental election.

But that’s what you get in a culture with a broken down journalistic structure where citizens turn to comedians rather than the press for information and guidance in deciding their votes.

And worse yet, much of the press blindly turns to comedians like Stewart and Stephen Colbert for guidance, too.

Indeed.

“TEDIOUSLY GRIM:” Ann Althouse takes a close look at Obama’s “evolving” views on gay rights.

Are you trying to say you’d have joined Justice Scalia’s dissent in Lawrence v. Texas? Here’s Scalia: “What Texas has chosen to do is well within the range of traditional democratic action, and its hand should not be stayed through the invention of a brand-new ‘constitutional right’ by a Court that is impatient of democratic change. It is indeed true that ‘later generations can see that laws once thought necessary and proper in fact serve only to oppress,’; and when that happens, later generations can repeal those laws. But it is the premise of our system that those judgments are to be made by the people, and not imposed by a governing caste that knows best.” Hello? That’s what Obama is saying about Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.

Read the whole thing, which is an exercise in patient deconstruction. But somehow it reminded me of this: “The move is classic Don Draper. He announces abruptly that he has evolved — instead of actually evolving.”

Related: Devolution. (Bumped).

WHAT TO DO, if you’ve been egged.

SCIENCE: Women are more attracted to men with stubble (and they prefer hairy chests and backs too).

DRUDGE HAS EXCERPTS and highlights from George W. Bush’s new book.

People thought Bush would be so toxic that publicity for his book would hurt Republicans, but with Bush outpolling Obama 48-43 now, it doesn’t look that way.

DAN MITCHELL: “Yes, TARP was economically misguided. But the bailout also was fundamentally corrupt, featuring special favors for the well-heeled. . . . Now, to add insult to injury, we’re being fed an unsavory gruel of deception as the political class tries to cover its tracks.”

THOUGHTS ON obesity and the brain.

FUTURE: NASA and DARPA Plan ‘Hundred-Year Starship’ To Bring Humans to Other Worlds And Leave Them There Forever. Well, sort of.

UPDATE: Reader Jeff Johnson writes: “I bet the Republicans will have to sit in the back.”

SECURITY: Tabasco Spicy Salt Landed Me In Hot Water At Airport Security.

GUTSY: A Pre-Election Day Prediction: Massachusetts Will Retire Barney Frank.

GOOD VIBRATIONS: Vibrations Slow Bone Aging?

MAC OWNERS, DON’T GET COCKY: New Java trojan attacks Mac OS X via social networking sites. Possibly not that major, but a reminder that Macs aren’t invulnerable, and that you need to exercise reasonable care in what you click on regardless of platform.

REVIEW: New MacBook Air still skinny on power.

HOPE: These Are The Only 5 Countries Whose Pension Systems Can Survive.

AUTOBLOG GREEN: GM’s Chevy Volt advertising might work today, but it’s incredibly shortsighted.

LAMPPOSTS: 65% Favor Getting Rid of Entire Congress and Starting Over.

WHY YOU SHOULD NEVER TRUST the photos hotels post online.

WALT MOSSBERG: New Macbook Air is like an iPad laptop.

IN THE MAIL: The Fun of Dying: Find Out What Really Happens Next!

“STRANGER DANGER” AND THE DECLINE OF HALLOWEEN: No child has ever been killed by poisoned candy. Ever.

Halloween taught marketers that parents are willing to be warned about anything, no matter how preposterous, and then they’re willing to be sold whatever solutions the market can come up with. Face paint so no mask will obscure a child’s vision. Purell, so no child touches a germ. And the biggest boondoggle of all: an adult-supervised party, so no child encounters anything exciting, er, “dangerous.”

Think of how Halloween used to be the one day of the year when gaggles of kids took to the streets by themselves—at night even. Big fun! Low cost! But once the party moved inside, to keep kids safe from the nonexistent poisoners, in came all the nonsense. The battery-operated caskets. The hired witch. The Costco veggie trays and plastic everything else. Halloween went from hobo holiday to $6 billion extravaganza.

And it blazed the way for adult-supervised everything else. Let kids make their own fun? Not anymore! Let’s sign our toddlers up for “movement” classes! Let’s bring on the extracurricular activities, travel soccer and manicure parties for the older kids. Once Halloween got outsourced to adults, no kids-only activity was safe. Goodbye sandlot, hello batting coach! . . . We can kill off Halloween, or we can accept that it isn’t dangerous and give it back to the kids. Then maybe we can start giving them back the rest of their childhoods, too.

Read the whole thing.

NEW YORK CITY’S DUMB GUN LAWS could get dumber. Which is an accomplishment!

CBS NEWS: Poll: Independents Drive GOP Midterm Advantage.

PETER SUDERMAN: ObamaCare: Political Trouble for Moderate Democrats? Well, not so much for moderate Democrats who voted against it.

UNLIKE ANDY GRIFFITH, NOT RUINED BY POLITICS: Sale: I Love Lucy, the complete series.

CHANGE: TARP plays well for Dems in wealthy N.Y. suburbs. Nice to see that they stuck it to the fatcats.

DANIEL BLATT: Could Disgruntled Gay Voters Impact Close Blue State Elections? “Obama rode a wave of hope that, once elected, he would sign legislation designed to bring positive change for gay Americans. Yet once in office, he failed to deliver.”

UPDATE: Obama says views on gay marriage are “evolving.”

WHAT WOULD MILTON FRIEDMAN DO? More “quantitative easing?” Really?

IT AIN’T SO, JOE: “Vice President Joe Biden is an affable fellow, which sometimes makes his tendency to exaggerate the truth somewhat amusing. However, Biden’s latest tall tale is as unamusing as it is wrong.” Shockingly, it’s not the case that “every single great idea” of the last century came from government. “It is not surprising that Joe Biden, an individual who has spent his entire career in government, possesses a child-like devotion to the federal government’s capabilities.”

GOOD GRIEF: Barbara Boxer faces ethics complaint for telling teachers to send students to work for campaign.

CHARGES OF absentee ballot fraud in Pennsylvania.

CONGRATULATIONS TO the Award-Winning Mercatus Center.

DID PUTIN have a facelift?

CIA USING SECRECY TO HIDE ITS PROBLEMS? Say it ain’t so! I wonder what Steve Hendricks would say?

“BITCH” REMARK NOT WELL-RECEIVED: Women’s groups outraged by ’sexist’ View co-host Joy Behar.

VOTER FRAUD: Daytona Beach Commissioner Arrested On Fraud Charges. “Daytona Beach City Commissioner Derrick Henry and his campaign manager, Genesis Robinson, were arrested Wednesday, charged with committing absentee ballot fraud during Henry’s 2010 re-election campaign, the Volusia County Sheriff’s Office said.”

L.A. TIMES: Obama’s Justice Department wins hundreds of awards from itself. I won an award from myself too . . . the first annual Glenn H. Reynolds Award For Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Excellence. When and where should I schedule the ceremony?

UPDATE: Did nobody get the Simpsons reference? Or was it just too obvious?

THE FUTURE’S SO BRIGHT, I gotta wear shades.

NUCLEAR MISSILE FAIL. Not encouraging.

HEH: FULL BURN.

THE GIFT THAT KEEPS GIVING: Rev. Jesse Jackson condemns Williams firing. “The Rev. Jesse Jackson on Wednesday compared NPR’s firing of Juan Williams to the Agriculture Department’s firing of Shirley Sherrod.”

KATIE COURIC on “the great unwashed middle of the country.” Jim Treacher retorts by calling Couric “the great unwatched.”

BYRON YORK: Clinton on the stump: Does he really want Obama and Dems to win?

CAPTAIN’S JOURNAL: High Value Target Campaign is Failing in Afghanistan.

BLOGGER SUED . . . for linking to Mark Steyn? Lame. More here.

SO LAST NIGHT I DROVE TO NASHVILLE for festivities regarding Amy Bourret’s new novel (we went to law school together) and today I drove back in time to record a PJTV interview. “Scheduled posts” keep the blog humming along, but if I missed your email, sorry! They don’t cover that.

AT AMAZON, markdowns on cellphones and accessories.

BOB KRUMM is back.

BOOED FOR BLAMING BUSH — in Massachusetts.

ARE WE EXPERIENCING a new Class War?

HOPE, CHANGE, AND A NEW KIND OF POLITICS: ABC News: Exclusive: Democrats Ask Pentagon for Info on Potential Obama Challengers. “The Democratic National Committee formally has asked the Pentagon for reams of correspondence between military agencies and nine potential Republican presidential candidates, a clear indication that Democrats are building opposition-research files on specific 2012 contenders even before the midterm elections.”

UPDATE: “So they’re digging for dirt early. That’s the Chicago Way…but in this case, the usual dirty tricks department may come back to haunt them. Voters are developing longer and longer memories.”

PROF. JACOBSON: New Video Exposes The False Narrative of the “Stomping” Victim. Just as fellow lawprof Ann Althouse suspected.

Yet another argument for those ubiquitous video cameras I’m always touting.

UPDATE: Ed Driscoll: Shhh—Nobody Tell MSNBC.

MICHAEL BENNET’S message control. Good grief.

MEGAN MCARDLE: “The elites aren’t quite as smart as they think they are.” No, they aren’t.

More: “Elites are often missing crucial knowledge, and unaware of it. In some ways, that effect is more pronounced than it used to be, with more and more of the elites drawn from a narrow class of extremely well-educated people from a handful of metropolitan areas, few of whom have ever, say, been responsible for a profit and loss statement, or tried to bring a gas station into compliance with local and federal EPA regulations. In a world where your primary output is words, it is easy to imagine a smoothly operating process based on really smart rule-making.” It would help — a little, anyway — to read Seeing Like A State.

REASON TV: Libertarian Party Candidate Dale Ogden on the California Governor’s Race .

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: So You Want To Get A Ph.D.

ANN ALTHOUSE IS still not impressed with the MoveOn “stomping” story.