The Wall Street Journal broke the story last night, that Apple’s iTunes Store had finally secured the rights to sell the Beatles’ catalog. I’m no big Beatles fan — sue me, I’ll take the Stones — but the Beatles Box Set looks impressive.

$149 for every album, remastered, plus video documentaries and all the extra digital goodies we’ve come to love and expect from iTunes?

I’m not plunking down the money just yet — but I am putting it on my iTunes Wish List.

UPDATE: One last thing. Obviously, iTunes has been working on this release, very hard, for months. Kudus for keeping it under wraps until the very last minute.

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Last night, the booze didn’t help. This morning the coffee isn’t helping. Is there no way to rid my brain of the memory of Paul Krugman on Sunday morning, lecturing Britain on deficit reduction? Doing Hair of the Dog every week is starting to affect my health.

In other news, PJ Media turns five years old today, and PJTV has been going strong for just over two years. About three years prior to PJM’s founding, I told my then-fiancée that I was going to start a blog. And she said, “A what?” Hardly anyone asks that question anymore, and it’s been that way for years now.

When I got into this newfangled blogging thing on January 10, 2002, I had a desk in my basement with a Dell Pentium III desktop computer, wired into the internet courtesy of AOL’s dialup service. Today, it’s a Mac Pro workstation with a high-speed cable modem, and wifi through the rest of the house. And there’s a dedicated, bonded T1 line for the little TV studio next to my desk. But I’m still down in the basement — some things don’t change all that much.

Eight years ago, “online video” meant some grainy thumbnail-size moving picture of something, at maybe 15 frames per second — if you could find any online video, that is. Now I stream 720p HD right out of my basement. Yeah, the T1 line is strictly for pros (or paid amateurs still learning the ropes, like myself), but it can’t be too much longer before my setup becomes mundane. And then it will become obsolete. All, I’m sure, in very short order.

What’s next? I have no idea. But if the next five years are anything like the first five, it’s going to be a helluva lot of fun.

I’ll bring the flask.

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So what’s the latest news on Democratic rebranding effort? They’re gonna give Chuck Schumer more face time!

At the very least, that’ll give me more fodder for Hair of the Dog.

On second thought, that might also be the very most Schumer accomplishes.

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Hair of the Dog: The White House is taking economic and fashion advice from Karl and Groucho Marx — I’m just not sure in which order. Plus, more Death Panel Fun with Paul Krugman!

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So, Facebook is entering the messaging business. Here’s how it works:

The new service, which will provide users with an “@facebook.com” email address, is designed to meld email, instant messaging and SMS text messages so that users can manage their communications through a single inbox.

“This is not an email killer. This is a messaging system that includes email as a part of it,” said Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg.

The company was launching the new service because many young users don’t use email because it is too slow and formal, he said. The company unveiled its new messaging service at an event in San Francisco.

Mr. Zuckerberg said the service, which has been under development for about one year, will also maintain users’ conversation histories so that members can keep track of all the communications they have had.

No thanks — I’ll take a pass on this one. Zuckerberg, whom Fake Steve Jobs properly skewered the other day as a “that quasi-autistic little sociopath,” is simply not to be trusted. Facebook is happy to take your personal data, and even store it free of charge — but good luck ever getting it back out.

Case in point. Earlier this year, I took my son to see How to Train Your Dragon. A fine, fun little movie, and his first on the big screen. As usual, I’d purchased our tickets online. Days later, when logging into Facebook for work, I learned that the entire world knew what movie I’d gone to, which theater, and what time, too. What would a stalker have done with this information?

I’d never given Facebook or Fandango permission to publish that information. I’d never given either site permission to share any information. And yet there it was, for all the world to see.

Facebook has since promised never to do that kind of thing again. But I made my own promise, which is to give Facebook as little information as I can. And that means giving a big Thumbs Down to letting Mark Zuckerberg have access to each and every one of my electronic communications.

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HP had to nearly double its initial run of Slate tablets — all the way up to 9,000 units. And then, I must assume, promptly shut the production line back down. Apple sells five times that many iPads — every day. going back to April.

I told you the Slate sucked.

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I’m sure by now most everyone has read, or at least read about, that Sunday WaPo op-ed by Democratic pollsters Douglas Schoen and Patrick Caddell. It’s a long one, but you can get the gist pretty early on. Here’s what you need to read:

This is a critical moment for the country. From the faltering economy to the burdensome deficit to our foreign policy struggles, America is suffering a widespread sense of crisis and anxiety about the future. Under these circumstances, Obama has the opportunity to seize the high ground and the imagination of the nation once again, and to galvanize the public for the hard decisions that must be made. The only way he can do so, though, is by putting national interests ahead of personal or political ones.

To that end, we believe Obama should announce immediately that he will not be a candidate for reelection in 2012.

If the president goes down the reelection road, we are guaranteed two years of political gridlock, at a time when we can ill afford it. But by explicitly saying he will be a one-term president, Obama can deliver on his central campaign promise of 2008, draining the poison from our culture of polarization and ending the resentment and division that have eroded our national identity and common purpose.

We do not come to this conclusion lightly. But it is clear, we believe, that the president has largely lost the consent of the governed. The midterm elections were effectively a referendum on the Obama presidency. And even if it was not an endorsement of a Republican vision for America, the drubbing the Democrats took was certainly a vote of no confidence in Obama and his party. The president has almost no credibility left with Republicans and little with independents.

Putting aside the flowery language about restoring trust and bringing back the hopenchange, you’re left with one message: Schoen and Caddell simply don’t believe Obama is re-electable — and that his party is going to need the next to years to clear enough of his wreckage to give Hillary Clinton (or whomever) a shot at winning the White House in 2012.

Last January, Obama said he’d rather be a “really good one-term president.” Maybe he can find solace in being half right.

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Coast to Coast Tea Party: FreedomWorks CEO Matt Kibbe explains what’s next for the Tea Party, and how to hold the new GOP Congress accountable.

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Last week’s rosy-ish jobs report? Phony baloney. Here’s what happened, according to Business Insider:

But it turns out that there was a simple reason why the payroll numbers looked so good–a reason that had nothing to do with underlying strength of the jobs market.
What was that reason?

The government changed the “seasonal adjustment” it made to the payroll numbers–and, in so doing, boosted the number of “jobs” created in October by 100,000.

Is there anything this administration won’t politicize?

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Good Husband: Gives his wife an iPad for her birthday a week early, because she has to spend a few days in bed.

Dismayed Husband: Has to explain to OCD, heavily medicated wife why iPad doesn’t have folders like her iPhone does.

Smart Husband: Can I get you a glass of wine to go with your Percocet?

It’s been an interesting few days.

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For this week’s PJM Politicalhttp://bit.ly/crTItF
, Ed Driscoll rounded up Gray Lady Down author William McGowan, James Lileks, Glenn Reynolds, pollster Scott Rasmussen, the Poliwood guys and more.

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Trifecta: The Fed’s latest move is called the QE2 — but it has much more in common with the Titanic.

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Trifecta: What really happened with Keith Olbermann last week? Conspiracy theories abound on this members’ exclusive episode.

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Following John Gruber’s instructions, I’ve moved Flash to where Safari and Firefox and Chrome can get to it. Chrome has it’s own built-in implementation, allowing me to use Flash when I absolutely must. But the rest of the time, I’m free of that ’90s-vintage, CPU-stealing, browser-crashing wreck of a kludge of malware.

Oh, and thanks to a nifty little Safari extension called YouTube5, YouTube clips are invisibly and automatically converted into HTML5 — no need to monkey about with Flash in Chrome or anywhere else. So far (and somewhat inconveniently), PJTV is the one place where I need to boot up Chrome. But it beats the Flash-y alternative.

The best part is, if enough people follow suit, webmasters will get the idea that users are sick of Flash, and speed up their adoption of HTML5 accordingly.

If I run into any major problems, I’ll let you know. Meanwhile, I suggest you click the link above and follow Gruber’s instructions.

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Dirty tricks down south in Texas:

On November 2, Farenthold beat Ortiz by 799 votes. A tight race to be sure, but one that could be described as outside the margin of ACORN. I mean error.

The fairly Leftist Corpus Christi Caller Times even said in a November 6 editorial “Honor the vote, which went for Farenthold.”

But Ortiz did not – and has not – acquiesced. He demanded a recount. And that’s when the “Out of Thin Air” show began. Ortiz, Inc. keeps finding new bags containing new ballots – many with his name on them.

Ortiz, Inc. first found in Robstown – the epicenter of Ortiz, Inc. support – a bag with seven whole ballots in it. All of them (shocking) cast for Ortiz.

*Poof*

That lowered Farenthold’s spread to 792.

Ortiz, Inc. then moved on to the provisional ballot and overseas vote portion of the program. Which is a much tougher nut to crack.

Read the whole thing at BG.

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On the Hill, it’s not your father’s Democrats:

A younger generation of Democrats is chafing at being asked to stand aside and let a triumvirate of elders keep their leadership positions in the wake of a catastrophic midterm election result.

Barring an unexpected shake-up, House Democrats next year will be led by a combination of Nancy Pelosi (Calif.), Steny Hoyer (Md.) and James Clyburn (S.C.) — lawmakers who are 70 or older and have served in Congress for decades.

No, wait — these are exactly your father’s Democrats.

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Trifecta: Getting felt up by Janet Napolitano — how bad could it be?

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Trifecta: What we have here, is failure to communicate. Stephen Kruiser takes the center square and has Scott Ott and I take on the President’s latest, lamest excuse.

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I’ll be on The Rick Moran Show in 30 minutes, along with Rich Baehr and Jazz Shaw. I think we’re supposed to talk about something political that happened in the last week or so, but I have no idea what.

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Advantage: Collier.

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Hair of the Dog: Not a single elected Democrat official dared to show their face on this week’s Sunday shows. That’s the good news. Better news? You’ll get to see Rand Paul take down Christiane Amanpour.

Fun!

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Watching the Sunday shows yesterday was the joy it always is — if by “joy” you mean “a long, hard slog.” But it was refreshing seeing a few (if only a very few) principled politicians who seem serious about cutting DC down to size.

However, their marketing could use a little work, especially given a hostile Complicit Media. (I’m looking at you, David Gregory, and you, too, Christiane Amanpour. Terrible performances yesterday from both of you. Shill a little less for big government, mmkay? Anyway.)

With that in mind, here it is again — the VodkaPundit Five by Five Plan:

• 5-year moratorium on new regulations
• 5-year moratorium on new taxes
• 5-year extension of current tax rates
• 5-year suspension before implementing any more Obamacare provisions
• 5 percent across-the-board, net spending cut from pre-crisis levels

This is a start. A small start. But it should be easier to explain than the somewhat arcane plans (if there are any plans at all) the GOP has been presenting.

Although I doubt it would be any easier to explain to Amanpour. She’s so dim, she couldn’t comprehend what Rand Paul meant by “across the board.” Seriously — I’ll go into that later today on Hair of the Dog. Priceless stuff.

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President Emobama is “isolated.” From Politico:

Congressional Democrats consider him distant and blame him for their historic defeat on Tuesday. Democratic state party leaders scoff at what they see as an inattentive and hapless political operation. Democratic lobbyists feel maligned by his holier-than-thou take on their profession. His own Cabinet — with only a few exceptions — has been marginalized.

His relations with business leaders could hardly be worse. Obama has suggested it’s a PR problem, but several Democratic officials said CEOs friendly with the president walk away feeling he’s indifferent at best to their concerns. Add in his icy relations with Republicans, the media and, most important, most voters, and it’s easy to understand why his own staff leaked word to POLITICO that it wants Obama to shake up his staff and change his political approach.

Any day now I expect to read a report that the President has been spending a lot of time alone upstairs in his bedroom, listening to old Morrissey records.

POTENTIALLY RELATED: California called “the Lindsay Lohan of states.”

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Remember my Emo Obama Theory? (Emobama?) Well, here’s the winner of my photoshop contest.

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Under the Obama Plan, if you like the coverage you have, you can keep it — unless you happen to work for the AARP.

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Don’t tase my bear, Sarah Palin’s new ‘do and those racist teabaggers — all on another exciting episode of… The Week in Blogs!

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If history has ever once recorded a time when reality suborned itself to a plan, then history is a liar.

I’d planned on doing the near-impossible — taking off two whole days in a row, once the elections were over. After recording The Week in Blogs on Thursday afternoon, I announced to the PJTV studio: “On Friday and Saturday, I will not pick up the phone and I will not answer emails. That is all.”

But then, of course, our Dilettante-in-Chief went and said something so profoundly stupid that I had to drag myself out of my self-imposed (and totally-enjoyed) exile just to show you how profoundly stupid our Dilettante-in-Chief has become. So, for the record, I present the following:

“I think that’s a fair argument. I think that, over the course of two years we were so busy and so focused on getting a bunch of stuff done that, we stopped paying attention to the fact that leadership isn’t just legislation. That it’s a matter of persuading people. And giving them confidence and bringing them together. And setting a tone,” Mr. Obama told 60 Minutes’ Steve Kroft in an exclusive interview set to air Sunday.

“Making an argument that people can understand,” Mr. Obama continued, “I think that we haven’t always been successful at that. And I take personal responsibility for that. And it’s something that I’ve got to examine carefully … as I go forward.”

Ladies and gentlemen, the Dilettante-in-Chief who gave you the demerol of stimuli, who gave you three trillion dollars in new deficits after promising a “net spending cut,” and who gave you ObamaCare because he cares enough to raise prices while decreasing services…

…this is the President who now has the stones to claim that his unpopularity is all one big misunderstanding. He’s misunderstood, the poor thing.

Ladies and gentlemen, it is my dour duty to inform you that this once-great nation has elected its very first — and I very dearly hope last — Emo President.

And if someone can photoshop that image for me, I’ll send you a very nice PJTV coffee mug.

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