DEMOCRATS: Seeking victory, not a mandate. This part seems plausible: “the ongoing non-success of Nutroots darling Ned Lamont in Blue Connecticut certainly suggests that the power or the progressives is less than they might have thought.” If the anti-war guy can’t win in Connecticut . . . .

CBS IS LOOKING FOR people who are nervous around Muslims.

This reminds me of Dateline’s unsuccessful efforts at trolling for racists at NASCAR events.

ROSIE O’DONNELL lives up to my expectations.

BOO! Something really scary for Halloween.

MORE BAD NEWS FOR THE NEWSPAPER BUSINESS:

The Audit Bureau of Circulations FAS-FAX report for the six-month period ending September 2006 released this morning confirmed yet again that major metros are struggling to show growth. The losses are steep while the gains are meager.

This is the fourth consecutive semi-annual report to register a severe drop in daily circulation and — perhaps more troubling to the industry — Sunday copies. While the estimated decline 2.8% for daily circulation for all reporting papers may seem negligible, consider that in years past that decrease averaged around 1%. Sunday, considered the industry’s bread-and-butter, showed even steeper losses, with a decline of about 3.4%.

Big cities like L.A., Miami, and Boston are feeling the effects of the Internet and the trimming of other-paid circulation. In New York, however, a 5.1% surge for the New York Post allowed it to leapfrog past its rival, the Daily News — and The Washington Post — into fifth place in daily circ.

The Los Angeles Times reported that daily circulation fell 8% to 775,766. Sunday dropped 6% to 1,172,005.

And I suspect that the news would be worse still if it weren’t for the various gimmicks used to inflate the circulation figures.

K.C. JOHNSON has more on the Duke rape case, which should probably be renamed the “Duke prosecutorial mosconduct case” at this point.

ROGER SIMON INTERVIEWS Chuck Todd of The Hotline.

“I’LL JUST ENTER THAT CODE:” The New York Times has one for everything.

BRANNON DENNING EMAILS THIS LINK to Prof. Indiana Jones’ tenure denial letter. Read the whole thing.

ORDINARY PEOPLE: Or not.

AIRSTRIKES IN BAJAUR: Bill Roggio has a report, and a followup.

STEVEN LANDSBURG: “Does pornography breed rape? Do violent movies breed violent crime? Quite the opposite, it seems. . . . The bottom line on these experiments is, ‘More Net access, less rape.’ A 10 percent increase in Net access yields about a 7.3 percent decrease in reported rapes. States that adopted the Internet quickly saw the biggest declines. And, according to Clemson professor Todd Kendall, the effects remain even after you control for all of the obvious confounding variables, such as alcohol consumption, police presence, poverty and unemployment rates, population density, and so forth.”

Can’t say I’m surprised.

UPDATE: Hey, this is certainly an argument against Harold Ford Jr.’s proposed Internet porn tax!

FRENCH “YOUTHS” — from burning buses to burning people.

MARTYRDOM as a weapon of mass destruction.

MORE PROBLEMS FOR NIFONG in the Duke rape case:

The second dancer in the Duke rape case has said for the first time that the accuser told her to “go ahead, put marks on me” after the alleged attack.

Dancer Kim Roberts made the new allegation — which she has not shared with authorities — in an interview with Chris Cuomo that aired today on “Good Morning America.”

Roberts’ allegation comes after Durham District Attorney Mike Nifong’s admission in court last week that he has not yet interviewed the accuser “about the facts of that night.”

This case seems awfully weak.

SO IS THIS GOOD NEWS OR BAD NEWS FOR THE REPUBLICANS?

A quarter century after the Reagan revolution and a dozen years after Republicans vaulted into control of Congress, a new CNN poll finds most Americans still agree with the bedrock conservative premise that, as the Gipper put it, “government is not the answer to our problems — government is the problem.”

The poll released Friday also showed that an overwhelming majority of Americans perceive, correctly, that the size and cost of government have gone up in the past four years, when Republicans have had a grip on the House of Representatives, the Senate and the White House. . . .

Queried about their views on the role of government, 54 percent of the 1,013 adults polled said they thought it was trying to do too many things that should be left to individuals and businesses. Only 37 percent said they thought the government should do more to solve the country’s problems.

I think the answer is “yes.”

MAX BOOT IS GUESTBLOGGING at The Volokh Conspiracy. His first post is here.

A FAKE AD? Or a fake fake ad? Or a fake, fake, fake . . . . the mind reels.

A “JESUS-LOVING GUN-SUPPORTING” SENATOR from Tennessee! I was talking to one of my colleagues about Harold Ford’s run to the right, and he said he’d vote for Ford in spite of his disapproval of Ford’s opposition to gay marriage, support for posting the ten commandments, hard stance on immigration, etc. Anything’s worth it, he decided, to get a Democratic Congress. Ford’s strategy is obviously to hope that a lot of left-leaning Democrats feel that way, while pulling in people who would otherwise vote Republican. It could work.

But what do the Dems do if they win?

UPDATE: Heh: “Afterwards, we hear tell he went a’swimmin’ with Ellie Mae and Jethro in the cement pond.”

WILLIAM BEUTLER looks at Ned Lamont, the Netroots, and Barack Obama.

JOSH TREVINO HAS THOUGHTS on being unselfconscious.

TIGERHAWK IS READING IAN BURUMA’S NEW BOOK, Murder in Amsterdam: The Death of Theo van Gogh and the Limits of Tolerance, and has a post on what he thinks so far.

And, in the spirit of writing book reports on books one hasn’t finished, I’m about halfway through blogosphere legend Arthur Chrenkoff’s new novel Night Trains, and so far it’s terrific — it’s like a mixture of Harry Turtledove and Ken MacLeod. Is there anything he isn’t good at?

UPDATE: Another Buruma review, and more on Van Gogh, here.

IT’S JIHAD, Charlie Brown!

KARL ROVE’S SECRET PLAN, REVEALED:

Rove is giving a virtuoso performance designed to prevent the Democrats from taking control of the House and Senate or, if that is no longer possible, to hold down the size of the Democratic victory to make it easier for the GOP to come back in 2008. His plan is three-pronged: to reenergize any conservatives who may be flagging; to make sure the GOP’s carefully constructed campaign apparatus is functioning at peak efficiency; and to put the resources of the federal government to use for political gain. . . .

In 2002, Rove’s system outperformed the Democrats’ in mobilizing voters and is credited with giving GOP candidates the narrow edge that secured victories for the party in 2002 and 2004.

For 2006, Rove and Mehlman hope a turnout advantage could help them eke out victories in tight House and Senate races that they believe will determine control of both chambers.

Will it work? We’ll know in just over a week.

DICK ARMEY on where the GOP went wrong.

But Ali Bubba says Armey’s leaving something out.