INSTAPUNDIT FANS KNOW that I’ve been a big fan of my Panasonic Lumix LX-3 camera. Yesterday, I got the successor to that in the mail, the new Lumix LX-5. Like the old Lumix, this one is designed to excel in low light. It has a wide-angle (24mm equivalent) f2.0 lens and optical image stabilization. But where the LX-3 went to ISO 3200, the LX-5 goes all the way to ISO 12800. The zoom range is expanded from 24-60mm equivalent to 24-90mm equivalent, which is a considerable improvement.

Controls are easy to use, and somewhat simplified from the LX-3. A Nikon-like adjustment wheel makes manual or semi-manual operation much easier. The LCD screen is big and bright. One carryover from the LX-3 — and the only annoying thing about the LX-3, really — is the fully detachable and easy-to-lose lens cap.

I’ll try to post a full report once I’ve gotten to play with it more, but it looks like a worthy successor to an already great camera. On the other hand, the LX-3 is now selling for considerably less than the LX-5 and it’s a terrific camera itself. If money’s an issue, or if you don’t need the higher-ISO and longer zoom range, you might want to pick one of those up while they’re still available.

IN MY SUNDAY WASHINGTON EXAMINER COLUMN, I talk about environmentalism, eliminationist rhetoric, and “filthy human babies.” (Bumped.)

NICK GILLESPIE: The Lisa DePasquale Interview.

JOHN HINDERAKER: “One of the most chilling phenomena of our time is the resurgence of anti-Semitism in Europe.”

EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON (D-TX) UPDATE: Scholarship Scandal Congresswoman Falls Apart in Anderson Cooper Interview.

MICHAEL BARONE ON THE HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE:

America leads the world in higher education, yet there is much in our colleges and universities that is amiss and, more to the point, suddenly not sustainable. The people running America’s colleges and universities have long thought they were exempt from the laws of supply and demand and unaffected by the business cycle. Turns out that’s wrong.

Read the whole thing.

MEGAN MCARDLE: Is A Payroll Tax Holiday A Good Idea?

No. It was a good idea — as a substitute for the futile and pork-laden “stimulus” bill — a year and a half ago. Now, not so much. A moratorium on new taxes or regulations until 2013, however, would likely be stimulative, at least if you believe, as I do, that a lot of businesses are holding back because of “regime uncertainty.” But at this point, who would believe in such a moratorium if promised?

THE CARNIVAL OF NUCLEAR ENERGY IS UP!

IN THE MAIL: From Eric Flint, Grantville Gazette IV.

DISMANTLING THE DISMANTLING OF AMERICA: If you missed it yesterday on Sirius/XM Satellite radio, the latest PJM Political is now online, featuring me, Thomas Sowell, Bill Whittle on “Star Hustler” Jack Horkheimer, and more.

CHANGE: Rand Paul Up 15 In New SurveyUSA Poll. “Paul wins 60% of voters under 50 years of age, and 52% of voters 50 and older. He also wins 37% of the African-American vote, a surprisingly high number for a Republican candidate. Paul gets 56% of independents and 32% of Democrats, while only losing 16% of Republicans. . . . Kentucky was one of two Senate races that Democrats thought they could win by making the Tea Party an issue (the other being Nevada). So far, the Tea Party issue seems to be either favoring Paul or not playing a factor at all. The real issue in this election isn’t the Tea Party but the Democratic agenda of Barack Obama, Harry Reid, and Nancy Pelosi, and Kentucky voters don’t want to send someone to Washington DC who will enable it.”

RED-LIGHT CAMERA TICKETS for Zombies.

DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATE FOR GOVERNOR IN TENNESSEE LOSES AN ENDORSEMENT: Gun-rights leader switches support from McWherter to Haslam. “A prominent gun-rights supporter who surprised many Republicans by endorsing Democrat Mike McWherter for governor said today he has switched his support to Republican Bill Haslam. Bob Pope, who formerly operated gun shows and now publishes the Tennessee Patriot, said in an interview that he changed his mind after the McWherter campaign decided to bring in former President Bill Clinton for a rally and fundraiser.”

DEMOCRACY, WHISKEY, SEXY REDUX: Majority of Iraqis Oppose Obama’s Withdrawal. “Based on recent polling numbers, Iraqis want American soldiers to stay in their country more than the Americans do. . . . What happened? The surge is what happened. Contrary to what opponents of the surge said, the increased presence and aggressiveness of U.S. forces did not trigger a popular backlash because security visibly improved. The increased exposure to American forces likely also led to a certain degree of affection and respect as the anti-American myths were busted by reality.”

25% OFF ON Men’s Coats And Jackets.

LORI ZIGANTO: So, the wage gap is true. Only, it’s men who earn less.

FRUGAL TENNESSEE: “Tennessee ranks last of the 50 states and Washington D.C. in terms of debt load. And this time, it’s a good thing. The state’s top officials are pretty proud of the recent ranking that shows for its size, Tennessee has less debt than any other state government.”

I wish the Democrats had nominated Phil Bredesen in 2008.

JERRY POURNELLE: None dare call it depression. “It’s not the output. It’s the people. Our output could be the sky’s the limit; but if large segments of the population are idle or do not feel as if they are contributing, it will change the nature of our population, the way we think and how we engage the world. I would worry less about not having enough steel than I would about not having enough steel-workers, if you get my drift.”

IOWAHAWK: Barack, Can We Talk? “It’s just that it just seems we haven’t had a chance to talk for a while. I mean, I know we’ve both been busy for the past year or so. You with your fundraisers and golfing and stuff, and me with all those appointments at the unemployment office. But you know I think it’s important in a relationship like ours to keep the lines of communication open.”

A BLOG FOR SOUTHERNERS IN NEW YORK CITY.

RECOMMENDED BY READER ARTHUR BARIE: War News Updates.

“I. AM. WILLIAM. SHATNER.”

BUT THEY WEREN’T LISTENED TO: Fearing for image, First Lady’s aides warned against Spain vacation.

PEOPLE ARE AT LEAST CUTTING BACK ON THE PRACTICE: Is Circumcision Going Out Of Style?

CHANGE: HuffPo Panics About GOP Sweep Of Ohio.

MARK HEMINGWAY: With unemployment at 9.6 percent, why is the White House obsessed with sex?

THE AUDACITY OF DOPE: Oval Office Rug Gets Quote Wrong. Hey, I thought only ignorant idiots like Bush made mistakes like this.

Plus, from the comments: “The arc of the clueless is long, but always bends toward embarrassment.”

WELL, SOMETIMES THAT’S THE ONLY OPTION: 60% Of Women Would Date An Unemployed Guy.

AT AMAZON, A Labor Day Watch Sale.

SARAH PALIN, Make-up Artist. Okay, that’s big. I’ve let other people use my home TV studio, but I’ve never done their makeup for them.

UPDATE: More Palin news.

SIX WAYS to lose your election.

PUSHING STATES FOR “right to hunt” amendments.

IS IT ILLEGAL TO mail a burnt-out CFL bulb to your congressman?

LEFTY FANTASY: Glenn Beck In A Shock Collar.

DANA LOESCH: Tea Party TV: Who Knew The American Flag Was Racist?

I THINK WE’RE UNDERPUNISHING VIOLENT CRIME: The guy who killed a cashier at a cafeteria in Knoxville was shot by police, and in the story we learn this:

Chesney’s last bank robbery in December 2005 netted him $15,000 from the First Tennessee Bank on Millertown Pike. Police caught him within an hour and took the money back. Authorities at the time called him a suspect in at least two other robberies.

Chesney left prison in 2008 and remained on supervised release until his death.

Fewer than 3 years in jail for bank robbery?

IS THE GRAND DESIGN WITHIN OUR GRASP?

Don’t get cocky, kids. I’m with J.B.S. Haldane: “Now my own suspicion is that the Universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose.”

THE AUDACITY OF TAUPE: Mary Claire Kendall on Obama’s Political Tin Ear.

THEY TOLD ME IF I VOTED FOR JOHN MCCAIN, BLUENOSES WOULD BE TALKING ABOUT REINSTATING SUNDAY CLOSING LAWS: And They Were Right!

UPDATE: At least they’re not talking about rationing groceries like Hugo Chavez. But that would free us from more of those bothersome choices. . . .

PROGRESS: Development of Tiny Thorium Reactors Could Wean the World Off Oil In Just Five Years. Faster, please.

Steven Den Beste was warning the other day that this might promote nuclear proliferation in a big way, but some commenters suggested that’s not really a risk. This article also says that thorium reactors don’t produce significant amounts of bomb-grade isotopes.

UPDATE: Reader Michael Costello writes: “The biggest problem with thorium reactors is that there are no thorium mines in Iowa.”

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Tom Brosz writes: “Maybe there aren’t any thorium mines in Iowa, but it sure looks like there could be.”

UP TO 40% OFF, at the Amazon Labor Day kitchen sale.

FROM STEPHEN GREEN, it’s The Week In Blogs.

NICK GILLESPIE REFLECTS: Glenn Beck’s “Restoring Honor” Rally, a Week Later. Interesting discussion in the comments, too. I like the “Easy Rider” remake . . . .

Plus this: “Obama is making Bush look like Pericles in comparison, but a lot of movement people get that Bush put the coup de grace on the Reagan Coalition.”

HEADLINE OF THE WEEK: Sheriff Fires Deputies Caught Naked In The Forest. As part of a threesome, which led to this memorable line: “No one has been able to say how long U.S. Forest Service Officer Scott Cairnes and Deputy Derek Hamm stood watching the trio.”

JIM “ANGLOSPHERE” BENNETT AND LEXINGTON GREEN ARE working on a book together.

It will be about the American way of life, where it came from, where it’s going and what we should be doing. So far it looks like we will have everything in there: The Magna Carta, the Singularity, Resilient Communities, the Haymarket Riot, the Anglosphere, the Constitution, Libertarians and Conservatives having a group hug, the inevitable doom of our would-be overlords, pretty much everything including the kitchen sink. We are still working on the book proposal. But we are moving along.

They’re looking for reader involvement over at ChicagoBoyz.

SINGLES GETTING TOGETHER via GPS dating.

DO BLOGGING LAW PROFESSORS wield too much power?

WILL THE MARKETS CRASH because of college costs?

IN THE MAIL: Conduct Unbecoming: How Barack Obama is Destroying The Military and Endangering Our Security.

DER SPIEGEL: Obama’s Misguided Approach: America Has Become Too European. “The nation would be better off embracing traditional American values like self-reliance and small government.” Yep. That’s what they’re writing in Der Spiegel.

PROFESSOR BAINBRIDGE: So what if Mike Castle is a RINO?

UPDATE: Dan Riehl responds.

PROPOSALS FOR an educational renaissance.

NO LOVE FOR Newt Gingrich. He hasn’t aged well.

MORE “DON’T GET COCKY” ADVICE FOR THE GOP:

In 1994, nobody — and I mean nobody — saw the landslide coming. I remember political pundits and newscasters stunned with disbelief as the results drifted in from across the country that Tuesday night. Given the widespread expectations of a Democratic drubbing, this November differs greatly from its 1994 counterpart.

Another difference is that the GOP in 1994 were offering voters a clear alternative to the ruling party. Their 10-part “Contract with America” offered a palpable idea of exactly how the party planned to rule differently from the Democrats. I’ve yet to see any clear, coherent message that details how the Republicans plan to lead if they do take control of Congress in November. The GOP still appear rudderless — despite perfect conditions for a cogent message of austerity and limited government to emerge.

Indeed.

PATRICK RICHARDSON: Media Bias Gets Dangerous: Minimizing the Ecoterror Threat. “They are over and done with the topic of James J. Lee, despite the mounting number of attacks committed in the name of environmentalism.”

YOU CAN’T HANDLE the truth.

BACK TO SCHOOL videos for kids.

DETROIT NEWS: The irony of Jesse Jackson’s stripped SUV.

FATWA: Australian Imam Urges Muslims to Behead Geert Wilders. Barbarians.

MICHIGAN: Democrats’ Fake “Tea Party” Off Ballot.

SENDING AN INVOICE CAKE TO PEOPLE.COM. “Today I sent an invoice on a cake to People.com. I’m demanding $500 from them after my Cake of Resignation photo was used without permission and without payment.” For all the complaints about bloggers infringing intellectual property, I note that Big Media folks often lift stuff from blogs without a second thought.

HEH: I’m retiring and becoming a lobbyist.

FAILURE: Lawyers And Landmines.

LOOKING FOR WAR ON TERROR NEWS? Check out Fred Pruitt’s Rantburg.

JEFFREY CROWLEY, Obama’s Part-Time AIDS Czar.

LINDSEY GRAHAM reaches out to Tea Party.

POLITICS AND PARENTING: “Obama was never seriously criticized for running—hard—for public office, often while holding down yet another public office, while his girls were little. People assume this is what male politicians do. . . . So there is clearly a double standard if Sarah Palin is to be called out for outsourcing some parenting responsibility even as she assembles her kids on stage. I don’t think there is any question that female politicians are judged more harshly for letting their careers create ‘distance’ between them and their children. Conversely, that Todd Palin’s hands-on caregiving could be seen as negative would be like criticizing Michelle Obama for picking up the parenting slack.”

FIREARMS NEWS at the Camo Underground.

7 WAYS TO PREPARE FOR AN EARTHQUAKE.

KRUISER CONTROL: The Delusional Dynamic Duo: Olbermann’s Revisionist Histrionics & Matthews’ Pluperfect Love of Obama.

Also check out the PJTV Report for a roundup of programming.

ILYA SOMIN: Errors In Jane Mayer’s New Yorker Article Attacking the Kochs.

The thing to understand is, this article isn’t about the Kochs at all. It’s about preparing a narrative for the New Yorker’s readers about why Obama has failed. It’s not because they were rubes who voted for an underprepared, under-skilled candidate who then proceeded to alienate the electorate. It’s because Obama was beaten by a right-wing billionaires’ conspiracy so vast as to defy understanding. That’s all. Relax, New Yorker readers. No need to feel bad about yourself for being overwhelmed with hope-and-change fever and voting stupidly. It’s not your fault. It never is!

KITCARS OF YESTERYEAR: The King Midget.

KIDS PROVE THEY’RE MoonBot Masters.

A COOL NEW MARS IMAGE GALLERY.

MICHAEL CANNON: “National Journal still describes ObamaCare as ‘reform,’ which I submit compromises objectivity. But this is progress. Kudos to them.”

APPLE TV: Greatly Improved, Still Unfinished. “Netflix, Fox, ABC, $0.99 shows, and streaming from iOS devices: Yes, Apple TV just got desirable. But even with the upgrade, there is much room for improvement. Here is how it could get even better.”

PETER WEHNER: DEFINING RECOVERY DOWN. And down, and down . . . . “For one thing, the so-called underemployment rate, which includes workers who are working part-time but who want full-time work, increased from 16.5 percent to 16.7 percent. During our supposed ‘Recovery Summer,’ we have lost 283,000 jobs (54,000 in June, 171,000 in July, and 54,000 in August). And for August, the employment-population ratio — the percentage of Americans with jobs — was 58.5 percent. We haven’t seen figures this low in nearly three decades.”

AT AMAZON, it’s the Friday Sale.

REVOLT OF THE BOURGEOIS:

The much-analyzed speeches at the Glenn Beck Lincoln Memorial rally weren’t as notable as what the estimated 300,000 attendees did: follow instructions, listen quietly to hours of speeches, and throw out their trash.

Just as stunning as the tableaux of the massive throngs lining the reflecting pool were the images of the spotless grounds afterward. If someone had told attendees they were expected to mow the grass before they left, surely some of them would have hitched flatbed trailers to their vehicles for the trip to Washington and gladly brought mowers along with them. This was the revolt of the bourgeois, of the responsible, of the orderly, of people profoundly at peace with the traditional mores of American society. The spark that lit the tea-party movement was the rant by CNBC commentator Rick Santelli, who inveighed in early 2009 against an Obama-administration program to subsidize “the losers’ mortgages.” He was speaking for people who hadn’t borrowed beyond their means or tried to get rich quick by flipping houses, for the people who, in their thrift and enterprise, “carry the water instead of drink the water.”

The tea party’s detractors want to paint it as radical, when at bottom it represents the self-reliant, industrious heart of American life.

That’s what some people find so scary.

AIRPLANES AND TELECOMMUNICATIONS shrink optimum city size.

MAD MEN DISCOVER the laptop computer.

STUDY: Diesels Cleaner Than Electrics Over Lifetime.

UNEMPLOYMENT: “The jobs lost in the 2000-2001 recession don’t seem to have ever come back. The percentage of people in the workforce stabilized, but never recovered. This time, it looks like the re-employment picture will be even worse. . . . The Boomers are not retiring. Their workforce participation rate is well above forecast. Have you looked at your 401(k)?” Understandable, but of course that means fewer new jobs will open up.

Plus, from the comments: “The USA is increasingly not a good place to do business. We need a stiff broom. I worry that the GOP won’t do what it takes.” So do I. I was on Hugh Hewitt’s show last night, and he said that when he talks to Beltway GOP insiders he’s amazed at how out of touch they are. They’re not even sure about passing a ban on earmarks if they take the majority, much less more significant change. If they get the majority back, and blow it, they’ll be looking at a third-party challenge in 2012, and not just at the Presidential level.

IN RESPONSE TO MY EARLIER POST on the “personal activity monitor,” reader Robert Cheatham writes with a good suggestion: “Why isn’t this a smartphone app? $5 or $10 instead of $100 and one less thing to carry around. Glenn, get your readers on it!” Yeah, pretty much all the smartphones have accelerometers you can access via apps, so that should work.

HEY, KNOXVILLIANS: If you’re attending the Tennessee Valley Fair, stop by Doug Weinstein’s booth. You’ll be able to meet a legendary Knoxville lawyer, diver, and blogger. He might even be persuaded to autograph something.

FOR LAW STUDENTS: Cut Your Losses, or Finish Law School? An ATL Debate.

IN THE FUTURE, everyone will be George Costanza for 15 minutes.

A 9/12 TEA PARTY UNDER THE ARCH IN ST. LOUIS. They asked me to come, but I couldn’t make the logistics work, which made me sad. But if you’re in the area, you should check it out.

RAHM EMANUEL: “Fuck the UAW.”

CONSUMER WATCHDOG goes after Google CEO Eric Schmidt on privacy with Times Square video ad.

UNEXPECTEDLY! Unemployment rises to 9.6%, 54,000 jobs lost. Because bad economic news is always unexpected!

IN THE MAIL: Edited by Roger Scruton, Liberty and Civilization: The Western Heritage.

HMM: Gallup: Why likely-voter models may be undercounting Republicans. Whatever. Don’t get cocky, kid.

THE PROBLEM WITH CITIES: Vanishing Upward Mobility. “Boosters still maintain that big cities remain unique centers for social uplift, but evidence suggests this is increasingly no longer the case.”

OCTOBER SURPRISE? White House considers pre-midterm package of business tax breaks to spur hiring. I think we’ll see a lot of these kinds of things now that they’re desperate.

QUIZNO’S SANDWICH: The reality vs. the advertising photo.

Years ago, I ordered a sandwich at an Arby’s, pointed at the poster, and said “I want one that looks like that.” Shockingly, it did. It also had about three times the meat of a normal Arby’s . . . .

A FALL IN TEMP EMPLOYMENT.

LIST: best books of September. Not my list, though.

DETROIT FREE PRESS EXPOSES Democrats’ Fake Tea Party Scheme In Michigan. They’re desperate, and they’ll try anything. They’re also not very bright, apparently . . . .

RUSS FEINGOLD IS dodging Obama in Wisconsin.