Weekly Mind Food aims to show you what TTPers without a regular column, but with deep expertise in key fields, are paying attention to. We call ourselves TTP's Team B. Note the "Weekly Mind Food" category in the left side-bar now, which will have all our issues. They're Free Access, as are all the linked articles, so feel free to read them at your leisure - and to mail the article's URL to your friends!

Beyond our regular contributors, we also congratulate TTPers colcy, dkemp, edd7, hardcharger, and mrapp for freelance link suggestions that met the test.

To simplify your scans, I've divided the links into sections: Economos (global economy), Techne Logos (tech), Polis (domestic politics), Stratiootika (geopolitics & military), plus 1 Useful Web Resource and 1 Good News This Week item to brighten your week and/or make you better. Enjoy!

Polis

My favorite ad of the 2012 campaign wasn't done by a campaign, or by a PAC. It was done by one guy, Thomas Peterffy, who thought America needed to hear something. Remember this next time you see proposals that would force all election-related ads to go through the political parties or PACs.

• Why Undecided Voters Matter Less And Turnout Matters More Than Ever Before (The New Republic, Oct 26/12). jkatzman: Note that "matters less" =/= "doesn't matter."



• Catholic Reflections on the Endgame of 2012 (National Review, Oct 29/12). "For several decades now, Catholic thinkers... have been arguing that beauty can be a window into the true and the good.... This same dynamic works in reverse, for the ugly often illuminates what is base and ignoble."



• Henninger: Romney's Secret Voting Bloc (WSJ, Oct 31/12). jkatzman: The evangelical vote, why it matters, and what it's doing. This would also be great news for Senate candidate Josh Mandel [OH].



• Wasserman Schultz Worries About Re-election as Democrats Drop Their Support (The Shark Tank, Oct 28/12). jkatzman: Even Democrats weren't thrilled with her tone as DNC chair. It would be the capper upset of the night, if it happens.



• Three Dirty Words: Tolerance, Diversity, and Welcoming (CNS News, Oct 26/12). edd7 links the article that explains why - if they're linked to moral abandonment. mrapp says he left his church because of that.



• Hope and Change 2 - The Party of Inclusion (The Daily Show with Jon Stewart - incl. video, Sept 5/12). jkatzman: The "three words" are also a blatant lie most of the time, as Jon Stewart's team so brilliantly demonstrated at the 2012 Democrat Party Convention in Charlotte. We've featured this before, but its awesomeness runneth over...



• Presidential Performance Review (National Review, Oct 26/12). jkatzman: Kevin D. Williamson channels his inner Mitt for a short, restrained, but damning termination notice. Will you work to deliver the note?

Oration

So, let's talk political ads for a moment. If you haven't seen this ad, I'd encourage you to email it to your liberal-leaning friends with children. No comment necessary. Less is more here, just let it speak for itself.

Of course, it has been done better... by Vladimir Putin. Boy, is that a damning statement for an election ad:

Speaking of done better, check out the way Independent Women's Voice is handling the same demographic. Tasteful, disarming - and utterly lethal, since many women have experienced this. It will be part of a 3-spot, $7.4 million ad buy. The other 2 ads are just as razor-sharp. I'm glad they're on our side...

The Young Cons went after the idea of persuading young people in their own way, with MTV's rat-a-tat style. Bit more of an ad for the 20s-30s set than college, but that's a key demographic, and this is pretty good:

About that last segment on The Young Cons ad... just when you thought Obama's supporters couldn't get creepier... Yes, deserved parodies have already begun, and yes, the school in question is in trouble now. I'm seeing a lot more backlash about the state of educational indoctrination, as well as the Xinhua media, and we need to fuel both forms of resistance. Shown in full below, to remind Jack of his fabuloso adventures in North Korea:

Mind you, THIS is even creepier - Lord in heaven, save us from pedophiles, be they sexual or political.

To cleanse your brain and make you laugh, I offer you this ad, done by Putin's party to celebrate his birthday. You have not lived until you've heard Vladimir Putin singing "Hy found my threeel, hon blubry heeel..."! And yes, that's him.

Another thing to know: all of the scenes with the hot women are copies of staged scenes that Putin starred in, and arranged to have televised. Putin's performances go deeper than the macho thing, though that's part of it. The scenes we laugh at are part of a Quixotic attempt to restore Russia's destroyed male ethic using a mix of personal example, organized sport, and the Russian Orthodox Church.

Not sure that works if personal opportunity is absent... and dude, weren't you bare-chested when you were on the horse?!? Just askin'. Hat Tip: Foreign Policy's Passport blog.

Economos

• Exxon seeks to quit flagship Iraq oil project (Reuters, Oct 18/12). jkatzman: Exxon signs contract with Kurds. Iraq's government threatens it. Exxon looks at the balance sheet for its huge West Qurna project, and its red tape issues. That project is key to the Iraqi government's revenue projections. Your move, Prime Minister.



• Dude, Where's My Yacht? (Bloomberg, Oct 25/12). jkatzman: Now THERE'S an interesting Rep Man career.



• Rampant recycling fraud is draining California cash (LA Times, Oct 7/12). dkemp: Entrepreneurship - legal or otherwise - bitch-slaps government regulation every time.



• Food trucks pose public security concerns, could be used for surveillance, says memo (Government Security News, Oct 23/12). jkatzman: On one level, yeah, this could work. On another level, you just want to give these bureaucrats a shinai whack upside the head. Food trucks get enough pretty harassment already, without this @#$%.



• The S&P 500 change following Presidential Elections (Calculated Risk, Oct 28/12).

Techne Logos

Bill Whittle, on the Space Shuttle's last hurrah:

• The Flop That Saved Microsoft (Slate, Oct 26/12). jkatzman: The Zune?!? He makes his case, and failure is usually a key ingredient in success. As for saved... time will tell.



• US and Canada to launch joint cyber security plan (SC Magazine, Oct 29/12). prosenberg: US and Canada teaming up to... well, to keep us all safe from the spring-loaded instant death that hides behind every bush.



• What Will the Smartphone Kill? (Freakonomics, Oct 22/12). jkatzman: Beyond alarm clocks, car GPS, etc...



• Who were the SECRET 28 who ended all climate debate at the BBC? (The Register, Oct 29/12). "...even in wartime its commitment to maintaining evenhandedness has occasionally enraged British.... Following that 2006 seminar, however, the corporation made a decision to abandon impartiality when covering climate change... according to the BBC Trust."

Stratiootika

Never mind Ann Coulter. Listen to Jimmy Carter's pollster and adviser Pat Caddell re: Benghazi. His reaction is human, not ideological - and bang on. Much of America's MSM has become Xinhua, and after Benghazi and Fast and Furious, we've reached a point where "would they cover for political mass murder like Xinhua?" is no longer a silly question. Or the certain answer it must be, in a free society. After the election, what happened in Benghazi must come out, officially, and must be publicized. When and if it does, the credibility of the media's liars will take another deserved step-change hit. Each of us has a part to play in that, manana.

• F-35 Lightning: The Joint Strike Fighter Program, 2012 (Defense Industry Daily). hardcharger wanted a briefing on this $300 billion global fighter program. We've got that - but it may not remain free-to-view forever.



• The F-22 Raptor: Program & Events (Defense Industry Daily). jkatzman: A full briefing covering the higher-end stealth fighter that Romney says he wants to put back into production.



• Boeing zaps PCs using CHAMP missile microwave attacks (The Register, Oct 25/12). From colcy. Yes, this is true, see Boeing's own release. It's the same principle as a (vastly larger) nuclear EMP burst attack, or using an AESA type radar as a focused jammer. The latter example seems to be closer to Boeing's modus operandi here.



• Army Suicides This Year Exceed 2012 Combat Deaths in Afghanistan (CNS News, Oct 23/12). prosenberg: While there are violent people who must be stopped with violence, we should never forget that sending our sons out to kill, damages them. It's starting to look like they are not being supervised properly. We may have a problem.



• The bombed Sudanese factory produced Iranian Shehab missiles (DEBKA, Oct 24/12). jkatzman: What's not in question was that the factory was destroyed, and that Sudan's government is blaming an Israeli strike. Subsequent reports suggest 8 F-15i Strike Eagles. Job well done for the Cheyl Ha'avir.

Useful Web Resources

hardcharger suggested adding 1-2 clever web sites each week for bookmarking and use, to help people become smarter Internet users, or just improve themselves. Good idea.

• How Many of Me? hardcharger: This one constantly bemuses and amazes my friends. There are probably a few people with your first and last names walking around in the USA. The site uses statistics to show you the real odds. If you're Paul Ryan, there should be about 772 more...

Over The Hump: Good News This Week

It's up to YOU to make good news this week. So we bring you this short public service message on voting, from Ranger Up!

Reader with questions or submissions for next week can email me (thanks to the great scrim service!)

For The Constitution!

Joe Katzman