GOOD: Romney stump speech rattles left.

HOW DO YOU STOP NEWT? Are you sure you want to?

ADAPTIVE REUSE: Live longer and prosper.

“Live long and prosper” once sounded like the most logical of greetings: good wishes everyone could agree on. But now that people are actually experiencing significantly longer lives ... attitudes have changed. Longevity has come to portend “an aging society” and the very opposite of prosperity.

The fears are far more profound than mere fiscal concerns about Social Security and Medicare. Illustrating a common reaction, Los Angeles Times columnist Gregory Rodriguez warns of ... “a less optimistic and forward-thinking culture.” Looking at Japan’s “exhausted” and “depressed” but otherwise healthy elderly, he fears “an epidemic of loneliness and ennui.” His conclusion: “Be careful what you wish for. You could make it to 100, with consequences as onerous as the ones you ate right and exercised to avoid.”

Buried in this column is a crucial assumption: that people over 65 will be retired. They’ll withdraw from active engagement with younger colleagues, from productive problem-solving, from the world outside their seniors-only enclaves. They’ll spend 20 or 30 years playing golf, watching TV, and chasing people off their lawns. They’ll occasionally visit the grandkids, but mostly they’ll wait to die.

Postrel argues, correctly I think, that that needn't be the case. But her argument in favor of 'adaptive reuse' fails in the implicit assumption that people nearing retirement age want to repurpose their lives and are wealthy enough to indulge is quasi-amateur/volunteer work.

There is a strong societal imperative to gently -- and sometimes not so gently -- ease the productive older workers out of the workforce and into a reluctant retirement. Thus the 'adaptive reuse' strategy should be applied to society, not the individual, in such a way that the older worker can ease him/herself into retirement -- or not -- as he/she sees fit.

Unfortunately, the current societal imperative is this:

Other than the unborn, no single age group in the United States suffers from a diminished view of the value of human life more than the elderly. Rather than viewing our aging relatives as persons worthy of our utmost reverence and care, [the Roe v. Wade ethic] has taught us to look at other people in terms perceived convenience. If someone is wanted – if we feel that they contribute to our overall quality of life – then their life has worth; if not, it is permissible to store them away somewhere for others to care for until they die.

Connor's view is dark and gloomy; much more so than is warranted. And yet ... and yet. Look around at the Senior centers, the retirement communities, the nursing homes -- what is their purpose other than to entertain and otherwise distract the nonproductive until they have the courtesy to die?

A NEW TERM for that old standby, common sense. When will we ever learn that Big Government inevitably becomes Bad Government?

IF YOU THOUGHT Climategate 1 was bad, read about Climategate 2 (long post).

MORE: Willis Eschenbach (Watts Up With That?) applies the screws (another long post).

Gist of both posts: the 'climategaters' are lying bastards.

WHY CAN'T WE put the "X" back in Xmas? It's not just the schools, of course, they're just another indicator.

Here's the question I'd ask instead.

It's pretty clear that the secular, multi-culti Left is leading the charge against Christmas, so here is my question. To the Left, all cultures are equal, there is no objective reality, and tolerance for all cultures is the rule. So ... if all that is true, and Christian cultures are equal to secular cultures, Santa is no more real than the keyboard I'm typing on, and tolerance is required, why the vociferous hatred for Christmas and all its symbols?

Could it be that deep down, where they're shallow, that they know that cultures aren't equal, there is an objective reality, and tolerance should be reserved for those who deserve it?

Just a thought.

OPEN YOUR HEART AT CHRISTMAS and help a gun find a good home.

MICHAEL BARONE on the Ryan-Wyden Medicare plan. My hope is that the plan will be amended to allow those over 55 (and 65) to opt out of current Medicare as well.

NEAL BOORTZ: Gingrich on immigration. Gingrich is right.

THE NEW DOMESTICITY: It seems to me to be the latest version of "Hey, look at me. See how cool and hip I am?"

I HAVE A DREAM: "[W]hat would happen if the media treated the Republicans and Libertarians as well as they treated Democrats for one year?"

SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN: Stop the Killer Space Rocks.

Astroids (Eros is pictured) are the new space aliens out to destroy mankind.

Malevolence in nature?

THREE YEARS IN OBAMALAND Registration required; it's free and worth the price.

MILTON FRIEDMAN on economics.

NOT ANY MORE. We used to make things ....

CREDIT THE FEDS for a boom in shale gas? Nope. The authors mistake R&D, which is a legitimate role for government, with production, which is the proper role of the private sector's entrepreneurial spirit.