Pun Salad

… to find that gambling is going on in here:

• GM announced their electric vehicle, the Chevy Volt, will cost $41K. It will compete with the Nissan Leaf, which starts at a bit under $33K. The Washington Post story has this bit of euphemism:
  GM and Nissan are relying on a $7,500 federal tax credit for buyers of electric vehicles to offset some of the added cost [over similarly-sized conventional autos] …

  Translation: I, and probably you, will be involuntarily shouldering a significant fraction of the buyer's cost for these vehicles. And I bet that not one of the proud new owners will give us even a single ride to the airport in return. Jerks.

• If you were depressed by the report we mentioned yesterday showing Kelly Ayotte's lead against Paul Hodes shrinking in the last few months, blaming Sarah Palin for the erosion, check out Indispensible Jim Geraghty for some cheering up.

• Jen Rubin is cheered but chastened by the defeat-for-now of the "nefarious" free-speech-quelching DISCLOSE act. Chastened, because it was far closer than it should have been:
  This, I think, should alarm and not reassure us. The name of the game for far too many elected liberals is to game the system, tip the scales, and trample on the rights of their opponents. It is the same mentality we see when a Senate candidate tries to take down perfectly reasonable ads that raise unpleasant facts about his record. Rather than debate and employ more speech, it has become too common among liberals wary of the wrath of voters to tell everyone else to shut up. It is the same mentality that causes Democratic congressional leadership to vilify and sneer at fellow citizens and label them un-American for exercising basic rights of assembly and speech on the most hotly debated legislation (ObamaCare) of the moment. It is the same mentality that motivates the White House to ostracize a news organization critical of its performance.

• Politico notes that the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is succumbing to the obvious, adding both New Hampshire seats to the list it plans on spending to protect. Key quote to brighten my day:
  The committee is also adding several endangered Democratic incumbents to its list of ad reservations, including […] New Hampshire Rep. Carol Shea-Porter.

  It's good news and bad news, of course: it means the race is probably not a slam-dunk for either side.

  Local broadcast TV is already near-unwatchable for all the stupid political ads, my wastebaskets are overflowing with daily political junkmail, I'm starting to get robo-phone calls, and (fearless prediction) it's going to get much, much worse over the next 97 days.

  Still, that's the First Amendment for ya. And I'm still a fan.

• The "geez, I'm old" observation du jour: I went to the 1964 World's Fair in New York. Did you know that there's a World's Fair going on right now in Shanghai? Neither did I, but Virginia Postrel did, and she has more at her blog.

• And I don't know how many readers are both (a) Isaac Asimov fans and (b) web server geeks, but if you're in the intersection of that particular Venn diagram, I can almost guarantee you'll get a chuckle from http://www.last.fm/robots.txt. (Via BBspot.)