The American Spectator

October closed, but we thought we ought to hold this department open until November 6, Election Day, to tell you the good news: President Barack Obama lost. Alas, history is full of surprises, and he won. Yet the election was not a total surprise. The Prophet won with 9 million votes fewer than in 2008. Where have all the Obama maniacs gone? In fact, Senator John McCain in 2008 almost surpassed the president in 2012. Socialism is moribund, and Liberalism is dead. It costs too much in terms of freedom and deficits. Conservatism continues to plateau upwards. In 2010 conservatism reached a peak. In 2012 it plateaued. In 2014 it will continue to expand. Liberalism is dead. Simply put, it spent itself to death. President Obama presides over the bankruptcy of America. The Death of Liberalism remains valid. And in Loveland, Colorado, an Obama reelection canvasser while supposedly placing an Obama sticker on a woman’s blouse “grabbed” her breast. He is charged with unlawful sexual contact, and police are investigating. Mr. Obama may have the women’s vote but not their breasts.

Animal rights advocates in the United States were given something to cheer about when the International Union for Conservation of Nature announced that 25 primates worldwide are on the brink of extinction, including six species in Madagascar, five from mainland Africa, five from South America, and nine from Asia, but not one species of American primate is on the brink or even ill. On the other hand, high school test scores in the United States continued to decline even as adolescent obesity rates soared. Call it a good news, bad news conundrum. While on the subject of health, Colombia’s president, Mr. Juan Manuel Santos, joined three other Latin American presidents in being diagnosed with prostate cancer. President Santos joins Brazil’s Mr. Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Venezuela’s Mr. Hugo Chávez, and Paraguay’s Mr. Fernando Lugo in suffering the disease. All have survived, and Mr. Santos was given a 97 percent chance of recovery! Back in the United States Halloween was observed almost everywhere, but in Seattle, Washington, school officials at the Lafayette El-ement-ary School called the festivities off. Perhaps out of concern that students would instill terror in their fellows by wearing Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid masks, the officials banned Halloween costumes. And in Simi Valley, California, some of the community’s most respected sex offenders are suing the city over its rather antediluvian sexual predator ordinance requiring sex offenders to display a sign proclaiming “No candy or treats at this residence.” Simi Valley boasts 119 registered sex offenders.

Officials in Iraq were perplexed by a casualty report for September that indicated it was the deadliest month in two years, with at least 365 people expiring violently since U.S. troops left the country. What has changed? The bombings are committed mainly by Sunni pietists as part of their sacred rituals practiced against Shias, the dominant force in Mr. Nuri al-Maliki’s government. Meanwhile American rock critics had mixed emotions about innovations introduced in Mr. Justin Bieber’s concert tour. The tour has scheduled 45 appearances across the country, though how long it will continue is now in doubt. Mr. Bieber vomited twice on stage in Glendale, Arizona, during his new “Believe” tour, featuring the same theme as Mr. Mitt Romney. Was it a protest? Will his fans like it? In Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Mr. Michael Vick stepped up to the microphones to announce that he has purchased a dog for his family, a rather cute one. Mr. Vick served 18 months in prison for his investment in a dogfighting league, but apparently his present pet is a much more subdued animal and actually rather playful. Mr. Vick will refrain from feeding his dog raw meat or small animals. Iran’s currency, the rial, fell 25 percent against the dollar in but two days, October 1 and 2, and in North Korea Air Koryo celebrated coming into the digital age with a computer booking service for the airline deemed the “World’s Worst Airline” by the international ranking service Skytrax. Air Koryo promptly solidified its hold on the sobriquet when the system crashed. Well, better the booking system than the aeroplane. Right, comrades? Incidentally, Pyongyang (pronounced ping´ pong yang) has flights to Beijing, Shenyang in China, and Vladivostok in Russia, for tourists who might be interested.

Controversy continued to shroud the attack on America’s consulate in Libya, with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton stepping in with one of her trademark lies. She took full responsibility for something or other and she did it in a clever appearance in Lima, Peru, roughly 7,000 miles from Libya and 3,500 hundred miles from Washington, D.C. It was about as far away from Washington as Mrs. Clinton could get in October, and she delivered her remarks three weeks after the disaster. Unfortunately Americans were still interested in the catastrophe. Customers at a Chinese restaurant in Kentucky were given a good laugh when it was reported that the Red Flower Restaurant in Williamsburg has been serving them roadkill mixed in with the flavorous chop suey unbeknownst even to local gastronomes. The roadkill consisted of deer, opossum, and raccoon gathered along the side of I-76 and featured in a tasty soy sauce. Some customers quipped that it was okay as long as they could not see the tire treads, but Mr. Paul Lawson, the local environmental health inspector, has shut the restaurant down despite the chef’s claim that “they didn’t know that they weren’t allowed to” serve roadkill. Now the Red Flower will not even be serving rodents or insects. And while on the topic of insectivores, Mr. Edward Archbold won the bug- and worm-eating contest at Ben Siegel’s Reptile Store in Miami, Florida, and could have taken home the grand prize, a delicious python, suitable for sautéing, had he not assumed room temperature before the awards ceremony. No one knows why he expired. “We feel terribly awful,” said the reptile store’s proprietor, Mr. Siegel. All the remaining contestants are apparently thriving, and Mr. Siegel testifies that Mr. Archbold “was the life of the party” until he was rushed to the hospital. Mr. Michael Adams, a practicing entomologist at the University of California at Riverside, said he had never heard of anyone dying from eating bugs before. So maybe it was a coincidence.

In Jefferson County, Colorado, Democrats may have taken this class warfare thing too far when they awarded 66-year-old Miss Estelle Carson “Democrat of the Year” despite her conviction for felony identity theft and felony theft from a developmentally disabled 71-year-old woman. Mr. Chris Kennedy, chairman of the local county Democratic Party who has no known prior convictions, dismissed complaints, saying that “the award being presented by my organization and the alleged financial exploitation need to be compartmentalized, one having no bearing on the other.” Besides, Miss Carson faces nine years in the slammer, and think of all the good she can do in that public institution organizing for a better world. Mr. Jacques Barzun died at 104 and so did former Senator George McGovern at age 90. He was the 1972 presidential candidate, who in his platform envisioned a maximum lifetime inheritance of half a million dollars for any citizens of these United States. He lost. The Crisis continues.