Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this Monday.

* Žižek has an op-ed in the New York Times on the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Wall. It's pretty good.

The same rightists who decades ago were shouting, “Better dead than red!” are now often heard mumbling, “Better red than eating hamburgers.” But the Communist nostalgia should not be taken too seriously: far from expressing an actual wish to return to the gray Socialist reality, it is more a form of mourning, of gently getting rid of the past. As for the rise of the rightist populism, it is not an Eastern European specialty, but a common feature of all countries caught in the vortex of globalization...

* Standards for Grading the Life of an Adjunct Composition Professor.

* Our university in the news! Duke Criticized Over Sex Toy Study.

* Two good posts from Josh Marshall consider whether 2010 or 2012 is the next flashpoint for health care reform.

* And who supports marriage equality? The real question is, what's going to happen to me when I turn thirty next week?

Off-Year Election Predictions! The three elections tomorrow that will dominate spin in the press about whether America loves or hates Barack Obama are, of course, VA-GOV, NJ-GOV, and NY-23.

VA-GOV: It seems pretty over for Deeds, and pro-Democrat spinners will be well-advised to focus their attention elsewhere. "You know, Virginia's still in the South" and "Virginia always votes against the White House" are the best Democrats have here, with a big helping of "And Deeds ran a lousy campaign, largely against Obama" for flavor.

NJ-GOV: The polls are close, with the most recent showing a slight edge to Chris Christie, but I really think between Daggett and a superior get-out-the-vote operation Corzine will manage to eke out the win here.

So (if I'm right) that's 1-1, and it all comes down to NY-23. This is a crazy three-way race, with the Republican, Dede Scozzafava, suddenly pulling out over the weekend (though she'll remain on the ballot) and then, even more surprisingly, tossing a strong endorsement behind the Democrat, Bill Owens. The Conservative candidate, Doug Hoffman, has the support of national popular-in-Republican-circles like Sarah Palin behind him, but doesn't actually live in the district or know all that much about it, and will likely be hurt by straight-ticket Republican voting by people who may not have even heard Scozzafava's dropped out.

I won't presume to insult Nate Silver by calling the race when he called it a coin-flip, but I will note that either way the results of this very unusual House race in a small district in upstate New York will likely determine who "wins" the spin war in the national press and thereby determine the tenor of electoral coverage going into 2010—which is as good an indictment of contemporary journalism as any I think you'll see this week.

It will be very interesting, win or lose in NY-23, to see what lessons the GOP takes from the Hoffman ascendancy as we go into 2010 and 2012, and, indeed, what effect running hard to the right will have on their chances if that's how they decide to go. The conventional view is that running away from the center hurts a party's electoral prospects, but I'm not at all convinced the American electorate is quite so rational in its decision-making. It could just be that the pendulum swings back and forth between whatever two parties happen to exist at the moment, regardless of the content of their positions. As I wrote back in May:

More and more I think there's only two possibilities: Either the GOP is in fact in a death spiral and will actually disappear as a national party within the next decade, or the GOP has realized that in a two-party system you don't actually need to say you're sorry; you can just sit back and wait for your opponents to have bad luck, then go crazy once you're back in office. After that incumbency will protect you for a good, long while, and even to the extent it doesn't you can accomplish long-term goals in a very short timespan with party unity, weak opposition, and a compliant, mendacious press.

Jury's still out. NY-23 will be an interesting first data point.

The charts of the day, from Ezra Klein, shows why 2010 is unlikely to be another 1994.

A few more links for today, as my brain is otherwise useless.

* io9 has your Disney/Marvel crossovers in the other direction. I too am looking forward to the Dark Mermaid Saga.

* Again with the Comics has scans from Chris Ware's extremely rare "Floyd Farland: Citizen of the Future." Get them before the C&D.

* Who's ruining air travel now?

* Biden breaks down 2010.

* Today in our awesome post-racial society.

* And could Jennifer's Body actually not be all that bad? Feministe reports.

TPM takes a look at the struggling political fortunes of North Carolina's other Senator, Richard Burr, up for reelection in 2010. He ran a pretty odious campaign against Erskine Bowles in 2004, but really has accomplished almost literally nothing since that time.

As hopes for 2010 Democratic landslide seem to fade, Nate Silver says all is not lost.

More evidence emerges of Obama's European-style communofascism: he plans to attend the opening ceremonies of the 2010 World Cup.

Wednesday night links.

* Duke Energy CEO Jim Rogers was on Colbert last night. The reporting Jaimee and I did for the Indy's green issue this year sadly convinced me that Rogers's "responsible CEO" schtick is 90% PR, and this clean-coal-centric interview didn't sway that opinion a bit.

* Meanwhile, health-insurance CEOs agree: they totally have the right to screw you out of coverage you paid for once you actually need it.

* A reality check on Twitter and the protests in Iran.

* A good sign for 2010: Richard Burr trails Generic Democrat by 3 points.

* Who could have predicted that the NSA's domestic surveillance program would be abused?

* Alice and Kev, homeless Sims. Via Kotaku.

* Darkseid without New Gods.

North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper will not run against Richard Burr in 2010. Too bad.

The netroots blogs are already talking about a primary challenge to Specter, despite apparent party-boss promises to the contrary. Right now most of the talk centers around the Employee Free Choice Act, which Specter recently decided he opposed back when he was still trying to protect his right flank from Pat Toomey. There's been speculation that Specter's reference to EFCA in his statement earlier today referred only to voting against the bill itself, and that he'd vote to invoke cloture—but it's looking now as if he won't vote for cloture either. In that case put money on the idea of a "miraculous compromise" on EFCA that modifies the language just enough to give Specter cover to flip-flop back. A Ned-Lamont-style primary challenge backed by Labor and the netroots would otherwise be almost inevitable, Rendell's promises notwithstanding, and unlike Connecticut Pennsylvania has a "sore loser" law that would prevent a Liebermanesque run as an independent.

P.S.: Don't miss Steele's response to all this invoking the ugly specter of Arlen Specter's mama.

Voinovich's announcement comes just a few days after Missouri's Kit Bond (R) announced his retirement. The Republican Party no doubt hoped to keep retirements to a minimum in order to conserve campaign resources and maximize likely victories. And yet, in addition to Voinovich and Bond, Mel Martinez (Florida) and Sam Brownback (Kansas) are also not seeking re-election, and Kay Bailey Hutchison (Texas) is planning a gubernatorial campaign that will create a fifth Republican open-seat contest.

What's more, with three more Republican incumbents likely to face major challenges next year -- Burr in North Carolina, Gregg in New Hampshire, Specter in Pennsylvania -- these announcements make the 2010 cycle that much more difficult for the GOP. (A topic we've discussed once or twice before.)

Steve Benen covers the Republican exodus: five GOP Senators up for reelection in 2010 have already announced their retirement, making any sort of GOP comeback that year significantly more difficult. The question more people should be asking is why so many. Is it that being in the minority just isn't as much fun? that they expect the GOP to fall on increasingly hard times? that they think they'll lose a reelection bid anyway? Are these outgoing Senators so shamed by their conscienceless support of the Bush administration that they're nobly falling on their swords? Why so many?

If the 2010 Senate election were held today, Democratic Attorney General Roy Cooper would handily beat Republican Richard Burr. Via Triangulator.

Potpourri and remainders.

* Is Dollhouse doomed? 7 Trouble Signs. Yes, it is doomed, and not just because of the Friday Night Death Slot—it's a comparatively weak premise that's already been messed with by the network and which requires Eliza Dushku to be a much better actress than she is. Despite attempts to put a brave face on, it's evident that Joss has a disaster on his hands:

2. Work stoppage. Production was actually halted. Twice. Once for script issues on the fourth episode, and once for the sixth and seventh. Whedon said in a blog, "To get a sense of how completely turned around I was during this process, you should know there was a scene with Eliza and the astonishing Ashley Johnson that I wrote and shot completely differently three different times, with different characters in different places (actually I wrote it closer to eight times), and none of it will ever see air." Really? The creator of the show had to reshoot something three times, and it still didn't work?

Don't get too attached to Dollhouse. Bring on Dr. Horrible: The Series.

* Nate Silver previews the 2010 Senate race and concludes "Even if momentum has swung somewhat against the Democrats by 2010, they remain in a strong position to gain seats in the Senate."

* Unexpectedly, applications to grad school are down, despite the economic downturn.

On Friday, David G. Payne, associate vice president of ETS for college and graduate programs, said that the “current hypothesis” is that the credit crunch is discouraging some people from considering graduate school, especially if they think they will not receive substantial financial support from the programs they might consider.

It also seems likely that more and more students are seeing themselves as simply maxed out when it comes to student debt, regardless of the larger credit crunch.

* Ten ways Canada is not more progressive than the U.S. #2 seems particularly important at the moment.

2. The Monarchy: Related to #1, the head of state in Canada is still technically the Queen of England. While this is generally just a curiousity for Americans to good naturedly rib Canadians about, this past week it made a huge difference. The Queen’s representative, the Governor General of Canada, made the decision that allowed Prime Minister Harper to hang on to power when the left (and nearly two-thirds of Canadian voters picked someone to the left of Harper in the October 2008 election) finally found a way to get together and form a coalition.

* And, via MeFi, the 40 greatest lost icons In pop culture history. Does Letterman still use "Buttafouco" as an all-purpose punch line?

The list of Senators whose terms expire in 2010 shows a strong playing field for Democrats to try and build on their gains in 2006 and 2008. Three in a row?

Al Franken is now just 236 votes down in Minnesota, pre-recount. If he takes the lead pre-recount, will Coleman do the right thing and waive the recount for the good of the "healing process"? Stay tuned.

Meanwhile, the Triangulator is looking forward to 2010, where North Carolina's other terrible Senator, Richard Burr, faces reelection with a 27% approval rating. BlueNC likes North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper as the challenger.