THE TRIUMPH OF DIVERSITY:

“Nobody’s perfect.” That was the reaction of Louise Bimpson, our Corporate Director of Human Resources, to the complaint by Bill Wakeham, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Portsmouth, that physics departments contained too many upper middle-class white men. While admitting that the description fitted the Poppleton Department of Physics, which currently consists of 14 upper middle-class white men, she claimed that such imbalances were endemic in universities.

“Our Sociology Department, for example, contains more than the average number of lower-middle-class whingers. There is also an abundance of cigarette-smoking aesthetes in the English Department, a surfeit of very elderly men wearing brown corduroy in the History Department, a plenitude of demented crystal-gazers in the Department of Complementary Medicine and a superfluity of people in higher management with extreme language difficulties,” she said.

Ms Bimpson said she expected such differences would iron themselves out in time. “You only need to look back to the bad old days when this university was seriously overloaded with academics committed to a life of the mind. Just look at it now.”

Yes, what a horror that was.

SARAH PALIN:  Destined to be “the white Oprah?”

A TALE OF two ethanol companies.

HEH: A TV series that explains the origins of the financial crisis has a surprising sponsor: the Cayman Islands.

TIME FOR AN ANTI-PIRACY COALITION?

PLANNING TO celebrate V.I. Day on November 22d.

A LOOK AT THE TECHNOLOGY of U.S. Missile Defense.

THE CARNIVAL OF THE RECIPES is up!

THE FAVOR FACTORY: “Rep. Jim Moran (D-Va.) larded the 2008 defense bill with $40.6 million in earmarks. Over the last five years, the recipients of those earmarks have given Moran more than $890,000 in campaign contributions. Moran was second only to Rep John Murtha (D-Pa.) in raking in contributions from recipients of his sponsored earmarks—Murtha reaped $1.6 million in contributions from the whopping $126 million he put in the bill.”

THE ECONOMY:  What bankers will talk about, but politicians won’t.

IN THE MAIL: Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers: The Story of Success.

IN TENNESSEE, BUDGET PROBLEMS BUT NO TAX INCREASE: “Bredesen, a Democrat, told reporters afterward that he’s not looking to increase taxes of any kind, including the state’s current 21.4-cent tax on each gallon of gas. In general, he said, it’s a terrible time to be asking people to pay more taxes, considering national economic conditions.”  Good call.

HAPPY NATIONAL AMMO DAY!

BRIAN DOHERTY on how the Second Amendment was restored. “In retrospect, D.C. v. Heller seems almost inevitable, because of shifting public and academic attitudes toward gun rights. But victory came only after a protracted struggle, with many pitfalls along the way.”

HMM: T. Boone Pickens Expects Obama Administration to Implement Pickens Plan.

INDEED: “Say what you like about Jack Abramoff, but Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT) and Representative Barney Frank (D-MA) shouldn’t come out of the Countrywide Scandal smelling like roses, either.”

PROFESSOR BAINBRIDGE: The NYT’s Floyd Norris Flubs the Mark Cuban Story.

TOM SMITH: Is it too late to become a French Socialist? “If we are going to go socialist, could we at least do it in a semi-intelligent way? Could we at least imitate Old Europe and not Latin America?”

PLUG AND PLAY HOME NETWORKING using your home power lines. This technology has been around for a while, but it seems to be making strides. It’s certainly (somewhat) more secure than wireless.

JAMES TARANTO identifies some hard-luck cases in today’s devastated economy, with the help of the New York Times, MSNBC, et al.

SOME PEOPLE EXPERIENCE much slower brain aging. So let’s figure out how to spread the wealth . . . .

I’M NOT SURPRISED:  Big Three CEOs Flew Private Jets to Washington to Beg for Funds.

HEY, THEY DON’T CALL IT “TAXACHUSETTS” FOR NOTHING: Bill threatens lien, penalty to elderly, blind homeowner who owes one cent.

IMMIGRATION NEWS from Mickey Kaus.