THE ROLE OF TEXAS in private-sector job growth.

REPORT: Pelosi Won’t Run For Speaker Again.

PUSHING FOR firearms carry reform in California.

REVIEWING BILL BRYSON’S NEW BOOK, At Home: A Short History of Private Life.

INSTITUTE FOR JUSTICE: Arizona School Choice Fight Goes to U.S. Supreme Court.

WHY DOES COLLEGE cost so much?

LOOKING AT Barack Obama’s campaign finance.

President Barack Obama’s false grace on “outside” political spending is as hollow as were his myriad promises about Obamacare, the alleged “stimulus” and the just-passed “summer of recovery.” Remember, this is the same Obama who – after being a champion of alleged campaign finance “reform” and for the exclusively public funding of all political races – demurred on the public funding of his presidential bid to instead continue raising massive piles of “outside” campaign cash.

Then-Sen. Obama wanted to control the money, so he had these “outside” groups keep the money inside – by giving it directly to him.

Then there’s the now-infamous credit-card foreign-donation dodge.

THE FISCAL TIMES: What Middle Class? Candidates Pander to an Illusion.

NOT EDUCATED, JUST CREDENTIALED (CONT’D): Chris Coons can’t name the five freedoms in the First Amendment. I wonder if he knows what happened in 1773?

AMY ALKON on college degree snobbery. With a guest appearance by Insta-Wife fave, Albert Ellis.

SO IF YOU CAN’T GET FEDERAL JUDGES TO STICK TO A HIRING DEAL, is that a positive sign of judicial independence, or is it a negative sign of judicial untrustworthiness?

ROBIN HANSON: The Future Seems Shiny.

Related item here. “Only Bullshit Will Save Civilization.” Then we should do just fine.

DON’T KNOW MUCH ABOUT HISTORY: Leftist dullards mock Palin for correctly referencing Boston Tea Party.

They’re not educated, they’re just credentialed. And boy, Gwen Ifill looks dumb.

REVIEWING THE REVIEWERS: A roundup of book reviews from all over.

HMM: Earlier I mentioned a Rush Limbaugh third-party threat. Now I see there’s one from Sarah Palin:

Some in the GOP, it’s their last shot, it’s their last chance. We will lose faith, and we will be disappointed and disenchanted from them if they start straying from the bedrock principles. … If they start straying, then why not a 3rd party?

Hey, that sounds kinda familiar:

But those establishment GOP figures who think that they’ll cruise to victory and a return to the pocket-stuffing business-as-usual that marked the prior GOP majority need to think again. This election cycle is, in a very real sense, a last chance for the Republicans. If they blow it, we’re likely to see third-party challenges in 2012, not only at the Presidential level but in numerous Congressional races as well.

For the national GOP, it’s do-or-die time. So guys, you’d better perform — unless you want me to be writing another “I told you so” column in 2013. And trust me, you don’t.

Well, it’s pretty obvious stuff, really . . . .

UPDATE: Related: Palin, Frum and the Tea Party.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader William Jamieson writes:

I’m rarely out driving during Rush’s show, but was today, and heard the same warning. I now read of Palin’s on your site.

I agreed with Rush, and upon my return to the office, scribbled on my desk calendar:

DFTU

This is my message to all Republican officeholders, from McConnell and Boehner on down:

“Don’t F*** This Up”.

You’ve been given another chance, another opportunity, and the stakes couldn’t be any higher: DFTU. You won’t get another chance like this in 2 generations, if ever again: DFTU. And so on.

Yes. And reader David McCourt warns against third parties:

Yeah, try 1992 and Ross Perot, which did nothing but — of course — guaranty that Bill Clinton would become president, with less than half the vote. If we want to entrench a leftist government, then let’s split the the rightward 55-60% of the electorate among two parties, and leave the school teachers and SEIU a clear path to victory. That’ll teach them — us.

A good warning, but one with less relevance if the Republicans manage to, er, F things up this time.

MORE: Cam Edwards emails:

All this talk of third parties has me wondering: why wouldn’t it be easier for Tea Partiers to take over the local party apparatus of the GOP (and to a lesser extent, the Dems as well) instead of creating a third party from scratch? If the same Tea Partiers that have been attending rallies, town hall meetings, candidate forums, etc. turned that same energy post-election to both taking over parties at the local level, as well as running candidates for things like city council, school board, county commission (the offices that won’t make you famous, but can make you effective)… I think it could be shocking how much the political landscape could change by 2012.

I agree, and that’s the approach I’ve been recommending.

MORE STILL: Reader James S. Taylor writes:

I was a delegate to the Utah state Republican convention, one of those who voted to retire Bob Bennett. I’m willing to give Orrin Hatch six months or so to get with the program. Most of my friends aren’t, but then I’ve only been in Utah for ten years, so I don’t know him as well as they. I quit the Ohio Republican party, where I was a county committeeman, when they controlled the governor’s office and both houses, because the good of the state was not among their priorities. I was in a very small minority then. By 2012 people like me won’t be a minority any more.

Probably not.

STILL MORE: A reader suggests I should mention The Precinct Project.

BACTERIA ‘R’ US: Emerging research shows that bacteria have powers to engineer the environment, to communicate and to affect human well-being. They may even think. Hey, you’ve got more bacteria in your body than you have human cells.

BRIAN TAMANAHA: The irresponsibility of law schools. (Via TaxProf). “Many law schools continue to report that more than 90% of their recent graduates have obtained jobs. Those of us on the inside scoff at these numbers–but many prospective students, who lack the same information, might rely upon these numbers to conclude that law school is a relatively good option during a recession.”

UPDATE: Reader Jeff Pittman writes:

I’m 58 and got my BA in Psychology at considerable expense back in the 1970s. It qualified me to apply for a job as a Mobile Home sales rep, which I got, but I didn’t do very well at it and quit before they fired me. It also qualified me to apply for a job as a VW sales rep at a local dealership, but I didn’t get as far as the interview because I wasn’t aggressive enough to insist on being interviewed. So I moved on to a much cheaper two-year community college/tech school, got an Associate degree in computer programming, and have been pulling down six figures for some time now. At least in my field, it’s all about what you can do, not whether you can satisfy some Prima Donna faculty member who wants to demonstrate his/her superiority to you, and who will give you bad grades if you dare to disagree with him or her. I ran into a bunch of those back in my college days.

Law school students probably have a legit complaint about their schools’ over-promising and under-delivering, but liberal arts students have at least as much to complain about. Maybe all higher ed students should start looking seriously at ROI. My otherwise-worthless BA has admittedly gotten my foot in the door a couple of times, but my far-from-prestigious Associate degree is what paid off my mortgage.

Oh, I certainly doubt that law schools are the worst offenders. There are loads of Ph.D. programs that graduate people who are very unlikely to find serious work, and lots of undergraduate degrees that are no more than an expensive ticket-punch.

ROGER SIMON: For Obama and the Left, “Scared” is the New “Angry”.

MORALE: Troops Chafe at Restrictive Rules of Engagement, Talks with Taliban.

CINCINNATI PUBLIC SCHOOLS telling children to vote Democrat?

ANOTHER MYTH BLOWN: Healed bones are not stronger than they were before a fracture.

HOORAY FOR post-Cold War dentistry.

ORIN KERR: Justice Sotomayor Votes to Review and then Reverse Pro Se Prisoner Case Lower Courts Found “Patently Frivolous.”

ROGUES’ GALLERY: Who Is Yale Law School’s Most Disgraceful Graduate?

HEY, AL: WHERE DID ALL THE HURRICANES GO? “Worldwide hurricane activity hasn’t just slowed since Katrina, it’s dropped off a cliff.”