“HE CAN’T STAND BIDEN.” Oh, come on. Don’t be ridiculous. This is unsupported rumor-mongering without a shred of evidence.

BUT DON’T CALL HIM a narcissist.

HMM: SMOKING-GUN BLACK PANTHER EMAILS: “E-mails newly obtained by Judicial Watch strengthen contentions that politics motivated the Obama Justice Department’s dismissal of a voter-intimidation case despite video of a nightstick-wielding New Black Panther Party member at a Philadelphia polling place. The e-mails show two political appointees’ involvement in Justice’s decision to dismiss, the watchdog group says. And, it notes, those e-mails contradict what Thomas Perez, assistant attorney general for Justice’s Civil Rights Division, told the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights under oath: that decision involved ‘only career people.'”

THE TSA: A UNITER, NOT A DIVIDER: The good news is that the TSA seems to be doing its best to bring the Left and the Right together.

CHANGE: Some Democrats getting the message on earmarks; Udall tweets support for a ban. “Looks like the action on the Republican side in the House and Senate is being watched more carefully by Democrats than might be expected.” Hey, they saw the election results, too.

TAKING SIDES in the Chronicle of Higher Education.

A ROUNDUP ON Europe’s latest financial crisis.

Plus, the quote of the day: “This is a breath-taking mixture of suicidal irresponsibility and farcical incoherence.” Really, summing up our global political class pretty well . . . .

More here.

AT AMAZON, holiday gift recommendations.

INCUMBISTAN IS A ONE-PARTY STATE: Murkowski receives warm welcome from fellow senators as lame-duck begins.

ECONOMISTS URGE FED TO STOP ASSET-BUYING. They could have just shown this video . . . .

UPDATE: Gary Shilling: Of Course The Fed’s Plan Won’t Work — We’re Deleveraging!

HEADLINE OF THE DAY: Charlie Rangel flees ethics trial to avoid getting any ethics on him.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: The shadow scholar. “In the midst of this great recession, business is booming. At busy times, during midterms and finals, my company’s staff of roughly 50 writers is not large enough to satisfy the demands of students who will pay for our work and claim it as their own.”

UPDATE: A reader emails:

I am a shadow scholar. As a PhD candidate in theology, I was not at all surprised by the account in the Chronicle of Higher Ed. I’ve been running an ‘editing’ and ‘tutoring’ business for four years now. I’m not nearly so cavalier as to just do the work for my clients (usually), but I do understand that one of the big draws for that sort of behavior is the essentially useless nature of many higher ed. courses. I have done almost 100% of the coursework for my wife’s Masters in education. Why? Because the assignments have absolutely nothing to do with, you know, making her a better teacher. They are simply the mandated hoops she has to jump through to move up the pay scale and specialize in her chosen field. Seriously, she (and many like her) are more than willing to do the hard work when there is some discernible point, but when she is asked to write a paper on the importance of making every student feel special, you have to wonder whether or not it’s worth her time. Many of my clients have jobs and lives. They can read, write, and think critically, but they are forced to waste time reading and commenting on inane observations made by life-long bureaucrats in order to get the credentials they need to move forward in their careers. So no, I don’t find it unethical at all to help out hard-working, creative, responsible professionals get their federally-mandated approval stickers in order to fulfill their professional callings. There is a cheating problem out there, and it does take some soul-searching to turn down good money proffered by lazy students, but a large part of the problem is the content of courses and the entire notion of a system that demands credentials rather than demonstrable skills. It is delusional to suppose that good teachers are made by years of diversity training, yet that is, in my experience, exactly what goes on.

If you choose to post this, please withhold my name.

And reader Corey Hall emails:

This all goes back to your “Credentialed, not Smart” meme. The piece of paper at the end of four years (or five, or six) is more important than what that piece of paper is supposed to mean. I think you may have addressed this in the past as well, but a college degree is the new union card. That most jobs REQUIRE a college degree is laughable. These days it’s simply a first pass filter to weed out “undesirables”.

Sad, but probably true.

BLAST FROM THE PAST: PJTV has put my Interview with John Birmingham up on YouTube. We talk about his Axis of Time novels, about a world without America, and more.

HAJJ FOR HEATHENS: A primer for infidels.

MORE ENVIRO-IRONY: Western Forests Set To Become Net Carbon Emitter.

KITCHENS OF TOMORROW, from yesterday.

SHOWING THE FLAG: Hundreds of Riders With U.S. Flags Escort Cody Alicea To School Today. That’s the kid who was ordered not to bring a flag to school because it was . . . provocative. Video at the link.

RENEE ELMERS PULLS AHEAD OF BOB “WHO ARE YOU” ETHERIDGE: “Ellmers now appears to have prevailed over Etheridge by 1,489 votes, and should be certified the winner by the North Carolina authorities on November 23. Etheridge has demanded a recount that would be completed before certification of the results takes place. In the meantime, Ellmers is planning to take office with the new Congress.”

CHANGE: McConnell Endorses Earmark Ban. “Nearly every day that the Senate’s been in session for the past two years, I have come down to this spot and said that Democrats are ignoring the wishes of the American people. When it comes to earmarks, I won’t be guilty of the same thing.”

THAT ENVIRONMENTALLY-FRIENDLY REUSABLE GROCERY BAG MAY BE CONTAMINATED WITH LEAD. Most significant comment:

“Green is a trend and people go with trends,” Ms. Bluestein said. “People get them as fashion statements and they have, like, 50 of them. I don’t think people know the real facts.”

Indeed. Plus this: “There’s always something wrong with everything.”

POPULAR MECHANICS: What’s The Best Circular Saw? Mine’s an elderly Skil — it doesn’t get much hard use these days, though it did once. Still works fine, though.

Related: How to use a circular saw.

SUBSIDIES FOR ALT-ENERGY looking kinda iffy.

25% OFF PRESENTS FOR KIDS.

MY PREDICTION ABOUT AMERICA SUDDENLY BECOMING “UNGOVERNABLE” IF OBAMA FAILED has certainly been borne out. Now Newsweek asks: Is the Presidency too big for one man? Nope. Just for the inexperienced guy with no management experience that we elected. As Jay Cost wrote a while back “America is not ungovernable. Her President has simply not been up to the job.” And see these thoughts from Arnold Kling, too.

Plus, as Ed Morrissey noted last fall: “Who could have warned us that a man who served seven years in the state legislature and three years in the Senate would not have been prepared for the toughest executive position in the Free World? We did. Repeatedly. So did John McCain, and for that matter, so did Hillary Clinton.”

UPDATE: “Big desk. Little man.”

Related: Heh.

MORE ON THAT TEA PARTY LETTER: CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR: Tea party groups push GOP to quit culture wars, focus on deficit. Tea Partiers are a diverse lot, of course. But fiscal restraint has always been the “big tent” issue. Meanwhile, expect Dems and media types to try to create some sort of civil war. Don’t be suckered.