YOU CAN’T MAKE THIS STUFF UP: To Protest Hiring of Nonunion Help, Union Hires Nonunion Pickets: Jobless Recruits Get Minimum Wage ‘To March Around and Sound Off’.

Meanwhile, here’s a scene from Knoxville. The 21st Century labor movement: Not much labor, not much movement.

DISASTER PREPAREDNESS: Is The United States Ready for the Next Big Quake? In a word, no. Lots of disaster-preparedness resources here, plus danger for the midwest. Also, some disaster preparedness lessons from Haiti.

Related: List: Survival Essentials.

UPDATE: Chuck Simmins writes:

Disaster planners overlook some of the dangers of the New Madrid fault that would endanger the entire northeast and probably the entire eastern seaboard.

What happens to all the oil and gas pipelines that cross the Mississippi in the probably quake zone? What happens to the major electrical power lines?

Imagine the Northeast without natural gas and the electrical grid down due to the loss of the high tension power lines. Imagine that in January.

I’d rather not.

EZRA KLEIN admits it won’t work.

POPULAR MECHANICS, on runaway Toyotas and driver error. “Not so fast.”

ORBITAL DEBRIS UPDATE: U.S. military to launch first satellite to snap and relay photos of orbital debris.

AT AMAZON, it’s the Friday Sale.

NICE POLLS, KID: Don’t get cocky.

PROGRESS: DOE Researchers Take Major Stride Towards Creating Room-Temperature Superconductors.

CHEAP DRONES could replace search-and-rescue choppers.

IF YOU CAN’T MAKE PEOPLE IMMUNE TO MALARIA, make the mosquitoes immune!

LIVERS GROWN ON SCAFFOLDING. Faster, please.

WHEN THE OIL WAS LEAKING IT WAS ALL BP’S FAULT, but now that it’s capped Obama steps in to take credit.

ANIMAL AUTOPSIES IN GULF yield a mystery. “The vast majority of the dead animals that have been found — 1,866 birds, 463 turtles, 59 dolphins and one sperm whale — show no visible signs of oil contamination.”

UPDATE: Reader Greg Marquez writes: “With respect to the animal autopsies yielding no signs of oil contamination… further evidence for your theory that the oil is just a cover for aliens.” By Jove, he’s right! Wake up, sheeple!

PRESIDENT OBAMA’S jobs problem.

BREITBART TO NAACP HEAD: I have tapes.

FROM BEN CUNNINGHAM, a roundup of Tea Party headlines from around the country.

J.D. JOHANNES is on the Iran/Iraq border.

TAKE THAT, CHEVY VOLT: Norwegian couple cruises 300 miles in electric vehicles – their wheelchairs.

ROBOT vs. Lobster.

UH OH: Stephen Glass, Redux? ThinkProgress.org Publishes Completely Fraudulent Video Labeling Tea Partiers Racists. Labeling, libeling, whatever. But at least Stephen Glass was amusing. Will ThinkProgress fire its in-house fabricators?

UPDATE: Meanwhile, look at the Dallas Tea Party’s latest effort. “I didn’t know there were so many racists left.” At MSNBC.

IN THE MAIL: Angel of Death Row: My Life as a Death Penalty Defense Lawyer.

WALTER SHAPIRO: Another House Investigation: Are Congressional Ethics a Contradiction? Power corrupts. Congress has a lot of power. Give ’em less power and they’ll be less corrupt, and it won’t matter as much when they are.

VERONIQUE DE RUGY: When Debt Flies Off The Charts. “Under one realistic future scenario, the nation’s debt becomes so large that Congressional Budget Office models break down.”

FORBES: “The Dodd-Frank bill does nothing to deal with Wall Street’s central problem: systemic non-disclosure. . . . Dodd-Frank is a full-employment act for regulators that addresses everything but the root causes of the financial collapse.”

OH, GOODY: Fiscal Crisis: Visions of the Japanese Nightmare. “Is American headed for a Japanese-style lost decade? Possibly, if Washington can’t get its act together. Needed: post-partisan leaders with the guts to do the right thing.”