AND AGAIN, AND AGAIN: Hayek Vindicated Again. “Way back on the Federal Page of today’s Washington Post is an article that ought to be on the front page above the fold, and its deep placement on the boutique page of the bureaucracy shows how the Post, like most everyone else, doesn’t understand what a big story it is. And it is clinical study of Hayek’s ‘knowledge problem’—the impossibility of centralizing fundamentally dispersed knowledge in a timely and accurate way—that we’ve discussed at various times here over the past few months.”

MICHAEL TOTTEN: Totalitarian Grief.

Looks like what we’re seeing is a case of preference falsification. More on that here.

UPDATE: Related: In Kim’s Death, An Extensive Intelligence Failure. We’ve had a lot of those.

POLL: 60% Favor Building Keystone XL Pipeline.

Well, as this graphic illustrates, it’s not like it’s anything unprecedented.

SALE, TODAY ONLY: Bosch 18-Volt Combo Kit with Instant $20 Off at Checkout.

Plus, free two-day shipping on Kindles.

AT THE LAWFARE BLOG: NDAA FAQ: A Guide for the Perplexed. “The volume of sheer, unadulterated nonsense zipping around the internet about the NDAA boggles the mind. There was a time–only a few months ago–when the NDAA detention provisions were the obscure province of a small group of national security law nerds. Now, however, this bill has rocketed to international notoriety. The added attention to it is a good thing. . . . Does the NDAA expand the government’s detention authority? Nope.”

IF WHAT’S IN THE LIBRARY ACCORDS WITH THE KORAN, IT IS UNNECESSARY. IF IT CONFLICTS WITH THE KORAN, IT IS DANGEROUS. Egyptian Activists Hurt Defending Library. Oh, wait, that was a different library. “The Institut d’Egypte, a collection of 192,000 documents first opened in Egypt in the 18th century, burned for 12 hours this weekend. Tragically, protestors alleged that they were attacked by soldiers as they tried to rescue 200 year old manuscripts from the burning library.”

BYRON YORK: GOP unhappiness with field fuels buzz for Jeb Bush. Hey, the “Bush brand” is looking a lot better in 2011 than it did in 2008. . . .

UPDATE: Reader Hugh North writes: “I’m a lifelong Republican, and I don’t like Obama’s policies at all… But I will vote Obama if it is a choice between Bush and Obama. Nothing against Governor Bush, but I refuse to support a dynasty. We live in a Republic, not a kingdom where power is passed by bloodline.” I agree, though I’d still vote for him over Obama. It’s the Syphilitic Camel Rule.

ANOTHER UPDATE: A reader emails: “So Obama’s family history should not handicap his chances of becoming president but Jeb Bush’s family history should? Strange world we live in.” Hell, we’re not even supposed to take account of Obama’s personal history.

RICK PERRY ON beer, guns & Iowa.

INVESTOR’S BUSINESS DAILY: Vaclav Havel Crushed Communism By Speaking The Truth.

MICKEY KAUS ON THE E.P.A.’S LATEST POWER GRAB: “When I was a lawyer at the Federal Trade Commission during the Carter Administration, I worked on a document attempting to wedge the power to block factory closings into the agency’s statutory mandate to curb ‘unfair trade practices.’ This reminded me of that.”

Plus this:

There will undoubtedly be a parallel effort to incorporate “social, economic, and other requirements” into the U.S. health care system. Just as the EPA would like to move beyond its dowdy mission to stop pollution, health experts will tell us it’s just too 20th century to just focus on simply curing people who are sick. Anybody can do that. We need to treat the whole social system that creates the risk of disease, etc. It’s a new paradigm! … Will EPA and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) fight it out to see which gets to be the Department of Fixing Everything?

The “public health” people were up to that over a decade ago.

MF GLOBAL: How Did It Happen? “During the Age of Obama, the scandals come so thick and fast that you can hardly remember them all, let alone keep track of their details. One of the most recent is MF Global, which not only went under–with former Democratic Senator and Governor of New Jersey Jon Corzine at the helm–but misplaced $1.2 billion in client funds along the way. How do you lose track of a billion dollars? Most of us panic if we lose twenty. Michael Ramirez has the definitive answer.”

FAKE DEATHS: Walter Olson: NTSB Misled Public On Cellphone Toll. “The NTSB’s own mission statement describes the board’s primary function as ‘determining the probable cause of transportation accidents’ with ‘independence and objectivity.’ If instead its leaders mislead the public about accident causes, and forsake their independence in exchange for a cheerleading role in DoT campaigns, one has to ask: is the board worth keeping?”

INVESTOR’S BUSINESS DAILY: Even With His Baggage, Gingrich Is Better Than Obama. So true.

Of course, so is Zeeba The Syphilitic Camel. Photo courtesy of Zeeba’s exploratory committee.

WHO IS JOHN GALT?

Politicians and bureaucrats in the European Union were treated to a verbal lashing for their cronyism and anti-entrepreneurism by Michael O’Leary, CEO of airline RyanAir, at a conference held by the EU on “innovation.”

The CEO started his remarks tearing down the European ruling class for protecting inefficient airlines that charge too much money for useless services. For this speech to come from someone in Europe, let alone at a summit at the EU, is a conservative dream.

Here is a transcript of the first few minutes of O’Leary’s John Galt speech (video below).

Check it out.

MICHAEL BARONE: Bureau Of Labor Statistics Helping NC Democrat. “There’s obviously good reason for this: someone with advanced word could place bets in financial and community markets and make lots of money. That’s why Congress provided for penalties of up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine for early release of this data. And there’s another excellent reason: government statistical agencies should be free of political influence to insure the integrity of the numbers on which many people depend. My understanding is that an important part of the bureaucratic culture of federal statistical agencies is a pride in their independence and integrity; this is something not to be lightly squandered. Maintaining that culture is vital if the government wants to get highly competent people to dedicate their careers to this important work.”

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Professor claims NYU fired him after he gave James Franco a ‘D.’ “Santana, who is suing NYU in Manhattan Supreme Court for his job back, asserts that Franco, whose career took off after a 2001 portrayal of James Dean, acted like a rebel without a clue in his other courses, too, blowing off just as many classes. But the star’s other professors at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts still gave him good grades, Santana said. Big names such as Franco’s typically translate into big bucks for universities.”

EUROPE: DSK: No ‘Firewall’ Exists, Europe Has ‘Only Weeks.’ “”It appears today as a debt crisis. More than that, it is a growth crisis. Behind the growth crisis is a leadership crisis.”

UPDATE: Greek Budget Deficit To Pass 10% Of GDP, Country Stops Most Cash Outlays. And nothing encourages future tax compliance like hanging on to people’s refunds today! Of course, we’ve seen the same thing in California.

AT AMAZON, last-minute watch deals.

Also, they’re running “lightning deals” on all sorts of things, with new ones appearing every couple of hours.

TEN YEARS AGO ON INSTAPUNDIT: “I am serious when I say, as I did yesterday, that I am worried about where Europe is heading.” And yet, in retrospect, I was probably not worried enough. More: “I want to write a piece on Euro/American misunderstandings, but this post is already long enough, so that will have to wait until another time. But it occurs to me that when Europeans bash America they’re usually bashing the American masses, with their complaints against McDonald’s, the ‘gun culture,’ support for the death penalty, etc. American bashing of Europe, on the other hand, is usually aimed at European political and cultural leaders. It thus seems odd to me to see Europeans become angry when I pick on, say, Pascal Smets. Perhaps this is a sign of my unredeemable Americanism, but it’s just hard to imagine people taking criticism of that guy, and his dumb plan to register every human being on earth, personally.”

Related thoughts here. Plus, punished for an anti-EU poster in Belgium. In retrospect, Mr. Johansson looks like a hero, or at least a prophet.

TAM: “I will refrain from pointing out that, even in his younger and more heroic days, Captain Euro had a decidedly non-Mediterranean look about him. Mark that down as foreshadowing if you wish…”

EDDIE MURPHY EMERGES in House Debate.

SO WHAT DOES OBAMA HAVE against the Keystone pipeline? Quite a graphic.

SKEPTICISM: If Sex Addiction Exists, Then So Does My “Napping Problem.”

PEOPLE APPROACHING RETIREMENT ARE VERY WORRIED. “They’re alarmed, but when you look at the numbers for projected savings at retirement and consider the prospects for Social Security and Medicare, you have to wonder whether they are alarmed enough.”

BUT REMEMBER, IF YOU WANT TO CUT SPENDING IT’S BECAUSE YOU LIKE THE IDEA OF STARVING CHILDREN: Chelsea’s housing boss was rarely on the job: Just 15 full days in town this year, records show. “The records show he didn’t go to Chelsea at all on almost half the working days in 2011, spending 47 weekdays in Maine and Florida with his top assistant and close personal friend, Linda Thibodeau. He spent another 21 work days at out-of-state conferences from Phoenix to Miami, usually with Thibodeau. . . . The FBI is investigating whether McLaughlin, a former state legislator and longtime Democratic powerbroker, illegally diverted federal funds to his own use. State housing officials tried to stop payment on the checks written to McLaughlin on his last day, but he had already cashed the one for unused vacation time.”