MICHAEL HILTZIK IS REALLY UPSET that BMW is laying off Teamsters. But it seems like a rational move, especially given the NLRB’s treatment of, say, Boeing. Better to sell out and outsource entirely.

UPDATE: Kim du Toit emails:

By Hiltzik’s own admission, the plain fact of the matter is that these BMW union workers were getting middle-class salaries for doing piecework. Amid all the “woe is us” stories, one attitude shines through: the unionized workforce expected a sinecure for their “loyalty” and are now devastated by finding out what we non-union workers have always known: employment is not guaranteed, and if you continue to ask for more money than the job is worth, you will eventually lose your job.

Wait till this realization spreads to the GOVERNMENT worker class…

And it will. We’re running short of other people’s money.

TIM CAVANAUGH ON L.A. County’s War On Private Property. “This is in the Antelope Valley, a desert of misfired towns and remote settlements, where truck drivers and retirees move for no other reason than the probability that their right to be left alone will be respected. These are people who have done nothing wrong and are not bothering anybody.” Maybe they should start bothering people.

Plus this: “What’s going on in the Antelope Valley is not a human interest story about a quirky character fighting the cooler heads of his community. It is a hard news story about the class war in Los Angeles, in which swarms of officers from a multitude of new offices are engaged in a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the delusional object of turning a sprawling desert county into New York West.”

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE? Two U of M schools consider switching to private-funding only. Or is this indicative of something else?

FREEDOM, INDEPENDENCE, taxation, and service.

BUT OF COURSE: China Wants To Buy Facebook. Are you worried about what they’d do with your data?

SICK AND DEPRESSED? AS A COST-CUTTING MEASURE, we’ll send folksingers instead of medicine. Boy, they’re really pushing that assisted-suicide idea hard . . . .

CHANGE: The Hill: Democratic Leaders Announce Support For Extended Payroll-Tax Holiday. “Despite warnings it will undermine Social Security, House Democratic leaders are lining up behind a White House proposal to extend a payroll-tax cut beyond this year. Reps. James Clyburn (D-S.C.) and John Larson (D-Conn.) both announced Friday that they’ll throw their weight behind the extended payroll-tax holiday, which President Obama and some leading Senate Democrats are prescribing as an economic stimulant.”

Seems like a watered-down version of Michele Bachmann’s idea. The same objections apply, but if you endorse it on the payroll tax, you’ve established a principle . . . .

TAXPROF: Is There A New IRS Strategy Of Delaying Refunds?

RE-EVALUATING “THE RULES,” after 15 years.

OHIO REPEALS ITS ESTATE TAX.

RON RADOSH: The Reason for Noam Chomsky’s Surprising Criticism of Hugo Chavez, and why I give him Two Cheers.

MARKDOWNS ON POWER TOOLS.

IN UNRELATED NEWS, MY BROTHER IS EN ROUTE TO BEIJING: China’s women show taste for fast cars and whisky.

UPDATE: Reader Theodore Simon writes: “I can attest to that. Here’s a picture I took on the streets of Beijing a few weeks ago, as I watched this woman try to drive her brand new Ferrari off the showroom floor and into the street. She was ultimately defeated by the planter box on the left, which she wasn’t able to maneuver around. And get a load of the roadster in the second picture, which I took through the window of a showroom near my hotel. There were a half dozen even more exotic models on display. Note the FFF dealership name plate on the windshield. There’s lots of money being spent in Beijing and in the other large cities of China. China has become the ultimate consumer society.”

And reader Alan Henderson emails: “Remember the old ‘Democracy! Whisky! Sexy!’ slogan from a few years back? Looks like the Chinese have those second and third items going. Now if they could jump-start the first…”

WHAT ABC THINKS OF ITS VIEWERS’ INTELLIGENCE, graphically illustrated.

YOCHANAN VISSER: How the Dutch Gaza Flotilla Backfired Politically: A fascinating tale of contemporary political warfare. “What has happened in Holland is a case study showing how Internet publications and research on the hidden radicalism and extremist ties of purportedly humanitarian and moderate groups can change government policy, media attitudes, and public opinion.”

WELL, YES, IT DOES: Reader Tom DeGisi writes:

Your emergency preparedness stuff works. They said if I stocked up on bottled water I wouldn’t regret it. And they were right! Johnson County (near Kansas City) is under a boil order and all that bottled water really came in handy. Emergencies come in all sizes. Apparently a raccoon died in the wrong place.

Yes, you want some bottled water. If you’re more serious, a fancy filter. Bleach is good, too. More background here and here.

UPDATE: Reader Mary Pat Campbell sends this: The Key To Disaster Survival? Friends And Neighbors. “Aldrich’s findings show that ambulances and firetrucks and government aid are not the principal ways most people survive during — and recover after — a disaster. His data suggest that while official help is useful — in clearing the water and getting the power back on in a place such as New Orleans after Katrina, for example — government interventions cannot bring neighborhoods back, and most emergency responders take far too long to get to the scene of a disaster to save many lives. Rather, it is the personal ties among members of a community that determine survival during a disaster, and recovery in its aftermath.”

THE MILITARY’S LAST DRAFTEE retires after 39 years of service.

I AGREE THAT THE LOW-SODIUM BACON is actually better than the regular stuff. That’s the only low-sodium product I can think of where that’s true. (Whatever you do, don’t drink the low-sodium V8, unless you’ve got a strong stomach.)

CLAIRE BERLINSKI: Airport Security And Common Sense.

What the Israelis do is effective, but it’s not scaleable. Israel is a minuscule country. You could probably fit the whole Zionist Entity inside of Dallas-Ft. Worth airport. (That may even be literally true: I leave it to you to check.) It has exactly one major international airport, which handles maybe ten million passengers a year. In America, you’ve got about two million people flying every single day, 86 airports that carry more than a million passengers per year, and 25 that carry more than ten million–each one, in other words, handling the volume of traffic handled by the entire State of Israel. If you think the lines move quickly in Israel, think again. Implement those kinds of procedures and you’d grind what’s left of the US economy to a halt.

The Israelis aren’t using some racial or religious algorithm to screen passengers. If they were, I wouldn’t get stuck at security at Ben Gurion for hours every time I fly there, would I? I assure you they don’t take a look at my passport and say, “Well, she’s an American, and ‘Berlinski’ sounds kind-of Jewish, so she’s probably fine.” Every single time, they interrogate me for hours.

“Profiling” is a security fantasy, just like “sticking your hands down an elderly woman’s diaper” is a security fantasy–both amount to some kind of neo-pagan pre-flight prayer ritual. What’s rational is competent intelligence work of the kind the FBI actually does pretty well, to judge from the number of terrorist attacks that have been interrupted in recent years. What’s rational are locked and hardened cockpit doors, and making passengers fully aware that if the plane is hijacked, you rise up as one and kill the hijackers. Metal-detector screening–for firearms–is reasonable. Looking for tweezers and liquids is not. Indecent bodily searches are not. Making people take their computers out of their bags is not–that’s an X-ray machine, for goodness’ sake.

Well, the power cables and stuff get in the way, I guess.

Related: UK Terrorists Told: Pretend To Be Gay So You Don’t Get Caught.

AT NASA, WORRIES ABOUT A “BRAIN DRAIN.” If the top brains “drain” to private space companies, that won’t be so bad.

I SAY HE’S ATHLETE OF THE YEAR.

BOB ZUBRIN: Is Ethanol A Solution, Or A Problem?

UH OH: S&P Deals Blow To Greek Bail-Out Plan. “French and German banks’ plan to roll over their holdings of Greek debt suffered a blow on Monday as Standard & Poor’s, the credit rating agency, said the move would amount to a default. The proposal to provide up to €30bn ($43.6bn) in financing for Greece had been made conditional on rating agencies not downgrading Greece’s debt. But S&P said on Monday that any rollover would be a ‘distressed’ transaction and thus lead to Greece’s rating being lowered to selective default.”

IPODS: Who Gets The Money, And Who Gets The Jobs? “There are, for example, only 30 production jobs inside the US associated with the iPod manufacture. . . . Plus, of course, that point about high wage manufacturing jobs. There aren’t any, for manufacturing is now a low wage occupation, so it’s pointless to talk about trying to bring them back to the United States.” But read the whole thing.