#OCCUPYFAIL: SoCal Street Cart Vendors Hurting After ‘Occupy’ Group Splatters Blood, Urine. “Coffee cart owner Linda Jenson and hot dog cart operators Letty and Pete Soto said they initially provided free food and drink to demonstrators, but when they stopped, the protesters became violent. And according to one city councilman, bodily fluids were used in the attacks. . . . In addition to the attacks, the vendors also said they recently received death threats.”

DON’T IT MAKE MY BROWN EYES BLUE?

FAST AND FURIOUS: Holder Refuses To Apologize In Border Agent’s Death.

JOHN TIERNEY: A Tool to Quit Smoking Has Some Unlikely Critics. “If you want a truly frustrating job in public health, try getting people to stop smoking. Even when researchers combine counseling and encouragement with nicotine patches and gum, few smokers quit. Recently, though, experimenters in Italy had more success by doing less. A team led by Riccardo Polosa of the University of Catania recruited 40 hard-core smokers — ones who had turned down a free spot in a smoking-cessation program — and simply gave them a gadget already available in stores for $50. This electronic cigarette, or e-cigarette, contains a small reservoir of liquid nicotine solution that is vaporized to form an aerosol mist. . . . But there’s a powerful group working against this innovation — and it’s not Big Tobacco. It’s a coalition of government officials and antismoking groups who have been warning about the dangers of e-cigarettes and trying to ban their sale.”

WALTER RUSSELL MEAD: The Most Important Story Of The Day. “If China’s growth decelerates that fast, that far, the biggest question in world politics won’t be how the rest of us will accommodate China’s rise. The question will shift to whether China can last.”

RICHARD EPSTEIN: Three Cheers For Income Inequality.

HOW’S THAT HOPEY-CHANGEY STUFF WORKIN’ OUT FOR YA? (CONT’D): Generation Jobless: Young Men Suffer Worst as Economy Staggers.

LIST: Best Value Law Schools. Tennessee makes the Top 15.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Fearing Massive Debt, More Students Are Choosing to Enroll at Public Colleges Over Elite Universities. “As student-loan default rates climb and college graduates fail to land jobs, an increasing number of students are betting they can get just as far with a degree from a less-expensive school as they can with a diploma from an elite school—without having to take on debt. More students are choosing lower-cost public colleges or commuting to schools from home to save on housing expenses. Twenty-two percent of students from families with annual household incomes above $100,000 attended public, two-year schools in the 2010-2011 academic year, up from 12% the previous year, according to a report from student-loan company Sallie Mae. “

A NASTY PIECE OF LEGISLATION: The Stop Online Piracy Act: Big Content’s full-on assault against the Safe Harbor.

It’s pretty much a piece of bought-and-paid-for legislation.

COPS AND CAMERAS: As More Police Wear Cameras, Policy Questions Arise. “The next time you talk to a police officer, you might find yourself staring into a lens. Companies such as Taser and Vievu are making small, durable cameras designed to be worn on police officer’s uniforms. The idea is to capture video from the officer’s point of view, for use as evidence against suspects, as well as to help monitor officers’ behavior toward the public.” So long as the video isn’t conveniently “lost” at crucial times, I think this is a good idea. And it certainly undercuts the lame argument that people shouldn’t be able to record cops on duty, though I suppose some people will remain capable of a double standard here.

Of course, it’s another reason why you may not want to talk to the police, or let them into your home.

AT AMAZON, pre-Black Friday deals on Tools & Home Improvement.

TELEGRAPH: The Euro elite are totally out of touch with the modern world. “The psychology of the EU – a postwar elite bureaucracy – is entirely out of kilter with this very modern surge of popular protest: technology-driven, non-hierarchical, anti-elitist. It is like trying to connect an old ribbon typewriter to an iPad.” I’ve got a book they should read.

JEFF CARTER: The Market Is Focused On Europe. What About China? “Eventually, the math catches up to you.”

#OCCUPYFAIL: JAMES TARANTO: The Obamaville Riots: Should the liberal media be held responsible for left-wing violence?

GAMERS CREATE scientific “recipes.”

#OCCUPYFAIL: Video: Evan Coyne Maloney Strolls Amongst The Occupiers.

#OCCUPYFAIL: Eatery: Occupiers Terrorize Us. “She and her employees are terrified by the constant threats, which she said began after she demanded the protesters stop using her shop’s restroom as a place to bathe every day. The final straw came about two weeks ago, when the demonstrators broke a bathroom sink, flooding the shop, and clogged the toilet — setting her back $3,000 in damages.”

Related: Bloomberg’s Broken Windows. The mayor’s message: When the crazies come, you’re on your own. “What company thinking of moving to Texas or even Connecticut, for example, will be persuaded to stay in Manhattan after witnessing the mayor’s impotence here? How many trade groups or associations are going to move their big meetings from the nation’s capital after they’ve seen the lack of police protection at the convention center? Who’s going to sink money into Oakland—which clocked in below Flint, Mich., on a recent Forbes ranking of cities by job growth—when they see a mayor unwilling to call in the cops even after businesses have been openly attacked? Our progressive mayors may think themselves reasonable when they turn a blind eye to the public disorders that have characterized the Occupy movement. In fact, they are sending a signal that imperils the urban development they so profess to love. For the message they are sending to business is this: When the crazies come for you, you’re on your own.”

LEGAL EDUCATION UPDATE: U of Illinois Law School Admits To Six Years of False LSAT/GPA Data. “The University of Illinois acknowledged Monday that its law school reported and/or published inaccurate admissions data in six of the last 10 years. The university, in a prepared statement (PDF), said it had determined that Paul Pless, the law school’s former assistant dean for admissions and financial aid, who resigned last week, was solely responsible for the inaccuracies.” Hmm. That’s certainly convenient.

TODAY ONLY: FIFA 12 for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.

#OCCUPYFAIL: Occupy Wall Street, Jon Corzine, and Other Failed Human Beings:

Yet what will soon become apparent is that the movement was never intended to be financial. It was entirely ideological.

In short, liberals would be given a free pass while conservatives would be burnt at the stake.

Many Occupiers claim that Wall Street received special treatment. That those who caused the financial meltdown deserve to be tarred and feathered. Yet when actual names are named, liberals go silent when they realize that the evil corruption they rail against can be located in the political mirror.

Democrats Christopher Dodd and Barney Frank were at the epicenter of the 2008 economic collapse. They have never nor will they ever be held accountable. Christopher Dodd retired rather than face questions about his sweetheart deals with Countrywide. As for Barney Frank, several crimes have been committed in his very home, from prostitution to drug running. He has always claimed ignorance.

Mr. Frank admitted that he had “ideological blinders” on when dealing with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Yet Mr. Frank still has his job, and former Fannie Mae CEO Franklin Raines was given a platinum parachute of over 90 million dollars.

Nice to point that out.

DON’T FALL INTO Alinsky’s trap.

UPDATE: Witness: Cain accuser hugged him during Tea Party meeting a month ago. “They hugged each other backstage in a full embrace like old friends. She grabbed his arm and whispered in his left ear. . . . ‘It looked sort of flirtatious.'”

ANOTHER UPDATE: The pushback against Sharon Bialek begins.

ERIC HOLDER: Because your government has been arming Mexican drug cartels, we need stronger gun control in America.

UPDATE: Reader David Eaton writes: “There isn’t any constitutional reason why the government’s access to guns could not be limited, is there? So maybe there is some merit to the idea that ‘fast and furious’ means we need more gun control. Just not over citizens.”

WASHINGTON EXAMINER: Obama faces choice on Keystone pipeline: Big Labor or Big Green.

President Obama lamented recently that Americans have “lost our ambition, our — our imagination, and — and — our willingness to do the things that built the Golden Gate Bridge.” There are at least two facts that must be pointed out here. First, the Golden Gate Bridge was built by private enterprise, not government. If anything, government was the biggest obstacle to the bridge, thanks to opposition from the Department of Defense and the mistaken opinion of a San Francisco city engineer that the ground under the bay to be spanned would never support such a structure. It’s also worth noting here that Bank of America founder and president A.P. Giannini, a member of the much-maligned one percent, stepped forward at a critical moment after the Stock Market Crash of 1929 to provide critically needed private financing to complete the project. The bridge was finished in 1937, 16 years after architect Joseph Strauss first began the project. He completed the project $1.7 million under its total budget of $35 million.

Second, Obama is almost certainly correct in doubting that grand projects like the Golden Gate Bridge could be done today, but not for the reasons he would want to acknowledge. For proof, we need look no further than the proposed Keystone XL pipeline that TransCanada first proposed in 2008. The company wants to spend $7 billion in private capital to build the pipeline. It would transport crude oil produced in Canada’s Alberta tar sands region to refineries in Texas. Not only would U.S. dependence on OPEC nations for oil be significantly reduced, building the pipeline would also, according to the Canadian Energy Research Institute, create as many as 435,000 jobs in the U.S. by 2035.

But incessant delays since 2008 caused by the cumbersome permitting process and environmental impact assessments have put the project in jeopardy.

Indeed.