TWO PERSPECTIVES ON WISCONSIN: Jennifer Rubin: “Big Labor couldn’t win an off-year election on a make-or-break issue? It really is in trouble.”

Michael Barone: “This result was closer than it should be.” (Both via Gay Patriot, who has much more.)

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Liberal Arts Heading For A Crash?

Our business model is built on all kinds of assumptions that don’t hold anymore,” said Richard Holmgren, associate dean and CIO at Allegheny College. “Over the last 40 years of the last century, we built a model based on the assumption that net revenues per student would go up every year.…We have a culture built on that assumption,” Holmgren said. “Over the last 10 years, we’ve been struggling because net revenues have been flat.”

None of the participants in the daylong business-model workshop that followed seemed to dispute the basic premise that liberal arts programs are plagued by twin threats of inertia and economic unsustainability. To make matters even more grim, one self-described envoy of “the corporate world” — Kit Stinson, a vice president at the telecommunication giant Avaya — spoke up early on in the conference to testify against the truism that liberal arts graduates make for more creative and critical-thinking workers, setting off a parallel discussion about whether today’s incarnation of liberal education, sacrosanct to many, actually increases students’ employability outside academe.

Something that can’t go on forever, won’t. Plus, bringing tuition shock home: “Eugene Tobin, a program officer at the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and former president of Hamilton College, agreed that faculty members tend to hold relatively unsophisticated views of the business of higher education until their children begin applying to college.”

MORE ON Obama’s Declining Approval Numbers With Blacks.

NO WORRIES — WE’LL BE USING “SMART DIPLOMACY” WITH THIS: The Global Risk Of Arming Libya’s Rebels.

IS THAT A BUG, OR A FEATURE? Junk Food Blood-Sugar Spike Worse With Coffee.

GOTCHER GOVERNMENT-SHUTDOWN MEDIA SCRIPT right here. But a lot fewer people are paying attention.

A BMW 5-Series Plugin Hybrid Prototype.

SUSANNAH BRESLIN: How To Become A Forbes Blogger. “These days, it’s not enough to be a good writer online. You have to be a smart marketer, your own content factory, your own publicist. If you can do it all, you are golden. If you cannot, you are screwed.”

MARK STEYN: Lindsey Graham is unfit for office. I agree.

DAVID STOCKMAN: Shut it down, baby, shut it down!

CONN CARROLL LOOKS AT JOHN YOO’S THE OBAMA DOJ’S MEMO ON THE WAR IN LIBYA. “The Justice memo fully embraces the Bush administration view of Executive Power and directly contradicts then-Senator Obama’s 2007 statement.” Feel the change, baby!

UPDATE: Obama Administration still running secret detention/interrogation centers in Afghanistan. Hey, rube!

IN THE MAIL: From S.E. Cupp, Losing Our Religion: The Liberal Media’s Attack on Christianity. Interesting title for a book by an atheist.

ACADEMIC FREEDOM UPDATE: Widener LawProf Sues Dean. “Today Lawrence Connell, the professor who was suspended from teaching at the Widener University law school after two students complained about the examples he used in his first-year criminal law course, filed suit for defamation against the law school dean, Linda Ammons.” I’m sure they hired Ammons with the hope she’d improve the school’s academic reputation. Not so much, as it turns out.

THE POLITICS OF A GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN: It’s not 1995 anymore.

BYRON YORK: Reforming entitlements is key to a strong military.

OBAMA ON GAS PRICES: Would You Buy A New Car From This Man? “Let’s just say that Obama lacks the common touch. Even before our current hard times, you may recall, Obama was complaining about the high price of arugula.”

EXAMINING THE CULTURE: NYU Hosts From Ralph Kramden to Homer Simpson — Tax Compliance Attitudes in Sitcoms.

MORE ON THE LEAKED REPORT ABOUT THE DOJ’S BLACK PANTHER CASE DISMISSAL: “In other words, if the New Black Panther Party says afterwards they didn’t like what happened in Philly, then they are off the hook. Take careful note folks, because Loretta King and Steve Rosenbaum never do this in any other case they bring. When the Justice Department sued Adams Mark hotels, or any of the other defendants they have sued, would a renunciation of employee behavior have satisfied the Justice Department? Of course not. In fact, the very same attorney, Steve Rosenbaum, pressed a case against a defendant in United States v. Aimco Properties when the defendants said they disclaimed the actions of an individual employee who used racial slurs. In fact, Rosenbaum and King forced a defendant who was no longer in business, and disclaimed the actions of the employee, to agree to a consent decree. It is all a question of which ox is getting gored.”

HOWIE CARR: Government Shutdown Shows True Promise.

NICK GILLESPIE: Hey Obama, You Do Realize That You’re Responsible for the Shutdown if it Happens, Dontcha?

Dems oughta face facts. The only reason that they are in a pickle is because they utterly failed to pass a fricking budget last year even though they controlled the White House, the Senate, and the House of Representatives. There’s no way around it, fellers: You stunk up the joint worse than the enema man, Snoopy Poopy Poop Dogg, and Alan Simpson together.

This marks the only time since current budget-process rules were adopted in 1974 that a budget didn’t get done. Nice going, Dems. Regardless of who voters end up blaming this time around, in your heart, you know you suck.

Call it tough love.

FASTER, PLEASE: Scientists discover a way to kill off tumors in cancer treatment breakthrough.

TODAY ONLY: Epson color wireless inkjet printer for 59 bucks.

DON SURBER: Maxine Waters, Your Scandal Is Showing. “We shall see if the Obama administration purses this as the Bush Administration pursued the corruption of Republican Congressman Duke Cunningham who received a sentence of 8 1/2 years in prison when federal prosecutors were finished.” Yeah, I’m sure the Justice Department is all over this case.

FREEDOM OF INFORMATION? Fifteen Months Waiting For Four Blank Pages: “Last year, PJM made a FOIA request regarding who flew to the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen. Why did it go all the way to the Office of the Secretary of Defense, and why was everything redacted?”

LEGAL EMPLOYMENT: One Virginia Law Student’s Monument To Rejection. More at Above The Law.