LIVING IN A POLITICAL FANTASY WORLD.

UPDATE: Reader Ray Summers emails:

Mr Keller writes:

The Valerie Plame affair. According to Leftworld, this was the illegal cover-blowing, and thus endangerment, of a CIA agent, orchestrated by Vice President Cheney for political purposes. According to Rightworld, it was the insignificant leakage of a marginal CIA employee not by Cheney but by aide Scooter Libby, an event distorted by a Bush-hating media.

It does not help his case when he simply repeats the Left’s lies. Richard Armitage leaked but exposing Armitage would not damage the Bush administration so he got a pass.

I know you know this, but, evidently, Mr Keller does not. I have written and, politely, informed him but do not expect a correction. If you would post about it perhaps something would occur.

Yes, it’s worth reminding people of this. Even those of good intent can be deceived by the fog of lies, particularly in matters like the Plame affair where there was a lot of narrative control. But if you’re going to talk about false political narratives and bias, it’s important to get your research in order.

WALTER RUSSELL MEAD: The Navy Down Under. “The latest news in the Great Game is that the United States will be establishing permanent naval operations in Australia.”

WILL THE PENN STATE SCANDAL LEAD TO increased scrutiny for other schools?

#OCCUPYFAIL: Exclusive Photos: Michael Moore’s Massive Michigan Vacation Mansion Beyond 99 Percent’s Wildest Dreams. “In addition, according to statistics from 2009, Forest Home Township has no black residents.” What’s the big deal? All the apparatchiks have nice dachas in the country, where they can recover from their ceaseless labors on behalf of the workers and peasants.

#OCCUPYFAIL: Pre-dawn Pioneer Park riot leads to arrests.

THAT’S EARLY: According to Amazon, the Kindle Fire is expected to ship in 3 to 5 days. I’ve already pre-ordered mine.

UPDATE: Charlie Martin emails: “I notice that the Fire is already showing up in my Manage your Kindle page; I could apparently send books there now.”

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Thomas Prewitt writes:

I followed your lead and pre-ordered the Fire. And just like Charlie Martin, my Fire is already listed in my Amazon account online. Simply
amazing.

Amazon provides me with the best customer service and user experience of any retailer with whom I have done business, online or otherwise.
And I have never spoken with a single Amazon employee.

And this makes we wonder about Apple as they move to unionized employees. Do you think that “people” will be a competitive disadvantage for Apple?

I don’t know. Good question.

A ROUNDUP FROM ALAN BOYLE: What’s New On The Fusion Front.

KIMBERLEY STRASSEL: Obama’s Virginia Defeat: Democrats were trounced in Tuesday’s state legislature election, despite the president’s heavy investment of time in the state.

A REPUBLICAN ELECTION CYCLE? “The last time the GOP had this much legislative power in state capitals, most motion pictures were still being produced without sound.”

VETERANS’ DAY: The Old Guard: Scenes from Arlington National Cemetery.

FRANCE PLOTS Eurozone Breakaway Group.

AT AMAZON: Bestsellers in Military History.

And, of course, there’s everything by Victor Davis Hanson.

PJTV: Victor Davis Hanson on 2012 and the State of Conservatism: “It’s Going to Be a Nasty, Mean Campaign.”

JOURNALISM: Jon Krakauer rolls back claims about WaPo ‘source’ in Jessica Lynch case. “Author Jon Krakauer has quietly retreated from claims in a 2009 book that a former White House official, Jim Wilkinson, was the source for the Washington Post’s botched report about Jessica Lynch and her supposed battlefield heroics early in the Iraq War.”

DANIEL SCHUCHMAN: A New Warren (Buffett) Supreme Court?

SOLARGATE UPDATE: Andrew Morriss: Steven Chu Should Resign. “Energy Secretary Steven Chu should resign as a result of the disastrous decision to guarantee $537 million in loans to failed solar panel manufacturer Solyndra. . . . As Rep. Brian Bilbray, R-Calif., noted, putting taxpayer money in such a firm was ‘felony dumb.’ Worse, there is little doubt that the decision to guarantee the loans was politicized. The email trail uncovered by congressional investigators demonstrates considerable political pressure from the White House to approve the guarantees, leading some to speculate it was due to the Solyndra connections of Obama donor George Kaiser and his George Kaiser Family Foundation.”

FRANK J. FLEMING: Why Can’t the Republicans Nominate a Genuine Right-Wing Nut? Hey, Frank J. — it’s not too late to throw your hat into the ring!

TODAY ONLY: Pro Evolution Soccer 2012 for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, $39.99.

THE SOLYNDRA-OBAMA TIES: “While everyone else in the political universe is chasing down rumors about Herman Cain making women uncomfortable, Fox News got down on the real scandal: President Obama giving a half-billion dollars of public money to a major campaign donor.”

#OCCUPYFAIL: Reader Richard Chonak writes: “With Harvard students setting up tents in the Yard while Harvard police screen access to the place, this is a rare event: 1-percenters holding a protest inside their own gated community!”

GREED: SEIU siphons ‘dues’ from Mich. Medicaid payments. “Robert and Patricia Haynes live in Michigan with their two adult children, who have cerebral palsy. The state government provides the family with insurance through Medicaid, but also treats them as caregivers. For the SEIU, this makes them public employees and thus members of the union, which receives $30 out of the family’s monthly Medicaid subsidy.”

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Brian Tamanaha: Law Students Who Do Not Become Lawyers–Legal Educators in Denial.

Michael Olivas, the President of AALS, responded to my post showing how law schools benefit from the federal loan program by reiterating a claim often made by legal educators: You can do great things with a legal education even if you don’t become a lawyer.

Legal educators who make this claim never back it up with any concrete support. It’s an article of faith that getting a law degree must be good–no matter what it costs or how much debt a student takes on to get it.

Olivas fails to mention that what my post showed (based upon data provided by Thomas Jefferson) is that graduates who got jobs as lawyers earned the highest pay of graduates of the class of 2010 at Thomas Jefferson, and even the graduates who landed lawyer jobs did not earn enough to pay off the average debt of the class. The graduates who did not land jobs as lawyers–two thirds of the class–were undoubtedly worse off.

Consequently, while the many graduates who did not land jobs as lawyers may have benefitted in some way from their law degree (as Olivas claims), most did not benefit financially. More to the point, almost all of the graduates with the average debt who did not land jobs as lawyers are in dire economic straits. What good are all these abstract benefits of a law degree to graduates if they have graduated to decades of financial hardship?

Indeed.

RAND SIMBERG: Russia’s Mars Mission Stuck In Earth Orbit.

THE COUNTRY’S IN THE VERY BEST OF HANDS: GAO: At IRS, taxpayer information not secure. “Taxpayer information held by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is vulnerable to access by unauthorized people, according to a report released today from the Government Accountability Office (GAO). The report cites ‘information security deficiencies’ at the IRS, which also compromise the agency’s ability to guarantee that ‘financial statements are fairly presented.'”