A CALL TO AUDIT law school admissions data.

Related: 15 more ABA-approved law schools to be sued. “With these lawsuits, nearly 10% of all ABA-approved law schools across eight states will be accused of tortiously misrepresenting job placement statistics and violating state consumer protection laws. As with the previous complaints, the relief sought will include tuition reimbursement, punitive damages, and injunctive relief such as mandatory auditing of employment data and cessation of false advertising tactics.”

PAUL KRUGMAN HAS LOST HIS OWN EDITORS: “NY Times columnist Paul Krugman has a Nobel Prize for his work in international trade but the NY Times editors have totally tuned out his embrace of the Senate Democrats and their China-bashing currency bill.” Messrs. Smoot & Hawley were unavailable for comment.

WHERE FREE SPEECH IS A PRIVILEGE: China Moves to Rein In Microblogs: “Chinese authorities have stepped up efforts in recent weeks to rein in the hugely popular microblogging sites that have become an alternative source of real-time news for millions while challenging the Communist Party’s traditional grip on information. Journalists, bloggers, media analysts and others said the moves are part of an intensifying control of the media landscape ahead of next year’s crucial Communist Party Congress, which will bring the broadest leadership change in China in a decade. Although leadership shuffles here are routinely decided behind the scenes and carefully choreographed for the public, they are still often fraught with uncertainty — and jittery authorities typically want to take no chances.”

Who do they think they are, New York?

UPDATE: Meanwhile, a free speech victory at the University of Wisconsin: Chancellor Folds after Censorship of ‘Firefly’ and Anti-Fascism Posters. “Under pressure from FIRE, national media, and actors Nathan Fillion and Adam Baldwin, the University of Wisconsin-Stout (Stout) has reversed its censorship of theater professor James Miller’s poster featuring a line from Fillion’s character in Joss Whedon’s television series Firefly. Campus police had threatened Miller with criminal disorderly conduct charges, and he was reported to the ‘threat assessment team.’ After Stout censored his second poster, which stated, ‘Warning: Fascism,’ Miller came to FIRE for help.”

FIRE does good work. If you can afford it, consider donating to ’em.

RON BAILEY: Are Republicans or Democrats More Anti-Science? Comparing the scientific ignorance of our mainstream parties.

WHY THE JAPANESE suddenly hate cars.

WHAT CONGRESS CAN LEARN from state budgets.

TAR, FEATHERS: NY Senators Want To Make Free Speech A Privilege. Of course they do.

BRAND FRATRICIDE AT GENERAL MOTORS: Caddy Buyers Mindless Status Seekers, Says Buick. “The truth, of course, is that bankrupt, bailed-out GM had to keep its Buick division alive because the brand is big in China. They’ve got to come up with some marketing rationale to justify Buick’s continued existence over here. Needs work, though.”

DANIEL INDIVIGLIO: Bloomberg’s Exposé on Koch Industries Reveals … What Exactly? Well, something about Bloomberg, anyway. “All reporters have bias. It’s unavoidable: bias results even through as simple an action as deciding what to write an article about. Much of that bias isn’t necessarily a problem. If you report facts in a fair-and-balanced manner, then readers can judge the story for themselves based on those facts. But at other times, some reporters’ bias cuts so deep that it causes them to produce an article that squints too hard to see smoke when there is no fire. Unfortunately, such an article was produced this week by Bloomberg Markets Magazine on Koch Industries. The article purports to be a hard-hitting exposé on the giant multinational, run by billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch. According to Bloomberg, 14 reporters around the globe worked for six months on the story. What did they turn up? Really, shockingly little. And what’s worse: from the very outset, the reporters’ bias against the Koch brothers is utterly clear.”

Look when you’re hearing this sort of thing from The Atlantic, you’ve got a problem.

TODAY ONLY: The Mel Brooks Collection On Blu-Ray, $42.99. We could use a laugh, these days.

STIMULUS FAIL: “Eight new Dodge Grand Caravans, purchased 10 months ago with $186,192 in federal stimulus funds are sitting unused in storage at a county park because Waukesha County has found no takers for its proposed workers’ van pool program.”

HOW’S THAT HOPEY-CHANGEY STUFF WORKIN’ OUT FOR YA (CONT’D): Layoff Plans Soar By 126% In September To 115,730, 212% Higher Than Year Ago, Highest Since April 2009. It was bad in 2009, but there might have been a real recovery. Instead, Obama has made it worse.

WHY YOU NEED A GUN IN THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA: “The statistics, contained in the department’s fiscal 2005 budget performance report, show that the average response time for the highest-priority calls — Priority 1 — was 8 minutes, 25 seconds in fiscal 2003, up from 7 minutes, 19 seconds in fiscal 2002 and 7 minutes, 47 seconds in fiscal 2001.”

When seconds count, the D.C. police are only minutes away. More minutes every year, apparently.

IS THE ERA OF FREE STUFF ending? Say it ain’t so!

JERRY POURNELLE: “I will note that the best way to make the US economy grow would be to suspend for five years all Federal Regulations on commerce. Let the states deal with it. You could provide that the suspension will take place in 180 days, and the Congress has those 180 days to reinstate any regulations it sees fit, but one at a time, not en masse. They would probably keep the US Department of Agriculture meat inspections and some programs like that rather than leaving such matters to the states. Some programs would never even be considered, like bunny inspectors. Give them 180 days to restore the necessary and all the others go. The result would be an economic miracle, but of course that will never happen.”

Of course not. Insufficient opportunities for graft.

MEGAN MCARDLE: Stainless Steel and Granite: The Harvest Gold of the Future? “I recently discovered HGTV, a channel I watched devotedly for about three weeks before all the renovations began to look the same to me. Every young couple looking for a house wants stainless steel and granite countertops, and wants them RIGHT NOW. Everyone redoing a kitchen wants the same, ASAP. Which makes me think that these things must be on their way out. . . . My understanding of the luxury cycle is that as soon as everyone can afford a decent replica of high-priced items, the replicated qualities become outre. By that metric, stainless steel and granite have to be on their way out; the only thing more ubiquitous in the American kitchen is the George Foreman grill. On the other hand, maybe in 1948 I’d have been saying that wall-mounted cabinets were a passing fad.”

PERRY FUNDRAISING going great guns.

HEY, REMEMBER LIBYA? NATO Helping Cause Humanitarian Crisis in Libya?

Speaking of which, where’s Khaddafy?

POLITICAL WIRE: Obama Still Pushing A Dead Jobs Bill. Maybe he should start by trying to get at least one Democratic cosponsor in each house . . . .

MARK TAPSCOTT: Is Glenn Beck Re-Inventing TV? “I don’t know that putting broadcast-quality TV-type programming on the Internet is revolutionary, but it is certainly interesting.” No, it’s been done already . . . .

THE HILL: Senate Dems buck Obama on jobs plan. “Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (Nev.) on Tuesday further distanced his Democratic Conference from President Obama by nixing a major component of the White House’s jobs plan.”

Apparently that union pressure didn’t work.

LETTER TO HILDA SOLIS: Don’t mock sick nuclear workers! “According to reports by the Associated Press and other news organizations, the manual uses generic names such as ‘Freddie Krueger’ — the villain in the ‘Nightmare on Elm Street’ movies — to reference those making claims.”

SOME NFL Hitler hypocrisy.

HOW’S THAT HOPEY-CHANGEY STUFF WORKIN’ OUT FOR YA? (CONT’D): ‘Depression’ Makes Return to Mainstream Lexicon.