LAYERS OF EDITORS AND FACT-CHECKERS: Greg Packer Snookers the L.A. Times in a Big Way.

THE MOST IMPORTANT JOB INTERVIEW QUESTION YOU CAN ASK.

Related: Thomas Edison’s Eccentric Job Interview Questions.

COGNITIVE ENHANCEMENT and political equality.

TOM MAGUIRE FACT-CHECKS CHARLES BLOW: “When is a tie not a tie? And when is a tie-breaker not a tie-breaker? When our friends in the liberal media are reporting on Obama. . . . So Michelle and Barack win the ‘Most Charitable’ title because they contributed a higher proportion of their Gross Income to a tax-advantaged retirement plan? I understand that charity begins a home, but really?”

MORE THOUGHTS ON HIGHER EDUCATION AND THE REPLICATION OF HIERARCHY:

To the Marxian idea of the “reserve army of the unemployed” is added the notion of the “reserve army of wannabee elites”. Ironically, calls by the OWS to expand tertiary education — to make it a “right” — and the Presidents stated intention to increase the percentage of college degreed students will have the effect of making the competition even more desperate; and just as those who would fight inflation by printing more money unintentionally make their plight worse, so would the preferred strategy of the current credentialed elites. But it wasn’t always like that. . . .

All elitisms run the risk of inbreeding and sterility. The real benefit of a perceived equality among citizens, as driven by the rough and tumble of economic competition, is not only that it expands the wealth pie but also continuously changes the diners at the table. That means that some at the head table may never have the proper politically correct manners, but that is the price of vitality. The problem with socialism and its near cousins is that it places the selection of winners and losers (even if called “industrial policy”) in the hands of the status quo, who quite naturally will put their friends and family first in line.

Indeed. Plus this: “Perhaps the biggest damage that the modern cult of the elite has inflicted on American culture is to turn it into some kind of Third World class culture where certain endeavors are reserved only for the right people.”

Related: When The Paper Chase Becomes A Mobius Loop.

FRACKNATION: raising money for an honest documentary on Fracking.

CHANGE: New Evidence That Retirement Is A Thing Of The Past.

ANSWERING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS: Why Do Women Flash at Mardi Gras?

NANNIES: Feds Push New York Toward Full Ban On Electronic Devices In Cars.

So Ray LaHood’s retreat was purely tactical. My thoughts on the subject are here.

SHORT TELOMERES associated with earlier death.

BARISTA REVENGE: “Be nice, or we might ‘decaf’ you!”

CHANGE: Gas Prices Are Highest Ever For This Time Of Year.

PLAYING GAMES with the Export/Import bank?

SCIENCE: Fracking Doesn’t Harm Drinking Water, Study Says.

INVESTOR’S BUSINESS DAILY: High Real Unemployment Data Reflect Poorly On Obama.

Sure, the jobless rate is falling. But according to the Congressional Budget Office, we are going through the longest stretch of high unemployment since the Depression. The rate has been higher than 8% since February 2009, the month after Obama took office.

And, says the CBO, it is expected to stay above 8% through 2014.

Even worse for an administration straining to make the case that it deserves to be around for another four years is the real unemployment rate. It’s not 8.3%, but closer to 15%, a figure that reflects those who “would like to work but have not searched for a job in the past four weeks as well as those who are working part time but would prefer full-time work,” says the CBO.

I believe that’s what the media like to call the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office.

UPDATE: Ten Depressing Charts About Long-Term Unemployment.

WALTER RUSSELL MEAD on America, China, and Asia. “China isn’t rising in a vacuum; the rise of China, while significant, is less threatening to U.S. interests than either the appeasers or the containers think. If you think about the question regionally, the option of a middle course emerges with greater plausibility: we can promote a regional environment that makes a Chinese bid for regional hegemony impossible without embracing a policy of containment. Especially given India’s rise, but also taking account of the growing power and capabilities of countries like Vietnam, Asia is just too big and too complicated for China to hope to dominate its hood the way that other powers have tried to dominate strategic geopolitical theaters.”

AT AMAZON, New Releases on DVD, Blu-Ray, and Instant Video.

MARK LEVIN’S AMERITOPIA: THE UNMAKING OF AMERICA is #1 on the New York Times bestsellers list for another week. Congratulations, Mark! I’m guessing there’s not a lot of overlap between the purchasers of Levin’s book and the purchasers of #2. . . .

SHOULD YOU SUE AN AUTOMAKER over bad fuel economy?

SO, YESTERDAY I PROPOSED A SYLLABUS FOR AN “OCCUPY” SEMINAR, and now Jason Fertig wants to take the class: “Sign me up. In fact, this idea is a prime candidate for an open, web-based course along the lines of Hillsdale’s Constitution 101 course or anything on Udacity.com. We just need to get that ball rolling.” I’m available, for a suitable lecture fee!

TAR. FEATHERS. 2nd N.C. Mother Says Daughter’s School Lunch Replaced for Not Being Healthy Enough.

Diane Zambrano says her 4-year-old daughter, Jazlyn, is in the same West Hoke Elementary School class as the little girl whose lunch gained national attention earlier this week. When Zambrano picked Jazlyn up from school late last month, she was told by Jazlyn’s teacher that the lunch she had packed that day did not meet the necessary guidelines and that Jazlyn had been sent to the cafeteria.

The lunch Zambrano packed for her daughter? A cheese and salami sandwich on a wheat bun with apple juice. The lunch she got in the cafeteria? Chicken nuggets, a sweet potato, bread and milk.

Yeah, that’s an improvement.

RON BAILEY: Bioconservatives vs. Bioprogressives: Opposition to the technologies that make life longer, healthier, and happier creates strange bedfellows.

MARK STEYN: Brokest Nation In History Fusses Instead About Sex.

Ten thousand Americans retire every day, and leave insufficient progeny to pick up the slack. In effect, Nancy has rolled a giant condom over the entire American economy.

Testifying before Congress, Timmy Geithner referred only to “demographic challenges” — an oblique allusion to the fact that the U.S. economy is about to be terminally clobbered by 100 trillion dollars of entitlement obligations it can never meet.

And, as Chart 5-1 on page 58 of the official Obama budget “Analytical Perspectives” makes plain, your feckless, decadent rulers have no plans to do anything about it.

Instead, the Democrats shriek, ooh, Republican prudes who can’t get any action want to shut down your sex life! According to CBO projections, by midcentury mere interest payments on the debt will exceed federal revenues.

For purposes of comparison, by 1788 Louis XVI’s government in France was spending a mere 60% of revenues on debt service, and we know how that worked out for His Majesty shortly thereafter.

Not to worry, says Barry Antoinette. Let them eat condoms.

This is a very curious priority for a dying republic.

Barry Antoinette? I’m sure that’s somehow racist.

NEIL MUNRO: White House economic report hides sharp drop in number of working Americans.