THE CARNIVAL OF SPACE IS UP!

PROFESSOR JACOBSON IS COVERING the Michigan Right To Work Protests. Or, more accurately, the Michigan protests against the right to work. So they’re anti-rights protesters!

Meanwhile, Michigan Democrats are threatening violence: “There will be blood.” So they’re violent anti-rights protesters!

You’d think this would get more national press, but then, lots of journalists are union members and hence have a conflict of interest.

UPDATE: Thugs follow-through with violence; AFP tent stormed, Steven Crowder punched.

Related: Teacher’s Union Protesting With Misspelled Sign.

MORE: Video: Democrats Threaten Violence on Michigan House Floor.

“Michigan has both the highest unionization and unemployment rates in the Midwest.” Coincidence?

EMILY ESFAHANI SMITH: Let’s Give Chivalry Another Chance. Just remember, chivalry was a system, which imposed behavioral expectations on women as well as men.

RICHARD EPSTEIN: Memo to SCOTUS: Cut the FDA Down to Size.

SAY, MAYBE MAYOR BLOOMBERG AND HIS “PUBLIC HEALTH” FOLKS SHOULD TURN THEIR ATTENTION FROM SODAS TO ACTUAL PUBLIC HEALTH: Study Shows Soaring STD Rates In Many Areas Of New York City.

LIMITS OF THE POLICE POWER: Dave Kopel asks: Does any government have the legitimate power to ban medical marijuana?

His analysis is based on an article that he and I wrote a while back.

KATRINA ON THE HUDSON, NOW WITH EXTRA BUREAUCRACY: NYC Housing Authority Misses Big On Sandy.

FEMA is still picking up the pieces from Hurricane Sandy more than a month after the storm hit New York City. Although most of the city has returned to normal, federal disaster employees continue to find distressed people, often the elderly and disabled, trapped in apartments in the farthest corners of the city. Federal and city authorities are now assessing what exactly went wrong. Much of the blame thus far lies with the city Housing Authority, which is charged with managing city-owned housing and preparing for exactly this sort of catastrophe.

A new feature in the New York Times explores just how unprepared and ineffective the Housing Authority was in tackling the largest disaster the city has seen since 9/11. . . . The article compiles an overwhelming list of failures: signs of deep incompetence, political game-playing and multilayer bureaucratic failure on the part of the Housing Authority. Faced with a serious crisis, the agency failed miserably in doing its most basic job—not so much because of a lack of money as because of slothful management and an inefficient, ossified bureaucratic culture. The Housing Authority after Sandy did exactly what bureaucracies usually do: it covered its rear, staged heartwarming photos for the press, and shamefully neglected the poor and the helpless it was supposed to serve. In other words, it behaved much like a failing public school, or any other blue model institution out of its depth and focused mostly on preserving its routine as the real world crumbles around it.

Disgraceful. But hardly surprising.

AN EMBARRASSING METRIC DISAPPEARS: Why are government statistics on taxpayer migration being discontinued? “The IRS and the U.S. Census Bureau (which provides technical support in reporting tax migration data) have not made an official announcement as to why the program is being discontinued. So we are left to speculate why such vital economic statistics suddenly got canceled. . . . The very idea of people voting with their feet is uncomfortable to some politicians.”

Hayek: “Everything which might cause doubt about the wisdom of the government or create discontent will be kept from the people. The basis of unfavorable comparisons with elsewhere, the knowledge of possible alternatives to the course actually taken, information which might suggest failure on the part of the government to live up to its promises or to take advantage of opportunities to improve conditions–all will be suppressed. There is consequently no field where the systematic control of information will not be practiced and uniformity of views not enforced.”

From The Road To Serfdom.

I BLAME BUSH: Cayman Islands Premier Arrested. Charges against Premier McKeeva Bush include misuse of government credit cards and importation of explosives.

AT AMAZON, Warehouse Deals in Pet Products.

Also, today only: Assassin’s Creed III for $33 plus get three $3 Amazon Credits.

HMM: ATF Ruling On Sporting Purposes Exemption To Armor Piercing Ammunition.

TWEET OF THE DAY: Would Obama for America have been more effective as a union shop?

IT’S NOT SCIENCE, IT’S CNN: “Any dope could fix a cable news network. Except guys like Jeff Zucker.” You want a boost in ratings for CNN? Give Dana Loesch her own show. It’s that simple.

MY USA TODAY COLUMN: Obama’s Free Market Space Exploration Success.

DANIEL LIN: Why Is Higher Education So Expensive?

Related item here.

LOOKING FOR WAR ON TERROR NEWS? Fred Pruitt’s Rantburg has got you covered.

CULTURE OF CORRUPTION: The Sebelius Coverup. “It gets worse. HHS has contracted with a subsidiary of a private health care company to help build and police the very exchanges in which that company will be competing for business. The person who ran the government entity that awarded that contract has since accepted a position with a different subsidiary of that same company. An insurance industry insider (speaking on the condition of anonymity) says that HHS, in an attempt to hide this unseemly contract from public view until after the election, encouraged the company to hide the transaction from the Securities and Exchange Commission.”

Plus this: “One critic familiar with the business rivalries of the insurance industry compared UnitedHealth Group’s purchase of QSSI to the New York Yankees hiring the American League’s umpires.”

TOO FAT TO FIGHT: Rising number of soldiers being dismissed for failing fitness tests.

UPDATE: What the Army gets wrong about physical fitness and training.

NEW FROM MICHAEL BARONE — and just 99 cents on Kindle — Can Big Government Be Rolled Back? As a huge Barone fan, I of course bought it immediately. (Bumped).

BLUE HADES WERE PROBABLY INVOLVED: Mysterious mass whale graveyard unearthed in the Chilean desert.

HOW’S THAT HOPEY-CHANGEY STUFF WORKIN’ OUT FOR YA? (CONT’D): The Mysterious Case Of America’s Negative Real Wage Growth. “Wages have risen below the rate of inflation for 22 consecutive months, with real wages printing their last positive number back in January 2011 and negative ever since!”

LEARNING TO COOK in Costa Rica.

THE BIOLOGICAL AND SOCIAL IMPLICATIONS OF DELAYED PARENTING.

Related: Study says college students think 25 is right time to tie the knot.

SCANDALOUS: No Shots Fired: State Department’s Benghazi Security Force Unarmed. That’s just pathetic. Under a Reynolds Administration, they’d have flamethrowers. #Reynolds2016.