WELL, MOST OF THE U.N. MEMBERSHIP HAS MORE IN COMMON WITH ARAFAT THAN WITH CIVILIZATION: Today The UN Will Make Arafat Proud and Steal Jewish Heritage.

AT AMAZON, Top Holiday Deals in Camera, Photo & Video.

Also, today only: Up to 65% Off Men’s and Women’s Cashmere.

LOWER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: THE TEXAS EDUCATION MIRACLE:

The Department of Education has just released its first state-by-state comparison of education statistics, and the report has a few surprises. Texas performed extremely well, tying five other states for the third-best graduation rate in the country, at 86 percent.

And Texas isn’t the only high-performing red state: Indiana, Nebraska, North Dakota and Tennessee all place within the top ten as well. Meanwhile, New York, Rhode Island, and California, all of which take a traditional, high-spending, blue model approach to education, are closer to the middle of the pack , with graduation rates in the mid-70s.

This is convincing evidence against the popular notion that we can fix the public education system if only we are willing to spend more money. Not only does Texas do a better job of graduating its students than its blue state competition; it does so at a fraction of the cost per student.

Expect this report to get comparatively little press. . . .

INVESTOR’S BUSINESS DAILY: Jesse Jackson, Jr., Mel Reynolds, and a sordid tale of Chicago politics that reveals how Obama got his start.

HOW’S THAT HOPEY-CHANGEY STUFF WORKIN’ OUT FOR YA? (CONT’D): Ugly Q3 GDP Confirms Personal Consumption Collapsing; Headline “Growth” Driven By Government, Inventory Accumulation. You know, I’m beginning to wonder if they tried to fake the numbers upward for the election or something. As usual, Freddy Hayek called it.

IT WOULD BE AWESOME, THAT’S WHAT. DUH. What If NASA Could Figure Out the Math of a Workable Warp Drive? “A new line of research hopes to drastically reduce the amount of energy required for warping space-time, and get us to Alpha Centauri in just two weeks time.”

YA THINK? WaPo: Fight over Susan Rice holds political risks for White House. “Even moderate Republican and onetime Rice supporter Sen. Susan Collins (Maine) declined to offer her backing after their 75-minute private session Wednesday.” You’ll notice that she’s not getting much help from Dem Senators, either. And given the failure of her high-profile meetings to win over critics, she hasn’t demonstrated much in the way of hands-on diplomatic skills. . . .

UPDATE: Neil Munro: Obama throws Rice at media, distracts reporters from White House silence on Egypt. “White House officials have reignited the post-Benghazi furor over a low-budget anti-Islam YouTube video just as President Barack Obama’s signature Muslim-outreach strategy is facing a disastrous and humiliating collapse on global TV.”

INSTAVISION: Why the No-Tax Pledge Is An IQ Test for Republicans. I talk with Cato’s Dan Mitchell about the fiscal cliff, and why the GOP keeps falling for the same trick. Plus, Dan and I brainstorm on tax increases the Republicans should get behind. I like his proposal for an excise tax on CEO salaries, since so many of them seem to think we’re undertaxed.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Michael Barone: Affirmative action and a war on free speech have taken a toll on higher education. “The willingness to lie systematically seems to be a requirement for such jobs.”

WELL, THAT’S WHAT THE DEMOCRATS SEEM TO WANT: Conn Carroll: We’re Going Over The Cliff.

SEE, ONCE CALIFORNIA WOULD HAVE BEEN IN THE LEAD FOR SOMETHING LIKE THIS: Zurich to open Drive-In Sex Boxes to get prostitutes off the streets.

BRUCE THORNTON: The Rise of Faux Diversity.

DIVERSITY PROBLEM: 96% of Political Donations From Ivy League Faculty & Staff Went to Obama.

CREATING THE ARCHITECTURAL LANGUAGE OF 20TH CENTURY AMERICA: A review by Ed Driscoll of a new biography of Mies van der Rohe.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: 5 Things To Know Before Taking Out A Student Loan. I’m tempted to say, “Don’t, don’t, don’t, don’t, and don’t.” But that’s a bit of an exaggeration. There are a few circumstances where student loans may be justified, but they should be viewed with extreme distrust.

BOB OWENS: Washington Post Goes Full Bigot:

I guess I should consider myself fortunate to have even appeared on their radar as an anthropological experiment, being a white, southern, public university graduate. It is not something of which the Post editorial board approves.

The Post editorial board, you see, is a thing of rare beauty and diversity.

Harvard-educated Fred Hiatt has been with the paper since 1981, as has Harvard-educated Lee Hockstader, Harvard-educated Stephen Stromberg, Harvard-educated Charles Lane, and Harvard-educated Opinions editor Marisa Bellack.

Yale-educated Jackson Diehl and Ruth Marcus are the Ivy League “outsiders.” Jo-Ann Armao, another white liberal, comes from the University of Buffalo, along with progressive cartoonist Tom Toles. Jonathan Capehart, the sole African-American on the board, shares the same diversity of thought as his colleagues. His difference from his peers is literally skin-deep, his individual editorials interchangeable with those of his peers in terms of view and substance.

There are no westerners, southerners, or Midwesterners on the Post editorial board, nor are there any libertarians, Republicans, or conservatives.

Most have been with the paper for decades. All are creatures of the Beltway, living inside the cocoon of Washington, D.C., itself or in its wealthy suburbs, which are the richest in the nation. Hiatt himself lives in Chevy Chase, where the median family income is more than $200,000 per year, and the average home price is $855,000.

The Post editorial board is insular, isolated, and lock-step liberal in belief.

And because of this, they still don’t appreciate how much they damaged their brand with a single editorial.

DR. HOUSING BUBBLE: Modified mortgages re-enter shadow inventory – By next month the housing crisis will have cost 5,000,000 Americans their homes via foreclosures. Distressed inventory still above 5,000,000. Funny, everything was sounding all hopey-changey just a few weeks ago.

RUSH LIMBAUGH: This Will Get Turned Around.

WHEN I FIRST SAW THIS STORY, I THOUGHT IT SAID Mal Reynolds, and I was kinda enthusiastic. Then I looked again . . . .

A BUSINESS PLAN FOR UNDEREMPLOYED ATTORNEYS:

– Recruit some students on a conservative web site.
– Go out and find these professors. The locals will know who they are.
– Sign up for their classes.
– Record this stuff at various colleges
– File sexual harassment/gender discrimination lawsuits against these colleges
– Settle them. Colleges pay. Attorney gets paid. College student gets money to pay for college.

Well, but where are you going to find any underemployed attorneys in this booming legal economy? Colleges might not want to settle, of course, but the discovery process might change their minds.

ERICK ERICKSON: The Incestuous Bleeding Of The Republican Party. Forbid consultants from taking a commission on ad buys. That’s not a total solution, but it’s a start.

IT ALWAYS TURNS OUT THE SAME WAY WHEN YOU ELECT THE SAME KIND OF PEOPLE: Fitch downgrades Argentina and predicts default.

AT AMAZON, it’s the Holiday Toy List.

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FRANKLY, THIS IS THE FIRST POSITIVE THING I’VE HEARD ABOUT HER: Susan Rice owns stock in company that wants to build Keystone pipeline.

UPDATE: Reader Russell Stanten writes: “Almost fell of my chair when I read how much Susan Rice is worth – 33 million. Looks like a life in politics can be quite enriching.” None of these people end up poor.

FRANK J. FLEMING, CALL YOUR OFFICE: “It was a top-secret plan, developed by the U.S. Air Force, to look at the possibility of detonating a nuclear device on the moon.”