GOODBYE, AND NO THANKS FOR ALL THE BIG GOVERNMENT: Ron Paul rips big government in farewell.

UPDATE: New York Sun: The Ron Paul Awakening.

KATRINA ON THE HUDSON: 16 Days Without Power In Manhattan High-Rise; Stench of Rotten Eggs.

Also: FEMA Sold Off Emergency Housing As Sandy Approached. “Federal officials sold hundreds of emergency trailers for disaster victims at fire-sale prices in the months before Hurricane Sandy churned toward the United States, The Washington Examiner has learned. Now, with thousands of families left homeless in New York and New Jersey by the hurricane, those same federal officials are poised to spend more taxpayer dollars to buy brand-new trailers.”

KATRINA ON THE HUDSON: Tumblr mocks media for obsessing over Petraeus scandal while ignoring Hurricane crisis.

Here’s the blog.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: U.S. News Strips George Washington of its Ranking Due to Cheating.

BUDGET: Republicans Say They Will Not Back Down.

MICHAEL WALSH: The Real Housewives of Benghazi: Will a Sleazy Sex Story Lead the MSM to Obama’s Watergate?

HOW’S THAT HOPEY-CHANGEY “FORWARD! VOTE FOR REVENGE!” STUFF WORKIN’ OUT FOR YA? Latino Poverty Rate Climbs to 28%. Funny how all this news has come out just since last week’s election.

AN ASTEROID IMPACT SIMULATOR.

THE HILL: Gov. Christie’s Obama Problem. “His reaction to the hurricane may have saved his governorship but doomed his national hopes.” Personally, I wonder if Christie’s contemplating a party switch.

LOWER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Failing School Has Every Teacher and Principal Rated ‘Highly Effective.’

Every teacher and principal in the Hazel Park School District’s four elementary schools, junior high and high school were given “highly effective” ratings in 2011-12 by administrators despite district-wide failing grades for student achievement.

The state of Michigan gave Hazel Park High School an “F” for student achievement in 2011-12 in all four of the measured subjects — reading, science, social studies and math. Yet every teacher was given the highest rating in the new state-mandated evaluation of teachers.

The really shocking thing is that this doesn’t come as a shock at all.

JALOPNIK: The Fascinating History Of The Garbage Truck And The Knoxville Mayor Behind It. His name was George Roby Dempster.

MICHAEL S. GREVE: A Handout, Never A Hand Up.

Hand-up programs are the polar opposite in all dimensions. Under those programs we ask, because we must, whether people deserve assistance (lest the hand-up become a mere handout or anybody show up). Such situational, discretionary judgments about people’s character and competence are vexing and difficult even for parents, who will often get them wrong; yet hand-up programs entrust government case workers with thousands of such decisions, with respect to unknown people. Moreover, one program leads to another: a small business loan produces a solar power loan produces a grant to Jeffrey Immelt. “Julia” clambers from one program to the next; there never seems to be a time when she does not need, or receive, a hand up. And adverse incentive effects become pervasive and pernicious. People borrow to study when they should work; buy homes on credit when they should rent; rely on government “insurance” when they should save for old age; build windmills and $100,000 electric cars that burn up on New Jersey docks.

All this is nearly unavoidable. Hand-up programs, political economists have noted, can work without nasty incentive effects only under exceedingly narrow circumstances. They are like monetary inflation: the desired results transpire if, and only if, you can spring it on the country as a surprise and, at the same time, credibly promise never to do it again. That’s the Homestead Act and (for more recent examples) the GI Bill and the first deduction for home mortgage interest. However, we are light years beyond that.

Indeed we are.

RAMESH PONNURU: “Romney was not a drag on the Republican party. The Republican party was a drag on him.” “The ordinary person does not see himself as a great innovator. He, or she, is trying to make a living and support or maybe start a family. A conservative reform of our health-care system and tax code, among other institutions, might help with these goals. About this person, however, Republicans have had little to say.”

FOREIGN POLICY: Investigate The FBI: The real Petraeus scandal is why the bureau was rummaging around in his private communications in the first place.

AT AMAZON, Special Offers in Computers & Accessories.

Also, bestsellers in laptops and netbooks.

DEFENESTRATED: “By all accounts, the driving force behind Mr. Petraeus’s departure last Friday was the revelation about his extramarital affair with his biographer. But new details about Mr. Petraeus’s last days at the CIA show the extent to which the Benghazi attacks created a climate of interagency finger-pointing. That undercut the retired four-star general’s backing within the Obama administration as he struggled with the decision to resign. . . . Many officials say Mr. Petraeus didn’t act like someone who intended to resign as he mounted an aggressive defense of the CIA over Benghazi a week before Mr. Clapper was told about the affair.”

But didn’t Petraeus say that the President allowed him to resign? This story reads as if it’s sourced mostly with Petraeus enemies within the Administration. . . . Jan Masaryk was unavailable for comment, though he was wearing pajamas when last sighted.

WELL, I GUESS OBAMA’LL DO IT, THEN: New York Sun: Naming Kerry Defense Secretary would be a “calculated insult to American veterans.”

PRICE “GOUGING:” Walter Williams explains economics to Chris Christie and Eric Schneiderman.

THE COUNTRY’S IN THE VERY BEST OF HANDS: Interior Secretary Threatens To Punch Reporter.

On Election Day, at a rally for Barack Obama in Fountain, Colorado, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar was being interviewed by Dave Phillips, a reporter for the Colorado Springs Gazette Telegraph, about Salazar’s policies in dealing with America’s wild horse populations. When the interview was over, Salazar threatened Phillips, “If you set me up like this again, I’ll punch you out.”

This threat was made in the presence of Ginger Kathrens, Executive Director of the Cloud Foundation, a Colorado-based wild horse advocacy organization. Kathrens, shocked, said, “I was stunned by the Secretary’s rude and clearly hostile comment toward Dave.”

Small men tend to respond angrily when asked uncomfortable questions.

PERCEPTION OF INFLATION varies by demographic. Interestingly, groups that vote Democratic generally seem to think inflation is worse. This might be a wedge issue, properly deployed.

HONEST, GUYS, I haven’t been ignoring you. At least, not on purpose. No Pasarán is a great blog. It’s just a big blogosphere and I don’t get everywhere.

RACISM IN AMERICA: Overwhelmingly white crowd laughs at and applauds defeat of black politician. Well, he was kinda uppity.

BYLINED BIGOTS: BuzzFeed Reporter Details Journalists’ Private Anti-Mormon Bigotry.

THOUGHTS ON OBAMA’S MATH PROBLEMS.

TAX APOCALYPSE? What The Fiscal Cliff Means For Average Families.