COMPETITIVE SNOW CARVING.

ANOTHER EPA OFFICIAL RESIGNS over use of improper “secret” email accounts. “EPA Region 8 administrator James Martin is resigning this week, according to a press release from Sen. David Vitter (R., La.). Martin faces a congressional probe for allegedly using a private email account to circumvent disclosure requirements. Bob Perciasepe, the current acting EPA administrator, also used a private account to send emails to other EPA officials, Vitter said his office has discovered.” Transparency!

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JUST REMEMBER, TURNABOUT IS FAIR PLAY: Think Differently: ‘Escalating Actions’ – Union Mobilization Manual Calls For Picketing Homes.

PETER BERKOWITZ: California Higher-Ed: Regents Deny Critics a Fair Hearing.

Send them some remedial reading.

A LOOK AT THE DISASTER-RESPONSE INDUSTRY.

NICK GILLESPIE: 41 Billion Reasons Not to Sweat the Sequester: 2013 Cuts Are $44 Billion, Not $85 Billion.

Peanuts. We should cut 5% year-over-year across the board, repeat next year.

PEOPLE KEEP WRITING TO SAY I SHOULD PLUG MY EconTalk podcast appearance with Prof. Russ Roberts, so I’m doing it again. Apparently, they didn’t see my plug from last night.

LIKE REAL-LIFE TRIBBLES: Bunnies invade Denver airport, nibble on car cables. “Although officials have been removing 100 rabbits from the area every month, the damage continues. The persistent presence of rabbits can be attributed to the fact that the airport is surrounded by a prairie and the rabbits look to the vehicles for warmth and food.”

READER BOOK PLUG: From Ryan Rhodes, We Didn’t Build That, the story of a small business.

CHUCK HAGEL UPDATE: Report: Hagel Said Israel Headed Toward Apartheid, Netanyahu a ‘Radical.’ More here.

WRESTLING fights for Olympic survival. The Olympics are a corrupt joke. This is just further evidence.

WAR ON WOMEN: Press secretary Carney sneers at female reporter; ‘I know you are just filling in.’

WELL, WHY WOULD IT BE? No, California’s economy is not growing faster than the rest of the country.

JOHN TIERNEY: Prison and the Poverty Trap. “The number of Americans in state and federal prisons has quintupled since 1980, and a major reason is that prisoners serve longer terms than before. They remain inmates into middle age and old age. . . . When researchers try to explain why AIDS is much more prevalent among blacks than whites, they point to the consequences of incarceration, which disrupts steady relationships and can lead to high-risk sexual behavior. When sociologists look for causes of child poverty and juvenile delinquency, they link these problems to the incarceration of parents and the resulting economic and emotional strains on families.”

RICHARD EPSTEIN: In Praise of Income Inequality.

WALTER RUSSELL MEAD: Blues Missing the Mark on Higher Ed Reform.

As time goes on, we’re seeing a growing consensus of the left, right and center that something is seriously wrong with our higher education system. But while Stiglitz gets the problem right, his solution, that government should be responsible for “leveling the playing field,” leaves much to be desired.

What we’re seeing here is a classic example of what’s good and what’s bad about a “blue boilerplate” approach to a social issue. The good part is that Stiglitz really is concerned, as all serious people should be, about how to ensure that Americans from lower income backgrounds have real opportunities to advance themselves. And he’s certainly right to see the high cost of college education as a barrier.

But when it comes to solutions, the blue blinkers are on. Stiglitz sees a world in which pumping more government money into a dysfunctional system is the only solution to higher ed’s woes.

Indeed.

WALL STREET JOURNAL: A Degree Drawn in Red Ink: Graduates of Arts-Focused Schools Are Shown to Rack Up the Most Student Debt.

ED DRISCOLL: Interview: Jonathan Last On America’s Looming Demographic Crisis.

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MY USA TODAY COLUMN: “Asteroids are nature’s way of asking: ‘How’s that space program coming along?'”

MEREDITH BRAGG & NICK GILLESPIE: 3 Reasons to Build the Keystone XL Pipeline.

CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR: Targeting “Moderate Gun Owners” To Advance Gun Control. There’s nothing really new here: Gun controllers have always tried to pit one group of gun owners against another. But more and more, people have realized that it’s a divide-and-conquer scam. As I’ve explained before, gun-controllers’ taxonomy of guns looks like this:

“Saturday Night Specials” (cheap handguns) = Bad, must be banned

“Military Style Handguns” (expensive handguns) = Bad, must be banned

“Assault Weapons” (inaccurate, short-range rifles) = Bad, must be banned

“Sniper Rifles” (accurate, long-range rifles) = Bad, must be banned

Anybody who plays along is a fool.

OBAMA’S SECRET legal technology for drones.