AT AMAZON, it’s the Automotive Outlet Sale.

REASON TV: LA’s New Crack Epidemic: Sidewalks. Have you noticed that the more time and energy cities put into things like banning big sodas or plastic grocery bags, the worse jobs they do at things that used to be considered basic functions of government?

WALTER RUSSELL MEAD: California vs. Texas:

Two of our biggest and richest states, polar opposites on the political spectrum, are taking radically different approaches to attracting new jobs. Policymakers in Washington and beyond will be watching closely to see who comes out on top.

As the match rolls on, a few things are clear. California still has the upper hand, with an economy larger than Canada’s or India’s and untapped energy reserves to rival Nigeria. But Texas has all the momentum. It places at or near the top in every ranking for business climate, whereas California consistently scrapes the bottom. It spends far less than California on education but ranks significantly higher. And California business leaders are growing more frustrated by the day, as Sacramento seems determined to squeeze them for ever more revenue.

This is the Ali vs. Frazier of interstate rivalries. It promises to be the fight of the decade.

It may turn out more like the Rumble In The Jungle.

ONLY POLICE SHOULD BE TRUSTED WITH GUNS (CONT’D): Women delivering newspapers in Torrance shot in manhunt for ex-cop.

An armed civilian who made this mistake would be tried for every possible crime a prosecutor could imagine. How likely do you think that is here?

JOURNALISM: MSM covers up Christopher Dorner’s hard-Left political views.

Master murder-politicizer Piers Morgan: Don’t politicize Dorner murder spree.

Disturbing: Supporters, admirers leap to alleged murderer Christopher Dorner’s defense.

UPDATE: It’s worth taking Piers Morgan off TV if it saves a single life.

I also worry about the example set by gun-scofflaw David Gregory. Think of the children!

EMPTY CHAIR: “Defense Secretary Leon Panetta testified this morning on Capitol Hill that President Barack Obama was absent the night four Americans were murdered in Benghazi on September 11, 2012.”

VIRTUAL CURRENCY: Could Amazon’s Virtual Currency Buy You a Coffeemaker Someday? I think they should have called them “Bezos Bucks.”

WHAT’S YOUR USED CAR WORTH? How They Decide Your Car’s Residual Value.

AT AMAZON, 30% off on Men’s Sportcoats & Blazers. Also, 30% off on Men’s Casual Buttondowns, and on Men’s Casual Pants.

21ST CENTURY RELATIONSHIPS: My Lesbian Girlfriend Is Jealous Of Me.

REAL ESTATE: Earthlike Planets Are Right Next Door. “Using publicly available data from NASA’s Kepler space telescope, astronomers at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) have found that six percent of red dwarf stars have habitable, Earth-sized planets. Since red dwarfs are the most common stars in our galaxy, the closest Earth-like planet could be just 13 light-years away.”

I WAS EXPECTING AN EARTH-SHATTERING KABOOM: Asteroid to Give Earth a Close Shave Next Week. At its closest approach, the asteroid will come within 17,000 miles of Earth. That’s close enough, in astronomical terms, Lewis says, ‘to give you a haircut without breaking your skin. This is really close.’ The asteroid will pass within the 22,000-mile orbit of geosynchronous communications satellites, but above the International Space Station, which orbits between 230 and 286 miles from Earth.”

CLOVIS PEOPLE were not wiped out by a comet.

NEWS YOU CAN USE, especially if you find yourself in Nemo’s path: 8 Ways to Avoid a Winter Pileup. And when did we start naming non-hurricanes?

UPDATE: The answer, reader Bill Woods points out, is that “we” didn’t, it’s just the Weather Channel.

ARE WE TOO COMPLACENT ABOUT ASTEROIDS?

SOME THOUGHTS ON ROGER SIMON’S DEPARTURE FROM ROGER KIMBALL, STEPHEN GREEN, AND NEO-NEOCON.

I’ll just note that Roger is departing as CEO, but staying on as writer. I think being a writer is much more fun than being a CEO, which is why I am what I am! And can you believe PJ has been around since 2005?

DON’T BE AFRAID OF THE ROBOTS:

The robot equipment industry has one word for the alarmist articles and television news programs that predict a robot is about to steal your job: Fiddlesticks! Well, that wasn’t actually the word used this week at the Automate 2013 trade show held here through Thursday, but the sentiment was the same. During a presentation on Monday, Henrik I. Christensen, the Kuka Chair of Robotics at Georgia Institute of Technology’s College of Computing, sharply criticized a recent “60 Minutes” report on automation that was based on the work of the M.I.T. economists Andrew McAfee and Erik Brynjolfsson. . . .

During his talk, Dr. Christensen said that the evidence indicated that the opposite was true. While automation may transform the work force and eliminate certain jobs, it also creates new kinds of jobs that are generally better paying and that require higher-skilled workers.

Notorious robophobe Matt Yglesias was unavailable for comment.

GOLF’S ONE CONSTANT: The Need For Consistency.

SO FLOYD CORKINS, THE GUY WHO SHOT UP THE FAMILY RESEARCH COUNCIL, used a Southern Poverty Law Center “hate map” to pick his targets.

And now this: Suspected LA Cop Killer Posted Pro-Obama, Pro-Gun Control, Leftist Rant on the Web.

When will these lefties stop the hate?

CHARLES BLAHOUS: Obamacare’s Fiscal Nightmare: If the law isn’t scaled back by 2014, we’re ruined.

SEE, THIS IS WHY, IF YOU DON’T LIKE THAT SORT OF THING, YOU SHOULD WANT A REPUBLICAN PRESIDENT — THEY GET MORE MEDIA SCRUTINY. US newspapers accused of complicity as drone report reopens security debate: New York Times and Washington Post knew about secret drone base in Saudi Arabia but agreed not to disclose it to the public.

CONQUEST VIA COMMERCE: Is Communist China Executing a Slow-Motion Media Takeover of Taiwan? “The proposed deal is so huge, and such a concern given Tsai’s ties to Beijing, that it has already caused Taiwan’s press freedom rating to fall.”

REMEMBER, ONLY THE POLICE CAN BE TRUSTED WITH GUNS: L.A. police look for ex-cop suspected in shootings. “The letter writer claimed he was terminated for reporting excessive force by a fellow officer, and said his attacks were retribution for his termination, as well as a culture of racism and violence he says continues within the department.”

MARIO LOYOLA: The Federal-State Crackup.

For decades, Democrats and Republicans alike have invested heavily in governance schemes that erode the Constitution’s separation of powers and mar its proper functioning. The Federal judiciary has uniformly rubber-stamped these schemes. The consequence has been an unsustainable spree of borrowing, spending and overregulation at the Federal level, cyclical fiscal crises at the state level, and less accountable and less representative government at every level.

These governance schemes are generally of two kinds: one erodes the separation of powers between Federal and state governments, while the other erodes the separation of powers within the Federal government. In the first category is “cooperative federalism”, whereby the Federal government uses monopoly powers to coerce and subvert the prerogatives of state governments. In the other is Congress’s delegation of vast rule-making authority to administrative agencies.

These two categories of concern are often treated as being entirely distinct, but they share profound similarities. Both are methods for Congress to escape accountability by hiding its power in other institutions of government.

Escaping accountability is a popular scheme.