DAVID BERNSTEIN: Does race really “matter” to Justice Sotomayor? “Race matters” is an odd rallying cry from a justice who for all intents and purposes treats Asian Americans as indistinct from whites. It’s not race in general that matters, it’s La Raza.

OUT: FAR-LEFT 9/11 TRUTHERS. In: Far-Left ISIS Truthers. Sad to think that Naomi Wolf was a top adviser to Al Gore. We really dodged a bullet in 2000.

NEW YORK TIMES: As Ebola Fears Widen, Reports of Possible Cases Grow. Most of these will be false alarms; possibly all will be. But quite possibly some will be genuine. All must be treated as genuine until the truth can be nailed down.

MAYBE THERE’S A CONNECTION: Fewer Men Are Working, And Marriage Is Dying. The male workforce participation graph is appalling.

YOU HAVE TO BE DESPERATE TO TAKE BLOOD FROM RANDOM AFRICANS, BUT. . . . Use of Ebola Survivors’ Blood as Possible Treatment Gains Support.

AT AMAZON, Fall Deals in Men’s Clothing.

Also, stock up at the new Restaurant & Bulk Food Store.

BIG DEAL, I KNOW PLENTY OF PEOPLE WHO CAN DO THIS. New material steals oxygen from the air: One spoonful absorbs all the oxygen in a room. Though actually it sounds as if it would have to be a pretty big spoon.

MAN SHOOTS DOWN DRONE, Lawyers Scratch Their Heads.

Related: Self-Defense Against Overflying Drones: “The fact that it is a robot posing the threat is significant. The law treats robots as property. (If robots ever achieve consciousness, or perhaps even the ability to simulate consciousness convincingly, we may need to revisit that status, but that day likely is far off, and we’re concerned about the present.) Acts of self-defense that would be unreasonable when threatened by a human will in many cases be reasonable — in an otherwise similar situation — in response to threats from a mere chattel.”

MOST OF US WOULD REGARD THAT AS AN IMPROVEMENT: Cancer-Detecting Yogurt Could Replace Colonoscopies.

GIVEN THE HISTORY OF THE BIG DIG AND THE BAY BRIDGE, IF “WE” IS THE GOVERNMENT THE ANSWER IS NO: Could We Actually Build A Space Colony?

ON MEGYN KELLY’S SHOW, J. Christian Adams on the Ebola legal authority Obama isn’t using. The elections are 31 days away.

TAXPROF ROUNDUP: The IRS Scandal, Day 513.

THIS HAS ALWAYS SEEMED OBVIOUS TO ME, BUT THE WAY PEOPLE KEEP RECYCLING THE HENRY FORD STORY SUGGESTS THAT IT’S NOT OBVIOUS TO EVERYONE. SO: Employees Are Not Your Customers.

So let’s run a simple model based on Henry Ford’s legendary $5-a-day wage, introduced in 1914, which more than doubled the $2.25 workers were being paid.

That’s about $700 a year, almost enough to buy a Ford car (the Model T debuted at $825). Now let’s assume, unrealistically, that the workers devoted their extra wages to buying nothing but Model Ts; as soon as they bought the first one, they started saving for the next.

Is Ford making money on this transaction? No. At best, it could break even: It pays $700 a year in wages, gets $700 back in the form of car sales. But that assumes that it doesn’t cost anything except labor to make the cars. Unfortunately, automobiles are not conjured out of the ether by sheer force of will; they require things such as steel, rubber and copper wire. Those things have to be purchased. Once you factor in the cost of inputs, Ford is losing money on every unit.

But can the company make it up in volume, as the old economist’s joke goes? Perhaps by adding the workers to its customer base, Ford can get greater production volume and generate economies of scale. But Ford sold 300,000 units in 1914; its 14,000 employees are unlikely to have provided the extra juice it needed to drive mass efficiencies.

Like I say, this should be obvious, except to people who think in catchphrases.

THEY TOLD ME IF I VOTED FOR MITT ROMNEY, WOMEN WOULD BE SENT BACK TO THE KITCHEN. AND THEY WERE RIGHT! “The number of women in the workforce has fallen to levels not seen in nearly 30 years.”

NEWS YOU CAN USE: What’s Racist, What’s Not (As of Friday Oct. 3, 2014).

AT AMAZON, Warehouse Deals in Sports & Outdoors.

Also, 20% or more off in TV & Video.

REMAIN CALM! ALL IS WELL! U.S. Officials Urge Calm in Face of Ebola Concerns.

Related: Critics say Ebola case mishandled from the start.

UPDATE: White House Pushes Back Against Ebola Critics.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Dallas Ebola case spurs concern about hospital readiness.

MORE: Via the comments below, a report from a presentation on Ebola.

Also: Richard Fernandez: My Hull Is So Big And The Leak Is So Small. “The CDC is saying that they have a revolver with thousands of chambers and only of them has a cartridge in it. Mobley is saying that’s true but if you keep playing Russian Roulette long enough you’ll eventually hit upon a loaded chamber. Spin the wheel enough times and eventually Ebola gets lucky. The more Ebola patients there are worldwide the more times you spin the wheel. Dr. Mobley is saying that if the disease keeps exploding in West Africa the wheel will get spun too often. Someone will get through, because even though the chance of arriving is individually small, there are just too many individuals who might potentially try to get through. . . . One result from this analysis is that no one is really safe from Ebola until the the locus of the disease has been beaten down. No matter how you isolate, the plague is out there. You are then like Prince Prospero in his castle, safe for so long as the Red Death cannot scale your fortress wall. But if he does the problem starts again. . . . Parenthetically, what is really interesting is where the ‘Precautionary Principle’ has gone to. The administration used to be really worried about the long shot odds that Michael Mann’s climate model might be right. But it doesn’t worry about Ebola odds. Maybe we should apply the Precautionary Principle all of the time or none of the time. But it’s altogether too confusing to apply it in this uneven manner.”

STILL MORE: Via the comments: New York Times Readers React to Suggestion We Should Ban Travel from Outbreak Countries: Racism!, Racism!, Racism!

CULTURE OF CORRUPTION: HUD Official Pleads Guilty To Stealing $843,000 In Taxpayer Funds.

Former Housing and Urban Development loan specialist Brian Thompson pleaded guilty Thursday to stealing $843,000 of taxpayer money in a wire fraud scheme.

Thompson was responsible for selling properties acquired by the government after borrowers defaulted on their HUD-guaranteed mortgages. Specialists like Thompson were tasked with ensuring the sale of these properties at the best possible price to reimburse the government for taxpayer funds made to mortgage lenders for insured loans. Instead, he funneled portions of the proceeds into bank accounts he controlled, netting himself $843,000 in the process.

Thompson scheme went undetected for nearly a year. To conceal his fraud, he fabricated settlement documents with false sales prices and even buyer names.

A fish rots from the head.

MONA CHAREN: Feminist Lies about Sexual Assault: Their rejection of immutable sex differences has contributed to the “rape culture” they now decry. “For all their bold talk about empowerment, feminists seem always to demand that they not be forced to deal with reality.”

IT’S COME TO THIS: Politico Ridiculously Accuses 2016 GOP Hopefuls of Fomenting Ebola Panic. Stephen Kruiser is hurtfully blunt: “If anyone is mildly panicking, it is solely because the Dallas situation has been mishandled in many ways and we were assured recently that the situation wasn’t going to happen anyway. Kudos, however, to Politico for carrying some water for the administration in advance. Good doggies.”

From the comments:

OUT: Ebola is the most deadly viral threat Africa has ever faced.

IN: Why are Republicans so worried about a containable bug? Racists!

Heh.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE, LEGAL EDUCATION EDITION: Legal Services Sector Sheds Jobs at Highest Rate in Five Years. “The U.S. legal services sector shed 4,600 jobs in September, the biggest one-month drop in employment for the field in nearly five years.”

MALFEASANCE IN OFFICE: IRS Wrongly Withheld Info in Hundreds of Cases, Watchdog Finds.

YOU CAN SEE MY WHOLE “TEACH WOMEN NOT TO RAPE!” SERIES IN ONE PLACE at this link.

JOURNALISM: Ebola infection of NBC cameraman has news organizations looking at risks.

The Associated Press has used a team of journalists to cover the story, including AP reporters Krista Larson and Jonathan Paye-Layleh, photographers Jerome Delay and Abbas Dulleh, video producer Andrew Drake and TV contributor Wade Williams. The journalists eat all meals in their hotel, and wash their shoes with a mixture of bleach and water when they return from reporting. They don’t take cabs or rides with drivers they don’t know.

The reporters seek to interview people outside of their homes and try not to touch anything or sit down when in neighborhoods affected by the epidemic, Larson said.

Well, did the NBC cameraman follow similar rules? Because if he did, that’s worrisome.