FLYING MALWARE: The Virus Copter.

HOPEY-CHANGEY: Air Force May Be Developing Stealth Drones in Secret.

HISTORY: Amazing tale of a desperate WWII pilot’s encounter with a German flying ace.

The book is A Higher Call.

AVIK ROY: How Red States Wrestle with Obamacare: The Forbes Interview with Texas’ Rick Perry.

GORDON CROVITZ: Would-Be Internet Regulators Need Deleting: Obama has a ‘Nixon goes to China’ opportunity to take on an international group that may do authoritarians’ bidding.

JOEL KOTKIN: Obama’s Energy Dilemma: Back Energy-Fueled Growth or Please Green Lobby?

PRIVACY: Companies today are increasingly tying people’s real-life identities to their online browsing habits.

AT AMAZON, gift ideas in Home & Garden.

Also, markdowns on Christmas Decorations.

EARLIER, THIS ON HOW SABOTAGE STOPPED HITLER’S BOMB. Now this: Birger Stromsheim, Hero on Skis in an Anti-Nazi Raid, Dies at 101. “They had skis and explosives and a destination: the German-controlled Norsk Hydro facility, high on an isolated and snowy ridge. The Norwegians intended to destroy equipment inside that the Germans were using to produce what is known as heavy water, a crucial ingredient in making a nuclear weapon and one they feared the Nazis would use to build an atomic bomb. . . . Mr. Stromsheim was 31 at the time of the assault, the oldest member of the mission. He was particularly respected for his expertise in explosives and for his calm.”

YEARGH! Howard Dean: “The truth is, everybody needs to pay more taxes, not just the rich.”

CRAZY CAT LADIES EXPLAINED BY SCIENCE: Cat parasite toxoplasma uses ‘Trojan horse’ to infect human brain and may cause suicidal thoughts and risk-taking. Though I don’t think of “cat ladies” as especially thrill-seeking.

THE INSTA-WIFE: Oh, Those Compassionate Women…

AT AMAZON, Top Holiday Deals. New deals every day!

Just a reminder: InstaPundit is an Amazon affiliate. When you do your Christmas/Hanukkah shopping — or any other shopping — through the Amazon links on this page, including the “Shop Amazon” tab at the top or the searchbox in the right sidebar, you support the blog at no cost to yourself. Just click on the Amazon link, then shop as usual. It’s much appreciated!

PHILIP CONTAMIN: Sinking.

FOX NEWS AND IQ: Charlie Martin Debunks A Bogus Study: “So there you have it. A four-year study sparked by the outcome of the recent election, from an institution that’s admittedly a fake, from a company that won’t identify itself, supposedly funded by a Republican PAC trying to ‘cut off’ the Tea Party like a cancer, using a sample that was chosen with a particular result in mind, with a contact number that’s an anonymous free Google Voice number.”

Plus, from the comments: “Can there be a greater irony than Yahoo being taken in by an obvious hoax that claims FNC viewers are stupid?”

EGYPT: Morsi Fails To Blunt Opposition.

UPDATE: Egyptians mock Morsi and “Merchants of Religion” and show they aren’t completely down with the concept of Islamic Pharaoh quite yet.

EGYPT: Egyptian journalist tours brutal Muslim Brotherhood torture facility.

ON FOX NOW: Fly Me To The Moon, a space documentary recommended by Virginia Postrel.

MATTHEW SWEET AND SUSANNAH HOFFS: And Your Bird Can Sing.

TEN YEARS AFTER: Sugar The Road. Awesome guitar work by Alvin Lee, but man are the lyrics dated.

UPDATE: Reader Mike Oliver writes: “This is the ultimate rock song, and my personal fav since I was 17. I haven’t met 10 people over the years who ever heard of it. Great link!”

THE CRONY CHRONICLES: Miracle On Wall Street.

SHOE PURCHASES and sexual signalling.

DANIEL HENNINGER INTERVIEWS ED FUELNER: “We should never despair, our Situation before has been unpromising and has changed for the better, so I trust, it will again.”

FROM THE NUCLEAR SONGBOOK: Neutron Dance.

MOBY GRAPE: Omaha.

NANOTECHNOLOGY UPDATE: New strides in understanding mechanochemical reactions.

21st CENTURY RELATIONSHIPS: Confessions Of A Female Chubby-Chaser.

SCIENCE: Studies show fecal transplant’s effectiveness treating C. diff infections.

The Insta-Mother-in-Law is fighting a nasty recurrent c. diff. infection now. They suck. Her doctor said a lot of people are reluctant to try the fecal transplant because they think it’s gross. Grow up, people.

WHAT COULD GO WRONG? Maxine Waters To Become Senior Democrat on Financial Services Committee. “This is really an extraordinary development. ‘Flabbergasting’ might be a more apt word. Leave aside the recent ethics investigation over whether she used her position on the committee to help a bank her husband was involved with (which ended with her chief of staff getting reprimanded). Maxine Waters reliably delivers the craziest questions and the most bizarre speeches on that committee, and tends to demonstrate a stunning lack of grasp of the committee’s core subject matter.”

CHRISTINA HOFF SOMMERS: You Can Give A Boy A Doll But You Can’t Make Him Play With It.

SEVEN HEALTH BENEFITS OF SEX.

NANOTECHNOLOGY UPDATE: Look Inside A Futuristic Nanotech Lab.

READER BOOK PLUG: From Robert Sapp, Lunar Dance, the story of the first commercial Moon landing. Better hurry and read it while it’s still science fiction!

PROGRESS: Brain Pacemaker Tested On Alzheimer’s Patients. “Deep-brain stimulation is already used to treat patients with Parkinson’s, epilepsy, and obsessive-compulsive disorder, and researchers are exploring its use in other conditions, including obesity. In each case, electrodes are inserted into different regions of the brain depending on the intended therapy. In the Alzheimer’s trial, the device is placed into a region of the brain involved in learning and memory.”

BLOOD SWEAT AND TEARS: More And More.

AIRING TONIGHT: Fly Me To The Moon: A Documentary. Recommended by Virginia Postrel.

IN THE MAIL: “The Sons of Pigs and Apes”: Muslim Antisemitism and the Conspiracy of Silence.

DAN MITCHELL: The Link Between High Tax Rates and Corruption.

A “CALLOUS LACK OF CARE” AT BRITAIN’S NATIONAL HEALTH SERVICE: “This is not the first such blast of raw emotion directed against the NHS from a bereaved relative that I have read, merely the first from a Labour MP.”

NANOTECHNOLOGY UPDATE: Arbitrarily complex 3D DNA nanostructures built from DNA bricks. “This powerful advance should lead to programmable molecular arrangements for several applications.”

NETWORKED SMARTPHONES AS seismological warning systems. “The key enabler in smartphones for this type of work is in their accelerometers, that can detect and record movement and may monitor tremors. An app is being developed that will record the shaking during major events and then report the data back to a central server over the cell network. But what good is short notice when an earthquake is on its deadly way? Advance notice even in seconds is actually of value, as the BBC report noted, in not only giving people time to take cover but for trains to slow or planes to abort landings or for surgeons to manage their procedures knowing the event is on its way.”

AT AMAZON, bestsellers in Mystery, Thriller & Suspense.

Also, today only: “Singin’ in the Rain” and “Sound of Music” on Blu-ray starting at 53% Off.

POLIWOOD: Oliver Stone’s Ahistorical History Tarnishes Showtime and CBS.

A LOOK AT ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION AND INCOME INEQUALITY.

WELL, I TAPED A STOSSEL APPEARANCE LAST WEEK: Five Bloggers I’d Like To See On FOX News. But it won’t air until January. I may be back, though.

Plus, the difference between Fox News and NPR. I’ve been on NPR more often than Fox, myself.

TWEET OF THE DAY: “Being democratically elected doesn’t mean everything you do thereafter is by definition democratic.”

EGYPT: Morsi Concession Fails To Quell Anger, Protests Continue. I must say, I’m favorably impressed with the Egyptian opposition’s backbone here.

ANOTHER HAPPY READER: David Diefenderfer emails:

In July of this year you noted here at Instapundit the publication of Roger Kimball’s book “The Fortunes of Permanence”. I bought the book and it had (unfortunately, I now realize) sat on my bookshelf unread because of other reading I had set aside to do. Last night I picked Mr Kimball’s book off the shelf and read the preface before going to bed. I was enthralled and I am now very much looking forward to reading the entire book. This is my reading priority. I want to thank you for recommending this book. And I want to thank you in general for your ‘In The Mail’ recommendations on the Instapundit site. I am particularly drawn to those authors such as Mr Kimball who so articulately and unapologetically express of the values of our liberty and culture.

Glad to help!

HMM: China’s Inflation Accelerates as Food-Price Gains Quicken.

DEBT: “Two fundamental facts have created an apparently insoluble dilemma for the global economy, and have turned countries like Argentina and Greece into victims of an impossible logic. First, debt continually grows; second, there is no really satisfactory way of getting rid of it. . . . The analogue in the world of debt negotiation is that a new start that allows borrowing to begin all over again is also impossible. A cleanup is impossible. That leaves only one solution: pile on new claims to such an extent that old debts appear paltry. Those who cannot forget the past are condemned to inflate it.” Oh, goody.

DEMOCRATS NOT HAPPY: Pennsylvania Considers Electoral College Reform.

UPDATE: Reader Tony Goodhew writes:

Let me see if I have this straight – Pennsylvania’s EC plan of awarding electors based on the state vote is “rigging” but the Democrat’s National Popular Vote plan of taking all a states EC votes away from the majority voters in that state is just a sensible modernization.

Ok, Nice to know…

It’s always “rigging” unless it advantages the Dems. Narrative, you know.

STEVE HAYWARD: “I’ve been meaning to bring up the following New York Times graphic since it was published last month, as it shows that Republicans are at their highest level of control of state governments in 60 years. Not bad for a party supposedly in deep trouble and on death’s door. (Notice, by the way, that Republicans controlled exactly zero states after the 1976 election.)”

SALENA ZITO: Fiscal Debates, Then And Now.

FINAGLING AND JIGGERY-POKERY SEEM TO BE THE FIRST RESORT THESE DAYS: Claim: White House Can Block Effect of “Fiscal Cliff” Tax Increases.

The White House has the power to temporarily protect taxpayers from middle-class tax hikes even as upper income rates rise if Congress does nothing and all of the Bush-era tax rates expire in January.

Experts and lawmakers alike agree that Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has the power to adjust how much is withheld from paychecks for tax purposes — for all taxpayers or just for some.

By doing so, Geithner could ensure paychecks reflect the White House position that wealthier taxpayers with annual income higher than $250,000 see their taxes rise. Geithner at the same time could leave withholding tables where they are for the middle class, ensuring those workers don’t see a higher cut from their paychecks. . . .

The tactic could buy Washington precious time to strike a tax agreement without pinching the economy, but it carries substantial risk. If the administration miscalculates where rates end up, tinkering with withholding could morph tax refunds into hefty bills.

That would be politically uncomfortable, especially as people would notice it in the spring of 2014, an election year. I suggest, instead, that we abolish withholding entirely so as to ensure that people appreciate just how much they’re paying.

UPDATE: Withholding the Taxpayer Hostage.

REFORM: A reader emails a suggestion for ensuring better behavior from members of Congress: “I would suggest forcing them to put substantially all of their assets into a trust that is linked to the inflation adjusted GDP of the US before they take office. That way their interests would more closely coincide with those of the country and they would not be able to so easily get rich through graft and self-dealing. They would only prosper if the country prospered. As things currently exist the incentives are very nearly the opposite.”

NUCLEAR HISTORY: Alvin Weinberg’s post-war evaluation of Hitler’s nuclear program. “The general impression from the German reports is that they were on the right track and that their thinking and developments paralleled ours to a surprising extent. The fact that they did not achieve their chain reaction is primarily due to their lack of sufficient amounts of heavy water.” Because of sabotage and bombing.

GYPSY HISTORY: European Romani exodus began 1,500 years ago, DNA evidence shows. “Despite their modern-day diversity of language, lifestyle, and religion, Europe’s widespread Romani population shares a common, if complex, past. It all began in northwestern India about 1,500 years ago, according to a study reported on December 6th in Current Biology, a Cell Press publication, that offers the first genome-wide perspective on Romani origins and demographic history. The Romani represent the largest minority group in Europe, consisting of approximately 11 million people. That means the size of the Romani population rivals that of several European countries, including Greece, Portugal, and Belgium. . . . Once in Europe, Romani people began settling in various locations, likely spreading across Europe via the Balkan region about 900 years ago.”

JOURNALISM: “Homicide Victims Rarely Talk to Police,” and Other Horrible Headlines.

I BLAME THE DEEP SEVENS: Volcanoes, Not Asteroids, Killed Dinosaurs, Report Says.

FROM THE “NANNY STATE” TO THE NAMBY-PAMBY STATE.

MOCKING THE WASHINGTON POST, AND WARREN BUFFETT, for tax hypocrisy.

OUCH: If ‘He Had Been Rapping Against Gay Marriage, There Would Be No Forgiveness.’

OOPS: Spain Reignites Catalan Secession Drive.

FRANK J. FLEMING: What’s Wrong With Susan Rice?

The Republicans’ opposition to Susan Rice’s potentially becoming the next secretary of state is pretty hard to understand.

It wasn’t long ago that Republicans were all for a different black woman named Condoleezza Rice taking the same job — is the GOP just bigoted about the name Susan?

Republicans’ stated objections to Rice make no sense. They complain that she’s “dishonest” and “incompetent,” to which she could easily respond, Well, duh, that’s why I work for the government.

When did Republicans start insisting on approving only competent, honest people, especially with regard to the Obama administration? Is it just me, or did that come completely out of left field?

I thought it was common knowledge that people who are good at things get jobs in the private sector, and those who are ambitious but not particularly useful find jobs in politics. So our expectations are similar to when we give small tasks to toddlers: As long as they don’t screw things up too badly, we consider them successes.

Read the whole thing. But I love this bit in particular: “This idea that President Obama should only appoint honest, competent people is really unfair. The guy is a Chicago politician; he’s probably never once met anyone like that.”

MOE LANE: Introducing His Indifferency, President Obama.

SECULARS DOING BETTER THAN I EXPECTED: Islamist and secular Egyptians go head to head in the run-up to a referendum.

MORCHEEBA: Who Can You Trust?

GLAD TO BE OF HELP: Reader Hal Crawford writes:

I just wanted to let you know that I finally had an opportunity to serve your Pasta with Tomato, Basil and Chevre Sauce (my God, has it really been NINE years?). It was great, and enjoyed by everyone around the table. Easy to prepare too! I used bowtie pasta. And I’m not the biggest pasta fan…..

Looking forward to your presidential run in 2016.

That’s a good recipe.

AT AMAZON, Up to 50% off on Men’s Athletic Shoes & Boots.

SOUNDS LIKE A GOOD ARGUMENT FOR DAN MITCHELL’S PROPOSED EXCISE TAX ON CEO PAY — Corporate CEOs: Raise Taxes on Top 2%. Also, income from the exercise of stock options should be taxed as ordinary income, not capital gains, since it’s a replacement for salary. . . .

UPDATE: Reader Mike Chittenden writes:

I am an employee benefits and executive compensation lawyer. I just wanted to point out that income from stock options is almost always taxed as ordinary income. Only if the stock option qualifies as in incentive stock option is it taxed as capital gains. To qualify as an incentive stock option, the option has to be held for a certain amount of time and the stock has to satisfy holding requirements after the option is exercised. In addition, there are other requirements relating to the option being granted to an employee and limits on when it can be exercised (during employment or shortly after). Finally, the limit on incentive stock options is $100,000 per year (it’s a little more complicated, but that’s the basic limit). Almost all CEO options are not ISOs, but are nonqualified or nonstatutory stock options. Those are always taxed as ordinary income and are subject to employment tax (if granted to an employee).

Incentive stock options is what I meant, but I didn’t realize that CEO options weren’t usually those. My mistake, and thanks for correcting me.

KIRSTY HAWKSHAW AND OPUS III: I Talk To The Wind. I’ve done a lot of that on this blog, over the years. But the wind cannot hear.

WALTER RUSSELL MEAD SKEPTICAL about claims that West Point is dominated by “Christian Taliban.”

UPDATE: Reader Rob Crawford writes:

It’s a sad fact we have to assess such claims in light of Sandra Fluke — who went out of her way to attend a university with policies she disagreed with, in order to give herself standing to attack the university’s policies. That someone would flee West Point because of “harassment”, and immediately write a piece for Huffington Post smacks of the same sort of set-up.

Hmm. Could be.

EGYPT: Learning The Lessons of Kerensky.

Related thoughts here.

THIS WEEK IN THE FUTURE.

GUT CHECK: The curious can find out just what’s living in their intestines. “The bacterial zoo inside your gut could look very different if you’re a vegetarian or an Atkins low-carb dieter, a couch potato or an athlete, fat or thin. Now for a fee — $69 and up — and a stool sample, the curious can find out just what’s living in their intestines and take part in one of the hottest new fields in science.”

AT AMAZON, up to 25% or more off at the Holiday Toy List.

Just a reminder: InstaPundit is an Amazon affiliate. When you do your Christmas/Hanukkah shopping — or any other shopping — through the Amazon links on this page, including the “Shop Amazon” tab at the top or the searchbox in the right sidebar, you support the blog at no cost to yourself. Just click on the Amazon link, then shop as usual. It’s much appreciated!

BIG BROTHER UNDER YOUR HOOD: NHTSA To Push Mandatory Data Recorders In Cars.

CHANGE: Regulatory approval of a gene therapy treatment in Europe could spark broader patient access to the technology.

FIVE NEW ADDITIONS to the Habitable ExoPlanets Catalog. “The online listing, called the Habitable Exoplanets Catalog, celebrated its first anniversary today (Dec. 5). When it was first released last year, it had two potential habitable planets to its name. According to lead researcher Abel Mendez, the team expected to add maybe one or two more in the catalog’s first year. The addition of five suspected new planets was wholly beyond anyone’s expectations.”

Now if the warp drive technology, and the nanotechnology, can make enough progress in the next few decades, there might be hope for humanity.

MAGIC MIRROR: Know What You’ll Look Like in 30 Years — Maybe Then You’ll Max Out Your 401(k). “Using a facial aging algorithm, the web app snaps a photo of you with your laptop’s camera and then shows you what you’ll look like at 47, 57, 67 and so on, all the way to 107.”

DON SURBER: Fight For The Right To Be Left Alone.

DECEMBER 8TH IS Pretend To Be A Time-Traveler Day. “Walk up to random people and say ‘WHAT YEAR IS THIS?’ and when they tell you, get quiet and then say ‘Then there’s still time!’ and run off.”

IN THE MAIL: From Bonnie Breuilly-Pike, Dancing With The Spirits of Shadowplay.

HE SAYS “AMERICAN HEGEMONY” LIKE IT’S A BAD THING, and that’s not even the worst part of this response to Ross Douthat.

WALTER RUSSELL MEAD: GOP Scared Stiff By Copyright Paper.

The Washington Examiner reports that the staffer responsible for publishing the memo on the RSC website has been fired.

This is unfortunate. We were impressed by the original paper; it seemed like a sign that the Republican Party was sticking to its guns on innovation and free markets, even as it was courting new support from young voters. Firing the staffer who wrote the policy paper is an unforced error. The GOP should be doing everything in its power to convince voters that it is the party of innovators and dreamers, not the party of big corporations and crony capitalist lobbies.

For extra stupidity points, they’re not just “big corporations,” they’re big corporations that hate the GOP and try to destroy it.

RACISM IN OBAMA’S AMERICA: “Stop Being So Anglo.”

TAKE IT FROM A FORMER SHOE SALESMAN, the reason shoes are especially appealing is that unlike dresses, jackets, or sweaters, they still fit if you gain ten pounds. At least, that’s my conclusion as to why women are crazy about shoes.

UPDATE: Ann Althouse: Shoes are like the bad boyfriend who looks good but hurts you later. Women can’t resist that!

AT AMAZON, it’s the Christmas Corner.

Also, today only: Up to 75% off on Winter Coats. Winter is coming.

RICHARD LOWRY: Operation Humiliation: Obama’s Real Fiscal-Cliff Agenda.

What’s really humiliating for the GOP is that they aren’t smart enough to respond, even when the response is spelled out for them. And I mean over and over again.

RADLEY BALKO: In Which Harold And Kumar Go Into Hiding.

Well, dammit.

I was so very excited about all that sensible drug policy we were going to get out of President Obama in his second term. I mean sure, Obama had spent a good deal of his first term waging more raids on medical marijuana clinics in four years than Bush had waged in eight. And his administration defended DEA agents who point guns at the heads of children during drug raids. And his appointees continued to defend the carnage in Mexico as merely the consequence of good, sensible drug policy.

Sure. There was all of that. But there were also all of these progressive pundits who kept telling drug war reformers that they should go ahead and vote for Obama anyway . . . because they just knew, or at least they were pretty sure, or at least they had heard rumors, that maybe, possibly, Obama would turn the corner and show some leadership. . . .

You’d think that if Obama were going to “pivot,” simply leaving alone two states that overwhelmingly legalized pot and gave him their electoral votes would be the best place to start.

As for “bring some cases against low-level marijuana users….,” I think that means you, Harold and Kumar. Hope you guys aren’t dog people.

The Drug War is about control. Obama likes control.

TOM BLUMER: Now They Tell Us: The economy never really got better, and now it’s getting worse.

CALLING FOR A TRUCE in the War On Men.

By the way, if this stuff interests you, you’re going to love the Insta-Wife’s forthcoming book, Men on Strike: Why Men Are Boycotting Marriage, Fatherhood, and the American Dream – and Why It Matters. I think it explores these issues in considerably more depth, in part because the Insta-Wife interviewed a lot of actual men. And because she’s really smart.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Resort Living Comes To Campus. “Real-estate investors and developers, hungry for new areas for growth, are finding a lucrative and previously untapped market in these areas surrounding college campuses, one marked by low inventory, booming enrollment and an increasing appetite for luxury living.”

When the borrowed money dries up, this’ll change. But hey, that’s true of everything in this economy . . . .

LABOR FORCE: Number Of Workers Aged 25-54 Back To April 1997 Levels. “In other words in the past 15 years not a single incremental job has been gained in this most productive and lucrative of age groups!”

How’s that hopey-changey stuff workin’ out for ya?

ADVICE: This Christmas, Divide Your Giving Among Fewer Charities.

CHANGE: Unions Lose Big In Michigan.

There are three big points to note about this unfolding story. For the past fifty years it was almost unthinkable that Michigan, home of America’s auto industry and one of the most pro-labor states in the country, would join right-to-work states. At the very least, this story seriously undercuts the narrative that America has turned decisively left under Obama.

Also worth noting is the fact that public-sector unions have significantly less support than their private-sector counterparts. Although Lansing passed right-to-work bills covering both types of unions, the bill covering public-sector unions only managed four votes against—a small minority of even the Democrats. The vote for the bill protecting private-sector unions was much closer. There could not be a more telling illustration of the deep trouble facing the public union movement.

As in Wisconsin, this is the beginning of the story rather than the end.

Stay tuned.

UPDATE: Reader Geoff Bowden writes: “Actually this is wrong. The vote was different because all the Democrats walked out. The same 4 Republicans voted against both bills and the same 22 voted for them both.”

FRANKLY, I ALWAYS THOUGHT IT SUCKED: Catcher in the Rye dropped from US school curriculum. But I’m sure what they replace it with will be worse, because that’s the first rule of school curricula.

IT’S KINDA LIKE A MIDEAST VERSION OF “FAST AND FURIOUS:” Arms, Allies, and the Horror in Syria.

21ST CENTURY RELATIONSHIPS: The Mother-Daughter Porn Team. “The money was part of the reason, but so was fun, and having sex with hot guys.”

“EVERYTHING MATTERS.”