JUSTIN HIGGINS: How the G.O.P. can take back the youth vote.

OUCH: British Couple at Taj Hotel: “We Thought We Were Safe, Then CNN Stepped In.” Ouch.

UPDATE: Reader Bill Jones notes that this report is false. At least I think this is the one he means. He rather churlishly just kept telling me I had a wrong story linked, but wouldn’t provide the specific item. I’m happy to correct errors, but in general it’s nice to know exactly which post is being complained about. Name-calling and suggestions that I search “CNN” on my blog is not so nice. But hey, even jerks can correct errors, though they tend to do it in jerkish ways.

SCORCHED EARTH: Activists Seek Revocation of Tax Exempt Status of Churches That Supported Prop 8.

FIGHTING CRIME, THE OLD-FASHIONED WAY: Victim shoots man during robbery try. “An armed robber who tried to stick up a man Monday night ended up getting shot when the victim pulled out his own gun, police said.” (Via Gun Pundit).

AT DAILYKOS, worries about famine in 2009. I thought that Obama was going to fix all of that. Instead, it’s sounding more like a John Ringo scenario. Can this be right?

MARK STEYN ON MUMBAI: Just go read it, okay? But here’s a bit: “What’s relevant about the Mumbai model is that it would work in just about any second-tier city in any democratic state: Seize multiple soft targets and overwhelm the municipal infrastructure to the point where any emergency plan will simply be swamped by the sheer scale of events.”

An armed citizenry would help a lot. So would a system that let text-messaging guide responders (but beware of spoofing). On the other hand, this is no super-tactic. It takes a lot more training and resources than a car bomb, to do less damage — except for the media-induced fear, which is the main goal, but which peaks the first time it’s tried.

Plus this: ‘But we’re in danger of missing the forest for the trees. The forest is the ideology. It’s the ideology that determines whether you can find enough young hotshot guys in the neighborhood willing to strap on a suicide belt or (rather more promising as a long-term career) at least grab an AK and shoot up a hotel lobby. Or, if active terrorists are a bit thin on the ground, whether you can count at least on some degree of broader support on the ground. You’re sitting in some distant foreign capital but you’re minded to pull off a Bombay-style operation in, say, Amsterdam or Manchester or Toronto. Where would you start? Easy. You know the radical mosques, and the other ideological-front organizations. You’ve already made landfall. . . . This isn’t law enforcement but an ideological assault — and we’re fighting the symptoms not the cause. Islamic imperialists want an Islamic society, not just in Palestine and Kashmir but in the Netherlands and Britain, too.”

DO TELL: Muslims “Worry About Image” after Mumbai.

IN LIGHT OF THE EARLIER DISCUSSIONS about Mumbai and the value of an armed citizenry, it’s worth noting that India apparently has strict gun control laws that, as usual, don’t seem to have kept guns out of the hands of killers.

DAVID ALTMAN: Lessons from Mumbai: “Today, we see the emergence of a dark, new, and different army, with new branches that include all the components of a military, yet still utilize the terror doctrine. The advantage of terrorist armies is first and foremost the fact they are not subjected to any law or international convention. They do not face any pressure and they are not accountable to anyone. They tie the hands of the responding force, which is the only side subjected to conventions pertaining to human rights, war captives, and the targeting of civilians.”

UPDATE: Reader Steve Turney emails: “David Altman calls for creating ‘an international anti-terror force… this force must be specialized, it must study the new threat, and it must be able to provide an immediate response by forces trained especially to that end.’ If the Indian forces were slow to respond, how much faster would an international force be? Where would they be based? Murtha might recommend Okinawa.”

Yeah. I think Altman meant something a bit more preemptive, and not reactive. But if you want first responders with guns to be fast, then the first responders have to already be on the scene. Which means they need to be the kind of people previously described as “victims,” only with guns . . . .

ANOTHER UPDATE: Related item from Andrew Bostom.

I WONDER IF THEY’LL HAVE SPECIAL CAMPS FOR THAT? Bangkok Protesters Aim to ‘Re-educate’ Rural Thai Majority.

IN THE WAKE OF MUMBAI, an agnostic Jew considers Chabad.

AN “ELEGANT AND EASY” pork tenderloin recipe.

SO MUCH FOR post-racial America, I guess. “The number two man at NBC News believes Barack Obama’s skin color gives him more legitimacy around the world than possibly any American leader in history.”

UPDATE: Reader Thomas Prewitt writes: “I find it curious that no one at NBC ever said that our black female Secretary of State has more legitimacy around the world than possibly any Secretary of State in history.” Yeah, go figure.

GEERT WILDERS: “Our culture is better.”

As he sees it, the West suffers from an excess of toleration for those who do not share its tradition of tolerance. “We believe that — ‘we’ means the political elite — that all cultures are equal,” he says. “I believe this is the biggest disease today facing Europe. . . . We should wake up and tell ourselves: You’re not a xenophobe, you’re not a racist, you’re not a crazy guy if you say, ‘My culture is better than yours.’ A culture based on Christianity, Judaism, humanism is better. Look at how we treat women, look at how we treat apostates, look at how we go with the separation of church and state. I can give you 500 examples why our culture is better.”

Read the whole thing.

KIM DU TOIT is retiring from blogging. He’ll be missed.

MORE BIG BLACK FRIDAY WEEKEND SALES. Still a few hours left before they realize that this isn’t actually the worst shopping season ever . . .

REVIEWING THE Blackberry Storm.

HOW THE MUMBAI ATTACKS ARE PLAYING: Jihadists see “invasion” as a triumph.

AN INTROSPECTIVE NEW YORK TIMES PIECE provokes a discussion.

WHAT WILL ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER DO after he leaves the governorship of California?

With his governorship entering its final years and his ability to attract the spotlight intact, the question is arising more frequently: What will Arnold do?

Will he share the stage with Al Gore as a global environmental crusader, promote green technology for an Obama administration, run for the U.S. Senate? Or might he pursue political reform on a broader scale, as he has hinted in appearances with New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who shares Schwarzenegger’s independent streak?

Whether he’s marketable on any of that stuff will largely depend on whether he can stave off bankruptcy for California without a federal bailout. But if he follows in Al Gore’s footsteps, he’ll presumably be a bit braver.

JOHN KASS on Dick Durbin and George Ryan: “It was as if the Combine reached out and grabbed the people of Illinois and slapped us hard with a backhand across the mouth, letting us know who runs things, the sting of the knuckles on our nose to remind us that Illinois is not Camelot. . . . In what universe does redemption come without cost, where cynicism so casually dresses itself up as mercy and compassion? Here. In this place. In Illinois.” Read the whole thing.

MUMBAI: Doctors shocked at hostages’ torture.

ADVICE ON home-cooking for hard times.

THE SPIN BEGINS! New York Times trying to credit Obama with Iraq win. Bob Owens deconstructs.

Compare with this assessment in the Kansas City Star: Bush leaves Iraq in good shape for Obama.

A READER SENDS A LINK TO THE “APPLESEED PROJECT,” which is working to create a nation of riflemen. Seems like a good idea.

UPDATE: Reader Jason Ruser sends a link to this report from one of their events.