TIPPING POINT? Kindle Milestone: Amazon Sold More Kindle Books Than Physical Books On Xmas. “Yes, this is obviously the result of everyone who got a Kindle for Christmas (lots of folks) firing it up and ordering a bunch of eBooks on a day in which most physical-book readers weren’t shopping. But it’s still important and impressive.”

OUTCRY: “Napolitano should quit.” “I watched her on three shows and each time she was more annoying, maddening and absurd than the pevious appearance. It is her basic position that the ‘system worked’ because the bureaucrats responded properly after the attack. That the attack was ‘foiled’ by a bad detonator and some civilian passengers is proof, she claims, that her agency is doing everything right. That is just about the dumbest thing she could say, on the merits and politically. I would wager that not one percent of Americans think the system is ‘working’ when terrorists successfully get bombs onto planes (and succeed in activating them).”

UPDATE: More from an Obama voter: “Now, I know they are mopping up after a failure, and there is reason to want to portray the attack as coming out of the blue and unconnected to anything that should have been the subject of close monitoring, but — damn — I hope they are doing a better job than they look like they are doing. And if they don’t look like they’ve been doing a good job, then they aren’t even doing a good job of mopping up after their failure.”

ANOTHER UPDATE: Obama Voter: “Yes, I’m sorry.”

MORE: Andy McCarthy:

The people now in charge of our government believe Clinton-era counterterrorism was a successful model. They start from the premise that terrorism is a crime problem to be managed, not a war to be won. Overdone “war on drugs” rhetoric aside, we don’t try to “win” against (as in “defeat”) law-enforcement challenges. We expect them to happen from time to time and to contain, but never completely prevent, the damage.

Here, no thanks to the government, the plane was not destoyed, and we won’t get to the bottom of the larger conspiracy (enabling the likes of Napolitano to say there’s no indication of a larger plot — much less one launched by an international jihadist enterprise) because the guy got to lawyer up rather than be treated like a combatant and subjected to lengthy interrogation. But the terrorist will be convicted at trial (this “case” tees up like a slam-dunk), so the administration will put it in the books as a success … just like the Clinton folks did after the ’93 WTC bombers and the embassy bombers were convicted. In their minds, litigation success equals national security success.

It is a dangerously absurd viewpoint, but it was clear during the campaign that it was Obama’s viewpoint. The American people — only seven years after 9/11 — elected him anyway. As we learn more painfully everyday, elections matter.

Indeed they do.

Plus, “Janet, you’re doin’ a heck of a job.”

STILL MORE: So what about McCarthy’s other point, about it being wrong to go for a criminal trial? Well, we did that with Richard Reid, and as I recall I thought it was the right thing to do then. Does experience teach us that it was, or that it was a mistake? We’ve had quite a few years to learn more about who we’re fighting. My guess is that the intelligence value of these guys is low — at least, if I were running Al Qaeda, I’d make sure my tools didn’t know anything useful, and maybe even make ’em think they knew a lot of things that were actually disinformation. But I’m a law professor, not an intelligence type. . . .

MORE STILL: Well, he’s still misrepresenting me, but at least he’s linking to my post this time. Sadly, that counts as progress. But “pro-torture” is just a synonym for somebody Andrew doesn’t like now. Come on, Andrew. Raise your game! Heh.

GLAD TO SEE THAT I’M INSPIRING PEOPLE to ask the really tough questions.

Meanwhile, I’d never even heard of The Ross Sisters until I saw this link in the comments.

IN THE MAIL: The Serotonin Power Diet: Nature’s Own Appetite Suppressant.

LIVE-BLOGGING the Ashura protests in Iran.

More here.

UPDATE: Still more from Gateway Pundit. And lots of pictures being posted at TwitPic. (Bumped).

ANOTHER UPDATE: Meanwhile, a clandestine operation is underway.

SHERLOCK HOLMES beats out Avatar for #1. Here’s a review from Steven Barnes.

SLATE: WHY WORLD LEADERS FIND IT EASY TO say no to Obama. “It isn’t just that that no one has cut Obama any slack. World leaders seem to be taking pleasure in rebuffing him, disappointing him, even, in some cases, mocking him. . . . Praising and admiring Obama are still common, but raising doubts about him, even scoffing at him, is now becoming fashionable. Although he is still popular among Europeans and more popular with Muslims than his despised predecessor, Obama is being tagged with the unflattering label John Quincy Adams earned before he lost the 1828 election: ‘Adams can write, Jackson can fight.’ . . . In fact, no world leader has paid a price for disappointing Obama. With Obama so nice and so conciliatory, risking retaliation by the White House doesn’t seem all that dangerous.”

Now if Obama treated America’s enemies the way he treats people who criticize his health care plan, things might be different . . . .

MOTIVATION: “My ‘C,’ ‘D,’ and ‘F’ students this semester are almost exclusively American, while my students from India, China, and Latin America have – despite language barriers – generally written solid papers, excelled on exams, and become valuable class participants.” But I’ll bet the American students have better self-esteem. They come from an educational process that values self-esteem; the other students from one that values performance. Both have produced as designed. (Via Ann Althouse, where a commenter objects, “There are plenty of lazy Indian and Chinese students, but those are in India and China.”). But, as Michael Barone has noted, America has the world’s worst 18-year-olds and the world’s best 30-year-olds. Let’s hope we can keep that up.

HMM: Does the equivalence in this passage mean I’m moving up, or that the NYT is going down? “When one of these vulnerabilities is exposed, through attack or accident, the results are affecting enough people to draw the attention of large-audience media outlets like The New York Times noting user outrage and Instapundit noting the Blackberry outage.”

HUFFINGTON POST: What’s wrong with this picture?

UPDATE: Marc Ambinder explains that it’s all a cunning plan. Ambinder’s a nice guy, but his nonstop spin has become embarrassing. I mean, when you’re getting more honest criticism from HuffPo and Firedoglake . . . .

ANOTHER UPDATE: HuffPo criticism has been pulled. What’s wrong with this picture?

REALITY INTRUDES on plans to close Gitmo.

Plus, “Why Was Abdulmutallab Flying?”

SISSY WILLIS: Let’s make Scott Brown’s Senate race a “referendum on Obamacare.”

HORSE, BARN DOOR: New Restrictions Quickly Added for Air Passengers. Air security has always been a joke. It’s just an increasingly inconvenient one.

UPDATE: Some earlier thoughts, here.

WHERE IS THE COURAGE? I think we’ve found the liquid courage, anyway.

JOHN SCALZI: Most memorable science fiction films of 2009.

CAPITALISM HAS FRIENDS . . . ELSEWHERE: In North Korea, Resistance is the New Currency.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Il moved early this month to wipe out much of the wealth earned in the past decade in his country’s private markets. As part of a surprise currency revaluation, the government sharply restricted the amount of old bills that could be traded for new and made it illegal for citizens to have more than $40 worth of local currency.

It was an unexplained decision — the kind of command that for more than six decades has been obeyed without question in North Korea. But this time, in a highly unusual challenge to Kim’s near-absolute authority, the markets and the people who depend on them pushed back.

Grass-roots anger and a reported riot in an eastern coastal city pressured the government to amend its confiscatory policy. Exchange limits have been eased, allowing individuals to possess more cash.

The currency episode reveals new constraints on Kim’s power and may signal a fundamental change in the operation of what is often called the world’s most repressive state — a change driven by private markets that now feed and employ half the country’s 23.5 million people, and appear to have grown too big and too important to be crushed, even by a leader who loathes them.

Hey, maybe there’s hope for us, then . . . .

CAN EATING CARBS make you thin?

AT AMAZON, ramping up the After-Christmas sales.

MARK STEYN:

On September 11th 2001, the government’s (1970s) security procedures all failed, and the only good news of the day came from self-reliant citizens (on Flight 93) using their own wits and a willingness to act.

On December 25th 2009, the government’s (post-9/11) security procedures all failed, and the only good news came once again from alert individuals.

Somebody should write something on this phenomenon. Maybe even, you know, a book!

GIVE ME LIBERTY, or give me social justice. “This week our government chose social justice over liberty. We will get neither.”

STIMULUS! Counties with worst joblessness get least from stimulus package.

IRS AUDITING fewer big businesses, more individuals and small businesses.

And, of course, the occasional disrespectful college administrator!

REPORT: ANTIGOVERNMENT PROTESTERS save men from hanging in Iran.

STEREOTYPICALLY, OF COURSE, IT’S MEN WHO ARE THE BAD LISTENERS. But not always.

A REVIEW of the Nerf-N-Strike Vulcan EBF-25 Blaster.