VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: The Age Of Adolescence. “Unfortunately, our parents are dead. So who cleans up the messes?”

RADLEY BALKO ON FACEBOOK: “One nice thing about being a libertarian is the opportunity to try new things. One day I’m part of a fringe ideology no one will ever take seriously. The next day I’m part of a billionaire family’s secret plot to take over the country. It’s all very exciting.” Heh.

CAN’T HELP HIMSELF: Keith Olbermann hating on Bristol Palin. “Worst person in the world?” Bristol Palin? Really? I mean, really?

BRYAN PRESTON ON that lame Senate earmark vote.

JAMES TARANTO: Stuff White People Like: The departure of the only black senator prompts a revealingly clueless commentary. “More interesting is what he leaves out: that the difficulty blacks have in getting elected to statewide office is an unintended consequence of the Voting Rights Act. In the interest of increasing minority representation in the House and state legislatures, the act mandates the drawing of ‘majority minority’ districts. On its own terms, this has worked very well. The size of the Congressional Black Caucus relative to the House is within a few percentage points of the black proportion of the population. Seats in state legislatures and the House frequently are stepping stones to statewide office. But because black politicians need not cultivate a transracial appeal to win office in the first place, they are at a disadvantage when they consider a statewide run.”

RICHARD FERNANDEZ on WikiLeaks.

Plus, is it part of a disinformation campaign?

And, related: Diplomats In The News For The Wrong Reasons.

CHANGE: Narcissism no longer a psychiatric disorder.

Well, that’s a relief.

IMPORTANT ASTROBIOLOGY NEWS?

CHANGE: Debt Worry In Europe Sweeps Into More Secure Countries.

ANN ALTHOUSE: “And let me invite Rush to go on Bloggingheads.tv and diavlog with me about the so-called chickification problems that plague our world today.”

VIDEO: Climate Bureaucrats Gone Wild In Cancun. Party on, dudes. Reduced consumption is for the little people.

UPDATE: Britain freezes while global-warming bureaucrats party in Cancun.

MONEY ADVICE: A Dying Banker’s Last Instructions.

CHANGE: Tiny house movement thrives amid real estate bust. “To save money or simplify their lives, a small but growing number of Americans are buying or building homes that could fit inside many people’s living rooms, according to entrepreneurs in the small house industry. . . . Shafer, author of ‘The Small House Book,’ built the 89-square-foot house himself a decade ago and lived in it full-time until his son was born last year. Inside a space the size of an ice cream truck, he has a kitchen with gas stove and sink, bathroom with shower, two-seater porch, bedroom loft and a ‘great room’ where he can work and entertain — as long as he doesn’t invite more than a couple guests.”

SHOULD BE FUN: Chicago Tea Party Event: Wednesday, December 1 at 7:00 PM.

RECOMMENDED GIFTS for women.

UPDATE: Reader Katia Zeissler writes: “Seriously? These might be good gifts for cooks (who might be female or not), but for all women? I, personally, do like to cook, but because I am cooking daily for my family it is less a past time than a chore. I would therefore prefer something not chore-related but rather pleasure-related as a gift.” You know, a lot of people say that. But the gifts for dads are always tools and lawnmowers . . . .

“EVENTUALLY, THE EURO BREAKS APART.”

NEW CANCER THERAPIES target cancers’ fuel lines. “Cancer cells, because of their rapid growth, have a voracious appetite for glucose, the main nutrient used to generate energy. And tumors often use glucose differently from healthy cells, an observation first made by a German biochemist in the 1920s. . . . Now, efforts are turning from diagnosis to treating the disease by disrupting the special metabolism of cancer cells to deprive them of energy.”

LARRY RIBSTEIN: Foreclosure-gate And The Injustice of Lawyer Regulation.

MURDER! INTRIGUE! ASTRONOMERS? New evidence in the Tycho Brahe case.

AN APPEALING CLEMENCY CASE FOR CHRIS CHRISTIE. This conviction seems like it might be a Second Amendment violation, actually.

ADD A FEW ZEROS AND HE’LL BE READY TO WORK FOR THE GOVERNMENT: Man Steals $4.5 Million From Columbia University Using Simple Accounting Tweak.

A DARK JUPITER at the edge of the Solar System. “In 1999, Matese and colleague Daniel Whitmire suggested the sun has a hidden companion that boots icy bodies from the Oort Cloud, a spherical haze of comets at the solar system’s fringes, into the inner solar system where we can see them. In a new analysis of observations dating back to 1898, Matese and Whitmire confirm their original idea: About 20 percent of the comets visible from Earth were sent by a dark, distant planet.”

POLITICAL HACKS VOTE AGAINST BAN ON HACKDOM: “Republican Sens. Bob Bennett (UT), Thad Cochran (MS), Susan Collins (ME), Jim Inhofe (OK), Lisa Murkowski (AK), Richard Shelby (AL), and George Voinovich (OH) all just voted against an amendment in the Senate that would have banned Congressional earmarks.”

UPDATE: “It’s all rigged.”

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader James Hicks writes that Richard Lugar voted against the earmark ban, too: “I’ll certainly donate to his opponent. His no vote is an act of contempt for the voters. Time for him to go.”

HOSPITAL QUALITY STUDY finds no improvement.

IN THE MAIL: From Glen Cook, Starfishers Volume 3: Star’s End and Darkwar.