WHEN TO LEAK AND WHEN NOT TO LEAK: Hilarity At The National Association of Hispanic Journalists.

CHANGE: No Congress Since ’60s Makes as Much Law as 111th Affecting Most Americans. Because what Americans need more than anything now is to be affected by more law.

PARTY LIKE IT’S 1899.

TOM MAGUIRE CAN’T BELIEVE WHAT HE’S READING IN THE NEW YORK TIMES: Not All Global Warming Skeptics Are Crackpots?!? Plus, from the comments: “Pinch discovers the earth is dynamic? It’s a Festivus miracle.”

CHRISTMAS MARKDOWNS in Power Tools.

Also, note this markdown on the Leatherman Freestyle. Also, the Skeletool, which I own and like. Either would make a good stocking stuffer.

CALIFORNIA: The Golden State Of Denial. “How hosed is California? This hosed: State Treasurer Bill Lockyer and Stephen Levy of the Center for Continuing Study of Self-Immolation the California Economy have taken to the L.A. Times to deny that they even have a problem.”

REASON TV: Why the Feds Banned Four Loko. (And is your favorite drink next?)

GUN CONTROL AS CHILD ABUSE: Toy Gun Buyback:

Dominic joined dozens of children yesterday at the annual Toy Gun Bash in the gymnasium of Pleasant View Elementary School. There, they lined up to toss their toy guns, from dainty purple water guns to camouflage-painted pistols, inside the Bash-O-Matic, a large black, foam creature with churning metal teeth and the shape of a cockroach spliced with a frog.

Prodded by Attorney General Patrick C. Lynch, who wore a fuzzy Santa hat, the children stared curiously as the Bash-O-Matic mashed up their guns and digested them into a plastic bin near its tail. . . . Some children were not thrilled with the trade.

Malik Hall, a round-eyed second-grader, looked apprehensive as he stood in line with his favorite toy, a thick, blue gun with plastic sword underneath the muzzle. The 8-year-old was furious when his mother, Amanda, told him he would have to give it up. Yesterday morning, he tried to hide it under his pillow, she said.

“I’m worried,’’ she said. “He might cry.’’ . . . Diane Levin, professor of education at Wheelock College, said police and parents coming together to destroy toy guns sends a powerful message to children.

Pathetic. (Via SayUncle, who observes: “Indoctrination starts early, I guess. Teaching kids their things are bad. Evil totems that must be destroyed. Deodands.”) Really, if you had put this scene into a dystopian novel about lefty silliness, it would have seemed too heavy-handed.

UPDATE: Reader Eric Hardie emails: “I’ll be offsetting this trend by giving my little girl one of these for Christmas… What would we do without Amazon?” What, indeed? I love that it’s pink. I had one of those when I was a kid, but it wasn’t pink — which in my case is just as well. . . .

ANOTHER UPDATE: Rachel Pereira writes that she bought her first gun today: “A Springfield Armory XDM 40 in a fashionable shade of green.”

MORE: Reader Ben White writes: “I think Taranto had the best line about this a couple days ago: ‘Nothing says Christmas like taking away a child’s treasured toy and destroying it.'” Monstrous behavior, by monstrous people.

And reader Allen S. Thorpe emails: “They unwittingly created the perfect image to remember of ‘our’ federal government: ‘a large black, . . . creature with churning metal teeth and the shape of a cockroach spliced with a frog” there to take away your property.'” Well, it’s the Rhode Island state government, in the person of its risible Attorney General Patrick C. Lynch, who’s behind this, not the federal government. But if the shoe fits . . . .

MORE STILL: SayUncle emails: “I should point out that my girl has a real gun, one that you’ve shot.” Yes, I have. I prefer something more muscular, but I’m secure enough in my masculinity to shoot a pink AR-15. And this is why I’m not worried about America, long-term. There are the people traumatizing their kids by grinding up their toy guns in a hideous monster, and there are the people teaching their daughters to shoot. I know who I’m betting on, long-term.

STILL MORE: Reader Rob Robertson: “A recent NPR .. yes, N-P-R … piece. Photo makes the click worth it.” Heh.

EVEN MORE: Another reader emails: “Loved your NPR link (pretty high on the list of things I never thought I’d say!) This must be the year for first bucks. Attached photo is my daughter with her 1st buck, taken 3 weeks ago. Deer season is father/daughter time in our family.”

Also, reader Don Harris writes:

Those people have no shame. I just cannot fathom what sort of brain would come up with that one.

I taught my children how to handle firearms just like my Dad taught me 54 years ago when I was 10 yrs old. I’m happy that my first grandchild also learned to shoot when she turned 13 a few years ago. She doesn’t care much for hunting but she does enjoy shooting.

Here she is with a M1895 Nagant (loaded with .32 S&W Longs) the day her Dad & I took her to a public range to learn how to shoot. We didn’t get a pic of her with the Colt Police Positive .38 Special which she really enjoyed and was quite good at.

That’s a nice revolver. And reader David Wharton writes:

Thought you might enjoy this photo of my son teaching his little sister how to safely use a CZ-75B semi-automatic pistol. He is a third-year cadet at West Point (the gun was his 21st birthday present); she just turned 17 yesterday.

There really are two cultures, and not just as C.P. Snow was describing.

GALLERY: Evolution Of The Space Suit.

CHANGE: North Carolina Is The New Utah — And D.C. Representation Is Even Deader Than It Was Before.

TEACHING ROBOTS TO WALK like old people.

JOURNALISM: “The idea that they’d fact-check a style story — I don’t think that’s incumbent on them. But there’s a difference between that and publishing a choreographed, self-serving piece of revisionist history for two people who are both members of the media industry.”

JOURNALISM: CBS News airs fake, typo-ridden cover of Bush’s ‘Decision Points’ memoir.

THE GHOST OF CHRISTMAS PAST, at Popular Science.

CHIMP GIRLS PREFER DOLLS: Chimps show familiar human sex stereotypes with objects for playing.

CHANGE: Coburn: There Will Be No More Big Spending Bills.

BILL WHITTLE RETURNS TO TRIFECTA. Merry Christmas!

STOP THE PRESSES: Oregon’s Millionaire Tax Drives Millionaires Out Of The State.

A TEA PARTY TAKEOVER of the New Hampshire GOP?

UPDATE: Reader Spec Bowers emails:

The answer is yes! I am a newly elected State Rep and I am a Tea Partier. We have 163 Freshmen Republican Reps (out of 298 Republicans and 102 Democrats) and my impression is that the majority of us are liberty-minded constitutionalist Tea Partiers. That’s not to say that all of have attended Tea Parties but we are sympathetic to the Tea Party fiscal policy: less spending, smaller government, no ObamaCare, etc.

I almost wrote you a couple of days of ago when you had an item about the Tea Parties and Republicans nationwide. Some Democrats no doubt are hoping that the Tea Parties will hurt Republicans by forming a third party. I thought to myself, “No! We’re taking over the Republican Party.” Some of us have been active Republicans for years; some are brand new. In my county, three of the five new State Reps are people I had never previously seen involved in Republican politics.

There have been many solid conservatives/libertarians in the NH GOP but never enough to make a majority. With reinforcements from the Tea Partiers – our new Speaker describes it as “The cavalry has arrived” – we may now be a working majority. So it’s not a hostile takeover, maybe not even a takeover at all. Mostly, I think, it is the grassroots stepping up to make sure that the leadership stays on the right course.

Indeed. (Bumped).

SAYUNCLE ON THE BRIAN AITKEN CASE: “At first, I was not that excited about his sentence being commuted. But after I realized that it was to set up a legal challenge to NJ’s onerous gun laws, I saw what they did there. Nappen is a smart guy.”

WHEN FLASH-MOBS GO WRONG: Oops. “A spontaneous musical concert at a California shopping mall ended with the entire complex being evacuated after some 5,000 people turned up to sing. The incident happened at the Roseville Galleria shopping mall, which is reported to have started shaking due to the volume of people inside. . . . As they burst into song, there were reports that the building’s floor began to move and creak, and witnesses reported hearing popping sounds. Emergency services were forced to evacuate the entire building.”

BEERBLOGGING from Holly Beck.

PUBLIC SCHOOLS ARE OUR FUTURE: “They said the candy canes are weapons because you can sharpen them with your mouth and stab people with them.”

RADLEY BALKO: The vindictive grand jury investigation of pain-relief advocate Siobhan Reynolds. “In the wrong hands, grand juries can even become a tool for harassing a prosecutor’s political enemies. The feud between Assistant U.S. Attorney Tanya Treadway and pain patient advocate Siobhan Reynolds is a good example.” Siobhan Reynolds, I should note, is no relation.

MIKE HUCKABEE sides with Michelle Obama in Food Fight: “Well, he’s not running for President against Michelle Obama. He’s running (potentially) against Sarah Palin. Ironically, Sarah Palin is the one who’s thin. . . . I just want to note that this bill seems to be about telling people what to eat and forcing the government’s desires on people. (Forcing the government’s desires on people? That sounds weirdly rape-y.)”