THAT’S WHY IT’S CALLED “ACTING:” What happened to your MacGyver skills? Actor Richard Dean Anderson looks clueless as his car breaks down.

WHILE THEY LAST: Amazon’s currently running a “lightning deal” on that Butterball electric turkey fryer that people were praising back at Thanksgiving — just $59.99. Probably only good for a couple of hours.

UPDATE: Well, that didn’t take long. Still not a bad deal, but not as good as $59.99.

BOB OWENS: NYT Smears Gingrich Over EMP Threat Comment. “Broad and the Times have gone out of their way to fabricate a ‘warmonger’ theme. The article portrays Gingrich as someone angling for preemptive military strikes based off of one off-the-cuff comment by Gingrich. Gingrich has primarily advocated for nothing more than cost-effective hardening of critical infrastructure components so that our grid has a better chance of surviving any sort of electromagnetic surge that strikes our grid, be it man-made or natural in origin. Gingrich may be the only adult in the room when it comes to discussing the steps our nation needs to take to harden an electrical grid that is showing its age, piecemeal construction, and fragility, and at a fraction of cost of the present administration’s abortive and wasteful spending binges.”

INVESTOR’S BUSINESS DAILY: Jet Fuel-Gate Is Obama’s New Solyndra. “SolyndraGate was no isolated case of corrupt government misspending. The U.S. Navy was just forced to buy 450,000 gallons of biofuels from an Obama-connected firm at an outrageous $16 per gallon.”

WELL, THERE IS THAT STUFF ABOUT HOW THE POOR WILL ALWAYS BE WITH YOU: Media Matters Blames Christians For Poverty.

The Media Matters folks should just be glad somebody’s paying attention to them. They’ve taken to trolling for links from me by posting absurd misquotes, always a sign of desperation.

STEVE CONOVER: The Class Warfare We Need. “The class deserving voters’ wrath is composed of society’s predators and parasites, who span all rungs of the income ladder.”

FORBES: Obama Is An Awful Economic Historian. He’s not so hot on the non-economic history, either.

DON’T TELL THE ARGENTINES: New Oil Discovery Near Falklands.

OF COURSE NOT: “In any event, he expresses no embarrassment.”

TEN YEARS AGO ON INSTAPUNDIT: Sally Satel on the shallowness of the “public health” profession. “Is the public health community mobilizing to fight anthrax, smallpox, etc.? Nope. They’re fighting against a ‘culture of violence’ and the presence of too many European males in the public health field. Those are the problems that they consider important.”

STANDING UP AGAINST BIGOTRY: Simon Wiesenthal Center Bashes Antisemitism at Media Matters and Center for American Progress.

HEY, LOOK, IT’S ONE OF THOSE JOB-CREATING MILLIONAIRES:

This is not a fantasy project. This is going to be real: a gigantic 385-foot wing span, 544-tonne plane powered by six 747 engines that will serve as a flying launch platform for 490,000 pound orbital rockets.

It’s the new project of Paul Allen and Burt Rutan. And it looks insanely amazing.

Quick, tax them into bankruptcy and use the money for $16/gallon jet fuel!

AT AMAZON, markdowns on Tools & Hardware.

Also, check out the Holiday Toy List.

REPORT FROM AUSTIN: Eric Holder Announces Opposition to Election Integrity Laws, Faces Protests. “Holder’s announcement will have profound partisan results in the 2012 election because of his professed unwillingness to enforce laws to prevent voter fraud. Indeed, tonight he made clear his opposition to these laws, such as voter ID and even the requirement to register to vote in advance of an election. . . . Holder laid down markers which will excite his base and disturb law abiding citizens. He supported restrictions on political speech which will criminalize campaign falsehoods. He vowed hyper-scrutiny of voter integrity laws such as voter ID and vowed to run states like Texas through a nasty gauntlet on redistricting. If this doesn’t send a signal to Texas and South Carolina to pull their Voter ID laws out of Justice and go to court, nothing else will.”

UPDATE: Holder Unveils Voter Fraud Program.

HOW’S THAT HOPEY-CHANGEY STUFF WORKIN’ OUT FOR YA? Report: Child Homelessness Up 33% in 3 Years.

OUCH: “The president had three options on his desk and he rejected all of them.” Well, nobody ever accused Bush & Cheney of being indecisive.

Of course, if we’re really smart, the drone is fake — just real enough to lead the Chinese down the wrong path. Like the stealth helicopter that “crashed” in the bin Laden raid. The question is, are we that smart?

BLUFF CALLED: House defies Obama veto threat, passes payroll cut extension with Keystone pipeline provision.

WHAT MEDICINE NEEDS: Frugal Innovation. “A low-cost pocket ultrasound device can see into the human heart. So why do so few doctors use it? . . . Medicine, in short, has the potential for better technology at a much lower price, but don’t look to the medical profession, government, or the life-sciences industry to make the change on its own. I believe the change will come when consumers demand it.”

Andy Kessler, call your office.

I FORESEE A BIG MARKET FOR NEURAL ANTIVIRUS SOFTWARE: Download Knowledge Directly to Your Brain, Matrix-Style. There are other issues, however: “The most surprising thing in this study is that mere inductions of neural activation patterns corresponding to a specific visual feature led to visual performance improvement on the visual feature, without presenting the feature or subjects’ awareness of what was to be learned.” Hey, that’s funny. Why do I suddenly love Big Brother?

“DID YOU JUST LOOK AT MY CHEST?”

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: The Economist: Slim down, focus and embrace technology: American universities need to be more businesslike.

Barack Obama invited a puzzling group of people into the White House on December 5th: university presidents. What should one make of these strange creatures? Are they chief executives or labour leaders? Heads of pre-industrial guilds or champions of one of America’s most successful industries? Defenders of civilisation or merciless rack-renters?

Whatever they might be, they are at the heart of a political firestorm. Anger about the cost of college extends from the preppiest of parents to the grungiest of Occupiers. Mr Obama is trying to channel the anger, to avoid being sideswiped by it. The White House invitation complained that costs have trebled in the past three decades. Arne Duncan, the secretary of education, has urged universities to address costs with “much greater urgency”. . . . Popular anger about universities’ costs is rising just as technology is shaking colleges to their foundations. The internet is changing the rules. Star academics can lecture to millions online rather than the chosen few in person. Testing and marking can be automated. And for-profit companies such as the University of Phoenix are stripping out costs by concentrating on a handful of popular courses as well as making full use of the internet. The Sloan Foundation reports that online enrolments grew by 10% in 2010, against 2% for the sector as a whole.

Many universities’ first instinct will be to batten down the hatches and wait for this storm to pass. But the storm is not going to pass. The higher-education industry faces a stark choice: either adapt to a rapidly changing world or face a future of cheeseparing.

Indeed.

WELCOME TO THE BIG LEAGUES, BUB: The way Americans talk about China can often seem hostile, frustrating, or altogether irreconcilable with the world as a newcomer from China knows it.

Americans have been having this experience while traveling abroad pretty much forever.

JAMES TARANTO: “There’s an irony for you. The one group to which the president’s brainless bashing of businessmen and conservatives appeals consists of . . . intellectuals.”

SHOCKING NEWS: “What? Occupy Wall Street is not fact-based?!”

USA TODAY: Household Electric Bills Skyrocket.

All is proceeding according to plan.