I THINK IT WAS THE INSTAPUNDIT TAUNTING THAT DID IT: Obama delays request for $1.2T debt limit increase. Or, you know, the law. Whatever. But here’s the taunting again, in case you missed it.

JED BABBIN: 2011: The Year The Wheels Fell Off.

AT AMAZON, year-end deals in Computers & Accessories.

Plus, select laptops & tablets under $300.

ON THE INCANDESCENT LIGHT-BULB PAGE, ANOTHER AMUSING REVIEW. Well, an amusing complaint, anyway.

Requires expensive peripherals to work at all!!,

Very disappointed in this product. Purchased to use on a camping trip for both light and heat, since I’d read about how warm they get. The more fool I! Long story short, there’s a WHOLE lot of fine print they don’t tell you about up front: Requires a lamp, requires an “outlet”, requires some arcane piece of kit called a “power grid” that Amazon doesn’t even carry!

May be a great product IF you already collected all the accessories, but I have better things to spend my money and my time on.

P.S. INCREDIBLY fragile. Definitely not top-shelf camping gear!

Heh.

TAR. FEATHERS. 2011: The Year Intellectual Property Trumped Civil Liberties.

Online civil liberties groups were thrilled in May when Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont), the head of the powerful Judiciary Committee, announced legislation requiring the government, for the first time, to get a probable-cause warrant to obtain Americans’ e-mail and other content stored in the cloud.

But, despite the backing of a coalition of powerful tech companies, the bill to amend the Electronic Communications Privacy Act was dead on arrival, never even getting a hearing before the committee Leahy heads.

In contrast, another proposal sailed through Leahy’s committee, less than two weeks after Leahy and others floated it at about the same time as his ECPA reform measure. That bill, known as the Protect IP Act, was anti-piracy legislation long sought by Hollywood that dramatically increased the government’s legal power to disrupt and shutter websites “dedicated to infringing activities.”

This dichotomy played itself out over and again in 2011, as lawmakers — Democrats and Republicans alike — turned a blind eye to important civil liberties issues, including Patriot Act reform, and instead paid heed to the content industry’s desires to stop piracy.

They’re in the industries’ pocket, thanks to big donations. That includes Democrats like Leahy, and Republicans like Lamar Smith.

ROGER SIMON: Is Ron Paul A Racist? Don’t be absurd. Might as well charge Barack Obama with racism based on his associations.

NEW YEAR’S EVE TEA PARTY: David Kirkham emails: “We are having a New Year’s Tea Party Party at Kirkham Motorsports. It will be a great time to come and get to know everyone as we kick off our 2012 election season. All www.instapundit.com readers are especially welcome. I’m in charge of the BBQ. Pot luck.” Here’s the Facebook page for the event. Wish I could be there.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: “Over the last month (November), Khan Academy had 4 million unique visits. That’s up from 1 million in the same period last year, and up from 3.5 million in October.”

WHEN MARRIAGE IS DYSFUNCTIONAL: “It is unconscionable to recommend marriage to any man under a legal regime in which he has no protection under the law and can be forced out of his own home by a single false charge. While this state of affairs is fair to neither individual men nor individual women, the lamentable fact is that very, very few women, even conservative, politically minded women who are correctly concerned about what low marriage rates will do to American society, are willing to speak out against Marriage 2.0 because they still wish to retain the legal benefits it affords married women in the event of divorce.”

HAWKER BEECHCRAFT QUESTIONS: America Deserves Answers on the Obama Administration’s Decision to Outsource the Next Generation of Light Attack Aircraft. Why a Brazilian company instead of an American one?

SCIENCE: Slower Brain Aging For Elderly On Better Diets?

HEH: On the incandescent bulb 24-pack, a customer review: “Screw you, Al Gore.” It’s nice to see the workers and peasants stand up to their oppressors.

KATIE GRANJU: Was Law Enforcement Supplying Drugs To Judge Baumgartner?

UH OH: Fisker officially recalls 239 Karmas over battery safety issue.

IS CHINA ready for 2012?

WALTER RUSSELL MEAD: Hugo Chavez Falls Off The Edge Of The World. “Chavez’ statement like most of his speeches was intended more as political theater than as serious analysis of the way the world works; nevertheless it is interesting to see how the cancer charge reflects ideas he shares or thinks will jazz up his base. As a psychological portrait of a certain element of the Latin left, the speech is quite revealing. . . . The sad truth is that even if we had invented some kind of untraceable multi-cancer agent and decided to use it, we wouldn’t be wasting it on Venezuela. There might be a wave of cancers in Iran, where recent news events point to a certain activism on the part of US and other agents. Some Taliban and Al-Qaeda leaders, and perhaps a few others in the region, might suddenly show the effects of intensive chemotherapy. But as is so often the case, poor Latin America would be the orphan stepchild of US foreign policy. Maybe we would give Chavez the flu.”

GOVERNMENT: Philly Councilwoman to Retire and Collect $478,000 Pension, Then Start Back To Work On Monday.

ANN ALTHOUSE: “After all of the criticism of Sarah Palin for using target imagery in some campaign literature… it’s interesting to see the National Journal writing like this.”

It’s only wrong when Sarah Palin does it. And even then, it’s only wrong when she looks like she might be running for President, and there’s a convenient tragedy to exploit.