DUD IN DURBAN: Climate Conference Ends Without A Deal.

The developed nations typically make a lot of noise about cutting greenhouse gas emissions ahead of these United Nations climate conferences. It’s part of the script.

Even national leaders who harbor some doubt join the chorus. They’d rather play the game than be labeled as backward, anti-science deniers by the media, left-wing politicians and special interests.

President Bush refused to go along in 2001 and was summarily smeared by the London Guardian, which said he had performed a “Taliban-like act” in his “decision to trash the Kyoto global warming treaty.”

But reaching an actual agreement that will decrease carbon dioxide emissions? That’s where they draw the line.

Playing the game at its highest level is the European Union. It says it’s willing to sign onto a deal that requires five more years of greenhouse emissions cuts — but only if the U.S., China and India join the coalition.

The EU might be able to convince America to agree, but it will never get China, the world’s largest producer of greenhouse gases, and India on board. And it knows this.

Indeed. Especially with all that newfound Chinese shale gas.

WHO WILL FACT-CHECK the “Fact-Checkers?”

POPULAR NOW IN CHINA: Fake Pregnancy Bellies? “The products are made of skin-colored silica gel, which give the bellies realistic texture and appearance. Retailing for between 500 and 1600 yuan ($79 to $252), the bellies are available several sizes depicting different stages of pregnancy, People Daily reports.”

CHUCK SIMMINS: The Discouraging Unemployment Picture. “The graphs were built to show both the current record or near record ‘bad’ numbers as well as their opposites from the Clinton and Bush Administrations. Fewer people are working and more people have dropped out of the labor force. That is the tale of November 2011.”

SEXISM: Sen. Patty Murray says that if Congress had more women, there might be a plan in place to deal with the nation’s $15 trillion debt. Murray herself, of course, is the biggest argument against any claim that women are naturally less profligate than men.

THE CARNIVAL OF SPACE IS UP!

#OCCUPYFAIL: Readership of OWS Website Plummets as Movement Fizzles.

TEN YEARS AGO ON INSTAPUNDIT: James Lileks Demolishes Defenders of “American Taliban” John Walker Lindh.

AT AMAZON, warehouse deals on kitchen gear.

REALLY? I mean, Really? I predict massive blowback.

UPDATE: Crazy, crazy, crazy, crazy bus.

OF COURSE, NOBODY WILL GO TO JAIL: Botched raid costs Minneapolis $1 million.

The Minneapolis City Council approved a $1 million settlement Friday after a botched drug raid in 2010 in which an officer threw a “flash-bang” grenade into a south Minneapolis apartment burning the flesh off a woman’s leg.

The payout to Rickia Russell, who suffered permanent injuries, was the third largest payout for alleged Minneapolis police misconduct on record.

Flash grenades are intended to distract and intimidate, not to injure people, but during the raid the device rolled under the legs of Russell, who was seated on a sofa, and exploded. The police were looking that day for a drug dealer, narcotics and a firearm, but found nothing.

Russell, now 31, suffered third- and fourth-degree burns that caused a deep indentation on the back of one leg, requiring skin grafts from her scalp. She is still undergoing physical therapy.

“What happened in this case was an accident,” Minneapolis city attorney Susan Segal said in a statement. “It’s very unfortunate that Ms. Russell suffered serious injuries, however, accidents like this are rare.”

Yet incidents of fires, injuries and even deaths caused by the devices have led to costly settlements and policy changes in cities nationwide, including Minneapolis, where a 1989 fire started by a police grenade killed two people.

You throw a grenade, there had better be a credible threat to someone’s life, not just some bullshit drug raid. The supervisors on this raid should be in jail for reckless endangerment.

And note this: “In what Bennett called ‘a cascading series of errors,’ a Minneapolis police SWAT team smashed down the door with a battering ram without warning, when the search warrant police had obtained required officers to announce themselves before entering.”

Jail time and bankruptcy should be the result, not just a civil judgment against the city. And there should be no official immunity for no-knock raids.

ADVICE ON handgun slide manipulation.

STEPHEN GREEN IS Drunkblogging The Iowa Debate.

DIARY OF A USED CAR SALESMAN: How To Sell A Car That Smells Like A Corpse.

AT AMAZON, up to 50% off on DeWalt drills.

J. CHRISTIAN ADAMS: Impeach Holder and DOJ Officials for DOJ Lies.

#OCCUPYFAIL: Don’t Like What People Say About You? Shut ’em down. Setting precedents here.

POLITICALLY CONNECTED TECHNOLOGY: LightSquared disrupts 75% of GPS receivers in gov’t testing. “The saga of LightSquared added a new chapter last night, as Bloomberg reported on the preliminary result of tests of the satellite Internet provider’s service in relation to GPS devices. The Obama administration has pushed LightSquared as a provider for its ambitious broadband expansion over the objections of the military, which warned that LightSquared’s operations would interfere with the satellite-based navigational system. The draft summary of the November testing shows that the military was right to be concerned.” That’s just a draft. It’ll be rewritten to show that there’s no reason to worry.

Plus this: “Why is this important? Philip Falcone is a big donor to the Democratic Party, and he has billions of dollars at stake in LightSquared’s approval. Also, Obama himself was an investor in LightSquared at one point, as were or are a number of his associates. The resounding failure in this test makes it look like the White House pressured witnesses to back off of exposing LightSquared’s product as exactly the kind of dangerous problem that critics had maintained all along — with the intent to mislead Congress into moving forward with LightSquared’s government contracts.”

EYE-TRACKING: What People Really Look At On Your Facebook Profile.

CHANGE: Evangelicals’ Collapsing Sexual Mores. This seems less horrible, and less novel, to me than it does to David French.

HYPE: Rick Santorum Will Score Upset Win in Tonight’s ‘Pivotal’ ABC Debate in Iowa. “It’s about the narrative arc, because TV news is show business, and show business requires a story that captures the public imagination. The people who run TV news are, to a greater extent than most viewers understand, deliberately controlling the story, deciding what is and is not ‘news.’”

UPDATE: Bill Quick: Whatever, Stacy. “The prospect of hanging focuses the mind wonderfully. And the national mind has felt the noose tightening around its collective neck for several years now. Angel-on-the-head-of-a-pin arguments about abortion, or sweeping hysteria about gays destroying the institution of marriage are minuscule distractions when you’re faced with possibly permanent unemployment, bankruptcy, negative home ownership, and a government that seems hell-bent on making your pain worse, not better. That’s what this election is about.”

J. CHRISTIAN ADAMS: Join the Austin Texas “Welcoming” Party for Eric Holder Tuesday.

STEPHANIE PLUM MEETS BIG BANG THEORY: Reader Rob Steiner asks me to plug his Aspect of Pale Night, a geek-chic mystery. Done!

ROGER SIMON: Gingrich Tells Truth about ‘Palestine’—MSM Goes in a Dither.

ROOTING OUT BOGUS SCHOLARSHIP: “Some years ago, I noticed several authors making the assertion that indentured servants, and in one instance even women and the propertyless, were routinely barred from owning guns in the Colonies and in the early Republic. All those assertions turned out to rely on Michael Bellesiles’ pre–Arming America work that made such an assertion, especially Gun Laws in Early America: The Regulation of Firearms Ownership, 1607–1794, 16 Law & Hist. Rev. 567, 574, 576 (1998).” Reliance on Bellesiles is scholarly malpractice.