HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: For Poor, Leap to College Often Ends in a Hard Fall. “Not one of them has a four-year degree. Only one is still studying full time, and two have crushing debts. Angelica, who left Emory owing more than $60,000, is a clerk in a Galveston furniture store. . . . even after accounting for financial aid, the costs of attending a public university have risen 60 percent in the past two decades. Many low-income students, feeling the need to help out at home, are deterred by the thought of years of lost wages and piles of debt.”

Go to college, but don’t borrow money to do it. Plus this: “The growing role of class in academic success has taken experts by surprise since it follows decades of equal opportunity efforts and counters racial trends, where differences have narrowed.” Unexpectedly!

SOME THOUGHTS ON POLITICS WITHOUT FOUNDATIONS.

COARSENING CULTURE: Ed Driscoll: Christmas Dignity.

AT AMAZON, up to 50% off in Kitchen & Dining.

MICKEY KAUS: “Two bits of spin in Mike Allen’s Politico ‘Playbook’ that seem like obvious BS (obvious even to me).”

POPULAR CHRISTMAS REQUEST: “A Dad.”

HAVE YOURSELF A CHINTZY LITTLE CHRISTMAS: The last holiday shopping weekend falls short of expectations. Well, the Retail Support Brigade has been thrown into the breach too many times, with too little support. Even the best troops give out at some point. Especially when they’re poorly led and provisioned.

I did notice that the parking lots at my nearby mall — usually jam-packed the last week or two before Christmas — were looking surprisingly un-full.

WE REALLY ARE living in the Crazy Years.

SO YOU’RE DRIVING YOUR TRUCK ACROSS A FROZEN LAKE. It falls through, you rescue your daughter from the icy water, and you’re a hero. Not driving the truck across the ice wouldn’t have made you a hero. But maybe a bit smarter?

AT AMAZON, up to 70% off on musical instruments and equipment.

Also, Rocky: The Undisputed Collection (Rocky / Rocky II / Rocky III / Rocky IV / Rocky V / Rocky Balboa), on Blu-Ray, $19.99 (71% off).

IT’S A WONDERFUL FOUNTAINHEAD: Surprising Commonalities Between George Bailey And Howard Roark?

BUT, I THINK, NOTHING COMPARED TO WHAT YOU’D SEE HERE, NOW: Gun Restrictions Have Always Bred Defiance, Black Markets. Especially with all the eliminationist rhetoric coming from the left lately.

MORE ELIMINATIONIST RHETORIC: Prof. Richard Parncutt: Death Penalty for Global Warming Deniers? People certainly do seem to be trying to push the idea of violence against folks on the right lately, don’t they?

UPDATE: Reader Allen S. Thorpe writes:

What amuses me is how so many of these people claim to be anti-violence and pacifistic until someone disagrees with them. Apparently it never occurs to them that these ideals can never be met until we learn to disagree without rancor. It’s a symptom of childishness to throw a tantrum when you don’t get your way.

That’s probably obvious, but it keeps happening and they never seem to get it. You can’t maintain a republic when there are too many people like that allowed to vote.

It’s a problem.

ED DRISCOLL ON NEWSWEEK’S DEMISE: Give The People What They Want, And They’ll Come Out For It In Droves. “Tina was simply duped into becoming an unwitting fall-girl for brand far, far too damaged to be salvaged.”

FROM ROGER KIMBALL, thoughts on the art of persuasion.

Related: Roger Simon: A Failure to Communicate: The GOP’s Public Relations Debacle.

EGYPT: AP Interview: Opposition leader says constitution illegitimate, vows liberal parliament win. Well, he’s at least half right. But the liberals should have been scoping out their opposition and its weaknesses from the beginning, and laying plans accordingly.

SHAKING THE KALEIDOSCOPE. “We are the dregs, the rebels, the rejects of Europe. . . . You see, we are part of Western civilization, but not part of European civilization. Even our parent, Great Britain, is only half digested into Europe. We are the castoffs, the redheaded step child. Part of them, but not.”

FREE ON KINDLE TODAY: Target: Santa (A Holiday Black-Ops Campaign). (Bumped).

THE STORY ISN’T DEAD: Benghazi Questions, State Department Answers. According to a spokesperson, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was recuperating from “a really painful bunion” and was thus unable to comment.

BY ITS FRUIT THE TREE IS KNOWN: 440+ School Age Children Shot in Gun-Controlled Chicago. “In a gun-control-utopia such as this, you’d expect school-age children to be safe from all harm, if you buy into the theories of Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Chuck Schumer (D-NY). Yet the truth is more than 440 school-age children have been shot in Chicago in 2012. This is not to say that 440 school-age children died, simply that more than 440 school-age children were at least wounded. The number of school-age children killed is reported at approximately 60.”

COOL: SpaceX’s reusable rocket lifts cowboy into the air and lands vertically. In Alex Pournelle’s words, “As God and Robert A. Heinlein intended.”

RADICAL ENVIRONMENTALISTS POST ASSASSINATION HIT LIST. “In fact, the newsletter conveniently provides the names, addresses and phone numbers of the assassination targets.”

UPDATE: Reader Warren Bonesteel writes: “The ‘narrative’ is about making it socially acceptable to start killing Republicans and conservatives. This type of ‘narrative’ is always a precursor to such events, historically speaking.” We do seem to be hearing a lot of eliminationist rhetoric lately.

CLASSY: Intimidation: NY Newspaper Publishes Names, Addresses of Gun Permit Holders. I guess nobody could object to people putting the newspaper staff’s addresses on the Web now, right?.

UPDATE: Sauce for the goose. Meanwhile, several readers suggest that it’s mean to the non-gun-owning populace to post the gunowner list, since burglars and home invaders can now just check their addresses against the list to ensure that they’re safe to rob. . . .

You know, other newspapers have done this sort of thing, and they’ve pretty much all gotten terrible PR out of it. You have to wonder why people keep doing it. I can’t help but feel that they’re not trying to maximize shareholder value.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Jeff Brown writes: “So is that NY newspaper going to pay to relocate the women who have gun permits due to stalkers and abusive spouses now that the paper has revealed their new addresses? What about the children who will now spend Christmas in a shelter or motel because their mother had to run?”

MORE: Moe Lane: “You know who should be ticked about this? People in those counties without handgun permits. Because burglars are gonna burgle.”

GOOD TIDINGS TO YOU, AND ALL OF YOUR CRONIES: While Much of America Suffers with Stagnation, Washington’s Political Class Is Having a Very Merry Christmas. “Why should ordinary taxpayers be coerced to subsidize Washington’s high-flying parasite economy? Redistribution is a bad thing in most circumstances. But when you redistribute from poor to rich, that’s utterly perverse.”

A WHITE HOUSE PETITION: Press charges against David Gregory for possession of a 30-round, high capacity assault rifle magazine in Washington D.C.

UPDATE: Well, it’s easy to see where Gregory gets his scofflaw attitude: Hey David Gregory, Wasn’t Your Wife a Fannie Mae Executive?