ALCESTIS OBERG: Cherish holidays in good times and bad.

PETER INGEMI: The World Can Wait Til After Christmas. “I think we can go a couple of days without dealing with the MSM and their idiocy, in fact I think we’ll all do better for it.”

LIFE AMONG THE BARBARIANS: Timbuktu mausoleums ‘destroyed.’ “Timbuktu was a centre of Islamic learning from the 13th to the 17th centuries. It is a UN World Heritage site with centuries-old shrines to Islamic saints that are revered by Sufi Muslims. The Salafists of Ansar Dine condemn the veneration of saints. . . . The news that further monuments were being destroyed came one day after Islamists were reported to have cut the hands off two people.”

OKAY, IT’S CHRISTMAS AND YOU CAN’T ORDER ANYTHING — but you can send Amazon gift cards by email, or print ’em out yourself. Just in case you dropped the ball somewhere. . . .

Also, today only: Up to 67% Off “Disney Epic Mickey 2” and “Just Dance Disney Party.” And a bunch of other video game “lightning deals” throughout the day — new ones every hour.

FREE ON KINDLE TODAY: A Magic Broken.

2012: THE BEST YEAR EVER? “2012 has been a spectacular year in terms of net global prosperity, accompanied by less hunger, less disease, and less war than ever before. . . . And hey, what about energy scarcity? Pfffft. Thanks to improved efficiencies and new technologies (a.k.a. hydraulic fracturing!), both our total fossil-fuel usage and carbon emissions are on the way down. What’s more, the sane thinking involving the threat of climate change is looking a lot less catastrophic than we have always been led to believe.”

R.I.P., Jack Klugman.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

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.”