LOST IN WASHINGTON? The Disappearing Director-General of UNESCO.

MY USA TODAY COLUMN: Gun-free zones provide false sense of security.

GOOD POINT: “Say what you will about homeschooling, but if your child is taught at home, he’s not going to be shot there by some disgruntled school employee, student, or parent.”

PUNISHMENT: ESPN’s Parker Suspended For Conducting Racial Purity Test On RGIII.

TWEET OF THE DAY: “Wait. So Eric Holder isn’t to blame for Fast and Furious, but the NRA is to blame for school shootings? Got it.”

AT AMAZON, Grills and Grilling Gear. It won’t be winter forever. Besides, we grill pretty much year-round.

IN RESPONSE TO TODAY’S SHOOTING, WHICH DIDN’T INVOLVE AUTOMATIC WEAPONS, Rupert Murdoch asks: “When will politicians find courage to ban automatic weapons?” Appalling ignorance.

UPDATE: Reader John Rumpelein says the answer to Murdoch’s question is “1934.” Heh.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Murdoch keeps deleting my replies to his tweets. Tacky.

MORE: Reader Mike Puckett wonders what kind of weapons Murdoch’s bodyguards carry. I’d ask via Twitter, but, well . . . But hey, Rupert: What kind of guns do your bodyguards carry? And why are you more deserving of armed protection than ordinary Americans? You can email me through the blog.

MORE STILL: Well, I tried asking via Twitter anyway, but he deleted that, too.

STILL MORE: Reader Jason Young writes:

Murdoch’s non-response is a perfect illustration of the problem with the old guard media, and a tremendously ironic “no comment” from someone who would never take that from a subject. We need the New Media to start holding old media reporters’ feet to the fire by treating them exactly the way that they should be treating our elected representatives. Sit outside their houses and offices until they answer questions. Hound them with cameras and lights. Shout questions like “Why no coverage of Iran shooting down our drone?” or “Don’t you think the Benghazi survivors deserve to be interviewed?” or even “Why do you think the majority of the American public doesn’t trust you any longer?”. Get it on tape and post their non-responses for all the world to see.

Now that we have an alternative media channel we need to expose and shame these traitors into DOING THEIR JOBS.

Doing my best. But they’re kinda shameless.

AND EVEN MORE: Here’s a picture of “Rupert Murdoch, surrounded by his personal security team.”

There seem to be a lot of them. Hey, Rupert: Why is your life more deserving of protection than a battered woman’s or a 7-11 clerk’s? (Bumped).

DONALD SENSING mocks Hollywood over “gun culture” remarks. They’re mockable. Also, Tom Cruise is way too short to be a plausible Jack Reacher.

Also, Jim Treacher mocks David Frum. Easy, but still worth it.

MATT K. LEWIS: The Working-Class Epidemic of Demoralization: While coastal elites overindulge, struggling Americans in flyover country feel they have little to live for or believe in.

I had some related thoughts.

TWO NEWSPAPERS IN ONE!

CHICAGO-STYLE GOVERNANCE: City of Chicago Wants to Vacate Ruling Against Cops’ “Code of Silence.”

ADVICE: The Koch Brothers Should Buy MSNBC.

Well, they certainly seem to be doing well enough to afford it.

ANOTHER REASON TO KILL AMTRAK? “I believe you can make an argument that the Acela has actually helped birth the stranglehold the finance industry has over federal fiscal and monetary policies, and thus has hurt America. . . . The geographic proximity of New York to Washington, with quick trips back and forth on the Acela, facilitates this. Clearly, you could get back and forth on the shuttle without it, but given the Acela’s popularity, it does seem to have some big benefits in shrinking the distance between New York and DC. I’d argue this has been unhealthy for America. If true high speed rail ever came to the NYC-DC corridor, who knows what might happen?”

COVERED ON PJM/PJTV LAST SUMMER, NOW HITTING THE MAINSTREAM NEWS: Border County Sheriff’s Son Arrested in FBI Drug Investigation. Advantage: PJM/PJTV!

“BASELESS:” Seven Secretaries of State Criticize Michelle Obama for Claiming GOP Voter Suppression Occurred in the 2012 Election.

AMERICANS’ BIGGEST ECONOMIC PROBLEM: High Fixed Costs. Funny but in our household both of us — but especially the Insta-Wife — have always tried to keep fixed costs as low as possible. That way it’s easier to adjust your spending if your income takes a hit.

Housing, health care, and education cost the average family 75 percent of their discretionary income in the 2000s. The comparable figure in 1973: 50 percent.

Some of this is due to costs going up, but some of it is to people wanting bigger houses or fancier educations than they did then.

UPDATE: Reader David Schipani writes:

You quoted, “Housing, health care, and education cost the average family 75 percent of their discretionary income in the 2000s. The comparable figure in 1973: 50 percent.” Is it a coincidence that those are the three areas the federal government has been the most involved in providing financial assistance for? If you want to jack the price of something sky-high, get the government to help you pay for it.

Indeed.

JEFF SOYER NOTES A POINTED DRUDGE JUXTAPOSITION.

RAND SIMBERG ON Property Rights In Space.

GOOD NEWS: Plants In Space Prove Gravity Is Unnecessary For Normal Growth.

EVERGREEN: In the New York Daily News: People don’t stop killers. People with guns do.

INFOGRAPHIC: How To Make Beer.

THE ORIGINAL WAR ON CHRISTMAS: The short, glorious history of the Society for the Prevention of Useless Giving.

MULTIPLE FATALITIES AT Connecticut School Shooting.

Stay tuned, and remember that most original reports about the Clackamas mall shooting turned out to be wrong. Early reports often are.

Meanwhile, get ready for cynical attempts to push gun control on the back of a tragedy, again. As William S. Burroughs once said, “After a shooting spree, they always want to take the guns away from the people who didn’t do it.”

READER CD PLUG: From Larry Shackley, Evergreen & Ivory. Christmas music!

WHY THE HOT SAUCE INDUSTRY is the new Craft Beer industry. “Beyond established companies, thousands of kitchen and garage cooks have begun decocting their own spicy blends, with dozens of new sauces hitting local shelves and mail-order catalogs each year. A quick survey of recent entrepreneurial sauciers included a 13-year-old boy from North Carolina, a formerly homeless veteran who used sauce to rebuild his life and a Palo Alto, Calif., firefighter who grows his peppers behind the station.”