BARBARIANS: In northern Mali, Islamists’ attacks against civilians grow more brutal.

On a sweltering afternoon, Islamist police officers dragged Fatima Al Hassan out of her house in the fabled city of Timbuktu. They beat her up, shoved her into a white pickup truck and drove her to their headquarters. She was locked up in a jail as she awaited her sentence: 100 lashes with an electrical cord.

“Why are you doing this?” she recalled asking.

Hassan was being punished for giving water to a male visitor. . . . “The people are losing all hope,” said Sadou Diallo, a former mayor of the northern city of Gao. “For the past eight months, they have lived without any government, without any actions taken against the Islamists. Now the Islamists feel they can do anything to the people.”

Hunt them down and kill them. Make examples.

EX-DIPLOMAT: I Was Beaten By Muslim Brotherhood.

WHAT THE LEFT BLOGOSPHERE IS DOING ABOUT THE ASSAULT ON STEPHEN CROWDER: “They’re engaged in a systematic effort to create confusion and discourage mainstream journalists from reporting on the incident.” And they don’t have to be very good at it to achieve their goal, since mainstream journalists are looking for an excuse to ignore it. They never cover violence by lefties when they can avoid it, though they’re happy to report made-up claims of violence involving the right.

KEITH HENNESSEY: A Third Option Changes The Negotiation. “This doesn’t mean Republicans want to go with option C, or that they like option C. It instead means their negotiator now has the ability to walk away from a really terrible deal with the President, and that he can therefore demand a bit more from the President in exchange for cooperation on a deal. Option C is useful to Republicans even if their strong preference, for non-policy reasons, is to negotiate a deal with the President. I think option C is S. 3412, a bill passed by the Senate in July.”

IRS GRANTS TAX-EXEMPT STATUS to Ohio Tea Party group.

THEY PASSED IT, AND NOW THEY’RE FINDING OUT WHAT’S IN IT: Democrats urge delay for ‘job-killing’ Obamacare tax.

JAMES TARANTO: ‘There Will Be Blood:’ Big Labor shows its ugly face in Lansing.

This is the third major state-level victory against Big Labor in the past two years, after Wisconsin’s triumph over greedy government unions and Indiana’s lower-profile right-to-work effort. “People always say this is a really tough battle, you can’t win,” Mark Mix of National Right to Work tells the Washington Examiner’s Byron York. “Then one morning we woke up and guess what? We found out it wasn’t nearly as strong as we thought.” The violent rhetoric looks like a sign of weakness, not strength.

Yep.

JEREMY LOTT: How They’ve Ruined Air Travel.

REVISING THE SCRIPT: Campaigning At A Diesel Engine Factory, Obama Made No Mention of “Green Energy” or “Green Jobs.” “Perhaps the administration is tired of endorsing projects the wind up in bankruptcy. . . . The green jobs boom, it appears, is not panning out as well as the President hoped.”

PRO-CHOICE: Ed Morrissey: You Have The Right To Not Pay Union Dues. “Labor groups should have to convince members that their goods and services are worth the price demanded — and not just take the money and run.”

HAPPY 12/12/12! We won’t see this sort of date again in this century.

HOW’S THAT HOPEY-CHANGEY STUFF WORKIN’ OUT FOR YA? (CONT’D): ‘Underemployed’: The TV Show That Nails How the Recession Changed Sex.

LIFE ON CAMPUS: Majoring In Fun. Not so bad maybe if you’re not doing it on borrowed money, but . . . .

THE BANGLES: In Your Room.

AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT: Anders Trentemøller – Minimal Fox.

AT AMAZON, markdowns on Coffee, Tea & Espresso Makers.

Also, up to 80% off on Gift Watches.

JOHN MAYALL AND THE BLUESBREAKERS, a whole set from 1987. I saw him the year before at 12th & Porter in Nashville with my friend Bob Simms, who was — among many other things — a Nashville music god. The crowd was sparse, and Mayall came and sat at our table for a bit between sets and talked, mostly to Bob, but he seemed like a very down-to-earth guy. I’ve seen him numerous other times, most recently at the Bijou in Knoxville. Amusingly, his warmup act arrived with a tour bus and big equipment truck, while Mayall himself came in a Toyota Landcruiser pulling a U-Haul.

CRYSTAL METHOD: Roll It Up. The very cool introductory “Hammond Organ” lick by Byron Wong, which sounds like it’s coming from a B3 organ with a bad cord, is actually a Native Instruments B4 software synthesizer, but it sounds great. I have one of those, and I remember I spent a lot of time screwing with attack envelopes to figure out how he got that sound.

JOAN JETT AND THE BLACKHEARTS: Crimson & Clover. When I was in law school, I went to see her with my friend Ralph at Toad’s Place in New Haven. We were standing right in front of the stage and Ralph held up a sign that said: “JOAN: $100 FOR YOUR PANTIES AFTER THE SHOW,” and she, without missing a beat, mouthed “I’m not wearing any.” It was a great show. She also did a show — opened for by the underrated Bus Boys — at UT when I was in college and there’s a story about that, too, but it’s not suitable for a family blog.

VIDEO: Roger Simon & Sheryl Longin talk with Bill Whittle about their new Walter Duranty play, The Party Line. (Bumped).

ELIMINATIONIST RHETORIC: Hoffa Predicts ‘Civil War’ in Michigan.

Related: IowaHawk: “I’ve now become oddly accustomed to fat violent paramilitary thugs attempting to take state capitols by force.”

UPDATE: John Steakley emails: “Civil war? So violence, decay, despair, filth and chaos in the streets while innocent people flee as fast as they can? In other words, Hoffa threatens that Detroit will look like . . . Detroit.”

Ouch.

WHEN GLOBAL WARMING IS THE GOAL: TERRAFORMING MARS.

If this subject interests you, I recommend this article by my former student Robert Pinson from the Environmental Law Reporter.

ALBERT COLLINS, Iceman. This video is from 1992. I saw him a couple of years before that in the late, lamented Ella Guru’s in Knoxville — a small intimate club kind of like a more upscale version of Nashville’s 12th & Porter, then owned by Ashley Capps, now better known as the Bonnaroo promoter. It was a great show, and he walked around the whole place with his trademark 150′ guitar cord — no wireless that night for the Master Of The Telecaster!

THUGGERY: “Most chilling Michigan video — ‘There are people under there, oh my God.’”

BRIAN TRANSEAU & KIRSTY HAWKSHAW: A Million Stars. With Hubble deep-field video.