NEWS YOU CAN USE: 5 Life Lessons From JFK.

A PEARL HARBOR DAY OUCH: “We reduced Japan to a pile of radioactive smoking rubble in 1,346 days. It’s now Day 1,355 and, despite promises to do likewise to the healthcare system, they’re still working on it. The FDR administration built almost a hundred working aircraft carriers faster than the Obama administration has managed to build one working website.”

IS IT JUST ME, or is the press making a bigger deal about Rupert Murdoch’s reporters guessing voicemail passwords of celebrities, than about the NSA, and British GCHQ, hoovering up billions of conversations by ordinary citizens?

AT AMAZON, up to 50% off on Winter Storm Gear.

Plus, deals on DeWalt Tools. Also tools from Black & Decker.

And, Coupons Galore in Kitchen & Dining.

Also, up to 65% off on Cashmere. Winter is coming. Hell, who am I kidding? It’s here.

SMART DIPLOMACY: Fears mount that Dems will undermine White House on Iran.

THE SOUND OF MUSIC LIVE: What Went Wrong And What Went Right.

EVERYBODY NEEDS AN 808: The Drum Machine’s Amazing Impact.

VIDEO: J. Christian Adams Talks with Megyn Kelly about Activist Immigration Lawyers at DHS.

ADDING TO THE JENNY MCCARTHY BODY COUNT: Measles Cases Triple in U.S., Vaccine Refusal Here and Elsewhere to Blame.

FROM DAVE KOPEL, CLAYTON CRAMER, AND JOSEPH OLSON: Knives And The Second Amendment.

THE 25 FUNNIEST Passive-Aggressive Notes of 2013.

NEW NSA MOTTO? “Release The Kraken!”

WORKING MODELS OF UPWARD MOBILITY:

Some black people consider that it is “selling out” to speak without using slang. Some think it is being fake when you change for other people.

Learning proper grammar and more effective communication is just the beginning of properly selling out.

Most who have successfully achieved upward mobility have multi-year and often multi-generational planning and efforts.

Vietnamese boat refugees came to north america in the 1970s and 1980s.

They often arrived with no money and few possessions and may not have had command of the language.

What was their model of upward mobility ?

They had multiple families in one house. They pooled income in order to buy their first house (with multiple families inside). Multiple families earning to afford the down payment and then to have more incomes to pay the mortgage. There was greater savings of income and capital appreciation in the house. The house would be sold a few years later and the profit split to afford multiple down payments.

So it was not just dual earners. It was say three families pooling and squeezing one family into each room and camping indoors (for years) or being in bunks inside the one room until they earned enough to move. So it would be say 6 earners and more as children got past the age of twelve and were able to earn. Although the children may have been forgiven the need to earn if it meant better success in education.

The Vietnamese boat people had to escape a war torn country (because they were on the losing side) and 10-70% of them died on the oceans to achieve their change of venue (to locations with more opportunity).

All of the children make it through university and get professional jobs, own one at least one home per family.

Is it “selling out?” Or buying in?

SOME ELON MUSK SYNERGY: SolarCity, Using Tesla Batteries, Aims to Bring Solar Power to the Masses. “The batteries could help businesses lower their utility bills by reducing the amount of power they draw from the grid. They could also help address solar power’s intermittency, which could prevent it from becoming a significant source of electricity. The batteries are being supplied by Tesla Motors, whose CEO, Elon Musk, is SolarCity’s chairman.”

READER BOOK PLUG: From Reader Tom Santo, Three Days in HighGrade.

REVIEW: Cree’s LED Replacement For the 75-Watt Bulbs You Can’t Buy Anymore.

I’m testing their 60-watt-equivalent bulbs now, and they seem pretty good. Of course, you can always just stock up on incandescents.

LAW ENFORCEMENT: Kansas City Police Allegedly Threatened to Shoot Homeowner’s Dogs if He Refused to Let them Search his House Without a Warrant. Being whipped naked through the streets, followed by a few hours in the stocks, seems an appropriate punishment for such behavior. I mean, as long as people are talking about bringing back corporal punishment. Humiliation seems a key part of successful punishment for the abuse of power — those who abuse the power with which they are entrusted come to see it as their own power, not power that is delegated, and supposed to be used fairly. Public humiliation, or even the fairly remote prospect of public humiliation, might change that.

Alternatively, we could fire the public-employee-union police and replace them with privatized police who would not enjoy qualified immunity.

ELECTRONICS DEAL OF THE DAY: Sony DSC-HX50V/B 20.4MP Digital Camera and 16GB Memory Card, $329.

CHARLES HOOPER: The NSA’s Witch Hunt: Should the government spy on its citizens? The numbers say no.

TAXPROF ROUNDUP: The IRS Scandal, Day 212.

KATRINA ON THE HUDSON: Displaced by Hurricane Sandy and Living in Limbo, Instead of at Home.

OBAMA: That IRS Scandal I Was Outraged About Is No Big Deal.

MEGAN MCARDLE ON THE DEATH OF PRINT:

New York magazine is very successful. Its editor is very well regarded, and it wins lots of awards. It gets scads of Web traffic. It publishes magazine features that win the admiration of fellow journalists and has also become practically ubiquitous on social media. And, apparently, it still can’t pay the bills as a weekly publication. Hearing that New York magazine can’t make it as a weekly is, for a professional journalist, rather like being told that your teddy bear has cancer. How is that even possible?

The answer is that the circulation of print magazines is declining, while advertising revenue has taken a suicidal plunge. Companies who wanted to inform people about their firm’s activities used to have basically three choices: print media, television or radio. (OK, four if you count billboards.) These were all media companies, and they used the money corporations gave them to produce news.

Now companies have a lot more options. They have their own corporate website. They can try to create online ads that go viral, spreading news of their brand via social media. And, of course, there are lots and lots of Internet companies, such as Google Inc. and Facebook Inc., that companies can pay to spread their message. And what do those companies have in common? They are not, with small exceptions, in the business of producing content. Print media used to bundle content and distribution into one profitable package. Now that package has been unbundled — and print media got left with the part that doesn’t make much money.

But don’t blame Baumol’s Cost Disease.

DAVID SOLWAY: A Great Reckoning In A Little Room: Obama’s deal with Iran is only one action in a concerted campaign to fatally weaken Israel.