REMEMBER THE TEA-PARTY-BASHING KIM STAFFORD? Actually, yes.

TECHNOLOGY: Novel Circuit Shrinks Laptop Chargers, Could Improve Appliance Efficiency. “The power adapter is the first commercial application of a novel circuit design developed by David Perreault, a professor of electrical engineering and computer science at MIT . . . . In addition to shrinking power adapters, the new circuit design could reduce the size and cost of a variety of devices known collectively as power electronics. These devices manipulate electricity, changing properties such as voltage and converting between AC and DC power; they can precisely control the power that goes to electric motors and compressors. Better power electronics can improve the efficiency of, say, household air conditioners, but they typically aren’t used in such applications because of their high cost.”

VIDEO: Learning To Press, 2.0. The weight-training kind, not the laundry kind.

A LEGAL DEFEAT FOR ClimateGate Denier Michael Mann.

NEWS YOU CAN USE: The First Things to Do With Your New Kindle Fire HDX Tablet.

WHY CREATIVE PEOPLE sometimes make no sense.

HOW CPR CAN SAVE A LIFE. Getting trained is easy, as I can attest.

NEWS YOU CAN USE: Winter Road Trip Survival: A Worst-Case-Scenario Guide. “Even if you’re a skilled driver with a well-maintained car, ice and snow are hazardous, and you should know what to do if your car breaks down or slips off the road in the middle of nowhere. Survival stories like those of the family that recently found itself lost in Nevada show the importance of being prepared.”

READER BOOK PLUG: Now out from Lloyd Tackitt, Eden’s War, the final volume in the series that began with A Distant Eden. $3.99 on Kindle.

CHANGE: Companies, Shifting Production, Expand to Accommodate Robots.

FASTER, PLEASE: The Newest Weapon Against Stroke: Ultrasound.

DRUM ROLL, PLEASE: Reason TV Names The Nanny Of The Year.

WHAT TO DO WHEN OBAMACARE UNRAVELS:

The unraveling of the Affordable Care Act presents a historic opportunity for change. Its proponents call it “settled law,” but as Prohibition taught us, not even a constitutional amendment is settled law—if it is dysfunctional enough, and if Americans can see a clear alternative.

This fall’s website fiasco and policy cancellations are only the beginning. Next spring the individual mandate is likely to unravel when we see how sick the people are who signed up on exchanges, and if our government really is going to penalize voters for not buying health insurance. The employer mandate and “accountable care organizations” will take their turns in the news. There will be scandals. There will be fraud. This will go on for years. . . .

There is an alternative. A much freer market in health care and health insurance can work, can deliver high quality, technically innovative care at much lower cost, and solve the pathologies of the pre-existing system.

The U.S. health-care market is dysfunctional. Obscure prices and $500 Band-Aids are legendary. The reason is simple: Health care and health insurance are strongly protected from competition. There are explicit barriers to entry, for example the laws in many states that require a “certificate of need” before one can build a new hospital. Regulatory compliance costs, approvals, nonprofit status, restrictions on foreign doctors and nurses, limits on medical residencies, and many more barriers keep prices up and competitors out. Hospitals whose main clients are uncompetitive insurers and the government cannot innovate and provide efficient cash service.

We need to permit the Southwest Airlines, LUV -0.26% Wal-Mart, WMT +0.40% Amazon.com AMZN -0.06% and Apples of the world to bring to health care the same dramatic improvements in price, quality, variety, technology and efficiency that they brought to air travel, retail and electronics. We’ll know we are there when prices are on hospital websites, cash customers get discounts, and new hospitals and insurers swamp your inbox with attractive offers and great service. . . .

Health insurance should be individual, portable across jobs, states and providers; lifelong and guaranteed-renewable, meaning you have the right to continue with no unexpected increase in premiums if you get sick. Insurance should protect wealth against large, unforeseen, necessary expenses, rather than be a wildly inefficient payment plan for routine expenses.

People want to buy this insurance, and companies want to sell it.

Unlike ObamaCare, which is the reverse.

TAXPROF: The IRS Scandal, Day 231.

ANNE APPLEBAUM: Russia And China Bring Back Cold War Tactics. “We in the United States may not believe that we are engaged in an ideological struggle with anybody, but other people are engaged in an ideological struggle with us. We in the United States may not believe that there is any real threat to our longtime alliance structures in Europe and Asia, but other people think those alliances are vulnerable and have set out to undermine them.”

WELL, YES AND NO: The Cultural Conservative Love Affair With Vladimir Putin Is Quite Odd. I don’t think Pat Buchanan is a proxy for “conservatives,” unless your main goal is to make them look bad. But to the extent that some people admire Putin, I think they like him because he’s not politically correct, and he acts unafraid. The key word here, though, is “acts.” Putin is, in fact, rationally afraid of a lot of things, but has (also rationally) concluded that there’s no benefit in letting on. In addition, Putin appears to be comparatively competent, which strikes a sufficient contrast with our own rulers to inspire a degree of admiration in some, I suppose.

I, of course, am no Putin admirer. His KGB background colors his approach in various unsuitable ways, while his effort to squelch all opposition using the power of the state, and of para-state thuggery, seems far too similar to the Obama approach to inspire any rational admiration, from Americans at least.

SORRY, GOP ESTABLISHMENT: Why The Tea Party Isn’t Going Anywhere.

TAR. FEATHERS. Local courts reviving ‘debtors’ prison’ for overdue fines, fees.

GET AN AMAZON GIFT CARD FOR CHRISTMAS? Please do your shopping through this link.

Also, today only: Up to 60% Off Tech Gear. All sorts of goodies.

And, also today only: Popular Books in 2013, $1.99 Each. On Kindle.

JOE MANCHIN accidentally tells the truth.

BOB NEWHART and the narrowing of freedom.

MORE ON KANSAS’S DUMB ACADEMIC CENSORSHIP SCHEME:

The event that likely precipitated the policy change was one incendiary tweet in the wake of yet another mass shooting. David W. Guth, a tenured journalism professor at University of Kansas, unleashed a 140-character rant that insisted the “blood [was] on the hands of the #NRA.” Opinionated, but not necessarily objectionable, but then he went on: “Next time, let it be YOUR sons and daughters.” Oof. After a highly predictable and not wholly undeserved reaction, Guth was temporarily suspended.

The new Kansas policy, though, makes good and sure that any similar blunder would result in its author being permanently fired—in this case for “inciting violence” (though most believe Guth was not being literal). And that’s by far the least objectionable of the policy’s clauses. The regents seem to have milked the Guth incident for maximum possible censorship, and now the verboten also extends to statements that are “contrary to the best interests of the university” or anything that “impairs discipline by superiors or harmony among coworkers.”

It’s unconstitutional. But it’s also dumb as dirt. But it’s also the logical endpoint of the culture of political correctness that academics have permitted — and, often, championed — for decades. It would have been better to defend free speech, even if it doing so might have occasionally benefited a Baptist or something.

PETER WOOD: Higher Education’s Top 10 Highs and Lows of 2013.

GENE HEALY: Obama’s Epic Fib About The NSA.