IN THE ATLANTIC: The Homeschool Diaries: In New York City, teaching your own kids can make the most practical sense. “That first year, chatting with other homeschooling parents at soccer games, picnics, and after-church coffee hours, I found that our decision was far from unusual. Homeschooling has long been a philosophical choice for religious traditionalists and off-the-grid homesteaders, but for the parents we met—among them several actors, a jazz composer, a restaurateur, a TV chef, a Columbia University physical-plant supervisor, and a handful of college professors—it was a practical alternative to New York’s notoriously inadequate education system.”

Is this another foreshock of the coming K-12 implosion?

JAMES TARANTO: McFortress: An antigun newspaper avails itself of the Second Amendment. “Under normal circumstances, a company’s lawful security arrangements would hardly be newsworthy. But as we noted Monday, the Journal News provoked the bitter backlash that so frightened McBride by publishing a report in which it named residents of the two counties who have done exactly what the Journal News has now done: lawfully availed themselves of their rights under the Second Amendment. . . . This column does not begrudge the Journal News for exercising its Second Amendment right to armed self-defense. But doing so after attacking law-abiding citizens for doing exactly the same thing is the most stunning display of media hypocrisy we’ve seen since the ‘civility’ frenzy of early 2011.”

MORE ON THOSE UNDERFUNDED / OVER-GENEROUS PUBLIC PENSIONS: Calpers Seeks to Sue San Bernardino Over Pension Payments. “The California Public Employees’ Retirement System is seeking to sue bankrupt San Bernardino over missed pension payments, the second potentially precedent- setting fight the fund picked with a California city this year. San Bernardino can’t use U.S. bankruptcy law to justify its failure to make at least $5 million in payments, Calpers, the biggest U.S. public-employee pension fund, said in court papers filed Nov. 27. The motion relies on arguments the fund is also making in the bankruptcy of Stockton, California, and may be a warning to other cities struggling with high pension costs, said James E. Spiotto, a bankruptcy attorney and partner at Chapman & Cutler LLP in Chicago.”

It’s also a warning to anyone thinking of loaning those cities money.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Should You Go To Grad School? My Story.

NICK GILLESPIE ON GRIDLOCK:

The problem is usually denigrated as gridlock and laid at the feet of historically obstructionist Republicans. But none of that is true. Congress has been able to pass all sorts of stupid and generally terrible legislation under Obama and the fiscal cliff deal, whatever its particulars, merely underscores that fact.

The true obstructionists in Congress, at least when it comes to budget issues, are Senate Democrats, who haven’t completed any serious work in years. More specifically, the blame falls to Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada and budget committee chairman Kent Conrad of North Dakota. After a decades-long career in which he is inevitably held up as a great statesman – despite his inability to produce, much less push, a budget – Conrad is finally retiring. So maybe that will change finally.

Maybe.

WHY IS CHUCK HAGEL STILL IN THE MIX? “With liberal gay activists, key Republican senators and a bevy of pro-Israel groups vocally opposed to the former Nebraska senator, it is worthwhile to take a step back and answer some more basic questions. Let’s start with an issue that should concern the Obama administration and its allies, namely the significant policy differences between Hagel and the president. President Obama believes in tough sanctions against Iran; Hagel does not. The president insists that he wants good relations with Israel (and thereby can influence its decision-making with regard to Iran); Hagel has displayed a poisonous animosity toward the Jewish state. Hagel has advocated direct negotiations with Hamas; Obama has never gone this far. The difficulty in articulating to foes and friends our positions on an array of issues is greatly magnified when a critical cabinet officials has a long track record of disagreement with the president, or at least what the president says is his current policy.”

Personnel is policy. If Obama appoints Hagel, you’ll know what his policy is, regardless of what he says.

R.I.P.: Bob Munden, who has died aged 70, was listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as “The Fastest Man with a Gun Who Ever Lived.”

AL JAZEERA BUYS CURRENT TV. “Mr. Gore and his partners were eager to complete the deal by Dec. 31, lest it be subject to higher tax rates that took effect on Jan. 1.”

That’s Irony #1. Irony #2 is Al Gore walking away with $100 million in dirty oil money. Well, it would be ironic if it weren’t so predictable. Al’s a whore, basically. Gore, I mean. Not Jazeera.

NOBEL PEACE PRIZE UPDATE: “A few days before Christmas, the U.S. indicted three men at the Federal District courthouse in Brooklyn for plotting suicide bomb attacks. This is an extraordinary, almost unique case: none of the people or conduct has any connection to the U.S. The defendants are foreign nationals, captured by some African government ont their way to join up with al-Shabab, the Somali Islamist group. To be clear, there is no suggestion that they planned to target American nationals or facilities, or had even ever been to this country before. This is an aggressive – and unconstitutional – assertion of universal jurisdiction. The U.S. is prosecuting foreign nationals for their participation in a foreign civil war. . . . Two months after their arrest, the prisoners were secretly indicted by a federal grand jury in New York, then clandestinely taken into custody by the FBI and flown to the United States to face trial.”

Somewhere, Dick Cheney is smiling.

IF YOU’RE IN NEW ORLEANS THIS WEEKEND, you can drink with Volokh Conspiracy bloggers Saturday night.

AT AMAZON, markdowns on select Samsung HDTVs. Also, markdowns on Panasonic HDTVs.

Also, deals on ink and toner for printers.

THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM: School Shootings And Absent Fathers.

SCARY TIMES: “In some ways the anti-white-man rhetoric that has become standard and acceptable lately is the worst sign of all. If the term ‘hate speech’ has a meaning, it most definitely would apply to a great deal of what has been said recently about that despised group. Those who are first to shriek ‘racism’ and ‘sexism’ when criticism is launched against a group defined as oppressed (blacks, women) are turning the tables and dissing white men with impunity. It is both hypocritical and vile, and especially offensive when cloaked in the sanctimony of those on the left who believe they occupy the moral high ground (that would be everyone on the left).”

The Obama presidency has certainly been clarifying. Which is probably why gun sales are up.

TINSLEY ELLIS: Time To Quit.

THIRTEEN ROUNDS OF .32 CALIBER FURY: “If you can find a less practical pistol, buy it.”

AT AMAZON, up to 60% off on shoes, handbags, and more.

Also, markdowns on Men’s athletic shoes.

MICHAEL WALSH: A VOYAGE TO LAPUTA. “Naturally, Louis Michael Seidman is a graduate of Harvard Law, whence now seems to originate all our misery.”

THE THERAPISTS HAVE ALL BEEN SACKED AND REPLACED BY SPECIALLY TRAINED ECUADORIAN MOUNTAIN LLAMAS. So long as it’s not a moose. A moose bit my sister once. And m00se bites can be pretty nasti.

WHY, WHATEVER THE RIGHT PEOPLE SAY IT IS, OF COURSE: What Is Diversity?

SOME NEW YEAR’S GOOD NEWS: ‘Gun control’ doesn’t survive Christmas. Well, some of us are still wondering why David Gregory hasn’t been prosecuted, especially when others similarly situated have been.

CHAIN REACTION ON THIN ICE. “A chain reaction panic saw nearly a dozen people fall through thin ice into a US lake. The desperate cries for help began when one man on a sledging excursion in Wrightwood, California, fell through the ice. Others frantically tried to rescue him, but one-by-one they plunged into the icy water themselves.” Stay off the ice unless you’re really sure of it. And if someone falls in, try throwing them a rope, and if you must try to cross the ice yourself, spread your weight out and slither.

TOO MUCH INFORMATION: I Tried To Join The “Mile High Club” And Failed.

NOBEL PEACE PRIZE UPDATE: Court: Obama Can Keep Legal Opinions About Drone Killing Secret. “The U.S. Government has no legal duty to disclose legal opinions justifying the use of drones to kill suspected terrorist operatives abroad, although doing so would contribute to ‘intelligent’ public debate over the legality of that practice, a federal judge wrote in a ruling issued Wednesday.”

THE DEMOCRATS’ COMING CIVIL WAR: The party is poised for a showdown over Social Security and Medicare. Obama vs. the liberals.

WAR ON SCIENCE: The EPA’s Tainted Fracking Tests: The agency’s groundwater contamination finding is undermined by the U.S. Geological Survey.