WHEN ACADEMICS ARE LACKING IN SELF-AWARENESS: “‘Partyism’ is a form of hostility and prejudice that operates across political lines. For example, some Republicans have an immediate aversive reaction to Democrats, so much so that they would discriminate against them in hiring or promotion decisions, or in imposing punishment.”

GENOCIDE: Four young Christians brutally beheaded by ISIS in Iraq for refusing to convert to Islam, says British Vicar of Baghdad forced to flee.

RAND PAUL’S REVENGE: Now That The Senate Is Done Investigating Torture, Will Drone Killings Be Next?

President Obama’s targeted killing program has been one of the more confounding strategical decisions of his presidency. For liberal supporters who voted to elect a constitutional-law professor in 2008 and a candidate who had campaigned against harsh interrogation practices like waterboarding, it would have been hard to imagine that just years later they’d see a president who keeps a “kill list” of suspected terrorists. . . .

“I was not satisfied with the legal analysis that I read in the classified document by the Department of Justice,” says Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, who is on the Intelligence Committee. “To me, when an American is involved, it raises very different questions then when we are striking a foreign terrorist.” Anwar al-Awlaki, an American citizen who had worked with al-Qaida, was killed in a 2011 drone strike under legal authority the administration derived from the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force.

Details about how drones are used to kill terrorists remain unknown, a fact leaders on Capitol Hill harbor concerns about. Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., who is in line to be the next Senate Foreign Relations chairman, said it’s an area ripe for oversight.

President Obama says he’s really good at killing people.

ED DRISCOLL: At Harvard, A Primal Scream.

NEW DEMANDS ON MEN IN THE WORKPLACE: “Women have no idea what men in the workplace are dealing with when they work with women. And men, despite what the author thinks, are not there to babysit women by telling them to ask for raises, brushing away tears and ‘twisting’ women’s arms to ask for her own promotion.”

Is it any wonder so many men are on strike?

VIDEO: Prof. Jacobson: “Any man on campus is at risk.”

AT AMAZON, deals on The Best Music of 2014.

Also, up to 30% off in Pet Supplies.

TEACH BOYS NOT TO LIE ABOUT RAPE BY TEACHERS: Principal sobs as she reveals how pupil’s false affair claims ended her career and turned ‘everyone against her’ before judge laughed them out of court.

Yeah, this is like a grand convergence of InstaPundit themes here. . . . But false accusations do a lot of harm. Perhaps as women face more of them, society as a whole will take more note.

EUROPE WOULD HAVE BEEN VASTLY BETTER OFF IF THIS HAD SPREAD, AS AUTHORITIES FEARED: Remembering The 1914 Christmas Truce.

LOOKING AT AN EARLIER QUESTIONABLE CAMPUS RAPE PIECE IN ROLLING STONE BY NINA BURLEIGH, Tom Maguire notices a pattern.

AT AMAZON, Top Holiday Deals in Sports & Outdoors.

Plus, New Releases in Blu-Ray & DVD.

BUT FOLLOW THE LINK FOR JOE BIDEN’S HISTORY OF VIOLENT ASSAULT AND DEATH THREATS: Semi-retired president: “I spend most of my time watching ESPN in the morning.”

SOON, THE FLOODGATES WILL OPEN: SMU Cited For Inadequate Response To Male Victim’s Complaint Of Sexual Assault.

I WONDER WHERE IT CAME FROM: California Battling Worst Whooping Cough Epidemic In 70 Years.

SEAN COLLINS: Rolling Stone And The Myth Of A Rape Epidemic.

HAPPY 12/13/14!

JAMES W. CEASER: The Flight from Reason on Campus, And the madness of crowds.

“AFFIRMATIVE CONSENT” GETS TRAGIC: “An Iowa state lawmaker says he loved visiting his wife at a nursing home before her death at age 79. But prosecutors have filed felony charges against him, saying that her Alzheimer’s made her unable to consent to his sexual desires.” Note the phrasing. Now imagine the genders reversed.

Much more detailed thoughts from Eugene Volokh.

BUT WHAT KIND OF SHIRTS WERE THEY WEARING WHEN THEY PERFORMED THIS RESEARCH? Scientists: Rosetta Data Indicate Earth’s Water Didn’t Come From Comets.

HE SOUNDS LIKE A PUTZ, BUT UNLESS MIT KNOWS SOMETHING I DON’T (AND THEY MIGHT) THIS SEEMS KINDA STALINIST: Prof: MIT Hospitalized Me For Ferguson Tweets. “A tenured professor of literature at MIT is claiming that the school institutionalized him for ranting about academia’s response to Ferguson on Twitter.”

YEAH, THAT’S PRETTY MUCH MY TAKE: Forget Hydrogen Cars, and Buy a Hybrid. If we had, say, orbital solar plants providing the power to electrolyze water then a hydrogen fuel economy might make sense. But if you’re making your hydrogen using fossil fuels. . . .

I drove a hydrogen fuel car for Popular Mechanics a while back. Here’s my review.

I LOOK FORWARD TO SEEING THESE EVERYWHERE FOR A WHILE: You Can Now Make GIFs Directly from YouTube.

WELL, YES: The Government’s Mandatory Calorie Counts May Be Hazardous to Your Health.

In a Reynolds Administration, the position of Food Czar will be held not by Michelle Obama, but by Gary Taubes.

UPDATE: Really? Really? People are giving me crap in the comments over an imaginary Reynolds Administration having imaginary czars? Well yes, yes they are.

TAXPROF ROUNDUP: The IRS Scandal, Day 583.