THE 21st CENTURY ISN’T TURNING OUT AS I’D EXPECTED: Feminist blogger boldly makes bread with yeast from her own vagina.

But at well over a century old, isn’t this whole “shocking the bourgeoisie” shtick getting awfully long in the tooth?

(Let me know in the comments — I need to walk my lobster before boiling him for dinner.)

SEAN COLLINS: The University Of Racial Indoctrination: The rise of the race therapy complex on campus. You know, I’m beginning to think that Stuart Taylor is right, and this all stems from the various discomforts arising out of affirmative action.

YOU’VE COME A LONG WAY, BABY: American Women Are Drinking More Like Men.

SOMEDAY, WE WILL LOOK BACK ON THIS AS THE MOMENT WHEN THE TIDE OF WAR HAD TURNED: Rick Astley is brought in to fight ISIS: Anonymous hijack Islamic State Twitter feeds by tricking jihadis into watching “Never Gonna Give You Up” video.

SHOT: “Obama 2013: Assad must go. Obama today: Hopefully Assad won’t run for president again.”

Chaser:

BULLETS AND BOURBON UPDATE: The event organizers asked us to extend their warmest Thanksgiving Wishes to all of the Insta-readers.  And we hope, whether you’re attending B&B or not, you’ll stop by the B&B Website and thank some of our sponsors, including the Texas Concealed Handgun Association, and Kangaroo Carry, and Ricochet.com.

HMM: China may have made breakthroughs with aircraft carrier electromagnetic launch and railgun technology.

I THOUGHT THE SCIENCE WAS SETTLED: Everything you think you know about healthy food could be WRONG, new study reveals.

BUT THE ELECTION WAS SWUNG, AND HE’LL BE TAKEN CARE OF LATER: DeMaio Accuser, Todd Bosnich, Sentenced for Obstructing Justice: The sentencing judge said Todd Bosnich’s false accusations played a factor in Carl DeMaio’s loss of the 52nd Congressional District seat. And note that he didn’t get any jail time. “While he avoided jail time, Todd Bosnich will also have to complete 240 hours community service, to take part in a mental health treatment program and to pay a $2,500 fine. In June, Bosnich pleaded guilty in federal court to a felony count of obstructing justice, admitting he lied to the FBI when questioned about that email.”

I’m cynical enough to think that if he’d done this to a Democrat, he would have been punished more severely.

NEW YORK DAILY NEWS HEADLINE: “BAM’S NEW TERROR PLAN: BE AFRAID:”

Travel at your own risk.

Just in time for the holidays, the State Department issued a global travel alert to U.S. citizens warning of the increased likelihood of terror attacks by legions of terrorists — including the murderous Islamic State.

The terse warning, posted on the State Department website Monday, said American travelers should use “particular caution” in the coming weeks and through Feb. 24.

“Current information suggests that (ISIS), Al Qaeda, Boko Haram and other terrorist groups continue to plan terrorist attacks in multiple regions,” the State Department wrote.

The possible attacks could include “a wide variety of tactics … targeting both official and private interests,” the State Department added.

That’s odd – 11 days ago, on Friday morning before their Paris attack, President Obama reassured us all that ISIS is “contained.” Perhaps Mr. Obama failed to add, “within our solar system.”

But speaking of being afraid, journalists at the Daily News, serving as Charles Schumer’s Democratic operatives with bylines, are way ahead of Barry on the fear front:

As AWR Hawkins writes at Big Government, “NY Daily News Sets Up NRA To Be Scapegoat For Future Terror Attack:”

After a week of subtly baiting the NRA to enter into a shouting match over the Democrats’ efforts to expand background checks to include the no-fly list, the New York Daily News is taking the not-so-subtle approach of setting up the NRA to be the scapegoat for any future firearm-related terror attack.

The NY Daily News is going about this in the classic leftist sense by vilifying NRA executive vice president Wayne LaPierre–criticizing him for refusing to take the Democrats’ bait and come out swinging in the wake of the heinous Paris terror attacks. And having vilified him, they then continue their attack without ever feeling the need to explain why a no-fly list that includes a 4-year old going to visit his grandmother is supposed to be part of the database through which background checks are run.

Moreover, they do not explain how a no-fly list so imprecise that it once barred Senator Ted Kennedy from commercial flights is now the key to keeping American safe.

Instead, the NY Daily News overlooks the imprecision of the no-fly list and quotes Senator Church Schumer (D-NY) saying, “The same nefarious individual we monitor and bar from our planes, we turn the other way when it comes to allowing them to get guns and explosives. The NRA has fought tooth and nail to prevent these individuals from the terror watchlist from being added over the past several years.”

And for good reason, Sean Davis adds at the Federalist. “Sorry Democrats, But There Is No ‘Loophole’ That Allows Terrorists To Legally Buy Guns — In their zeal to defeat Republican terrorists, Democrats have decided that the constitutional right to due process is a loophole that must be closed:”

According to several Democratic sponsors of the bill, the proposed law would allow the attorney general to deny a criminal background check clearance to any individual whose name appears on the national terror watch list. The huge problem with this expansive new power is that there are precisely zero statutory criteria for inclusion on this massive list. In fact, when statutory authority for the centralized government database was first codified into law via the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004, Congress gave all authority for determining criteria for inclusion in the watch list to unelected, unaccountable government bureaucrats. If some faceless Beltway bureaucrat decides you might be a terrorist, then you’re a terrorist. End of story.

It gets even worse, though. If your name erroneously appears on that watch list, which as of 2013 included nearly 900,000 names, the Democrats’ proposed legislation renders you virtually powerless to find out why your name is on there, let alone to have it removed. And having your name erroneously or fraudulently added to that list isn’t as far-fetched as you might think.

In 2014, for example, Weekly Standard writer and Fox News contributor Stephen F. Hayes was informed that somebody added his name to the Department of Homeland Security’s terrorist watch list. There is zero credible evidence that he has any ties whatsoever to terrorism or to any terrorist organizations. Yet, under the Democrats’ new bill, he and everyone else who is erroneously listed would be banned from ever purchasing or possessing a firearm. Hayes’ apparent crime was traveling overseas for a cruise. Hayes is not alone. Each year, thousands of names end up on the terror watch list for no good reason whatsoever.

Under the Democrats’ proposal, the government doesn’t have to tell you why your name is on the list. The proposed law allows the government to keep that information secret. And if you decide to take the government to court over it, the Democrats’ bill creates a brand new legal standard that tilts the scales of justice against you.

As Charles Cooke writes, “Let us avoid gloss or euphemism and speak plainly: This idea flies directly in the face of every cherished American conception of justice, and it should be rejected with extreme prejudice:”

You will note, I hope, that Reid, Schumer, Jentleson, and co. are not proposing to place restrictions on those who have been “accused,” “charged,” or “convicted,” but upon those who are “suspected.” They are not referring to those who are working their way through the judicial system, but to those who remain outside of it. They are not seeking to limit the rights of those who are out on bail or awaiting trial, but those who have not so much as been handcuffed. Loudly and proudly, they are arguing in favor of removing fundamental rights from anyone whose name has been written down on a list. Because they hope to confuse the public, their talk is peppered with references to “Paris-style” “assault” rifles and “automatic” weapons. But this is a red herring: Their proposal applies equally to guns of all types, not just those that give Shannon Watts and Diane Feinstein the willies.

In times past, officials advocating the simultaneous undermining of a range of constitutional rights would have been tarred, feathered, and dumped into the sea, along with their staff, their press agents, and anyone else who saw fit to acquiesce in the scheme. A little of that spirit might be welcome here.

However the press might cast it, there are not in fact “two sides” to this issue. It is not a “tricky question.” It is not a “thorny one” or a “gray area” or a “difficult choice.” It is tyranny. Somewhere, deep down, its advocates must know this. Presumably, Chuck Schumer would not submit that those on a terror watch list should be deprived of their right to speak? Presumably, Harry Reid would not contend that they must be kept away from their mosques? Presumably, Diane Feinstein would not argue that they should be subjected to warrantless searches and seizures? Such proposals would properly be considered disgraceful — perhaps, even, as an overture to American fascism. Alas, there is something about guns that causes otherwise reasonable people to lose their minds.

And lose their minds the bill’s champions have. As of today, there are almost one million names on the terror watch list — that’s names, not identities — of which around 280,000 are linked to nothing much at all. This should not surprise, for one does not in fact have to do a great deal in order to find one’s way onto the list. Perhaps you know someone who is already on it? That’s suspicious, right? On you go! Perhaps you have annoyed someone powerful? Oops! On you go! Perhaps you once said something intemperate in public? Better to be safe. On you go! Perhaps you are a Muslim? On. You. Go.

Oh well – “travel at your own risk,” the New York Daily News would likely sniff in response.

Related: Schumer plans for Senate Democrats to “bring a universal background check bill to the floor of the Senate early next year.” Moe Lane responds, “Senate Democrats could have done this in 2009 when they had sixty votes in the Senate, instead of the forty-five they have now.  Of course, if they had we’d probably have sixty votes in the Senate right now and a President who would have cheerfully signed a repeal bill in 2013. What is Senator Schumer’s victory condition, here? Does he even know?”

ISLAM: ‘THE STRONGEST RETROGRADE FORCE IN THE WORLD,’ Roger Kimball writes, borrowing his headline from President Obama’s Voldemort:

George Orwell famously observed that an indispensable adjunct to freedom is a willingness to call things by their real names. Islamic extremism is not, as a British home secretary once fatuously declared, “anti-Islamic activity,” nor is the slaughter of a baker’s dozen U.S. soldiers in Texas by a radicalized Muslim officer an instance of “workplace violence.” Euphemism is the enemy of true security.

What is the relation between Islamic extremism and “mainstream” Islamic thought? That is not, we would suggest with sadness, an easy question to answer. Winston Churchill, writing about Islam back in 1899 in The River War, observed that “no stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund:”

Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science—the science against which it had vainly struggled—the civilization of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilization of ancient Rome.

These days, it is worth noting, Islamic entities are scrambling to achieve mastery of “the strong arms of science,” as Iran’s rapidly accelerating nuclear program should remind us. “Death to America!” is a chant one often hears echoing from the mullah-besotted crowds in Iran. Ayaan Hirsi Ali outlined one possible course of action. Barack Obama, who seems to believe that the greatest threat to national security is Republicans, not ISIS, pointed to another when, a couple of days after the massacre in Paris, he noted impatiently that “what I’m not interested in doing is posing or pursuing some notion of American leadership or America winning or whatever other slogans they come up with. . . . I’m too busy for that.” It’s not pretty, but at least we know where we stand.

Huh — Roger spelled “supine” wrong in that last sentence. But read the whole thing anyway.

NAZISM, LIKE OTHER FORMS OF SOCIALISM, IS AN OPPORTUNISTIC INFECTION THAT APPEARS WHEN THE BODY POLITIC IS WEAKENED: Guards at Berlin refugee office ‘used Nazi language and called for asylum-seekers to be sent to concentration camps.’ “‘In two years there will be a revolution here and we’ll clean it all out,’ the guard appears to say.”

WHERE IS LIBERAL RAGE OVER MASS SHOOTING IN NEW ORLEANS?, asks Caleb Howe at Red State:

The location is New Orleans; home of many political footballs in the last decade. The incident was a shooting; the most (forgive me) triggering situation possible in American discourse. The number of victims was 17; more than were shot in Charleston. The setting? A playground.

A playground.

This is news from Louisiana on Sunday. Seventeen people were shot but survived when gunfire erupted on on a playground where a block party was going in New Orleans. If you did not hear about it, do not be surprised. It was barely news. It is amazing to think that there was not a huge media blitz, that there were not the standard outrageous, grandstanding tweets, or the ridiculous parade of pseudo-experts on CNN and MSNBC to spend hours talking about gun control. The endless blog posts, the overwrought editorials. None of those. And why is that?

Read the whole thing.

THIS ISN’T REALLY A SURPRISE: Agriculture Linked to DNA Changes in Ancient Europe. “The agricultural revolution was one of the most profound events in human history, leading to the rise of modern civilization. Now, in the first study of its kind, an international team of scientists has found that after agriculture arrived in Europe 8,500 years ago, people’s DNA underwent widespread changes, altering their height, digestion, immune system and skin color.” Evolution seems to happen faster than we used to believe, and genetic variances among populations seem to be more than cosmetic.

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THIS IS CNN: Christiane Amanpour Shames U.S. for Not Taking Unvettable Syrian Refugees — Then Fails to Vet Her Radical Muslim Guest.

Earlier: MSNBC’s ‘No-Fly List Is Islamophobia’ Poster Boy Arrested in Turkey as Part of ISIS Cell.

GREAT MOMENTS IN COGNITIVE DISSONANCE:

● “Athens on edge after explosion severely damages buildings — No injuries in timed blast in Greek capital, but it is feared anarchists angry at austerity policies may be launching wave of violence.”

—The London Guardian today.

Gee, wouldn’t anarchists welcome less government collectivism — or could it be that we’ve always been looking for anarchists in all the wrong places? If so, why does the left continue to brand them as “anarchists,” instead of embracing them as their shock troops breaking a few eggs now and then to keep advancing the change (never mind the “hope”)?

REVIEW: The 2017 Mercedes-AMG C63 Coupe Is a Supercar for the Real World.

PRINCETON STUDENTS FIGHT BACK: Steven Hayward over at Power Line shares a letter that a group of intrepid Princeton students has sent to the President of the University:

Dear President Eisgruber,

We write on behalf of the Princeton Open Campus Coalition to request a meeting with you so that we may present our perspectives on the events of recent weeks. We are concerned mainly with the importance of preserving an intellectual culture in which allmembers of the Princeton community feel free to engage in civil discussion and to express their convictions without fear of being subjected to intimidation or abuse. Thanks to recent polls, surveys, and petitions, we have reason to believe that our concerns are shared by a majority of our fellow Princeton undergraduates. . . .

This dialogue is necessary because many students have shared with us that they are afraid to state publicly their opinions on recent events for fear of being vilified, slandered, and subjected to hatred, either by fellow students or faculty. Many who questioned the protest were labeled racist, and black students who expressed disagreement with the protesters were called “white sympathizers” and were told they were “not black.” We, the Princeton Open Campus Coalition, refuse to let our peers be intimidated or bullied into silence on these–or any–important matters. . . . 

We oppose efforts to purge (and literally paint over) recognitions of Woodrow Wilson’s achievements, including Wilson College, the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, and his mural in Wilcox Dining Hall. As you have noted, Wilson, like all other historical figures, has a mixed legacy. It is not for his contemptible racism, but for his contributions as president of both Princeton and the United States that we honor Wilson. Moreover, if we cease honoring flawed individuals, there will be no names adorning our buildings, no statues decorating our courtyards, and no biographies capable of inspiring future generations.

We worry that the proposed distribution requirement will contribute to the politicization of the University and facilitate groupthink. However, we, too, are concerned about diversity in the classroom and offer our own solution to this problem. While we do not wish to impose additional distribution requirements on students for fear of stifling academic exploration, we believe that all students should be encouraged to take courses taught by professors who will challenge their preconceived mindsets. To this end, the University should make every effort to attract outstanding faculty representing a wider range of viewpoints–even controversial viewpoints–across all departments. Princeton needs more Peter Singers, more Cornel Wests, and more Robert Georges.

Similarly, we believe that requiring cultural competency training for faculty threatens to impose orthodoxies on issues about which people of good faith often disagree. As Professor Sergiu Klainerman has observed, it reeks of the reeducation programs to which people in his native Romania were subjected under communist rule.

As Hayward observes, “May I suggest that employers write down the names of each of these signatories, for the obvious reason that they’re the kind of young people you want to hire.”

NOBODY COVERS THE POLITICS OF THANKSGIVING LIKE THE HUFFINGTON POST:

● “This Thanksgiving, Remember America’s Pilgrims Were Refugees, Too.”

—Igor Bobic, Associate Politics Editor, The Huffington Post, yesterday.

● “Why Thanksgiving Is A ‘National Day Of Mourning’ For Some Americans — ‘Some would say, ‘Why be so dark about it?’ Well, it’s real, it’s truthful, it was a holocaust,’ says the head of the Mashpee Wampanoag tribal council.”

—Sam Levine, Associate Politics Editor, The Huffington Post, yesterday.

Given that for the left “the personal is political,” isn’t everyone an “associate politics editor” at the Huffington Post?

And as Daniel Payne of the Federalist tweets, “The holiday season always makes liberals insanely paranoid.”

THIS JUST MEANS THAT RICH PEOPLE WILL BE GUINEA PIGS FOR EVERYONE ELSE: Early Gene Therapies Will Have 6 and 7 Figure Price Tags. Prices will start out high, but drop dramatically over time. That said, saving extra money for retirement to fund potentially very expensive treatments — or, perhaps, treatments only available outside the U.S. — is a good idea.

THAT SOUNDS GREAT, THOUGH ALSO LIKE THE PREMISE FOR SOME SORT OF APOCALYPTIC SCIENCE FICTION MOVIE: Mutagenic chain reaction could knock malaria out of mosquitoes for good: Infectious DNA spreads parasite-resistance to whole population of biting insects.

THE DEATH OF COMEDY: Read the whole thing.

And relax — it will be all right on the night.

ALSO, CHEATING: VW’s Slow Agony Illustrates Carmakers’ Problem With Software.

HOW TO TALK TO YOUR PROGRESSIVE NIECE ABOUT OBAMACARE THIS THANKSGIVING, as explained by Jon Gabriel at Ricochet:

Since none of your gentle rebukes have worked, it’s time to level with your ThinkProgress blogger niece. “Honey, everyone at this table loves you very much. But today isn’t about arguing. Thanksgiving is about counting our blessings and sharing just one day with family from around the country. All of us have different views on politics, religion, football and everything else. But today is about setting all that aside and remembering what we have in common: Family. Now, who wants seconds?”

Read the whole thing.