SPEAKING OF SMALL GENERATORS, I gave one to my sister for Christmas — I believe it was this model under a different brand — for her horse trailer/RV and she reports that it runs the air conditioner and refrigerator just fine. Runs on propane, which is a lot safer and easier to store.

HOW TO GET AN ENTREPRENEURIAL HERO TO THE BIG SCREEN: Make her a woman. My latest column for Bloomberg View looks at the new movie Joy.

In the movies, an entrepreneur is more likely to be a super-villain, or at the very least a mobster, than someone who builds a significant enterprise without getting anyone killed. Even the non-murderers are miserable jerks. Take Aaron Sorkin’s angry, status-obsessed Mark Zuckerberg in “The Social Network” or his Steve Jobs in the abysmal recent movie by that name.

So it might be a surprise to discover a big-budget, award-friendly new film telling a tale of entrepreneurial ingenuity where the protagonist is heroic and the ending is happy. Except that in this case the entrepreneur is a woman. Her gender makes self-assertion, ambition, and even a touch of ruthlessness unconventional and therefore culturally acceptable….

But “Joy” is more than a wholesome paean to girl power. It’s a portrait of entrepreneurial gumption, with a protagonist whose journey is as relevant to men as to women. On her way to fame and fortune, Joy must reawaken the creative spark dampened by her dysfunctional family, solve practical business problems of financing and distribution, confront her self-doubts, find her persuasive sales voice and subdue adversaries who take advantage of her inexperience and trust. These aren’t uniquely female challenges.

With an appearance by Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, who gives the movie three hearts. Read the whole thing here.

JONAH GOLDBERG: Obama — and FDR — set precedent for Trump’s one-man rule. Choose the form of your Destructor.

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN PEOPLE DECIDE THE AUTHORITIES CAN’T — OR WON’T — DO THEIR JOBS: German vigilante group vows to protect women from migrant attackers as 34 suspects are arrested – including three for gang-raping two teenagers. “Thousands have pledged their support to a German vigilante group which has vowed to protect women from migrants in the wake of the New Year’s Eve attacks in Cologne. . . . After the group was launched, and gained thousands of followers overnight, a Dusseldorf police spokesman told local media that German police is responsible for public security. He said the police had no problem with people acting bravely in the face of crime but they were against ‘self proclaimed vigilantes’.” Well, then do your job, buddy.

Related: Unprecedented sex harassment in Helsinki at New Year, Finnish police report; Finnish police ‘tipped off’ about plans by groups of asylum seekers to sexually harass women. “’This phenomenon is new in Finnish sexual crime history,’ Ilkka Koskimaki, the deputy chief of police in Helsinki, told the Telegraph. ‘We have never before had this kind of sexual harrassment happening at New Year’s Eve.’”

The Finnish police appear to have acted more aggressively, though.

BUT WAIT, OBAMA SAID NO OTHER COUNTRY HAS THESE PROBLEMS: US becoming safer compared to Europe in both fatalities and frequency of Mass Public Shootings: US Now ranks 11th in fatalities and 12th in frequency.

IT’S LIKE THEY’RE HOLDING SOMETHING BACK: State Department Misses Second Clinton E-mail Deadline in a Week.

LIFE IN THE ERA OF HOPE AND CHANGE: Sources: Suspect Confesses To Shooting Officer, Says He Did It In the Name Of Islam.

WELL, THIS IS NEWS: Bombshell: In Email, Hillary Ordered Aide to Strip Classified Marking and Send Sensitive Material.

TAXPROF ROUNDUP: The IRS Scandal, Day 974.

PLANNED PARENTHOOD HARDEST HIT: Getting the Pill Without a Doctor: The Revolution Begins.

As Virginia Postrel has written, requiting women to get a prescription for hormonal birth control means that some of them will end up resorting to other forms of birth control they don’t prefer, because they forgot to get to the doctor before the prescription ran out.

That may not mean a whole lot of extra unintended pregnancies or births. (Used correctly, over-the-counter methods like condoms are pretty effective, especially when a backup like the morning-after pill is available.) But “does it prevent a lot of extra unintended births” is far too narrow a question for policy makers to ask. The Soviet system, in which birth control was unavailable but abortions were extremely common, prevented a lot of unintended births. It was still a lousy system.

Absent a compelling reason that women need to see a doctor, it should be as easy as possible for them to get any form of birth control they might like to have. Obviously, this is not practically feasible in every case. We are not going to see at-home IUD insertions any time soon. But it should include oral contraceptives, some of the most extensively studied medications of all time.

Oregon now requires patients to fill out a short questionnaire and have their blood pressure checked in order to get a prescription from a pharmacist, which seems like a reasonable enough procedure to weed out the small number of women who really shouldn’t take it. Though even that may go too far.

I’m conflicted. On the one hand, I think that the dangers of hormonal birth control are substantially underestimated. On the other, I think that the vast majority of prescriptions for same are nothing more than a toll charged by doctors, with no significant actual medical oversight involved.

BECAUSE WE HAVE A STRONG WORK ETHIC, A REMNANT OF THE TIME WHEN OUR SYSTEM REWARDED HARD WORK: Why Do Americans Work So Hard? Though to my observation, that seems to be fraying in the late-Obama era.

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JOE BIDEN HARDEST HIT: Hugs, neck rubs could be ‘sexual battery,’ says university.

Are you a hugger? Do you sometimes give neck rubs to friends or acquaintances just out of friendliness? Well now you could be accused for sexual battery and expelled at East Carolina University.

All it takes is for one person who is scared from the sexual assault portion of orientation or who has friends with certain ideologies to ruin one’s life at ECU, thanks to a new policy recently adopted for the new semester going forward. . . .

Any contact, “however slight,” is considered sexual battery. Of course, it’s the accuser who decides whether it is sexual battery, and with the current pressure on colleges and universities to capitulate to accusers in the name of political correctness, any friendly contact is subject to an investigation.

Today’s university administrations — like the Victorians, but without their positive attributes.

Meanwhile, on Biden: Ouch.

I mean, even Talking Points Memo is asking: Why Does Creepy Uncle Joe Biden Get A Pass From Liberals?

THOMAS SOWELL ON GUNS AND THE SHOWMAN-IN-CHIEF.

Strike a pose; there’s nothing to it.

LYING LIAR BUSTED FOR LYING: Watchdog faults State on Clinton emails.

The State Department has been providing “inaccurate and incomplete” responses to requests for the emails of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, a watchdog says in a new report released Thursday.

The 29-page inspector general (IG) report says the leadership of the State Department “has not played a meaningful role in overseeing or reviewing the quality” of the responses to requests for documents under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

As a result, requests from organizations such as The Associated Press, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) and Judicial Watch have been mishandled in various ways, the IG said.

In one example, CREW asked for records in 2012 that would show the number of email accounts held by then-Secretary Clinton. While senior staffers at the department regularly corresponded with her on her private account and her chief of staff was made aware of the request, the State Department replied that there were “no records responsive” to the query.

At other times, the IG said, media organizations have put in nearly identical requests for documents, only to receive different sets of records in response.

In 2015, Clinton’s use of a private email server emerged as a flashpoint in the presidential race, with Republicans using it to attack her candidacy.

Those dastardly Republicans, “using” grossly dishonest behavior to “attack” poor Hillary.

JEB BUSH TO EARN COVETED BURMA-SHAVE ENDORSEMENT: Team Jeb! Battles Trump’s Social Media Prowess with Cutting Edge Billboard Strategy.

Related: “This is what it’s come to. This is the whole Jeb campaign in one image — an antiquated advertising platform, a pitifully weak jab at the bully Trump, an overreliance on the fading authority of the Bush brand, and a bizarre blindness to how this stuff looks to other people…the saddest political ad ever.”

HEADLINES FROM 1942, AS EVERYTHING OLD IS NEW AGAIN: David P. Goldman asks, “Why Does Germany Condone Mass Rape?”

CHANGE: Slovakia vows to refuse entry to Muslim migrants. “Responding to the sexual assaults in Cologne and Hamburg, Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico has reiterated his aim to allow no Muslims into the country. According to reports, some of the attackers were refugees.”

Related: Reports: Cologne NYE assaulters were largely asylum seekers.

THIS COULD BE HILLARY’S CAMPAIGN SLOGAN: “I know what you’re thinking, but let me offer a competing narrative.”

VAN JONES COULD NOT BE REACHED FOR COMMENT: Obama: ‘Conspiracy’ Theories Just Part of American DNA.

Related: Obama’s Chicago-era buddy and Rev. Wright sidekick Michael Pfleger was one of the DNC-CNN plants in Obama’s anti-Second Amendment infomercial audience last night — I wonder if he’ll be endorsing Hillary this year?

THE HATEFUL EIGHT YEARS: “Who is Mr. Netanyahu at war with? To watch the Frontline special, you’d think that it wasn’t the Iranians or the Palestinians or anyone else actually taking up arms against Israel, but rather Obama’s theory of history. No real war, no real consequences, just two men and their competing ideas. It’s the stuff public broadcasting dreams are made of.”

Because for the left, failures are always due to messaging, never their ideology. No wonder they’d frame Netanyahu through the same prism.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Goldman Sachs: Higher Ed Ripe for Disruption.

A Goldman Sachs investment research report issued last month paints a very grim picture of the state of American higher education (h/t Bryan Alexander). The bottom line: “returns on a college education are falling,” and quickly.
According to a striking graph included in the report, the average “wage premium” from going to a four-year college (that is, the difference in incomes between college graduates and high school graduates) and college tuition (including room and board) rose in tandem throughout the 1990s. Then, starting in about 2002, something changed—the wage premium growth started growing more slowly, even as tuition kept rising as fast as ever.

This disconnect, Goldman notes, is not a problem for all classes of colleges. It appears that the top institutions (as ranked by SAT scores) are still delivering good returns, while the returns for schools in the bottom half, and especially the bottom quarter, are falling off steeply. This can’t go on forever. If costs continue to exceed returns, the bubble will burst eventually—even if Washington keeps subsidizing it.

Do tell.

NO WORD ON HOW ‘CLIMATE CHANGE’ AFFECTED ALIENS: Maybe Hillary will tell us. Claim: Climate Change Forced Bigfoot to Migrate to America.

BEYOND COLOGNE. HELSINKI COPS: ‘Widespread’ Sexual Harassment By ‘Asylum Seekers’ on New Year’s Eve.  (Sorry, link broken.  Fixed now.)