PANZER WITH BAZOOKA PANTS: The latest in StrategyPage’s Battle of the Bulge series. A GI is inspecting a knocked-out German tank sporting a metal mesh skirt.

HOW DEMOCRATS ROLLED OUT THE RED CARPET FOR HACKERS. “NOTE TO MR. PODESTA: Using ‘P@ssw0rd’ for your password is not really a password.”

PJM LIVE FEED ON THE FORT LAUDERDALE SHOOTING.

THE WAR IN SYRIA: US-backed Kurds seize an ISIS fortification that is also an ancient fortress.

“The Syrian Democratic Forces, supported by American special forces and international coalition aircraft… took control of the ancient Qalaat Jaabar fortress,” said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group.

It said the Islamic-era fortress was captured after fierce fighting with the jihadists.

Yes, American special forces soldiers have their boots on the ground.

RETAIL BLUES: J.C. Penney holiday sales drop 0.8 percent.

Penney’s faces two headwinds: Online shopping giants like Amazon, and trying to woe back the core customers they lost during former CEO Ron Johnson’s short-lived and ill-fated attempt to turn the discount retailer into an Apple Store clone.

JUST THINK OF THE MSM AS DEMOCRAT OPERATIVES WITH BYLINES, AND IT ALL MAKES SENSE: Obama had Scandals Aplenty — The media just pretended they didn’t exist.

ANALYSIS: TRUE. Bernie Sanders Says Trump Won Because Democrats Are Out Of Touch.

JOURNALISM:

Plus:

WHO COULD HAVE SEEN THIS COMING? Millennials are entitled, narcissistic and lazy – but it’s not their fault: Expert claims ‘every child wins a prize’ and social media has left Gen Y unable to deal with the real world.

DO TELL: Ex-MI6 Boss: When It Comes To Voting, Pencil And Paper Are ‘Much More Secure’ Than Electronic Systems.

I’ve been writing about this for over a decade.

‘CLIMATE CHANGE’ — IS THERE ANYTHING IT CAN’T DO? Michael Walsh: The L.A. Times blames concrete — yes, concrete — as the source of Aleppo’s woes.

THE DRAMA OF THE GIFTED CHILD: NBC’s Rachel Maddow asks if Trump will send her ‘to a camp.’

Why? Between the histrionics and fabulism of Al Sharpton, Brian Williams, and Chris Matthews, isn’t MSNBC campy enough already?

REPORT: GUNMAN IN CUSTODY AFTER SHOOTING NINE — AND KILLING THREE — AT THE FT. LAUDERDALE-HOLLYWOOD AIRPORT. “Former White House press secretary to President George W. Bush, Ari Fleischer, was at the airport at the time and tweeted about the chaos Friday afternoon.”

APOCALYPSE WHEN? Zombies Would Wipe Out Humans in Less than 100 Days.

In the new analysis, the University of Leicester undergraduates assumed that each zombie would have 90 percent success at finding and infecting one human a day, a rate that would make the zombie virus twice as contagious as the Black Death, the plague that devastated Europe in the 1300s.

The researchers further estimated that each zombie could live 20 days without braaaaaains.

Assuming a starting population of 7.5 billion people, approximately the world’s population today, the students calculated that it would take 20 days for a single zombie to start an epidemic of noticeable proportions. At that point, the pandemic has begun. Assuming no geographic isolation, in fact, the human population would drop to 181 by day 100, with 190 million zombies roaming around.

With some geographical isolation, the situation would be a tiny bit better for humans. Assuming the zombie virus had to spread through contiguous regions and that zombies were somewhat limited in their ability to travel (not leaving their current region until there were 100,000 zombies roaming there), human survivors would number 273 by day 100.

But wait. The paper also says, “We have also not included the possibility for the humans to kill the zombies.”

Maybe our disarmed British friends would be wiped out in weeks, but you’d have to give Americans much better odds.

NANOTECHNOLOGY UPDATE: Nanowires Offer Low-Cost Printed Electronics.

CHRISTIAN TOTO: 5 Slasher Movies That Are Actually Good.

Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon is new to me and I look forward to watching it. And I’d have replaced Scream with A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master, for being the first slasher flick to successfully combine gore, laughs, and high (for the genre) production value.

EDUCATION: Kids Will Soon Be Able to Write Code With Lego.

The Danish-based toy maker on Wednesday debuted a new toy called Lego Boost, a hybrid building and coding set that the company says combines the play experience of a traditional Lego set with an app-based coding play experience. Lego Boost, developed for children aged 7 or older, will hit retail shelves in the second half of the year and will be priced at $159.99. Lego debuted the set at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas.

The hope is that Lego Boost can help kids learn to code using a downloadable app and the physical toy set.

This might be the most exciting thing to come out of CES so far this year — and I don’t mean for my boys.

IF THEY COME UP WITH A CURE, IT’S HARD TO SAY WHO THEY’LL BE HELPING MORE — MEN, OR WOMEN: Scientists think they might have figured out the cause of severe PMS.

A QUESTION THE WHITE HOUSE CAN’T ANSWER: Stumping Josh Earnest: Say, why didn’t Obama eject China diplomats over OPM hack?

PAUL MARSHALL: Brexit Is Like Repealing the Corn Laws All Over Again.

In 1846, the Repeal of the Corn Laws opened up a new era of unparalleled prosperity for this country based on the expansion of trade. Hopefully, Brexit will do the same as we gain access to the developing world for our service industries in return for opening up our agricultural markets.

Yet the Liberal “Democrats” have set their face firmly, not only against the democratic will of the people but also against our re-opening to the world. Vince Cable, for one, must feel conflicted. In his contribution to the Orange Book (which I edited with David Laws in 2004), he described the Common Agricultural Policy as “an economic, environmental and moral disgrace”.

Not much has been done to reform it since then so presumably his views haven’t changed.

The only disgrace today is that the Liberal Democrats have so lost touch with their roots that they have subordinated all policy making to their infatuation with an undemocratic regional customs union.

Read the whole thing. And while you’re at it, James C. Bennett’s A Time For Audacity: How Brexit Has Created The CANZUK Option makes a lovely companion piece.

HEH: Watch The Voting Community Demand Hollywood Try Harder On Their Lame Activist Videos.

VIRGINIA POSTREL ON WHY AMERICANS LOVE HGTV. “Watching HGTV, you see a broader swath of North Americans (including Canadians) than you usually encounter on mainstream TV: youth ministers and medical sales reps, black marketing managers and South Asians who don’t work in tech, lesbian farmers and home-schooling moms, people who live in Fargo, North Dakota, or Pensacola, Florida, or Waco, Texas, home of the hit show ‘Fixer Upper.’ They speak with regional accents and come in all body types. And they’re all presented respectfully, as fine people the viewer can identify with. It’s the opposite of schadenfreude-driven train-wreck TV.”

DAVID MASTIO AND JILL LAWRENCE debate that New Yorker cartoon.

FUNNY, I THOUGHT NONPROFITS WERE SUPPOSED TO BE NONPARTISAN: ‘Unprecedented’: Nonprofits, partisans organize to block Trump cabinet picks.

PROLIFERATION? Israeli Satellite Imagery Shows Russian Nuclear-Capable Missiles in Syria.

The Iskander is nuclear-capable, but that doesn’t mean these particular models are nuclear-armed. More likely these are tipped with cluster munitions or fuel-air explosives — although hypersonic speed and a 300-mile range seem like overkill for the Syrian Civil War.