I REMEMBER THAT VIDEO GAME: Frogs get stressed out by traffic, too.

SARAH HOYT: There’s Much to Be Thankful for Today.

Indeed.™

FASTER, PLEASE: New model could show which animal diseases can cause human epidemics.

HMMMM: Thanksgiving Is Now Our Greatest Holiday.

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GOOD: New device removes mercury from drinking water.

DISPATCHES FROM THE EDUCATION APOCALYPSE: If Thanksgiving is ‘Racist,’ Why Give Students Several Days Off?

NEWS I HOPE YOU CAN’T USE: The Hobo Hieroglyphs: Their Secret Symbols, Explained.

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: Did 1968 win the cultural war?

AS GOD IS MY WITNESS, I FEEL OLD: Classic WKRP Thanksgiving Episode Turns 40.

STANDARDS: Cut federal funding from colleges that don’t require Western civ courses, academic group urges.

ENVIRONMENTAL RACISM: Newly-elected Congresswoman Ilhan Omar tweets that “we need to invest directly in areas that have been harmed by environmental racism—the pollution and environmental degradation experienced by communities of color and indigenous nations.” Okay, maybe. But when the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights did an empirical study on coal ash deposits, most of its members expected to find these deposits are disproportionately found in African-American communities. But surprise! It found the opposite. So of course buried those findings in its lengthy report on environmental racism. I’m not sure race is the best lens through which to look at the problem environmental degradation. If it should be cleaned up, clean it up. If some other action is more appropriate, do that—no matter whose community it is near.

THE FINNISH MODEL: Foreign Affairs argues that other European armies should emulate the Finnish Defense Forces.

Finland has shown that the secret to making the armed forces popular is ensuring that the low-ranking soldiers and noncommissioned officers who make up most of the ranks are content.

That approach is working. In the most recent survey of graduating conscripts, conducted this fall, 80 percent supported maintaining conscription; 42 percent said that they would serve even if conscription were not mandatory; and 22 percent were neutral. Only 36 percent said they would not serve. If Finns forced to serve say they would have done so even if they did not have to, then the FDF has managed a feat from which other countries can learn. Charly Salonius-Pasternak, a security analyst at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs (who also served as a conscript), argued that there is plenty that other countries can replicate. “Don’t oversell,” he said. “You can’t have cool videos of soldiers jumping out of airplanes if you can’t deliver. But equally, don’t undersell.” Once troops are enlisted, militaries must make their service worthwhile. “Keep them learning skills that they can also use elsewhere,” Salonius-Pasternak said…Armed forces elsewhere have commanders who treat their subordinates with respect, inspire them, and help them develop. Finland has excelled by systematizing those virtues.

It’s a thoughtful essay.

HATE CRIME: Vandals destroy crosses at Ohio campus pro-life display.

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RUSSIA’S PINPRICK WAR IN UKRAINE CONTINUES: The pinpricks draw blood. The slow war has global implications mainstream media ignore. My latest Creators Syndicate column.

RELATED: “Twenty-First Century Russian Imperial Warfare,” Chapter 4 in my new book Cocktails from Hell: Five Complex Wars Shaping The Twenty-First Century. It will be published next month.

RHODE ISLAND RETURNS TO GEORGIA: The Ohio-class ballistic missile submarine USS Rhode Island returns to homeport at Naval Submarine Base Kings Bay, Georgia. Good photo of a boomer.

WHY ARE DEMOCRATS SO MEAN? Mike Espy Denied Employee’s Promotion Due to Child’s Preexisting Condition.

LEFTISTS’ FEAR/HATRED OF THEIR FAMILIES, as exemplified by leftist media all over explains a lot about their politics.

Maybe leftists hate their families and being thankful. It would explain a lot.

THE “DEFIANT” PART IS WHEN SHE’S SINCERE: Sarsour Alternately Apologetic and Defiant About Women’s March Links to Farrakhan.

SETH BARRETT TILLMAN: Did The Chief Justice Rebuke President Trump?

Professor ZZZ asks: “Can anyone recall a rebuke of a President by a Chief Justice that’s anything remotely like this?”

Perhaps, Chief Justice Taney’s statement on the courthouse steps after deciding Ex parte Merryman from the bench? And didn’t Associate Justice Chase have some serious words, issued from the bench, about Jeffersonians—and by implication about Jefferson? The latter ended in tears, and arguably, so did the former.

Anyway, why should I care about the Chief Justice’s statements unrelated to actual litigation before the Supreme Court? Is the Chief Justice imbued with some religious or cult-like aura that makes such statements peculiarly insightful or relevant to the legal or political system?

If Professor ZZZ is right, if this statement was meant as a “rebuke,” then just maybe the Chief Justice should run for elected office—like Charles Evans Hughes, Sr chose to do. If the Chief Justice’s statement was meant as a “rebuke” in response to the lawful exercise of free speech (by the President), then just maybe we might want to (re)consider precisely who is breaking “our” norms—or, if we have common norms about which it is sensible to speak about. To be clear, I certainly don’t think it is the role of unelected judges to “rebuke” either citizens or elected officials for doing what it is perfectly legal to do.

Two thoughts. First, in talking about “Obama judges,” Trump was merely echoing the common media trope that identifies judges in controversial cases based on who appointed them. And if judges are as neutral and apolitical as Roberts pretends, then why so much sturm und drang over judicial appointments? To paraphrase Justice Field, if this is true, then the late excitement experienced by the country was quite unnecessary.

Second, Roberts is in a particularly poor place to talk about apolitical judging after his transparent capitulation to the Obama Administration’s campaign of media bullying during the pendency of the ObamaCare case. He reversed his position in response to political pressure from an administration that was, at the time, a party to the case. He has no high horse to sit on.

UPDATE: An amusing take from Harvard Lawprof Adrian Vermeule:

ANOTHER UPDATE: Heh:

Also:

(Bumped).

UPDATE: Chuck Grassley to Chief Justice John Roberts: You Rebuked Trump — but Sat Silent Through Obama’s Abuse. The increased feistiness of people like Grassley and Orrin Hatch post-Kavanaugh has been an amazing thing to behold.

NEWS YOU CAN USE: Yes, you really can roast a turkey from frozen — and it’s delicious. Here’s how to save the day.

And, by the way, here’s my recipe for Thanksgiving Leg of Lamb.