OPEN THREAD: It’s a gas, gas, gas.

MARK STEYN: Sapphic Sharia Same-Sex Slavers in Secaucus!

RACISM IS EVERYWHERE: Mexico Is Closing Its Border . . . With Guatemala.

RIP: Clint Eastwood’s Ex-Girlfriend, Oscar Nominee Sondra Locke, Dead at 74.

THE POLICE WILL PROTECT YOU: Known Wolf: ‘Allahu Akbar’ Killer in France Had 27 Criminal Convictions.

$500 EVERYDAY FEMINISM SEMINAR OFFERS TO HEAL ‘INTERNALIZED WHITENESS.’

It is also hard to see how this approach to “healing whiteness” can address the racial issues facing our society, or how white people are going to be convinced to go in for treatment. Is it possible that some white people being told they are sick might take offense and become targets of extreme groups who tell them they are healthy? The bottom line is that conservatives have to get more engaged in anti-racism efforts. Too much ground is being ceded and, left unchecked, progressive approaches are becoming more radical.

It is not enough to laugh at this stuff. It’s out there, it’s pervasive, and almost nobody is offering an alternative. This is in part because progressives sometimes try to shut down speech that challenges their orthodoxies on race issues, but also because conservatives are too willing to turn a blind eye to racism to avoid the fray.

When we roll our eyes and laugh at this stuff, we are also ignoring it. We do that at our own peril. What we have to do is understand it, question it, and offer solutions that we think are better.

The mainstream left not acting as the mirror image of the alt-right would be a good first step. Or as Sean Davis of the Federalist tweets, “If you think skin color is a disease that requires a cure, you’re a racist.”

STRASBOURG TERRORIST KILLED BY POLICE, ISIS IMMEDIATELY CLAIMS CREDIT.

TALKING ABOUT CHINA: The Challenge And The Threat.

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SHAME STORM: “The more online shame cycles you observe, the more obvious the pattern becomes: Everyone comes up with a principled-sounding pretext that serves as a barrier against admitting to themselves that, in fact, all they have really done is joined a mob.”

Related: Social Media as Social Disease.

FLASHBACK: Castro, Chavez, and ‘bad luck.’ “Under capitalism, the rich grow powerful. Under socialism, the powerful grow rich — and everyone else grows poor.”

BRAD SMITH KNOWS A BOATLOAD ABOUT ELECTION LAW:  “Michael Cohen Pled Guilty to Something That is Not a Crime.”

(Bumped).

p.s. I am at Newark Airport being being bombarded by CNN.  They are laughing at Trump for having said that this was not a criminal proceeding.  Perhaps what Trump said was that the election law charge against Cohen was for actions that, even if true, do not constitute a crime.

VIRGIN GALACTIC’S SPACESHIP TWO reaches edge of space. “The firm’s SpaceShipTwo passenger rocket ship reached a height of 82.7km, beyond the altitude at which US agencies have awarded astronaut wings.”

RADICAL CHIC: THE GERITOL YEARS. Far-left extremists are raising money on Patreon to “inspire insurrection.”

THE BIG ONE IN AMERICA’S HEARTLAND: The big earthquake, in the New Madrid (Missouri) Seismic Zone. But don’t start quaking in your running shoes and try to escape to Texas because it’s comparatively geologically stable. Here’s why: In 1971 I heard a very informed discussion of the New Madrid Fault, which is centered in New Madrid. In one geologist’s opinion, that unfortunate “piston” (the word he used) could have generated a mega-quake some time in the 1970s or early 1980s. That mega-quake did not occur. However, the geologist was not making a prediction — he was assessing the fault’s instability based on data he had seen. That noted, I still recall the description of the 1811 New Madrid mega-quake.

This linked article sketches the disaster:

Back in 1811, New Madrid, Missouri, itself had only 400 people, St. Louis to the north had about 1,500 residents and Memphis to the south wasn’t even a twinkle in its founders’ eyes, according to the Central United States Earthquake Consortium. Damage was reported as far away as Charleston, South Carolina, and the District of Columbia; and the quakes, estimated at 7.5 to 7.7 magnitude, were felt more than 1,000 miles away in Connecticut.

The article includes this 21st century assessment:

Seismologists estimate that the New Madrid Seismic Zone has a 25 percent to 40 percent chance of producing a significant quake within the next 50 years, according to Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government. USGS studies have concluded that the zone has generated magnitude 7 to 8 earthquakes about every 500 years for the past 1,200 years.

Read the entire article — it’s an accessible description of the geological threat. As for escaping to Texas, please stay away. It’s absolutely terrible down here. We have hurricanes and tornadoes and sweltering summers and gazillions of feral hogs. The worst of it: increasingly terrible traffic thanks to tax migrants fleeing California.

WELL, IF ANYONE CAN DO IT IT’S THE JAPANESE, BUT CAN ANYONE DO IT? Japan plans for 100ft tsunami.

It will shake houses and tall buildings, and unleash a 100ft tsunami on one of the most densely populated and industrialised coastlines in the world. It could kill and injure close to a million people. It will almost certainly come in the next few decades. Now, the Japanese government is making plans to evacuate millions of people in anticipation of what could be one of the worst natural disasters in history.

It is known as the Nankai Trough megaquake. The Japanese government has previously estimated that there is a 70 to 80 per cent chance that such an event will take place in the next 30 years and that the earthquake, and subsequent tsunami, could kill 323,000 people and injure 623,000.

Disturbing.

PAULA BOLYARD: Gov. Kasich, the Lives of Millions of Babies Are in Your Hands with the Heartbeat Bill. How Will You Choose?

STRASBOURG: Christmas market shooting suspect Chérif Chekatt shot dead.

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BURIED LEDE: ACTUAL SANITY FOUND IN FLORIDA, MAN. Florida Senate Rules Brenda Snipes Cannot Rescind Her Resignation.

HMM, A Z-PAC IS OFTEN A GO-TO ANTIBIOTIC FOR ME. NOW MORESO! Antibiotics eliminate senescent cells associated with ageing. “At a single low-dosage, Azithromycin was shown to effectively kill and eliminate the senescent cells, with an efficiency of 97 percent. Moreover, the normal healthy cells thrived in the presence of Azithromycin.”

PHYSICIAN, CLEAN THYSELF: Stethoscopes Are Loaded With Bacteria, Including Staph.

NEW ZEALAND IS REALLY OFF THE BEATEN PATH: On this day in 1642, Dutch sea captain Abel Tasman’s ship became the first European vessel to sight New Zealand.   Interestingly, he and his crew members weren’t as late in arriving as you might think. Scientists, working from DNA evidence, believe that New Zealand was first settled by Eastern Polynesians between 1250 and 1300 AD.

WE’LL KNOW SOON ENOUGH. ‘Something bad is going to happen on Friday:’ Weekly Standard staffers brace for end.