IN THAT CASE, INSURRECTION IS OUR CIVIC DUTY, I GUESS. FREE THE JANUARY 6 PROTESTERS! Biden DOE official: Democracy is based on white supremacy.

A PRIVILEGE YOU LACK: THE RIGHT TO IGNORE ACADEMIC BULLSHIT. Students required to complete ‘Privilege Checklist’ in mandatory first year course.

YEP: Dems reclaim election denier mantle from Trump.

SNOW BLITZ: Snow Extent in the Northern Hemisphere now Among the Highest in 56 years Increases the Likelihood of Cold Early Winter Forecast both in North America and Europe. “The Weekly Northern Hemisphere snow cover extent for the winter season 2022-2023 in purple is plotted together with the mean (grey dashed line), maximum (blue), and minimum (orange) snow cover extent for each week. Mean weekly snow cover extent and extremes were calculated using the 56-year period from October 1966 to July 2022. Looking at the below Rutgers Daily Snow Extent map, it is clearly noticeable how Russia is completely covered in snow now. Snow is also seen overwhelming all of Canada, and Alaska, as well as a good portion of the Lower 48. This is an important parameter for the early winter forecast. You could probably forecast a colder-than-normal winter based on Autumnal Northern Hemisphere snow cover extent alone. It’s the largest snow extent in decades. Having so much snow on the ground means any arctic outbreak is going to be a little bit colder. But why?”

Hmm.

SOME PARTS OF AMERICA STILL WORK: Liftoff! SpaceX Falcon 9 Soars Into the Sky With Space Station Supplies.

ROGER KIMBALL: Highways to Utopia. “At some point, the West really will decline. Is it finally happening? And what is this ‘West’ that is ‘declining,’ ‘closing,’ facing a momentous crossroads? An incomplete but not inaccurate shorthand is ‘Christendom.’ I know that the term strikes an antique note in America circa 2022. When is the last time you heard someone utter it without invisible scare quotes? (When was the last time you heard someone utter it at all?)”

OF COURSE HE DID: Unredacted Documents Reveal Fauci Tried to Shift the Narrative On the Covid-19 Lab Leak Theory.

THE ANGER IS JUSTIFIED: Shanghai hit by COVID protests as anger spreads across China.

Protests against China’s heavy COVID-19 curbs spread to more cities, including in the financial hub Shanghai early on Sunday, nearly three years into the pandemic, with a fresh wave of anger sparked by a deadly fire in the country’s far west.

The fire on Thursday that killed 10 people in a high-rise building in Urumqi, capital of the Xinjiang region, has sparked widespread public anger as many internet users surmised that residents could not escape in time because the building was partially locked down, which city officials denied.

The fire, and a denial by authorities that COVID measures had hampered escape and rescue, has fuelled a wave of civil disobedience unprecedented in mainland China since Xi Jinping assumed power a decade ago.

In Shanghai, China’s most populous city, residents gathered on Saturday night at the city’s Wulumuqi Road – which is named after Urumqi – for a candlelight vigil that turned into a protest in the early hours of Sunday.

As a large group of police looked on, the crowd held up blank sheets of paper – a protest symbol against censorship. Later on, they shouted, “lift lockdown for Urumqi, lift lockdown for Xinjiang, lift lockdown for all of China!”, according to a video circulated on social media.

At another point a large group began shouting, “Down with the Chinese Communist Party, down with Xi Jinping”, according to witnesses and videos, in a rare public protest against the Chinese leadership.

Good. More: Protests break out in China against COVID-19 lockdowns after deadly fire kills 10.

UPDATE: Angry Protests Spread Across China as Xi Jinping Faces ‘Step Down’ Chants.

CYBER MONDAY DEALS are here. #CommissionEarned

NO AGENDA HERE, I’M SURE: Zuckerberg, Soros Bankrolling Left-Wing Think Tank Conducting Racial Census of Hill Staff: Organization alleges structural racism on Capitol Hill and demands Senate create a ‘Diversity, Equity, Inclusion’ office.

TECH’S REALITY CHECK: How the industry lost $7.4 trillion in one year.

For many investors, it was just a matter of time.

“It is a poorly kept secret in Silicon Valley that companies ranging from Google to Meta to Twitter to Uber could achieve similar levels of revenue with far fewer people,” Brad Gerstner, a tech investor at Altimeter Capital, wrote last month.

Gerstner’s letter was specifically targeted at Zuckerberg, urging him to slash spending, but he was perfectly willing to apply the criticism more broadly.

“I would take it a step further and argue that these incredible companies would run even better and more efficiently without the layers and lethargy that comes with this extreme rate of employee expansion,” Gerstner wrote.

Fortunately, someone in Silicon Valley gets it:

THE 21ST CENTURY ISN’T TURNING OUT AS I’D HOPED: Talking seriously about “senicide.” “In modern day western-culture, senicide often takes the form of placing senior citizens in overcrowded conditions where preventable diseases can easily spread. More often than not, these spaces are separate from other generations of people so problems such as quality of life, hygiene and isolation are less detectable to the wider population.”

SOMEBODY SET UP US THE BOMB: Jesus could have been transgender, claims Cambridge dean.

WELL, DANA MILBANK: “He tells us the place is 95% brush but not how big it is. Why did he buy land that had problems he didn’t understand at all and that make the place entirely unsuitable for its intended purpose (finding peace)? And more importantly, why does a person with this level of practical sense and good judgment have a column in The Washington Post expounding on politics? Can we take his inane real estate venture as a metaphor?”

Yes, we can.

LIFE IN 2022: Your papers please, comrade.

OPEN THREAD: Have fun, kids.

SPACE: Mars helicopter Ingenuity aces 1st flight after major software update.

CASABLANCA AT 80: a golden age classic that remains impossible to resist.

Many of the greatest films of all time have some triumph-over-adversity story to buffer their mythology: a chaotic production, weak box office, critics that didn’t get it at the time, a loss to some forgettable film during awards season. Their greatness has to be elusive and mysterious, in other words, something that couldn’t be comprehended until later, when they finally got the full appreciation they always deserved. The path to canonization tends to have its own, often formulaic narrative.

Casablanca reviewed: ‘a lively film, bulging with acting talent’ – archive, 1943

That’s not what happened with Casablanca, which now celebrates 80 years of being widely beloved. Perhaps it wasn’t loved at the level that it is now – it was merely warmly received and successful, but not a sensation – but it won best picture, along with awards for its peerless screenplay and elegant direction, and is the rare film whose “classic” status is practically axiomatic. Who doesn’t love Casablanca? Or, put another way, where can you find any weaknesses in this production?

It was enough of a sensation, that Hollywood kept trying repeat the casting formula, with Ingrid Bergman and Claude Rains in Alfred Hitchcock’s 1946 film, Notorious, and Paul Henreid and Rains alongside Bette Davis in 1946’s Deception.

 But accept no substitutes. There is only one Rick Blaine, and that man’s name is David Soul:   

GOOD FOR HIM: Man Keeps Rock For Years, Hoping It’s Gold. It Turns Out to Be Far More Valuable.

WHAT, EXACTLY, HAS “EMBOLDENED” THEM? Emboldened Biden, Dems push ban on so-called assault weapons.

ALYSSA MILANO THROWS A VIRTUE SIGNALING FIT AT ELON MUSK, AND HE HAS THOUGHTS:

“Giving her Tesla back” (whatever that means) wouldn’t do a darn thing to affect Elon Musk. If she means that she traded it in for a Volkswagen, then she still paid the money to Tesla.

But does she even know the origin of Volkswagen? She attacks a guy who wants free speech, so that she can embrace a company that was originally founded by the Nazis? The Volkswagen plant under the Nazis contained four concentration camps and eight forced-labor camps. The company was later taken over by others after the war, but it still has that history. Milano is not the sharpest tool in the drawer. She flees someone who wants free speech at their company, while she buys a vehicle from a company started by real white supremacists.

Many people also pointed out the VW emissions scandal, where they programmed their cars to pass inspection tests, but the same cars puts out more emissions in real-world driving. That didn’t seem to affect her decision either, or perhaps she was as ignorant of that as of the connection to the Nazis.

Not the finest choice of car to virtue signal with:

QUESTION ASKED: SBF, FTX: What in the Actual F— Is Wrong With These People?

You can’t make this up. Earlier this month, some dough-faced dork named Sam Bankman-Fried—an MIT grad and son of Stanford law professors—vaporized the GDP of a small country after successfully conning the entire world of so-called educated elites.

All of them. The freaks in Silicon Valley, the freaks on Wall Street, the freaks in Hollywood, and the freaks in Washington. Even (or especially) the journalists who are supposed to be holding everyone accountable. The smartest, most enlightened professional experts and self-appointed moral referees.

Bill Clinton. Tony Blair. The Democratic Party. Larry David. Tom Brady. Fortune magazine. Andrew Ross Sorkin. CNBC. The bald guy from Shark Tank. BlackRock, the $10 trillion investment firm where former Obama aides go to get rich and serve as “Global Head of Sustainable Investing.”

They all vouched for Bankrupt-Fraud and his blockchain stonk machine. Like they vouched for Elizabeth Holmes and her magic blood box. Like they vouched for Michael Avenatti and his bullshit litigation racket. The Lincoln Project. OZY Media. Stacey Abrams.

Exit quote: “And they wonder why no one takes them seriously anymore. To hell with these people.”

AT AMAZON, iRobot Roomba j7+ (7550) Self-Emptying Robot Vacuum. #CommissionEarned

OF COURSE THEY ARE: Emboldened Biden, Dems push ban on so-called assault weapons.

AS INSTITUTIONS RUN BY LEFTIES, THEY PUT POLITICS OVER EVERYTHING: In a sudden move, a herd of top law schools puts progressive politics over prestige.