SETH BARRETT TILLMAN: UPI story on loss of species in Antarctica illustrated with a picture of a lifeless ice sheet — from Norway.

COLOR ME UNSURPRISED: Smoking may increase risk of midlife memory loss, confusion, study says.

NEWS YOU CAN USE: What to Know Before You Freeze Your Eggs.

NEW YEAR SALE is here. #CommissionEarned

BE PREPARED: 500FT Wireless Meat Thermometer. #CommissionEarned

HANDY: First Look: FN SCAR 15P Pistol.

READER FAVORITE: 40X60 Monocular Telescope High Power Monocular for Adults. #CommissionEarned

AND THE LAST FREE CHRISTMAS STORY OF THE YEAR:  The Christmas Cat.

CHANGE: Bloomberg journalist, David Fickling, said the Tesla Semi would fail in 2017 but in 2022 David Fickling admits that the Tesla Semi will succeed.

And I knew the numbers were low but this is shocking: “Logistics is an extremely low-margin industry. JB Hunt Transport Services, one of the biggest US operators, last year made roughly $1.63 per mile of revenue in its long-haul intermodal business, roughly half of which goes on fuel.”

IT’S RELENTLESS:  “DEI in Scientific Publications Up 4200 Percent Between 2010 and 2021.”

FILTRATION: When elders can’t hear words at a noisy holiday gathering, too many brain cells may be firing at once.

SO KNOXVILLE HAS ROLLING BLACKOUTS BECAUSE OF THE COLD WAVE. I would have expected TVA to have plenty of generating capacity, especially with so much warning, but my expectation would have been unjustified. There’s really no excuse; we’ve had much colder weather in the past without these problems. It is, I guess, just another sign of institutional decay.

EVERYTHING IS GOING SWIMMINGLY: As prices rise, so does food insecurity in US.

Rising prices are causing a new strain on families, some of whom have never before needed help like this.

“Most of them are a little bit desperate because they’re having to pay regular bills,” Richardson said. “If there’s a medical emergency, they’re having to deal with medications and those things, and so they don’t have extra funds for groceries.”

Courtney Allen is a wife and mom of two who had to visit the Mansfield Food Bank for the first time to provide meals for her family.

“It was never a problem before inflation hit,” she said. “You’re at the end of the week. and you’re, like, ‘OK, there’s less food in here than there was a couple of weeks ago.’”

Missing from the story: Any discussion as to where the inflation came from. It’s just one of those things that happen on their own, apparently.

BLACK LIVES DON’T MATTER TO DEMOCRATIC CITY GOVERNMENTS: Risk of death by gun violence is higher for men in some U.S. areas than in wartime. “Young men living in certain high-violence ZIP codes in Chicago and Philadelphia run a greater risk of firearm death than military personnel who served in recent U.S. wars, according to findings published online Dec. 22 in JAMA Network Open. Young men in Chicago’s most violent ZIP code were more than three times as likely to experience gun-related death compared to soldiers sent to Afghanistan, the researchers found, while those in Philadelphia’s most violent area were nearly twice as likely to be shot to death. In all ZIP codes studied, young men from minority groups overwhelmingly bear the risk of firearm-related death, the findings showed.”

See, this kind of gives away the game, undercutting the usual argument that it’s the availability of guns that’s responsible.

Of course, we’ve known this for years, it’s just been too inconvenient to The Narrative to talk about it.

HOLIDAY SALE: Instant Pot Duo Crisp 11-in-1 Air Fryer and Electric Pressure Cooker. #CommissionEarned

MATH IS HARD: Profs fear engineering exam may be ‘biased’ against women.

Not all engineering fields require the PE exams. But in fields where the engineering design cannot be tested prior to use, such as roads, bridges, and buildings, the PE exam is typically required as a “stamp of approval” for the individual prior to hire.

According to Keen, it functions in the same way as the bar exam for lawyers, or the CPA exam for accountants, making it crucial for professional development, and yet one of the many ways women are kept from advancing in the field of engineering.

More research is needed to determine why exactly women are passing the PE exam at lower rates than men, but in an interview with Campus Reform, Keen suggested that the timing of the exam may pose a problem for women, as they may have less time to study due to family obligations.

Women in engineering may also have spent less time developing technical skills, Keen said.

Shouldn’t “less time developing technical skills” matter on an exam focused on, you know, technical skills?

SETH BARRETT TILLMAN: Roger & Me (responding to Beschloss).

JONATHAN TURLEY: “It is not clear what is more chilling: the menacing role played by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in Twitter’s censorship program or its mendacious response to the disclosure of that role.”

YOU SAY YOU WANT A REVOLUTION? George Leef reviews Don’t Go to College: A Case for Revolution Hardcover.

FARAHN MORGAN: You’re Gonna Want to Take Some of That With You When You Go: A Mountain Town, A Highway Diner, and Half a Century of Exceptional Service.