TEN YEARS AGO ON INSTAPUNDIT: “I DON’T KNOW WHAT’S MORE UPSETTING: That U.N. officers apparently ran a sex-slave ring in Bosnia, that the U.N. higher-ups managed to shut down the investigation, or that the Washington Post put the story on page A17.” And where was Amnesty International?

AT AMAZON, year-end deals in Grocery & Gourmet Food.

Also, markdowns on Coleman lanterns, stoves, and camping gear.

INDEED: The Spenders Won 2011: Republicans fell for Obama’s backroom budget trap. But something that can’t go on forever, won’t.

SO HOW WAS 2011? Not bad for me, but for the world in general, I’d say it was average, in the sense of the old Soviet joke: Worse than last year, better than next year, so . . . average. But I think 2012 may end well.

NOT SO HOT: The Euro – ten years now, isn’t it? How’s that working out for you guys?

Plus, here’s something on that I posted ten years ago.

And, Festive Libertarians!

OPENING IN NEVADA: An Alien-Themed Brothel For SF Nerds.

EUROPE: Eurozone is closer to break-up, warns Standard Chartered’s Peter Sands.

NO PRESSURE: What If the IRS Asked Website Visitors to ‘Like’ President Obama on Facebook?

Of course, whatever happens in Andrew Cuomo’s New York, such monkeying with the IRS is inconceivable.

PENELOPE TRUNK: I miss the men. “I feel confused. Because when I was working all the time, and leaving my kids at home with round-the-clock nannies, I got so angry at men for being oblivious to what their wife and kids were doing at home. And now I think I miss having my small part of that oblivion.”

AT AMAZON, year-end deals in electronics.

Also, Duracell coppertop batteries.

HAPPY NEW YEAR: Is Obama Preparing To Surrender Afghanistan?

UPDATE: Herschel Smith was asking some pointed questions a few weeks back.

TOM BLUMER: Ten 2011 Examples of Major Media Malfeasance.

To name just three examples:

In March, Orlando Sentinel reporter Scott Powers, sent to cover a fundraiser involving Vice President Joe Biden and Florida Senator Bill Nelson, was confined in a closet “to keep him from mingling with high-powered guests.” Sentinel editors “dropped the story.”

In April, the White House banished San Francisco Chronicle reporter Carla Marinucci “for using a video camera to capture an event.” The paper was “threatened with more punishment if they reported on it.” Chronicle Editor at Large Phil Bronstein called the White House’s subsequent attempt to deny it all “a pants-on-fire moment.” Press coverage elsewhere was scant.

In May, the White House Press Office “refused to give the Boston Herald full access to President Obama’s Boston fund-raiser” because it objected “to the newspaper’s front page placement of a Mitt Romney op-ed.” The shutout was virtually ignored.

In a mid-May editorial, Investor’s Business Daily called out the press for failing to stand up for it own, and correctly characterized the White House’s actions as baby steps “toward state control of the media, using the carrot of access against the stick of exile.”

His conclusion: “It will get even worse in 2012.”

OBSERVING THE TWENTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF THE END OF THE SOVIET UNION: “Today’s quasi-authoritarian Russia is far from admirable. But, despite Mikhail Gorbachev’s lame and self-serving claims to the contrary, it is still a vast improvement over the totalitarian state it replaced. . . . With the demise of the USSR, we were finally rid of a regime that slaughtered millions both within and outside its borders, imposed numerous other human rights violations, and created a threat of nuclear annihilation that hung over the entire world. Compared to that, the very real dangers of the post-Cold War world seem minor by comparison.”

INCANDESCENT BULBS? Better hurry.

PIGS AT THE TROUGH: A tenant ousted, a manager housed.

Francine Dorrance, a single mother, was already broke, unemployed, and struggling to recover from a nervous breakdown in summer 2006 when the Chelsea Housing Authority moved to evict her over $276 in unpaid rent.

After a judge approved the eviction, Dorrance became homeless. It would be almost five years before she would again have a permanent address.

But Dorrance’s misfortune was a boon to the housing authority official who oversaw her eviction. Five days after a constable removed Dorrance’s belongings, Jacqueline Matos, a housing manager for the authority, moved into the vacant apartment. Matos still lives there, continuing to pay just $25 a month in rent, a small fraction of what Dorrance paid.

It’s almost as if these programs are run for the benefit of those who administer them, instead of the people they’re supposed to help. Call for Iain Murray!

UPDATE: From reader John Steakley, a glimpse into the ObamaCare future:

Now change “apartment” to “hospital bed.”

Indeed.

NEWS YOU CAN USE: Women Who Drink Wine Every Day Say They Have Better Sex. “According to a new study, women who drink two glasses of wine every day say they’re having better sex than their teetotaling counterparts. To be fair, that could be the wine talking.” But in vino, veritas.

UPDATE: Related item here.

I’M SURE THAT ONCE THERE’S A REPUBLICAN PRESIDENT, CZARS WILL BE UNCONSTITUTIONAL OR SOMETHING: Rick Santorum For Higher Education Czar.

A SMALL EARTHQUAKE in Ohio. Reader Fred Stone emails: “Here in Austintown, about five miles from there, it shook our house with a rumble and a bang, but no appreciable damage.”

CHANGE: Surging Romney declares: Obama history. “A surging Mitt Romney unleashed a blistering attack on President Obama yesterday as the Republican presidential hopeful prepared to barnstorm Iowa, saying the Democrat is in over his head, has poisoned politics and will go down as nothing more than a footnote in history.”

I’LL GIVE UP MY SPA WHEN YOU PRY IT FROM MY . . . OH, NEVER MIND. “Maldives Bows to Protests, Bans Spas.” Like Egypt, which depends on tourism for its foreign exchange and which imports most of its calories, but whose Salafists want to obliterate the Pyramids for “idolatry,” I suspect the Maldives will come to regret this.

RACISM AT THE NEW YORK TIMES? Why else would they begrudge poor Africans a chance to develop? “Dig deep enough into the story, and there is so much good news that even the Times can’t spend the whole piece mourning the sheep. South Africa, it turns out is only one of a large number of countries, many poor and in the Third World, where new technological breakthroughs — mostly by US companies — now offer the hope of substantial energy discoveries. This isn’t just going to bring jobs, prosperity and electric power to desperately poor people all over the world; it is going to reduce the ability of countries like Russia and Iran to throw their weight around the natural gas markets. Once the obligatory green dues have been paid and the Times reporter can actually get down to some information, the diligent reader can, with enough fracking, extract some valuable news out of the shale. But, moans the Times, the good news is complicated!”

SANDMONKEY’S BLOG is now showing Account Suspended. I assume that’s due to action of the Egyptian government but I don’t actually know that. Anyone else know anything?

UPDATE: Sandmonkey is tweeting that he’s been hacked. Thanks to Beege Welborn for the tip.

WISCONSIN:

“2011 was a year when unions said ‘it wasn’t about the money’…”

“… before many of them (including Madison city workers) rushed back to the bargaining table to ‘Walker-proof’ their benefits before the new collective bargaining law went into effect.”

Indeed.

HONEY, WE FORGOT THE BRAKES: More GM recalls. “New GM Success Watch! The new, bailed-out, supposedly chastened but still UAW-organized General Motors is recalling 4,000 of its new small Sonics because of a potential brake defect. It’s not that a few of the car’s brake pads might malfunction. It’s that they forgot to put them on! Yikes. … P.S.: At least there’s been no UAW-management strife at the Orion Township plant that makes the Sonic, so we can rule that out. … Oh, wait. …”

MORE GROWTH for the District Of Columbia?