SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 11:56 P.M. ET:

TERROR PLOT BLOCKED IN FRANCE – FROM AFP:   A jihadist terror ring was planning to attack Paris on December 1 and had researched sites including a Christmas market and Disneyland outside the capital as potential targets, a police source said Thursday.  Seven suspects were arrested in police raids last weekend in the eastern city of Strasbourg and Marseille in the south following an eight-month investigation by security services, although two were later released.  The source said investigators found the suspects had made internet searches on sites including the Christmas market on the prestigious Champs-Elysees avenue, the Disneyland Paris theme park, cafe terraces in the northeast of the capital, the Paris criminal police headquarters and a metro station.  Five of the suspects have had their custody extended under legislation covering investigations into an imminent terror attack.   They only have to be lucky once.

ANOTHER POINTLESS DEMONSTRATION – FROM PJ MEDIA:   Black Lives Matter agitators plan to disrupt Black Friday shopping in at least two cities this year in an attempt to draw attention to what they call unjustified police shootings. Organizers in Chicago and Seattle are planning demonstrations that they hope will attract thousands of protesters.  In Seattle, as many as 2,700 people may attend a Black Lives Matter protest downtown on Black Friday, according to a Facebook page set up by the "Black Freedom Front of Seattle."  And yet, when black children are murdered in Chicago, this "movement" has nothing to say.  The "statements" it puts out are often right out of the Marxist playbook.  BLM is going nowhere, and does not have the skills of successful movements – including a building of support.

OH DEAR, WHAT DOES A TRENDY CLIMATE GUY DO? – FROM LONDON'S TELEGRAPH: Antarctic sea ice had barely changed from where it was 100 years ago, scientists have discovered, after poring over the logbooks of great polar explorers such as Robert Falcon Scott and Ernest Shackleton.  Experts were concerned that ice at the South Pole had declined significantly since the 1950s, which they feared was driven by man-made climate change.  But new analysis suggests that conditions are now virtually identical to when the Terra Nova and Endurance sailed to the continent in the early 1900s, indicating that declines are part of a natural cycle and not the result of global warming.  It also explains why sea ice levels in the South Pole have begun to rise again in recent years, a trend which has left climate scientists scratching their heads.  Head scratching is good.  It leads to truth.

November 24, 2016