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

INEVITABLE – From WaPo:   LONDON — British police were investigating a stabbing at an east London subway station Saturday evening as a “terrorist incident” after the attacker reportedly claimed he had acted “for Syria.”  The stabbing, which came just three days after the British Parliament approved airstrikes in Syria against Islamic State targets, left three people injured — one seriously. British media outlets reported that the seriously wounded victim had been stabbed in the throat. Two other people were treated for minor injuries.  A video circulating online purportedly shows the aftermath of the attack depicted a gruesome scene, with a large pool of blood smeared on the floor near the ticket turnstiles at the Leytonstone Underground station.  We're certain that this was an isolated incident and should not be attributed to any ideology, religious belief or human being.

WILL SOMEONE PLEASE WRITE A CHECK – From Fox:   The U.S. military says its 15-month bombing campaign on the Islamic State is depleting its munitions supply and that additional money and other support is “critical” for “the long fight.”  "We're expending munitions faster than we can replenish them,” Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Welsh said Friday. “We need the funding in place to ensure we're prepared for the long fight. This is a critical need."  The Air Force has reportedly fired more than 20,000 bombs and missiles in Syria in the fight to dismantle the self-proclaimed Islamic State.  You'd think the administration would have covered this by now.  Maybe they can find the money in their "war on cops" budget.

A BIT OF TRUTH – From the Washington Examiner:   The New York Times front-page editorial asserts a "gun epidemic," which is an odd phrase, unless you think guns themselves — not deaths or shootings — are an evil.  If the editors meant to refer to a gun-death epidemic or a mass-shooting epidemic, here's a relevant bit of information: Per-capita murders in the U.S. are at their lowest level since FBI records began, and they are trending downwards. The Times editors write "motives do not matter to the dead." I would add that "weapons of choice do not matter to the dead."  See the chart in the story here.

December 5,  2015