Read it.

A Waymo was caught on camera driving down Phoenix light rail tracks this week, forcing a passenger to flee the car before it continued along the tracks near an oncoming train.

Video taken by a bystander near Central and Southern avenues shows the moment the self-driving car stops on the tracks just before an oncoming light rail approaches. The passenger runs out of the vehicle before the car continues to drive down the tracks near another train.

“I actually felt a little sorry for the car. It obviously made a bad decision and got itself in a difficult place,” said Andrew Maynard, an emerging and transformative technology professor at ASU.

Maynard said while these situations are rare, they do happen. “This is exactly one of those edge cases, what we call them. Something unexpected where the machine drove like a machine rather than a person,” Maynard said.

Not yet ready for prime time.

The Telegraph (UK).

New toy has eyes that gaze slightly off-centre and bendy wrists for hand-flapping.

Sounds like a lot of Democrat Congresswomen.

Read it.

“. . .the Minnesota protests look less like a local eruption and more like the latest deployment of an international revolutionary machine.”

– Insurrection Barbie on “X”

Chrump, Chrump Chrump… He’s come to occupy the Left’s minds like an infestation of weevils chawing away the ligaments of civilized society.

But, of course, the whole wicked, Cluster-B, anomie-driven, insurrectionist extravaganza is a made-for-video production bought and paid for by a tiny coterie of super-wealthy megalomaniacs untouched by consequence — George and Alex Soros (The Open Society Foundations), Shanghai-based American Neville Roy Singham (Codepink and more), Reid Hoffman (funder of Trump prosecutions and more), Lauren Powell Jobs (The Atlantic and the Emerson Collective), Hansjorg Wyss (Berger Action Fund), Bill Gates (of course). . . .

Their main client in all this mischief is the Democratic Party, and the Democratic Party’s chief motivation, its raison d’être going on at least ten years now, has been to hide its multifarious crimes, its vast racketeering operations now garishly on display in the state of Minnesota, where the grift just went too far and was done right in America’s face.

The Telegraph (UK).

An Islamist double killer who took a prison officer hostage has won a court case on human rights grounds because he was depressed after being put in solitary confinement.

David Lammy, the Justice Secretary, has agreed to pay £7,500 in compensation and foot a £234,000 legal bill for Fuad Awale, a convicted double murderer, after a judge ruled that his treatment in jail breached his human rights.

Awale was transferred to a special separation unit for the country’s most dangerous prisoners after he and another inmate ambushed the prison officer and threatened to kill him unless Britain released the hate preacher Abu Qatada.

Naval Gazing.

This week has seen the announcement by the Trump Administration that they are going to be building “battleships”, a subject that is well within my beat, so I figured I would take the time to start by saying that these are nothing of the sort. Defining the battleship is slightly tricky, but the best version I have is that it is a large, gun-armed armored warship. This proposal is certainly large, but it doesn’t really classify as gun-armed, in that the guns are clearly secondary weapons, and there’s been no discussion of armor at all. So whatever these are, they aren’t battleships. Their closest cousin in the Soviet Kirov class, which likewise are somewhat hard to classify, but in the finest tradition of the USN, I’m going to go with “Large Missile Cruiser” for these. But the fact that they’re being called by the wrong name, while personally extremely annoying, is just the tip of the iceberg.

First, a look at the announced specs, as given above. The dimensions are somewhat large given the displacement, as they’re a pretty close match for Iowa, which is 50%+ heavier at full load, although they’re also not too far from the Alaskas, of roughly the same displacement. The length might make sense if they were going for nuclear power, because a very long hull would minimize power requirements, but it seems that it’s IEP instead. But then we get to armament, and things get weird. It starts with the new ship-launched nuclear cruise missile that Trump has been pushing since his first term. This is basically a replacement for the nuclear Tomahawk, and whatever the logic for or against such a program might be, there’s the problem that I’m pretty sure there’s no need to have this new “battleship” to use the missile. Details on the missile are very sketchy, but given that the base program is targeted at submarines, it probably can just go in the VLS with everything else. If it can’t that’s a requirements problem, and we should change those instead of spending money on this thing. I’m sure the crews will love it, too, given the need to guard the VLS all the time to avoid letting anyone know if there are actually nukes aboard.

Second, there are cells for Conventional Prompt Strike, which is the current hypersonic weapon that they’re pushing. It’s not in service yet, and I’m skeptical how much real value it will deliver. I’m also not entirely sure how many missiles will actually be aboard. Zumwalt recently got four tubes in place of her forward gun, each of which carries three missiles, and I could see either four tubes/12 missiles or 12 tubes/36 missiles, with the latter maybe making more sense given the size of the ship. The graphic provided by the Navy (below) is curiously unhelpful about this, almost like it was put together by someone who doesn’t understand any of this stuff.

Such as the people currently in charge of our naval procurement.

Read it.

A Christmas Eve screed from Politico has ignited online mockery, with the outlet claiming ‘far-right’ leaders are weaponizing the holiday by emphasizing its Christian origins amid secular pressures and immigration debates.

The article spotlights Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and others for framing Christmas as a “marker of Christian civilization” being under threat. It accuses far-right parties in Italy, France, Spain, and Germany of repurposing seasonal cheer into a culture war tool, positioning themselves against a “hostile, secular left.”

Roberts highlights Meloni’s defense of traditions, quoting her past remarks: “How can my culture offend you?” in reference to nativity scenes in public spaces. The piece notes Brothers of Italy’s lavish Christmas festival, complete with Santa and ice-skating, as a “spectacle” to rally supporters.

The Times (UK).

Santa Claus and his naughty list should be decolonised in the name of diversity, according to a museum.

Brighton and Hove Museums, a public museum and art gallery, suggested that the tale of Father Christmas should be amended so that he works alongside elves to promote equality, adding that a Mother Christmas could help tackle the patriarchy.

Read it.

The state parliament of Saxony-Anhalt has approved a renewed corona emergency for the seventh consecutive year, allowing the regional government to continue drawing on a special pandemic fund in 2026, despite the COVID-19 crisis having largely subsided.

The decision, passed on December 16th, follows approval earlier this month by the cabinet led by Minister-President Reiner Haseloff of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU). Under the renewed emergency declaration, the state plans to spend up to €790 million next year, including on hospital renovations and digitalisation projects.

Saxony-Anhalt has declared a corona emergency every year since 2020. All other German federal states ended comparable emergency measures by no later than 2024. The corona special fund was initially set at around €2 billion, more than half of which had been spent by October 2025. Hundreds of millions of euros more are earmarked for 2026, with repayments scheduled to begin in 2029 in annual instalments of €100 million.

And the hunt for the storied German Totalitarianism Gene continues.

Read it.

If you asked, ‘Name a top Democratic contender for president in 2028 who has a nepo-baby, transgender godson,’ pretty much everyone would immediately say Gavin Newsom… and they’d be correct. A few might throw out Tim Walz as a guess, but let’s be real—it’s Gavin, and the only real debate is which of these two is the bigger clown.

The Telegraph (UK).

University of Cambridge students allegedly carved the word “Terf” into a fellow undergraduate’s door after she showed interest in gender-critical books.

Thea Sewell, 20, says she was ostracised by friends at Christ’s College and condemned as a “bigot” for possessing literature which disputed gender theory – the notion that gender is changeable.

The second-year philosophy undergraduate, who is a survivor of childhood sexual assault, says she continues to be shouted at in the street for allegedly holding “reprehensible” beliefs on gender.

Ms Sewell has now co-founded the Cambridge University Society of Women (CUSW) with other gender-critical students to fight for the right to express their views.

Good luck with that.

The Telegraph (UK).

Men who correct women could face disciplinary action under plans being considered by the Green Party.

Party bosses are considering a proposal to broaden the Greens’ definition of misogyny to the point that “any disagreement” between the sexes could lead to the man facing a sanction.

The revelation is included in an internal 53-page report on legal and reputational risk to the party, which has been leaked to the Telegraph.

The dossier also exposes a wider row over the party’s policies on transgender and LGBT rights, posing material legal and financial risk to Zack Polanski’s party.

The report – produced by the Greens’ own lawyers – warns that internal guidance on identifying transphobia and “queerphobia” risks discriminating against members who question disputed gender theory.

The Green Party Council also was “very close” to adding a document called Guidance on Identifying Misogyny and Sexism to its ethics framework, according to the report.

Read it.

The esoteric programming language Velato uses music as its source code. The first note of a composition establishes a “command root” note, and the intervals that follow specify instructions. The command root can be changed between statements, and the notes that make up a chord can be interpreted in a specified order, so there’s some latitude to help a composition sound “musical.”

I am not making this up.

The Telegraph(UK).

British workers who are sensitive to rejection and criticism can sue for disability discrimination, according to a tribunal judgment.

Ryan Toghi claimed he had “rejection sensitivity” as a result of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and won a disability discrimination case against Lidl after he was disciplined.

He is in line to receive compensation after successfully suing the supermarket chain at Cardiff Employment Tribunal.

He won unfair and wrongful dismissal, unfavourable treatment because of “something arising in consequence of disability” and failure to make reasonable adjustments.

Mr Toghill began working as a shift manager at the store in Newport, South Wales, in October 2019. He was promoted to deputy store manager in June 2022.

The tribunal heard Mr Toghill is classified as disabled because he was diagnosed with ADHD in May 2022.
A judgment said he experiences “rejection sensitivity” causing him feelings of extreme anxiety in social or work settings.

Watts Up With That.

he article doesn’t say it was a battery fire, but from the video in the BBC article above, it was a pretty impressive blaze for a simple electrical fault. Of course the intensity of the fire might have been caused by all the disposable single use petroleum based plastic used to construct the climate conference pavilion.

The UN seems determined the conference will continue, but with the conference almost at its end, no significant leaders in town, and many conference center evacuees likely relocating to the nearest wine bar to calm their nerves, there is a good chance a lot of people will pack up and go home early.

Well, we can hope. Let their private jets trail CO2 across the skies….

Read it.

Similarly, Galaxy owner Mark had his device stolen by a thief riding an e-bike.
Mark says, “I saw him stop, look at my phone, then throw it on the floor. He cycled off and I retrieved my phone.”
Another funny story highlights Simon, who had an unusually friendly stranger (and would-be thief) drop all interest in him after Simon pulled out his phone.
This led Simon to realize that his chance encounter was part of a potential mugging. “[Simon] overhead the would-be thief explaining to his apparent accomplice why they were giving up: “Phone’s dead, innit.””
As noted by John Gruber at Daring Fireball, iPhone-Android ownership in the UK is about 50-50. But clearly, at least because of high resale value, the iPhone remains a lot more desirable.

Read it.

A new right-wing political party in Belgium called TRUMP has been launched, taking its name from current U.S. President Donald Trump, whom its founder calls “the ultimate symbol of populism.”

TRUMP is short for Tous Réunis pour l’Union des Mouvements Populistes (All United for the Union of Populist Movements). The group follows earlier francophone movements, including the now-dissolved Chez Nous and the former Belgian Front National.

The party is led by Salvatore Nicotra, a former chairman of the Belgian Front National. Speaking to Brussels outlet BRUZZ, he said Donald Trump represents the values the new party wants to promote.

Unlike Vlaams Belang, Belgium’s largest right-wing nationalist party, which seeks independence for the Dutch-speaking Flanders region, Nicotra says TRUMP supports a unified Belgian state. He describes the platform as “right-wing populist with a social focus.”

TRUMP plans to run in Belgium’s 2029 federal and European elections and may also field candidates at regional and local level. The official launch is scheduled for 30 November.

The announcement comes as Prime Minister Bart De Wever’s five-party coalition struggles to finalise the national budget. De Wever is pushing for €10 billion in spending cuts and has asked King Philippe for more time—until Christmas—to strike a deal.

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It is a snapshot of cultural collapse: A young German woman with pink hair in clergyman’s robes, facing four men, bestowing her approval on their bizarre sexual arrangement, the details of which we are blessedly unaware. The pro-LGBT pastor is now under fire for blessing the ‘marriage’ of four men who showed up at a pop-up wedding fair at Berlin’s St. Paul the Apostle Church recently. Lena Müller, the 33-year-old clergyperson in question, posted a photo of the ceremony to Instagram.

According to the Times, Müller said that the relationship “consisted of two Latvians, a Thai citizen and a fourth man who she believed was Spanish.” This group of men, which I regret to inform you is referred to as a ‘polycule,’ was pronounced a “marriage in the eyes of God,” according to Müller. The wedding fair was “part of a programme offering free blessing for couples who wish to avoid ‘lengthy formalities,’” which in this case would probably include a Constitutional Court case and new legislation.

“Four young men said ‘yes’ to each other, celebrated love with us and placed themselves under G*d’s colourful blessing … What an honour, that these four asked for a blessing with so much trust,” Müller wrote in her Instagram post, which she has since deleted. I can’t help but suspect that upon arriving at the fair, the polyamorous polycule swiftly identified her as the likeliest pink-haired purveyor of the moral approval they sought.

Read it.

Is polygamy a human right? This is the question currently being pondered by the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) in Strasbourg. The case has been brought by a Yemeni refugee, Khaled Al-Anesi, a lawyer who was granted asylum in the Netherlands following the Arab Spring. He arrived in the country with his first wife and their eight children, deciding not to request reunification with his second and third wives, as polygamy is illegal under Dutch law. He did, however, demand that the five children he had with his other wives join him in the Netherlands. At this point, the Dutch government refused, noting that the children were perfectly safe with their mothers in Turkey, where they enjoyed refugee status.

The Telegraph (UK).

A newsreader who went viral after she made a face while changing the word “pregnant people” to “women” during a live broadcast has been found to have broken BBC impartiality rules.

Martine Croxall made the expression as she changed her script in an introduction to an interview with an assistant professor about groups most at risk during UK heatwaves.

Croxall won a legion of fans following the live broadcast, including author JK Rowling.

The broadcaster’s Executive Complaints Unit (ECU), however, considered her facial expression expressed a “controversial view about trans people”.

Read it.

There is another bizarre filing from Mark Elias, the controversial Democratic lawyer who helped to secretly fund the infamous Steele Dossier. In a new filing, Elias is challenging the district in New York City with the lone Republican member as violating the state voting rights act. Elias is effectively arguing that voting Republican is evidence of racism.

In the petition, voters bring a New York Voting Rights Act challenge, arguing that the Eleventh District “provides Black and Latino Staten Islanders “less opportunity than other members of the electorate to elect a representative of their choice and influence elections in New York’s 11th Congressional District (“CD-11”), in violation of the prohibition against racial vote dilution in Article III, Section 4(c)(1) of the New York Constitution.”

The filing occurs after New York moved to further gerrymander the state, aiming to eliminate more Republican members of Congress. Across the country, Democrats have pushed for such gerrymandering, but in New York, the efforts are particularly extreme.

Trump received 45 percent of the vote. Republicans are confined to a small handful of districts. It is still too much for Elias.

The Foundry.

Republican organizations and persons by then-special counsel Jack Smith. The new information provided by Grassley, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, also prompted a renewed call for Chief Judge James Boasberg of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to be impeached.

In particular, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, denounced the federal judge for signing a gag order preventing AT&T from letting the Texas lawmaker know that his cellphone records had been sought by Smith for at least a year.

“If a judge signs an order reaching a factual conclusion for which there is zero evidence whatsoever, that judge is abusing his power,” Cruz said at the press conference, adding:

“I am right now calling on the House of Representatives to impeach Judge Boasberg.”

Wonder why there is a Senate primary contest in Texas? Because John Cornyn would never even think of doing something like this. To Ted Cruz’s Senator Stork, Cornyn is Senator Log. People want him gone, and if it takes electing Paxton to do it, well, that’s what it takes.

Read it.

The headline seems ridiculous, but it is true.

After arriving in Sweden as an asylum seeker when he was a minor, Eritrean migrant Yazied Mohamed raped Meya Åberg in September last year, when she was just 16 years old, while she was on her way back home from work.

According to the Court of Appeal for Upper Norrland, this attack was not “extremely serious”—and so does not warrant deportation—because of its “duration.” This prompted commentator Ian Miles Cheong to note that “the suffering of a 16 year old is now measured in minutes”—a sign of “how far the system has fallen.”

On the ‘seriousness’ of the crime, it is surely worth highlighting that Åberg, now 17, afterwards barely went to school for a year, is still haunted by nightmares and—in her own words—is “really scared to go out and walk by myself.”

Read it.

Kohler is expanding its line of bathroom products with Dekoda, an iPhone-connected device that’s designed to be attached to a toilet rim (via The Verge). The device’s included “sensors” point into the toilet bowl, allowing it to analyze what goes on in the bathroom.

Newsbusters.

Gosh, how much “further” right could CBS possibly get? It already has on board hard-core conservatives including Margaret Brennan, John Dickerson, and Norah O’Donnell. Oh, wait.

On Wednesday’s CNN This Morning, lefty media analyst Sara Fischer, discussing Paramount’s purchase of The Free Press, and the naming of Free Press founder Bari Weiss as editor-in-chief of CBS News, claimed that the $150 million that Paramount paid for The Free Press was so excessive as to be “insane,” thereby supposedly proving that Paramount CEO: “David Ellison either has a personal or political interest to sort of bring CBS News further to the right.”

Feel free to laugh at that statement. (What degree of Woke does it take to refer to CBS News as ‘to the right’?)

Read it.

A U.S. Postal Service worker was shot in the face during an altercation Friday afternoon in Everett, Washington, and a rival package delivery driver is in custody, according to local police and a postal inspector.

The incident took place at the West Mall Place Apartments. The victim was transported to Providence Hospital with a gunshot wound, the Everett Police Department said in a Facebook post. He was transferred to Harbor View Medical Center in critical condition, Seattle TV station KOMO reported.

Neighbors said the shooter was an Amazon delivery driver, according to KOMO and social media posts. TV footage showed an Amazon vehicle and USPS van behind police crime-scene tape and the Amazon van being towed away later.

“USPS workers don’t let people in the area when they have the mailboxes open. The Amazon driver didn’t particularly like that, they got into an argument, which escalated to a shoving match, which escalated to the Amazon driver shooting the USPS guy in the freaking eye!!! Then he sat there calmly and waited for the cops to show up and claimed self defense,” a poster named Rich Ryan said on Facebook.

Gives “Going Postal” a new meaning.

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A new study has found that people tend to alter their appearance to suit their names. The researchers sought to determine whether parents choose a baby name based on what seems fitting for the baby’s appearance, or if individuals’ facial appearances change over the years to align with the social stereotypes associated with their names.

Read it.

Well, it sells everything else….

The Foundry.

After President Donald Trump announced that the Department of Health and Human Services was recommending women abstain from taking Tylenol during pregnancy, some pregnant women with “Trump Derangement Syndrome” began taking the drug in videos they shared on social media.

“There is mounting evidence finding a connection between acetaminophen use during pregnancy and autism—and that’s why the administration is courageously issuing this new health guidance,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said following the president’s announcement.

Now, some pregnant women are ending up in the hospital after overdosing on Tylenol while, in defiance of Trump, aiming to prove that the drug is safe to take during pregnancy.

Think of it as evolution in action.

Read it.

Could President Donald Trump become the next prime minister of the United Kingdom? Conservative U.K. politician Jacob Rees-Mogg said the 47th American president could serve across the pond after he wraps his second term.

In an opinion piece published Monday by The Telegraph, Rees-Mogg laid out his case for Trump, which hinges on the Republican president’s Scottish-born mother.

“A child born to a British mother, who was herself born in these Isles, normally has a right to British citizenship,” Rees-Mogg wrote. “Thus, Donald Trump could become a subject of His Majesty, granting him eligibility to stand for Parliament at the next election in 2029, shortly after his term in office as American president ends. If he were then elected, the King could send for him to ask him to form a government as prime minister.”

They could do worse–and have, for decades. But I doubt that he’d do it; Britain is too much of a proglodyte paradise for any rational person’s taste. But never say never….

ALSO: Trump for PM? It might just be possible… (The Telegraph) “This constitutional possibility, an admittedly remote one, has the great virtue of winding up po-faced Lefties who suffer from Trump derangement syndrome, but it also would be an excellent idea, as this country needs a jolt of Trump to extricate it from the slough of despond.”

Read it.

What was the true root cause of the anti-immigration riots and protests which rocked the United Kingdom last summer and have continued doing so intermittently ever since? The logical explanation could be that the native population are sick and tired of seeing their civilisation and their culture replaced by unassimilable outsiders, a feeling brought to a head by the murder of three innocent little girls in the town of Southport by a supposed ‘Welsh choirboy’ who later turned out to be a black Rwandan second-generation settler. Yet some British MPs claim to know better: the disturbances were actually caused by crude and ‘offensive’ pictures circulating on the Internet, without which nobody would ever have objected to such acts of senseless infanticide.

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“I’m married to Luigi’s AI; I’m not kidding” a woman among the crowd supporting accused UnitedHealthcare CEO assassin Luigi Mangione proclaimed to a journalist outside a New York courthouse Tuesday.

The unidentified woman was in the crowd that cheered when a judge dismissed terrorism-related charges against Mangione and reduced his first-degree murder charge to second degree. In an on-camera interview, the woman, shown wearing a T-shirt featuring Mangione’s picture inside a heart, described her relationship with an artificial intelligence program designed to mimic the accused killer:

This disease is called “hybristophilia“. It is endemic among women, especially Leftist women.

“AI is the future of romance,” the woman predicted.

And Natural Selection is waiting to purge these people from the gene pool.

Read it.

he Cornish are being urged to sign a petition demanding the government recognise Cornwall as the fifth nation of the UK — alongside England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland — and grant it devolved powers.

The campaign is backed by Cornwall council, which passed a motion calling for recognised nation status by 53 votes in favour and 22 against.

The council, run by a Liberal Democrat-led coalition, has been pushing the petition on its social media channels as the deadline looms this week.

Perhaps the Upper Peninsula of Michigan could attempt to become a state. Or maybe the eastern tail of West Virginia. Or even Long Island–wouldn’t that be entertaining.

Rowland O’Connor, the Reform deputy leader on the council, said: “It feels like we are being asked to choose between being English and Cornish. In reality most of us are very proud to be Cornish and English.

Except that the Cornish are not English, unless they came from outside Cornwall. The Cornish are Celts and most closely related to the Welsh, not the Anglo-Saxon-Danes to their West.

On the other hand, it would give Prince William, it’s Duke, someplace to practice being a figurehead.

Read it.

It’s pretty hilarious to read economic dunce-in-chief Paul Krugman squawk over President Donald Trump having supposedly worsened a housing crisis that the columnist’s beloved Bidenomics drastically exacerbated in the first place.

Trump is reportedly considering declaring a national housing emergency later this year, as major unit shortages and high rates on 30-year fixed mortgages continue to rankle homebuyers.

Krugman is the poster child for the notion that Economics Is The New Astrology.

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In a few days’ time, France risks finding itself without a government, with a wind of revolt blowing through the streets and the financial markets in turmoil over the spiralling public debt that nothing seems able to stop, but the urgent issue lies elsewhere. Élisabeth Borne, former prime minister recycled as Minister of National Education, retains a sense of real priorities: what if all our present ills stem from the poorly gendered dedication that adorns the Pantheon, the monument that stands in the heart of Paris in honour of the nation’s heroes?

Watch it.

Let that be a lesson to us all.

Read it.

Treating Democrats like the criminal gang they so often are.

UPDATE: Police escort Texas Democrats to prevent new redistricting walkout as California moves to retaliate (Associated Press)

UPDATE Fort Worth Rep. Nicole Collier refuses to leave Texas House, protesting state trooper escorts (David Montgomery/KERA News)

UPDATE: Nicole Collier rejects Speaker Dustin Burrows’ pledge to return for Wednesday morning vote on Republican push to redraw state’s electoral map (Joe Sommerlad/The Independent)

The Register.

The UK government has gone all-in on AI. More than 50 years after Harold Wilson gave his famous “White heat of technology” speech, this is the hot new thing. An AI Strategy has been released. Datacenters are planned. Steps to strengthen AI supply chains are being formulated. And of course, the public sector will lead by example in AI usage.

Whitehall might talk a big game when it comes to IT, but so far the words haven’t fit the picture. Its own State of Digital Government report, released in January, found the central government’s IT portfolio wanting. It classified 28 percent of central government systems as legacy, rising to 70 percent in some areas. HMRC is still paying contractors top dollar to maintain COBOL systems.

Legacy has a specific meaning in government, per the study: “unsupported, has known vulnerabilities, is difficult to maintain, or is unable to meet current business or user needs.”

“For years this problem has plagued both public and private sector organisations,” says Heather Cover-Kus, head of central government at UK tech industry association techUK. “However, the issue is more complex for the public sector as the cost of getting things wrong is very high, as is the cost of doing nothing.”

Read it.

President Donald Trump brought up his prospects of winning a Nobel Peace Prize last month in a phone call to Jens Stoltenberg, Norway’s finance minister.

The call reportedly came as Stoltenberg was walking in Oslo and included other U.S. officials. While tariff discussions dominated, Trump brought up the Nobel during the exchange.

“It is true that President Trump called me a few days before his conversation with Prime Minister [Jonas Gahr] Støre. Several of the president’s staff members also participated in the conversation, including Treasury Secretary [Scott] Bessent and Trade Representative [Jamieson] Greer,” Stoltenberg, the former NATO secretary-general, told Politico.

Ah Ah Ah Ah Yankin’ their chains, yankin’ their chains….

It must be fun to be Trump, to be able to wake up in the morning and ask himself “Who on the Left’s day can I ruin with just a phone call?” and then actually do it. No wonder he’s smiling all the time.

Rather like being Andrew Tate, but with more money and influence.

Read it.

A recent report from the Brandenburg Verfassungsschutz (Office for the Protection of the Constitution), leaked to the media outlet NIUS, has revealed that among the reasons for classifying Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) as “an organization with confirmed extremist objectives” is a suggestion made on social media in 2021 to establish a “day of remembrance” for all women raped or murdered by migrants.

The document classifies the proposal made by Anna Leisten, then leader of the AfD youth branch in Brandenburg, as an “attack on human dignity,” and is listed in the section on “violations of human dignity” alongside other statements made by the party’s regional leaders. Leisten wrote: “Today is the day of the ‘sea rescuers.’ How about having a day in memory of all the women and girls murdered or raped by so-called asylum seekers?”

The 142-page report analyzes AfD’s ideological evolution in Brandenburg since 2019. It concludes that the party has removed any positive reference to immigration or integration, focusing on the “cultural incompatibility” of certain groups with German society—which, apparently, is still anathema in Germany.

Unbelievable.

The New York Times, paper of record for the Wokerati.

On a recent sunny Sunday, residents of San Francisco’s Noe Valley gathered to celebrate the opening of a toilet. But not just any toilet. This was the nation’s most infamous public toilet.

In 2022 my colleague Heather Knight, then at The San Francisco Chronicle, noticed the projected price tag on the commode: $1.7 million, which Assemblyman Matt Haney had secured from the state. This was business as usual in San Francisco. Other public toilets had cost about the same. Local officials were planning a celebration. But Knight’s article set off a furor. Gov. Gavin Newsom clawed back the money. The party was canceled. Haney denounced the project he had made possible: “The cost is insane. The process is insane. The amount of time it takes is insane.” He wanted answers.

Phil Ginsburg, the general manager of San Francisco’s Recreation and Parks Department, responded with a letter that is a masterpiece of coiled bureaucratic fury. He told Haney that the department had been “pleasantly surprised” by the “unexpected allocation” of $1.7 million for the Noe bathroom. “Until now,” Ginsburg wrote, “we have not received any questions from you on the estimate.”

But Ginsburg was happy to walk Haney through the numbers and describe how Haney, as a former member of San Francisco’s powerful Board of Supervisors and a current member of the State Legislature, bore responsibility for them. “As you will see, the process is indeed long and expensive,” he noted. “It is also the result of many years of political choices and exacerbated by skyrocketing costs.”

Politicians waste money and then are shocked, shocked that money is being wasted.

Read it.

Don’t Mess With Musk.

Read it.

“Homelessness Minister”?

UPDATE: In Lieu Of Dystopian Sci-Fi Movie, American Just Watching News From England (Babylon Bee)

The Telegraph (UK).

Police officers told a shopkeeper to take down a sign calling shoplifters “scumbags” because it could cause offence, sparking a free speech row.

Rob Davies put up a handwritten note in his shop after repeated thefts that read: “Due to scumbags shoplifting, please ask for assistance to open cabinets.”

But officers from North Wales Police attended his retro shop in Wrexham and told him to take down the sign as it could cause offence.

This is what Britain has come to.

The War Zone.

Ukrainian soldier surrounded by Russians was recently saved in a robotic rescue effort, which highlights rapid changes occurring in combat rescue. Though about a mile behind enemy lines and the last surviving member of his four-man team, the soldier managed to escape thanks to a 40kg (about 88 pounds) electric bike dropped by a large drone.

This operation was the latest in a growing trend of troops being rescued by drones, though most of the time it has been by uncrewed ground vehicles (UGVs). This method of evacuation is increasing as mobility in Ukraine becomes increasingly limited due to the ubiquity of short-range loitering munitions.

The rescue of the soldier, call sign “Tankist,” was captured in a wild video taken by his unit, the Force of Freedom Battalion of the National Guard’s 4th Rapid Reaction Brigade “Rubizh.” The battalion later posted it to their YouTube channel.

The Other McCain.

This seemed like it was going to be one of those weird social-media episodes that would get a few laughs and disappear before I could be bothered to write about it, but then ABC’s Good Morning America felt the need to weigh in on the Sydney Sweeney Nazi Jeans Scandal, and so here we are, on a Wednesday, still talking about it.

Making a sophomoric double-entendre — “jeans”/“genes” — American Eagle employed This Year’s It Girl to promote their product: “Great jeans,” get it? And were it not for the fact that Donald Trump is president and half of our fellow citizens are in a state of panic-stricken hysteria, this not-remotely-clever ad campaign would never have become such a thing as to attract scrutiny from Major National News Organizations. But the same deranged mentality that justified baseball taking the All-Star Game out of Atlanta because Joe Biden called their election law “Jim Crow 2.0” continues to prevail among the kind of people who voted for Kamala Harris, so I find myself on a Wednesday being compelled to comment on an advertising campaign for overpriced blue jeans.

The Sunday Times (UK)

Litter pickers can often be found in the park of a Sunday morning. But those gathered on east London’s Hackney Marshes this weekened were more energetic than most.

Around 60 enthusiasts armed with gloves, pickers and bin bags are competing to represent the UK in the world cup of SpoGomi, a Japanese-inspired litter-picking sport.

Despite Japan’s reputation for pristine streets, the British are the reigning champions. Defence of their title and plane tickets to the final in Tokyo were at stake.

I’ll bet you didn’t know that there was a “Litter-Picking World Cup”.

What’s next: A lip-gloss world cup?

I guess everybody needs a hobby.

The Times (UK)

ne woman holds the future of two churches in her hands as the only person who has a vote in both the election of the next Archbishop of Canterbury and of the next Archbishop of Wales. And by the end of the week, she could end up as Britain’s first female archbishop herself.

In the Welsh equivalent of a papal conclave, about 40 people will lock themselves away for up to three days from Tuesday to elect the next Archbishop of Wales. Their choice will serve as head of the Church in Wales, the Anglican sister of the Church of England.

One of the voters will be the Right Rev Mary Stallard, 58, the Bishop of Llandaff. She was also named in May as one of the 17 people who will serve on the Crown Nominations Commission, the confidential body that will choose a successor to the Right Rev Justin Welby as Archbishop of Canterbury. She is one of five representatives from non-English Anglican churches with a vote.

Women do love their cosplay.

The Telegraph (UK).

The man credited with reinventing traditional Irish dance notified the court of a “material change in circumstances” – he was moving back to Ireland to run in their presidential elections.

It raises the prospect of the man who once held the Guinness World Record for tap dancing 35 times per second facing off against McGregor.

McGregor, 37, who recently lost a civil case accusing him of rape, declared his intention to run for president in March this year at the White House, where he gained the tacit endorsement of Donald Trump.

So, whom would you pick: The fighter or the dancer? (Mike Tyson or Michael Jackson?)

Read it.

If an international court told the Western world to jump off a cliff, would we do it? We may be about to find out. The UN’s top court, the International Court of Justice (ICJ), ruled on Wednesday that wealthy nations must meet their environmental targets, or else face being sued by the states most affected by climate change.

The case was brought to the ICJ by a group of law students from the Pacific Islands—where countries like Vanuatu are particularly at risk from rising sea levels—and was supported by 132 nations in total. As part of the ruling, Judge Yuji Iwasawa also called climate change an “urgent and existential threat,” said that a healthy environment is a human right, and declared that “states must cooperate to achieve concrete emission-reduction targets.” Those who fail to reduce their fossil fuel consumption could expect to cough up “full reparations to injured states in the form of restitution, compensation and satisfaction provided that the general conditions of the law of state responsibility are met.”

The decision is not legally binding, but it could still prove influential. Campaigners and climate lawyers hope that it’ll pave the way for Western nations to pay out ‘compensation’ to countries most affected by climate change. Experts have warned this also opens the door to lawsuits over historic emissions, as less developed nations vie for ‘climate reparations’ from countries like the UK, where the Industrial Revolution began.