ZMan looks ahead.

One of the challenges with making predictions the last few years was that every year seemed to be wilder than the last. It was tempting to hope that crazy things you want to see happen would happen. This year, it feels like we are headed to a more normal time, but that probably means we see some important things begin to happen, now that the crazies are going into hibernation. This could turn out to be a less dramatic year than 2024, but a much more substantial one.

Every year there is an important topic that is bubbling under the surface, either in the ruling class or amongst the rabble, that suddenly breaks through. In 2024, we moved from “securing the border” to “mass deportation now” as the growing sentiment against immigration of all types finally broke through. The 2025 issue will be the collapsing birth rates around the world. It is a thing that gets discussed in certain circles, but 2025 will be the year it goes mainstream.

We will have to suffer from the usual slop from the commentariat, who will try to make money applying the old slogans to this issue. The public nuisances we call influencers will pollute the waters too. But by the end of the year, the educated debate will settle on the four D’s of human destiny. Diet, Development, Divinity and Deracination will be the focus for what is causing the fertility collapse. The most important issue in the world will suddenly become import…

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A Syrian culture-enricher ran amok today in Berlin and stabbed several people in a supermarket. Fortunately, no one was killed.

Police say the mischievous youngster may be — surprise! — mentally ill, and that there is no indication that the unfortunate incident had anything to do with terrorism.

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Earlier this year, officials from across the Biden-Harris administration reviewed intelligence detailing Iraq’s central role in a billion-dollar Iranian oil smuggling scheme. But they largely ignored that intelligence, according to those briefed on the matter, giving Tehran what one former U.S. official described as a “free pass” to evade American sanctions and rake in illicit cash.

Officials from the State Department, Treasury Department, and intelligence community received the 45-page intelligence report in April and sat for multiple briefs on its material. Assembled by a number of international intelligence agencies and reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon, the report identified Iraq, the world’s fifth-largest oil producer, as central to an Iranian “oil and fuel smuggling” operation that significantly expanded in 2022.

Iran generates roughly $1 billion from the smuggling scheme annually, Reuters reported, money that is “directly funding the Iranian threat network,” according to the intelligence report. The briefing on that report came just months after Iran-backed terror group Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel, sparking a war that later spread to Lebanon, where fellow Iranian terror proxy Hezbollah launches near-daily missile barrages at the Jewish state.

But the Biden-Harris administration apparently did little to act on the intelligence. The Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), which administers and enforces trade sanctions, responded to the report by drawing up sanctions packages targeting Iraq—but never actually put them in place, according to a former U.S. official briefed on the matter.

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Within days of its founding in early August, a mysterious company called Save Our Home Planet Action, Inc. managed to get ahold of nearly $2.2 million—funds that it promptly handed over to a collection of major Democratic super PACs.

Corporations can legally contribute to super PACs if the donated funds are earned through regular business activities. But it’s unclear what Save Our Home Planet Action did to earn the nearly $2.2 million it passed onto the Democratic groups after its founding in August through October. The company has neither an online presence nor a file with the Better Business Bureau or any other corporate databases.

Federal Election Commission records show the mysterious company shares an address with Patagonia, the self-proclaimed “activist company” that has committed to donating $100 million every year to combat climate change and uses the “Save Our Home Planet” slogan in the clothing it sells. And California business records show Greg Curtis, a former Patagonia legal officer who now heads the retailer’s parent nonprofit, signed documents on behalf of Save Our Home Planet Action.

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Law enforcement sources said the gunfire erupted near the Amazura event hall at 91-12 144th Place in Jamaica, within the confines of the 103rd Precinct, at about 11:20 p.m. on Jan. 1.

Sources familiar with the investigation reported that the hall was hosting a private party at the time of the shooting. The event apparently was in honor of a known gang member in the community slain last October whose birthday coincided with New Year’s Day.

As around 90 people partied inside the Amazura, about 15 people lined up outside waiting to get into the Wednesday night event that was at capacity. Law enforcement sources said four suspects walked eastbound along 144th Place and began firing indiscriminately at the crowd.

“Four males opened fire over 30 times in the direction of the group standing outside the event space, striking multiple victims. The males fled on foot westbound on 91st street towards 143 Place, where they entered a light-colored sedan with out-of-state plates,” NYPD Chief of Patrol Philip Rivera said during an early morning press conference. “Police officers responding to the multiple 911 calls found a total of 10 victims– six females, four males–which were taken to area hospitals. All of the victims are expected to recover.”

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In a recent discussion on the Shawn Ryan Show, former CIA targeting officer Sarah Adams warned of a potentially devastating attack planned by Al-Qaeda terrorists on American soil.

The interview offers significant insights into what may be unfolding, as Al-Qaeda sleeper cells could be activating in the wake of the New Orleans terrorist attack and a possible vehicle-borne improvised explosive device (VBIED) in the rear of a rented Tesla Cybertruck that exploded outside Trump’s hotel in Las Vegas just hours later.

Ryan asked Adams: “I just want to clarify. You are 100% certain that there are 1,000 plus Al-Qaeda-trained fighters within the US borders?”

Adams, currently a global threat advisor with extensive experience in Middle Eastern affairs, responded: “Well, Al-Qaeda says they trained and deployed a thousand for this attack. First off, I think there are more than a thousand Al-Qaeda members in the United States, but for the Homeland Attack, that number is based on what Al-Qaeda is saying, so they could exaggerate it; however, they did have about 1,400 in the Hamas Attack so the number is not off from what they did in the first round of attacks.”

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Over the last 250 years of American political gamesmanship, both parties have played year-end games into the arms of a new incoming administration. In early 2000, the incoming George Walker Bush team discovered that every keyboard in the White House and other administrative offices was missing the “W” key.

The outgoing Clinton staff had removed all the “W” keys to annoy the new administration after an extremely contentious election.

The damage was small, estimated at $15,000.

But the bigger message here was that when the party that runs the White House changes, the outgoing administration will leave some proverbial “time bombs” for their successors.

While the damaged keyboards were more like a bad joke, what Biden is doing to Trump now is serious business. The outgoing administration has opened the spigots table max to get every penny out the door while they can under the existing budget.

It’s almost like they are looting the Treasury before they leave town.

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Foreign jihadists have been appointed in senior positions in the new Syrian military, which is now led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), an offshoot of al-Qaeda that led the offensive that ousted former President Bashar al-Assad.

Syrian sources told Reuters that the foreign fighters appointed to the military include Uyghurs, a Jordanian, a Turk, and an Albanian. “This is a small token of recognition for the sacrifices Islamist jihadists gave to our struggle for freedom from Assad’s oppression,” an HTS source told the media outlet.

Among the Uyghurs is Abdulaziz Dawood Khudaberdi, the commander of the Turkistan Islamic Party’s (TIP) forces in Syria. The TIP’s stated goal is to create an Islamic State in China’s western Xinjiang region.

Khudaberdi was named a brigadier general in the Syrian military, and two other Uyghur fighters were appointed colonels.

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The Mexican organized crime group accused of fueling the United States’ fentanyl crisis is now making the deadly drug in Africa, according to local and international law enforcement agencies.

The Sinaloa cartel has chosen South Africa as a major operational base, they said, largely because of its strong trade links to China, which produces the chemicals used to make the synthetic opioid.

“At this stage, there isn’t a big market for fentanyl in Africa, so much of this drug that’s being made in underground labs on the continent is being smuggled into the United States, the biggest fentanyl market in the world,” said Lt. Gen. Godfrey Lebeya, chief of The Hawks, South Africa’s top police investigative unit.

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One day in the near future people will look back on this era as the moment that America snatched common sense back from the jaws of unmitigated insanity. Get Woke, Go Broke is becoming a cleansing wind as thousands of companies across the US abandon DEI and social justice programs in an effort to avoid total financial collapse. That said, the last organizations you probably expected to see dumping their woke initiatives are colleges and universities. After all, these “institutions of higher learning” have been ground zero for the woke mind virus for decades.

Surprisingly, even universities are now accepting the reality that social justice is a dead ideology walking. The University of Iowa is following this trend after recently announced that it will be shutting down two social justice related departments and it will eliminate its social justice major as part of an effort to streamline and restructure some humanities offerings.

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Boasting an estimated 175,000 members, drug cartels are the fifth largest employer in Mexico, according to a new study by research center Complexity Science Hub, ZME Science reported.

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Armed members of the Tren de Aragua gang have been trying to force their way across border crossings at El Paso and are planning another attempt to break through on New Year’s Day, according to a leaked Texas Department of Public Safety memo.

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Homeless rates in the U.S. reached record numbers in 2024, due in part to immigrants who entered the country illegally and had trouble finding housing in the nation’s sanctuary cities, according to data released by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Politico, a Voice of the Crust.

With a majority of his caucus now calling on him to resign, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is on a ski holiday, reflecting on whether to stay or go.

Trudeau is way down in the polls and facing challenges from within his party about whether he’s the right leader to unite Canadians. His decision comes as Canada braces for a tariff war when Donald Trump returns to the White House in three weeks.

Canadians will head to the polls in 2025, a federal election that could be triggered in late January if Trudeau’s foes topple the minority government when the House returns from break.

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Biden administration officials had previously said the site was simply being improved, but nearly all the accountability info from the site was removed and hasn’t returned.

“Federal union executives have taken advantage of the four years under the Biden administration, which adopted a ‘whole of government’ approach towards promoting and entrenching unions in the federal bureaucracy, to attempt to insulate themselves from a second Trump term,” Max Nelsen, a labor policy expert at the Freedom Foundation, told the Center Square.

As the Center Square previously reported, the U.S. Office of Personnel Management has for years updated a website to track unions’ “official time.”

Official time is a practice protected by federal law that allows federal employees to do certain union activities while being paid by the federal government, and therefore, on the taxpayers’ dime.

To make sure that workers and unions do not abuse this provision, the OPM has maintained a public accountability site tracking how that time has been used.

Biden’s administration removed the accountability website with promises to refurbish the online presence of the information.

In 2023, an OPM spokesperson told The Center Square that “previous reports on official time are not currently available because OPM is reorganizing our website to improve navigation and customer experience.”

Now, however, about two years later, the site is still gone. Lawmakers have blasted the OPM for the change.

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Inquiring minds want to know.

The rest of us? Not so much.

ISLAMOCOPIA THURSDAY:

Moment New Orleans attacker enters busy street in pick-up truck (BBC)

2 Baton Rouge natives, Lafayette man among 15 killed in Bourbon Street attack (WAFB)

FBI identifies suspect in New Orleans attack that killed at least 15 people (CNN)

Authorities probe possible military link between suspects in New Orleans attack and Trump Tower Cybertruck blast (NBC News)

Live updates: Authorities probe possible terror links to New Orleans attack that killed 15 people (NBC News)

Authorities suspect Cybertruck driver had military background (CNN)

Sources confirm to News5 driver of the Cybertruck in Las Vegas explosion lived in Colorado Springs (KOAA)

Suspect in New Orleans Attack Is Identified as a Texan and Had an ISIS Flag With Him (New York Times)

Astral Codex Ten.

What is the H5N1 bird flu? Will it cause the next big pandemic? If so, how bad would that pandemic be?

Scott Alexander is an Actual Doctor.

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The New York Times just published a “Scientific 7-minute workout” claims:

“In 12 exercises deploying only body weight, a chair and a wall, it fulfills the latest mandates for high-intensity effort, which essentially combines a long run and a visit to the weight room into about seven minutes of steady discomfort — all of it based on science.”

“Based on science” is a great term, isn’t it? A bit like the “based on a true story” claim we see in many blockbuster movies.  When you read this piece please remember the notion that “based on a true story” and “true story” are very different.

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Beyond the cautions that the creators of the protocol posted (please take these seriously if you’re considering this!), there is another aspect of this workout that I don’t care for: the exercise selection itself. In an ideal world, your workout would include a balance of exercises that will help to keep your body…balanced. I won’t even claim that to be “based on science” because it’s just sensible. Although it is also “based on science”. In fact I would even go as far as to say it is science.

What does it mean to have balance of exercises? There are many ways to look at this, but my preference is to approach it with movement-based exercise selection instead of muscle-based. I wish I could remember which great trainer I learned this concept from, but basically the notion is: If you train muscles, you’ll probably forget some; if you train movement, you’ll be covered.