DYSPEPSIA GENERATION

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This headline is delightfully ambiguous.

There’s a lot of crowing in certain quarters about the 2% decline in U.S. electric vehicle sales in 2025 compared to the year before. Francis Menton, the lawyer who writes the Manhattan Contrarian blog, for instance, claims vindication for his prediction in February 2023 that electric vehicles would not “sweep the country and become the dominant form of transportation.”

The reasoning behind his forecast: “It is always wise to bet against central planning of the economy.” In this case, central planning amounted to state CO2 emissions goals, CAFE mileage requirements and federal and state tax subsidies. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act ended the $7,500 tax credit for EV purchases, and President Trump on Dec. 3 issued an order to roll back CAFE standards “to levels at which combustion vehicles can comply.”

Like Menton, I don’t like central planning. Nor do I support mileage standards or subsidies. Americans have proven in the past that the best route to prosperity and health is free competition without government meddling. Unfortunately, that is not what we have anymore.

Our own government is denying Americans the opportunity to buy the cars of their choice by imposing huge tariffs on low-priced electric vehicles, which are pouring into the rest of the world.

It’s what governments do.

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A state Assembly campaign in Queens is attracting controversy after public statements from a candidate supported by Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani raised questions about her views on American national holidays and broader U.S. traditions.

Aber Kawas, a longtime activist and member of the Democratic Socialists of America, is running for the Assembly seat representing New York’s 34th District. She has drawn support from Mamdani and the Democratic Socialists of America’s Electoral Working Group in a contest to succeed Assemblymember Jessica Gonzalez-Rojas, who is not seeking reelection.

Writings attributed to Kawas from 2015, first widely circulated this month, say she does not celebrate major federal holidays such as July 4th, Labor Day, or Veterans Day because she believes they “represent the silencing & destruction of our movements.”

In a journal entry from September 2015, Kawas wrote, “Today I do not celebrate a day off, I only recommit myself to a global movement that fights against the death, displacement, and exploitation of people for capital,” according to the New York Post.

Kawas added, “For this movement, a day off is not a victory. A day off means nothing, because liberation means everything.”

I think we can safely assume that this person is not registered as a Republican.

The Foundry.

This past year, the Left crossed a Rubicon in normalizing political violence.

The year opened with many on the Left praising a man who allegedly murdered a health care CEO, and it ended with Virginia Democrats overwhelmingly voting for a man who fantasized about shooting his political opponent and wished death on his opponent’s children.

Jay Jones, now Virginia’s attorney general-elect, made the most bloodcurdling endorsement of political violence I have ever seen from an elected official, and he justified it with this sentence: “Only when people feel pain personally do they move on policy.”

Jones apologized for the remarks, but he remained in the race, and he even shared a stage with none other than former President Barack Obama. I had hoped my fellow Virginians would reject this message in November, but Jones won the election—setting a horrifying precedent for American politics.

Jones’ election victory highlights the negative partisanship in America, and it comes at the end of a truly horrifying year of left-wing violence. Here are 10 incidents of threats or violence aligning with the Left’s attacks on Trump and his party.

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Education has become one of the main ideological battlegrounds across the Western world and particularly within the European Union. Although the EU treaties recognise education as a national competence, in recent years Brussels has developed an increasingly sophisticated architecture of programmes, funding streams and partnerships with NGOs aimed at exerting direct influence over what happens in classrooms—especially in areas related to identity, gender and sexuality.

It is in this context that the report Indoctrinating Children: How Brussels Embeds Gender Identity in the Classroom, published by MCC Brussels and authored by sociologist Ashley Frawley, must be understood. The study documents how millions of euros from programmes such as Erasmus+, CERV, and Horizon are channelled into activist-designed educational projects, which are then promoted as ‘best practice’ at the European level—even in countries where such policies have been explicitly rejected by national parliaments or parents.

Frawley, a researcher and author specialising in the analysis of contemporary social problems and the growing use of ‘behaviour change’ as a political tool, warns that these are neither isolated nor benign initiatives. Rather, she argues, they form a coherent project of social engineering. In an interview with europeanconservative.com, she unpacks Brussels’ underlying motivations, the mechanisms used to circumvent subsidiarity, and the democratic consequences of a strategy that, in her view, seeks to “reform the citizen” from childhood.

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Sweden is one of a number of Western European countries (including Belgium, The Netherlands, Germany, Spain, and Portugal) that allow non-citizens to vote in local municipal elections. Sverigedemokraterna (the Sweden Democrats party) intends to change all that, and wants to restrict voting in all elections to Swedish citizens.

Daily Record (UK).

Several cities across the world are calling off their New Year’s Eve festivities due to credible threats of terrorist attacks. This follows the FBI’s thwarting of an alleged planned bombing attack in Los Angeles set for Hogmany.

The four suspects were nabbed earlier this month in the Mojave Desert, east of Los Angeles, while rehearsing their plot, according to First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli at a press conference. The Mirror reports officials presented surveillance aerial footage that captured the suspects moving a large black object onto a table in the desert.

They managed to arrest the suspects before they could assemble a functional explosive device, officials said. The criminal complaint identifies the four as Audrey Illeene Carroll, 30; Zachary Aaron Page, 32; Dante Gaffield, 24; and Tina Lai, 41.

Check it out.

On January 1, 2026, thousands of copyrighted works from 1930 enter the US public domain, along with sound recordings from 1925. They will be free for all to copy, share, and build upon. The literary highlights range from William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying to Agatha Christie’s The Murder at the Vicarage and the first four Nancy Drew novels. From cartoons and comic strips, the characters Betty Boop, Pluto (originally named Rover), and Blondie and Dagwood made their first appearances. Films from the year featured Marlene Dietrich, Greta Garbo, the Marx Brothers, and John Wayne in his first leading role. Among the public domain compositions are I Got Rhythm, Georgia on My Mind, and Dream a Little Dream of Me. We are also celebrating paintings from Piet Mondrian and Paul Klee. Below you can find lists of some of the most notable books, characters, comics, and cartoons, films, songs, sound recordings, and art entering the public domain. After each of them, we have provided an analysis of their significance.

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So hit the gym! Your kids will thank you later.

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Travel agents are the go-to example of an industry killed by the internet. And the numbers are brutal: US agents peaked at around 124,000 in 2000 and collapsed to under 40,000 by 2020 – a 70% drop. Retail locations fell from 34,000 to 13,000[1]. But that collapse took a decade. The ones who survived did it by going upmarket. I keep thinking about this when I look at what’s coming for software engineering – except this time, I don’t think we get ten years.

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Consider this post a place to discuss the Minnesota food program fraud, the Minnesota child care fraud, the Minnesota health care fraud, the involvement of Minnesota Governor and Vice Presidential Candidate Tim Walz, the relationship to the assassination of the Hortmans, the lack of coverage by the Minneapolis Times Tribune, the larger problem of fraud in government programs, fraud as an intrinsic component of the business model of the Democrat Party, or anything else for that matter.

The judiciary’s Christmas gift to Trump (Brian Karem/Salon)

New York Magazine Desperately Clings to Hope Epstein Letter is Real

Prominent Leaders Amplify Disinformation About Brown University Shooting (Steven Lee Myers/New York Times)  Whatever happens/We are taught/That it’s Trump’s fault/And never not.

Chinese Military Simulates Caribbean War Scenario Amid Trump’s Gunboat Diplomacy

I Was the President’s Pardon Attorney. He’s Making a Mockery of the Pardon Process. (Liz Oyer/New York Times)  New cazareer path: Work for somebody who worked for somebody who worked for Trump, then cash in on bashing Trump. Ka-ching!

Trump calls for release of any Epstein files naming Democrats: “Embarrass them” (Joe Walsh/CBS News)

NPR Fails to Credit Trump as Crime Plummets: Prez Spouting ‘Rhetoric vs. Reality’

25 Worst Villains of the Trump Admin (Ron Filipkowski/Meidas+)

Dragged down by an unpopular president, Republicans are bracing for a midterm trouncing (David Smith/The Guardian)  They hope, they hope, they hope.

AZ Lawmaker Wants Trump Derangement Syndrome Analyzed

‘It’s frightening’: How far right is infiltrating everyday culture (Ashifa Kassam/The Guardian)

Trump’s Cabinet of main characters (Axios)

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U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement actions are disrupting the construction industry in South Texas.

Builders attribute it to a previous period of large-scale deportations as a warning of pending economic consequences.

Industry leaders say arrests at or near construction sites have caused many workers to stay home, slowing projects and tightening labor availability across the Rio Grande Valley.

ICE has arrested more than 9,100 people in South Texas since President Donald Trump took office, nearly one-fifth of related arrests statewide during that period, according to ICE data obtained through a public records request and analyzed by the Texas Tribune.

Gee,  I guess they’ll just have to hire Americans. What a hardship.

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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.

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“California is on a path to self-destruction. Hollywood is already toast and now the most productive entrepreneurs will leave taking their tax revenues and job creation elsewhere,” Bill Ackman wrote on X, citing a New York Times report that said several billionaires, including Peter Thiel and Larry Page, are preparing to flee the state as a proposed one-time wealth tax ballot measure gains momentum.

Time to leave.

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Minnesota Democrat Rep. Ilhan Omar’s husband’s venture capital firm quietly scrubbed key officer details, including names tied to former Obama officials, as scrutiny grows over the family’s skyrocketing wealth, The New York Post reported Saturday.

Omar’s net worth reportedly surged to tens of millions within two years, coinciding with the emergence of a large fraud scheme in the Somali community in her district.

While nearly 90 individuals have been charged in connection with the alleged $9 billion scheme, including some with direct ties to Omar, she herself has not been charged.

Yet.

UPDATE: Ilhan Omar’s hubby’s $30M firm quietly scrubs names from website – as ‘Squad’ member faces mounting questions on sudden wealth amid Minnesota welfare fraud (New York Post)

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Left-wing Governor Tim Walz, under intensifying federal pressure, faces a widening Somali-linked fraud scandal in Minnesota. Federal prosecutors state that the scheme currently totals at least $9 billion, with the final figure potentially much higher. Recent reporting by Ryan Thorpe and Christopher F. Rufo alleges that some welfare funds were funneled into an overseas terrorist organization. Now, a bombshell video from a citizen journalist suggests the fraud extends beyond Medicaid into the state’s daycare system.

Newsbusters.

On the night of Christmas — as millions of American Christians celebrated the birth of a savior to a troubled mother — the PBS News Hour thought it was a tremendous occasion for a one-sided discussion on…abortion. The godless tone-deafness was something to behold.

PBS was sharing a piece of their new podcast Settle In, and the guest was pro-abortion activist/journalist Irin Carmon and how she reported on the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade. Anchor Amna Nawaz explained her new book Unbearable “tells the stories of five women in New York and Alabama as they navigate a new post-Roe landscape.”

The opportunity for states to outlaw or limit the killing of babies was, to Carmon, treating women like animals and diminishing their humanity — and obviously, with that world view, the unborn child doesn’t have humanity, killing them isn’t diminishing anything.

Nawaz helpfully asked Carmon to explain her statement from the book about “how incomplete our story of American reproduction has been and how much has been unexpressed, hidden or taken for granted.”

Read it.

There’s been yet another tragic attack targeting Syria’s religious minorities by fanatical jihadists which are allied with the Syrian government of President Ahmed Sharaa.

“A bombing at a mosque located in the Syrian city of Homs during Friday prayers killed at least eight people and wounded 18 others,” authorities said, the Associated Press reports. It was an Alawite religious site that was targeted. Notably this is the same non-Sunni sect that former President Bashar al-Assad belongs to.

It’s not enough to be Muslim—you have to be the right kind of Muslim. Ans any Sunni … or Shia….

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The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) is furious with journalist Megyn Kelly after she accused prominent Jews in the media – Ben Shapiro and Bari Weiss – of “making antisemites” through their attempts to censor criticism of Israel.”

Well, they’re certainly giving it the old college try.

(If you don’t care about any of these people, feel free to stop reading here… fair warning)

Don’t call them ‘conspiracy theories’—call them ‘spoiler alerts’.

To bring you up to speed: Following the assassination of Charlie Kirk, podcaster Candace Owens pointed the finger at Israel, suggesting that Kirk’s shifting views on Israel made him a target – and suggesting that Israel and France plotted Kirk’s death. This drew sharp criticism from the Daily Wire‘s Ben Shapiro (Owens’ former boss), journalist Bari Weiss, and the ADL – with Shapiro further accusing Megyn Kelly and Tucker Carlson of amplifying ‘antisemitism’ by platforming Owens and refusing to condemn her claims, while Kelly says attempts to censor criticism of Israel is in fact ‘making’ people into antisemites.

So – a lot going on here. Prominent Jews are condemning conservatives who haven’t condemned Candace Owens – accusing them of fueling antisemitism, while Megyn Kelly says that in general, attempts to label conservatives critical of Israeli policy as ‘antisemites’ is actually creating antisemites.

Tensions peaked at Turning Point USA’s AmFest conference last week, where Shapiro downplayed the 1967 USS Liberty incident in which Israel attacked a US Navy ship and killed 34 Americans – calling it a ‘mistake’ that’s now largely irrelevant because it happened so long ago.

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Concealing missile and rocket artillery launchers, as well as loitering munition swarms, within civilian-style transport platforms such as container ships and commercial trucks is a long-established and well-documented tactic in asymmetric warfare.

The latest example comes from a report published earlier this week by The War Zone, which documents a Chinese commercial cargo ship converted into a heavily armed vessel equipped with containerized weapons and high-tech sensors.

“It appears we are getting at least one installment of this in the form of a medium-sized cargo ship packed full of containerized vertical launchers, along with sensors and self defense systems,” TWZ’s Tyler Rogoway wrote in a note, adding, “The message is clear, China is making it known that it could, and likely will, turn ships from its behemoth of a commercial fleet into not just shooters, but arsenal ships.”

The Chinese are obviously taking potential war with the U.S. very seriously. The U.S.—not so much….

The Telegraph (UK).

A statue of the baby Jesus was beheaded at a church on Christmas Eve.

It happened at St Patrick’s Church in Edinburgh’s Old Town, one of the Scottish capital’s most important Catholic places of worship.

Church officials asked the congregation for “prayers for reparation” of the Nativity scene after the incident and said they would “bless the church again”.

Two visitors to the church are understood to have become distressed and taken the baby Jesus figure from the altar ahead of midnight Mass on Dec 24.

Police Scotland said inquiries were ongoing, and it was not believed to be a hate crime targeted at Catholics. The incident is understood to have been mental health-related.

The Telegraph (UK).

A former Veganuary cheerleader has defected to help run a meat-eating campaign.

Toni Vernelli, 54, was head of communications at Veganuary, the annual vegan diet challenge, for nearly six years, having spent decades fighting to end animal cruelty.

But she has now urged people to “forget” the campaign and go back to eating meat, claiming vegan dogma is “not only unhelpful but actually damaging to the fundamental goal of reducing animal suffering”.

Instead, she is promoting a challenge in which three competitive eaters will consume nothing but animal products for a whole day.

Veganuary, launched in 2014 and run by a UK non-profit, is an annual pledge where people give up meat and dairy for a month. Supporters say they want to see a “vegan world” which is kinder to animals and the environment.

But Ms Vernelli said diet change campaigning only prolongs the misery of factory farming because it alienates people who want to help, while putting an “upper limit” on the good they can do.

She has now joined the charity FarmKind, which is launching its own “Forget Veganuary” campaign urging people to give to animal welfare causes rather than changing their diet.

Q: How do you tell a vegetarian?
A: You don’t tell a vegetarian—the vegetarian tells you.

Watch it.

Apparently there are more Canadians who refuse to put up with Wokeness than in the other Usual Suspects such as Britain and Europe. The suggestion is that it could cause Canada to come apart like a Narrative Media “news” story.

Of course, all of these problems are caused by insane judges and politicians, and (unfortunately), like the poor, insane judges and politicians we have with us always.

Read it.

Georgetown University has dropped its partnership with United Nations Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese following a report alleging her support for terrorism and antisemitism, according to UN Watch.

Albanese is no longer listed on the university’s website, and her biography has also been removed.

Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch, said the organization welcomed Georgetown University’s decision.

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On July 13, 2023, Mohamad Barakat, a Syrian refugee, packed up several rifles and handguns 1,800 rounds of ammo, a hand grenade, and a car filled with gas cans on the way to carry out an Islamic terrorist attack at Fargo’s Downtown Street fair aiming to kill thousands of Americans. Instead the terror refugee got into a confrontation with police and died in an exchange of fire.

North Dakota Attorney General Drew Wrigley insisted that there was ‘no evidence of political, racial or religious motivation’. “At this point it seems [no] more notable that he’s Muslim than I’m Lutheran,” he bafflingly argued. He also dismissed footage of Mohamad holding a Koran.

“I can’t discern, from the evidence that we have, any other motivation,” he claimed.

Your tax dollars at work. Merry Christmas.

Jewish Telegraph Agency.

Israel became the first country to formally recognize Somaliland, a self-declared sovereign state in the Horn of Africa, in a decision that was immediately condemned by Somalia and other nations.

“The Prime Minister announced today the official recognition of the Republic of Somaliland as an independent and sovereign state,” wrote Benjamin Netanyahu’s office in a post on X. “The State of Israel plans to immediately expand its relations with the Republic of Somaliland through extensive cooperation in the fields of agriculture, health, technology, and economy.”

Somaliland’s president welcomed the announcement from Netanyahu in a post on X, adding that he affirmed the region’s “readiness to join the Abraham Accords,” the normalization agreements between Israel and a handful of Arab states that was brokered during President Donald Trump’s first term.

Gothamist.

Tiana Millen, an assistant principal at Cardozo High School in Queens, said this year’s ban on smartphones revealed that many teens struggle to read traditional clocks. “That’s a major skill that they’re not used to at all,” she said.

Overall, Millen said, the phone ban has been a major success at the school, and has helped kids focus in class and socialize at lunch. Foot traffic is moving more swiftly in hallways. Without eyes glued to their phones, more students are getting to class on time. The problem is they don’t know it, she said, “because they don’t know how to read the clocks.”

For years, parents and teachers have blamed technology for a range of lapsed skills — from legible handwriting to sustained attention to reading whole books — even as their proficiency with technology far outstrips their elders. Still, while educators have widely praised New York’s statewide smartphone ban that went into effect this fall, multiple teachers told Gothamist it has also laid bare an unexpected gap: How to tell time.

“The constant refrain is ‘Miss, what time is it?’ said Madi Mornhinweg, who teaches high school English in Manhattan. “It’s a source of frustration because everyone wants to know how many minutes are left in class. … It finally got to the point where we I started saying ‘Where’s the big hand and where’s the little hand?’”

The big hand is over your mouth and the little hand is in your pocket.

Watch it.

Government is the problem, not the solution.

Watch it.

Nick Norwitz (MD Harvard, PhD Oxford) explains it all to you.

Economic Times of India.

More than 550 employees at a Louisiana manufacturing firm received a combined $240 million after the company was sold, despite holding no equity. The payout followed a decision by the owner to share 15 percent of sale proceeds with staff who stayed through layoffs, downturns and uncertainty. The bonuses, averaging about $443,000, rewarded long-term loyalty and transformed lives while boosting the local economy.

Raptitude.

I’ve been reading Lord of the Rings for two months and I’m just at the end of the first part. It’s not because I’m not enjoying it. It’s one of the most enjoyable reading experiences I can remember.

From the beginning, I’ve read the whole thing aloud. I’ve found reading aloud helpful for staying engaged — limiting myself to mouth-speed rather than eye-speed means I won’t rush, miss important details, and then lose interest, which has always been a problem for me.

At first I was anxious to read a 1,500-page book this way, because it would take so long. But, as someone pointed out to me, if I’m enjoying it, why would I want to be done with it sooner?

So I tried slowing down even more, and discovered something. I slowed to a pace that felt almost absurd, treating each sentence as though it might be a particularly important one. I gave each one maybe triple the usual time and attention, ignoring the fact that there are hundreds of pages to go.

This leisurely pace made Middle-Earth blossom before my eyes. When I paused after each comma, and let each sentence ring for a small moment after the period, the events of the story reached me with more weight and strength. That extra time gave space for Tolkien’s images and moods to propagate in my mind, which they did automatically.

Some part of me still wanted to rush and get on with it, to make good time, to gloss over the songs and lore to get to Moria and Mount Doom and the other marquee moments of the story. But the more I ignored that impulse, the better the experience got.

By offering the book about triple the usual amount of attentiveness, I was getting about triple the storyness (i.e. meaning, engagement, literary pleasure). Whatever the thing is that I’m seeking when I pick up a novel in the first place, there’s much more of it available at this pace.

Cal Newport.

The recent ?announcement? that Netflix formalized a deal to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery’s television and film studios, as well as the HBO Max streaming service, got me thinking about an essay that Derek Thompson published on ?his ?Substack titled ?“Everything is Television.?”

“A spooky convergence is happening in media,” he begins. “Everything that is not already television is turning into television.”

Thompson then gives three examples of what he means:

1. Social Media is moving from offering connection to streaming videos (in ?court documents? from this summer, Meta admitted that only 7% of activity on their Instagram platform involves users following people they know).

2. Podcasts are migrating inexorably toward video format.

3. Even AI is shifting toward visual media with the launch of new products like ?OpenAI’s Sora? and Meta’s Vibes.

Television, of course, can mean many things. “When I say ‘everything is turning into television,’” Thompson clarifies, “what I mean is that disparate forms of media and entertainment are converging on one thing: the continuous flow of episodic video.”

The Telegraph (UK).

A teacher in an English school was accused of posing a risk to children and referred to the Government’s counter-terrorism programme after showing Donald Trump videos to his US politics class.

The teacher, who is in his 50s, has told The Telegraph he was “likened to a terrorist” after showing the videos, including one of Mr Trump’s inauguration, to A-level students.

Henley College, a sixth-form in Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire, with more than 2,000 students, reported the politics lecturer to the local child safeguarding authority, which concluded a referral to Prevent, the Government’s counter-terrorism programme, was a “priority”.

‘Sixth form’ is a two-year program corresponding to 11th and 12th grades in the U.S. Typically British education stops at what Americans would consider the 10th grade, with the final two years only given to people intending to continues to University. Students completing the ordinary course take the test for GCSE (General Certificate of Secondary Education) or ‘school-leaving certificate’ (which used to be called ‘O-levels’), which is sort of the British equivalent of the American high-school diploma. A ‘sixth-form college’ will give students an additional two years of college prep, after which they take the ‘A-level’ exams to find out what university admittance they can expect. It’s the sort of highly-centralized government-centric sytem that underscores the contrast between how the British do things and how Americans do things.

Read it.

Just a few questions, as an example, that senior+ engineers ask:

1. What problem are we actually trying to solve? (Not what solution do we want, but what’s the underlying problem?)
2. Who’s the user here and what’s painful for them? (They try to be specific. “Users” isn’t an answer.)
3. What are we assuming that might be wrong? (Every plan has hidden assumptions.)
4. What happens if we’re wrong and ship this anyway? (How bad is the downside?)

Read it.

Perfect software isn’t the best software. It’s perfect simply because it does exactly what you want, how you want it, when you want it.

It isn’t big either. We have confused “good” with “big”. In the Silicon Valley lexicon, software is only valuable if it scales. It must serve millions. It must capture markets. It must grow continuously.

Perfect software offers a different kind of value: Sufficiency. It’s the virtue of requiring less, not because you lack ambition, but because you have met the need. While growth demands a constant state of hunger, sufficiency offers satiety. And perfect software delivers that because the moment you deem something perfect, you become content.

Only one examples is necessary.

Newly released Epstein file links Trump to murdered newborn baby dumped in Lake Michigan (David McAfee/Raw Story)

These people are not well.

Read it.

“We are preparing to enter the Asia market.” “We are targeting the global market.”

When we hear these phrases, we tend to interpret them in a very specific way:

No meaningful decisions have been made yet.

This is not criticism. It is an observation—one repeatedly confirmed in the field.

Phrases like “the Asian market,” “the European market,” or “the global market” sound like strategic declarations. In reality, they are often admissions that the hard questions have been postponed.

This article is not a GTM framework. It is not a market entry guide. And it is not a collection of success stories.

Its purpose is singular: to dismantle the flawed mental model that causes market strategies to fail before they even begin.

Supreme Court says Trump can’t deploy National Guard to Chicago as legal challenge moves forward (Melissa Quinn/CBS News)

Supreme Court rejects Trump’s bid to deploy National Guard in Illinois (Lawrence Hurley/NBC News)

Supreme Court keeps block on National Guard deployment in Chicago (Devin Dwyer/Reuters)

Supreme Court blocks National Guard deployment to Chicago in defeat for Trump (Washington Post)

The Supreme Court just handed Trump a rare — and very significant — loss (Ian Millhiser/Vox)

Media Caught Laundering Dem Talking Point into a Legitimate News Item

For the White House, ‘national security’ is becoming the answer to every question (Steve Benen/MS NOW)

Inside the New Fast Track to a Presidential Pardon (Wall Street Journal)

Federal judge says Trump administration must restore disaster money to Democratic states (Kimberlee Kruesi/Associated Press)

Epstein Files Live Updates: Trump Referenced in Some Newly Released Documents (New York Times)  EPSTEIN! EPSTEIN! EPSTEIN!

Trumpland Grades His Epstein Cover-Up an ‘F-Minus’ (Zeteo)

19 States Sue to Block White House Plan to End Gender-Related Care for Minors (New York Times)  All the places you want to avoid in one tidy list.

Trump’s ‘Golden Age’ has arrived for the top 10% (Sam Sutton/Politico)

Trump is talking about Greenland again (Joshua Keating/Vox)

‘He’s a Maximalist’: Inside Trump’s Gilded Oval Office (New York Times)

Heritage Foundation killed by MAGA (Liz Dye/Public Notice)  MAGA is the New Nazi.

Judge green lights NY driver’s license law, rejecting a Trump administration challenge (Associated Press)

Judge sides with Trump over his $100K visa fee (Nick Niedzwiadek/Politico)

Trump’s Immigration Nightmare: It Is Happening Here (Radley Balko/New Republic)

Get Ready to Start Hearing About Aileen Cannon Again (Marilyn W. Thompson/The Atlantic)

Trump’s claims to Venezuelan oil are part of broader ‘resource imperialism’, experts say (The Guardian)

‘It’s perpetuated this news cycle’: Frustration mounts in Trump’s orbit about messaging on latest Epstein documents (Adam Cancryn/CNN)  EPSTEIN! EPSTEIN! EPSTEIN!

Judge blocks Trump effort to strip security clearance from attorney who represented whistleblowers (Joey Cappelletti/Associated Press)

Federal Judge Bars Trump Admin’s Funding Cuts To Sanctuary States

Trump Is Suddenly Looking a Lot Smaller (Jonathan Lemire/The Atlantic)

Donald Trump and Mike Lindell are targeting Tim Walz. Some Republicans are worried that could backfire. (Aaron Pellish/Politico)

The nation’s cartoonists look back on the year that was. (Politico)  Count up how many of them are anti-Trump.

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As radical Islamist threats continue to plague Australia, politicians are pivoting to policing speech and tightening gun laws on law-abiding citizens—now openly admitting curbs on free expression are needed to shield their multicultural agenda.

Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan has unveiled a sweeping plan to combat what she calls rising anti-Semitism, but the measures conveniently sidestep the core issue of unchecked radical Islamism behind recent attacks, focusing instead on doxxing anonymous social media users and reviewing gun laws.

In a joint news conference, Allan announced legislation that would force social media platforms to reveal identities behind anonymous accounts accused of spreading ‘hate’. “Under Victoria’s civil anti-vilification scheme which starts in 2026, the speaker of a vilifying statement generally needs to be identifiable and held accountable,” she stated.

As usual, women are the vangard of galloping totalitarianism.

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Britain is now the sort of country where you can get an instant answer to ‘What is the carbon footprint of a sausage roll?’. Yet if you ask, ‘Are we importing risk to women along with importing people?’ our nation state stares at its shoes and starts muttering about ‘complexity’.

Let us begin with two official lines that any half-awake citizen can see are rising at the same time.

Line one, sexual violence.

The ONS crime bulletin for the year ending June 2025 reports 211,225 sexual offences recorded by the police in England and Wales are up 9% from the previous year. It also reports 72,804 rape offences, up 6% year on year, with rape making up around 34% of all recorded sexual offences.

The ONS, to be fair, sticks in a big asterisk. Part of the rise is not a sudden outbreak of more predators. It is a change in the bookkeeping. That means some of what now shows up as an ‘increase’ is simply behaviour that was previously recorded differently, or not cleanly separated at all, now being captured under a new label. In short, not every uptick is more men doing worse things in dark alleys.

Fine. Caveat accepted. The numbers are still brutal.

Line two, immigration.

The ONS estimates long term immigration at 898,000 in the year ending June 2025. Of those, non-EU nationals accounted for 670,000, about 75% of the total. Net migration in that year is estimated at 204,000.

The Register (UK).

testing, the FAA has confirmed a small plane made a safe emergency landing completely guided by automation at Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport in Colorado.

Garmin’s Emergency Autoland system is built to automatically take “complete control of the flight to land the airplane in an emergency where the pilot is unable to fly.” It can also be activated at the press of a button.

After initial reports speculated that the pilot or pilots may have been incapacitated after the plane, a Beechcraft Super King Air, had pressurization problems, the plane operator assured the public that triggering autoland was a deliberate act by the pilots. No passengers were on board on the flight, which according to the tail number given to the ATC, landed at Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport on Saturday afternoon, after flying in from Aspen/Pitkin County Airport, also known as Sardy Field, a small mountain airport measuring just 573 acres.

The Federal Aviation Administration confirmed in a statement that the “Beechcraft Super King Air landed safely at Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport in Colorado around 14:20 local time on Saturday, December 20, after the pilot lost communication with air traffic control.” The FAA added: “An onboard emergency autoland system was activated. Two people were on board. The FAA is investigating.”

While the aircraft did experience “a rapid, uncommanded loss of pressurization,” the pilots put on their oxygen masks, the CEO of the charter company, Chris Townsley, said in a statement to CNN. Townsley reiterated that the pilots had “made the decision to leave the system engaged,” and “automatically engaged exactly as designed when the cabin altitude exceeded the prescribed safe levels.”

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Scientists from the University of Cambridge have developed a new reactor that converts natural gas (a common energy source primarily composed of methane) into two highly valuable resources: clean hydrogen fuel and carbon nanotubes, which are ultralight and much stronger than steel.

Hydrogen is a promising green fuel because it burns completely, producing only water vapor and zero carbon dioxide. However, the way we make hydrogen today typically involves using high-pressure steam to break apart gas molecules, which releases significant amounts of CO2 as a byproduct.

To avoid this, the Cambridge team wanted to perfect a technique called methane pyrolysis, which converts methane into hydrogen and solid carbon without producing carbon dioxide. However, until now, no one has been able to perform this process efficiently enough for large-scale use because traditional reactors waste too much gas.

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As the old aphorism goes: “Don’t tax you; don’t tax me. Tax that fellow behind the tree.” Nobody likes paying taxes, but most Americans accept them as a necessary evil and are willing to pay their fair share, unless politicians waste those tax dollars in extraordinarily—well—wasteful ways, or steal them outright.

I refer, of course, to California, where, as the classic Eagle’s song Hotel California goes: “You can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave.”

California, it’s no secret, is in deep financial trouble. In 2022, Gavin Newsom bragged about a $97.5 billion dollar surplus. By the 2024-25 budget, that surplus turned into an estimated $73 billion deficit. By the end of 2025, it’s likely far worse and virtually no one trusts state government’s estimates.

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Christians in Lebanon have declined from a demographic majority to a minority.

Lebanon was majority-Christian starting from the first century (when Christianity was introduced by figures such as St. Peter and St. Paul) until the mid-20th century. Mount Lebanon, which remains the Christian heartland of the country, is frequently mentioned in the Bible.

Lebanon was conquered by the Arab Islamic Rashidun Caliphate in 636 AD following the defeat of the Christian Byzantine (Eastern Roman) Empire at the Battle of Yarmouk. The Ottoman Empire later occupied Mount Lebanon from its conquest in 1516 until the end of World War I in 1918. Lebanon gained independence from French rule in 1943.

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“When people see a strong horse and a weak horse, by nature they will like the strong horse,” Osama bin Laden said at the beginning of his talk taking credit for the 9/11 attacks.

The line launched a thousand geopolitical analyses, was quoted by Thomas Friedman in the New York Times and was pored over endlessly by experts who completely missed the point.

Osama bin Laden was not talking about great powers or nations, he was talking about Islam.

“There is only one goaL,” Bin Laden continued, the supremacy of Islam. He followed that up with a quote from a Hadith that is known to virtually every Muslim, but to all too few non-Muslims. “I was ordered to fight the people until they say there is no god but Allah, and his prophet Muhammad.”