NORTH KOREA BEGINS THE NEW YEAR: It’s the same old belligerence. However, now the dictatorship intends to test an ICBM. My latest Creators Syndicate column. (bumped)

A GERMAN PANZER OUT OF THE FIGHT: The latest in StrategyPage’s Battle of the Bulge retrospective. As commenters have noted, the series has included many photos that are poignant studies of exhausted, suffering and courageous people. This one, however, focuses on vehicles. I think it’s a good example of quality pictorial history. You get an accurate depiction of the battlefield (terrain and environmental conditions) and a strong sense of associated combat action (armored warfare). The photo also stirs memories of the time I spent in (West) Germany very cautiously crunching snow and ice in tanks and personnel carriers.

Note the webmaster thinks the German tank was abandoned.

RELATED: The nice comments by Instapundit readers have been gratifying. Like I said in mid-December, I didn’t know the webmaster was going to do this series until I discovered a couple of photos on StrategyPage. Yes, I have failed to put up several Bulge photos on the day they were posted. I’ve tried to be consistent but, you know, holidays. Eventually I’ll link to the ones I missed. Readers can always go to StrategyPage photo gallery and click through the entire series.

GOOD:

A University of Alberta engineering researcher has developed a new way to treat common surgical masks so they are capable of trapping and killing airborne viruses. . . .

Hyo-Jick Choi, a professor in the University of Alberta Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering, noticed that many people wear a simple surgical-style mask for protection during outbreaks of influenza or other potentially deadly viruses such as severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) or Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS).

Trouble is, the masks weren’t designed to prevent the spread of viruses.

“Surgical masks were originally designed to protect the wearer from infectious droplets in clinical settings, but it doesn’t help much to prevent the spread of respiratory diseases such as SARS or MERS or influenza,” says Choi.

Airborne pathogens like influenza are transmitted in aerosol droplets when we cough or sneeze. The masks may well trap the virus-laden droplets but the virus is still infectious on the mask. Merely handling the mask opens up new avenues for infection. Even respirators designed to protect individuals from viral aerosols have the same shortcoming—viruses trapped in respirators still pose risks for infection and transmission.

Masks capable of killing viruses would save lives, especially in an epidemic or pandemic situation.

His approach seems quite clever.

NO STATIC AT ALL: Surprise! Monster Burst of Radio Waves Arose in Tiny Galaxy.

For the first time, scientists have directly traced an incredibly intense, blindingly bright burst of radio waves — known as an FRB — back to its home galaxy. Surprisingly, this impressive cosmic radio flasher has somewhat humble origins, according to three new studies detailing the findings.

FRB stands for “fast radio burst.” These flickers of light were just discovered in 2007, and although they last for just a fraction of a second, they release more energy than our entire sun will radiate in 10,000 years. Eighteen FRBs have been detected, but scientists estimate that one of these bursts occurs somewhere in the sky about once every 10 seconds.

What cosmic event could release such an intense burst of radio waves? That’s still a mystery, but narrowing down the precise location of one of these radio blasts is a big step toward cracking the case.

I’m not saying that it’s aliens… but it’s aliens.

HEALTH: Most Kids Should Try Peanuts.

Most kids should get a small taste of peanut protein by the time they are 6 months old, and they should get regular doses if they don’t have an allergic reaction. Those at highest risk should be tested in a specialist’s office.

“We actually want all children to have peanut introduced,” Dr. Matthew Greenhawt, an allergy specialist at Children’s Hospital Of Colorado, told NBC News.

It’s a big change from previous guidelines, which recommended that people keep peanuts and peanut products away from their kids completely until they are 3 years old if there is a risk of allergies.

The new guidelines from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and other groups follow up on findings that giving peanut to kids early enough in life can train their immune systems so they don’t overreact and cause a dangerous allergic reaction.

As a child in the 1970s, I didn’t know or even know of anyone with a peanut allergy, and peanut butter was practically its own food group.

OSAMA BIN LADEN’S SON ON TERRORIST WATCH LIST: His name is Hamza. He is now a “Specially Designated Global Terrorist.”

The United States added Hamza bin Laden, son and heir of the late global jihadist leader Osama bin Laden, to its terrorist blacklist on Thursday.

Hamza, who is in his mid-twenties, has become active as an Al-Qaeda propagandist since his father’s death at the hands of US special forces in 2011.

According to letters found in the Navy SEAL raid on Osama’s hideout in Pakistan, Hamza wrote to the Saudi-born Al-Qaeda leader asking to be trained to follow him.

A CIA analyst who examined the letters told AFP that in July 2009, when Hamza wrote the letter to his father’s Abbottabad hideout, they had not seen each other for eight years.

Read the entire report.

THAT IS IMPRESSIVE: A Coal-Fired Power Plant in India Is Turning Carbon Dioxide Into Baking Soda. But most impressive of all, it’s running without subsidies. A “climate change” project that doesn’t involve taxpayer dollars? Is that even allowed?

IT WAS ACTUALLY TORPEDOED BY A U-BOAT. THE ICEBERG WAS A COVER STORY. New evidence suggests there was something very wrong with the Titanic before the iceberg. This whole “coal fire” thing is just another distraction. I have it on good authority that fire can’t melt steel.

Of course, the U-Boat had to torpedo the ship because it was taken over by BLUE HADES. They couldn’t be allowed to reach land.

THIS WILL END WELL: Democratic lawmakers considering challenge to Trump’s Electoral College victory.

Reps. Ed Perlmutter of Colorado, Bobby Scott of Virginia and Jamie Raskin of Maryland are among a group of Democrats eyeing challenges.

Members have the right to lodge those protests when Congress officially counts the electoral votes on Friday. But for the protests to have any effect on the proceedings, they’ll need to secure the backing of at least one senator, and it’s unclear whether any Senate Democrats are weighing a similar challenge.

Either way, there’s effectively no chance the protests will alter the actual election outcome, given Republican control of Congress. Instead, the effort could give Democrats a new venue to protest Trump’s victory. And if the Democrats can secure a senator’s support, the challenges could delay the certification of Trump’s victory for hours while the House and Senate separately debate the merits of each protested electoral college vote.

It’s a temper tantrum with TV coverage.

ITEXIT?: Steve Forbes says: “Support is growing for an exit, but that option isn’t a solution for Italy’s woes.” His post is short but pithy.

IF IT’S OK FOR CHINA TO COMPLAIN ABOUT TRUMP’S TWITTER DIPLOMACY: Surely Japan gets to gripe about China’s ship diplomacy.

More than 100 Chinese vessels trespassed into Japan’s territorial waters near the Senkaku islands in 2016, and in 2017 incursions have been taking place daily, Japanese newspaper Mainichi Shimbun reported.

A total of 121 vessels sailed near the disputed Senkaku Islands, also known as the Diaoyutai Islands in China. It is the second-largest annual number of Chinese ships entering disputed areas since Japan announced the nationalization of the Senkakus in September 2012.

OUT OF THE OFFICE: New French Law Gives Workers ‘Right to Disconnect’ from Email.

REPORT: Technology To Watch In 2017.

WHY ARE PUBLIC SCHOOLS SUCH CESSPITS OF SEXUAL PREDATION? A teacher and his husband were found dead in August. Police say they had sexually abused 8 boys.

POLITICS IS WHERE BAD IDEAS GO TO ACHIEVE ETERNAL LIFE: Basic income is the latest bad political idea that refuses to die.

FASTER, PLEASE: Obama’s Coming Obscurity.

Emmett Tyrrell:

The last time I drew attention to Obama’s lamentable condition some readers scoffed at me and pointed to Obamacare, which has practically wrecked the healthcare system for millions of Americans. Surely that disaster casts a long and dark shadow behind the 44th president, whom they admonished. I remained serene. And what about Obama’s dealings with Israel, our most loyal ally in the Middle East? Just the other day, one of his henchpersons ambushed Israel in the U.N. Security Council. Admittedly, there have been setbacks suffered by the United States while this incompetent was in office, but I believe they will be short-lived. President-elect Donald Trump is coming to town, and he is bringing with him an exceptional Cabinet. Already he is threatening to erase Obama’s foolishness, and he is doing it on Twitter. Wait until he is seated in the Oval Office with the power of the other two branches of government behind him. In the end it will be seen that I was right, as I was right in calling the election. Obama leaves no shadow, not even a legacy — Trump won on Nov. 8.

President Trump will arrive at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue carrying an attache case bulging with executive orders to rescind and agency regulations to nullify. I am sure he is aware that for years the 44th president and his servitors have been promulgating regulations large and small to give the bureaucracy evermore intrusive control over business and the citizenry. Trump will, as he promised, cut the waste, rein in government and drain the swamp.

Read the whole thing — although as I’ve become much more hopeful about the cutting and reining, I’ve become more suspect of the draining. But that particular two outta three would be amazing.

I REMEMBER WHEN A 1 TB HARD DRIVE WAS A BIG DEAL: Enormous 2 TB USB Drive Can Hold Everything You Need and More. Heck, I remember when a 1 GB hard drive was a big deal. Oh, who am I kidding? I remember when a 10MB hard drive was a big deal.

EVEN MORE RETAIL BLUES: Dismal holiday sales at Macy’s, Kohl’s spell gloom for sector.

Shares of other department store operators, including J.C. Penney Co Inc (JCP.N), also fell as the dismal showing came as a shock to investors, given heightened expectations of a bump in holiday spending this year.

“The strength around Thanksgiving and Christmas was insufficient to offset the sales weakness in the balance of the quarter,” Stifel, Nicolaus & Co analyst Richard Jaffe wrote.

“In addition, these peak selling periods were characterized by greater promotions which contributed to weaker than anticipated gross margin as well.”

The National Retail Federation forecast 2016 holiday sales to rise 3.6 percent to $656 billion. A jump in spending in the final stretch of December was seen likely to offset a slow start to the holiday shopping season.

The problem with holiday retail shopping is that the experience is almost uniformly awful.

HEH: China Tells Trump To Cut The Crap With ‘Twitter Diplomacy’

True story:

China has slammed US President-elect Donald Trump over his use of Twitter to conduct international diplomacy in a commentary published by the country’s official news agency Xinhua.

Trump has earned a reputation for making unpredictable statements on Twitter that often depart from long-standing US policies and he’s made several controversial comments about China.

“The obsession with ‘Twitter diplomacy’ is undesirable,” said the bylined commentary, which only appeared on the agency’s Chinese website. Xinhua is the biggest and most influential of China’s state-run media.

I’ve gotten used to it, and I suspect Beijing will, too.

IN THE (LONDON) TIMES HIGHER EDUCATION SUPPLEMENT, a very positive review of my colleague Maurice Stucke’s book (coauthored with Oxford’s Ariel Ezrachi), Virtual Competition: The Promise and Perils of the Algorithm-Driven Economy. Excerpt:

Unravelling the competition (or, to our American friends, antitrust) dimensions of the data-driven economy demands someone of the fearless but measured tenacity of Holmes or, indeed, Vestager. It requires penetrating a wall of rhetoric and myth, and a deep familiarity with competition policy’s objectives and limitations.

This is the task that two of the world’s leading competition law scholars, Ariel Ezrachi and Maurice Stucke, have set themselves in Virtual Competition: The Promise and Perils of the Algorithm-Driven Economy. This highly readable and authoritative account sets out the ways that platforms have replaced the invisible hand with a digitised one – a hand that is human-engineered, subject to corporate control and manipulation, and prone to charges of unlawfulness, on three fronts in particular. First, collusion. Second, behavioural discrimination. And third, asymmetric “frenemy” dynamics, such as that between Uber and the super-platforms Google and Apple, which distort competition through extraction and capture.

Read the whole thing!

CNN’S DON LEMON: Anti-Trump Violence Against Disabled Man ‘Not Evil’

The Daily Caller’s Matt K. Lewis described the event as “evil.” “That’s what this is, it’s evil, it’s brutality, it’s man’s inhumanity to man.”

At that, Lemon disagreed. “I don’t think it’s evil,” he said, repeating the point for emphasis. “I think these are young people and they have bad home training.” Then, he explained, “I have no idea who’s raising these young people, because no one I know on earth, 17 years old or 70 years old, would ever think of treating another person like this.”

Those “young people” partially scalped a special-needs teen. If that isn’t evil, we need a new word.

CHANGE: Wisconsin Spring Elections Could Further State’s Rightward Shift.

THIS IS CNN: Don Lemon: Anti-Trump Violence Against Disabled Man ‘Not Evil.’

CNN founder Ted Turner presumably would concur; when faced with an even more enormous crime, he became a “see no evil” man himself.

In contrast, as Anthony Bialy tweets, “Those who believed ‘Hands up, don’t shoot’ right away are unsure if the Chicago assault was a hate crime,” speaking of CNN.

Just think of Lemon and the CNN anchors in the frame capture above as Democrat operatives with bylines, and it all makes sense

LIVE FROM IZMIR: Michael van der Gallien reports from the scene of today’s terror attack in Turkey’s third-largest city.

LAYERS OF EDITORS AND FACT CHECKERS: The Washington Post Uses Male Symbol to Announce Historic Women’s March.

Who over there doesn’t understand exactly what that symbol represents?