IT WAS A BAD TWEET, BUT IT WASN’T $190 MILLION BAD: Tesla boss Elon Musk wins defamation trial over his ‘pedo guy’ tweet. “During the course of the trial, Musk testified under oath that his use of the term ‘pedo guy’ – slang for pedophile – was never meant to be taken literally, and he apologized to Unsworth for the comment from the witness stand. . . . But the jury was apparently swayed by the arguments put forth by Musk’s attorney, Alex Spiro, who said the tweets in question amounted to an off-hand insult in the midst of an argument, which no one could be expected to take seriously.”

GET WOKE, GO BROKE: Variety asks, “TV Ratings: Why Is the NBA Shooting Air Balls?”

CTL-F “China?” Zero returns, until the comments section. But then, given that Variety is primarily the house organ of the film industry, perhaps they don’t wish to rock the boat either.

FLASHBACK: US vice-president Joe Biden pushes energy cooperation in visit to Cyprus. I hear this is going to be relevant again soon.

PATIENCE, YOUNG ONE. ROME WASN’T DESTROYED IN A DAY: Defeated Greta Whines Climate Strikes Have ‘Achieved Nothing,’ Claims People Are ‘Dying Today.’

ME: HEY, HOW ABOUT THAT RECORD LOW UNEMPLOYMENT, RECORD HIGH STOCK MARKET, AND NO NEW FOREIGN WARS? The Press: Trump’s salt and pepper shakers tower over everyone else’s. Obama, Bush, and Clinton used the same size shakers as their guests. “These photos show how much bigger Trump’s White House salt and pepper shakers usually are than everyone else’s, and how they compare to those of Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama.”

UPDATE: In the comments:

DEAL OF THE DAY: Save up to 50% on Firepits and Firebowls.

#JOURNALISM: MSNBC and CNN use a well-known deceptively edited video to discredit Trump. The reason they’re always accusing the right of “doctored video” is that it’s what they do themselves.

BETTER DEAD THAN RUDE, PART DEUX: NAS Pensacola Killer Hosted Jihadi Snuff-Film Party, Praised bin Laden, Yet Pentagon Brass Balk at Calling It Terrorism.

ADVICE FOR LAWYERS: “Generally, when opposing counsel tells you to ‘eat a bowl of dicks,’ you know that your settlement talks are going nowhere fast.”

OPEN THREAD: Saturday Night’s Alright for Talkin’.

ED MENTIONED THIS EARLIER, BUT THIS IS FUNNY ENOUGH TO MENTION AGAIN: ‘Peloton Girl’ Stars as Herself in the Greatest Sequel Ever: An Aviation Gin Ad. (YouTube version here.)

Meanwhile, one of my Facebook friends has composed “Peloton Girl,” to the tune of Neil Young’s “Cinnamon Girl,” and it’s a boss hitbound single:

I wanna live with a Peloton girl
I’ll be athletic the rest of my life
With a Peloton girl

We ride in the daytime, we run in the night
Getting our cardio under the moonlight
My Peloton girl.

Well, you get the idea. Hey, she’s more popular than the impeachment hearings. So she’s got that going for her, which is nice.

CHANGE: Love It or Hate It, Tesla Cybertruck Is Revolutionary.

ONE OF OUR SAUDIS IS MISSING: FBI hunt for missing Saudi servicemen as it’s revealed Pensacola Naval base killer hosted dinner party to watch mass shooting videos and visited New York to see Rockefeller Christmas tree lights turned on just two days before. “Authorities have not revealed the number of Saudi students they are still looking for, and it’s unclear why they have not come forward to police.” Oh, I have some ideas.

I should note, by the way, that if Saudi citizens perpetrated another 9/11 style attack, the Saudis would fare much worse than they did in 2001. Back then they had a president who was very close to the Saudi royal family, and the United States desperately needed their oil to flow. Now the U.S. is a net exporter, with the ability to bring much more supply online. There’s value to the US in using the Saudis to help corral other mideast countries into an anti-Iran alliance, but the fact is that the mideast just doesn’t matter to us nearly as much as it used to. And instead of trying to keep the oil flowing and the straits of Hormuz open, now we only have to be able to close them.

WELL, MAYBE: The Chinese Communist Regime is on the Brink of ‘Disintegration,’ Says Leading China Expert.

AL SHARPTON: House Democrats Proceeding with Impeachment ‘Not Partisan, It’s Patriotic.’

Related: Photo of Sharpton on the platform with Jesse Jackson at a “Rainbow Push Coalition anti-impeachment rally in support of President Bill Clinton at the US Capitol West Lawn in Washington DC on Friday afternoon, 17 December 1998.”

DOG INGESTS MIX OF DRUGS DURING WALK AT CRISSY FIELD BEACH IN SAN FRANCISCO:

It was a regular walk at the park that almost ended in tragedy for three-year-old Lido.

“His temperature peaked to 108 degrees. He was shaking and drooling and was out of control and we were concerned that he was going to have a heart attack or that we were going to lose him,” described Lido’s guardian Jennifer McHugh.

McHugh says Lido began to spin minutes after ingesting a substance during their morning walk at Crissy Field Beach.

“Clearly the drug use in San Francisco has hit epidemic levels if we are concerned about walking our dogs and them interacting or coming in contact with drug paraphernalia,” said McHugh.

The drugs found inside Lido’s system were methamphetamine and oxycodone.

The use of the phrase pet “guardian” in the article is an appropriately Orwellian Bay Area touch. I’m only surprised that the ABC affiliate didn’t refer to Lido as being one of the area’s “fur children.”

UPDATE: Bay Area blogger Bookworm emailed me:

Re the story about the poor dog that almost died on the streets of SF, the “guardian” language comes right out of the San Francisco Municipal Code:

San Francisco Health Code SEC. 41.12.  DUTIES OF OWNERS OR GUARDIANS.

The Code now refers to guardian or owner, but I have a vague memory that the word “owner” was fiercely contested at one time.

BETTER DEAD THAN RUDE: Pensacola Jihad Massacre Proves We’ve Learned Nothing Since the Fort Hood Attack.

(Classical reference in headline.)

UNLIKE BERNIE, SOCIALIST EUGENE V. DEBS WAS A GUN-RIGHTS SUPPORTER: “Recollect that in arming yourselves, as you are bound to do unless you are willing to be forced into abject slavery, you are safely within the spirit and letter of the law. The constitution of the United States guarantees to you the right to bear arms, as it does to every other citizen.”

AT AMAZON, Holiday Deals on Speakers and Headphones.

Plus, Shop the Twelve Days of Deals.

FLASHBACK: COVERING THE IMPORTANT STORIES: Is Hamlet Fat? A Slate investigation.

IS THERE ANYTHING IT CAN’T DO? Alcohol may have saved humanity from extinction, scientists claim.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: How to Cope With Your Prof’s Left-wing Bias.

NOW THERE’S A RINGING ENDORSEMENT. Or, question asked and answered:

● Shot: “Is Jeremy Corbyn a ‘threat’ to British Jews?”

—Headline, Al Jazeera(!) yesterday.

 ● Chaser: “’Zio Scum’: Leaked Labour Document Reveals Dozens of anti-Semitic Incidents.”

—Headline, Haaretz today.

JOSH BLACKMAN AND SETH BARRETT TILLMAN: Defining a Theory of ‘Bribery’ for Impeachment. “We disagree with this framework for analyzing bribery in the political context. Indeed, this theory, if adopted by the House, could have consequences for the separation of powers. The executive branch could come to view routine political compromises and horse-trading as illegal, and subject members of Congress to investigation and indictment. This theory would also make it effectively impossible for the president to exercise his personal constitutional authority to investigate wrongdoing by anyone, including those closely affiliated with his opponents, lest he be charged with a quid pro quo. The better theory, we contend, is that President Trump made a lawful request to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to begin an investigation of Hunter Biden, just as he could regarding any other Americans for that matter.”

All I know is that if a Democratic president had done the exact same thing regarding a Republican, we’d be hearing “politics ain’t beanbag.”

HMM: First experimental genetic evidence of the human self-domestication hypothesis.