META ACTUALLY HAD A POLICY ALLOWING THIS: Zuckerberg U-Turns on Facebook People Smuggling Posts Following Scrutiny.

Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook is ending a policy that allowed illegal immigrants to use the platform to seek people smugglers to ferry them across the U.S. border, admitting that much of the activity is tantamount to “human exploitation” and “overlaps” with human trafficking.

You don’t say.

TRAINING TOMORROW’S NEWSROOM CENSORS: Like Professional, Like Student. The University of Missouri’s journalism school imposes an anti-speech diversity policy. In abandoning the First Amendment (once considered essential to the profession by journalists on the left as well as the right), Missouri is following the lead of Columbia University’s journalism school, which has been rationalizing censorship in the once-respected Columbia Journalism Review. 

FIGHT THE POWER: Legal group scores win in fight against bias reporting systems. “The University of Maine (UMaine) recently revised its bias reporting system following a demand letter from Southeastern Legal Foundation (SLF). . . . UMaine is one of eight universities identified by SLF for its bias reporting form, which asked ‘any member of the University of Maine community’ to ‘report any possible bias-related incidents or hate crimes.'”

HOW NOT TO HANDLE A CITY SUFFERING FROM POPULATION LOSS AND DIMINISHED TOURISM: City Sidewalks, Busy Sidewalks: NYC Health Commissioner Wants Masks Back on the Streets.

THE ALGORITHM OF LOVE: The Woman Who Made Online Dating into a “Science.” The Atlantic’s profile of the anthropologist Helen Fisher, the world’s most-quoted authority on love. (Full disclosure: I am married to her.)

STEVEN MALANGA: The Biden Bucks Blowout. Local governments are spending hundreds of billions of dollars in federal handouts for dubious needs — like a new golf course for Palm Beach Gardens in Florida.

FOLLOW THE “SCIENCE:” Scholars work at ‘Decolonizing Light’ to combat ‘colonialism in contemporary physics.’

This is what you do when you have an academic job but are incapable of advancing actual knowledge.

I GUESS “THE CHINESE WAY” WAS TO PUT OFF THE INEVITABLE UNTIL THEY NO LONGER COULD: Covid cases explode in Beijing leaving city streets empty and daily life disrupted. “On Wednesday, China’s National Health Commission (NHC) gave up trying to keep track of all the new Covid cases, announcing it would no longer include asymptomatic infections in its daily count. It had previously reported these cases, albeit in a separate category from ‘confirmed,’ or symptomatic ones.”

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: DeSantis Won’t Let COVID Vax Charlatans Off the Hook. “At this point, people who still trust the government when it comes to public health should be institutionalized.”

FALLOUT: China bans export of its Loongson CPUs to Russia.

China is the subject of many semiconductor export restrictions, but it seems the Asian nation is also banning the export of its own Loongson CPUs to Russia and elsewhere. It’s likely to be a significant blow to Russia, which has been looking for an alternative to AMD and Intel processors since the companies stopped shipments to the country following its invasion of Ukraine.

Kommersant business daily (via Tom’s Hardware), citing sources close to Russia’s Ministry of Digital Development and in the electronics market, writes that the Chinese government has banned the supply of Loongson processors based on its own LoongArch architecture to the Russian Federation and other countries.

The reasons for banning the chip exports to Russia aren’t the same as other countries; it’s because they are used in China’s military-industrial complex.

I guess China doesn’t have the fab capacity to spare.

Related: ARM won’t sell its latest chip designs in China due to US and UK export controls.

REPAYING THE IMMUNITY DEBT, AS ONE MUST: U.S. faces onslaught of viral diseases heading into 2023.

BRITS USED TO REFUSE TO KOWTOW TO CHINA: UK offers pathetic response to Chinese diplomats’ attack, sending bad signal for US special relationship. “The British government showed alarming deference to China on Wednesday when it absurdly claimed to have shown strength as Beijing withdrew diplomats involved in an attack on pro-democracy protesters. The October attack occurred outside and within China’s Consulate in the English city of Manchester. It was serious, involving one protester being dragged into the consulate grounds and beaten. The conduct of China’s diplomats represented an outrageous breach of both diplomatic convention and English law. And its Manchester Consul-General Zheng Xiyuan was directly involved. In response, British police requested that China waive diplomatic immunity for the officials involved so that they could be interviewed. China refused. But rather than immediately expelling the diplomats in response, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s government has since sat idle.”

FIGHT THE POWER: Eugene Volokh Challenges New York Law Requiring Bloggers To Address Online Hate Speech.

UGH: Judicial Watch Releases Damning New Information on the Moderna Vaccine.

MAKE THEM PAY: Mother of Child Rape Victim Sues Virginia Soros Prosecutor in Federal Court. “The mother of an 11-year-old rape victim is suing a George-Soros backed prosecutor in Virginia who let the boy’s rapist walk free, alleging the prosecutor’s actions violated the minor’s civil rights and made him fear for his physical safety. Amber Reel in November filed the federal lawsuit on behalf of her son after Fairfax County commonwealth’s attorney Steve Descano (D.) let the rapist walk. Court filings show Descano was months late in sharing necessary evidence before a September trial, dooming the case and forcing his office to enter into a lesser plea deal with the rapist the same month.”

SARAH HOYT’S SHOCKED FACE IS IN A MEDICALLY INDUCED COMA: Deportations Plunge Under Biden in US Interior.

The change stems from Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, a Biden appointee, directing ICE agents to focus on illegal immigrants deemed a threat to national security, public safety, or border security. Each deportation, under the directive, requires an assessment of whether the illegal immigrant poses one or more of these threats.

Biden administration officials have defended the change, claiming that it’s paid dividends in part by an increase in the arrest and removal of illegal aliens convicted of aggravated felonies.

Critics note that there was a decline in the removal of aliens convicted of any felony.

Why, it’s almost as though the Administration has engineered a crisis by design.

NEVER, BECAUSE HE’S PART OF THE FAMILY: So when will Jack Dorsey be indicted for lying to Congress?

VERY MERRY DEALS are here. #CommissionEarned

FOR OUR VIP SUPPORTERS: Musk Is Cutting Twitter to the Bone, and the Lamentations of the Karens Are Glorious. “The story could begin — and end — with what Musk did when he found dead-ender execs racking up six figures worth of chartered jets right before he bought the company. But the story just keeps getting better, even after that.”

SALENA ZITO: A Tradition Unlike Any Other.

Americans love to cleave to cultural traditions that have stood the test of time — especially ones that tell stories of the people who formed their communities, stories that reflect the craftsmanship, sacrifice and hard work of those who came before us.

When inventor and master tinkerer Joshua Lionel Cowen designed an electric fan operated by dry cells — and then, using the same motor that drove the fan, built a miniature railroad car — he began a business and a movement that has enthralled millions of people young and old. Hobbyists not only bought trains and track, but also often created elaborate homemade displays enjoyed by family and friends over the Christmas holidays.

Read the whole thing.

THE BABYLON BEE, AMERICA’S REAL PAPER OF RECORD:  Government Warns That With Elon Owning Twitter They Will Only Control 97% Of The Media.

TEDIOUS FEMALE JOURNALIST EXPRESSES DISSATISFACTION WITH MEN.

IT’S BEEN GOING ON A LONG TIME, THEY’RE JUST GETTING WORSE AT DISGUISING IT:   Nature Mag Jumps the Shark with New Paper. Pure Communism Disguised as Economics.

THE REAL PURPOSE OF THE WAR IS TO SUPPRESS “DOMESTIC ENEMIES” WOODROW WILSON STYLE:  When Did Congress Vote To Go To War With Russia?

CLOWN WORLD:  Fetterman Wins Style Award For Dressing Like A Slob.