FAKE ISLANDS THAT ARE BAD NEWS: China deploys new anti-aircraft and anti-ship weapons on its artificial islands in the South China Sea. The weapons aren’t artificial.

CONRAD BLACK:

Trump’s popularity is rising steadily and most Americans think Obama has already gone as president. The president-elect is driving a bulldozer at 60 miles per hour toward the wreckage of decades of misgovernment and misinformation, while the departing incumbents crawl around on their hands and knees complaining that the lights have gone out. For them, they have.

Read the whole thing.

GREAT BATTLE OF THE BULGE PHOTO:A tank destroyer supporting the 82nd Airborne. Note the heavy fog. The photo has a “bone chill” feel. December 16, 1944 is the day the Germans launched their attack in the Ardennes.

PUNCHING BACK TWICE AS HARD IN MEXICO:

Vigilantes in a Mexican village have seized the mother of a local gang leader and proposed swapping her for a kidnap victim taken on Monday.

After seizing alleged collaborators of the gang, including the mother of the leader “El Tequilero”, the locals have recorded video messages for the gang.

“In return for my husband’s life, I will deliver your mother,” says the kidnap victim’s wife in one video, which has been broadcast on local TV.

Read the entire article.

This BBC report uses “vigilantes” to describe villagers and townspeople who take up arms to defend themselves and communities against drug gangs. “Vigilantes” is the term preferred by the Mexican government. Many villagers prefer other descriptions like local defense force, community defense force or volunteer community militia.

CHINA MAPPING OUT STRATEGY FOR AN AMERICA LED BY TRUMP: President-elect Trump has already replaced President Ash Carter as Beijing’s bete noire.

From North Korea to Iran to a closely entwined business relationship worth $598 billion in 2015, the two countries have broad common interests, and China expects Trump to understand that.

While China was angered by Trump’s call this month with Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen, and then casting doubt over the future of the “one China” policy under which the U.S. recognizes Taiwan as being part of China, it was also quite restrained, said a senior Beijing-based Western diplomat

“China’s game now is to influence him and not antagonize him,” he said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Yup. The Donald’s Taiwan phone chat was a wake up call for the Chinese government. And it was supposed to be.

JILL GLAM’S RECOUNTS FLOP: Why pick Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan, Jill? Neil Cavuto asks her that. Her answers strike me as fog, but judge for yourself. (Background on Jill Glam and Hillary Scam.)

OFF-GRID SOLAR PANEL POWER IN RURAL AFRICA: This is a VOA report.

More than 600 million people in Africa have no access to electricity, according to the International Energy Agency. But new technology could provide the solution. So-called off-grid solar systems have plummeted in price. Now consumers can spread the cost by renting the equipment and paying for the electricity as they need it, for less than a-half-dollar a day.

This isn’t a new idea. Developmental aid groups have been pushing this for at least two decades, in Africa and elsewhere. In 2003 I attended a presentation in Washington by an Afghan-American who had an off-grid “solar home” concept. He wanted to help isolated areas in Afghanistan but he believed his concept had utility in any locale with sufficient sunlight. If I recall correctly, the fellow was an electrical engineer. His design was simple, but included a storage battery so that a family could have a light for three or four hours during the evening. This was an aid to education. The light would give children the opportunity to read and do homework. As solar panel electrical generation efficiency improved and storage batteries improved (and over time he thought both would), he hoped his system could support a very small refrigeration unit to store medicines and milk. This would help improve family health.

JAPAN’S MILITARY MODERNIZES: Jim Dunnigan analyzes the long process. North Korean nukes and China’s expanding power have added impetus to Japanese military modernization. Yet Japan clung to canned rations until this year.

The reforms extended to many rather mundane aspects of military life. For example in early 2016 Japan finally agreed to replace its canned combat rations with the plastic pouch (MRE, Meal Ready to Eat) system pioneered by the United States. Japan was the last holdout for canned combat rations in East Asia…For decades Japan got the new weapons but stubbornly clung to the use of canned combat rations. Partly this was due to love of tradition, partly because the Japanese, like most East Asians, are very serious about food and partly because of their post-World War II constitution Japanese troops were forbidden to get involved in wars or peacekeeping operations overseas. Without real combat zone experience there was no realistic examples of how superior MREs were to their older canned counterparts.

AKIN TO FAKE NEWS?: Plagiarized science.

Dr. Michael Dansinger, of Tufts Medical Center, has taken to print to excoriate a group of researchers in Italy who stole his data and published it as their own.

The thieves lied, big time.

WILL TREACHERY NEVER CEASE?: Gorbachev says treachery killed the USSR.

OBAMA’S LAME DUCK DELUSIONS: The essay notes Obama’s carefully crafted claim regarding terror attacks on American soil.

“Over the last eight years, no foreign terrorist organization has successfully planned and executed an attack on our homeland,” President Obama said to troops at MacDill Air Force Base.

Let’s take a closer look at that sentence, which the President’s speechwriters parsed with Clintonian precision.

Obama narrows his focus to foreign terrorist organizations attacking the United States. Islamic terrorist groups have carried out countless deadly attacks around the world. But the threat to our homeland hasn’t disappeared. It has evolved.

Islamic terrorist groups have recruited sympathizers already in the United States. The results have been deadly, in Boston, San Bernardino, Orlando and elsewhere.

ABANDONED U.S. MILITARY HOUSING AREA IN GERMANY MAY BECOME FUTURISTIC COMMUNE: According to the BBC, that’s the proposal.

ARMY BEATS NAVY: Final score in the football game was 21-17. Army had lost 14 straight coming into this game.

The Black Knights’ 14-game losing streak was the longest by either academy in a series that began in 1890. Army(7-5) now trails 60-50-7 in one of the nation’s historic rivalries.

Hats off to the young men on both teams.

MORE AMERICAN SPECIAL OPS TROOPS TO SYRIA: They’ll deploy for the assault on Raqqa.

The US is sending 200 more military personnel to help fight the Islamic State group in its Syrian stronghold of Raqqa, the US defence secretary says.

Speaking at talks on Middle East security, Ash Carter said the troops would include special forces trainers, advisers and bomb disposal teams.

They will join 300 US special forces who are already in Syria.

RELATED: Rebel apocalypse in Aleppo.

THE TANTRUMS ARE CONTINUING: Yes, this column is now a week old, but it’s still relevant. Jill Glam and Hillary Scam have their minions counting. Today Kellyanne Conway said she’s getting death threats. Apparently electors are still being harassed. Where’s the FBI?

KNOWING YOUR GEOGRAPHY CAN BE USEFUL: African migrants storm Ceuta. It’s a massive break-in. Ceuta is a Spanish enclave in Africa, so it’s Europe in Africa. It’s across the strait from Gibraltar. (According to some, Ceuta is the southern pillar — as in the Pillars of Hercules.)

MORE CARTEL WAR CASUALTIES: Three federal policemen were murdered and their bodies burned in Mexico’s Guerrero state. Their killers claimed the cops were crooked. Who knows the truth? The Cartel War officially began in December 2006. Mexico was battling well-financed criminal organizations long before December 2006, but that’s the month former President Calderon decided to use military forces to fight the cartels. That means we’re looking at a sad tenth anniversary. Here’s the StrategyPage Mexico update from ten years ago (mid- to late December 2006). Note the Mexican Army begins its Michoacan state operation on December 11.

Here’s a column on the Cartel War written in early 2008 — at the 13-month mark. It’s still useful background. This column’s from June 2013 and looks at President Enrique Pena Nieto’s decision to send a military-led expedition into Michoacan state.

TODAY IN MILITARY HISTORY: December 8 is also December 7. (See the chart for the history and the explanation.)

Also, a terrible command decision still stirring rancor in the ranks:

1830 U.S. Army Adjutant General Order No. 72 ends the daily ration of one gill of whiskey to enlisted men, substituting an issue of coffee and sugar.

Yes, late in the day for this link, but better late than never.

RELATED: A gill.

CHINESE INTERNET CENSORSHIP SOFTWARE: Jim Dunnigan examines Beijing’s capabilities.

VIETNAM COUNTERS CHINA IN SOUTH CHINA SEA: Get ready for more of this. At the moment it’s a war of barges and dredges slowly turning reefs into islands. But the game’s changing. Trump’s already told Beijing that America won’t play by Chinese rules.

SHOULD A PORK LOVER GO VEGAN: Heaven forbid, but there is bacon-flavored seaweed.

TRUMP COMBINES ART OF THE DEAL AND ART OF WAR

TODAY IN MILITARY HISTORY: Pearl Harbor Day. And more.

POST-TRUTH MEDIA SHOULD LOOK IN THE MIRROR: Fine post by Steven Hayward at Powerline.

To the contrary, speaking of “fake news,” I recall a certain prominent journalist—I’d rather not repeat his name—who trafficked in a wholly fake news story about a president, and whose forged documents were defended as “fake, but accurate.” So the media doesn’t have a lot of standing to complain about “fake news” just now, let alone a “post-truth” world they helped create.

Read the whole thing. A month ago I wrote a column that argued our biased media is America’s most grave strategic weakness. Points made in that column dovetail with Hayward’s post.

SUPREME COURT SIDES WITH SAMSUNG OVER APPLE IN PENALTY PAYMENTS FOR PATENTS VIOLATIONS: Ruling was 8-0. Note this is a partial victory for Samsung. Samsung still violated Apple patents.

The Supreme Court on Tuesday unanimously reversed and remanded a lower court’s ruling that said Samsung must pay Apple $399 million as a penalty for infringing on its smartphone patents.

UPDATE: Here’s Reuters with more details:

The decision gives Samsung another chance to try to get back a big chunk of the money it paid Apple in December following a 2012 jury verdict that it infringed Apple’s iPhone patents and mimicked its distinctive appearance in making the Galaxy and other competing devices.

The court held that a patent violator does not always have to fork over its entire profits from the sales of products using stolen designs, if the designs covered only certain components and not the whole thing.

The ruling followed a ferocious legal battle between the world’s top two smartphone manufacturers that began in 2011 when Apple sued Samsung, asserting that its rival stole its technology and the iPhone’s trademarked appearance. It was one of the most closely watched patent cases to come before the top U.S. court in recent years.

Core issue:

The legal dispute centered on whether the term “article of manufacture” in U.S. patent law should be interpreted as a finished product in its entirety, or merely a component in a complex product.

Historical note:

Design patent fights very rarely reach the Supreme Court. It had not heard such a case in more than 120 years