MERRY CHRISTMAS! The Critical Drinker’s Christmas Crackers — It’s a Wonderful Life (Video).

More here: It’s a Wonderful Life: Holiday Classic Takes On New Meaning As Jimmy Stewart’s Post-War Struggles Bleed Into Film.

And for Mirror Universe version of the same story, It’s a Wonderful Fountainhead, too.

A HUMBLE BRAG FROM ROGER SIMON: Did Musk Derangement Syndrome Inspire Me to Buy a Tesla?

Musk is an apostate, having, like a growing number of us, switched over from their camp. Muslims aren’t the only ones who abhor apostates, just the ones who, shall we say, take it the final level (cf. Salman Rushdie).

Apostates especially threaten liberals and progressives, and Democrat party leaders , because they have little left of their ideology now that woke and DEI are more than halfway down the drain. They have nothing to offer anymore.

So they’re angry at Elon Musk just as much as they’re angry with Donald Trump who was also an apostate.

Now here’s the bad part.

Some are even taking it out on their, or somebody’s Tesla. As a new buyer I’ve been hanging out on reddit’s Tesla Lounge and discovered this missive that was found, spattered with what I assume to be water but who knows, on a windshield in Portland:

Happy Holidays, indeed!…. Of course, this is Portland and my new Model 3 will undoubtedly be safer here in Middle Tennessee where there is far less Musk Derangement Syndrome and, needless to say, less of its father, Trump Derangement Syndrome than in Oregon. Nevertheless, I can imagine a lot of confusion in Portlandia (aka The City of Roses) where numerous Teslas were bought by global warming true believers over the years. Do they come from the Old Musk or the New Musk. Which cars do we key? What tires do we pop?

Well, that’s their problem.

To answer the question at top, short answer no. I bought the Tesla because it’s the coolest car out there for the price, irrespective of climate. I had been researching it, which told me the new Model 3 was their best car yet. I bought the all-wheel drive. What I like: I put one of those chargers in my garage and never have to think about gas stations or running out. The sound system is great, ditto the visibility. It’s super quiet and super fast when it has to be. There’s no blind spot because a video camera handles it. Also you can warm or cool your car through the app when you’re sitting at your desk and it’ll be ready when you are.. And there are a ton of things I haven’t figured out yet. Have I tried the self-drive component? No, but I suppose I’ll get around to it. I happen to like to drive, so I’m not overly compelled. Besides, it’s obviously not all the way there yet. When it is, I’m certain they’ll let me know. Best of all, the buying process of the car was by far the least stressful I have ever experienced. No dickering. No awful salesman or manager trying to sell you crap you don’t want or need. You just do the whole thing on the app, including photographing a car you might want to trade in, and then go pick the new one up. It takes about fifteen minutes and you’re on your way. It’s the most fun car I’ve ever driven. My only question is—am I ready for the Cybertruck?

I know one person who isn’t — click on Roger’s post to see.

(Incidentally, I’m so old, I can remember Roger was a Jaaaaag man, long before that brand decided to commit saloon car seppuku.)

UPDATE:

WHOEVER LAYS OUT THE WALL STREET JOURNAL’S FRONT PAGE HAD FUN TODAY:

HUGH HEWITT: President Biden’s politburo strikes again.

We will remember “37 out of 40,” and biographers and presidential historians will long note and long record and elaborate on this abuse of power, along with the pardon of Hunter Biden, and all the other outrageous abuses of power. The people around our apparently incapacitated president don’t care at all what history will declare about Biden. Their indifference purposeful. It’s a display of shamelessness. Don’t look past it. They know what they are doing, it’s just the president who doesn’t.

After the Wall Street Journal’s detailed story on the president’s mental incapacity last week, the decision by the unnamed politburo actually running the country to issue these commutations is hard to understand as anything other than a giant [expletive deleted] to the rest of the country.

To be fair, much of the last four years felt like “a giant [expletive deleted] to the rest of the country.” The pardons were simply the equivalent of spiking the football as the clock mercifully winds down on this administration.

WAR IS PEACE, FREEDOM IS SLAVERY: Jewish radio host fired for refusing to call Oct. 7 ‘resistance.’

Nicole, a Jewish volunteer radio host at a community station in Sydney, Australia, was terminated from her position after covering up a “Free Palestine” sticker and refusing to characterize Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023  massacre as an act of “resistance.”

The host, who shares Mexican and Israeli heritage, volunteered at a local radio station specializing in Latin music. In a tearful video posted after her dismissal, she described the confrontation that led to her termination: “I just came out of a meeting with radio Skid Row 88.9 FM…they basically just told me that if I cannot support the October 7 attacks as resistance or as something positive – saying it is not true that anybody got killed, or burned – and cannot support the hostages being kept, then I don’t align with their values.” She added that when she became emotional during the conversation, she was told, “We have no sympathy for white women’s tears.”

Why is the left such a cesspit of violence and bigotry?

PAST PERFORMANCE IS NO GUARANTEE OF FUTURE RESULTS:

How it started for Jaguar:

How it’s going:

Exit quote: “You can’t rule out the possibility that beneath the elaborately constructed veneer of a blithering idiot lurks a blithering idiot.”

That’s from Boris Johnson in the above 2003 episode of Top Gear, long before living out that quote as prime minister in 2020, but it could also apply to Jag, today.

But will there be a tomorrow for them? Jaguar Rebrand Called ‘Disastrous’ as Focus on Diversity Comes Under Fire.

OUCH:

And speaking of those grandfathers who “roasted to death in a tank at Kursk,” earlier: Christmas in Nazi Germany: How Nazis Stole Christmas and Turned Adolf Hitler into Messiah (Video).

And: The National Socialists Fought the Original War on Christmas.

Who knew? Other than everyone who read Jonah Goldberg’s Liberal Fascism in 2008, or this London Daily Mail article the following year. But it’s good to see this sort of thing in the Smithsonian’s house organ. Or as author Dave Shiflett quipped in 2002 at NRO, “A shocking story has been revealed: Adolf Hitler was not a Christian after all. Instead, he hoped to destroy Christianity.”

To borrow a line from another 19th-century born socialist God killer, as a reminder of the first time as tragedy and the second time as farce — while killing time before engineering the next tragedy — I found that above quote in a post of mine from right around this time in 2012. A few years before Angela Merkel turned the lights out on 21st Germany, Yahoo was reporting that “A minister in Angela Merkel’s government has sparked a pre-Christmas row among Germany’s ruling parties by suggesting God be referred to with the neutral article ‘das’ instead of the masculine ‘der.’”

But then, political correctness is what governments do in order to ignore their nation’s real, structural problems.

Related: Nazi Caroling: The Extremes Hitler Wanted to Go To in Order to Replace Christianity with the “Religion” of National Socialism).

And in the adjacent world of International Socialism, Peter Hitchens: The last Noël in the USSR.

LET ME JUST GET OUT AHEAD OF THE STORY AND SAY THAT BILL CLINTON DID NOT COMMIT SUICIDE: Bill Clinton admitted to hospital for ‘testing and observation’ after falling ill.

Great minds think alike:

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON EXPLAINS WHY HE THINKS TOM HOMAN IS TARGETING MAJOR DEM CITY FIRST FOR DEPORTATIONS:

“So what Homan is doing is thinking, ‘Oh my gosh, who is the Admiral Byng of all of these 600 jurisdictions that I have to encourage you? I know the most obnoxious, the most crazy, the most nullification advocate in one of the second or third largest cities is Chicago, that crazy Mayor Johnson,’” Hanson continued. “‘So we’re going to tell him first, you try to stop the federal government and you think you’re South Carolina 1832 or you think you’re firing on Fort Sumner. You’re going to regret it because you were breaking federal law and we have a lot more federal laws that you would want us to follow in your interest than you do federal laws to break.’”

“That’s going to be interesting because what Homan is basically doing is talking over the mayor’s head to the black constituencies of Chicago and saying, don’t worry, your mayor doesn’t, he’s going to break the law, but I’m going to follow it and I’ll put him in jail for your benefit so that you don’t have to worry about Venezuelans and Colombians shooting you or taking over your social services,” Hanson added.

Glad to see a new sheriff in town, finally.

UPDATE: ICE: Wrong-way driver in crash that killed Las Vegas officer was ordered to leave US.

NEWS YOU CAN USE: Jeff Dunetz on The Differences Between Christmas And Hanukkah: The 2024 Snarky Edition.

#2 The Jews also celebrate December 25th. Why not? We have a paid day off, too. The Jewish tradition of Christmas Day starts with going to the movies. On the 25th, there are no lines at the theater box office for the theaters playing the hot winter blockbusters because the Christians can’t go because they are with family celebrating Christmas.

After the movie theater, we make our annual Christmas pilgrimage to get Chinese food, the traditional Jewish cuisine.

It’s 2024 in the secular calendar, 4722 in the Chinese calendar, and 5785 In the Jewish calendar. Archeologists and other scientists still haven’t figured out what the Jews ordered for Chinese take-out for the first 1063 years of our existence.

In the book of Genesis, we learn that the patriarch Abraham always kept his tent flaps open. Theologians will tell you that he kept them open because he wanted to welcome people, but that’s not true. He kept the flaps open so the Chinese food delivery guy saw that he was home.

Exit quote:

IT’S THE DEMOGRAPHY, STUPID: Europe Is Canceling Christmas.

Let’s look at some examples of what is happening in Europe. In November, the head teacher of Wherwell Primary School, in Andover, England, informed parents that there would be no reference to Christmas in the school’s traditional festive pantomime, in order to be “inclusive.” Since “Christmas songs were included in the performance,” and some parents usually prevent their children from attending on religious grounds, the head teacher wrote, “We have requested that the show contain no reference to Christmas.” According to the 2021 census, 62.4% of Andover’s then-50,887 residents identified as Christian, compared with 0.6% who are Muslim.

The trend of canceling Christmas in European schools didn’t start this year, it simply spreads from one December to the next like an oil slick at sea. The first major controversy occurred in 2011, when kindergartens and schools in Denmark canceled their traditional Christmas celebrations so as not to offend Muslims, who are already the second-largest religion in the country, and who are densely concentrated in ghettos in large cities.

RADICAL CHIC: THE BOY BAND ERA. Luigi Mangione and the American Abyss.

To the mainstream media, the question posed by this episode was obvious: Why are Americans so angry at health-insurance companies? And so reporters and opinion columnists got to work limning a portrait of the health-care industry—its profits, the salaries of its executives—and fleshing out the animus against it.

The only relevant question in the wake of the Thompson murder, however, is: What has gone wrong with Americans’ moral compass that so many could cheer the extrajudicial killing of an innocent man? That question has not been deemed worthy of exploring.

When the high fives for the assassin started appearing on the web, some observers dismissed that support as a minor emanation from the fever swamps of social media, where anonymity and the desire for a following push users to rhetorical extremes.

But a poll of registered voters released on December 17 undercuts that diagnosis. Over 41 percent of respondents supported the Thompson assassination, or were at best ambivalent about it. Nearly 16 percent of respondents were “unsure” or “neutral” about whether the killer’s actions were “acceptable or unacceptable.” A little over 8 percent of respondents found Mangione’s actions “completely acceptable.” Another 8.4 percent found those actions “somewhat acceptable,” and 9 percent found them “somewhat unacceptable.” (It is not clear how “somewhat acceptable” differs from “somewhat unacceptable.”) Four of every ten Americans, in other words, will not unequivocally condemn the killing.

The younger the voter, the greater the level of support for political killings. Sixty-seven percent of voters aged 18 to 29 were ambivalent about or supportive of Mangione’s actions, with only 33 percent finding those actions completely unacceptable. Fifty-seven percent of voters aged 30 to 39 were unwilling to condemn the killing unequivocally, with only 43 percent finding it “completely unacceptable.” Democrats were nearly twice as likely as Republicans to find it either somewhat or completely acceptable.

It’s no surprise that age is inversely correlated with support for left-wing assassination, since the younger the voter, the more recent his exposure to the American education system. The pro-Mangione reaction epitomizes the dominant traits of contemporary academia: narcissism, a juvenile view of economics, the inability to think in terms of principle and precedent, and ignorance about the civilizational triumph that is Western due process. Campus reaction to the October 7, 2023, terror attacks in Israel put another item on that list: support for barbarism when the victims of that barbarism belong to a group disfavored by the academic Left. We can now add corporate executives to the list of acceptable targets.

The left-leaning film-oriented Cinesthethic account on Twitter descended into inadvertent self-parody with a tweet and retweet in short succession today:

Meanwhile: Colin Jost’s Reaction Says It All As ‘SNL’ Audience Cheers For Luigi Mangione. “Jost, who is married to actress Scarlett Johansson, seemed caught off guard when the audience responded with enthusiastic applause upon hearing Luigi Mangione’s name.”

America’s Newspaper of Record believes that Lorne Michaels will ultimately succumb to fan pressure, and give Saturday Night Live’s audience the host the show deserves. Sounds killer:

Truly bad timing on Mangione’s part, though. If he had acted sooner, he would have very likely been among the 37 federal inmates facing the death penalty who “President Biden” pardoned today.

CHRISTOPHER NOLAN’S NEXT FILM IS AN ADAPTATION OF HOMER’S THE ODYSSEY:

The speculation can finally end. Universal took to social media Monday to give film fans everywhere a present: the first official description of Christopher Nolan’s next movie. It’s called The Odyssey which, yes, is an adaptation of Homer’s poem.

“Christopher Nolan’s next film ‘The Odyssey’ is a mythic action epic shot across the world using brand new IMAX film technology. The film brings Homer’s foundational saga to IMAX film screens for the first time and opens in theaters everywhere on July 17, 2026,” the statement read.

Matt Damon, Charlize Theron, Tom Holland, Anne Hathaway, Zendaya, Robert Pattinson and Lupita Nyong’o star in the film that opens July 17, 2026

This is a developing story, we’ll have more soon.

It’s good to see the man finally going small and intimate after a career filled with enormous blockbusters.

ACE OF SPADES FILES A CHRISTMASTIME DISPATCH FROM NAKATOMI PLAZA:

2. The lead role in Die Hard was initially offered to Frank Sinatra.

Sinatra was 70 years old in 1985, when Die Hard was being put together as a concept. The producers didn’t really want Sinatra to star in the action movie — but it was legally required that they do so, because Sinatra had some kind of legal option on the sequel.

They offered him the role, hoping he’d pass. He did. He decided he was too old to play the role again.

And thus, “John Leland” became “John McClane,” so as not to confuse people into thinking this was in fact a direct sequel to 1968’s The Detective.

3. The John McClane role was offered to just about every warm body in Hollywood.

After Sinatra passed, the producers offered the lead role to all the people you’d guess they’d offer an action movie lead in the mid-80s to: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone, Clint Eastwood, Mel Gibson, James Caan, Richard Gere, Don Johnson, and others.

Pretty much the role was offered to anyone not named “Bruce Willis.”

They were all either uninterested or unavailable. I think they tried to sell Schwarzenegger on the idea that the story would make a good sequel for his “John Matrix” character in Commando.

Getting desperate, they offered it to television actor Bruce Willis, who played a detective on Moonlighting, but as a glib comedic figure, not as a badass.

The studio was very skeptical that Bruce Willis, hot off the non-success of the romantic comedy Blind Date, could carry a movie at all, let alone an action movie.

I think the documentary that Ace is referring to at the beginning of his post is a 2019 episode of The Movies That Made Us that focuses on Die Hard, which is still available on Netflix. There’s also a book that’s currently on Kindle Unlimited, Die Hard: An Oral History by Brian Abrams, which covers much of the same territory, though if I’m honest, the Netflix doc is the better of the two.

THE CRITICAL DRINKER: The Six Triple Eight — The Most Netflix Movie Of All Time (Video).

More here: The Six Triple Eight Review: On Netflix, Women in a Mail War.

PBS’S WASHINGTON WEEK WON’T OWN UP TO PREVIOUS PRAISE OF BIDEN’S MENTAL ACUITY:

Washington Week with The Atlantic’s year-in-review episode Friday contained a fleeting reference to a bombshell Wall Street Journal story about how the White House and Democrats actively hid President Joe Biden’s descent into decrepitude, including several public stumbles, shaking hands with the air, and taking the “short stairs” up Air Force One.

The supposedly vigilant media acceded to Democratic wishes and showed astonishingly little curiosity about Biden’s decline, even issuing defenses of Biden’s acuity in the face of Republican observations, defenses that look simply pathetic in retrospect, like the New York Times story lamenting so-called Republican “cheap fakes.”

Not surprisingly, given the Murdoch connection, “Fox Stars Slam White House’s Biden ‘Cover-Up’ Amid WSJ Report,” with the Daily Beast noting that “During a Saturday appearance on Fox & Friends Weekend, senior White House correspondent Peter Doocy lamented not having been in the White House press briefing room to ask about the report, which claimed staffers concealed signs of Biden’s mental decline.” But did any of the network Sunday talk shows bring up the article yesterday?

There’s a Must Read Alaska post that ran on Friday headlined, “They hid the decline: Wall Street Journal’s bombshell on Biden reveals White House conspiracy.” It’s a much bigger conspiracy than that:

Related: The True Scandal Of Biden’s Death Row Pardons Is That We Don’t Even Know Who Made the Decision.

FORMER MOSSAD AGENTS REVEAL SECRETS OF 10-YEAR EXPLODING PAGER OPERATION:

Mossad began conducting tests with their newly developed devices to figure out the exact amount of explosives needed to limit the damage to the person holding the pager, the pair claimed.

Because Hezbollah’s pager was small and slick, the team had to enlarge theirs to fit the explosives.

Gabriel said: “I remember the day that I came to our director and put it on the table. He was furious, he was telling us: ‘There is no chance that anyone will buy such a big device. It’s not comfortable in their pocket. It’s heavy’.”

Two weeks later Gabriel convinced the spy chief to go approve the mission, he claimed. Mossad then used fake advertisements on YouTube to launch the new pager which was robust, dustproof, waterproof and had a long battery life.

He said: “We make advertising movies and brochures, and we put it on the internet. And it became the best product in the beeper area in the world.”

It’s a shame that mid-level Amazon Studio execs hate James Bond so much – because this material would provide an awesome subplot for 007 and Q if and when the franchise returns to the big screen.

BEN RHODES, BARACK OBAMA HARDEST HIT: Khamenei’s Brilliant Failure.

Khamenei has always had an internal struggle between his caution and his audacity. The latter, always encouraged by his beloved Gen. Suleimani, certainly had the high ground the last several years, even after Suleimani’s death. And after the general’s passing, lesser men, like Ismail Qa’ani, attempted to fill the void. The 85-year-old supreme leader is now flailing, unable to give speeches that aren’t immediately dismissed. Unforgivably for an Islamic revolutionary, he misjudged the Jews and he was too clever with the regime’s nuclear ambitions. In retrospect, he should have put aside his concerns about latent American power and pushed the envelope during Biden’s presidency as there was likely nothing there that would have pushed back. If the Islamic Republic had had the bomb on October 6, it’s likely Israeli actions would have been significantly different, perhaps sufficiently different to save Hezbollah, which in turn might have saved Syria.

Failure abroad always sends shock waves home. Khamenei, who has so far never failed to crush all those aligned against him, is now likely obsessed with how his foreign mistakes may embolden his enemies, both foreign and domestic.

If you missed it yesterday: Iran’s Energy Crisis Hits ‘Dire’ Point as Industries Are Forced to Shut Down.

‘THE BLACK SWAN ELECTION:’ Trump’s Campaign Chiefs Tell Their Inside Story.

[Politico’s Jonathan Martin]: What did Trump think personally of Biden as an opponent? 

[Trump co-campaign manager Chris LaCivita]: I don’t think he had any respect at all.

[Trump chief pollster Tony Fabrizio]: I think he did a lousy job as president.

Did he talk about his age at all?

LaCivita: He would say he’s cognitively impaired. He said it all the f**king time.

But did he say something along the lines of “Joe’s really gone down hill the last few years?”

LaCivita: I’ve heard him say things like that.

What did he think of Kamala Harris as an opponent?

LaCivita: Not very bright.

He just didn’t think she was that formidable. But stronger than Biden?

Fabrizio: I don’t know about that. I think different than Biden.

How so?

LaCivita: Her numbers were going to improve. The Democrat numbers were going to improve because they had someone with a pulse.

That was his view?

LaCivita: Yeah.

And your polling showed that?

LaCivita: Yeah, she consolidated her base.

Is there one big thing that you think we’re missing in this campaign that was enormously consequential or at least significant?

LaCivita: You guys have written about the impact of the assassination attempt. But I don’t think people give enough credit to the fact that the world has a visual. It’s an iconic visual. But I don’t think people have given enough credit to that visual.

Him holding up his fist.

LaCivita: And what that visual means. And what the visual conveys. Not only about him, but the country as a whole. Americans get knocked down, but they always fight back. And that visual is as quintessential America as the f**king flag is.

Fabrizio: I am always amazed, I’ve learned not to be amazed, but he has this ability in most cases to put his finger on something. And you say to yourself: “Where did he come up with that?” But he just does. Then you test it and, holy shit, he’s right.

Needless to say, read the whole thing.

ED MORRISSEY: Ethics Committee Final Report: ‘Substantial Evidence’ Gaetz Committed Statutory Rape.

Gaetz has repeatedly pointed out that the Department of Justice/FBI investigated these same allegations and declined to charge him. And that’s true, but it’s not quite on point, and it’s also not the exoneration that Gaetz at least implies it to be. The language quoted here specifically refers to “substantial evidence,” which is not the standard for prosecution. It’s not even the “preponderance of evidence” that would meet the standard for a successful civil lawsuit. “Substantial evidence” is a phrase that really doesn’t have a legal meaning as much as it does a political meaning — which is the context in which Ethics Committees operate, in fact.

This language strongly suggests that the House Ethics Committee would have taken some “substantial” political action, had Gaetz remained in Congress. Given the allegations here, one has to believe they would have recommended a rare expulsion from the House. George Santos got expelled by the House in a 311-114 vote the previous year over accusations of fraud and misuse of funds, allegations which almost seem quaint in comparison. The second-most recent expulsion from the House was Ohio’s James Traficant two decades earlier, a Democrat who had been convicted in court of bribery and racketeering before being expelled. These allegations against Gaetz would likely have been too serious to recommend censure. Would a GOP-controlled House have expelled Gaetz over it? He must have thought so, or else he wouldn’t have taken the face-saving AG appointment as a means to end the process.

Ed notes that Gaetz is publicly speculating about running in the special election to replace Marco Rubio in the Senate next year, but concludes, “Maybe, but the more that comes out about Gaetz’ activities, the less likely that seems. He may need to content himself with the good gig he landed this month at OAN as one of its featured hosts.”

DISPATCHES FROM THE PARTY OF PEACE, TOLERANCE AND GUN CONTROL: Sick: SNL Audience Cheers for Healthcare CEO Killer.

GREAT MOMENTS IN TIMING: Horrific video shows suspect watching woman burn to death in F train car after he allegedly set her on fire.

A migrant from Guatemala has been arrested for allegedly lighting a sleeping subway rider on fire in Brooklyn on Sunday morning — then watching as his innocent victim burned to death in what the New York’s top cop called “one of the most depraved crimes one person could possibly commit.”

The savage killing — which happened at about 7:30 a.m. on an idling F train at the Coney Island-Stillwell Avenue station — shocked commuters, MTA workers and NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch, who said Sunday that the heinous crime “took the life of an innocent New Yorker.”

“As the train pulled into the station, the suspect calmly walked up to the victim, who was in a seated position at the end of a subway car … and used what we believe to be a lighter to ignite the victim’s clothing, which became fully engulfed in a matter of seconds,” Tisch said at a press conference.

Patrolling cops smelled and saw the smoke, then found the flame-covered woman, the commissioner said.

They extinguished the blaze, but the woman died at the scene.

—The New York Post, today.

But who are you going to believe, New York’s governor, or your lying eyes?

Related: As with recent reports of “Flames [targeting a] place of worship” and “car” driving through a German Christmas market, the New York Daily News believes it apparently is reporting on the distaff equivalent of the Fantastic Four’s Human Torch:

HEY, WHAT’S GOING ON IRAN RIGHT NOW? Iran’s Energy Crisis Hits ‘Dire’ Point as Industries Are Forced to Shut Down.

Government offices in Iran are closed or operating at reduced hours. Schools and colleges have moved to online only. Highways and shopping malls have descended into darkness, and industrial plants have been denied power, bringing manufacturing to a near halt.

Although Iran has one of the biggest supplies of natural gas and crude oil in the world, it is in a full-blown energy crisis that can be attributed to years of sanctions, mismanagement, aging infrastructure, wasteful consumption — and targeted attacks by Israel.

“We are facing very dire imbalances in gas, electricity, energy, water, money and environment,” said President Masoud Pezeshkian in a live televised address to the nation this month. “All of them are at a level that could turn into a crisis.”
While Iran has been struggling with issues with its infrastructure for years, the president warned that the problem had reached a critical point.

For most of last week, the country was virtually shut down to save energy. As ordinary Iranians fumed and industrial leaders warned that the accompanying losses amounted to tens of billions of dollars, Mr. Pezeshkian could offer no solution other than to say he was sorry.

“We must apologize to the people that we are in a situation where they have to bear the brunt,” Mr. Pezeshkian said. “God willing, next year we will try for this not to happen.”

Exit quote: “This is how regimes fall:”

The country of Iran has shut down. @nytimes reporting a gas shortage is so severe that the government had to choose between using its dwindling gas supply to run the country's power plants or heat people's homes. It chose the latter, which means the country is not producing… https://t.co/2zaU53p7j9

— Ashley Rindsberg (@AshleyRindsberg) December 22, 2024

BOTTOM STORY OF THE DAY: Dallas Cowboys eliminated from playoffs after Commanders win.

TOM HANKS AND MEG RYAN IN SHOPLIFTING IN SEATTLE – WORST ROMCOM EVER:

In December of 2022, Virginia Postrel wrote in the Wall Street Journal: What Shopping Did for American Equality.

The urban palaces of early department stores, the climate-controlled corridors of suburban malls, the endlessly scrolling pages of Etsy, the utilitarian aisles of Walmart and the chatty reveals of haul videos aren’t merely sites of envy or exchange. They’re places where Americans—both buyers and sellers—work out who we are and who we want to be. Since the mid-19th century, modern retailing has tested the practical meaning of equality and freedom.

When A.T. Stewart opened his multistory dry goods store in 1846, the Manhattan merchant introduced two revolutionary practices that we now take for granted. He let anyone come and browse freely, whether or not intending to buy, and he charged every customer the same price. Both policies changed the everyday meaning of social equality.

At Stewart’s, wrote a journalist in 1871, “you may gaze upon a million dollars’ worth of goods, and no man will interrupt either your meditation or your admiration.” The store and its many emulators established a new social norm. Any well-behaved patron, regardless of class or ethnicity, could freely examine the merchandise without being pestered or pressured to leave.

The key phrase there is “well-behaved patron,” which requires law, order and social customs to maintain, all of which have been in short supply in Seattle in recent years. But according to the New York Post last month, they may be making a return: Seattle finally starts throwing shoplifters and other petty criminals in jail for the first time in 4 years.

Seattle has finally started tossing people in jail for low-level crimes again after four years of letting shoplifters, vandals and other petty criminals walk free.

The change, which went into effect earlier this month, reverses pandemic-era restrictions by King County that kept Seattle police from booking all but the most serious misdemeanors into the slammer.

Officials in the Emerald City argued the policy hamstrung prosecutors and cops.

But now Seattle’s ne’re-do-wells will face a jail cell if they flaunt the law.

For four years, cops in Seattle weren’t allowed to book anyone arrested for low-level misdemeanors into jail. Getty Images

The move is a win for local law enforcement, which has long pushed for more tools to fight a four-year crime wave that has continued since the pandemic — despite crime in nearly every other major city declining, an analysis by the Seattle Times showed.

“We’ve had people tell us, ‘You can’t arrest me for that.’ Well, that was true but now we can. We’re hoping to get a little bit of accountability back,” the Times quoted Deputy Police Chief Eric Barden as saying.

Maybe when there’s a lot of that accountability back, the plexiglass cases will come down – but I suspect they’re going to be there for quite a while longer.