OPEN THREAD: Ring out the weekend.
Author Archive: Glenn Reynolds
December 21, 2025
LAW IN THE AGE OF AI: Duty to Alert Court to Opponents’ “Fictitious Citation[s]” and “Misrepresentation of Case Law.” “To be sure, lawyers often need no prompting to alert the court to errors by the other side. But sometimes they might feel reluctant to look like they’re piling on with objections, especially when the erroneous citation is on a tangential point, or when they think they’ve already destroyed the other side’s arguments on the merits. And sometimes they might be reluctant to spend their time and the client’s money on putting together a list of errors by the other side (especially when that requires a whole new supplemental filing). These decisions show that, despite that, alerting the court to all the citation errors you found in the other side’s filings may be important to maintaining the court’s confidence and goodwill.”
NOT ADMITTING THE OBVIOUS: BBC Can’t Admit the Obvious. “The Australian Broadcasting Corporation insists that the Bondi Beach terrorist attack had nothing to do with religion. Not to be outdone, the British Broadcasting Corporation says, ‘Hold My Beer,’ and refuses to admit that the Intifada(s) were all about killing Jews.”
ROGER KIMBALL: Reflections on the revolution: an introduction.
ALL THE BEST PEOPLE HAVE TOLD ME THAT IT’S BANNING GUN OWNERSHIP BY PEOPLE WHO DIDN’T DO IT: The Key to Gauging Public Safety is Measuring Time-To-Effective-Resistance. “The people who commit these kinds of mass murders tend, fortunately, to be morons. “Speed, surprise, and violence of action” cuts both ways. They rely on it to get the jump on innocent people, but they are ill-equipped to be on the receiving end.”
TONI AIRAKSINEN: My First Hanukkah as a Jew, and Why Latke Calories Don’t Count. A sweetly personal essay.
K-12 IMPLOSION UPDATE, TEACH-WOMEN-NOT-TO-RAPE EDITION: Sevier County teacher arrested for statutory rape by an authority figure, sexual exploitation of a minor.
STILL A FEW BUGS IN THE SYSTEM: Waymo Suspends Service in SF Amid Blackout, Driverless Cars Basically Give Up.
And block everyone else. “Traffic lights across the city were down, seemingly confusing the driverless cars — and halting them in their tracks. Riders and pedestrians posted videos of Waymos stuck at intersections, long lines of drivers behind them.” Time for a backup plan.
UPDATE: Not entirely surprising:
Tesla Robotaxis were unaffected by the SF power outage https://t.co/uaYlhcSx25
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 21, 2025
REMINDER: After today, the days start getting longer and the nights start getting shorter.
TO BE FAIR, THEY REPORTED IT EXACTLY AS THEY MEANT TO: Matt Taibbi: The Jeffrey Epstein Saga is the Worst-Reported Story of All Time.
IT’S WRONG TO QUESTION THE NARRATIVE:
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 21, 2025
WELL, THEY’RE NOT MEANT TO STOP CRIME THEY’RE MEANT TO WEAKEN AND DEMORALIZE THE PUBLIC: There’s No Evidence Australia’s Strict Gun Control Laws Are Effective.
MORALE AMONG MANY MAGA SUPPORTERS SEEMS LOWER THAN I’D EXPECT GIVEN RECENT DEVELOPMENTS:
This week we found out: the Mar-a-lago raid was not legally executed, Georgia was stolen in the 2020 election, Trump tariffs have not caused inflation, and Bill Clinton was Epstein’s #1 pal
Oh, and the Congressional Dem approval is -55 overall (Quinnipiac)
Merry Christmas!
— Chris Stigall (@ChrisStigall) December 20, 2025
I AGREE:
I could not possibly agree more strongly with this sentiment.
Thank you for saying it, Ma'am. https://t.co/50WTBWBp8B
— Cynical Publius (@CynicalPublius) December 20, 2025
IT WAS A POLITICAL BUBBLE, INFLATED BY (MOSTLY U.S.) TAXPAYER MONEY: The Electric Vehicle Collapse: Wow, That Was Quick!
It was less than three years ago — early 2023 — that I was writing about the then-universal government and industry line that electric vehicles (EVs) would soon be taking over the American car market. In April 2022 the Biden Administration had adopted aggressive vehicle mileage standards intended to be achievable only through rapid transition to EVs. Our “climate leader” states, California and New York, had then adopted regulations in August and September 2022, respectively, mandating a phase-out of sales of combustion vehicles, to culminate in 2035, after which only EVs would be allowed. In a post in January 2023, I linked to the websites of Ford and GM, where they both touted their grand plans for rapid conversion of their companies to the manufacture of mostly or entirely EVs. At that time, Ford was claiming that it would “lead America’s shift to EVs,” and would achieve 50% of its sales in that category by 2030. GM bragged about its “path to an all-electric future” by 2035.
In a post on February 23, 2023, I expressed skepticism.
Well-founded, as it turns out.
WHEN THE OPPOSITION IS TRYING TO ORGANIZE A COUP AGAINST YOU, IT’S IMPORTANT TO PAY THE TROOPS:
I have 3 sons still serving on active duty and they all have received their 1776.00 Warrior Christmas Bonuses
And for the first time since the wars started 20 plus years ago ALL 4 of us are home stateside
Thank you President Trump and Secretary Hegseth https://t.co/vSQ82E4znn
— Tim Hollingsworth (@soldiertim1961) December 19, 2025
December 20, 2025
OPEN THREAD: It’s all you.
FOLLOW THE SCIENCE: A Much-Needed Exposé of Academic Fraud: A new book reveals why academic-publishing incentives must change. “Perhaps the most (in)famous case of research fraud is that of Dutch professor Diederik Stapel, who published many papers on social psychology and was something of a rock star in the academic world—until he was exposed as a fraud. Bazerman writes, apropos of one of his papers, that ‘Stapel was confident his hypothesis was true, but the actual data didn’t support it. So Stapel sat at his kitchen table and began typing numbers into his computer that would produce the intended effect.’ After initially getting away with that, Stapel stopped doing any research at all, merely fabricating data to support his conclusions. When finally exposed, he admitted everything.”