8 views of the sunrise — 7:04 - 7:36.

Write about whatever you like in the comments. And please support the Althouse blog by doing your Amazon shopping going in through the Althouse Amazon link.

"A large reservoir in Pacific Palisades that is part of the Los Angeles water supply system was out of commission when a ferocious wildfire destroyed thousands of homes and other structures nearby..."

"... the Los Angeles Times found," in "State to probe why Pacific Palisades reservoir was offline, empty when firestorm exploded" (L.A. Times).

Officials said that the Santa Ynez Reservoir had been closed since about February for repairs to its cover, leaving a 117-million-gallon water storage complex empty in the heart of the Palisades for nearly a year. The revelation comes amid growing questions about why firefighters ran out of water while battling the blaze, which ignited Tuesday during catastrophically high winds.... 

It's shocking that a man in this mental condition is President of the United States.

I'm reading "Biden Calls Meta’s Ending of Fact-Checking Program ‘Shameful’/Responding to a question from a reporter, the president said he believed Americans 'want to tell the truth'" in the NYT.

You can see from the headline that the NYT is forefronting something he said that seems like something its readers will agree with. I think it's wrong and deceptive — shameful, really. He doesn't seem to understand the "community notes" approach to dealing with misinformation or the bias problem with the fact-checkers. 

But if you keep reading this article about yesterday's press conference, it gets worse and worse.

"[T]here would be clear advantages: to participate in the great drama rather than watching from across the border, to shape the imperium rather than negotiating a position in its shadow."

"If I were a young Canadian, especially one outside the Laurentian heartland, I think I would feel this vision’s pull. And yes, even if I were a young left-leaning anti-Trump Canadian — because what better way to serve those causes than to actually pull Washington leftward, to add your votes to the coalition that just failed to defeat Trump? That’s the reason that it would be somewhat strange for American conservatives to actually welcome Canadian accession at this time — because it would immediately destroy the Republican Party’s political advantage."

Writes Ross Douthat, in "O Canada, Come Join Us" (NYT).

Absurd prank.

I'm reading "State Department Defies Congress, Revives Infamous Censorship Office in Absurd Prank" by Matt Taibbi.

Miracle in the hellish landscape.

A miracle has happened. We managed to get to our property and our home, that we were told is gone forever, is still standing. In this hellish landscape “standing” is relative, but smoke and other damage is not like the utter destruction around us. The view from our deck area: pic.twitter.com/JZU2kTJC52

— James Woods (@RealJamesWoods) January 10, 2025

Mark Zuckerberg talks to Joe Rogan about his dissatisfaction with the "neutered" corporate world.

 

The clip I'm extracting is part of a long discussion of what jujitsu has done for Zuckerberg. He says:

I do think a lot of our society has become very, like, I don't know, I, I don't even know the right word for it, but it's, like, it's kinda, like, neutered or, like, emasculated and.. there's, like, a whole energy in [jujitsu] that I, I think it's, it is very healthy in the right balance. I mean, I think part of the reason, I mean, every one of the things that I enjoy about it is I feel like I can just like express myself.... It's like when you're running a company, people typically don't want to see you being like this ruthless person who's like, just like, I'm just gonna like crush the people I'm competing with.... I think in some ways when people see me competing in the sport, they're like, oh no, that's the real Mark.... It's like, that's the real one.... I think a lot of the corporate world is, is like pretty culturally neutered. And... I grew up, I have three sisters, no brothers, I have three daughters, no sons. So I'm like surrounded by girls and women like my, my whole life....

He masculinized himself through martial arts — or so he says to Joe Rogan. Later, they will discuss hunting... with bows and arrows. Zuck exults in his discovery of masculinity: 

So I think, I don't know, there's, there's something, the the, the kind of masculine energy I think is, is good....

Masculinity is good. There. He's said it. But he must hedge: 

And obviously, You know, society has plenty of that, but, but I think corporate culture was really like trying to get away from it. And I do think that there's just something, it's like, I don't know, the, these, all these forms of energy are good. And I think having a culture that like celebrates the aggression a bit more has its own merits that are really positive.

That goes on my list of things he may have discussed with Trump. Absurdly, this song played in my head:

Back to Zuck:

And that's, that has been, that has been a kind of a positive experience for me. Just like having a thing that I can just like do with my guy friends and... it's just like, we just like beat each other a bit. I dunno. It's, it's good....

Fight Club! 

And then, no surprise, Zuckerberg must acknowledge the women who have called for a reshaping corporate culture. He switches into a neutered version of himself and says what every non-jujitsu fiber of his being knows he must say:

It's, I like, I do think that I, if you're a a woman going into a company, it probably feels like it's too masculine. And it's like there isn't enough of the kind of the energy that that, that you may naturally have. And it probably feels like there are all these things that are set up that are biased against you. And that's not good either, because you want, you want women to be able to succeed and and, like, have companies that can unlock all the value from having great people no matter, you know, what their background or gender, you know.

Having mouthed the article of faith — women have a rightful place in corporations and corporations work better when they give women what is owed — Zuckerberg critiques the excesses of feminism:

But, but I think these things can all always go a little far. And I think it's one thing to say we want to be kind of like welcoming and make a good environment for everyone. And I think it's another to basically say that masculinity is bad. And I, I just think we kind of swung culturally to that part of the, the kind of the spectrum where, you know, it's all like, okay, masculinity is toxic. We have to like get rid of it completely. It's, like, no, like it's, both of these things are good, right? It's like you want, like, feminine energy, you want masculine energy. Like I, I think that that's like you're gonna have parts of society that have more of one or the other. I think that that's all good. But, but I do think the corporate culture sort of had swung towards being this somewhat more neutered thing. And I didn't really feel that until I got involved in martial arts, which I think is still a more, much more masculine culture....

Is Zuckerberg truly masculine? He longs for masculinity, but it's a longing that seems to arise from a feeling that there is too much femininity and that femininity is enervating. There's something strange — something Californian — about all this discussion of "energy" and something sad about feeling "surrounded by girls and women like my whole life" and seeking a cure in a fight club. Zuckerberg does have a father — and he seems like a fine man who was entirely present in the family. Maybe Zuckerberg is doing a performance for Joe Rogan (and for Trump). But all that jujitsu training sounds like a lot of work. I'll assume for now that his search for masculinity is sincere. And quite aside from his physique and his psyche, his thoughts on gender energy in the corporate world matter. Some of us might think the workplace should be gender neutral — just treat everyone as an individual! — but he seems to have some woo-woo ideas about the balance of masculine and feminine energy. 

Sunrise with new snow — 7:13, 7:23.

Mine were the first footprints:

Snow on the lake:

Write about whatever you like in the comments. And please support the Althouse blog by doing your Amazon shopping going in through the Althouse Amazon link.

"Two's a Crowd" — a New Yorker cover by Barry Blitt.

Nicely conceived and drawn.

The expressions are great — especially that one eye of Trump's.

"It felt like such an invasion — such a bizarre, rape of some kind. Nothing pointed toward this need to be tighter or smaller or firmer or younger, especially there."

Said Brooke Shields, quoted in "Brooke Shields Received a Vaginal Rejuvenation Without Consent" (NY Magazine).

The revelation comes on the occasion of a new memoir — called "Brooke Shields Is Not Allowed to Get Old: Thoughts on Aging as a Woman." Shields is 59 years old, and the surgery happened when she was in her 40s and sought labia reduction surgery. We're told that afterwards the surgeon told her he "threw in a little bonus." Shields chose not to sue at the time and is choosing to work through what she calls "shame" by writing about it.

"Yes, they spent 4 years in the governor's mansion and 4 years at the White House, but the other 92 years, they spent at home in Plains, Georgia."

"And one of the best ways to demonstrate that they're regular folks is to take them by that home. First of all, it looks like they might have built it themselves. Second of all, my grandfather was likely to show up at the door in some 70s short shorts and crocs. And then you'd walk in the house and it was like thousands of other grandparents' house all across the South. Fishing trophies on the walls. The refrigerator, of course, was papered with pictures of grandchildren and then great grandchildren. Their main phone, of course, had a cord and was stuck to the wall in the kitchen like a museum piece. And demonstrating their Depression Era roots, they had a little rack next to the sink where they would hang Ziploc bags to dry...."

The Trump sentencing is in progress, with Trump participating remotely.

Here's a free-access link to the NYT live-blog of the sentencing.

Trump is alternating staring at the camera and glancing down as [the prosecutor Josh] Steinglass... says that the American public has the right to a presidency unencumbered by the continuing demands of any alternative sentence. But, Steinglass says, it’s important that Trump’s status as a felon be formalized, to pay due respect to the jury’s verdict....

Todd Blanche, Trump's lawyer... blasts the very legitimacy of the case. He says that it was “started for what amounted to a third time” after Trump announced his intention to run for re-election, repeating Trump’s frequent accusations of election interference....

Trump begins speaking. “This has been a very terrible experience. I think it’s been a tremendous setback” for New York and its court system, he says.... Trump says that people in the country got to see the case “first-hand” and then he won [the election].... Trump again complains about the gag order that he’s been under. “I assume I’m still under a gag order,” Trump says. Then he adds, “But the fact is, I’m totally innocent.”...

“I was treated very, very unfairly, and I thank you very much,” Trump concludes.

UPDATE: "Justice Merchan, as expected, sentences Trump to an unconditional discharge. He wishes Trump 'Godspeed' as he prepares to assume his second term in office. The judge leaves the bench."

Live argument in the TikTok case is about to begin.

You can stream it here.

LII has a good, easy-to-read summary of the arguments here. 

ADDED: The NYT live blogged it, here, wherethe headline is now: "Supreme Court Seems Poised to Uphold Law That Could Shut Down TikTok" (free access link). From the conclusion:

Even as several justices expressed concerns that the law was in tension with the First Amendment, a majority appeared satisfied that it was aimed at TikTok’s ownership rather than its speech.

The government offered two rationales for the law: combating covert disinformation from China and barring it from harvesting private information from Americans. The court was divided over whether the first justification was sufficient to justify it. But several justices seemed troubled by the possibility that China could use data culled from the app for espionage or blackmail....

Arguing on behalf of the government: Elizabeth B. Prelogar, the solicitor general, countered that the act does not violate the First Amendment. “All of the same speech that’s happening on TikTok could happen post-divestiture,” she said, adding, “All the act is doing is trying to surgically remove the ability of foreign adversary nation to get our data and to be able to exercise control over the platform.” ...

"I was doing the Rogan podcast and I was kind of ill at ease while we were talking because I knew my neighborhood was on fire."

"So I thought, I wonder if my place is still there. When I got home, sure enough, it wasn't there ... The vehicles were gone, everything. It was completely toasted. I've never seen such a complete burn. It's like someone did it on purpose to really destroy every aspect of it."

Said Mel Gibson...

NEW – Mel Gibson's Malibu Mansion Burned Down While He Was Filming Joe Rogan's Podcast

"I was doing the Rogan podcast and I was kind of ill at ease while we were talking because I knew my neighborhood was on fire. So I thought, I wonder if my place is still there. When I got… pic.twitter.com/TvknivxywB

— Chief Nerd (@TheChiefNerd) January 10, 2025

... who did look oddly nervous on Joe Rogan...

Reflecting on his losses — in that first clip — he said it was all his "stuff — remember George Carlin, talking about his stuff?"

Mel: "I've been relieved of the burden of my stuff."

"The Supreme Court’s rejection... of President-elect Donald J. Trump’s request to be spared from being sentenced... was just a few lines long, and it made modest and practical points...."

Writes Adam Liptak, in "A Rebuke to Trump Provides a Telling Portrait of a Divided Supreme Court/Two Republican appointees, Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Barrett, joined the court’s three liberals in ordering the president-elect to face sentencing on Friday" (NYT).

If the votes of the three liberal justices were predictable, those of the two conservative members of the court who voted with them on Thursday — Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justice Amy Coney Barrett — were more surprising.

The chief justice was the author of not only the immunity decision but also of majority opinions in two other victories for Mr. Trump last term, one casting doubt on some of the federal charges against him and the other allowing him to seek another term despite
a constitutional provision barring insurrectionists from holding office.

His vote on Thursday was of a piece with the old Chief Justice Roberts.... 

Mr. Trump, for his part, has been a longtime critic of the chief justice. After the Affordable Care Act ruling, Mr. Trump wrote on Twitter that “I guess @JusticeRoberts wanted to be a part of Georgetown society more than anyone knew,” citing a fake handle. During his first presidential campaign, Mr. Trump called the chief justice “an absolute disaster.”...

“I’m not happy with the Supreme Court,” he said on Jan. 6, 2021, during his speech near the White House. “They love to rule against me.”...

And Trump loves to win. He fights for every win — fight, fight, fight — even when the arguments are weak. But he's better off losing some of the time. It shows that the Supreme Court acts independently of him and undercuts those who'd like to say the Court is in his pocket. So this is one of his losses. He can handle losses. He's quite good at doing that. It leveraged his re-election.

"Toys are a scam."

It's a great headline: "Toys are a scam. Kids keep asking for them. We keep buying them. And no one is playing with them" (WaPo).

But to say "toys are a scam" is to blame the manufacturers and sellers of toys. They're out to trick parents into buying things that are not needed and might be actively bad. But this puts the blame/"blame" with the parents:

Suzanne Gaskins, a cultural developmental psychologist, says it’s only in the past 50 years that we’ve started accumulating piles of toys. As she compared families in America with those in other societies, a couple of observations stood out. One is that our kids are less engaged in the adult world — regularly helping prepare food, say, or care for a household — and more focused on the kid-centric universe we’ve constructed to “maximize their development.” 

“The first goal for American parents is to let their kids be happy,” Gaskins says. “And not just happy in a contented sense, but happy in an active, almost hysterically happy sense.” 

For Mayan parents, by contrast, the “primary goal is that the kid is even-keeled — not particularly happy, not particularly sad.” 

Hysterically happy — that's something that can only persist for a moment, perhaps on Christmas morning. But one must revert to feeling normal. The keel will even. Imagine if your kids stayed Christmas-happy for months — gaga over new toys for days on end. You wouldn't think, great, they are maximizing their development.

The lakeshore at noon.

Write about whatever you like in the comments. And please support the Althouse blog by doing your Amazon shopping going in through the Althouse Amazon link.

"At former president Jimmy Carter’s funeral... Melania Trump... opted... for... an extra-wide, pilgrim-esque collar printed with images of a Renaissance sculpture of a kissing couple...."

"Melania doesn’t usually bake big ideas into her fashion choices...  The one time Melania tried to send a message with her outfit — you know, when she wore that 'I Really Don’t Care, Do U?' jacket to visit a migrant children’s shelter — it backfired. In her 2024 memoir, she wrote that her jacket’s message was intended as a kiss-off to the media, not the migrant children.... Was this funeral ensemble a not-so-subtle statement about the importance of love and unity in a divided nation? Given her stilted body language as her husband giggled with Barack Obama, probably not. (No one gives off an air of 'I’d rather be anywhere else' like Melania.)..."

From "What’s Up With Melania’s Collar?" (New York Magazine).

What does it mean? Obviously, it's an expression of a desire for love. But NY Magazine doesn't want to give her that — not to credit her with desiring love for the world and certainly not to fulfill any desire she might have to receive love. She will get no love from New York Magazine, where she will always be seen as icy, even if she is wearing a photograph of kissing lovers around her neck. 

Held together with nothing but clothespins and hairspray.

David Muir, the supposed moderator of my father‘s presidential debate, who instead chose to be a participant, is so vain that as people in Los Angeles are losing everything, he used clothes pins to make his fake fireman’s jacket more form fitting.
Sick! pic.twitter.com/0jXW4OPfkq

— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) January 9, 2025

Gavin Newsom literally lies to a woman about the fires, and we can literally see that it is a lie.

WOMAN: "Governor!... I live here! That was my daughter's school! Please, tell me what you're going to do!"

NEWSOM: "I'm literally talking to the President to specifically answer the question of what we can do...."

WOMAN: "Can I hear? Can I hear your call? Because I don't believe it."

NEWSOM (showing her his phone): "Um, I'm sorry. There's literally — I've tried 5 times. I'm walking around to make the call."

WOW. This woman literally ran up to Gavin Newsom on the street and demanded answers on his disastrous wildfires response — and she was NOT taking no for an answer. Good for her. pic.twitter.com/GNjUATtKXt

— Jake Schneider (@jacobkschneider) January 9, 2025

The funeral for President Jimmy Carter.

The NYT is live-blogging the service at the National Cathedral, here. Excerpts:

It is unusual for five living presidents to be together in one place. Before 1991, there was only one other period in United States history, around 1861, when more than five presidents were even alive at the same time....

President-elect Trump has been talking almost nonstop to former President Barack Obama since the two sat down next to each other a few minutes ago. The conversation seems to be mostly one sided, with Obama listening and responding with shorter answers.

Joe and Jill Biden have arrived and taken their seats in the front row next to the vice president and Doug Emhoff.

While the cathedral is largely full, the congressional section has a lot of empty seats.

ADDED: There are 5 living Presidents and the oldest is the current President!

AND: We've all been trying to frame this joke:

Former President Barack Obama casually and amiably chats with Adolf Hitler as the latter is set to assume power in 11 days, end American democracy, and impose a white nationalist dictatorship. https://t.co/4tbj46yVk8

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) January 9, 2025

PLUS: There is nothing to be sad about here and there is no need to forbid humor.

ALSO: The only missing spouse of a President is Michelle Obama. Fortunately, Town & Country has the explanation: 

According to journalist Jeff Zeleny, speaking on CNN, she had scheduling conflicts. "I'm told by her advisors that she has scheduling conflicts," Zeleney said on the network's broadcast of the funeral. "She's still in Hawaii," he added.

She was scheduled to be in Hawaii! The last time I saw "scheduling conflicts" used as an excuse, it was Kamala Harris explaining why she wasn't going to do the Joe Rogan podcast. 

"So I’m like, Okay, what do we take? I have a curio cabinet of memories, and I just emptied all of that into a laundry basket.... I took all the ashes — my dad, my mom, my dogs, my best friend Ed."

"And I went through some of my expensive suits and grabbed those and the shoes because I work, and I grabbed my laptop and my Wyland watercolor. That’s about all that could fit in the car...."

Said Marika Erdley, who had to evacuate, quoted in "Watching Your House Burn on a Ring Camera" (New York Magazine).

The article concentrates on the experience of... well, the headline says it: watching your house burn on a Ring camera.

But I was struck by the strange and poetic decision to save ashes from a fire. First, why are you saving all those ashes: dad, mom, dogs, Ed. Was there no plan to disperse them... eventually...? The ocean is right there.

But here is a fire, come to claim its own — ashes. Wouldn't you see it as fitting that the fire consume the ashes as it reduces everything that was yours, that was not yet ash, to ashes? Ashes to ashes.

Everything that was yours... except what you grabbed in a rush to find meaning in your things. The expensive suits. The Wyland watercolor. Wondering what really matters, you are in Why Land. Why are Dad and Mom gone? Why the dogs? Why Ed? But take the shoes and those suits because — crazy as it all feels — you're still thinking about going back into work.

"But is Zuckerberg’s claim that 'fact-checkers have just been too politically biased' correct?"

Asks Nate Silver, at Silver Bulletin:

In my view, it’s at least pointing in the right direction, in line with my Indigo Blob theory about how the lines between nonpartisan institutions and partisan actors have become blurred. In the B.T. days — Before Trump — journalists who were appointed (or who appointed themselves) as fact-checkers tended to be experienced generalists with a scrupulous reputation for nonpartisanship — a sharp contrast to edgier and less experienced journalists in the Trump era who would later claim to own the disinformation beat. Perhaps because demand for fact-checking was coming overwhelmingly from the left... the journalists who selected into the subfield tended to be especially left of center.... 

"The iconic Sunset Boulevard has been left as a mishmash of charred buildings and devastation by the Palisades fire."

"Once the fire receded from the fabled thoroughfare, locals described seeing banks, such as the historic Bank of America building, cafes and supermarkets levelled by the blaze. 'The whole Palisades is done,' Michael Payton, store director of the Erewhon supermarket chain, told the LA Times. “The whole town is done. This is complete devastation.' Residents of the Palisades have gathered at police blockades begging to be let to assess the damage to their homes, according to the paper...."

From "LA fires live: five dead in California as satellite captures destruction/Flames tear through homes and buildings in the Pacific Palisades and surrounding counties — as Sunset Boulevard is destroyed" (London Times).

"You know in Los Angeles, you can't get proper amounts of water... In order to protect a tiny little fish, the water up north gets routed into the Pacific Ocean."

"Donald Trump was mocked for sounding the alarm on the California water/fire crisis during his interview with Joe Rogan. Turns out, he was right. Trump spent nearly 7 minutes ranting about the issue, blasting Newsom for doing nothing to fix the problem."

Tweets Collin Rugg.

An excerpt from Trump's rant about the water: "Millions and millions of gallons of water gets poured [into the Pacific].... I got it all done. Nobody could believe it. It was all done. I said, I got it. You got so much water. All you have to do is sign, and [Newsom] didn't wanna sign.... Every time I go to California, I say you have so much water. They don't know it... I'm telling you, people living in Beverly Hills, they turn off the water...."

Donald Trump was mocked for sounding the alarm on the California water/fire crisis during his interview with Joe Rogan.

Turns out, he was right.

Trump spent nearly 7 minutes ranting about the issue, blasting Newsom for doing nothing to fix the problem.

Trump specifically… pic.twitter.com/zSls82byPo

— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) January 8, 2025

ADDED: The Trump episode of Joe Rogan went up on October 25, 2024, and if you go here, at Podscribe, you'll be at the beginning of Trump's L.A. water rant, with both audio and transcript. I'll do my own edit of the text:

Has Zuckerberg gone MAGA? NYT tech columnist Kevin Roose has 2 theories — either he's hollow or this is for real.

I'm reading "What’s Behind Meta’s MAGA Makeover? Mark Zuckerberg is positioning his company for a second Trump term — and revealing the hollow identity at its core."

The headline writer has committed to Theory #1, but Roose outlines 2 different theories: 

Theory #1: Zuck is a grasping semi-human:

... Meta — a shape-shifting company that has thrown itself at every major tech trend of the last decade... has a fundamental hollowness at its core. It is not quite sure what it is.... But in the meantime, it will adopt whatever values Mr. Zuckerberg thinks it needs to survive

Theory #2: Zuck's heart has come alive:

I’ve spent a lot of time studying the right-wing conversion narratives of disaffected liberals, and Mr. Zuckerberg’s recent arc fills the bill surprisingly well: A wealthy 40-year-old man with a sullied public reputation starts listening to Joe Rogan and develops an interest in mixed martial arts and other hypermasculine hobbies, grows annoyed by the woke left and angry at the mainstream media, rebrands himself as a bad boy, and adopts the label of a “classical liberal” while quietly supporting most of the tenets of MAGA conservatism....

The boldface headings are mine. I'd like to think that was obvious, but I know some readers don't even realize that indented material is quotation.

Now, let me take your pulse:

What has happened to Zuckerberg? Pick the more likely option. I'm deliberately excluding a subtler option.

He's hollow and will go wherever the money is

He's responding to the call of MAGA, like lots of other men

 

pollcode.com free polls

Sunrise — 7:10 to 7:24.

Write about whatever you like in the comments. And please support the Althouse blog by doing your Amazon shopping going in through the Althouse Amazon link.

Biden tried to make it clear to Trump that there was no need for him "go back and try to settle scores."

From Joe Biden's interview with Susan Page of USA Today:

PAGE: Some of your supporters have encouraged you to issue preemptive pardons to people like Liz Cheney and Anthony Fauci, who Trump has threatened to target. Will you do that?

BIDEN: ... I was very straightforward with Trump when he got elected.... I tried to make it clear that there was no need, and it was counterintuitive for his interest to go back and try to settle scores.

PAGE: And did he give you an answer on what he was going to do?

BIDEN: Well, he didn't. But he didn't say, "No, I'm going to..." You know. He didn't reinforce it. He just basically listened....

So Biden failed to extract anything from Trump, and Trump was poker faced.

"I am very sorry. I didn’t mean to. But I really don’t know. I don’t know what happened, but I’m very sorry for that woman."

Said Sebastian Zapeta-Calil, 33, quoted in "Man Charged in Subway Burning Says He Was Drunk and Remembers Nothing/Sebastian Zapeta-Calil, confronted with video of the immolation of Debrina Kawam, told detectives he was blackout drunk at the time. He pleaded not guilty to murder on Tuesday" (NYT).

“Sometimes when I drink and erase the memory and I don’t know,” he told investigators. “When I wake up, I’m already in the house, already sleeping. I wake up when I’m already at home. Or there are times when I wake up and I’m already at the train station.”...

As his interrogation wound down later that day, investigators at the 60th Precinct station house in Brooklyn showed him the grisly video of Ms. Kawam’s death. They asked him: Did he recognize the man setting her on fire?

“Oh, damn,” Mr. Zapeta-Calil replied. “That’s me.”

Zapeta-Calil was in the country illegally and housed in a shelter. He'd been deported in 2018.

"If the Supreme Court grants a stay of Mr. Trump’s sentencing, it might effectively scuttle the proceeding for good."

"The window to sentence Mr. Trump is rapidly closing — once he returns to the White House, Mr. Trump cannot face criminal prosecution — and he would be 82 after his second term concludes. It is unclear whether the judge overseeing the case, Justice Juan M. Merchan, would still seek to impose Mr. Trump’s sentence four years later. For now, Mr. Trump’s odds of success at the Supreme Court are unclear. It takes five justices to grant a stay. While some legal experts doubted the merits of his petition, the justices have come to his rescue before. The Supreme Court’s immunity ruling last year effectively thwarted a federal criminal case against Mr. Trump for his effort to subvert the 2020 election results...."

From "Trump Asks Supreme Court to Halt His Sentencing in N.Y. Criminal Case Prosecutors have been ordered to respond to the president-elect’s request by Thursday morning, suggesting the court could rule before Friday’s scheduled sentencing" (NYT).

Was the Louisiana Purchase bonkers?

Then, as if that wasn’t enough, Fetterman took a flamethrower to the Democratic Party’s “freak-outs” over Trump’s interest in Greenland. Comparing it to historic deals like the Louisiana Purchase and the acquisition of Alaska, Fetterman dismissed the hysteria.

“If anyone thinks… pic.twitter.com/B6I6fK1HZw

— The Vigilant Fox 🦊 (@VigilantFox) January 8, 2025

"This shows how Mark Zuckerberg is feeling that society is more accepting of those libertarian and right-leaning viewpoints that he’s always had. This is an evolved return to his political origins."

Said Katie Harbath, "chief executive of Anchor Change, a tech consulting firm, who previously worked at Facebook."

Quoted in "Mark Zuckerberg’s Political Evolution, From Apologies to No More Apologies/Meta’s chief executive has stepped away from his mea culpa approach to issues on his platforms and has told people that he wants to return to his original thinking on free speech" (NYT).

Mr. Zuckerberg has long been a pragmatist who has gone where the political winds have blown. He has flip-flopped on how much political content should be shown to Facebook and Instagram users, previously saying social networks should be about fun, relatable content from family and friends but then on Tuesday saying Meta would show more personalized political content.... 

Mr. Zuckerberg was never comfortable with the involvement of outside fact-checkers, academics or researchers in his company, one of the executives said. He now sees many of the steps taken after the 2016 election as a mistake... two executives said.... Those who have known Mr. Zuckerberg for decades describe him as a natural libertarian, who enjoyed reading books extolling free expression and the free market system after he dropped out of Harvard to start Facebook in 2004....

I'd like to think that the idea of freedom of speech won out in the marketplace of ideas, but I can understand how the speech controllers gravitate toward the idea that Zuckerberg was always a right-winger and he's just regressing after faking aspirations to higher values. 

Respect for the recently deceased Jimmy Carter outweighed by unquenchable need to disparage Trump.

At The Daily Beast:

When a President dies, do we not review all of his work, the good and the bad? And at what point is the mentioning of the bad considered "hammering"?

“Nobody wants to talk about the Panama Canal now,” he said. “It’s inappropriate, I guess, because it’s a bad part of the Carter legacy.”

The president-elect offered some measured praise for the 39th president, calling him “a good man” and “a very fine person.” Not to let his point be forgotten, however, Trump reminded again that “giving the Panama Canal to Panama was a very big mistake.”...

Is that hammering? To speak of hammering before the body is in the ground creates a violent mental image. I find that disrespectful.

Counting blessings, running short.

10 hours ago:

We were blessed to have LA fire and police depts doing their jobs so well. We are safe and out. There are several elementary schools in our neighborhood and there was an enormous community effort to evacuate the children safely. Can not speak more highly of the LA fire and LAPD. pic.twitter.com/bdsSJmvQel

— James Woods (@RealJamesWoods) January 7, 2025

 

13 minutes ago:

Priorities stated in her bio below.

Refilling the water reservoirs would have been a welcome priority, too, but I guess she had too much on her plate promoting diversity. pic.twitter.com/7GXgBR3RO2

— James Woods (@RealJamesWoods) January 8, 2025

10 views of the sunrise — from 6:54 to 7:35.

Write about whatever you like in the comments. And please support the Althouse blog by doing your Amazon shopping going in through the Althouse Amazon link.

"The government has assured tourists that Afghanistan is safe, scenic, welcoming — and a bargain to boot."

I'm reading "Ignoring Warnings, a Growing Band of Tourists Venture to Afghanistan/With the war now over, the Taliban are welcoming foreign travelers, even as governments advise their citizens to stay away" (NYT).

Taliban officials said they relied on tourists, especially bloggers and YouTubers, to extol the virtues of visiting Afghanistan... A small percentage of foreign visitors are women, tourism officials said... They are not required to wear burqas or cover their faces.... Male tourists, too, are expected to dress modestly, but they do not face the same intense scrutiny as women....

[When] Allen Ruppel, 63, a retired insurance company executive from Wisconsin... told his wife where he was going, he said, she joked that “I can’t stop you, but I might get an Afghan hound to replace you.” Mr. Ruppel, who wore a blue shalwar kameez, said he was surprised by how warmly he had been received by Afghans and by how safe the country seemed. He said he would encourage his friends to “open your minds and take a fresh look at Afghanistan.”

There's a photo captioned: "A Chinese visitor from a tour group in front of the remains of the 1,600-year-old Buddhas destroyed by the Taliban in 2001 in Bamiyan." Imagine posing in the empty niche of a colossus and posting on Instagram. I met a traveler from an antique land....

Judge Merchan and Judge Cannon respond to Trump requests.

Merchan says no: "N.Y. judge denies Trump effort to block sentencing in hush money case/Lawyers for Donald Trump asked a New York judge to stop Trump’s sentencing scheduled for Friday on his convictions for falsifying business documents" (WaPo).

Cannon says yes: "Cannon temporarily blocks report on Trump classified-documents probe/Two Trump employees charged alongside him in the classified documents case separately asked Judge Aileen Cannon to block the release" (WaPo).

"He saw his reputation tarnished when he pleaded guilty to a morals charge involving a minor."

A sad subheadline to the headline that, otherwise would have elicited a fond goodbye: "Peter Yarrow, troubadour of Peter, Paul and Mary folk trio, dies at 86" (WaPo).

Let's go back to simpler times, 1965:

ADDED: From Wikipedia:

A Trump news conference is going on now... a lot going on.

I'm reading the NYT live updating. Excerpt:

"Anyone with money can live abroad. It’s a sort of an extended holiday. The true test of an expatriate is holding down a job, learning a language, paying taxes..."

"... passing a local driving test, negotiating the culture, truckling to unbudgeable authority and now and then enduring the gibes of co-workers. I was conspicuous in Africa as a muzungu and as an ang-mo-kui (red-haired devil) in Singapore, and very often an English person would begin a sentence, 'Well, you Yanks….' There is also an existential, parasitical, rootless quality to being an expatriate, which can be dizzying: You are both somebody and nobody, often merely a spectator. I always felt in my bones that wherever I went, I was an alien. That I could not presume or expect much hospitality, that I had nothing to offer except a willingness to listen, that wherever I was, I had no business there and had to justify my intrusion by writing about what I heard. Most travel, and a lot of expatriate life, can be filed under the heading 'Trespassing.'..."

Writes Paul Theroux, in "The Hard Reality American Expats Quickly Learn" (NYT). And that's a free-access link, which I'm giving you because I love Theroux's book "The Mosquito Coast," and the book is connected to the topic under discussion, as he explains. Also there's a great Mark Twain quote and a pretty decent JFK quote. So, please read the whole thing.

"It’s time to get back to our roots around free expression... We're going to get rid of fact-checkers and replace them with community notes, similar to X."

"The fact-checkers have just been too politically biased and have destroyed more trust than they've created, especially in the U.S...."

Mark Zuckerberg explains in this video posted today:

"What started as a movement to be more inclusive has increasingly been used to shut down opinions and shut out people with differing ideas...."

ADDED: Meta is moving its "trust and safety" and "content moderations" teams out of California and into Texas, where there is "less concern about [their] bias."

AND: Zuckerberg says his company needs to ally with the U.S. government in order to be able to fight the censorship that is coming from foreign governments. It's been "difficult over the past 4 years," because "even the U.S. government has pushed for censorship." "By going after us and other American companies, it has emboldened other governments to go even further. But now, we have the opportunity to restore free expression and I am excited to take it."

This is great! I hope it goes well. I wish I new more about how much of this emerged from recent hobnobbing with Musk and Trump at Mar-a-Lago, but I can see Zuckerberg is smart not to talk about that. His criticism of the Biden administration and response to Trump is plain enough. 

ALSO: Here's how the NYT sums it up:

"The Pentagon carried out the secret operation in the early hours of Monday..."

"... days before Guantánamo’s most notorious prisoner, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, was scheduled to plead guilty to plotting the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people in exchange for a life sentence rather than face a death-penalty trial. The handoff had been in the works for about three years. An initial plan to conduct the transfer in October 2023 was derailed by opposition from Congress. The 11 who were released included Moath al-Alwi, a former long-term hunger striker who gained attention in the art world for building model boats from objects found at the Guantánamo prison; Abdulsalam al-Hela, whose testimony was sought by defense lawyers in the U.S.S. Cole case; and Hassan Bin Attash, the younger brother of a defendant in the Sept. 11 conspiracy case...."

From "U.S. Sends 11 Guantánamo Prisoners to Oman to Start New Lives/The secret mission left the smallest number of prisoners at Guantánamo Bay since the day the detention center opened in 2002" (NYT).

Sunrise — 7:18, 7:24.

"Every bone in my body has always told me to fight because I care deeply about Canadians."

Said Justin Trudeau, quoted in "Canada Live Updates: Trudeau Is Stepping Down as Party Leader and Prime Minister/Justin Trudeau, who has led the country for nearly a decade, is giving up leadership of the Liberal party. He said he would remain in both roles until his replacement has been chosen through a party election" (NYT).

Listen to the Dalai Lama giggle at the idea of open immigration.

An Indlan reporter is given the opportunity to interview the Dalai Lama about a number of things, but chooses to focus on lmmlgratlon to The West and asks...

Reporter: People from Afghanistan or Africa who want to stay in Europe, shouldn't they be allowed to?

Lama: No, Europe… pic.twitter.com/sNE0nVAlHr

— Dane (@UltraDane) January 5, 2025

People from Afghanistan or Africa who want to stay in Europe, shouldn't they be allowed to? No, Europe will become like Afghanistan or Africa... he he he he he. Like my parents came to The UK from India, that's ok too isn't it? England is small island, 90% become lndian he he he he he he....

The interview is from 2019.

It's funny because the Dalai Lama is world-famous as an icon of compassion, and the idea he's openly experiencing as too silly to deserve anything more than giggling is an idea that we in blue America have been made to feel that we must embrace with great seriousness or we will become social pariahs because of our complete lack of compassion.

I hope you met your 3-drink minimum at breakfast this morning.

How to assemble and consume breakfast:

"'There is, technically, no snail darter,' said Thomas Near, curator of ichthyology at the Yale Peabody Museum."

"Dr. Near, also a professor who leads a fish biology lab at Yale, and his colleagues report in the journal Current Biology that the snail darter, Percina tanasi, is neither a distinct species nor a subspecies. Rather, it is an eastern population of Percina uranidea, known also as the stargazing darter, which is not considered endangered. Dr. Near contends that early researchers 'squinted their eyes a bit' when describing the fish, because it represented a way to fight the Tennessee Valley Authority’s plan to build the Tellico Dam on the Little Tennessee River, about 20 miles southwest of Knoxville. 'I feel it was the first and probably the most famous example of what I would call the "conservation species concept," where people are going to decide a species should be distinct because it will have a downstream conservation implication,' Dr. Near said."

From "This Tiny Fish’s Mistaken Identity Halted a Dam’s Construction/Scientists say the snail darter, whose endangered species status delayed the building of a dam in Tennessee in the 1970s, is a genetic match of a different fish" (NYT).

When else have scientists "squinted their eyes a bit" to see a way to achieve a result they desired? When have they not? Who can ever feel secure that we know whether the "snail darter" is something specific or just another stargazer?

Is Donald Trump today the same guy that Clay Aiken knew in 2012?

Clay Aiken, the erstwhile "American Idol" and "Apprentice" contestant, is impressively articulate and diplomatic expounding on Trump's personality (on the Zach Sang Show):

 

"I do believe that the reason that he was unwilling to accept the results in 2020 are not really because he wanted to continue to be President but simply because he does not want to lose. He does not like to lose. He does not like it. He refuses to accept it. That's why he doesn't apologize for anything. He thinks it's weak...."

Nikki Glaser's Golden Globes monologue.

Great? Good? Okay?

At the End-of-Darkmonth Café...

 ... rejoice in the return of the light.

This is the evening of the last day of the darkest monthlong stretch of the year. You might notice that night is falling more slowly. It's almost 5 here, and it's not fully dark yet.

Tomorrow is a day some of us call the anniversary of one of the worst days in American history and some of us — with a longer time frame — call Epiphany.

However you view the Eve of January 6th, you may take this post as a place to talk about whatever it is you're thinking about.

"Leader Schumer, what do you say to Americans who feel as though you and other top Democrats misled them about President Biden's mental acuity?"

Chuck Schumer is confronted on NBC for covering up Biden's mental health decline.

Never forget: The Democratic Party knew that Biden wasn't competent enough to be president and hid the truth from Americans for four years.

Democrats do not care about Americans. It's that simple. pic.twitter.com/4sJbzMPi4C

— Kyle Becker (@kylenabecker) January 5, 2025

"No. Look, we didn't. And let's – let’s look – let’s look at President Biden. He's had an amazing record. The legislation we passed, one of the most significant groups of legislation since the New Deal – since Lyndon Johnson's Great Society, putting in 235 judges, a record. And he's a patriot. He's a great guy. And when he stepped down, he did it on his own because he thought it was better not only for the Democratic Party, for America. We should all salute him. We should all salute him."

The question was "What do you say to Americans who feel as though" we were lied to. The question was framed to exclude an assertion about what you supposedly really did. But you gave that kind of response anyway — the nonresponsive response. Why'd you do that? It wasn't believable. It was a bald-faced lie about a bald-faced lie. It didn't even address us, the people — people with feelings about what you did. You just went off on a screwy rant that ended with a demand that we salute Joe Biden.

Salute the President? And they say Trump supporters seem like fascists.

ADDED: Here's the transcript. In case you are questioning whether Schumer said "We should all salute him" twice. 

"The two candidates who have emerged as front-runners... are both middle-aged white men from the upper Midwest and chair of their state parties whose politics are well within the Democratic mainstream...."

"[Ken] Martin, 51, is campaigning on a platform of returning power and resources to state parties, while his supporters are attacking [Ben] Wikler, 43, as a tool of major donors and Democratic consultants in Washington. Mr. Wikler’s supporters include a host of D.N.C. officials who have been perturbed at Mr. Martin for creating a group of state party chairs that has competed within the national committee for influence. They say that the Wisconsinite, who turned his state party into a fund-raising juggernaut, is the more dynamic figure who managed to turn state elections... into national causes.... Some Democrats see the D.N.C. contenders’ arguments about relationships with donors and their regular promises of more money for state parties as papering over a broader discussion of why Vice President Kamala Harris lost the election."

"As Democrats Reel, Two Front-Runners Emerge in a Leadership Battle/The race to lead the Democratic National Committee centers on the favorites, Ken Martin and Ben Wikler, but the party’s infighting over them looks nothing like a broad reckoning with its 2024 defeats" (NYT)(free-access link).

Well, Kamala Harris had plenty of money, so she lost for reasons other than money. And yet, if it's pretty obvious why she lost — and isn't it? — then raking in the money may still be more important than any elaborate soul-searching about the dismal loss last November. In any case, what evidence is there that Martin is better than Wikler at figuring out why the Dems lost? Personally, I knew Ben Wikler when he was a teenager, and I think he can do anything. I mean, I knew Ben Wikler when he was a white teenager, and now he's a middle-aged white man, and I tend to think he can do the best that anyone can to revive the Democratic Party.

Tomorrow is January 6th, and we're seeing efforts to frame the occasion.

I'm seeing this at Politico: "Donald Trump’s quiet Jan. 6/Monday’s certification of Trump’s victory will be the antithesis of the carnage at the Capitol four years ago." Oh! The first part of the headline changed while I was in the middle of writing this post. It's now "Donald Trump is about to get the Jan. 6 that he denied Joe Biden." Excerpt:

It’s the utter antithesis of the carnage unleashed four years ago, under clear blue skies, by thousands of Trump supporters, goaded by lies about a stolen election. Hundreds of them bludgeoned police officers guarding the Capitol as the mob fought to stop Congress from counting the electoral votes that would make Joe Biden president.

I asked Grok if that last sentence was factually correct and it said that the "essence" is "supported by substantial evidence" but "the precise quantification of 'hundreds' as attackers specifically 'bludgeoning' officers might be an oversimplification or exaggeration of the exact actions...."

Over at The New York Times, there's: "'A Day of Love’: How Trump Inverted the Violent History of Jan. 6/The president-elect and his allies have spent four years reinventing the Capitol attack — spreading conspiracy theories and weaving a tale of martyrdom to their ultimate political gain." Excerpt:

"Glaser... was still questioning the point of view of a few jokes. She was still going back and forth about the sexual jokes..."

"... counting the number of references to her being horny, feeling there were too many, but now thinking she’s good at them, so it’s the right number. And the 'Wicked' jokes were still fluid. Glaser was adding to things to obsess over. 'Do we have too many jokes about pedophiles?' she wondered. This wasn’t exactly the panic attack she had predicted. But Glaser said she had performed the jokes at clubs so often (91 times before the ceremony) that she could no longer tell if they were funny. How could she? She knew every surprise coming. She likened her relationship with her material to a marriage where she’s not gaga anymore. The jokes have been reliable, sure, but a political one that always kills recently bombed. That rattled her. 'Maybe it bums people out,' she said, sounding confused...."

From "Nikki Glaser Wants to Kill as Host of the Globes. Is She Overthinking It?/ To refine her monologue for Sunday’s show, she relied on two writers’ rooms and 91 test runs. Then came the fickle audiences and a crisis of confidence" (NYT).

Should a standup comedian reveal the inner workings like this? It can't make anything funnier for us, the audience. Eh, but who watches the Golden Globes? I used to, but now, I don't even know how to watch them. And I don't think I've even gone to the movies all year (other than to see that one documentary).

The political joke that always kills recently bombed — hmm. Wonder who that was about?

Do we have too many jokes about pedophiles? Are we suppose to experience that question as funny?

ADDED: I have one other post with the tag "Nikki Glaser," and it may shed some light on what sort of joke she might make about sex criminals. From March 28, 2022:

"The Ford F-150 Lightning pickup truck that a man used to kill at least 14 people Wednesday on Bourbon Street and the Tesla Cybertruck that exploded outside the Trump International Hotel on the same day..."

"... were both rented through the [Turo] car-sharing platform, which allows owners to list their vehicles to drivers.... Turo touts the unique nature of its vehicles as opposed to traditional rental car fleets; the value of its pricing; and the option for a 'personalized experience' that allows users to coordinate with local hosts and skip a 'cold, impersonal' rental car counter...."

From "What is Turo? Car rental app was used in New Orleans, Vegas incidents/The peer-to-peer car-sharing company said it is 'devastated' and working with law enforcement" (WaPo).

Insurance detail: "Customers get liability insurance when they book on Turo, which covers property damage or physical harm to another person if the driver is responsible...." 

Both men chose a truck, but I hadn't noticed until now that the New Orleans terrorist, like the Las Vegas terrorist/"terrorist," chose an electric truck. That isn't an odd choice for someone seeking to cause maximum damage. The electric truck is much heavier. A gas F-150 weighs 4,021 to 5,540 pounds. An F-150 Lightning weighs between 6,015 to 6,893 pounds. That's an extra ton.

(I wondered whether gasoline, like the battery, adds much weight. The weight of the gasoline in a full tank of an F-150 is 139.68 pounds or 218.63 pounds, depending on whether you have the 23 gallon tank or the 36.)

An electric vehicle may have been chosen because of the potential for fire — not that the EV is more likely to catch fire, but the fire is more difficult to extinguish:

IN THE COMMENTS: Two additional features of the electric truck: 1. It is quieter, giving less warning to the victims to clear out of its way, and 2. It accelerates faster, especially from 0. Thanks to Breezy and Narayanan for immediately raising these points.