Boris Johnson: 'Goodbye to the Grimness of 2020' (VIDEO)

At the Independent U.K., "Brexit: Britain leaves EU single market with a whimper rather than a bang as chaos yet to materialise." And at the BBC, "Brexit: What you need to know about the UK leaving the EU."

And the prime minister:

Leftist Lockdown Vacations

Following-up, "Ontario's Finance Minister Tells People to Stay Home for Christmas -- While Hiding the Fact He's Secretly Jetted Off to St. Bart's for Christmas."

And from Ed Driscoll, at Instapundit, "DON SURBER: Fighting to close schools so she can vacation in a covid hotspot."

I honestly could not get this article to come up in a Google search yesterday. Odd that. (*Eye-roll.*)

What Was Great About 2020

I have to admit, it wasn't my best year.

From Ed Driscoll, at Instapuntit, "JEFF JACOBY: What was GREAT about 2020."

The Divide Between Israeli and American Jews

From Caroline Glick, "Pollard and the Great Jewish Divide":

The rift between Israeli and American Jews is palpable almost everywhere you turn today. The most glaring disparity surrounds how they view President Donald Trump. The vast majority of Israelis adore Trump. The vast majority of American Jews despise him.

But Trump isn’t the only thing or even the main thing that separates them. The main issue that separates Israelis from American Jews is the issue of exile. Israelis by and large hold to the traditional Jewish view that all Jewish communities outside of Israel are exile – or diaspora – communities. American Jews, by and large, believe that the exile exists in all Jewish communities outside Israel except in America. This disagreement is existential. It goes to the heart of what it means to be a Jew.

The divide between Israeli and American Jews is more apparent today than it was in the past but it has been around since the dawn of modern Zionism. But if one date marks the point it became an irreversible rift it was November 20, 1985, the day Jonathan Pollard was arrested outside Israel’s embassy in Washington, DC.

From the day of his arrest, Pollard became both the symbol and to a degree, the cause of the divide. That divide was unmistakable on Wednesday morning when the news broke that in the middle of the previous night, Pollard and his wife Esther had landed in Israel.

Israelis celebrated the Pollards’ arrival. Many wept watching the footage of Pollard kiss the ground on the tarmac.

In contrast, American Jews bristled both at the news and the happiness with which Israelis greeted Pollard’s arrival.

One writer angrily wrote on Twitter, “As an American Jew this isn’t a bit exciting. He spied on America. There’s no reason to celebrate this.”

Once Pollard’s parole restrictions were removed in November, it was a foregone conclusion that he would quickly make aliyah. Many Jewish officials in both the Trump administration and previous administrations expressed concern about the upcoming event that resonated with the angry poster on Twitter.

“I really hope you Israelis aren’t going to turn his arrival into a carnival,” one said recently, in a burst of frustration.

What explains their anger and frustration?

Keep reading.

 

Beautiful Alexis Ren

At Celeb Jihad, "Alexis Ren: Beautiful Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Model Shows Off."

Beautiful Demi Rose

At Taxi Driver.

BONUS: "Bella Thorne in a Pink Top."

Russia's 'Info Warrior' Hackers

At WSJ, "How Russia’s ‘Info Warrior’ Hackers Let Kremlin Play Geopolitics on the Cheap":

The sprawling SolarWinds hack by suspected Russian state-backed hackers is the latest sign of Moscow’s growing resolve and improving technical ability to cause disruption and conduct espionage at a global scale in cyberspace.

The hack, which compromised parts of the U.S. government as well as tech companies, a hospital and a university, adds to a string of increasingly sophisticated and ever more brazen online intrusions, demonstrating how cyber operations have become a key plank in Russia’s confrontation with the West, analysts and officials say.

Moscow’s relations with the West continue to sour, and the Kremlin sees the cyber operations as a cheap and effective way to achieve its geopolitical goals, analysts say. Russia, they say, is therefore unlikely to back off from such tactics, even while facing U.S. sanctions or countermeasures.

“For a country that already perceives itself as being in conflict with the West practically in every domain except open military clashes, there is no incentive to leave any field that can offer an advantage,” said Keir Giles, senior consulting fellow at Chatham House think tank.

The scope of Russia’s cyber operations has grown in tandem with Moscow’s global ambitions: from cyberattacks on neighboring Estonia in 2007 to election interference in the U.S. and France a decade later, to SolarWinds, seen as one of the worst known hacks of federal computer systems.

“We can definitely see that Russia is stepping on the gas on cyber operations,” said Sven Herpig, a former German government cybersecurity official and expert at German independent public-policy think tank Stiftung Neue Verantwortung. “The development of new tools, the division of labor, the creation of attack platforms, has all increased in sophistication over the years,” he said.

Jamil Jaffer, a former White House and Justice Department official, said that cyber operations have become “a significant part of [Russia’s] play.”

“It’s allowed them to level up,” said Mr. Jaffer, senior vice president at IronNet Cybersecurity.

Russia has consistently denied engaging in state-backed hacking campaigns, including SolarWinds, maintaining that the country isn’t conducting offensive cyber operations. In September, Russian President Vladimir Putin proposed a reset of U.S.-Russia information-security relations.

“Russia is not involved in such attacks, particularly in [SolarWinds]. We state this officially and resolutely,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said recently. “Any allegations of Russia being involved are absolutely groundless and appear to be the continuation of a kind of blind Russophobia,” he said.

But analysts say that Moscow has added hacking to its arsenal of so-called gray-area activities—a type of warfare that stops short of actual shooting—alongside disinformation campaigns and the use of “little green men,” the masked soldiers in green uniforms who appeared with Russian arms on Ukrainian territory in 2014.

Jeffrey Edmonds, a former White House and Central Intelligence Agency official who studies Russia at CNA, a nonprofit research organization that advises the Pentagon, said that Russia’s cyber operations have numerous simultaneous goals, including gathering intelligence, testing capabilities, preparing for potential conflict by mapping adversaries’ critical infrastructure and laying the groundwork for cyber negotiations.

Such operations are a relatively inexpensive and effective way to conduct geopolitics, said Bilyana Lilly, researcher at think tank Rand Corp. That is crucial for Russia, which is facing considerable economic and demographic challenges and whose economy is smaller than Italy’s. A 2012 article in an official Russian military journal said that the “complete destruction of the information infrastructures” of the U.S. or Russia could be carried out by just one battalion of 600 “info warriors” at a price tag of $100 million.

Responding to Moscow’s increased cyber activity has been a challenge. Washington’s retaliation measures—sanctions, property seizures, diplomatic expulsions, even the cyber equivalent of warning shots—appear to have done little to deter hacks...

Rad Chick

From Old Row, on Twitter:

Ontario's Finance Minister Tells People to Stay Home for Christmas -- While Hiding the Fact He's Secretly Jetted Off to St. Bart's for Christmas

At AoSHQ.

BONUS: "[Alberta Premier Jason] Kenney orders MLAs not to leave Canada unless on government business after minister's vacation: Tracy Allard, who travelled to Hawaii earlier this month, called trip 'lapse in judgment'."

'Coronasomnia'

I've had this. 

I still have it, lol.

At ABC News 7 Los Angeles:

Putting Aside the Attacks on Trump, This Is an Interesting Piece

From self-declared mean person, Kara Swisher, of (you guessed it) the New York Times, "Goodbye, Twitter Trump! And Other Predictions for 2021."

It's the other predictions that are interesting, such as:

Speaking of media companies: While the reverberations of the Warner Bros. decision to put all its 2021 movies on its HBOMax streaming service are sorting themselves out, the shift is permanent — whether offended filmmakers like it or not. Creators who adapt will benefit, especially if they devise new models of payment.

The longtime entertainment business model was built on powerful gatekeepers that made most of the money and relied on a vast network of middlemen. But in the new world, those who can assemble a fan base that they directly service will profit. Imagine the future relationship between creators and fans as a subscription business, and the economics get much more interesting. Hollywood will have to become much more nimble and entrepreneurial.

So, too, will more Americans in general, since the pandemic has accelerated the introduction of what will be permanent changes in how we work. Last December, I urged tech to be at the forefront of this major overhaul:

“And rather than accept that poor pay and poor protections for gig workers are inevitable and that the pressures of a global work force are too hard to push back, tech companies should figure out how to creatively and humanely deploy talent across the world to show that they are interested in dealing with the consequences of their inventions.”

This was pre-coronavirus — an exogenous circumstance. Now I am often asked when will work go back to normal, which is really a question of when will we get back to physical workplaces. That will certainly happen in the coming year, but in all kinds of new ways.

The coronavirus has forced the kind of work experimentation that would have taken a decade to eventually happen: limiting business travel, cutting in-person office time, questioning every cost associated with the analog workplace. Technology is making doing business cheaper and more efficient and, as it has turned out, more productive.

These changes have proved nearly useless and even dangerous when it comes to education, where physical presence is much more of an asset than we thought. More consideration will be put into how to make technology and schooling mesh better and how to provide students with the kind of experience that they are not getting, as well as a bigger focus on universal connectivity for those who are without it.

While pandemics are short term, the looming climate disaster is not. So, lastly, I’ll repeat my 2019 declaration that the “world’s first trillionaire will be a green-tech entrepreneur.” President-elect Biden, who is championing green technology, will be more successful if his efforts are seen as job creators, and not so much as giant government programs...

 

California Struggles to Contain Coronavirus Pandemic

And to think, it started out so wonderfully! (*Eye-roll.*)

From A.P., "Once a model, California now struggles to tame COVID-19":

Ambulances waited hours for openings to offload coronavirus patients. Overflow patients were moved to hospital hallways and gift shops, even a cafeteria. Refrigerated trucks were on standby, ready to store the dead.

For months, California did many of the right things to avoid a catastrophic surge from the pandemic. But by the time Gov. Gavin Newsom said on Dec. 15 that 5,000 body bags were being distributed, it was clear that the nation’s most populous state had entered a new phase of the COVID-19 crisis.

Now infections have been racing out of control for weeks, and California has routinely set new records for infections and deaths. It remains at or near the top of the list of states with the most new cases per capita.

Experts say a variety of factors combined to wipe out the past efforts, which for much of the year held the virus to manageable levels. Cramped housing, travel and Thanksgiving gatherings contributed to the spread, along with the public’s fatigue amid regulations that closed many schools and businesses and encouraged — or required — an isolated lifestyle.

Another factor could be a more contagious variant of the virus detected in Southern California, although it’s not clear yet how widespread that may be.

California’s woes have helped fuel the year-end U.S. infection spike and added urgency to the attempts to beat back the scourge that has killed more than 340,000 Americans. Even with vaccines becoming available, cases are almost certain to continue growing, and yet another surge is expected in the weeks after Christmas and New Year’s...

Still more.

Helen Pluckrose and James Lindsay, Cynical Theories

At Amazon, Helen Pluckrose and James Lindsay, Cynical Theories: How Activist Scholarship Made Everything about Race, Gender, and Identity―and Why This Harms Everybody.

Why Are Reporters Covering for Hilaria Baldwin?

She's a leftist married to a famous leftist actor?

From Stephen Green, at Instapundit, "CHRISTIAN TOTO: Why Are Reporters Covering for Hilaria Baldwin’s Epic Con? “The Identity Politics mob is suddenly standing down. Here’s the real reason why.”

Also, from Jon Gabriel, at Richochet, "Everything You Need to Know About the Shocking Hilaria Baldwin Scandal."

 

America is Still Standing (VIDEO)

An awesome video, featuring Kelly Shackleford, for Prager University:

'And it's just sometimes an excruciatingly heightened awareness of being, loving being alive..."

Caitlin Flanagan wrote "I Thought Stage IV Cancer Was Bad Enough" at the Atlantic in June. Not many people, myself included, know her story. It's riveting. 

Well, she did a podcast with Sully, and this short segment is so existential. She's such a graceful woman. It's really inspiring:

'Andrew Sullivan detects anti-gay bigotry: "So you agree not wanting to have sex with someone because they have a vagina is a form of bigotry, right?...'

 At Althouse:

Does genitalia matter? I can see thinking that a person's inner being matters far more than what's on the outside, and that "gender identification" is part of what's on the inside, but when it comes to sexual attraction, we're not required to go solely by what's on the inside, and indeed, if only the inside — the mind — counts, why are we having sexual intercourse at all? How can you say genitalia is irrelevant when what you're talking about is something you do with your genitalia?

More.

 

'Higher levels of drug abuse and overdoses, massive increases in mental health hospital visits, along with surging suicide rates among children have been cited by the Centers for Disease Control as stemming from pandemic school closures...'

At Issues & Insights, "The Real Reason Why Your Kids Can’t Go Back to School (Hint: It’s Not COVID-19)."

Justin Farrell, Billionaire Wilderness

At Amazon, Justin Farrell, Billionaire Wilderness: The Ultra-Wealthy and the Remaking of the American West.

Is Substack the Media Future We Want?

It's Anna Wiener (whoever that is), at the New Yorker, "The newsletter service is a software company that, by mimicking some of the functions of newsrooms, has made itself difficult to categorize."

Establishment media outlets fear Substack, so they're out to destroy it. Big Media doesn't want you to read folks like Glenn Greenwald, a leftist who on Israel I can't stand, but who is amazingly good on a lot of other current stuff. See his great piece this week, "The Threat of Authoritarianism in the U.S. is Very Real, and Has Nothing to Do With Trump."

Or, Andrew Sullivan, also someone who's got a really sketchy and devious political pedigree, but has lately been on fire, "Do All Black Lives Matter? Or Just Some?"

And Matt Taibbai, "The YouTube Ban Is Un-American, Wrong, and Will Backfire: Silicon Valley couldn't have designed a better way to further radicalize Trump voters."

All of these guys are leftists, which tells you something, as they've been excommunicated form the leftist media precincts (especially Greenwald and Sullivan).