Lurker extraordinaire announces impending surgery: Victor Davis Hanson: 'Not Yet and Not Today'
Best wishes for a speedy recovery! [CBD]

Trump Says 'We Have the Makings' of a Peace Deal in Ukraine It sounds nice, but please take Winston Wolf's advice. [CBD]

Brigitte Bardot, Star of 'And God Created Women' and 'Contempt,' Dies at 91
If you have forgotten what she looked like, try this. [CBD]

TJM waxes poetic about Akira Kurosawa.

This isn't Christmas Eve fare, and I thought about waiting until the 26th to post it, but supposedly an amateur detective has solved the Zodiac killer mystery. And the horrific Black Dahlia killing. He says it's the same person! I always thought of them as very far apart in time but I think Black Dahlia was mid-fifties (nope, 1947) mid and the Zodiac murders began in 1968 so it's possible it's the same killer.

The killer, if it's the same man, would have been in his 20s when he killed the Black Dahlia and his 40s when he did the Zodiac murders. Possible.

A little caveat: I saw someone snark on Reddit, "The Zodiac case gets solved more often than Wordle." There are a ton of coincidences here, supposedly, like a Zodiac cipher being solved by the name "Elizabeth." Elizabeth Short was the name of the so-called Black Dahlia.

If you don't know about the Black Dahlia, don't look it up. Just accept that it's grisly on the level of Jack the Ripper.

Yes, the named suspect resembles the police sketch of Zodiac.

Here's a podcast with the amateur sleuth who claims he cracked the Zodiac.
Daily Mail article.
Link to get around the LA Times' paywall for their article.

Podcast: The great Trump fleet? The economy is solid, Somalia's corrosive effect on America, Merry Christmas, and more!

The "Donroe Doctrine:" Trump means to end the terrorist-supporting Ghost Fleet of oil tankers used to fund Iran's Qods Force and Hezballah. He might just happen to dethrone Maduro in the process.

Former Republican liberal Ben Sasse announces that he has stage IV metastasized pancreatic cancer: "I'm gonna die"
It's not just a "death sentence," as he says, but a rapidly coming one. I hope he can put his affairs in order and make sure his family is in a good as a position as they can be.

Have an ICEy Christmas!

Brown killer takes the coward's way out. Naturally.
Still not identified, for some reason.
Per Fox 25 Boston, the killer was a non-citizen permanent legal resident
It continues to be strange that the police are so protective of his identity.

Podcast: Will Ukraine be a flashpoint for a Korean conflict, Trump's intemperate Reiner comments, it's the economy stupid! the Monroe/Trump Doctrine, Bondi, Brown, MIT, and more!

Mike Rowe for Secretary of Labor [CBD]

Great bad guy actor Peter Greene dies at 60 [CBD]

Fearful French cancel NYE concert on Champs-Élysées as migrant violence grows
The time is now! France must fight for its culture! [CBD]

Gov. Tim Walz has been diagnosed with a terrible medical condition. [Mis. Hum]

Megyn Kelly finally calls out Candace Owens
Whoops, I meant she bravely attacks Sydney Sweeney for "bending the knee." (Sweeney put out a very empty PR statement saying "I'm against hate." Whoop-de-doo.)
Megyn Kelly claims she doesn't want to call people out on the right when asked about Candace Owens but then has no compunctions at all about calling people out on the right.
As long as they're not Candace Owens. Strangely, she seems blind and deaf to anything Candace Owens says. That's why this woman calls her "Megyn Keller."
She's now asking her pay-pigs in Pakistan how they think she should address the Candace Owens situation, and if they think this is really all about Israel and the Jews.

The World Must Stop Ignoring What Iranians Already Know: The Regime Is on the Brink
Isn't it pretty to think so? [CBD]

Podcast: Pete Hegseth is everything the left hates...and we love! Illinois is the next flashpoint for federal supremacy with regard to our borders, Trump's communication leaves something to be desired, and more!

I have happily forgotten what Milo Yiannopoulos sounds like, but I still enjoyed this impression from from Ami Kozak.

More revelations about the least-sexy broken relationship in media history
I'd wanted to review Parts 2, 3, and 4 of Ryan Lizza's revenge posts about Olivia Nuzzi, but they're all paywalled. I thought about briefly subscribing to get at them, but then I read this in Part 2:

Remember the bamboo from Part 1?

Do I ever! It's all I remember!

Well, bamboo is actually a type of grass, and underground, it's all connected in a sprawling network, just like the parts of this story I never wanted to tell. I wish I hadn't been put in this position, that I didn't have to write about any of this, that I didn't have to subject myself or my loved ones to embarrassment and further loss of privacy.

We're back to the fucking bamboo. Guys, I don't think I can pay for bamboo ruminations.
I think he added that because he was embarrassed about all the bamboo imagery from Part 1. He's justifying his twin obsessions: His ex, and bamboo. Which is not a tree but a kind of grass, he'll have you know.