December 8, 2025

GREAT MOMENTS IN AI HALLUCINATIONS: UK police used fake evidence to justify ban on Maccabi Tel Aviv fans, chief admits.

The UK’s West Midlands Police used fictitious evidence to justify its advice to ban Israeli fans of the Maccabi Tel Aviv soccer team from attending a match in Birmingham last month, the force’s chief admitted to a parliamentary committee Monday, as MPs grilled police brass on the basis of their controversial decision.

The Aston Villa soccer club announced in October that no Maccabi fans would be allowed at a November match following a police assessment that classified the event as “high risk” and suggested banning Israeli fans from the stadium.

In the report presented to the club that suggested banning Israeli fans, police presented information about a 2023 match between Maccabi and West Ham, which the report said was the Israeli club’s “last appearance on UK soil to date.”

“The most recent match Maccabi played in the UK was against West Ham in the Europa Conference League on Nov 9, 2023,” the report read.

However, no such match was played, and Maccabi has never faced off against the East London club.

Well, it did in the Central Scrutinizer’s digital mind:

Posted at 12:30 pm by Ed Driscoll

FOLLOW THE SCIENCE:

Posted at 12:15 pm by Glenn Reynolds

DEATH RATTLE: California’s Last Stand. “Gov. Gavin Newsom and his leftist legislative supermajority and their union buddies have finally run out of other people’s money. The left’s fix for this is to chase away all the rest of the billionaires who still call California home by pushing a ballot initiative demanding a 5% retroactive wealth tax on the net worth of billionaires.”

Posted at 12:11 pm by Stephen Green

WELL SAID:

Posted at 12:00 pm by Glenn Reynolds

MARK STEYN: Minneapolis, Twinned with Rotherham.

For the last thirteen months, the United States has demonstrated the central aspect of the thesis of America Alone – that in critical aspects it remains different from the more obviously suicidal parts of the west. The real question is whether it is sufficiently different to affect the ultimate outcome. As I have said, absent severe course-correction, we are in the last fifteen years of anything remotely recognisable as the western world. No country other than Somalia – or the breakaway Somaliland – needs a single Somali other than Ayaan Hirsi Ali.

And yet there is the Hennepin County Attorney loosing them on Minneapolis in order that its maidenhood should grow accustomed to the progressivism of gang-rape.

Read the whole thing.

Posted at 12:00 pm by Ed Driscoll

STRANGE BEDFELLOWS: Trump admin views Netflix and Warner Bros. deal with ‘heavy skepticism’: Senior official.

The Trump administration views the proposed $72 billion deal for Netflix to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery’s film and streaming assets with “heavy skepticism,” a senior administration official told CNBC’s Eamon Javers on Friday morning.

Netflix said Friday that it would acquire Warner Bros.′ film studio and streaming service, HBO Max. The deal is subject to regulatory approval.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., said, “This deal looks like an anti-monopoly nightmare.”

“A Netflix-Warner Bros. would create one massive media giant with control of close to half of the streaming market — threatening to force Americans into higher subscription prices and fewer choices over what and how they watch, while putting American workers at risk,” Warren said in a statement.

Making a streaming giant even bigger doesn’t bother me nearly as much as Netflix owning the Warner Bros. library going back nearly a century — and likely killing off unaltered physical media you can actually own.

Posted at 11:40 am by Stephen Green

ASKING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS: Can CNN Survive The Netflix Earthquake?

It isn’t often you see Trump maybe taking the same side as Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-The Rez.) on any issue, but on Friday, Fauxcahontas called the proposed buyout “an anti-monopoly nightmare” that “would create one massive media giant with control of close to half of the streaming market — threatening to force Americans into higher subscription prices and fewer choices.”

But what about that barely known, little-watched property named Cable News Network?

Full details at the link.

Posted at 11:09 am by Stephen Green

COLONIZATION, STRAIGHT UP:

Maybe sometime soon I’ll piss off all the right people with a Thursday Essay detailing how much better the world was run when Europeans were the colonizers.

Posted at 10:53 am by Stephen Green

YOU CAN HAVE ANY KIND OF COOKTOP YOU LIKE, SO LONG AS IT’S ELECTRIC: Colorado PUC targets natural gas in forced march to electrification.

So much of the state’s climate policy over the years has been obscured by regulatory jargon and euphemisms— “Clean Energy Plans,” “Clean Heat Plans,” “Beneficial Electrification,” etc. —so allow me to speak frankly about what the PUC just codified and what it means for ratepayers.

A 41 percent reduction in GHG emissions, let alone 100 percent, from the gas distribution network will necessarily require removing customers from the system. There’s simply no other way around it. Utilities like Xcel, Black Hills, and Atmos may be able to nibble around the edges of the target by relying on recovered methane, improved pipeline leak detection and repair, and other non-demand-destroying strategies, but such approaches will not be enough to comply with state law.

This all but guarantees that gas customers around the state will soon face higher utility bills to subsidize households into switching from gas to electric heating and appliances, particularly if the first tranche of Clean Heat Plan proceedings is any guide.

For instance, Black Hills Energy’s “Target Achievement” portfolio, submitted to the PUC to meet the initial 22 percent GHG reduction by 2030 target, was estimated to cost approximately $397 million per year, costs that would inevitably be recouped from captive ratepayers. Similarly, Xcel Energy reported that its modeling found that meeting its 2030 target would cost over $1 billion over five years, a total that well exceeded the 2.5 percent annual cost cap included in the initial clean heat plan statute.

Furthermore, aside from paying more on monthly bills to finance the utility incentive programs designed to encourage electrification, the new 2035 target will inevitably result in significant personal costs for homeowners who agree to make the switch.

I hope to be long gone from Colorado before the worst of the Democrats’ hare-brained schemes kick in. I suspect I wont be alone.

Posted at 10:38 am by Stephen Green

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: New Member of Congress Shocked to Find She Has to Obey the Law. “This was a pathetic publicity stunt, of course. Grijalva knew exactly what would happen if she interfered with law enforcement, and made sure that she had someone there to video the whole thing. Her post was quickly followed by outraged responses from Kelly and the Democratic National Committee, who — golly gosh gee — just happened to be glued to X on a Friday night. All made sure that they included the “member of Congress” talking point. In fact, every X post (TWEET) in her defense has included the line, as if it’s a Hogwarts spell that sanitizes her potentially criminal behavior.”

Posted at 9:05 am by Stephen Green

OMAR DOESN’T GET THROWN OFF OF ROOFTOPS WHEN SHE VISITS BACK HOME, BECAUSE BACK HOME, EVERYONE UNDERSTANDS SHE’S PAVING THE WAY FOR ROOFTOP-THROWERS OVER HERE:

Posted at 8:49 am by Stephen Green

FASTER, PLEASE: Pentagon rushes to fix challenges in deterring China, including shortage of ships and missiles.

The Pentagon under War Secretary Pete Hegseth is focused on deterring China and strengthening America’s position in the Pacific, and it is working to rejuvenate the sclerotic U.S. defense sector, which cannot currently produce the number of munitions and ships that may be needed in a potential conflict with the Chinese.

President Donald Trump has issued numerous executive orders aimed at fixing the flawed defense industrial base (DIB), and Hegseth recently announced a new acquisitions strategy aimed at revitalizing the DIB, but for now the U.S. faces strains on its stockpiles of missiles and is significantly overmatched by China in terms of how many ships each nation can build.

“Significantly overmatched” is an understatement. We’re barely in the game any longer.

Posted at 8:34 am by Stephen Green

SORRY, EUROPE, YOU’RE GOING TO BE MOCKED AND BELITTLED BECAUSE YOU DESERVE IT:

Posted at 8:30 am by Glenn Reynolds