Wednesday Night #2179

At last, something to celebrate – no, not world peace, but the days are about to get longer!
On the eve of the winter solstice, which occurs on Thursday, 21 December at 10:27 P.M. EST, we gather with our community of WN druids and pagans, and plan to sit back comfortably to watch the UK contingent on the screen. Did you know that the solstice actually lasts only a moment? “Specifically, it’s the exact moment when a hemisphere is tilted as far away from the sun as possible,” according to the Old Farmer’s Almanac. So, don’t blink!

If we were to assume our Eeyore role, we would remind everyone that we will have more hours of daylight to contemplate the terrible events around the world.

Israel
News items and analysis come thick and fast. We all have our own ‘trusted sources’, and sometimes mistrust the sources offered by others (Johns Buchanan and Curtin come to mind, with a dash of Sandy in that recipe). So, tonight, we offer primarily analysis pieces on key topics for your consideration:
(Al Jazeera) Pressure on Israeli government to reach captive deal
There have also been discussions in Europe between the Israelis, the Americans and the Qataris to try and find some sort of consensus, but what’s still not clear is what the Israelis are willing to give up in exchange for the release of all of the captives.
The Gaza war inches toward the day before ‘the day after’
Israeli planning is still fuzzy, but officials appear to agree with the Biden administration on the basics: A postwar Gaza where Hamas cannot impose its political will, while other Palestinians, probably drawn from the Palestinian Authority, take responsibility for governance; and a peacekeeping force that has support from key moderate Arab states. The transitional body will be, in effect, a “Gaza reconstruction authority.”

China – Hong Kong
We are following the trial of Jimmy Lai, now under way in Hong Kong. As The Guardian states: “Lai’s trial, expected to last months, is one of the most high profile prosecutions in the Hong Kong government’s crackdown on opposition, and has been widely condemned by rights groups and other governments.”
We have long wondered about the name of his newspaper. His son, Sebastien, explains: “He named his newspaper Apple Daily in reference to the forbidden fruit of the Bible that revealed the knowledge of good and evil. Like the apple, his newspaper delivered the truth about China, and by doing so, poked holes in the regime’s lies.”

Russia and Ukraine
What If Russia Wins Its War on Ukraine?
(Bloomberg) An impasse over aid from the US and Europe has Ukraine’s allies contemplating something they’ve refused to imagine since the earliest days of Russia’s invasion: that Vladimir Putin may win. With more than $110 billion in assistance mired in political disputes in Washington and Brussels, how long Kyiv will be able to hold back Russian forces and defend Ukraine’s cities, power plants and ports against missile attacks is increasingly in question. And the longer term threat posed to NATO nations by a Kremlin victory is stark. More on this next week
With Navalny’s whereabouts still unknown, Kremlin targets novelist Akunin
Jailed Russian opposition figures are incommunicado, missing in the country’s opaque and secretive prison system and unreachable by their lawyers or even the court system.
A popular, exiled detective novelist has been branded as a terrorist and charged by Russian authorities.
Monuments to Soviet leader Joseph Stalin are popping up, the latest a museum dedicated to him in the Siberian city of Barnaul.
And President Vladimir Putin is ramping up his inflammatory anti-Western military rhetoric, as his defense minister claimed that Russian weapons and military equipment had proved superior to NATO’s in the war on Ukraine — a boast that omitted the fact that the United States and Europe have restricted military supplies to Kyiv to limit attacks on Russian soil.
Russian courts halt cases against Alexei Navalny after jailed activist disappears
Judges halt seven judicial hearings as UN official says his absence amounts to ‘forced disappearance’

In case you missed this almost-mea-culpa
India’s Modi says he will ‘look into’ assassination claims if he is provided with evidence
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi says he would “look into” claims New Delhi was linked to two assassination plots against Sikh separatists in Canada and the United States, which have strained ties between the West and India

The Colorado Supreme Court Just Gave Republicans a Chance to Save Themselves
They should take it.
By David Frum
(The Atlantic) “The experience of being disastrously wrong is salutary,” John Kenneth Galbraith wrote. “No economist should be denied it, and not many are.”
I’m not an economist. But I was wrong about the litigation to bar Donald Trump from the ballot as an insurrectionist. I wrote in August that the project was a “fantasy.” Now, by a 4–3 vote, the Colorado Supreme Court has converted fantasy into at least temporary reality.
However, the BBC differs:
Trump’s legal defeat in Colorado may turn into political gold
One of the court challenges to Donald Trump’s eligibility to run for president in 2024 has finally struck gold.
The Colorado Supreme Court’s ruling to disqualify the former president from the Republican Party’s upcoming primary ballot is yet another unprecedented moment in US politics.
It’s a decision that further blurs the lines between America’s political and judicial systems, setting up a fresh collision between the election campaign and the courts.
However, this latest legal setback is unlikely to seriously damage Mr Trump’s bid to return to the White House – and he is already using it to his political advantage.

Quebec Education
We have concluded that the CAQ government does not like Education in any form, and must agree with Tony that the only goal for Legault and Cie is the elimination of the ‘élite’ in whatever form. Attacks on the English-language universities, with the inevitable repercussions for Montreal, the economy and the reputation of Quebec and Canada around the world, are compounded by earlier punishment of CEGEPs and now the cavalier treatment of the teachers’ union demands, thus prolonging the strike while creating problems for students and their families. We are both apoplectic and in despair. The only glimmer of hope this week is Quebec’s tuition hike, French rules for English universities can be challenged in court: lawyer. Not just any lawyer, but our beloved Julius Grey!

EVs
Just back from Dubai, Environment Minister Stephen Guilbeault made headlines with his announcement Canada lays out road map for electric vehicle key 2035 targets
Not everyone thinks this is a good plan – some ask is it really a plan?
Thank you, CBC:
Your questions about Canada’s plan to embrace electric vehicles, answered
Environment minister insists 12 years long enough for move away from gas-powered vehicles

You may not have followed the earlier accounts of this sordid tale of scandal, but you can catch up now that Venezuela hands over ‘Fat Leonard,’ mastermind in U.S. Navy scandal

Varia
The mind boggles
Has Chewbacca been warned – do the characters receive royalties?
‘Star Wars: A New Hope’ to be translated into Ojibwe language
Lucasfilm, the Dakota Ojibway Tribal Council and the University of Manitoba said they’ve reached an agreement to record a dubbed Ojibwe version of Star Wars: A New Hope.
A 2020 Reuters graphics post that needs updating, though we quail (no pun intended) at the thought of the effect of inflation.
The Price of True Love
As we wish you a Merry Christmas and/or whatever holiday you are celebrating, we trust that you ordered and Amazon executed on-time delivery of the 184 birds, 40 gold rings, and 140 servants required to make your true love happy (or not).
A closer look at the cost for each gift, from all six types of birds, to those shiny shiny golden rings.
In a setback to true loves around the world, not all the traditional gifts from “The Twelve Days of Christmas” carol are available this year as the pandemic has halted in-person public performances. The upshot is that fewer gifts means less dough and the overall cost is the lowest it has been in year

Long reads
The Most Consequential Act of Sabotage in Modern Times
The destruction of the Nord Stream pipeline curtailed Europe’s reliance on Russian gas. But who was responsible?
By Mark Bowden
… There was no one in the vicinity—the middle of the sea in the middle of the night—to see or hear any of this, but the event registered with the force of a small earthquake on seismometers 15 miles away, on the Danish island of Bornholm. Because the explosion had occurred in Danish waters, Denmark dispatched an airplane to investigate. By then, the geyser had settled into a wide, turbulent simmer on the surface. The Danish Maritime Authority ordered ships to steer clear. Airspace was restricted. A pipeline executive in Switzerland, where Nord Stream is based, urgently exchanged information with officials in Denmark and other countries. …

Fareed Zakaria: The Self-Doubting Superpower
America Shouldn’t Give Up on the World It Made
Many of the Biden administration’s policies seek to rectify the apparent hollowing out of the United States, promoting the logic that its industries and people need to be protected and assisted by tariffs, subsidies, and other kinds of support. In part, this approach may be a political response to the reality that some Americans have in fact been left behind and happen to live in crucial swing states, making it important to court them and their votes. But the remedies are much more than political red meat; they are far-reaching and consequential. The United States currently has the highest tariffs on imports since the Smoot-Hawley Act of 1930. Washington’s economic policies are increasingly defensive, designed to protect a country that has supposedly lost out in the last few decades.
A U.S. grand strategy that is premised on mistaken assumptions will lead the country and the world astray.