Welcome to the start of a “work” week, and the air quotes indicate that the indolent won’t be coming to work this week. It’s Monday, Dec. 29, 2025 and the penultimate day of Koynezaa. It’s a thin holiday, most notably National Pepper Pot Day, celebrating a soup described this way in Wikipedia:
Pepper pot soup is a thick stew of beef tripe, vegetables, pepper and other seasonings. The soup was first made in West Africa and the Caribbean before being brought to North America through slave trade and made into a distinctively Philadelphian dish by colonial Black women during the nineteenth century.
I’ll eschew the tripe, thank you, but here’s a painting of the concoction with the caption: “Pepper-Pot: A Scene in the Philadelphia Market (1811) by John Lewis Krimmel. The scene depicts a pepper pot soup street vendor in Philadelphia serving soup from a pot to customers.” The customers don’t look like they’re enjoying it.
It’s also National “Get on the Scales” Day, apparently to see how much you’ve gained over the holidays. But they’re not over yet!
Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the December 29 Wikipedia page.
Da Nooz:
*Obituaries first: Brigitte Bardot, actress, singer, and sex symbol extraodinaire, died at 91.
Brigitte Bardot, the pouty, tousle-haired French actress who redefined mid-20th-century movie sex symbolism in films beginning with “And God Created Woman,” then gave up acting at 39 to devote her life to the welfare of animals, died on Sunday at her home in southern France. She was 91.
Fondation Brigitte Bardot, which she established for the protection of animals, announced her death.
Ms. Bardot was 23 when “And God Created Woman,” a box-office flop in France in 1956, opened in the United States the next year and made her an international star. Bosley Crowther, writing in The New York Times, called her “undeniably a creation of superlative craftsmanship” and “a phenomenon you have to see to believe.” Like many critics, he was unimpressed by the film itself.
Ms. Bardot’s film persona was distinctive, compared with other movie sex symbols of the time, not only for her ripe youthfulness but also for her unapologetic carnal appetite. Her director was her husband, Roger Vadim, and although they soon divorced, he continued to shape her public image, directing her in four more movies over the next two decades.
Few of Ms. Bardot’s movies were serious cinematic undertakings, and she later told a French newspaper that she considered “La Vérité,” Henri-Georges Clouzot’s Oscar-nominated 1960 crime drama, the only good film she ever made.
Nicknamed B.B. (pronounced in French much like the word for baby), she was best known for light comedies like “The Bride Is Much Too Beautiful” (1956), “Babette Goes to War” (1959) and “The Vixen” (1969), but she did work with some of France’s most respected directors.
When Ms. Bardot announced her retirement from films in 1973, she had already begun her work on behalf of animal rights and welfare (although she had told an American reporter in 1965, “I adore furs”). But it was only in 1986, a year after she was made a chevalier of France’s Legion of Honor, that she created the Fondation Brigitte Bardot, based in Paris, which has waged battles against wolf hunting, bullfighting, vivisection and the consumption of horse meat. In 1987, she auctioned off her jewelry and other personal belongings to ensure the foundation’s financial base.
“I gave my beauty and my youth to men,” she was quoted as saying at the time, “and now I am giving my wisdom and experience, the best of me, to animals.”
Here’s the French trailer for the film that made her famous, “And God Created Woman” (1956). Bardot was 22 (portrayed as 18 in the movie), and married to the director, Roger Vadim, whose third wife was Jane Fonda.
And here’s a good 5-minute capsule bio of BB that shows her speaking English in an interview:
*Yesterday Trump met Zelensky, and since I’m writing this on Sunday afternoon, before the meeting, I’ll update it if there’s added information. Zelensky is desperate to end the war without having to give a way a huge chunk of his country, while Trump could give a fig about Ukraine and just wants his Nobel Peace Prize.
UPDATE: There is no substantive update. The NYT reports that there was little progress in the talks, but just the fact that Zelensky kept Trump engaged and talking counts as a win for Ukraine. (Well, only a temporary one.)
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is seeking to persuade President Trump to more forcefully back a proposed peace agreement that includes security guarantees and would convert contested territory with Russia into a demilitarized free economic zone.
Zelensky and Trump were set to meet Sunday at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate to go over a 20-point draft that has been revised by Ukrainian and U.S. negotiators in recent weeks in the latest attempt to end the nearly four-year war. Zelensky’s hope is that Trump will apply more pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin to reach a deal.
Ahead of Sunday’s meeting, Trump said on social media he had “a good and very productive telephone call” with Putin.
Going into the summit, the main sticking points were the future of the approximately 20% of the Donetsk region that Russia wants to be surrendered to it, the status of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, Europe’s largest, that is currently under Russian occupation, and details of security guarantees that Washington would provide for Ukraine.
Before meeting Trump, Zelensky on Sunday highlighted Russia’s stepped-up attacks on Ukrainian energy infrastructure in recent days that have left swaths of the country without power. He said he was there not only to talk about ending the war but also ensuring that pressure on Russia remained high, with effective sanctions and new air defenses for Ukraine.
“These are some of the most active diplomatic days of the year right now, and a lot can be decided before the New Year,” Zelensky said on X. “We are doing everything toward this, but whether decisions will be made depends on our partners—those who help Ukraine, and those who put pressure on Russia so that Russians feel the consequences of their own aggression.”
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Sunday that Zelensky and Europe aren’t “ready to engage in constructive talks.” He called European countries “the main obstacles to peace” and said Moscow remained committed to working with the U.S. to “devise lasting agreements for addressing the conflict’s root causes,” language the Kremlin often uses for concessions Ukraine sees as capitulation.
It looks as if Zelensky has accepted the fact that he has to give up territory, but I’m wondering what kind of “security guarantees” Trump will be willing to offer. The only good to come out of this is that Europe is really ticked off at Putin and Russia, but the bad bit is that now that Putin knows that he can get away with seizing bits of neighboring sovereign countries (for the second time!), he might be more likely to do it again.
*I put up the tweet below yesterday but will do so again as it emphasizes the fraud that’s plaguing Minnesota and has now cost the U.S. government hundreds of millions of dollars. The video was made not by a newsperson but a YouTuber (Nick Shirley). If you haven’t watched the 42-minute video, I urge you to do so. As I said yesterday, this scandal has been covered a bit by the MSM, but more often by the right-wing media, since the fraudsters were largely Somalis and are therefore “the oppressed”. But their ethnicity is irrelevant, save to show that a community that is supported largely on welfare and hasn’t yet integrated itself into American life, has been tempted to go for the big bucks. Tweet first:
🚨 Here is the full 42 minutes of my crew and I exposing Minnesota fraud, this might be my most important work yet. We uncovered over $110,000,000 in ONE day. Like it and share it around like wildfire! Its time to hold these corrupt politicians and fraudsters accountable
We ALL… pic.twitter.com/E3Penx2o7a
— Nick shirley (@nickshirleyy) December 26, 2025
Minnesota Governor Walz is pushing back, saying that he’s always investigated fraud. He doesn’t seem to realize the scale of this fraud, though. Remember, he ran for VP with Harris.
From Forbes (that’s how far you have to go to find the most recent news):
FBI Director Kash Patel said Sunday the agency is continuing to investigate alleged fraud in Minnesota, as Republicans have seized on the allegations to attack the state’s Somali population and Democratic Gov. Tim Walz.
Key facts:
- Patel issued a lengthy statement on X on Sunday responding to social media reports regarding fraud in Minnesota, saying the FBI “had surged personnel and investigative resources to Minnesota” to “dismantle” the alleged fraud schemes even prior to the issue gaining attention on social media.
- Patel said the FBI believes the fraud schemes alleged so far are “just the tip of a very large iceberg” and the agency’s investigation into the alleged schemes “very much remains ongoing.”
- Many of those indicted for fraud have been from Minnesota’s Somali population, leading President Donald Trump and other Republicans to use the fraud allegations to launch broader attacks on the state’s Somali residents and strip them of immigration protections.
Patel said in his statement Sunday that many of those involved with the alleged fraud schemes “are also being referred to immigrations officials for possible further denaturalization and deportation proceedings.”
There are a number of alleged fraud schemes that have contributed to the current fraud crisis in Minnesota, dating back to 2015 when daycare centers were alleged to have overcharged Minnesota’s Child Care Assistance Program. More recent schemes have involved Medicaid-funded disability schemes, particularly a housing program that helped seniors and those with disabilities find and move into housing, which was shut down earlier this year due to “large-scale fraud.” The nonprofit Feeding Our Future was also implicated in a $250 million fraud scheme as the organization allegedly took advantage of a COVID-era federal aid program for child nutrition, which resulted in more than 70 people being indicted. Two leaders from the group were found guilty at trial in March, while at least one other has pleaded guilty to the charges against them. While the alleged fraud schemes in Minnesota are wide-ranging, the Star-Tribune notes the allegations have primarily focused on instances of the government being billed for services that were never actually provided.
and yahoo! news writes about part of the scandal: Ilhan Omar’s huge increase in wealth in one year: there are suggestions that her husband may have been part of the fraud scheme (see also this piece in the NY Post):
Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) is once again under fire — this time because her husband Tim Mynett’s $25 million venture capital firm, Rose Lake Capital, reportedly purged key officer details amid growing questions about the couple’s wealth and Minnesota’s ongoing welfare fraud investigations.
According to her latest financial disclosure in May, the couple’s net worth surged 3500% in just one year; their net worth is now anywhere from $6 million to $30 million. The venture capital firm alone, per the filing, is worth between $5 million-$25 million.
The New York Post was the first outlet to report Mynett’s firm scrubbed names on Saturday.
“There’s a lot of strange things going on,” Paul Kamenar, counsel to the National Legal and Policy Center, told the Post. “She was basically broke when she came into office and now she’s worth perhaps up to $30 million … she needs to come clean on these assets.”
Rose Lake Capital allegedly had less than $1,000 in assets in 2023, according to the financial disclosure for that year — leading many to question the firm’s skyrocketing fiscal growth.
Between September and October, nine officer and advisor details were removed from the site, including former Obama officials, according to the NYP. These names include former Obama Ambassador to Bahrain Adam Ereli; former Obama Ambassador to China Max Baucus; DNC Finance Chair associate Alex Hoffman; former DNC treasurer William Derrough and former ex-CEO of Amalgamated Bank Keith Mestrich, per the New York Post‘s findings.
This move comes amid growing scrutiny of Omar.
Ninety people have been accused, and in many cases convicted, of defrauding the state of hundreds of millions of dollars — three of whom have alleged ties to Omar, though she has not been charged herself.
Some of the scrutiny toward Omar comes from her support of reforms that have since been exploited in this fraud scheme, which includes the MEALS Act — changes to the federal reimbursement rules during the COVID-19 pandemic, waiving oversight requirements to increase timely access to meals for children.
I’m not a big fan of “squad” member Ilhan Omar, who’s also seemed to me antisemitic, based partly but not wholly on tweets like this. Only time will tell if she was involved in this deception.
*Over at the Free Press, newly minted Christian Ayaan Hirsi Ali, whose greatest fear is the spread of the intifada (and she is rightly worried), reports that, with the Bondi Beach shooting, “The intifada comes to Australia.”
This attack was not random. It wasn’t an eruption of private madness. It was deliberate. Jews were targeted on a Jewish holiday, in broad daylight, in a public place. This matters. When we blur that fact, we betray the dead.
The method chosen by the murderers should also trouble us deeply. Families were gathered in joy when men with guns got out of a car and began firing. The violence arrived with speed and cruelty, and though the scale differs, the pattern is unmistakable; it mirrors October 7 in Israel. A holiday. A crowd. Daylight. Attackers who targeted the most vulnerable, and knew precisely what they were doing.
This way of killing has been studied, praised, and spread for years. It appears in pamphlets, videos, and online posts. It is celebrated in slogans shouted at marches and emblazoned on placards. It is excused as rage, sanitized as politics. When killing is justified in moral terms, it no longer horrifies. Instead, it multiplies.
Australia has long told itself a comforting story. It is far from old hatreds. Its gun laws are strict. Its cities are calm. Its people get along. That story has been repeated for years, even as reality moved in the opposite direction.
Antisemitism in Australia didn’t appear suddenly. Over recent years, it has risen steadily, then sharply. Synagogues have been firebombed. Jewish schools and daycare centers have been vandalized. Cars have been torched. Homes marked. Children bullied. Threats normalized. Since October 7, reported antisemitic incidents have surged several times over, reaching levels not seen in living memory. Terror attacks on Jewish targets in Melbourne in October and December of last year have been linked to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Yet too often, leaders chose reassurance over honesty. Chants calling for violence were justified as protest. Language forged in violence was treated as politics. Direct threats were brushed aside. Each retreat gave hatred more room. When murder is given a moral excuse, it no longer shocks. It simply spreads.
A serious response means candor and clear-eyed judgment. It means enforcing the law without apology. Incitement is not opinion. Calls for violence are not protest. Praise for terror is not speech worth protecting. These are not extreme positions. In truth, they are the minimum conditions of a civilized society.
Most of all, it means standing openly with Australia’s Jewish citizens, not only in grief, but in resolve. Jews shouldn’t be asked to hide their faith to stay safe. They shouldn’t be told to understand the anger of those who threaten them. They shouldn’t be left wondering whether their future lies somewhere else.
Hirsi Ali is calling for an end to “hate speech”, even in the U.S.’s First-Amendment form, under which calls for globalizing the intifada or moving Palestine from the river to the sea are legal. The problem, of course, is severalfold here. The haters out themselves with verbal hate, while banning it drives them underground. And is it “incitement”? In the U.S., incitement is demonstrated when “hate speech” is likely to incite imminent and predictable violence. Otherwise, how do you know that someone miles away and days separated, has incited a case of violence. Finally, there is the slippery slope argument against “hate speech”, and it’s not just theoretical: it’s on tap in the UK now. For the nonce I’m content to go with the courts’ interpretation of the First Amendment. This of course is not a justification of what happened at Bondi Beach. What Australia needs is more counterspeech, enforcement of laws against harassment, and education about antisemitism.
*And the malady that made Barry Manilow cancel his concert dates has been identified as lung cancer. Fortunately, it’s been caught early. (Manilow was born named Barry Alan Pincus, and was Jewish.)
The singer Barry Manilow has been diagnosed with lung cancer and will undergo surgery, he announced in a social-media post on Monday.
Manilow, 82, said he had been fighting bronchitis for more than two months when his doctors ordered an M.R.I.
The test “discovered a cancerous spot on my left lung that needs to be removed,” he wrote in a statement on Instagram. “It’s pure luck (and a great doctor) that it was found so early.”
He said that doctors did not think the cancer had spread and that he would have additional tests to confirm their diagnosis.
“No chemo,” he added. “No radiation. Just chicken soup and I Love Lucy reruns.”
Manilow did not say when he would have the surgery, but he is expected to need a month to recover from it. That means, Manilow wrote in his statement, that nine concert dates scheduled for January will be postponed.
“Just like you, we were all looking forward to the January shows and hate having to move everything around,” he wrote.
A representative for Manilow declined to comment on Monday.
Manilow, who is known for hits including “Mandy,” “Copacabana” and “Can’t Smile Without You,” is one of the last holdovers from the pre-rock era. Between the release of his self-titled debut album in 1973 and 1981, he notched nine Top 10 singles on the pop charts and 12 No. 1 hits in the mellow Adult Contemporary radio format. He has won a Grammy, a Tony and an Emmy, and been nominated for an Oscar.
From the description it looks as if Manilow has stage 1A non small-cell lung cancer, which has a five-year survival rate of over 65%. That’s not too bad for someone who’s 82. (Manilow smoked up to three packs a day for 30 years before he quit.) I don’t suppose this news interests people beyond a few geezers like me, but I do like several of Manilow’s songs, of which this (not “Mandy”) is my favorite:
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili seems to be worried. Is it Kulka? No; see below:
Andrzej: Are you going to the orchard?
Hili: I don’t know yet. It depends on who’s in the garden.
In Polish:
Ja: Wybierasz się do sadu?
Hili: Jeszcze nie wiem, to zależy od tego, kto jest w ogrodzie.
Andrzej explains:
Paulina and Mariusz have taken in a young dog (an Alsatian); she’s four months old, irresponsible, and it will take a few months to get her used to cats. For now, the cats are scared by her smell, barking, and the sight of her through the windows.
The dog is adorable, but it’s going to be a long and difficult road to friendship.
The d*g:
*******************
From The Language Nerds:
From Meow Incorporated:
From The Dodo Pet:
From Masih; another half blinded Iranian woman, shot in the face for protesting.
Iam Kosar Eftekhari.
On Enghelab Street, opposite the French Pastry Shop, the place where Vida Movahed once stood on a utility box and publicly defied compulsory hijab.
the Islamic Republic returned years later to the same spot with violence.
In October 2022, security forces shot… pic.twitter.com/mGxBC4eKY3— Kosar Eftekhari (@kosareftekharii) December 28, 2025
You probably know that Emma Hilton is a developmental biologist at Manchester (a colleague of Matthew’s). She’s developing a quick way to screen the sexes for sports assignment, and is asking for dosh to support her. It’s a good cause, and you can find the link below (or go here). Every penny helps!
Every girl deserves a fair chance in sports. Developing a rapid, low-cost sex screening method can protect women’s categories and promote equality. Your support can make this vision a reality. Please share and consider donating to help fund this crucial research!…
— Emma Hilton (@FondOfBeetles) December 22, 2025
From Luana, and, this is ironic (see above):
Where are all the children? pic.twitter.com/kjf4qkRHTD
— Gail Alfar (@gailalfaratx) December 28, 2025
From Jay, a way cool tweet:
This is how Disney engineered sounds before computers existed (1941) pic.twitter.com/FOzzNu1zD6
— mitsuri (@0xmitsurii) December 27, 2025
Larry the Cat mourns Bardot:
Au revoir Brigitte x
— Larry the Cat (@number10cat.bsky.social) 2025-12-28T11:20:13.076Z
One I retweeted from The Auschwitz Memorial:
This Polish Jewish boy was gassed along with his three siblings and both parents upon arriving at Auschwitz. Issachar was eleven years old. https://t.co/rbDdX0LaYY
— Jerry Coyne (@Evolutionistrue) December 29, 2025
And two from Dr. Cobb. First, a video showing a brittle star catching a squid. This is not right!
Brittle star vs. Squid! Ophiuroids only appear dainty & harmless. Another cool moment from #OkeanosExplorer #MarineLife youtu.be/oHN4sWAuBVc?…
And the first Jewish joke Matthew ever sent me!
A horse walks into a synagogue, so they made him cantor
A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
Here is my first principle of foreign policy: good government at home. -William Ewart Gladstone, British prime minister (29 Dec 1809-1898)
‘Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov . . . said Moscow remained committed to working with the U.S. to “devise lasting agreements for addressing the conflict’s root causes,” language the Kremlin often uses for concessions Ukraine sees as capitulation.’
For every hundred times the WSJ and numerous other MSM outlets insist on reminding readers that this is “language the Kremlin often uses” (a phrase these media outlets themselves “often use”), it would be nice if these outlets would simply specify these “root causes.”