“All major American professional sports have a time of year when they capture the eyes of the nation. America’s pastime, baseball, has the ‘Fall Classic,’ the NFL dominates Thanksgiving, and the country has an entire weekend dedicated to the Super Bowl. Christmas Day is the NBA’s time to shine with action from noon to midnight (though the NFL tries to get in on the action). When Americans tune in to watch Lebron James and Kevin Durant battle it out on the court, they usually aren’t thinking about the referees, but it’s impossible to play without them.” (12/26/25)
“A Brazilian former police chief, who fled the country after he was convicted as an accomplice in the attempted coup by Brazil’s far-right ex-President Jair Bolsonaro, has been arrested in Paraguay, according to the country’s immigration agency. Silvinei Vasques was arrested on Friday at the Silvio Pettirossi International Airport in Paraguay’s capital Asuncion, the Paraguayan National Migration Directorate (DNM) said in a statement posted on its website. The agency said Vasques was arrested for ‘identity theft’ after ‘attempting to evade immigration controls by impersonating a Paraguayan citizen.’ Vasques was arrested while attempting to board a flight to Panama, declaring El Salvador as his final destination, the DNM statement said.” (12/27/25)
Source: David Friedman’s Substack
by David Friedman
“Opponents argue that even the best legal system sometimes makes mistakes and that a system that sometimes makes mistakes ought to limit itself to mistakes that can be corrected. Letting a wrongfully convicted defendant out of prison is easier than bringing him back from the dead. The irreversibility of the death penalty is good rhetoric but bad argument.” (12/26/25)
“The FBI director, Kash Patel, said the law enforcement agency’s sprawling but ageing J Edgar Hoover building in Washington DC will be closed down and the agency will move into already existing offices elsewhere. … The brutalist J Edgar Hoover building was designed in the 1960s, when it was also conceived and constructed. It was often criticized for breaking with the style of other federal buildings. Former FBI head Hoover himself once called it ‘the greatest monstrosity ever constructed in the history of Washington.'” (12/27/25)
“Libertarian advocates of minimal government, such as the late Robert Nozick (Anarchy, State, and Utopia, 1974), have feared that individuals in a stateless libertarian society would face corrupt or careless protection firms that used ‘risky’ rights-enforcement procedures to determine guilt or liability. Innocent people might be held responsible for offenses they did not commit, while guilty individuals avoid paying restitution to their victims. Obviously, that would be undesirable. Without a minimal monopoly state to prohibit such abuse and protect ‘procedural rights,’ how could innocent people pursue their happiness securely?” (12/26/25)
What Samuel Johnson said of Milton’s ‘Paradise Lost’ can be said of 2025: No one ever wished it longer. As this year slinks offstage, remember some memorable moments: Cracker Barrel stumbled into crisis when many Americans who have too much spare time became enraged because the restaurant chain deleted from its logo an elderly man in overalls. … Elon (‘I’m not just MAGA, I’m dark gothic MAGA’) Musk’s DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency), which never existed (actual departments are created by Congress), went out of existence after streamlining the government, which you might not have noticed. … The president decreed that the Gulf of Mexico is the Gulf of America. In 1945, Manhattan’s Sixth Avenue was renamed Avenue of the Americas. Has anyone ever called it that? … New York elected a socialist mayor (‘free’ buses and child care and lots of other stuff).” (12/26/25)
“Israel has recognized Somaliland, a breakaway region of Somalia, as an ‘independent and sovereign state,’ Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Friday. ‘Together with Foreign Minister Sa’ar and the President of the Republic of Somaliland, we signed a joint and mutual declaration,’ Netanyahu posted to X. ‘This declaration is in the spirit of the Abraham Accords, signed at the initiative of President Trump,’ he said. In doing so, Israel became the first country to recognize the breakaway region. … Somalia’s Foreign Ministry denounced Israel’s ‘deliberate attack’ on its sovereignty and warned that recognizing Somaliland as an independent state would ‘undermine regional peace.'” (12/26/25)
“Quick review: the Greek forces had besieged the walled city for a very long time but failed to breach its walls. So they appeared to be abandoning the effort and sailing away. But only after constructing a great wooden horse, some kind of tribute to the gods. When they sailed away, the seemingly victorious defenders of Troy came out and decided that the huge wooden horse was a suitable victory monument and dragged it into the city. Of course, the Greeks had filled the body of the horse with a squad of elite warriors. … Today, various companies, institutions, and government agencies are playing a kind of game very similar to the Trojan Horse scam. A correspondent, Bob Malone, reminded us of this recently. It is called the ‘subscription economy,’ and it is a direct application of that evil Regressive claim that ‘in the future we will own nothing, and be happy about it.’” (12/26/25)
