What's in the news?

[Beguile's Mistress]

China will return drone
https://www.yahoo.com/news/china-smooth-resolution-expected-us-navy-drone-issue-085342299.html

And Trump with look for someone to say thank you.

[Oniya]

Asking if it was only fake news seems to imply that there was perhaps a more direct influence, like actually manipulating the vote count - for which I have yet to see any credible evidence. I have no doubt that the actual voting process was as fair and square as it can get, leaving aside gerrymandering, ID laws, and all that shhh....tuff. 

As for Nixon, I must admit that my knowledge of that era is somwhat limited.

I know that there was a point where T-Rump was talking about 'Russian hackers' - and I don't know if anything that the CIA has found has implicated electronic tampering or not.  False news is bad enough, however.

As for the voting process, I'm not so sure it was as 'fair and square' as all that, considering Detroit's issues with voting machine failures

Regarding Nixon, I'm referring to the incident where five men broke into the DNC headquarters to install illegal wiretaps.  After a cash connection was found between these men and the Nixon re-election committee, Nixon ended up eventually resigning.

[Missy]

As tempting as it it may be to ascribe the result of the election to a single factor, the plain truth of the matter is that we will never know for certain. Did Comey cost Clinton the election? Possible? Did Trump just staying mostly silent in the two weeks leading up to the election win him the election? Could be. Campaigning here, but not there? Might have made a difference. And so on, and so forth.

At the end of the day the world is a mighty complicated mess. Always was, always will be. Any attempt to explain the election results that neglects that simple fact and, instead, tries to pin it all on one simgle cause is bound to overlook something.

Sometimes there are no easy answers, and sometimes the best we can do is scratch the surface of the complicated, multifaceted truth. That shouldn't stop us from trying to understand the truth, but the moment easy answers present themselves we should probably reach for the salt.

I never said the answers were easy or that we should tyr to pin it on any one thing, but the fact remains Russia did a bang up job on their intelligence actions against the America and the man who is to be our President maintains complete denial of that fact. We need to strongly discourage that kind of activity in the future, but the President Elect seems disinclined to do that (probably because he's stupid enough to believe it's that simple). Russia has been an agressor for some time now, in the case of Georgia, Crimea, Putting missiles in position to be able to strike two and a half countries. We've created Putin in our way by not reacting strongly enough to his behavior, he's our problem and we need to clean up that mess, the last thign we need is to be looking at Putin in a positive light, sad to say.

[Missy]

Obama described Russia as Weaker than America
https://www.yahoo.com/news/obama-ties-election-hack-to-putin-knocks-weaker-russia-214609134.html

Transgender Girl on the Cover of National Geographic
https://www.yahoo.com/beauty/national-geographic-puts-a-young-trans-girl-on-the-cover-152123593.html

This article suggested as many as 1 in 20 Americans are transgender, I'm not sure of their sources, but that would be the highest I've ever heard. The reality is it's been amazingly difficult to pin down that number for a number of reasons, but most of all because there is not nationally recognized survey. Resultantly the numbers fluctuate rather broadly and are fairly imprecise. The highest statistic I've ever heard was 1 in 37, but that survey covered only DC and most other surveys reported alongside bore much lower numbers. Although that goes without saying that the approximate estimation did double recently, because of the aforementioned lack of effective data collection techniques.

[Sain]

I dunno if this is the right place, but this was super exciting and interesting, but also rather creepy if you stop to think about all the details.

When Is the Brain Dead? Living-Like Electrophysiological Responses and Photon Emissions from Applications of Neurotransmitters in Fixed Post-Mortem Human Brains.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27907050
and full text http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0167231

[Trigon]

Well folks, our next president is so awful that he can't even spell: http://usuncut.com/politics/trump-spelling-websters-dictionary/

Seriously, who voted for this guy?

[Missy]

A bunch of people he duped and swindled. We're all just hoping something miraculous happens with the college this year. Seriously I might give up my scrooge act for it, it's definitely a Christmas gift I would accept.

[Missy]

Obama warns America not to abandon our values
https://gma.yahoo.com/video/dying-man-weds-hospital-dies-181016667.html

[Blythe]

Obama warns America not to abandon our values
https://gma.yahoo.com/video/dying-man-weds-hospital-dies-181016667.html

This links to a rather poignant short video about a dying man marrying his long-term SO, not an Obama article.

But I'm glad they got to marry. I'm sad they did not get more time together as husband and wife.

[Lustful Bride]

Some nice news. Pope eats alongside the homeless.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/pope-eats-with-homeless-on-80th-birthday-gets-70000-emails/ar-AAlGoSw?li=BBnb7Kz&ocid=HPCOMMDHP15


Chicago PD treat local children to a Shopping spree.
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/good-news/police-department-treats-kids-to-target-shopping-spree/vi-AAlEirv?ocid=HPCOMMDHP15

Students sing Christmas carols to a cancer stricken teacher.
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/good-news/students-gather-to-sing-christmas-carols-to-teacher-with-cancer/ar-AAlEslZ?ocid=HPCOMMDHP15

[Missy]

This links to a rather poignant short video about a dying man marrying his long-term SO, not an Obama article.

But I'm glad they got to marry. I'm sad they did not get more time together as husband and wife.

https://gma.yahoo.com/video/obama-says-putin-weaken-us-202922410.html

I think it autoplays after each individual video ends, anyway.

[Wind Flower]

Transgender Girl on the Cover of National Geographic
https://www.yahoo.com/beauty/national-geographic-puts-a-young-trans-girl-on-the-cover-152123593.html

This article suggested as many as 1 in 20 Americans are transgender, I'm not sure of their sources, but that would be the highest I've ever heard. The reality is it's been amazingly difficult to pin down that number for a number of reasons, but most of all because there is not nationally recognized survey. Resultantly the numbers fluctuate rather broadly and are fairly imprecise. The highest statistic I've ever heard was 1 in 37, but that survey covered only DC and most other surveys reported alongside bore much lower numbers. Although that goes without saying that the approximate estimation did double recently, because of the aforementioned lack of effective data collection techniques.

SHE IS ADORABLE! I love that pink hair!  I agree with you the stats seem kinda heavy, I would be maybe less surprised if it was 1/50? But maybe this is because more transgender individuals are feeling comfortable with identifying themselves at an earlier age?





OH! And my bit of news: http://www.poconorecord.com/news/20161217/reindeer-are-shrinking

The fact that its portrayed like it was written from Santa was appropriate too I think.

[Missy]

SHE IS ADORABLE! I love that pink hair!  I agree with you the stats seem kinda heavy, I would be maybe less surprised if it was 1/50? But maybe this is because more transgender individuals are feeling comfortable with identifying themselves at an earlier age?

Well it's a tricky thing to estimate for a lot of reasons, people who are closeted and don't want to come out or are afraid to come out as well as people who bury their identities in an effort to protect themselves. It's questionable how many suicides in the states can be attributed to unknown transpersons for example. DC has a higher population of transgendered as well 2.77%.

Age isn't really important in coming outs as environment, it did seem to be getting better, I just hope it continues to trend that way. We hope.

[Trigon]

I'm sure it will, provided of course we remember that politics isn't a spectator sport and we are  able to successfully push back the far-right...

[Missy]

It's my belief we can build a bridge to moderate conservatives. I hope, Bernie seems to be managing that fairly well.

The tricky part is people closing their minds to things. I read an article for moderate conservatives once decrying Trump and his connections to the Alt Right, it ended by comparing them to "leftist concepts like gender politics". It's not so much people opinions I can't handle, but the ready dismissal of opposing viewpoints that hampers American potential. The terms leftist and rightist are applied all to liberally in my opinion, it just results in preventing dialogue between different people.

[Trigon]

I'm sure most sensible conservatives are repulsed by the far right. For instance Winston Churchill, who unambiguously identified himself as conservative, but nontheless was ready to wage war against Hitler.

The real problem is that I think we (chiefly the Liberals; those further to the Left have a better idea of this) severely underestimate the appeal that fascism actually has for a non-negligible fraction of the human population...

[Missy]

Easy to identify and therefore target enemies to make a fight against? A strong arm and hammer to beat at those defined as enemies. An easy go-to blame someone else and hold myself to no responsibility for what ails me?

Not at all surprising.

[Trigon]

That unfortunately is the fact of life. As far as the Far-Right is concerned, they are locked in a total war., of which the outcome is either complete genocide of anyone they deem inferior. Or their own total defeat. How, may I ask, do you possibly convince someone like that otherwise?

In related news, the U.K. has started outright banning Neo-Nazis and other far right groups: http://uk.mobile.reuters.com/article/idUKKBN1451YV

[Trigon]

That's not to say that I don't think a peaceful resolution is impossible, per say. But rather that I think that it's way harder than most think. George Orwell, I think, has laid out the difficulties inherent with pacifism here: http://www.orwell.ru/library/reviews/gandhi/english/e_gandhi

My views are largely align with his; peaceful resolution might be possible, but I'm certainly not hedging my bets...

[Lustful Bride]

A Father woke up late at night to check up on his crying Toddler, to find an Intruder stealing his 2 year old daughter from her bed. And proceeded to fight with the man until police arrived.

The child is okay and the intruder arrested. No harm was done to the infant.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/a-dad-was-awakened-by-his-toddler%e2%80%99s-crying-he-found-a-stranger-holding-her-in-the-living-room/ar-AAlHRuI?li=BBnbfcL&ocid=HPCOMMDHP15


That is among every parents top 5 worst nightmares.

[Lustful Bride]

Aleppo Evacuation/cease fire ruined as refugee buses burnt.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/aleppo-evacuation-is-imperiled-as-buses-burn-and-russia-opposes-un-effort/ar-AAlIjoN?li=BBnb7Kz&ocid=HPCOMMDHP15

[Trigon]

In last night's SNL, Alec Baldwin promises to stop the feud if Trump releases his tax returns: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/arts-and-entertainment/wp/2016/12/18/is-this-the-end-of-the-snl-feud-between-alec-baldwin-and-donald-trump/?utm_term=.22f299a12198

Trump's lack of response on Twitter was noted too . Who wants to bet he'll actually release his tax returns 

[TheGlyphstone]

He'll decry Baldwin as SAD!!! and SNL as FAILING!!! with its plummeting viewership.

[Beguile's Mistress]

Maybe his staff took away his electronics again. 

I just had a thought, though.  He's a little more than a month away from the inauguration.  Can you imagine the stomach-churning that is going on trying to figure out a speech for him to give and the worries over him going off-script?

[Missy]

In last night's SNL, Alec Baldwin promises to stop the feud if Trump releases his tax returns: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/arts-and-entertainment/wp/2016/12/18/is-this-the-end-of-the-snl-feud-between-alec-baldwin-and-donald-trump/?utm_term=.22f299a12198

Trump's lack of response on Twitter was noted too . Who wants to bet he'll actually release his tax returns 

And show that Putin has him by the balls? I really can't speculate fairly, but he's very clearly hiding something in there.

Tell you what it's the one thing I wouldn't be uncomfortable someone hacking the IRS to get.