Via Rob H., The Pogues (Featuring Kirsty MacColl) -- Fairytale Of New York

This is one of the most extravagantly decorated houses every year at Christmastime in San Francisco. I put together this video recently and thought you'd all enjoy it on this cold Thursday night.

Obsolete Climate Science on CO2

It's not clear whether one should laugh or cry:

Dear Mark,

Spot on. It reminds me of the old joke about the procedure for separating the sane from the insane, back when there were "mental asylums" and society tried to keep crazy people inside them instead of running the country.

The intake assessment involved giving each patient a mop and bucket, then locking them in a room and slowly flooding it with water.

As the water level rose, the insane went to work with the mop and bucket.

The sane located the valve and turned off the water.

Merry Christmas to you and yours!

Rick Darby

You say po-ta-to, they say pota-to-play...

As part of an ongoing review of fundraising activities by the Liberal Party of Canada, The Globe and Mail spoke with invitees who described requests that suggest significant discrepancies between official ticket prices and the actual cost of entry.

One businesswoman, who splits her time between China and Canada, told The Globe she was invited to a May fundraiser by Chinese Business Chamber of Canada chair Benson Wong - an event billed as an intimate evening at Mr. Wong's home with Justin Trudeau - at a cost of $4,500. She would only agree to be identified by her first name, Linda.

They were flying coach.

Ivanka was on a JetBlue flight leaving JFK Thursday morning with her family when a passenger started screaming, "Your father is ruining the country." The guy went on, "Why is she on our flight. She should be flying private." The guy had his kid in his arms as he went on the tirade.

His Harvard educated professor husband was in on the action.

Here is professor @mattlasner's deleted tweet regarding the harassment of Ivanka Trump and her children on JetBlue @Hunter_College pic.twitter.com/FGG5DUaQk8

— Mark Dice (@MarkDice) December 22, 2016

Trudeau likes the idea of Canada. It's just aboriginal Canadians that he largely hates:

A federal decision to stop issuing offshore oil and gas licences in the Arctic was made without consultation with the people whose economy stands to pay the price, Northwest Territories Premier Bob McLeod said Wednesday.

The leader of the territory south of the oil-rich Beaufort Sea said he heard about the new policy just two hours before it was made public Tuesday in a joint statement by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and U.S. President Barack Obama.

McLeod said he is disappointed by Ottawa's "unilateral" move, which he said has set back recent initiatives by Ottawa to give Canada's territories more autonomy.

"We need to have northerners making decisions about the North that affect them," McLeod said in an interview.

Still losing...

"It astounds me that the press still doesn't get it, that my party (Democrats) are blaming everyone but themselves for a poor message, poor messenger and the responsibility she bears for placing her email security in jeopardy . . . it's not Comey's fault. It's hers," said Elizabeth who was sitting in the booth across the aisle.

Elizabeth voted for Clinton, but wasn't sure she'd do so again. "The way everyone is acting now post-election shows that no one, no one, has learned anything. She is just proving she deserved to lose," she said.

What the political class astoundingly still doesn't get is that people, even those who supported Clinton, are tired of Trump's win being blamed on fake news, the Comey letter and the Russians.

They're tired of every story about the election beginning with "But, Hillary won the popular vote." And they're tired of protesters protesting something they can't change.

And they're clearly not alone.

More.

From SDA sponsor Susan Crockford*: "A versatile, full-color polar bear science summary appropriate for ages 7 and up: Polar Bear Facts and Myths. It's laid out in a question and answerformat with language that's straightforward but not condescending, making it a great polar bear book for adults and kids to read together."

*Sorry for the misspelling, Susan!

Tonight's thread is open for tips.

Another narrative goes up in flames.

Mississippi authorities have made an arrest in the burning of an African-American church spray-painted with the words, "Vote Trump."

Mississippi Department of Public Safety spokesman Warren Strain says Andrew McClinton of Leland, Mississippi, who is African-American, is charged with first-degree arson of a place of worship.

"Coupled with the choir of worthless parents who pampered the genetic crap that resulted from their copulation, these veritable worthless human beings are incapable of self-supportation, independent thought, honoring the golden rule, sympathy, and respecting other people's rights. And if they got their way, they would have enslaved the rest of us to pay for their parasitic lifestyles, while working crusaderishly to chisel away at freedom, democracy, and the United States.

However, they face one problem. Trump."

...and Mr. Trump now has a lay-up on coal.

Clearly we must step up efforts in the screening of foreign manufactured trucks.

Behold, the Clinton archipelago...

I had never wanted a son. In fact, I had decidedly not wanted one. I wanted daughters... This seemed altogether to fit in with my feminism better... There were dark moments in the middle of the night (when all those dark thoughts come), when I felt sick at the thought of something male growing inside me.

Former educator Polly Dunning tells us how to do feminist motherhood.

A 2016 montage.

Tips thread is open.

Zsa Zsa Gabor's Most Memorable Quotes

Trudeau likes the idea of Canada. It's just Canadians that he largely hates.

More.

How cold and windy is it, Kate?

Alberta's Minister of the Entitlement: Walking's for the little people.

CBC asks did @SPhillipsAB walk/bus to studio? She drove+said "isn't about 1 individual's commute" #abpoli #carbontax pic.twitter.com/BGPRu1I1jO

— Paige T. MacPherson (@paigemacp) December 20, 2016

Full interview here, question comes up at about the 31:00 minute mark. At 32:15 she admits to flying from Lethbridge to Calgary. Followed by a caller frustrated that her solar panels aren't paying for themselves.

On Fox News' top-rated Kelly File, Martha MacCallum asked two experts about the market slaughter and both of them instantly pivoted to military strikes against Isis, the need to form an Arab version of Nato, and other grand schemes. I'm all in favor of destroying Isis, but Isis is a mere symptom, not a cause. After Isis is destroyed, it'll be something else. In many parts of the world, it's already something else: al-Qa'eda, the Taliban, Boko Haram, Abu Sayyaf, al-Shabaab, al-Nusra, al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya, al-this, al-that, al-the other...

Neither of Martha's guests so much as raised the question of why people who want to murder you for attending a Christmas market are in your country in the first place.

And you just can't get enough of that "menstruation-based" art.

To commemorate the passing of Canadian country icon Gordie Tapp, his 2012 performance in Nipawin, SK. at the age of 89.

Tips thread is open.

What's the dead pool over-under on this kid? https://t.co/CZT6Q4OoLI

— Katewerk (@katewerk) December 20, 2016

#BREAKING: one dead, multiple others injured after a Truck plows into the Christmas market in #Berlin pic.twitter.com/zj427xegaQ

— Amichai Stein (@AmichaiStein1) December 19, 2016

More here.

UPDATE: ...according to the German newspaper Die Welt, "indications are gathering that the arrested truck driver is Pakistani."

You can follow it here.

Interesting to see that each of the 20 Pennsylvania electors has been assigned a police officer for protection. Sadly, such is the case when you're dealing with Leftist hordes who don't believe in democracy.

Russian ambassador to Turkey dead after being shot in 'assassination attempt in revenge for Aleppo'

Sam Kriss;

It's possible that the Democratic National Committee leaks were caused by Russian hackers--but given that the hack took place thanks to John Podesta clicking on a link in a phishing email, displaying all the technological savvy of someone's aunt extremely excited by the new iPhone she thinks she's won, it could have been anyone. The "leaked" CIA concerns over Russian meddling were quite clearly leaked deliberately by the CIA itself, an organization not exactly famed for its commitment to the truth; they're the conclusions of an investigation that hasn't even happened yet and on which there's no consensus even among the gang of petty Caligulas that calls itself the intelligence community. Still, it's possible. Countries sometimes try to exert influence in each other's internal affairs; it's part of great-power politics, and it's been happening for a very long time. When Americans meddled in Russia's elections, it was by securing victory for Boris Yeltsin, Russia's very own Donald Trump, a man who had sent in tanks to shell his own parliament. Leaked cables suggest that Hillary Clinton's own State Department interfered with the political process in Haiti by suppressing a rise in the minimum wage. And American involvement in the politics of Chile, Guatemala, Indonesia, and Iran was mostly through military coups, sponsored by none other than the CIA. There was no question of these countries repeating their elections; anyone the generals didn't like was tortured to death. Next to the mountain of corpses produced by America's history of fixing foreign elections, a few hacked emails are entirely insignificant.

Related

A vanishingly rare moment of sanity in an increasingly crazy world.

In a ruling that references butter knives, euthanasia and cats named Slimey and Oinky, a Saskatoon judge made an impassioned defence of the notion that, when it comes to the law, dogs should not be treated as though they were children.

It's just a matter of time.

Socialism: it's going to start working any moment now.

Venezuela's highest denomination banknote has ceased to be legal tender, in a move that has caused cash chaos and long queues at banks.

Protests against the move led to looting in parts of the country, with shops attacked and roads blocked.

Some cash machines on Thursday were still issuing the old 100-bolivar notes, hours before they expired.

President Nicolas Maduro said new higher-denomination bills would be fully distributed in January.

He has closed the borders with Brazil and Colombia until Sunday to stop "mafias" hoarding the currency abroad.

C'est un grand marais.

PARIS -- Christine Lagarde, the managing director of the International Monetary Fund, was found guilty on Monday of criminal charges linked to the misuse of public funds during her time as France's finance minister, a verdict that could force her out of her post.

Ms. Lagarde, who began her second five-year term at the I.M.F. in February, will not face any jail time, the judge said. The scandal has overshadowed her work at the fund, to which she was appointed in 2011, after Dominique Strauss-Kahn resigned as managing director when he was accused of having sexually assaulted a maid in a New York City hotel.