A grim vision of Xmas future:
Stories you probably missed:
Slate offers a calendar showing the best things that happened on each day in 2015. They say it was harder to do than last year’s Year of Outrage. Slate’s point of view: Progress, science, diversity, diplomacy, wildlife conservation, funny feminists, international climate agreements, and Justin Trudeau were good things.
The Atlantic says that 2015 was the best year in history for the average human being. Agree or disagree, their viewpoint is that 2015 saw continued progress toward better quality of life for the considerable majority of the planet, alongside technological breakthroughs and political agreements that suggest the good news might continue next year and beyond.
Poll: 30% of GOP voters support bombing Agrabah, the fictional city from Aladdin. The poll was conducted by Public Policy Polling (PPP). Of those who support the bombing of the fictional nation, about 45% support Donald Trump. PPP also found that 36% of Republicans think thousands of Arabs in NJ cheered when the World Trade Center collapsed, to 35% who don’t think that happened. Supporters of Trump (49/24) and Cruz (47/22) both pretty firmly think that occurred while Bush (37/51) and Rubio (22/46) voters don’t think it did.
Business Insider: Kansas is now the 5th state where lottery prizes may have been fixed. The former security chief for a national group that operates state lotteries personally bought two prize-winning tickets in Kansas worth $44,000, making five states where he may have fixed games to enrich himself. He managed random number generators that pick winning numbers for some national games such as Hot Lotto and games played in individual lotteries. Boy, outsourcing isn’t profitable enough?
