Well tut, tut, New York Times

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Wants to Ban Drug Ads on TV. It Wouldn’t Be Easy.

If Mr. Kennedy wins Senate confirmation to become health secretary and pushes to ban drug ads, he could find allies among doctors.…He could also find common cause with Americans who love to complain about pharma ads on their screens.

That would be me. I love to complain about pharma ads on my screens. I love to complain a lot. 

And as you, New York Times, should know, there are already plenty of laws that apply to advertising practices. How easy was that?

I disagree with Bobby Jr. on a whole lot of things, but not on this.

Is it a Christmas miracle?

Detroit-area library says Chicago man can keep overdue baseball book -- 50 years later

“Some people never come back to face the music,” [the Detroit library director] said of patrons with overdue books. “But there was really no music to face because he and the book were erased from our system.”

Or is it not?

Erased?

Starts (wow!) tomorrow

Google has a Santa tracker page that allows one to follow the old guy's Christmas Eve journey in real time. Imaginarily real (just kidding, kids) at least. 

And while waiting for the Big Event to begin one can play with jolly Christmas toys like a Santa coloring book or a translator that converts various seasonal phrases to other languages. [SPOILER ALERT: The English phrase, Ho Ho Ho, is pronounced, in German, Ho Ho Ho.]

NORAD (North American Aerospace Defense Command) maintains a similar tracking page, but without the games. It does, however, offer mobile Santa tracking apps. (So they can track you too?)

Not me, but…

A million taxpayers will soon receive up to $1,400 from the IRS. Who are they and why now?

…if this trend toward throwing money at people is going to become a thing I'm here for it. Are you listening, Feds?

On "bringing a close"…

Biden signs bill that averts a government shutdown and brings a close to days of Washington upheaval

…for three months.

And this I'm supposed to be excited about (whew)?

Every three months (for how long now?) a self-replicating fraught orgy of partisan politics — and all because the Congress is incapable of doing its everlovin' job.

Hiding in plain sight

Newberry Library discovers it holds the largest example in existence of an extremely rare paper type

[The 49-sheet manuscript is] printed on maguey paper, a type made from pounded agave plants that is so rare that only 10 sheets were known to exist: four at the Library of Congress and six at the National Library of Anthropology and History in Mexico City.

The Newberry Library in question is not in Newberry, it's in Chicago.

Oops

U.S. Navy Shoots Down Own Plane as Fresh Strikes Target Houthi Rebels in Yemen

[From coststudy.org: 

The F-18 is known to cost somewhere between $50 million and $120 million when bought new. Used F-18 models will cost significantly less, although it will be hard to find one below the price of $20 million.]

No word about the missile,

The F-18 aircraft carries a two-person crew. Both bailed out safely, one incurring "minor injuries."

Some skies are not so friendly

When Your $3 Million Cello Gets Bumped From Your Flight

The cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason had to cancel a concert in Toronto last week after an airline refused to let him board with his instrument, even though he had bought a ticket for it.

And no, it wasn't TSA.

[And in a related story…]

Do you know your right from your left? (Looking at you, New Hampshire)

Is the New Hampshire state seal correct? Confusion abounds over the description of the design

“Rather than have us reprint everything, I just would like to correct the description,” she said.

 In the Live Free or Die state it's been a confounding year.

But does it scramble any better?

"Almost perfectly spherical" egg auctioned for $250

And yes, the guy who bought it was a little scrambled, but still…

The good news is…

The winter solstice is here, the Northern Hemisphere’s darkest day

…tomorrow, at this lattitude (Boston), there will be three seconds more sunlight than today. 

And then more light each day.

And yes, I know, there's a bunch of complaining about springing up and falling back but I don't care about that at all.

But what about Dr. Bezos?

James Bond Outdueled Goldfinger and Dr. No. Can He Win a Battle With Amazon?

To friends, Broccoli has characterized her thoughts on Amazon this way: “These people are f— idiots.”

Bond, this WSJ story claims, has dodged more than 4,000 bullets so far… 

Sometimes a law just works

The Top Secret Gift Shop Where You Need Clearance to Get In

There's a law that gives visualy impaired people preference in operating vending facilities on federal property, according to this Wall Street Journal article. Which makes a perfect fit for managing the CIA gift shop, where one can buy bags of coffee labeled "Don't Spill the Beans" or a set of shot glasses that read “Admit Nothing. Deny Everything."

The gifts themselves are no secret, but getting to the shop to buy them requires an imposing level of security clearance. There are easier places to do your last-minute holiday shopping, such as the FBI store, where you can buy everyone left on your list a personalized Most Wanted poster. (You have to furnish the pictures.)

Breaking — no, exploding news

 Watch a garbage truck explode in Arlington Heights, Illinois 

As a public service

Odie Henderson’s 10 worst movies of the year

Who is Odie Henderson, you may ask. I have no idea.

Oh wait. He works for the Boston Globe.

Yes it is

Mass Hysteria? Iran? China? The U.S. Military? How the Leading Drone Theories Stack Up.

“We have these industry, military, law enforcement professionals that are directly conflicting the message that is coming from the White House,” [a New Jersey assemblywoman named Dawn Fantasia] says. Speaking of Rep. Pallone’s comments after being briefed, Fantasia said: “Now, are we in a situation that our [federal] elected officials are in the know but the state of New Jersey is still not in the know? I mean, this is getting silly.”

Getting silly, that is.

And so, since everyone's entitled (I think it's in the Constitution somewhere) to have an opinion, I'm going with mine.

It's somebody (or somebodies) training an AI, much like everyone from Tesla and Google to Uber and Lyft are training automobiles. 

Most likely it's a U.S. government entity and nobody's talking about it because…wait for it…it's a secret.

Now we can talk about the wisdom of secrets.

The key word here is "world's"

Donald Trump’s win is boosting optimism among the world’s top executives

Seems (to me, at least) like a not-exactly counterintuitive but certainly counter-narrative report. 

And notably…

The worries [about tariff threats] are concentrated among heads of larger companies, according to the survey: 13% of those CEOs thought tariffs would have a positive effect on their businesses, compared with 80% of CEOs of the smaller companies surveyed.

Well, well.

We may be needing a sports editor soon

Martial artists break dangerous record involving cucumber, chainsaw, blindfold

Dec. 16 (UPI) -- Members of an Indian martial arts collective broke a bizarre Guinness World Record: Most slices of a cucumber held in a person's mouth with a chainsaw while blindfolded in one minute.

First we had kids writing and drinking sake while swimming in armor; then the World Excel Championship; and now seeing how close you can get to a guy's nose with a chainsaw. Wearing a blindfold.

It's not the guy with the nose that's wearing the blindfold (which might make some sense). It's the guy with the saw.

No word on what happens to what's left of the cuke.

And wait: There's more.

Dec. 16 (UPI) -- A municipality in the Philippines broke a Guinness World Record by gathering more than 2,000 people dressed as angels.