Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Nicholas Kristof: Am I a Christian, Pastor Timothy Keller? (NY Times)
KRISTOF: Tim, I deeply admire Jesus and his message, but am also skeptical of themes that have been integral to Christianity - the virgin birth, the Resurrection, the miracles and so on. Since this is the Christmas season, let's start with the virgin birth. Is that an essential belief, or can I mix and match?
Paul Krugman: And the Trade War Came (NY Times Column)
Tariffs: A bad idea whose time has come.
Ann Karpf: Satire won't rid us of Trump, but it will make us feel better (The Guardian)
In times of bigotry and prejudice, we need humour not just for escapism, but also to poke fun at the powerful.
Jonathan Jones: Why we're still baroque-ing around the Christmas tree (The Guardian)
We think of Christmas decorations as a Victorian invention, but they actually link us back to the baroque age - when bling and glitz formed a stairway to heaven.
Jonathan Jones: The Vatican appoints its first female museum head - but it can go further (The Guardian)
Hiring art historian Barbara Jatta is another progressive move from the Vatican Museums - now it must open up its secret wonders to the public.
Björk on sexism: 'Women in music are allowed to sing about their boyfriends' (The Guardian)
In an open letter posted on her Facebook page, the Icelandic artist wrote about the sexism she and other female artists face when they cover complex subjects.
Martin Belam: "Peter Capaldi on Doctor Who: 'Doctor Strange stole his look'" (The Guardian)
As he prepares for an all-new Christmas special, the Who actor discusses superheroes, scary scenes and what's next for the Time Lord.
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Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
Bonus Links
Jeannie the Teed-Off Temp
from Marc Perkel
Patriot Act
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
GOODBY TO A SHIT YEAR!
THE MORANS ARE SHOCKED, SHOCKED, SHOCKED!
WELCOME TO THE NEW KING!
"WE WILL SURVIVE THE MOSUL DAM".
THE GOP IS WRONG, WRONG, WRONG!
Visit JD's site - Kitty Litter Music
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Sunny but cool.
Most Pirated Show Of 2016
'Game of Thrones'
In what's become something of a long-standing tradition, Game Of Thrones was the most torrented show of 2016, according to a new report from Torrent Freak. Impressively, 2016 marks the fifth year in a row that HBO's hit show has sat perched atop of the torrent charts.
"Although there was no new swarm record, traffic-wise the interest was roughly on par with last year," the report notes. "The highest number of people actively sharing an episode across several torrents was 350,000 at its peak, this was right after the season finale came online."
For what it's worth, the most pirated TV show episode of all-time just so happens to be the season 5 finale of Game of Thrones, an episode which was downloaded more than 1.5 million times in the first 8 hours after airing.
Interestingly enough, the third most torrented show of 2016 just so happens to be Westworld, another HBO program. Does this perhaps suggest that viewers who love shows like Game of Thrones aren't otherwise impressed with the rest of HBO's catalog as to become full-fledged subscribers? It's possible, though it's also possible that the type of demographic both shows attract, on the whole, might be more tech-savvy and thus more inclined to use BitTorrent in the first place.
Other programs making an appearance on Torrent Freak's list of top 10 most downloaded TV shows include The Walking Dead, The Flash, Arrow, The Big Bang Theory, Vikings, Lucifer, Suits, and The Grand Tour.
'Game of Thrones'
'Holy Grail' German Abbey Books
Altomuenster Abbey
It was filthy, cramped and in major disarray, but when art historian Eva Lindqvist Sandgren entered the library in Altomuenster Abbey, off-limits to all but the German monastery's nuns for more than five centuries, she immediately knew she was looking at a major treasure.
The dusty shelves held at least 500 books, by her estimate, including precious illuminated manuscripts from the 16th century, chants used by the uniquely women-led Bridgettine Order and processionals bursting with colorful religious and ornamental decoration in their margins.
Unlike most Bridgettine libraries, the tomes had survived the Protestant Reformation, the 30 Years War and Germany's "secularization," when the state took most church property. It represents the most complete collection of the order known today.
Surprised by the spontaneous decision by Altomuenster's last remaining nun, Sister Apollonia Buchinger, to open the library, 20 scholars including Sandgren made plans to return and meticulously catalog the remarkable collection. But before they could, the Vatican ordered the abbey in the Bavarian town of 7,500 closed and locked up the library, which also contains some 2,300 statues, paintings and other works of art.
Since 1496, the former Benedictine abbey in Altomuenster has housed a female religious order founded by Saint Bridget in Sweden in the 14th century. It is one of three monasteries of the original branch of the scholarly, monastic order operating today. But with its numbers in decline, Sister Apollonia now lives there alone. The Vatican requires at least three nuns to train novices to become nuns, prompting the decision to shut the abbey down.
Altomuenster Abbey
Christmas Service Accidentally Prints Tupac's Lyrics
"Hail Mary"
A Christmas service pamphlet from a Sri Lankan church went viral after it mistakenly printed Tupac's "Hail Mary" lyrics instead of the words to the 1,000-year-old prayer that includes passages from the Gospel of Luke.
Instead, Columbo churchgoers at Joy to the World 2016, one of Sri Lanka's largest carol services, were surprised to see lines like, "Revenge is like the sweetest joy next to gettin' p***y" and "Killuminati, all through your body. The blows like a twelve-gauge shotty."
To be fair, both the prayer and the Tupac song ask for the intercession of Mary, mother of Jesus Christ, in order to redeem sinners. Tupac's version is far more explicit, though.
One attendee, Andrew Choksy, told the Guardian he sent photos of the pamphlet to his friends, and they subsequently went viral.
"No explanation was given at all," Choksy said. "They didn't acknowledge it at the venue ... To be honest, I was bursting inside."
"Hail Mary"
Please Don't See My Animated Blockbuster
Makoto Shinkai
Makoto Shinkai has a problem, a big problem. His mystical teenage body-swap movie "Your Name" has become such a massive hit it's beginning to worry him.
"It's not healthy," the boyish director told AFP. "I don't think any more people should see it."
Every week it gets closer to being the biggest Japanese animated film of all time.
It would be funny if Shinkai wasn't so in earnest about getting off the promotional circuit and back to work.
But the little animated film has become a runaway cultural juggernaut in Asia, and now it's winning awards in the United States and Europe.
Makoto Shinkai
Twitter Hacked
Sony Music
Sony Music Entertainment's Twitter account was hacked on Monday, publishing fake statements that pop music icon Britney Spears had died.
Sony Music, a unit of Sony Corp., said in a short statement that its social media account was "compromised" but that the situation "has been rectified."
The company said it "apologizes to Britney Spears and her fans for any confusion."
In the first of several false tweets on Monday, the company's Sony Music Global Twitter account published a short message reading "RIP @britneyspears" and "#RIPBritney 1981-2016," along with a teary-eyed emoji, Variety and Billboard magazines reported.
The Twitter account of folk music icon Bob Dylan may also have been subjected to a hoax, Billboard reported, when it sent out a now-deleted tweet reading "Rest in peace @britneyspears."
Sony Music
Numbers Decline
Cheetahs
Amid population declines for many wildlife species in Africa, conservationists are sounding alarm bells for the cheetah, the fastest animal on land.
An estimated 7,100 cheetahs remain in the wild across Africa and in a small area of Iran, and human encroachment has pushed the wide-ranging predator out of 91 percent of its historic habitat, according to a study published on Monday.
Consequently, the cheetah should be defined as "endangered" instead of the less serious "vulnerable" on an official watch list of threatened species worldwide, the study said.
About 77 percent of cheetah habitats fall outside wildlife reserves and other protected areas, the study said, requiring outreach to governments and villages to promote tolerance for a carnivore that sometimes hunts livestock.
Besides habitat loss, cheetahs face attacks from villagers, loss of antelope and other prey that are killed by people for their meat, an illegal trade in cheetah cubs, the trafficking of cheetah skins and the threat of getting hit by speeding vehicles.
Cheetahs
Egypt Holds Producer
Al-Jazeera
Qatar-based satellite news channel Al-Jazeera accused Egypt on Monday of detaining one of its producers on "fabricated charges," its latest newsroom employee to be entangled in their bitter dispute.
The broadcaster issued a statement describing the allegations levied by Egypt's Interior Ministry against Mahmoud Hussein as containing "an alarming number of false facts and allegations."
Egypt said Sunday it detained Hussein at a home in Cairo. It said he was instructed by his Doha-based employer to publish "false rumors" about the country.
Al-Jazeera said Hussein didn't work as a "correspondent supervisor as alleged," but as a producer for its Arabic-language channel.
This is the latest arrest by Egypt targeting the state-funded broadcaster, whose coverage in the years after the country's 2011 Arab Spring revolution and 2013 military overthrow of elected President Mohammed Morsi has drawn intense government criticism.
Al-Jazeera
WWII Bomb Defused
Augsburg
An unexploded British bomb from World War Two forced 54,000 people out of their homes in Germany on Christmas Day, the country's biggest such evacuation since the end of hostilities.
The huge operation on Sunday in the southern city of Augsburg took 11 hours, involved 900 police officers and it ended successfully around 1800 GMT, local authorities announced.
The 1.8-tonne explosive was found on Tuesday during work at a construction site in the Bavarian city, but authorities waited until Sunday to coordinate the logistics necessary to make it safe.
More than 70 years after the end of the war, unexploded bombs are regularly found buried on German land, legacies of the intense bombing campaigns by the Allied forces against Nazi Germany.
A 1,500-metre exclusion zone was created for the operation in case the bomb exploded while engineers were trying to deactivate it and sandbags were set up all around.
Augsburg
Weekend Box Office
"Rogue One: A Star Wars Story"
It was an intergalactic holiday at movie theaters as "Rogue One" blasted past a spate of new releases to hold onto the top spot at the weekend box office.
The "Star Wars" story added another $96 million to its coffers over the four-day holiday period, according to studio estimates Monday.
That left the weekend's many new releases in a race for second place. The animated animal musical "Sing" claimed that spot, debuting to $56 million. The Jennifer Lawrence-Chris Pratt space tale "Passengers" opened in third place with $23.1 million, followed by the R-rated comedy "Why Him?" with $16.7 million. The video-game adaptation "Assassin's Creed" debuted in fifth place with $15 million.
Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Monday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to comScore. Where available, the latest international numbers for Friday through Monday are also included. Final domestic figures will be released Tuesday.
1. "Rogue One: A Star Wars Story," $96.1 million ($47.1 million international).
2. "Sing," $56.1 million ($27 million international).
3. "Passengers," $23.1 million.
4. "Why Him?" $16.7 million ($2.2 million international).
5. "Assassin's Creed," $15 million ($13.3 million international).
6. "Fences," $11.4 million.
7. "Moana," $10.4 million ($14.9 million international).
8. "La La Land," $9.7 million ($4.3 million international).
9. "Office Christmas Party," $7.3 million ($3 million international).
10. "Collateral Beauty," $7.1 million ($3.6 million international).
"Rogue One: A Star Wars Story"
In Memory
Vera Rubin
Vera Rubin, a pioneering astronomer who helped find powerful evidence of dark matter, has died, her son said Monday. She was 88.
Allan Rubin, a professor of geosciences at Princeton University, said his mother died Sunday night of natural causes. He said the Philadelphia native had been living in the Princeton area.
Vera Rubin found that galaxies don't quite rotate the way they were predicted, and that lent support to the theory that some other force was at work, namely dark matter.
Dark matter, which hasn't been directly observed, makes up 27 percent of universe - as opposed to 5 percent of the universe being normal matter. Scientists better understand what dark matter isn't rather than what it is.
Rubin's scientific achievements earned her numerous awards and honors, including a National Medal of Science presented by President Bill Clinton in 1993 "for her pioneering research programs in observational cosmology." She also became the second female astronomer to be elected to the National Academy of Sciences.
"It goes without saying that, as a woman scientist, Vera Rubin had to overcome a number of barriers along the way," California Institute of Technology physicist Sean Carroll tweeted Monday.
Rubin's interest in astronomy began as a young girl and grew with the involvement of her father, Philip Cooper, an electrical engineer who helped her build a telescope and took her to meetings of amateur astronomers.
Although Rubin said her parents were extremely supportive of her career choice, she said in a 1995 interview with the American Institute of Physics that her father had suggested she become a mathematician, concerned that it would be difficult for her to make a living as an astronomer.
She was the only astronomy major to graduate from Vassar College in 1948. When she sought to enroll as a graduate student at Princeton, she learned women were not allowed in the university's graduate astronomy program, so she instead earned her master's degree from Cornell University.
Rubin earned her doctorate from Georgetown University, where she later worked as a faculty member for several years before working at the Carnegie Institution in Washington, a nonprofit scientific research center.
During her career, Rubin examined more than 200 galaxies.
Vera Rubin
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