Ringing in the New Year!

It's Been a Long One For Sure

A Bear Crisis Has Seized Japan

A bear crisis has sparked national alarm in Japan-- at least 13 people have been killed and more than 200 wounded injured in bear encounters the past year alone. Videos of bears rummaging through supermarket aisles, roaming school grounds and plucking persimmons from suburban backyards have gone viral on Japanese social media. Some schools have also closed temporarily, while residents in parts of northern Japan avoid going out after dark. Japan’s defense minister has deployed the Self-Defense Forces to hard-hit regions, and lawmakers are scrambling to find long-term solutions. The US and UK embassies have also issued advisories to travelers in rural areas. 

For many, the crisis feels both frightening – and predictable.  “There are just too many bears now, it’s an emergency situation,” bear hunter Haruo Ikegami says.  Japan’s bear population has skyrocketed, while the number of licensed hunters has plummeted. With more than a third of Japan’s population now over 65, rural towns are shrinking. Few young residents remain, and even fewer are willing to take up hunting, Ikegami said, a dangerous job with low pay and little appeal compared to urban life in places like Tokyo. “If the government had taken this seriously earlier, it wouldn’t have gotten this bad,” Atsushi Kanno, a 37-year-old bear hunter, told CNN. “It’s nonsense that they’re responding now, only after things have escalated.” 

There are several factors driving the surge in encounters. One is simply numbers-- the population of the Hokkaido brown bear, one of two bear species in Japan, has more than doubled in the last 30 years, with nearly 12,000 of the animals now roaming the country’s northernmost prefecture.  Experts say climate change is another factor. Poor harvests of nuts and fruit are pushing bears to seek food elsewhere. 

“When it’s scarce, bears must find food. I believe bears are taking a step closer to human settlements,” Hiroo Tamatani, a bear conservationist said. Japan’s demographic shifts also compound the problem. Rural towns and farmland once formed a natural buffer between deep forest and populated centers. But as those areas empty out, bears are moving in, taking advantage of the new real estate.

Public opinion largely supports culling. Many in Japan now fear hiking or traveling to prefectures with recent attacks, and a growing number prefer visiting “no-bear prefectures,” areas with no known bear populations.  Japanese officials continue searching for solutions that protect human life while allowing wildlife to survive.  “Humans and animals have lived side by side for a long time. Sometimes we harmed each other, but we still must respect and acknowledge one another,” Tougen Yoshihara, a Buddhist monk who was attacked by a bear, told CNN.

 

Post Christmas Vibe

Right Back at Ya

Lady A - Wouldn't Be Christmas

Mickey Guyton - Feels Like Christmas

Have a Banging Christmas!

The Jonas Brothers - Coming Home This Christmas

Keeping it Real on Christmas

Let's Be Honest This Xmas

Have a Very Vulcan Xmas

 

Happy Star Trek Holiday

Brad Paisley - Leave the Christmas Lights on For Me

Don't Be A Grinch This Xmas

Merry Christmas From the Heartland

 

From The North Pole

Trump Shows What a Sick Bastard He Really Is

Convicted felon Donald Trump showed us once again what an ignorant jackass he is-- and that he is no leader.  Commenting on the tragic death of Rob Reiner and his wife yesterday, Trump posted: 

 

1. Rob Reiner was neither tortured and struggling (but Trump certainly appears to be himself);

2.  There is no such thing as "Trump Derangement Syndrome"

3. Reiner did not pass away due to a "mind-crippling disease"-- he was stabbed by his son;

4. The Trump administration is not surpassing any goals or expectations-- in fact, the administration is falling behead on most of his promises (lowering prices, staying out of foreign wars, deporting criminals)

5. America is definitely NOT in a "Golden Age" 

All of this hateful bullshit is what everyone has come to expect from a man who danced on the grave of the late Sen. John McCain, called military members who died “suckers and losers,” and seems to delight in the pain he inflicts on others daily. 

Of all people, even Marjorie Taylor Greene called out Trump’s post. “Rob Reiner and his wife were tragically killed at the hands of their own son, who reportedly had drug addiction and other issues, and their remaining children are left in serious mourning and heartbreak. This is a family tragedy, not about politics or political enemies,” Greene wrote in a post on X. “Many families deal with a family member with drug addiction and mental health issues. It’s incredibly difficult and should be met with empathy especially when it ends in murder.”

 

GOP Keeps Fucking Up Health Care

As millions of Americans are bracing to see their health insurance premiums more than double due to Republicans' refusal to extend enhanced Affordable Care Act tax credits, GOP lawmakers insisted this week that they will fix health care in the United States. 

Never mind that Republicans for the past 15 years have failed to come up with a health care plan that Americans want or one that improves on the ACA, also known as Obamacare. Republicans are insisting that if they're given just a little more time they will fix the whole health care system.

"We're gonna have a vote before the end of the year for sure, and then we're going to continue to do improvements along the way. In the first quarter, second quarter, there's a lot to fix in health care, we've all acknowledged that," House Speaker Mike Johnson told Punchbowl News.

At a closed-door meeting, House Republicans presented 10 possible ideas, none of which included extending the enhanced ACA tax credits to prevent the coming premium increases.  Yet Republicans left the meeting no closer to an agreement on how to move forward as the clock ticks down for Americans who rely on those credits to stay insured.

“The consensus is we need to come up with something,” Rep. Ralph Norman, Republican of South Carolina, said. 

Senate Republicans, meanwhile, voted on a plan that would give low-income Americans $1,000 to put in health savings accounts. But the proposal failed, receiving fewer than the 60 votes it needed to avoid a filibuster.   Yet, even if it had passed, it wouldn’t have been sufficient to help all of the millions of Americans who are about to be hit with massive premium increases.

"Under the Senate Republican ACA plan, premium payments would still more than double next year. Healthy people could be better off in a high deductible plan with a health savings account. People who are sick would face big premium increases or a deductible they can't afford," Larry Levitt, executive vice president for health policy at KFF, wrote in a post on X.

To the mainstream media's credit, reporters grilled Republicans on why, after more than a decade and a half of bitching about the perils of Obamacare, they still have no plan to replace it.

"I'm not sure what we can say," Sen. Roger Marshall, Republican of Kansas, told CNN's Kaitlan Collins after she asked why the GOP still has no concrete proposal. Republicans will not like the result of their health care failures next November, when voters will get the chance to make their displeasure known at the ballot box.  “We've got to solve it,” retiring Republican Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina told CNN.

  

Trump is More Unpopular Than Ever

Convicted felon Donald Trump's approval on the economy and immigration have fallen substantially, according to a new AP-NORC poll, the latest indication that two signature issues that got him elected barely a year ago could be turning into liabilities as his party begins to gear up for the 2026 midterms.

Only 31% of U.S. adults now approve of how Trump is handling the economy, the poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research finds. That is down from 40% in March and marks the lowest economic approval he’s registered in an AP-NORC poll in his first or second term. The Republican president also has struggled to recover from public blowback on other issues, such as his management of the federal government, and has not seen an approval bump even after congressional Democrats effectively capitulated to end a record-long government shutdown last month.

Perhaps most worryingly for Trump, who’s become increasingly synonymous with his party, he’s slipped on issues that were major strengths. Just a few months ago, 53% of Americans approved of Trump’s handling of crime, but that’s fallen to 43% in the new poll. There’s been a similar decline on immigration, from 49% approval in March to 38% now. 

“Taking people out of kindergarten, and people going home for Thanksgiving, taking them off a plane. If they are criminals, sure,” said 83-year-old Georgia resident Jim Rollins, who said he supported Trump in his first election but not since then. “But the percentages — based on the government’s own statistics — say that they’re not criminals. They just didn’t register, and maybe they sneaked across the border, and they’ve been here for 15 years.”  

About 3 in 10 U.S. adults approve of how Trump is handling health care, down slightly from November. The new poll was conducted in early December, as Trump and Congress struggled to find a bipartisan deal for extending the Affordable Care Act subsidies that will expire at the end of this month.  That health care fight was also the source of the recent government shutdown. About one-third of U.S. adults, 35%, approve of how Trump is managing the federal government, down from 43% in March.

 

Willie Nelson - Christmas Love Song

Man Charged With Wiping His Own Phone Before CBP Could Search It

Whatever happened to the right against self incrimination?  A man in Atlanta has been arrested and charged for allegedly deleting data from a Google Pixel phone before a member of a secretive Customs and Border Protection (CBP) unit was able to search it, according to court records and social media posts reviewed by 404 Media. The man, Samuel Tunick, is described as a local Atlanta activist in Instagram and other posts discussing the case.The exact circumstances around the search—such as why CBP wanted to search the phone in the first place—are not known. But it is uncommon to see someone charged specifically for wiping a phone, a feature that is easily accessible in some privacy and security-focused devices.

The indictment says on January 24, Tunick “did knowingly destroy, damage, waste, dispose of, and otherwise take any action to delete the digital contents of a Google Pixel cellular phone, for the purpose of preventing and impairing the Government’s lawful authority to take said property into its custody and control.” The indictment itself was filed in mid-November.Tunick was arrested earlier this month, according to a post on a crowd-funding site and court records. “Samuel Tunick, an Atlanta-based activist, Oberlin graduate, and beloved musician, was arrested by the DHS and FBI yesterday around 6pm EST. Tunick's friends describe him as an approachable, empathetic person who is always finding ways to improve the lives of the people around him,” of Tunick’s arrest on social media.

The indictment says the phone search was supposed to be performed by a supervisory officer from a CBP Tactical Terrorism Response Team. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) wrote in 2023 these are “highly secretive units deployed at U.S. ports of entry, which target, detain, search, and interrogate innocent travelers. These units, which may target travelers on the basis of officer ‘instincts.’ raise the risk that CBP is engaging in unlawful profiling or interfering with the First Amendment-protected activity of travelers.”  The Intercept previously covered the case of a sculptor and installation artist who was detained at San Francisco International Airport and had his phone searched. The report said Gach did not know why, even years later. Court records show authorities have since released Tunick, and that he is restricted from leaving the Northern District of Georgia as the case continues.

 

 

Mark Zuckerberg Shown to Be a Hypocrite, Once Again

Tech nerd Mark Zuckerberg has found himself at the center of an embarrassing climate change flip-flop, thanks to his $300 million mega yacht. The 41-year-old Meta boss, worth roughly $230 billion, has reportedly been burning hundreds of thousands of gallons of diesel fuel since launching his personal, 387-foot vessel last year.

The yacht, dubbed Launchpad, runs on four diesel engines that use about 291 gallons of fuel every hour, which allegedly emits 40 tons of CO₂ over that same period of time.

Zuckerberg, an outspoken advocate for climate change policies such as the Paris Agreement and scaling carbon dioxide removal technologies to limit global warming, has been roasted on social media over the yacht's massive carbon footprint.

 "Another reminder that Net Zero is only for the peasants," one person wrote on X next to a video of the massive luxury vessel sailing near Florida.  "Meanwhile ordinary people drive electric cars and recycle, because the planet matters. But for him, apparently, the planet doesn't matter," another social media user added.  Others called the multi-million-dollar yacht the ultimate "symbol of hypocrisy," as Zuckerberg has spent more than $100 million funding climate advocacy and related initiatives through his philanthropic organization.

Some critics of Zuckerberg's lavish mode of transportation noted that Launchpad was just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to climate hypocrisy.  The mega yacht has been accompanied on its journeys by a 220-foot, $30 million support ship called Wingman, which can carry smaller boats, a miniature submarine for exploration and even a helicopter.  "Rich people when they say "we’re all in this together" then fire up four diesel engines," an X user commented.

In just nine months between 2024 and this year, the $300 million super-yacht burned more than 528,000 gallons of diesel fuel, before docking in France’s La Ciotat shipyard in August, according to the Greek Reporter.  That usage amounted to more than 5,300 tons of carbon emissions being released by the one ship alone, the same as nearly 400 US households over one year.

The revelations about Zuckerberg's boat sharply contradict the Meta CEO's past comments about the dire situation Earth faces because of climate change, which has been largely blamed on human activities such as burning fossil fuels.  "Stopping climate change is something we can only do as a global community, and we have to act together before it’s too late," Zuckerberg said in 2017 while condemning President Trump’s decision to pull out of the Paris Climate Accord.

 

Trump Trough

A Trump Christmas

Somewhere Near the North Pole . . .

 

Jesus Gets Down

 

Pentatonix - Bah Humbug

Godzilla Christmas

Try and Enjoy the Holiday Season!

Sinking Ships

Feliz Navidad