Custom Chaos; Mein Kampf Sellout; Tube of PETA; Planned Parenthood Goes Prime Time; Free Money in Finland; Archaeological Plot; Temple Mount Boot; Pencil Castle; and Kuri

Airlines

Customs outage causes chaos, backups at airports usatoday

People returning home from the New Year's holiday weekend were being processed at international terminals by hand at some airports, resulting in long lines and short tempers. Travelers reported issues in Chicago, Boston, New York City, Baltimore, Miami and Atlanta, among others.The outage lasted for four hours, the Customs agency cbp.gov said in a statement late Monday, before the system was up and running again.

"I've never seen anything like it," [Michelle Sencibaugh, a K-12 teacher in St. Louis] told USA TODAY. "No one was giving us direction. They didn't tell us what was going on. It was just a herd of people."

Pentagon's Wasted $125 B; Hate Speech Pull; Augmented Peep; Drop, Shop, and Roll; Try This and Call Me in the Morning; Growing Clusters; Jacob's Sheep Return; Burqa Merkel; and Syrian Truce Vetoed

Government

Pentagon buries evidence of $125 billion in bureaucratic waste washingtonpost

Pentagon leaders had requested the study to help make their enormous back-office bureaucracy more efficient and reinvest any savings in combat power. But after the project documented far more wasteful spending than expected, senior defense officials moved swiftly to kill it by discrediting and suppressing the results.

Jimmied Peace; Rising Hate; EPA Confusion; Marines Sign Up; Touching Sense; 3D Printing Ward; Heating to the Freezing Point; Thin Chip; Long Live the Vaccine; X-Ray Network; Uncanny Assistant; Mastercard's AI; Long Web History; Sanctions for NK; Space War; Cassini of the Rings; and Crushing Crabs

Peace

Jimmy Carter to Obama: Before you leave office, recognize Palestinian state cnn

"I am convinced that the United States can still shape the future of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict before a change in presidents, but time is very short, " Carter wrote. "The simple but vital step this administration must take before its term expires on Jan. 20 is to grant American diplomatic recognition to the state of Palestine."

Also see Carter's Op-Ed piece: Jimmy Carter: America Must Recognize Palestine nytimes

Born Criminal; Frozen and Lost; Leader Angela; The Philippine Bow; NATO-Russian Missile Dance; Light AI; Electa-Aid; and Weather Chasing Satellite

Society

Troubling Study Says Artificial Intelligence Can Predict Who Will Be Criminals Based on Facial Features theintercept

The bankrupt attempt to infer moral qualities from physiology was a popular pursuit for millennia, particularly among those who wanted to justify the supremacy of one racial group over another. But phrenology britannica, which involved studying the cranium to determine someone’s character and intelligence, was debunked around the time of the Industrial Revolution, and few outside of the pseudo-scientific fringe would still claim that the shape of your mouth or size of your eyelids might predict whether you’ll become a rapist or thief.

Not so in the modern age of Artificial Intelligence, apparently: In a paper titled “Automated Inference on Criminality using Face Images,” two Shanghai Jiao Tong University sjtu.edu.cn researchers say they fed “facial images of 1,856 real persons” into computers and found “some discriminating structural features for predicting criminality, such as lip curvature, eye inner corner distance, and the so-called nose-mouth angle.” They conclude that “all four classifiers perform consistently well and produce evidence for the validity of automated face-induced inference on criminality, despite the historical controversy surrounding the topic.”

Withholding the Kingdom from Jews; Attempted Not Murder; Indiana Abortion Ban; Dead Raising Denied; Google's Pictionary; Predicting Selfie Death; BALLU; Backdoor Law; Subjectively Fake; The Stories Trump and Ford Tell; Weak and Fading Army; Linked Out; Lazering Mice; Iceless Coat; Rodent Screen Test; and Hard-Software

Apostasy

German Protestants officially renounce converting Jews to Christianity religionnews

“All efforts to convert Jews contradict our commitment to the faithfulness of God and the election of Israel,” the resolution read. That Christians see Jesus as their savior and Jews don’t is “a fact we leave up to God,” it said.

Actually, Paul was quite clear in Romans that there is one salvation for both Jews and Gentiles (ex: Romans 10:12), that none are saved outside of Christ, and he specifically discussed this issue of "what about the Jews" in multiple locations (including looking forward to a time when, through Christ, the future Jewish nation will be saved - ex: Romans 11:11-32). Additionally, in letters like Galatians, he went to great pains to warn believers from being deceived by "Judaizers" who were trying to add obeying the law as part of salvation and that attempts at obeying the law was actually a false gospel and really no gospel at all (ex: Galatians 1:6). He even recounts a rebuke he had for Peter for seperating from the Gentiles as if there was a special status for Jews in Christ (Galatians 2:11-21). There's far too much to cover in a quick mention like this, but suffice it to say that Jesus (a Jew speaking to Jews) said that He is the Way and no one gets to the Father but through Him (John 14:6). To say that Jews aren't to be evangelized is to not understand the Gospel.

Christmas Unity; Globalization Rally Cry; The Failing Justice League; EU's Grip; RT Swipe; Red Square Drill; Bomb Rain; Settling Outposts; New Order in Town; Programming Required; Alt-Right All Twittered Out; Big Gas; Animals See Again; Satellite Palooza; Smart Men Hit Asteroid; Space Engine; Faster Than Concorde; and Plant Robots Dreams

False Unity

Amazon Christmas advert 2016: Imam and priest push festive message of friendship independent.co.uk v

A spokesman for Amazon told The Independent: "Our casting reflects this: the gentleman playing the vicar is a practising vicar in London, the gentleman playing the imam is a devout Muslim and the principal of a Muslim school. We used an actual church and mosque for our scenes within the places of worship."

Oh, Amazon...

Watery Volcano; Colored Electrons; Magnetic Circuits; Asteroid Drill; 1950's Bomb; 20,000 Poorer; Police Eaves; Cracked Media; Pollution Day!; Berlin Wall 2; and 300k Alerted

Creation

Giant Volcano Appears to Be Filled With Water gizmodo

Investigating a strange electrical anomaly, geologists have discovered an enormous water reservoir beneath the now-dormant Uturunco volcano in the Bolivian Andes. It’s a remarkable find that speaks to the vast amounts of water stored in Earth’s deep interior, possibly since our planet was formed.

“It’s probably somewhere between Lake Superior and Lake Huron,” Jon Blundy, a geologist at the University of Bristol and co-author on the new discovery published in Earth and Planetary Science Letters, told New Scientist. “It’s a staggeringly large amount.”

Throwing Israel to the UN; Peace Hold; J-20 Fly; German Extremist, Check; Holo Tank; Robots in the Loch; Piccolissimo; and Farm Cogs

Israel

Obama: Don't Destroy the Peace Process by Turning it Over to the U.N. gatestoneinstitute.org

The Obama Administration is sending strong signals that once the election is over it may make a major push to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict at the United Nations. Despite repeated invitations by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Palestinian Authority President Abbas to meet without preconditions, the stalemate persists. Some blame it on Palestinian unwillingness to recognize Israel as the nation state of the Jewish People and to compromise to the so-called "right of return." Others — including the current U.S. Administration — lay the blame largely at the feet of the Netanyahu government for continuing to build in the West Bank, most recently approval of between 98 and 300 new homes in Shiloh. Whatever the reasons – and they are complex and multifaceted — President Obama should resist any temptation, during his final weeks in office, to change longstanding American policy — that only direct negotiations between the parties will achieve a lasting peace.

Putin Down Paris; Eastern Shield; Authoritative Friends; Censoring Turkey; Once a Nazi; Why the Temple?; Driverless Cars with an Accent; Korean Robots; and Fixing Broken Hearts

Russia

Putin shuns Paris visit after France offers talks only on Syria in.reuters

"I made it known to Mr Putin that if he came to Paris, I would not accompany him to any ceremonies, but that I was ready to continue the dialogue on Syria. He decided to postpone the visit," Hollande said at the Council of Europe in Strasbourg.

Also see Putin Cancels France Trip After President Hollande Accuses Russia of War Crimes in Syria time

Yemen's Response; Syria, Forever; Hacked Nuclear Plant; Resuming Aliyah; Tigger Skeleton; Issuing Self-Driving Permits; and Fasting to the End

Yemen

Yemen's Houthis respond to air strike with missile attack in.reuters

Yemen's Houthi movement launched a ballistic missile deep into Saudi Arabia and may have also fired on a U.S. warship, two days after an apparent Saudi-led air strike killed 140 mourners at a funeral attended by powerful tribal leaders.

Also see Yemen conflict: US 'could be implicated in war crimes' bbc

Obama and Netanyahu's Final Meeting; Syria Ceases Cease Fire; Merkel Admits It's Someones Fault; French Quarter for Sharia Law; Deported into Citizens; Tree Fuel; Lyft's Beyond; Self-Driven Canal; and The Blind Who 'See' Algebra

Israel

Obama And Netanyahu To Meet In New York On Wednesday jewishbusinessnews

The meeting was agreed upon following talks between the Prime Minister’s Office and the White House and was confirmed after the signing of the new US-Israel military aid package. It will be the first meeting between the two leaders since November 2015 and likely be the last as Obama approaches the conclusion of his presidency.

“The meeting also will be an opportunity to discuss the need for genuine advancement of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the face of deeply troubling trends on the ground,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest said.

Drugged Out; The Mushroom Tolls for Thee; Embassies in Turkey Brace; The Replaceable 6%; Photographing Robofish; and Lasered to Death

Drugs

The Number of Workers Flunking Drug Tests Is at a 10-Year High fortune

Pulling data from more than 9.5 million urine, 900,000 oral fluid, and 200,000 hair laboratory-based tests that were performed by Quest questdiagnostics for employers in 2015, the study found that usage rates of amphetamines, marijuana, and heroin have all increased in the past five years in the general workforce.

Turkey Mail; Russia's Nuclear Prep; Jordan's Israeli Anger; Lutherans Latest to Divest; Galilee Synagogue; Regulating Online Calls; and Temp Tat Remote Control

Turkey-EU

Give us EU visa freedom in October or abandon migrant deal, Turkey says whbl

[Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu] comments in Bild's Monday edition coincide with rising tensions between Ankara and the West that have been exacerbated by the failed coup attempt in Turkey on July 15. Turkey is incensed by what it sees as an insensitive response from Western allies to the failed putsch, in which 240 people were killed.

Also see Greek Migration Minister: Refugee Flows from Turkey Manageable greece.greekreporter

Gas in the Grass; Floods of Deaths; The Aircraft Carrier Blues; Disillusioned in Turkey; NK's Submarine Missile Base; Brexit as Slow as Possible; Hate Crime Policing; Your Next Car's Black Box; Fiber Camera; The 97 Other Brain Regions; Chinese Magic; and Green, Bubbling Goo

Environmental

Trembling tundra - the latest weird phenomenon in Siberia's land of craters siberiantimes v

This extraordinary sight - in a video filmed of the tundra on remote Belyy Island in the Kara Sea off the Yamal Peninsula coastline - was witnessed by a scientific research expedition. Researchers Alexander Sokolov and Dorothee Ehrich spotted 15 patches of trembling or bubbling grass-covered ground.

On Target, As Expected; Facebook Extremism Arrests; Putin Bans Evangelism; Turkey Offers Hand to Syria; UN, Help!; The Hague Dilemma; Islam Does Well in Prisons; Canada Anglican's Pro-Abomination Vote; Muslim Sees Peace in Third Temple; Make Less than $20? There's a Bot for That; Luke, the Brain Controlled Prosthetic; and DNA's Starry Night

Society

Transgender 'woman' arrested for voyeurism in Target changing room washingtontimes

Police responded to a call on Monday from a woman who said she noticed someone reaching over her stall and taking pictures while she was trying on clothes, the Post Register reported. The victim confronted the perpetrator, who ran out of the store.

Also see Transgender 'woman' accused of videotaping 18-year-old in Target fitting room pix11, where at least the police are shown with some remaining sanity:

Smith is scheduled to be arraigned this afternoon in Bonneville County and was booked as a male into the Bonneville County Jail bonnevillesheriff on a $30,000 bond.

Gay Mingled In; Women on the UK Front-line; 10 (More) States Sue Obama; State Money for Soft Landings; China Incensed in Seoul; Hold it Together NATO; Even Dallas is Israel's Fault; Syndrome K; Iran Seeks Nuke; House Denies Boeing; DNA Player; Robot Ends Standoff...and Life; Small, 3D Portions

Society

ChristianMingle now allows gay dating, after a lawsuit washingtonpost

The lawsuit, according to Christianity Today, argued that ChristianMingle violated California’s non-discrimination law that prohibits for-profit companies, such as Spark Networks, which owns ChristianMingle, from discriminating against customers on the basis of sexual orientation, among other categories.

Based on their ads, I've never thought of ChristianMingle as anything more than a cultural Christianity thing - and the fact that only 1 board member stepped down as a result of the ruling is probably a good indication that that's about as deep as their theology goes. However, still an illustration of the overarching enforcing of state religion.

Rio Trouble; Easing Greece; Doctors w/o Borders Snub EU; Syria's Tourism Ministry; NATO Warmongering; KA-52; and The Lonely Diodes Club

Economy

Financial calamity declared in Rio weeks before Olympics, but Games will go on washingtonpost

In an official decree published Friday afternoon by acting governor Francisco Dornelles, the state government said the crisis could cause a “total collapse in public security, health, education, transport and environmental management.”

Defensive Open Hand; NK's Bombs; Plane Deal 'N Iran; China's Fan-countries; Perpetually Ready; Calling Out UNHRC; Bank Against BDS; Canadians Dying with Help; Pope's 666 Problem; Ancient Egypt's New Gold; Nano-materials: More than Meets the Eye; and Pepper Goes to Hospital

War

Despite defense buildup, NATO also seeks to assure Russia bigstory.ap.org

NATO's chief said Tuesday the alliance is reinforcing its defenses against Russia from the Baltic to the Black Sea, but keeping all possible contacts with Moscow open to avoid any unwarranted escalation of tension.

Jens Stoltenberg, the NATO secretary-general, confirmed previous statements that alliance defense ministers gathered in Brussels for a two-day meeting will back a deployment plan to send four multinational battalions to the Baltic states and Poland. He also said decisions are expected on forming a new multinational unit of ground forces in Romania.

Also see NATO to send troops to deter Russia, Putin orders snap checks

Peaceless in France; Bracing in Israel; Making Russia Great, Again; Poland Builds Up; Turkey Stares Down; Racing for Scrolls; Orthodox Unity; AI's Bach; Human Genome Proposal; Diving HUDs; and Expensive, Tiny Floating Plants

Peace

France felt 'compelled to act' on Middle East peace talks theguardian

The US secretary of state, John Kerry, and UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, attended, along with representatives from the Arab League, the European Union and key Arab states. Israeli and Palestinian representatives were absent.

Also Middle East peace talks open without Israeli, Palestinian representatives and Israel can sigh relief at parve Paris communique

Peace Peace!; Genocide Recognition; Withdrawing from NK; Be Cyborg or Be Obsolete; Bovine Johne's in AU; Trojan Horse Attack on Cancer; Instant, Global Trading; and Basic Income Test

Peace

Israel-Palestinian peace initiatives are suddenly popping up everywhere washingtonpost

Until a week ago, it seemed the Israeli-Palestinian peace process was a flat-liner. President Obama thought so. In March, he said he wouldn’t seek to jump-start talks — the two sides were too far apart; it was not in the cards.