For several days, the weather prognosticators were warning everyone of the tornado-prone storm that was coming on Monday. I've never seen anything like this news phenomenon here. Sure, meteorologists predict storms that are days ahead, and they warn of tornadoes even a few hours early, but this was panic in a time frame that I've never seen before.

Reddit was flooded with social media posts. People kept asking how to prepare and where to go, like they were expecting pandemonium. My favorites were The Simpsons, the Dominator 3 storm chaser vehicle (for good reason apparently), the long storm anxiety suggestion list, someone panicked from all of the talk, to someone condemning the hysteria, the Vikings football reference (with this map showing the Twin Cities in the center of the projected severe storm), and a great map of the storm splitting in half and avoiding Minneapolis entirely (supposedly because of our hilarious storm shield).

My threat-meter is calibrated differently. I charged my phone. That's all I did to prepare. There were so many other social media posts warning us about this Monday storm. The post that I'll actually show you you, though, is this one, below. That social media post links to this summary (Weather.gov) of the 2011 May 22 tornado spree.

I don't know when this overhead image was originally taken, but this one was modified by me to show you approximately where I live. The light green path is the path of the tornado over a decade ago. My house is located at the white dot near the top, at the very edge of the tornado path. I live in the Jordan neighborhood of north Minneapolis. My home is now disaster-proof, in that imaginary statistics of The World According To Garp scene where Robin Williams' character buys a "pre-disastered home" after it is struck by an airplane. :)

I posted about my experience of that tornado after it happened, when I lived in a nearby city, after hearing the stereotypical "train" noise of the nearby tornado. Two days later, I posted a map of the approximate tornado path, based on my observations of the destruction left behind. I see that furr_a_bruin posted a reply in that one, RIP.

Just in time for Christmas is this 9-minute comedy sketch. It's designed to present itself as "a news show by autistic people for autistic people". I don't know if anyone in the whole show is autistic, but I found most of this show mildly amusing.

I especially liked the brief segment narrated with "And a cat at a New Year's Eve party has found an autistic person to hang with." It reminds me of my mother's mother who would go visit an old friend of hers, and instead of staying with them I would go outside on the porch in the West Texas desert heat to play with the feral cats. I didn't realize the cats weren't everybody's friends until that adult homeowner called me "the boy who gets the cats to play with him".

Enjoy your holidays. I expect to read a book and play a few more computer games than usual, which is great.

1. 3 minutes: An unusually coherent thread on Twitter explains the Republican party and the difference between its internal motivations versus external reporting.  Using this principle, you can predict how the Republican party will react to any proposal.
    
2. 3 minutes: A YouTube video about the left-to-right spectrum.
   • It doesn't even explain that Richard Nixon (infamous conservative US President) tested Universal Basic Income, froze costs on rent and food, signed anti-discrimination law, created the Environmental Protection Agency, and more liberal stuff.  That's how far right the Overton window in the USA has shifted during my lifetime.  That former conservative is now essentially too liberal for the current Democratic party.  I've written before about this topic.
    
3. 19 minutes: A YouTube video about the pillars of fascism and how conservative politics directly incorporates its tactics. It reviews the actual broadcast by conservative USA politicians during AmericaFest.  You can rewind to the beginning to see him build the list of topics that he starts discussing at the linked point of the video.  Near the end, he proposes how to change USA politics.  "Rage is the correct response to the way things have been going lately.  The only question now is which side gets to claim and wield it."  As I've been saying for a long time, "Don't bring the anointed candidate" to an electorate hungry for a populist.
    
4. 60 minutes: A YouTube video about conservative humor.  Weird topic, right?  It's excellent, though, which is why it has 1.7 million views.  You need to watch through the end, as he shows examples of "good" conservative humor in stark contrast to what counts for conservative jokes currently.
   • The link I've provided skips the first 20 minutes.  You can scroll back to view it, if you want.  It does help to build the logical argument, but it's painful to watch.  The "humor" widely misses the mark, which is bad for a video about the logical construction of good comedy.