DDD EXECUTIVE SUMMARY DEC/29/2016

THE MAIN EVENTS

• Whether it's those 6000 Sprint jobs or pretty much any other piece of good economic news, Trump is continuing to try and take credit for the Obama economy. Can anything be more perfectly "Trump" than a white guy who did nothing trying to take credit for 8 years of work from a Black man he called lazy? Well, maybe one thing; fucking it all up, which appears to be exactly what's on the menu.
  
• President Obama has taken action to punish Russia for interfering with 2016 Presidential elections. New sanctions have been put into place, and 35 Russian diplomats have been told to pack up their shit and get out. Moscow, nonplussed, promises retaliation.
  
• Members of a completely isolated Neolithic Amazonian tribe, living deep within the rain forests of Brazil, have been photographed from the air, offering what National Geographic is calling "an unprecedented" look into their way of life. The photo above is one of many striking images captured. 

A DEEPER DIVE

• "Hey Jorgi!" Something is rotten in the former Soviet republic of Kazakhstan, where 46 year old Sanat Dosov--a critic of the Nazarbayev regime--has been sentenced to 3 years in a penal colony for calling Russian President Vladimir Putin a fascist. Apparently, special snowflake Putin needs a safe space where he can hide from politically incorrect hate words, the poor dear.
  
• After it came to light that Uday Trump was using his extremely shady "cancer" charity to solicit bribes from VIPs in exchange for access to his father, the Trump clan made the decision to close up shop, whining all the while about having to follow rules, as if they were mere mortals or something.

• The magma chambers that make up Italy's "Campi Flegrei" supervolcano--which anthropologists theorize helped kill off the Neanderthals--are rapidly approaching Critical Degassing Pressure (CPD), which could mean that it's getting ready to erupt. Considering how shitty things have been going lately, it's probably best that the people of nearby Naples keep their fingers crossed for the next little while.

SUGGESTED READINGS

Today's "suggested reading" comes in the form of a 45 minute documentary that was created prior to the election, and which purports to show, from a conservative stance, exactly why and how Donald Trump is not just unfit to be President, but why electing him would constitute a historic tragedy from which it might not be possible to fully recover. I think watching Ben Howe's film, The Sociopath, is even more important now that Trump has won, so that we're better prepared for what might be in store...

QUOTE OF THE DAY

"If the dam ruptured, it would likely cause a catastrophe of Biblical proportions, loosing a wave as high as a hundred feet that would roll down the Tigris, swallowing everything in its path for more than a hundred miles. Large parts of Mosul would be submerged in less than three hours. Along the riverbanks, towns and cities containing the heart of Iraq’s population would be flooded; in four days, a wave as high as sixteen feet would crash into Baghdad, a city of six million people."

- Apparently, the Mosul dam is on the verge of collapsing, and nobody's sure how fix the problem, or even how to convince the people who might be swept away that the danger is real, and not just a "Western conspiracy" of some sort.

DDD EXTRAS

• After nearly ten years as an independent country, the Republic of Texas is annexed by the fast-growing USA on this day in 1845! Read all about it, and more, in today's Paracultural Calendar, over at the Useless Eater Blog!

THE TAKEAWAY

Readership is on the upswing, but there's still not much engagement in the comments section. I'd like to see that change in the new year. Do any of you have any suggestions? Should I maybe create a Daily Dirt Diaspora discussion board?