A very merry Christmas to all!

This is an open thread, all topics welcome -- from your family holiday traditions to cooking to politics.

Enjoy the day and your time with your families. Regardless of your religion, Christmas is a special holiday!

One the things I associate with Christmas is the feeling of joy. Watching Bruce and Jon Bon Jovi sing this song together is double joy -- their joy in singing with each other, and our joy at watching them. A great way to start the day.

If you have any suggestions for more joyous or fun Christmas songs for me to showcase in open threads through Christmas, please let me know. You can never have too much joy in your life.

This is an open thread, all topics welcome.

It wouldn't feel like Christmas without watching Darlene Love on Letterman.

The New York Post got punked on Ryan Lanza. Reporter Candice Giove chatted with an imposter on Facebook and thought he was really Ryan Lanza. Lots of other media sites from HuffPo to MediaIte to international papers ran with the story, before his family pointed out the obvious: it wasn't the real Ryan Lanza. Some giveaways: the photo of Adam, which as I pointed out here, is of Ryan and the poor spelling. Ryan's page was taken down by Dec. 15. If you log onto Facebook, you can see that His uncle's page and grandmother's page are still up but they haven't posted since the shootings. His cousin has posted a photo of himself with Nancy Lanza at a Red Sox game. (You can't see the pages without logging on to FB.)

This is an open thread, all topics welcome.

2 college bowl game picks - Boise (-6) over Washington and LA-Lafayette (-6) over East Carolina (4 units.)

Also too, Detroit Lions (+4) over Atlanta Falcons.

Open Thread.

Your turn.

Nancy Lanza's family in New Hampshire held a private funeral service for her today,at the home of her brother, police officer James Champion. About 25 family members attended. (She was cremated.) Here is a picture of the house, posted on James' Facebook page. It was built in 1740 by his mother's ancestor Israel Huse, Sr. He says it is where he grew up and he bought it from his mother in 1995. Nancy and her ex-husband Peter Lanza used to live next door with their sons Ryan and Adam Lanza, until 1998 when they moved to CT. (Some details of the NH family here and here.)

Gun sales are soaring in New Hampshire since the Newtown killings.

Bernard Madoff's brother Peter was sentenced today to ten years in prison. [More....]

Zero Dark Thirty - Because Kathryn Bigelow makes films like they're bombs about to detonate in her lap. Haunting, unflinching, never less than absorbing, with aspirations toward not just art but the "truth," even as the film never stops questioning the very notion of such a thing. - Zach Baron

It's funny because it is inadvertently true -- in Zero Dark Thirty there is no such a thing as "truth."

Also too, in college football tonight, 5 units on San Diego State (+3) over the LDSers in the Poinsetta Bowl in San Diego.

Open Thread.

Who will win The Voice? I hope it's Terry McDermott. I voted several times.

More people who once upon a time knew Adam Lanza are speaking out. They don't seem to know anything more than anyone else. I'm always sorry after I click on one of these articles, only to realize it's pure speculation. And most of them have annoying automatically playing videos you have to search for to shut off.

The Washington Post documents the media errors. I have a similar post I wrote over the weekend and haven't gotten around to publishing yet. And another one on Nancy Lanza and her family. And another on the lack of any connection between Asperger's, Autism and violence. (The New York Times on that here and here.) I will finish them soon, they are just very detailed and need a lot of proofreading.

Gun control is still the talk of the nation.

This is an open thread, all topics welcome.

Open thread.

It's a jail day for me, open thread for you. All topics welcome.

The finale of Homeland is tonight.

Update: Once you've seen the finale, here's a two minute video with the show's writer explaining it.

This is an open thread, all topics welcome, including your thoughts on solutions to the problem of mentally disturbed mass killers.

I'm sure there's news besides the CT shootings and tonight's Rolling Stones Pay Per View concert (see below for posts on both), but I haven't been following anything else today.

Here's an open thread, all topics welcome.