Wednesday links

Lots of ugly Christmas sweaters, instructions for making your own, plus ugly Christmas sweater suits, and here's how to make Ugly Sweater Ornaments.

CIA Declassifies Maps from 75 Years of Surveillance.

The Science Behind Why Dark Winter Days Bum People Out.

T'was the Overnight Before Christmas: The Merry Tale of How Air Cargo Deregulation Led To Amazon. Related (by the underlying poem): T'was the Night Before Kwanzza, and more of Kathy Shaidle's Kwanzaa-debunking collection

A Frog That Freezes and Thaws, Plus More Ways Animals Cope With Cold.

In 1562 Map-Makers Thought America Was Full of Mermaids, Giants, and Dragons.

ICYMI, Monday's links are here, and include Mother Teresa's meeting with then-NYC Mayor Guliani to lobby for a parking permit, the pre-Seinfeld origins of Festivus, Teddy Roosevelt's impact of football, and a new Guinness World Record-setting Rube Goldberg machine that takes 412 steps to light a Christmas tree.

T'was the Night Before Kwanzza, and more of Kathy Shaidle's anti-Kwanzaa collection

From one of my favorite bloggers, Kathy Shaidle, who's been onto the Kwanzaa scam from the beginning:

Kwanzaa: fact-free fake holiday invented by convicted felon/university prof

“Kwanzaa: My Part in its Downfall” 

“Kwanzaa: violent 60s radical invented fake holiday”

My personal favorite is "Twas the Night Before Kwanzaa":

Ron Karenga enters courtroom where he was found guilty on four
counts. On September 17, 1971, Karenga was sentenced to
one to ten years in prison on counts of
felonious assault and false imprisonment.

'Twas the night before Kwanzaa
And all through the 'hood,
Maulana Karenga was up to no good.

He'd tortured a woman and spent time in jail.
He needed a new scam that just wouldn't fail.
("So what if I stuck some chick's toe in a vice?
Nobody said revolution was nice!")

The Sixties were over. Now what would he do?
Why, he went back to school -- so that's "Dr." to you!
He once ordered shootouts at UCLA
Now he teaches Black Studies just miles away.

Then to top it all off, the good Doctor's new plan
Was to get rid of Christmas and piss off The Man.

Karenga invented a fake holiday.
He called the thing Kwanza. "Hey, what's that you say?

"You don't get what's 'black' about Maoist baloney?
You say that my festival's totally phony?

"Who cares if corn isn't an African crop?
Who cares if our harvest's a month or two off?
Who cares if Swahili's not our mother tongue?
A lie for The Cause never hurt anyone!

"Umoja! Ujima! Kujichagulia, too!
Collectivist crap never sounded so cool!
Those guilty white liberals -- easy to fool.
Your kids will now celebrate Kwanzaa in school!"

And we heard him exclaim as he drove out of sight:
"Happy Kwanzaa to all, except if you're white!"