​A lighthearted look at news of the day 
 
To the surprise and shock of many, the Electoral College elected Donald Trump president last week despite several clever campaigns. And, as if to prove the president-elect’s point, a few of the electors did try to vote illegally.
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The next #neverTrump strategy? Getting 2017 officially renamed 2016, so we can do the election all over again.
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Several Democratic electors were even so upset at the election of Trump they decided to send a clear message by not voting for Hillary Clinton.
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One elector in Maine tried to vote for Bernie Sanders in order to encourage young voters, and to teach them that rules don’t matter.
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Along those same lines, Utahns are so upset with Obamacare that almost 145,000 thousand of them decided to sign up this year in protest.
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Wait until you see how many people go to after-Christmas sales today to protest commercialism.
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See how this works? Now I’m going to protest narcolepsy by taking a nap.
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Pokemon Go claims the people who play its game have walked a combined 5.5 billion miles since last summer. That’s why a familiar Christmas carol was altered this year to, “I wonder as you wander.”
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Fans of the game say it has gotten tons (literally) of young people moving again, giving them valuable exercise. Also, they have captured 88 billion Pokemon that otherwise would be infesting the earth.
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Appropriately, Merriam-Webster named “surreal” the word of the year for 2016, although “unpresidented” came in a close second, hampered only by the fact it isn’t a real word, yet.
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Trump originally tweeted that China’s capture of a U.S. underwater drone was “unpresidented.” American security and intelligence personnel say it was all a simple typo. What he should have said was, “Using tweets for sensitive diplomatic matters is unpresidential.”
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Actually, the way English evolves, this could soon be a real word. Look for it in 2020, as in, “The Electoral College met Monday and unpresidented the winner.”

​A lighthearted look at news of the day 
 
The contest to become the next secretary of state continues. Apparently, the dinner-wear and interview phases are over. Next up are the talent and swimsuit competitions.
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Mitt Romney ought to have the inside track. At least, after stepping into the ring last year against Evander Holyfield he has shown himself no less qualified than the new nominee to lead the Small Business Administration, who was the head of World Wrestling Entertainment.
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However, former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. may have won the talent competition, doing his entire performance in Mandarin.
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Mike Jagger’s girlfriend just gave birth to a baby boy, the 73-year-old rocker’s eighth child. By the time the lad will be old enough to beg Dad to play catch, chances are he will lament that, “I can’t get no satisfaction.”
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Actually, Jagger may be able to play catch in his 80s, but he’ll probably first have to ask his son to, “Start me up!”
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For the first time in decades, life expectancy in the United States fell last year, by about a month. Apparently, the presidential campaign season was even worse than we thought.
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Medical experts say life expectancy may have reached its limits in the U.S. unless we start losing weight. Again with the weight? How are we supposed to do this in a nation where the most innovative recent scientific breakthrough was the creation of a fast-food burger that combines hamburger meat with a hot dog and a pile of potato chips, all on the same bun?
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The Lego company has announced it will hire a new CEO next year. As many of us learned in our youth, it’s important to find a good fit.
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The good thing about being the CEO of Lego is that you never really get fired. You just get tossed back into the box and made into something else later.
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United Airlines has announced it will begin a no-frills discount fare. Some critics are lamenting that extra charges will be applied for use of an overhead bin. That’s nothing. Wait until they see how much it costs to use a drop-down oxygen mask in the event of an emergency.
 

A lighthearted look at news of the day 
 
A man in Britain set a record by bungee jumping 240 feet toward a cup of tea, into which he dunked a cookie. It was a risky stunt. Calculate the distance wrong and you might end up with hair in your tea.
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The British dunker told the Mirror the stunt was “insane, ridiculous and totally something I had to do.” Sort of sounds like what Americans said as they went to vote last month.
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Technically, the stunt won’t be recorded in Britain because the man used poor form. He forgot to extend his little finger as he dunked the cookie.
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A recent opinion poll shows nearly half of Americans don’t want to repeal Obamacare. The rest are sick.
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President-elect Donald Trump now says he doesn’t want to get rid of every part of Obamacare, his border wall might actually be better described as a fence, the Clintons are “good people” and he won’t pursue charges against Hillary, and he will keep an open mind as to whether climate change is real. This is sort of like getting that thing you ordered from Amazon and finding it isn’t exactly as advertised and there is no return policy.
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Mitt Romney dined with Trump last week at a French restaurant called Jean-Georges, where apparently the house specialty is crow.
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Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin is hoping to get a job in the Trump administration, perhaps as Veterans Affairs Secretary or as a backyard spy on the Russians.
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Americans everywhere were complaining last month about moving to Daylight Saving Time. I understand the discomfort, but as long as we measure things by 12 inches to the foot and 5,280 feet to the mile and elect a president who got 2 million less votes than his opponent, turning the clock back an hour seems the least of our worries.
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The cast of Hamilton seemed a little self-righteous recently when they ended a show by lecturing Vice President-elect Mike Pence, who was in the audience. Here’s some free advice: Talk less. Act more.
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The theater audience booed Pence. It’s never good when you’re the least popular vice president at a musical about a vice president who killed someone.
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Green Party candidate Jill Stein has raised millions in her effort to force recounts in several states. Critics say she has raised much more than she needs and that the money is going into an account separate from her campaign funds. Hmm. So that’s what the “green” in the Green Party stands for.