Does anybody really care what politicians say, when Christmas and Santa is on the way?

Today's Tids Issue 3,488

Opening Stuff:

Kids are bursting with expectations and believers with love as we begin the countdown to the night Santa delivers and the Angels sing. It’s time to cut through the sale signs and the web emails and start to really feel the coming of the greatest event of hope ever experienced by mankind. Put an extra buck or two in the Salvation Army bucket, send a nice check to your favorite charity. Let your heart understand all people. The gift of Christmas is already here, if we all look around at what we can do just in our own families, and with neighbors in our hometowns.

I’m feelin’ like a kid again. I can’t open childproof bottle caps.

The Question:

The world is in turmoil here and there and everywhere. People are curious, but fortunately citizens of the world now have search engines like Google and info sources like Wikipedia at their hands to satisfy the questions of life’s mysteries that bring angst. So why, is the most searched Google item from 2015 the recent downfall of Lamar Odem? Have we really lost our collective minds? What are the rest of the top Google searches?

The Headlines:

--Dow, S&P Give Up  Opening Gains, Down 122 At 11:00; Fed-Ex Boosts S&P After 4.7% Jump; Gold Falling; Jobless Claims Decline; Street Adjusts To Calm After Rate Increase..

--Some In Markets See Oil Back Up to $100 By End of 2016.

--DHS Secretary Johnson Agrees Jihadists Could Sneak In With Refugees.

--Hanoi Arms Build-Up To Protect Country From China As It Accelerates Modernization.

--First Trial Of Freddie Gray Police Ends In Mistrial; Jury Can’t Agree Criminal Intent Was Present.

--Putin Says Trump Is Outstanding, Talented Man; Russia Prez Rules Out Reconciliation With Turkey..

--Castro Niece Leads Cuba LGBT Activism.

I really feel sorry for people who only get their information from the New York Times.

I like Jenna Lee best of the Fox news crowd.

Pickum’ Department: This is a always a tough week as it is hard to predict what teams playing for nothing will do on the field. As the surprises kept on coming, last week was ok at 11-5 bringing the so-so year to 133-78 (63%). Tonight we have two teams that have been among the most unpredictable all year. I’m picking St. Louis, setting up a sure win for TB! Dallas has been playing hard but it is a must win for The Jets. I’m thinking Dallas in upset gets one for pride. Minn and Chi had 3-4 chances to be relevant and failed each time. I’m taking Minn. Jax is looking much better and Atlanta seems to have given up. Jax. Houston at Indy should be a war. Houston seems a little sharper now. Carolina to keep it going against the Jints in their closest game. NE should have an easier task this week against Tenn. I like The Skins to keep it going against Buffalo in a close battle. I have to go KC over Balt and Cinn, who needs it bad, over SF. Denver also needs it bad, but Pitt is looking stronger and stronger. Pitt. Cleveland has played tough all year, but Seattle is on a roll. The nothing game of the week is Miami at SD. Phillip River wins at home. New Orleans has put something together and will tame the lions. The Arizona at Eagles game has a lot on the line, and is a tough one to pick. Got to pick the Cards. The last, game also a poser, is GB at Oakland. Oakland to surprise again. After this week with the above scenario you would have as Div leaders AFC: NE, Houston, Cinn (With Pitt sneaking up) and Denver (With KC Sneaking up) NFC: Skins (Precariously), Carolina, Green Bay-Minn (tie) and Arizona (Clinching).

I think Spell-Check was out drinking at a Hillary fundraiser last night.

I know that profiling is frowned upon by the sanctimonious, but I just think that the sniveling hedge fund kid Shkreli always looked fraudulent from his first moment on the big screen. Yes the arrogant little guy who raised the price of his Turing company Aids drug form $13.50 to $750/ pill was just arrested for fraud at  another of his company’s -- KaloBios. It was that wisp of hair on his forehead that was the dead give-away for this baby face bandit. The Tids knows. (Note, Since his arrest last night Shkreli Is losing $25 mil on his Kalo-Bios stock)

I have totally tuned out politicians for the season.

The Temperature goal that sealed the Paris deal is a lot like the annual over stated return basis that enable the RI pension funds to appear to project a viable future. It can’t work, but it brings handshakes together.

The good news about flat brimmed baseball hats is that the next generation could hate them. Yes millennials, you will age too.

Ben Carson is angry that some media wizards are attributing his polling decline to his being black. He says he is tired of race being mistakenly declared the root cause of all black downfalls and triumphs. He sees inner value and native intelligence as the true definers of all people to the total exclusion of race as a factor. Black agitators and their white sycophants hate that concept.

Who wants a high price for oil more than anybody? All people associated with high priced alternative energy companies. This is the new battle.

Have Fed-Ex And UPS Have become the favored indicators of consumer spending?

An economy with zero interest rates is a distortion.

Here’s a list of stocks that are suggested for the new real economy with fluxuating interest rates; Aliant Energy, NextEra Energy, Duke Energy, Ventas (REIT), P&G, AT&T, Wal-Mart, WEC Energy and Chevron.

Tubeville, Department:

The Fargo finale last night tied everything into a nice little package, and finished with lots of love after the previous episode’s blood bath. I can hardly wait til Fargo 3. –Next on tap from FX is the new season of The Americans, which has entered a new phase of dangerous living in obscurity for the Russian spy couple and their maturing American family. --Too bad they don’t have spin-off for Justified. --Over on ShowTime, a new financially oriented drama starring Paul Giamatti and Damian Lewis opens January, and looks like a winner. It is about power, politics and big money- Giamatti is the US Attorney battling the hedge fund superstar Lewis. Good wirting and cast.

One of the hardest things to do is appreciate the styles of others that are foreign to our own.

(The Parking Lot resumes tomorrow)

The Answer:

After Odem the other searches that roused most “Trending” interest were Jurassic World, American Sniper, Caitlyn Jenner, Ronda Rousey, Paris Attack, Agar.io, Chris Kyle, Fallout 4 and #10 - Straight Outta Compton. Yup, those are the top 10 searches. Come to your own opinions. But, there was also heightened interest and a lot of questions seeking info on a lot of other stuff -- Paris Under Attack beat out the Oscars. Others high on the search list were Cricket World Cup, Rugby World Cup, Star Wars, Queen Elizabeth’s Reign, The Dress, Cecil the lion, Water on Mars, Iran Nuke Deal, Greek Crisis, FIFA and various and sundry farewells to deceased stars.

In case you aren’t familiar with it, Agar.io is a massively multiplayer action game by Matheus Valadares where a player controls a cell map representing a petri dish with the goal to gain mass by swallowing smaller cells and not being swallowed by bigger ones. Hmmm. To each his own.

I’m trying to find a new piece of great music for Christmas that matches the emotion and grandeur of Mahler’s “Resurrection” for Easter.” Maybe I’ll surprise you in a week.