NEW YOU CAN USE: Seriously, Can You Please Just Stop Complaining about ‘Baby It’s Cold Outside?’

TOXIC SWAMP BEING DRAINED: Inside the mass exodus at the EPA.

Well, at least a little:

The news outlets’ investigation showed that the administration is well on its way to achieving its goal of cutting 3,200 positions from the agency — about 20 percent of its work force — to levels last seen during the Reagan administration.

* * * * * * * *

It was reported in October that EPA head Scott Pruitt has been getting far more death threats than anyone else who has ever led the agency, whose budget was slated for a 30 percent cut.

The EPA has experienced a downward trend since the Obama administration after Republican-led budget constraints left it with about 15,000 workers at the end of his term.

The reductions have accelerated under Trump, who campaigned on a promise to drastically scale back the EPA, leaving only what he called “little tidbits” in place.

Faster — and much more — please.

TIM COOK HAS LURCHED FROM ONE DEBACLE TO ANOTHER: Apple just confirmed a longtime conspiracy theory — and gave regular customers a big reason to distrust it.

AT AMAZON, deals galore in Top Gift Ideas.

Plus, Shop Amazon – Most Wished For Items.

NANCY PELOSI: Tax Bill Going to ‘Destroy’ Its Creators Like Frankenstein. “They’re stealing the silver. They’re taking all the valuables out of the house right away… they’re acting like people who know that their power is short-lived.”

Whose silver is it, anyway, Nancy?

WE’RE DOOMED: Major Companies Announce Hiring, Bonuses, Raises, and Charitable Donations Thanks to Tax Reform.

21ST CENTURY MEDICINE: Nerve swap helps patients use damaged arms again.

KEEP YOUR EYES OPEN OUT THERE, HE MAY NOT BE THE ONLY ONE: Officials say they’ve stopped a man who was planning a possible Christmas terror attack in San Francisco. He was/is apparently an ISIS supporter.

SKYNET SMILES: Air Force Artificial Intelligence Upgrades F-16, E-3 AWACS.

In a collaborative effort with DOD and the Air Force, C3 IoT is working on a deal to integrate AI-driven software into an F-16 and an E-3 Sentry AWACS surveillance aircraft, industry developers explained.

Developers say the new software should be operational on the aircraft within six months.

The plan is to gather and analyze data, such as operationally relevant maintenance information during or after missions so that crews and service engineers can utilize predictive maintenance.

“F-16s will benefit from predictive maintenance as a way to inform pilots of which aircraft are at the highest risk in terms of being unreliable. We pinpoint systems such as engines and subsystems such as the propulsion,” said Ed Abbo, president and CTO of C3 IoT.

The robot holocaust always starts with good intentions.

POP MUSIC IN 2017: GLUM AND GLUMMER.

The tone of that song — mournful, dazed, sullen, traumatized, self-absorbed, defensive, remote, morbid — was pervasive in the pop of 2017. Hit radio and popularity-driven algorithmic playlists lingered on bleak, bummed-out sounds and scenarios, stringing together music that shares the feeling of being alienated, unprotected and besieged.

And why not? Consider the pressures on the millennial and younger listeners who are clicking to choose a song. They’re making their way into an era of accelerating income inequality. They’re awash in social media that nationalizes peer pressure, that expects intricately maintained self-branding and that shows — with photos — how just about everyone else is having a better life.

They are on college-education tracks that could leave them with a staggering debt burden, or they face the prospect of working in a dead-end retail or service-sector job under the ruthless exploitation of a gig economy. Social safety nets are being shredded, environmental protections are being reversed. For young listeners, there’s no guarantee of a fulfilling career or even of nontoxic food, air and water.*

Gee, wait ‘til the New York Times discovers what teenagers in the mid-1960s had to worry about, and yet somehow — and I know I’m going out on a limb here, but hear me out on this one — pop music was not “glum and glummer.” (See also, pop music and teenage worries of the early 1940s.)

* RFK, call your office.

WITH IMPUNITY: How Obama manipulated sensitive secret intelligence for political gain.

WELL, THAT STINKS: Infection lapses are rampant in nursing homes but punishment is rare.

BIG-SCREEN TV: Three Netflix Epics You Won’t Want to Miss.

SHUT UP, SHE EXPLAINED: Men, hush now. Let us womansplain it to you.

All I had to do was rewrite her headline, and that was only barely.

SOMETIMES THE PROTON-PUMP INHIBITORS ARE GOOD, SOMETIMES THEY’RE BAD: Chronic heartburn might increase chance of neck, head cancers.

A BETTER KIND OF nursing home.

GODSPEED: Shots fired at DMZ as North Korean soldier defects to South.

THESE THINGS ALWAYS SOUND BETTER IN DEVELOPMENT THAN THEY TURN OUT IN TRIALS, BUT MAYBE THIS ONE WILL BE DIFFERENT: This Rub-on Male Hormonal Contraceptive Is About to Be Tested on People.

MICHAEL LEDEEN: Many Unanswered Questions about Amtrak Crash.

MOVE TO STREAMING — OR ELSE: Amazon Music removes ability to upload MP3s, will shutter storage service.

Both free and paid customers of Amazon Music Storage will be affected by this recent decision: free users, who were able to upload up to 250 files, can play and download any of that music until January 2019. Free users should download their previously uploaded tracks before January 2019, because those will become inaccessible through Amazon Music at that time.

Paid users, who paid $25 annually to store up to 250,000 files, can also play and download any of that music until their subscription expires. Those who let their subscription expire won’t have the option to renew it, and all songs over 250 will be removed. Those remaining 250 songs will be available for one year after the subscription expires before they’re removed as well.

Those who stand to lose the most in this situation are paid Music Storage subscribers. Those customers should re-download any and all tracks they originally uploaded before their subscription expires to avoid the service erasing part of their library and leaving them with just 250 songs.

I don’t care for streaming.

POP: Bitcoin Plunges 25% in 24 Hours in a Cryptocurrency Market Rout.

Bitcoin recently traded at $13,758 after earlier falling as low as $12,504, according to research site CoinDesk. The notoriously volatile digital currency started December at about $10,000 and traded close to $20,000 this past weekend, but has been in retreat since.

From its recent peak, the virtual currency has lost about $121 billion of its total market value in less than a week, or more than twice the market cap of Tesla Inc.

That Bitcoin could have a market cap bigger than Tesla which has a market cap bigger than Ford indicates that the easy money policy might have gone on just a bit too long.

WELL, GOOD: Georgia regulators say nuclear reactors, nation’s first since 1978, will be finished.

It’s nice to see a progressive state like Georgia taking the lead on reducing greenhouse gasses.

ROGER SIMON: Why the Remaining NeverTrumpers Should Apologize Now.