Items to share (24 December)

• Santa's Christmas Eve Workload, Calculated  and of course you can track him.

• The Claus Hypothesis: from Piled Higher and Deeper

• And of course it's (20-28 December this year) Hanukkah, to be celebrated in Santa Monica according to Tom Lehrer (83). (Thanks to Dr Grumpy for the seasonal reminder.)

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• Miracles and the Historians. It's Christmas, so this post is apposite (although I don't find it entirely satisfactory) but I've shared it as much because of who it is by; Peter Berger. Yes, that Peter Berger, now 82, author of Invitation to Sociology (1963), a slim volume that probably introduced more people to sociology than any other text, and co-author with Thomas Luckmann of The Social Construction of Reality (1966) --one of the most influential works of sociological theory ever. His blog is invariably worth reading. 

• There's hope for us yet! Why a Democracy Needs Uninformed People

• The Science of Why We Don't Believe Science: How our brains fool us on climate, creationism, and the vaccine-autism link. Basically a revisitation of cognitive dissonance theory, related to present topics, but worth reading.

• The Future of History: Can Liberal Democracy Survive the Decline of the Middle Class? Francis Fukuyama's sweeping analysis (available until 12.2.12).

• The uselessness of  "security theatre"

• Just the information you need to make the season complete: How to Cite Recorded Music in APA Style (+ Playlist) !

• Extraordinary, beautiful time-lapse video of  Montreal, Quebec City, Toronto, Manhattan, Chicago --and wilderness