SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 11:54 P.M. ET: 

I WOULD HOPE SO – FROM DAILY MAIL:   A Civil Defense employee is set to be retrained after a shocking blunder on Saturday morning, when a mistaken alert warning of an inbound ballistic missile sent thousands fleeing for shelter.  The false alarm was caused by a Hawaii Emergency Management Agency employee who 'pushed the wrong buttons' during an internal drill timed to coincide with a shift handover at 8.07am. The all-clear phone alert was not sent until 38 minutes later.  Incredibly, officials said the employee who made the mistake wasn't aware of it until mobile phones in the command center began displaying the alert.  'This guy feels bad, right. He's not doing this on purpose - it was a mistake on his part and he feels terrible about it,' said EMA Administrator Vern Miyagi in a press conference Saturday afternoon.  Retrained?  Was he ever trained in the first place?  I don't think we've ever had an incident like this.  It requires a major investigation, probably at the Congressional level. 

GREAT MOMENTS IN GOVERNMENT – FROM REUTERS:   WASHINGTON, Jan 13 (Reuters) - Chelsea Manning, the transgender U.S. Army soldier who served seven years in military prison for leaking classified data, is seeking the Democratic Party's nomination for the U.S. Senate seat from Maryland, according to Federal election filings seen on Saturday.  Manning, who was granted clemency by former U.S. President Barack Obama, was released in May from a U.S. military prison in Kansas where she had been serving time for passing secrets to the WikiLeaks website in the biggest breach of classified data in the history of the United States.  Democratic Senator Ben Cardin was elected in 2006 to that seat and is expected to run for re-election this year. He is the senior Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.  Cardin was easily re-elected in 2012, beating his Republican challenger by 30 points in the heavily-Democratic state.  Manning had been working as an intelligence analyst in Iraq. She was convicted by court-martial in 2013 of espionage and other offenses for furnishing more than 700,000 documents, videos and diplomatic cables to WikiLeaks, an international organization that publishes information from anonymous sources.  What a total jerk.  What an embarrassment to the Democratic Party that Manning is seeking its nomination.  The party should make it impossible for this dubious character to run...based on her service record.

I WILL NOT DO THIS! – FROM THE NEW YORK POST:   In an era during which rules seem meant to be broken — and more and more people are calling for gender equality — it should surprise no one that the fashion world is the head cheerleader for change. Case in point: the Fall 2018 Menswear designers presenting a variety of skirts on their runways.  A wrap skirt paired with a matching jacket showed up at the Astrid Andersen show in London, as well as a flasher-worthy trench dress at Alex Mullins, and a a flirty full skirt bounced along at Bobby Abley.  Then, Undercover presenting a plethora of pleated maxi skirts in Florence. Designer Jun Takahashi opened with five looks ranging from minimalist monochromatic to grungy, head-to-toe plaid. But the literal showstopper was the finale: a parade of topless men in white maxiskirts.  This is the end of civilization as we know it.

January 13, 2018