As news outlets broke several stories about Russia's attempts to impact the November election, the determination to examine Moscow's role became decidedly more bipartisan; and included a call for a probe by Senate Majorirty Leader Mitch McConnell, who told reporters "the Russians are not our friends." According to WaPo, "McConnell declined to address his role in a September briefing for lawmakers, where he reportedly dismissed intelligence assessments suggesting that Russia was trying to sway the presidential election in favor of Donald Trump. Instead, he credited Senate Republicans for standing firm against Russia and blamed President Obama for Russian encroachment around the globe." (Looks like I picked the wrong week to stop sniffing клей.)

+ While the probe is bipartisan, it does not have the support of the president-elect who publicly questioned the quality of CIA intel: "These are the same people that said Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction." From Politico: Intel world struggles to crack the code of an untrusting Trump.

+ Trump also explained why he has been skipping daily presidential intelligence meetings: "You know, I'm, like, a smart person. I don't have to be told the same thing in the same words every single day." (FWIW, Trump ripped Obama for missing intel briefings ... even though it turned out that reports of Obama missing updates was based on false reporting.)

+ David Sanger: What is the President's Daily Brief?

"An Islamic State leader linked to the 2015 attacks at the French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo and assassinations in Tunisia was killed in a U.S. airstrike in Syria." An ending such as this has been more the rule than the exception. Officials have estimated that, in addition to giving up much physical ground, as many as 45,000 ISIS fighters have been killed. From The New Yorker's Robin Wright: After the Islamic State.

"It was an incendiary political idea -- suggesting that Syria's Baathist dictatorship would be the next to fall after the Arab Spring revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt, written by an apolitical teenage prankster. Painted on a cool and dry winter evening, it would improbably set in motion a chain reaction of events that continue to rock the Middle East – and the world." From Mark MacKinnon in The Globe and Mail: The Graffiti Kids Who Sparked the Syrian War.

"Internal Uber employees helped ex-boyfriends stalk their ex-girlfriends and searched for the trip information of celebrities such as Beyoncé, the company's former forensic investigator said." But then the company changed its policies and tightened the lid on such private information. But is it tight enough? From Will Evans at Reveal: Uber said it protects you from spying. Security sources say otherwise.

+ You're not exactly enjoying complete privacy when you're driving your own car either. From the The Boston Globe: Here's what those cameras see when you drive through those new toll gantries on the Mass. Pike.

"The commander who oversaw the use of Reaper drones in Syria has said the relentless demand to deploy the unmanned aircraft means the RAF needs to test recruiting '18- and 19-year-olds straight out of the PlayStation bedroom' to operate the weapons." (We're just a few advances away from them recruiting newsletter writers.) From The Guardian, an interesting look at what kind of soldiers will fight the next wars -- and the very scary leveling of the playing field.

Bill Gates, Reid Hoffman, Jeff Bezos, Michael Bloomberg, Meg Whitman and several other notable execs have launched a "more than $1 billion fund focused on fighting climate change by investing in clean energy innovation."

+ Such private (and likely profitable) efforts to limit climate change could differ greatly from America's near-term public stance on the matter. On Sunday, Donald Trump reiterated his doubts about human-caused climate change: "Look, I'm somebody that gets it, and nobody really knows." (Update: Somebody knows.) Trump's beliefs on the matter are much more than rhetoric. Consider this from The Guardian: "The heads of Donald Trump's transition teams for NASA, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of the Interior and the Department of Energy, as well as his nominees to lead the EPA and the Department of the Interior, all question the science of human-caused climate change."

"If the attempt is successful, it will be the most significant moment for running since Roger Bannister's first sub-four-minute mile in 1954." Wired's Ed Caesar takes you inside Nike's quest for the impossible: A two-hour marathon. If you're a normal person, imagine yourself sprinting for 26 miles.

"Trolls are also distinguished from their predecessors by seeming not to recognise any limits. Ridicule is an anti-social force: it tends to make people clam up and stop talking. So there is a point at which, if conversation and community are to continue, the joke has to stop, and the victim be let in on the laughter. Trolls, though, form a community precisely around the extension of their transgressive sadism beyond the limits of their offline personas." Richard Seymour in The New York Review of Books: Schadenfreude with Bite. (Social media has turned Schadenfreude into a bloodsport.)

+ "Imzy, started by two former Reddit employees, wants to be a kinder, gentler version of the controversial discussion site." The excellent Joel Stein on the quest to create a decent place to talk online: It's Like Reddit, Without the Trolls. (That's also the definition of a completely blank page.)

Welcome to the new era of TV. Netflix, Amazon, and HBO accounted for more than 70% of this year's Golden Globe TV nominations. Here's a look at all the nominees. And of course, the ever popular snubs and surprises. (The worst case scenario is not getting nominated and not being on the snubs and surprises list.)

+ Apple has launched its TV Guide, but for now, it won't include Netflix. There's never been more great TV. And it's never been harder figure out how to watch it.

Washington legislators are proposing a bill that would make it legal to bring firearms to the state's sports stadiums. (Next time I'm headed to Seattle, I think I'll leave my 49er jersey at home.)

+ Here's a look at the year in Digg, and Longreads top reads of the year. (I still think I'm a shoe-in for top descriptions of top reads of the year.) And Bloomberg has released its annual Jealousy List (the stories they wish they had done themselves.)

+ NatGeo is out with their list of the best photos of the year.

+ So many of the Internet's gift guides are just repetitive sameness. That's not the case with BoingBoing's.