SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 11:55 P.M. ET: 

I'M SO RELIEVED – FROM SKY NEWS:   The Nigerian president has denied rumours he died following a period of ill health and was replaced by a Sudanese clone.  Muhammadu Buhari addressed the speculation as he met members of the Nigerian community in Poland, where he is attending the UN COP24 climate summit.  "It's the real me, I assure you," he said, answering a question from the audience. "I will soon celebrate my 76th birthday and I will still go strong."  The repeated claims, spread on social media and in YouTube videos, alleged that the Nigerian leader was an impostor named "Jubril".  According to a statement issued by the president's spokesman Garba Shehu, President Buhari said: "A lot of people hoped that I died during my ill health.  "Some even reached out to the vice president to consider them to be his deputy because they assumed I was dead."  The leader branded those behind the rumours "irreligious" and "ignorant", but said later in a tweet that they were "not surprising".  I worried about this every night. 

HE APPARENTLY HEARS THE CALL OF THE PEOPLE – FROM THE WASHINGTON FREE BEACON:   CNN President Jeff Zucker said he is "very interested in politics" and is considering running for office some day in a newly released interview.  Ex-Obama administration official David Axelrod for his podcast "The Axe Files" asked Zucker where he thought he would be in five years at the end of their discussion published on Monday.  "With regard to be where I'll be in five years … I don’t know for sure where I’ll be but here’s the two things I do know: if the Miami Dolphins call, that’s where I’ll be," Zucker said. "And number two, I still harbor somewhere in my gut that I’m still very interested in politics."  "You turned down an opportunity to work for Al Gore in 2000," Axelrod said. "You've talked in the past about potentially running for office."  "So, I’m still interested in that and it’s something I would consider," Zucker said.  It would get him out of CNN, which would be a plus for viewers.

WELCOME, FRIENDS – FROM THE SUN:  A NASA scientist admits that it's entirely possible aliens have already visited Earth – and we simply never noticed.  The space expert also noted that not all UFO sightings can be "explained or denied", and said scientists should be more open-minded about the possibility of alien visitors.  NASA has long been investing in SETI, the "search for extraterrestrial intelligence" – better known as aliens.  And in a recently publisher paper on SETI, Professor Silvano P. Colombano suggested that alien life may have already visited us.  He suggested that aliens could look so different from how we expect, and that they may be able to travel huge distances – because we simply can't comprehend their make-up or technology.  "I simply want to point out the fact that the intelligence we might find and that might choose to find us (if it hasn’t already) might not be at all be produced by carbon based organisms like us," said Professor Colombano, of NASA's Ames Research Centre in California.  I think he's right.  I've long wondered about the origins of some liberal members of Congress.

December 3, 2018