Or maybe it’s that fat-ass guy in the red costume:

“You have to understand, most of these people are not ready to be unplugged.
And many of them are so inert, so hopelessly dependent on the system that they will fight to protect it.
Were you listening to me, Neo, or were you looking at the woman in the red dress?”
— Morpheus, ‘The Matrix‘

Sprinkling rain and quiet here in the wee-early hours this morning along California’s northern coast, the sound of the Pacific Ocean a soft-muffled roar.
And on this particular day, a good reason why the US and humanity are together way-up shit creek without a paddle — from the NORAD Santa tracker:

A young boy called to ask if Santa was real.
Air Force Maj. Jamie Humphries, who took the call, said, “I’m 37 years old, and I believe in Santa, and if you believe in him as well, then he must be real.”
The boy turned from the phone and yelled to others in the room, “I told you guys he was real!”

(Illustration found here).

In the context of the time, nowadays lying is not considered that big a deal — Mitt Romney ran his campaign on distorted bullshit and outright lies, but alas, some 47 percent or so of Americans believed him.
A huge chunk of them believe pure-fabricator Wayne LaPierre lying about lying: As for the idea of reinstating a ban on so-called assault rifles, which was in place from 1994 to 2004, he said, “I think that is a phony piece of legislation, and I do not believe it will pass for this reason: It’s all built on lies that have been found out.”
From President Obama’s current drug czar and then Seattle, Wash., Police Chief R. Gil Kerlikowske in August 2004, a month before the Assault Weapons Ban was allowed to expire: The reality is, when the family firearm becomes an AK-47 or Tec-9 assault pistol, they also become the easy weapon of choice for would-be school shooters and other violent teens. How many more lives will the gun lobby put at risk to sell more assault weapons?

A shitload more, chief.

Just yesterday, another near-unbearable tragedy. A crazed individual created an “ambush” by setting a couple houses afire in upstate New York, then sniping the responding firefighters, killing two and wounding two others along with a local cop, one of the firemen killed had been named ‘FireFighter of the Year’ just a couple of weeks ago.
Via CNN:

“It appears that it was a trap,” Webster Police Chief Gerald Pickering said.
“There was a car and a house that were involved in flames, probably set by Mr. Spengler, who laid in wait in armament and then shot the first responders.”
Authorities do not know how Spengler — who was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound hours after the four firefighters were shot — obtained the weapon or weapons he used or why he opened fire, Pickering told reporters.
As a convicted felon, Spengler was not allowed to legally possess weapons, but he had “several different types of weapons” Monday, the police chief said.
Spengler was convicted in 1981 of first-degree manslaughter in the death of his grandmother and had been released on supervised parole, Pickering said.
…
Authorities have not said what weapons were found with Spengler, though Pickering said “probably at least a rifle was used” to shoot the first responders.
“I know that many people are going to be asking, ‘Were they assault rifles?’
I don’t know that. I can’t answer that at this time,” he told reporters.

A new term for the ‘new normal’ — “suicide shooters.”
People who kill a lot of other people than kill themselves — WTF!

Although staying of course within the parameters of the bigger lie, Dante Chinni, a journalist and the director of the Patchwork Nation project at the Jefferson Institute, poses in an op/ed in the Washington Post that lying about Santa should end.
The money quote:

Think for a moment about other lessons you teach your children.
Planes fly because of aerodynamics and thrust.
Kids shouldn’t put their heads in the railing because they could get stuck.
And yet, here we are talking about a guy who pilots a sleigh pulled by flying reindeer around the world in one night, going up and down people’s chimneys.
How?
Well, he’s magic.
He’s reality’s exception.
America doesn’t need any more people who deny reality — at any age.

Another sorrowful example of can’t see the forest for the trees.