Overnight Briefing & General Reality Check - Jan 5, 2018

Cookies!

Girl Scout cookies are on sale again for the 101st year.
This is the fourth year that the Scouts will be selling their cookies online in addition to door-to-door and at shopping malls, supermarkets and other locations. But to buy cookies online, customers must receive an email from a Scout and pay shipping and handling charges.
If you're wondering where you can buy cookies near you, you can plug your zip code into the Girl Scouts' website HERE and it will find your cookies right away. And yes, this year there's an App for that, too.
As usual, there'll be Thin Mints, Caramel DeLites (also called Samoas), Peanut Butter Patties (Do-si-dos or Tagalongs), shortbread cookies (also known as Trefoils), Lemonades, Toffee-tastic, gluten-free Trios, and Savannah Smiles. And this year, the Girl Scouts will also be bringing back the S'Mores flavor cookie --of which there are two versions. One is dipped in chocolate, while the other is graham cracker cookie sandwich.
The reasons some cookies have two different names is because there are dueling bakeries making the cookies, and one or the other has patented the name.
If you order cookies now, you'll get them at the end of February. It's also worth remembering that when you buy Girl Scout cookies you aren't just going home to hoard a treasure trove of Thin Mints to eat when no one is home, you're actually supporting a good cause. 100-percent of the revenue from cookie sales benefit the local Girl Scout council where you buy your boxes.

Drug Bust of the Day:

Talk about a self starter!
STEPHANIE SMITH of California used to drive a Lincoln Navigator fueled with human fat from her plastic surgeon boyfriend's liposuction clinic in Beverly Hills. Dr. CRAIG ALAN BITTNER, or "Dr. Lipo 90210" as he was known, ended up being sued for malpractice and filing for bankruptcy and losing his business.
Not to worry, Smith had a two-warehouse pot growing operation that kept her in the lifestyle to which she had become accustomed. Police raided those two warehouses just a couple of days before California legalized recreational marijuana, seizing more than 35-thousand pot plants. Smith claims she was simply the landlord and not the "pot queen-pin" police are making her out to be. Police haven't arrested her and she hasn't applied for a legal license to sell pot. Both Smith and Bittner now drive Tesla SUVs but neither uses human fat as fuel. (Myers)

Taking everything much too seriously:

You probably know how tall you are in feet or meters. But, get ready to learn a new system of measurement.
A dad in Philadelphia has been keeping track of his baby's growth by measuring the boy in cheesesteaks. Computer programmer BRAD WILLIAMS developed a system he calls "Cheesesteak for Scale." It started back in 2015 when he noticed his newborn baby LUCAS was about the same size as the popular sandwich. So he started snapping pictures of the kid --and cheesesteaks-- once a month.
Brad says there isn't much difference between a baby and a cheesesteak. He explains they're both warm and cuddly "but once you unwrap them, expect a huge mess." (Still)