Midday open thread: Robots in aging Japan; Cheney's bust unveiled in Senate; Uruguay's clean energy

Today’s comic by Ruben Bollng is U.S. gets serious about radical Christians: 

Mapquest shows how you can avoid Donald Trump. Click a Donald to explore Trump-free destinations across the country.

Dick Cheney’s chiseled likeness joins those of other VPs at the Senate: 

As vice president as well as president of the Senate, Dick Cheney once asserted that he was essentially his own branch of government. Nevertheless, he [was immortalized in the Senate on Thursday] with a traditional marble bust in recognition of his service there. [...]

Mr. Cheney’s chiseled likeness [joins] those of more than 40 other vice presidents, many of them quite obscure, scattered inside and outside the Senate chamber. The bust was sculpted by William Behrends of North Carolina, and the Capitol Hill publication Roll Call recently put its cost at about $50,000.

Uruguay now generating 95% of its electricity from clean sources: 

In less than 10 years, Uruguay has slashed its carbon footprint without government subsidies or higher consumer costs, according to the national director of energy, Ramón Méndez .

In fact, he says that now that renewables provide 94.5% of the country’s electricity, prices are lower than in the past relative to inflation. There are also fewer power cuts because a diverse energy mix means greater resilience to droughts.

National Review, source of GOP ideas, celebrates 60 years of being wrong.

Report says nearly half Japan’s jobs could be filled by robots by 2035​ :

In fast-aging Japan, researchers have calculated that up to 49 percent of jobs could be done by robots within the next ten to 20 years. [...]

In the new report published by NRI on Wednesday, the researchers examined 601 jobs in collaboration with researchers from Oxford University, including Osborne. “Due to a shrinking population, labor shortages are predicted for Japan. We’re looking at the social repercussions of attempting to preserve the labor force by introducing AI and robots into it,” write the researchers in their report.

Indigenous caucus presents its priorities at Paris climate talks:

Before more than 150 world leaders converged on Paris this week to negotiate a long-term solution to man-made climate change at one of the most important climate summits in the talks’ 21-year history, the world's indigenous leaders met on November 27 for the International Indigenous Peoples’ Forum on Climate Change (IIPFCC). [...]

With a global population higher than 370 million, Indigenous Peoples inhabit every continent, speaking 5,000 languages. They represent myriad cultures, each with their own social and cultural institutions that are distinct from those of the dominant societies of the countries they live in. Speaking with one voice, in spite of their extreme diversity, Indigenous Peoples established the IIPFCC, which defends their fundamental rights with regard to an issue—climate change—that directly affects them, given the degree to which their activities and way of life are intimately tied to Earth and the environment.