Unwanted Christmas present? A toy truck found on a ditch on the Baroda Road outside Newbridge in Kildare earlier today. (Photo: Eamonn Farrell/Photocall Ireland)

HERE ARE THE things we learned, loved and shared today.

THINGS WE LEARNED

#FLAGS: The head of the Police Federation of Northern Ireland has blamed loyalist paramilitary groups for ‘hijacking’ protests about the flying of the Union flag and using them as an excuse to attack police. PSNI officers came under sustained attack from a crowd of more than one hundred people last night on the third successive day of violence.

#CYBERBULLYING: A Fine Gael TD has called for all political parties to work together to deal with the “destructive potential of social media” and cyber bulling, saying it is “impossible to quantify” how many deaths have been caused by internet attacks.

#BOMB SQUAD: Four homemade explosive devices have been made safe after being discovered in a derelict house in Dundalk this afternoon.

#LENDING: Permanent TSB says it plans to increase lending fivefold this year, from less than €90 million in 2012 to around €450 million in 2013.

#WILDFIRES: Around 100 people are missing and feared dead in the Australian state of Tasmania after wildfires tore through a number of towns on the island.

#SOUTH AFRICA: Good news: Doctors say Nelson Mandela has recovered from his recent surgery and a lung infection.

#MYSTERY: Police in Austria are trying to identify a man who has been languishing in the country for seven weeks who has lost his memory and has no identification papers. It’s a mystery…

THINGS WE LOVED

(Photo: Cmdr_Hadfield/Twitter)

• If you tilt your head at a 90 degree angle (health and safety moment: don’t break your neck doing it ) you may just recognise this Irish city, as seen from the International Space Station by Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield in the early hours of this morning. Lovely.
• 19-year-old video blogger Leanne Woodfull has been making YouTube videos for three years – and in that time, she has been subject to personal attacks, abuse about her looks and many, many hateful comments. She’s written this sharp and brave piece for Beaut.ie about how she has dealt with these anonymous internet attacks.
• Speaking of the internet: What happens to your Facebook, Twitter and email accounts when you die? The Wall Street Journal has been looking at what happens when families tried to hold on to the digital memories of their loved ones – and how  it may break privacy laws.

THINGS WE SHARED

• Sit! Pose! Good boy! The always-interesting White House Flickr account has uploaded this photograph of Bo, the Obama family’s dog, rocking pink bunny ears and smiling with his eyes (probably – we can’t really see them with all that black fur) as he poses for a photo. Aw:

(Image: White House/Flickr)

• Remember when Brad Pitt was still young and Mariah Carey could warrant a two-page spread in the RTÉ Guide? Here’s that, and 11 other old (vintage? Are they vintage yet?) ads which prove things were better back in the day:

(Video: haribokey/YouTube)

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