Link round-up for 27 December 2025

Various interesting stuff I ran across on the net over the last week.

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Here are some signs of the times.

Santa has come to this house.  And he's using this road.

You're doing that wrong.

Confuse the alligator.

Idiot.

This motorcyclist is very angry.

Looks like colonists from Lilliput are building a settlement.

Catch the wave.

Do not labor for the oppressor.

There's an extended version of that "scary giant Santa" mini-video that's been going around.

Where did Krampus come from?

These are the Vijayanagara temples of southern India (NSFW blog, requires Blogspot login).

This is Phobos, Mars's larger moon, seen transiting in front of the planet.

How well you sleep affects your longevity even more than diet or exercise.

This new drug appears to stop the progress of Alzheimer's, based on tests in mice.

Even the fireplace now has irritating pop-up ads.  (It's a virtual one -- this never used to happen with an actual fireplace with actual wooden logs.)

ChatGPT has some special Christmas tie-ins that don't work.

Who is this meant for?  Having all that crap going on around me would make me nauseous in a couple of minutes.

Mozilla claims it will provide a "kill switch" so users can easily get rid of all the "AI" stuff in Firefox.  I'll wait and see.  This doesn't sound good -- it may be time to start thinking about switching to a different browser if Firefox gets completely buggered up.  See the comments for a few suggestions.

This program claims it can remove all the "AI" from Windows 11.  I can't evaluate it, but I'd suggest doing some research before you use it in case it also damages something.

This is what happens when you rely on a chatbot for information.

YouTube is about to start buggering up certain videos with "AI".  If you're a video creator, here's how to stop it.

Here are some tests of methods for blocking facial recognition technology.  Here's a follow-up video with more tests.  Despite the notes, I could not find a third video in the series.

A former CIA officer explains how to disappear.  Becoming truly untraceable sound pretty challenging.

Users are furious at the invasion of "AI" into "smart" TVs.  Read the comments too.

Social media algorithms are poison.

"AI"-generated video ads on TikTok are selling seeds for plants that don't exist.

The Cybertruck is a death trap, partly due to features other Teslas also have.

Batocchio at Vagabond Scholar blog has posted 2025's Jon Swift Roundup -- "the best posts of the year, chosen by the bloggers themselves".

The fall of Bitcoin is good news for most people.

German engineer Michaela Benthaus has become the first wheelchair user in space.

Here's a real-life Christmas story from 1967.

The  percentage of Americans who drink alcohol has fallen to 54%, the lowest in nearly a century.

Hollywood embraced "AI" this year, but nothing good came of it.

This is the world of the Amish.

Uber has been approving some convicted felons to serve as drivers, resulting in several rapes of passengers.

An experiment with an "AI"-run vending machine turned into a ludicrous fiasco.  Just imagine relying on this failed technology for anything important.

See Stephen King make a fool of himself.

The FBI has thwarted a major planned terrorist attack in Los Angeles.

Missouri voters are suing to stop the Republican gerrymandering of their state.  It seems that red-state voters are more willing to defend democracy than California voters, who flat-out voted in favor of election-rigging last month.

Mamdani's incoming administration in New York is infested with anti-Semites and terrorism supporters.

Younger people are giving up on the "American dream", which the present economy puts out of reach.

Portland is a shithole.  Some of it isn't like this, but a lot of it is.

Mitt Romney explains why rich people should be taxed more.

Growing public support for socialism is making the US ripe for a new "New Deal".

Home care workers in Michigan have formed a statewide union.

The Catholic archdiocese of New York is desperately trying to raise money to pay settlements to victims of clergy sexual abuse.  Its insurance company refuses to help, for interesting reasons.

Elon Musk's SpaceX has bought over a thousand Cybertrucks from Elon Musk's Tesla, probably as a face-saving measure since hardly anyone else is buying them.

See a tough woman hit a sniveling, lying politician with some unvarnished truth.

92% of new power capacity added to the US grid in 2025 was clean energy.

Humanoid robots, like "AI", are all hype and no substance.

The Streisand effect applies to political censorship.  The 60 Minutes segment on CECOT can be viewed here.

The censoring of the tiny portion of the Epstein files released so far was utterly incompetent.

A discredited book from 1871 is resurfacing to support modern bigotry.

In January, one of Elon Musk's exploding rockets endangered three passenger planes carrying about four hundred and fifty people.

New York state's ban on smartphones in schools is bringing abundant benefits.

Here are the main reasons why Americans are leaving religion (note that the actual survey mentions "negative religious teachings about or treatment of gay and lesbian people", not "anti-LGBTQ", which is not the same thing).

You're either a US citizen or you aren't -- there are no Americans who are more American than others.

Communities across the US are rising up in resistance against "AI" data centers -- and they're winning.  Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer's support for the hated centers is so unpopular that it may be turning the state against the Democrats.  One center was approved by a state-level commission without allowing public input, which will further infuriate voters.

Most people in other countries don't like or respect Trump.

A British judge issued a ruling riddled with factual errors and bogus citations -- almost certainly the work of "AI".

The BBC whitewashes and obfuscates anti-Semitism.

Germany's anti-nuclear-power policy is a disaster, resulting in sky-high prices and continued high usage if fossil fuels.

Iranian women continue to defy the theocracy's dress code.

Turkish authorities prevented a Dā'ish-linked terrorist plot against Christians in Turkey.

The Saudi regime has executed at least 347 people in 2025.

Here's what Houthi rule in Yemen is like.

Ghana has prison-like camps for women ostracized due to accusations of witchcraft.  Some members of the country's legislature are trying to outlaw the practice.

More links at Red State Blues, WAHF, and Comedy Plus.

My posts this week:  some truths and inspirations, the origins of Christmas, and a lighthearted video based on "The Shadow over Innsmouth".

o o o o o

Some straight talk on what's really going on with the economy right now:


Chatbots seem more like an addictive drug than anything else:


If your computer is on Windows 11, you need to watch this.  It's not just clunky and annoying, it's dangerous.  It will spy on your most critical private data and will eventually lock you into a subscription model where you need to keep paying and paying forever just for the operating system.  There are alternatives -- easy, cheap, convenient ones.  Join the global revolt: