2026-01-07

Worthy

• America Was Never a Christian Nation - by John Paul Wile

  The founders created something genuinely new: a government that doesn’t care what you believe. That was radical. That was the actual American innovation. Christian nationalism wants to undo that achievement and return to the old European model of religious/political fusion that failed everywhere it was tried. The real American principle is that your neighbor’s different beliefs don’t threaten you because the government won’t enforce either of your religions on the other. Christian nationalism rejects that mutual respect and tries to install Christianity in a privileged position - which inevitably means someone’s particular version of Christianity gains state power while others lose freedom. The founders gave us religious freedom by keeping government secular. That’s the principle worth defending - for Christians and non-Christians alike.

etc

• Lawsuit accuses Chicago-based McDonald’s of deception on grounds that McRib has no rib meat.

Horseshit

• A Mystery Trader Made $400k Betting on Maduro's Downfall

  • A prediction market user made $436k betting on Maduro's downfall

• A congressman wants to criminalize insider trading on prediction markets

• They Want to Influence You to Do Nothing

• Some Brains Switch Gears Better Than Others

• 7k-year-old underwater wall raises questions about ancient engineering

• Highlights from the Comments on Boomers

• Enigmatic Ancient Script Hidden Within the Dead Sea Scrolls

• Coercion isn’t fiction

  Horowitz believes that “almost everyone who has had this experience supports assisted dying […] while the majority of those who oppose it are coming from a theoretical, more high-minded starting point”. If you’ve had the experience, you will have the insight — the only insight, apparently, that matters — and if you haven’t, it’s all a bit abstract to you. Moreover, if you then argue that changes in UK law to permit assisted dying may put the vulnerable at risk, you aren’t just indulging in pointless pontification. You’re in the realms of fantasy.

• Monkey Christ became a global meme; the real marvel was the woman behind it

• Chess isn't fair–so rearrange the pieces

• Why smaller houses can lead to happier lives

• America Needs a Transcontinental Railroad

celebrity gossip

• Assange's lawyer Barry Pollack to fight Maduro's US narcotics charges

Obit

• Aldrich Ames, most damaging CIA traitor in agency history, dies at 84

• Michael Reagan, eldest son of former President Ronald Reagan, dies at 80

Rank Propaganda / Thought Policing / World Disordering

• Psychological traits that may fuel conspiracy theorist mindset identified

• The Influentists

  This pattern of “hype first and context later” is actually part of a growing trend. I call the individuals participating to that trend “The Influentists”. Those people are members of a scientific or technical community, and leverage their large audiences to propagate claims that are, at best, unproven and, at worst, intentionally misleading. But how can we spot them?

  I personally identify these “Influentists” by four personality traits that characterize their public discourse. The first is a reliance on "trust-me-bro" culture, where anecdotal experiences are framed as universal, objective truths to generate hype. This is a sentiment perfectly captured by the “I’m not joking and this isn’t funny” tone of Rakyll’s original tweet, but also the dramatic “I’ve never felt that much behind as a programmer” from Andrej Karpathy’s tweet. This is supported by an absence of reproducible proof, as these individuals rarely share the code, data, or methodology behind their viral “wins”, an omission made easier than ever in the current LLM era. And finally, they utilize strategic ambiguity, carefully wording their claims with enough vagueness to pivot toward a “clarification” if the technical community challenges their accuracy.

• A brief natural history of misinformation

Musk

• SpaceX Moves 4000 Starlink Satellites to Lower Orbit After Near Miss

• Tesla's full 2025 data from Europe is in, and it is a total bloodbath

• Government demands Musk's X deals with 'appalling' Grok AI deepfakes

• Elon Musk's Pornography Machine

• Who's who at X, the deepfake porn site formerly known as Twitter

• XAI announces it has raised $20B

Electric / Self Driving cars

• Are Autonomous Vehicles Safer Than Human Drivers? We Don't Know Yet

Robot uprising / Humanioid Helpers

• Hyundai and Boston Dynamics unveil humanoid robot Atlas at CES

• Hyundai Motor Group plans to deploy humanoid robots at US factory from 2028

• LG's housekeeper robot designed to automate your daily chores

Edumacationalizing / Acedemia Nuts

• World's largest accounting body to scrap remote exams to combat rise in cheating

• NZ universities accepting English proficiency tests through Duolingo

• Student loan borrowers could see wages garnished in just days

• Many schools no longer assign full novels but excerpts on school-issued laptops

Info Rental / ShowBiz / Advertising

• Dell is eating humble pie and bringing back the XPS brand

  • Dell Admits It Made a Mistake When It Abandoned XPS

• Hacker Dressed as the Pink Ranger Takes Down White Supremacist Websites Onstage

  The three sites targeted included WhiteDate, a white nationalist dating site; WhiteChild, a website for matching white sperm and egg donors; and WhiteDeal, an online labor market for white supremacists. As of Monday, the websites remain offline.

  • Hacktivist deletes white supremacist websites live onstage during conference

• Lego announces Smart Brick, the 'most significant evolution' in 50 years

  • Lego Introduces Smart Bricks

• Telegram hit by $500M Russian bond freeze

• Microsoft rebrands Office as 365 Copilot app amid user privacy backlash

  • Microsoft Office didn't just get renamed to Microsoft 365 Copilot

  • Microsoft didn't rebrand Office to Microsoft 365 Copilot

• Anna's Archive loses their .org domain

• HP pushes PC-in-a-keyboard for businesses with hot desks

• Dramatic drop in Stack Overflow questions as devs look elsewhere for help

• Napster exits music streaming with shutdown of its service

• Nvidia rumored to bring GeForce RTX 3060 production back this quarter

• Nvidia announce a native Linux app for GeForce NOW

• AWS raises GPU prices 15% on a Saturday, hopes you weren't paying attention

• "Owning your data" will not save you from data capitalism

• Intel is building a handheld gaming platform including a dedicated chip

TechSuck / Geek Bait

• When you can't afford to replace; learn to skip the bad bits: Dealing with faulty RAM in 2026

• Raspberry Pi is cheaper than a Mini PC again (that's not good)

  I think that the theme of 2026 is going to be repurposing used hardware. If you can be resourceful and use your existing gear in different ways, that's going to be a lot more valuable and you're going to save a lot of money. That's always been true, but is even more so as we enter 2026. I don't know when the AI bubble will pop and RAM prices will come back down to reality, but it doesn't sound like this is a short-term thing.

  • Raspberry Pi and mini PC home lab prices hit parity as DRAM costs skyrocket

• A closer look at the BGP anomaly observed in Venezuela

AI Will (Save | Destroy) The World

• Nvidia and Groq, a Stinkily Brilliant Deal, Why This Deal Makes Sense

• Nvidia unveils 'reasoning' AI technology for self-driving cars

• Pioneer admits coding has surpassed him, a modern AI driven paradox and reality

• Sam Altman Is Trying to Take on the App Store. He's Got a Long Way to Go

• Nvidia Unveils Faster AI Chips Sooner Than Expected

• AI Construction Costs Can Be an Accounting 'Black Box'

• AI-driven inflation is 2026's most overlooked risk, investors say

• AI is enabling harassment and intimidation

• How AI is affecting me as a human (and journalist)

• AI tutoring outperforms in-class active learning

• Razer thinks you'd rather have AI headphones instead of glasses

• AI traffic cameras lead to 1k tickets in 4 days

• OpenAI Must Turn over 20M ChatGPT Logs, Judge Affirms

• Nvidia's New Vera Rubin Chips Are in 'Full Production'

• The data center rebellion is here, and it's reshaping the political landscape

Space / Boomy Zoomers / UFO

• After half a decade, the Russian space station segment stopped leaking

• All the rovers heading to the Moon over the next 10 years

Economicon / Business / Finance

• US oil giants mum after Trump says they'll spend billions in Venezuela

• Minimum-Wage Hikes Take Hold Across the Country

• FTSE100 bosses' pay overtakes typical worker's annual salary in less than 3 days

• Michael Burry's big play off the U.S.-Venezuela situation

• Prediction markets move into real estate with Polymarket–Parcl deal

• Heavy Truck Sales Collapsed in Q4; Down 32.5% Year-over-Year in December

  • Lots of unqualified CDL holders went away...

• Nvidia Details New A.I. Chips and Autonomous Car Project with Mercedes

• US Auto Sales Poised to Slip as Middle-Class Buyers Retreat

• America's affordability crisis is (mostly) a mirage

Gubmint / Poilitcks / Law Making

• Are There Fourth Amendment Rights in Google Search Terms?

• US Government overhauls the childhood vaccine schedule in unprecedented move

  • Rotavirus Could Come Roaring Back–Soon

  • Alarms raised as Trump's CDC cuts number of suggested vaccines for children

  • U.S. drops the number of vaccines it recommends for every child

• DeSantis announces 10,000 illegal immigrants arrested in ‘Operation Tidal Wave’ with DHS.

Trump

• Jan. 6 defendants plan march on fifth anniversary of Capitol riot

• Back in power 5 years later, Trump has all but erased the stain of Jan. 6

• White House unveils webpage saying Democrats 'staged the real insurrection'

  The website, which became public on the fifth anniversary of the riot, is Trump’s latest defense of Jan. 6, where he told a crowd of his supporters the election was stolen and directed them to march to the Capitol. At the time, the mob that stormed the Capitol threatened to hang then-Vice President Mike Pence after Trump criticized his running mate for not seeking to block former President Biden’s win in the 2020 race. Trump, who did not respond to the violence at the Capitol for hours, even after lawmakers in both parties were evacuated from the building, still falsely maintains that he won the 2020 election. The new website blames Democrats for “certifying a fraud-ridden election” and fumes over the work of the House Jan. 6 committee. It also accuses U.S. Capitol Police of escalating tensions.

  “With his triumphant return to the White House, President Trump wasted no time righting one of the darkest wrongs in modern American history. On Inauguration Day 2025, he issued sweeping pardons and commutations for the vast majority of January 6 defendants—patriotic citizens who had been viciously overcharged, denied due process, and held as political hostages by a vengeful regime,” the website states.

  White House aide Stephen Cheung suggested the site was made as a trolling effort

• Trump Floats Cancelling 2026 Elections, Then Insists He Won't

  • Trump threatens to cancel midterms–realized he'll be 'impeached' if GOP defeated

• US discussing options to get Greenland, incl use of military, says White House

  • Stephen Miller Asserts U.S. Has Right to Take Greenland

  • Trump aide says no-one would fight US over Greenland

  • U.S. NATO allies say "Greenland belongs to its people"

  • U.S. Attack to Seize Greenland Would End NATO, Danish Prime Minister Says

  • Trump weighs using U.S. military to acquire Greenland: White House

  • Trump, advisers discussing options to acquire Greenland, US Military an option

  • European leaders rally behind Greenland in face of renewed US threat

  • Is the Fate of the West Being Sealed for Good in Greenland?

Democrats

• Hegseth launches action targeting Sen. Kelly's rank, retirement

• Democrats Demanded Maduro’s Ouster Before Trump Delivered. And We’ve Got the Receipts!

• Because of course he does

  Capitol police officer Michael Byrd who shot unarmed Ashli Babbitt on January 6th, reportedly has a taxpayer funded daycare in his home run by his wife

• can we get some answers about Rep. Melissa Hortman's murder?

  Now that we're all aware that medical fraud is a multi-billion dollar industry in Minnesota, can we get some answers about Rep. Melissa Hortman's murder? Melissa Hortman is the only Democrat to vote against healthcare for illegals. She killed the bill. Hortman and her husband were murdered soon after this vote. Her killer was appointed by Tim Walz. The killer's wife worked for Tim Walz. The killer said Tim Walz ordered the murder in his confession letter.

• Mamdani Targets Junk Fees and Hidden Charges in Two Executive Orders

Left Angst

• NASA's science budget won't be a train wreck after all

• Keys to Understanding Trump's Retro Coup in Venezuela

• Enemies not allowed to control large oil reserves, US ambassador to UN says

• Trump's Immigration Nightmare: It Is Happening Here

• Corporation for Public Broadcasting votes itself out of existence

• Alleged JD Vance home vandal is son of wealthy doctor, Dem donor — who recently changed name to Julia.

• Trump suggests US taxpayers could reimburse oil firms for Venezuela investment

• Texas lawmakers from both parties oppose Trump's order targeting state AI laws

• RFK's Tuskegee Experiment

• Trump Is Unleashing Forces Beyond His Control

• DOI cracks down on stickers covering Trump's face on national park passes

• Trump Murders U.S. Public Media

• Texas Is Sued over Investigations into Teacher Speech After Charlie Kirk's Death

• We need to prepare for the possibility that the U.S. uses military coercion against Canada - The Globe and Mail

  Donald Trump promised that under his leadership the U.S. would eschew “nation building,” “forever wars,” “regime change,” and violent foreign engagements more generally. Yet since his second inauguration, he’s ordered military action in Syria, Yemen, Somalia and Iraq; bombed Iran’s nuclear weapons complexes; and blown up more than a score of boats allegedly carrying drugs in the Caribbean. In just the past two weeks, he has launched missiles against Islamic terrorists in northern Nigeria, declared that the U.S. was “locked and loaded” for another attack on Iran, and now decapitated Venezuela’s government. In this context, Canadians must acknowledge the real risk that Mr. Trump will use military coercion against our country.

Law Breaking / Police / Internal Security

• Letting prisons jam contraband phones is a bad idea, phone companies tell FCC

External Security / Militaria / Diplomania

• Greenland rejects Trump's annexation talk after .ve raid: 'Enough is enough'

• US oil tankers sail towards Venezuela as risk of production 'collapse' looms

World

• Taxpayers miss out on millions after 'phoenixism' at UK recruitment firms

• What will the Post Office scandal bring in 2026?

• 'Our minerals could be used to annex us': why Canada doesn't want US mining

• India's Jan Russian oil imports may fall sharply; Reliance expects no deliveries

• Drivers over 70 to face eye tests every three years

• From steel to guns: inside Britain's newest arms factory

• Vienam Bans Unskippable Ads, Requires Skip Button to Appear After 5 Seconds

• Sacred 'forbidden island' in Japan is completely off limits to women

• Cameroon and Tanzania rulers clung to power – but look more vulnerable

China

• China's Chips Manhattan Project and the Semiconductor Skills Race

• Beijing and the Provinces: Geographic Disparities Among CCP Elites

• Chinese Fishing Vessel Hijacked Off Somalia

Health / Medicine

• First evidence of a general disease ("d") factor, a common factor of all illness

• Recreational marathoners show no long-term heart damage after 10 years

Pox / COVID / BioTerror AgitProp

• Covid-19 Is Still Killing a Disturbing Number of People

Environment / Climate / Green Propaganda

• And the irrelevance of human activity to the phenomenon: Small and short-lived 2025 ozone hole confirms long-term recovery trend

• Mysterious Victorian-Era Shoes Are Washing Up on a Beach in Wales

• Kenya's Great Carbon Valley: a bold new gamble to fight climate change

• Portland's gas-powered leaf blower ban goes into effect

• We can safely experiment with reflecting sunlight away from Earth

• Soil antibiotic resistance genes are associated with increasing risk to humans

• Initiatives can increase agricultural emissions but still benefit the climate

• The Glaciers Are Melting. This One Is Growing

• Some farmers report as many as 70 tick encounters over a 6-month period

• A Mysterious Weak Spot in Earth’s Magnetic Field Has Grown Nearly Half the Size of Europe.