Links 12/28/2025

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48 comments

1. The Rev Kev December 28, 2025 at 7:17 am

   “UK youth to be offered military ‘gap year’ in bid to boost defence: Report”

   Those kids had better consider this option. The British army is at record low numbers right now and it may be that the UK government will decide to pick a fight with another country. If not Russia then another. As that means that the British army will need to be reinforced, guess where they will get those people from who have already received military training. Hopefully they will not choose poorly.

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   1. Louis Fyne December 28, 2025 at 7:44 am

      the European Establishment equated patriotism with nativist extremism. It only took 2,000 years but the serfs have finally wised up that “war is a racket” and won’t fight/die for their “betters”. heckuva job, Brownie.

      America is on the same path….but this current, brief, Trumpian “counter-revolution” has bought the warmongers a few years

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      1. Aurelien December 28, 2025 at 8:33 am

         Once again it seems, the Russians are far behind us. What do you think we can do to persuade young Russians that war is a racket, and that they shouldn’t volunteer to fight in Ukraine?

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         1. The Rev Kev December 28, 2025 at 8:40 am

            Not much. Seeing your country in an existential fight against a huge coalition tends to make you sign up to fight for your country. That and all the pay bonuses that they have been offered. :)

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         2. Louis Fyne December 28, 2025 at 9:02 am

            easy…. not be ray-cyst (spam trigger word) towards Russians and their version of Christianity and civilization.

            Russians have replaced Hans Gruber-esque Anglo-Germans as the only people socially acceptable to be ray-cyst towards, lmao

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            1. The Rev Kev December 28, 2025 at 9:23 am

               Somebody pointed out in the first year of the war that if you swapped out the word Russia and substituted another country like Spain or another group like Jewish people instead of Russian people, that the result to western sensibilities would be absolutely intolerable. But since it is Russia, then it is OK then.

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            2. OIFVet December 28, 2025 at 9:26 am

               Incorrect. To many Russians are orcs, i.e. not human or sub-human. Therefore what we are seeing is not even ray-cysm, but 21st century eugenics dressed up in some supposed “Civilized European values.” As non-human Russians are not entitled to have legitimate security concerns, the right to non-interference in their affairs, or even the right to exist. Dunno about y’all, but I am rather scared of the civilization that Europe is fast becoming.

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         3. Louis Fyne December 28, 2025 at 9:21 am

            and stop listening to western Establishment grifters hho are 1 or 2-degrees removed in their family tree from a historical beef with Soviets or Czarist Russia.

            Dunno for a fact, but pretty sure that in the US, you don’t find the same level of rabid anti-Mao or anti-Hanoi or anti-Pyongyang hysteria from 2+ – generation Chinese-Americans, Vietnamese-Americans, Korean-Americans

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            1. The Rev Kev December 28, 2025 at 9:25 am

               Unfortunately though you do for Cuban-Americans who have actually warped American foreign policy to suit their hatreds. And of course Rubio came from this group.

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            2. Wukchumni December 28, 2025 at 9:25 am

               My dad rather rabidly hated the Soviets, but they’ve been gone almost 35 years and he nearly 25 years, and now why cry over spilt ilk?

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            3. hk December 28, 2025 at 11:07 am

               You might, if you look at certain subsets.

               The “Ukrainian” expats who hate Russia (and Ukraine) are not “regular” Ukrainians, but rather insular minorities among them who had “issues” with their neighbors: many Americans with “Ukrainian” ancestry who have particular beef with “Russia” are Jewish, Uniate, or ultranationalists–yes, mutually incompatible groups who didn’t like one another while they were still in Ukraine, but now that they’d been forcibly kicked out, share the same resentment towards those who remain. There is a similar and analogous sentiment among some Vietnamese American groups and possibly among the Chinese Americans, too. Many refugees after the Vietnam War were ethnic minorities: Chinese Vietnamese were basically expelled from Vietnam in large numbers, to no small degree because of historical Vietnamese racism towards them and many wound up in US–I found that their sentiments towards Hanoi to be, eh, a bit different. (Not sure about other minorities, though. But my interactions with them have been limited.)

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         4. Louis Fyne December 28, 2025 at 10:11 am

            even nihilistic post-modernism, people….especially young men, like stories, no different than a rando from Homeric Greece.

            and who tells the better story?

            Mother Russia needs you…..just as your forefathers who fought Napoleon, Lord Palmerston, the Kaiser, and Mustache Man to defend Russia from decadent furriners who hate you, your God, your way of life.

            PS, you’ll get a homestead and you won’t be telling your grand-kids that you “shoveled poop in Louisiana” in Ufa during the Great Special Military Operation.

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      2. Christopher Mann December 28, 2025 at 9:33 am

         The serfs always knew this. This was the deal with serfdom: your lord did the fighting and you did the farming. In theory, anyway.

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   2. TimH December 28, 2025 at 8:04 am

      The scheme will initially be open to about 150 applicants aged 18 to 25 in early 2026, with ministers aiming to eventually expand the programme to more than 1,000 young people annually, depending on demand, according to British radio LBC.

      Not exactly planning for a large intake. No mention about target candidates either: officer, techie, squaddie? The kids get 13 weeks basic training. Could be a test operation for future conscription plans, to evaluate the fitness of the youngies?

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2. jefemt December 28, 2025 at 7:42 am

   Solar producer 12 million tons of waste by 2047. If A I is to be trusted (google on steroids, right?) query:

   How much plastic waste produced in 2024? 220 million tonnes
   In 2024, it is estimated that 220 million tonnes of plastic waste will be generated globally. This represents a 7.11% increase since 2021, with an average of 28 kg per person worldwide. Additionally, approximately 69.5 million tonnes of this waste is expected to be mismanaged, entering the environment.

   Remember, plastic is a by-product of refining of oil. Lemons into lemonade. Monetize the byproducts. Lengthen the arc of single use. Moar money Moar money

   (I do love my plastic disc golf discs)

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   1. Wukchumni December 28, 2025 at 11:06 am

      (I do love my plastic disc golf discs)

      Enabler!

      I feel bad about it now maybe a smidgen, but almost feel certain yours truly may have set the record for the longest toss of a frisbee from a spot a few miles away from the top of the Palm Springs aerial tramway where we hiked to the top of this mellow ridge which had a perfect straight down pitch on the other side and off it went forever, but not really, all I did was send off the first guard into the forest for the trees on a probing mission, circa 1984

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3. Wukchumni December 28, 2025 at 7:43 am

   Goooooood Moooooooorning Fiatnam!

   It was agreed that Artificial Idiocy was clearly the next best thing, why rely on good old fashioned dolts such as Pfc Jones-who occasionally threw a spanner in the works by accidentally saying something profound?

   Now, not everybody in the platoon was on board-nor a nitwit, but there were stock prices that were more important in the scheme of things, so we dumbed down accordingly.

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4. flora December 28, 2025 at 7:44 am

   James Li revisits the JFK files. utube, ~12+ minutes.

   JFK Bombshell: CIA-Mossad “Joint Ops” & IDF in Dallas?!

   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kiu1r5f4lao

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5. flora December 28, 2025 at 7:50 am

   re: Trump is shamelessly covering America in his name – The Guardian

   Sort of like a golden retriever dog “marking” his territory. / ;)

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   1. JMH December 28, 2025 at 11:52 am

      And like the golden retriever, he cannot is doing what comes naturally, but wait, for Donnie it is compulsive obsessive, secretly afraid that otherwise we will not notice him unaware that ubiquity creates an absence of attention.

      Click to Edit – 

      

      And like the golden retriever, he cannot is doing what comes naturally, but wait, for Donnie it is compulsive obsessive, secretly afraid that otherwise we will not notice him unaware that ubiquity creates an absence of attention.

      SaveCancelDelete

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6. Ignacio December 28, 2025 at 7:53 am

   Europe is at a ‘fork in the road’ between AI competition and climate, fund managers say CNBC

   Fund managers, very much like the rest of humans, are able to say many stoopid things. Whether MSM outlets should keep giving them room to do so is arguable. Here what i mean is that there are ways to say or state things which are more or less correct or valuable but coming with stupid metaphores and puting these in the headlines makes the whole thing useless.

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   1. The Rev Kev December 28, 2025 at 8:07 am

      I think that that article title may be a misprint. What they meant to write is that Europe is forked. Does it need to be said? How are they going to have a competitive AI when energy prices are sky high ever since they cut themselves off from that cheap, reliable energy that came in from the east? And as we know, AI has an insatiable need for energy.

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      1. Matthew December 28, 2025 at 9:47 am

         I dunno, I wouldn’t count out their just going ahead and spending the money and energy on uncompetitive AI anyway. No?

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         1. The Rev Kev December 28, 2025 at 9:50 am

            I think that you are right. To save energy they will cut the heating to people’s homes in winter time and tell them to blame Putin.

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            1. flora December 28, 2025 at 10:11 am

               And if the old be like to die let them do it and decrease the surplus population.
               (As Scrooge did not quite say.)

               Think of the govt savings in pension and health care costs. (too cynical?)

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               1. ambrit December 28, 2025 at 10:17 am

                  Time to call out the ICEsatzgruppen?

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                  1. Wukchumni December 28, 2025 at 10:57 am

                     I couldn’t help but notice how stylish masked ‘meskin law enforcement was in Cabo compared to ICE’s verklempt unkempt standards-what would Mr. Blackwell* think of us?

                     …full tailored camo BDU’s holding an assault rifle, lookin muy sueve, bay-bee.

                     Of course in their favor, they do have a tradition of luchadores going for them, which has to give them an advantage in the big leagues of masking up.

                     * pretty vague, that one

                     https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Blackwell

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7. Steve H. December 28, 2025 at 7:59 am

   Acacia yesterday:
   > …co-worker’s partner, who evidently wears ear buds and has an AI app listen to all conversations with other humans… In conversation with others, this person just waits, listens to the earbuds to be told what to say by the AI, and then responds.

   Story from boots about AI earrings:
   > their brains were curiously deformed: the neocortexes had wasted away

   We live on a one-way street that ends into a busy street, and about daily I call out ‘Wrong Way’ as somebody takes a wrong turn onto it. Sometimes they accelerate! If people wore the earring they would have less risky behavior. iirc, average infantry IQ is 80. There is a theme here from many cautionary tales about authoritarianism.

   What is terrifying is the enthusiastic voluntary adoption of an agent that reduces free will. Janet pointed out that people on the spectrum could find it helps them interact with other people. There are genuine non-authoritarian reasons to adopt the technology. But it causes brain damage.

   But wait, there’s more!

   > AI, tell me how to respond correctly in this situation.

   This is a voluntary adoption of an intervention in one’s own behavior.

   > AI, tell me what to say to make Grandma happy.

   Well, that’s nice.

   > AI, tell me what to say to make Grandma happy so she gives me presents.

   Well, that’s not quite so prosocial…

   > AI, tell me how to make Bob/my-ex bend to my will.

   Well then. And since AI has access to Bob’s emails, writings, internet meanderings, it is privy to hidden information not voluntarily presented. Hmm.

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8. Ignacio December 28, 2025 at 8:26 am

   The 5 most expensive bicycle in the world-

   These are not bikes to ride. Not really bikes but ornaments. Not even ornaments but possessions. Buying a bike to have a weird possession is indeed something that only millio/billio/trillionaires who don’t know what to do with too much money can afford. But let’s say you buy the 1 million bike to ride. Ride like a keen biker, let’s say 3000 miles/year, 5 years. 67$ of bicycle /mile. Cheap it is for us billionaires!

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   1. Robert S December 28, 2025 at 8:33 am

      I would have thought that a bike ridden by Lance Armstrong would have decreased the value of several bikes by now.

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   2. .Tom December 28, 2025 at 9:48 am

      Those 5 are all meh, imo. I have a lovely book of photos of wonderful and highly collectable bicycles together with their stories. The Golden Age of Handbuilt Bicycles, Craftsmanship, Elegance, and Function by Jan Heine, 2015.

      Burn fat, not gas!

      /.Tom: 2006 BMB 70:32. 2007 PBP DNF.

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   3. Wukchumni December 28, 2025 at 10:40 am

      I’ll counter with my circa 2003 $52 Target 18 speed ‘mountain bike’,
      certainly on the lower echelon of a concours cycle contest.

      Did 7 Tour de Burns in the saddle, and those other 17 higher gears were never really necessary on the playa as it turned out.

      That’s a lot of alkali dust in the works!

      An NPS law enforcement friend working for Sequoia NP was sent to FLETC (federal law enforcement training center) to have the chip implanted, and asked if he could take my steed on 2 wheels, and I said sure, but what about the Burning Man decals and such, and it didn’t seem to bother him, so off to Big Law Enforcement it rode in Brunswick, Ga.

      It came back without at least a little brakes left and was sent to Bangladesh to be parted out.

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   4. KLG December 28, 2025 at 11:09 am

      I bought my first Trek bicycle from the local bike shop in my crunchy college town in 1979. It was totally beautiful, a masterpiece of craftsmanship, made in Wisconsin. Alas, it was stolen. Much later I bought my second Trek when we were reduced to a one-car family (which should have been enough, but that is another story). That Trek was not a masterpiece. More like a Chevrolet Vega.

      So it goes, as illustrated by my new Amana washing machine that replaced the previous basic version, both all analog. The previous machine lasted through 19 years of heavy use (>3500 cycles) until the motor wore out. Repair possible but not really a smart option according to the appliance repairman. The current base model replacement seems to be the equivalent of the Vega. I will probably outlive it…

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9. Caps Lock December 28, 2025 at 8:41 am

   Acoustic Guitar String Oscillations
   The frame rate of the camera allows us to see the wavelength of each note
   — Science girl (@sciencegirl) December 26, 2025

   It’s not about the frame rate, but the rolling shutter.
   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNVtMmLlnoE&t=284s

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10. Wukchumni December 28, 2025 at 8:41 am

    Cruise news you can use, dept:

    I doubt many of the commentariat nor those of you following our breathless words online with hopefully rapt attention, ever go on a cruise-even if its the best way to travel to not really all that exotic locales and essentially see nothing in the course of your 6 hours as a landlubber on shore, with or without iguana.

    My feeble excuse is that my family has always used it as a catalyst for us to all be together, and even if there were temptations to jump ship over the course of the last week, Mexico was typically 20 miles away and although I lay claims to being a good swimmer, a person has to know their territorial limits.

    I saw around 7 masks worn on concerned individuals during the 7 day tour, for those of you who must think I was surely on a death ship of sorts, but this was the Norwegian Jade, not the SS Norovirus.

    I look at it as a way to watch the rabble and not really interact with the hunters and collectors easily swayed by what is essentially a floating mall, complete with telemarketers in the flesh ‘next up for bids in the ‘art auction’ is a framed genuine replica of a Marc Chagall, imagine how this would look on your living room wall!’

    There are so many human lemmings on board, I lose track…

    I saw not one American working on board, the captain seemed to have a Bulgarian accent-not that there is anything wrong with that, and Indonesians made a strong presence, along with the usual amount of more Filipinos than you can shake a stick at.

    Coolest things I saw were sunrises and sunsets, which if Norwegian Cruise Lines could somehow monetize, they surely would.

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11. The Rev Kev December 28, 2025 at 8:48 am

    “The John Galt of Comic Books”

    ‘The co-creator of Spider-Man and Dr. Strange later created some failed Ayn Rand–inspired superheroes.’

    Well that sounds like fun. His first superhero – Rand Man! – was not really a success. By day, John Galt was a billionaire scientific wizard while at night, he roamed the street in his Roarkmobile. His superpower was to be able to give criminals hour long diatribes on the principles of Objectivism and the history of Ayn Rand. It was found that after the first half hour of his endless talking, criminals would chew some of their fingers off to use as ear plugs to save their sanity. For some reason, a fan base never really developed for this character.

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    1. Wukchumni December 28, 2025 at 8:59 am

       I reckon the Cliffs Notes version of Atlas Shrugged would be 284 pages long, but in it’s defense the original tome makes for a heck of a doorstop.

       I’m amazed at how much she gets right about our current state of play, I mean to say, isn’t the Money Speech by Francisco d’Anconia, dead on?

       Then you will see the rise of the men of the double standard–the men who live by force, yet count on those who live by trade to create the value of their looted money–the men who are the hitchhikers of virtue. In a moral society, these are the criminals, and the statutes are written to protect you against them. But when a society establishes criminals-by-right and looters-by-law–men who use force to seize the wealth of disarmed victims–then money becomes its creators’ avenger. Such looters believe it safe to rob defenseless men, once they’ve passed a law to disarm them. But their loot becomes the magnet for other looters, who get it from them as they got it. Then the race goes, not to the ablest at production, but to those most ruthless at brutality. When force is the standard, the murderer wins over the pickpocket. And then that society vanishes, in a spread of ruins and slaughter.

       Do you wish to know whether that day is coming? Watch money. Money is the barometer of a society’s virtue. When you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion–when you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing–when you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors–when you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws don’t protect you against them, but protect them against you–when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice–you may know that your society is doomed. Money is so noble a medium that it does not compete with guns and it does not make terms with brutality. It will not permit a country to survive as half-property, half-loot.

       Project X is clearly AI, as everything was riding on the former in the book, and it doesn’t turn out well.

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    2. CC December 28, 2025 at 10:48 am

       LOL!!

       And hobbits.

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12. Biologist December 28, 2025 at 9:16 am

    Interesting read on the false premise of building out renewables: that power demand must necessarily increase. Instead, the author argues, demand should be reduced, starting by eliminating crypo mining, high frequency trading, AI, and building inefficiencies (see quote below). Hard to argue against, but how to get there?

    https://thelastfarm.substack.com/p/we-dont-need-any-more-renewables?triedRedirect=true

    There are, in fact, many other electricity demands that don’t improve quality of life at all: an entire universe of devices in standby mode; humming forests of server racks idling 24/7; ceaselessly running routers, switches, signal repeaters, firewalls, and WiFi systems; empty retail stores, office buildings, and warehouses that are immaculately climate-controlled and lit up like a Christmas tree; vacant parking lots, building perimeters, and storage yards bathed in flood lights; an all-encompassing web of cameras and surveillance technology filming empty streets; the list goes on and on.

    In total, buildings make up 40% of global energy demand but 26-65% of their energy is used when NO ONE IS THERE. It is beyond irresponsible to demand ANY new negative externalities while such profligate waste persists.

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    1. JP December 28, 2025 at 10:37 am

       Well, the problem is, it takes just about as much energy to re-heat or re-cool a large building on a daily basis as it does to just maintain a constant temperature.

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13. Matthew December 28, 2025 at 9:46 am

    10k is a ludicrous number. An obscene number. Scheer should be ashamed to repeat it. I think considerably less of him for it.
    –
    –
    “One excavator, 10,000 bodies, a sea of rubble: inside Gaza’s effort to retrieve and bury its dead”

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    1. tegnost December 28, 2025 at 10:56 am

       at the very least he dropped a zero

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14. Historicality December 28, 2025 at 9:48 am

    Walz, Somalis and the lot: here is a handy summary.

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15. ciroc December 28, 2025 at 9:57 am

    >The ‘Trump-class’ battleship faces a large obstacle in its way: Reality

    The U.S. Navy would be better off buying a South Korean destroyer, painting it gold, and naming it the USS Donald J. Trump than building a Trump-class BS. The president would be delighted, money would be saved, and best of all, a fully functional warship would be obtained.

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16. tegnost December 28, 2025 at 10:12 am

    Re:Israel needs reckoning and renewal

    Better to ask forgiveness than permission I guess.

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    1. tegnost December 28, 2025 at 10:30 am

       Of course it may be better to wait until they’ve taken egypt to the nile, lebanon, syria and north africa and turned iran into whatever it is they plan to turn iran into…
       I typed from the river to the river and boy howdy google was not into that question, answering instead the one it wants asked, a bunch of blather about from the river to the sea but I kept hammering away at the keyboard and yes, here it is in all it’s divine sepulcher and hidden as well as could be…

       https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/greater-israel-from-the-euphrates-to-the-nile/
       from the oped…
       “There are no theological convolutions, argumentative gymnastics, or intellectual casuistry that can withdraw this claim.”

       I suppose I could dredge up some hopefulness at the redemption all my pro israel yet athiest friends that they have unwittingly found their way to the lord.
       Do I need to say snark? Is it snark? I’ll have to meditate on that
       Peace be with you…

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17. ibaien December 28, 2025 at 11:28 am

    stilwell oklahoma has fallen off the international tourism map? huh. think of all the disappointed families cancelling that once in a lifetime trip.

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18. ISL December 28, 2025 at 11:39 am

    On Venezuela and El Pais, the article seems to disagree with on the ground alternative reporting that life is normal.

    “and we don’t sell anything on the weekend,” says Regino Valladares. ” is very suspicious for a small grocery owner…. Really, people do not buy milk and other short-lived groceries on the weekend when presumably they are not working? They only shop on weekdays for food when they also work? or are they all fasting on the weekend? Clearly the El Pais editors are happy with this point of view.

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