We were in SoCal the past few days, beginning Christmas Day, visiting Sue and Steve, Michael and Honey, Gary and Lynne, Funyun and family, Alan and Ian, Suzanne and extended family; chatting with Vivien and Barry, Alex and Francis. Visiting the Petersen Auto Museum, an item on my bucket list. Dining at the Fairmont Santa Monica and the Georgian and at our hotel’s Penthouse and at Water Grill and Top Island and Scrambled Eggs and Yagul Cafe, and on the way home, Ventana Grill in Pismo Beach.
Intermittent heavy rain on the 25th drive down, and on the 26th auto museum and Brea day. Sunny and gorgeous otherwise. Best convos were with Funyun’s college-age kids Samuel and his sister [I forgot her name!], Alex and Francis (about science fiction), and as always with Michael and Honey.
View from our hotel, the Huntley, in Santa Monica. Years ago there was a Mexican restaurant on the top floor, called Toppers, and I went there with friend two or three times back in the ’90s. But I’d never stayed at the hotel, until now.
I logged into my laptop only once in five days. I have links captured on the 24th, 27th, and today the 30th. Let’s see how many I can get through. I’ll arrange as I go.
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From Boing Boing, Ruben Bolling, 26 Dec 2025: Tom the Dancing Bug: Human Morality Made Simple
Not a bad take. We favor those like us, condemn those unlike us. Tribalism. Base human nature. It’s built in; it doesn’t require a list of rules in a holy book. What’s missing here, perhaps, is AI — like us to some extent, perhaps, but not living being.
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2025 in review.
Roll Call, via FactCheck.org, 25 Dec 2025: The whoppers of 2025, subtitled “Claims about economy, war in Ukraine, measles were among the top falsehoods of past year”
Trump is known for rhetoric that uses inaccurate and exaggerated claims, which he repeats again and again. In his second term, several such claims were used to justify a whirlwind of policy changes and announcements. Using a method economists said wasn’t legitimate, he calculated “reciprocal tariffs” for goods imported from other countries. In firing the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, he claimed without evidence that low job growth figures were “phony” or “rigged.” In supporting a freeze on foreign aid, Trump said $50 million was being used to buy condoms for Hamas in Gaza, a claim refuted by the contractor identified by the State Department.
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Via Ramez Naam on Facebook.
Once again — it’s part of media literacy to realize that the news is dominated by bad events, since they are exceptional. This does not mean the world is going to pot. If everyone in the world lived exemplary lives for months and years, and then there was a single murder, that murder would dominated the news, and the frightened conservatives would become alarmed and vote for political candidates who would promise to restore law and order and bring back the glorious past.
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A briefly as possible…
- Salon, Kirk Swearingen, 28 Dec 2025: For Trump, everything’s a “hoax.” It’s pure projection subtitled “Both impeachments, the Epstein scandal, COVID, climate change — it’s all a ‘hoax.’ Is Trump telling us something?” — — As I’ve mentioned here many times.
- JMG, from NBC News, 30 Dec 2025: US Removes Overseas Displays Honoring Black Soldiers — — Well of course they would; the Trump administration is basically white supremacist. It’s been going on for years.
- JMG, 29 Dec 2025: Trump Lies: “No Hostages Were Released Under Biden”
- Republican intellectualism: JMG, 28 Dec 2025: Florida Republicans Introduce “The Bible Says So” Bill
- How the Trump administration is like the Mafia: Boing Boing, Jason Weisberger, 23 Dec 2025: Threatening blue states’ road money amounts to banning “driving while brown”
- Since Trump put his name on the Kennedy Center, scheduled acts are cancelling.
- JMG, 29 Dec 2025: Two More Acts Cancel Kennedy Center Performances
- The Atlantic, Jonathan Chait, 30 Dec 2025: The Show Won’t Go On, subtitled “President Trump’s threats against artists who decline to perform at the renamed Kennedy Center are ultimately hollow.” The piece begins by recalling similar activity under Stalin.
- JMG, 29 Dec 2025: Pam Bondi: The DOJ Is Investigating Obama And Biden Officials For “Conspiring” Against My Glorious Leader — — To that set, *everything* is a conspiracy theory.
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And then I’ll close with a think piece.
Big Think, Jonny Thomson, 25 Dec 2025: All I want for Christmas is a sense of purpose
Key Takeaways
• The philosopher Thomas Nagel once argued that the human craving for objective “purpose” is a logical mistake; treating meaning as a tangible object to be found leads to frustration because the Universe cannot provide it. • Existential dread based on our limited time, small size, or lack of utility is unfounded, as even becoming immortal, infinite, or useful to a higher power would not inherently make life more meaningful. • The most effective response to life’s apparent meaninglessness is not despair or defiance, but irony — taking life seriously while accepting it as an experience to be enjoyed rather than a puzzle to be solved.
Once again, I’ve provisionally concluded, relatively recently, that this yearning for meaning is merely a consequence of the narrative drive in human nature, the drive to detect causes and effects, which was vital at one time, and extend that to the idea of human existence. It’s understandable, but probably not true. We just are. The universe is just is. All of our speculations about “meaning” are just projections of the protocols of human life.
