“A Review of Grokipedia, Using Myself as Test Subject”. Spoiler alert, it’s not great.
“Anti-Vax Facebook Groups Ushered in Our Current MAHA Nightmare”.
“Big Tech may have outfoxed regulators and its workforce, but [Cory] Doctorow sees a reckoning coming. Absent U.S. regulation, as the Trump administration protects the tech platforms, we may have to rely on Europe to check the tech industry’s power.”
Sure, let Isaac Chotiner interview you. You’ll probably be fine.
RIP, Bob Trumpy, former tight end for the Cincinnati Bengals and Hall of Fame NFL broadcaster.
“No author you have ever heard of is going to be scrabbling for Amazon or Goodreads reviews, and even if they were, they wouldn’t be doing it like this.”
“The Future of Advertising Is AI Generated Ads That Are Directly Personalized to You“. As predicted by Minority Report, of course.
“Here are the best TV shows set in each of the 50 U.S. states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico.” Not a bad list, though I’d definitely have picked some of the honorable mentions instead.
“San Antonio’s eccentric millionaire yeti hunter you’ve probably never heard of”.
RIP, Diane Ladd, three-time Oscar-nominated actor known for Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore among many other roles, mother of actor Laura Dern.
RIP, Victor Conte, founder of the Balco lab that was at the center of a performance-enhancing drug scandal involving high-profile athletes like Barry Bonds and Marion Jones.
RIP, Dick Cheney, and if you don’t know who Dick Cheney is I can’t help you. I don’t normally do block quotes in the Sunday linkdump, but I’ll make an exception for this, from the TPM Morning Memo on Tuesday, the day of this news.
Cheney is Exhibit A for why “polarization” is the wrong word to describe the state of American politics in the 21st century. As his Republican Party marched itself off a cliff, even Dick Cheney, a prior generation’s super villain, was left behind. His full-throated endorsement of Kamala Harris over Donald Trump in 2024 was a last gasp to try to save the constitutional order that he himself had made significantly more brittle during his time in office.
That sounds about right. David Corn has a few thoughts as well.
“The FBI forced out a senior official overseeing aviation shortly after Director Kash Patel grew outraged about revelations of his publicly-available jet logs indicating he’d flown to see his musician girlfriend perform, said three people familiar with the situation.”
“What We Lost When Condé Nast Unceremoniously Shuttered Teen Vogue”.
RIP, Donna Jean Godchaux, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame singer who performed with the Grateful Dead, Elvis Presley, Percy Sledge, and others.
Who among us would not like an Alien: Earth eyeball monster Funko pop in our Christmas stocking?
“That said, there is an aspect of Trump’s polling that might legitimately start to cause him and his advisors some concern.”
“The Coca-Cola company will be trotting out an AI-generated Christmas ad for the second year in a row. But don’t worry! They promise it doesn’t look awful like the last one did.”
Ali Velshi is your new Steve Kornacki.
“The Anti-Trans Grifters Are Coming For The NWSL”.
“After more than 50 years, Miss Piggy is finally stepping into the spotlight and getting the solo movie treatment she deserves.”
“No one had the courage to speak directly to us. No one from Homeland Security could stand in the presence of the Monstrance holding the Blessed Sacrament. No wonder. Evil is repelled, recoils in the presence of Christ.”
“After 35 years, Nancy Pelosi is retiring from Congress”.
The sandwich guy gets justice.
“Florida’s 7-foot-9 Olivier Rioux becomes tallest college basketball player ever”.
Here’s a unique bit of college journalism history for you, at Baylor.
“It’s no surprise that political observers’ sense of what’s happening, the big picture, would shift after an election night in which Democrats are widely perceived having exceeded expectations. What’s notable is that this new sense of the big picture is explained by things that were already the case before election day!”
RIP, Paul Tagliabue, former NFL Commissioner.