Friday, December 12, 2025
Good morning. We're rapidly approaching the "even Americans have stopped working until January" zone. I hope this missive finds you there already.
Item 1: a link
This is an Elon Musk Disrespecting Newsletter, so I really enjoyed this Techdirt piece:
Mike Masnick
We’ve spent years calling out what a hypocrite Elon Musk is on free speech. But sometimes the universe Elon hands you a gift: three tweets in the span of a little over a week that demonstrate the entire con more clearly than any deep dive ever could.
I know, calling out narcissistic liars for hypocrisy is pretty much pointless. But it's still satisfying to see Elon Musk make the case, fairly clearly, that according to his own naive and ill-considered logic he deserves to be in prison. Thank you to Mike Masnick for Doing the Work.
Item 2: a list
Top 15 TV Shows I Watched in 2025, Ranked:
- Andor
- Wolf Hall and The Mirror and the Light
- The Rehearsal
- The Studio
- The Pitt
- Task
- Slow Horses
- Severance
- The Righteous Gemstones
- The Devil’s Plan
- The Last of Us
- 100 Foot Wave
- The Lowdown
- Alien: Earth
- X-Men ’97
Honorable mentions in no particular order for:
- Mr. Scorsese (this is an episodic documentary, not really TV)
- Pee Wee as Himself (this is an episodic documentary, not really TV)
- The Chair Company (didn’t really work for me, but I appreciate the swing)
- The Agency (Le Bureau des Légendes methadone)
- Silo (fun, but not quite good)
- Foundation (better than Silo but still not good enough)
- Adolescence (impressive execution but I’ve already forgotten everything except being very aware of how impressive the execution was)
- Hacks (really enjoy this somewhat low-stakes program)
- Poker Face (I have nothing to say about this, it was pretty enjoyable)
- Top Chef (coasting on years of good will, which is fine)
- Old episodes of What We Do in the Shadows (self-explanatory)
Least favorite TV of 2025:
- Smoke (dumb)
- Daredevil: Born Again (this is the best non-animated Marvel TV of the year and it is overwhelmingly mediocre – they should try making these shows good again)
- I Love LA (I think I’m just going to stop watching this show, which is not made for me – but which is also bad)
- Survivor (this season is actually a big improvement over the last 5-10 seasons, but casting a bunch of Survivor super-nerds has really made the whole thing a snoozefest for years now)
Item 3: a media recommendation
Listers: A Glimpse Into Extreme Birdwatching (trailer)
Potential spoiler for a future Wolmania, but Listers (the full movie is just on YouTube here) is probably one of the best films I watched in 2025.
Item 4: word of the week
Obloquy
There are people out there who would happily profit from the corrupt misuse of their power and position, leaving others bankrupt, broken, and bereft, and just accept global obloquy as the cost of their material comfort. But I guess I'm just built different.
Item 5: an image
See ya!
Thank you and goodbye for now. See you next week.
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