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Sunday Reads...

  • Greg McNeilly
  • Dec 28, 2025
  • 4 min read

An irregular roundup of thought-provoking reads. Most made me go “hmm…”

 

QUOTE OF THE DAY:

“I constantly see people rise in life who are not the smartest, sometimes not even the most diligent, but they are learning machines. They go to bed every night a little wiser than they were when they got up and boy does that help, particularly when you have a long run ahead of you.” - Charles Munger


  • Pope Leo is convening the College of Cardinals (The “Consistory”) for two days of meetings.

  • Retarded: WaPo ranks 23”Christmas” traditions with none that are Christian or that actually celebrates the Holiday. 

  • Journalist and biographer Lou Cannon died. 

  • 2025 Passings, remembered. 

  • NRO: Cheers for Ben Shapiro’s message. 

  • Good News: Student loan default wages to be sized for taxpayer repayment. 

  • Clear as mud: 2026 predictions unpacked.

2026 predictions

  • Yikes! Yale won’t hire Republicans. 

  • Transparency is not the foe of academic freedom. 

  • The 70-year old breakout novelist’s tale. 

  • Sasse: Facing death. 

  • Kevin O’Leary’s “no email” life. 

  • Quiz: How well do you know 2025 slang?  Test yourself. 

  • Gallup tacks how American’s celebrate Christmas is in flux.

  • WaPo looks at the “best” of ultra processed foods. 

  • Experts with “law degrees” be crazy.  Check out this loon from Texas. 

  • Even though it’s not yet 2027, this is interesting context. 

  • Beer vaccines?  Tell me more. 

  • Socialist nirvana, Denmark listens to the market: Cancel’s 400-year old government postal service. 

  • Exploring 16,000 miles of Roman roads. 

  • What did you do with your weekend?  Robert Louis Stevenson wrote a masterpiece in 36 hours. 

  • End times signals: A flowing blood sea appears.  (Or what science suggests is iron leaching into groundwater post rainfall). 

  • Is the retirement class screen addicted?

  • MSM: Beware “MAGA Christianity.”  Generally beware of anyone modifying nouns (a.k.a. “compassionate” conservatives or “social” justice.  A noun is pure on its own and gets bastardized with the adjectives and generally signals a charlatan is afoot). 

  • Innovation and technology:

    • Times’ 2025 list of best tech. 

    • Popular Science’s top 50 tech. 

    • Fast Company’s list of the next big tech developments. 

    • Back to CES, Rolling Stone’s top gadgets. 

    • Apple’s top Apps of the Year.  Google follows with its list. 

    • Gizmodo’s top tech list. 

    • Dezeen’s top gadget list. 

    • 10 major developments in science.

    • Tech breakthroughs from quantum to biotech

    • The biggest advancements in AI.

  • Top Culture 2025 products:

    • Take WSJ’s 2025 pop culture quiz. 

    • Books

      • Goodreads Choice Awards. 

      • Lithub’s fav list. 

      • NPR’s list for 2025 tomes. 

      • The New Yorker’s best pages to flip. 

      • NYT’s best poetry. 

      • Reddit round-up of book awards and lists. 

    • Movies

      • Ringer does a deep dive in movie frames.

      • Rotten Tomatoes bin of best flicks. 

      • NYT’s 2025 movie list. 

      • WaPo’s marque films. 

    • Music

      • NPR’s tax-funded list of songs. 

      • NYT’s top songs list. 

      • Spotify’s list.

    • Podcasts

      • Apple’s pod rankings for ’25.

      • Lithub’s best blurbs of 2025. 

      • New Yorker’s best pods of 2025.

      • Spotify’s best ranked casts. 

      • Vulture’s list of best casts.  

    • Social

      • The best memes, according to Rolling Stone.

      • YouTube’s top trends and creators. 

    • TV

      • AV Club’s run down. 

      • The Hollywood Reporter’s list. 

      • NYT’s top shows. 

      • Rolling Stone’s Top 10 shows. 

      • Variety’s list. 

  • Marriage Pysch provides 5 truths to grow on. 

  • Data continues to suggest a great unRevival in America today. 

    • And one can’t blame reason, enter the Etsy Witches. 

  • The Democrat leading America’s 250 celebration profiled here. 

  • The history of NYE celebrations noted. 

    • The kiss remembered. 

    • Janus begat January. 

    • Not everyone gets their Auld Lange Syne on during NYE. 

    • Early American’s celebrated New Years on March 25. 

    • The ball drop started as a Navy time keeping tradition. 

  • Unpacking the route for a book to become a bestseller. 

  • Back in red: Steak is back, Veggies are out. 

  • Influenza - as a word - starts in the stars. 

    • The history of influenza and the flu, here. 

  • Goodnight for Belgium, if true: 3 out 4 newborns are non-European in that country. 


  • Yikes, misandry takes another step into the mainstream. 

  • The sit-to-stand test for healthy aging unpacked. 

  • The data distribution of how we spend time together each day. 

AI:

  • Clarinet or Gun?  AI couldn’t tell the difference and submitting our agency for an algorithm yields predictable results. 

CHINA & RUSSIA:

  • The Court Martial of General Xu Qinxian remembered. 

  • DOD reports that China has installed over 100 intercontinental ballistic missiles. 

  • Bad Russian Dead.  General assassinated in car bombing. 

  • DPRK showcases its new nuclear submarine. 

COURTS:

  • Debunked: History debunks Trump’s claims about the 14th Amendment and Birthright Citizenship. 

  • Courts stop government from hiding the physical casteration of minors from parents under the pseudo-science “affirming care.”

ECONOMY:

  • Jim Beam pauses production of the water of life in order to let us catch-up. 

  • Distilleries are drying up in Chapter 11. 

  • An average of $531 per kid is the holiday spend, apparently. 

  • The government’s totally reliable never in error numbers indicate a fast growing economy. 

  • Visualizing the world’s investable assets. 

  • Are bankruptcies on the rise?

  • The salary required in each state to live “comfortably.”

POLS BEHAVING BADLY:

Dems:

  • Bill Clinton whines as a “victim” in Epstein file dumps. 

  • Dems signal they are on the side of the fraudsters in accordance with the demands of their identity-religion dictates. 

Reps:

  • DOJ violates Republican Congresses’ legislation with 500 pages of redacted Epstein files. 

  • Masse vows to hold Bondi in contempt. 

TRAVEL:

  • NYE best “drops” in the U.S. 

  • The most famous restaurant in each state, here. 

  • The top 10 U.S. airports per WaPo. 

  • There is a direct correlation between choosing to adopt a victim identity and support for political violence research suggests. 

  • What is the best and worst decade of your life? American’s have thoughts. 

  • Eight movies that turn 50 in 2026. 

  • Mental health your concern?  Try history - the ultimate mental health hack. 

How to improve your attention span:

Sunday Reads

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