Boing Boing, October 29, 2025
Escaped lab monkeys, stoned food reviews, and fascist-proof frogs
Happy Wednesday! Here’s today’s stories: a cannabis-fueled mom gives authentic restaurant reviews while blazing through Southern California on 80mg of edibles, making sincerity look easy. Meanwhile, Tulane promises their escaped Mississippi lab monkey is definitely disease-free (totally fine, everyone!), which pairs nicely with an anti-vaxxer running health policy. Portland activists discovered that giant frog costumes are surprisingly effective psychological warfare against Trump’s militarized secret police. Elsewhere, JD Vance remains uncomfortable with people speaking different languages despite his wife’s immigrant parents, Kirk Cameron questions Trump’s Insurrection Act threats, and a determined beaver stopped highway traffic to drag home a tree branch bigger than itself.
High, hungry, and wholesome: this stoned mom reviews local restaurants
Jason Weisberger / 11:54 am PT Wed Oct 29, 2025
In an internet full of influencers pretending to care about small businesses, Natasha Zhatko actually means it, though it probably helps that she’s flying on 80 milligrams of edibles. As @natashahasthemunchies, she wanders Southern California in a blissful haze, filming family-run restaurants through her Meta Ray-Bans and radiating the sort of sincerity you can’t manufacture sober. LA TACO reports:
Many content creators highlight mom-and-pop restaurants, but none of them are as raw as Natasha Sonya Zhatko. Maybe because it’s difficult to be disingenuous when you’re high off a hefty 80-milligram dose of weed gummies.
Zhatko runs the @natashahasthemunchies account on Instagram and TikTok, where she reviews independent food spots in Southern California. She mainly visits small businesses located in the High Desert, Los Angeles, and Orange County. Some of the featured cuisines on her page are Ethiopian, Vietnamese, and Guatemalan food.
“I’ll wake up in the morning and I’ll be like, dang. I haven’t tried Hawaiian food yet, and seafood sounds so good today,” Zhatko says. “So I’ll look up a Hawaiian place near me. And when picking the restaurant, I try to find places with less reviews … “
LA TACO
While most foodie accounts rely on exaggerated moans and ring-light dramatics, Natasha just takes a bite and says, “that’s so good,” which, coming from someone baked enough to see sound, feels real. Zhato pays it forward to the homeless, asks permission to film, and makes “stoned empathy” look like a business model. Her content is part food review, part social service, and part reminder that maybe America’s most reliable critic is a mom with the munchies.
How does JD Vance reconcile his bigotry with his wife, in-laws and kids?
Jason Weisberger / 11:36 am PT Wed Oct 29, 2025
Weirdo Vice President JD Vance once again came out on the side of bigotry and racism with a statement that it is somehow fine to be made uncomfortable by people who speak a different language living near you.
Vance’s wife, Usha Chilukuri Vance, is the daughter of Indian immigrants from Andhra Pradesh, India. Her family background is Telugu, and her parents reportedly spoke Telugu and English at home while raising her in California. His children are biracial. Vance is a real piece of work.
Tulane assures us the escaped lab monkey is definitely disease-free
Séamus Bellamy / 11:30 am PT Wed Oct 29, 2025
Earlier this week, a truck carrying Rhesus monkeys formerly housed at a University of Tulane research lab crashed, and the monkeys escaped. According to a Facebook post from the Jasper County Sheriff’s Office, the monkey carried COVID-19, herpes and hepatitis C. Officers rounded up the “aggressive” primates — except one.
Here’s where it gets interesting. The University of Tulane assured everyone that the escaped monkey was among the healthy ones in the shipment. Disease-free. Totally fine. Definitely not carrying herpes, hepatitis C, or COVID-19. You’ve all had boosters anyway, right? The university also confirmed that other monkeys on the truck were legitimately healthy. Not the one that got away, obviously. That one was totally fine, too.
So if you see a blur of fur dash through your peripheral vision near Mississippi, you can relax. It’s definitely not a monkey that could bite or claw you. And even if it was, even if it did carry diseases, well—we’re living in post-COVID America. We’re fine. Everything’s fine.
The escaped primate remains at large.
Nine out of ten Windows PC games now run on Linux
Séamus Bellamy / 11:30 am PT Wed Oct 29, 2025
For years, Linux users who wanted to play PC games were out of luck. The operating system just didn’t support most games. But that’s rapidly changing. According to Slashdot, nearly 90% of games designed for Windows PCs now work on Linux machines too.
What changed? Valve, the company behind Steam (the world’s largest video game store), invested heavily in Linux. They created the Steam Deck—a portable handheld gaming device that runs on Linux instead of Windows. Suddenly, there was real money to be made making games work on Linux. Programmers spent years building translation layers that let Windows games run smoothly on Linux systems.
It’s not perfect yet. Some games run flawlessly. Others have glitches. A few don’t work at all. It depends on the specific game and your computer setup. But the trend is unmistakable: Linux is becoming a serious gaming platform.
New gaming handhelds from other companies are launching soon, and they’ll compete directly with the Steam Deck. Yet Valve has every reason to keep improving Linux gaming. Every game that works on Linux is a game that sells on their handheld device. Full compatibility between Linux and Windows games may be closer than anyone expected.
Senators to scrutinize the Jeffrey Epstein Memorial Ballroom
Jason Weisberger / 11:29 am PT Wed Oct 29, 2025
It was only a matter of time before the donor list for Trump’s $300 million White House ballroom started to look like a seating chart for the world’s creepiest dinner party. Now, Senate Democrats, led by California’s Adam Schiff, want to know exactly who paid for the “Jeffrey Epstein Memorial Ballroom,” a monument to power, ego, and an unholy marriage of tech money and moral decay.
Sen. Adam Schiff (D-California) and colleagues on Tuesday demanded that the White House provide a “complete accounting” of how it is paying for the ballroom, including any terms for donors. Trump said Friday that he had raised more than $350 million to pay for the project, and the White House has said that at least three dozen companies and private individuals have helped fund it.
“The opaque nature of this scheme reinforces concern that President Trump is again selling presidential access to individuals or entities, including foreign nationals and corporate actors, with vested interests in federal action,” Schiff wrote to White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles in a letter shared with The Washington Post. Schiff, a frequent critic of the president, also sent his request to the Government Accountability Office, a nonpartisan watchdog that conducts oversight of the executive branch.
The so-called “privately funded” project has drawn checks from defense contractors, Silicon Valley giants, and enough crypto bros to crash a blockchain. Oversight boards were dissolved, preservationists shoved aside, and federal ethics lawyers are quietly praying for early retirement. The ballroom’s gilded arches may be the least offensive thing about it. Along with the destruction of the historic East Wing of the White House, we have also lost two landmark gardens and the integrity of “The People’s House.”
America 2025: Lab monkeys on the loose, anti-vaxxer in charge of HHS
Jason Weisberger / 11:21 am PT Wed Oct 29, 2025
You could not write a dumber apocalypse if you tried. Lab monkeys have escaped a research facility in Mississippi, initially reported as carrying infectious diseases. At the same time, the nation’s health policy is now being guided by a man who thinks polio cured itself and butter is good for your arteries. Somewhere in a government briefing room, irony has filed for overtime.
The local sheriff’s department initially said the monkeys were carrying diseases including herpes, but Tulane University said in a statement that the monkeys “have not been exposed to any infectious agent”.
After initially reporting all but one monkey had been killed, the Jasper county sheriff’s department said on Wednesday that three monkeys remained at large and were being searched for.
They were being housed at the Tulane University National Biomedical Research Center in New Orleans, Louisiana, which routinely provides primates to scientific research organizations, according to the university.
Residents are being told not to approach the animals, which is sound advice for primates and politicians alike. America wanted a return to normal; instead, it’s getting a mash-up of Outbreak, Idiocracy, and Planet of the Apes. If a virus doesn’t kill us, the monkey uprising will.
Over 20 years of International Space Station history is now online
Séamus Bellamy / 11:00 am PT Wed Oct 29, 2025
The International Space Station has orbited Earth for nearly 25 years. During that time, it’s housed astronauts, conducted groundbreaking science, served mediocre food, featured questionable bathroom facilities, and astronauts have even worn a gorilla suit aboard. Until now, most people could only glimpse what daily life 250 miles above Earth actually looks like.
That’s changed thanks to ISS in Real-Time, a website that does exactly what its name suggests: it lets you experience life aboard the ISS in real-time.
NASA is a public-facing agency committed to transparency. The organization documents virtually everything that happens on its missions and maintains meticulous records. The ISS is under constant video surveillance, and over two decades of footage, photographs, articles, audio files, and telemetry data have been compiled, arranged chronologically, and made freely accessible.
Searching through 25 years of material is daunting, but the site’s creators have made it remarkably easy to search. You can filter by date, crew member, mission, notable events (like shuttle dockings), or spacewalks. Want only video? You can do that. Looking for a white paper on a specific ISS experiment? It’s likely there.
The site represents a massive achievement. Even if you don’t care about space exploration, it deserves a visit. In an internet increasingly filled with misinformation and negativity, ISS in Real-Time reminds us that the web was once—and can still be—a place that serves humanity’s better interests.
Italian company pays $1.5B for America’s most embarrassing email domain
Ellsworth Toohey / 10:21 am PT Wed Oct 29, 2025
AOL was worth over $100 billion when it merged with Time Warner in 2000. Now it’s worth $1.5 billion. Italian tech holding company Bending Spoons just agreed to buy AOL from Apollo Global Management for roughly $1.5 billion, reports Axios, in what amounts to a face-saving exit for a brand that’s been circling the drain for two decades.
The peculiar part is that AOL actually works. It still generates hundreds of millions of dollars through advertising and subscription services, including LifeLock identity theft protection, LastPass password management, and McAfee Multi Access malware protection. The email service alone ranks among the top 10 most used globally. The brand endures because it delivers value to a loyal, older demographic.
From the service that literally was “America Online” to a portfolio line item in a European app developer managed by a company most people have never heard of.
Doctor Who returns to BBC control without Disney backing
Séamus Bellamy / 10:20 am PT Wed Oct 29, 2025
If you’re a sci-fi fan who’s been boycotting Disney+ due to Disney’s cowardly response to Trump’s fascistic bullying, there’s good news: you can return to a beloved show guilt-free. According to Gizmodo, Disney+ has ended its partnership with the BBC on Doctor Who.
The BBC confirmed after months of speculation that Doctor Who will return at Christmas 2026—and it will do so without Disney’s involvement. After two seasons and the upcoming spinoff “The War Between the Land and the Sea,” Disney will not renew its co-production and distribution partnership. The British broadcaster stated that “the Doctor is not going anywhere” and promised to announce plans for the next series, ensuring “the TARDIS remains at the heart of the BBC.”
Russell T Davies has agreed to write the upcoming Christmas Special. However, it remains unclear whether he’ll continue as showrunner for future seasons or who will replace Ncuti Gatwa as the Doctor. The Season 2 finale ended with Gatwa’s character regenerating into Rose Tyler, played by Billie Piper, a former companion from the show’s early years. Speculation abounds about whether Piper will actually become the 16th Doctor.
This development returns Doctor Who to BBC-controlled production after two decades of independent broadcasting before the Disney partnership began in 2023. The show’s future beyond the 2026 Christmas special remains uncertain, though the BBC expressed full commitment to continuing the franchise. For now, fans will need to wait over a year for new content, though the spinoff “The War Between the Land and the Sea,” starring Russell Tovey and Gugu Mbatha-Raw, arrives before year’s end.
Bring Launchpad to MacOS Tahoe with this great app
Séamus Bellamy / 10:00 am PT Wed Oct 29, 2025
I can’t claim I was in a fugue state or drunk, but against my better judgment, I upgraded my MacBook Pro to macOS Tahoe anyway. Apple’s latest operating system has plenty to like — and just as much to hate. The frosted glass aesthetic makes certain interface elements difficult to use. More bluntly: even if you appreciate the new look from a productivity standpoint, it’s just ugly. But I can live with that. I don’t care how a hammer looks as long as it drives a nail. So long as my laptop lets me work, aesthetics shouldn’t matter.
Then I tried to find LaunchPad.
For Windows and Linux users unfamiliar with macOS, LaunchPad was the interface for accessing your computer’s applications for over a decade. It opened via dock icon, trackpad gesture, or programmed mouse shortcut like the Logitech MX3. LaunchPad housed all applications you didn’t want cluttering your desktop, customizable with folders and rearrangeable icons. It made my workflow seamless. Of course, Apple eliminated it.
Worse, they replaced it with chaos. The same trackpad and mouse gestures that once kept my work flowing now open a disorganized list of every application on the Mac. Yes, Apple offers sorting by app type, but still: fourteen years of an excellent productivity tool and established muscle memory abandoned for novelty? That’s unacceptable.
Before rolling back to my previous OS, I discovered a solution: AppGrid Launcher. Available for free in the Mac App Store, this freemium app restores LaunchPad functionality without requiring a subscription. The free version provides everything needed for productive work. I remapped my mouse button to open AppGrid, which replicates the original LaunchPad interface and functionality that Apple’s engineers discarded.
DOJ fires prosecutors for describing Jan 6 accurately
Ellsworth Toohey / 9:56 am PT Wed Oct 29, 2025
Accuracy is a fireable offense in Trump’s Department of Justice. As reported by Democracy Docket, federal prosecutors Carlos Valdivia and Samuel White were placed on leave within hours of submitting a sentencing memo that described Jan. 6, 2021, using the word “rioters.” The White House initiated the removal, undermining DOJ independence as is its wont.
The prosecutors’ offense was straightforward legal documentation. In their memo, Valdivia and White asked a judge to sentence Taylor Taranto, a Jan. 6 defendant convicted of firearms violations, to 27 months in prison. They wrote: “thousands of people comprising a mob of rioters attacked the U.S. Capitol while a joint session of Congress met to certify the results of the 2020 presidential election.” They documented that Taranto participated in the attack and subsequently promoted conspiracy theories about the event. Their description aligned with established facts in hundreds of criminal cases and court proceedings.
Within hours, both prosecutors were locked out of their devices and sent home.
This latest purge reflects the Trump administration’s broader campaign to erase Jan. 6 from the official record. The DOJ has already fired dozens of prosecutors who worked on Capitol riot cases, and placing prosecutors on leave for accurately describing documented events represents a troubling escalation.
Erasing the record doesn’t erase what happened; it just erases the credibility of the people doing the erasing.
Airport phone searches hit record high amid Trump traveler crackdown
Ellsworth Toohey / 9:43 am PT Wed Oct 29, 2025
Border agents are searching phones at record rates. As reported in Wired, U.S. Customs and Border Protection conducted over 55,000 device searches during fiscal year 2025 — a 17 percent jump from the previous year — and the pace accelerated dramatically in recent months.
The uptick coincides with the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown. What was once a rare airport hassle has become routine checkpoint theater, powered by an expanding arsenal of forensic tools like Cellebrite UFED and GrayKey. These systems can bypass device locks, retrieve deleted files, and rebuild activity timelines in minutes. “What once took weeks of lab work is now a standard procedure.”Earlier this year the CBP put out a request for new tech to help it search for data on people’s phones,” reports Wired. “Even with the current tools, what once took weeks of lab work is now a routine checkpoint procedure.”
Between July and September alone, CBP searched 16,173 phones. A CBP spokesperson insisted that searches are “exceedingly rare” and that “the likelihood of a search has not increased,” which is technically true if you’re bad at math.
The real story emerges in the incidents — a Norwegian tourist denied entry over a JD Vance meme, a French scientist allegedly questioned about Trump criticism. International visitor numbers are already plummeting. Wired notes that “the impression abroad is clear: The US is becoming an increasingly harder— if not more hostile — place to visit.”
How do barnacles mate? Their penises taste and smell
Popkin / 9:30 am PT Wed Oct 29, 2025
Barnacles (the small marine crustaceans known for sticking to the bottom of docks and boats) have one of the wildest sex lives in the ocean. This video explains the great lengths barnacles go to in order to hook up with each other. The mating ritual of barnacles is one of the most fascinating I’ve heard of.
Here are some bizarre highlights from the video: These tiny creatures have the longest penises (relative to their body size) in the animal kingdom. They can also taste and smell with their penis. All barnacles have both reproductive organs, so any two barnacles can mate.
Since barnacles are glued in place for life, they can’t go looking for partners. But they don’t need to, since their penis can stretch up to eight times their body length, allowing them to reach nearby neighbors. Barnacles get to be the ocean’s ultimate homebodies: they stay in one spot forever, yet still manage to find love (without even realizing how easy they have it).
See also: Ever had gooseneck barnacle meat?
Proven Industries stops suing YouTuber for drinking juice and shimming open its lock
Ellsworth Toohey / 9:13 am PT Wed Oct 29, 2025
Proven Industries had one job: make locks that don’t suck. Instead, they became the internet’s favorite punching bag after a $130 trailer hitch lock got popped open in 10 seconds by a guy drinking Juicy Juice on camera.
As reported in Ars Technica, Trevor McNally — a former Marine with 7 million YouTube followers — responded to Proven’s cocky promo video by shimming their lock while casually sipping from a juice box and swinging his legs like a kid at the dentist’s office. The YouTube clip has nearly 10 million views. Proven Industries’ response? Sue him for copyright infringement, defamation by implication, false advertising, tortious interference, unjust enrichment, civil conspiracy, and trade libel.
Federal Judge Mary Scriven in Tampa had strong opinions about this strategy. She declined the preliminary injunction while wondering aloud whether anyone had bothered to bring an actual lock to demonstrate its security (they hadn’t). The copyright claim? “Fair use and critique,” the judge said. The defamation by implication? You can’t defame someone by making their product look bad if their product is, in fact, bad. On July 7, Proven dropped the entire lawsuit.
[Thanks, Joe!]
Hilarious and weird signs that will make you laugh on the Funny Signs subreddit
Popkin / 9:00 am PT Wed Oct 29, 2025
On the Funny Signs subreddit, there is no shortage of weird signs to giggle about. The sub is dedicated to signs of all kinds that are unusual or silly. I’ve spent over 20 minutes looking through the signs shared here and feeling deeply entertained.
Here are some highlights:
This sign at a checkout counter says “Please note: for an additional $4.95 we will provide a receipt that matches what you told your spouse you paid :)”
This sign on the side of the road simply shows a person standing and peeing, with the cross-out symbol over it, to make life harder for those with a full bladder and no restroom.
This sign is my favorite. It instructs people in a nice, very clean-looking public restroom to “PLEASE VOMIT HERE” with an arrow pointing into the sink. I’m not sure why this is a better option than the toilet, but at least the sign asks politely.
If you’re in need of a great distraction, there are endless signs to laugh about on Funny Signs. Looking through this page is way more fun than doomscrolling on Instagram. If you have a funny sign photo, you can contribute it and share its joy with the world.
See also: Book about people who eat dirt
Cartoonist Peter Kuper wishes we weren’t here
Ruben Bolling / 8:50 am PT Wed Oct 29, 2025
Mere months after the publication of his triumphant graphic novel about a post-apocalyptic insect world, Insectopolis, cartoonist Peter Kuper is back with another yet book about the end of humans, this time a real-life alarm and warning.
Wish We Weren’t Here: Postcards from the Apocalypse is a collection of Kuper’s wordless environmentally themed cartoons for the French humor magazine Charlie Hebdo. The cartoons are four-panel panic attacks, expressing absolute fright over what humans are doing to the planet and ourselves.
Kuper, also known for his wordless “Spy vs. Spy” comics for MAD Magazine (in 1997 he took over the series originally created by Antonio Prohias), is a master at visually inventive comics.
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Beaver stops traffic to drag giant tree branch across road
Popkin / 8:30 am PT Wed Oct 29, 2025
This is no ordinary traffic jam. A beaver decided that the standstill traffic was the perfect opportunity to drag a gigantic tree branch from one side of the road to the other.
From YouTube:
“You cannot make this up. I was stuck in a massive traffic jam on the highway here in the United States and had no idea what was going on. Then I saw him. This little guy, just trying to bring his branch home for his dam. He had the whole highway stopped! The pure determination is honestly inspiring.”
Getting stuck in traffic isn’t so bad when you get to witness a beaver collecting material to build its dam. Traffic is annoying, but it would be hard to be mad about this incident because the little guy is so cute. I love how the tree branch is so much bigger than the beaver’s body, but he insists on dragging it (no matter how long it takes).
See also: Here’s the heartwarming story of a rescued beaver named Beave
“Tucker the Gentleman” is a Golden Retriever with an amazingly courteous snacking style
Jennifer Sandlin / 8:00 am PT Wed Oct 29, 2025
I literally can’t stop laughing at this polite prince, this debonair doggo, this courteous canine. I’m speaking, of course, of a gorgeous Golden Retriever named Tucker Purcell, also known as “Tucker the Gentleman.” And oh, what a gallant gentleman he is!
I’m officially obsessed with Tucker and the videos his humans post featuring the oh-so-well-behaved doggo waiting patiently for his snacks before ever-so-slightly opening his mouth to gently nibble the treats. I’ve never seen a kinder or more careful dog! You can tell he’s just dying for whatever snacks he’s waiting for — in some of the videos, drool is literally pouring out of his mouth — but he persists, patiently, until his human gives him permission to eat. I love how he reveals his tiny teeth as he inches closer and closer to the treat, often so slowly it seems like he’s operating in slo-mo. And when he’s finally given the ok to eat, he doesn’t grab his treat, but rather, softly accepts it, as gentle as can be.
Watch him and see for yourself! Here’s Tucker waiting patiently for a pretzel, a banana, a tortilla, and a Cheez-It. I agree wholeheartedly with some of the commenters on these various videos who say: “He’s pure gold,” “Protect him at all costs,” “I’ve never loved a dog more in my entire life,” “Your dog is fucking awesome — cute, gentle, seems like the perfect pup!”, “the goodest boy!”, and “That was the best gentle I have ever seen in my whole life!”.
Tucker the Gentleman sure lives up to his name! What a delightful creature! He truly puts my dog to shame — I’m always afraid Henry Rollins is going to take off part of my finger when he greedily grabs snacks. I need to show Henry some of Tucker’s videos so Henry can learn the ways of this gentle giant!
See more of Tucker on his Instagram or TikTok. And for an added bonus, here’s Tucker making some serious (and seriously sweet) Wookie noises because he’s so excited that his human is finally home from work!
The Outer Worlds 2 fixes everything wrong with the original
Grant St. Clair / 7:30 am PT Wed Oct 29, 2025
No, I don’t know how “[X] is a lot of fun“ became a proper review series on this site, but I’m rolling with it.
2019’s decidedly mid The Outer Worlds wasn’t exactly a lot of fun, but it was still fun. It placed players in a dystopian space colony ruled by a megacorporation, offering choice-driven gameplay with satirical commentary on unchecked capitalism — but was criticized for its abbreviated length and budget constraints. Almost every aspect was underbaked, and it was criminally short (roughly ten hours for one playthrough) considering its full $60 price tag.
I did enjoy my time in its hypercapitalist, art nouveau-flavored space colony, but the sole thought I came away from it with was “man, I bet a sequel with more meat would be so good.”
Enter The Outer Worlds 2. The marketing tagline for this one was literally “we’ve included everything that should have been in the first game”, and after getting some hands-on time with it, it’s hard to disagree.
After releasing the first game, developer Obsidian was snapped up by Microsoft, and the massive corporate budget they now have backing them shows in every second (even if it’s somewhat at odds with the game’s message).
It’s a much, much deeper RPG experience this time around, with selectable backgrounds, traits, flaws, and skills each affecting your experience with increasing amounts of granularity. Currently, I’m going with a hapless corporate stooge who stumbled into his job accidentally and possesses no combat skill whatsoever, yet still enjoys supernatural luck that sees everything generally go his way — and there’s mechanical support for every single part of that concept. It cannot possibly be overstated how delightfully layered character building is, and the breadth of potential niches to play as is staggering. I can already see some hilarious challenge runs in the future.
Combat is now a borderline optional part of the experience, more so than many RPGs I’ve played recently, but that’s gotten a tune-up, too. The sound design in particular deserves a shoutout for how punchy it makes the gunplay feel. I’ve emptied my break-action shotgun on purpose more than one time to hear the crisp, immensely gratifying snap of it being swung closed.
While I can’t speak to the entirety of the world and story, the BioShock Infinite-meets-New Vegas aesthetic is as strong as ever, and it’s as pretty a capitalist hellscape as I’ve ever seen. At least the first act is concerned with a star system-spanning chase hunting down someone who wronged you — it’s as if Obsidian is inviting comparisons to its 2010 modern classic New Vegas. I’m pleased to report that The Outer Worlds 2 meets that masterpiece on many levels and outright exceeds it in the rest.
In short, if you liked the first game, you’ll love this one. If you hated the first game, this one fixes every single one of its flaws and actually includes a full game’s worth of content. Hopefully, it won’t suffer too much from that pricing debacle, and Obsidian will be spared Microsoft’s fury.
Evangelical influencer Kirk Cameron criticizes Trump’s Insurrection Act proposal
Jennifer Sandlin / 7:00 am PT Wed Oct 29, 2025
Is it possible that maybe, just maybe, the tides are starting to turn? I only ask because yesterday, Kirk Cameron, child-actor-turned-far-right-evangelical-Christian-influencer posted a video on his Xitter account criticizing President Trump’s threatened use of the Insurrection Act. This surprised me, because Cameron has long been a Trump supporter. Earlier this summer, for instance, he praised Trump’s “conviction” to speak out on important issues. He said of Trump:
“He’s got … the courage and the backbone to say what pastors should have been saying for decades . . . and now that he’s able to do that, it reminds me of Cyrus in the Old Testament, where God is using somebody who’s not even a believer as God’s shepherd of His people to lead them in a direction.”
He also stated that pastors could learn a thing or two from Trump and the “character” of “courage” that he’s demonstrating:
“Every pastor ought to just go like, ‘Oh my goodness … I’m being schooled by a real estate businessman mogul in the areas of courage and conviction about what he believes and feels is right, and he doesn’t even have the theological training that I have or responsibility over this flock . . . And guys like Joe Rogan and others are just demonstrating character qualities that should be possessed in spades by Christian men around the country . . . I’m feeling the rumblings of courage and conviction underneath my feet.”
So imagine my surprise when I heard Cameron’s latest take on Trump floating the idea of invoking the Insurrection Act. In the video Cameron posted yesterday, which is an excerpt from his podcast, he calls this move “extreme” and discusses how, in his view, Trump could be potentially harming people “on both sides of the aisle.”
He states:
President Trump says he’s sending the National Guard to stop violent crime, protect federal agents, and defend cities that seem out of control. He even said that he might invoke the Insurrection Act. That’s kind of ironic, right, remember January 6th? They called that an insurrection. But the Insurrection Act is a law that allows a President to deploy the military here on American soil. And it’s a power that is extreme. It’s meant for true emergencies, like rebellion, like invasion, or anarchy. Not just everyday unrest. We need to think about tomorrow. If one president can decide who is a threat, what happens when the next president decides that you are? What if a future President, a far left President, declares that Christians, homeschoolers, and conservative voices are domestic extremists? Would we have any moral ground left to stand on when those same powers are turned on us?
Seems Trump struck a nerve and has caused even some folks on the far right to question whether turning the military on American cities and people is a good thing. Predictably, lots of the folks in Cameron’s comments are chastising him for being naïve, and proclaiming that conservatives have already been declared enemies of the state by previous “far left” Presidents (excuse me, how did I miss a far-left President? Can someone remind me who that would have been?).
I am heartened, however, that a few folks in the comments who identify as Christian are agreeing with Cameron and stating that it’s un-American and un-Christian to attack Americans and to strip assistance from people. Maybe this is the beginning of a wider shift? I sure as heck hope so.
Microsoft refuses to comment on ICE using Halo imagery to recruit
Grant St. Clair / 6:30 am PT Wed Oct 29, 2025
You can call power-armored power fantasy Master Chief a lot of things — a sellout chief among them — but “fascist” isn’t on that list. I’ve already touched on the absolutely monstrous messaging coming out of the White House’s social channels lately, but now the Trump administration seems bent on hijacking pop culture to prop itself up. You’ve likely seen them rip off the Pokémon theme song for a grotesque music video about “catching” immigrants, which the famously litigious Nintendo has done nothing about.
Perhaps emboldened by pulling this off unchallenged, they’ve moved on to puppeting Halo‘s Master Chief to pull in new recruits for their neo-Gestapo. Equating immigrants with a murderous, all-encompassing parasitic alien hivemind is so unfathomably evil that co-opting a popular video game series to get people into the regime almost feels like the secondary point here. Literally dehumanizing people has never historically led to disaster, of course. How can anyone sane think this is okay?
Naturally, Microsoft has stayed tight-lipped, providing various outlets with only the extremely concise statement “Microsoft does not have anything to share on this matter.” Way to show backbone, guys.
If you thought the first Scream movie had gay subtext, Matthew Lillard thinks you’re right
Grant St. Clair / 6:00 am PT Wed Oct 29, 2025
As a member of the community myself, I’m tickled pink that we’ve selected Halloween as “the queer holiday.” Granted, I’m not totally sure how that happened, but I’m glad we have it — Santa doesn’t have quite the same raw animal magnetism as a scary masked guy with a knife.
Speaking of queerness and scary masked guys with knives, your homework for this post is to watch 1996’s Scream. Despite partially being a sendup of horror movie tropes, it was subverting those tropes that secured the film such an enduring legacy. The biggest of these subversions was doubtlessly the twist reveal of two killers instead of just one — and if you ever thought there was something else going on between masked maniacs Billy and Stu, the actors agree with you. At a recent convention, Matthew Lillard had this to say:
“Yeah… [they were] for sure gay. We call ourselves the first husbands of horror. Here’s the reality, it was never discussed on the day, it was not an issue. But I think that we both really love it and hold on to it now as it’s sort of grown in popularity, this thought that these two characters were gay.”
It’s a gay Halloween miracle. Naturally, you don’t need the approval of anyone involved to read the performances as gay, but it feels nice to have the original actors agree regardless.
Domestic robot costs $20k and requires remote operators to watch your home and control the robot
Ellsworth Toohey / 5:59 am PT Wed Oct 29, 2025
If you like the idea of letting strangers watch your home through your robot’s eyes, here’s a deal for you: 1X Technologies is accepting preorders for Neo, a $20,000 humanoid robot designed to handle household chores—with a catch. When the tasks get complicated, remote human operators take control, as reported in Fast Company.
The company calls this remote-control feature “Chores.” While 1X claims users must explicitly request these sessions and can terminate them anytime, the reality is unsettling: California-based 1X employees will literally see through Neo’s eyes and puppeteer its movements around your living space. An LED ring changes from white to blue during these sessions — your only visual cue that a human operator is watching and controlling the robot navigating your home. The company frames this as “expert operators” supplementing your experience, but it’s essentially hiring remote workers to see inside your private spaces.
CEO Bernd Børnich acknowledges the privacy concerns but dismisses them as manageable. The model echoes last year’s Tesla event where Optimus bartenders seemed autonomous until the audience discovered they were being puppeteered by off-site humans. The awe evaporated. Yet 1X is betting early adopters won’t mind handing a corporation — and its employees — a window into their homes.
Neo weighs 66 pounds and can lift 154. It can fold shirts (imperfectly), fetch items, and greet guests. But for anything beyond simple tasks, you’re inviting strangers behind closed doors. By 2027, Børnich predicts owning a home robot will be “a no-brainer.”
If you don’t have a brain, you should buy one of his robots.
Tom the Dancing Bug: Inside the writers room that’s ruining your life
Ruben Bolling / 4:56 am PT Wed Oct 29, 2025
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Portland frog costumes are effective psychological warfare against authoritarianism
Mark Frauenfelder / 12:33 pm PT Tue Oct 28, 2025
In Portland, activists are wearing oversized frog costumes to shame Trump’s heavily militarized, masked secret police who are occupying their city. The seemingly absurd spectacle is a stroke of psychological genius, says Dr. Geoffrey Grammer in his video “The Psychology of the Portland Green Frog.”
According to Grammer, the costumed protesters aren’t just being silly — they’re using humor as a weapon against humorless authoritarianism. He explains that dictators always cast non-followers as violent extremists, which often creates a self-fulfilling prophecy that leads to draconian crackdowns. But when the supposed threat arrives dressed for a toddler’s birthday party, the fascist’s fear-mongering narrative suddenly looks as silly as the protestors.
These frog costumes are a form of “emotional aikido” — a way to respond to paramilitary goons’ aggression with parody, refusing to accept negative projections, and transforming the dictator’s lies into a joke. The protesters become tricksters, destabilizing attempts to control the narrative and inviting the public to laugh at the pathetic banality of authoritarianism.
Freud called humor a mature defense; it loosens fear’s grip, undermines propaganda, and uplifts the spirit.
It’s time to let the frogs — wobbling, ridiculous, and invincible — lead the way.
This originally appeared on It Is Happening.