Category: Urban Legends

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Santa Claus is coming to town!

You better watch out…

“‘Most hated event on the planet’: New movie shows the rise of San Francisco’s SantaCon,” by Dan Gentile, SFGATE, October 31, 2025.

The trailer just dropped for ‘SANTACON,’ which premieres at the DOC NYC film festival on Nov. 13.

There are few San Francisco events as divisive as SantaCon. The yearly, debauchery-filled bar crawl features hundreds, if not thousands, of costumed Santas rampaging through cities across the country, leaving a trail of inebriated chaos in their wake. But it wasn’t always this way.

A new film is set to premiere on Nov. 13 at the DOC NYC film festival and is simply titled “SANTACON,” directed by Seth Porges, whose previous work includes “Class Action Park” and “How to Rob A Bank.” The first trailer, released on Friday, begins with footage of violent Santas and also shows Jimmy Fallon mentioning the New York Police Department’s understanding of the event as “the nightmare before Christmas.” Local news anchors declare that locals want the event to be canceled, and text appears on the screen proclaiming SantaCon the “most hated event on the planet.” Read the whole article here.

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Rooting Out an Underground Legend

But they still bite…

“Researchers trace the ancient origins of an urban mosquito species,” by Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, News-Medical.Net, October 23, 2025.

New research has uncovered the ancient origins of an urban mosquito species, Culex pipiens form molestus, also known as the ‘London Underground mosquito’ – disproving a long-held theory of when it first evolved.

Published today (23 October) in Science, researchers from Princeton University, the Wellcome Sanger Institute, the Natural History Museum in London and their collaborators extracted and analyzed hundreds of mosquito DNA samples to trace the emergence of the urban insect species.

The result of the study revises one of the ‘textbook examples’ of urban evolution and adaptation, and it carries important public health implications regarding the spread of diseases. Read the whole article here.

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Justice is blind — but this attorney sees the future

From the Vault: Maqdananda

“Why deal with the legal system without knowing the outcome beforehand?”-Maqdananda

Legal council from the other side. From courtrooms to crystal balls, Maqdananda brings legal advice to another dimension.

Joey Skaggs as Maqdananda, Psychic Attorney, in a :30 CNN TV commercial (1994).

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Trump Promotes a Revolutionary Cure-all

Your cure is just a dream away. Dream on.

“Trump shares apparent AI video promoting ‘medbed’ conspiracy theory,” by Kevin Liptak, Donie O’Sullivan, CNN, September 28, 2025.

President Donald Trump on Saturday shared an apparently artificially created video of himself promoting a cure-all bed with origins in conspiratorial corners of the internet.

The video, which has since been deleted, was intended to resemble a Fox News segment on the show hosted by the president’s daughter-in-law Lara Trump, featured an AI version of Trump promising access to new medical technology. This segment has never aired on the network.

“Every American will soon receive their own medbed card,” said the false rendering of Trump. “With it, you’ll have guaranteed access to our new hospitals led by the top doctors in the nation, equipped with the most advanced technology in the world.”

Read the whole article here.

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Investigating the Investigators of the Watergate Scandal

Uncovering the truth sometimes takes a while…

“Woodward and Bernstein didn’t bring down Nixon – but the myth that they did lives on,” by The Conversation, (on AlterNet), September 16, 2025.

In their dogged reporting of the Watergate scandal, Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein uncovered the crimes that forced Richard Nixon to resign the presidency in August 1974.

That version of Watergate has long dominated popular understanding of the scandal, which unfolded over 26 months beginning in June 1972.

It is, however, a simplistic trope that not even Watergate-era principals at the Post embraced.

Read the whole article here.

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