We’ve gotten through Christmas, more or less, and have survived, again, more or less. Christmas survival is made a lot easier thanks to alcohol. It sure helps with putting up with relatives. Anyway, this is our second-to-last set of links of the year. We’ll be saving the year-in-review links for the December 31st links so it’s steady as she goes for today’s post.

So it’s time for the post-Christmas slash pre-New Year’s links. Here’s Canadian model Kate Bock.

A Syrian boy was stuck between a rock and hard place in dealing with ISIS so he volunteered to become a suicide bomber and surrendered himself to security forces to protect his family. (New York Times)

The Beer Store has managed to dodge any public pressure stemming from the revelations about how their monopoly is hurting the consumer. That’s probably because of the power of their lobbying efforts. (Toronto Star)

There is a conflict brewing in the city of New York between the NYPD, the mayor and the people of the city. (Talking Points Memo)

While Hilary Clinton is likely to be the Democratic presidential nominee in 2016, she’s likely to face a challenge from Elizabeth Warren. (Washington Times)

In the news media, there’s a little bit of a joke that goes that if you want news to die, you release it on Friday afternoon because no one will care by Monday. With that in mind, the NSA waited until Christmas Eve to reveal all of their surveillance on Americans. (Mashable)

Among the abuses of power by NSA officials was spying on their wives and girlfriends. (Newsweek)

Following up on a story from the last linkdump, blame for the Sony hack has turned away from North Korea. Now, an insider is getting the blame. (Daily Mail)

Fox News host Sean Hannity is very good at outrage. He’s got to be good at something. He had an epic Twitter rage over being named Fox News’ worst host by his peers. (Raw Story)

The NFL regular season wraps up today. The league has been changing a lot over the last few years but it doesn’t all have to do with changing rules. (Wall Street Journal)

One thing that people joke a lot about in the Home Alone movies is how much air travel has changed since 9/11. You can’t even bring a bottle of water through security now. But that hasn’t stopped people from bringing all sorts of things through airport security. (Gizmodo)

You don’t have to know too much about StarCraft to enjoy this game gone wrong and then right and the cast of said game.