Epstein’s messages give us a glimpse, one we were never meant to see, of a shadowy world of international espionage, deregulated finance, far-right politics, eugenicist race science, information warfare, and unfathomably intricate human trafficking networks. Epstein wanted to break the internet and, eventually, democracy, to cover his tracks and cash in on the chaos…. Were Epstein and Bannon really building a crypto-funded far-right coalition of pro-Russian dictators across Europe? Or were they just LARPing as kingmakers with each other over email?
Now that I’ve split my meme posts into a separate blog on Micro.blog, I might migrate all my Mastodon followers to my Micro.blog account. I’m sure I will not regret it and change it back, like every other time I made that transition. I am also sure this transition is an effective use of my time.
I’ve decided to split this blog in two. I’m going to use mitchellaneous.net for the memes and other curiosities I’ve found on the Internet. I want to keep that ephemera separate from what I post here — when I resume posting here. I haven’t been feeling it lately because (gestures broadly to the world).
Those of you who receive my newsletter will now receive two newsletters. Feel free to unsubscribe from one or both; I view blogging as like having a model train set in your basement. Not everybody is going to be interested.
Mecha Comet is a handheld, modular computer that runs Linux. It looks sweet, and it tempts even my Apple-pilled heart.
I’m making travel plans for conferences in the first half of the year. Visiting the press page for the DTW Ignite conference in Copenhagen in June, I saw this banner photo at the top. I’m second from right.
I got a PR pitch for an article on integrating cannabis into healthcare. I am tempted to respond, “We are a telco pub. Why would you think this pitch is relevant to us? Are you high or something?” Cheap, obvious joke.
Federal agents continue to rain terror on Minneapolis, Minnesota, and other U.S. cities including Portland and Lewiston, Maine. That violence has made it crystal clear that the goal of attacking immigrants is not simply to create a white nation; it is also to terrorize Americans into accepting the domination of MAGA Republicans.
— Heather Cox Richardson, Letters From an American, January 28, 2026 (Wednesday)
This powerful and disturbing Lincoln Project video is a lesson in truth-telling. “We’ve lost two American citizens, but if we don’t stop Trump and MAGA in 2026, we’ll lose more than innocent lives; we’ll lose America.”
Democrats, do this.
Bell is mobilizing ‘sovereign digital spine’ for Canadian AI. Bell Canada is investing strategically to position itself as a full-stack AI provider amid escalating U.S.-Canada tensions. My latest on Fierce Network.
Gun Rights Activists Briefly Pause MAGA Cheerleading To Half-Assedly Defend Rights Of Murdered Minnesotan. “They don’t honestly care how many people are killed by law enforcement officers. The only thing they care about is being able to open carry while shopping at Walmart or invading federal buildings to overturn elections. Everyone to the perceived left of their core membership can continue to get fucked.”
The nation’s founders worried that if the state had a monopoly on weapons, its citizens could be oppressed. Their answer was the Second Amendment. Now that our phones are the primary weapons of today’s information war, we should be as zealous about our right to bear phones as we are about our right to bear arms. To adopt the language of Second Amendment enthusiasts, perhaps the only thing that can eventually stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a camera.
Want to Reach Nirvana? Try a Colonoscopy. “It turns out that despite everything you’ve heard, getting a colonoscopy is wonderful.” No. No, it’s not.
Tevye from Fiddler on the Roof, Now a Rich Man, Receives a Letter from His HOA. McSweeney’s: “Your contract allows for a modest structure in the prevailing style of the neighborhood. It does not allow for a big tall house with rooms by the dozen.”
This just keeps getting better and better.
Journalist Adam Serwer goes out on patrol with the brave resistance in Minnesota
The secret fear of the morally depraved is that virtue is actually common, and that they’re the ones who are alone. In Minnesota, all of the ideological cornerstones of MAGA have been proved false at once. Minnesotans, not the armed thugs of ICE and the Border Patrol, are brave. Minnesotans have shown that their community is socially cohesive—because of its diversity and not in spite of it. Minnesotans have found and loved one another in a world atomized by social media, where empty men have tried to fill their lonely soul with lies about their own inherent superiority. Minnesotans have preserved everything worthwhile about “Western civilization,” while armed brutes try to tear it down by force.
No matter how many more armed men Trump sends to impose his will on the people of Minnesota, all he can do is accentuate their valor. No application of armed violence can make the men with guns as heroic as the people who choose to stand in their path with empty hands in defense of their neighbors. These agents, and the president who sent them, are no one’s heroes, no one’s saviors—just men with guns who have to hide their faces to shoot a mom in the face, and a nurse in the back.
Researchers ran a simulation in October of civil war breaking out in the United States and the scenario closely resembled what’s playing out now in Minneapolis.
In that exercise, a president carried out a highly unpopular law-enforcement operation in Philadelphia and attempted to federalize the Pennsylvania’s national guard. When the governor resisted and the guard remained loyal to the state, the president deployed active-duty troops, resulting in an armed conflict between state and federal forces. While the location and sequence differ, the core danger we identified is now emerging: a violent confrontation between state and federal military forces in a major American city.