Yesterday Brooklyn Park, Minnesota, police chief Mark Bruley told reporters that the police were getting repeated complaints about violations of civil rights by ICE and that ICE agents were stopping off-duty police officers of color. He recounted that ICE agents had stopped an off-duty police officer, demanded her paperwork—she is a U.S. citizen—and then held her at gunpoint. When she tried to film the interaction, they knocked the phone out of her hand. Finally, when she identified herself as a police officer, they got in their vehicles and left.
“This isn’t just important because it happened to off-duty police officers,” Bruley said, but because “our officers know what the Constitution is, they know what right and wrong is, and they know when people are being targeted, and that’s what they were. If it is happening to our officers, it pains me to think [of] how many of our community members are falling victim to this every day.”
At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, this morning, a visibly exhausted president of the United States of America rambled in angry free association in a speech before the world’s leaders. At one point, speaking of North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) dignitaries, he told the audience: “Until the last few days when I told them about Iceland, they loved me. They called me daddy, right, last time. Very smart man said, ‘He’s our daddy. He’s running it.’”
He meant Greenland.
The president of the United States went on to give a virulently racist, insulting, rambling speech in which he complained that people call him a dictator but that “sometimes you need a dictator.” More than anything, though, the speech demonstrated his mental unfitness for his position.
What Is the Scale of the Resistance in Minnesota? Kottke: “The Trump regime’s secret police force has invaded the Twin Cities to kidnap, torture, terrorize, and murder its residents — and Minnesotans aren’t having it. They’re pushing back with all they have.”
Dementia Don says he has the "concept of a deal" on the future of Greenland and the whole Arctic Circle
This deal will get the US nothing new, at the expense of burning down 80 years of relations with our strongest allies and trading partners and weakening the US with respect to China and Russia. Nonetheless, MAGA will applaud the deal as a triumph. The Trump family will get hundreds of millions of dollars in illicit gains.
I have zero details about the deal. But that’s how things work in the Trump White House.
Also, the Epstein files were, by law, supposed to have been released Dec. 19.
Risk, reward, and revenue: Defining the telco role in the AI economy
Now I can reveal what I was working on much of the last six months — this massively researched Fierce Network report on the role of telcos in the emerging AI economy: Risk, reward, and revenue: Defining the telco role in the AI economy
Artificial intelligence is reshaping network requirements and creating new revenue opportunities for service providers. As AI adoption accelerates, telcos must define how they will participate in this shift - whether as infrastructure providers, enablers of AI service ecosystems, or builders of their own AI-driven solutions.
This report explores how carriers can leverage existing strengths, including resilient networks, edge assets, and deep enterprise relationships, to compete and grow in the AI economy.
The report draws on industry perspectives and a recent survey of 500 telco leaders worldwide — yes, that’s five hundred — along with 11 in-depth interviews with executives at global telcos and cloud providers, including AT&T, Bell, Zayo Group, C Spire, MetTel, Microsoft, Google Cloud, Oracle, Cisco and more. The report highlights where the strongest opportunities are emerging, the barriers that could limit progress, and how collaboration across the ecosystem can help unlock long-term value.
Download the report to gain timely insights into the changing role of telcos in the AI era and what it means for future growth.
I preordered the Clicks Power Keyboard. It’s a slide-out thumb keyboard that attaches to your phone with MagSafe. $79 early-bird pricing, delivers in the spring. I’d love to be able to do more things on my phone that now require me to be on my MacBook.
If I hate it, there’s a one-month refund policy. Hopefully that’s a month from when it’s delivered, not a month from now ha ha.
There's an observation that every Star Trek is an observation on the state of the US at the time it was made
Sometimes Trek anticipates the future, but only by three to five years
The original series: Cold War. Klingons are Russians, Romulans are Chinese.
“The Next Generation:” America ascendant. The lone superpower. The Enterprise is an embassy, bringing diplomacy and classical music to other nations.
“Enterprise” became paranoid post-9/11.
“Strange New Worlds” is nostalgic for the good ol’ 20th Century, when things were simple (or at least that’s how we remember it).
“Starfleet Academy” anticipates the post-Trump world, when the US has to rebuild on the ruins of what MAGA destroyed. In the second episode, the Betazoids come to the Federation and say why should we trust you now when you betrayed us before?
We just had our fourth visit from refrigerator repair people since the fridge broke the day after Thanksgiving, and I guess he got tired of visiting us because he fixed the refrigerator this time.
We watched “Fallout” (violent, profane, cynical) and “All Creatures Great and Small” (wholesome, uplifting, optimistic family entertainment) on two consecutive nights and my brain can’t handle the disconnect.