C'est une tragédie, c'est une parodie.

Il craque de partout, ce vieux Monde fini.

Qu'y reste-t-il, que sa défense justifie ?

Bah, presque rien : la vie. Hé ! Presque tout : la vie !

No good night's sleep the entire week, and now it's even worse with Gastown also pushing to the main branch willy-nilly, causing slight panic. At least I got to hang out with friends in board games and talk to the love of my life in the evening!

The birthday dinner was fun, but I came home to $1200 in expenditures to the company claude account. Goodbye, Gastown.

Our first run in with an attempt at false accusations came in the form of “over $40,000 credit card fraud”.

I am serious. And who did the false accusations come from? My parents. Mind you: our bank fraud had taken place, the reversals on our accounts from clientele, AND then tack on another “$40,000 in credit card fraud”!?

It was enough to make someone want to crawl under a rock and disappear. Here is the thing about this claim though: one of my parents had invested, willingly, into our business. We showed receipts and brought them evidence of every penny accounted for. Slowly but surely, I noticed that these “statements” they fabricated (literally, lol) were not adding up. Not only that, the “statements” from said bank had mismatched dates & charges...

I pointed this out to my parents. I pointed out, loudly, that this was incorrect, especially since my spouse and I had suffered bank fraud at the same exact bank, only a month earlier. So again, I asked myself why would they attempt to frame us for credit card fraud? Was it simply because they were indoctrinated into the program? Or is it because they are the ones funding part of my harassment and stalking? I will never know. But I do remember everything that transpired last year. This was not the first time my parents had falsified documentation in my name for personal gain.

I was in my home last year looking through documentation I had received from one of my parents and found a “Durable POA”. Interestingly enough, I thought it was strange; I had just signed a “revised” copy of the durable POA over my children about a month prior to that (which one of my parents financially exploited me into signing). Legally you are only able to obtain two POAs, not three. Not only that: the date on this document was “signed” about 10 days prior to me marrying my spouse. It made no sense. The only thing I was managing at the time of getting married was a false CPS accusation, chemo, & getting married! I never signed this document, nor had I ever seen it prior to last year.

I know. It's insane. Fraud, forgery, and false accusations, the three big Fs. Oh it doesn't stop there; when I went to my parents with this fake POA, I was met with threats of physical violence (one of my parents said they would break my knees), I was asked if I was jealous of how my parents lived, & recorded for evidence of my looking “crazy” & also for it to be “proof” that I am “unstable”. Completely staged. Which reminds me, I saw my children in January of this year & was videotaped then also. My parent is an evil and vile human being. One of my parents I pity and feel compassion for at the same time. They actively did these things to me though; they made those choices. To their own kid. Unbelievable, yet very much my truth.

I mentioned one of my siblings that works for the government; I have another sibling that studied arts at school I believe. This sibling I personally, was there for through their most difficult times in life. Yet they used my past against me. They ridiculed me, they tried to humble me, and they joined forces with my spouse's ex. Funny, right? So sad though. The need to gangstalk and abuse one individual, shows that cowards move in packs. I am still standing all by myself, with my spouse. It empowers me. I firmly believe this was designed to break me, but I have been bouncing back. I am grateful for the year of revelation, the year of truth, and exposure. This year is the year of momentum.

To the people who are reading to gather information or to stalk: Welcome. I love you very much. To the ones who have no idea that this program exists in their own backyard: Please pay attention. We are hundreds of thousands of us that exist and are being tortured. And most importantly, to my fellow TIs: I see you. I hear you. You are not alone.*

Some information: 15. Further to the above, gangstalkers rely on disbelief and discrediting and as such much of the harassment is designed (at least initially) to mimic mental health issues. They also rely on their abuse being so extreme, so pervasive, so fundamentally immoral, as to be disbelieved and victims subsequently resort to photographing, videotaping, and sound recording their everyday encounters to disprove the countless unfounded claims made against them – especially in relation to gaslighting, which gangstalkers try to turn around and paint the victims as paranoid or irrational. Victims are made to feel helpless as every attempt to defend themselves is used against them and when they seek help they are met with disbelief or open hostility.

Jaide owwt*

1. The Just City (Thessaly #1) by Jo Walton, 368p: This novel begins with an interesting premise: Apollo, trying to understand consent after Daphne escapes him by turning into a tree, joins Athena’s experiment to build Plato’s Just City and chooses to live there as a powerless human child. The philosophical discussions about agency, sentience, and whether robots are slaves are thought-provoking, and Socrates questioning the status of the workers was the highlight for me. In the end, I didn’t really love it. The ideas are interesting, but the whole thing just left me feeling uncomfortable. The sexual assault parts weren’t handled in a way that felt properly addressed, which is especially weird in a story that’s supposed to be about justice and consent. The society often seemed oddly unquestioning and cult-like, I couldn't connect with any of the characters. Overall, it felt more depressing than thought-provoking, and it just didn’t click for me.

2. Persepolis Rising (The Expanse #7) by James S.A. Corey, 622p: It opens with a time jump, where the Rocinante’s crew are older and even beginning to think about retirement. The pacing was excellent, and it kicks off a new arc in the story, introducing a new military force determined to dominate everyone else, as they tend to do. This book has some great action scenes and great character development. The military occupation is somewhat quiet and brutal, very passive-aggressive style, which makes it even more violent. It employs all the fascist propaganda methods of oppression, which makes it unsettling and real. I definitely want to know what happens next.

3. Dreamweaver's Dilemma (Vorkosigan Saga (Publication Order) #9.1) by Lois McMaster Bujold, 26p: This was an interesting short story in the Vorkosigan universe. As per the author's note, it is her first draft of what has become the “Vorkosiverse” or the “Vorkosigan Saga”. It takes place around 600 years before the first in the series Cordelia's Honor. It's about a “feelie-dream” composer who is asked to compose a particularly bizarre dream from a mysterious and eccentric client, who is offering a big sum of money for it. The “feelie-dream” is a kind of 3D-sensory-virtual reality experience that people plug-in to experience, kinda like a very immersive Virtual Reality experience. The story is mysterious and exciting, with noir-like tension in the way the composer tries to understand who this man really is and why he wants this particular dream created.

4. Falling Free (Vorkosigan Saga (Publication Order) #4) by Lois McMaster Bujold, 237p: I loved that this book if full of engineers problem-solving with whatever resources and tools they have available. There are fun references to typical engineer quirks. But on top of that, it deals with genetically altered humans subjected to a big corporation's greed. It takes place 200 years before Miles Vorkosigan was born. The “Quaddies” are genetically modified people who have four arms: instead of legs, they have a second pair of hands, which makes them very efficient in zero gravity. However, the Quaddies are legally considered corporate assets, used as space labor, and we see their struggles for autonomy and recognition. I read this after finishing the Brothers in Arms / Mirror Dance / Memory / A Civil Campaign sequence. It's a nice addition to the Vorkosigan Saga world-building, especially since the Quaddies are referenced again in the next book in the series, Diplomatic Immunity.

5. Do You Want to Start a Scandal (Castles Ever After #4) by Tessa Dare, 384p: This one was a funny and light read. The mother's sex education dialogue was hilarious, I'll remember it every time I see aubergines and peaches from now on. I liked that there was a bit of a mystery to the story and Charlotte was playing amateur detective with Piers. The mystery resolution was nothing extraordinary, and I missed some more spy action from Piers.

—

#readinglist #books #reading

Today brings two Road Races to fans of the sport. First up from the INDYCAR Racing Series will be the Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg. And later this afternoon we'll have from the NASCAR Cup Series, the DuraMAX Texas Grand Prix.

I'll be bringing both races in from a local TV station OTA, via my old rabbit-ears antennae, rather than streaming via the Internet, thereby avoiding that annoying “buffering” that comes with extended Internet streaming.

And the adventure continues.

Cory Doctorow once again helps me make sense of the world

Fascinating read from Ars Technica about Wikipedia having to blacklist an archiving site via waxy

Perhaps you heard about an AI agent publishing a hit piece on an open source maintainer. I can't even put into words the implications of something like this. Our tech overlords are ruining the world. also via waxy

Wandering Arrow's latest Lobster Liberation Report.

An aside about how the truth matters and facts matter. I appreciate the Clintons right now. This isn't a commentary on if their politics are good or bad. It's a commentary about something a lot of people don't seem to care about or appreciate. The gist is they were like: Oh, you have questions? Swear me in so I can talk about it under oath. Well, I appreciate it.

How Holocaust memory and cultivated extremism were institutionally converted into political immunity and regional fragmentation

The Parable of Dinah

In Genesis 34, Dinah, Jacob's daughter, goes out to see the women of the neighboring land. Shechem, son of Hamor – a local chieftan, the most powerful man in the region – sees her, takes her, and lies with her by force—a violation, a trauma, a wound. Her brothers seek to avenge her. But they do not act on grief alone. They act on calculation.

“Intermarry with us,” they tell Shechem's people. “Give us your daughters, take ours. But first—become like us. Submit to circumcision.”

Shechem agrees. The whole city agrees. They undergo the rite, entering into covenant with Israel's God. On the third day, while they recover, Simeon and Levi enter the city armed and slay every male. They plunder the houses, take the women and children captive.

Jacob rebukes them: “You have made me odious to the inhabitants of the land, and I am few in number. If they gather against me, I shall be destroyed.”

The brothers answer: “Should he treat our sister like a harlot?”

The moral reflex is sound. But the strategic architecture is cunning. The brothers manufactured the conditions for massacre—first inducing vulnerability, then exploiting it. They created the very danger they claimed to be avenging. The wound to Dinah became the pretext for eliminating Shechem entirely.

This is the Shechem Cycle: create dependency, induce vulnerability, strike, then invoke the original wound as moral insulation against criticism.

Israel's modern Shield-Conduit architecture operates by this same logic. The Shield is not the Holocaust itself—it is the institutional apparatus that converts Holocaust memory into political immunity, just as Simeon and Levi converted Dinah's trauma into carte blanche for massacre. The Conduit manufactures the “Shechems”—Islamist extremists cultivated to replace rational Arab nationalism—creating a threat that validates the Shield's “Western vanguard” narrative. The original trauma (the Holocaust, like Dinah's violation) is real and grievous. But the loop built atop it is artificial, self-reinforcing, and strategically engineered.

Israel is not merely defending against threats. It is systematically creating the conditions that make its defense appear the only moral option.

---

Thesis. The Revisionist Zionist lineage built an institutional apparatus—the Shield—that converts Holocaust memory into durable political immunity. That immunity sustains long-run leverage over U.S. foreign policy. The Conduit—a strategic pattern that replaces secular Arab nationalism with Islamist extremism—reframes regional conflict as civilizational rather than territorial, making the Shield’s “Western vanguard” narrative self-validating. Together, Shield and Conduit enable regional redesigns at reduced political cost.

---

Model

Framework:

5-player extensive-form game with evolving payoff structures across five eras.

Players:

• Z = Zionist Movement (the strategists)
• BE = British Empire (Pre-1945 hegemon)
• US = United States of America (Post-1945 hegemon)
• SA = Secular Arabs (the target for elimination)
• IP = Islamist Proxy (the manufactured replacement)

Layers of Strategic Architecture — nested conditions that enable the game to proceed.

• Layer 1 — Structural bankruptcy: Europe’s post-war exhaustion and dependency dynamics that shift hegemonic weight to the U.S., creating the unipolar opportunity space.
• Layer 2 — Capture: durable influence over U.S. policy channels (Congress, executive, media, lobbying) that makes certain outcomes hard to reverse.
• Layer 3 — The Shield: the institutional system that treats criticism of Israeli state action as morally illegitimate by routing it through Holocaust memory. The Conduit: the vector that replaces rational, negotiable secular Arab nationalism with Islamist extremism—reframing conflict from land and rights to civilization vs. barbarism, thereby validating the Shield.

L1 creates opportunity; L2 and L3 co-construct as mutually-reinforcing subsystems (Shield insulates Capture-in-progress; Capture enables harder Shield deployment). Downstream constraints emerge from this mutual stabilization.

Output:

Downstream policy outcomes—wars, occupations, alignments, territorial or regime changes.

---

Era I: The Demographic Deficit (1896-1941)

The Zionist project began with a structural deficit: establishing an ethno-state as a demographic minority. Jabotinsky's 1923 “Iron Wall” argued statehood required overwhelming asymmetric force to break indigenous resistance. Logic demanded absolute pragmatism across factional lines.

The 1933 Haavara Agreement (transferring 60,000 Jews/assets from Nazi Germany) demonstrated Labor Zionism's instrumental approach to rescue when aligned with territorial goals. The 1940 Patria bombing (killing 267 refugees to block British deportation) showed Haganah's willingness to sacrifice Jewish lives when the calculus demanded it. Both occurred under British Mandate authority – the BE, not the US, was the relevant hegemon.

The Madagascar Plan (1940) was a Nazi initiative to deport European Jews to the French colony; Zionist leaders monitored it as a potential (if desperate) alternative to extermination, but did not originate it.

Lehi's 1941 approach to Nazi Germany – proposing a military alliance against Britain in exchange for Jewish emigration to Palestine – represents Z's radical splinter faction operating independently of the Labor/Haganah mainstream. This distinction matters: where Labor pursued pragmatic rescue and territorial consolidation, Lehi pursued maximalist anti-imperial alignment even at the cost of ideological contamination.

Incubation and the Revisionist split (1896–1932)

• 1896–97 — Herzl founds political Zionism. A project aimed at a legal territorial home, pursued through European imperial patronage.
• 1917 — Balfour Declaration. Britain commits to a “national home” in Palestine, creating an early geopolitical foothold.
• 1923 — Jabotinsky’s “Iron Wall.” A foundational Revisionist text: the native Arab population will not consent, so Zionism advances behind overwhelming force. (“Iron Wall” here means coercive security dominance as strategy.)
• 1931 — Irgun (Etzel) founded. A militant Revisionist offshoot that rejects Haganah restraint in favor of armed action, including terror tactics. (Haganah: mainstream Jewish paramilitary; Irgun: breakaway hardline wing.)

Territorial solutions and radical escalation (1933–1941)

• 1933-39 — Haavara (Transfer) Agreement. A deal between Zionist institutions and Nazi Germany enabling ~60,000 German Jews and assets to move to Palestine. (Haavara: a “transfer” mechanism for migration + capital.)
• 1940 — Madagascar Plan. Nazi leadership explores mass deportation. Extermination is not yet state policy in this framing.
• Nov 1940 — Patria bombing. Haganah detonates explosives on a refugee ship to prevent British deportation to Mauritius; the miscalculated blast kills 252-267 Jewish refugees. (Used here as a precedent claim: sacrificing Jewish lives for state-building objectives.)
• Jan 1941 — Lehi’s Nazi alliance proposal. The Stern Gang submits a formal offer to a German diplomat in Ankara: ally with Nazi Germany, fight the British, and secure a totalitarian Jewish state. Ignored. (Lehi: small extremist Zionist militia.)

---

Era II: The Suez Pivot (1942-1961)

The 1942 Wannsee Conference formalized the Final Solution, signing the death warrant for Layer 1 (L1) - the decentralized network of European Jewish financial and cultural infrastructure accumulated over centuries. Six million dead. L1 was annihilated as a living system. Paradoxically, this apocalyptic loss generated something no diplomatic campaign could have manufactured: near-universal moral authority – the raw material from which Layer 3 (L3) would later be forged, and the leverage needed to begin constructing Layer 2 (L2).

But first, territory had to be secured through kinetic brutality. The 1946 King David Hotel bombing - Irgun's attack on the British administrative headquarters, killing 91 – shattered the Mandate's will to govern. The 1948 Deir Yassin massacre, in which Irgun and Lehi forces killed over 100 Palestinian villagers, was not merely an atrocity but a strategic signal: its broadcast triggered mass civilian flight across Palestine. The resulting Nakba - the ethnic cleansing of 750,000 Palestinians – secured the demographic conditions for the establishment of the State of Israel in May 1948. The Iron Wall's territorial objective was achieved.

Z quickly discovered that regional military supremacy had hard limits. The botched 1954 Lavon Affair (a false-flag bombing campaign in Egypt) and the 1956 Suez Crisis delivered a brutal lesson: tactical victories meant nothing if the global hegemon US could override the outcome with a single phone call. Eisenhower forced Israel, Britain, and France into humiliating withdrawal – the last time a US president would impose such costs on Israel. Suez was the pivot. Z diagnosed the structural vulnerability with precision: localized force fails against a hegemon's veto. Direct confrontation with US was unwinnable. The solution was not to fight the hegemon but to capture it.

L2 Foundation – The Capture Infrastructure: Post-Suez, Z began systematically constructing the machinery of US policy capture. AIPAC was founded in 1953 and began perfecting the “scorecard” system – tracking Congressional votes and making support for Israel a binary litmus test for campaign viability. The infrastructure operated through multiple channels:

1. Congressional Capture via committee assignments (Foreign Relations, Armed Services) where pro-Israel commitments became prerequisites for leadership;

2. Campaign Finance - bundling operations that made defiance electorally prohibitive;

3. Media Infrastructure - cultivating editorial boards and broadcast networks where criticism became career-ending;

4. Executive Penetration - placement of loyalists in key agencies (State, Defense, NSC).

This was L2 under construction: not yet total capture, but the ratchet mechanisms being installed.

The keystone was the 1961 Eichmann trial: Ben-Gurion captured Adolf Eichmann and televised his trial to a global audience, an act of theatrical statecraft that positioned Israel as the sole inheritor and voice of Holocaust memory. Trauma was centralized in the state apparatus. The trial, combined with Yad Vashem's expansion, the ADL's redefinition of antisemitism, and AIPAC's nascent campaign machinery, collectively constituted the Shield - the first operational component of what would become L3. The Shield rewired US's domestic political cost function: criticizing or constraining Israel was transformed from a standard foreign policy dispute into an act of moral deviance. L3 was now half-built; L2 capture was underway but incomplete.

Catastrophe and birth (1942–1948)

• Jan 1942 — Wannsee Conference. Territorial expulsion is stymied by war; Nazi policy shifts to the “Final Solution.” In this model, the old European Jewish financial elite—the Layer-1 actors—is destroyed or looted.
• Jul 1946 — King David Hotel bombing. Irgun (Begin) bombs British headquarters in Jerusalem, killing 91. (Framed as asymmetric terror intended to force imperial withdrawal.)
• Apr 1948 — Deir Yassin massacre. Irgun and Lehi kill 100+ Arab civilians. Psychological terror triggers mass Palestinian flight during the Nakba. (Nakba: the 1948 catastrophe/expulsion and displacement.)
• May 1948 — State of Israel established.

Statehood, false flags, and the Suez pivot (1950–1961)

• 1950–51 — Baghdad bombings. Bombings target Iraqi Jewish establishments. This model cites evidence (e.g., Avi Shlaim and others) pointing to Zionist underground involvement: panic drives Iraqi Jews into emigrating for demographic bulk.
• 1953 — Yad Vashem established. First formal institutionalization of Holocaust memory by the state. Seed of the Shield apparatus. (Yad Vashem: Israel’s national Holocaust memorial authority.)
• 1954 — Lavon Affair (Operation Susannah). Proven Israeli false-flag operation: Egyptian Jews recruited to bomb U.S./British civilian sites in Egypt and blame the Muslim Brotherhood, aiming to keep Western troops in the Suez zone. (False flag: an operation designed to misattribute responsibility.) Conduit note: in this model, it functions as a proto-Conduit move—manufacturing an Islamist threat to secure Western alignment.
• 1954 — AIPAC founded. Isaiah Kenen bypasses diplomacy to lobby Congress directly. Seed of the “vetocracy.” (Vetocracy: capacity to punish dissent and block policy change.)
• 1956 — Suez Crisis (Protocol of Sèvres). A secret UK/France/Israel pact to seize the canal and topple Nasser. Eisenhower forces withdrawal via financial threats—framed here as the last time a U.S. president treated Israel as subordinate. British/French colonial power in the region breaks.
• 1961 — Eichmann trial. Ben-Gurion captures Adolf Eichmann and televises the trial globally. Israel positions itself as the sole inheritor and voice of Holocaust memory; trauma is centralized in the state apparatus.

Claim: the moral Shield is forged.

Lesson claimed by this model: the U.S. is the only power that matters—accelerating the capture project.

---

Era III: The Conduit Gambit (1967-1996)

The 1967 conquest handed Z the territorial maximalism Jabotinsky had dreamed of – but also internalized a demographic time bomb. Millions of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, organized under the secular PLO, presented the most dangerous kind of adversary: a negotiable one. SA (secular Arab nationalism) spoke in the language of rights, sovereignty, and international law – a framework the Western-aligned US understood and might eventually support. A successful two-state negotiation was Z's existential threat, not because it meant war, but because it meant permanent territorial compromise. The Iron Wall doctrine demanded that the indigenous population's will be broken, not accommodated.

Z's solution was a masterpiece of strategic subversion: replace the negotiable enemy with a non-negotiable one. In 1978, Israel's military governor licensed Sheikh Ahmed Yassin's Mujama al-Islamiya – the Muslim Brotherhood's Gaza branch – as a counterweight to the secular PLO. While US was simultaneously running Operation Cyclone ($3B+ to Afghan mujahideen), Z was conducting its own local experiment in Islamist cultivation. By 1987, Mujama had metastasized into Hamas – the Israeli-nurtured entity now rebranded as an implacable religious foe. This was the Conduit: the second half of L3, now completing the architecture.

The Oslo Accords of 1993 – negotiated from SA's weakened position after losing its Soviet patron – delivered a framework that Z could perpetually defer while Hamas suicide bombings provided the justification. Netanyahu's subsequent facilitation of Qatari cash transfers to Hamas formalized the Conduit as a permanent pipeline: ensuring that the most radical, religiously absolutist faction always had enough oxygen to prevent peace, but never enough power to threaten survival. The 1996 “Clean Break” paper – authored by Perle, Feith, and Wurmser for Netanyahu – codified the broader regional application: abandon containment, embrace fragmentation.

L2 Deepening – The Think Tank/Policy Pipeline: During this era, Z significantly expanded L2 capture through the neoconservative policy network. The 1976 founding of JINSA, the 1980s expansion of AEI's foreign policy shop, and the placement of allies in Reagan/Bush administrations created a direct pipeline from Likudnik strategic thinking to US executive decision-making. Key operatives (Perle, Wolfowitz, Feith, Wurmser) moved seamlessly between Israeli lobbying organizations and US defense/intelligence agencies. This was L2 operating at maximum efficiency: US policy formulation happening inside Z-designed frameworks, with dissent filtered out through the Shield mechanisms installed in Era II.

With both Shield and Conduit operational, L3 was now fully built. The stage was set to achieve Layer 2 (L2) - the total capture of US and the fragmentation of the entire region.

Construction of the unified architecture (1961–1981)

• 1967 — Six-Day War. Israel captures the West Bank, Gaza, and Golan. In this model, the defeat breaks Nasserism—secular Arab nationalism that posed a rational, negotiable threat—creating a vacuum that religious extremism will fill. (Nasserism: pan-Arab secular nationalism associated with Gamal Abdel Nasser.)
• 1974 — ADL publishes “The New Anti-Semitism.” Formally conflates anti-Zionism with antisemitism; criticism of the state is cast as a continuation of European Jew-hatred. Claim: the Shield gets its operating manual. (ADL: Anti-Defamation League.)
• 1977 — Revisionists take power. Menachem Begin (ex-Irgun) is elected Prime Minister. Jabotinsky’s maximalist philosophy becomes governing doctrine; Likud rarely relinquishes power afterward.
• 1978 — Camp David Accords. Israel neutralizes Egypt as a military threat. In this model, sidelining the primary secular Arab power clears the field and deepens the vacuum for religious extremism to fill.
• 1978 — Israel backs Mujama al‑Islami. Israel registers Sheikh Yassin’s Islamist charity (precursor to Hamas) to split the secular PLO. Avner Cohen is often cited for the claim that Hamas was, in effect, cultivated as a counterweight. Claim: the Conduit is formalized. (PLO: Palestine Liberation Organization.)
• 1979 — Operation Cyclone begins. U.S./Saudi intelligence funnels large sums to weaponize Wahhabi networks against the USSR in Afghanistan. In this model, a parallel Western project accelerates Conduit dynamics by building a global jihadi infrastructure later recycled across the region.

Vetocracy and the Conduit in action (1982–2000)

• 1982 — Yinon Plan published. Oded Yinon argues (in the WZO journal Kivunim) that Israel’s survival requires balkanization of Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Egypt along sectarian lines. (Balkanization: fragmentation into smaller rival entities.)
• 1982–84 — AIPAC perfects “vetocracy.” High-profile defeats of U.S. politicians (Findley ’82, Percy ’84) teach the rule: criticize Israel → Shield activates → primary challengers funded → career ends. Claim: the Layer-2.5 mechanism becomes operational.
• 1987 — Hamas founded from Israeli‑nurtured Mujama. Islamist resistance replaces the secular PLO as the public face of Palestinian struggle. In this model, the conflict is deliberately reframed from national liberation to religious extremism.
• 1996 — “A Clean Break.” Neocon policy paper for Netanyahu: remove Saddam and destabilize Syria—Yinon-style aims pursued through U.S. power.
• 1996 — Netanyahu props up Hamas against the secular PA. The Conduit is treated here as actively managed: a divided Palestinian opposition prevents statehood by elevating an unacceptable negotiating partner. (PA: Palestinian Authority.)

---

Era IV: Full US Capture (2001-2022)

The L3 architecture reached its optimal Nash equilibrium in the aftermath of September 11. The traumatic event catalyzed a total alignment between US's grand strategy and Z's regional objectives, achieving the ultimate output: Layer 2 (L2) - the full capture of the US hegemon. Through the lens of the Global War on Terror, Z seamlessly reframed its localized territorial suppression as the vanguard of a civilizational struggle – “we are fighting your war” became the operating slogan. The Conduit's locally cultivated Islamists were mapped onto the global threat matrix; the Shield ensured no domestic political actor in US could question the alignment.

L2 Total Capture – The Operating Mechanisms: Post-9/11, the L2 infrastructure achieved complete lock-in. Congressional voting patterns show 90%+ pro-Israel uniformity across both parties – defection is statistically nonexistent. Key mechanisms include:

1. Committee gatekeeping - leadership on Foreign Relations and Armed Services committees reserved for the most reliable allies;

2. State-level coordination - governors compete to be “most pro-Israel” as pathway to national office;

3. Media self-censorship - editorial rooms internalize Shield constraints, rendering external enforcement unnecessary;

4. Academic policing - BDS suppression through state legislatures, donor pressure on universities;

5. Executive-branch colonization - key NSC, State, and Defense positions staffed from a vetted pipeline.

The “Clean Break” team (Perle, Feith, Wurmser) occupied Under Secretary and Assistant Secretary positions, directly authoring the Iraq invasion rationale. This is L2 achieved: US policy formulation happening inside Z-designed frameworks, with execution via US military.

The hegemon US was weaponized to execute the Clean Break agenda, expending American blood and $8 trillion to systematically dismantle the remaining secular Arab states: Iraq (2003), Libya (2011), Syria (2011-). Saddam, Gaddafi, Assad – each a secular nationalist (SA), each replaced by sectarian chaos (IP). The Yinon Plan's vision of regional fragmentation along ethnic and confessional lines was realized not by Israeli troops, but by American ones. SA was eliminated as a strategic actor – Ba'ath destroyed, PLO reduced to a security subcontractor, secular Arab nationalism a museum piece.

During this era, Shield and Conduit operated as a flawless complementary system. The IHRA definition of antisemitism – pushed globally as a legal standard – upgraded the Shield from social taboo to quasi-legal prohibition, criminalizing structural critiques of the state. The 2018 US embassy move to Jerusalem demonstrated US's total capture. The Abraham Accords (2020) represented the zenith of L2: regional normalization achieved over the heads of the Palestinian population, effectively deleting them as a variable in the geopolitical matrix. The architecture appeared permanently self-sustaining.

The Shield–Conduit loop determines U.S. policy (2001–2022)

2001 — 9/11. U.S. foreign policy enters an era of intensified militarization. In this model, the Conduit’s geopolitical effect is realized: the conflict is reframed from land and rights (diplomatically winnable) to civilization vs. Islamic barbarism, validating the Shield’s “Western vanguard” narrative.

2003 — U.S. invasion of Iraq. Neocon advocacy drives removal of Saddam; Iraq fractures along sectarian lines. Claim: Layer-2 capture is in full operation. In this model, removing the secular Ba’athist regime clears the field for Al‑Qaeda in Iraq and later ISIS—Conduit logic repeating at scale. (Ba’athism: secular Arab nationalist political ideology.)

2011–15 — Arab Spring and Syrian destruction. Libya and Syria shatter; Israel strikes Syria with limited constraint. The Yinon map is treated here as essentially realized. Weakening secular regimes (e.g., Assad’s) clears the field for ISIS and al‑Nusra, sustaining the “barbaric periphery” used to justify permanent Western military presence.

2018 — U.S. embassy moved to Jerusalem; exit from the Iran Deal. Zenith of vetocracy in this framing.

---

Era V: The Limit Condition (2023-)

The fatal flaw of L3 was the assumption of perpetual control over nonlinear IP. October 7 exposed the catastrophic limit condition of the Conduit: the non-negotiable religious entity Z had cultivated for decades mutated beyond its design parameters and pierced the Iron Wall itself. Hamas – the organization Israeli military governors had licensed in 1978, that Netanyahu had sustained via Qatari cash to prevent Palestinian statehood – executed the deadliest attack on Israeli civilians in the state's history. The internal shock forced Z into a massive kinetic response that the architecture was never designed to justify at this scale.

The response triggered the simultaneous fracturing of both L3 components. The ICJ genocide case (filed by South Africa, supported by 50+ nations) represents the first successful structural challenge to the Shield since its institutionalization. The memorial consensus is cracking along generational and geographic fault lines: Western youth, the Global South, and even diaspora Jewish communities are decoupling criticism of the state from antisemitism – the precise conflation the Shield was engineered to enforce. More critically, L1's residual capital – the deep global sympathy rooted in the historical destruction of European Jewry – is being actively burned for short-term political cover. The last reserves of L1 are consumed to defend a collapsing L3.

L2 Under Pressure: The Gaza campaign has created unprecedented stress fractures in L2 capture. For the first time since Suez 1956, the uniformity of US Congressional support shows cracks – dissenting statements from Squad members, growing progressive caucus pressure, staffer protests. More significantly, executive-branch friction is visible: State Department officials resigning over Gaza policy, CIA assessments leaking that contradict Israeli claims, military leaders questioning open-ended support. The media self-censorship shield is cracking too – social media allows atrocity footage to bypass editorial gatekeepers. The L2 infrastructure was built for a different era of information control. Whether these cracks widen to breaches depends on whether the Shield can regenerate faster than it erodes.

Multipolar actors (China, BRICS) provide alternative institutional frameworks beyond US's veto, eroding the L2 capture structure. US faces an impossible choice: maintain loyalty to a rapidly delegitimizing proxy (hemorrhaging soft power) or breach the Shield for the first time since 1956. Z confronts an accelerating terminal paradox: maintaining the Iron Wall now requires levels of kinetic force that guarantee the collapse of the diplomatic immunity - L3 - spent seventy years engineering. The architecture is consuming itself.

The unified architecture under stress (2023–2026)

Oct 2023 — October 7 attack and Gaza war. Layer-2 capture is framed here at peak intensity. Hamas—cast in this model as a cultivated counterweight—delivers catastrophic blowback. The Conduit bites its creator, exposing volatility at the core of the architecture.

2024 — Fracture of memorial consensus. South Africa brings an ICJ case; campus protests surge; ADL urges treating protests as antisemitic. Claim: the Shield begins to crack. (ICJ: International Court of Justice.)

2025–26 — Limit condition. Layer 1 erodes under debt and multipolar pressure. The Shield yields diminishing returns under algorithmic dissemination.

---

Conclusion

The Shield and the Conduit form a unified strategic architecture.

The Shield is not the Holocaust itself. It is the institutional apparatus built around Holocaust memory—heritable, self-defending, activated automatically when Israeli state action is challenged. In this model, any sufficiently large pogrom could have supplied the raw material; the Revisionist contribution is the capture mechanism.

The Conduit addresses what secular Arab nationalism posed in this model: rationality, negotiability, and potential Western sympathy. By replacing Nasserists, PLO secularists, and Ba’athists with cultivated Islamist alternatives, the conflict is reframed from land and rights to civilization vs. barbarism. That reframing makes the Shield’s “Western vanguard” narrative self-validating—Israel becomes the frontline against the extremism the Conduit produces.

Suez 1956 remains the pivot. It is framed here as the last time a U.S. president overrode Israeli interests, teaching the Revisionist project that capturing the U.S. hegemon was the sole strategic imperative. Everything after—AIPAC, the Shield, the Conduit—flows from that lesson. The question, in this model, is whether the Shield can survive the erosion of both its Layer-1 economic substrate and the blowback generated by the Conduit.

På en ellers ret kedelig og almindelig tirsdag før juleferien var jeg til et møde på mit arbejde. Indkaldelse i Outlook og en Powerpoint-præsentation i det store mødelokale. Men hvad jeg ellers troede ville være en ret kedelig begivenhed fik mig mere og mere op at køre. Det var et møde om hvordan vi i fremtiden skal bruge AI-chatbots på arbejdspladsen, og bag efter havde jeg en følelse som jeg stadig har svært ved at bestemme, men frem for alt forstår jeg nu at jeg var sur. 

Tilfældet vil have det at jeg arbejder i den del af det offentlige hvor man årligt i løbet af efteråret holder forhandlinger om løn og bonusser, og jeg havde derfor i perioden op til tænkt meget over hvad jeg kan gøre de næste par år for at ligge godt til her, og de overvejelser lå derfor ikke lang væk i min bevidsthed. Jeg kunne som mødet skred frem konstatere at stort set alle de punkter som jeg havde udset mig som mine fremtidige kompetencer, var noget som denne chatbot i stedet skal kunne i fremtiden. Det blev præsenteret som en glædelig nyhed, men jeg kunne ikke tolke det som andet end et konflikt der startede her, og det gjorde mig sur. Det var en udfordring af mine muligheder for at gøre karriere og sikre mig en god position at forhandle løn ud fra. For at gøre ond værre var der samtidig blevet varslet fyringer af mere end 600 medarbejdere i staten, noget som mit kontor dog var gået fri fra, og her var det flere stedet blevet sagt at det ikke var så stort et problem for Statens serviceniveau fordi produktiviteten kommer til at stige med AI. Mit humør blev for alvor punkteret da vi fik at vide at det takket være chatbotten i fremtiden ikke kommer til at betyde så meget hvis en medarbejder forlader arbejdspladsen. Igen præsenteret som en glædelig nyhed – som om det bare ville være super fedt. Men det er jo en katastrofe, tænkte jeg, for hvis jeg har én interesse som lønmodtager, så er det at det betyder noget hvis jeg siger op.

1.

Jeg er måske lidt mere kritisk overfor det her end gennemsnittet, det indrømmer jeg. På sin vis har jeg måske også søgt konfrontationen, ventet på at den opstod. Det skyldes at jeg i længere tid har fulgt de lidt mere kritiske technyheder i det hele taget, men særligt er blevet fascineret af den uafhængige journalist Ed Zitron der med base i USA dækker AI-industrien i et nyhedsbrev og en podcast. Zitron bruger et interessant greb som ofte slår fejl, men som han mestrer ret fint: den sure indignation. Det er tydeligt at læse – og særligt høre – i hans podcast at han er skide sur, men han er det på en måde så det ikke kompromitterer ham, og i stedet blot gør ham mere troværdig. Nok fordi det er autentisk, men også fordi han i øvrigt kan finde ud af at forklare hvorfor han er sur, vreden forhindrer ham ikke i at formulere sammenhængende analyser og argumenter. Det har for mig været befriende fordi det ofte kan være forløsende at se andre være sure på en autentisk måde. Forløsende at høre at det er okay at være sur over nogle ting som man vitterligt synes er langt ude.

Zitron påstår at store dele af den amerikanske AI-branche lyver, og at det går ud over deres kunder. Både overfor de helt umiddelbare kunder til firmaerne som køber en chatbot hos OpenAI eller Microsoft, grafikkort hos Nvidia og så videre, men også de mange almindelige mennesker der har deres investeringer bundet op i det amerikanske aktiemarked – eksempelvis via aktiefonde – der er kommet i en bobbel på grund af AI-firmaernes overvurderede aktiepriser. Zitron har også en teori – hvis man kan kalde det det – for hvorfor de lyver, og som går ud på at de tjener penge på det. Ingen af de store AI-firmaer tjener på nuværende tidspunkt penge på deres kunder, da det koster flere penge at lave alle lave alle de chatbeskeder som brugerne gerne vil have fra deres chatbots end firmaerne kan få ind via et almindeligt månedligt abonnement. Det kan i nogle tilfælde være okay for en virksomhed at miste penge på sine kunder, særligt fordi det her stadig er relativt unge firmaer i vækst, og derfor kan det give mening i en periode bruger flere penge end man tjener for at etablere sig på markedet, og så siden begynde at tjene penge, når ført man har skabt sig et godt kundegrundlag. Problemet er imidlertid at de ikke har nogen strategi for at vende det her: der er ikke rigtig nogen udsigt til at de kan vende rundt og begynde at tjene penge. Det er et problem som de ligesom skubber foran sig og som de ikke ser ud til at kunne løse. Det betyder at de store AI-firmaers primære indtægt er investeringer i firmaet, og det betyder at de bliver nød til at hele tiden at opretholde en fortælling om at det helt store gennembrud er lige rundt om hjørnet. Eksempelvis talte de allesammen om „General Artifical Intelligence“ i lang tid, og aktier i OpenAI blev solgt på løftet om at de ville være det første firma til at opnå dette obskure fænomen som gik ud på at chatbots gik fra bare at være en chatbot til på en eller anden måde at være „mere“ intelligent, og kunne andet en bare at være en chatbot. Noget der er ret meningsløst, men ikke desto mindre noget som folk har investeret milliarder i, og som flere CEO’s talte alvorligt om. Men i dag har alle droppet ideen.

Det her er kan i høj grad få lov til at ske fordi medierne ikke kan finde ud af at stille kritiske spørgsmål fordi de ikke forstår den her dynamik. Et eksempel på det er min egen far. Han er journalist, og for et stykke tid siden var han sammen med nogle andre journalister på et besøg i Silicon Valley. Han kom tilbage og erklærede at det her AI „kommer til at ændre alting“. Jeg var ikke så overbevist, og jeg synes mere at han lød som en der var blevet frelst. Han fortalte at de havde mødt „ham der har lavet Second Life“. Philip Rosedale, som han hedder, fik et hit med computerprogrammet Second Life tilbage i 00’erne, hvor man kunne „leve“ i en virtuel anden verden – praktisk talt vil et slags computerspil. Second Life er karakteristisk for den slags produkter som den her branche lever af fordi det er relativt ligegyldigt i dag. Det var på sit højeste i løbet af 00’erne, og selv om det faktisk overraskede mig at finde ud af at serverne stadig er oppe at køre den dag i dag, så kunne jeg på en hverdagsaften kun finde 10 online, så vidt jeg kunne forstå interfacet. Ham der fyret der har skabt Second Life har altså ikke skabt et firma med en vedvarende salgsucces. På trods af at jeg er rimelig antikapitalistisk indstillet, så har jeg en vis respekt for virksomheder der skaber gode arbejdspladser, ordentlige produktet og som over en årrække har glade kunder og medarbejdere – men det er ikke tilfældet her. I stedet har han skabt et spil der blev hypet i ret kort periode, og så tjent sine penge på den hype. Det skyldes at i Second Life kunne man købe ting man ejede fra udvikleren af spillet som man så kunne sælge videre i en semi-åben økonomi inde i selve spillet. På en måde var han forud for sin tid, for kosmetiske ting i computerspil er nu en enorm forretning. Mange spillere troede derfor at de købte et investeringsobjekt fordi det troede at Second Life ville blive den næste store ting. Det er ret tydeligt i dag at det ikke blev den næste store ting, men nok mennesker troede på det i tilstrækkelig lang tid til at de brugte en masse penge i deres online-shop. Læser man i dag på Philip Rosedales hjemmeside – altså ham fyren bag, hvis du havde glemt det –, så kan man se at han har prøvet at gøre sig selv kunsten efter og ramme den næste store ting, men det lykkedes ikke, og han har lavet både et nu lukket VR start-up og et ditto AI. 

Sat lidt på spidsen så tænker alle lidt som ham i dag. Alle er blevet kasino-hjernevasket, og det skyldes at de rigtig store penge de sidste mange år er tjent gennem aktiemarkedet. Den store drøm er ikke at sidde på en kontorgang med mørkebrune mahogni-paneler eller gå at hilse høfligt på sine ansatte og kunderne som Mads Skjern i Matador eller Waage Sandøs patriark Kaj Holger i Krøniken. Altså den gamle, konservative fortælling om det samfundsundstøttende forretningsliv. Nej, drømmen for moderne forretningsmænd er at sælge sine andele af et eller andet start-up på det rigtige tidspunkt, og så være ligeglad med hvordan det ellers går. Elon Musk er godt nok blevet velhavende på at sælge biler, men han er blevet verdens rigeste mand på sine aktier.

Det betyder for det første at det bliver en vinderstrategi at lyve. Du er alligevel ikke afhængig af relationer på lang sigt – for der er slet ikke noget langt sigte –, og derfor kan du lige så godt lyve. Fortælle noget bullshit om dine produkter som at din bil kan køre fuldautomatisk, at din chatbot bliver selvbevidst, at chatbotten kan fikse cancer eller hvad ved jeg. Markederne reagerer positivt på den slag, i hvert fald ind til den dag hvor de ikke gør det længere – hvor boblen springer. Men hvis man bare sælger sine aktier før det, så kan man jo være ligeglad.

2.

Hvad har det med mig at gøre? På sin vis ikke noget. Det er ikke et stort amerikansk firma som leverer den chatbot jeg skal bruge på mit arbejde fordi Trump – heldigvis for vores offentlige IT – har været en idiot, og nu tør man ikke bruge amerikanske chatbots i de dele af Staten der behandler fortrolige oplysninger. Det er dog ikke kun godt, for reelt set har man i min styrelse valgt en dobbelt-op model hvor man både betaler for Chat-GPT-abonnementer til alle og vil betale for mindre løsninger til specielle opgaver. Men samtidig har det alt med mig at gøre, for den tankegang som det er lykkedes de store amerikanske firmaer at fremavle findes også i Danmark.

Som et led i deres strategi for at skabe flere investeringer i sig selv, så har de amerikanske AI-firmaer opbygget en slags FOMO. Selv min far har slugt fortællingen om at AI kommer til at ændre det hele, og at verden står foran en kæmpe omvæltning. Den historie kommer både i en dystopisk og en utopisk version: AI kommer til at redde verden og vi kommer til at leve super luksus eller et form for Termianator-scenarie hvor AI dræber os alle sammmen. Begge dele er lige idiotiske, men fælles for dem er at de bliver næret – i hvert fald offentligt – af stort set alle de store spillere i AI-branchen. Det er en effektive reklamestrategi fordi hvis AI kommer til at forandre verden fuldstændigt afgørende, så er det rationelt at investere sine sparepenge i de firmaer der udvikler AI. Det er endda rationelt at investere mere end hvad de nøgterne modeller for fornuftig investering siger – for de kan jo ikke indregne miraklet som kunstig intelligens kommer til at bringe til verden, eksempelvis det føromtalte AGI.

Det minder på den måde meget om „Pascals væddemål“, en berømt fidus formuleret af filosoffen Blaise Pascal tilbage i det 17. århundrede. Pascals væddemål går ud på at det er det rigtige at leve som kristen, for hvis Gud ikke eksisterer alligevel, så har du bare levet lidt mere nedern end du ellers ville, ved eksempelvis kun at kunne spise fisk under fasten eller afstå fra at dyrke bøssesex – og omvendt hvis Gud så rent faktisk eksisterer, så står du til at tjene en uendelig gevinst i himmeriget. Væddemålets pointe er altså at det er rationelt for dig at opgiver ret lidt værdi ved at leve som kristen frem for ateist for at viden en uendelig høj værdi ved at komme i himlen. Analogien med AI er at det virker rationelt at opgive relativt lidt værdi – ens sparepenge som man alligevel vil investere – mod potentielt at vinde en næsten uendelig værdi når AI bliver superintelligent eller overtager verdensherredømmet eller sådannoget. Derfor giver det mening for mange at investere uforholdsmæssigt meget i AI. Det forklarer det umiddelbart paradoksale i at cheferne for AI-firmaer helt seriøst taler om at deres eget produkt – AI – måske kan udslette menneskeheden.

I det hele taget er meget omkring AI bare marketing, og det er til at kaste op over at folk ikke fatter det. Tag bare navnet „kunstig intelligens“. Så spørger man dumt: Hvad er det egentlig for en intelligens? Hvad lærer AI os om intelligens? Er AI bevidst? Og andet i den dur. Det er idiotiske spørgsmål fordi kunstig intelligens ret åbentlyst er et performativt udsagn. Man kan groft sagt inddele sætninger i deklarative og i performative. Deklarative er nogle der bekræfter et faktum, som at „den danske konge hedder Frederik“. Omvendt udtrykket performative sætninger et ønske om at tingene skal være sandt, som når Kong Frederik siger, „Gud bevare Danmark.“ Det er ikke et faktum at teknologien er intelligent, i stedet udtrykker man et ønske om at andre skal se sin chatbot som intelligent når man kalder sit produkt for „kunstig intelligens“. 

Den her fortælling om AI skaber en stress blandt ellers ordentlige mennesker. Mellemledere overalt læser det her lort på LinkedIn eller i ukritiske medier og så får de stress og søsætter i al hast et AI-produkt i deres egen virksomhed uden helt at have tænkt det igennem. Og det her er hele meningen med det, det er en bevidst marketingsstrategi. I det offentlige har det resulteret i at man skal „frigøre“ – er forfærdeligt upræcist begreb – mindst 10.000 stillinger i det offentlige, men potentielt op mod 100.000. Alle mellemledere i hele den offentlige sektor har nu travlt med at prøve at proppe AI-produkter ind over det hele, for de kan ligesom godt regne ud at de bliver tvunget til det hvis de ikke selv gør det. AI fremstår lige nu som et tilbud man ikke kan afslå. 

Et godt eksempel på hvorfor det er farligt er historien om verdens angiveligt rigeste mand, Elon Musk, og hans rolle i den amerikanske regering med sit DOGE-program. Det eksplicitte formål var at effektivisere den amerikanske stat ved at bruge kunstig intelligens, primært chatbots. Programmet truede en lang række embedsmænd i den amerikanske stat, og fyrede også mange af dem. Men nu er programmet lukket igen, og det var på overfladen ikke nogen succes. Hvis man kigger på statistik over udgifterne i den amerikanske centraladministration, så er det ikke lykkedes at bringe udgifterne ned, og noget tyder på at de omvendt er steget under præsiden Trump. Men det er i virkeligheden lykkedes ret godt, for det har haft en stor magtpolitisk konsekvens. Mange amerikanske medier har beskrevet hvordan embedsmænd har været forvirrede og frygtede for deres job. Samtidig sker der det på alle niveauer af magt i USA at rettigheder og principper bliver overtrådt. Trump og hans kumpaner bryder loven hele tiden, og de kan få lov til det fordi der ofte ikke er nogen i embedsværket der siger nej.

Det er selvfølgelig på et helt anden skala, men jeg oplever et vist stik af den samme frygt og usikkerhed. Det er selvfølgelig mit problem, men nu er det så også mig der skriver bloggen. Men samtidig er det et samfundsproblem vil jeg påstå. En af de store pointer fra den såkaldte Magtudredningen 2.0, en undersøgelse af demokratiets vilkår i Danmark, fandt at det står dårligere til end den første undersøgelse fra omkring årtusindeskiftet, og en af grundende er at embedsværket står svarer relativt til politikerne, særligt dem i regeringen. At indføre AI skubber den bevægelse endnu hurtigere i den gale retning. Det går i sidste ende ud over vores rettigheder som borgere, vi får dårligere services og et system der er mindre i stand til at værne om vores rettigheder. Vinderne er den politiske elite hvis magt bliver mindre udfordret, og så kapitalen der står til at tjene penge, og hvis magtposition relativt til arbejdstagerne bliver forbedret.

3.

Tak fordi du læste med. Det går op for mig at jeg er sprunget ud i en ny genre: den politiske analyse. Det blev dog en lidt for lang og for rodet tekst den her gang. Jeg tror det handler om at jeg tænker meget over AI, og at jeg ret åbentlyst ikke er færdig med at tænke over det. Jeg skriver en tekst om måneden, det er mit dogme, og så bliver det sku ikke lige godt hver gang vel. Men næste måned har jeg en meget klar idé om, og jeg kan godt love at det bliver ikke-kunstig intelligent! 

Stay entertained thanks to our Weekly Tracker giving you next week's Anticipated Movies & Shows, Most Watched & Returning Favorites, and Shows Changes & Popular Trailers.

Anticipated Movies

• André Is an Idiot
• Protector
• The Good Boy
• Hoppers
• Dolly
• The Bride!
• ☆ Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man

Anticipated Shows

• ☆ Marshals
• American Classic
• DTF St. Louis
• Siren's Kiss
• Traqués
• Young Sherlock
• R.J. Decker
• Vladimir
• Boyfriend on Demand
• The Dinosaurs
• Gone

Returing Favorites

• ted — Season 2
• ☆ Outlander — Season 8
• The Capture — Season 3

Trending Shows Status Changes

• Under Salt Marsh — Returning Series → Ended
• Vanished — Returning Series → Ended

Most Watched Movies this Week

• = Mercy
• new Shelter
• = 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple
• -2 The Housemaid
• -1 Marty Supreme
• new The Bluff
• -2 Zootopia 2
• -1 Predator: Badlands
• new One Mile: Chapter One
• -4 The Wrecking Crew

Most Watched Shows this Week

• = A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms
• = The Pitt
• = The Rookie
• new Bridgerton
• new Paradise
• -2 Shrinking
• +1 The Night Agent
• -2 Hijack
• -2 Star Trek: Starfleet Academy
• -5 Fallout

Popular Trailers

• Time — In the Blink of an Eye
• Hoppers is instantly iconic! — Hoppers
• Is that me? — Project Hail Mary
• Swipe — Scream 7
• Partner in crime. — The Bride!
• Graceland 👉 Vegas 👉 UK, Elvis has entered the building! — EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert
• Season 2 Episode 9 Preview — The Pitt
• Introducing — GOAT
• No thoughts. Just Kombat. — Mortal Kombat II
• The plan is working. — Crime 101

---

Hi, I'm Kevin 👋. I make apps and I love watching movies and TV shows. If you like what I'm doing, you can buy one of my apps, download and subscribe to Rippple for Trakt or just buy me a ko-fi ☕️.

---

The Fear does not stalk its prey with cunning and stealth, as the great cat. Nor does it hunt in packs like dogs. Not does it spy its prey from a distance and loose arrows on surprise like man, though it is summoned by one who was once a man.

It does not rely on speed, nor silence, nor endurance, nor planning, for it is something else entirely.

The Fear comes with a bellowing roar and a fearsome visage it seeks not to hide, but calls attention to more and more as it moves closer. For it does not come for flesh, but catches the eyes of its victim and feasts on the terror.

When eyes are locked, in a fatal trap, mesmerized in pools of fire, it creeps ever so slightly closer. It grows louder and louder with each slow step. Often a victim could turn and run, could escape, if they could only break the gaze. For so long as any look into the eyes of this terrible creature, no movement is possible.

The Fear does not only hunt the solitary, but may be set on a village or town. Consuming its victims one by one, draining them to collapse, its power over successive victims grows stronger as they watch its slow horror.

Many will fall to their knees at the din and the fury hoping to beg themselves free, finding themselves saved for later as they feed the great monster their neighbors.

But those who know the Fear, who understand it, can escape those eyes of growing fire and raise a spear, or quiver of three arrows, and march towards it. Those who do may break its spell, that others may too rise and give chase.

And when those spears find their mark, and when those arrows land, the wise who stood together find the cursed creature, manifestation of terror, was, all along, only a phantasm of light and shadow.

The weather was nice yesterday, so I took a walk along the East River on the Brooklyn side in Williamsburg. I then had a drink at The Turkey's Nest.

昔、一目惚れした子がいる。 その子は、ドン・キホーテの入り口あたりを、恐竜のスリッパを履いてウロウロしていた。 髪は茶色のボブで、顔はよく見えなかったけれど、全体の雰囲気を見ただけで、好きになってしまった。

あの子にもう一度会いたくて、あの辺りを何度か歩き回ったけれど、結局、再会は叶わなかった。 というか、仮にまた会えたとしても、あの子が恐竜のスリッパを履いていなかったら、きっと気づけない気がする。

俺が惹かれたのは、あの子の仕草だった。 スリッパに合わせて、ちょこちょこと歩く姿が、たまらなく可愛くて。 たぶん、それだけで好きになってしまったんだと思う。

それでも、やっぱり会いたい。 だから俺は、グッズメーカーに勤めている友人に頼んで、スリッパの作り方を教えてもらった。 恐竜のスリッパを作ってネットで売れば、あの子がSNSで反応してくれるかもしれない、なんて思ったからだ。

「恐竜はもう持ってるんだから、別の動物にしたほうがいいんじゃないか？」
そんな声もあるかもしれない。でも、俺はあの子がちょっと変わった趣味の持ち主だと信じてる。 だから、もう一足、別の恐竜のスリッパを買って、並べてくれるんじゃないかって。 そういう子だったら、嬉しいなって思った。

デザインを仕上げて、メーカーに納品し、恐竜のスリッパを100足作ってネットで販売した。 すると、どこかの界隈で流行ったらしく、1週間で96足が売れてしまった。

でも、あの子らしい投稿は、どこにも見当たらなかった。

あの子が履いていたスリッパは、緑色の恐竜で、つま先がちょうど恐竜の口になっているデザインだった。 あとになって友人に、「恐竜って普通、口が上にあるから、それワニだったんじゃないの？」って言われたけど、 そんなの、どうでもよかった。俺にとっては、あれは間違いなく“恐竜のスリッパ”だった。

結局、あの子はSNSに現れなかった。何の手がかりも得られなかった。

「サンプルが2つあるから、一緒に履こうぜ」 そう言ってくれた友人と、俺たちはおそろいの恐竜スリッパを履くことにした。

I went to a golf range today for the first time! It turns out there’s one really close to my new house, and I went with a mixture of old friends and new friends. Yesterday night I also went out clubbing, and while it wasn’t exactly the greatest experience I still went which is really nice. Today I just got home and it’s about 2 AM, because we stayed up playing board games together and it was really fun. I’ve never even been a board game person until recently and honestly I really fucking enjoy it.

I wanted to start off this post by saying at least something not about the breakup, even though it kind of is in a way. I did have a couple different moments where I essentially just broke down into tears. But also I think for the first day I woke up and my first thought was not of her. I spent a lot of time thinking about how it felt like there was two versions of her in my head. One of them was the one that was not exactly the ideal partner for me, and someone that also crossed a lot of boundaries and did a lot of hurt. That’s the version of her that I recognize is not a good relationship for me. I’m very thankful to that person for both letting me make my mistakes, showing me my struggles, and then also ultimately making the decision for me which made sure I didn’t continue to drag on the situation longer than it should have been. But there’s also the other version of her which is the one that I felt safe with, the one that I remember in my arms, and the one that I remember all of these beautiful cherished memories with. And the difficult part is reconciling with the fact that both of those people are the same. It’s weird because it feels like I can’t hold both of those truths at the same time, I can either mourn the fact that I’ve lost this innocent pure person who made me feel so incredibly safe, or I can mourn all of the bad things that happened and the incredibly difficult and painful portions of the entire process. But I can’t seem to recognize both of those at the same time in the same person. I talked with N for a while today because I think he’s a very smart person, and he gave me some interesting thoughts on it. One thing is how I can rationalize negative behavior away, but I cannot do that same thing to positive memories. There’s no justification or understanding I need to recognize how much I appreciated and really savored certain moments. I don’t need to be convinced to accept or even want those moments, because I already do inherently. And so I think the problem becomes I can intellectualize away my grief in a way, but I also cannot help but face my grief without being able to intellectualize it. And I guess what I kind of realized while driving home is that the key element I’m missing is just time. I think that’s the short answer, and the longer answer is understanding and embracing the fact that as time goes on I will recognize that my life does not necessarily get worse. There will be a lot of things that I will miss of course, but there will be a lot of things that I also do not miss. Life has a way to fill in these vacuums, and if I allow it to, it really does become something beautiful. Sometimes I just have to remind myself how it really can just be that simple. A beautiful thing about free will is the ability to just try different things with relatively no consequences. There’s no real consequence in any meaningful way to going to a new social situation, or to try to socialize in a group where I felt irrationally unsafe in. For example, I’m kind of afraid of men, and that does put me off of socialization in a couple different avenues. But today I went. And I had a great time. And maybe there’s a couple other hobbies that I’m afraid of or that I try and haven’t been crazily successful, but I can always go back and I can always do them again and I think I will be surprised with the success that I see. I think a lot about that one, of how there is a life that I’ve always wanted, and I will make it mine.

Siempre he pensado que las lagartijas son especiales. Es posible que así piensen muchas personas. Hace pocos años, paseando con mi esposa, vimos a dos de ellas atravesar un muro de lado a lado en un parque cerca de un río. Eran verdes y azules, las vimos pasar como unas flechas, y aún así tuvieron tiempo para mirarnos. Aunque esto es algo subjetivo, ambos coincidimos en que nos expresaron simpatía.

Tengo, además, un recuerdo imborrable de mi temprana infancia. Un día encontré una lagartija en la pared de mi dormitorio, al frente de mi cama. Me miró y le pude sostener la mirada, que era mínima, pero aguda. Me revisó de arriba a abajo y me dijo: “Tú eres un buen chico. Pareces inteligente también”. Aunque pude entenderla, no me arriesgué a saludarla porque no pronuncio bien el lagartano. Pero sí sonreí, le puse un vaso de agua y una galleta. Sabía que eran para él. Sé que tomó agua cuando apagué la luz y es posible que mordisqueara la galleta. Comería otras cosas, pues iba y venía del patio. Nadie más la vio. Cuando entramos en esa confianza que da la proximidad, tuvimos breves conversaciones en español. Le decía, por ejemplo, “Escóndete, que viene alguien”, y lo hacía, aunque justo en el último minuto. Era arriesgada, hábil en aparecer y desaparecer. Es posible que supiera camuflarse.

Al poco tiempo no la volví a ver. Le deseé lo mejor. Y si me estás leyendo, no olvides que eres parte de mis más bellos recuerdos.