Depending on where you live, there may be a rat rescue that allows you to foster and try it out. We got Bernie from a rescue, but we had temporarily housed a few rats before him.

He has various litter boxes at his disposal, including one located in his "vacation home" in the bedroom closet.

Uh, no

I don’t think he’s deflecting. He’s confessing—upside down, backward, inverted and in reverse.

Really hoping this is the last week of my life that I'll be up until 2 a.m. reading/writing about the relationship between Silicon Valley and the "Antichrist."

A hooded fancy rat sleeping on my arm

Happy World Rat Day!

Remember: Rats are wingless angels—even the ones on the subway or in the basement.

Here is Bernie having a nap.

a man in a brown shirt is sitting in front of a smoke coming out of a pipe ALT: a man in a brown shirt is sitting in front of a smoke coming out of a pipe

“We should treat him as more of a messiah figure.”
— Noted Antichrist expert Peter Thiel, speaking about OpenAI CEO Sam Altman.

That’s the idea!

The idea is for oligarchs to capture all of the levers of power in a democratic society.

This is the core idea pushed by Peter Thiel gurus Curtis Yarvin and Balaji Srinivasan. Altman is another Thiel protégé whose connection to these ideas goes back to 2013.

The Most Powerful People in the World Are Obsessed With Media Again Sam Altman is buying his favorite show, Larry Ellison is buying CNN to merge it with CBS News, Jamie Dimon is toying with launching a venture. It may mark a new era of vanity media owners.

This is the Network State cult in action.

It calls for tech moguls use their wealth to buy their own versions of media, political power, cities, countries, educational institutions, etc.

The stated goal is to create an entirely "parallel" system.

www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/bus...

They didn’t?

Thanks. Some of the attacks have been quite defamatory and vicious—but the audience is small.

This subject matter is complex & fraught with peril. Despite its potential merits, it’s an anonymous site fronted by a notoriously volatile person with a terrible back story. (I’m not their only victim)

I wrote a five-part New Republic series on the Network State before that website existed. The people behind that website praised my work and cited it, then went into a bizarre meltdown because of my book deal.

As a journalist, I stick to sources with credibility and transparency. Caveat emptor.

Thanks. I was working on this issue before that site existed. When it first popped up, it cited *my* work. People should definitely do their research on who is behind that site before engaging. When my book deal was announced, they went into a jealous rage and began defaming me. Unhinged stuff.

Pete Hegseth Just Revealed the Real Roots of His Sadism and Rage Does God want America to kill as many of our enemies as we can—in as violent a fashion as possible? We have a defense secretary who apparently thinks so.

Pete Hegseth just held a prayer service in which he appealed for God's help in killing our "enemies" with maximal violence and brutality. Hegseth's bloodlust and sadism are drawing sustenance from his particular brand of far-right Christianity. 1/

(new piece from me)
newrepublic.com/article/2083...

New Political Group to Push Trump’s A.I. Agenda in Midterms

The main "use case" of AI and crypto is to kill democracy as quickly as possible.

Here's yet another AI group planning to spend zillions ($100 million) to buy elections and support the Trump agenda.

gift link:
www.nytimes.com/2026/03/29/b...

What I saw at No Kings today:
• crowds doubled in size from last year
• the crowd perfectly mirrors the community: high school and college kids, young families the elderly
• friendly, upbeat attitudes, shared values, love of community
• love of music, with four different bands performing

Look how aggressively we are sanitizing Kushner's conflicts. The NYT described Kushner as "having business interests" in the Middle East.

KUSHNER IS BEING DIRECTLY PAID TENS OF MILLIONS ANNUALLY BY MIDDLE EASTERN GOVERNMENTS

Such an exquisitely painstaking process. My chapter 1 became part of chapter five, and my second draft of chapter 1 became part of chapter nine. And the third draft of chapter 1 finally nailed it. So many words/hours on the cutting room floor. Can’t believe people are outsourcing this joy to AI.

By next week, he’ll be offering them discounts on nukes.

Rising Conservative Star Just Guy Wearing Nazi Armband And Crying

Rising Conservative Star Just Guy Wearing Nazi Armband And Crying theonion.com/rising-conservative-star...

Saudi Arabia Halts Yearslong Effort to Bring Skiing to the Desert The $38 billion Trojena project, the first outdoor ski resort in the region, was planned as a geography-defying statement of Saudi Arabian ambitions.

Whoopsie!

www.wsj.com/world/middle...

We're excited to give you a sneak peek of some of the expert speakers joining us at #TakeBackTech in Atlanta, GA, April 17-19th 👀 featuring @naomiaklein.bsky.social
@safiyanoble.bsky.social & @gilduran.com

ben affleck exhaustedly smoking a cigarette (meme)

Me on Day Two of wrestling the same four paragraphs towards perfection while reading about the wonders of "AI journalism"

Take Back Tech III promotional graphic highlighting three of our guest speakers, with the title, "Here's a Sneak Peek at our Speakers." On top is the date and location: April 17-19th in Atlanta, GA. Below this text are three three speakers' headshots. These speakers are Naomi Klein, Dr. Safiya Noble, and Gil Durán. You can learn more at takebacktech.com.

Speaker highlight for Naomi Klein features their headshot and bio: "Naomi Klein is an award-winning journalist, columnist, and the international bestselling author of nine books published in over 35 languages including No Logo, The Shock Doctrine, This Changes Everything, No Is Not Enough, On Fire, and Doppelganger: A Trip into the Mirror World which won the inaugural Women's Prize for Non-Fiction in 2024. A columnist for The Guardian, her writing has appeared in leading publications around the world. She is the honorary professor of Media and Climate at Rutgers University and is Associate Professor in Geography at the University of British Columbia where she is founding co-director of UBC's Centre for Climate Justice. Her new book, End Times Fascism, written with Astra Taylor will be released September 2026."

Speaker highlight for Dr. Safiya U. Noble, including their headshot and bio: "Dr. Safiya U. Noble is the David O. Sears Presidential Endowed Chair of Social Sciences and Professor at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). She is the Director of the Center on Resilience & Digital Justice and Co-Director of the Minderoo Initiative on Tech & Power at UCLA. Professor Noble is the author of the best-selling book on algorithmic harm in commercial search engines, entitled Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism (NYU Press), which has been widely-reviewed in scholarly and popular publications. In 2021, she was recognized as a MacArthur Foundation Fellow for her ground-breaking work on algorithmic discrimination. Dr. Noble is a board member of the Cyber Civil Rights Initiative, serving those vulnerable to online harassment, and provides expertise to a number of civil and human rights organizations."

Speaker highlight for Gil Durán, including their headshot and bio: "Gil Durán was born in Tulare, California, in 1976. The grandson of Mexican immigrant farmworkers, he got his first taste of work in the fields, but became interested in journalism after winning the local newspaper’s “My Mom Is The Best” contest in the fifth grade. He graduated from DePauw University in 1998 and started his journalism career at the San Jose Mercury News. As the newspaper industry hit turbulence, he pivoted to politics and spent 15 years advising politicians, including Jerry Brown, Dianne Feinstein, and Kamala Harris. In 2018, he returned to journalism as California opinion editor of The Sacramento Bee, and then became editorial page editor of the San Francisco Examiner. Now an independent journalist, he publishes two newsletters: The Nerd Reich, focused on extremist tech politics, and FrameLab, focused on political language."

We're excited to give you a sneak peek of some of the expert speakers joining us at #TakeBackTech in Atlanta, GA, April 17-19th 👀 featuring: @naomikritzer.bsky.social, @safiyanoble.bsky.social, and @gilduran.com.

And join us in Atlanta on April 17-19th by registering below:
takebacktech.com

ChatGPT Convinces Sam Altman To Kill Humanity

ChatGPT Convinces Sam Altman To Kill Humanity theonion.com/chatgpt-convinces-sam-al...

“.. He fought back tears as he explained what was there before: two wooden shelters, an outpost to make cheese, sheds for his equipment. The horse paddock was spared, but the chicken coop was gone.”

@nytimes.com
www.nytimes.com/2026/03/24/w...

Yes, he dances around next to the bed when he wants to snuggle. Or when he wants you to wake up at 4 am and give him a snack.

In the foreground: the detritus of his breakfast peas (he eats the insides and leaves the shells)