Tootfinder

As salty as I am about it, there's also another way to think about this. For anyone who still has connections to folks on the right (which is perhaps unlikely for anyone on this server, I digress), the cult that has consumed them thrives on isolation and grievance.
The words "you were right" have the potential to cut through the programming and open up an opportunity for reconnection. The modern conspiratorial cult of the Right has been built partially around people who were told they were wrong or were crazy. In the vast majority of cases, they were wrong and even when they were right they completely misunderstood why, but we'll skip that for now. Liberals making fun of them (even the times when they definitely earned it) has pushed them further and further into their ideological hole.
The thing about those words, "you were right," in this context is that the way they offer reconnection also requires them to take one little step of betraying their ideology to accept them. So they must choose between maintaining allegiance to a pedophile or finally getting to feel superior after years of living in an illusion of persecution.
Under the ideology of the Right, admitting one is wrong is a weakness. It is admitting defeat. They have to "own the libs" by saying things, things that they know aren't true, in order to feel dominant. But these things are often so absurd that they end up being made fun of, feeling even more weak and pathetic, reinforcing their fear and alienation.
Offering what they're looking for can offer a way out, but only if they're willing to start to recognize the thing they've supported for what it is.
And they were right about some things. They were right that Bill Gates was a terrible person. I've had plenty of liberals defend him based on his philanthropy washing, but he's awful and always has been. The Epstein links make that blatant. They intuitively recognized him and didn't trust him, even if they were wildly off base about *how and why* he shouldn't be trusted... Even if their correct mistrust was leveraged into one of the most destructive conspiracy theories ever (vaccine denial and COVID vaccine avoidance).
They were right about Bill Clinton. He was always shady as fuck. Sure, the people who attacked him at the time turned out to be even more shady but that's not the point right now. He was connected to Epstein and that was always creepy as fuck.
And the Epstein thing was an open secret that liberals ignored for a long time. It was seen as some weird thing that right wing nutjobs believed about the Clintons. But it was true. Not all of it, and there has always been an antisemitic element to the right wing interpretation or Epstein stuff, but his whole pedophile conspiracy was always kind of real.
The whole "Illuminati"/deep state thing is a vast oversimplification, an attempt to make comprehensible an incredibly complex set of interlocking and emergent behaviors. But Epstein did very much want to remake the world, to create a new world order, and he absolutely played a part in it.
The Right wing nutjobs talked about global authoritarianism, Blackhawks flying over American cities, masked men with guns disarming and executing legal gun owners in the streets. That's all happening right now.
The "FEMA concentration camps" are not actually that far off. ICE and FEMA are sister agencies, both under DHS. I'd be more than happy to call that one "close enough" in order to hear some MAGA admit that ICE is, in fact, building concentration camps.
There was always a huge millennialist element to these things. They tended to be connected to "the antichrist." It was absurd, especially for me as someone who no longer identifies as a Christian. But I'll even acquiess that to a degree. The "the number of the Beast" is 666. That's just the sum of the Hebrew spelling of "Nero." Revelations focuses a lot on Nero coming back to life after his death. His death that involved a head wound, thus the line from Revelation 13:3:
> And I saw one of his heads as if it had been mortally wounded, and his deadly wound was healed. And all the world marveled and followed the beast.
The parallels between Trump and Nero are easy to draw, and Trump's ear wound feels pretty on-the-nose for this. I don't believe in "prophecy" in this way. I think that there are patterns, and useful patterns can become encoded in beleif systems. But I will, again, happily call this one "close enough" for anyone on that side willing to also acknowledge it. I'm happy to meet on that common ground, because anyone who accepts it must recognize that their duty is to fight against it.
A lot of these correct nuggets are embedded in a framework of religious extremism and antisemitism. The vast majority of the beliefs holding these together are wildly wrong and incredibly toxic. But by giving some room to feel validated, listened to, understood, can give some room to admit things that were wrong.
Cult de-programming starts with an opening. People have to talk through their own thoughts, hear their own inconsistencies. Guiding questions can help them untangle these things for themselves. And it all starts by having enough room to feel safe, to not feel cornered, to not feel stupid. Admitting mistakes means being vulnerable, and the MAGA cult is built on fear. It's built on exploiting vulnerability and locking it away.
De-programming takes a long time. It's not easy. It takes patience. But every person who comes out does so with a powerful perspective, a deep understanding, that can be turned back against it. The best people at getting people out of cults are former members. Some of the most dedicated antifa are former fascists who understood their mistakes and dedicate their lives to fixing them.

Imagine:
You are these parent of an adorable 4-year-old kid. They have made a toy airplane out of spare cardboard. Sadly, during play the wing has fallen off. You, a wise parent, produce a piece of duct tape and tape it back on. Your kid asks: "but what if the tape breaks, or the other wing falls off?" Dutifully, and with a completely serious manner, you duct tape the other wing, and then with a sharpie you write "Please DO NOT fall off!" on each wing. "There," you say, now the wings will not fall off. "
Your child happily returns to their play.
Imagine:
You are boarding a Boeing airplane for an intercontinental flight. Just the other day you were reading news about the emergency exit door falling off a Boeing airplane during flight. Thankfully nobody was injured in that incident, but a passenger could have been sucked out the gap and killed. As you walk down the aisle towards your seat at the back, you notice that around the emergency exit door of this plane, there are some scratch marks. It looks like it might not be 100% seated in place. You see several rolls worth of duct tape slapped onto the gaps between the door and the frame. In sharpie, someone has written "Please DO NOT fall off!" on the duct tape.
This is a post about #Agentic #AI.
To clarify: there are a host of reasons why using Claude Code is unethical in the first place, besides the fact that its a danger to its users. These make it unethical to use it even for a child's-toy-like application. But the source code we've just witnessed in the recent leak is *exactly* this level of "engineering." If you see an app that claims to be "programmed with AI" and it has any possibility of failing in a way that could harm you (for example, if it connects to the internet, meaning that poor programming could allow hackers to take over the device you run it on), my advice is: "Do not use it and warn your friends and family."
P.S. yes, this advice does apply to Microsoft Widows at this point, although that can be a tougher bullet to bite.

PROGRESSIVE CAUCUS DEPUTY CHAIR CALLS FOR IMMEDIATE VOTE TO END TRUMP'S ILLEGAL WAR ON VENEZUELA
Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) Deputy Chair Rep. Ilhan Omar (MN-05)
released the following statement after news that Trump launched airstrikes inside Venezuela and captured its head of state:
"Trump's invasion of Venezuela is blatantly illegal and unconstitutional.
He has no authority to deploy U.S. forces into foreign countries to bomb them, capture …

Good news for anyone working on their proposals for the next Fantastic Futures conference - the deadline is extended to April 16! #FF2026

5 Free Agent Fits for Christian Parker That Set Up the NFL Draft https://insidethestar.com/5-free-agent-fits-for-christian-parker-that-set-up-the-nfl-draft

Sadly couldn't join myself (wife wasn't feeling good and wanted me to stay home and help parent while she napped) but my SAR team participated in a great inter-agency training this past weekend.
It's always nice to practice alongside volunteers from other teams that we work with on real incidents and get to know each other without the pressure of a real emergency.
One note: I half feel like there should be a CW on this post for mentioning law enforcement in a positiv…

Alfred, Gunthrum & Danelaw The making of England. Dr Toby Purser, University of Northampton takes us on a tour of the Viking invasion of England. FREE Zoom talk https://www.ticketsource.co.uk/fostp 25 Mar 2026, 19.30 GMT. No Guthrum, no Alfred, no Alfred, no England ….

AVFTCN 040 – Returning From A Hiatus, and Plans for 2026
I'm back. After a self-imposed hiatus for most of 2025, I'm returning to something I've been deeply missing... writing and speaking. If you've been following me for any length of time, you know that not writing or speaking is, for me, a kind of pressure that builds and builds until I am ready to explode. 🤯 So what happened? The short version: my role at the…

AVFTCN 040 – Returning From A Hiatus, and Plans for 2026
I’m back. After a self-imposed hiatus for most of 2025, I’m returning to something I’ve been deeply missing… writing and speaking. If you’ve been following me for any …

Donald Trump threatened to stop supplying weapons to Ukraine
unless European countries joined a U.S. military effor to open the Strait of Hormuz,
the Financial Times (FT) reported on April 1,
citing people familiar with the discussions.
The report comes a month into the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran,
which has escalated across the Middle East.
Following the attacks, Iran has shut down the Strait of Hormuz, a key waterway through which roughly one-fifth o…

Trump threatened Europe over Strait of Hormuz, with weapons for Ukraine as bargaining chip, FT reports
Outraged at European countries' refusal to help the U.S. reopen the Strait of Hormuz, Trump threatened to halt the PURL program selling U.S. weapons to NATO for use in Ukraine, officials told the Financial Times.

As a demonstration for how difficult software and service transition can be, this press release concerns switching off just two of the services replaced by Universal Credit - a programme announced in 2010.
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/success

Successful DWP campaign leads to closure of historical benefits
Two benefits designed decades ago will officially close today following the successful delivery of the Move to Universal Credit campaign by the Department for Work and Pensions.