Viking berserkers were elite, battle-frenzied Norse shock troops who entered a trance-like state of wild fury known as berserkergang... Popular culture portrays Viking berserkers as mindless savages crazed by hallucinogenic mushrooms. Historical research shows they were sworn elite shock troops and personal royal bodyguards. The Old Norse word berserkr meant "bear-shirt," referring to predatory animal pelts worn into battle. Their terrifying battle frenzy, or berserkergang, was not fueled by chemical drugs. Instead, warriors induced an intense psychological trance through rhythmic chanting, weapon clashing, and surging adrenaline. Norse kings stationed them at the prow of warships specifically to shatter enemy morale before the lines collided. Once this extreme hysteria passed, the warriors crashed into days of severe physical and emotional exhaustion. When Scandinavia converted to Christianity, centralizing rulers refused to tolerate volatile, pagan brotherhoods. By the twelfth century, royal law codes officially banned berserkers, casting them out of history and into folklore. #drthehistories

“On Feb. 5, 2025, her first day in office, Attorney General Pam Bondi disbanded the FBI’s Foreign Influence Task Force, dismantled the department’s unit pursuing Russian oligarchs’ assets, and narrowed enforcement of the Foreign Agents Registration Act. CISA paused its election security work, abandoned the information sharing center that connected it to state and local election officials, and by mid-2025 had lost more than a third of its workforce. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard gutted the Foreign Malign Influence Center, the State Department closed its office for countering foreign disinformation, and National Security Council working groups on Russian sabotage and disinformation stopped meeting. The next target was the people. In August 2025, Gabbard revoked the security clearances of 37 current and former officials, among them a senior Russia analyst who helped produce the 2017 assessment, citing the “politicization or weaponization of intelligence.” Comey was indicted on Sept. 25, 2025, over his 2020 Senate testimony, five days after Trump publicly demanded his prosecution. A judge dismissed the case, but the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit is currently hearing the department’s appeal. CIA Director John Ratcliffe referred former Director Brennan for prosecution for alleged perjury in his congressional testimony, and Brennan has been subpoenaed to appear at a Florida grand jury examining whether officials who investigated Trump conspired against him. The purge also reached below the senior level, and analysts who worked on the 2017 assessment also had their clearances stripped. The FBI forced out a veteran counterintelligence agent over his ties to an official in the original Russia investigation, and dozens of FBI agents and Justice Department prosecutors were fired or demoted for work investigating Trump or Russia.”

If you've ever wondered why smart TVs are so cheap, this is why. @log4j rooted his Samsung and found an always-on hot mic, automatic content recognition, geolocation, network mapping, ad targeting and user profiling, shared with Samsung's "400 partners". A lot of it can be blocked in <15 min, wrote a basic guide below. What your TV is doing The main culprit is ACR (automatic content recognition). Your TV screenshots what's on screen, fingerprints it, and sends it home to build your ad profile. Samsung does it every 500ms, LG every 10ms [1]. What is insane: it happens on connected devices too. Plug in your laptop, your console, your work machine, and your TV can fingerprint that via HDMI [1]. He also found that if your Samsung doesn't have a mic, it'll look for one from a connected soundbar or bluetooth device. xitter.cf/log4j/status/211376224… It's on by default, and you likely agreed to it on the setup screen you clicked through in 10 seconds. Step 1: Turn off ACR Samsung: Terms & Privacy → Viewing Information Services LG: Live Plus Vizio: Viewing Data Roku: "Use info from TV inputs" Sony/Google TV: Samba Interactive TV Menus vary by model, but those are the names to look for. While you're in there, opt out of interest-based ads, reset your advertising ID, decline every optional privacy agreement, turn off voice recognition, and delete apps you never open. Step 2: Give smart devices their own network Put the TV, cameras, speakers and vacuum on your router's guest/IoT network. The logic is simple: these devices rarely get patched. If one gets compromised (getting drastically more frequent with AI), it shouldn't be able to see your other devices or home network. Step 3: Block trackers for the whole house with DNS-level filtering NextDNS (cloud-based) is easy and has a solid free plan. Pi-hole is a little bit more work if you prefer self hosting. For simplicity we'll focus on the former. 1. Sign up at nextdns.io (free tier is plenty) 2. Privacy tab: add a blocklist (OISD is a good bet) and turn on Native Tracking Protection for Samsung, LG, Roku, Amazon (see attached image) 3. Setup tab: copy your endpoint 4. Paste it into your router's DNS settings as DNS-over-HTTPS/TLS (or use the IPs + "Link IP" if your router only does plain DNS) 5. Bonus: block outbound port 53 except to your router. Some devices hardcode their own DNS to get around you Then open the NextDNS logs and watch how often your TV phones home. It's eye-opening. If an app or update breaks, find the domain in the logs and allowlist it. Why they do this TV prices are down 97% since 2000 [2]. Most of that is better manufacturing and brutal competition. But once margins on the hardware hit zero, the cost moved to you. In Q3 2024, Vizio lost $6.7M selling TVs and made $115.8M in gross profit from ads and viewing data [3]. They've said on earnings calls that they keep TV prices low to grow the audience they sell to advertisers. Walmart bought them in 2024. This isn't a conspiracy theory either. Vizio paid $2.2M to the FTC in 2017 for tracking 11 million TVs without consent. Last December, Texas sued Samsung, LG, Sony, Hisense and TCL over ACR. Samsung and LG have since agreed to stop collecting that data without explicit consent [4]. TL;DR 1. ACR off 2. Ads + voice off 3. Smart devices on their own network 4. NextDNS filtering on the router Sources: [1] ACR study: arxiv.org/abs/2409.06203 [2] Cost of US consumer goods: aei.org/economics/chart-of-t… [3] Vizio Q3 2024: sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/… [4] Texas v. Samsung: texasattorneygeneral.gov/new…

A rabbi's response to our President calling Jews "lacking knowledge and disloyal" if they vote Democratic: Rabbi Danny Maseng writes: As a Jew Since you called me out as a Jew, Mr. President, since you thought to call me disloyal or lacking knowledge by not voting for you, I’d like to respond to you personally, even though I have no illusions you will read this. As a Jew, Mr. President, I am commanded to love the stranger who dwells among us no less than thirty-six times in the Bible you claim to treasure. I am commanded to have one law for the stranger and the citizen. No exceptions. As a Jew, Mr. President, I am commanded to pay my employees on time, including undocumented workers at casinos, construction sites, or golf courses. As a Jew, I am commanded to repay bank loans and investors. As a Jew, I am commanded to never bear false witness. As a Jew, Mr. President, I am commanded to guard my tongue and speak no evil. As a Jew, Mr. President, I am commanded to never embarrass my fellow human being in public, lest I be accused of spilling their blood – including Ted Cruz or the late Senator and war hero, John McCain. As a Jew, Mr. President, I take great offense in my president attacking Denmark, a country that gallantly saved its Jews from the Nazis, while most of Europe fell asleep. As a Jew, Mr. President, I take umbrage in my Grandfather, the sainted Dr. Rabbi Harry S. Davidowitz, who inhaled poison gas in the trenches of WWI as a US Army chaplain, being called disloyal because he voted Democrat. As a Jew, born and raised in Israel, I take offense at you calling me disloyal to America AND to Israel because I oppose your inept, ghoulish, uncouth, deceitful, inhumane farce of leadership. How many tours of duty have you performed for Israel during wartime? Or, for that sake, the USA? As a Jew, Mr. President, I reserve the right to oppose Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib (neither of whom called upon the help of a former KGB operative to help them in their election to office), while simultaneously condemning your divisive, racist rants and policies. As a Jew who has proud Republican family members who I love and cherish, I am ashamed of what you have done to the Republican party; to conservative ideals – even if I do not share all of those ideals. As a Jew whose Christian uncle fought heroically at the Battle of the Bulge for our country and for the salvation of Europe – I am ashamed by the mockery you visit upon his sacrifice. As the son of a Christian pilot, later converted to Judaism, who led American pilots to glorious victory over Nazi Germany, I am outraged by your embrace of neo-Nazi’s and racists in America (that same pilot, who became a squadron commander in the Israeli Air Force, and fought for Israel’s independence). As a Jew, I am disgraced by your fawning adoration of the worst dictators of our century – you violate Christian and Jewish values by doing so. As a Jew; as a well-informed Jew who loves and cares deeply for Israel and for America, I condemn you and call you out for the divisive fool, the ogre, the ghoul that you are. May my soul not enter your council, let me not join your assembly.

In Spain, asylum seekers receive face massages paid for by taxpayers.

### Shimon Peres to Vladimir Putin: “I said to him: ‘You are 63 years old, and I am 93. Tell me, what do you want to achieve over the next 30 years? What are you fighting for? Are you hoping to irritate America?’ He replied: — No. — Does America want to take part of Russia? — No. — Do you have problems with Obama because of some misunderstanding? He asked: — Why are you asking me this? I said: — Listen, I am not a spy. You can talk to me about anything. He asked: — And what do you think? I replied: — America will win, no matter what you do. — Why? — he asked. — Because they are happy, and you are not. And I continued: When an American wakes up in the morning, what does he see? To the south, Mexico — and Mexicans are welcomed into his country. To the north, Canada, his best friend in the world. And to the east and west, fish swimming in the water. What does Obama have to worry about? And you? Who do you see around you when you wake up in the morning? Japan, China, Afghanistan? My God! They know you have an enormous territory, yet you give them nothing. You possess 20 percent of the world's freshwater reserves, but you share nothing with others. And when the snow in Siberia melts, the first people you will see there will be the Chinese. After all, there are many Chinese in the east and very few Russians. The second thing I told him was this: America has the best ratio of land area to population in the world. You have the worst. Twenty million square kilometers! My God! But you don't have enough people to develop that territory. Your people are dying. Do not be seduced by applause or by what people tell you. They will never forgive you for this. Why do Russians live, on average, only 62 years, while Americans live to 82? And then I told him: — You behave like a tsar. What did the tsars do? They built two cities — St. Petersburg and Moscow — as showcases. You can find anything you want there. But the rest of Russia is Nigeria covered in snow. Your people are dying. You are not giving them the opportunity to live with dignity. Do you really think they will forgive you? — Why is America great? — he asked. — Because America gives. And why does Europe have problems? Because Europe takes. America gives. People think Americans do this because they are generous. I believe they do it because they are wise. When you give, you make friends. The most valuable investment you can ever make is an investment in friendship. America had the courage to implement the Marshall Plan. It devoted an enormous share of its GDP to helping Europe, which was lying in ruins at the time. And by doing so, America proved that such assistance is one of the best investments in the world. There was not a single European country that had not been an empire. The French, the British, the Portuguese — they all had colonies. And what happened? They were driven out and left with nothing. Britain was the greatest empire, the empire on which the sun never set. It controlled all the oceans. But even the nonviolent resistance of the Indian people forced Britain to leave, reducing it to just three small islands that it now doesn't know what to do with. Believe me,’ I told Putin, ‘enemies and hostility are the greatest losses in life. You are investing in stupidity.’” — Attributed to Shimon Peres, former President of Israel, recounting a conversation with Vladimir Putin.

This is Tommy. Tommy had a question about my allegiances. Listen to the end to hear about his.

Mata Hari, the exotic dancer and international sex symbol, photographed at the height of her fame. On October 15, 1917, she was executed by firing squad after being convicted of espionage for Germany. Born Margaretha Geertruida Zelle on August 7, 1876, in the Netherlands, the woman who would become one of the world’s great sex symbols began life in privilege. This ended when her father declared bankruptcy when she was 13. From there, her life took a series of increasingly unfortunate turns: a teachers’ college where she was pursued by the headmaster and blamed for the resulting scandal, followed by marriage to a Dutch colonial military officer more than 20 years her senior whom she met through a personal ad. The marriage was a disaster. Her husband was an abusive alcoholic and adulterer, their eldest son died at just two years old, and after their divorce, he refused to pay child support and never returned their daughter after a visit. While living with her husband in Java, Zelle adopted the name Mata Hari, from the Malay word matahari, meaning “eye of the day.” After her marriage collapsed, she moved to Paris and reinvented herself as an exotic dancer, rapidly rising to fame. Drawing on her years in Indonesia, she crafted a persona as a Javanese princess of Hindu birth who had studied sacred Indian dance since childhood before being cast out of her homeland by the Dutch military. The story was largely a fabrication, but it made for one hell of an act. Mata Hari adopted elaborate East Indies-inspired costumes and jewelry, incorporating a form of striptease into her performances. She gradually removed her robes until she was left wearing little more than a jeweled breastplate, sometimes, jeweled armbands, and ornaments in her hair and on her body. Drawing on some of the dances she had encountered in Indonesia, she combined the exotic persona with her striking looks, confidence, and willingness to flaunt her body. Audiences were captivated. She went from performing in modest salons to larger theaters, attracting the attention of Gabriel Astruc, one of the era’s most prominent promoters and agents. She was hired for ballets and operas, invited to lavish parties, and traveled extensively for performances and at the expense of the many wealthy men who desired her. Intelligent and adaptable, she remained a celebrated sex symbol even as her dancing career began to decline, attracting wealthy patrons, senior French military officers, politicians, and other powerful figures. Then World War I changed everything. At 40, Mata Hari fell passionately in love with 23-year-old Captain Vladimir Maslov of the Russian Expeditionary Force. She described herself as “blindly in love,” supported him financially, and hoped to marry him. When Maslov was wounded and blinded in one eye, she traveled to see him and demanded access. Instead, French military intelligence, the Deuxième Bureau, offered her a deal: help them gather intelligence, and she might get the access and money she wanted. What followed was complicated, murky, and still debated. There is evidence that Mata Hari had contact with German intelligence before the French recruited her, although the precise nature and significance of those contacts remain uncertain. She did accept money from German officials, claiming it was repayment for belongings the Germans had seized. In Madrid, she met with the German military attaché and sought a meeting with Crown Prince Wilhelm, an objective that was reportedly part of the arrangement she had made with French intelligence. Her activities attracted the attention of General Walter Nicolai, a senior officer in Germany’s Abteilung III b intelligence service. Nicolai apparently concluded that she was of little intelligence value. German officials subsequently transmitted messages identifying Mata Hari as a German agent using a code the French had already broken. Whatever the intention, the messages helped lead to her arrest by the French. In 1917, as France struggled with military setbacks, unrest, and mutinies, Mata Hari’s high-profile espionage trial began. She was accused of being a German super-spy responsible for the deaths of thousands of French soldiers, but the evidence against her was far less convincing than the prosecution’s dramatic claims. It is possible she engaged in espionage, but there is little to support the image of the master spy who single-handedly brought disaster upon the French army. She instead became a convenient scapegoat for a government desperate to demonstrate that it was taking action against its enemies. Mata Hari was found guilty and sentenced to death by firing squad. She was executed on October 15, 1917. According to British reporter and eyewitness Henry Wales, she was not bound and refused a blindfold. As the soldiers took their positions, she reportedly blew a kiss toward the firing squad.

For the first time in human history, everyone has access to a personal tutor who can spend unlimited time explaining unlimited things in an unlimited number of ways. The factors that determine outcomes are now curiosity and impetus. Asking questions is a superpower

EXCLUSIVE: Elon Musk approached Donald Trump with the idea of slowing down Starlink in Ukraine, The Telegraph can reveal. The billionaire tech entrepreneur approached the US president with the proposal to introduce speed limits on the system, which hampered Ukraine’s drone defences, according to four sources familiar with the discussions. 🔗 telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2…

Trump: we are running low on ammo not because of my war on Iran but because Biden gave “massive amounts” of Tomahawks to Ukraine. The U.S. didn’t supply a single Tomahawk to Ukraine.