jimhines

Image: a Minnesota state bird crushing ICE in its beak. Art by Annie Shao.

You have likely all heard the news, we have turned away at least one of the goons from our streets. Greg Bovino has been sent packing. Horray! Now there are 2,999 more to go!!

There are some conflicting reports that all of ICE is leaving, but I don't find that terribly plausible. I hate to say it, but I suspect they realize that they FUBARed their PR by executing a white man who was not only an ICU nurse for Veterans, ffs, but also a stridant 2nd Amendment guy. They are hoping, I think, that Minnesotans only really care about white people and that once they reduce their numbers in our streets we'll turn our backs on their atrocities against our immigrant neighbors.

Think again, A$$holes.

Already today, I fielded a request for someone in one of my little resistance cells who wanted to get involved in packing groceries for folks over with the Food Communists. People are not stopping. We are continuting to show up for each other. In fact, yesterday, when I was at the Food Communists, they asked for a show of hands for how many people were showing up for the first time and a half a dozen hands shot into the air. It is very heartwarming.

So, yeah, the resistance continues apace.

Besides packing food, I also went out to join my singing group, which decided to stand outside of a lesbian sports bar on University Avenue? It was a weird locale (if only because it's hard to know what we're doing, since lots of people stand outside of bars to smoke.) We had only four people, but one of them was someone in my Thirsty Sword Lesbians group, Laurel, so that was cool! We sang songs for about a half hour and that was about as much as my toes could take, so it worked out. Plus, I had signed up to get a little bit of a refresher course on Legal Observing from the ACLU, which was a Zoom event, at 7 pm.

The ACLU Zoom was okay but not focused on what to do locally, so I'm also attending one for Ward 4 (my congressional ward) tonight, in person, at a local church, because I have completely forgotten everything important. That starts at 6pm tonight, and I am telling you to reminnd myself because my brain on fascism is very soupy. (My brain was already a seive as the joke goes? Now all the information going in also turns to soup... so very, very little is being retained.)

But, we had a win! Go TEAM!!

Oh, and I should note? The ACLU Zoom had 60,000 people signed up for it across the nation. That's still a tiny fraction of America, but still impresssive.

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GitHub is software mainly intended for programmers and developers as a software repository. Very useful stuff, very widely-used. And now about to get a lot more expensive for large teams.

Microsoft bought GitHub a few years back, and a month ago, announced that it would start charging people who ran it on their own hardware $0.002 per minute charge for "self-hosted runners executing jobs on private GitHub repositories. At the same time, GitHub noted in a Tuesday blog post that it's lowering the prices of GitHub-hosted runners beginning January 1, under a scheme it calls "simpler pricing and a better experience for GitHub Actions." Self-hosted runner usage on public repositories will remain free, we note." This was to go into effect in March.

One person contacted noted that they had run the numbers and it would cost them $3,500 a month on top of their normal monthly fee for using GitHub.

There was a large hue and cry, and pretty much the same day Microsoft announced that they were rescinding the charge.

HOWEVER, as The Register article points out about the later MS announcement, "We note that GitHub didn’t say it won’t ever go forward with charging for self-hosted runners, only that it’s postponing the change. As one commenter on the community thread pointed out, that means charging for self-hosted runners may be a foregone conclusion."

The Slashdot article lists many completely free, open-source alternatives to GitHub and I expect people are making migration plans as we speak.

https://www.theregister.com/2025/12/17/github_charge_dev_own_hardware/

https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/25/12/17/2042247/github-is-going-to-start-charging-you-for-using-your-own-hardware

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I'm not going to bother talking about the nominees. There was a point in time where I had a minimal interest in that, but not anymore. Most of the Best Picture nominees never show at my local theater, and my theatrical movie watching has really declined over recent years.

The thing that I find interesting is that in two years, we'll have the last broadcast on broadcast television. It is estimated that ABC/Disney paid over $100,000,000 for last years broadcast, and were looking for lower fees as viewer numbers have been declining. With the broadcast going streaming, there's no time limit: as the article says, the broadcast could be six hours long with Mr. Beast hosting.

It will be mildly interesting to see what kind of viewership numbers YouTube/Google can pull. Most people with streaming can pull it up on the same TV with which they watched it on ABC, but now they can easily view it in more countries than ABC/Disney was able to reach. And people can probably watch it more easily on devices while at work.

But I still don't really care.

https://variety.com/2025/film/news/oscars-youtube-2029-1236610989/

https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/12/17/210247/the-oscars-will-abandon-broadcast-tv-for-youtube-in-2029

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Alex Pretti, who was an RN, a helper, and a legal observer, was executed by the state yesterday afternoon.

I fully believe this death was in retaliation for the successful Twin Cities wide general strike, the clergy sit-in at the airport, and the of thousands who flooded the streets on Friday. Yes, Alex owned a gun and was carrying it, but that is his right as guarunteed by the second amendment to the Constitution of the United States (usually my least favorite given how often it is perverted by the opposition.) But, he was not threatening anyone as the video evidence clearly shows. Believe your eyes, not the lies. This is actually why they hate us so much. Everyone comes with their phones charged and video on. Our very own Greg Ketter of Dreamhaven Books and Comics was on the scene: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/minnesota-man-curses-out-ice-agents-at-scene-of-fatal-shooting-tktktk-fuck-you-tktkt_n_697506d2e4b0dcc40307a358 and has a few choice words for the ICE agents.

I got the news of Alex's murder on Saturday during a bio-break in my D&D game. Ironically, we were just starting to try to get back to a kind of normal. We were able to play a bit, but the second half turned into leveling up characters and planning next sessions. Everyone's ability to play pretend was just sort of unwound.

The neighborhood that Alex Pretti was murdered in is called Whittier and is named after Quaker poet and abolishonist, John Greenleaf Whittier. The local Friends groups sent out a call to ask people to not gather en masse (there was concern, of course, that this second murder was an attempt to incite a riot so that the Trump Administration could invoke the Sedition Act,) but to instead stand in small neighborhood groups, light a candle and sing. For those who could not get out, they asked that people put candles outside or in a window.

I had already seen on a Signal group that a bunch of my singers were planning to gather at Snelling & Minnehaha, near Ginko's Coffeeshop. So Mason and I headed over there to sing with people and hold up a light in the darkness. We had a big group. We sang a lot of excellent songs that helped soothe the soul. A couple of assholes (possibly ICE) revved their engines threateningly at us and flipped us off as they drove by, but we just raised our voices to drown them out.

It was an awful day, but our gathering was peaceful and beautiful. Collin from the Food Communists was there with his wife, and two of my D&D players, Shawn and Carillon, came as well.

I missed telling you all about Friday. I did tell you what I was planning to do, and that was pretty much how it went. We have a guest (Mason's partner) and my toes were frost-nipped several years ago while waiting for a tow-truck after an accident on one of these horribly cold days. I was in my super butch phase and had cool looking footwear that wasn't actually very climate resistant. I know, I know. I have since learned my lesson! But, because my toes will start feeling like they are on fire after a couple of hours in this kind of weather, so I decided to just focus on protecting the mosque during Friday prayers since that is something that is very drop in/drop out.

I needed to go anyway to the mosque because I have a couple of neighbors who needed introductions into the rebellion, so we drove over together (it was -11 F/-24 C). I found someone who was part of the Rapid Response team and so my neighbors got connected to the right groups. It was cold enough that we had planned on just having Constitutional Observers at the doors. We were introduced to the imam, imam Hussein, who was so incredibly generous. The folks there always thank us, which... as a Minnesotan I want to demur, but I've been learning to just accept. Someone in the community put down $60 at the little deli in the food mall that's attached to the mosque so that folks could have free tea and sambusa. My friends who had come for introductions were on street detail (in my car) watching for ICE and so I brought them out a couple of sambusa. They couldn't believe the generosity and I jokingly said to them, "I bet you didn't know that the revolution has perks."

There's been a lot of Star Wars imagery going around and I kind now want someone to make some art about how we all used to say "Come to the Dark Side, we have cookies," and we could now say, "Join the Rebellion, we have sambusa!" (This is not localized. There are a lot of Somali folks who have been handing out sambusa to protectors and protesters.)

The usual mosque group were told to stay away or go to downtown because of the cold, but by 2:00 pm a decent-sized crowd joined and so I went home, honking and waving at all the people taking the lightrail to the big rally.

While we were still quite small someone snapped a picture for us to post on Facebook. (Only people who agreed to be photographed are in this picture!)

Our small group outside of the mosque. I am in the back row second from the left (before the bright yellow hat.)

Not as impressive as the downtown rally, but everyone is doing their part.

Including the drag queens (see below):

Image: a fabulous laser-eyed loon advertising for a drag show and dance party for the revolution.

I just love the community that is happening around these things, too. I met several neighbors and discovered one of them was a longtime roommate with my college friend, Nick. Several others were part of the Twin Cities Geek group. We talked about the resistance and D&D and crafting while sipping tea and waving at passing cars (only a couple of which flipped us off and one, likely an ICE agent filmed our faces.)

There was another lovely moment when the imam was reminding us to go eat sambusa when one of his congregation really, really wanted to explain halal to us and the imam gently put out his hand and said, "Brother, these people understand us. They know halal." And.... I could have cried honestly? It's so nice to see the love going in both directions.

Okay, y'all go be Pretti Good.

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On the first day of the current administration, an executive order was announced terminating the participation of the USA in the WHO. This was broadly denounced as an incredibly stupid move. Aside from coordinating a global response to pandemics, outbreaks, the studies thereof, it has annual meetings to try to formulate the annual flu vaccines - said meeting happens next month.

The reason why? A certain person doesn't think the world did a good job with its Covid-19 response. This was at the same time that said person postulated that drinking bleach and exposing your innards to UV light would be a good cure, not to mention the other quack cures he put forth that directly led to deaths of people in the USA and perhaps elsewhere in the world.

From the article: "While the United States is walking away from the organization, a senior official with the Department of Health and Human Services told reporters on Thursday that the Trump administration was considering some type of narrow, limited engagement with W.H.O. global networks that track infectious diseases, including influenza."

and "On Thursday, the administration said that all U.S. government funding to the organization had been terminated, and that all assigned federal employees and contractors had been recalled from its Geneva headquarters and its offices worldwide.

The up-in-the-air status of the flu vaccine is just one of countless global health matters that are left hanging in the balance by the United States’ withdrawal. Global health experts are deeply concerned that if a novel bug similar to the coronavirus emerges, a lack of international coordination will lead to death and disaster." Good thing that novel bugs never happen!

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/22/us/politics/united-states-withdraws-world-health-organization.html?unlocked_article_code=1.GlA.ey5P.2X66jrh_mNPI&smid=url-share

https://science.slashdot.org/story/26/01/23/1226253/us-formally-withdraws-from-who

The Slashdot story has an interesting discussion on population and farming. You probably ought to set the right filter slider to exclude -1 rated comments.

That was Thursday. On Friday, the State of California formally joined the WHO. Governor Gavin travelled to the Davos conference in Switzerland and was scheduled to speak, but the State Department quashed that. He met with the Director-General of the WHO and his office issued a statement:

“As President Trump withdraws the United States from the World Health Organization, California is stepping up under Governor Gavin Newsom — becoming the first, and currently the only, state to join the WHO’s Global Outbreak Alert & Response Network (GOARN), strengthening public health preparedness and rapid response coordination,” Newsom’s office said in a statement.

...

“The Trump administration’s withdrawal from WHO is a reckless decision that will hurt all Californians and Americans,” Newsom said in a statement. “California will not bear witness to the chaos this decision will bring. We will continue to foster partnerships across the globe and remain at the forefront of public health preparedness, including through our membership as the only state in WHO’s Global Outbreak Alert & Response Network.”

Go, Gavin! Here's hoping that other states will step up and join the WHO and flip a massive bird to the Feds. I would probably die laughing if all 50 states plus the territories joined up!

Gavin has also been instrumental in forming a "coalition of states in launching both the West Coast Health Alliance and the Governors Public Health Alliance to lead public health policies that diverge from that of the White House."

https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/5703447-who-gavin-newsom-california/

https://yro.slashdot.org/story/26/01/23/2350246/california-becomes-first-state-to-join-who-disease-network-after-us-exit

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This is a difficult post. But then, these are difficult times.

This past Monday was the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday, which seemed like propitious timing, considering the events of the past few weeks.

At church, our pastor gave a sermon about the principles of nonviolence as outlined by King, illustrated by hand-lettered posters, which were placed around the sanctuary. As the words went up and the congregation absorbed them, I felt myself stiffening a little. The pastor acknowledged this, saying that when several of her family members helped make the posters, one remarked, "Wow, you're really reaching here for perfection, aren't you?"

We stared at all of the posters, and I think particularly at the one that read, "My opponent is not evil."

Evil, I read this week, is the absence of empathy. ICE agents have made it clear this week that they are devoid of empathy. In fact, they seem to glory in their capacity for cruelty, to be eager to rub our noses in it. Look at what we can do to you all their actions seem to say, and you can do nothing to stop it.

They drag people from their homes and from their cars, including both immigrants who are following all the rules and have permission to be here, as well as citizens. They spray tear gas and other chemical irritants on crowds. They scream profanity and contempt at us. And so much more.

The difficulty of the principles of nonviolence is to commit to bear the consequences, no matter what. When you give yourself over to it, the resulting scenes of violence wreaked upon those not resisting shock the conscience of the world. Sometimes that is the only way that can change begin.

Like the protesters who allowed themselves to be beaten on the Edmund Pettus Bridge, the people of Minneapolis and St. Paul are standing up to whatever is thrown at them to say, "No more." And believe me, what is being thrown at us is really terrible.

This past weekend, I went to the Powderhorn Park Art Sled rally. I have lived in this neighborhood for over thirty years, but this was the first time I heard about this event. It was very well attended, as if everyone in the surrounding neighborhood decided, "The hell with it. Let's show the government that they can't destroy our community." Many of the slides had anti-ICE themes, and some were incredibly elaborate.

But the one I liked best of all was one of the simplest ones: A man throwing himself down on his belly and rocketing down the icy hill with a bright blue kite bobbing over his head that read "Be Good."

Image description: Light blue background. Text reads in posterboard lettering: 'My opponent is not evil' 'Friendship not Humiliation' 'Love is the Center' Nonviolence is Strength' 'Bear the Pain' 'God is on the side of Justice.' Center: a man lies outstretched on a sled. Above it bobs a blue kite with the words 'Be Good'

Nonviolence

3 Nonviolence

Click on the links to see the 2026, 2025, 2024, 2023, 2022 and 2021 52 Card Project galleries.

Current Mood: determined

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I tried to embed the list of businesses shutting down, but here is a link: https://www.facebook.com/reel/1556336315616701

There are so many more... yes, this is adided by the fact that we have -15 F /-26 C air temperatures out there(does not include windchill), but this city is shutting down in solidarity with the anti-ICE movement in Minneapolis/St. Paul. Y'all, general strikes like this normally do NOT work in the United States, they just don't.

Except here.

And the best part? If a business needs to stay open for reasons no one is shaming them, as the statement from the Minneapolis City Council noted it's understood that some businesses are supporting the movement in other ways (including continuing to employ vulnerable people.)

I am about to head out to our local mosque with some neighbors who want to be introduced to the local protectors, but my day yesterday was much the same as the day before. I spent about an hour and a half loading groceries and diapers into cars that are then taking them to our immigrant, refugee, and other folks in need so that they can continue to stay inside and stay safe.

Mason's partner arrived just as the protest was starting at the Minneapolis International Airport where we are demanding that airlines stop collaborating with murderers and kidnappers. I'd gotten the call to go out there, but I have chosen to leave that fight to others. Pictures of the event underscore my choice. There are hundreds of people marching in this weather!

loon art by juliessa figueroa No laser-eyes today, but the cool thing about loons, actually, is that they carry their babies on their backs!

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Your laser-eye loon art for the day is a faux Antifa Regimental Badge for the Northern Defenders, Loon Liberator Brigade.(warning: this may be AI generated. I never saw an artist attribution.)

It is such a shame that antifa is actually just a bunch of collective action groups because I would sign up for this brigade just for the gear! (Well, and the paycheck if that were real.)

So, yesterday in the Defendre le Nord regiment, I did a bunch of stuff that felt a little bit like nothing, but which is probably 100% mission critical. I have a friend who is acting as a drop-off point for folks who are donating things from out of state and I went over to their house yesterday to help them open packages, sort, and get stuff ready for delivery. Then, we drove together over to their contact's house and unloaded everything for distribution.

As we unloaded the last box, I asked the contact if there was specific immigrant owned/operated restaurant nearby that they knew was struggling and needed a couple of customers. Having gotten that info, we drove over and had lunch.

I should explain to folks from out of town what it is like to go into a Mexican restaurant right now. You don't just walk in. There's someone standing guard inside over a locked door, they unlock it long enough for you to slip in, and then they lock it up tight again. Somewhere on the door is posted a 4th amendment statement that says something to the effect that this business does not give permission for any search and seizure operations, including but not limited to the seizing of persons.

The atmosphere was a bit grim, but the food was amazing and I double-tipped the folks working there because holy shit none of this should be happening. They fucking kidnapped another child, y'all. None of this is right? But, that's fucking cruel beyond measure. (Not that that's news to them. They have no problem roughing up grandfathers either.)

I had hoped to join my singers again last night, but they have a tendency to gather exactly when I am making or eating dinner, so tonight I will have to try again. I just saw on Facebook that my mutual aid group, the Food Communists, are in desperate need for hands, so after I drop Mason off at his haircut (his partner is coming to town tomorrow!) I'm headed over there to help out for a couple of hours.

K. Also have to clean the house ocassionally, so I am off. Yesterday's dinner was knuefle soup, today's lunch: egg salad on an everything bun with cottage cheese! Fueling the revolution one meal at time!

Stay strong!

P.S. Vance is visiting us today, apparently. Wish us luck. They'll probably try to plant some aggitators to get violent.

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Image: no laser eyes this time, but this is a loon in the shape of the Rebel Alliance symbol from Star Wars.

So, let's see. Yesterday started out a little rough for me in part because I was feeling EXTRA anxious because helicopters were buzzing our neighborhood. So much information getting shared is people guessing at what's going on and people who seem to maybe be reporting on what's happening? But, it's often unclear where they are getting their information? So, it's very paranoid here.

What I heard was that ICE was back at the MidwayTarget just up the block from me, specifically targeting the protestors there. Target has been a target for resistance efforts because of the video that was widely circulated of Greg Bovino, the ICE commandant/literal SS officer cosplayer, stopping to take a piss flanked by his goons. Rumors have also circulated that Target is not what we are calling a "Fourth Amendment business." (For our international friends, the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution of the US states that there must be probable/reasonable cause for search and seizure--including of our persons, our bodies--basically no one has the right to just snatch people out of homes or businesses.) So, here in the Twin Cities, if a business appears to cooperate with ICE, even to the point of not protecting their employees, people have been mad. And supposedly Target was compliant with ICE. So,the day before yesterday there was a big sit-in in Target. Yesterday, there was a group of people doing retail resistance? They would buy salt (or other metaphorically appropriate things) and then immediately return it, so that Target would have the hassle of all this merchandise to deal with and refunds to issue.

There was another rumor that ICE was at HarMar Mall in Roseville, which is literally a shopping mall? But, as someone who has taken the bus out in that direction, a lot of folks who might be targets of the gestapo do work in those retail stores.

What I should have done when the helicopters were circling was just get in my car and drive up to Target and see what I could see or head out to HarMar, but I was waiting for Mason to be up to find out what he wanted to do for lunch and whether or not he was going to his uncle Keven's to do some odd job work. Mason was justifiably cranky with me when he came down to find me in a state. As he pointed out, I can just go. He is an adult. Not only can he make himself lunch, he can figure out how to get to Keven's if need be.

But, having talked that through, Mason and I decided to drop by the folks I lovingly call the Food Communists and see if there was work to be done. Sure enough! We arrived in time to help load up one car that was delivering diapers. We packed several bags of groceries, helped load more stuff to go, and then spent the "downtime" making individual packs of various bulk food items, while chatting with neighbors--and one guy who and I am not kidding, came from the Gunflint Trail in Northern Minnesota order to help with the resistance. That is 288 miles from us, about a 5 hour drive (if you drive without stopping.) People in the UK? He basically came from another world. (And honestly? A few more miles and he would have been coming from Canada.)

Speaking of my non-Minnesotan and foreign friends, here's

naomikritzer 's write up of things to do for us if you are interested in helping the resistance: https://naomikritzer.com/2026/01/21/how-to-help-if-you-are-outside-minnesota/ Even if all you want is some links to reliable, detailed information about what is actually happening here, this is a good resource to start with!

My singing group was supposed to gather last night at 7:30 pm and I made an effort to join them, but I think I screwed up the where or the when because I wandered around in the place I thought they'd be and no one was around. To be fair to me (and them) it was supposed to be outside a church and there are a number of churches with similar names in the neighborhood and I suspect I just ended up at the wrong one. They sing every day, so I'll get other chances to join them.

I've been trying to also focus on feeding myself and my family, so yesterday I made a lovely mapo tofu for lunch and then we had bibbimap for dinner. Two rice meals, but both hearty, filling, and sustaining. I went this morning to get my blood drawn for all the various health checks, so I am remembering to take care of myself and my family. I've been joking that all of this stress has actually made me better about remembering to hydrate, so that's something.

And, with luck, I'll be running D&D this weekend. So, we can keep up our mental health!

Okay, everyone, stay strong!

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Your daily laser-eyed loon, this one facing forward, determined, shooting its lasers to say "Melt Ice." (by Rin Mix)

Yesterday, as noted it was one of our colder days. It was also Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, so Shawn had the day off work. I decided to limit my activities, though I did sign up to a Discord group which is organizing around doing laundry for people who have now been stuck indoors for so long trying to wait out the gestapo occupation.

One of the things I decided to do, however, was go singing. Our hyper-local singing group decided that due to the temperature, people would start inside a coffee shop. Our organizer made sure it was okay for us to sing a little bit indoors, but since people in the Twin Cities often gather at coffee shops to do work, we kept our indoor songs to a minimum. We then braved the outdoors for a couple of rounds of various songs, including this incredible re-working of Pete Seeger's "Which Side Are You On?"

The chorous remains the same, but the verses now read:

Come all you good people
Some news to you I'll tell
Of how your loving neighbors
Have come to give ICE hell

Chorus:
Which side are you on?
Which side are you on?
Which side are you on?
Which side are you on?

Another neighbor killed today
Oh when will this all cease?
Another mother dead, my friends
Murdered by police.

[chorus]

My mother was a feminst
And she taught me how to see
The road to ruin is paved with gold
by the patriarchy

[chorus]

So let the North Star* guide us
Back towards democracy
Reject the threats of fascists
Or we can not be free

[chorus]

Oh, neighbors, can you feel it?
Oh, tell me that you can.
Will you stay silent?
Or will you take a stand?

[chorus x2]

I found this version to be incredibly powerful and while we were standing outside the coffee shop on Snelling Avenue singing our hearts out, a car at the stoplight opened its doors. I turned, expecting the worst, but it was a beat-up Toyota and probably the window crank didn't work and so the people inside were trying to hear what we were singing/saying. They were a couple of Lantinx guys and hearing what we were singing brought HUGE SMILES to their faces. When they noticed us noticing them they gave us big thumbs up, smiles, and waves.

That reminded me that even small acts are sustaining... to the fighters and those we fight for.

I also ran into a friend of a friend who also lives in Midway, so it was really nice to actually see a familiar face while out and about.

I was also happy to see that the New York Times finally had a big article about the mutual aid efforts in today's paper.They focused exculsively on the food donattions, and again, I wish that people could see the whole huge variety of things people are doing--the scope of which is truly staggering. However, it's a good article and if you are local (or are interested in what I'm talking about),

naomikritzer did a lovely round-up of ways to get involved on her blog: https://naomikritzer.com/2026/01/19/how-to-help-twin-cities-residents/ She has promised to work on a similar list for folks from out-of-town/national/international who want to help as well. I'll post that here once she writes it.

All right, comrades. Stay warm! Stay strong!

===

For those of you who might not know, the Minnesota state motto is E'toile du Nord (in French) which translates as The Star of the North. If you see protestors shouting that phrase, they are not Canadian (or French) agitators, but folks who have decided that being the star of the north means that we are leading the country in how to defend democracy.

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Image: Laser-eyed loon flying away with the "Don't Tread on Me Snake" in her beak. The words "Don't Tread on US" appear in laser light trails around her head (by Cas Fern, local tattoo artist.)

I took a break on Sunday. The weather here in Minnesota has finally stepped up to join the resistance. Today we are expecting -20 F/ -29 C windchills and yesterday the windchills were around -11 F /-23 C. I won't lie. I let Mother Nature take my shift. There were things happening, including my singing group, but I spent the day baking hot cross buns and snuggling under blankets.

Rest is resistance, too.

If you are not from around here and/or would like to watch

naomikritzer talk about her experiences "commuting," and talk generally, along with Diana McCleery, about what things are like on the ground here in Minneapolis and St. Paul. My friend Cliff interviewed her on an SFF videocast:

Watch on YouTube

It's a good watch? I will say that the guy who opens and closes the video, Bob, is a bit of a character, but if you can get past that and some of the echo in Naomi's microphone, it's very informative. Naomi recently did a ride-along with the folks who are self-organizing to follow and harrass ICE vehicles and so it's fascinating to hear how it's being done.

I always feel that people don't quite talk enough about the mutual aid that folks are up to--but the truth is the quiet revolution just isn't splashy enough for the front page.

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I thought they might fix it quick, and they did. This patch, and one other, can be downloaded and installed via Windows Update.

What I didn't know was there was another bug also addressed by these patches.

The problem involved Remote Desktop and prevented you from connecting to a computer via Remote Desktop, I'm not sure if it bugged your computer trying to do the connecting or bugged the remote host that you were trying to connect to. Regardless, it should be fixed now.

The thing that I don't get is that I thought MS patches like this were tested through the beta program before public release. Perhaps they're just tested internally and their QA department slipped up and didn't do sufficient testing to catch these problems before they shipped.

Who knows. But at least they were prompt fixing it.

https://www.windowscentral.com/microsoft/windows-11/microsoft-issues-emergency-out-of-band-update-for-windows-11-to-address-major-bugs-that-broke-pc-shutdowns-and-sign-ins

https://tech.slashdot.org/story/26/01/18/1932246/microsoft-forced-to-issue-emergency-out-of-band-windows-update

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microsoft,
windows

Back in 2007, I started a story in one segment of my series entitled Dumps, Dives & Divas. Over the years, I would add to it. It would change direction. Until I decided wasn't the story I wanted to use to present my series to readers.

I wanted to start with before my characters came to Earth.

I have 5 of those novels finished and several others almost finished. I had plans for them, the order I was going to release them in, etc.

(You're going to laugh at me from this point on.)

Until I saw K-Pop Demon Hunters, I was going to finish another one of those pre-Earth novels.

But, once I saw it, I realized, as popular as it was, there might be a better market for DDD first.

Why?

Because my aliens on Earth became rock stars and used the cover of their concerts to go to areas where they needed to fight monsters. This was originally going to be my introduction to music as magic in my series.

So, I pulled it out, finished it and started revising.

Another point that might be in its favor is that my characters have "magic armor", and Disney is talking about making an all new Power Rangers to release. And, there's magic/tech armor there.

So, this is where I am currently:

Need to finish revisions.

Need to find beta readers.

Need to revise again.

And, hope that decision to pull this novel out of the trunk pays off.

Edited to add: I've only shown this cover to my kids and to a friend I write with. Would love reactions if anyone has one.

I just got the finished file the end of last weeek.

A sled in the shape of a jug of windshield de-icer with ICE out of MN on it with a laser loon! (photo credit, Naomi Kritzer).

...I should probably try to remember to post more often, least you all think that something dire has happened to me.

I think when I last checked in MONARCA was still up in operation and I was responding as a legal/constitutional observer. Well, as you may have gathered from the news things have gotten more chaotic here and so MONARCA was overwhelmed and is no longer functioning as a coordinated way to send people to active abductions by ICE.

Thus, since none of the calls I responded to were anything more than ten minutes too late or false alarms, I have switched to mutual aid work. (Activists are being careful not to sully the waters if you will since ICE is also keeping tabs on the watchers. So we don't want anyone who has been actively protesting or observing to be delivering groceries to people sheltering in place/hiding out from the gestapo, lest we lead the bad guys right to their doors.) I've found a local organization that was already in the business of giving out free food, a group that I lovingly called the Food Communists, who have pivoted their efforts towards feeding people who are sheltering in place/hiding from the gestapo.

They basically have open doors for folks to drop by and help when and how they can and that's been really good for me because it means that if I start to feel anxious about the police state at any point during the day I can wander down the street and see if there something I can do to aid the resistance. So far, it's been organizing doubled-up grocery bags and breaking down cardboard, but I think that all of us in this fight (and there are a lot of us) feel like all effort is good effort if it's helping our comrades and neighbors.

I have also been showing up to the various protests around the city.

There is a group of Midway neighbors who have organized a daily protection/protest gathering in front of our local Somali mosque so that we can defend people while they are vulnerable and in prayer. I joined them the other day while the temperatures plummeted and the wind whipped around our faces. But, it was so warming to the soul when the imam came out and thanked us all for being there and we waved to everyone heading out from safely prayers.

I'm in a Signal group for people who are gathering every day on a different street corner to sing songs of love, resistance, and hope. I've only been able to make one of their gatherings, but it was lovely to sing and be in community.

Mason and I joined the student walk out at the Saint Paul capitol a few days ago and it was nice to see all the youths being just as fierce as their more grown-up counterparts.

And then yesterday, I met

naomikritzer at Powderhorn Park and we watched a bunch of folks crash their art sleds.

Image: Naomi (left) and me (right) out at the art sled rally. Very bundled up. There was a high of 12 F/-11 C yesterday.

Because Minnesota is like that.

And if there is one thing that I could impart to my out of state and international friends it's that, yes, everything you see on the news is 100% happening, and also? We are sledding.

Mostly, what you see on the news makes it look like the streets are full of tear gas and, yes, it's true, ICE agents are deploying tear gas, rubber bullets, real bullets, flash grenades, and smoke bombs, but people are also still going to work and walking their dogs and singing. A lot of us are doing anything we can. People are carrying whistles and charging our phones every night to get all the film possible of the atrocities we are facing at the hands of masked, domestic terrorists who are abducting people without due process. We are standing guard over daycares and mosques and restaurants and sex shops and toy stores. (Because our sex shops have become food distribution centers and our Toy Shops have been giving away free whistles.) We are showing up and baking cookies for people on patrol. We are sweeping up after the people packing bags for people too afraid to leave their houses. We are taking to the streets with signs, sometimes all alone, but we are showing our neighbors, our immigrant and refugee families, that we want them, we love them, and we will not let them be taken without a fight.

This is what resistance looks like and it is awful, but it also hopeful and kind and loving, and, yes, even sometimes we make time for fun.

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This is going to majorly PO American auto makers! Breaks my little heart. But that wasn't the reason for the deal.

Biden put a 100% tariff on Chinese electric vehicles and Canada followed suit. China's cars are very wide in range in features: some are utter crap, some make a Tesla look like a Tonka, but Tesla hasn't really been updating their cars like they should. And above all, Chinese EVs are VERY inexpensive! How? Cheap labor, possibly even prison labor. But as a result of these prices, China has greatly reduced their use of fossil fuels and EV sales are soaring over there.

When Canada put in the tariff, China retaliated with a high tariff on Canadian canola seeds, a major farm export. With this drop in the EV tariff, China is dropping theirs from 84% to 15%. There were other items taxed in China's retaliation, I suppose those are still being negotiated.

But here's the telling bit: "Carney [Canadian Prime Minister] said China has become a more predictable partner to deal with than the U.S, the country’s neighbor and longtime ally.

“Our relationship has progressed in recent months with China. It is more predictable and you see results coming from that,” Carney said.

Carney hasn’t been able to reach a deal with U.S. President Trump to reduce some tariffs that are punishing some key sectors of the Canadian economy and Trump has previously talked about making Canada the 51st state."

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2026/jan/16/canada-cuts-chinese-ev-tariff-100-exchange-lower-canola-tariffs/

https://news.slashdot.org/story/26/01/16/2112255/canada-reverses-tariff-on-chinese-evs

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Just a minor issue!

From the article: "The bug appears to be tied to Secure Launch, a security feature that uses virtualization-based protections to ensure only trusted components load during boot. On systems with Secure Launch enabled, attempts to shut down, restart, or hibernate after applying the January patches may fail to complete. From the user's perspective, everything looks normal – until the PC keeps running anyway, refusing to be denied life.

Microsoft says that entering the command "shutdown /s /t 0" at the command prompt will, in fact, force your PC to turn off, whether it wants to or not."

It hasn't affected my two Win 11 computers, haven't powered up my laptop in a month, so it hasn't updated. I would expect this will be updated with next month's Patch Tuesday release, but they may release an out of schedule patch to fix it.

Of course, make sure all your documents are saved before issuing that shutdown command or you may risk losing information.

And all computers will shut down when you pull the plug out of the wall or bus strip.

https://www.theregister.com/2026/01/16/patch_tuesday_secure_launch_bug_no_shutdown/

https://tech.slashdot.org/story/26/01/16/2144202/patch-tuesday-update-makes-windows-pcs-refuse-to-shut-down

Tags:

microsoft,
windows

I spent over an hour working on this collage without being able to quite pin down the name for it. Initially, I titled it 'Imbalance,' but that word didn't quite capture the ominousness of what I was trying to convey. Eventually, I decided upon 'Upheaval.'

I remarked to someone this week that I didn't envision the beginning of my retirement being quite like this.

Besides all the uncertainty over the usual issues at this time of life like 'what do I do with my time?' and 'what is my new budget going to be like?' there are other questions, like 'will my next door neighbor be arrested?' and 'is this neighborhood business open, or have all their employees been kidnapped?' and 'what are the chances that my car is going to get rammed by ICE?'

I'm not going to go into great depth about all the news events that this collage is reflecting. If you are not aware, the Twin Cities are under siege by the federal government. Constitutional rights are being absolutely ignored. Rather, the ICE agents cruising around the city are making a huge show of deliberately and flagrantly violating constitutional rights, apparently just to demonstrate that they can.

There are rumors flying around the city, and everyone is angry, stressed, and yes, afraid. Yet the city is pulling together, with people joining Signal groups to protect their neighbors, setting up patrols to guard schools, churches, and day care centers, and donating money and supplies to support immigrants in hiding from ICE. All these actions are like a lighthouse in the middle of a storm.

A stormy sea with a lighthouse, partially obscured by fog. A woman stands unsteadily on top of the waves, in three overlapping poses, arms flailing as if struggling for balance. A giant, ominous-looking kraken lurks partially below the surface of the waves, brandishing its tentacles threateningly, center right.

Upheaval

2 Upheaval

Click on the links to see the 2026, 2025, 2024, 2023, 2022 and 2021 52 Card Project galleries.

Current Mood: stressed

Tags:

Sigh.

So in addition to memory, solid-state drives, high-end video cards, now they're eating up hard drives. Some drives up up 60% in THE LAST FOUR MONTHS, according to a report from a German news source.

From the article: "The trend is also visible in the U.S. A Seagate IronWolf drive with just 4TB capacity would have set you back $70 in early 2023; that drive is now $99. Similarly, the 8TB model is $199, when it would have been priced as low as $130 a couple of years ago. Western Digital's Red Plus alternative is now $175 for 8TB. The toughest blow of all? Seagate's iconic BarraCuda 24TB drive, which we've seen cost as little as $239 during sales events, now costs a whopping $499 on Amazon, and you'll be buying it from a third party. Newegg doesn't even have it in stock."

Apparently there is a knock-on effect of people now building PCs with DDR4 memory instead of the latest DDR5 because all of that memory is being gobbled up by AI. So now older motherboards are in higher demands? AI server boards are specialized beasts and aren't the same thing that you're going to put in your gaming rig.

Apparently the hard disk drives are used to store the bulk data for training AI models, then all the operations are carried out on SSD arrays for speed. Makes sense, from a computer operations standpoint.

https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/hdds/hard-drive-prices-have-surged-by-an-average-of-46-percent-since-september-iconic-24tb-seagate-barracuda-now-usd500-as-ai-claims-another-victim

https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/26/01/16/1332213/hard-drive-prices-have-surged-by-an-average-of-46-since-september

Tags:

This is one specific manufacturer, WHIIL. Researchers found that the Bluetooth channel, used normally for configuring the wheelchair upon delivery and for service, was completely unsecure. No authentication, no certificates, no nothing.

The researchers were able to take complete control of the wheelchair, making it run at top speed (5 MPH) and sent it careening down stairs.

One comment on Bruce Schneier's blog commented about OpenBSD, a Unix fork that prides itself on being very secure. They do not support Bluetooth at all. When asked about it, they said that the Bluetooth stack cannot be secured. I'm surprised that something like a wheelchair interface isn't secured with just a panel and a USB cable. Simple controlled physical access. The scariest part is that they can now do Bluetooth well over half a mile, both send and receive - so theoretically hacks like this and transactions can be phished and the baddies are no where near you.

https://www.securityweek.com/researchers-expose-whill-wheelchair-safety-risks-via-remote-hacking/

https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2026/01/hacking-wheelchairs-over-bluetooth.html

Tags:

Two companies, one common theme.

Games Workshop is the source of all things Warhammer. And they have "banned the use of AI in its content production and its design process, insisting that none of its senior managers are currently excited about the technology." Senior management are fiddling with it to see if it'll do anything truly useful, otherwise they are shunning it.

Good on them!

https://www.ign.com/articles/warhammer-maker-games-workshop-bans-its-staff-from-using-ai-in-its-content-or-designs-says-none-of-its-senior-managers-are-currently-excited-about-the-tech

https://games.slashdot.org/story/26/01/15/0446208/warhammer-maker-games-workshop-bans-its-staff-from-using-ai-in-its-content-or-designs

In like fashion, the independent music platform Bandcamp has banned AI-generated music from being posted on their system. They have their own Reddit page and announced “Music and audio that is generated wholly or in substantial part by AI is not permitted on Bandcamp,” the company wrote in a post to the r/bandcamp subreddit. The new policy also prohibits “any use of AI tools to impersonate other artists or styles.”"Our guidelines for generative AI in music and audio are as follows:
- Music and audio that is generated wholly or in substantial part by AI is not permitted on Bandcamp.
- Any use of AI tools to impersonate other artists or styles is strictly prohibited in accordance with our existing policies prohibiting impersonation and intellectual property infringement.

If you encounter music or audio that appears to be made entirely or with heavy reliance on generative AI, please use our reporting tools to flag the content for review by our team. We reserve the right to remove any music on suspicion of being AI generated. We will be sure to communicate any updates to the policy as the rapidly changing generative AI space develops."

So they have tools in-place for reviewing suspect material. Excellent!

One of the first comments on Slashdot was that if Stevie Wonder can make music using computers, there's little reason to use generative AI.

https://arstechnica.com/ai/2026/01/bandcamp-bans-purely-ai-generated-music-from-its-platform/

https://entertainment.slashdot.org/story/26/01/14/2149259/bandcamp-bans-ai-music

And finally, Matthew McConaughey. He filed EIGHT applications with the Patent and Trademark Office - ALL APPROVED - to protect his image and voice against AI use. Basically any AI generation of his likeness can be slapped with a lawsuit for trademark violation! This should give him a very good level of control over the use of his image, and for his family to control it after he has passed.

I expect to see land rush business among other celebrities as news of this spreads, especially after he sues his first victim.

https://www.msn.com/en-in/entertainment/celebrities/matthew-mcconaughey-trademarks-himself-to-fight-ai-misuse/ar-AA1UaVvt

Tags:

artificial intelligence

One Down, 2,999 to go!

GitHub announces charging you for running it on your own hardware, then walks it back

The Oscar nominees have been announced! And the broadcast is moving to YouTube in '29.

Another Brutal Murder by ICE

The USA formally withdraws from the World Health Organization, California joins it

2026 52 Card Project: Week 3: Nonviolence

General Strike!

Antifa Regimental Gear!

The Rebel Alliance

Songs of Resistance

Your Daily Laser Loon Art from the Resistance

Microsoft releases out of band patch to fix shutdown bug in Windows 11 plus one more bug

Dumps, Dives & Divas

Given the News...

Canada cuts tariff on Chinese EVs from 100% to 6%!

Recent Win 11 update causes some PCs to refuse to shut down or hibernate

2026 52 Card Project: Week 2: Upheaval

Thank you, AI data centers! Now conventional hard drive prices are up 46%!

Security researchers hack electric wheelchair via Bluetooth

Games Workshop and Bandcamp ban the use of AI! And Matthew McConaughey trademarks himself.

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