Het historisch museum in Cherson is tijdens de Russische bezetting geplunderd. Dat is een voorbeeld van culturele genocide, zegt de museumdirecteur. „Ons museum laat zien hoeveel volkeren hier leefden.”

Er wordt steeds meer bekend over hoe het Iraanse regime de protesten van begin januari met grof geweld heeft neergeslagen. Drie Iraniërs vertellen over de dagen rond de protesten. „Mensen zorgden voor elkaar; er was veel saamhorigheid.”

De coalitie draait enkele blokkades van het kabinet-Schoof terug en belooft stabielere financiering van het COA en meer hulp in azc’s. Dat biedt soelaas, maar laat de structurele knelpunten in de asielprocedure grotendeels intact.

De 29-jarige Roselilah heeft een Grammy gewonnen voor haar bijdrage aan het nummer ‘Luther’ van Kendrick Lamar en SZA. Ze won al eerder een Grammy, met deze overwinning komt ze in nog exclusiever gezelschap.

ALPHEN AAN DEN RIJN (ANP) - De tienerjongen die donderdag in Zweden werd opgepakt voor betrokkenheid bij de schietpartij bij de gevangenis in Alphen aan den Rijn op 16 januari wordt in zijn thuisland vervolgd. Dat meldt het Openbaar Ministerie.

"Het onderzoek naar de schietpartij gaat in Nederland verder. Het Openbaar Ministerie zal de relevante onderzoeksresultaten blijven delen met de Zweedse autoriteiten", aldus een woordvoerder van het OM.

De woordvoerder kon geen verdere uitspraken doen over de stand van het onderzoek. Bij de beschieting raakte één persoon gewond, maar niet door een kogel. Volgens onbevestigde berichten was het doelwit Christopher Z., die verlof had om te werken. Hij was eerder veroordeeld voor betrokkenheid bij de 'martelcontainers' in het Brabantse Wouwse Plantage.

AMSTERDAM (ANP) - Syrische minderheden als alawieten, druzen en Koerden moeten betere asielbescherming krijgen van de Nederlandse regering, omdat zij ook na de machtsovername in Syrië slachtoffer zijn van gericht geweld. Dat vindt VluchtelingenWerk Nederland.

De hulporganisatie doet de oproep nadat een nieuw ambtsbericht verscheen waarin de situatie in Syrië tussen mei en december is beschreven. Op zo'n bericht wordt het beleid voor asielaanvragen bepaald.

Na het verdrijven van dictator Bashar al-Assad eind 2024 werd toenmalig rebellenleider Ahmed al-Sharaa de president van een vijfjarige overgangsregering. Maar Syrië is nog "instabiel", wordt "een van de minst vreedzame landen ter wereld" genoemd en er leven "sterke wraakgevoelens", verwijst VWN naar het ambtsbericht. Minderheden worden vermoord en de recente zware gevechten tussen regeringstroepen en Koerdische strijders laten zien "dat de spanningen in Syrië verder oplopen". Geen enkele Syriër zou daarom gedwongen teruggestuurd mogen worden, aldus VWN.

Wie dacht dat matcha latte hét hipste drankje van de koffiemenu’s zou blijven, moet plaatsmaken voor iets nieuws: Aziatische laagjeskoffie. Deze gelaagde dranken – met strak gescheiden banden van melk, espresso en soms room of siroop – zijn hard op weg om de koffietrend van 2026 te worden.​ Althans: dat is de verwachting van het Parool.

In Aziatische steden als Shanghai, Beijing en Ho Chi Minhstad is “dirty coffee” al enkele jaren een hit: ijskoude melk in een bevroren glas, waar hete espresso overheen wordt gegoten zonder te roeren. Elke slok biedt zo een andere combinatie van bitter, romig en zoet, en precies dat maakt de drank ideaal voor Instagram en TikTok. In Amsterdam duikt de trend nu ook op, met zaken die varianten als Genmai Dirty, Jasmine Dirty of Peanut Dirty serveren, waarin de melk subtiel is geïnfuseerd met geroosterde rijst, jasmijn of pinda. ​

Daarnaast schuift Vietnamese koffie naar voren als tweede ster van de laagjeskoffie-golf. Robusta-koffie, langzaam gefilterd in een Phin en geserveerd op een dikke laag gecondenseerde melk, levert cafeïnebommen op met zichtbare, contrasterende lagen. Variaties met kokos, gezouten room of opgeklopte eidooier (egg coffee) versterken het dessertkarakter van de drank. ​

Voor de daghoreca is laagjeskoffie een manier om zich te onderscheiden en gasten iets te bieden dat zowel spectaculair oogt als herkenbaar smaakt. Eén advies blijft daarbij heilig: niet roeren, maar kijken – en dan in grote teugen drinken. ​

HOUTEN (ANP) - De failliete biologische plantenkwekerij Jongerius maakt een doorstart. Dit meldt de nieuwe eigenaar Larendael, de investerings- en ontwikkelingsmaatschappij van ondernemer Wim Beelen. Jongerius is volgens Larendael de grootste biologische plantenkwekerij van Nederland.

Larendael neemt de locatie in Houten en de kassen, machines, productielijnen en installaties van Jongerius over. De nieuwe eigenaar zegt op korte termijn weer te beginnen met het kweken van biologische kruiden- en groenteplanten. Larendael wil de komende maanden kijken hoe de kwekerij stap voor stap kan doorgroeien. "We zien veel potentie in deze 30 hectare grote locatie en kijken ernaar uit om de grootste biologische plantenkwekerij van Nederland nieuw leven in te blazen", zegt Beelen.

De plantenkwekerij werd in december failliet verklaard, net als de onroerendgoedtak onlangs. Larendael neemt overigens niet het hele bedrijf over. Onder meer het vastgoed in Harmelen is niet bij de doorstart betrokken.

Geld lenen heeft lange tijd een beladen reputatie gehad. Het werd gezien als iets wat je liever vermijdt, een laatste redmiddel voor wie geen andere opties heeft. Dat beeld is de afgelopen jaren duidelijk aan het verschuiven. Niet omdat lenen ineens vrijblijvend is geworden, maar omdat de manier waarop mensen met geld omgaan fundamenteel verandert. Lenen is minder emotioneel beladen en steeds vaker onderdeel van een bredere financiële strategie.

Lenen past zich aan het leven aan

Een van de meest opvallende trends is dat geld lenen meebeweegt met levensfases. Waar lenen vroeger vooral werd gekoppeld aan grote, vaste momenten zoals een huis of auto, wordt het nu ook ingezet voor flexibelere doelen. Denk aan een opleiding, een tijdelijke overbrugging, het starten van een eigen project of het opvangen van wisselende inkomsten.

Die verschuiving komt voort uit een leven dat minder lineair is geworden. Banen zijn minder vast, loopbanen minder voorspelbaar en keuzes minder definitief. Lenen wordt in dat kader gezien als een manier om timing te beïnvloeden. Niet alles hoeft te wachten tot het perfecte moment zich aandient.

Van schaamte naar overzicht

Wat eveneens verandert, is de emotionele lading rond lenen. Waar er vroeger schaamte of terughoudendheid was, overheerst nu vaker nuchterheid. Mensen willen begrijpen waar ze aan toe zijn. Wat kost het. Hoe lang loopt het. En wat betekent het voor mijn maandelijkse ruimte.

Deze behoefte aan overzicht zorgt ervoor dat lenen bewuster gebeurt. Niet impulsief, maar met duidelijke afwegingen. Het gesprek verschuift van oordeel naar inzicht. Dat maakt lenen minder spannend en beter beheersbaar.

Digitalisering verlaagt de drempel

Digitalisering speelt een grote rol in deze ontwikkeling. Het vergelijken van leningen, voorwaarden en looptijden is eenvoudiger geworden. Transparantie maakt het mogelijk om keuzes te maken zonder afhankelijk te zijn van één aanbieder of advieskanaal.

Voor veel mensen is geld lenen daardoor geen abstract begrip meer, maar een concreet product dat ze kunnen plaatsen binnen hun financiële plaatje. Die toegankelijkheid zorgt niet per se voor meer lenen, maar wel voor bewuster lenen.

Lenen als onderdeel van financiële planning

Een andere duidelijke trend is dat lenen steeds vaker wordt geïntegreerd in financiële planning. Het staat niet meer los van sparen, investeren of budgetteren. Alles wat met geld te maken heeft, wordt vaker in samenhang bekeken. Wat betekent deze lening voor mijn spaardoelen. Hoe verhoudt het zich tot mijn inkomen en vaste lasten.

Deze holistische benadering maakt lenen minder risicovol. Het wordt een onderdeel van een groter geheel, in plaats van een losstaande beslissing. Mensen die zo naar hun financiën kijken, ervaren vaak meer rust, zelfs als ze een lening hebben lopen.

Korter, gerichter en flexibeler

Ook de vorm van leningen verandert. Er is meer vraag naar kortere looptijden en duidelijk afgebakende bedragen. In plaats van langlopende verplichtingen kiezen mensen vaker voor overzichtelijke trajecten die aansluiten bij een specifiek doel.

Flexibiliteit speelt hierin een grote rol. De mogelijkheid om extra af te lossen of sneller klaar te zijn, wordt belangrijker dan de laagste maandlast alleen. Dat past bij een tijd waarin mensen niet vast willen zitten aan één scenario.

Minder impuls, meer intentie

Opvallend is dat lenen minder impulsief wordt ingezet. Waar snelle kredieten ooit inspeelden op directe behoefte, groeit nu de voorkeur voor doordachte beslissingen. Mensen nemen de tijd om te vergelijken, rekenen scenario’s door en denken na over de impact op langere termijn.

Die ontwikkeling laat zien dat lenen volwassen wordt. Niet roekeloos, maar doelgericht. Het gaat niet om meer geld uitgeven, maar om ruimte creëren op het juiste moment.

Lenen en zelfontwikkeling

Een groeiend deel van de leningen wordt ingezet voor zelfontwikkeling. Opleidingen, omscholing en persoonlijke projecten worden vaker gezien als investeringen in plaats van kosten. Lenen fungeert hier als brug tussen ambitie en uitvoering.

Deze trend sluit aan bij een samenleving waarin mensen meer verantwoordelijkheid nemen voor hun eigen groei. Niet wachten tot iets vanzelf mogelijk wordt, maar actief keuzes maken om vooruit te komen.

Realisme boven ideaalbeeld

Wat al deze trends gemeen hebben, is realisme. Het idee dat iedereen alles uit spaargeld moet kunnen betalen, raakt steeds verder uit beeld. Tegelijkertijd is er geen sprake van achteloos lenen. Het draait om afwegingen, timing en inzicht.

Mensen accepteren dat financiële keuzes zelden zwart wit zijn. Sparen en lenen bestaan naast elkaar en vullen elkaar aan. De kunst zit in weten wanneer wat past.

Today's links

• Stock swindles: A buyback is not just a dividend by another name.
• Hey look at this: Delights to delectate.
• Object permanence: Acme License-Plate Maker; IPV4 delenda est; Mandatory gun-ownership; Sukey; Ross and Carrie x LRH; Criti-hype.
• Upcoming appearances: Where to find me.
• Recent appearances: Where I've been.
• Latest books: You keep readin' em, I'll keep writin' 'em.
• Upcoming books: Like I said, I'll keep writin' 'em.
• Colophon: All the rest.

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Stock swindles (permalink)

There are plenty of American historical antecedents of Trumpism – fascist movements like the Jim Crow reign of terror, the McCarthy hearings, the gleeful genocide of indigenous people. But when you're thinking about the rise of Trumpism, never forget that America isn't just a nation of cruel bigots; it's also a nation of rich swindlers.

We call Trump a "reality TV star" and it's true, as far as it goes. Trump did play a billionaire on TV long before he grifted actual billions, using his status as the poor man's idea of a rich man to secure liar loans and rip off creditors, contractors, business partners, workers, and governments – local, state and federal.

He rose to power on this, boasting on stage that cheating "makes me smart":

https://pluralistic.net/2024/12/04/its-not-a-lie/#its-a-premature-truth

Like so many crooked officials, Trump's brand is "He steals, but he works" (except of course that he doesn't – at any given moment, odds are that he's either taking a nap, watching Fox News, or playing golf):

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskBalkans/comments/utui8s/in_romania_we_have_a_saying_about_corrupt/

Remember: the right is the movement that says that governments are inefficient and corrupt, so right wing elected leaders make their own case by being incompetent and corrupt. Someone like Trump has to convince people that they can't rely on institutions or their neighbors. His path to power lies through convincing people that the system is rigged and that he – as a man who is an expert at cheating – knows how to rig it in your favor:

https://www.factcheck.org/2016/07/trumps-rigged-claim/

But merely claiming "the system is rigged" doesn't actually win the day. If you want to convince people that the system is rigged, it really helps if the system is actually rigged. Want to convince people that elections are corrupt? Legalize unlimited dark money spending and fill our polling places with defective, unauditable voting machines made by Beltway Bandits selling into no-bid contracts:

https://web.archive.org/web/20210203113531/https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2021/02/03/voting-machines-election-steal-conspiracy-flaws/

Want to convince people that there's a shadowy cabal of rich pedophiles hiding children in a pizza parlor basement? It helps if there's an actual cabal of rich pedophiles hanging out on a private island, abusing more than a thousand children (and counting). Want to convince people that the financial system is a rigged casino so you might as well just gamble on cryptocurrency and betting markets? It helps if the actual financial system is run by banks who receive billions in public money and then steal millions of Americans' homes after Obama takes Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner's advice to "foam the runways" for the banks using Americans' houses:

https://keystoneky.com/article/all-we-can-do-is-put-foam-on-the-runway-tim-geithner-speaking-before-the-collapse-of-lehman/

Which is all to say, if you want to understand the origins of the surge of suckers for fascists who are desperate for a strong man to cheat on their behalf in a rigged system, it helps to look beyond racism and xenophobia, to the ways in which the system is, indeed, rigged. Racism and misogyny alone aren't enough to bring about fascism. To groom a nation of fascist patsies, you first need a crooked system:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/07/22/all-day-suckers/#i-love-the-poorly-educated

This is why it's worth understanding finance. The finance sector hides its sins behind the Shield of Boringness (h/t Claire Evans). The layers of overlapping jargon and performative complexity make it hard for everyday people to criticize the finance sector. Finance ghouls exploit this, leveraging confusing ambiguities in the system to insist that their critics don't know what they're talking about and that everything is fine, actually. This is an incredibly destabilizing dynamic. Living in a system where you're being fleeced every day but where people who seem smarter than you have reasonable-seeming explanations about why it's all legit and above-board is a recipe for abandoning all faith in the system, in experts, and in lawful processes, and throw your lot in with a strongman who promises to cheat on your behalf.

Take stock buybacks, a form of stock swindle that was illegal until 1982. In a stock buyback, a company buys its own shares on the open market. When the number of shares goes down, the price per share goes up. This is just a form of "wash-trading," like when NFT and shitcoin scammers buy their own products in order to make it look like they're valuable and desirable:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/09/06/computer-says-huh/#invisible-handcuffs

Advocates for markets as a system of allocation (as opposed to allocating via a democratically accountable state, say) insist that markets are efficient because prices "encode information" about the desirability, viability, and other qualities of goods and services. This is the whole argument for the new crop of rigged casinos we call "prediction markets" that are grooming the next generation of fascist footsoldiers by robbing them blind and then insisting that the whole process was not only legitimate, but scientific, a way to retrieve the "encoded information" about the world around us.

In a market system, stock prices are supposed to reflect the aggregated information about the health and prospects of a company. When a company buys its own stock back, though, its price goes up while its value goes down.

I mean that literally: say a company that's sitting on a billion dollars cash is valued at $10 billion. From this, we can infer that the company's capital stock (factories, inventory, etc), IP (patents, processes, copyrights, etc) and human capital (payrolled employees, contractors) are worth $9 billion. That's a reliable estimate, because we know exactly how much one billion dollars cash is worth: it's worth one billion dollars.

Now, let that company piss that billion dollars up the wall with a stock buyback. The company is relieved of its billion dollars cash on hand, leaving it with no cash, only its physical capital, IP and human capital, which are worth $9b. The company is now worth less than it was before the stock buyback.

What's more, the drop in corporate valuation is more than the billion the company just blew on its buyback. A company with no cash reserves is brittle and prone to failures. Without a cash cushion, any rent shock, change in market conditions, or other adverse incident will leave the company scrambling to borrow money (at punitive rates, thanks to its desperation) to weather the storm. If share prices are actually "encoding information" about a company's worth, a billion dollar buyback should lop more than a billion dollars off the company's share price. Instead, it sends the share price up.

This is just stock manipulation, which is why it was illegal until 1982. But apologists for this system will tell you that a stock buyback is just a dividend by another name – just another way for a company to return value to its shareholders, who, after all, are the owners of the company and entitled to extract those profits.

This is categorically untrue. Dividends do take money out of the company's coffers and distribute them to its shareholders, sure – but a dividend is a bet on the company's future success, which is why a company's share prices rise after a dividend is declared. Investors observe a company that is so well-run that it can afford to drain some of its cash reserves in favor of its shareholders, so they buy the company's stock in anticipation of more dividends derived from more skilled operations.

But imagine if a company parted with a dividend so large that it meant that the firm would struggle to keep its doors open in the coming year. Imagine a publisher, say, whose dividend was so large that it couldn't afford to pay advances for any more books in the next season, meaning it could only make money from the backlist titles it already had in the warehouse, but was entirely out of the running when it came to publishing next year's blockbuster book.

That dividend would not send investors chasing the company's stock. Why would you bet on a stock whose management had just doomed the company to a bad season, and maybe an unrecoverable death-spiral? Without new books to sell, the company won't have any cash to pay dividends, and when it stops paying dividends, its stock price will fall, leaving shareholders with a hole in their own balance-sheets.

Contrast that with buybacks: to do a buyback, the company need merely spend its free cash flow, or money it borrows, or money derived from the sale of key capital, or money saved through mass layoffs, to buy its own stock. Then the share price goes up.

In other words: when a company's stock price rises on news of a dividend, that's "encoding information" about the market's confidence in the company's management and its future growth. When a company's stock price rises on news of a buyback, that's "encoding information" about the market's confidence in the company's future looting to the point of collapse.

I used to think that this was the whole stock buyback story, but as is ever the case with finance, buybacks are fractally corrupt. This week, I've been reading Boston College law prof Ray D Madoff's book The Second Estate: How the Tax Code Made an American Aristocracy, and I've learned even more scummy truths about buybacks:

https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/S/bo256019296.html

For tax purposes, dividends are "ordinary income," meaning that they are taxed at up to 37%. Meanwhile, if you sell your shares after a stock buyback juices the price, the profits are treated as "capital gains," whose tax rate caps out at about half that (20%). This means that shareholders pay half the tax on money that comes from strip-mining a company than they would get from money derived from managing a company for sustainable growth.

It's worse than that, though, because capital gains can be offset by capital losses. If you invested in a stock that tanked, you can hold that stock in your portfolio until you are ready to sell a profitable stock, and deduct your losses from the gains you've made.

But you don't even have to sell the stock to realize tax-free income from it: the ultra-rich live according to a financial arrangement called "buy, borrow, die" that lets them avoid all taxes.

Here's how that works: if you're sitting on a bunch of stock, you can stake it as collateral for a loan that is tax-free. Better than that, if you're smart, some or all of the interest on that loan is tax-deductible. If you're rich enough, you don't have to make regular payments on the loan, either – you just wait as the stock continues to grow while your loan is maturing, and when it's due, you borrow even more money against the new valuation and pay off the old loan.

That's "buy" and "borrow." Here's "die." When you die, you transfer your assets to your kids, who benefit from something called the "step-up in basis," which lets them avoid all capital gains on the appreciated value of your assets.

Now, maybe you're thinking that you can benefit from this arrangement. I've got bad news for you: you won't qualify for one of those cool loans that you don't need to pay regularly! What's more, if you own any stock you almost certainly own it through a retirement plan like a 401(k), and when you cash out that 401(k), that is treated as "ordinary income" at nearly twice the rate that our plutocrat overlords pay.

Buybacks, then, are part of a system whereby rich people get much richer every time a company that makes something good and employs ordinary people guts itself and sets itself on the path to bankruptcy. Meanwhile, working people don't benefit from this system, even if they own stock. They just get to live in a world where businesses are looted and shuttered and public services are slashed thanks to balanced budget rules that mean that governments can't spend when rich people don't pay taxes.

This is why buybacks have apologists. Buybacks – a stock swindle that was illegal in living memory – make rich people richer, and they spend some of that loot to fund an army of reply-ghouls who push the message that buybacks are dividends by another name.

It's part of the ripoff economy that has seen crypto-billionaires lobby, bribe and terrorize lawmakers into merging their speculative assets with the real economy, endangering the economic well-being of everyday people:

https://www.levernews.com/what-tech-wants-crypto-reign-of-terror/

It's part of the ripoff economy that has seen AI bros put the global market in peril with crooked accounting and empty promises:

https://www.wheresyoured.at/the-enshittifinancial-crisis/

The ripoff economy is baked into the American experience. It is the foundation of Trumpism. It is the financial basis for things like "Project 2025" – literally! The Heritage Foundation (who created Project 2025) was founded and funded by the founders of Amway, a destructive Ponzi scheme that was rescued from criminal prosecution when Gerald Ford (Congressman to Amway's founders) became president and ordered the FTC to let them off the hook:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/05/05/free-enterprise-system/#amway-or-the-highway

Trump's right: the system is rigged. If you're going to pull the people you love back from the nihilistic descent into fascism, you have to be able to understand and explain how the rigging works. We can't insist – as Hillary Clinton did – that "America is already great":

https://www.politico.com/blogs/2016-dem-primary-live-updates-and-results/2016/03/clinton-america-is-already-great-220078

America is not great. It has been gutted by the Epstein class, who robbed us blind, raped our kids, and are now selling us shitcoins and chatbots and the spectacle of protesters being shot in the streets. But it's not enough to know that the system is rigged. Everybody knows the system is rigged. To build a movement and save our future, we have to know how it is rigged and who rigged it.

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Hey look at this (permalink)

• Wherein I have some thoughts on food delivery apps https://www.dnalounge.com/backstage/log/2026/02/01.html

• A Letter On Justice And Open Debate About Raping Children https://www.popehat.com/p/a-letter-on-justice-and-open-debate-about-raping-children

• Impeach President Miller https://prospect.org/2026/01/31/impeach-president-miller/

• Google Settlement May Bring New Privacy Controls for Real-Time Bidding https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/01/google-settlement-may-bring-new-privacy-controls-real-time-bidding

• U.S. government has lost more than 10,000 STEM Ph.D.s since Trump took office https://www.science.org/content/article/u-s-government-has-lost-more-10-000-stem-ph-d-s-trump-took-office

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Object permanence (permalink)

#25yrsago Acme License-Plate Maker https://www.acme.com/licensemaker/licensemaker.cgi?state=California&text=NSHITKN&plate=1987&r=943099606

#15yrsago Apple implements iStore changes, prohibits Sony from selling competing ebook app https://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/01/technology/01apple.html?_r=3

#15yrsago IPv4 is exhausted https://tech.slashdot.org/story/11/02/01/0036227/Last-Available-IPv4-Blocks-Allocated

#15yrsago Harper’s publisher rejects $50K worth of pledges, will lay off staff anyway https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdDoZvxCvsax1zkMKANucBCQU8v-08tcw6VIDrtnmnqLY9I0A/viewform?formkey=dGdtbXUtNUV3cmtpaXJienJ5bldwcUE6MQ

#15yrsago South Dakota senator introduces mandatory gun-ownership law https://www.newser.com/story/111031/south-dakota-bill-every-adult-must-own-a-gun.html

#10yrsago UK Snooper’s Charter is so broad, no one can figure out what it means https://web.archive.org/web/20160202092111/https://motherboard.vice.com/read/tech-firms-are-unclear-on-new-uk-surveillance-laws-warns-government-committee

#5yrsago The good news about vaccination bad news https://pluralistic.net/2021/02/01/dinos-and-rinos/#mixed-news

#5yrsago Unidirectional entryism https://pluralistic.net/2021/02/01/dinos-and-rinos/#entryism

#15yrsago Inside Sukey the anti-kettling mobile app https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2011/feb/02/inside-anti-kettling-hq

#10yrsago Swatting attempted against Congresswoman who introduced anti-swatting bill https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2016/02/01/cops-swarm-rep-katherine-clark-melrose-home-after-apparent-hoax/yqEpcpWmKtN6bOOAj8FZXJ/story.html

#10yrsago A would-be clinic-bomber & friends are terrorizing a charter school for being too close to a future Planned Parenthood office https://web.archive.org/web/20160318235447/https://broadly.vice.com/en_us/article/inside-the-bizarre-war-anti-abortion-zealots-are-waging-against-school-kids

#10yrsago Ross and Carrie become Scientologists: an investigative report 5 years in the making https://ohnopodcast.com/investigations/2016/2/1/ross-and-carrie-audit-scientology-part-1-going-preclear

#10yrsago Exclusive: Snowden intelligence docs reveal UK spooks’ malware checklist https://memex.craphound.com/2016/02/02/exclusive-snowden-intelligence-docs-reveal-uk-spooks-malware-checklist/

#5yrsago The free market and rent-seeking https://pluralistic.net/2021/02/02/euthanize-rentiers/#poor-doors

#5yrsago Criti-Hype https://pluralistic.net/2021/02/02/euthanize-rentiers/#dont-believe-the-hype

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Upcoming appearances (permalink)

• Salt Lake City: Enshittification at the Utah Museum of Fine Arts (Tanner Humanities Center), Feb 18
  https://tanner.utah.edu/center-events/cory-doctorow/

• Montreal (remote): Fedimtl, Feb 24
  https://fedimtl.ca/

• Victoria: 28th Annual Victoria International Privacy & Security Summit, Mar 3-5
  https://www.rebootcommunications.com/event/vipss2026/

• Berkeley: Bioneers keynote, Mar 27
  https://conference.bioneers.org/

• Berlin: Re:publica, May 18-20
  https://re-publica.com/de/news/rp26-sprecher-cory-doctorow

• Berlin: Enshittification at Otherland Books, May 19
  https://www.otherland-berlin.de/de/event-details/cory-doctorow.html

• Hay-on-Wye: HowTheLightGetsIn, May 22-25
  https://howthelightgetsin.org/festivals/hay/big-ideas-2

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Recent appearances (permalink)

• How the Internet Got Worse (Masters in Business)
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=auXlkuVhxMo

• Enshittification (Jon Favreau/Offline):
  https://crooked.com/podcast/the-enshittification-of-the-internet-with-cory-doctorow/

• Why Big Tech is a Trap for Independent Creators (Stripper News)
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmYDyz8AMZ0

• Enshittification (Creative Nonfiction podcast)
  https://brendanomeara.com/episode-507-enshittification-author-cory-doctorow-believes-in-a-new-good-internet/

• Enshittification with Plutopia
  https://plutopia.io/cory-doctorow-enshittification/

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Latest books (permalink)

• "Canny Valley": A limited edition collection of the collages I create for Pluralistic, self-published, September 2025

• "Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It," Farrar, Straus, Giroux, October 7 2025
  https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374619329/enshittification/

• "Picks and Shovels": a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about the heroic era of the PC, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), February 2025 (https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865908/picksandshovels).

• "The Bezzle": a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about prison-tech and other grifts, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), February 2024 (thebezzle.org).

• "The Lost Cause:" a solarpunk novel of hope in the climate emergency, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), November 2023 (http://lost-cause.org).

• "The Internet Con": A nonfiction book about interoperability and Big Tech (Verso) September 2023 (http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org). Signed copies at Book Soup (https://www.booksoup.com/book/9781804291245).

• "Red Team Blues": "A grabby, compulsive thriller that will leave you knowing more about how the world works than you did before." Tor Books http://redteamblues.com.

• "Chokepoint Capitalism: How to Beat Big Tech, Tame Big Content, and Get Artists Paid, with Rebecca Giblin", on how to unrig the markets for creative labor, Beacon Press/Scribe 2022 https://chokepointcapitalism.com

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Upcoming books (permalink)

• "Unauthorized Bread": a middle-grades graphic novel adapted from my novella about refugees, toasters and DRM, FirstSecond, 2026

• "Enshittification, Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It" (the graphic novel), Firstsecond, 2026

• "The Memex Method," Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 2026

• "The Reverse-Centaur's Guide to AI," a short book about being a better AI critic, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, June 2026

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Colophon (permalink)

Today's top sources:

Currently writing: "The Post-American Internet," a sequel to "Enshittification," about the better world the rest of us get to have now that Trump has torched America (1007 words today, 19588 total)

• "The Reverse Centaur's Guide to AI," a short book for Farrar, Straus and Giroux about being an effective AI critic. LEGAL REVIEW AND COPYEDIT COMPLETE.

• "The Post-American Internet," a short book about internet policy in the age of Trumpism. PLANNING.

• A Little Brother short story about DIY insulin PLANNING

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This work – excluding any serialized fiction – is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. That means you can use it any way you like, including commercially, provided that you attribute it to me, Cory Doctorow, and include a link to pluralistic.net.

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Quotations and images are not included in this license; they are included either under a limitation or exception to copyright, or on the basis of a separate license. Please exercise caution.

---

How to get Pluralistic:

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https://pluralistic.net/plura-list

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https://doctorow.medium.com/

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https://twitter.com/doctorow

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"When life gives you SARS, you make sarsaparilla" -Joey "Accordion Guy" DeVilla

READ CAREFULLY: By reading this, you agree, on behalf of your employer, to release me from all obligations and waivers arising from any and all NON-NEGOTIATED agreements, licenses, terms-of-service, shrinkwrap, clickwrap, browsewrap, confidentiality, non-disclosure, non-compete and acceptable use policies ("BOGUS AGREEMENTS") that I have entered into with your employer, its partners, licensors, agents and assigns, in perpetuity, without prejudice to my ongoing rights and privileges. You further represent that you have the authority to release me from any BOGUS AGREEMENTS on behalf of your employer.

ISSN: 3066-764X

Distributors breathe a sigh of relief as the documentary defies the disastrous opening many anticipated to land a screen average of £212 on its first weekend of release

Melania, Brett Ratner’s authorised documentary about the current US first lady, has opened at No 29 in the UK box office chart on its first weekend of release. The film, which cost Amazon $40m to buy and $35m to promote, screened in 155 cinemas across the UK and Ireland, taking £32,974 overall, with a site average of £212.80.

This result will have the distributors breathing a sigh of relief as – despite the modest takings – this is far from the disaster many anticipated. The scale of the rollout was unprecedented in the UK documentary sector, where most titles are capped at around 25 locations.

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This year, there has been a significant softening of the dry January trend. But why?

Name: Damp January.

Age: New.

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Lady Lawrence tells high court she is ‘a victim all over again’ owing to alleged unlawful information gathering

The mother of the murdered teenager Stephen Lawrence has said she felt she had been “taken for a fool” by the publisher of the Daily Mail, after she was told about allegations it had targeted her with unlawful information gathering techniques.

Appearing at the high court in London, Doreen Lawrence said she felt angry because of the trust she had placed in the Daily Mail, owing to its coverage of her son’s case.

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Trump supporter Júnior Pena falsely claimed migrants being rounded up, including Brazilians, were ‘all crooks’

A rightwing Brazilian influencer who claimed Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown targeted only “crooks” has been arrested by ICE agents in New Jersey.

Júnior Pena, whose full name is Eustáquio da Silva Pena Júnior, declared his support for the US president in a recent video message to his hundreds of thousands of social media followers.

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Famous people who speak out are often derided, but throughout time artists have used the platform they have. And if not now, when?

One of the most discordant and yet banal things about looking to the US today is how celebrity, its greatest cultural output, largely carries on as normal amid scenes of profound distress. Award ceremonies are televised, bespoke couture is pulled for the red carpet, some new film fills your social media timeline. It feels galling that a country can encompass such a sense of anguish at the same time as such glamour and wonder. And given that we are condemned to witness ICE’s transformation into a lethal, paramilitary force, such an event as the 68th Grammy awards, broadcast last night, feels at once insignificant and more important than ever as all the world watches.

The Grammys saw perhaps the most uninhibited and genuinely furious rebuke of ICE and Donald Trump that we have seen so far from celebrity figures – particularly considering that just last month, the Golden Globes was viewed as having largely ignored politics, save for a few “ICE Out” pins worn by stars including Ariana Grande and Mark Ruffalo. Grammy attendees went further. Billie Eilish followed up her call for celebrities to speak up against ICE, saying that “no one is illegal on stolen land … I feel that we just need to keep fighting and speaking up and protesting, our voices do matter and the people matter.” Perhaps most movingly, considering his stated concern around the mass deportation of Latino people, album of the year winner Bad Bunny said: “ICE out. We’re not savages, we’re not animals, we are humans and we are Americans … the only thing that is more powerful than hate is love.” These came alongside celebrations of immigration from Olivia Dean and Shaboozey.

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The president called the ceremony ‘garbage’, but in reality it was a celebration of artists whose commercial success was matched by boundary-pushing boldness

Donald Trump, it seems, did not much enjoy the 2026 Grammys. Shortly after the conclusion of the ceremony’s live broadcast in the US, there he was on Truth Social, calling it “the worst”, “garbage”, “unwatchable” and threatening to sue host Trevor Noah.

Perhaps that was the reaction the Recording Academy wanted. You could, if you wished, divine a certain Maga-baiting intent not just in the decision to give the album of the year award to Bad Bunny – a Puerto Rican who attracted criticism from the Trump administration after he was booked to headline the SuperBowl LX half-time show – but the choice of the Buena Vista Social Club, a Broadway hit based on the 1997 album of the same name featuring veteran Cuban musicians, as the best musical theatre album: the latter two weeks after the New York Times reported that Cubans settled in Florida are being deported in record numbers.

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British pop collective decry use of 1997 hit Tubthumping to promote the party’s ‘small-minded, hate-fuelled agenda’

The British pop collective Chumbawamba has asked Spain’s Vox to stop using their best-known song to promote “its small-minded, hate-fuelled agenda” after the far-right party chose its 1997 hit single Tubthumping to soundtrack a social media post railing against migration.

Santiago Abascal, who leads Vox, visited the north-eastern Spanish town of Caspe last week in the run-up to this weekend’s regional election in Aragón. He posted images of the visit to Facebook on Friday, along with the caption: “Great welcome yesterday in Caspe … for a street press conference. The locals are sick of the migratory invasion. And we stand with them.”

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‘Christians complained about the stuffed buzzard wearing a crucifix round its neck. Birds can’t be Christians, they said. It’s the most complaints we ever got’

The first time I saw what was to become Shooting Stars was Vic Reeves – AKA Jim Moir – doing The Big Quiz during Vic Reeves Big Night Out live. I’d never seen anything like it. It was full of meaningless questions and had an attitude. I remember thinking: “There must be something we could do with that.”

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Tim Burton on Catherine O’Hara: “Catherine’s so good, maybe too good. She works on levels that people don’t even know. I think she scares people because she operates at such high levels.” Loved her. RIP.

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