The great anticipation of a dump of Epstein files goes where one would think it would. Pages of black bars, the words “Bill Clinton” conspicuously not blacked out, an allowance for some clearly plausibly fake Epstein letter — the better to have Fox News And Newsmax chime in about duped responders. And not able to shut it all off, a quick comment from the Justice Department with the line that if it were true the dastardly Garland would have thrown it all out to get Trump.

Other disclosures passed from the Epstein Estate to the Democrats in the Hill give an absurd tableau of things. You have to drop in a timeline of Epstein, and then weigh if the timeline matters for shadings. Epstein is a guy with fundraising contacts so politicos glad handle him, how in are they on anything short of the island is up for conjecture. Jacuzzi sightings abound. And we have that sense that he liked jamming strange travellers together. So we have it — Noam Chomsky meeting Steve Bannon. Good chuckle, huh?

It is this milieu of elites that bubbles up into Bohemian Grove and Reptilian alien conspiracies. And they all landed on Trump — blinders on to get work arounds on where dots and patterns pull in.

Time Magazine’s selection of “The Architects of AI” for “Person of the Year” does at long last settle away a big complaint for this citation. The one seen back in 2001 when they skipped past the obvious figure of Osama Bin Laden. They can’t bring themselves to do what they could in the 1930s with Adolf Hitler and pick out “destroyers of civilization” for the honor. Now they can, I guess. To be sure, so far the most immediate personal effect is seeing a deluge on nonsense on my YouTube feed — weird computerized copy versions of some personalities have dropped on in.

I do have a defence on something with Joe Rogan, only in that in some corner of other I see a dealing of mocking a bit from him in discussion with tech mogul yoohoos. It is a tangent on AI Jesus, Second Coming, some way or other granting some biblical concepts of an “imagine if” and how. This is functionally stoner talk, whether Rogan is high right Then or not irrelevant, and I would encourage anyone to it. It neither negates not facilitates, say, his inability to see the implications of Trump’s immigration promises and backing for it and think through its problems until after he helps him win election and becomes President again, and then and only then can skid to a “whooah!”

The number of strange sensations I get in the current administration. You watch the over the top glad handling of a Trump administration meeting, where everyone goes out of their way and makes over the top statements on Trump’s greatness and what he has bestowed on the American nation. The obvious parallel is to the dictators of North Korea — or any dictator, but Saddam is long gone and you can jump to the one most comically exaggerated. And there is that power dynamic certainly in making sure he knows you are on his good side always with no deviation.

But there is a different point this reminds me of. Joseph Biden. At the end of his administration, post debate, and in particular post campaign quitting. And trying to parse the dynamic and if there is something in the Trump dynamic that is the same. The manner in which Kamala Harris seemed required to pay deference, and the manner this came off as pumping up a doddering old man — “nice” in its dictionary pejorative definition. And Biden is and was reportedly brittle — especially with Obama — did not get a phone call of thanks in a long series of phone calls thanking different people for their support through his career — and this strikes me as more human and relatable than the constant harping for Trump and his reselling of the package of Trump Greatness — it suggests Biden has an understanding of the political dynamics of two faces around him. But the North Korea model of glad handling to parody levels may have that element — and sure, it is the manner of getting what you want now (Marco Rubio and a war with Venezuela), but it is also the manner of pushing past the doddering old man.