“But Love and Grace took Glory by the hand, And built a braver palace than before.”
The Church Militant
Joined July 2014
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The philosophy of dirt and rats is crumbling all about us. This is a time of Triumph.
ALT "The Man Who was Thursday," GK Chesterton
Cranking out 5500 words in about six hours ain’t half bad. I suppose I have been thinking about this piece for over four years, though. Still. It’s encouraging when my brain still functions at more than a shadow of its former powers.
Bits of Paul retweeted
✋😔🤚 “Wow ... Really...? Wow... no, I didn’t know that... you’re ... you’re telling me that for the first time.”
Holy sh*t. Claude Code just found a hidden chip inside my Chinese power bank from Guangzhou. Every time I charged my iPhone, it quietly copied the whole phone…
It also read our saved Wi-Fi password off my iPhone, got onto our home network and sent everything to a server.
I bought it for $19 at an airport kiosk there 3 weeks ago. No brand, 30,000 mAh on the label, and it felt heavy.
The first time I plugged in, the screen asked "Trust This Computer?". I tapped Trust without thinking and went on with my day. That one tap gave it access to everything.
This morning I finally set up Claude Code to warn me when any device starts reading my files. An hour later, 10 seconds into charging, the screen filled with yellow warnings, then red ones: data was moving when it should only be charging.
I asked Claude Code what was going on. My phone saw the power bank as a small computer with 64 GB of storage and its own internet connection.
A USB cable has wires for power and wires for data, and a normal charger only uses the power ones. This one used both, and it had already copied all of this:
→ /device → IMEI and serial number
→ /contacts → 1,206 numbers
→ /apps → every app I have, including my 2 bank apps
→ /photos → 3,912 pictures, my passport among them
→ /wifi → our network name and its key
→ /wife's iPhone → her photos too, she charged from it twice and tapped Trust too
Each time we plugged in, it used that key to get online and send out the new files:
sends to → 47.***.***.12
uploads → 19 in 3 weeks
last one → last night at 2:14, while we slept
I pulled the cable right away. Then Claude Code blocked that address on our router and walked me through changing the Wi-Fi password and the logins for my bank apps.
I had it opened at a repair shop, and what was inside is in the first comment. A 30-second check for your own is in the second one. Save this and test every power bank in your house today.
Readers added context they thought people might want to know
Appears staged. Claude Code on iPhone is only a remote client and cannot monitor USB or dump data as shown. Account posts similar unverified stories promoting tools. Malicious power banks are a theoretical risk; never tap Trust on unknown devices.
code.claude.com/docs/en/mobile
support.apple.com/en-us/109054
Bits of Paul retweeted
Sidelining MAHA through the midterms out of fear of Big Ag and the medical-industrial complex was political malpractice.
This, astonishingly enough, is actually a post about migrants, btw
it’s kind of crazy how Bob Barker’s “get your pets spayed or neutered!” seemingly solid good pro-animal advocacy has slowly led to such an incredible decline in non-pit dogs such that if you don’t spend a ton and go out of your way to get a non-pit, then all there is are pits.
it’s like the unwinding of the long creation of the beloved dog replaced by some violent animal instead. and done without intention and even without most people noticing just by following nice, reasonable, kind soft left policies.
many such cases.
Bits of Paul retweeted
GM, friends.
Delphica Society was founded so that people would come together in real life, around shared culture, conversation, and the work of building something lasting - rather than remaining isolated in the digital noise.
That purpose becomes especially vital in the aftermath of loss, when fragmentation is easiest and the path forward is least clear. What you will find in Salt Lake City next week is not mere consolation, but organization and strategy for the future, grounded in hope and togetherness: a chance to gather, align, and continue the work of cultural renewal side by side.
See you in Utah. We love you 🤍
🤖 Made with AI
Bits of Paul retweeted
One year our polling place was an elementary school. I wasn’t prepared for all the ballot questions. But I noticed a few cars in the staff lot were covered with “vote yes on…” etc. so I took a picture of them and voted against what the teachers were voting for.
The ferocity with which people will attack (i.e. “debunk”) such statements as below is only further reinforcement of the very conditions which cause people to make such statements in the first place.
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The divorce rate for white, ideologically conservative, Christian-attending-church-weekly, first-marriage couples who have multiple biological children is less than 1%.
We have the data; people looked at the data. Sociology isn’t a mystery.
The divorce rate for college educated people is nearly half as those without. For white people it’s about 30%. For Christians it’s about half of non-Christians, for non-boomers it’s a fraction.
If you’re a white christian college educated millennial, your divorce rate is about 15%. Don’t listen to doomers.
Fascinating dynamic I’ve observed in every cohabiting Christian/“Christian” dating couple is that the woman is always the one who instigates cohabitation and stays over at the boyfriend’s.
For all of the Church’s extreme focus on catering to women, they remain lonely. Perhaps gnosticism can’t keep their hearts warm? Big if true.
Libertarians, who run on denying basic moral truths, turn out to write immoral slop. This oughtn’t be a surprise, but it still is to many. (And no, I didn’t even read all of the first tweet of the below thread, much less the thread; but I give it below in case you’re curious what the serpent probably sounded like in Eden.)
It goes without saying that I have major disagreements with both Mike Rogers and Abdul El-Sayed, and neither one particularly likes me.
Rogers and I regularly battled in the U.S. House. I’m a staunch defender of liberty and the Constitution, and he’s a champion of big weaponized government, mass surveillance, and endless wars. He tried (and failed) to oust me from Congress.
When I was considering a presidential run in 2020, El-Sayed wrote a gratuitous op-ed to warn people that “Justin Amash is no hero,” calling my principles “heartless” and finishing with the reminder: “Your enemy’s enemy is not your friend.”
In short, I have no soft spot for either of these guys.
I also don’t vote for “the lesser of two evils.”
I believe you should support a candidate only if you truly want the person to hold that office.
I’ve already voted, and consistent with the above principle, I didn’t vote for Rogers or El-Sayed.
But I do know which one would be more dangerous in the U.S. Senate—and it’s not even close.
Thread ⬇️
There is greater Truth to be found in poetry, philosophy, and literature than all the history books in the world.
Facts are not supreme. In Latin, “factus” gives, “having been done/made.” It invokes the idea of material creation. But some things simply Are—and they are the Highest Truths.
Bits of Paul retweeted
What if I want to use the RAM to do things that are prohibited by the terms of service of whoever is running the datacenter?
Re: Haley Stevens—
Early this morning, before church, I happened to pray that there would be prominent Democrats courageous enough to go against some of their party’s treasonous candidates. I’ve never thought of praying that before.
I understand that Stevens did just that, this morning, by going to church with a GOP guy (among other things).
Never in a thousand years would I suggest I necessarily had an effect on the events of today by my small prayer. But I will, a thousand times over, remark that my prayer was answered—and that the only prayers that can be answered are those which are offered.
Thread. A classic case of a storyteller (Lucas) inadvertently telling such a True story that his explicit authorial intent is actively inverted by the implicit mythological verity of the narrative itself.
Another example is the first and second Sicario films—in the latter movie, they realized what was happening to their agenda and consciously shattered the congruity of their own story in order to prevent it telling a True story. This phenomenon is littered throughout much of contemporary pop culture.
