Tells you a lot about the current political culture when people (including me) are positively surprised that an EU leader concedes after losing an election.

Talking of contemporary violent extremism. ”What has emerged is a grey zone between clearly politically motivated terrorism and forms of terrorist-type violence that are driven primarily by psychological vulnerabilities, developmental issues, and deeply held personal grievances.”

Neo-Nazi machete attack injures two teenagers in Berlin. One of the wounds went down to the bone. www.the-berliner.com/english-news... The attackers shouted Sieg Heil before running off.

Strava just keeps on giving. You’ve been able to track the French aircraft carrier’s movements through the app, as a sailor posted their jogging route on the platform.

Many people have surely heard that AI is increasingly being used in open-source investigations and IT vulnerability exploitation. If you’ve somehow failed to grasp how, here’s a harrowing example of the latter.

My PhD studies are also free.

Fascism is the ultimate expression of the politics of vibes, and in 2026, that means that content = currency.

I was invited to a Finnish podcast to discuss Bellingcat Volunteer Community, geolocating, and neo-Nazis. My first time ever on a podcast. Here’s a Spotify link, but you can find Herrasmieshakkerit wherever you get your podcasts.

I've never seen anything like this before. There are currently at least 14 (fourteen!) KC-135R Stratotankers on their way to the Middle East. Inbound from bases across the United States. They're used to refuel other aircraft in the air.

I remember this sort of example being used in media literacy classes in school when I was younger. This was in Finland, I don’t know how it’s done in other countries.

I'd like to see someone geolocating and chronolocating this. One could try to use the guy's shadow at 0:18 for the chronolocation.

This was posted a couple of hours ago on a well-known neo-Nazi Telegram channel. Everyone monitoring these channels has seen similar messages for quite some time now.

Nostalgia is also a sign of weakness, as I wrote in my dissertation (which also cites Nostalgia and Its Discontents). You turn to nostalgia when you are losing, or have already lost, the support of the in-group.

”Contemporary violent extremism increasingly develops before the adoption of a coherent ideology, often through exposure to violent online cultures, transgressive communities, and aestheticised harm.” ”Radicalisation is also understood as a process of networked socialisation”, not recruitment.

Research on right-wing extremists (RWE) suggests that RWE content creators aim to provoke because the furore is used as a tool for drumming up support and donations. Just something to keep in mind.

Important points raised by @emilialounela.bsky.social about how to reduce the attractiveness of misogynistic incel communities. www.hs.fi/helsinki/art...

Pity the French Far Right. After 15 years of Marine Le Pen cleaning house and four years of distancing her party from Moscow, the Rassemblement National can’t help admitting where its real instincts lie 1/

Swedish neo-Nazis are moving in droves to Finland’s Swedish-speaking Åland Islands to take advantage of Finland’s laxer homeschooling laws. For example, Anders Rydberg, the leader of Nordisk Styrka, has moved to Åland. He’s also an ex-member of the NRM. www.hs.fi/politiikka/a...

A police investigation against neo-Nazis in Germany & Switzerland w/ links to Blood & Honour/Combat 18: neo-Nazi music/merch (obviously), suspicion of violating weapons laws, trafficking steroids/doping drugs and prescription drugs, having explosive devices, etc. Arrest warrant out for main suspect.

Four members of Active Club Sweden who were convicted of aggravated assault and other hate crimes for an August 2025 attack in Stockholm have had their sentences *increased* by a Swedish appeals court for another assault committed during their spree of evening attacks www.domstol.se/nyheter/2026...

It is remarkable how little discussion there is in Finland about acquiring our own nukes. Especially since the public debate has been gathering steam in other Nordic countries for some time already.

Is the CIA behind all this?

Conspiracies not only give the believer a sense of control of the world around them. They take control when you distrust all institutions. They provide an other, an enemy who is harming your world. That harm and oppression renders the other not human. The other does not

And here’s the other one. European politicians surely have their work cut out for them in Davos. static-assets-1.truthsocial.com/tmtg:prime-t...

The second of the two Greenland posts for Europeans to wake up to this fine morning. Here’s a link for you all to enjoy. truthsocial.com/@realDonaldT...

Interesting public opinion survey results of out Venezuela today: - 68.4% don't believe that the US is running the country - 52.7% believe that the US' main interest in the country is oil (vs. 7.9% who said "human rights") - 78.3% would vote for Machado www.elnacional.com/2026/01/la-m...

The public discussion about whether Trump would order an invasion of Greenland feels awfully reminiscent of the debates before Russia’s full-scale attack on Ukraine: ”No, he won’t order an invasion. It doesn’t make sense for Russia because XYZ.”

A mere 12 hours later, Stanley’s prayers were answered.

Thanks to Hypnotoad on the Bellingcat Discord server for noting the spike in Pentagon pizza trackers www.pizzint.watch

Have a great 2026, everyone! My perennial New Year’s wish is to be able to read and write more. It wouldn’t hurt to have an hour or two for video games either!

Lol. But also, this is sad.

I had completely missed this. I’m curious to know whether the seized funds are going to be returned. ”The federal judges in their ruling said they were not convinced that a nationwide ’Hammerskins’ umbrella organization actually existed, and that therefore the prohibition order was unlawful.”

My article on how current and former incels negotiate what 'incel' means to them is out. Spoiler: it's complicated. 'Incel' meant very different things to different individuals, but spending time on forums negatively affected all participants' mental well-being. www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

And it seems I was right - Nigeria has clearly decided to ask Europe and Pentagon for help.

This doesn’t exactly spark joy. The relations between the ”unreliable allies” and the US undoubtedly affect the relations between the US and smaller countries. ”it is far from obvious whether certain European countries will have economies and militaries strong enough to remain reliable allies.”

Spanish police said on Monday they had broken up the country's first known cell linked to The Base, a white supremacist group designated as a terrorist organisation by the European Union www.reuters.com/business/med...

Police arrest another suspect in investigation of “sovereign citizen” extremists | NL Times nltimes.nl/2025/11/26/p...

A 23-year-old Swedish man was sentenced to eight years in prison in Luxembourg on Thursday for planning terrorist attacks at the Eurovision in 2020. He had 538 far-right documents on his computer, containing not only plans for an attack on the Eurovision, but also several other targets.

In Sweden, four neo-Nazis were each sentenced to around three years in prison for assaulting three men. The attacks were ruled to be hate-motivated. All four perpetrators are members of the local Active Club. www.aftonbladet.se/nyheter/a/Mn...

If you are interested in the modern far right - especially the so-called Active Clubs - this is a recommended read. You can see Gramsci invoked constantly in the far-right corners of Telegram.

’The Chinese government attaches great importance to, and protects, data privacy and security in accordance with the law, and has never and will never require companies or individuals to collect or provide data located in foreign countries in violation of local laws,” the [Chinese] embassy said.’

Finnish neo-Nazis are reopening their ”culture centre” tomorrow in the same city where it was previously located. They’ll reveal the address tomorrow at 06:00. The earlier centre was torched by unknown assailants late last year. They claim to have improved security to deter potential saboteurs.

Is being forced to go to work by the government for no pay while questioning their loyalty towards the authorities capitalism?

Last new coal plant proposals cancelled or shelved in Thailand, Kenya, Tajikistan & Uzbekistan, Cambodia deciding not to build any new coal, Morocco committing to a 2040 coal phase-out, proposals for new coal power outside China at record low - lots of progress happening outside front page news.

This is not a great look, especially if a global downturn does come at some point. Are Finns - as the youth say - cooked? ”Just one OECD country, Finland, is in recession, compared with eight in early 2023.”

Please, somebody help me make sense of the modern world. We’re living in a damn meme.

This does have international ramifications too, as far-right parties abroad can claim that the term is not “extremist” because the U.S. government also uses it.

I bump into these kinds of stories all the time when following the war. The war’s approaching its fourth anniversary, but it seems like soldiers haven’t learned a thing about operational security. Confounds the mind.

Loving the meltdown by all the French politics analysts.