[This Iran war update launched before finished. Please return at 8:00 AM EDT or refresh your browser then for a final version]
Trump gave another rambling, unhinged speech repeating old and obviously false tropes, that the Iranian military was defeated yet the US still needed to spend a few more weeks bombing them into the Stone Age (“where they belong”) since Iran has somehow not gotten the memo and are still able to hold the mighty US off with spears and slingshots.
So one might assume that the Trump Unit is another two to three weeks, since after the initial, supposedly quick and easy assault on Iran failed, the most commonly messaged official timetable for victory was in another two to four weeks, which has now come and gone. But unlike the rolling Friedman Unit, the US has only at most three to four weeks of serious firepower left. What happens then?
Even though Trump did not mention it in his speech, the plan to send ground forces into Iran is still moving forward as more ground forces move into the theater.
And in the meantime, as we’ll soon discuss, even if Iran has taken blows, it seems to be more of civilian infrastructure than military assets. Or to put it another way, even if Iran’s fighting power has been degraded somewhat, the attrition on the belligerents’ side is worse. That is demonstrated by fresh attacks by Iran, notably a huge missile barrage on Israel.
Finally, in a must-listen talk, escalation expert Richard Pape argues what most have worked out, that Iran will never give up control of the Strait of Hormuz. And confirming that, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi threw down the internal low marker: the Strait of Hormuz is not international waters but internal to Iran and Oman.1 That is consistent I ran this by a diplomatic contact who agreed that was a valid reading.
First to the Trump speech. You can find a transcript here, or if you are a glutton for punishment, view it here. Mr. Market did not like the belligerence. This matters more than it might appear, since Trump heretofore has rung the changes on “Oh, negotiations are going just great” mixed with threats of and actual further military action. This prime-time speech may have considerably blunted Trump’s ability to engage in market-sophorific happy talk. And Mr. Market remains the force with the best prospects of checking him sooner rather than later. He has repeatedly demonstrated that suffering of real people does not move him.
From the Financial Times in Trump threatens to hit Iran ‘extremely hard’ in coming weeks:
Oil prices jumped as Trump offered little clarity on when and how the war would end, with Brent, the international benchmark, rising about 5 per cent in early Asia trading to $106 a barrel.
Stocks slid with Japan’s Topix share index falling roughly 1.2 per cent while South Korea’s Kospi dropped 3.8 per cent and futures tracking Wall Street’s S&P 500 declined 1 per cent.
John Woods, chief investment officer for Asia at Lombard Odier, said: “The market was hoping for new news around the end of the conflict and sold off when his speech failed to provide a clear sense of closure”….
US forces would strike “each and every one of their electric-generating plants very hard and probably simultaneously” if there was no deal, he said, adding Washington could target oil facilities as well.
And the Bloomberg landing page as of 6:00 AM EDT:
Notice that Bloomberg registers that the war-makers attacks are hitting Iranian civilian targets, which aside from being war crimes, are an admission of sorts that the US and Israel are not having much luck with military assets.
The first items in its live feed update:
• After US President Trump last night pledged more aggressive attacks in coming weeks, Iran’s army chief ramped up threats, saying that “if the enemy attempts a ground operation, not a single person should survive,” as the US ordered thousands of troops to the region.
• Brent crude jumped to $108 per barrel, while European gas prices rose as much as 7%. Europe’s diesel futures benchmark hit the highest level since 2022.
• Iranian missile attacks at Tel Aviv and Jerusalem forced many inside bomb shelters, with Israel reporting five sets of launches between midnight and 10am local time on Thursday. Israel said it hit 400 targets in Iran in two days.
However, it appears that investors are still not fully facing the music. Even though the Financial Times today ran an the above-the-fold story, The global wave of energy rationing, it depicted emerging and export-led economies as more exposed, explicitly arguing that energy is more important to them per unit of GDP. James Currie, in The Crude Awakening, debunked that by arguing that not just petroleum-based energy but petroleum-based inputs were actually more essential in linchpin activities than in the 1970s, so naive invocation of energy’s contribution to GDP greatly understated the exposures and the impact. We featured a related factor today in Beyond Oil: The Macroeconomic Impact of Commodity Supply Disturbances, that economists and therefore also investors fixate on oil shocks and largely ignore the effect of related commodity shocks, which this case look set to create even more inflation in and of themselves than the energy shortages.
Next to hot takes that focus more on kinetic and geopolitical implications. First from Colonel Macgregor:
Some key points:
Macgregor gave new reasons to be skeptical about a ground operation. Even the US succeeds in any of the dimly viable paths, none of them will have a strategic impact. He is skeptical of air-dropped special forces,2 since they are enormously risky to begin with and depend on a bigger force to punch through and secure to what amounts to a beachhead. Macgregor also alluded to an issue others like Larry Wilkerson have mentioned, that death rates will be high due to the inability to properly treat seriously wounded service-members in the so-called critical “golden hour”.
Macgregor also described economic exposure in the US. He claimed that California’s oil is imported and mentioned that the US depends on 47 critical inputs that are petroleum-related. He also emphasized that this war was undoing the Green Revolution and mass hunger would result. He observed that if the war were to end soon, we might merely have a few months of harm but would claw back, but another month plus would result in years of severe damage.
Paul Krugman is very good when in the opposition. From Trump Doesn’t Even Have the Courage to Run Away:
It turns out that the speech was sort of an anticlimax, although not in a good way. Many people expected Trump to pull the mother of all TACOs, to declare victory and surrender. He did not do that. He declared victory, of course, but he did not actually announce an end to hostilities. On the contrary, he said we’re going to bomb Iran into the Stone Age. So add massive war crimes to your schedule.
There is clearly no strategy here. There’s no endgame. There’s nothing. It’s hard to tell, as always, whether Trump is delusional or just completely unable to admit something that he actually knows.
One of the moments that really struck me in the speech was him declaring that the whole world was extremely impressed by what happened…
What it’s seeing is that the world’s greatest military power took on a fourth-rate power. Again, as I said the other day, Iran’s military budget is a rounding error in our military budget. And we lost….
But Trump has to believe or has to claim that he believes that the whole world is extremely impressed. You might say, why do we care? Well, he cares, obviously. His whole thing is about dominance and believing that we’ve got the world awed by our strength.
I have to keep hammering on the point that the US despite its huge military spending is not the world’s greatest military power. Russia is. Not only are vast swathes of our spending wasteful to unproductive (we actually tout the terrible F-35!) but our military is optimize for short wars against insurgents. And even then, the Houthis bested us. Can we please drop the bogus chest-beating about our Wizard of Oz military show?
And from Larry Johnson in Donald Trump’s Addled Speech on Iran:
Wow! That was awful. Was Trump sedated? His monotone, delusional delivery reminded me of the character Dustin Hoffman played in Rainman. Trump plowed no new territory. Instead, he provided a Reader’s Digest summary of his recent Truth Social posts… i.e., Iran is defeated, the Iranian Navy and Air Force are destroyed, victory is ours, but we’re going to bomb the hell out of them over the next three weeks….
During the next three weeks, Iran will continue to degrade and demolish the US bases and equipment that is in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates. As long as Qatar does not allow combat aircraft to take off from Al Udeid, Iran will ignore it….
Trump did not back down from his previous threat to attack Iran’s power grid. If he does that, along with Israel, Iran will turn off the lights in Israel, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain and Kuwait. Iran’s ability to do this is a direct consequence of the depletion of the US air defense systems — i.e., the Patriot missile batteries and the THAAD. Iran also will retain its choke hold on the Strait of Hormuz — even if the US decides to put troops on Kharg Island or some other piece of Iranian territory.
Contrast Trump’s bluster with a Janta Ka update, Iran displays missile power as Trump addresses nation; Fox News taken aback:
Another kinetic war update from NO1:
• Iran struck digital infrastructure before its own deadline — Iranian missiles hit Batelco HQ in Hamala, Bahrain (country’s largest telecom, hosting Amazon Web Services infrastructure) — before the April 6 IRGC deadline for 18 US companies expired. Also struck: Kuwait Airport fuel tanks, US Fifth Fleet HQ in Bahrain, and a ballistic missile impacted east of Terminal 2 at Dubai International Airport with UAE censorship imposed. Batelco confirmed.
• Axis of Resistance operating as single military body — For the first time, Yemen announced a missile attack on Israel in explicit coordination with Iran AND Hezbollah simultaneously. Iran launched its “largest continuous attack in 3 weeks” on April 1: 312 simultaneous rocket alerts covering 5.6M+ Israelis, cluster-warhead ballistic missiles impacting Tel Aviv and Bnei Brak. Axis coordination
• 470,000 containers and 20,000 seafarers trapped inside Persian Gulf — 65 vessels of the top 5 container lines stranded. Jebel Ali port approaching idle (normally 15M containers/year). 3,000 ships at anchor, fresh food exhausted 2 weeks ago, water rationed. 22 commercial vessels struck since Feb 28. Insurance premiums up 1,000% — actuarial sorting now prices crude oil through and everything else out.
Israel is also landing punches. From the Guardian in Israel hits Iran with waves of attacks and says it killed top Hezbollah commander:
Israel unleashed two waves of attacks on Tehran and said it had killed a senior Hezbollah commander on Wednesday with little sign of the war easing up despite Donald Trump repeating a claim that Iran’s leadership was seeking a ceasefire.
And as for Trump’s heretofore market-cheering negotiations patter (we argued above that his speech considerable blunted his ability to keep up that charade), Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi spoke to Aljazeera before the Trump speech.
Araghchi demonstrates amazing patience in having to say a zillion different ways that there are no negotiations underway and no present plans to have any. Iran won’t consider them until officials have given authorization and defined their scope and objectives. He also says the Strait of Hormuz is not international waters but is internal to Iran and Oman. It is “closed” only to those at war with Iran. Others are not transiting due to insurance costs.
Forgive us for failing to discuss Pezeshkian’s letter to Americans (you can read it here) because it will not have an impact on the direction of travel.
University of Chicago professor and escalation expert Richard Pape appeared on Breaking Points as Trump was starting his speech:
Pape made a number of important observations. Iran is a new global power and will not give up the influence it has obtained over its control of the Strait of Hormuz even if there was a government change. There are three groups among the Gulf States: Iraq which is joining Iran, Oman and Qatar, who want to stay out of the fray, and the Saudis, UAE, Bahrain and other Gulf states. Iran wants to end current governments in UAE and Saudi, and Pape contends Iran let a drop of their oil out. Pape also stressed the need to watch force deployments, that any de-escalatory talk was empty in the absence of actual withdrawals. He also pointed out that the US was driving allies away, such as with Turkiye via talk of arming the Kurds. And finally, he stressed that things are not remotely going back to normal economically even if the war were to end now.
We are also a bit late to another important talk, here between Larry Wilkerson and Nima:
Late in this conversation, Wilkerson says Israel would need to fire at least 50 nukes to make a strategic difference. That could lead to retaliation by more than one country. Wilkerson had heard that Russia was sending S-500s “in quantity” with operators. Their radars have a 600 mile range which would “put everything at risk,” making it very hard to deploy F-35s, B-2s and B-52s safely.
Back to the markets and real economy. It is still not clear, when things settle out a bit more, exactly what traffic Iran will allow through the Strait of Hormuz. Recall that we featured a base case from energy expert Rory Johnston, which we actually regarded as an optimistic case, that the steady state would be about 50% of pre-war volumes. My guess would be that Iran will be generous with lower-commercial-value but still essential cargoes like foodstuff and fertilizer and plastic pellets going to non-combatant countries, even if they come from Gulf States. It will have a choice to make on energy products as to how much to economically strangle the countries still opposed to it versus incidentally also punishing countries that need this fuel. Perhaps denying supplies to the US and Europe ex states that have clearly stood aside like Spain will inflict sufficient revenue harm.
A look at this issue from Bloomberg in Bloomberg Secret Codes and Yuan Fees Get Ships Through Iran’s Hormuz Tollbooth
Vessels wanting to transit the strategic waterway need to be from friendly countries, and some have to pay fees in Chinese currency or crypto before being escorted through the strait.
• The operator of an oil tanker stuck in the Persian Gulf received a proposal to sail safely out through the Strait of Hormuz escorted by the Iranian Navy if it changed its registration and raised the flag of Pakistan.
• Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is exerting control over shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, extracting tolls from vessels passing through and giving preferential treatment to ships from countries it deems friendly.
• Ship operators have to contact an intermediary company linked to the IRGC and provide information about their vessel to negotiate a toll, which typically starts at around $1 per barrel of oil, and receive a permit code and route instructions to safely pass through the strait.In recent days, the operator of an oil tanker stuck in the Persian Gulf received a compelling proposal…it could finally sail safely out through the Strait of Hormuz and into the open ocean…But first it would need to change its registration and raise the flag of Pakistan, according to a company executive…
The company wasn’t able to take up the offer, which came from the government of Pakistan. Iran agreed to allow 20 Pakistani vessels to transit through the strait, but the country only had a few flagged ships in the Gulf. Islamabad began reaching out to some of the world’s biggest commodity traders to see if they had vessels that could transit Hormuz while temporarily sailing under a Pakistani flag….
The contours of a more formal system are now emerging, based on the accounts of multiple multiple people with knowledge of the situation, speaking on condition of anonymity as they aren’t authorized to talk to the media.
Ship operators have to contact an intermediary company linked to the IRGC, and provide information about their vessel’s ownership, flag, the cargo manifest, destination, crew list, and data from its automated identification system, or AIS — a transponder that ships use to record and broadcast their position.
The intermediary passes the file onto the IRGC Navy’s Hormozgan Provincial Command for background checks on the ship to make sure that it has no links to Israel or the US, or other states that Iran considers to be enemies.
If a vessel makes the cut then discussions over the toll begin. The people said that the Iranians have a ranking system of one to five for nations, with ships from countries that are seen as friendly more likely to get better terms. For oil tankers, the starting price in the negotiations is typically around $1 per barrel of oil, paid in yuan, or stablecoins — cryptocurrencies pegged to the value of hard currency….
Once the toll is paid, the IRGC issues a permit code and route instructions. Ships are expected to raise the flag of the nation that negotiated the passage agreements, and in some instances, to change their official registration to that country. As it approaches the Strait of Hormuz, the ship broadcasts its passcode over its very high frequency radio, and is met by a patrol boat that escorts it through the passage, close to the coast between a group of islands that has already been dubbed “the Iranian tollbooth” by people in the industry.
Vessel tracking data shows that ship transits through the Strait of Hormuz has increased slightly over the past week, albeit to a fraction of pre-war levels….
Negotiating access with the IRGC may not be seen as a safe option either. Notwithstanding the physical risks and the cost of insurance, making deals with the IRGC, which is subject to sanctions by the US, European Union and the UK, puts ships at risk of violating sanctions or anti-money laundering rules, experts said.
Some additional real economy updates. A mid-March warning by former US air force officer and disaster preparedness expert Chris Armitage, The Iran War Could Collapse the United States in the Next Six Months, is getting traction Down Under as his dire warning then is looking prescient. From the underlying account:
47,900,000 Americans went hungry last year. The USDA counts a household as food insecure when its members cannot reliably access enough food to eat. In 7.2 million of those households, someone skipped a full meal or went an entire day without eating because there was no money. 14 million of them were children…
A third of the world’s fertilizer travels through that same strait [of Hormuz].² And it needed to arrive this month. The planting window does not wait so timely delivery is unwaveringly critical within the planting window.
Here is what nitrogen does to a corn plant. Applied at the right moment in the growing cycle, it drives the plant to produce grain. Cut the application in half and you do not get half a crop. The corn plant runs out of nitrogen mid-growth and stops producing. Farmers across the Northern Hemisphere are making their nitrogen purchases right now, ahead of spring planting…
Urea, the most widely traded nitrogen fertilizer, cost $475 per metric ton at the Port of New Orleans the week before the war started. It cost $683 the following week. That is a 44 percent price increase in seven days. The American Farm Bureau, which does not typically use alarm language, called it a “double whammy” and warned that if farmers cannot get fertilizer in time, we will see reductions in planted acreage and lower yields across the country.
There is no strategic reserve for fertilizer. The United States maintains a Strategic Petroleum Reserve for oil. There is no equivalent for nitrogen. When the supply runs short, farmers absorb the price, reduce their application, or switch crops. The harvest pays for it in the fall.
In 2022, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine disrupted grain exports from one of the world’s largest wheat-producing regions. That disruption, which hit grain rather than the inputs that grow grain, produced 13.5 percent grocery inflation at its peak in the United States. Bread up 13 percent. Dairy up 12 percent. Meat up 10 percent. MST Marquee’s head of energy research has called the current disruption three times more severe than the 1973 Arab oil embargo. The 1973 embargo removed 5 percent of global oil supply. This one removes 20 percent by closing the Strait entirely, and it does so while simultaneously severing the fertilizer supply for the spring planting season, during the deepest cuts to American food assistance in the program’s history.
Simon Johnson, MIT economist and 2024 Nobel laureate, put it plainly: “There is no excess capacity anywhere in the world that can fill that gap.”¹⁰ Maurice Obstfeld, former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, said the effects will be most devastating in low-income countries where agricultural productivity is already challenged, and that adding this cost component produces “the prospect of significant food shortages.”
Obstfeld was talking about the world. He could have been talking about the U.S.
On drug shortages. from the US Sun in Full list of medicines currently in shortage after supply issues concerns raised amid Iran War:
In the US, several medicines are already in shortage or hard to get, including some painkillers, ADHD drugs, cancer treatments, antibiotics, and basic hospital injectables.
That includes oxycodone, hydrocodone, morphine, carboplatin and some IV fluids on the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists shortage list, as well as ADHD medicines like Adderall and Vyvanse that have also been flagged in ASHP listings and Yale research published in JAMA Health Forum.
Hospitals are also dealing with shortages of injectable medicines used in surgery and emergency care, including lidocaine, fentanyl, ketamine, ketorolac, dopamine, dobutamine, midazolam, propofol, and lorazepam.
Other medicines under pressure include heparin, which is important for surgeries and dialysis.
Cancer drugs on current shortage trackers include carboplatin and methotrexate.
One concern is the cost of making and moving those drugs if the conflict drags on.
Basic hospital fluids are also being affected.
Those include dextrose solutions, sodium chloride irrigation, sterile water for injection, and sodium bicarbonate.
And while this is happening, the real economy is going into a crunch as job market conditions erode:
And the private credit crisis accelerates:
We have to stop for today. See you tomorrow!
______
1 The latest on that point that I could find in the draft legislation in Iran on the management of the Strait of Hormuz, per World Cargo News: “The proposal also envisages cooperation with Oman on managing traffic through the strait, although the toll regime itself would be led by Tehran.”
2 If IRGC claims are correct, Iran has seriously dented the US ability to move forces in by water. From Economic Times on March 28:
Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) has claimed the targeting of six tactical vessels operated by the US military in the Persian Gulf waters. The IRGC claimed that a large number of American forces had been killed in the process…
The statement claimed that six US landing craft utility (LCU) were struck in the operation, which was carried out using home-grown ballistic missiles, such as Qadr 380 cruise missiles.
“Given field reports, three of the combat vessels sank after the (retaliatory) strikes, whilst the rest are aflame,” the IRGC said.
IRGC further claimed that it has successfully destroyed a number of refuelling vehicles and the logistical support fleet belonging to the “terrorist” US military at the Al-Kharj base. It said that Kamikaze drones were employed to launch operations against the gathering centres of the US drone unit personnel on the coasts and one of the hotels in Dubai.
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Brent up 10% on the spot index. Watching the market shrug off this debacle has been fascinating, and that time might be over.
The Market lives on its computer screens. Seems to me that narrows focus. Added a generous measure of hopium and you have its delusional course.
how many fund managers were in the business in 1979 or 1973? no grand conspiracy needed. just cognitive biases/dissonance and the market ate too many taco, lmao
But weren’t a lot of them around for Iraq and Afghanistan? Granted Trumps rhetoric makes Dubya look like he’s in MENSA, but it boils down to the same shifting goals, clear ignorance, and narrative fantasy.
I was a sophomore in college for desert storm 1 and I’m 55 now so there are fewer than one might think. Plus it was mostly Kuwaiti oil that was destroyed which is a lot less than the whole gulf region.
Neither of those countries were threats to the trade routes at this scale. We had resources in place to stop an Iraqi invasion of Saudi oil fields pretty early. Even then the Iraqis had their own internal problems we weren’t naive to such as what the Shiites in the regular Iraqi army would do if they kept being pressed.
In the case of the first Gulf War, most people don’t understand the scale of the response, what Schwartzkopf actually did* with the Abrams which were designed for a full-blown Soviet invasion of Europe (they are meant to shoot, fallback, shoot, fallback), and didn’t understand that warnings about Iraq were legitimate. They came away with “America, eff yeah!” where we then proceeded to throw small countries against the wall because we could while pretending it was the same as the 1991 effort.
Even the ones who are older are simply scoffing because they head these warnings before, but their knowledge is so shallow. The planes still fly as far as they did in 1991. That hasn’t changed. Satellite Reconnaissance and the associated operations are better across the board, so we don’t need guys on the ground to put lasers on the targets for CNN. That wasn’t part of CNN’s 24/7 broadcast everyone watched.
In 2003, there was build up in the sense of hospital ships being dispatched, but much of what was needed had been sitting on bases outside of the remaining Scuds (150k) since ’97 or so. They just needed to fly in the actual soldiers. The second-tier elite were pretty much ready to take promotions at the first opportunity which is why they didn’t try a fortress Baghdad when no WMDs were found. There was damage they could do, but the propaganda was the “invincible forces of Washington” rampaged across Iraq.
*I feel like Norman has been erased from US pop history because discussion of his contributions would undercut the wunderweapon narrative or the idea of invincible warriors who “signed up for it.”
Calumny and projection with delusions about glorious results does not make foundation for formulating strategy much less achieving results.
While the remaining low information MIGA crowd are all opposed to facts they call TDS
all true….but the perversion of truth in the medium of the social, … delusion via self-aggrandizement creates an appearance of importance
If you never experienced a gas line, it isn’t as if you anticipate any shortages, as it had never happened in their short lives.
In the US, retail investors can’t trade Brent Crude Oil Future Options as they aren’t available on any retail trading platform. They can buy Futures, but there are some key differences.
With Options, you can buy a “Long Call” and only put what you paid for the option at risk. For example, you bet Brent Crude will be above $100 by the end of June. That might cost you 8 dollars a barrel with a 1000 barrels per option contract, which would be $8000 (your max loss if you don’t sell the option before the end of the June)
With futures, you’re still getting 1000 barrels of oil and it’s still on margin so you don’t pay 1000 barrels times $100 a barrel that it’s currently at i.e. $110k. However, if the price moves against you, you have to have money in your bank account to cover it (ie getting margin called). So let’s say you spent $14k for a Futures contract, the max you could be out (let’s say oil went back to prewar levels of $60 a barrel, would ~$50k per contract). These dynamics don’t apply to WTI (light crude where you can buy options)
All this to point out, it make’s speculation by US retailer customers unsure sensitive to price movements. Which is why the swings and Taco tea
Leaf reading gets more attention than you would think a rational person would put up with.
Investment advice is a violation of our written site Policies. Do anything like this again and you will be blacklisted.
1. 70% of retail traders lose money in futures.
2. Retail traders have no business trading options unless they know their greeks and deal with calculus so often that it it intuitive. Otherwise they have NO idea how much they are overpaying (overpaying is guaranteed) to take their wager.
Sorry Yves, and understood. What I wrote above was not intended/meant to be advice in any way whatsoever.
The point I was trying to make (unsuccessfully) is there might be a mechanism which explains why “the market” is sensitive to what the admin says that goes beyond the investors have ideologically blind spots (which I also think as well).
Apologies again for the miss on my side if it came across as advice. Being banned from here would be a terrible loss, as it’s one of the few places on the internet with critical thinking people acting in good faith. I’ll definitely err on the side of caution going forward.
It read as analysis, not advice, to me.
Similarly, physical oil has spiked but the demand there is presumably end users and oil produces / refiners. It’s a bugger to store and ship if you’re hoping to call the top of the market, even if you have the facilities!
So my theory is that the virtual side of the market (options) is a figment of money and can be manipulated by the Fed. Whereas the real side of the market has limits on the capacity that can be spot traded and a lot of the demand side is probably leaning on long-term counterparties to fill the gap rather than the spot market anyway.
Once the tanks run dry in Asia in a way that cannot be improvised away, physical spot prices will soar (tempered by demand destruction).
At some point the physical and virtual must meet. This is presumably in the physical delivery futures market. Why so quiet? Is the Fed taking the other side because actually, when the oil markets seize, USG etc. will just declare it closed (like the LME fiasco in copper the other year) and either wind the tape back or make everybody whole in cash while rationing is organised?
Basically, perhaps nobody has an incentives to bring Armageddon forward. As the Italians say, there’s always time to die or pay taxes!
Same
Thanks I didnt realize trading oil required options. There’s the XLE but that’s also just a bet on the industry.
If it’s as you say, it makes complete sense why the market looks the way it does – to make a bad comparison, there’s no actual liquidity.
The only reason I watched that speech was because it seemed so many legit news channels were saying he was going to talk about ground troops. What I got was more evidence of Trump’s white matter disease with his slurred worlds, absolute fatigue, and a repetition of what he says every single day.
Now exude me as I go top off my gas tank again so I can dollar cost average his idiocy…
(Oil is up 8.5% as I write this)
Watched it hoping for a hint of de-escalation; I worry that the mention of Dover might be a hint of more to come.
It was a speech unlike anything I have ever seen.
I listened to it live and couldn’t see the point. It was just recapitulating the vainglory, bloodlust and lies we’ve heard for the last month. There was nothing there. To me that indicates that he has nothing. He has nowhere to go with it except more of the same. It was so empty it made me wonder why he chose to do the speech at all. Perhaps he thought his attempts to spin the calamity weren’t getting through to the public and he needed to talk to them directly. Idfk. What a ghastly mess.
‘Our’ Mr Trump
(the world owns him, thank you to some or another elite cartel’s unasked for offering [1]) but it seems like they are maybe wanting back the elfin cloak he has been loaned (stolen from the elves) that covers his dubious credentials [2]
I’ve been wondering if ’47 isn’t just another organ grinder’s monkey.
Should I walk away from my curiosity?
[1] “ECs provide an environment in which corruption can thrive and are an intrinsically corrupt way of organising a political economy.”
https://blogs.sussex.ac.uk/centre-for-the-study-of-corruption/2025/05/07/elite-cartel-corruption-in-tasmania-the-nature-of-the-game/
[2] JRR Tolkien ‘Lord of the Rings’ trilogy
I watched it with the family during dinner. Big mistake! It really made me mad when he talked (lied) about how great the economy is. And I guess what upset me most was thinking about all of the casual news viewers out there who haven’t been keeping up with the details and who might actually take him at his word. Boy, are they in for a surprise.
Re the US having the *world’s best armed forces* because we spend so much on them, funny how no sports rankings are ever handed out based on how much was spend in *training* for a game/match/fight. Indeed, we love cheering for the shoe-string budgeted underdog.
Shouldn’t world lethality rankings be based on actual outcomes of matched fights?
>Shouldn’t world lethality rankings be based on actual outcomes of matched fights?
Problem is if the outcome of “winning”, is achieved with nuclear warheads, who actually wins? It sure isn’t any human on Earth.
Don’t put too much faith in Americas warheads to save the day, Hiroshima was being rebuilt and populated soon after. Much less Israel, god help us if it comes to nukes but at least Israel and its inhabitants will be extinct, good riddance, they wont be missed. Even trumps extended family would be happy since they’re on their hit list at least as much as him.
Money never equates to a winning outcome in sports.
We are the NY J-E-T-S!
Trump just “Butt Fumbled”…
(Sorry to Jets Fans)
Jets have a salary cap like the rest of the NFL. The Dodgers have no such limit (beyond a luxury tax that doesn’t seem to concern them). But the Dodgers paid for real superstars. The pentagon paid for the Lincoln and the Ford and the LCS and the F 35. Which is I suppose your Jets point. Money doesn’t make you smart.
They paid for Edsels at 10X retail price.
US has a sewage gap.
Seems Artemis’ toilet followed USS Gerry Ford prints.
Best aircraft carrier money can buy.
With Artemis, I can just see them at NASA now-
‘Okay, people listen up. People upstairs missed one and we got to come through. We got to find a way to make this fit into the hole for peeing in using nothing but that. Let’s get it organized.’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ry55–J4_VQ (1:15 mins)
Mark Twain pointed out you have the best government money can buy.
Robert Heinlein pointed out that it is just as well that we do not get as much government as we pay for.
Thank you, Yves, for your continued steadfast work and excellent coverage of the war. These updates are crucial. I value them immensely.
“Bomb ’em into the Stone Age” isn’t even original. The ghost of Curtis LeMay would like to ask for royalties.
You forgot to add the part where Trump said that that was where they belonged. How many thousands of years old is Persian culture again? Come to think of it, the US also threatened to bomb Pakistan back to the stone age if they did not cooperate with the invasion of Afghanistan. Meanwhile the ghost of “Bomber” Harris looks on approvingly.
I couldn’t watch it, that’s why these updates from Yves are so valuable to me. They’re filtered, by an adult with critical thinking skills.
If I watched the actual speech, I would have been rage-baited. I’m prioritizing my own mental health.
“…, green, green cash…” might have been my favorite moment.
Iran is a lonesome prairie
Bombed by Curlie, Moe and Larry
Oh it’s good to grab the green green cash of war…
Same here. TDS afflicted buddy of mine couldn’t wait to watch it, but I waited to see the highlights, if any, this morning. Turns out there aren’t any and the whole thing was just a rehash of previous social media rants because apparently, Trump loves the smell of his own flatulence and thinks the rest of us should too.
Ditto. I was hoping someone would sacrifice their frontal lobes in order to give me a Readers Digest Condensed Version, then I get here and find that the summary is, “Pretty much a rehash of all his tweets for the past couple months,* delivered in what appeared to be a drug-induced coma-like monotone.”
*the essential ones of which I’ve already read here….
Ha! “Every man likes the smell of his own fart”:–Russian proverb.
“My solution to the problem would be to tell [the North Vietnamese Communists] frankly that they’ve got to draw in their horns and stop their aggression, or we’re going to bomb them back into the Stone Age. And we would shove them back into the Stone Age with Air power or Naval power—not with ground forces.”
– Curtis Le May
Seems to be a regular american attitude, from 25 years ago:
American Excursional Conversations(tm)
Thank you Ives, I did not tune in last night.
Trump winning! In about 15 years at this rate Tehran will look like Hanoi in 1975.
Posters at MoA are linking to this post!
I saw that the BBC live coverage of the speech did Trump the favor of not including the “stone age” snippet or a couple of his other egregious bits of lunacy. They really try hard to minimize his lunacy.
Is it reasonable to assume, given the anti-climatic nature of the speech, that this was the backup speech, and perhaps whatever big news Trump had hoped to announce did not come to pass? Was he going to announce a nuclear strike, for example, or some operation or other underway, something special, something different.
You are close to alone in viewing his speech aa anti-climatic. It may have been shambolic but it is also dangerously escalatory. He has committed the global economy to a burn pit
I’ll admit I also found the speech anti-climactic. I’ve been following the news about the troop movements which show the clear momentum towards escalation, plus all the other motivations to keep the war going. The speech seemed to confirm many of the informed speculations on this and other websites I frequent. And that includes the economy becoming a burn pit.
I was glad to read yesterday that you’ve stocked up on so many things. I’m working on it.
Also stocking up in Montreal….
If I’m wrong, I’m just ahead in shopping which I hate doing anyway. Time will shortly tell. The fertilizer shortages look the scariest.
Well, it’s not like HE expects to be the one inhaling the fumes from the fires….
Anti climactic was also my feeling.
I really thought he was going to announce a ground invasion of some sort.
Saying things would continue for another two or three weeks is, admittedly, probably disastrous for all the rest of us but, it’s not like he had a choice.
Someone else you linked above Yves said “he is not even man enough to retreat”.
Well, he isn’t. We knew that. It’s basically just more of the same because of that.
Maybe this rhetoric would have been “dangerously escalatory” if anybody actually believed the President or didn’t think that we would change his rhetoric within a few hours or days, but I too found it a nothingburger.
You are definitely right to also call it shambolic, though.
I find the mention by Iran how they will run the Strait of Hormuz with the cooperation of Oman of much interest. With this announcement, it may help stabilize the government of Oman when the people realize that there will be a place for them after this war and that they will not suffer the fates of countries like Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the UAE. The US at the moment has bases at places like Masirah Air Base, Thumrait Air Base, and facilities at the Port of Salalah but that may be up for future negotiation.
Oman appears to be keeping their head down and staying out of things. I wonder if they have more sympathies with their neighboring Yemen than the other gulf states.
I am interested in how exercising control over the strait will affect other straits in the future. There is the Gulf of Finland which is often hyped as a potential flashpoint or thorn in Russia’s side. And then there are the numerous ‘chokepoints’ which Conor Gallagher often writes about.
Yup. I kept thinking if the Iranian rationale for Hormuz means if it’d be the same for the Finns and Estonians, the Malays and Singaporeans, and for that matter, Yemenis and Somalis(whoever are the legit gov’ts in these cases.) The “territorial waters” and “freedom of navigation” business is getting convoluted!
Iran’s rationale is that goods from or to nations that are either attacking it or aiding and abetting the attack can not use the freedom of navigation as an excuse to traverse Iranian waters. The rest are free to pass, but I’ve heard there are some insurance issues and whatnot.
The only nation currently guilty of aggression in the Gulf of Finland area is Ukraine, so by the same logic Finland and Estonia should deny passage from ships transporting goods to or from Ukraine or any country aiding and abetting Ukraine.
The treaty signed by those countries with their neighbours are a major difference.
The treaty is exactly what allowed those countries to be. Will they risk their existence for what? Greed?
They are not common just because it is a strait.
If Iraq can kick the US out, they should take Kuwait next and completely unwind Golf War I. And somebody oughta do something about Jordan. How expensive would a regime change operation via kinetic or other means be there? If anything could convince Israelis to pack up and take the Samsonite Option, that would be it.
If the king fals in Jordan, Israel will be there first to get a big cut. The hyena of Europe is a little cuddly puppy compared to the hyena of Western Asia…
Ian Welsh made that argument a few days ago, although he pointed out Iraq should be the one doing it.
https://www.ianwelsh.net/its-time-for-iraq-to-free-itself-and-get-revenge-for-the-gulf-and-iraq-wars/
Ooooh, nice … #TYVM
I expect we’ll see video of US Marines storming the cliffs of Hormuz screaming “For Epstein and Israel” and “AIPAC Forever” any day now.
“The spirit of the Bayonet” and Elan will carry the day, just as it did for the French in the First World War.
Logistics? No worries, Trump has “Prime.”
Troops are always reluctant to leave their landing barges at first unless they have to. During the Falklands wars the British sent landing craft in. When one opened up after hitting the beach, there was no rush of soldiers shouting “For Maggie Thatcher!” Instead the soldiers just stood there until eventually an officer’s voice could be heard from the back saying ‘Get on with it. This is suppose to be an invasion.’
But here landing barges will be out as they are so vulnerable. So it will be a small fleet of helicopters trying to fly in troops at night while dodging manpads, drones and even rifle fire. Bugger that for a joke.
AI can make all of this possible now. I’m sure we will actually see these videos in very short order.
As ArmchairWarlord mentioned in his xwitter some time ago, we are doing a good job cosplaying imperial Japan during WW2. Milne Bay here we come?
“Marching, marching to Shibboleth, with the eagles and sword. O’ mighty Zion. O’ mighty Zion.” –Firesign Theater
From the Halls of AIPAC’s offices,
To the shores of Epstein’s isle
We will fight Israel’s battles
Thanks to ol’ Bibi’s guile…
I found Galligula reciting lengths of previous wars the USA was involved in from WW1 onward to the 2nd Iraq War, in years, months and days, to be most strange.
It was about the only fresh meat in his speech, everything else was tired territory.
Felt like I ordered a big beautiful taco, but I’ve got a nothingburger with a kamala word salad on the side
Done a bit behind schedule. Please refresh your browser and re-skim this page if you arrived before the time of this comment.
Thanks, Yves.
In two places you wrote Richard Pape but the YT video title says Robert Pape.
Gah, fixing….I have name dyslexia :-)
Yves, I’m a sucker for punishment, so clicked to hear deranged master of the universe Trump himself… The YouTube link leads to another video, “President Trump Releases Video Rendering Of Presidential Library”.
A reader provided that link as the one to the speech. Let me find the proper one.
For those interested, here is the link to Trump’s planned Presidential Library-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zem35YnlALk (1:40 mins)
Don’t miss the huuuge gold statue of himself in one part. As for Trump actually talking that speech, that I could not do and it was bad enough reading the transcript.
I heard there are going to be 4,361 copies of Art of the Deal in the library.
You’ve been misinformed. No books.
“In the video [same as The Rev Kev’s, I think], against a backdrop of stirring music, computer-generated visitors swarm a digital cityscape, ascend a Sauron-like tower rising above the shoreline, marvel at Air Force One and its escorting fighter jets, sip cocktails on rooftop gardens, and network in atria and forums, including replicas of the Oval Office and West Colonnade. The escalators are gold-trimmed. The floors are clean enough to eat off. In one image, a computer visualization of the richly classical recreated White House ballroom emerges within the uber-modernist presidential tower, like a Fabergé egg in a chicken factory.
One thing, however, that is notably absent in all the breathless CGI visualizations of the library is anyone reading books, or in fact any books for study at all. Evidently, this library is a place to make deals, not a place to read. As Trump himself said: “I don’t believe in building libraries or museums… It’s going to be most likely a hotel, this concept.”
https://unherd.com/newsroom/why-are-there-no-books-at-the-trump-and-obama-presidential-libraries/
Perhaps the Trump Presidential Library will be a similar amusement for US identity as the Creation Museum https://creationmuseum.org
Thanks a million times for the work that you do!
Thanks for your continued diligence.
>>>>Here is what nitrogen does to a corn plant. Applied at the right moment in the growing cycle, it drives the plant to produce grain
to nitpick. The world would be better off if the US planted less corn (animal feed, sweet corn on the cob is a different, much less planted, variety). The problem is wheat! and throw in possible above normal hot weather in the US plains.
wheat inflation would be noticeable, but not existential in the US…..for countries like Egypt, Jordan, wheat prices could lead to revolution
I wonder how many of those ships will be there next year, manned only by skeleton crews with AK47s?
Could be a boon for any helicopter operators willing to run supplies in — that is, if any can be found.
Hopefully Iran can smell the PR opportunity. It wouldn’t be much. While the gulf states starve the sailors at least Iran gives a bit of bread and soup.
They would be like the Yellow Fleet but much, much larger-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_Fleet
What an amazing and weird story. Al Jazeera did a decent doco about it a few years ago featuring a number of people directly involved.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eIoxV0C4NHQ
Daymn… stranded for eight years in the Suez, and then 13 of the 15 ships had to be towed out.
Could be a good time to re-watch this film: Triangle (2009).
LOL, there was a BBC soap opera afloat called Triangle, set on a North Sea Ferry running Gothenburg-Amsterdam-Felixstowe-Gothenburg. I loved it as a child in all its unglamorous bathos.
I wish it had been given the Hollywood treatment instead, it would have been hilarious!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangle_(1981_TV_series)
“Triangle” is deliciously eerie and bleak; I second your recommendation, Acacia.
The Department of War thinks it is in the collaborator monarchies for the long haul:
More than “boots on the ground”: Pentagon wants bunkers for the Middle East National Interest
So they want concrete blast-worthy concrete boxes shipped in to airbase in Jordan and Qatar. Can you imagine the cost? This gives “heavy lift” a certain meaning. Doesn’t look like Trump and the Zionists plan to unwind things anytime soon. Apparently Iran will have to make the decision for them.
The proverb about a dog returning to its vomit as a foll to his folly… apologies to doggies everywhere!
There is a lot of money to be made off of the chaos and fear.
Maybe this WILL bring back some manufacturing to the US? In the mean time, mean times.
Lotta suffering, and No Lives Matter.
In 3, 15, or 30 days, they expect this? LOL. It’s not a videogame or an AI simulation, it’s the real world, the one in which infrastructure takes years to plan and build.
I have a very low bar for the US military. The lack of bunkers in an era of drones and missiles is criminal.
We do not have critical thinkers in the upper echelons of the US military. They are just like the other PMCs. The are taught to regurgitate corporate bullshit. They are incapable of thinking outside the PowerPoint slide.
As several writers have put it, in various venues, “The US military spends so much time imagining and planning what it will do unto others, that it totally ignores what others are going to do unto it.”
Chess 101.
I wonder how our vaunted military leaders would do in a chess or go tournament.
The analogy might be mistaken: AI can, theoretically (and increasingly in reality) defeat any human in chess or go (or any other game with mathematically well defined rules.) This was proven (mathematically) more than 100 years ago.
The problem is that the real world situations are not so well defined (with perfect information) like chess or go. The real world is much more like poker, in fact. This is actually a bad thing, since amateurs think that they can bluff their way through a poker game without knowing the math…and sometimes they can win that way. But, even in poker, the ultimate odds are governed by math: people who understand the math and form proper strategies around them usually win. The ability to puff and bluff don’t do much, especially after the other players figured you out. I think we are at this stage now.
More like The Department of War Crimes.
That’s the RFP i was looking for on Sam.gov. I missed it.
It’s a little late to start building your house of bricks when the wolf is already onsite.
I always find as a profound irony that a republic borne out of revolution is the defender and supporter of autocratic monarchies with the spear pointed at another republic that shook an autocrat and just wants to be let be and used its resources for the betterment of its people. Why is this image not brought to the US public, front and centre, to see if they like what they see in the mirror…
Listening to Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi’s talk, I was taken aback comparing his measured words and thoughts by what I heard last night in a bad cliche ridden diatribe that was a rehash of any old campaign speech.
We’re doomed, but to what extent?
Incidentally, interesting how a couple of ancient cultures took down the USA, China by manufacturing and Iran by war.
I think the US failure should be thought of as self-inflicted and chalked up to ideology — the globalists and neoliberals lost sight of the material foundations of national power, and US military seems to have learned the wrong lessons from WWII; it seems to be more impressed by Germany’s quick victories in the West and in 1941 against Soviet Union than by its subsequent long grinding defeat in the East, 1942-45.
Thank you, I would add massive underestimation of Iran’s capabilities via cultural bias.
It goes deep.
Even Danny Davis in his follow up to Trumps ramblings last night said Japan surrendered because of the threat of additional atomic bombs.
Japan surrendered because the Russians entered the war in Manchuria, not because we bombed them.
The Japanese civilian and military casualty count from approximately 2 weeks of war with the Soviets was and is astonishing. More than the 2 bombs combined by a large margin. That’s what made them give up.
I think the US failure should be thought of as self-inflicted and chalked up to ideology — the globalists and neoliberals lost sight of the material foundations of national power,
This gets to the heart of it all, and in some way explains the market non reaction as the globalists and neos (both sides) have given themselves all the money and boosted their own assets while they act as if they earned it .
During the last campaign “We have the most lethal military in the World!” is a bipartisan talking point. No, we have the most profitable military (for now…)
But since we’re talking about the ideology, Usrael elites may very well think the pain will be experienced by others after which the usraelis will walk in and collect the pieces. Considering my pro class friends are all in on ai, (to their detriment, see nats post from yesterday) I can only imagine their counterparts in DC suffer the same affliction and it is feeding their delusion.
We have the most lethal propaganda, public relations, and advertising industries in the world. That is unquestionably the greatest strength of the US. Take away the Lie Factories and the Empire of Lies would shrivel to its proper size, a nation state with continental influence and no “abroad” presence.
Do you think the enemy elites are wrong to think the pain will be experienced by others? I’m of the opinion they think it most of it will, and that they’re probably correct to think so (technically correct, not morally), nice as it might be to visualise them dangling from lamposts. What pain do you imagine them experiencing?
We’ve definitely entered late-Soviet levels of delusion, and ideological failure is the immediate issue. But I wonder if this was always baked into the cake and would require a cultural revolution to exit.
I’ve come to think of the US as simultaneously 4 things:
1. A settler-colony to this day. The things that are blatantly stupid or frustrating about America often come from this aspect.
2 & 3. An actually somewhat decent state that is a weird hybrid of liberal ideology & nationalism. This aspect was in full bloom from Lincoln until around Nixon, and is where the decay is most apparent today.
4. A latent civilization that is largely suppressed by the other aspects but still trickles out, mainly in the counter-culture or subaltern groups. Occasionally it reaches even the metropole though.
In other words, I don’t think the ideological breakdown today can be pinned just on some factions. 3 of the 4 pillars that always defined the US are now rotting in the sun; the times have simply changed too much.
To be a little optimistic in the long-run though, that 4th pillar has arguably always been the deepest, most organic, and most open to all comers. So perhaps “the stone that the builder rejected has become the corner” and all that.
In certain respects, AI, LLMs are democratising tools. Right now I am “harrasing” the Canadian CBC Ombudsperson with well targeted well argued and respectfull complaints that are impossible to dismiss, about CBC biases. LLMs do the heavy lifting and they are wonderful. As such bringing issues to elected officials, public institutions, organizations, etc, etc, etc, becomes almost an aftertought in how easy it becomes to get out there and fight the system. I love it. Cannot endorse it more.
Self-inflicted, yes, but more a failed democracy blessed with a blissfully and carelessly ignorant electorate coupled to a morally and mentally deficient political élite in thrall to its own greed and the ramblings of a completely unhinged psychopath than any to any semi-coherent pattern of thought which might be construed as an ideology.
The Pezeshkian letter:
My favourite response to it was folks bringing up the meme of Khatami in an interview saying “Alexis de Toqueville…which I’m sure most Americans have read.”
I think they’re getting more traction with their LEGO troll videos.
I’d bet that >50% of US college graduates would get a deToquville multiple choice question wrong. Partially explains why Iran is so bad at info war, lmao—our society is at an unfathomable level of stupid.
Absolutely, whoever is making the lego vids, unleash that Kraken
Q. What nationality was Alexis de Toqueville?
1. American.
2. Other.
3. Who?
You mean Alexis de Tocqueville? Apparently, Americans cannot correctly spell his name!
That might be why nobody read his book, Democracy in Amreica. ;)
They probably do get more traction with the Lego edits. I think another common image meme response along the same lines is a picture of some news reporter with the caption “The American people are not intellectual, to put it mildly.”
Something tells me that the markets were eagerly awaiting Trump’s speech so that they could push down hard on the Brent price of oil and give the stock markets a boost. But when it came time, Trump’s speech was a copy-and-paste job of his most recent Truth Social posts so gave the markets nothing to work with. No plan to end the war, no word on how to take back the Strait of Hormuz, just nada. Trump will soon be at the stage when he will be looking for scapegoats to take the blame for this war so expect a falling out of thieves. He will never take responsibility for this lethal fiasco nor will he voluntarily step down in disgrace as President. So expect the atmosphere around the White House to resemble the Fuhrerbunker. Just wait until he calls for Steiner’s help.
Wheel out the blame cannons!
We will know the goose is cooked when he points one at Bibi.
And at his own generals.
I’m holding out for the tearful resignation, but fear the catalyst for said retirement.
What will the market do today, and what will the crazies do over the weekend?
Just wait until Benedict Donald deploys ‘wunder waffling’.
“Boaster Strudel”?
Macgregor’s Reasons To Be Skeptical made me think of Dury’s Reasons To Be Cheerful. I am an atonal improviser, not a wordsmith, so I just throw it out there.
Atonal improviser? Do tell! Is it free or structured? Do you use row forms or matrices?
Getting off topic here. Maybe it’s a good thing to chat about something other than war and its consequences.
I want to think of it as usually free but on deeper reflection it is hard to really be free in music.
For structure I use a number of tricks. A harmonic structure that’s interesting to talk about is specific to the way that the familiar scales of Western music (e.g. diatonic major and the various minors, each with its passing tones and grace notes) are available in seven different positions on the guitar finger board. If those are all fluid in muscle memory then it’s a simple matter to modulate rapidly and to use multi-tonals. It’s as though the structure arises from the many two-dimensional patterns of the fingerboard and muscle memory and the degree of atonality from how I interchange them.
Another valence and potential structure is the sound production and tone that an acoustic guitar, especially classical, affords. The same note can be available open, fretted, natural or false harmonic and with all the usual guitar-specific variations.
Form is also an interesting option. Repetition with variation in a free improvisation is a curious thing. If I’m lucky I’ll play something novel I never heard before and like and so I may as well use it again. Form in having a notion of beginning and end is also useful. Arbitrary limitations can allow differentiation from one piece to the next, e.g. using microtones throughout one piece.
And I admit that in the last few years I’ve become a little less free, with fragments of known melody here and there, which is a bit like what was understood as free jazz back when that was new, although I seldom sound at all like jazz. In my dotage I’ve even used some multi-modal harmonic structures that don’t get to be called atonal.
Scratching the surface. Didn’t even mention rhythms and meters yet.
Yes, and after 65 years of playing I’ve been forced to stop playing guitar due to arthritis and have aquired two bender and four bender lapsteels to make up that gap in ny life. Boring, no? So let’s get back to politics and Donigula busily ensuring the planet will no longer be capable of supporting human life.
Living in the end times really is thrilling. Mostly I’m absorbing horrible news but it;s undeniably thrilling to see emerge the shape of the end of north Atlantic imperialism. By comparison our musical interludes are probably boring. At the same time NC has its interlude traditions of antidotes, user-contributed plantidotes, birdsong, jokes and song lyrics. Taking a breather from the excitement and horror isn’t a bad thing.
while i am way down with such esoteric endeavors, when one is terminally alone, its just fucking easier to just goon to this woman
:https://x.com/xstinamendez
something about her…i mean, i have always had a thing for beaner chicks, after all,lol….married to one til death did we part.
rolling rrrs…
i find it idiopathically soothing.
as far as i know, she’s real.
We all got our coping methods.
What I find valuable in the music is how it sometimes allows parts of me to say stuff out loud in abstractions that my language-oriented consciousness cannot even access let alone express. Making recordings and dumping them on YouTube for my tiny audience makes it less onanistic and, contra Yves iirc, I believe art is, as a communication, necessarily social.
We’re all terminal sooner or later and being alone depends how you count but you can, if you like, count me as a sort of friend, amfortas. I’ve always enjoyed your contributions, especially the field reports.
https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/armstrongeconomics101/inflation/iran-introduces-10-million-rial-banknote/
Does anyone know anything about what’s happening with inflation in Iran or is this a reaction to what happened with the rial before the war?
The history books that will be written about the collapse of the USA will be interesting. The riddle will not be how it happened, but why everybody could see it happening and knew what needed to be done but couldn’t be snapped out of their death trance. An apt quote from the Chris Armitage article:
The ship had holes in it. They fired the maintenance crew. The lifeboats were then lit on fire. And then they drove into an iceberg. At full throttle.
I think everyone knows on some level that the American experiment has failed. It’s over and now must be euthanized. Maybe suicide by unwinnable war. Perhaps it is the US that will deliberately topple the pillars and bring the temple crashing down on it first and not Israel.
We switched from being a democracy to being a capitalism aided in part by things such as citizens united. A capitalists greatest fear is populism.
“We stole all the money fair and square.”
The American Empire is most historically similar to the Spanish Empire, which was very modern in that it was:
A.) a technological leader
B.) a naval power
C.) a reserve currency power
D.) de-industrialized by high prices caused by being flush with gold
“D” is important. Despite the Crown’s desperate attempts to keep gold and silver in the country, nothing could stop it from flowing out where prices were cheaper. That outflow stimulated development elsewhere, creating satellites of economic dynamism that served Spanish demand–their goods imported to Spain in return for gold and silver–while also strangling the Spanish economy.
In the waning years of the Empire, Spain had become economically backward (“de-industrialized”), full of “hidalgos” who refused to work and were so widely reviled that towns in the Spanish country side banned them entirely. There were signs at the entry points that said basically “No Hidalgos!”
Spain was also dependent on debt. American gold and silver took awhile to come by ship, but the Crown needed cash now and always. So first the Genoese, then the Fuggers, then the Ximenes family in Portugal provided the Crown credit against the bullion convoys sailing from the New World, making an absolute killing.
The Court despised the financiers. Spain went bankrupt many times. A couple of those bankruptcies were *on purpose* to try to break the financiers and get the crown out from under their thumbs. All failures.
Also like the American Empire, the courtiers and financiers that oversaw the Spanish one were very well aware of its decline. The attitude seemed to be: “We must keep the machine moving. The moment it comes to a halt, it will never move again!”
I get the same sense about the USA. The machine’s slowing down. We’re desperate to keep it going. What Iran be our Rocroi, the battle that shattered Spain’s military reputation forever?
I have thought about that comparison a lot but you put it better than I ever have. I would add that Castille had its forever wars in the Netherlands and northern Italy, and therefore all along the “Spanish Road” between the two and Aragon had its forever wars against the Ottomans and in southern Italy.
Thank you for that excellent insight. Hopefully America can eventually become a modern ‘normal’ country like modern Spain without the intervening civil war and fascism.
I already discussed the same analogy extensively several years ago in this very forum.
The other similarity is the “national ideology.” It’s tempting to draw analogy between Spanish devotion to counter-Reformation Catholicism to modern American evangelicals, but that does a lot of injustice to the real Spanish ideology, which was, for its time at least, very humane, intellectual, sophisticated, and well meaning–in fact, a lot more like the “cult of markets and democracy” in today’s America. (The Southern Methodist missionary movement in Asia in late 19th and early 20th centuries does bear some resemblance, but even that pales in comparison to the intellectual sophistication and open mindedness of the Jesuit Mission in China of 16th and 17th centuries, which, in a way, was an outgrowth of the counter-Reformation intellectual mold). Spanish Empire basically broke itself up for fighting for its ideology to the bitter end.
America is not a free country. You’re telling me the president is corrupt and stupid? That’s like telling a prisoner that the prison warden is corrupt and stupid. The prison warden has self-serving prison guards that do as he says, and the prisoners get to deal with it. Likewise, the US has police and intelligence agencies to ensure that the people in charge stay that way, regardless how many laws they break or many problems they cause. In normal times, only other elements of the ruling class can oppose each other.
That’s how unfree nations operate. The vast majority of people are forbidden from choosing our own laws, and we are forbidden from upholding the laws that are enforced on us – it’s the police’s job to enforce the laws, and they have to follow orders. We are forbidden from confronting injustice because we cannot choose or enforce our own laws. Thus, in every unfree, unhealthy nation, endless injustice persists. And when the ruling class turns out to be deeply foolish, it can be extremely difficult to get them to change course. History is littered with examples.
And collapse won’t fix anything so long as we keep this way of life. Huge amounts of suffering may happen with collapse, but so long as people don’t know how free societies actually work, we’ll just recreate all the same basic kinds of problems of our current society, but with less wealth and international clout.
If we’re going to live without corruption and greed, we’ve got to learn how to live in a free society where these qualities are not welcome by anyone. Selfishness itself is seen as a severe cause for concern. People avoid systems of private property, recognizing a way of life based on private property would lead to endless suffering with a few rich and many poor. Integrity and generosity are normal. Instead of people being expected to tolerate injustice, everyone is expected to confront injustice.
I found dozens of healthy nations in traditional times that show this way of life – or what most people call native or indigenous people in traditional times. They can show how to have a society without a ruling class, though researching them and figuring out the lessons to learn can take a lot of care. To anyone that wants to help co-create a healthy nation, I welcome you to learn what this way of life is like, and work with others to generate healthy communities that embrace this way of life on a small scale, on the way to building a full healthy nation.
building a country literally on an indian cemetery was never going to work out well. The US is in a race with itself to destroying human life on the planet. Will it be through the use of nukes? climate change? pandemic? AI? the US is the runaway leader in every category.
Displaying my ignorance about this whole “reflagging” process. Is this actually just a sort of synthetic process whereby you make a declaration of doing so along with some sort of digital and/or broadcast signalling, or are these ships actually supposed to get hold of a physical flag or sign and display it on their ship?
essentially go to the DMV and change your ship’s license plates, to register with a new country
That, and in principle the maritime courtesy flag rule assumes that ships indeed do have a plenty of national flags on-board.
“National flag”, a.k.a. the country of registration is placed in the staff at the stern of the boat and the courtesy flag when entering other national waters is placed on the left side spreader.
For example, every vessel in the Gulf is supposed to fly either Iranian (when entering) or Omani flag (when exiting) on the left side spreader when passing the strait.
I don’t know. There was a discussion about the process when that tanker was captured in the Atlantic while apparently it switched to a Russian flag on route, and it seems there are some rules on when and how this flag changing can be done.
T is what he is. Blaming T alone is like blaming Bibi alone for what is happening in Isr, imo. / smh.
Thanks for these updates.
Iran must proceed on the basis that the US will attempt some kind of military ground intervention. It is crazy – but so is Trump. Let’s all hope that Iran prevails.
Permit me, for a moment, to feel sorry in advance for the soldiers who will be crippled and killed – but my pity for them pales when I see the children killed without a care by the USA. One thing that appalls me about the murder of Khamenei is that his 3 month old grandaughter was killed at the same time. We can never ever accept the death of children no matter who they are or where they come from. I refuse to hate children or dismiss their deaths as ‘collaterall damage’…..we need to direct our anger at Trump and the US command.
One thing that annoys me with the BBC is the never ending attempts to totally dismiss Iran with comments that assume everybody sees it as a ‘terrorist regime’ and so the slaughter inflicted by US bombing is ‘acceptable’. It is not.
One man’s insurgent is another’s freedom-fighter? Flip the lenses on the spectacles: maybe USrael are the global and regional belligerents?
That’s my current prescription— I call it sh*t – tint.
Beyond a paradigm and dogma shifting whack on the head, the sh*t tint was also great for skiing in flat light where there were no trees for contrast…. (back when we had snow)
Trump says government should stop funding Medicare, daycare to focus on war
https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-us-government-spending-cuts-medicare-daycare-iran-war-11772425
Trump’s VA killed a home loan program. Vets are now losing their homes because of it
https://www.npr.org/2026/04/02/nx-s1-5750814/veterans-mortgages-foreclosure-va-rescue
Maybe Trump Should Not Have Given This Speech
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/04/trump-iran-war-speech/686663/
Trump delivers jaw-dropping and slurred Iran address that offers no end in sight to unpopular war
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-iran-war-address-completion-ceasefire-b2950498.html
Iran to allow safe passage of Philippine ships, fuel supply through Strait of Hormuz, says Manila
https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/iran-allow-safe-passage-philippine-ships-fuel-supply-through-strait-hormuz-says-2026-04-02/
Israeli Sources Confirm Iranian Missile Strikes Have 80 Percent Success Rates as Air Defences Falter
https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/israel-confirm-iranian-missile-80pct-success
That last one from Military Watch was posted a few days ago. It cites a Haaretz story but doesn’t link to it, and I can’t find it at Haaretz. The closest I did find was this one: https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/security-aviation/2026-03-25/ty-article-magazine/.premium/470-missiles-with-rate-rising-25-days-of-the-war-with-iran/0000019d-2534-def8-a1fd-a5740c860000
It’s paywalled, so can’t read most of it. But it does not appear to be making the same claim that Military Watch does. Of course, that doesn’t mean a lot of missiles aren’t getting through.
Thank you to lyman alpha blob. I spent two or three hours yesterday trying to find that Haaretz article without success. Almost every post on the internet which cites this statistic refers back to Military Watch. None that I could find has a direct link to Haaretz. And of course Military Watch doesn’t either. In addition, I could find no mainstream or quasi-mainstream news source that cited this statistic (with or without reference to Military Watch).
And yet only yesterday, John Mearsheimer invoked this statistic not once but twice in his 64 minute interview with Daniel Davis (at 15:15 and 32:52, see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gjhKu83ovfY ). And this is not the first time it has come up. I’d like to think Mearsheimer knows what he’s saying, but I am troubled by the apparent absence of credible confirmation.
Linked article without pay wall: https://archive.ph/UBcp1
Thank you to Lee for providing a link to the archived copy of the paywalled Haaretz article that lyman alpha blob (and I separately) had identified as the most likely source of the assertion made in Military Watch: “The Israeli paper Haaretz has confirmed that 8 out of 10 Iranian missiles launched against Israeli targets are reaching their targets…”
Unfortunately, I am still confused. That article contains a graphic with the heading “Missiles from Iran by day” which contains three summary numbers at the bottom:
470 missiles fired on Israel from Iran
9 missiles have hit Tel Aviv, Beit Shemesh, Jerusalem, Be’er Sheva, Dimona, Arad and Safed
35 cluster missiles have hit 193 locations
This is the text that immediately follows:
“In the first 25 days of fighting, there have been nine direct impacts from Iranian missiles: two in Tel Aviv, and in Beit Shemesh, Jerusalem, Be’er Sheva, Zarzir, Arad, Dimona and Safed. Four of those nine missile hits were in recent days. In addition in the last 25 days, 35 cluster missiles have penetrated Israel’s air-defense systems dropping dozens of bomblets that have hit over 190 urban locations, mostly in central Israel.”
I can’t figure out how to get from these numbers to “eight out of ten”; perhaps I am misunderstanding the phrase “reaching their targets”.
Same. The hit rate appears to be ( 9 + 35 ) / 470 == 9.3%, nearer one in ten than two in ten.
Russia prepares 2nd oil shipment to Cuba after Trump says ‘we don’t mind’
https://kyivindependent.com/russia-prepares-2nd-oil-shipment-to-cuba/
AfD leader demands the US withdraw troops from Germany
https://brusselssignal.eu/2026/03/afd-leader-demands-the-us-withdraw-troops-from-germany/
Iran’s ex-foreign minister Kharazi ‘gravely wounded’ in attack on his home
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/4/2/irans-ex-foreign-minister-kharazi-gravely-wounded-in-attack-on-his-home
UK firms expect to raise prices more quickly as Iran war pushes up costs
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2026/apr/02/uk-firms-expect-to-raise-prices-more-quickly-as-iran-war-pushes-up-costs
Waist Deep in the Big Muddy, by Pete Seeger
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uXnJVkEX8O4&list=RDuXnJVkEX8O4
In this case, the Big Fool won’t even be getting his feet wet.
Again, nice to see crypto operating exactly as designed!
Watching the Pape video is like watching a weatherbug during Hurricane Otis’ blasting of Acapulco City. A mere tropical storm in the morning with no forecast of the particulars, which later in the day had intensified to a Category 5. There were models that had shown the possibility of such an event, but the modelers had been met with ‘oh like in that movie?’ and marginalized. Pape saying a new global superpower has been created in 33 days, and nothing like that has ever happened before, is to see a man whose life’s work has been validated while he is still alive, and that is indeed thrilling.
Iran is a regional power and soon to be a regional hegemon (Turkiye will want to have a conversation aboth this). Iran can not project military power outside of its region. Superpower is a stretch.
The destruction of the petrochemical industries in the Gulf may become permanent. Per Slanislav K the EROI is not good for the Gulf region.
The US and Israeli militaries are destroying Iran’s civilian infrastructure…if BIG if they destroy Iran’s industrial base then they are set back a generation or permanently…..we do not have unlimited materials on this planet.
Iran responds by destroying oil infrastructure and desalination plants killing millions….in some cases 80% of the victims are not Arabs.
We may be witnessing a complete and permanent collapse of modern life.
Robert Pape disagrees with you.
Russia ex its nukes is arguably only a regional power. China most assuredly is only a regional military power. Yet by your standards they are not superpowers?
I do not think that Prof Pape disagree with me. A super power has global power in 4 distinct areas: military, diplomatic, economic, and cultural. He does not say that Iran is a superpower or going to become a superpower. In his view, Iran will have global economic power which is one aspect of a super power. Iran does not have and will not have global cultural, diplomatic or military power. It will, if the GCC rebuilds, have control over global oil trade.
Per Stanislav K the GCC may not rebuild based on the expected return.
The US Empire has had global economic, diplomatic, cultural and military power. No other country has all 4 attributes. China is not a true superpower. China does not have global military or cultural power. China is a global economic power that is the most integrated into the current economic system that was created by the US and it appears that the US is destroying this very system.
The entire basis of the mulitpolar world is that there are no superpowers anymore. Russia, China and Iran will have their sphere of influence. They will work together when its appropriate and work through their differences when they arise. A superpower can exert its dominance over the regional power. That is no longer the case.
I also think this is just me being a pain.
I do not think that we really disagree on who has gained the most power in this current conflict. I may disagree on what Iran can do post war.
I’m not sure sure. Prof Pape seemed to be more fluid in what makes a super power, at least to my ear.
Tell me, what will the impact to the world be if Iran shuts down the Strait of Hormuz completely for 3 months? From everything I’ve read and listened to, it would create a global depression. Sounds like a super power to me (and this is just one example).
In any case, I think we are entering a new world where if a nation can control access to a vital resource, has the ability to defend itself, and project power far enough out to prevent outbreaks of aggression towards itself, it can be called a super power.
“He who can destroy a thing, controls a thing”. And oil is our Spice.
There hasn’t been anything like this since WW2 and the integrated global dependencies are exponentially greater in what the world has become since then. The degree of cooperation embedded in logistical practice now is unlike anything the world has seen before. And through blind ideology we’re breaking it, which will provide a salutary education in real consequences.
We are in the process of discovering just how costly coercion is compared to cooperation. With dependencies understood, the costs of coercion can now be allocated where they originate which is what both the Russians and Iranians have demonstrated in the last four years.
“Super Power” has hit it’s sell by date, all it means now is enough nuclear power to end the world, which is no longer coercively effective and “force projection” is no longer feasible has historically practiced. As old fashioned force projection began to fail to intimidate, we set out on the path of financial coercion, which it turns out is easily flipped by commodity coercion. This becomes catabolic to the globalized economy until new, effective cooperative units form at sustainable scales where cooperators can find and seize opportunities (which incidentally is what Putin did to rebuild Russia).
Commenting on the idea of building an airport for transporting Iranian uranium from nuclear facilities, French General Michel Yakovlev stated that “we must stop snorting cocaine between meetings.” He said the idea of creating a full-fledged airbase on enemy territory to exploit uranium under bombing is a collective delusion. Trump had previously requested a similar plan. – Sprinter Press
Interesting names French generals have these days: I think I’ve seen French generals lately with Vietnamese, Polish, Arabic (Lebanese? Tunisian?), and now Russian name. How common are these names in actual French high command nowadays? France does have a long tradition of generals with foreign ancestry, I guess–Luckner, Macdonald, Kellerman, Macmahon, Koenig, etc, but it does seem a bit peculiar that one should hardly cone across a French general with a “French” name in the news.
Michel Yakovleff (mind the old-fashioned French transcription of Russian) is the son of a Russian whose wife was from New-Zealand… From his Wikipedia biography, he is quite afflicted by the Putin derangement syndrome.
“How common are these names in actual French high command nowadays?”
Very rare. As you can see from this Wikipedia list of active officers, practically all generals and admirals have utterly French names.
Actually, often caricaturally so, with quite many old-style nobility surnames and given names: Éric Bellot des Minières, Renaud de Malaussène, Martial de Braquilanges, Xavier Bout de Marnhac, Bernard de Courrèges d’Ustou, Isabelle Guion de Meritens, Bertrand Houitte de La Chesnais, François-Xavier Le Pelletier de Woillemont, Olivier Pougin de La Maisonneuve, Gaëtan Poncelin de Raucourt… I almost have the feeling of looking at a roster from Versailles in the 18th century.
I only found a single suspiciously “foreign” name in that list — Bettina Boughani — which indicates possible North African origins. There is a Xavier de Zuchowicz, whose name has central European roots. Elrick Irastorza has a Basque name, but Basque Country is partly in France, so… Emmanuel de Richoufftz descends from a German family (but we have to go back several generations since it has been French for a long time). Michel Stollsteiner has a German name, but it might be because of an Alsatian origin.
I notice a Kim (although that’s probably a Vietnamese Kim–same character as the Korean, with a very small chance of being Scottish–there is a Clan McKimm, or so I’d been told.) Saw a couple other names that i thought were some kind of Arabic. Odd, I thought I came across a podcast where some French general (almost certainly from HistoryLegends) where some French “general” with an unmistakable Vietnamese last name was quoted on something, but Alex could have mistaken his/her rank (or I did).
It is very possible that there was a general with Vietnamese roots, but note that in France the military has been nicknamed “la grande muette” — the “great silent one” — for ages. There are only two situations where a French general might talk to the media (whether MSM or alt):
1) He is authorized to do so as a spokesperson;
2) He is no longer in active duty.
The aforementioned list of generals I referred to is valid for active officers; that Michel Yakovleff hasn’t been one for some 10 years.
they all almost certainly studied at the école militaire de saint-cyr near versailles
The idea of building an airport for transporting Iranian uranium from nuclear facilities exceeds even the utter stupidity of building a floating pier in the Mediterranean to supply Gaza. https://apnews.com/article/gaza-israel-humanitarian-aid-us-pier-77d0cf1c1bd420042dc4cb6f4ad76ccb
Only the greatest military money can buy or its corrupt contractors could propose such nonsense!
Americans in Iraq warned to leave ‘now’ amid threats of imminent attacks
https://www.nbcnews.com/world/middle-east/americans-iraq-warned-leave-now-threats-attacks-iran-rcna266342
CDC pauses testing for rabies and other serious infectious diseases
Disease tracking is also temporarily halted for monkeypox and other common viruses such as Epstein-Barr and varicella zoster virus.
https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/cdc-pauses-testing-rabies-monkeypox-epstein-barr-viruses-rcna266377
Iran Vows ‘Crushing’ Attacks on US After Trump Threats
https://www.kyivpost.com/post/73079
Gulf states consider bypassing Strait of Hormuz with new oil pipelines via Haifa – FT
https://www.jpost.com/business-and-innovation/energy-and-infrastructure/article-891934
Airline fuel surcharge to go up 157% amid soaring crude oil prices
https://focustaiwan.tw/business/202604010008
Libya’s Haftar acquires combat drones despite UN embargo
https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/libyas-haftar-acquires-combat-drones-despite-un-embargo-2026-04-02/
Iran can’t take Indian donations home, will use funds to buy medicines in India itself
https://theprint.in/diplomacy/iran-cant-take-india-donations-home-will-use-funds-to-buy-medicines-locally/2894361/
Iraq World Cup fans attacked in Dallas: “Don’t come to America”
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/iraq-world-cup-fans-attacked-in-dallas-dont-come-to-america/ar-AA1ZTari
Urgent Message to Democrats: Stop Dragging Your Feet and End Trump’s Iran War
https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/dems-iran-war-campaign
“Casualty Cover-Up”: The Pentagon Is Hiding U.S. Casualties Under Trump in the Middle East
https://theintercept.com/2026/04/01/iran-war-us-casualty-numbers-trump-hegseth/
CDC pauses testing for rabies…Zionists probably breathing a sigh of relief!
Airline fuel surcharge to go up 157% amid soaring crude oil prices
https://focustaiwan.tw/business/202604010008
Yup, saw that. JUST in time for Mrs. Hobbit dragging me off to Taiwan for Spring Break.
https://www.hindustantimes.com/videos/world-news/power-struggle-in-tehran-as-irgc-sidelines-pezeshkian-amid-wartime-decisions-101775099422496.html
Power struggle in Tehran?
I haven’t watched the report, so maybe it has some insight I don’t, but Iran’s president isn’t the commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces and he’s power is quite constrained in the intrincacies of their political system. So I doubt there’s a real power struggle, more likely is that Pezeshkian is trying to influence events from the sidelines.
Trump’s left himself only one good card. At some point fairly soon he’s going to have to make a big exit, Mega big. So big … well, you get the point.
His last card is to fire everyone who “set him up,” and then for the biggest reveal ever […drumroll…] Trump will fire himself.
It’s been suggested to me that Trump will resign AFTER the midterm elections which makes sense in the context that a D-majority Congress would suck all the fun out of his remaining presidency making full-time Mar-a-Lago pretty irresistable joining Napoleon and Nixon as great leaders who ended their lives in political exile.
But if he has the sense to bail [run away] in the coming weeks, it would re-flip the midterms. Democrats would continue to run on TDS (what else they got?) but any issue on which that would give them traction, Pres. Vance can easily counter, ideally by taking a non-D/non-Trump position with populist appeal.
The country turned to Trump mostly to escape the Duopoly. Trump leaving won’t make them love the Duopoly, it will just leave them looking for new ways to say F.U. at the ballot box, assuming they bother to vote. A lot is still hanging on Gabbard’s election investigations but I have to believe there’s a lot of there there or Gabbard would have exited alongside Joe Kent.
It’s been suggested to me that Trump will resign AFTER the midterm elections
I’m afraid in the figure of Donald Trump, you aren’t going to find any willingness to emulate George Washington, either on the foreign entanglements question or the voluntarily relinquishing power front.
You’re assuming Trump has any shred of rationality and isn’t a sun-downing narcissist who believes the reality he’s creating. Trump would play the nuclear card long before he’d step down and admit failure. I can’t even consider him leaving office voluntarily and early as a possibility.
He will only leave office feet first.
I dispute that his resigning would flip the midterms, imo at best maybe save the senate. Things look pretty bad for the economy/markets over the next 7 months. Granted the sucking dems didn’t oppose the war – how could they when their donors wanted it – but it’s gonna be a rep bath at least in the house. Tanking economy/crashing market/rocketing food/fuel prices.Think of it… tds is gonna sell like never before.
He’s more likely to declare himself king than quit. What his circus of clowns are doing regarding voting points to something like that.
Perhaps Colonel Macgregor’s most important point is that NATO should not still exist, that it should have dissolved after the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact? Imagine that world! This is not a hard thing to understand, except for the daft warmongers of the Uniparty and their supplicant counterparts in Western Europe.
Why is it Warshaw Pact (not the official name) a “pact” and not a respectable treaty, like NATO? “The Warsaw Pact (officially the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance) was a Soviet-led military and political alliance established on May 14, 1955, to counterbalance NATO, specifically addressing West Germany’s integration into the Western alliance.”
India media (WION) had a couple interesting features on Lebanon. Apparently Hezbollah is using fiber optic drones from 5K off to take out Israeli tanks, and are setting up kill zones with FPV drones as the IDF attempts to invade. Not sure about the IDF capabilities, but I’m pretty sure they are not going to be up to fighting a drone war for awhile.
Some were skeptical of Hezbollah’s capabilities as an expeditionary force, but with drones you can essentially establish a kill zone using drones around an urban area and effectively place it under siege. Not sure you need a real expeditionary force with sufficient drones.
I was a/the sceptic.
Yes, a drone war would create a grey area for tens of kilometres, like the “sponge” front in the Donbas with Russian and Ukrainian forward teams intermingled in no man’s land.
Lebanon is more densely populated so the sponge might be thinner but you make a good point!
Trump is now the most parodied, the most ridiculed, and within a year will be the most reviled person in human history.
ccg, one can only hope.
And, to Yves, ‘tusen tack!.’ As the Swedes say.
And, the joke in southwestern Chautauqua County in NY state, and adjoining northwestern Warren County, PA, involves an inversion of the ‘Amish taxi’ services, provided by ‘English’ drivers to transport the Amish to visits, shopping, etc., beyond their ten mile buggy range. Given the current trajectory, in six months or so, we English will be relying on the horse -powered Amish taxi service. (Transportation AND fertilizer!)
The fertilizer the Amish leave all over the streets and parking lots is said to be able to extend the growing season.
And contributes to them having some of the lowest allergy rates in developed countries.
For many of the world’s citizens, I suspect the same’ll go for the USA – the most parodied, ridiculed and reviled nation. Outsiders see a pattern where insiders see an aberration.
Some time in the next two to four weeks (!), regime media outlets will inform Real America that Wall Street or the investor class or whatever metonym or synecdoche they choose for FINANCE CAPITAL–is unpatriotic. This message will be easy to put in Bannonesque language for the white Christian nationalist base, and also to prevent anyone from mistaking it for socialism.
The running gag in the movie The Money Pit was the Contractor Unit. Every time Tom Hanks or Shelley Duvall asked one of the workers who was slowly reducing their new home to a pile of rubble how long until it was done, they would answer “two weeks!”, trying but always failing to keep from bursting out in laughter as they said it.
This bit has stayed with me most of my life. Maybe Trump watched this excellent film as a kid too.
Two weeks is 1/13 of a Friedman Unit.
Shelley Long. Shelly Duvall was the female lead in The Shining. And she was every bit as terrifying.
Wowzers, crude is up almost 9% right now, market is rallying and recovered its overnight losses already.
I want to smoke some of whatever this is.
Those of us who remember the 2008 meltdown will no doubt sniff this behavior out. It is called “dead cat” rallies. As in, even a dead cat will bounce if it falls from a high enough building.
“Only Iran & Oman Decide” Tehran Draws Red Line Over Hormuz
https://clashreport.com/world/articles/only-iran-oman-decide-tehran-draws-red-line-over-hormuz-wl6nr0u31q
Britain says 40 countries discuss reopening Strait of Hormuz after Iran blockade
https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/dozens-countries-discuss-coalition-secure-passage-through-strait-hormuz-2026-04-02/
Trump Is Ready to Throw JD Vance Under the Bus Over Iran
https://newrepublic.com/post/208528/donald-trump-jd-vance-blame-iran-talks
‘This Is Insanity’: MAGA Pastor Gets Holy Hell After ‘Blasphemous’ Trump Speech
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/paula-white-cain-trump-jesus_n_69cdd9efe4b0a891ea438064
Trump’s croaky and absurd Iran speech shows just how badly the war is going
https://inews.co.uk/news/world/trump-croaky-absurd-iran-speech-shows-war-going-badly-voters-4330070
Israel says it will not join any US ground operation in Iran
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20260331-israel-says-it-will-not-join-any-us-ground-operation-in-iran/
Macron says military operation to liberate Strait of Hormuz ‘unrealistic’
https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2026/04/02/macron-says-military-operation-to-liberate-strait-of-hormuz-unrealistic_6752051_4.html
Too bad Vance is not ready to throw Trump under the bus (as in Art. 25) before this becomes truly catastrophic.
Thanks for the many links.
It seems that Trump is accelerating his lashing at his team. First firing Kristi Noem, then dissing Karoline Leavitt. He supposedly intends to fire Pam Bondi. And now Vance is being thrown under the bus.
Britain says 40 countries discuss reopening Strait of Hormuz after Iran blockade
Apparently the emphasis is on diplomacy, since they are unable to militarily force Iran to ‘reopen’ the strait. I wonder what view Iran will take of diplomacy from the UK, when it’s allowing the enemy to fly bombers from its bases.
I would guess the 40 won’t include Iran or Oman. Presumably, Iran can convene a conference of Asian and African countries to duscuss the regulation of navigation through the English Channel.
Quelle idée!
I wonder what further missteps need to occur for this to be the answer to a policy question?
I suspect EU competences do not cover shipping tolls in national waters so it would be a nice little earner for France and the UK at the expense of the Belgian, Dutch and German ports. And it could be waived for carriers calling at British and French ports, to divert the transshipment traffic.
Although, being 28 miles wide, I don’t know if the 12 mile national waters are enough to close it. Are there any convenient islands? If not, there would be a four mile wide motorway down the middle!
Actually, the Strait of Hormuz is 23.98 mi wide when you consider the Omani islands at the tip of the Omani side of the Strait.
“Only Iran & Oman Decide” Tehran Draws Red Line Over Hormuz
While Iran has ~90m people, Oman only has ~5M. If that country manages to eke out a $1/barrel tax per barrel that flows through the channel, it is going to make even the average Saudi sheik green with envy
“Finish the job” says Trump. What job is that? To re-obliterate Iran’s nuclear capability? To reopen Hormuz? The former is nonsensical, the latter is impossible without serious negotiations, which is requires serious negotiators. Witkoff and Kusher are real estate developers.
Trump is worse than a lame duck, he is a dead one. Republicans will be slaughtered in November, Trump will be impeached in the House and convicted in the Senate, unless he resigns first. Unlikely given his delusional and narcissistic nature. President Vance will pardon him in any case. Nothing will change.
Destroy Israel and bring on the apocalypse, of course. The “Christian Zionists” have always wanted it and thry are closer to it than ever.
Do you suppose Christian Zionists wrote the apocalypse on their calendars for Easter weekend this year? I wonder if they factored in the fact that Easter occurs a week later in Orthodox Christian countries.
Based on my relatives, they don’t have it written in the calendar but they are watching and hoping that Sunday is the day- He is Risen, Hallelujah! And on your second point, no they don’t and it has never even crossed their minds.
Thank you for saying this out loud. I keep an eye on the Russian military establishment in peacetime and wartime, just out of a general interest. My impression is that Russia’s military efforts have a sense of great dedication and professionalism that is totally missing in the US and elsewhere. I suspect that repeatedly fighting off serious outside invaders has created a mindset among Russians that you ignore military performance at your peril.
In contrast, the US is strongly protected by huge moats on either coast, and no living American has fought off an invading force that threatened the country. The wars we fight are to gain resources, markets, and geostrategic advantages of various kinds, but we can always retreat to the safety of our homeland and lick our wounds if the war doesn’t go well. Military contracting is strictly a for-profit business, and the penalty for ineffective or failed military equipment is zero, and a chance to try again with another cost-plus 20-year contract from Uncle Sugar. These are not the conditions under which a world class military is formed or sustained.
Great changes are ahead, I think.
I don’t know what these statements about the “strongest” army means. Supply an arbitrary metric, I can supply an arbitrary answer as far as “strongest.” In actual war time conditions, the composition of armies, munitions, weapon-systems, training, tactics, and other factors change. In WWII, pound-for-pound, the Germans killed more than anyone else, so you can say they were the “strongest” (again arbitrary) but they lost the war. Further, let’s hope we don’t reach a real scenario where we can come up with the same metrics for the US, Russians and Chinese.
The US has the “strongest army” in the sense of its ability to project force across the globe. On the other hand, since Russia is squarely in the middle of Eurasia, and the Americas are a relative backwater, maybe it doesn’t matter. The Russians undoubtedly have the best ground force in the game right now, but this is partially a function of the fact they have been fighting Ukraine for over four years. If the US was in a protracted ground war with a peer or near-peer competitor, I think you would witness a much different force on the ground than what they have available today.
the russians have the best missile and drone tech and that is the new meta
Iran and Oman drafting protocol to ‘monitor’ Hormuz Strait traffic
https://www.cnbc.com/2026/04/02/iran-war-oman-hormuz-strait.html
Austria has denied US use of airspace for Iran military operations
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/austria-denied-us-access-its-airspace-gulf-military-operations-reports-newspaper-2026-04-02/
War crimes complaint filed in France over a deadly Israeli strike in Beirut
https://apnews.com/article/war-crimes-israel-beirut-ali-cherri-04a38418dc5cda4c9abd20b8698f10a2
Are there, or will there be, U.S. negotiations with Iran? another article from Alastair Crooke
https://strategic-culture.su/news/2026/04/02/are-there-or-will-there-be-us-negotiations-with-iran/
It’s amazing how closely the Iran war follows the script from the 1999 bombing of Serbia. Expecting it to be over within days? Check. Running out of military targets quickly, while inflicting only minor losses on the opponent? Check. Targeting civilian infrastructure to encorage/force government overthrow? Check. Moving forces in for a ground invasion? Check.
38,000 sorties later NATO managed to destroy only 64 pieces of active military equipment, (14 tanks, 18 APC’s, 32 artillery pieces), but plenty of old decommissioned equipment used as decoys. You can bet Iran studied that campaign carefully, especially the use of decoys. Also Serbian hardened structures, for example Slatina Air Base, easily survived the bombing by standoff weapons and protected the equipment housed within. We see similar lack of effectiveness against Iranian missile cities like the Yazd missile complex.
While Serbia gave up, they were a fraction of the size of Iran and lacked to critical leverage offered by the Straits of Hormuz. US and Israel are only 13,000 strikes into this campaign, 1/3 of the Serbia campaign, and already running short of ammo. Serbian campaign lasted for 3+ months, the ammo here may run out by month 2.
There is one step missing between:
“Running out of military targets quickly, while inflicting only minor losses on the opponent? Check.”
and:
“Targeting civilian infrastructure to encorage/force government overthrow? Check.”
Which is:
The enemy retaliating in surprisingly effective ways? Check.
In the case of Serbia, its air defence shot down one stealth F-117 airplane, and hit another F-117 so badly that it barely made it to a NATO base and had to be scrapped.
Robert Pape’s latest Substack public post on the Trump speech last night. Depressing.
His bottom line: “Trump did not calm the system last night. He made clear there is no plan to restore stability in the Strait of Hormuz and that escalation remains the primary lever. That means the war is not approaching resolution. It is moving deeper into an escalation trap—with no military off-ramps and a prolonged phase of global economic disruption. And in this phase, the key variable is no longer who can strike. It is whether the global energy system can function. Right now, it cannot do so reliably.” Note in his post he says he is giving a livestream briefing Saturday afternoon.
https://escalationtrap.substack.com/p/trump-accelerated-the-crisis
I keep running into this, and it keeps annoying me. And Pape does it in his otherwise highly readable post. It does not matter that the Persian Gulf was responsible for 20% of global oil production. What matters is that it was responsible for 30% of global oil exports.
Because, just to take Iran as an example, pre-war total production was something like 3.5mm bpd, but exports were on the order of 1.5mm bpd, and the rest was used internally. If you’re looking to measure the global impact, particularly on importer countries, then one should look to the total proportion of barrels that have disappeared off the export market, not vs. the total number of barrels in existence…
…which, by the way, not the whole 30% has disappeared. Iran continues to export its oil; the Saudis can still export about 5mm bpd* through Yanbu, though the Houthis can through a monkey wrench into the works if they block the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait (even without attacking the Saudis – see ** below). Some unspecified number of “friendly nation” ships are coming through, and I would guess we’ll eventually be back up to maybe 20-30 ships a day, two thirds of them tankers, unless Trump does something stupid and the Iranians close the Strait altogether. So let’s say long-term 15% of export barrels will have left the market on a semi-permanent basis, even once the war is over.
Unless Iran conquers Bahrain or some such, then the arithmetic changes again. Surely.
* – the pipeline that runs to Yanbu is 7mm bpd, but the loading facilities, apparently, can only process 5mm bpd. I’ve heard one analyst suggest that the Saudis plan to make up the difference with refined products, somehow, but have no idea what the status of that is.
** – without attacking Yanbu or the pipeline, closing the Red Sea would basically a) force oil tankers to use the Suez instead, and b) limit the tanker size to Suezmax (so no VLCCs or whatnot). Going to Asian destinations through Suez-Gibraltar-Horn of Africa route basically triples the transit time (or more), at tanker rates that are already 4-5x higher than prewar, through areas of Africa that are not used to seeing that kind of ship traffic (so their refuel capacity is less than optimal), so the premium for a Japanese customer can potentially run to +$20 per barrel – at today’s prices. On top of which, there are only ~100 Suezmax tankers out there not under long term contract, and you’d probably need many more than that to support a continuous supply chain, just because that many more tankers would be in transit at any one time.
I’m not following. There is 13 million bpd of shut in productions. Due to the time to get it spinning back up (months). That creates a 1 billion oil shortfall of estimates this year if everything is resolved by the end of April. Are you saying that it isn’t a crisis?
https://xcancel.com/TheStalwart/status/2039773019220910215
The future pain resulting from shortages will not be evenly distributed. The belligerents being subjected to an embargo once the local hostilities are solved seems baked in. “Not one drop…”
Yes, countries that put sanctions on Iran, like Australia will be badly placed. The Oman protocol is not published yet but countres with sanctions in place on Iran get nothing out of the Straight including fertilisers etc. We have been begging the US and China for supplies. China is once again starting to purchase US oil. The turnaround time for a tanker from the US is about 3 months to here.
Once the present flush of tankers is finished and many still tied up in the Straight then the provision of tankers and bulk ships will be as important as fuel supplies. This is starting to show up with WTI rising above Brent. Available barrels at $ 140 are what matters. Instead of nonsense meetings about opening the Straight those 30 countries should be meeting with shipping companies about rationalising shipping movements. If they are left to the market chaos is about to ensue.
From the Chris Armitage account:
Note that the statistics in this paragraph have nothing to do with a shortage of food. Hunger in the US at least is almost entirely the result of a shortage of money. It seems very disingenuous to include this information in a warning about fertilizer shortages; people who are (rightfully!) alarmed about hunger in the first world need to look at other sources of the situation.
On this subject: a friend of mine with some knowledge of agriculture told me that many crops which are grown in the US have the ability to fix nitrogen from the air. These do not need an external application of nitrogen fertilizer to grow. Soybeans are one of the big ones (there are others). So one consequence of the urea shortage is likely to be a shift towards nitrogen fixing crops rather than whatever they were planning to plant that needs urea. Also, remember that most of the grain grown in the US is used for animal feed, not for human consumption.
My point is it a shortage of nitrogen fertilizer is going to have a complex interaction with the farming industry, and with luck not as dire as one might initially think.
Get ready to eat a lot of peas, beans, lentils, and cashew nuts. Maybe the Russians will deign to sell us some wheat…
By long-term conviction but short-term luck, we’ve decided to revive the family farm as a pasture fed beef enterprise where the cattle are out-wintered. The herd is smaller but so are the costs: one man and a dog to go round on a quadbike and move them between paddocks, roll out the bales where they were cut vs. having to blast straw into shed pens, muck out, move fodder and/or feed supplements every day plus fertiliser and diesel and pesticide/herbicides growing fodder crops (on or off the farm).
Steers are selling for 650p/kg, same as last year’s all-time high and I suspect there’s more increases to come because the foreign competition is fed on oil and fertiliser and shipped on oil so it won’t be keeping the price down. And if the effects are long lasting, the herd sizes in intensive systems are going to fall as other farmers go extensive….
Let’s look at the most basic issue in changing crops on the fly. I am assuming most US farms are highly mechanized. If you are a corn farmer, how quickly can you switch to soy or alfalfa. Is your equipment able to plant and harvest soya or alfalfa? Do farmers have sources for seed?
I don’t know about planting soy versus corn or alfalfa but the harvesting equipment will be drastically different, costs for new equipment likely will be in the 100’s of thousands to low millions for a large farm, let’s say 1 or 2 thousand hectares and who knows if John Deere or New Holland, etc., have the capacity to quickly expand certain lines.
If they do switch are there any markets? Again to take a switch from corn to soya, the US major market has been China but given Trump’s erratic trade wars and tariffs China has been sourcing more or most of its soy imports from Brazil and I think Argentina. Why change back to an unreliable source?
Then there are basic and future contracts for farm products. When one fails to deliver, the dispute goes to arbitration, which is another can of worms.
It is also worth noting that 50 years ago, the Canadian Land Institute determined that it takes 8-10 petroleum calories to produce each calorie of food. The petroleum requirements increase when the product is used to produce meat. Given the food waste in America, the problem has increased.
In his bumbling madness
The American President
Sends Pax Americana
Headlong to its death
Oh, his military’s scraping
He looks sideways at the DOW
Won’t someone take the handle
‘Cause The Donald won’t stop going
No way to slow down
He sees his cabinet flung off
Under busses one by one
China and its best friend
In bed and having fun
Oh, he’s doubling down his little war
Playing wait and see
Won’t someone take the car keys
‘Cause The Donald won’t stop going
No way to slow down
He sees the markets spiking
Catches profits before they fall
Hubris and now Nemesis
Has got him by the balls
Oh, he gets on his Truth Social
Lying in all CAPs
Won’t someone take the Football
‘Cause The Donald won’t stop lying
No way to slow down
No way to slow down
No way to slow down
No way to slow down
No way to slow down
No way to slow down
No way to slow down
Jethro Tull
“Locomotive Breath”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OyyQ2XRPOnI
Utterly delightful, that!
It really just “wrote itself”, took about 15 minutes.
Let me see if I have this correctly. In no particular order, the knock-on effects of the Ramadan War are:
1. An oil shock
2. A natural gas shortage
3. A fertiliser disaster in the making given it is planting season in the Northern Hemisphere
4. A loss of base materials for pharmaceuticals such that many important life-saving drugs will be in short supply
5. Helium for scanners and chip manufacturing is no longer available.
6. An imminent crisis in private equity (USSA) with possible knock-on effects to the international financial markets.
7. Huge inflation in most countries due to these effects.
8. A possible fiscal crisis in those countries which have high levels of debt (pretty much the whole Western world).
9. Currency crises in emerging economies
10. Possible civil wars or insurrection in Gulf countries
11. An increased risk of the use of nuclear weapons
12. Famine or nutritional deprivation across the world
13. Possible ecological disasters in Western Asia
14. Civil discontent in many countries.
Have I missed anything?
And the reason is?
Iran did/didn’t do something…that displeased the US establishment. Wow!
On a personal note, I recall the first oil shock (1970s), the second, the invasion of Kuwait (1990), the Global financial crisis (2008) and other such events, but even if only half of the above list come to pass, it will be the worst crisis in my lifetime. Period. Looking at the past, I cannot think of any events in history that come close. Perhaps the Black Death, but that was slow-moving in comparison.
Your list looks solid. Unfortunately.
I never guessed that retirement would be this “interesting”.
I wish it wasn’t. I graduated during the 3-day week, lost my job during the 179-80 recession and again in 1990 during the first Gulf War. I managed to be secure in 2008 though it did give me the heebie-jeebies.
So the last thing I want is an “intersting” retirement.
To boot, I live in Scotland and the risks of a country-wide blackout are significant due to there now being just two (yes, two!) thermal power stations that can keep the grid stable. The rest is wind and solar (ha! ha!). I am living in an accident waiting to happen. My understanding is that a black start is a lngthy and difficult process. Politicians here seem blissfully unaware, whereas they should have been shouting for remedial action. No sirree, is is part of the progress towards Net Zero.
There are obvious perma-war types in DC, but the Senate numbers in Texas and Alaska were already dicey. The “liberal” media largely praised Trump for the Marduro abduction, so he simply did what plenty of other have done which is shop for a foreign entanglement.
Since we never had any accountability for Iraq in 2003, the idiot offspring of those movers infest the Swamp. Just look at Hegseth. The dude should be laughed at and at most a functionary who embarrasses a department for a day because of a DUI, but he’s a symptom of a larger rot, not limited to Trump.
One may call into question the vast investment the USA makes in higher education.
Hegseth has degrees from Princeton and Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.
Bush Jr was Yale and HBS.
You can lead a horse to water but . . .
The US systematically confuses rents with investments.
An Ivy degree is a rent you pay for a place at the table of the rest of your life.
If we actually educated people for all the money we spend, well, we’d be able to win wars but probably wouldn’t fight them.
Being a graduate of Harvard, Yale, or Princeton should disqualify one from serving in any higher level position in the US government. And that logic should be applied to Presidents and Vice Presidents in addition to all the non-elected positions.
Bush was a C student but was allowed into those institutions because of his family name. In a speech once he joked to C students that they too could become President one day.
Just found out in this blog that the 70’s embargo only reduced world supply 5%. This event is 10-20%, and is accompanied with fertilizer and other shortages that seem to promise very high food/fuel costs sharply higher as fall harvests disappoint just before midterms.
Not clear when fuel rockets up and equities down, but imo coyote likely to look down soon. Even bonds might fall until markets see deep recession.
15. Intentional, massive damage to climate change minimization and adaptation efforts.
16. Intentional, massive damage to public and environmental health
17. Intentional, massive damage to government capacity
And yeah, this is the craziest, most unstable world in my middle-aged lifetime too.
– And the reason is? –
Greater Israel.
All this, all the millions of deaths which will follow, is because Israel refused to define and accept the borders of the land it was gifted at the expense of the Palestinians. Because Iran stood as the last obstacle to their empire between the Nile and the Euphrates. The American establishment is the Zionist establishment and we should all remember it as the horror unfolds.
But the good news is they blew it. Impunity got turned around and Israel is now farked. As Pape said, Iran is now the fourth great power. They have the sanction power now and they’ll use it.
I continue to see a State of Palestine before the dust settles. Whether it’s one state or two remains to be seen.
Steve Keen was posted here the other day and I’ve been listening to some of his clips. His main thesis right now is a private credit crisis where energy inflation leads to private debt obligations being missed and then deflation. So we will simultaneously have inflation of energy, food, medicine, etc as you pointed out, but will have financial deflation, if I’m understanding him correctly.
I’m curious where monetary policy will go here. Will central bank’s continue with raising rates in response to this inflation of core goods or will we see a deviation from this attitude in order to stimulate credit creation so a crisis on that end doesn’t happen?
Blue Owl gave in today and gated their investors. They were the only ones still pretending. Treasury is calling in the regulators now, shutting the door after the horses have bolted as usual.
Think about it- if most people’s resources are fixed, then inflation in energy and food uses up the entire budget. Is essentially zero sum. Everything else can become so cheap that it bankrupts the producers but people have no money available because it’s all spent on food and energy.
18. Naphta shortages impair the production of methionine, which is used as an essential feeding supplement / growth factor in poultry farms.
19. The cessation of economic activities in the Gulf States is affecting the remittances from 35 million guest workers and expatriates, mostly from Asia (India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Philippines…)
https://indianexpress.com/article/cities/bangalore/west-asia-conflict-india-condom-industry-shortage-hll-lifecare-10611967/
Condom shortage in India.
Hmm, what else uses a lot of plastic?
Clothes.
Go long Hemp Peasant Shirts.
Go long coitus interruptus?
This remind me to good old Chinese curse:
“May you live in interesting times.”
My personal experience is similar to your, and also include ’80 hyperinflation and ’90 war in Yugoslavia.
Hyperinflation was “fun”, I was a billionaire working part-time as a student. I might be a billionaire retiree this time.
A belated R.I.P. for Jurgen Habermas. [unlocked NYTimes obituary]
Quite honestly was very surprised he was still alive. Sad that he lived to see his public sphere suppressed and all but dismantled. He must have been overjoyed by the emergence of the internet, deeply saddened by how it was straighjacketed by algorithms and censors.
Holly Mathnerd’s analysis of how the U.S. is dismantling its military drone industry. We Shipped What We Had:
Interesting article. I think the diagnosis is almost certainly correct but I’m skeptical of using Ukraine as a model for a remedy. Corruption aside doesn’t Ukraine lean heavily on Chinese suppliers? And how much of Ukraine’s distributed production is to avoid Iskander strikes?
Yes. I think Russia has a centralized organization (that helped Russia scaling up its production) but is highly innovative regardless.
Russian govt bans gasoline exports by producers to end of July
Also 40% of their export capacity is offline. Exemptions include the former soviet-stans and mongolia it seems (anyone with a bilateral agreement).
Or, so says Ukraine. But it’s a perfectly good rationale Russia can invoke to curtail exports, to select countries.
Bondi Out as AG
Not at all US internal politics
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/justice-department/bondi-fired-attorney-general-trump-rcna266378
Trump’s gonna need a taller bus.
https://www.breakfastinamerica.me/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/2016-03-13-123214-web.jpg
Medical needs surging in Iran and supplies under threat, Red Cross warns
https://www.straitstimes.com/world/middle-east/medical-needs-surging-in-iran-and-supplies-under-threat-red-cross-warns
Fuel tanker that rerouted from Cuba now found discharging in Venezuela, data and source say
https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/fuel-tanker-that-rerouted-cuba-now-discharging-venezuela-data-source-say-2026-04-02/
Moscow plans to send 2nd oil tanker to Cuba, Russian energy minister says
https://www.ctvnews.ca/world/article/moscow-plans-to-send-2nd-oil-tanker-to-cuba-russian-energy-minister-says/
TikTok pulls Israeli ultranationalist’s account for breach of hate speech rules
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/apr/02/tiktok-israeli-ultranationalist-account-west-bank-settlers
Russia will ask US and Israel to cease fire while it evacuates staff from Iranian nuclear plant, RIA reports
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/russia-will-ask-us-israel-cease-fire-while-it-evacuates-staff-iranian-nuclear-2026-04-02/
Russia seeks to create ‘grain and energy hub’ in Egypt
https://www.thenationalnews.com/news/mena/2026/04/02/russia-seeks-to-create-grain-and-energy-hub-in-egypt/
Iran’s ‘Oldest Research Centre’ Turned Into Rubble: Tehran Hits Out At US-Israel For ‘Barbaric Assault’
https://www.ndtvprofit.com/world/iran-condemns-strike-on-pasteur-institute-calls-it-barbaric-assault-on-public-health-11302298
why can’t they stop these?
A quick Google search reveals the extended range JASSM is around 1000 km, which means they can be launched from Syrian or Saudi airspace. Maybe that’s why they can hit Tehran with seeming impunity.
Yves
Amazing to me you can continue your excellent war coverage day after day. I read it first thing every day, but please make sure you’re getting enough sleep and remain in good health.
Hear, hear.
IDF kills Iranian Oil Headquarters commander, destroys IRGC finance facility
https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/article-891953
White House Accidentally Uploads Quite a Damning Trump Speech
https://newrepublic.com/post/208535/white-house-accidentally-easter-lunch-trump-speech
Republicans brace for midterms massacre
https://www.newsweek.com/republicans-brace-for-midterms-massacre-11771849?utm_source=reddit&utm_campaign=reddit_main
I have lost sight of the line between reality and parody. Is the Trump Easter lunch speech an April Fool? It’s just too plausible.
As the oft-repeated quote, “History Does Not Repeat Itself, But It Rhymes”, yesterday’s moon launch, with Trump’s corresponding unhinged speech, reminds me of “Whitey on the Moon” a spoken word poem by Gil Scott-Heron.
The wreckage in Shiraz is now confirmed as a Wing Loong II, not an MQ-9. The Wing Loong II (MALE UCAV) is the workhorse of the Emirati and Saudi drone fleets. Its silhouette is nearly identical to the MQ-9, explaining the initial misidentification.
https://x.com/iwasnevrhere_/status/2039748747513455022#m
I have also seen a Saudi Saab 2000 AEW&C operating near the strait, along with a US P8 Poseidon.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saab_Erieye#Saab_2000_AEW
I saw this as well. Saudi’s are all in?
Grocery shock on the horizon for approaching U.S. elections as Iran war drags on
https://www.cnbc.com/2026/04/02/grocery-shock-on-the-horizon-for-us-elections-as-iran-war-drags-on.html?__source=androidappshare
Appeals court blocks Republicans’ bid to dismantle Grand Canyon national monument
https://azmirror.com/2026/04/01/appeals-court-blocks-republicans-bid-to-dismantle-grand-canyon-national-monument/
Read my lips: No inflation and no foreign wars. April Fools. (or Trump Liar’s Day)
On to Kharg Island . Oorah Epstein! Oorah Bibi! Israel First (battle cry of the US Marines.)
Objectively speaking it doesn’t seem that the US has a strategic plan. (E.G. to ‘take’ Iran’s oil by ‘conquering it ‘ would require a huge ground invasion, not limited tactical operations) ) Meanwhile, Iran seems to have a modified ‘deep battle’ plan and has targeted and neutralized the decision making capacity of its opponent. In addition it is simultaneously constricting the Israeli sphere and the sphere of the Arabian Pennisula. If these collapse, the US will have no foothold in the area.
Market manipulation: When Trump says :”negotiations for peace’, the markets go up, and his cronies buy short in anticipations of his saying “war’. Then, when markets go down, the insiders make money, twice, when they sell and buy long on Trump’s next intestinal swing.
Jewish troops will be looking for Muslims hidden in the attics of Christians. Let that sink in.
Hend Emery, X post via nitter.
C’mon, man. They are only defending themselves. /sarc
Witkoff: Abbas, are you there?
Araghchi: I’m sorry, the Foreign Minister you are trying to reach is not in service at this time.
Witkoff: C’mon, Abbas, I know you’re there.
Araghchi: *sigh* What do you want now, Steve?
Witkoff: Didja see the Speech? Huh? Didja? Didja?
Araghchi: Steve, show some decorum. You’re jumping around like a Jack Russell Terrier who’s just had his third cup of coffee.
Witkoff: Didja?!?!?!?
Araghchi: I read the transcript, Steve. I also read a translation from English to Farsi to Mandarin to Japanese to German back to English, and it was almost identically delusional. Is your president okay? He sounded like he was overmedicated. Or undermedicated. Or just needed his meds adjusted. Are you sure he’s on the right pills? Maybe you should execute his trainer.
Witkoff: He’s fine. He’s having good and productive conversations with your new president!
[Pezeshkian enters the chat]
Pezeshkian: WTF, dude, I’ve been here for a year and a half now! I’m not talking with Trump.
Witkoff: Maybe it’s the other new president then. Trump did say he was going to do some reshuffling of the leadership in Iran.
Pezeshkian: Whatever, dude.
[Pezeshkian has left the chat]
[Trump has entered the chat]
Witkoff: What is thy bidding, my master?
Trump: That’s it, done Deal, other than Bombing them back into the Stone Age of course. We’re the winners! WE ARE THE CHAMPIONS! Best America EVER! Iran has no Navy, no Nukes, no Air Force, and we’ll be adversely possessing … oh, maybe Kharg Island or something. I haven’t decided yet. But they have only one Trump Unit to decide to give up. Unless I shorten it. Or lengthen it. Or forget about it. And oh yeah, Bondi – you’re FIRED!!!!
[Trump has left the chat]
Witkoff: Hear that, Abbas? All your Base are belong to us. You have no chance to survive, make your time. Hah. Hah. Hah.
[Oman has entered the chat]
[Oman fistbumps Araghchi]
Oman: Abbas – that “share the wealth” idea. We’d like to talk more about it.
Araghchi: I’ll have my people call your people.
Oman: Dude!
[Oman has left the chat]
Witkoff: You can’t do that!
Araghchi: Try and stop us. Bring friends and pack a lunch, it’ll be a long day. Oh. Wait. You don’t HAVE any friends and we’re busy eating your lunch.
Witkoff: Cold, Abbas, very cold.
Araghchi: Best serving temperature for revenge, I’m told.
Witkoff: STONE AGE, Abbas, it’s gonna be the Stone Age!
Araghchi: Sorry, Steve, again, can’t hear you over the sound of the screaming power dive your markets are in, or the rocket-like wooshing noise of oil prices.
Witkoff: STONE AGE!!! You’d better learn how to ride dinosaurs to work!
Araghchi: You’re wetting yourself, Steve. Go read some de Tocqueville and calm down.
Witkoff: Who?
Araghchi: Never mind. Bye, Steve. My regards to your stockbroker.
Thank you for the funny interlude amid the ongoing craziness, OL!
Excellent work that.
Hegseth asks the Army’s top uniformed officer to step down while US wages war against Iran
Maybe he has Arthur Brown in mind for the top job…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=en1uwIzI3SE
Looks very like a “boots on the ground” argument.
A very bad sign IMO.
The CoS are about the only restraints on Trump/Hegseth’s idiotic plans.
Especially worrying at this exact juncture, just before the long weekend, which seems the likeliest time for a US ground attack.
Hey, at least the civilians are still in charge?
SecDef Hegseth has asked Army Chief of Staff Randy George to step down.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/hegseth-ousts-army-chief-of-staff-gen-randy-george/
Brent oil spot price for actual cargo soars to $141, highest level since 2008 financial crisis
https://www.cnbc.com/2026/04/02/dated-brent-oil-price-actual-cargo-highest-level-2008.html
Hamas wants guarantees of Israeli troop withdrawal before disarmament talks, sources say
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/hamas-wants-guarantees-israeli-troop-withdrawal-before-disarmament-talks-sources-2026-04-02/
The US Burned 14 Years of Missiles in 30 Days
https://trendytechtribe.com/energy/us-burned-14-years-missiles-30-days
Let’s Be Very Clear: Trump’s Iran War Is Making You Poorer
https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/iran-war-makes-us-poorer
There’s Only One Thing Trump’s Rambling TV Address Made Clear: ‘It really doesn’t matter when the slurring US president decides to end the Iran war – because the damage is already done.’
https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/trump-tv-address-iran-war-president-artemis-ii-moon-b2950693.html
The Sentence That Could Sink Donald Trump’s Presidency
“the single most consequential thing Trump said yesterday didn’t come from his primetime address. Instead it came during a White House Easter lunch, where Trump made his priorities clear in an offhanded, unintentional, rare moment of brutal honesty: “The United States can’t take care of day care.”
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/the-sentence-that-should-sink-donald-trumps-presidency_n_69cea133e4b0d214cc70659a
Trump treats war as entertainment
http://salon.com/2026/04/02/trump-treats-war-as-entertainment
Trump Has No Idea How to Clean Up His Own Mess
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/02/opinion/trump-war-iran-speech.html
What in God’s name is Pete Hegseth doing in Iran?
https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/us-politics/pete-hegseth-iran-war-religion-b2949467.html
John Roberts told Donald Trump exactly what he thinks
https://www.cnn.com/2026/04/02/politics/john-roberts-told-donald-trump-exactly-what-he-thinks
Trump Reportedly Frustrated At Tulsi Gabbard, Wondering Whether To Replace Her
https://www.ibtimes.com/trump-reportedly-frustrated-tulsi-gabbard-wondering-whether-replace-her-3800772
Does Donald Trump’s Tanking Approval Rating Really Matter for Him?
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2026/04/donald-trump-iran-war-news-polls-jd-vance.html
“Does Donald Trump’s Tanking Approval Rating Really Matter for Him?”
To quote or at least paraphrase one of Yves’ comments from the other day, with apologies for raising my voice: IT DOES NOT MATTER WHAT THE AMERICAN PUBLIC THINKS..
Russia ready to supply India with fertilizers, oil, LNG – first deputy PM during visit to New Delhi
I take no position in terms of what India “should” do, but between reliance on Russia for fertilizer and dependence on Iran for access to fuel, I wonder if India can truly remain “non-aligned” much longer
Prrhaps it’s not in indias interest to remain non aligned given recent events.
Turkey too.
UAE’s new gasoline prices. 95 octane (87 octane in North America) raised to 0.89 USD per liter, or 4.05 USD per gallon:
https://www.wionews.com/world/uae-announces-fuel-price-hike-for-april-2026-check-new-petrol-and-diesel-rates-1774967195186
Note: This is an imperial gallon (4.54609 litres) rather than a US gallon (3.78541 litres).
IRGC attacks Dubai Oracle data center, US fighter jets at Jordan’s Al Azraq base
https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/iran-news/article-891951
Is Pete Hegseth the Dumbest Man in the Trump Administration?
https://www.thebulwark.com/p/is-pete-hegseth-the-dumbest-man-in
The Feds Say Cutting Fuel With Ethanol Will Bring Down Gas Prices. We’re Not Buying It
https://www.thedrive.com/news/the-feds-say-cutting-fuel-with-ethanol-will-bring-down-gas-prices-were-not-buying-it
Iran fires on Israel and Gulf neighbors as Trump claims threat from Tehran nearly eliminated
https://apnews.com/article/iran-us-israel-trump-lebanon-april-2-2026-c41dbdb8148d02ce6561ea6bd4aa0da1
Trump Is Doing Structural Damage to American Intelligence: The issue isn’t just his disregard for facts. It’s that he’s reshaping the government in his image.
https://www.thebulwark.com/p/trump-is-doing-structural-damage-american-intelligence-cia
Tehran Is Setting a Trap for Trump
https://foreignpolicy.com/2026/04/01/trump-trap-iran-war-leadership-global-economy-ali-vaez/
Pam Bondi was destined to fail. But she also made it worse
https://www.cnn.com/2026/04/02/politics/fired-pam-bondi-trump-why
The War on Iran Is More Expensive Than You Think
https://jacobin.com/2026/04/trump-war-iran-cost-childcare
Trump does not have to turn over presidential records, Justice Department says
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/justice-department/justice-department-says-trump-not-turn-presidential-records-rcna266434
Trump to Impose 100% Tariff on Some Drugs as Trade Barriers Rise
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-04-02/trump-to-impose-100-tariff-on-some-drugs-as-trade-barriers-rise
MAGA congressman says Americans would become ‘unglued’ if they hear the same briefings on aliens he gets
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/alien-ufo-briefings-tim-burchett-b2950992.html
Here’s how much Trump’s tariffs are costing you for clothes, furniture, groceries and more 1 year after ‘Liberation Day’
https://www.oregonlive.com/retail/2026/04/heres-how-much-trumps-tariffs-are-costing-you-for-clothes-furniture-groceries-and-more-1-year-after-liberation-day.html
Iran Cannot Hold World Economy Hostage- UK Foreign Minister
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/chairs-statement-on-the-meeting-on-the-strait-of-hormuz
oh, yes they can
Trump admin tried and failed to bring back oil drilling near Calif. schools and hospitals
https://www.sfgate.com/politics/article/trump-oil-drilling-22185991.php
sorry, the headlines are just so thick on the ground today…..
US ICE detains Islamic Society of Milwaukee President Salah Sarsour, mosque says
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/us-ice-detains-islamic-society-milwaukee-president-salah-sarsour-mosque-says-2026-04-02/
A war meant to break Iran could leave Tehran stronger, and Gulf exposed
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/war-meant-break-iran-could-leave-tehran-stronger-gulf-exposed-2026-04-01/
Iran’s nuclear constraints were more diplomatic than technical. Then the bombs started dropping
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/iran-nuclear-bomb-united-states-war-9.7147664
A Bid to Use Force to Open Strait of Hormuz Hits U.N. Roadblocks
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/02/world/middleeast/arab-iran-hormuz-force.html?smid=url-share
I noticed that the hilarious Institute for the Study of War is getting its recently unveiled Iranian war apologetics promoted on Facebook. And its of the same quality as their tedious Ukraine fanboy coverage of that war.
After 3 weeks, signs of life:
Middle East Spectator — MES
Stay tuned.
https://t.me/Middle_East_Spectator/30133#
https://x.com/itsalireza_akb/status/2039677691977171305
B1 bridge in Karaj has been hit in US-ISRAELI attacks.
This bridge is reportedly the “highest bridge in West Asia.”
Every image of destruction carried out by Israel makes me think and say, when a missile hits Israel, when I see people scurrying into shelters, that is not enough and hopefully more is to come. This thought is entrenched by the knowledge that the supermajority of Israeli Jews are in it for genocide, for teritorial aquisition, for mayhem and destruction and chaos around them (easier to catch fish in muddy waters some say…)
Iran already talking about hitting bridges across Gulf states.
I can think of one in particular linking Bahrain to Saudi
—-
This was a US attack, not the Israelis.
It’s long weekend time now, so I’d expect Trump to order further escalatory stuff. And of course none it will work. The results will be greater destruction of Gulf infrastructure and so the cycle will go on.
Add in the ousting of the Army CoS and you have a recipe for bad things continuing to happen.
And every day this goes on, the future for the poor of the world looks more dismal.
Trump may cause more death than anyone in history.
Deranged Trump Syndrome (DTS)
lol
I know, right? It’s completely mind bending. When Trump smashes his toys together in frustration, look out! America 2026: The toy is broken.
We’re rapidly approaching Team America: World Police (2004) levels of absurdity, e.g., in which the Eiffel Tower gets toppled by the US in order to “secure” France.
Hegseth kinda looks like one of the dolls they used in the movie – blocky face; bland; limited unrealistic facial expressions; unlikely hair.
sorry if this was already clear:
In the interview of Andrei Martyanov by Sharmine Narwani for THE CRADLE (which I already linked elsewhere) she asked him about RU vs. Israeli nukes.
Martyanov says that the mutual defense pact that was proposed by the Russians to Iran but rejected by Iran would have offered a nuclear shield to Iran.
This is in contrast what Russia and North Korea did already agree on and why North Koreans sent troops to SMO (in some limited form.)
see TC 56:00-60:30 on this nuke issue and integrating Iran into Russian defense complex with an agreement in place:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vibdDq8WNgg&t=1100s
We won’t pay your Strait of Hormuz tolls, UK tells Iran (Telegraph)
Subhead: Tehran cannot be allowed to hold the global economy hostage, says Yvette Cooper
After the crisis meeting, Ms Cooper said Iran must “not be allowed” to “hold the global economy hostage” and said that sanctions “to bear down on Iran” were also discussed as potential solutions between members.
My homeland and it’s cousins across the channel continue under the delusion that they have agency.
Iran has been sanctioned extensively for a long time. What difference will more sanctions make?
The world no longer needs Europe. The world no longer fears Europe. They are dying societies and dying economies. The pronouncements are shrill, but they are talking to themselves.
They’ve already sacrificed their societies to fight an imaginary Russian threat. They look likely to continue this idiocy with Iran.
—–
I’m reminded of a boss I once had. Awful person, who was constantly demanding and criticising. I remember phoning her to say I was quitting without notice and wouldn’t be coming back to work.
She proceeded to go into her usual harping and telling me what I needed to do for the good of the company before I interrupted her and said “Name-of-boss, you’re not understanding. I left. I don’t care. None of this is my problem anymore. And I don’t need to listen to any of this.”
She was shocked and it was genuinely hilarious sensing the realisation filter through her brain. She was so used to being able to bully and demand, she couldn’t process that someone would just ignore her.
European leaders are still in the pre-realisation stage.
Heh, I quit a contractor role Zoom interview at Amazon once. The interviewer looked shocked when I said bluntly, I don’t think this is the job for me. Goodbye! Like I’d grown a third eye.
Subhead: Tehran cannot be allowed to hold the global economy hostage, says Yvette Cooper
I wonder what the UK will tell Yemen if Ansarullah ever gets around to controlling the Bab-el Mandeb strait.
At some point (probably sooner rather than later), the Europeans are really going to have to wake up and realize that nobody gives a $h!t about what they have to say. I look forward to that day, if only to deal with fewer repetitious hypocritical lectures.
Putin is 100% European (born in Leningrad/St Petersburg), and I think he realised some time ago.
Ursula von der Leyen (2 April):
“Good call yesterday with @Keir_Starmer.
We discussed the situation in the Middle East and the Strait of Hormuz.
Iran’s actions are putting global economic stability at risk.
We will work with our partners to ensure freedom of navigation can resume as soon as possible. [etc.]
Related to my comment above, this headline from the Telegraph sums up European impotence:
Yvette Cooper holds meeting to re-open Strait of Hormuz
The first half of the sentence bears no relation to the second half despite the preposition in the middle.
A prayer meeting?
lol whut?
Exclusive: US intelligence assesses Iran maintains significant missile launching capability, sources say (CNN)
How many Trump units to complete the mission?
When one understands that the US military has no or very bad strategic intel about Iran, more so driven for decades by neoliberal profit outcomes, bizarre rituals like PowerPoint and now AI driven dog and pony shows, its doctrine is assume a can opener based on a complex symmetrical approach with a short time line, and there is no plan B if it all goes sideways …. its not hard too understand …
China expands digital yuan programme with 12 new bank operators
https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/china-expands-digital-yuan-programme-with-12-new-bank-operators-2026-04-02/
Defeat Has Never Sounded as Victorious as in Trump’s Address
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2026-04-02/trump-s-iran-speech-dressed-up-defeat-as-victory
U.S. bombs Iran’s civilian infrastructure for first time after “Stone Ages” threat
https://www.axios.com/2026/04/02/trump-iran-bridge-stone-age
The Biblical Hypocrisy of RFK Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/rfk-jr-tulsi-gabbard-biblical-hypocrisy-health-care-war-1235540244/
Iranian Americans Have Turned Against The War, New Poll Finds | At the start of the U.S.–Israel war, Iranian Americans were split. Now a NIAC poll found that two-thirds want to see it end.
https://theintercept.com/2026/04/01/iranian-americans-against-war-poll-israel/
US seeking to expand military presence in Greenland after Trump threats to take over
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/greenland-trump-us-military-bases-b2950606.html
UK security officials have started withholding intelligence from US due to Trump
https://inews.co.uk/news/uk-security-officials-withholding-intelligence-trump-4328858
Trump warns Tehran ‘more to follow’ after strike destroys Iran’s largest bridge
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/apr/02/trump-warns-tehran-more-to-follow-after-strike-destroys-irans-largest-bridge
Justice Dept. says the Presidential Records Act is unconstitutional
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2026/04/02/trump-doj-presidential-records-act/
Trump ‘Openly Flaunting His War Crimes’ as US Bombs Iran’s Civilian Infrastructure
https://www.commondreams.org/news/iran-trump-war-crimes
US intelligence assesses Iran maintains significant missile launching capability, sources say
https://www.cnn.com/2026/04/02/politics/iran-missiles-us-military-strikes-trump?cid=ios_app
Hegseth lifts ban on service members carrying personal firearms on base
https://thehill.com/policy/defense/5814119-defense-secretary-lifts-gun-ban/
Cuba pardons 2,010 people as the US pressures the island’s government
https://apnews.com/article/cuba-pardons-holy-week-oil-blackouts-203c1b81aed59e81d252b29d27ad6654
What could possibly go wrong?
Firm backed by Trump sons tries to sell drone interceptors to Gulf states being attacked by Iran
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/apr/02/eric-trump-drones-gulf-states-iran
Strider Report Reveals Unsanctioned Firms Supplying Iran’s Drone Program
https://www.striderintel.com/newsroom/strider-report-reveals-unsanctioned-firms-supplying-irans-drone-program/
I’m done for tonight. Too exhausted.
Thanks, ann!
I specifically refresh here late in the evening to see your links after the thread has mostly died down. Appreciate the effort!
My thanks as well. I check your links first thing when I get up to see if the US did anything particularly stupid/destructive overnight before Yves puts up her post. You deserve an honorary pair of Lambert’s yellow waders for your efforts.
Hey, kids, shake it loose together
The spotlight’s hitting something known to change the eschatological weather
We’ll worship the golden calf, tonight, so stick around
You’re gonna hear theological dreck from hallowed halls full-o-clowns
Say, Lindsay and Donnie, have you seen them yet?
Oh, they’re disgraced, sad, louts
B-buh-buh-Bibi’s little pets
Oh, but that leash is quite powerful
Oh, Bibi thinks they’re really keen
Ya know they’re in cahoots
With AIPAC suits
They’re born and bred to serve foreign entities
Oh, B-buh-buh-Bibi’s little pets!
Hey kids, pull the plug on the faithless
Maybe they’re blinded, but Bibi sure seems ageless
He shall survive, as he takes Congress along
When we fight for pennies out in the street, because he’s bought off them all
Say Nancy and Mikey, have you seen them yet?
Oh, but they’re disgraced louts
Buh-buh-buh-Bibi’s little pets
Oh, but that leash is quite powerful
Oh, keeping them on Team Epstein
Ya know they’re in cahoots
With AIPAC suits
They’re born and bred to serve foreign entities
Oh-oh, B-b-b-Bibi’s little pets!
[Piano interlude]
Say, Lindsay and Donnie, have you seen them yet?
Oh, they’re disgraced, sad, louts
B-buh-buh-Bibi’s little pets
Oh, but their leash is quite powerful
Oh, Bibi thinks they’re really keen
Ya know they’re in cahoots
With AIPAC suits
They’re born and bred to serve foreign entities
Oh-oh, B-b-b-Bibi’s little pets!
Bibi’s, Bibi’s, Bibi’s, Bibi’s little pets …
Bibi, Bibi, Bibi, Bibi, Bibi, Bibi’s little pets
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5rQHoaQpTw&list=RDp5rQHoaQpTw
“Bloomberg: Iranian oil is being traded at a higher price than Brent, the global price benchmark, which, according to reports, indicates a profound strategic shift in the oil market.”
https://t.me/parstodayrussian/200541