Speaking earlier with Fox News, Trump referenced the 1979 Iranian revolution without mention of the US undermining efforts towards democratic reform and echoed previous ambitions announced a few days prior of “hitting the country very hard” and to “watch what happens to these scumbags.”
The US has temporarily waved sanctions for Russian crude and for oil in tankers stranded at sea, unable to pass through the Persian Gulf to the Gulf of Oman, reiterating the plan to provide naval escorts. 
Meanwhile oil producing states in the region are contemplating pausing production with limited land-storage capacity and no ships to fill, with the process of restarting drilling not as simple as turning the spigot back on. İncirlik NATO airbase came under fire and is in lockdown and smoke billows over the financial centre of Dubai. A US refuelling plane was downed in Iraqi airspace and a rescue operation for the five crew members is underway, whilst there are also discussions to move anti-missile systems, running in short supply, from South Korea to the Middle East to protect American assets. Preliminary investigations into the bombing of a girls’ school in Minhab puts the blame on American misfiring and faulty intelligence. Historical Safavid-era buildings of the Ali Qapu and Rashk palaces in Isfahan province were destroyed by joint US and Israeli airstrikes as devastating assaults continue in Beirut.
synchronoptica
one year ago: spiritual boxes (with synchronopticæ) plus vintage Czech record sleeves
thirteen years ago: fiscal planning
fourteen years ago: help for Japan in the Fukushima aftermath
seventeen years ago: pot o’ gold
should make you think: the Ig Noble commitee and ceremony (see previously) moves to Zürich permanently out of fear for its international laureates coming to the US
multisource authentication: the madding task of logging on to any platform, ostensibly for security reasons, also is unpaid labour to train AI
ʰ-bomb: a typographical mystery surrounding one of Frank Lloyd Wright’s most celebrated sacred spaces—via MetaFilter
asterisms: learn about the night sky by creating one’s own constellations with Neal Agarwal (previously)
saint-michel d’aiguihe: the chapel of St Michael of the Needle built atop a volcanic plug and has a secret reliquary—via Miss Cellania
diacritics: kernels, ʻokinas and curly quotes
short imagined monologues: the void would very much like you to stop screaming into it—see also
rebel alliance: Minnesota’s badge of resistance to ICE terror
Describing the assault as a “short-term excursion” and ahead of schedule, Trump announced, after speaking with Vladimir Putin, that the war on Iran would end very soon, vacillating from earlier projections that it could go on for several weeks, but how soon depended on Tehran, refusing to say whether the new Supreme Leader was a target for assassination, as Israel has declared. Australia grants asylum to members of the women’s national football team stranded after the Asian Games. Air raids in Beirut continue and in the Iranian capital, targeting civilian infrastructure. Syria signalled support to Lebanon for the disarmament of Hezbollah and massed troops on their shared border. NATO defences in Türkiye have intercepted a second missile entering its airspace, deploying jets to protect Cyprus as the RAF patrols over Jordan.
synchronoptica
one year ago: more from artist Len Lye (with synchronopticæ), art vandalism as protest plus erasure of the Black Lives Matter street mural
thirteen years ago: a papal conclave plus a souvenir from the Canary Islands
sixteen years ago: complaints and compliance plus dwindling attention spans
seventeen years ago: Americans’ fear of socialism
As war continues to rage in the Middle East—Trump promising to unleash unseen devastation on Iran after Tehran’s gesture of contrition for misfiring on its neighbours as a sign of weakness and imminent surrender, though the apology didn’t really signal a real change in tactics with exceptions for American assets and which may make it their eyes data centres legitimate targets, Amazon cloud services severely depreciated after servers in Bahrain were damaged—the US president is hosting a summit with like-minded leaders from Central- and South America at his Doral golf resort outside of Miami, also the venue slated for the G20 later this year. 
Leaders from Bolivia, Chile, the Dominican Republic, Argentina, Honduras, Paraguay and strangely given Trump’s threats over control of the canal Panama are scheduled to attend. Not invited to are three of the hemisphere’s largest economies in Brazil, Colombia and México and neighbours to the north over ideological differences as Trump tries to rally support for his Donroe Doctrine and sphere of influence among a cohort of the apparent willing whom have joined the alliance (see also) with a multinational military cooperative to counter cartels and organised crime, spearheaded by Kristi Noem. After the kidnapping of the Venezuelan president and affecting a hollow regime change, leading up to the event, Trump told the press that Cuba was on the brink of collapse and were actively negotiating for a reprieve from the crippling embargo imposed by the US, intimating that secretary of state Rubio—Lil Marco as Trump referred to him during their 2016 presidential runs, the son of Cuba immigrants, would be the country’s viceroy, a prize he has always strived for. Afterwards Trump jets off to Dover Air Force base to receive the dignified transfer of the bodies of US soldiers killed so far.
back alley: the Canadian (purported) regionalism laneway and its distinctions—see also
butterfly net: a magnetic mount turns insect encounters into digital entomological specimens
mctuscan heaven: a spectacular Garage Mahal—see previouslyspecial envoy for the shield of the americas: Trump reassigns Kristi Noem from DHS secretary in first major personnel shake-up of his second term
＊: following its refusal to compromise its ethics rules on autonomous weapons with no human involvement, Pentagon declares Anthropic a supply-chain risk—see also
hypercard: more hypermedia projects from Apple’s development kit that predated the World Wide Web, including an emulation of Brian Eno’s Oblique Strategies—see previously
from cork to kingston: politician’s speech is a linguistics lesson in the influences of colonialism
Though there are disputed claims about the breadth of the US-Israeli dominance of the region with Iran stating it retains control of the Strait of Hormuz and Trump saying there are no enemy vessels in the waters, their naval power obliterated and offering US carriers as escorts for tankers, the belligerent spectacle seems beyond reproach with double the shock-and-awe campaign of the opening volleys of the 2003 Iraq war, hitting some two-thousand targets in Iran with over fifty thousand troops deployed and two hundred aerial assets launched from two carrier groups. 
Bombing continues in Beirut as Iranian missiles hit the Qatari Al Udeid base, the largest American presence in the Middle East. France is also sending its nuclear-powered aircraft carrier from the Baltics to the Mediterranean to safeguard its interests. Meanwhile the casus belli is still unclear with regime change being walked back and Trump expressing a desire to install some one from the current government into a leadership role—as with Venezuela—though admitting that they have killed most of the line of succession and there’s less emphasis for popular revolution and the narrative shifting from preemptive attacks under pressure by Israel to defensive countermeasures that Iran was going to fire the first shot, the inimical fog of war recently cited in attacks on trawlers in the Caribbean. Though most of Iran’s missiles and drones have been intercepted, Kiev offering to send its effective anti-drone nets to the region, markets and economies are yet in turmoil with no end in sight. Airstrikes continue on Tehran as preparations are made for the late Ayatollah’s funeral and the expert assembly readies to appoint his son, Mojtaba Khameni, as the new Supreme Leader—Israeli avowing to assassinate whomever is put into the role.
synchronoptica
one year ago: US vice president Rufus DeVane King (with synchronopticæ) plus more on the Triadic Ballet
twelve years ago: world time zones diverging from true solar time
thirteen years ago: over-apostrophisation
Amid ongoing talks, in which Trump expressed his displeasure with the situation, arguing that Tehran was not “negotiating in good faith” and a massive build up of US naval and air assets in the region, Israeli defence forces have launched attacks, targeting several ministries in the capital and in multiple cities. Provoked, we are sure how this will play out—with retaliation on Tel Aviv, giving the Americans the excuse to intervene militarily, an option that the administration refused to rule out. Thirty-three minutes later, Trump announces “major combat operations” in Iran, accusing them of trying to restart its nuclear programme.
synchronoptica
one year ago: a wall of sound audio sampler (with synchronopticæ) plus a diplomatic melt-down in the Oval Office
twelve years ago: Johnny Fedora and Alice Blue Bonnet
thirteen years ago: fractured futures plus the Day of Unplugging
fifteen years ago: the grammar of emoticons plus the economic states of Iceland and Ireland
Speaking for nearly two hours and maintaining a triumphant tone despite economic and geopolitical realities and protests within the chamber from Democrats and their eventual walk-out en mass, Trump’s record-setting for the longest state of the union address claimed that he had successfully rebuilt the country that his predecessor, Joe Biden, had managed to destroy in four short years—“a turnaround for the ages”—with a series of surprise cameos supposedly representing the American spirit. 
“Our country is winning again—in fact, we’re winning so much that we really don’t know what to do about it.” The refreshingly succinct rebuttal, the official response delivered by the opposition in a tradition going back to 1966, was delivered from a television studio offsite by newly elected Virginia governor Abigail Spanberger, simply asking, “Is the president working for you?” The only disappointment counter to his narrative that was mentioned was the recent decision of the supreme court that ruled that most of Trump’s tariff regime was illegal with the war in Ukraine only garnered a passing acknowledgment without recognition of the four-year anniversary and no reference was made of the Minnesota ICE protests and deaths, nor the Epstein files nor Greenland, nor Cuba though there was much sabre-rattling over Iran and having “received” Venezuelan oil, further glutting global oversupply. Read more fact-checking (also here) of what was said from NPR at the link up top.
merrie melodies: Turner Movie Classics (TMC) has acquired Looney Tunes and will begin pairing the animated shorts with the main features from Warner Brothers studios as they were originally shown in theatres
el mencho: Mexico deploys thousands of troops to quell violence after death of cartel boss
taco tuesdays: Trump global tariffs come in at a lower ten percent rate
there’s no grace period so that’s a way in which i see us losing the interstitial: arguments for deplatforming oneself
slava ukraini: Zelenskyy’s address to the nation on the fourth anniversary since the Russia invasion, extending an invitation to Trump to see who the real aggressors are
i’m sorry but you can’t just name a weather event bombogenesis: tracking the winter storm slamming the North American eastern seaboard and other news
all ages: the concert archive of Lynn Fisher—via Waxy
synchronoptica
one year ago: the Ukraine war enters its fourth year (with synchronopticæ), assorted links worth the revisit plus Marbury v Madison
twelve years ago: revolutionary plaza plus positive psychology
thirteen years ago: Freistaat Flaschenhals plus the waning potency of pesticides
fifteen years ago: arch villains
sixteen years ago: spending priorities
Though finding PfRC’s rather standoffish and neglected handle, via Web Curios, in the vast undifferentiated Bermuda Triangle between the Creative Portfolios Gallery, the Canadian Nature & Arts Scatter and the Geometry Dash Arena, given our level of engagement with the platform and only occasionally checking-in, we’re not surprised our granularity hasn’t coalesced around a larger group. 
Not sure what kind of data connections feed these nodes and nebulae (see also for some more online geocaching) but certain those profiles more active on the site have found their niche and those they identify with—and whilst more interaction might shift one to the Highlands of Resistance or the Vale of Swedish Progressives or the German Antifa Expanse, there are social media bubbles topologically, cosmologically grouped (some mixed metaphors for invented topolects), enclaves and Twitter exodus exclaves but, thankfully no charted lands as refuges for toxic tribalism, shitposters and reply guys. Plug in your name and check out this map of Bluesky and get to know what’s in your local neighbourhood and constellation. Hopefully the network effect has taken hold and free exchange, journalism, fandom can be taken back from moribund and algorithmic platforms.
The annual Munich Security Conference (previously), hosted in the city’s Hotel Bayerischer Hof, attendees fresh from informal talks held at the castle Alden Biesen in Belgium’s Limburg province, opens today with remarks from former German ambassador to the US and MSC chair Wolfgang Ischinger and Bavaria leader Markus Söder, warming up with a bit of a quip, exclaiming what happens in Davos doesn’t need to stay in Davos and donning a pair of aviator style sunglasses like those sported by Emmanuel Macron, 
but the comic relief quickly turned more serious in the milieu of “global insecurity” and challenged trans-Atlantic ties, stressing allies should be accorded respect and treated as partners—though pointedly welcoming the American delegation and US secretary of state, slated to address the conference on Saturday. To attempt to set the tone, Chancellor Merz followed (unusual for German leadership to deliver the keynote address), remarking that he though the titular motto was a bit grim but the situation needs to be put in even harsher terms, declaring that the world order no longer exists—rebuking US criticism of Europe and reinforcing the call to rebalance their relationship and move forward from its “self-inflicted” dependency, “Our holiday from world history is over.”
The culmination of a decade and a half concerted effort by lawyers and lobbyists realised through the Trump presidency, the US Environmental Protection Agency will repeal the 2009 EPA Endangerment Finding, meaning that the organisation can no longer regulate green house gases as pollutants and harmful to human health or the climate. The foundation of much of America’s laws pertaining to emissions, this move is regarded as the most aggressive action yet against initiatives to contain or curb global warming, though the country, historically the largest contributor to the anthropic climate change has been on a trajectory of relinquishing responsibility and the mantle of concern or progress steadily for some time, the rescission was based on the testimony of motivated skeptics. 
And whilst some jurisdictions and environmental advocacy groups (including some in the industrial sector having pivoted to greener models) are fighting back, it is feared that US outsized influence for a planetary problem that is not contained by borders will reverse what progress has been made (part of the commissioned pseudo-scientific study that brought about this repeal was premised on government overreach and hyperbolic forecasts—which, yes, the worst as not occurred as predicted back in 2007, as with the averted y2k disaster, because of global cooperation and action) and engender despair and resignation as the Earth continues to stew and bake. One legal remedy is for the US congress to authorise the EPA the specific mandate to regulate green house gases, rather than the implication under the Clean Air Act, but that won’t happen under this administration, hoping that the delay and legal battles will be long enough to forestall reversal and made binding by the supreme court.
A tactic that could be employed to disclose all the names of all individuals named in connection to the Epstein files to the public without actually reading aloud the contents of the cache of over three million documents, US Democratic congressional representative Ro Khanna delivered a floor speech in the lower chamber, met with some resistance by Republican committee members who tried to silence him the name of six men discovered on reviewing unredacted files during a two-hour review at the Department of Justice. 
Khanna, together with Republican cosponsor of the bill that mandated the release of the files, made a cursory inspection of the DOJ version of the documents on Monday, naming these “likely incriminated” people, whose identities had been shielded contrary to the injunction only to protect victims ostensibly only to save them—a lingerie magnate, a UAE sultan and an Italian politician included—from the embarrassment of being implicated, and speculated how many more over-judicious, discretionary redactions might be found had they had more time to investigate. Given the opposition in even sharing this discovery, which does not equate to guilt but rather is an indictment on how the release has been conducted, suggesting many more untoward obfuscations, it was expected that the GOP member who together crafted this legislation, Kentucky congressman Thomas Massie, would have made the announcement so as to defuse some of the expected partisanship coming from a member of the opposition.
Following on the heels of memoryholing the CIA World Factbook and aligned with the revisionist history (altering the narratives for the January Sixth storming of the Capitol and the COVID-19 pandemic) and erasure of the administration, the US State Department is removing all social media postings made the on the platform formerly known as Twitter prior to Trump’s return to office at the end of January last year.
Taken down from public view, the foreign ministry assures that travel advisories, programmes, press releases and images (from department leadership as well as individual missions and the accounts of ambassadors) will be archived internally and can be accessed through a FOIA request should anyone be demotivated to see what’s aged well and what has not—messaging from Trump’s first term included as well as posts from the Obama and Biden years. Less ideological and more for controlling the message moving forward, systematically eliminating and forging the inconvenient historical documents to match state propaganda, according to reporting, it’s as of yet unclear whether this daily record of diplomacy will disappear from other platforms as well. More from NPR at the link above.
The venerable and respected family publication and paper of record purchased by a holding company owned by Jeff Bezos in 2013, appearing at the time to be a genuine act of philanthropy to save the struggling regional daily when the Amazon billionaire seemed to be politically agnostic and more aloof than most of his monied cohort though in retrospect and re-evaluated through the lens of the likes of Elon Musk’s leveraged takeover of another media outlet we have to wonder, announced, at the direction of the executive editor of a massive cut in staff, eliminating one third of reporters and doing away with its sports and literary desks and foreign bureaus. 
Whilst the Washington Post is again struggling financially after a period of revival and increased engagement owing to the injection of cash and social media savvy—due in no small part to Bezos’ shadow-cum-full-throated endorsement of Trump and currying favour with the administration—and is symptomatic of the journalistic landscape at large, the layoffs, resulting in significant cancellations of subscription, and restructuring do seem like a concession with the dual objective of divesting oneself from a losing venture, although the cuts preserve the core of the capital’s coverage and reporting on DC, which during those golden years above—benefitting from the Trump bump of chaotic publicity during the first term and continuing—which drew his ire, casting aspersions against non-propagandists as enemies of the people. Scaling back foreign correspondents, however, may limit the broader story. The announcement also coincides with the premiere of the expensive flop of a vanity biopic of FLOTUS, a joint project of Amazon Films and MGM Studios (whose box-office comes at the same time as the final release of the Epstein files) as well as previously being a corporate donor to the inauguration and destruction of the White House East Wing.
A day after the historic general strike in the Minnesota capital in response to the brutal killing of Renée Good by immigration and customs enforcement agents and in general to push the deputised, untrained goons out of their state, multiple agents wrestled thirty-seven year old veterans’ administration intensive care nurse Alex Pretti to the ground and shot him in the head multiple times. 
Live video shared at the scene seems to contradict the Department of Homeland Security narrative that Pretti was brandishing a semi-automatic handgun (every one could be carrying in America) and threatening the officers who attempted to disarm the individual labelled as a domestic terrorist, firing defensive shots. Multiple witnesses have been detained by DHS and their phones confiscated as they might undermine the department’s notoriously unreliable accounts and show Pretti to be a bystander and observer. Tim Walz (governor and former Democratic vice-presidential candidate—US attorney general suggests that the ICE surge could be called off if Minnesota surrenders its voter rolls for inspection, making the swing-district a retroactive win for Trump and/or frustrating future elections and plainly admitting what this was about all along) has activated the national guard to police the police and prospects for a partial federal government shutdown again appear likely—despite funding bills for the DHS and department of war passing congress, the senate may try to contain this reign of terror.
I know that the world is growing weary of his antics and shed little insight into the chaos he is unleashing and it is best to ignore narcissists but this turn of events really floored us: the biggest DEI hire, an entitled, incompetent white man, motivated by a personal grievance that his predecessor earned a Nobel Peace prize in large part by dint of hope and relief, accepted the honour from the Latina individual who earned it, with no reciprocation. The committee refrained from comment other than to say that the award was non-transferable—nor revokable, with their decision being “final and for all time.” The only precedent for this exchange was in 1943 when novelist Knut Hamsun of Nazi occupied Norway gave his literature medal from 1920 to propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels, ostensibly in order to be granted an audience with Hitler and petition for the release of political prisoners and fairer administration on the part of the puppet government installed. The Führer was merely irritated by this arranged meeting, and Hamsun, a vocal supporter of the invasion and critical of British forces trying to undermine the occupation, was after the war tried for treason as a collaborator but due to his advanced age and perceived senility, Hamsun’s sentence was commuted from imprisonment to a significant fine. 
In response to being roundly shamed and rebuked at large for declaring himself acting-president of Venezuela and for continued threats to annex Greenland, whilst still touting his soi-disant credentials as a peace-maker, and levee more tariffs on anyone who disagrees with him, Trump justified his actions with a letter to Norwegian Prime Minister Støre (previously) through diplomatic channels (which frankly to my mind made it seem like a hoax—why would he choose now to go through the ambassador and not just put it out on social media, and albeit another text-book definition of Poe’s Law, did actually just happen) with being rejected for the Nobel and thus freed from the obligation to “think purely of Peace.” Trump goes on to repeat that Denmark cannot protect Greenland from Russian and Chinese incursions (Beijing called out the US and denied any such ambitions and to quit using that as an excuse and Moscow pointed out the hypocrisy though welcoming the potential collapse of the NATO alliance), also repeating his doubts about the Danish kingdom’s “right of ownership,” slightly changing his rant to there are no written documents and that a boat landed there hundreds (more specific and false figure of five hundred years hit a bit too close to Columbus, we suppose). Denmark’s sovereignty over the territory was acknowledged and confirmed by the United States government in 1917 when president Woodrow Wilson purchased the Danish West Indies by mutual agreement for what would become known as the US Virgin Islands, the Caribbean chain including Little Saint James, Epstein’s island. In his complaint, Trump also boasts he has done more for NATO since its founding, implying that American ownership would significantly boost world security.
synchronoptica
one year ago: a natural version of the Colombian national anthem (with synchronopticæ), the soundscapes of David Lynch, an interview with the filmmaker plus Trump’s memecoin
twelve years ago: bridging the air-gap
thirteen years ago: moving day
fourteen years ago: bypassing EU emission standards plus EU member creditworthiness
fifteen years ago: the slow media movement
sixteen years ago: god and guns
In response to the limited deployments of eight European and NATO partner nations over Trump’s continued threats and overtures to annex Greenland in Operation Arctic Endurance and Trump’s retaliatory levee of an additional ten percent tariffs on the participants and any country opposing the US ownership of the semi-autonomous territory of the Kingdom of Denmark, a three-hour emergency meeting was held in Brussels with strong rebukes for America’s behaviour, igniting yet other trade war when the aggressor has full-access to the strategic island in the north Atlantic. 
The EU, UK and Canada were united in solidarity and refused to be blackmailed further—the extra punitive tariffs on top of the not insignificant ones of ten percent for the UK and Canada and fifteen percent for the rest of Europe from a deal reached in July now void, demonstrating that they were not wrong to roll-over on this earlier appeasement plan. 
Russia, which stands to benefit from the turmoil in the trans-Atlantic alliance surely pleased its agent is doing its bidding, even called out the US for its double standard over sovereignty. Macron and several other EU leaders have advocated utilising the so called “trade bazooka,” the untested Anti-Coercion Instrument that bypasses the required unanimity on negotiations for the infra-national bloc and makes available an arsenal of countermeasures to deploy including sanctions, embargoes, boycotts, reciprocal tariffs and procurement, with some ninety-three billion euro in leverage on stand-by, not to be bullied into submission by dumping US debt holdings, some nine trillion in bonds and equity. Canada, meanwhile, freshly returned from China with new trade deals, announced it will open an embassy in Nuuk.
On this day in 1609—with some evidence that the periodical was in circulation already for four years—the first newspaper in Germany and among the first worldwide was published, Avisa Relation oder Zeitung, by printer Julius Adolph von Söhne in Wolfenbüttel (also the home of the Jägermeister distillery) in Niedersachsen with the issue carrying developments and happenings from various countries up-to-date (see also), with the presumption it went out then. 
The French daily of record Le Figaro was first distributed on this day as well in 1826, named for the Beaumarchais character from Le Mariage de Figaro with a line from his closing monologue “Sans la liberté de blâmer, il’nest point d’éloge flatteur”—without freedom to criticise, there is no room for praise. The first issue of of the journal Genootskap van Regte Afrikaners later to become the Paarl gazette was published in as the first periodical in Afrikaans language in 1876. The leading news agency and wire-service of Italy, Agenzia Nazionale Stampa Associata (ANSA) was also founded today in 1945 by a consortium of the resistance to Mussolini’s fascist regime.
