Curious George

@Artemisapphire @FT How are we a global power?

@CuriousGeoffrey @FT We are one I could write an article that says that I could write a declinist article of declinist clichéd rubbish in my sleep (was one of my final pieces for my economics course, origins of British declinism. It's a bullshit British tradition going back to the Romans)

The UK must accept it is no longer a global power ft.trib.al/7haoT4T | opinion

@davidebrady @JChapman1729 @RobertJenrick No, but the country got rich from it and you shared in the richness. So cough up.

@JChapman1729 @RobertJenrick I didn't colonise anyone or anywhere neither did my parents. How do I opt out?

Yvette Cooper is sending £650 million to Africa. Reform will cut this waste and cut your bills instead.

@Artemisapphire @FT Are you saying we are one or that you could write articles either way?

@FT Oh not this old chestnut again Can I get paid to write one of these every 5 years? I could do it by rote I've seen it so many times Or you could just reprint the same one Or pay me to write one about why it is a great power and needs to act like it How that would be VFM

@Errorreporrt @BrotherrrSam @doctorbaixue And stuck them in a desert world environment

@BrotherrrSam @doctorbaixue The Fremen culturally are not Arabs at all. They are modeled on the Avars and other mountain tribes of the Caucuses. Herbert borrowed a bunch of Arabic especially language but the culture is not Arabic.

Dune: here's a bunch of characters doing cultural appropriation to carry out their self-serving goals. it actively harms the culture they appropriate from, themselves, and the wider galaxy. twitter illiterates: but has anyone considered...that cultural appropriation is bad...?

@hxhassan @JeremyKonyndyk I got the impression they were hitting the gulf because they cant hit israel or the usa forces.

I’m convinced most officials & specialists are too immersed in the moment to realize a certain basic fact about why Iran is striking the Gulf. When Iran was fighting in Syria & Iraq, its field commanders & their proxies (and their ecosystems in countries of Iranian influence) always promised that the next battle would be in the Gulf. This was conveyed, explicitly or otherwise, by Qassem Soleimani and allies like Abu Mahdi Al-Muhandis, Hassan Nasrallah and the Assad regime. It was part of a doctrine guiding Iran’s regional strategy, not mere passing comments. (The same language that Israel began using against regional countries only recently. “Qatar is next” or “Turkey is the new Iran” etc. Iran has used that language for many years.) Now, Gulf countries look at Iran and wonder: Why is Iran hitting us when we tried to talk Trump out of striking it? Iran knows we tried our best. Iran’s action is understandable if it targeted the UAE and Saudi Arabia, but why mediators like Qatar? Yes we have US bases, yes we can scream at the US, but it still makes little sense, even from a basic divide-and-conquer strategy. But Iran sees this war as having begun at least a decade or so ago, and the Gulf states played a vital role in getting Iran to where it is today. The Gulf is the problem, not just Israel or the US. Strategically reckless, but that is the plain IRGC logic. This is clear if those officials had followed the rhetoric over the last 1-2 decades and the nitty-gritty behavior of Iran on a ground level outside Iran.

@johnstanly I'm not sure this is a win. Israel and the US have bombed Iran thousands of times over the last few weeks. Even a blind squirrel finds a nut.

Trump says Iran has no air defence left. Yet, F35, America’s most advanced fifth gen fighter jet, got hit by Iranian fire.

@Nimrodg @arash_tehran I was critiquing Arash being wrong about facts. He has since changed them. You jumped in and got spanked so badly you eventually agreed with me and then started attacking me.

@CuriousGeoffrey @arash_tehran You can look at all the edited versions, and I don't know, you seemed to care more about whether Tel Aviv is an ancient city or not, was wrong about the history and it's foundation, and referred to Remi's post later in the comments as a "By the way" Take care

@Nimrodg @arash_tehran The post has been changed, as X indicates there is a new version of it. I already referred to Remi's post in past comments, unlike you.

@CuriousGeoffrey @arash_tehran Can you show me where in the post he says that Tel Aviv is ancient and Jaffa isn't? If that's what's bothering you in this post, you're the one who needs to think why that's the part that bothers you, looking at Remi's genocidal post.

@Nimrodg @arash_tehran Ad hominem attacks just mean you can't argue the point. My critique of the original post was that Tel Aviv wasn't the ancient city, Jaffa was. You just agreed with me.

@CuriousGeoffrey @arash_tehran A lot of cities aren't ancient cities, Tel Aviv is specifically modern. Tel Aviv didn't expand into Jaffa - it was united with it, but there's a still large Arab population there. Rich hearing this from a British guy who's ancestors f'ed up the entire region with awful decisions.

@Nimrodg @arash_tehran Tel Aviv isn't therefore isn't an ancient city . Tel Aviv expanded into Jaffa after the arab areas were demolished after the arabs fled and couldn't return. Also absorbed were the surrounding Arab villages.

@CuriousGeoffrey @arash_tehran It was not built on the dispossesion of Jaffa Arabs. Tel Aviv was founded in 1909. Tel Aviv was there before the 1948 war. I'm not whatabouting, you're trying to erase Jewish history while Tel Aviv had 200k population in 1947, mostly Jewish people.

@dieworkwear I know there are cameras that can scan you from your home for online clothing companies but I understand they aren't good enough yet. What happens when they are and an AI can pick clothing that matches your height, weight, skin stone, eyes etc and pick it for you?

i don't think that's true. factory-made ready-to-wear tailoring has essentially been perfected. and yet people still value a fully benchmade tailoring produced by a tailor. this demonstrates people care about humans being in the process.

@Nimrodg @arash_tehran You are "what about?"ing. The discussion was about Tel Aviv and Jaffa. Tel Aviv was built on the dispossession of Jaffa arabs. Critiquing the absolutist nature of the Remi comment doesn't mean the facts should be denied.

@CuriousGeoffrey @arash_tehran and I'm saying about the Jewish history because there is an attempt in many parts of the Arab world to erase the connection to the land of Israelis and Jews.

@Nimrodg @arash_tehran That doesn't hide the fact that Tel Aviv isn't an ancient town, Jaffa was an ancient town predominantly Arab who were forced out by the Israeli military and prevented from returning. @arash_tehran is a historian, he should know this. I'm not a historian and I know this.

@CuriousGeoffrey @arash_tehran THere's still big Arab population in Jaffa and in Israel

@grok @InvestwithDoc @KobeissiLetter He's 11, not 5!

Hey kiddo! LNG is like super-cold natural gas turned into liquid so big ships can carry it far away. Countries use it for lights, heat, and factories. Qatar makes 1 out of every 5 scoops of the world's LNG. Iran shot missiles at Qatar's giant gas factories (called strikes). Big damage—fixing could take 3-5 years. "Force majeure" means a special rule: If crazy stuff like war happens, Qatar's company can say "sorry, no gas deliveries for up to 5 years" without getting sued. World gets less energy, so prices jump way up—like if your fave snack shop closed for years! That's the big deal.

BREAKING: Following Iranian strikes, QatarEnergy may declare force majeure on LNG contracts for up to 5 years. Qatar currently produces a massive 20% of global LNG supply.

@johnstanly If Iran left NPT, would it legally be able to build nuclear weapons and could it use the deliberate ambuigity that Israel uses to avoid sanctions?

The Economist claims the U.S.-Israel invasion of #Iran is "a stunning operational success". I am sure nobody is surprised by the report. But, let's say, that's one way of looking at it. There is no military parity between Iran, a country that has lived under economic sanctions for forty-seven years, and the world's most powerful country. Iran's missile defence is weak which also means that its enemies can relatively easily establish air superiority. Mossad and the CIA have penetrated deep inside Iran, which makes sure they have cutting-edge intel. So the kind of bombing of Iran which we are witnessing now is nothing astonishing to be honest. It is expected in the event of a war. Another way of looking at this war is to ask why did #trump and his bibi start it? Iran, per Oman, was ready to make major concessions on its nuclear programme. But Netanyahu wanted Iran to disarm itself -- which no Iran leader, except maybe bibi's crown prince, can accept. So the only way to disarm Iran was to bring about regime change and install a puppet in Tehran (so that you can change the balance of power in West Asia -- I wrote about it in TH Oped on Day 3). trump thought if he carried out the decapitation strike, the Iranian state would collapse. I base my analysis on two factors--One, trump's own statements; two, America's actions since the war broke out. Look at the statements first: On Day 1, trump literally asked Iranians to take over institutions and topple the government. He said it's a once-in-a-generation opportunity. This means there was no proper plan. But trump hoped Iranians, who protested last month, would fill the streets and take over the state. But, as they say, hope is not a good strategy. And trump has made contradictory statements ever since--which shows only desperation. On Day 2, he told The Atlantic that he had authorised talks as Iranians wanted to talk. Within hours WSJ ran a story saying the Iranians wanted to talk. Larijani's quick response was that "we will never talk to the Americans." He threatened to "burn the hearts" of Iran's enemies. trump then talked to the Kurds, and, according to Washington Post, asked them to start fighting the Iranian state. On Day 6 evening, trump said in the White House that Iran wanted a deal. Araghchi responded saying Iran was not seeking a ceasefire. Pezeshkian confirmed mediation efforts, but asked the mediators to talk to "those who ignited the conflict". And then, on Day 7, you saw trump's angry post, demanding "unconditional surrender". He also wanted to have a say in the selection of the new Supreme Leader. Here trump is not seeking to topple the theocratic state, but to install a new leader acceptable to Washington. Meaning: he badly wants a Delcy. The U.S. had moved some troops away from its bases in the Persian Gulf, but had not evacuated its citizens from the region. trump was confident that the war would be over within days. The state did not collapse; instead, it swiftly regionalised the war--an indication that it was prepared for this moment. True, Iran has limitations when it comes to conventional might. But its doctrine is rooted in victory denial and its tactics are asymmetrical. As Hegseth said Iran knows it's not a fair fight. Hezbollah, which had been lying low since November 2024 despite Israel's repeated ceasefire violations, joined the war. Iran hit American bases and missions across the region. U.S. asked its citizens to leave a host of countries in the region only after Iran started retaliatory strikes--which suggests the U.S. was not prepared for this kind of a response. American bases in Kuwait, Qatar and its Fifth Fleet HQ in Bahrain took hits. The US also lost two advanced air defence radars--one AN/FPS-132 in Qatar and one AN/TPS-59 in Bahrain (it will take years to rebuild the radars, and according to an FP analysis, the companies would need gallium for both systems, a material whose supply is controlled by China). Iranian media says they took out another advanced radar in Jordan. Let's keep that aside, for now. The U.S. has also lost three F-15s in Kuwait. If you put only the two radars and the three F15s together, the loss would be around $1.5 billion. This is certainly not the war donald trump wanted to fight. trump's bad news doesn't end there. Kuwait said it is cutting oil production. Qatar says Gulf will have to stop energy exports within days if the war continues. Gas prices are already rocketing (Europe must be scratching its head now). Houthis, who knocked off half of Saudi Arabia's oil production for a week in 2019, haven't even joined the war. The Washington Post and CNN report Russia is providing intel to Iran about the locations and movement of American troops, which means another great power involvement, which could only get stronger if the war prolongs. To be sure, trump can pulverise Iran from the skies--what western media calls "astonishing operational success". But will that bring about regime change? It won't. Will that end the war? It won't. And if it doesn't, Iran will keep retaliating, enhancing the economic and political costs for trump, besides long-term strategic implications. So trump cannot fight a forever air war. As I said earlier, there is no Delcy in Tehran. At best the 'crown prince' can become a Likud Minister. If trump wants surrender of Iran, he may have to send ground troops. But Iran can also be a graveyard of invaders. What will trump do? -- Stanly Johny #IranWar #WarOnIran

@maiamindel How long before chips can't be produced?

qatar is about to start cutting helium exports... helium is used for chip production... the iran war is about to turn the ai bubble into the hindenburg

@Rory_Johnston Wouldn't the missiles / drones have to fly over all of arabia to get to the base? If they were launched from Iran that is.

Saudi Ministry of Defense now confirming that 1) ballistic missiles we’re launched at the port of Yanbu (intercepted) 2) a drone has “fallen” on an oil refinery in Yanbu Knew the lack of denial was weird. Really not great that Iran is turning its attention to the Red Sea.

@flying_rodent I think this is more of a problem as this isn't just a base, we have full sovereignty. Admittedly morally dodgy in how we got them, but I can't see any PM willingly taking the political hit from giving them up.

I imagine governments in multiple countries are now considering how far they want to continue hosting forward operating bases for the American empire and its increasingly insane and genocidal rampages

@flying_rodent Unless she is exonerated, Angela Rayner looks like she has shot herself in the foot at being PM.

Let me translate: everyone can see they’ve fucked it, that Sir Keir is toast and that whoever takes charge, it won’t be another rail-snorting right wing wonker like Wes Streeting. Everyone is now jockeying for the best place to stand, whenever the next tennis ball gets chucked.