MoM

AI is my brush. On the next frontier, I paint. Always antislop.

BREAKING via WSJ President Trump is weighing a military operation to extract nearly 1,000 pounds of uranium from Iran, a complex and risky mission that would likely put American forces inside the country for days or longer.  Teams of U.S. forces would need to fly to the sites, likely under fire from Iranian surface-to-air missiles and drones. Once on site, combat troops would need to secure perimeters so that engineers with excavating equipment could search through debris and check for mines and booby traps.  The extraction of the material would likely need to be conducted by an elite special operations team specially trained to remove radioactive material from a conflict zone. The highly enriched uranium is likely contained in 40 to 50 special cylinders that resemble scuba tanks. They would need to be put into transportation casks to protect against accidents. That could fill several trucks. Unless an airfield was available, a makeshift one would need to be set up to bring equipment in and take the nuclear material out. The entire operation would take days or even a week to complete. Full Story: on.wsj.com/4m43Y9G

BREAKING: Japan's stock market falls nearly -5% as Asia's energy crisis intensifies.

PRESIDENT TRUMP: "Big day in Iran. Many long sought after targets have been taken out and destroyed by our great military, the finest and most lethal in the world. God bless you all!"

Trump: A lot of people are talking how beautiful the ballroom is. A lot of people are giving it good reviews. Some people are giving it good reviews without seeing it.

In 2002, Quentin Tarantino, one of the most influential film directors in the world, walked into a secondhand clothing store in Tokyo, Japan. A track was playing over the speakers. He asked the man behind the counter if he could buy the CD right then and there. The man refused. Tarantino offered twice the retail price. The man eventually gave in. The band was The 5.6.7.8's. Two sisters, Yoshiko and Sachiko Fujiyama, had been playing raw 1960s-influenced garage rock in Tokyo since 1986. They had a small but devoted following. Almost nobody outside Japan had heard of them. Within a year they were performing in Kill Bill: Volume 1, one of the most talked about films of 2003, playing to millions of people in cinemas around the world. Their song Woo Hoo, a cover of a 1959 American track they had never considered particularly important, became one of the most recognised opening riffs of a generation. It hit the top thirty in the United Kingdom. It appeared in television commercials around the world. Their tours went from Tokyo to North America, Europe and Australia. Jack White of The White Stripes, who became a fan, helped release their back catalogue through his Third Man Records label in the United States. Interestingly, back home in Japan, almost nothing changed. Their profile there remained almost exactly the same. They are still together. Still playing.

🚨 do you understand what just got destroyed tonight.. Iran's heavy water plant at Khondab is gone.. the IAEA confirmed it.. finished.. most people don't know what that means so let me explain it fast.. heavy water is how you build a plutonium bomb.. Iran had two ways to get a nuclear weapon.. tonight one of those doors just got permanently locked.. in 2017, Iran sold $8.6 million worth of that same heavy water to the United States.. the country getting bombed tonight was a nuclear materials supplier to America just 8 years ago.. this has happened before.. 1981.. Israel bombed Iraq's nuclear reactor.. the world lost its mind.. the UN condemned it.. every country called it illegal and reckless.. 22 years later America invaded Iraq over weapons of mass destruction that never existed.. nobody brought up the reactor Israel had already quietly taken out.. tonight looks exactly like 1981.. they'll condemn it now.. and in 20 years quietly admit it had to be done.. just like they did with Iraq.

Maybe a cup of hot chocolate with whipped cream on top?

Trump: As you know they’ve agreed to send 8 boats 2 days ago then they added another 2 so it was 10 boats. And now today as a tribute, I don’t know, I can’t define it exactly, I think out of respect, 20 boats of oil. Big big boats. Going through the Hormuz strait

U.S. President Donald J. Trump tells reporters aboard Air Force One that Iran has given the United States a “tribute” of 20 oil tankers that are expected to begin crossing Monday morning through the Strait of Hormuz.

BREAKING: President Trump tells the Financial Times he wants to “take the oil in Iran” and could seize the export hub of Kharg Island. “To be honest with you, my favorite thing is to take the oil in Iran but some stupid people back in the US say: ‘why are you doing that?’ But they’re stupid people,” Trump said.

Only with Grok understanding every language and recommending content can this be done. This has been a long-time goal.

Flight delayed on tarmac. Missed our connection. Based on the other flights available, which were also delayed, and the fact that taking a flight tomorrow would require getting back into a security line stretching seemingly for miles, we decided to get a car and drive five hours to our destination. That’s how bad air travel is right now. Driving is faster. Air travel is awful in this country. People don’t realize just how much it sucks unless they have to do it a lot. It’s not just TSA. Flight delays. Air traffic control issues. Service is even worse than usual. Every airport is crowded and slow and worn down and dirty. Everyone brings their dogs. The term “service animal” doesn’t mean anything anymore. Air travel used to be luxurious. People used to wear suits. Working for an airline was prestigious. The employees took it seriously. It sucks now. It’s terrible. This is the kind of thing our leaders should be fixing. Because the most frustrating thing is that it is so eminently fixable. If only anyone bothered to try.

We are getting to that point of doom on Iran where X got to on Ukraine. Back then without gas and food we were going to be cholipping frozen, starved, dead Europeans of the streets. This time it's oil, gas, fertilizer and helium all about to bring about the end of humanity as we know it....

Elon Musk, the wealthiest man alive, recently paid an effective tax rate of less than 3.3%. That is less than the average truck driver, nurse and teacher. YES, we must demand the wealthy and corporations pay their fair share. twitter.com/i/broadcasts/1…

SpaceX Falcon 9 family has now launched 636 times and counting 618 Falcon 9 flights - 99.52% success rate Booster B1067: 33 flights on a SINGLE rocket In 2020, SpaceX launched 26 times - the entire year In 2026, SpaceX has already done 38 launches in 88 days That's 46% MORE than all of 2020 and we're not even in April Meanwhile, the rest of the world combined: ~29 launches in 2026 One company. More launches than every other country and company on Earth. Combined

Dear Phoebe, I read your Observer piece this morning on the reported “exodus” from Girlguiding - and I was genuinely shocked. Not because you presented a different perspective to my recent Telegraph reporting on the problems within Girlguiding. That’s part of journalism. But because you chose to include the case of a six-year-old little boy who reportedly tried to cut off his own penis - after being told he couldn't be part of Rainbows (the section of Girlguiding for 5–7 year olds). Presenting it as evidence of a problem with Girlguiding’s admissions policy. It is not. It is a deeply distressing account involving a very young child - and, on any view, a serious welfare concern. Framing it otherwise is a profound failure of editorial judgement. You also refer to this male child throughout using female pronouns, including the phrase “her penis”. I appreciate this may reflect current editorial conventions. But it sits uneasily with the basic duty of a journalist to report clearly and accurately on material facts. I was already aware of this case through my own reporting for the Sunday Telegraph. I made a conscious decision not to include it at this stage - both because a minor is involved and because of the ethical considerations that arise when reporting on such sensitive situations. Those considerations are not optional. You will know, as I do, that journalism is not simply about presenting competing narratives. It is about establishing facts clearly, handling vulnerable subjects with care and exercising judgement about what should - and should not - be used to advance an argument. I trained as a journalist in the early 2000s - a good 20 years earlier than you did - but to my knowledge nothing has changed. Good journalism should bring clarity. It should not muddy the facts - in order to promote an ideological position. In this context, that means being clear about sex - a material fact that is both legally and practically relevant. I appreciate you may be under pressure from colleagues or editors to frame stories in a particular way - or to use she/her pronouns, or the phrase “her penis”. But that doesn’t make it right. Earlier this week, the Manchester Evening News reported a violent murder as being committed by a woman - one of many examples of inaccurate reporting around sex and gender. In this case, even the Crown Prosecution Service - the public body responsible for prosecuting criminal cases in England and Wales - also reported the crime inaccurately. So that’s two professions we should be able to trust to tell the truth - providing inaccurate information. Crime statistics matter. Without accurate data on who is committing serious violence, we cannot properly understand it - let alone prevent it. I considered raising this privately, or writing to your editor. But this issue is too important to be brushed aside with a “thank you for your feedback”. I’m happy to discuss it with you privately, or to support a conversation with your editor if that would be helpful. But I hope this gives you - and your colleagues - serious pause for thought. Because it is very much needed. Janet

I’ve never seen such a disconnect between the commentary on this site and what I hear in the real world. I’ve talked to dozens of normal conservatives in real life about the Iran War and I haven’t met a single one who’s actually enthusiastically in favor of it. At best they’re warily optimistic. In most cases they’re opposed. In some cases they’re not only opposed but deeply furious. And yet here if you utter a word of criticism about the war you’ll be shouted down by throngs of alleged American conservatives who allegedly have wanted nothing more than for America to go to war with Iran. It just doesn’t reflect what I see on the ground. That’s not just cope because my position is unpopular with “my side.” I’ve held plenty of unpopular positions. I really don’t care. But in this case the social media vs real world divide is stark and unlike anything I’ve seen before.

At the beginning of Holy Week, our prayers are more than ever with the Christians of the #MiddleEast, who are suffering the consequences of a brutal conflict and, in many cases, are unable to observe fully the liturgies of these holy days. Just as the Church contemplates the mystery of the Lord’s Passion, we cannot forget those who today are truly sharing in his suffering. Their ordeal challenges all our consciences. Let us raise our prayer to the Prince of Peace that he may sustain the peoples wounded by war and open concrete paths to reconciliation and #peace. #PrayTogether

Futures open in 8 hours. Yet, it has been an eerily quiet weekend with no peace talk headlines and no denial of news that the US is planning a ground invasion of up to 2 months into Iran. We ended last week with US oil prices at $101/barrel, the S&P 500 at a 232-day low, and the US 10Y Note Yield at 4.44%. Yet, still no effort to contain the bond market as it nears crisis levels last seen during "Liberation Day" in April 2025. Unless this changes over the new few hours, it appears that bond markets are setting for a move above 4.50% on the 10Y Note Yield. History continues to suggest that some sort of *attempted* bond market intervention is coming. Buckle up for a big week ahead.

BREAKING: An Iranian ballistic missile guided by Chinese BeiDou satellites, fuelled by Chinese sodium perchlorate, precisely navigated by Chinese gyroscopic sensors, and fabricated on production lines equipped with Chinese SMIC tools just struck the Neot Hovav industrial zone south of Beersheba. Israel’s largest chemical and hazardous waste complex. Nineteen plants. Adama. Teva Pharmaceutical. Israel Chemicals. A warehouse is burning. Route 40 closed. No injuries. No hazmat release. Fire contained. Four countries built that missile. One country appears at every layer of the supply chain. The same country that processes 85 to 90 percent of the rare earth magnets inside the Arrow interceptor that was fired to stop it. The missile cost Iran between $200,000 and $500,000. The Arrow 3 interceptor that attempted to stop it cost $2 to $4 million. If THAAD was fired, $13 to $15 million. If a Gulf state Patriot battery engaged a Shahed in the same wave, $4 million to stop a $20,000 drone. The cost ratio runs 5 to 1 at the lowest. 200 to 1 at the highest. The defender pays more to stop the weapon than the attacker pays to build it. Every single time. BeiDou is the variable that makes this ratio lethal. Before Chinese satellite integration, Iranian ballistic missiles relied on pure inertial navigation with a circular error probable of 500 to 1,000 metres. With BeiDou-3 hybrid guidance, the CEP drops to 50 to 200 metres. The missile that hit Neot Hovav did not land in the desert. It landed in a 19-plant chemical complex. BeiDou did not make the missile more expensive. It made the same cheap missile accurate enough to force the defender to fire the expensive interceptor every time. The cost of the offence stayed flat. The cost of the defence compounded. The Pentagon burned $5.6 billion in munitions in 48 hours. Israel has fired hundreds of Arrows since February 28, exceeding $1 billion in interception costs. The US requests $200 billion in supplemental funding. Iran’s total offensive expenditure: an estimated $200 million. $200 billion to stop $200 million. A 1,000 to 1 ratio at the strategic level. China is on both sides of the ledger. Chinese BeiDou makes the Iranian missile accurate enough to force interception. Chinese rare earth magnets make the interceptor that fires to stop it. Chinese SMIC tools build the production lines that fabricate the guidance chips. Chinese sodium perchlorate fuels the propellant. Every missile that forces an interception depletes an Arrow that contains Chinese rare earth magnets that are under export restrictions that China controls. The attacker’s supply chain and the defender’s supply chain route through the same country. The country profits from both the missile and the interceptor. The country that makes the offence possible also makes the defence expensive. This is not a war between Iran and Israel. This is a cost function. The cost function has one variable on the offence side: China. And one variable on the defence side: also China. The rare earth magnets in the Arrow motor. The BeiDou signal in the Emad guidance. Both made in the same country. Both consumed in the same exchange. One depleting the other. The war is a Chinese supply chain consuming itself at a ratio that bankrupts the defender before it exhausts the attacker. Neot Hovav is contained. No injuries. No hazmat. And none of that matters. The interceptor was fired. The stockpile shrank. The rare earth magnet was consumed. Tomorrow another BeiDou-guided missile will force another Arrow containing another Chinese magnet to fire at another ratio the defender cannot sustain. The IDF Chief said “collapse.” The interceptor stockpile says the same in a different currency. Both currencies route through Beijing. Full analysis: open.substack.com/pub/shanakaans…