Fu*%face Von Clownstick

What has happened in the last few years with amer geopolitics feels more like a movie than real life. Kidnap Maduro and Just blow the supreme leader to bits, no one bats an eyelash. What's next? I feel like we're just getting started, unfortunately.
 
Currently, in the White House:

Trump, in the middle of a Medal of Honor ceremony where he is explaining his rationale on deposing Iran’s supreme leader, starts talking about his White House ballroom project.

After just a few minutes, Trump has moved on from his war in Iran to the curtains he’s picked out for the White House and his new ballroom. “I picked those drapes in my first term,” he says. “I always liked gold.” There’s light chuckling in the room.
 
Tuebor said:
Currently, in the White House:

Trump, in the middle of a Medal of Honor ceremony where he is explaining his rationale on deposing Iran’s supreme leader, starts talking about his White House ballroom project.

After just a few minutes, Trump has moved on from his war in Iran to the curtains he’s picked out for the White House and his new ballroom. “I picked those drapes in my first term,” he says. “I always liked gold.” There’s light chuckling in the room.
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Dude should just step down and become the Iranian king… he fits the job description better.
 
Trump Says Strikes Killed Leaders U.S. Saw as Successors in Iran

President Trump said on Tuesday that officials the United States had eyed as potential new leaders of Iran had been killed in the U.S.-Israeli bombing campaign. As the war in the Middle East widened, he said that the worst outcome would be that whoever takes over Iran could be “as bad” as their predecessors.

Speaking to reporters at the start of a White House meeting with Chancellor Friedrich Merz of Germany, Mr. Trump claimed that Iran had been about to attack its neighbors and Israel, and he made the decision to go to war to pre-empt that action. Officials with access to U.S. intelligence have said that Mr. Trump has exaggerated the immediacy of any threat Iran posed to the United States.

When asked about a worst-case scenario for the future of Iran, Mr. Trump said that it would probably be “you go through this and in five years you realize you put somebody in who’s no better.”

Asked who he would like to take over Iran, Mr. Trump gave a strikingly blunt answer. “Most of the people we had in mind are dead,” he said. “Now we have another group, they may be dead also, based on reports. So you have a third wave coming. Pretty soon we’re not going to know anybody.” [Brilliant! - they'll probably get blamed for hiding in the wrong place.]
Secretary of State Marco Rubio disputed the suggestion that Israel forced the United States into striking Iran. “The bottom line is this, the President determined we were not going to get hit first,” Rubio said. “If you tell the President of the United States that if we don’t go first, we’re going to have more people killed and more people injured, the president’s going to go first.” Rubio did not explain whether the threat to U.S. forces was independent of Israel’s planned military action or a potential response to it.

As senators filter out of a classified briefing with senior Trump administration officials, Democrats say the closed-door session did not provide any additional clarity on the president’s strategic aims in attacking Iran. “They have had three or four or five justifications for this act of war over the last four or five days, and nothing in this classified session alleviated that confusion,” said Senator Brian Schatz of Hawaii.
 
claims that iran is going the way of venezuela are naive at best. it has a modern economy and developed civil bureaucracy in ways venezuela absolutely does not. the closure of the strait of hormuz not only cuts china off from iranian oil, but cuts one fifth of the entire oil output of the planet, most of which would go to india and west asia. gulf coast countries demand us dollars for their oil, which is a major prop underpinning the value of the dollar and thus the american economy. now they cant move it

the second and third order consequences of war with iran may be far from what the american government can imagine. afghanistan/iraq led to twenty years of occupation, millions dead, the creation of isis (the leadership of which passed through american prisons during the iraq war), destruction of the civil societies of libya and syria. and costs over a trillion dollars when you add all americas middle east wars together.

does anyone really believe war with iran will be less consequential than war with iraq?
 
bobs yeruncle said:
claims that iran is going the way of venezuela are naive at best. it has a modern economy and developed civil bureaucracy in ways venezuela absolutely does not. the closure of the strait of hormuz not only cuts china off from iranian oil, but cuts one fifth of the entire oil output of the planet, most of which would go to india and west asia. gulf coast countries demand us dollars for their oil, which is a major prop underpinning the value of the dollar and thus the american economy. now they cant move it

the second and third order consequences of war with iran may be far from what the american government can imagine. afghanistan/iraq led to twenty years of occupation, millions dead, the creation of isis (the leadership of which passed through american prisons during the iraq war), destruction of the civil societies of libya and syria. and costs over a trillion dollars when you add all americas middle east wars together.

does anyone really believe war with iran will be less consequential than war with iraq?
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Par for the course with your excellent and concise analysis.
 
Of course the information coming from various sources
of this King-&-king-worshipers is entirely reliable!

And ol' King Tweetybird had to Monday or Tues utter the
"Barack Hussein Obama" author of the prior, "terrible" Iran deal.
Why, had it not been for Tweetybird's scrapping that terrible deal,
Iran would've not only made a nuclear weapon but would
HAVE USED IT !!! --deep rational thought now in charge today!

Earlier, Great Patriot Fox-y WarLord HairGel Hegseth
proudly proclaimed that great USA forces won't be bound
by internationally expected rules of decency in war!


And he's still proclaiming a stolen election.

... a report by 8 conservatives (tho' no doubt
NOT the proper type of ass-kissing patriots).
(George Will's column entitled it "The Stolen Election",
but I see otherwise in the on-line report.)

Home - Lost, Not Stolen

---------------------------------
Executive Summary

As part of his post-election attempts to retain the presidency, Donald Trump and his
supporters filed 64 cases containing 187 counts in the six key battleground states, in addition to
utilizing some of the recount and contest procedures available to them under state law. The
former president maintains to this day that the 2020 election was stolen and the results
Fraudulent.

This Report takes a hard look at the very serious charges made by Trump and his supporters.
The consequences of a president and a major party candidate making such charges are
monumental. If true, our electoral system is in desperate need of repair. If not true, that must be
said because such false charges corrode our democracy and leave a significant share of the
population doubting the legitimacy of our system, seriously weakening the country.
Every member of this informal group has worked in Republican politics, been appointed to
office by Republicans, or is otherwise associated with the Party. None have shifted loyalties to
the Democratic Party, and none bear any ill will toward Trump and especially not toward his
sincere supporters. Many of us have worked over the years in polling places as part of
Republican Election Day Operations looking for the same sort of fraud and irregularities Donald
Trump claimed in 2020. Such vigilance is entirely appropriate and must not be stigmatized as
“voter suppression.”

Fraud, irregularities, and procedural deficiencies formed the basis for challenging the results
in five of the six highly contested Electoral College battleground states of Arizona (page 7),
Georgia (page 27), Michigan (page 36), Nevada (page 47), and Wisconsin (page 64). In
Pennsylvania (page 53), Trump verbally attacked the elections as fraudulent, but his lawyers
never filed such charges in court.

For this Report, we examined every count of every case brought in these six battleground
states. We include both a narrative for each state and an accompanying Addendum listing each
case and its disposition.

We conclude that Donald Trump and his supporters had their day in court and failed to
produce substantive evidence to make their case.
Of the 64 cases brought by Trump and his supporters, twenty were dismissed before a
hearing on the merits, fourteen were voluntarily dismissed by Trump and his supporters before a
hearing on the merits, and 30 cases included a hearing on the merits. Only in one Pennsylvania
case involving far too few votes to overturn the results did Trump and his supporters prevail.

====== *
 
Matias said:
Par for the course with your excellent and concise analysis.
Click to expand...
unanticipated and immediate consequence of the moment: massive disruption to the fertilizer production and supply chain right before planting season

The Middle East supplies a huge amount of the world’s fertilizer. Conflict in the region has sent prices soaring ahead of the critical spring planting season.​


Global oil and gas prices have skyrocketed following the US attack on Iran last weekend. But another key global supply chain is also at risk, one that may directly impact American farmers who have already been squeezed for months by tariff wars. The conflict in the Middle East is choking global supplies of fertilizer right before the crucial spring planting season.​

​

“This literally could not be happening at a worse time,” says Josh Linville, the vice president of fertilizer at financial services company StoneX.​

​

The global fertilizer market focuses on three main macronutrients: phosphates, nitrogen, and potash. All of them are produced in different ways, with different countries leading in exports. Farmers consider a variety of factors, including crop type and soil conditions, when deciding which of these types of fertilizer to apply to their fields.​

​

Potash and phosphates are both mined from different kinds of natural deposits; nitrogen fertilizers, by contrast, are produced with natural gas. QatarLNG, a subsidiary of Qatar Energy, a state-run oil and gas company, said on Monday that it would halt production following drone strikes on some of its facilities. This effectively took nearly a fifth of the world’s natural gas supply offline, causing gas prices in Europe to spike.​

​

That shutdown puts supplies of urea, a popular type of nitrogen fertilizer, particularly at risk. On Tuesday, Qatar Energy said that it would also stop production of downstream products, including urea. Qatar was the second-largest exporter of urea in 2024. (Iran was the third-largest; it’s also a key exporter of ammonia, another type of nitrogen fertilizer.) Prices on urea sold in the US out of New Orleans, a key commodity port, were up nearly 15 percent on Monday compared to prices last week, according to data provided by Linville to WIRED. The blockage of the Strait of Hormuz is also preventing other countries in the region from exporting nitrogen products.​

​

“When we look at ammonia, we're looking at almost 30 percent of global production being either involved or at risk in this conflict,” says Veronica Nigh, a senior economist at the Fertilizer Institute, a US-based industry advocacy organization. “It gets worse when we think about urea. Urea is almost 50 percent.”​

​

Other types of fertilizer are also at risk. Saudi Arabia, Nigh says, supplies about 40 percent of all US phosphate imports; taking them out of the equation for more than a few days could create “a really challenging situation” for the US. Other countries in the region, including Jordan, Egypt, and Israel, also play a big role in these markets.​


“We are already hearing reports that some of those Persian Gulf manufacturers are shutting down production, because they're saying, ‘I have a finite amount of storage for my supply,’” Linville says. “‘Once I reach the top of it, I can't do anything else. So I'm going to shut down my production in order to make sure I don't go over above that.’"​


remember the cost of lumber during the pandemic as all those mills shut down 6-12 months for maintenance, lets do that with fertilizer
 
bobs yeruncle said:
unanticipated and immediate consequence of the moment: massive disruption to the fertilizer production and supply chain right before planting season

The Middle East supplies a huge amount of the world’s fertilizer. Conflict in the region has sent prices soaring ahead of the critical spring planting season.​


Global oil and gas prices have skyrocketed following the US attack on Iran last weekend. But another key global supply chain is also at risk, one that may directly impact American farmers who have already been squeezed for months by tariff wars. The conflict in the Middle East is choking global supplies of fertilizer right before the crucial spring planting season.​

​

“This literally could not be happening at a worse time,” says Josh Linville, the vice president of fertilizer at financial services company StoneX.​

​

The global fertilizer market focuses on three main macronutrients: phosphates, nitrogen, and potash. All of them are produced in different ways, with different countries leading in exports. Farmers consider a variety of factors, including crop type and soil conditions, when deciding which of these types of fertilizer to apply to their fields.​

​

Potash and phosphates are both mined from different kinds of natural deposits; nitrogen fertilizers, by contrast, are produced with natural gas. QatarLNG, a subsidiary of Qatar Energy, a state-run oil and gas company, said on Monday that it would halt production following drone strikes on some of its facilities. This effectively took nearly a fifth of the world’s natural gas supply offline, causing gas prices in Europe to spike.​

​

That shutdown puts supplies of urea, a popular type of nitrogen fertilizer, particularly at risk. On Tuesday, Qatar Energy said that it would also stop production of downstream products, including urea. Qatar was the second-largest exporter of urea in 2024. (Iran was the third-largest; it’s also a key exporter of ammonia, another type of nitrogen fertilizer.) Prices on urea sold in the US out of New Orleans, a key commodity port, were up nearly 15 percent on Monday compared to prices last week, according to data provided by Linville to WIRED. The blockage of the Strait of Hormuz is also preventing other countries in the region from exporting nitrogen products.​

​

“When we look at ammonia, we're looking at almost 30 percent of global production being either involved or at risk in this conflict,” says Veronica Nigh, a senior economist at the Fertilizer Institute, a US-based industry advocacy organization. “It gets worse when we think about urea. Urea is almost 50 percent.”​

​

Other types of fertilizer are also at risk. Saudi Arabia, Nigh says, supplies about 40 percent of all US phosphate imports; taking them out of the equation for more than a few days could create “a really challenging situation” for the US. Other countries in the region, including Jordan, Egypt, and Israel, also play a big role in these markets.​


“We are already hearing reports that some of those Persian Gulf manufacturers are shutting down production, because they're saying, ‘I have a finite amount of storage for my supply,’” Linville says. “‘Once I reach the top of it, I can't do anything else. So I'm going to shut down my production in order to make sure I don't go over above that.’"​


remember the cost of lumber during the pandemic as all those mills shut down 6-12 months for maintenance, lets do that with fertilizer
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I'd really rather not. Do we have to?
 
further unanticipated consequences:
within the first week, billions of dollars worth of US radar equipment has been destroyed by iran across the middle east region, a strategic warning system that took years to assemble. these systems, beyond providing a defensive umbrella for israel and us forces, were part of americas early warning system for russian icbm launches

a boeing e-6 mercury belonging to the us navy just took off from oklahoma to head east across the atlantic. the mercury is a mobile command and control platform whose role is to ensure that nuclear forces can still receive orders even if systems on the ground are compromised

at the same time, similar russian early warning systems have been degraded by ukraine (with nato weapon assistance) over the past year. now both russia and america have nuclear arsenals pointed at each other with less ability to respond to one another than just two years ago.

im feeling safer already
 
thats another thing for which unintended consequences may come back to bite the united states.

as he mentions, the reason that ship was in india was at india's invitation to take part in their biennial naval exercises, along with dozens of other countries. for them to be sunk after leaving indian waters indicates possible complicity on the part of the indian government (as we know, modi has been very strongly associating with israel and visited the knesset just the other week). thats a blow to the idea of indian sovereignty

india just had millions of people across the country take part in protests against modi's government and his trade deals with usa. they also get 60% of their oil from gulf coast countries, which transits the strait of hormuz. they also need nitrogen based fertilizer, of which qatar is one of the largest producers on the planet. one of the other largest producers? iran. whoops

combine a disgruntled populace with a food crisis and you have ripe conditions for violent uprising.

iran doesnt need a surface navy to patrol or interdict the strait of hormuz: its less than 40 kilometres across at its narrowest point. you can literally see across the entire thing from the mountainous terrain on the iranian side. and with that mountainous terrain hiding radar and drone and missile launching capability, there isnt a safe option for anyone to get through. nobody will provide insurance (not military security! i mean financial insurance) for ships that try. the strait of hormuz is literally the fulcrum the modern economy rests on, in a very real sense it is the centre of the world
 
this is one guy's take on the possible consequences. again we're talking about one fifth of the oil on the planet normally going through that strait

Systemic risk: a cascading analysis of the Strait of Hormuz closing

Executive Summary​

The modern world order, having organized itself around efficiency, cost minimization, and logistical precision, has created a machinery of dependence so extreme that the interruption of one narrow corridor can propagate outward into a general crisis of civilization.

What appears at first as a maritime blockade is in fact the exposure of the entire global system as a hierarchy of brittle interdependencies.

Oil and LNG fail as inputs into electricity, fertilizer, shipping, chemicals, mining, manufacturing, and state finance.

As an example, The global polyester chain begins in petrochemicals. A severe disruption to hydrocarbon and petrochemical feedstocks cascades into PTA, MEG, polyester resin, filament, and fabric production, causing acute shortages, price spikes, and factory stoppages across synthetic-heavy apparel segments. The industry does not vanish overnight, but the low-cost, high-volume apparel model starts to break down.

From this follows a chain whose logic is cumulative: fuel inflation becomes fertilizer inflation; fertilizer inflation becomes food inflation; food inflation becomes urban instability, sovereign subsidy exhaustion, and ultimately hunger. In this sequence, food shortages are not a secondary humanitarian issue. They are one of the central political outcomes of the crisis, because modern populations do not experience systemic breakdown first through grand strategy, but through unaffordable bread, intermittent power, empty pharmacies, and possibly the collapse of public order. A globalised Arab Spring.

In this framework, hyperinflation emerges as the social expression of real physical bottlenecks. When energy-importing states are forced to acquire dollarized fuel at any price, when currencies weaken, when fertilizer and transport costs reprice an entire harvest cycle, inflation ceases to be cyclical and becomes coercive.

It enters every household budget and every state ledger at once. The result is the destruction of planning itself: firms cannot quote, governments cannot subsidize, and populations can no longer calculate the future. Under such conditions, credit markets seize up, foreign-exchange reserves drain, sovereign spreads widen, and the boundary between economic crisis and political crisis disappears.

Modern technical systems amplify rather than dampen this disorder. The loss of sour crude becomes a sulphur and sulphuric acid crisis; that chemical crisis becomes a copper and cobalt crisis; the metals crisis becomes a transformer, switchgear, and grid crisis; the grid crisis becomes a semiconductor crisis; and the semiconductor crisis becomes a compute and data-centre crisis.

Thus, the closure of a maritime strait reaches, by entirely material means, into the server rack, the hospital network, the payment system, the electrical substation, and the defence-industrial base. The myth that digital civilization floats above heavy industry is, in this scenario, extinguished. Compute is shown to rest on copper, transformers, stable voltage, LNG, and ships.
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