These were the headlines in a FT newsletter this morning:
…
It is the ordering of these headlines that I find interesting. Financial markets come first. Then politics is of concern, with a hierarchy of the USA, Iran, and Britain. Only then is the important issue of this war’s consequences actually highlighted. If millions of people in Iran and other states are left without water, the risk of migration due to real human suffering is high, and awareness of this appears to be very low indeed.
Financial newspaper covers financial markets.
Next week Spud will reveal that The Guardian covers grievance studies.
If millions of people in Iran and other states are left without water
I haven’t heard of any attacks on Iranian desalination plants (but you never know). I have however, heard of multiple Iranian attacks on other desalination plants. So, whose fault is this, then?
Apparently the first attack on a desalination plant was by the USA on Iran. The Iranians complained that 25 villages would now be without water.
It does seem to me to be a foolish escalation by the US – its allies are far more dependent on desalination than Iran is. Though you could argue that, by virtue of your crystal ball, you know that Iran would have attacked those desalination plants anyway.
What is more, the emphasis is upon the good news that Trump wants the markets to hear, because he is intensely sensitive to market price variations. Later in the night, he offered death, fire, and fury to Iran if the Straits of Hormuz were not reopened. The implication must be that he is threatening the use of nuclear weaponry.
Candidly, BLUMF is intensely sensitive to market price variations. That is why he is going to nuke the Middle East.
Ritchie is very smart.
Ritchie would make a good Elbonian.
It seems that the whole point of the war – to prevent the use of nuclear weaponry – escapes Spud. And if something that obvious and straightforward escapes him, then just about everything else about the world must, too. As he proves, exhaustively, daily.
Candidly I think we should start a war.
Start a nuclear war.
At the gay bar, gay bar, gay bar
Nicely done Steve
It seems that the whole point of the war …
You should win an award, Norman, as the only man outside Washington and Tel Aviv who knows what the point is.
Mr Hegseth said: “Ultimately, the aftermath is going to be in America’s interests, our interests.
“We won’t live under a nuclear blackmail scenario of gentle[sic] missiles that can target our people, which is why the objectives have been scoped from the beginning.
“Missiles, missile production, defence industrial base, navy: all in service of ensuring they don’t have nuclear power projection capabilities.
“That’s what matters to President Trump…that’s why we’re so laser focused on ensuring that those objectives, and those objectives alone, are met…the American people voted for a different approach. But what the president also stated from the beginning is Iran can’t have a nuclear weapon.”
Sometimes people say what they mean, and mean what they say. Can I have that award now, please?
More likely the B-52’s go in today to carpet bomb installations around the Strait of Hormuz.
Love Shack, baby.
So hurry up, and bring your jukebox money
Sign says, woo, stay away fools
I wonder what you call large area bomb coverage but with JDAMs to hit precise targets all over that area. Carpet bombing seems not precise enough.
“Rug bombimg”?
Checkered tea towel bombing.
We all know about the thousands of Shaheds, but not much publicity has been given to the thousands of US drones in theater. Regrettably a launch site has first to announce its presence by firing a missile, but within minutes some kid sitting in Nebraska who was a video gamer last week will be onto it. The number and frequency of Iranian drone and missile attacks have dropped sharply.
War has changed and will remain so until an in hindsight obvious drone countermeasure is found.
Carpet bombing works where you know that the enemy forces are operating in an area but you are not quite sure where. Typically they might be doing shoot-and-scoot to evade a precise retaliatory attack on where they fired from. It also has a profound psychological impact on people operating in surrounding areas by demonstrating that hiding is no longer an option.
IRGC is hiding out in the jungles of Iran.
B1s were leaving Fairford about 4:30 this afternoon. I saw them go. Should be on their way back right now.
Why ‘must’ that mean nuclear weapons?
Sure, it’s Murphy, so one statement doesn’t need to have any logical connection to the other. But still, that one doesn’t seem to have any basis except ‘orange man bad’.
He’s getting desperate for things to talk about, isn’t he?
He repeats himself, and no-one but his hikikomori masturbating fanbase pays any attention whatsoever. Galling.
He’s not galled. Deludedly, he sees himself as absolutely right – the Einstein of political economy – and his relatively small but growing YouTube fan base feeds his delusion. He probably imagines that he will be hailed as a genius in the decades ahead.
He’s only saying what his controller, Master Bates, tells him to.
To be fair, he is very concerned by “real human suffering”. he wasn’t concerned, meaning he never said a single word, by the Iranian government killing 35,000 of its own people in just over a fortnight in January. Neither was he the least bit concerned, meaning he never said a word, about 2,000 Jews being raped, mutilated and slaughtered in a morning in 2023.
I guess it must follow that he either doesn’t consider their suffering to be real or just doesn’t consider them to be real humans. I wonder which ?
Or he doesn’t care about human suffering, he just claims to when he thinks it will benefit him.
Has he ever shown any signs of genuine human empathy?
I cannot think of any – and recall with some anger his treatment of the great Christie Malry where he was particularly spiteful. Similar with the Oxford Centre for Business Taxation. Also the occasion when the BBC passed him over for some younger female commentator. In fairness if he is autistic and suffering from ADHD he probably wouldn’t display significant empathy.
A pathological desire to commit and attraction for evil in all its forms probably doesn’t help in that regard either.
I think narcissism with a soupçon of general anger issues explains a lot.
Ricky Gervais “Everyone in media is now ADHD” https://www.youtube.com/shorts/_UQEHmyy31s
Not that I can see, no.