Morning,

This is my last diary for a while - our regular host is returning next week. I am going to focus on farm work and a few projects to be completed this year.

Passing the baton from British Empire to the US.

Perfidious empire Asia Times by Han Feizi May 22, 2026

Perfidy. There is no other word to describe the assassination of Iran’s leadership while negotiations were ongoing. It does not matter how evil they were, nor how juicy the window of opportunity was, nor how free the Iranian people will become – killing adversaries during negotiations is perfidy.

Perfidy, the war crime, has a specific definition under the Geneva Conventions. An act constitutes perfidy when two conditions are met:

1. Deception: Feigning protected status to gain an enemy’s trust.

2. Hostile act: Using the established trust to kill, injure or capture the adversary.
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One can interpret wartime rules against perfidy as the last vestiges of honor remaining while humans are slaughtering each other. Or one can be coldly rational, refraining from perfidy because to not do so would invite treachery from current and future adversaries.

Proscriptions against perfidy, however, do not survive cold rationalization. At some point, someone will do a ruthless cost benefit analysis and determine that strategic gains from an act of perfidy outweigh potential blowback. The strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.

Let us not over-moralize this choice. The United States (and Israel) did the cost benefit analysis and must now deal with the consequences.
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“The US has no bottom line” (美国没有底线) is an idea long bandied about in Chinese geopolitical discourse, appearing in state media outlets ssuch as Xinhua and People’s Daily and in statements by the Ministry of Defense. This decades old trope is darker than France’s lament over Perfidious Albion. In this view, America prioritizes primacy above all else and will commit all manner of crimes – perfidy the least of them – in its maintenance.

Proving or disproving the legitimacy of this view is not constructive for the purposes of this piece. We will not go through the litany of atrocities that China accuses the US of committing – with its corresponding denials, rationalizations and whataboutisms from America’s defenders. Suffice it to say that many in China believe the US to be capable of egregious depravity to maintain hegemony.
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Fears of a dangerous America prone to violent outbursts as it tries to arrest decline are valid – witness Venezuela and Iran. But not for China. The United States of America only clubs baby seals. And somehow manages to get mauled by baby seals. Against peer and near peer powers like Russia and China, the United States Empire can only engage in the bag of perfidious tricks – economic sanctions, media slander and buck-passing military alliances. These tricks work. But only on the weak.

The story is getting renewed attention.

A decade of lies: The US-funded biolab denial saga Russia Times May 15, 2026

The biolabs affair was revealed in a 2017 exposé by RT that questioned a shady US military tender seeking the genetic material of living Russians. Over the years, Moscow has raised allegations against Washington of conducting clandestine bio-research, including potential WMD development and illicit human testing, in a network of labs located across multiple nations, the bulk of which operated in Ukraine. The claims were met with a blanket denial in the West, which repeatedly dismissed them as “Russian propaganda.”

This abruptly changed the past week when US Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard said that her department had identified more than 120 US-funded biological laboratories in 30 countries, with over a third of them located in Ukraine.

Not a good trend.

Palantir Inks Deal With USDA To Manage Farmland And Control America's Agriculture Data, Taking Over The Nation's Food Supply The Wine Press April 26, 2026

Defense contractor and data analytics company Palantir announced a partnership with the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), making this the 27th official collaboration with an American department, further deepening its ties and grip on the U.S. government.

Despite no official announcement published yet on USDA’s website, Palantir disclosed the $300 million agreement in a press release on April 22nd.
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In July of last year, the USDA and Secretary Brooke Rollins — in collaboration with Secretary of Defense War Pete Hegseth, then-Attorney General Pam Bondi, and then-Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem — announced the National Farm Security Action Plan (NFSAP), by “safeguarding our food supply, strengthening critical infrastructure, and defending U.S. agricultural innovation from foreign adversaries,” USDA said in a news release at the time.

The plan is sevenfold:

1. Secure and Protect American Farmland – Address U.S. foreign farmland ownership from adversaries head on. Total transparency. Tougher penalties.

2. Enhance Agricultural Supply Chain Resilience – Refocus domestic investment into key manufacturing sectors and identify non-adversarial partners to work with when domestic production is not available. Plan for contingencies.

3. Protect U.S. Nutrition Safety Net from Fraud and Foreign Exploitation – Billions have been stolen by foreign crime rings. That ends now.

4. Defend Agricultural Research and Innovation – No more sweetheart deals or secret pacts with hostile nations. American ideas stay in America.

5. Put America First in Every USDA Program – From farm loans to food safety, every program will reflect the America First agenda.

6. Safeguard Plant and Animal Health – Crack down on bio-threats before they ever reach our soil.

7. Protect Critical Infrastructure – Farms, food, and supply chains are national security assets—and will be treated as such.