caucus99percent

free-range politics, organic community

Leave It To Norway!

I happened across this video the other day. It rocked! The Norwegian Consumer Consul made a video about the enshittification of everything in life by a (fictional for now, of course) professional enshitticator. I had to laugh, shake my head ruefully, wonder where we are headed, laugh some more... I’m in total awe that a Norwegian, independent, governmentally funded organization put this together. Norway! (6th happiest country in the world and the USA is umm, 23rd or something, gah)

Enjoy the video!

After candidate Trump got shot in 2024, I wrote Mission Impossible Op:

The back-channel diplomacy behind Trump’s U-turn on Iran

Foreign ministers from Egypt, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan gathered before dawn Thursday in Riyadh for talks aimed at finding a diplomatic off-ramp to the war in Iran.

The war news this morning features the Whiner in Chief threatening to huff and puff and blow the lights out in Iran. The goofy Iranians refuse to follow the script and insist on fucking with the world economy, rather than laying down and dying as President Trump wants them to.

Now they’ve really gone and done it! They made the whiner in chief whine yet again. How dare they!

It was nice knowing everybody.

Riding the Tiger

Once you're riding the tiger, how do you get off? The US is desperate to maintain its primacy no matter the consequences. However, the plan is backfiring. The entire world sees our barbaric approach in this war. All oil being shipped through Hormuz must be purchased with Yuan (RMB) and a 10% passage fee also paid to Iran in Yuan. That is part of the reason TPTB are so focused on the Strait. This foolish war of choice will, at a minimum, weaken the the petrodollar and hasten the transition to a petroyuan. In many ways this is an economic war.