Reflections from the Heart of the Empire: Earthquakes, Tremors, and Lunacy

Plus a record-setting cat

• This one sums up Donald Trump’s entire foreign policy.

  

• It seems that Muslims have a far easier time celebrating Ramadan in Ohio than they do in India. The local mosque has a monthly free food pantry and is quite the popular spot here, with police protection and everything. (Below is an old flyer-I’ve never seen anyone in a mask there)

  

• When everyone was losing their minds over Trump’s foreign policy team including an Atlantic editor in a Signal chat, the biggest question in mine was why any journalist would say anything at all without waiting for something far juicier to come his way. As Max Blumenthal explains, there was no journalist involved, only a paid propagandist, so that’s why.

• The Israeli ethnic cleansing campaign in the West Bank appears to be going very well and mostly under the radar. The sub-genre of genocidal maniac called “settlers” are doing most of the work. Here’s a map showing their attacks since October 7…

  

  • Israel delenda est.

• A Federal Judge has halted the dissolution of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau until a court challenge can be heard.

• Elon Musk says that he will be leaving DOGE this spring because he will have cut a trillion bucks from the Federal budget by then. Horsehockey. He’s a spoiled rich fuck, he’s already bored with his new toy, is frustrated by the resistance of things like voters and courts, and wants to go play with something more fun for him, like selling X to himself.

  • Is this what monetary masturbation looks like?

• French President Macron announced 2 billion more French euros will go to arming Ukraine. French citizens experienced nostalgia for the guillotine.

  

• The 7.7 on the Richter Scale earthquake that devastated Myanmar was so bad that its rebels announced a unilateral ceasefire in the ongoing civil war to aid rescue efforts.

  

• In Wisconsin, voters get to choose either the tool of megabillionaire Elon Musk or that of George Soros & JB Pritzer for their next state Supreme Court Justice.

  • I rarely mention my weird protestant pagan pantheon of 21st Century Norse gods, along with a few others, but I can safely say they are of the unanimous opinion that Wisconsinites have no duty to vote for this crap, and those who do open themselves up to mindfuckery by Loki.

• That same advice goes out to Canadians. Canada’s Liberal Party is basing their entire election campaign on Trump Derangement Syndrome, and it appears to be working. The kindest interpretation is that Canadians know their Conservatives suck, too.

  • Unfortunately, this also means that many Canadians are even more propagandized than the citizens of what they can no longer call the Benighted States of Hysteria to their south, as that same hysteria has now clearly migrated north.

  • There will be no US invasion of Canada, FFS. Why should American oligarchs push for that when they already have economic and cultural dominance over Canada?

• Vietnam announced a major national economic program to become a leading world power in semiconductor manufacturing by 2050.

  • If there is any one people on the planet whom both Americans and Chinese have learned the hard way not to underestimate, it is the Vietnamese.

• Donald Trump’s favorability rating is now underwater in Texas, dropping 15 points since his second inauguration. If you are surprised, you have some stereotypes about Texans you need to examine.

• Iran rejected Trump’s letter demanding they directly negotiate the fate of their nuclear program with him, for the very simple and understandable reason that they have been unable to trust him since he pulled out of the last deal the US made with them.

• Sudan’s civil war is spilling over into South Sudan, with factions in both countries making alliances with each other. (Below: Sudanese Army soldiers near Khartoum. Pretty ragged-looking bunch.)

  

• Senator Bernie Sanders(I-for-Invertebrate-VT) has vowed to force the vote on arms sales to Israel. I am confident that this promise is every bit as sincere as his commitment to Medicare-for-All and card-check union organization of workplaces. (If you don’t understand this is satire, please read more Mark Twain or

  Normal Island News
  )

• Shout out to the Seneca Nation for having the best legal recreational marijuana for the lowest prices in the Empire, ranging from $10/oz for dirt weed to $200/oz for primo. Plus, no swiping of IDs for kleptocratic information-sharing. We still can’t find that here in Ohio.

  

• Finally, a silver Maine coon cat in Minnesota has made the Guinness Book of World Records for the longest tail of a domestic cat ever(18.5 inches). Given that Maine coons are some of the happiest organisms on the planet, it might be that this is the happiest tail in the whole USA.

  

Thank you for reading, good day or night, and good luck.

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