This is a great NYT update summary of Trump's speech.

Trump has concluded speaking after 19 minutes. Nothing new was said tonight. This was a rehash of his Truth Social posts over the past month.

I'm amazed that an editor didn't jump in and nuke it or force the reporter to make it ten times as long.

Israel is warning Christian and Druze communities in southern Lebanon not to harbor Shiite Muslims, apparently confirming their intent to ethnically cleanse the area

Written on an Iranian drone launched at the Zionist entity:

"I, Shahed-136, am going to Tel Aviv for negotiations on behalf of the noble people of Iran."

School shooter culture to school bombing culture. End america

@NYTimesPR:

A correction will appear in tomorrow's print edition:

"A headline with an article on Friday about President Trump’s threats to leave NATO misstated the full name of the body. It is the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, not the North American Treaty Organization."

Top minds over there.

Got this very bad vibes report from a comrade visiting Cuba:

Situation here in Cuba is quite grim.

Poverty rampant. Huge piles of garbage in Havana because of no trash pick-up. The vendors are desperate for tourists, so many will harass [Partner] and I (sometimes for blocks). Many people in rags, begging for money. We were warned that a lot of people will try to scam us. We quickly learned most people being friendly to us just wanted money—i’m probably said “no dinero” 100 times in the several days. We were told not trust buying water off the street and that drinking the tap water will make us sick. [Partner] also had her Cross necklace stolen off her neck; I wasn’t able to catch the thief, and she was very upset (her mom gave her that necklace as a gift).

There aren’t grocery stores like we have in the states. The street food is… questionable. The garbage piles create sanitation and heath problems.

In sum: we don’t hate imperialism enough for what it did to this country.

Imagine this guy being an actual "Russian spy". He would say it out loud in the first week of campaigning in 2015.

Iranian General Seyed Majid Moosavi responded to US imperialist threats:

"You will not send Iran back to the Stone Age, you will send your soldiers under the tombstone instead. The Hollywood fantasies have twisted your thinking so that you, having a modest 250-year history, threaten a civilization that is more than 6,000 years old."

https://tass.com/world/2110991

Russia, China and France on Thursday effectively stymied a push by Arab countries to get the United Nations Security Council to authorize military action against Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, saying they opposed any language authorizing force, according to a diplomat and a senior U.N. official.

The EU (France is the only EU member state on the security council) voting with China and Russia against the United States and the Gulf monarchies is certainly an interesting development. Won't put much stock in it given it's a symbolic vote, and the Gulf states can't do shit regardless, but might be a portent of things to come.

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/02/world/middleeast/arab-iran-hormuz-force.html

is it just me, or has this war brought the logic of empire into open public discourse?

This was probably the worst day of the war for us Lebanese. The scenes in Beirut today are just brutal, and it's even worse in Sour and the rest of the abandoned South. Our government is nothing more than a Zionist tool against the Shia of Lebanon, and I can't help but feeling backstabbed by the shortsightedness and naivety of Iranian negotiators. What is the value of a ceasefire that doesn't lift the burden of the most vulnerable and wartorn part of the Axis of Resistance? God help us

Ex-Iran foreign minister, involved in peace negotiations, badly wounded after US-Israel airstrikes

Former Iranian foreign minister Kamal Kharazi has been seriously wounded in a strike on Tehran that also killed his wife, according to Iranian media reports.

Outlets including Shargh, Etemad, and Ham Mihan reported that his home was targeted earlier in the day in what was described as a US-Israel strike. He was subsequently hospitalized with severe injuries.

According to Mehr News Agency, Kharazi had been actively involved in diplomatic efforts in recent weeks. He was reportedly overseeing engagement with Pakistan ahead of a potential meeting between Iranian officials and US Vice President JD Vance.

Two Iranian officials cited in reports suggested that the targeting of Kharazi may have been intended to disrupt ongoing diplomatic efforts. The former foreign minister was considered a veteran policy expert and a moderate political figure.

Kamal Kharazi recently said in a CNN interview that he no longer believes diplomacy is viable, accusing the United States of deception during negotiations. “I don’t see any room for diplomacy anymore. Because Donald Trump had been deceiving others and not keeping with his promises, and we experienced this in two times of negotiations – that while we were engaged in negotiation, they struck us,” Kharazi said.

Pete Hegseth fires two more generals, David Hodne and William Green Jr., alongside Army Chief Of Staff Randy George — Reuters

My guess is he asked them to do something very crazy and they said no.

NYT reaches new levels of both-sides reporting

Title has been edited but the article is still up

From Drop Site’s twitter

Chinese civilians with technical backgrounds are increasingly posting detailed military analysis online aimed at helping Iran counter U.S. forces, in a growing grassroots trend across Chinese social media, according to the South China Morning Post.

The effort appears informal and unpaid, with engineers and STEM-trained users sharing tactics, simulations, and breakdowns of U.S. systems — including mapping U.S. military sites, outlining missile strategies targeting aircraft carriers in the Persian Gulf, and modeling defenses against a potential U.S. landing on Iran’s Kharg Island oil terminal. Some content has gone viral, including tutorials on targeting advanced platforms like the F-35.

On March 14, a video by an account called “Laohu Talks World,” subtitled in Persian, outlined how Iran could use low-cost systems to target an F-35, drawing tens of millions of views. Five days later, Iran claimed it had struck a U.S. F-35.

The creator studied at Northwestern Polytechnical University, a major Chinese defense research institution. “He is not short of money. He makes videos just for fun,” a source told the Post.

It would appear that posting is indeed praxis…

Every single logical argument says that use of a nuclear weapon is farfetched if not outright impossible right now. One thing worries me a lot though, I absolutely believe that Trump's demented brain wants him to drop a nuke just so that he gets remembered as the guy who dropped the first nuke in 80 years.

We just got this Force Majeure letter today from AirGas, our helium supplier (for our food science lab, where we have multiple mass-spec instruments that use helium).

The letter says that helium supplies are cut off, and if you're lucky, you might be allotted HALF the helium you need. Even then, you will be charged extra for any helium you get. A LOT extra.

So basically, every mass spec lab in America is about to go offline. AirGas is expressly invoking FM and saying they cannot meet their contractual obligations. Not their fault. Trump did this by attacking Iran.

My lab is fine, of course, because I saw this coming and I ordered my lab staff to buy a one-year supply weeks ago. We already have it in place. So we're still up and running with plenty of helium.

But very few lab science people are paying attention to the Strait of Hormuz, so they are getting blindsided by this.

Trump's war is shutting down science labs all across the country right now. Don't dare call this "winning." It's a loss for America. And the world.

https://xcancel.com/HealthRanger/status/2039216983544070604#m

Trump's speech was the usual combination of declaring victory, saying that Iran has no military or leadership left, threatening to completely obliterate Iran and hit its power & gas fields and "send Iran back to the stone age", along with telling the US allies to "open up your own damn Hormuz".

[edit] Oh and also "the Strait will open up naturally"

The PM of Spain is Chinaposting

Also he said this today

The Government of Spain condemns the death penalty against Palestinians that Israel's parliament has just approved. This is an asymmetric measure that would not be applied to Israelis who committed the same offenses.

Same crime, different penalty.

That is not justice. It is one more step toward apartheid.

The world cannot remain silent.

https://x.com/sanchezcastejon/status/2038940782233534494

British former diplomat Craig Murray confirms rumors I heard during my recent time in Venezuela. Multiple high level sources confirmed to him that Nicolas Maduro ordered Venezuelan forces to stand down in an eventual kidnapping operation to avoid a ground invasion and save lives.

• Tweet

Trump: We can't take care of daycare. We're a big country. We're fighting wars. It's not possible for us to take care of daycare, Medicaid, Medicare, all these things.

https://xcancel.com/slavomir_YU/status/2039200989891133786

Professor John Mearsheimer: "if there were Nuremberg trials right where the Israelis and the Americans were brought before the court, President Trump along with President Netanyahu and many of their advisors would be hanged"

JDPON Mearsheimer is slowly emerging before our eyes

People seem weirdly upset about the ceasefire, this isn't some kind of capitulation from Iran, they're literally demanding the US agree to their objectives, so either this is the US surrendering while refusing to admit that is happening, or the US is just buying time.

But it's not like Iran packing their weapons away into long term storage unable to be used. The entire time the Iranian military will be ready to go and react to the inevitable breaking of the ceasefire by the US. The Iranian people probably know more about the duplicitous of the US better than any other nation on the planet right now.

This ceasefire does enable Iran to safely support their civilian population in heavily bombed areas, providing support and aid and assistance, and making sure the civilian population is able to better weather attacks after the US breaks the ceasefire. Iran agreeing to this means many more lives are saved. This is a good thing.

Iran is not going to just sit there and do nothing if the US actively starts moving more troops or weapons into the region, if a bunch of random nobodies on an internet forum can track US troop movements, a state with far more resources than us can also do it.

It honestly wouldn't surprise me if the US establishment is doing this solely so they can sell stocks and maximise personal profit, that seemed to be the goal of Trump's original shorter ceasefire plan. Even if this is some 69D chess move from the US, having two extra weeks to prepare a ground invasion or another bombing campaign won't magically make it more successful, trying to take Iranian territory will still be a bloodbath for the US, regardless of how "well prepared" they are.

The zionists are bombing Iranian synagogues

https://x.com/i/status/2041343956651229685

NEW - Trump wants to switch to a war economy in 2027 with massive increase in military spending and cuts to healthcare and other domestic agencies to fund it — Bloomberg

"Praise be to Allah." - JDPON Don

Link to the post

do we put any stock in this or is it just more mad rambling

There's just no fucking way

NYTimes with a new article, insane that the mainstream American press is printing stuff like this but such is the world the Epstein Class has decided to birth. «The War Is Turning Iran Into a Major World Power» is the title, and nothing in there is anything we haven't talked about here extensively, but to see the mainstream press draw these conclusions still reads like a fever dream to me.

Imagine Iran with control of about 20 percent of the world’s oil, Russia with about 11 percent and China able to soak up much of that supply. They would form a cartel to deny the West 30 percent of the world’s oil. You don’t need sophisticated analysis to recognize the catastrophic consequences: precipitously declining power for the United States and Europe, and a global shift toward China, Russia and Iran. The United States faces a difficult choice: either commit to a long-term effort to reassert control over the Strait of Hormuz, or accept a new global energy arrangement in which U.S. control is no longer assured.

If it chooses acceptance, the outcome is clear: The international system will reorganize with Iran as a fourth center of global power. Yet if the United States chooses to reassert military control, it is in for a long battle, one it could well lose. The Iran war is not a military conflict from which the United States can simply back out, with things reverting to how they were before. Iran would surely demand a heavy price in a new accommodation with the United States — but this price will surely be less costly than that of the alternative future. This is a transformational war, and if these changes continue for even a few years, the global order will change irrevocably.

Per https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/06/opinion/iran-war-strait-hormuz.html

This was published in the Atlantic by one of the top neocons;

Even the threat of terrorism from the region was a consequence of American involvement, not the reason for it. Had the United States not been deeply and consistently involved in the Muslim world since the 1940s, Islamic militants would have little interest in attacking an indifferent nation 5,000 miles and two oceans away. Contrary to much mythology, they have hated us not so much because of “who we are” but because of where we are. In Iran’s case, the United States was deeply involved in its politics from the 1950s until the 1979 revolution, including as the main supporter of the brutal regime of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. The surest way of avoiding Islamist terrorist attacks would have been to get out.

It looks sad :/

A CH-47 was reportedly struck by a drone in Kuwait yesterday.

AI’s fluency in other languages hides a Western worldview that can mislead users − a scholar of Indonesian society explains

A friend in Indonesia recently told me about a conversation he had with ChatGPT. He had typed a question in Indonesian – Bahasa Indonesia – about how to handle a difficult family dispute. The chatbot responded fluently, in perfect Indonesian, with advice about communication strategies and conflict resolution. The grammar was flawless. The tone was appropriate. And yet something felt off.

What the AI offered was advice rooted in American cultural assumptions: prioritize your own preferences, communicate directly, and if family members don’t respect your boundaries, consider cutting them off.

The response was in Indonesian but shaped by values that centered individual autonomy over the consensus-building, social harmony and collective family dynamics that tend to matter more in Indonesian social life.

My friend was skeptical enough to notice the mismatch and mention it to me. Many users might not. That is what prompted my research, published in the International Review of Modern Sociology, into a pattern I found across major AI systems: Even when they were fluent in several languages, the language models retained their Western worldview. I call this “epistemological persistence.”

Epistemicide - whether intentional done by specific actors or through the logics of Capital, has been a pivotal part of Western culture. Which is why Malaysia had invested in developing a fully indigenous LLM.

https://xcancel.com/HormuzLetter/status/2040256730785804792#m

BREAKING: A massive line of US Air Force C-17 transport aircraft is currently crossing the Atlantic toward the Middle East, alongside KC-135 refueling tankers. A second wave is already over Europe heading for the eastern Mediterranean. C-17s carry troops, armored vehicles and heavy equipment. This is the largest visible airlift movement since the war began.

The Doomsday Plane landed at Andrews tonight for a reason. This may be it.

MORE: The second wave of C-17 transports is crossing the UK and Europe toward the Middle East right now. The downed F-15E was based at RAF Lakenheath in the UK, the only European country still actively supporting US combat operations.

Also https://xcancel.com/HormuzLetter/status/2040242809135849670#m

BREAKING: The US Air Force E-4B “Nightwatch,” also known as the Doomsday Plane, has just landed at Joint Base Andrews outside Washington. The aircraft is the military’s airborne nuclear command post. It departed from Omaha, home of US Strategic Command. The President is at the White House with his national security team. Press conferences have been cancelled.

Is the Easter invasion happening?

Futures selling off now. Traders deciding they didn’t like what they heard

Full text of a letter from the Iranian President to the American people

From account close to Tehran—not saying it’s correct, but it’s the first real colour we’re getting on what any interim Hormuz reopening during the ceasefire could look like:

"During the two-week 'ceasefire,' only about 10 to 15 ships will be permitted to pass through the Strait of Hormuz with Iran's approval, in coordination with the IRGC Navy and after payment of tolls, and the United States is committed to releasing all of Iran's frozen assets. The Strait of Hormuz will by no means be 'open' in its previous form, even after a final agreement. In addition, the United States has committed to refraining from any troop movements during this period. During this time, negotiations will be held based on Iran's 10-point plan, details of which are referenced in the statement of the Supreme National Security Council. In the event of no agreement, the war will resume."

Relative to the pre-war pace of 100-120 ships a day, this would constitute a crack in the door and hardly a proper reopening.

https://x.com/Rory_Johnston/status/2041690418216051038

If this is indeed the case, that would be a good sign, the fact that Iran can dictate Hormuz traffic like that. Around ~9 days of usual Hormuz oil traffic (~180 million barrels) is sitting on water, waiting to go out. It will be interesting to see how many Iran allows through.

Journalist: Are you prepared to be nuked by Israel?

Iranian Governor of the Hormuzgan province: We might have a surprise for them

Link

Shooting by Israel-backed group at a shelter in Gaza is followed by an Israeli strike, killing 8 - AP update

An Israel-backed armed group in Gaza kidnapped children from a school-turned-shelter on Monday, according to a witness, after which Israel launched an airstrike on the site, health authorities said. The Israeli military had no response when reached for comment. An anti-Hamas Palestinian group called Abu Nusseirah posted on social media that they killed five Hamas fighters at the shelter in Maghazi.

An elderly displaced woman sheltering at the school told the AP that dozens of men stormed the site, clashed with people there and forced kids — including girls — into vehicles. Speaking anonymously for fear of reprisals, she said her son was killed in the fighting. Bodies were taken to al-Aqsa hospital, where health officials said some had been killed in an Israeli airstrike on the school after the clashes. AP footage showed dozens of mourners gathered at the morgue.

Many displaced Palestinians say they fear the Iran war has overshadowed Gaza’s dire humanitarian situation.

That's the NYT updates page. I've never seen clocks before on any site's live updates page. I wonder if the paper is expecting American ground troops will soon enter the war.

الله أكبر!!!

https://t.me/iswnews_en/18133

🇮🇷/🇺🇸🇦🇪 American company Oracle struck in response to the assassination of Dr. Kharrazi and his wife

📢 IRGC Public Relations:

▪️In the name of Allah, the Breaker of the tyrants "So whoever has assaulted you, then assault him in the same way that he has assaulted you"* (Quran 2:194)

🟡As we had warned, in response to the assassination of Iranian figures, we target espionage companies in the fields of information technology and artificial intelligence—pillars of the enemy's terrorist operations. Following the destruction of the cloud computing infrastructure of the American company Amazon in retaliation for the assassination of General Fathalizadeh, today the data center and computing infrastructure of the American company Oracle, based in the UAE, was struck in response to the assassination of Dr. Kharrazi and his wife.

🟡Should the crimes be repeated and another assassination occur, the next company should be ready to receive a decisive response.

And victory is only from Allah, the Mighty, the Wise.

The Banque de France (BdF) announced last week that it generated a capital gain of €12.8 billion after upgrading 129 tonnes of gold – about 5 percent of France's total reserves – between July 2025 and January 2026. The gold was the last of the French reserves held in New York. It was replaced with the equivalent amount bought in Europe and held in Paris.

Probably just a coincidence given the timing, but France now no longer has any gold held in the United States. Italy and Germany still do, but the French are once again leading the euro-pack in terms of semi-autonomy from the American empire.

Per https://www.rfi.fr/en/france/20260404-french-central-bank-nets-%E2%82%AC13bn-from-us-gold-sale-consolidates-reserves-in-paris

https://xcancel.com/cayko24022022/status/2039266205018579130

The situation in Southern Lebanon has reached an absolutely critical state for Israel. Yesterday their frontline collapsed with Hezbollah recapturing large urban settlements despite IDF reinforcements being brought in. Difficult choices will have to be made. Namely, I’m talking about refocusing their efforts from striking Iran to striking Hezbollah from the air. The IAF has always been Israel’s greatest asset (their ground forces are pretty shit). Without air support, the IDF is totally hopeless in Southern Lebanon. If of course this doesn’t happen, than Hezbollah will continue firing rockets into Israel, Iron Dome interceptors will eventually run out (they will last longer than the ABM shield but not that long) and the IAF will be forced to act anyway.

https://x.com/MarkTMcDevitt/status/2039434148364882156

Two helicopters also took part in the search and rescue mission and successfully retrieved the F-15E pilot who had ejected, officials said. The helicopter carrying the recovered pilot was hit by small arms fire, wounding crew members on board, according to the officials, who said the helicopter landed safely. All service members are receiving initial medical treatment and will be transported for further medical care.

per CBS: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/american-fighter-jet-f15e-downed-over-iran/

Small arms fire against SAR helicopters actually causing casualties.