The Dark PLA only has until 2027 when Xi completes his Guan Yu Gundam and is able to liberate the Mao Gong ding currently stored in the National Palace Museum in Taipei, which will grant him youthful life for ten thousand years.

Yeah obvious nonsense, the article also assumes there was another attempted coup in 2024 which is also uhhhh obviously not true.

This is the Spectator (cognitohazard warning) so take it with a giant grain of salt, but:

According to unconfirmed reports, General Zhang Youxia, China’s vice-chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC), sent a company of troops (over a hundred or more) to the government’s Yingxi Hotel in western Beijing on January 18. Their mission was to arrest Xi Jinping. A few hours before, the Chinese president – alerted by an informant – set in motion countermeasures. Troops under the command of Cao Qi, head of Xi’s Central Guards Bureau, ambushed Zhang’s soldiers. In the ensuing gunfight at Yangxi Hotel, nine guards were reportedly killed along with dozens of Zhang Youxia’s soldiers. Throughout China, military movements have been banned and troops and officers have been confined to barracks. This is the bloodiest of a blizzard of rumors that have swept the internet over the weekend. If true, this is the most dramatic military scandal since the death of Mao Zedong’s army chief Lin Biao in 1972.

This reads as fanfiction to me, but there is clearly something going on with Xi's purging of the PLA's high command. Still way too early to know what (if anything) this means, or why this was done, but the rumour mill is certainly churning. That said, I was in Shanghai for the last two weeks and the vibes were totally normal. All this activity though right on the eve of the supposed 2027 date espoused by US intelligence as the cut off point for a favorable outcome for the United States in a war around Taiwan (analysis with imo is far too optimistic for the Americans, that date should've probably been something like 2020 at best) is rather... interesting. I was always of the opinion that China would never make an overt move for Taiwan, but the world has shifted dramatically in the last few years, and the room for military maneuver is wide. Both of the other two great powers (Russia and the US) have already done large scale military operations. Will China take advantage of that space and have their own Special Military Operation, as a treat? Still so much uncertainty, but I think the portends are signalling that sooner or later they will.

Per https://archive.ph/yJLjx

The vibes are off folks. 2026 is gonna be a hell of a year. Feels like we're deep in the shit, 1937-type Nazi Germany seizing Czechoslovakia and Japan about to formally invade China, with no off ramp or end in sight, and nobody opposing any of it. I really have no idea what's gonna happen next, but there is a major shift underway. Another Israeli strike on Iran feels appropriate, they're usually quick to get in on any action, but who knows what this year has in store for all of us.

Yedioth Ahronoth, citing Israeli officials, says that Israel will 'immediately accept' a ceasefire if Iran proposes it.

Right on schedule, the Israelis are now saying they'll accept a ceasefire with Iran if Iran agrees. These strikes were merely the off ramp to allow Israel to exit a disastrous miscalculation. We'll see if Iran gives them the out, or decides to commit and punish the Israelis and Americans while they have they reeling.

Given the mood of the Iranian people, even if the government wanted a ceasefire I don't think they can. The time for talk is long past. Israel finally bit off something they can't chew up.

Very telling that the United States has evacuated all its aircraft from bases within striking distance of Iran's missiles, but not any of its soldiers. Tells you everything you need to know about their priorities.

Wow, I can't believe they build 10,000 new apartments just for show so they can take tourists on tours through all 10,000 empty apartments and that they 100% will not use these to house citizens, crazy that it's all just fake. Just shows you how crazy the North Korea gommunist regime is.

Nothing Ever Happens meets Trump 2.0. Honestly this is beautiful stuff, Trump blowing up the Atlantic alliance because of the Mercator Projection. Gerardus Mercator, welcome to the Resistance.

Some pretty wild footage. The prison Luigi is being held at has the inmates in uproar, and they basically do a live television interview about Luigi's prison conditions. The news anchor is able to interview inmates live because they're just shouting across the fence; lots of chants of "Free Luigi." Luigi is probably already 50% of the way there to leading a prison riot. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCml-w9MQ7Y

Just want to point out that whoever the person is that killed the healthcare CEOscum absolutely knew what they were doing. Today is the tree lighting in Rockefeller Center, so there's a fuck ton of tourists out. They knew that the best way to get around the city is on bike, which they used to flee the scene right into Central Park. You can get there way faster on bike than anything else. And they knew that in Central Park, specifically in the forested area of the Ramble, there are few cameras and many places to hide where they could change clothes and then blend back in with the massive crowds hitting the city today. Also apparently used a suppressed pistol, and knew exactly which door the CEO would be coming out of/when to be there. Impressive. I don't think it's outside the realm of possibility that this assassin gets away with this. Trump assassins take notes.

Please Israel please invade Ireland please god it'd be so fucking funny if Israel tried to invade Ireland I will personally join the Irish Army just to fight Israel and draw so many stupid resources away from Palestine into some ridiculous Irish quagmire please Israel please

I mean the obvious answer to this nerd is that the world of Dune is distinctly not capitalist. The empire is a feudal institution, planets are personal fiefdoms, and all those in positions of power are not concerned with capital or money so much as they are prestige and power. The spice trade on Arrakis is more similar to something like the Chinese imperial salt monopoly (a state backed monopoly where most of the rents were used to fund the imperial coffers) than resource extraction under capitalism, albeit a Chinese salt monopoly that involved the Chinese colonising a distant land and using it for the sole purpose of salt extraction. The state in Dune is not concerned with capital formation or expansion, the nobles are not concerned, and while there are certainly merchants and traders (as there are in most polities) they are tangential to how the system operates and are not the ones who determine state policy. A "real universe" does not imply that capitalism exists in all places at all times, this guy is just too enmeshed in capitalist realism to understand that the kind of stuff he's saying only makes sense in a capitalist context.