On this 18th anniversary of the day the "end of history" died, the US is still at war. The war is still a hot one (archived).
Category Archives: Altcoins
MIT Media Lab Haunted By Epstein
MIT Media Lab director Joi Ito is out after revelations that the late Pantsuitist Jeffery Epstein was intimately involved with the lab and the extent of the relationship has been actively concealed (archived). Shortly before Epstein's death the late Marvin Minsky of MIT was one of the names loudly declared in the press as a beneficiary of Epstein's networking.
Macri Begins Implementing Capital Controls As Foreign Currency Reserves Exhaust
Three weeks after the prospect of a Kirchner-Fernandez government gutted the value of the Argentine peso, current Argentine president Macri's increasingly Kirchner-esque response to the crisis has hit a new milestone (archived). The current regime has declared Argentinos may buy no more than 10,000 USD in a month and that businesses in Argentina submit their USD purchase plans to the government lest they are determined to be "hoarding" USD.
This comes after Argentina has spent 21 days actively fighting the market and exhausting its foreign currency reserves by trying to prop up the Peso Argentina's value near 60 to the USD when the market clearly understands that the Peso Argentino's value should be far lower. The remaining reserves nominally belonging to the Argentine Central Bank are encumbered as collateral for loans and almost certain to be forfeited in the coming default.
Meanwhile, publications in the Northern Argentina calling itself the US lead by Forbes had been running pieces written by Peronists explaining why Argentina can't be in as bad of a position as its behavior is forcing it into (archived). At last they had been until today when they had to admit currency controls are back.
Pantsuit Social Engineers Begin Calling For Invasion Of Brazil Over Seasonal Wildfires
Leftist climate stooge Franklin Foer wrote a piece in The Atlantic calling for military intervention in Brazil with the aim of usurping democratically elected President Jair Bolsonaro and seizing control of the Brazilian Amazon for an ambiguously defined "international community" (archived). Last year US-based left/Pantsuits attempted to interfere in Brazil's internal politics in the run up the the presidential election with both the New York Times and Facebook attempting to prevent Bolsonaro's democratic election.
This year, for what appear to be entirely pantsuitist political reasons, the popular media in the US and Europe have decided to panick over seasonal wildfires in the remote Amazon. European Pantsuitist leaders, citing data from Brazil's own satellites, are derailing a pending EU-Mercosur trade deal over the wildfires constituting a violation of some sort of "environmental commitments" Brazil agreed to. Other European governments including Norway's pre-emtively stopped sending Brazil aid dollars before Bolsonaro's government could attempt to mobilizing a fire fighting and containment response.
As of press time there has been no organized outrage or regime change efforts over the far more numerous wild fires currently burning in Angola under the government of João Lourenço nor the Congo under Félix Tshisekedi's government. For some reason the similarly patterned seasonal wildfires afflicting the Bolivian Amazon under the government of Evo Morales don't appear to merit calls for regime change from the "international community" either. The wildfires that routinely sweep populated areas of California including last year's Malibu blaze, where far more logistical support is available to firefighting operations than the remote Amazon, also somehow failed to produce calls for deposing the Californian government.
Brazil has a population of more than 200 million people, a space program, and is a net exporter of military technology to the United States.
Impotent USG Unseals "Warrant" For Liberated Iranian Tanker
The USG has unsealed the "warrant" it issued for the seizure of the Iranian tanker released by Gibraltar yesterday. Far more interesting than the unsealed warrant is the press release announcing the unsealing of the warrant which is at the same time triumphantly self congratulating while including one very important caveat, bolded in the text of the press release reproduced below:
WASHINGTON – A seizure warrant and forfeiture complaint were unsealed today in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia alleging that Oil Tanker “Grace 1,” all petroleum aboard it and $995,000.00 are subject to forfeiture based on violations of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), bank fraud statute, and money laundering statute, as well as separately the terrorism forfeiture statute.
John Demers, Assistant Attorney General, National Security Division, Jessie K. Liu, U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, Steven W. Cagen, Special Agent in Charge, Denver, Colorado, Homeland Security Investigations; and Jill Sanborn, Special Agent in Charge, Minneapolis, Minnesota, Federal Bureau of Investigation, made the announcement.
The documents allege a scheme to unlawfully access the U.S. financial system to support illicit shipments to Syria from Iran by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), a designated foreign terrorist organization. The scheme involves multiple parties affiliated with the IRGC and furthered by the deceptive voyages of the Grace 1. A network of front companies allegedly laundered millions of dollars in support of such shipments.
A seizure warrant and a forfeiture complaint are merely allegations. The burden to prove forfeitability in a civil forfeiture proceeding is upon the government.
In announcing the forfeiture complaint and seizure warrant, U.S. Attorney Liu commended the work of those who investigated the case from HSI and FBI. They also expressed appreciation for the Criminal Division’s Office of International Affairs for its assistance in this case. Finally, they acknowledged the work of Assistant U.S. Attorneys Zia Faruqui and Brian Hudak and National Security Division Trial Attorney David Lim who are handling this matter, with assistance from Paralegal Elizabeth Swinec and Brian Rickers, and Legal Assistant Jessica McCormick from the U.S. Attorney’s Office from the District of Columbia.
As Mircea Popescu very helpfully pointed out yesterday in response to this failure of the USG to impose its will:
get ready for a lot more "over usg objections" once Trilema opened the floodgates.
British Gibraltar Releases Iranian Tanker Over US Objections
The Iranian tanker captured by British forces and held in the Queendom's Gibraltar has been released (archived). The USG tried to intervene by having the US "Department of Justice" file a petition with local authorities to seize the vessel for themselves. That effort failed.
Verizon Unloads Tumblr On Automattic After Value Collapses Under Porn Ban
Nine months after Verizon subsidary1 Tumblr enacted a ban on pornography, Verizon is unloading the troubled property on Automattic (archived). Yahoo purchased Tumblr for 1.1 billion USD in 2013, but rumors and innuendo surrounding the deal suggest a sale price in this deal near the 3 million USD mark with an upper bound on the yet to be disclosed price of 10 million USD. Auttomatic has expressed their intention to continue the insane ban on "adult" content as per their policy of fixing nothing ever.
via Yahoo acquisition ↩
Peso Argentino And Argentine Markets Fall After Primary Elections Give "Peronist" Alberto Fernandez, Cristina Kirchner Margin Sufficient To Win October Ballot Outright
Primary elections in Argentina on Sunday returned results that gave the "Peronist" ticket of Alberto Fernandez and Cristina Kirchner sufficient votes to win the October general election outright if yesterday's performance is repeated. This has been met with a 14.5 percent fall of the Peso Argentino against the USD, while the brief narrowing of the buy/sell spead of the Peso Argentino in Uruguay has been blown open with exchanges in Uruguay advertising spreads as wide as 0.50/1.15 (archived). Argentina's stock market has suffered today as well.
In a development less clearly connected to Argentina's electoral/economic disaster, the twitter account of Prefectura Naval Argentina was "hacked" to broadcast an hoax alert claiming a British missile attack had killed 27. In the incredibly unlikely event a new Falklands conflict opened up again between Argentina and Queen Elizabeth's forces, the largest open question is which of the two combatants declined more in the intervening decades.
DIY "If You Want A Gun You Can Print It" Guru Cody Wilson Pleas And Enters "Sex" Offender Registry
Cody Wilson, the DIY firearms guru trapped in a sex sting by the USG last year has plead to charges of injuring a child, down from charges of sexual assualt initially brought by the USG over an incident where Wilson allegedly paid a sex worker for sex (archived). The plea agreement places Wilson on probation for seven years and requires his registration as a sex offender.
The platform where Wilson was targeted by this underage USG agent required users to attest to being over the age of legal majority creating substantial contrast between this case and that of a certain Conde Nast tech writer.
Israelis Enthusiastically Burning F-35's Stealth Window With Strikes, Now In Iraq
News is emerging that Israel is enthusiastically exploiting the fact they were the first to deploy US made F-35A fighters in combat by launching strikes in Iraq (archived). While the F-35 program has been an absolute boondogle for the US, for Israelis the F-35 program has allowed them to be the first to fly this particular stealth attack aircraft in anger. Doing so they enjoy the advantages of its stealth before the ongoing collection of radar data negates its present advantage over air defense systems.
While the US cut Turkey out of the F-35 program over the NATO ally's purchase of Russian made S-400 missiles fearing Turkish operation of the jets near Turkish radar pickets will generate Russian data allowing better identification of the F-35 as an air defense target, Israel's ongoing airstrikes on foreign soil are generating the same sort of data and incentivising the development of F-35 countermeasures. With the problems everyone else is having bringing their F-35's operational, it is possible the Israelis may be the only ones to enjoy use of the F-35 as a steath aircraft. Once again history rhymes.
20 years of development time and 1.5 trillion USD in IOUs burned so some Jews can bomb some warehouses in the desert.