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Monday’s Forum
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35 responses to “Monday’s Forum”
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More on Iran, another perspective:
I don’t always agree with this guy, but this is interesting.
Is Trump poised to restart the Iran war?
Tehran believes Trump will attack in the next 48 hours – and is ready to counter-escalate
The Middle East is once again teetering on the brink as Trump appears poised to reignite war with Iran. Press reports indicate he will convene military advisers on Tuesday, though my understanding is that both the meeting and the decision are likely to come sooner. Over the past several hours, Trump has flooded Truth Social with a barrage of incendiary threats. While some of this may be theatrical brinkmanship designed to force Tehran into submission, sources in the Iranian capital tell me they expect the United States to resume hostilities within the next 48 hours
ETA: Plucking out a couple of paragraphs:
Tehran is likely to target American data centers in the UAE, a move that serves multiple purposes. Iranian officials argue that these American technology firms have already become participants in the conflict through their support for the Pentagon. At the same time, Tehran sees an opportunity to cripple the UAE’s ambitions to become a global artificial intelligence hub — and, in doing so, potentially undermine Washington’s AI competition with China.
This points to a second defining feature of Iran’s strategy in a future war. Tehran believes Trump and his family hold financial stakes in many of these same technology ventures. Targeting Trump’s personal business interests is a lever Iran conspicuously avoided pulling during the first conflict but now appears increasingly willing to use. The logic is straightforward: Trump may tolerate damage to American strategic interests, but he is acutely sensitive to threats against his own financial empire. Raise the personal cost to Trump himself, the reasoning goes, and he may prove more willing to adopt a realistic negotiating position.
and this:
Finally, Tehran is increasingly examining the possibility of severing the major submarine fiber-optic cable networks running beneath the Persian Gulf — arteries through which most GCC internet traffic flows, including billions of dollars in financial transactions. Iranian officials increasingly view this as a potential second Strait of Hormuz: a powerful new point of leverage capable of disrupting the global economy at enormous scale.
China is possibly not terribly anxious to restrain Iran.
Thanks a whole bunch, MAGA chud voters.
ETA: I like that bit about attacking the Trump family’s financial targets, make the Trump piggies squeal.
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The average Trump Job Disapproval rate on RCP has finally broken below 40%.
https://www.realclearpolling.com/polls/approval/donald-trump/approval-rating
The spread between Approval and Disapproval is almost at a high.
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@Scott:
Several interesting polls at this, YouGov etc.
https://balloon-juice.com/2026/05/18/monday-morning-open-thread-105/
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@Scott:
Polls have been finally, actually dropping after many false starts loudly proclaimed by Meidas Touch etc. Nate has him 20 points underwater for the first time. Depending on your favorite aggregator Trump is at 37-38.5%. Not a collapse, but he’s getting close to the 35% I guessed was his rock bottom. Dare we hope for low 30’s? High 20’s? A boy can dream. -
An appearance on the world stage reminds everyone that Trump is an imbecile who desperately wants to claim friendship with guys like Xi and Putin who have a gravitas he will never have. When world leaders gather there is a dignity of appearance that stands in stark contrast to an old, mildly obese man with teased platinum hair, half a pound of bronzer, and an ill-fitting suit. The photos beg for the caption: Who does not belong in this picture?
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Back at work after my first tranche of vacation…
I spent a considerable time with LLMs. no, I’m not going soft. remember, I find them useful for finding specific info. So it began with trying to locate the means for booting the laptop from the USB port (to reformat it*). Then the same for the old desktop. Then some difficulty I had with my resurrected Vista PC**. And then it veered into old tech.
I found the sycophancy amusing. All my ideas are great (even as it explains many won’t ever work, like running Win10 in the old PC, or downgrading it to XP), I was past the bleeding edge of internet connectivity, my configuration of Win10/11 is the bestest in the world.
It was nice to reminisce about old tech with something that didn’t need explanations, like what is telnet, or a BBS, or the Cleveland Freenet, or a DOS batch file (technically a *.BAT file), or that early Windows was a DOS shell and not an OS (and even the late, great Win95 was merely a GUI rather than an OS).
Other than that, I rested. I didn’t even cook anything fancy.
* Found I don’t need to. What slowed it down massively was the Win10 updates. Since I haven’t set it to receive updates for this year, yet, it runs rather well.
** It hit me, while looking around the old files and software, the thing is nearly 10 years old (it was made in 2007). Yet it’s about as capable for most everyday tasks as a new machine. Slow, yes, but it was slow when it was new. and I assume it won’t run some software. But for email, web, Word (2007) and Excel (2007), it works just fine.
You know I found it has RealAudio installed? I’m sure if I connected to the internet, the bookmarks in the Firefox browser would include TUCOWS and maybe even GeoCities.
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We keep saying that Putin has Gravitas, and I guess in the eyes of his actual citizens he may still be seen as a man with gravitas, but man, his image as an untouchable assassin who could reach out and take out anyone he pleases, whether his target was in London, or a neighboring state of Russia, or send in his feared troops and arms to help a friend in another country put down an uprising has been rather tarnished as of late.
He had to scale back a Victory Parade, and his lashing out at this by attacking Ukraine shortly thereafter with drones and missiles did not do nearly as much damage as he had hoped. He is back to biding his time and waiting for yet another winter in which he can try to cut off the electricity to Ukrainian citizens and hope that this hardship does them in.
This will be his what, fifth bite at the apple to try and inflict enough misery on Ukrainians to get them to turn on Zelensky. The years are getting longer and longer for Putin and one wonders if when the war hits the 5 year mark starting the path towards the 10 year mark, if Russians will finally have had enough of Putin’s dreams of grandeur that sees a Russian Empire from the farthest edges of Russia to the farthest edges of Europe.
Also, sigh…I fully expect President Trump to once again “unleash hell” on Iran but I also expect that Iran will indeed target data centers and the like. Trump has shown no interest in following the usual rules of war and primarily targeting military targets while doing his best to avoid civilian casualties.
The general reaction of folks in the U.S. to the schoolgirl massacre that shit happens tells the Iranians all they need to know about how we feel about the U.S. hitting targets that pretty much impact civilians and have no high military value other than the target being an object to destroy and inflict pain on every day Iranians going about their business. Data centers in the region and the like are very much going to be seen as legitimate targets by the Iranian ruling party.
We do live in interesting times, but in the U.S. and abroad companies still need talent and my brother was able to resign from one high paying job in the Bay Area to jump to another with a company that has two primary locations in Singapore and Australia (the primary HQ). They bought him a very expensive ticket to fly to Singapore and then to Australia to help get him onboarded. Then he heads back to where he lives in the Bay Area and works for the most part as a remote employee.
I guess my point is that the world keeps spinning and things are “normal” enough for most folks that it makes it easy to not pay as much attention to Ukraine and Iran as we should which unfortunately helps to prolong these conflicts.
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@CSK: It’s astonishing (in a bad way). He’s dropping the self-enriching lawsuit, in favor of a slush fund for his most ardent supporters. It’s jaw-dropping.
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We do live in interesting times, but in the U.S. and abroad companies still need talent and my brother was able to resign from one high paying job in the Bay Area to jump to another with a company that has two primary locations in Singapore and Australia (the primary HQ). They bought him a very expensive ticket to fly to Singapore and then to Australia to help get him onboarded. Then he heads back to where he lives in the Bay Area and works for the most part as a remote employee.
That remote work might get dicey if Iran takes out the subsea internet cables in the Strait of Hormuz.
My son (he is an IT professional) was working remote from my guest house and found my internet provider not fast enough, although it is super fast in the main house. So he is getting his own internet from Cox Cable while I get mine from Wyyerd.
ETA: This, even though the guest house is hard-wired to the main house with ethernet cable.
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@Kathy:
He has never explained to me what his job actually consists of, but I am pretty sure it is just computer stuff, nothing to do with finance.
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@CSK: @Jen:
“His most ardent supporters” will do the Trump enrichment for him. Obviously, direct theft from the government he controls into his coffers is more efficient. But, voters may notice and that would be “awkward.” Trump’s dupes will still give him his billions through crypto investments, Trump coins & passports, etc. and they will do it willingly – it may take longer, but he’s confident he’ll be able to keep it up once he’s out of office. -
@Jen: Jaw dropping for sure, especially in the utterly shameless ‘defense’ of yet another frivolous Trump lawsuit by Blanche & Associates, LLC, formerly known as the Department of Justice. The suit would have been dismissed on a 12(b)(6) motion if Blanche & Assoc. had filed one – “failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted.” The judge had set a May 20th deadline for the parties to brief the issue of how the President can, in essence, file a suit against himself seeking tax payer money, hence the urgency to settle. A legitimate DoJ would have, at the very least, argued that the president, in his personal capacity, cannot sue the government he presides over until he is out of office.* One doesn’t have to have a law degree to see the raging conflict of interest there. This may be the biggest grift of them all, and it is wrong wrong WRONG! Where’s Congress regarding the potential theft of almost $2B in tax payer money? And the attorney discipline authorities need to step up with some consequences for the lawyers who participated in this sham.
*Trump could re-file and have Blanche as his lawyer….again.
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@CSK: You know, I saw this a couple days ago. Only now do I have the idea that this is another Potemkin press release. I very seriously doubt that anybody will be able to collect any of this money. Unless Trump says they do because favors, etc. That might be a thing. But nobody collects from it, but this won’t be realized until after the midterms.
But we make a big press release about it because we see that otherwise, the lawsuit isn’t going anywhere.
But again, maybe they already knew that the lawsuit wouldn’t go anywhere, and just wanted the press from that, too.
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My new passport arrived in the mail. It was a basic renewal—no change of information, not expedited—and the process took less than four weeks from online application to passport in hand. And no picture of Kim Jong Un’s lover (which was supposed to be limited to some in-person DC applications) or any other surprises.
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Oh, ok. I’ve read a lot about people in finance, particularly stock traders, who super-optimize internet connections to microseconds, as even a delay that short can marginally affect the price one gets or pays for a stock.
Maybe he’s just impatient at large downloads, then, or has lag in online meetings.
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Yesterday, I checked and discovered that Trump’s current approval ratings according to RCP’s average are significantly worse than they were at this point in his first term (May 2018):
This point in his first term: 43.3% approve, 52.3% disapprove (-9)
His approval on RCP now: 40.1% approve, 56.9% disapprove (-16.8)A few months ago this wasn’t the case. His approval ratings were bad, but slightly better than they had been at the same point in his first term.
But one thing that has been distinctly noticeable for a while is how much his approval numbers on the economy–which had been break-even to positive during his entire first term–utterly collapsed in about mid- to late-2025 and have not recovered. He was disliked for reasons other than the economy. That is no longer the case.
This should mean Republicans are in for a bigger walloping than they took in 2018. But it’s hard to know how much the uber-gerrymandering and vote suppression will come into play. Also, the post-election narratives are often flawed in how they read the results. Let’s say Dems enjoy a net gain of 25 seats in the House. That might seem relatively modest compared to their 40-seat gain in 2018. But since they’re starting off with more seats, they’d end up with a bigger majority than the one they acquired in 2018. The focus in most midterm analysis is on number of seats gained, when total number of seats possessed at the end is at least as important.
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@CSK:
@Jay L. Gischer:It will perhaps be the fund the Jan 6 criminals will use to pay for their pardons. So why give them money so they can give it to El Taco? Far more efficient if he just keeps it.
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That remote work might get dicey if Iran takes out the subsea internet cables in the Strait of Hormuz.
The undersea cable maps for the internet backbone look like the big pipe in that area goes from Africa to India under the Arabian Sea. The Persian Gulf looks like a stub. Might suck to be one of the Arab Gulf states if Iran starts cutting cables.
I’d expect most traffic between the US West Coast and either Singapore or Australia to use Pacific cables, though.
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Thanks, subsea cables are not something I know anything about, obviously. Like, I didn’t even know Pacific cables existed.
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@Jen:
Bits of that $1.8 billion payoff may go to those J6 thugs who remained loyal to Trump. They got tried, convicted, and sentenced during the Biden admin. I suppose that might to them appear as mistreatment.
In any case, Trump will pocket the lion’s share, of course.
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Re: Trump Slush Fund: My expectation is that those applying for that cash will be encouraged to donate some portion to one of the many corrupt Trump schemes. This will look like the DEI/Gaza protest payouts he demanded, but this time aimed squarely at his most ardent supporters. Many of them will be happy to oblige – after all, what’s $50k when you’re getting $1M back? – but a lot of them don’t have the up-front funds and will be left out.
Add “recovering literally billions of taxpayer dollars from a corrupt scheme” to the list of things Democrats can run on in the fall.
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Elon Musk loses lawsuit against OpenAI
In a unanimous verdict, the jury in Oakland, California federal court said Musk had brought his case too late. -
Here is another item reporting on the failure of the Musk lawsuit v. Altman and OpenAI. This story mentions that the jury was composed of nine citizens.
I know that juries in civil suits can be less than twelve jurors depending on state laws. My only experience with jury size came about 40 years ago when I brought a civil suit against a party. The judge asked if we would agree to fewer than 12 jurors (I believe it was 6) to expedite jury selection.
In this trial a decision by the jury had to be unanimous. I requested 12 jurors.
The trial ended in a hung jury with one juror voting for me.
We found out that the one juror was the last juror who was selected for the panel. Had I agreed to less than 12 jurors I would have lost the case. In the end the other party made a cash offer that I accepted. -
Honestly, I wanted both to lose. But Adolf’s loss is the next best result.
He will likely lose the appeal in the local circuit, and then he’ll have to decide how much to tip the fixers to get his issue fixed. We’ll see.
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https://bsky.app/profile/joshuaholland.bsky.social/post/3mm4v62zas22l
Trump’s finally sending the rubes their golden phones and it looks like they’re obsolete Chinese deals that retail at Walmart for $136.
Trump’s price was $600. if memeory serves.
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Today’s History Lesson
May 18, 1896
Supreme Court rules “separate but equal” constitutional in Plessy v. Ferguson
History.com -
According to the link at the Bluesky post, it’s $500. Which is still a lot for a $120 phone.
Also at the link: “…will undergo a final stage of assembly in Miami, …, but the process will be minimal.”
I think that’s trumpish for “It will get boxed in Miami.”
I’d be impressed if it came with 512 GB storage, and a 50 MP front camera. The iphone 17 promax has only an 18 MP front camera.
Right at the bottom of the piece: “Fans can pre-order the T1 phone with a $100 refundable deposit and lock in the $499 promotional price. The final price hasn’t been released yet, but Trump Mobile has stated it will be higher.”
Are Magats really so stupid they can’t buy a $120 phone for $120 and have any AI generate a Taco wallpaper, or even copy whatever wallpaper ships out with the scam phone?
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@charontwo:
Equally interesting, someone tried hard to pin down the 600,000 estimate for the number of deposits for the phone ended up at a meme account on X (formerly Twitter) known for making sh*t up. The quote was passed around by some of the global mainstream media, eventually with all the identifying information filed off.
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