Corresponding with the last post of notes from the war, we really enjoyed this reading from Better Living through Beowulf through the lens of Catch-22 of Trump’s Iran adventure. The amoral deal-maker 1LTC Milo Minderbinder is the foil to Joseph Heller’s protagonist CPT John Yossarian as the chief mess officer whose single-minded focus on profit and complete lack of self-awareness drives him to make black market transactions with any side that will allow him to expand the operation of his Syndicate, a one-man operation of which Minderbinder claims all are stakeholders. 
Eventually these escalating trades lead to contracting missions for the German enemy and bombing the American base (like the blowback for the Gulf states hosting US assets or the hollow promises to support Iranian protestors rallying for regime change) where Minderbinder and his squadron are stationed, and though court-martialled for treason for this, he is ultimately acquitted by a congressional committee, with the help of an expensive legal team, absolving his betrayal when it was disclosed how lucrative the business of playing both sides was, convincing the legislators that it was capitalism that makes America great, paraphrasing Calvin Coolidge’s axiom that the business of government is business. Whilst the are parallels certainly in the crassness of Trump’s behaviour and self-enrichment through market manipulation and insider trading (or miraculously cleaning up the mess of high gas prices and crippling inflation just in time for the mid-terms) without regard to putting lives at risk or the global economy in shambles, these very foreseeable consequences of his actions are not the actions of a skilled businessman—just the opposite in his unreflective greed and toolish idiocy–and whatever intent is behind them, like de-sanctioning Russian and Iranian oil to alleviate supply pressures, the formerly illicit petroleum being traded in yuan and not the dollar as the reserve currency. More from Robin Bates at the link above.
Saturday, 28 March 2026
milo minderbinder (13. 304)
sitrep and scuttlebutt (13. 303)
Daily digest notwithstanding, our gratitude to Web Curios for the recommendation to read a piece that’s been making the rounds from the third week of the war with some postcards from the front—given the propensity for the platform to amplify and enable actual Nazis and the pace of change, we skipped it—that is a fairly good distillation of how the Israeli-US attack on Iran is playing out including America’s anti-strategy and rapid fire contradictions that even predates the phantom peace talks and Persian TACO.
From Friday’s press gaggle [20 March]. Barely exaggerated: at 12:03 PM, President Trump told reporters he wanted a ceasefire with Iran. At 12:05 he declared victory. At 12:07 he announced he was sending Marines. At 12:08 he said no boots on the ground. At 12:11 he said he did not want a ceasefire. At 12:16 he declared victory again. At 12:17 he asked for a ceasefire. At 12:23 he told NATO they were cowards. At 12:29 he said Iran was begging for a ceasefire. At 12:31 he said everything was perfect. At 12:36 he said $500 oil was a good thing. At 12:37 he demanded Iran open Hormuz. At 12:39 he said Hormuz was never closed. At 12:41 he said the US was not at war with Iran. At 12:42 he declared victory in Iran. A perfect encapsulation of the concept of Poe’s law—satire requires a degree of hyperbole and whilst there’s some register of editorialised snark, events are presented without embellishment as everything is already saturated in absurdity. The geographic lessons of geopolitics are presented as is the concept of a plan to capture Kharg Island, de-sanctioning Russian and Iranian oil and how the retreat of the US navy’s flagship aircraft carrier was tracked by a sailor deciding to take a jog around the deck and more. Be sure to read the next instalment.
day twenty-nine (13. 302)
Houthi forces have launched missiles into Israeli territory and explosions were heard in Damascus. Iranian drones attacked the Prince Sultan Airbase in Al Kharj, damaging several refuelling aircraft and severely injuring a dozen US troops following reports that the Saudi government is urging Trump to continue the war. Iranian nuclear facilities again came under attack, including a deuterium complex and a yellowcake uranium enrichment plant. Intelligence suggests that Russia is working to replenish Iran’s drone and ballistic missile stocks, returning some of the munitions and supplying new ones from the Iranian surplus used in prosecuting its war on Ukraine. Only seen in the news lately following a ruling that he had mislead investors during his hostile take over of the microblogging platform Twitter, for some reason Elon Musk was included on a call with Trump to India’s president Narendra Modi earlier in the week about ending the conflict in the Middle East. 
one year ago: more on Fermi’s paradox (with synchronopticรฆ), embroidery artist Tomoko Kubo, introspective descriptors plus Chinese gaslighting
Friday, 27 March 2026
random landing (13. 301)
Via the always excellent Web Curios, we are directed to the now occasional blog that visits a point in the contiguous states in the USA and reports back on the geographic features, watersheds, human settlements, history, local commerce, culture, etc nearby, emphasising the size of America and the vast sparsely populated places determined by chance selection of longitude and latitude with a certain methodology. Much research and record keeping has gone into these plots, often removed and remote—the middle of nowhere—that limn the nation as a whole spanning from sea to shining sea and inspired us to attempt some flattery for this personal project through imitation.
Throwing a dart at a map of Germany, at coordinates 49.9969614, 8.9482212 we arrived in the cornfield near Nieder-Roden within the urban district of Darmstadt and the municipality of Offenbach and a constituent community of Greater Roden near the city of Heusenstamm, the fiftieth parallel north passing directly through the Pusieaux-Platz in the centre of the borough.
When I lived in Wiesbaden, I recall the state news broadcast featuring a segment—weekly, daily?—called “Dolles Dรถrfer” so called in country dialect that highlighted a village in Hessen, some of which I visited with detours from my usual route.
Divided by thirds, it is approximately equally partitioned amongst human habitation, woodlands and agriculture with a prominent swampland stand of pine forest and was first documented in 791 as Rotaha inferior in the codex of Lorsch. If you live in the lower-48 or elsewhere, this would be a good project to cultivate for one’s own exploration, like our friend Diamond Geezer, virtual or otherwise.
7x7 (13. 300)
reverse game theory: a novel approach to the housing crisis—via Damn Interesting
twen: the publications of art director Willy Fleckhaus
whoami.wiki: a scrapbook and photo album in the form of a personal Wikipedia built with the help of AI
i’d never lend my name to an inferior product: Trump’s signature to appear on hundred dollar bills, a first for a sitting US president
return of the king: Stephen Colbert co-authoring a Lord of the Rings movie, possibly featuring the character of Tom Bombadil
the red book of bath: a unique civil administration almanac—via Strange Company
laissez-faire: a modest proposal from John Maynard Keynes to solve unemploymentby burying money under landfills
day twenty-eight (13. 299)
Despite the veracity of the claims, Iran we think has no appetite to work with the same negotiators, Kusher and Witkoff, who orchestrated all the previous rounds when, resulting in last year’s attack on Iranian nuclear research facilities (now cited as a casus belli) and lately all out war (which led to the closure of shipping lanes) rather than achieving any semblance of cooperation or compromise. Meanwhile the Houthi militia in Yemen seem to be plotting opening up another front in the war by seizing control of Bab-el-Mandeb (Gate of Grief, the strait that links the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden, fed by the Suez canal and the Indian Ocean. Bombardment and counterstrikes continue.
one year ago: assorted links to revisit (with synchronopticรฆ) plus a German colonial holding in the Americas
Thursday, 26 March 2026
w97m.melissa (13. 298)
Released into the wild on this day in 1999, the destructive macrovirus whose vector was infected email Word documents that propagated itself through accessing its victims’ Outlook address book established the articles of faith in cyber-security that are still prescribed to today of not clicking on unsolicited links, opening attachments and that Windows OS was and remains an open-target for hacking despite the fact that Apple operating systems are not immune. Contemporary IT support reckoned that the Melissa virus cost hundreds of millions in man hours to contain damages and rebuild email servers, posted to a pornographic newsgroup by a hacker with the monicker Kwyjibo which quickly spread to corporate networks. Lingering and still actively trying to exploit vulnerabilities since paved over with multiple software patches to achieve herd immunity, it was the fastest spreading email worm.
hypothecated tax (13. 297)
Though the US air travel industry faces chaos and imminent collapse as the government shutdown of a single agency, the Department of Homeland Security to force reform in enforcement practises, surpassing a month in duration—ICE agents themselves unaffected by the lapse in appropriations and the insertion of untrained helpers, whom are being paid, is only adding injury to insult—with unpaid transportation security agents and screeners unable to keep showing up for work uncompensated, not only unable to afford basic necessities but also fuel for their commute to and from work more costly—there was a funding mechanism outside of congress to specifically pay for the TSA within the massive department created in response to the 9/11 terror attacks.
A service fee of up to eleven dollars was added to the ticket price of each American domestic fight and a pooled airport fee paid by carriers in order to offset costs enhanced flight security—this process of ring-fencing also known as the above, wherein a specific surcharge, say for the flying public, tv taxes to support public broadcasters or historically seaports to fund the navy is earmarked for a specific service rather than directed to the coffers of the general fund. In times of relative stability, this revenue, however, tends to get raided by legislators and put to different use, as was the case with the passenger fee, the funding stream redirected in 2013 to help pay off the national debt, a higher political priority at the time. As the situation worsens for flyers and agents, the money cannot be restored without the intervention of congress, at the same impasse that’s holding up funding, and until compromised is reached—which also requires the approval of the president who has announced refusal to sign any bill into law unless it includes election reform as well—it is likely to only degrade further before it gets better, with more absenteeism, quitting and the summer travel season, including an expected influx of visitors for the World Cup.
