perfect for roquefort cheese

Saturday, 3 January 2026

the technate of north america (13. 054)

Given the recent invasion by the United States on the southern limit of this hypothetical map of a continental federation, a sphere of influence, self-sufficient and only requiring minimum trade with outsiders, aligned with the recently published Trump Corollary, the technocracy movement, founded chiefly by engineer Howard Scott after World War I, flourishing in the minds of many as a genuine alternative political ideology, more popular than fascism or communism, up through the Great Depression and the entry of the US in World War II—though suffering many internecine breakups and dogmatists at odds in the steering committees of the various groups and factions under this umbrella, just like Scott’s own falling out with the unionists and the IWW that first fostered his ideas, has again been garnering attention. Understandably with propagandised charts showing US influence stretching from Greenland to the north, through Panama all the way down to Venezuela, people are worried that Trump may make good on his threats of annexation by force, but Technocracy Incorporated, administered by besuited technocrats with legions of working-class followers, including one chiropractor (a suspect pseudo-science itself) from Regina, Joshua Norman Haldeman, the maternal grandfather of Elon Musk (members were required to adopt numbers in place of names, which may have inspired great-grandson XÆ A-12 as well as other notions of Musk’s), was not premised on utopian technology that would make labour superfluous and end scarcity but rather its opposite, suggesting that progress would never outpace population-growth and that the monetary system needed reform—proposing an energy theory of value to replace the price based systems of economy, privileging exchange and property and believed to perpetuate market inefficiencies. Energy input and output would replace fiat currency as a metric of labour and worth, non-fungible rationed allotments distributed to regulate the flow of energy that could not be bartered outside the system—tied to an individual’s productive credit account—and having an expiration date to discourage hoarding and accumulation of capital, as a form of technological feudalism.

news at eleven (13. 053)

Multiple large explosions registered Saturday just after midnight at the airport of Caracas and a military base within the capital, reportedly destroying the mausoleum housed there of party founder Hugo Chavez, and pre-dawn the White House, via Trump’s social media platform announced a series of airstrikes launched against Venezuela, also claiming that Nicólas Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, were apprehended and removed from the country—apparently by the counter-terrorism unit Delta Force. In the aftermath of the strikes, the president urged his compatriots to resist the imperialist invasion, which hit civilian areas as well as defence infrastructure. Trump’s message also promised a news conference to be held this morning from Mar-a-Lago, his Florida residence, possibly enough time to deliver Maduro to Trump personally.

synchronoptica

one year ago: Foucault’s pendulum (with synchronopticæ), assorted links work revisiting plus US-Cuban relations

twelve years ago: perishable items plus scouring the internet for time-travellers

thirteen years ago: communication infrastructure

fourteen years ago: 2012 and the long-count calendar

fifteen years ago: the US espionage act of 1917 plus US-Norwegian partnership for spy satillites

Friday, 2 January 2026

wall flower (13. 052)

A bit late to the party, World Introvert Day, founded in 2011 by psychologist and author from Heidelberg, Dr Felicitas Heyne, was designated for 2. January to acknowledge the toll that the season of revelry and socialising can take on the quiet ones and as an opportunity to raise awareness for the personality type and the challenges experienced by expectations and conditioning for those who are not shy or anti-social—just mentally exhausted by extroverts—and for introverts to take stock of their unique talents and perspective. Suggested ways of celebrating include leaving everyone alone.

spioenasiesindikaat (13. 051)

Sentenced on this day in 1942 with cumulative incarcerations lasting three hundred years, the Duquesne Spy Ring was the largest espionage case in US history with thirty-three members of a Nazi Germany network of covert agents convicted after a lengthy investigation by the FBI, with a majority of the indicted pleading guilty on all charges and the remaining tried by an American federal district court in Brooklyn. Under the leadership of Frederick “Fritz” Joubert Duquesne, German-Boer mercenary of British extraction and naturalised US citizen, game-hunter (escorting Theodore Roosevelt on safari), journalist, hippopotamus exporter, and escape artist, members of the group were channelled into key administrative positions for counter-intelligence and sabotage, working as anchor restauranteurs, delivery men, power plant workers, and airline stewards, establishing safe-houses and front-companies—but none installed as politicians—to monitor Allied activities. Their operation was uncovered in part by reluctant double-agent William Sebold (Gottlieb Adolf Wilhelm, an engineer and industrialist emigrating to the US after WWI), coerced first by the Gestapo, recruiting the services of other emigres, and then by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, under J Edgar Hoover’s administration. Most were convicted for failing to abide by the Foreign Agents Registration Act and disclose foreign interests—FARA not prohibiting lobbying or any specific activities, it was codified in 1938 primarily to control Nazi propaganda.

synchronoptica

one year ago: the See of St Mark (with synchronopticæ), early eight-bit licensed games plus embroidery journals

thirteen years ago: a numerically unremarkable year plus antique motivational posters

fourteen years ago: future prospects for the Euro currency union plus the history of submarine warfare

sixteen years ago: predictions for 2010

Thursday, 1 January 2026

pale ale (13. 050)

As our faithful chronicler informs, on this day in 1876, the red triangle logo of the Bass & Co became the first colophon to be logged under the 1875 Act to establish a Register of Trade Marks when it came into force on New Year’s Day—which according to company lore, had employees queuing outside bureau offices on New Year’s Eve to be the first—strange for a bank holiday and Public Domain Day, as a demonstration of the brewery’s pioneering prowess in international branding and marketing. The iconic logo, simple yet pervasive, has been featured in over forty works by Pablo Picasso from his Cubist period as well as more contemporarily in James Joyce’s Ulysses, Leopold Bloom noting the triangle in the “Oxen of the Sun” (The Cattle of Helios in the Odyssey) episode and in Édouard Manet’s final painting (see also) Un bar aux Folies Bergère with the beer bottles depicted instantly recognisable and their conspicuous presence interpreted as an allegorical expression of anti-German sentiment following the Franco-Prussian war. Further achievements accomplished under the logo include being among the first corporate sponsors, licensing for production by foreign distributors and the earliest export entrant into the Japanese beer market.

pepperidge farm remembers (13. 049)

With acknowledgment to Tom Whitwell and other franchises that have gotten into the tradition, Nancy Friedman presents fifty two more things she gleaned week by week in 2025. Trivia facts and lessons, among our favourites meriting further investigation were the etymology of plonk—cheap, disappointing wine—coming from British soldiers stationed in France during WWI mispronouncing vin blanc, the Old English term for affable is wordwynsum, the industry awards for excellence in podcasting are called the Ambies—from “ambient sound,” Samuel Clements considered other pseudonyms before settling on Mark Twain, including Rambler and W Epaminondas Adrastus Blab, Elon Musk is named for a character in a novel by Wernher von Braun called Marsprojekt, an orphan-crushing machine is a shorthand term for human interest stories that praise resilience and charity (like retirees working at fast food restaurants or successful funding campaigns to pay for vital medical procedures) that fail to question the underlying societal conditions that make such heroism needed to begin with, the Kellogg’s brand has a rooster for its mascot—connoting a hale and hearty early riser—but also suggested by touring Welsh harpist as ceilog is a homophone for the breakfast cereal magnate and that Goldfish crackers were inspired by zodiacal sign the original Swiss creator’s wife, a Pisces.

the world of 2026 a.d. (13. 048)

Though the time setting for the novel and later screen-play for the film by Thea von Harbou is up for interpretation, having both gone through several rewrites and serialisation prior to and after its debut in 1927, subject to reconstructions during restoration—the original title cards, incorporated in the 2010 remastering does not specify a year and contemporary audiences placed it around the turn of the millennium, both 2000 and 3000—at minimum the Giorgio Moroder produced truncated version from 1984, the silent film rescored featuring a pop-soundtrack with Bonnie Tyler, Adam Ant, Pat Benatar, Freddie Mercury (see also) and Loverboy, does specifically set Fritz Lang’s Metropolis in this year with an intertitle, subtitles used for the dialogue.

pdvsa (13. 047)

Founded on this day in 1976 in concert with the nationalisation of the oil industry and the take over of more than thirty foreign operations, including Exxon, Mobil and Gulf, the state owned Petróleos de Venezuela (Sociedad Anónima, a limited public company) manages the largest hydrocarbon reserve in the world and oversees day-to-day of the fifth biggest exporter of petroleum, formalised as a promise of the ongoing social movement of the Bolivarian Revolution begun by Hugo Chávez and continued by his successor Nicolás Maduro as a stand against neo-colonialism, record profits generated during the OPEC embargo by Middle East producers from three years earlier. Although many cite focus on political programmes to the detriment of technical know-how and inefficiencies in extraction and refining—as well as fostering endemic corruption—the accusations do seem rather pedestrian and rather like a projection for those excluded from exploiting this resource and relentless attempts to thwart the enterprise with sanctions and diplomatic isolation.