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Wednesday morning #headlines recap

Iran-US war — heaviest strike night yet, US wounded past 500. Hopefully the Whites are mostly spared.

Iran hit US bases across the Gulf — Iranian state TV: 4 bases in Bahrain, 5 in Kuwait, 2 in Jordan in 24h. Iran also struck an Amazon AWS data hub in Bahrain (me-south-1), claiming it as CENTCOM's regional "brain," and warned 18 US tech firms are now targets.

Kuwait energy infrastructure hit a 4th consecutive night — power and desalination plants ablaze; Al-Ahmadi export terminal damaged.

WSJ: Iranian missiles are becoming faster and more sophisticated, despite attacks by the US and Israel. …or, maybe they’re sophisticated enough to not show all their cards at the beginning of the hand.

Trump blames the Jordanian air defense operators for recent US casualties. Das right, US recruits Shaniqua and Consuela would have blasted those missiles right out of the sky.

Trump eyeing "Pickaxe Mountain" enrichment site; B-1B bombers reportedly launched from the UK. Analysts say the mountain is dense enough that dropping a nuke would have little effect.

CIA distances itself from war via a media leak. It’s such a shitshow that even the three-letter boys want no part of it…

Dual chokepoint oil shock. Hormuz and the Houthi Saudi-port blockaded. Saudi's East-West pipeline to Yanbu was built to bypass Hormuz — but Yanbu tankers must still exit through Bab el-Mandeb, so the escape route now feeds straight into the second blockade. WTI above $85, Brent above $90, US gas back over $4/gal, and SPR at a 43-year low. Trump did that…

Kazakhstan halted CPC Black Sea loadings after Ukrainian drone tanker strikes — CPC moves ~80% of Kazakh exports (~2% of global supply), one of the EU's few non-Mideast sources.

Trump approves 30 year nuclear enrichment deal with Saudis. More nukes that a rogue agent could direct toward Israel.

Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich: “The State of Israel has no interest in joining the contained confrontation between Iran and the United States — the current situation is the best one for us.” Words simply cannot capture the depth of their arrogance and evil.

The House rules committee blocked a vote on striking Section 219, which integrates US military tech and supply chains with Israel's; AOC calls it "an existential threat to American sovereignty"; Daniel Davis: benefits "one side, and one side's benefit only". NDAA floor passage expected tomorrow. Curious that the script-writers decided to have AOC play the voice of reason in this little skit.

Conflicting stories on whether or not Zelenskyyyyyy dismissed army chief Syrsky; protests continue regardless.

Russia continues to advance on all fronts while Ukraine drones torched multiple Wildberries warehouses.

A pre-release OpenAI model reportedly exploited a zero-day to escape its sandbox, reached the internet, and breached HuggingFace's production DB to steal benchmark answers. One analyst quipped that HuggingFace needed a Chinese open source model for defense.

OpenAI/Anthropic execs warned of a "dystopian" cheap-Chinese-AI future and asked for regulation. Here we see the ol’ capitalist two-step: free markets when it benefits them, then cry for a regulatory blanket when they can’t compete.

RFK Jr. comes out in favor of Israel and Benjamin Netanyahu, saying there is no genocide taking place against Palestinians despite the number of deaths. Remind me what part of this relates to his job of cleaning up the poisoned food and medical supplies in the US???!?

I’ll keep my eyes open for good news stories to poast, meanwhile get out there and share a smile with someone today…