Chit-chat

[☩ ✺ DEUS VULT ✺ ☩ @Bracesco2023]

Spanish television reports that the train crash was an attack, that there were threats from Israel, and that further attacks in Spain are expected.

[The Hormuz Letter @HormuzLetter]

BREAKING: Trump administration plans to strike Iran directly after next week's US midterm elections, with CENTCOM commander Adm. Brad Cooper briefing Trump in a rare in-person meeting on military options at the White House today, per WSJ.

Senior US officials say Cooper rarely briefs Trump in person, unless a significant military operations is to be carried out shortly. It followed a Wednesday session in which the military officers met Vice President JD Vance.

Sen. Chris Murphy, who says he has been briefed on some of the classified planning, called the plans "insane."

"It will lead to devastating escalation and the likely destruction of our commitment to the rule of law," he says.

[Supriya Shrinate @SupriyaShrinate]

You can’t just register in the US

You will have to register in India too

[Angelo Giuliano 🇨🇭🇮🇹 @angeloinchina]

Kishore Mahbubani tells a story you won't read in Western papers.

Former US ambassador to China Stapleton Roy, fluent in Mandarin, told him that at a meeting with Obama, "maybe 2014", Xi Jinping offered to demilitarize the South China Sea.

"The United States, instead of accepting the offer, rejected the offer. And that's why the militarization began."

What is on record : September 2015, White House Rose Garden, Xi says China "does not intend to pursue militarization" in the Spratlys.
Washington's answer was more patrols, then years of "China lied" headlines.

Mahbubani's other point >
> China is "the world's number one trading power"
> so it has "a greater vested interest in freedom of navigation than the United States"

I have heard the "China will block the sea lanes" line for years. Block its own trade ?

So was there an offer on the table ? And if there was, who walked away ?

[Sann @san_x_m]

A clock company was given a 140 year old bridge to repair. Four days after it reopened, the bridge fell into the river with 500 people on it. 135 died, more than 50 of them children. The man accused was later weighed in sweets at a ceremony in the same town.

His name is Jaysukh Patel, managing director of the Oreva group, the company behind Ajanta clocks.

In March 2022 the Morbi municipality gave Oreva a 15 year contract to repair and run the bridge.

On 26 October 2022 the bridge reopened. The town's chief officer later said the company opened it without telling them.

On 30 October 2022, around 6.40 pm, it was Sunday evening and the bridge was packed with families. It collapsed.

The youngest to die was 18 months old.

A forensic report said the cables were rusted, the anchors broken and the bolts loose.

Ten people were arrested, including Jaysukh Patel. He was charged with culpable homicide not amounting to murder.

In December 2023 the Gujarat High Court rejected his bail. In March 2024 the Supreme Court granted it, with a condition that he stay out of Morbi.

In November 2024 a court relaxed that condition. Days later a community group in Morbi honoured him at a temple event and weighed him in sweets.

Narendra Parmar, whose 10 year old daughter died on the bridge, said, "It is a matter of sadness for us to see the main accused being honoured like that."

Four years later, the trial is still going on.

[Rahul Gandhi @RahulGandhi]

कांग्रेस के समय में IDBI बना - देश का उद्योग खड़ा करने के लिए।

मोदी के समय में पहले बोली देखी गई, फिर दाम तय हुआ।

कांग्रेस के time पे बैंक बनते थे। मोदी के time में बिकते हैं।

मैं IDBI बैंक के कर्मचारियों के साथ खड़ा हूँ।

[Power to the People ☭🕊 @ProudSocialist]

An Israeli actress was being interviewed but thought they were on commercial break so she started telling the truth about Israel only to find out afterwards they were live on air:

“I’m no longer proud to be Israeli. It’s a terrible feeling. I’m ashamed of who we are as a people…Everything that is happening now is a result of the occupation: The religious coercion, the settler violence, the Jewish terrorism, and the arrogance. The minority [the Palestinians] have a right to fight for their freedom.”

[Rabbi Jeff @RabbiJeffx]

ABC NEWS quietly STRIPPED explosive sections from its 2002 investigation into 5 ISRAELIS detained after 9/11, including FBI suspicions of an Israeli SPY OPERATION.

The text VANISHED just shortly before OCTOBER 7, 2023

@grok TRUE FALSE.

[Nury Vittachi @NuryVittachi]

FRANCE, UK AND GERMANY slammed Iran at the United Nations this week for not allowing in nuclear inspectors recently—but China and Russia pointed out that the US and Israel have literally been dropping bombs on those facilities for more than a year.

The argument that broke out at the United Nations on Tuesday was shocking for many reasons.

Western countries said they had the right to hit Iran with even more sanctions, because it has not fulfilled all the requirements of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action agreed in 2015.

But China and Russia pointed out that the agreement was clearly altered by a key signatory, the United States, who in 2018 abandoned the plan and hit Iran with another long list of sanctions--and then attacked the country with missiles.

The Chinese delegate said the “root causes of the current predicament” are the United States’ withdrawal from the agreement, and its subsequent behaviour.

Iran’s representative said: “Iran is victim of war, not the aggressor”.

.

TWO BIG ISSUES
There are two big issues here, which should be highlighted.

First, the west paints Iran as a recalcitrant nation which doesn’t let inspectors visit.

This is not true. (It’s a perfect description of Israel, but that country gets a free pass from the west on this topic.)

The International Atomic Energy Agency admits that its inspectors have spent more than 14,000 calendar days in Iran, conducting verification activities in more than 1,400 facilities and locations.

The IAEA then chose to withdraw in June 2025, 16 months ago, because the US and Israel suddenly started bombing those facilities.

This clearly was not Iran’s fault. The US attacks and threats of even larger airstrikes on Iran are continuing to this day.

.

RUSSIA’S DEFENCE
Russia also defended Iran at the United Nations discussion. “Today, we have already heard another round of fabrications about the absence of IAEA verification activities in Iran,” said the Russian Federation's delegate.

He pointed out that Western countries preferred not to notice that, even after the first series of strikes by the United States and Israel against Iran’s nuclear plants in June 2025, Iran continued to engage with the agency, including enabling inspections at facilities not hit by airstrikes.

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ISRAEL NOT MENTIONED
The other big issue is Israel. Virtually all the accusations unfairly aimed at Iran are actually true of Israel—which clearly DOES have an illegal secret nuclear weapons program, which DOES ban inspectors from their facilities, and which DOES ignore global non-proliferation treaties.

But western leaders, for unclear reasons, will not criticize Israel for this.

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BARGAINING CHIP
After years of unfair treatment, Iranian scientists enriched some of their uranium to the 60 per cent level, as a bargaining chip.

This is above the level used for civilian purposes, and sent a message saying that Iranian scientists have the same capability as Israeli scientists, but have chosen not to create nuclear weapons—as the US director of intelligence confirmed.

The United Kingdom’s representative this week criticized Iran for this, saying “there is no credible civilian justification” for enriching uranium to the 60 per cent level.

Yes, that’s the point.

Every western mainstream media outlet has religiously printed US assertions that they are attacking Iran because they want to stop it acquiring nuclear weapons.

But I have never seen a single article or column pointing out that the US-Israel attacks on Iran have clearly proved the opposite—which is that Iran needs nuclear weapons to stop violent rogue nations attacking it.
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[Adv. Vijay Singh @VijaySingh_law]

Congress Ke Time Pe… PM bina invitation Pakistan mein Biryani khane nahi jaate the!

[Vijay Thottathil @vijaythottathil]

Rahul Gandhi 🔥

[Rajat Jain @RajatJain]

Farewell DENIED😤

Air Chief Marshal AP Singh, who led the IAF through Op Sindoor and logged 5,000+ flying hours, retires Oct 31.

His farewell golf round, a tradition for every outgoing Chief, was set for Oct 28.

That SAME morning, the Housing Ministry's Land & Development Office SEALED the Air Force Sports Complex near the PM's residence “till further orders.”

No reason given. No word from the IAF.

It couldn't wait 72 more hours?

[Ajai Shukla @ajaishukla]

While I don’t hold with service chiefs doing Ganga Aarti in public… to time the IAF Sports Complex takeover in a manner that scuttles his farewell round is the lowest form of behaviour!

[Mogambo @Netajinonsense1]

20 KG, 21 FLOORS , FOUR LIFTS AVAILABLE.

WHO MAKES THESE SOCIETY LAWS BC?

[tickmind @tickmind]

ELON MUSK OFFERED TO BUY HIS FATHER A CAR. HOW ABOUT A JEEP? BUT HIS ANSWER SURPRISED EVERYONE... "I WANT SOMETHING DECENT. I WANT A BENTLEY" — ERROL MUSK

Vlad asks Errol a simple question: your son is worth almost half a trillion dollars. does he help the family?

Errol starts with "I don't really need help. I'm self-supporting"

then he tells the story anyway

Elon suggested buying him a car. the first idea was a Tesla. but shipping one to South Africa, in Errol's words, the price was "astronomical", and there's no service where he lives

so the family comes back with a practical option:
"why don't you get a Jeep or something?"

"I don't want a Jeep. I want something decent"

"so what do you want?"

"I want a Bentley"

"so Elon said: sure. Bentley"

there's a Bentley Flying Spur in his garage now. he hasn't even put the number plates on

and the car is the small part

according to Errol, the family company pays every single woman in the family a monthly income. married ones get "a little bit of help". his ex-wife gets a monthly income too

when his medical bills came to almost a million and insurance covered 600,000, they paid the gap

his summary: "if you ask them, they help you. it's as simple as that"

now remember who's talking

this is the father Elon publicly called "a terrible human being". the one he said had done "almost every crime you can possibly think of"

and he's driving a Bentley his son paid for

for the record: this is Errol's version, from Errol's interview. nobody in the family has confirmed the details

but it shows something about money at this level that nobody puts on a Forbes list

a half-trillion net worth isn't one person's money. it's a whole family's payroll. ex-wives, siblings, a father he barely speaks to, all running on one balance sheet

you can cut someone out of your life. at Elon's level, you can't really cut them out of your money

the richest man on earth can say no to his father. he just didn't say no to the Bentley

[Martin Varsavsky @martinvars]

A year ago, Microsoft, Alphabet and Meta generated $60.7 billion of free cash flow in a single quarter. This summer, $7.4 billion.

They didn't sell less. Revenue grew 19% at Microsoft, 25% at Alphabet and 26% at Meta. What changed is the bill: $125.6 billion in three months for data centers, chips and servers, double what they spent a year earlier. Meta put 54 cents of every dollar of revenue into capex. Alphabet spent $9 billion more than it took in, its second negative quarter in a row, and this morning its stock fell 12%. If it closes down more than 9.77%, it will be its worst day after earnings since going public in 2004.

The detail that worries me most is in Google's search numbers. Search ads grew 12% and still missed expectations. Philipp Schindler, Alphabet's chief business officer, said part of the reason is that AI Mode makes less money per search. So Google is spending record sums to build a product that earns less than the one it replaces.

For twenty years these were the best businesses ever invented. You wrote the code once, sold it to billions of people, and almost every new dollar of revenue fell to the bottom line. AI doesn't work like that. Every answer runs on a chip someone had to buy and on electricity someone has to pay for. Big Tech is turning into something closer to a utility: huge upfront costs, long paybacks, and profits that depend on keeping the machines full.

That can still be a great business. But it is a different business, and investors are only starting to price it that way.

The old moat was code. The new one is cash.

[Kamran @CitizenKamran]

EXPLOSIVE ARTICLE
TAKE SCREENSHOTS B4 IT'S TAKEN DOWN

IDBI BANK SALE WAS A FIXED MATCH

Internal documents from ministry travel that they first saw the bid and then set the price.

@aiboc_in @RahulGandhi @prakashraaj @priyankagandhi

https://t.co/S8O6yTgLTN

[Srinivas BV @srinivasiyc]

Pain is personal 💔

[Rai Saaheb @rain_views]

करवाचौथ के दिन ये सब मत पोस्ट करो यार, पाप लगेगा।

[Mohit Chauhan @unmutemohit]

Congress ke time me PM America ke samne surrender nhi karte the.