Barackface: 12: Iran Protests

Six Weeks From Zero (novel)
The Dawn Beyond Currency (Part 1) (novel)
The Dawn Beyond Currency (Part 2) (novel)
The Great Subcontinent Uprising (Part 1) (novel)
The Great Subcontinent Uprising (Part 2) (novel)
The Great Subcontinent Uprising (novel)
The Banyan Revolt (novel)
Gen Z Kranti (novel)
The Protocol of Greatness (novel)
Madhya York: The Merchant and the Mystic (novel)
The Garden Of Last Debates (novel)
The Drum Report: Markets, Tariffs, and the Man in the Basement (novel)
Trump’s Default: The Mist Of Empire (novel)
Deported (novel)
Empty Country (novel)
Poetry Thursdays (novel)

Google just opensourced Universal Commerce Protocol.

AI Agents can now discover products, fill carts, and complete purchases autonomously.

Works with Agent2Agent (A2A), Agents Payment Protocol (AP2) and MCP.

100% Opensource. pic.twitter.com/JkQF0Fp5r6
— Shubham Saboo (@Saboo_Shubham_) January 11, 2026

Trump’s War Footing His foreign and domestic policies are becoming one and the same, and their purpose isn't complicated. ............ At the same time agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Patrol are swarming into Minnesota and other states and cities, Trump is planning bombing raids on other countries......... Domestically and internationally, he is putting America on a war footing. ............ ICE is reportedly investing $100 million on what it calls “wartime recruitment” of 10,000 new agents, in addition to the 20,000 already employed. Its recruitment is targeting gun and military enthusiasts, people who listen to right-wing radio, who have gone to Ultimate Fighting Championship fights or shopped for guns and tactical gear, live near military bases, and attend NASCAR races. It’s calling for recruits willing to perform their “sacred duty” and “defend the homeland” by repelling “foreign invaders.” ................ Trump has announced that he’ll ask Congress for a $1.5 trillion defense budget for the next fiscal year — a 66 percent increase over the 2026 defense budget Congress just authorized. .............. There’s coming to be no difference between Trump’s foreign and domestic policies........... Both are based on the same eight maniacal ideas: (1) Might makes right. (2) Law is irrelevant. (3) America is at war with the world’s “radical left,” who are defined chiefly by their opposition to Trump. (4) Fear and force are better weapons in this war than hope and compromise. (5) The U.S. stock market is the best measure of Trump’s success. (6) Personal enrichment by Trump and other officials is justified in pursuit of victory. (7) So are lies, cover-ups, and the illegal use of force. (8) Trump is invincible and omnipotent. ............... Rather than some “doctrine” or set of principles, they’re more like guttural discharges. Trump is not rational, and the people around him trying to give him a patina of rationality — his White House assistants and spokespeople — surely know it. ............. According to the Times, Trump “took unpredictable turns” during the interview. But instead of seeing this unpredictability as a symptom of Trump’s diminishing capacities and ever-shorter attention span, the Times reported it as “a tactic he embraces as president, particularly on the world stage. If no one knows what you might do, they often do what you want them to do.” ............. Trump has unleashed violence on America’s streets for much the same reason he has unleashed violence on Latin America and is planning to unleash it elsewhere: to display his own strength. His motive is to gain more power and, along the way, more wealth. (On Sunday, he even posted an image referring to himself as the “Acting President of Venezuela.”) .............. “Policy” implies thought. But under Trump, there is no domestic or foreign policy because it is all thoughtless. It is not even improvised. It is just Trump’s ego — as interpreted by the toadies around him (Miller, Vought, Vance, Kennedy, Rubio, Noem) trying to guess what his ego craves or detests, or fulfilling their own fanatical goals by manipulating it. ........... We must stop trying to make rational sense out of what Trump is doing. He is a ruthless dictator, plan and simple. ............ The only reality is that an increasingly dangerous and irrational sociopath is now exercising brutal and unconstrained power over America and, hence, the world. ............. Trump is putting America on a war footing because war is good for him as it is for all dictators. War confers emergency powers. It justifies ignoring the niceties of elections. It allows dictators to imprison and intimidate opponents and enemies. It enables them to create their own personal slush funds. It distracts the public from other things (remember Jeffrey Epstein?).......... War gives dictators like Trump more power and more wealth. Period.

Google just opensourced Universal Commerce Protocol.

AI Agents can now discover products, fill carts, and complete purchases autonomously.

Works with Agent2Agent (A2A), Agents Payment Protocol (AP2) and MCP.

100% Opensource. pic.twitter.com/JkQF0Fp5r6
— Shubham Saboo (@Saboo_Shubham_) January 11, 2026

A milestone.
— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) January 12, 2026

The friendship between India and Germany continues to grow through shared values, extensive cooperation and mutual understanding@bundeskanzler @_FriedrichMerz pic.twitter.com/MUZxMog33T
— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) January 12, 2026

A pleasant surprise upon leaving California five years ago was learning just how few people care about your work. If you’ve only ever worked in industry towns, you’re used to work consuming all aspects of your life. Your friends. Your kids’ play dates. Every conversation…
— Katherine Boyle (@KTmBoyle) January 12, 2026

“Over the last decade, California’s spending overall has doubled, while its population has stayed FLAT. The state’s education budget has doubled, while the number of students has DECLINED.” https://t.co/lBa8yT3oCV
— Chamath Palihapitiya (@chamath) January 12, 2026

In San Francisco now. The big news is how socialism created a mass exodus of wealth. Over half a trillion of net worth left California and more coming.
— Martin Varsavsky (@martinvars) January 11, 2026

California’s wealth tax is indeed ridiculous.

Take Ilya Sutskever as an example. He has $20B+ worth of OpenAI equity now. Let’s say he owns 1/3 of SSI, worth $10B+.

He has to give California 5% x (20+10) = $1.5B. And he cannot pay with OpenAI/SSI equity. He has to pay in cash!…
— Yuchen Jin (@Yuchenj_UW) January 12, 2026

Democrats becoming anti-tech anti-prosperity is not a good thing

A new focus on abundance, while defunding graft and waste, is the correct path to build a prosperous future

Not shutting down datacenters or mass asset forfeiture https://t.co/ClHdKsKKQz pic.twitter.com/UblV2xnC3b
— Garry Tan (@garrytan) January 12, 2026

I'm proud to serve as @eMedHealth_’s Chief Wellness Officer. We're working on something that really matters, improving population health at scale so that people can feel better, perform better, and protect their long term health. pic.twitter.com/D2rhQcA9nj
— Tom Brady (@TomBrady) January 12, 2026

Motorcycle, car ..... eventually rocket.
— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) January 12, 2026

California’s wealth tax will instantly vaporize every AI startup worth billions, because the tax due will exceed the money raised.
— Pedro Domingos (@pmddomingos) January 11, 2026

I’ve been back in the peak startup happiness mode last 6 months. No meetings, no politics, no interpersonal drama. Just coding all day in a room of super smart people. And this time as a bonus we get to receive help from some ungodly alien tech. https://t.co/RU1eYEgD1w
— Eren Bali (@erenbali) January 11, 2026