The article <a href="https://reason.com/2025/12/22/oil-tanker-seized/" author="Liz Wolfe" source="Reason">Oil Tanker Seized</a> writes in such a weak way about piracy. This is neither surprising for the author nor the publication. <bq>Over the weekend, the Trump administration seized two oil tankers. [...] U.S. forces boarded a Panamanian-flagged commercial vessel, owned by Hong Kong's Centuries Shipping, off the coast of Venezuela. <b>They had no seizure warrant, which doesn't appear to have gotten in their way.</b></bq> This is why Liz Wolfe and Reason can't be taken seriously as a news organization, though they act like one. She can't come right out and say that this is illegal activity. It's piracy. The magazine is ostensibly Libertarian but so many of its columnists have a hard time coming out against what they seem to consider their natural allies in the Republican Party that they can't even seem to strongly condemn an act of actual government overreach: a state seizing private property. <bq>On Sunday, U.S. forces apparently intercepted another tanker—"a sanctioned dark fleet vessel that is part of Venezuela's illegal sanctions evasion" that is "flying a false flag"—according to anonymous officials. <b>U.S. officials claimed that the vessel, reportedly called the Bella 1, was not flying a valid national flag, and that international law dictates that it could be boarded as a result.</b></bq> Oh, sure. That's like a cop smelling pot or having seen something in the victim's hand, or claiming that the dog smells drugs in the trunk. Can you believe this is in a <i>libertarian publication</i>? <bq>An estimated 20 percent of tankers worldwide "move oil from Iran, Venezuela, and Russia in violation of U.S. sanctions," reports the Times. "These ships often disguise their location and file false paperwork. The Bella 1, for instance, faked its location signal on a previous voyage. <b>U.S. officials say they have identified other tankers carrying Venezuelan oil whose previous involvement in the Iranian oil trade makes them subject to U.S. sanctions.</b>"</bq> The author is never going to mention that the U.S. sanctions are not some sort of international law; it's just the U.S. declaring war on enemies and then stealing their property. There's nothing more to it than that. There is no "dark fleet". It's just ships from countries the U.S. doesn't like. None of these dipshits are going to question it because it's just the standard worldview for them. They don't see anything wrong with it. They certainly don't have a moral problem with it because they don't have any principles. If they even think about potential blowback, they don't care about that either because they know that it won't get them. That's why they get their panties in a bunch whenever white/middle-upper-class people are killed somewhere.<fn> It uncomfortably reminds them that they're not invulnerable. The article <a href="https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2025/12/23/imtv-d23.html" author="Andre Damon" source="WSWS">US seizure of China-bound tanker near Venezuela escalates US conflict with Beijing</a> goes a bit harder, linking the seizures the coming war on China as well as the still-impending seizure of Greenland. <bq>Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian denounced the seizures as <b>“a serious violation of international law”</b> at a Monday press briefing in Beijing, adding that <b>China “opposes all unilateral bullying.”</b></bq> <bq>The economic consequences of the blockade are already severe. <b>Cuba, which depends on Venezuelan oil</b>, is facing the loss of a key economic lifeline and <b>is facing widespread hunger, rolling blackouts, and medical shortages.</b></bq> <bq><b>The National Security Strategy published by the White House last month</b> announces a “Trump Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine,” explicitly aiming to restore “American preeminence in the Western Hemisphere” and deny China “the ability to own or control strategically vital assets in our Hemisphere.” The document <b>effectively asserts US ownership over two continents—presented as “our hemisphere”</b>—whose resources Washington intends to seize as a power base <b>for confrontation with Russia and China.</b></bq> <bq>As part of the drive to seize control of “our” hemisphere, Trump has also demanded that Greenland, a territory of US NATO ally Denmark, become part of the United States. <b>On Sunday, Trump appointed Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry as special envoy to Greenland. Over the weekend, Landry said in a post on X that he would seek “to make Greenland a part of the U.S.”</b></bq> Oh, my God. I thought they'd forgotten about Greenland. Do they think that rare-earth metals refine themselves, though? 90% of the refining capacity that matters---so-called "5-9s" capacity, which refines to 99.999% purity---is in China. The U.S. had a multi-year effort that resulted in a "2-9s" (99.1%) purity.<fn> That's honestly nowhere near good enough for the low-nm processes needed by high-end chips.<fn> <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HFHqTzeIuKE">But wait, there's more!</a> Trump's gonna build the biggest, bestest boats ever! And he's gonna call 'em Trump Boats and they're gonna be awesome. They're gonna go "Blubblubblub" as they cruise across the ocean, like super fast. With jet-skis. <bq><img attachment="trump-class_battleships.webp" align="right" caption="Trump-class Battleships">On Monday, Trump announced plans to build <b>a new “Trump Class” of battleships as part of a “Golden Fleet.”</b> Speaking from Mar-a-Lago flanked by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and renderings of the proposed warships, Trump declared that “each one of these will be <b>the largest battleship in the history of our country, the largest battleship in the history of the world, ever built.”</b> He claimed the ships would be <b>“the fastest, the biggest and by far, 100 times more powerful than any battleship ever built,”</b> armed with nuclear-tipped cruise missiles, hypersonic weapons and laser systems. The first vessel would be named USS Defiant. Trump said <b>he approved construction of two ships immediately, with plans for 20 to 25 total.</b></bq> They didn't say whether it would have the most awesome trucks that the world has ever seen on it, but I'm going to go ahead and assume that it will. I mean, why not? Go big or go home. This is pure fantasy. it's like watching a 12-year-old next to his cardboard spaceship but it's not cute, it's pathetic. My God, how are people not f@&king embarrassed to be associated with this? You should be backing away slowly but there's so much sunken cost at this point. You should be demanding health care and welfare instead. The madness is on the outside now. They're not even putting on the velvet glove anymore. It's all just iron fist now. Trump is America with the mask off. <hr> <ft>Oh, man, was I wrong about that. RIP Renee Nicole Good.</ft> <ft>I read this somewhere else a while back but found this article from January 2025 that seems to corroborate the number, <a href="https://www.miningreporters.com/noticia/news/2025/01/usa-rare-earth-achieves-breakthrough-in-domestic-dysprosium-oxide-production" author="Agustín de Vicente" source="Mining Reports">USA Rare Earth achieves breakthrough in domestic Dysprosium Oxide production</a>. I didn't investigate the thing down to its bones to determine whether it's AI-generated, though. The <a href="https://rareearthexchanges.com/domestic-rare-earth-refining-in-america/">next result in the list </a> was definitely created by AI. Looking at the domain name, it's likely the entire web site is an SEO trap for searches about "rare earths", which, if it's a viable business model, is an indictment of both our economic system and our information environment, but that's a whole other topic.</ft> <ft>3-7nm CPUs are basically every chip that a consumer has in a multi-purpose device, like a phone, tablet, notebook, or desktop computer. Some industrial CPUs---which don't need this level of performance; they need reliability and optimize for cost---might not need that level of purity, but I'm just speculating here. It's possible that there is no real market for 99.1% pure rare earths.</ft>