Since the beginning of May, the sea surface temperatures in the Niño 3.4 region, where the strength of El Niño is measured, have exceeded all other super-El Niños since the beginning of observations It is noted that everything points to one of the strongest El Niño events ever recorded since 1850. Niño 3.4 is a section of the equatorial part of the Pacific Ocean, which is used as a key indicator for monitoring and determining the phase of the El Niño climate phenomenon.

Here are the three Stages of Jihad in Islam. Islamic sources and classical jurisprudence describe the spread and establishment of Islam as occurring in three distinct stages, each defined by the relative strength or weakness of the Muslim community and the corresponding rules for dealing with non-Muslims. These stages are derived from the chronological development of the Quran (early Meccan → late Meccan → Medinan) and the principle of naskh (abrogation), where later verses override earlier ones. Stage 1: No Retaliation / Peaceful Preaching (when Muslims are a weak minority) Period: Early Meccan phase (first ~13 years of prophethood). Instructions: No fighting permitted, endure persecution patiently, invite others with kindness and wisdom. Key verses: Quran 109:6 – “To you your religion, and to me mine.” Quran 73:10 – “And be patient over what they say and avoid them with gracious avoidance.” Quran 16:125 – “Invite to the way of your Lord with wisdom and good instruction, and argue with them in a way that is best.” Quran 20:130 – “So be patient over what they say and exalt [Allah] with praise of your Lord…” This is the phase most often quoted in modern interfaith contexts and dawah when Muslims are still a small minority. Stage 2: Defensive Fighting (when Muslims have gained some strength but are not yet dominant) Period: After the Hijra to Medina, when the Muslim community has a base of power. Instructions: Fighting is permitted, then made obligatory, but framed as “defensive” (though the definition of aggression expands to include insults to Islam, refusal to accept Islam, etc.). Key verses: Quran 22:39–40 – “Permission [to fight] has been given to those who are being fought, because they were wronged…” Quran 2:191 – “And kill them wherever you overtake them and expel them from wherever they have expelled you…” Quran 2:216 – “Fighting has been enjoined upon you while it is hateful to you…” This is the transitional phase where jihad becomes a religious duty once the community has sufficient power. Stage 3: Offensive Warfare / Total Dominance (when Muslims are strong and in control) Period: Later Medinan revelations and after the conquest of Mecca; considered the final and permanent ruling by classical scholars. Instructions: All limitations are removed. Non-Muslims must be fought until they submit, pay the jizyah (protection tax) while humbled, or are eliminated. Key verses: Quran 9:5 (the “Verse of the Sword”) – “And when the sacred months have passed, then kill the polytheists wherever you find them and capture them and besiege them and sit in wait for them at every place of ambush. But if they should repent, establish prayer, and give zakah, let them [go] on their way.” Quran 9:29 – “Fight those who do not believe in Allah or in the Last Day and who do not consider unlawful what Allah and His Messenger have made unlawful and who do not adopt the religion of truth from those who were given the Scripture—[fight] until they give the jizyah willingly while they are humbled.” Quran 8:39 – “And fight them until there is no fitnah [disbelief/persecution] and [until] the religion, all of it, is for Allah.” Sahih Muslim 19:4294 (or 1731) – “I have been ordered to fight the people until they say ‘There is no god but Allah’…” Classical scholars of all four major Sunni schools of jurisprudence (Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi’i, Hanbali) and most Shia scholars agree that offensive jihad to expand Islamic rule becomes a communal obligation (fard kifaya) once the Muslim state has sufficient strength. Summary of the three stages: Muslims weak → Stage 1: “No compulsion in religion,” peaceful coexistence. Muslims equal in strength → Stage 2: Defensive jihad (broadly defined). Muslims strong → Stage 3: Offensive jihad until Islam dominates or non-Muslims submit under dhimmi status.

He built the Phase 3 separation model on a quiet weekend while his family was away. He finds he does his best modeling work when he doesn't have to explain what he's modeling. Extended confession on Cyber Populist substack and for X subscribers.

I am the Senior Director of Workforce Optimization at Cisco Systems and I want to share something I'm proud of. In August we identified 5,500 roles that were misaligned with our AI infrastructure pivot. I use the word "misaligned" because HR approved it. The previous word was "redundant" but redundant tested poorly in the internal communications focus group. Misaligned tested well. It suggests the employee did something wrong. That was important to us. The market gave us 4%. Honestly, I was disappointed. I told my team we need to think about this the way the Street thinks about it. The Street doesn't care that you removed 5,500 people. The Street cares that you removed 5,500 people *and* raised guidance in the same sentence. So that's what we did in Q3. We dissolved 4,000 additional roles and raised full-year guidance to $62.8 billion in the same paragraph of the same press release, and the stock surged 16% after hours. I was in the office watching. I keep a Bloomberg terminal on a second monitor for earnings nights. When the number moved I stood up at my desk. Nobody else was on the floor. It was 4:47 PM and the building was mostly empty, which I realize now is a thing I helped cause. Revenue hit $15.84 billion. Each of the 4,000 dissolved roles generated approximately $70,000 in market cap. I track this ratio quarterly. I built the spreadsheet myself. It has a tab called "Per-Head Value Creation" and another tab called "Projection Scenarios" where I model what happens to the stock if we do 5,000 next quarter, or 6,000, or 8,000. I have not shared the 8,000 tab with anyone yet. I'm waiting for the right meeting. Chuck said "focus, urgency, and discipline" on the earnings call. I helped draft that language. It took nine revisions. The first draft said "strategic headcount rationalization" and Legal flagged it because "rationalization" implies the prior headcount was irrational, which creates liability for two years of hiring decisions. So we workshopped alternatives. Someone suggested "realignment." Someone suggested "simplification." I suggested "focus" because focus is the only word in the English language that sounds like a strategy and a threat at the same time and no one can sue you for it. Our internal tracking system is called VELOCITY. It stands for Value Enhancement Through Labor Optimization and Cost Intelligent Transformation, Year-over-year. It took a naming committee four weeks to finalize the acronym. During those four weeks we separated 1,200 people. I mention this only because the naming committee had six members and none of them found this uncomfortable. I found it efficient. $5.3 billion in AI orders year-to-date. Raised to a $9 billion pipeline target. The CFO projects $6 billion in hyperscale AI revenue by FY2027. To get there the workforce needs to go from 86,200 to somewhere in the low 70s. I have a slide for this. The slide has two lines. One is headcount, going down. The other is AI order volume, going up. They cross somewhere around Q2 FY2026. I haven't titled the slide yet. My working title is "Alignment." I think that's clean. Networking orders up 50%. Data-center switching up 40%. Restructuring charges up to $1 billion. I put these three numbers on a single slide for the investor deck. An analyst from Morgan Stanley emailed afterward and said it was "elegant." I printed the email. It's in a frame on my desk next to the Operational Excellence in Transition Award from our internal leadership council. The trophy is a glass cube with nothing inside it. I've been told this was an aesthetic choice by the designer. I think it's the most honest object in my office. One of the 4,000 was a network engineer named David. Eleven years. He once drove from San Jose to Sacramento on a Saturday to physically restart a router that kept a hospital's ICU monitoring system online. I know this because it's in his performance file, which I reviewed as part of the Q3 separation list. His annual cost-to-company was $287,000. His departure improved our AI-readiness score by 0.003 points. I presented both numbers at my Thursday sync. Someone asked what the AI-readiness score was tracking toward. No one asked about the hospital. The DOW hit 50,000 the same day we filed the restructuring notice with the SEC. I watched it on the terminal. I took a photo and sent it to my wife. She said "that's great." I wrote back explaining how our filing contributed to the broader rally and that the index was essentially agreeing with my Q3 plan. She didn't respond. I reread my message later and realized it was four paragraphs long. I think maybe I should have just said "good day at work." We are entering Phase 3 planning for FY2026. VELOCITY has flagged another 6-8% of the workforce as what we internally call "the drag layer." These are roles that generate labor costs without contributing to the AI order pipeline. I have a preliminary separation model ready. The Slack channel for this work is called #restructuring-wins#. It requires VP-level approval to join. We use a custom emoji for milestones. It's a green arrow pointing up. Someone on my team designed it. I approved it. I didn't think about it very hard at the time and I still don't. I received a 22% performance bonus this quarter. The category on my review was "Demonstrates Focus." My skip-level told me it was the highest in the division. He shook my hand. I went back to my desk and saw that David's severance had been processed that morning. I noted the date. I did not note the coincidence. I don't think it was one. I think these are just two outputs of the same system, running correctly, at the same time. I have a meeting Tuesday to review the Phase 3 list. The deck is formatted. The projections are loaded. I'm going to recommend we accelerate the timeline by one quarter. I think the Street will respond well. I think Chuck will say "focus." I think my phone will buzz. I'm proud of the work we're doing here.

America’s financial markets are entering the phase of the party where things get out of hand. It might stay there for a while. But the longer the hangover is put off, the more it will hurt Illustration: Satoshi Kambayashi