As I will explain, the outcome that looks like losing may actually be the best path forward for the world’s remaining economies.
The fighting today is with respect to which parts of the world will get which energy resources, and at what prices. Even before the current conflict, there was a shortage of jet fuel and diesel. The only reasonable outcome I can think of is that the US will only be able to tap its own energy resources, plus those of its nearby neighbors (Figure 1). Consequently, the economy will gradually reorganize in ways that use fuels more sparingly.
The outcome outlined in Figure 1 implies that Donald Trump and the US-Israel coalition will lose the war against Iran. It appears that the physics of the situation (or perhaps the Higher Power behind the physics of the situation) has chosen the flawed personality of Donald Trump to accomplish the required result. This is a situation where what seems to be the US losing in its conflict against Iran is actually winning for the overall world economy. If oil can be used more sparingly in the future by servicing people closer to where end products are made, the available energy resources will provide greater benefit to society as a whole.
In the remainder of this article, I will try to explain the situation more fully.
[1] Background
In physics terms, an economy is a dissipative structure. In order to stay away from a dead state (collapse), it needs to “dissipate” energy of the right kinds. A human is also a dissipative structure. We dissipate food to stay away from a dead state.
From a physics point of view, fossil fuels are as essential to economies as food is to humans. Without fossil fuels, economies tend to collapse and die. With an adequate supply of easily extractable and transportable fossil fuels, economies are able to grow. However, when these fuels become less available due to the exhaustion of nearby resources, or for other reasons, economies are forced to shrink. Rising population can also be a factor because every person in the world needs food and at least minimal transportation. The war is about future standards of living in countries around the world.
An underlying problem is that the world now has too many people for the available resources, such as fresh water. One chart showing data through the end of 2023 indicates that the Middle East is home to 4,863 desalination plants, or about 42% of the world’s total. This region is acutely stressed for fresh water. The Middle East cannot grow much of its own food; it must depend on imports, which are grown and transported using oil.
Previous analyses (here and here) have shown that diesel and jet fuel supplies have been in increasingly short supply since long before the Iran War.
Critical minerals, used in electrification, are also in very short supply. In a finite world, the easy-to-extract minerals are extracted first, leaving the high-cost-to extract minerals for the future.
In today’s fossil fuel economy, oil is the largest component. Oil is usually the highest-priced of the fossil fuels because it is energy-dense and easy to transport and store. If oil supply fails, an economy is likely to collapse. Coal and natural gas are the other fossil fuels. Liquefied natural gas (LNG) is natural gas that is super-chilled and shipped long-distance by boat. Similarly to oil, its price is under pressure today.
[2] The world’s fossil fuel economy already seems to be at a turning point in its economic cycle.
It is well known that economies exhibit cyclical behavior. Researchers Peter Turchin and Sergey Nefedov analyzed eight economies that collapsed and published their findings in their book Secular Cycles. They found that populations that discovered new resources were able to grow for a period of time until they came close to the carrying capacity of the resources available. After approaching the carrying capacity, economies reached a period of stagflation, characterized by slower growth, inflation, and spiking prices as shown on Figure 3.
At this point, the fossil fuel system has been growing for over 200 years. It has undergone stagflation since the early 1970s. It is now ready to begin the downswing of the Crisis Years.
Now, the Iran War seems to mark the beginning of a fairly long Crisis Period. The Stagflation Period was expected to last 50 to 60 years. The year 2026 is 56 years after the time US crude oil production stopped growing, so the timing is roughly in line with expectations. However, we don’t know whether the Crisis Period will really last between 20 and 50 years, since the situation is now quite different compared to cycles before fossil fuels were added to the economy. But it does look like the world economy is headed for reorganization based on the limited fuel supply.
[3] In order for an economy to “work,” oil prices need to be both low enough for consumers, buying end products such as food made possible by the use of oil, and high enough for oil producers.
This issue is not one most people think much about. There are really two different oil price levels that are important:
(a) The price level affordable by consumers. If consumers cannot afford food or basic transportation, this quickly becomes a problem that leads to unhappiness with elected officials. This is the reason why elected officials often try to hold down oil prices.
(b) The price that oil producers require in order to make an adequate profit and allow investment in new wells to offset depletion in existing wells. In the case of oil exporters, oil prices may need to be very high to permit high taxes on oil exports to support food subsidies and other government programs.
I believe that a major problem we have reached today is that countries that are primarily oil exporters, such as Russia and countries in the Middle East, need far higher oil prices than consumers are able to pay. Even if the wars in Ukraine and Iran stopped tomorrow, the world would still have this underlying issue.
[4] Since 2014, oil prices have been too low for countries that use taxes on oil exports as a major source of tax revenue.
Figure 4. Oil prices in 2025 US$, with ovals marking three different oil price periods. Oil prices are based on oil data from the 2025 Statistical Review of World Energy, published by the Energy Institute, adjusted by the US CPI Urban increase to 2025 levels. The 2025 average Brent oil price is from EIA data.
Figure 4 shows average world oil prices on an inflation-adjusted basis, to 2025 price levels. As such, prices for earlier dates appear much higher on the graph than past observers would have seen them.
The low oil prices from 1948 until early 1973 were good for economies around the world, including the US. In the early days of oil extraction, oil was easy to extract and close to where it was to be used. The cost of extraction and transport was low. Consumers started seeing many more products become available. Many families in the US could afford a car for the first time. Also, the US was able to support the recovery of European economies from the impact of World War II at a cost that was not excessive.
In recent years, costs have risen. This is especially the case for the price needed by oil exporters. Part of the problem is that the size of the population requiring subsidy keeps growing, while oil production has been close to flat.
A second part of the problem is that economies of oil exporters often have few other sources of taxable revenue. Oil exporters are trying to change this by adding downstream manufacturing that uses the oil and gas they produce. A third part of the problem is that, as population grows, the higher population tends to use more of the available oil supply, leaving less for export.
Figure 6 shows that, in the 2011-2013 period, oil prices seemed to be high enough for most OPEC members (except Iran). Fiscal break-even prices indicate how high oil prices need to be, including the amount of tax revenue needed to balance budgets.
The notation in yellow on Figure 6 shows that the expected fiscal breakeven break-even for the period under analysis for all OPEC members combined was $105. EIA data shows that the average Brent oil prices during this period were $111 in the year 2011, $112 in the year 2012, and $109 in 2013. Thus, prices were high enough for most producers. Iran was an outlier on the high side, with a range for the 2013-2014 period of $110 to $172. (A more recent forecast for Iran shows a 2025 fiscal breakeven price of $124, which remains far above the pre-Iran war oil price.)
Figure 4 shows that oil prices began to fall in 2014. At these lower levels, it became increasingly difficult for oil exporters to obtain enough tax revenue to significantly help their local populations. They started needing to use more debt to fund their local economies. As a result, they gradually became increasingly unhappy. Figure 4 shows that the average price 2025 for Brent oil was only $65.
To make matters worse for oil exporting countries requiring high prices, oil price forecasts by the EIA and IEA for the year 2026 were even lower because of an expected oversupply of oil. Countries with growing oil production included Argentina, Brazil, China, and Guyana. In addition, some counties on the coast of Africa are hoping to add oil production. Unless world demand is growing rapidly, more oil supply tends to lead to lower prices and a worse situation for oil exporters trying to balance their budgets with taxes on exported oil.
[5] Without the war, LNG prices would also have been too low for LNG exporters.
LNG is a “modern” way of shipping natural gas. Only about 13% of natural gas is transported as LNG. It tends to be an expensive method of transport. Recent reports indicate that a huge amount of future LNG supply is planned for the next few years.
Adding a huge amount of LNG would probably cause prices to drop significantly. This would be great from the point of view of consumers, but it would likely leave prices too low for producers. As I see the situation, Middle Eastern producers are likely to need prices in the $15 to $20 range per million metric tons of LNG, while India is not willing to pay more than $10 per unit, and those wanting to replace coal are unwilling to pay more than $5 per unit. Thus, without the war, LNG would have had a similar problem to that of oil, with prices far too low for exporters.
[6] From Iran’s point of view, I see the war as similar to a suicide, when a farmer can no longer support his family.
With Iran’s fiscal breakeven price at $124 per barrel and the pre-war Brent price at only $65, Iran was already in an impossible position. In fact, Iran could see that all of the Middle East infrastructure would be close to worthless, at expected 2026 oil and LNG prices. So why not take it down as well?
If nothing else, a war might help raise prices, at least a bit. Notice that on Figure 4, oil prices bounced up a little from their very low level in 2022, the year when the Ukraine conflict started.
[7] Losing any significant share of energy supply is likely to significantly reduce world GDP.
If the energy supply were to be lost, the world would be dealing with the losing something equivalent to its food supply. If the world economy loses even 10% of its oil and LNG, it is not difficult to imagine world GDP falling by 10%. At this point, we don’t know precisely how much energy supply, of which kind, will be lost, or for how long. The amount lost could be far higher than 10%. Also, the outage could last for years.
There are many issues involved. Supply lines are breaking down forcing businesses to find closer sources for both energy products and products made using cheap local energy products, such as fertilizer and aluminum. The war, as it is taking place today, is leading to major damage to energy-related structures in the Middle East. Destroyed LNG structures are estimated to take at least five years to replace. Damage elsewhere is also immense. Rebuilding the oil infrastructure will also likely take at least five years.
[8] The US understands the importance of Middle Eastern oil and gas. It uses its strong relationship with Israel to further its military presence in the Middle East.
Israel is a very high-level ally. In fact, a 2025 US Department of State Fact Sheet says that the US is committed to helping Israel in the case of an attack:
Steadfast support for Israel’s security has been a cornerstone of American foreign policy for every U.S. Administration since the presidency of Harry S. Truman. . . Israel is the leading global recipient of Title 22 U.S. security assistance under the Foreign Military Financing (FMF) program. . .Israel has been designated as a U.S. Major Non-NATO Ally under U.S. law. This status provides foreign partners with certain benefits in the areas of defense trade and security cooperation and is a powerful symbol of their close relationship with the United States. Consistent with statutory requirements, it is the policy of the United States to help Israel preserve its QME, or its ability to counter and defeat any credible conventional military threat from any individual state or possible coalition of states or from non-state actors, while sustaining minimal damages and casualties.
However, if we look to see where US military bases are located, they are not in Israel. Instead, a map shows that the “persistent” US military bases are all located around the Persian Gulf (Figure 8).
These bases were clearly intended to protect oil transiting through the Persian Gulf. At this point, all of the persistent bases have been severely damaged by missiles from Iran.
The major interest of the US has been the availability of oil and natural gas from the Middle East. No one ever considered the idea that low prices might be the force that would bring down Middle Eastern oil and natural gas exports.
Friendship with Israel provides the US a convenient close by ally. It also pleases both Jewish Americans who support Israel and those evangelical Christians who hold a religious view that Israel is needed for the second coming of Christ. Some of the latter may even believe that a war in the Middle East could perhaps hasten this event.
[9] Trump realizes that winning the war against Iran is absolutely essential if the US is to retain global hegemony.
The US has been the holder of the world’s reserve currency since immediately after World War II. It was chosen for this role because it was the most trusted and dominant country in the world. International trade took place almost exclusively in US dollars, creating a high demand for US government debt. This allowed the US to import more goods and services than it exported, year after year. This advantage tended to raise the standard of living of US residents.
At one time, Saudi Arabia insisted that all oil purchases be made in US dollars. This requirement has recently expired, but, as a practical matter, the majority of purchases have continued to be through trades in US dollars.
One of the main ways that the US has maintained its hegemony is by building military bases around the world. With these bases, the US can claim to protect countries against aggressors. However, recent events have shown that Iran is able to take down the radar systems at these bases. Without radar, the bases are virtually useless. If the US is to maintain the illusion that it is truly at the top of the pecking order with its sophisticated weaponry, it must show that, together with Israel, it can prevail against Iran.
A disadvantage of the role of being the chief hegemon is ever-rising US government debt and the need to pay interest on that debt. This growing debt and the interest on the debt has become an increasing burden.
If the US should lose its hegemony role, the advantage the US has had over other countries in trade is likely to disappear. Repaying debt with interest is likely to become an even worse problem. If this should happen, Trump will no longer be able to think about making America great again.
[10] Conclusion
The world is now facing a problem that most people never considered possible: Oil and LNG prices can fall so low that production becomes unprofitable for major oil and LNG exporters. Until now, the trend among world leaders, including President Trump, has been to try to hold prices down for consumers, so that food and fuel for vehicles would remain affordable. However, this has created a problem in that prices have become too low for countries whose primary industry is being an oil exporter.
At this point, the world economy needs to make a major transition in order to deal with the inadequate level of fuels available for long-distance transportation. These same fuels are heavily used for farming and for many for commercial endeavors, such as building homes and roads. It is therefore necessary to find ways to use these fuels more sparingly. One way to achieve this is by reducing the length of most supply lines, as shown on Figure 1. Shorter supply lines will also be needed elsewhere in the world.
It is ironic that the world economy cannot make a change such as this without a war to focus our attention in this direction. Other changes will also be needed. Governments will probably have to become smaller and provide fewer services. Vacation travel will become the exception rather than the rule. “Working from home” will become the norm, whenever possible. I expect that the world’s population will need to fall, albeit in a fairly subtle way. I expect this will mostly be the result of shorter life expectancies.
We are fortunate that economies are self-organizing. If resources are available, even after a major schism such as the loss of the war against Iran, the self-organizing nature of the economic system will try to knit together pieces that can productively provide goods and services. This cannot happen instantly, but this feature means that there are likely to be some jobs and some goods and services available. Past cycles of the type illustrated in Figure 3 have eventually led to new beginnings.
If the US and Israel lose the current war against Iran, I expect President Trump to be blamed for this loss. However, I believe that this outcome would be best for the world as a whole.
I made a list of countries, sortable by personal tax rate, corporate tax rate, social contribution tax rate, crime index. Georgia and Armenia ranked among the best. The UAE and Qatar ranked well, but I suppose that’s over now. Most everywhere milks you for all you’ve got. At one point, the USA overthrew its government over a 2% tax, but look at us now…
Does anyone know where to get a daily chart of dated brent crude? I keep hearing people reference it but I cannot find an actual chart. Thanks
Try this .
https://oilprice.com/oil-price-charts/#prices
Stock up with the particular automotive lubricants blends you depend on, while you still can, everybody:
https://halturnerradioshow.com/index.php/component/content/article/lubricant-industry-insider-writes
From the link:
Approximately 40% of global GTL Group 3 base oil production is offline as of 3 weeks ago due to the ongoing situation in the Middle East.
This is a critical component of almost every modern motor oil, transmission fluid, PSF fluid, industrial lubricant, etc on the market.
Our last shipment of GTL Group 3 base oil comes in April 7th. The blended products will start to go out the end of that week and the earliest wind-down of retail stock availability for products already in a production freeze is expected to start April 14th. . .
There will be a massive shortage of critical lubricants that will last for a minimum of 6-12 months. Major specifications and standards will be suspended and what little ends up on the shelf will be of significantly degraded quality.
If the world cannot make lubricants in adequate quantities any more, we will have a terrible time making our trucks work. Pumps of many kinds will not work. The system will go downhill, badly, quickly.
Us peak oilers apparently got blind sided or were not paying attention to the other elements like Helium , Urea , Naphtha etc . that are associated with oil production . We got beaten by the Liebig’s Law of the minimum . I don’t feel ashamed in admitting we were wrong , but that is similar to what we would be saying when the slide would begin on the downward slope of the Seneca Cliff for oil — I told you so . That is all we who have studied the subject would say .
A flyby does not a landing make. But in this forum I have often said that the Van Allen problem could have been overcome with whole body dentist lead suits . we are also at a solar minimum unlike 1968 and that helps.
this comment is clearly in the wrong place. was meant as a reply to Mike commenting on Artemis below.
Do they need particular lubricants on Artemis too, or not?
I have been associated with the automotive industry for about 30 years . This is a problem of detail . just like the public does not understand the difference between , heavy , sour , sweet , light oil or between olive , chilli , coconut oil they have no idea about the difference between motor oil , transmission oil , differential oil , steering oil , bearing grease, MoS2 grease etc . For the general public it is all the same .
Very good article thanks .
MoS2 = Molybdenum Di sulfide
Answer . Definitely .
Are you trying to help bail out FE? Please he’s like Trump, he doesn’t need or want anybody’s help, even if he’s a dumb 🐴
Trump will be playing this tomorrow as he finishes his temporary operation in Iran.
Tuesday afternoon
I’m just beginning to see
Now I’m on my way
It doesn’t matter to me
Chasing the clouds away
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5N7qHmEgxA
Moody Blues
Something calls to me
The trees are drawing me near
I’ve got to find out why
Those gentle voices I hear
Explain it all with a sigh
Yes, those voices you hear are guiding you in your sacred mission
Attempted fighting on the European -Ukraine-Russian front:
https://www.zerohedge.com/energy/explosives-found-near-key-serbia-hungary-pipeline-transporting-russian-gas
Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic informed Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban by phone on Sunday that explosives were discovered near a key pipeline carrying Russian gas from Serbia to Hungary.
“Our units found high-powered explosives and detonators,” Vucic wrote on Instagram after briefing Orban on the military and police investigations. . .
Budapest has lately been pointing the finger directly at the Zelensky government, accusing Ukrainian operatives of seeking to ‘sabotage’ Russian energy piped into Europe.
Late last month Orban made clear that Hungary will block all EU summit decisions in Ukraine’s favor until oil Russian flows resume via the Druzhba pipeline.
[map]
“We would like to get the oil, which is ours, from the Ukrainians, which is now blocked by the Ukrainians, I did not support any kind of decision here, which is in favor of Ukraine … [as long as] the Hungarians are not able to get the oil which belong to us,” Orbán stated at the time.
Obran has already blocked a proposed €90 billion ($103 billion) loan for Ukraine as well as efforts to slap new sanctions on Moscow, despite the pleadings, pressure, and interventions from other EU leaders.
“Slovakians” are well-documented traitors of the Western Civilization:
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2026/04/tackle-europes-energy-crisis-slovak-pm-fico-calls/
One man’s traitor is another one’s savior…
Sounds like your bitter about WW II…get over it already and stop what your doing in the Ukraine already
From the link:
European Globalists hate Russia more than they love themselves.
Even before the military confrontation in Iran began, Europe was already mired in a deep energy crisis, coming from the fact that it shut cheap Russian gas out, while at the same time indulging in its ‘Net-zero’ fantasies, shunning oil for ‘renewables’.
So now, with the Strait of Hormuz effectively closed and rising oil prices, the situation is about to cripple the old continent’s economies.
I thought that’s the Bulgarians? Or is it the Ukrainians? So much on the menu.
Too many “ains” out their in the mix, so 🤔 confused
>> The Russian police has launched a mass-campaign of pulling people over and checking their phones to see if they have “illegal VPNs” installed
https://x.com/visegrad24/status/2041088463496253564
Same story everywhere. China – constant surveillance. Russia, no privacy either. USA – Flock cameras, Ring, etc. We commoners will never wield power until we build a sustainable and resilient system of organization outside the government.
amen brother
True. But on the ground the feeling is different as we have frequent drone incursions (2 in the last week). Leave a channel open, someone is going to die. de facto, you can use anything so long as you are on cable or fiber. if you are through air, VPNs do not work. Only Maxx and russian apps (banking etc) work. You can call through the phone anywhere. Telegram is now banned, but there appears to be a working proxy.
I do have a phone link for internet at home, and the system is smart enough to let me use the vpn through my Deeper Network box cabled tothe router, but not through the main phone connection. It understands that DN can only happen through Ethernet. The main problem is that we have so many apps at the farm, with not a single app good for everyone, that my phone needs daily recharging. I do expect that when the war ends (2 years from now?) they will allow more freedom, because it is painful to use. when the vpn stops working I have to go to town to restart it through cable (I do it in front of the house of a friend). Until the war ends, though, this is fine.
Do you know, if TOR and/or I2P work on mobile phones in your current country of residence?
I do have some (very amateurish) experience with (easily) overcoming corporate blocking of TOR in the good old U.S.A – simply switching to the Meek/Asure bridging eliminates the blocking completely (low-level corporate shills in US industry and Academia would never bite their proverbial Master’s hand, i.e. never block access to MS Azure… 😅)
I2P has basically the same functionality as Deeper Networks but as i was able to make the latter work I did not try the former. DN of course has a dedicated box which connects to your router whereas I understand that I2P is all software. TOR we (the expats) never considered as it might attracts suspicions. Keep in mind that for us sometimes the adversary is Russia, and sometimes the West, so we have to be careful.
I can tell you that there is a AI algorithm of some sort that will decide whether you connect or not. When you arrive in the country none of your devices work (unless you can get to cable) for 24 hours. Bring cash. Along many stretches of rail, in stations and near refineries the phone often works only in minimal mode (banking apps and phone calls).
For the first week after arrival things change, but if you keep trying to connect from the same location it will eventually accept you. In, say, January after I returned from the Mid East, the system was able to disconnect all my DN P2P connections worldwide (typically I have 40-50 at any given time). It would let me connect now, I can see they are there, but I do not care as I keep doing what works (DN to VPN).
They do update that algorithm often giving us all fits. Last year i was mostly using my wifi with a VPN in Germany, now I use exclusively DN with one in the USA. I installed the telegram proxy in my mechanic’s phone just this afternoon because i really need him to be on Telegram but his account works 10% of the time. he has a VPN, like all.
I mildly disagree with Ivan. Putin is on thin ice, in the fourth year of a war that he helped bring with his waffling. I think if the war ends (big if) many things will change for the better. People are calm and consuming and driving. it is clear that the economy is healthy but the criticism is persistent and it is clear this is not a world where pacifists can thrive.
Thank you for this detailed elaboration, makes sense for where you currently are.
Great work. Looking forward to your next post.
Welcome to a new commenter!
BREAKING: Fars News Agency reported explosions at the South Pars Petrochemical Complex in Asaluyeh within the hour. Israeli Defense Minister Katz claimed the strike immediately. “The IDF has just powerfully struck the largest petrochemical facility in Iran.” Combined with last week’s destruction of the Fajr 1 and Fajr 2 utility plants at Mahshahr, which shut more than 50 downstream facilities by cutting their electricity, water, and oxygen supply simultaneously, Katz declared 85 percent of Iran’s petrochemical production and exports now offline. He called it a “fatal blow to the IRGC’s financial artery” and cited $18 billion in petrochemical revenue to the Revolutionary Guard over the past two years. The number matters. But chemistry matters more. “”
Say goodbye to any talk . This is a major escalation .
https://x.com/shanaka86/status/2041115974775230932/photo/1
Later:
This is not an economic strike. It is a feedstock strike. The distinction is the insight nobody has stated clearly. A petrochemical plant produces methanol, ethylene, propylene, urea, and ammonia for export. It also produces the chemical intermediaries that become ammonium perchlorate, hydroxyl-terminated polybutadiene, and nitric acid, the components of solid rocket motor propellant. The same facility that earns $9 billion a year for the IRGC also synthesises the chemistry that fills the missiles the IRGC fires from granite tunnels 500 metres underground. When Israel destroys the plant, it does not merely reduce revenue. It severs the domestic chemical supply chain that connects a gas field to a warhead. The revenue and the reload are the same molecule at different stages of processing.
An escalation does not sound good!
Wow this makes me think that the near total destruction of oil and other infrastructure in the middle east is a near certainty.
Like 10 -20% of global oil and gas off line for a couple of years.
Soldiers need to drink fresh water, does that make all the desalinization plants legitimate targets? If it does then, several gulf countries and Isreal may not be livable for most of the humans currently living there.
I don’t see how this can end with anything but economic disaster.
Dobbs , it is not the 20% that counts , it is that 50-55 % of the total world’s oil exports will go offline ,40% of LNG . It is a goodbye IC . Of the balance 50% of exportable oil —- Norway , fully booked via pipelines , Russia booked via China , Canada fully booked via pipelines . That leaves minnows like Nigeria , etc to fulfill the gap . Please I am not counting the USA as a major exporter as it is mainly shale and NGL .
Agreed!
Any thoughts on what disruptions in the middle east will do to the date of “peak oil?” Laughing quietly, in all the PO meetings don’t recall mention of one of the largest providers blowing up physical structures to obtain/process petroleum.
Dennis L.
I think this is part of what is making “peak oil” happen right now. There are way too many people for the amount of oil and other resources. The situation is so unsustainable that people start blowing up the structures that make the system work.
Energy consumption per capita is not growing any more. Also, specific necessary kinds of energy are not available in adequate quantities. The system is breaking.
” Iran war: UAE readies fresh tourism support package, minister says ” .
Will it be like the tours in ex- Yugoslavia where they take you to all the bombed sites during the war .
https://gulfnews.com/business/tourism/iran-war-uae-readies-fresh-tourism-support-package-minister-says-1.500497599
Everyone flies in to be tourists to see war-torn areas. I can’t believe it!
Yeah I hear the song hotel California playing… “you can check in but you can’t check out “
Agreed! Even when traveling now, a person wants to know if they can get back home.
Eddy should go just to see if it was fake fake fake 😭
Good one, Rodster! The old boy Eddy has his plate full with the fake trip to the moon…surprise no one here has brought that up yet!.Fast Eddy, where are you?
Artemis II tracker: Live updates as astronauts start lunar flyby today
Cheryl McCloud
Eric Lagatta
USA TODAY NETWORK – Florida
Updated April 6, 2026, 8:07 a.m. ET
Today, Monday, April 6, is the day for the four astronauts on the Artemis II mission.
They’ll approach the moon for a lunar flyby, seeing sights never before seen by human eyes, along with spectacular views of the Earth.
On Easter Sunday, the crew entered the lunar sphere of influence, where the pull of the moon’s gravity became stronger than the pull of the Earth’s gravity.
Too funny, couldn’t be happier..
Who’s the bigger loser?
i thought about eddy having a fakery fit again…together with one or two other flatearthers on OFW..
guess he’s too busy checking on the crisis actors in the gulf right now.
Thanks for chiming in Norman,
Exactly, or he’s too busy searching for a station with petro in the outback.
Too funny
This is the opening section of a long article by Shanaka Anslem Perera tracing how the current conflict between the US/Israeli tag team an Iran is impacting the world’s natural gas and helium supplies, and exploring some of the knock-on effects, which can be expected to range anywhere from catastrophic to Biblical.
There is a lot of detail in this article. Analytical types will love it. But you will need a long attention span to take in the whole thing.
https://shanakaanslemperera.substack.com/p/the-last-molecule-standing
The Last Molecule Standing
How One Reservoir, One Strait, and Five Manufacturers Became the Hidden Operating System of Seven Global Industries
Three thousand metres beneath the floor of the Persian Gulf, in a formation of Triassic dolomite and Permian limestone that predates the existence of mammals, there sits a body of pressurised gas so vast that it contains roughly nineteen percent of the world’s discovered conventional gas reserves. The South Pars/North Dome field does not respect the maritime boundary that Iran and Qatar drew across its surface. Its four reservoir layers, designated K1 through K4 by petroleum geologists, span 9,700 square kilometres of continuous rock, and the hydrocarbons trapped within them migrate freely from zones of high pressure to zones of low pressure, indifferent to the flags planted on the seafloor above. For three decades, this geological indifference was an abstraction discussed in petroleum engineering journals and the occasional diplomatic communiqué. On March 18, 2026, when Israeli F-35s struck the Asaluyeh processing hub on the Iranian shoreline and Iranian ballistic missiles hit Qatar’s Ras Laffan Industrial City hours later, the abstraction became the most consequential physical fact in the global economy. Both sides had struck the same reservoir. Both sides had detonated the hidden operating system of seven industries that, until that week, appeared to have nothing in common.
The following day, President Donald Trump posted on Truth Social that the United States would, “with or without the help or consent of Israel,” destroy the South Pars gas field with force Iran had “never seen or witnessed before.” International human rights organisations condemned the statement, with Amnesty International characterising threats against civilian energy infrastructure as potentially unlawful under international humanitarian law. But the geological impossibility of the threat was more revealing than its legal implications. South Pars is a formation 2,750 metres below the seabed. It cannot be “blown up.” What can be destroyed is the surface infrastructure that processes its output, and the destruction of that infrastructure is precisely what has caused the cascading failure that is the subject of this analysis. The rhetoric confirmed what no government had previously stated publicly: the world’s most powerful military views this single geological formation as the pressure point of the global economy. What the rhetoric did not acknowledge is that the escalation has already occurred. The molecules have already stopped flowing. The cascade has already begun.
The markets understood the energy shock within hours. What they have not yet understood, and what this analysis will demonstrate across nine interconnected sections, is that the damage extends far beyond barrels of oil and cargoes of liquefied natural gas. The 2026 Iran war has exposed a concentration of industrial dependency so extreme that a single geological formation, processed through equipment manufactured by five companies, shipped through one 39-kilometre strait, simultaneously powers the production of the chips in your phone, the fertiliser in the fields that feed three billion people, the aluminium in your aircraft, the gas-to-liquids fuel in military jets, the petrochemicals in every plastic object within arm’s reach, and the desalinated water that keeps 100 million Gulf residents alive. No financial model, no supply chain risk assessment, no sovereign wealth fund stress test, and no central bank scenario analysis ever connected these dependencies into a single picture. The market priced each node independently, assigning near-zero probability to simultaneous failure. On February 28, 2026, that probability resolved to one.
This is not a story about oil. It is a story about molecules, about the five companies that can process them at cryogenic temperatures, about the insurance market that closed a strait before any navy could, and about the three forms of risk that the modern financial system is structurally incapable of pricing: duration measured in years of manufacturing queues, correlation hidden inside shared geological formations, and institutional learning that fades as soon as each crisis recedes. The last molecule of helium boiling off in a stranded container somewhere in the Gulf of Oman is not a metaphor. It is a physical fact with a measurable half-life. By the time the institutions responsible for pricing its scarcity finish arguing about whether this is temporary, the molecule will be gone.
This is a sad story about a major dependency of the world’s economy. I have to believe that this author has AI or a staff of helpers assisting him. The quantity of writing he puts out is amazing.
I’ve noticed that AI-written articles often employ shorter individual sentences where a human author would be more likely to link them up into multi-clause sentences.
Also, the structure “X is not A. It is B,” is very common in AI English. You can see it twice in the final paragraph I reproduced above.
As we become more familiar with AI-generated text, I am sure we will recognize more give-away patterns.
Iran says FAFO .
” As of early April 2026, Iran has indicated that it will not enter into negotiations with the United States regarding the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz unless its security conditions are met, which include acknowledging Iran’s authority and control over the strategic waterway. “
It seems the exposure of the costs/lies etc of the rescue mission and the war has rattled WH . Now instead of Monday night — it is Tuesday night . By the way Iran is still not acknowledging any negotiations . All talk is from Western media .
” *TRUMP SAYS IRAN HAS UNTIL TUE NIGHT TO REOPEN THE STRAIT: WSJ ”
https://x.com/MrMBrown/status/2041110163432656960
This morning when I read about this rescue on the ABC news webpage, I just laughed as the story had to be fake. The USA blew up numerous of their own aircraft because of mechanical failure so as to not leave behind specialised electronic equipment..
Either they have the worst maintenance crews ever, the most unreliable aircraft ever, so the story was fake. I initially put it as being shot down, but when the evidence of the location came out, not in the remote South West, but South of Tehran, then it’s obvious that something else was happening, apart from usual misdirection..
All I’m doing is laughing at the next installment of fiction given to us by the media, like the minister that came out today claiming Australia had done deals with Singapore, Japan and South Korea to keep the fuel products flowing until into May, when he failed to mention that they would all likely call Force Majeure, when they don’t have the crude imports themselves…
Hideaway at Undenial
Comment on zerohedge:
🔸 ️Jan 18: “Iranian patriots, help is coming. We are moving in.”
🔸 ️Feb 28: “We are launching the decisive operation. It will be very fast.”
🔸 ️Mar 2: “We will win easily.”
🔸 ️Mar 3: “We have won the war.”
🔸 ️Mar 7: “We defeated Iran.”
🔸 ️Mar 9: “Strike Iran. The war is almost over—clean and decisive.”
🔸 ️Mar 12: “We have won, but not completely yet.”
🔸 ️Mar 13: “We won the war again.”
🔸 ️Mar 14: “We need help to open the strait.”
🔸 ️Mar 15: “If you don’t help, I will remember it.”
🔸 ️Mar 16: “We actually don’t need help—I was testing loyalty. If NATO doesn’t help, consequences will follow.”
🔸 ️Mar 17: “We don’t need NATO help and don’t want it. No Congress approval needed to exit NATO.”
🔸 ️Mar 18: “Allies must cooperate to open the Strait of Hormuz.”
🔸 ️Mar 19: “US allies must step up and help open the strait.”
🔸 ️Mar 20: “NATO is cowardly. We may phase this out.”
🔸 ️Mar 21: “We don’t use the strait. Others need it, not us.”
🔸 ️Mar 22: “Final warning. Iran has 48 hours. Iran is finished.”
🔸 ️Mar 23: “One more week, then we bomb power plants.”
🔸 ️Mar 24: “The war is nearing its end.”
🔸 ️Mar 25: “We are negotiating with Iran.”
🔸 ️Mar 26: “Iran is begging for peace. They gave us a gift. We delay strikes on power plants.”
🔸 ️Mar 27: “I and the Ayatollah will jointly manage the Strait of Hormuz.”
🔸 ️Mar 28: “Regime change has occurred in Iran.”
🔸 ️Mar 29: “Negotiations with Iran are going extremely well.”
🔸 ️Mar 30: “We are prepared to destroy Iran’s oil and energy infrastructure and occupy Kharg Island.”
🔸 ️Mar 31: “We are ready to end the war without opening the strait.”
🔸 ️Apr 1: “War ends in 3 days. We will bomb them for 2–3 weeks back into the Stone Age.”
🔸 ️Apr 2: “We destroyed three major bridges. Why haven’t they called us yet?”
🔸 ️Apr 3: “We control the Iranian space, despite fighter jets destrucion”
🔸 ️Apr 4: “We are giving Iran 48 hours to surrender. Wait, I need to rush to hospital.”
🔸 Apr 5: “Open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell – JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah”
Remember he has suggested that the Strait be renamed the Strait of Trump…
Meanwhile,
Iraq urges customers to send oil loading plans after Hormuz exemption, document shows
By Florence Tan
April 5, 20269:42 PM EDT
April 6 (Reuters) – Iraq’s state oil marketer SOMO has asked its customers to submit crude oil lifting schedules within 24 hours, a document reviewed by Reuters showed, following media reports that Iran has exempted Iraq from any restrictions on transit through the Strait of Hormuz.
I think it’s going to be Taco Tuesday but who knows
He is basically asking Iran to lay their head down so they can chop it off
That seems reasonable, to a madman
This post claims supply disruption is overstated because ships are just turning off their transponders / going dark from the tracking network. If so, predictions here (eg. Kulm) will be off majorly.
https://x.com/aakashgupta/status/2041026371489759507
This is wild: Citrini sent a dude with $15,000 cash, recording sunglasses, and a pack of Cuban cigars to the Strait of Hormuz. What he found flips everything Wall Street thinks about the strait on its head.
Every hedge fund, every macro desk, every retired general on CNBC is watching the same AIS shipping data to price Hormuz risk. The analyst signed a pledge at an Omani checkpoint promising not to gather information, then smuggled in a gimbal, a microphone kit, and a 150x zoom Leica camera past the border officer who inspected his bag.
What he discovered on the ground: the AIS data everyone is trading on is missing roughly half of what’s actually transiting the strait on any given day. Ships are going dark, spoofing destinations, broadcasting “CHINESE CREW OWNER” through transponder fields to avoid getting hit. Iran’s ghost fleet is running 29+ laden tankers inside the Gulf with transponders off, moving an estimated $3B in crude to Malaysia since the war started.
The entire market is pricing a “closed” strait off satellite imagery and transponder data that has a 50% blind spot. Every oil model, every supply forecast, every macro call built on AIS throughput numbers is working from a dataset that systematically overstates the disruption.
When the signals deliberately go dark, the people staring at dashboards are the last to know what’s happening. Citrini figured that out by putting a guy on a speedboat 18 miles from the Iranian coast while Shahed drones flew overhead.
The gap between “what AIS says” and “what’s actually transiting” is the most mispriced variable in energy right now.
I can believe this. When there is a financial incentive to get through, the system will tend to put more through. This is one reason I have shied away from saying that X% of supply is lost, and a corresponding share of people may die. The system tries to remain stable, however it can.
”Rancourt’s position is grounded in observable material consequences. The US, he argues, will not peacefully adapt to emerging multipolar powers. It will use force, destruction, and violence to maintain hegemony, and it will do so for decades. Pauses may occur. Negotiations may be attempted. But the trajectory is aggression. The Iran war vindicates this assessment with brutal specificity. On February 25, 2026, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi stated that a “historic” agreement with the United States was “within reach” ahead of renewed talks in Geneva.⁵ Three days later, the bombs fell. The negotiations were not a path to peace. They were staging. Rancourt warned of exactly this — that US diplomatic overtures toward Iran were setups for further assault rather than genuine peace efforts.
Brian Berletic, the Bangkok-based geopolitical analyst who runs The New Atlas, takes the ground-level case further. His argument is structural and civilizational: the United States has been exterminating indigenous populations, stealing land, and pilfering resources for nearly 200 years before Israel ever existed.⁶ The pattern runs from the American Midwest to Hawaii to the Philippines to Vietnam to Iraq to Iran without interruption. What makes anyone think, Berletic asks, that a nation that has done all of this would not be interested in controlling the most resource-rich region on Earth — with or without Israel?” ?
https://unbekoming.substack.com/p/the-house-always-wins
This is a really unfortunate situation, but I am afraid it is true. Might makes right is the underlying principle.
Don’t count on owning something if someone bigger and stronger could come and take it away from you.
MTG to the folks in the DLT administration:
“I know all of you and him and he has gone insane, and all of you are complicit.”
https://x.com/FmrRepMTG/status/2040789438494585175
April 5, 2026
Everyone in his administration that claims to be a Christian needs to fall on their knees and beg forgiveness from God and stop worshipping the President and intervene in Trump’s madness.
I know all of you and him and he has gone insane, and all of you are complicit.
I’m not defending Iran but let’s be honest about all of this.
The Strait is closed because the US and Israel started the unprovoked war against Iran based on the same nuclear lies they’ve been telling for decades, that any moment Iran would develop a nuclear weapon.
You know who has nuclear weapons? Israel.
They are more than capable of defending themselves without the US having to fight their wars, kill innocent people and children, and pay for it.
Trump threatening to bomb power plants and bridges hurts the Iranian people, the very people Trump claimed he was freeing.
On Easter, of all days, we as Christians should be reminded that the son of God died and rose from the grave so that we can be forgiven once and for all of our sins. Jesus commanded us to love one another and forgive one another. Even our enemies.
Our President is not a Christian and his words and actions should not be supported by Christians.
Christians in the administration should be pursuing peace. Urging the President to make peace. Not escalating war that is hurting people.
This NOT what we promised the American people when they overwhelmingly voted in 2024, I know, I was there more than most.
This is not making America great again, this is evil.
Is she handed a script too? Because she is almost certainly tribe. For every Stalin, willing to put national interests above tribal interests, there are 1000 non Stalins. And anyway no one wants to die before their time.
Political parties start splintering, too.
What Trump is doing seems so terribly wrong. And we read yesterday that there were big protests in Tel Aviv against the bombing.
”the US having to fight their wars,”?
Not ‘their wars’?
The ‘tail’ doesn’t wag the ‘dog’?
Existential threat?
“To retain its military power and reserve currency the US needs leverage to force China to provide it with rare earth minerals, and the US intends to use Iran’s oil as that leverage.“?
https://un-denial.com/2026/03/05/cactus-view-of-the-iran-war/
” RAND estimated that 78 percent of US defence contractors would face production shutdowns within 90 days of a Chinese rare earth cutoff. The 2027 deadline to ban Chinese-sourced magnets from Pentagon procurement is nine months away with no domestic alternative at scale.
MP Materials operates the only US rare earth mine and ships its concentrate to China for processing. ” ?
https://x.com/shanaka86/status/2038868023314976864?s=20
Come on now, what’s the big deal if Iran has nuclear weapon capabilities
Yes, Iran operates one nuclear power plant at Bushehr (active since 2013) and has others under construction or planned. Spent fuel from Bushehr is returned to Russia under bilateral agreements. Iran also manages its own radioactive waste through the governmental Iran Radioactive Waste Management Co, utilizing storage facilities like the one in Anarak.Key Details on Iran’s Nuclear Facilities:Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant (BNPP): The primary operating plant, producing about 1.7% of Iran’s electricity in 2023.Waste Handling: The Iran Radioactive Waste Management Co (IRWA) was established in 2007 to collect, treat, transport, and store radioactive waste. The Anarak facility handles waste produced from radioactive materials.Program Status (as of 2026): Following a 2025 military strike on multiple Iranian nuclear sites (including Natanz and Arak), Iran officially ended its 2015 JCPOA commitment, declaring all previous restrictions on its nuclear program void.Fuel Management: Spent fuel rods from the Bushehr plant are required to be returned to Russia for reprocessing or storage.Despite these capabilities, Iran’s nuclear program has faced significant scrutiny and international concern, with many facilities serving dual purposes for energy generation and potential nuclear material development.Nuclear Power in IranApr 2, 2026 — One nuclear power reactor is operating in Iran and another is under construction. Construction commenced on a second large Russian…World Nuclear AssociationHow targeting Iran’s nuclear facilities could impact the …Jun 21, 2025 — Grossi warned that the Bushehr nuclear facility might be hit, saying that this would be, “the nuclear site in Iran where the conse…ABC NewsIran, Islamic Republic of – Country Nuclear Power ProfilesCountry Nuclear Profile Summary The Islamic Republic of Iran (henceforth Iran) currently has one operating nuclear power reactor k…International Atomic Energy AgencyShow all
You mean to tell me Iran can not launch a “dirty bomb” of radioactive waste material leaving the land of Israel uninhabitable right now?
Please, Trump’s reason to go along with this knee jerk sneak attack without any support is baseless. Of course, if Iran did such, the concept of M.A.D. of what cones around, goes around would hit themselves.
Perhaps we are heading toward Mutually Assured Destruction!
There is new Prof Jiang video that claims 1000 RS-28 with nuclear warheads have been delivered to Iran. This is super hard for me to believe. It is enough explosive to destroy the entire nation of America. It would be nuke power using other as their nuke proxy. Trusting a outside nation with that much power is unbelievable.
This one pisses me off. Are they fission bombs or fusion bombs. If fusion then Iran can kill the US and would be wise to take it while it can. That is NOW!
He does slip into “nuclear capable” that is an empty missile of no danger. Which is it?
let’s go with these are not nuclearweapons.
and wait for a more reliable source.
yes I am going to bed and I expect to wake up tomorrow
In my case, I expect to see an “out of gas” sign at the petro station…
Thanks Donald, fantastic sarc
The odds are pretty good that you will wake up to morrow.
But you’ll be one day closer to the big sleep.
So, gather ye rosebuds while ye may.
Makes one think of the line from Doctor Strangelove. If you have a nuclear doomsday device why didn’t you tell anyone. It is useless if you do not tell anyone.
You know how the chairman loves surprises he was waiting for the party congress next week.
With the senile old men throwing around so many threats I have lost track of where we are at.
You’re posting AI slop imitation of a real person who is himself a know-nothing, making this nonsense squared.
Another fake AI video. I know, because the one I posted last week about Iran having wiped out 40 F-35s on the ground at Israel central command airport was fake. I got burned even though as I posted it, I knew it was AI.
I am now almost in FE mode. Did the Artemis II astronauts actually leave low earth orbit and slingshot around the moon? What happened to Van Allen radiation belt?
Someone at MOA said that Nima had as a guest today or yesterday that former US army guy with the Russian name, and they were talking in the 17th minute about how there was a minor radiation release the other day from Bushehr and that the plume blew over Kuwait. More talk and analysis over there on page 4 of the Open Thread about the controversial rescue mission.
Link?
Starting 17th minute
https://www.youtube.com/live/NnnIv58wFxo
Something HUGE Just Happened In Louisiana And It’s SCARY
Jay Reed
248K subscribers
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hL-okjrYook
Data centers are destroying towns
Data centers are taking way too much electricity (and natural gas to create the electricity). Also use too much water. Increase the number of traffic accidents. What if they suddenly go backwards? That would be a problem, too.
In four years when the middle east is split between Iran and Israel it will fall to the US to pay for Israeli society about ten million people at about 100 billion dollars per year and Israeli military at about 100 billion per year. Easy to tuck in the 500 billion dollars increase for DOD/DOW. More interesting will be the US draft to staff the ground operations of the IDF.
in your unrealistic scenario, Israel could easily pay the wages for enough mercenaries.
the goy pay not the chosen.
The youtube channel war current has detailed war info. Yes it uses AI I still choose to believe that the facts it states are true.
The video does sound like it could be a reasonable description of what went wrong. It claims that Iran has the ability to shoot down rescue teams in the future. This will make fright crews more worried about flying over Iran the future, knowing that if they get shot down, no one can come rescue them.
Nice Freudian slip, Gail.
Who wouldn’t be frightened to be in a crew flying over Iranian territory?
Only Tom Cruise.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1BJy4aHi_8I
That 2022 movie today looks like predictive programming for the current US attacks on Iran. When I saw it in the movie theater, I was wondering which particular enemy country the USA was trying hit, as no actual name was mentioned and no enemy combatants appeared as far as I remember.
As often in Hollywood movies, only the Americans have hearts and souls; everyone else is a non player character. But at least Tom Cruise didn’t bomb any school children.
And don’t worry about Tom. He makes it back alive to a hero’s welcome. Then goes on to do another Mission Impossible, and I believe he’s working on Top Gun 3 at the moment. I hope BAU continues for a few more years because that movie will be worth hanging around for.
Trump boasted that the Iranians have no air defense remaining and yet it appears they did half a billion dollars in damage within 48 hours.
Ret Lt Col Daniel Davis, on his YT channel corroborates that the US in the last 2 days have lost at least a combination of 15-20 planes/helicopters.
George Galloway along with former CIA analyst Larry Johnson says he’s seen pictures of the downed US fighter jet and one of the pictures shows a burned skull, which runs contrary to a successful rescue mission. Johnson, says the loses on the US side are much bigger than what the western press is reporting.
Lets switch back to [ Slovakia ] for a while, shall we..
One* of the world’s first POV driving videos of the new 2026 Jeep Compass EV, this specimen is only FWD, but AWD also avail. later.. Best EV out there now, ground clearance, approach angles, cargo volume, smallish batt (good).. , horrible price for the ~shaky euro-amero brand though..
https://youtu.be/-O3Gg4Am8Rg
—
* second if not the very first published in the world ?
the USevilEmpire is committing warcrimes.
the IslamicRetardedGuard is committing warcrimes with every hit on civilian ships and other civilian targets.
the Madman vs the Madmen.
both sides are threatenning more.
it’s hard to be optimistic.
The Iranians are just defending themselves. You might be a logically impaired person.
I agree that they are defending themselves.
by almost any means possible.
atttack civilian targets?
severely harm world food production?
to them: sure, why not?
If there are way too many people for resources, what makes sense seems to change.
Wise words
No, really, that was the comment of an imbecile.
Sometimes it is wrong to defend themselves.
Iran has no right to exist so its self defense is a crime.
I don’t think many people would agree with you.
The world according to Klummie,
What Trump watches during Saturday morning cartoon time
You are frustrated. We are all very frustrated.
There is only one country that needs to win this, otherwise the outlook is exceptionally grim for all of us.
I’m feeling good. Why would I ever be frustrated with Collapse? That could only mean I’ve been bargaining. I could only ever be frustrated with my own performance under pressure, or somebody else’s.
the IslamicRetardedGuard is committing warcrimes with every hit on civilian ships and other civilian targets.
That’s a matter for the lawyers and judges to chew the fat over. Needless to say, there are times when a hit on a civilian ship or other target is a war crime and times when it’s legit. Agreed?
Now, you have assiduously avoided mentioning the attack on the Shajareh Tayyebeh girls’ elementary school, located in Minab, in the southern Hormozgan province, which killed over 170 people, mostly young girl students.
It happened on 28 February 2026, the first day of what Wikipedia is now calling “the 2026 Iran”, although it is more accurately described as the latest US sneak terror attack on an independent sovereign country that didn’t toe the line.
I can’t think about this entire conflict without coming back to this cowardly sneak terror attack carried out by the venal Trump administration and then blatantly denied by Trump and blamed on Iran.
And this was the fourth such sneak attack on Iran in the last few years. The people who own and run the USA and Israeli excel at cowardly sneak attacks on everybody else, that is when they are not performing cowardly sneak attacks on their own nationals.
If the Iranians are mad, they have been made mad, and if they are monstrous, they have been made monstrous. Condemn them if you wish, but it’s totally natural and understandable behavior. An abused or cornered animal would do as much. Would you really blame a dog tortured by men with clubs for savaging anyone it could get its teeth into?
If the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, all 190,000 of them, now go on a rampage and attack and destroy any collateral infrastructure owned or used by their enemies anywhere in the world, half of the world will be applauding and the other half will be all out of outrage and condemnation. Some of us have shed so many tears or so brought up so much bile over what’s happened to the people Gaza that we have none left for the outrages that come next. And there is absolutely nothing we can do in any case. Although if the American people could get together and stage a national strike—just stay home stop working and shopping— until all aggressive military action was cancelled, that might cause the leadership to rethink what they are doing.
But the powers really really really want to fight the Third World War and collapse the world economy causing billions to suffer and die, there is absolutely nothing we the people can do to stop them. All we can do is to try to come to terms with the situation in our own way, which may involve getting in a supply of dark chocolate while stocks last.
“… killled over 170 people, mostly young girl students.”
yes the USevilEmpire did that.
should we look back weeks before to the IRGC slaughtttering 1000s of Iranian protesters?
could reports of that be partly why seenile Trump did 2/28?
“If the Iranians are mad, they have been made mad, and if they are monstrous, they have been made monstrous.”
excellent summary of the reality of the IRGC.
the IRGC, reportedly intelligent men, must know that they are damaging world food production.
let that sink in.
Well….. good thing the Israeli army has not killed any Palestinians with US made weapons and money. Because that would be bad too.
Iranians slaughtering Iranians is lamentable, I agree, but it is a domestic matter. There’s no need for outsiders to get involved.
And slaughtering protesters is not on quite the level of slaughtering schoolgirls.
Only the Empire of Epstein has been doing that recently.
If I identified with the US/Israeli government side, which I don’t (and I know you don’t either), I don’t know how I would be able to live with myself. I would need to go into serious denial to think up a reason to keep cheerleading for that lot.
“should we look back weeks before to the IRGC slaughtttering 1000s of Iranian protesters?”
David, I have told you before that the above didn’t happen and if you believe otherwise to show your evidence.
The initial protests were from the Bazaari, after the tax rise because of sanctions. If you look into the Bazaari you will find that they were instrumental in the revolution and are instrumental in society, so are never ignored by the leadership(who promptly reduced taxes).
The protests are welcome in Iran and anyone that follows the region, rather than listening to the ravings of an strangely coloured pedophile, would know this. Then, outside groups started attacking and burning mosques, fire stations health workers and yes, the Bazaari, so to believe your narrative, I have to believe that the Bazaari set themselves on fire.
This was when the authorities stepped in and banned protests, which died out quickly, but not before your outsiders targetted nurses and little children(just like your pedo pres and his kin in the squat), but the authorities soon dealt with them and that is who you mourn.
https://www.tasnimnews.ir/en/media/2026/02/03/3507543/analysis-proves-foreign-backed-terrorists-staged-killings-to-incite-chaos
“the IRGC, reportedly intelligent men, must know that they are damaging world food production.
let that sink in.”
Ok, I’ve let the stupidity of attempting to blame the victim sink in.
It hasn’t made me stupid enough to blame the victim though.
What now. Listen to the screaming idiocy of a pedo more and ignore real world events, until I repeat by rote
https://youtu.be/TtfQlkGwE2U?si=VZ8l63PP3xlImrs3
Today, I had a long walk, about 25 km through 3 villages. You can feel it in the air how the human world is dying: as if the world is full of zombies.
Energy allowed humans to conquer the nature and create ownership and debt. When the energy is in decline, other species gain ground and the human concepts of ownership and debt are ridiculed by natural forces.
yup
we were told the planet was up for sale
it never was
good to know you have enough available food so you can use many calories for your long walk.
the human species will endure this small regional war and its major consequences.
food production might drop 20% but that does not equate to a linear drop of 20% of the population.
if world population does drop, that should be a good thing in the long term.
in the far future, human extincttion will mean the end of all human suffering.
Yes, look always on the bright side, hun Dave.?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHPOzQzk9Qo&list=RDjHPOzQzk9Qo&start_radio=1
Monty Python…Happy Easter
Cleaner link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHPOzQzk9Qo
💃🕺🪩
Ok just can’t resist this one.
Today is Easter. He Is Risen. Jesus Is Risen. Jesus, The Chosen One, Is Risen.
Gabbard, The Chosen One of the Non-Public Degrowth Agenda: is she risen today, in light of the false god Trump’s apocalyptic post?
When I search Gabbard’s name today on Google, a new image of her I’ve never seen before appears. Usually the image of her upon that search doesn’t change very often. Today it changed. Gabbard is wearing the color gold, which is the color of divine Jesus, and she is looking what can only be described as victorious.
Could the coup be as soon as today? After which ‘Netanyahoo’ goes nuts and creates the definitive Big Nuclear Scare?
I wouldn’t want to miss out on calling the coup, no sir-eee I wouldn’t.
Lunatic .
” Earlier on Easter morning, President Trump unleashed a fierce message on Truth Social: “Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!! Open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell “
This does not sound like, “Love your neighbor as yourself.”
It sounds a lot more like, “Not enough to go around.”
More like I want all of yours for myself or you all are destroyed
What happened to carry a big stick and talk softly
It sounds more like a deranged lunatic. Stay classy Trump, stay classy.
Postponed till Tuesday evening:
Plus he claims negotiations ongoing – Iran could fold (agree) on Monday..
Trump Sets Tuesday Deadline for Iran to Reopen Strait of Hormuz
http://www.wsj.com › iran-war-news-2026 › card › trump-…
https://www.bbc.com/news/live/cm29zmpdj3vt
Trump issues expletive-laden threat to Iran demanding Strait of Hormuz be opened
He sounds desperate and not in control because that is the reality. A war that should have never been started.
Is he threatening the marine insurance companies just as aggressively?
Can’t believe you guys fall for this stuff after all this time. Especially with me yelling in your ears the whole time. Pull your fingers out, if just for a brief minute. This King Lear post today is like when they told everyone to double mask during the plandemic.
Hand is laughing right now and deservedly so.
I wonder if Hitler ever issued expletive-laden threats during his rallies?
Although I suppose they would have been issued in German?
German spoken word is like one running aural expletive and with German shouting you can double that, so it’s two hundred percent true that he was leaning heavily on the cussing regardless of the ‘transcripts.’
Gail, you have to scroll a bit down, it’s a [ live update page ] on the over-all Iran conflict saga..
Confirmed video+audio from the rescue operation. Local ~civilian dudes engaging low overflying US choppers above a field..
https://www.bbc.com/news/live/cm29zmpdj3vt?post=asset%3Aa131ea99-29d8-42c3-8090-d624fcbb0ac6#post
It’s wrapped in their shi##y BBC media player – for [ full screen ] pleasures have to tap icon in vid’s upper right corner..
Creative commons!
The senile lunatic threatens crimes against humanity. The democrats say nothing because they serve Israel. The UN says nothing because it fear Israel. The BRICS say nothing because chews are powerful in their nations.
Just some things that make me go —- hmmm .
1. It is 24 hours since the rescue . Why hasn’t the media hungry narcissist DJT paraded the rescued pilot and done a victory dance ?? OR — there was no rescue ,only a media leak to save face ?? So here are the credentials of the journalist who reported it first ” Former Ranger/Special Forces veteran turned journalist Jack Murphy first broke the story late Saturday night. His investigative reporting on sensitive operations, particularly in Syria ” . Literally a leaky source for DOD ( DOW ) .
2 . Use of 2 C-130 aircraft both destroyed . These are nothing but transport planes that carry 96 soldiers or cargo etc . They can only land on airstrips . What were they doing in the mountains ? Was this a special operation that went wrong , so get out the spin doctors .
Like I said — makes me go hmmm .
⛔️The Pentagon is hiding the truth about the failed operation last night‼️
⛔️ The American camouflage for the landing operation at a remote airport in Isfahan was actually aimed as a major military landing operation ‼️
⛔️The American Isfahan operation was an initial landing operation for stabilising entry routes and securing it for a large ground landing operation, and when it failed, the pentagon diverted the compass with the excuse of rescuing the pilot to justify their failure‼️
⛔️You don’t rescue one pilot with a huge C-130 ‼️It was another major disaster and failure that they lied .about.
Copy/paste MoA
https://x.com/drhossamsamy65/status/2040798900718534903/video/1
Possibly, but for ~certain we could only witness these on the ground burned C130 rotor blades ( apart from other – metal debris ), some sort of advanced fiber apparently..
There could well be something in that.
“The spokesman for the Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters has declared the so-called US military rescue operation a complete failure, describing it as a diversionary tactic and a hasty withdrawal carried out under the pretext of retrieving the pilot of a downed aircraft at an abandoned airport south of Isfahan”
https://english.almanar.com.lb/article/51807/
Who gets praise for their role is also revealing.
Larry Johnson and Scott Ridder on the rescue operation .
Lets recap that C130 is a STOL platform, so they could have planned to land on some sort of local paved area, be it large parking lot with access road – near some industrial plant site, hw segment under construction, and similar..
Losing the Iran war (it could be construed as fake if we compare it to Kulms Iwo Jima post) might take a long time which wouldn’t be good for the world because the gulf will be continuously constricted. Maybe the planners view this as positive since less resources would be needed for a smaller population ( the S.Keen 20% lower projection below). If the no kings day protesters were aware of that the outrage could end the war pronto. (CNN said DJT anti war poll was 90% +).
The difficulty with this idea is that usually wars don’t kill off a large share of the population. Epidemics tend to kill off a lot more people.
Well in this case the war could indirectly cause problems by lower fertilizer production. In that podcast Keen said a billion people could starve .
But the straight is still open so will the war escalate where it’s really shut down?
Buckle up tomorrow could be the day. This is a good write up for how it could happen
https://rayonegro.substack.com/p/guerra-total
It is now do or die time
From HT
The Speaker of the Iran Parliament seems to utilize proxies to post messages on Social media. The latest such message makes clear Infrastructure war commences within 24 hours.
The message, posted at 01:26 this morning, April 5, in Farsi language (Iranian), is machine-translated as follows:
“If Iran does not receive a credible signal by tomorrow of Trump reconsidering an attack on Iran’s infrastructure, it will preemptively, irreversibly, and on a massive scale target the Saudi electricity and oil production infrastructure, as well as that of the Israeli regime. Iran has so far refrained from exercising this option in order to avoid entering an “irreversible infrastructure war” and a “Ukrainization of the region,” but the time for this restraint will end in the next 24 hours.”
Yes java it sounds like we are getting to the edge of the cliff. Trump’s language or lack there of shows someone of his character or lack of character in panic. When desperation sets in anything can happen
You have the original post in X?
I try to stay off the main platforms, so this is the best I can do:
https://halturnerradioshow.com/index.php/news-selections/world-news/iran-infrastructure-war-will-commence-in-24-hours
That said, HT is hit and miss, but when he gets it right… well, he does.
https://x.com/shanaka86/status/2040830151840485811?s=20
We already know that the Hand’s Shanaka gets mainlined straight into the veins of DC. Google AI has told us in the past that that’s a recurring phenomenon. Which makes Shanaka a third way Intel service of Statecraft.
Shanaka jumping right on the Ghawar threat is Red Alert material for coup plotters.
We’re getting spirited away now.
https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/licensed-image?q=tbn:ANd9GcTr8WFPEVTnMTRJfpHHAkvhUz-uZ1FpS2cfEV5Lk60-U1AQ8lnsQdGKr0vBDGAJWeD_hzx2Heevrr1_zWnHeyneN1awyz7eIftUhK-PxeE0ciB8yn8axFWQq5NW3Jmue0pEXvli2QDNQKQ&s=19
A major change is that Iran wants the US to pay for the damage it has done to date, before it will consider negotiating.
Dayum, bringing the Scare in Big Nuclear Scare by floating ghawarian Gigantic Balls Theory. Hand ain’t fartin round now! Love it!
It does sound worrying!
“Barking dogs, seldom bite.” – English Proverb
I don’t know about that….
Quark details an immensely large US military build up that has been put in place for tomorrow, April 6.
He then says:
If we consider the massive military deployment, the resignation of high-ranking officers, and the need for significantly more funding, along with the threats made and the military actions that began on February 28, we can conclude that a huge operation is being prepared, which may include a ground attack, in addition to the destruction of Iran’s main infrastructure, including its energy sector. The plan from the outset appears to have been to annihilate Iran or achieve regime change .
“ Trump’s hesitation in trying to articulate the objectives of the war in Iran is pure acting, a blindfold to hide his true and unwavering objective: simply the annihilation of Iran as a functioning state, the infliction of the greatest possible number of deaths and damage to infrastructure, the reduction of Iran to the condition of Libya.
It is clear that the United States’ takeover of Iranian hydrocarbons is the ultimate goal of this destruction, just as in Libya and Iraq. But a crucial and related objective is the elimination of the only physical resistance to Israeli expansion. Iran and its allies in Yemen and Lebanon have been the Palestinians’ only support for years .
Where this “total war” might lead, if it starts, is unknown, but it is clearly very dangerous not only for the conflict zone but also for the rest of the world. Of course, an attack of this kind would cause irreversible damage and cross the infamous point of no return.
Tomorrow is April 6th, we’ll see what happens in the end.
This is disturbing!
” Significant numbers of advanced munitions have been expended, revealing that battlefield dominance matters less than the industrial capacity to replenish critical stockpiles. ” ?
https://www.rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/commentary/over-11000-munitions-16-days-iran-war-command-reload-governs-endurance
Anas Alhaji free podcast .
https://open.substack.com/pub/anasalhajjieoa/p/hormuz-between-trump-and-iranian?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email
“The attacks on desalination plants take the war to another level.”
1.) I don’t think Gail touched on this but with all the breakdown of international trade beginning with the “pandemic”, does that mean high tech will have to shrink along with international trade? High tech according to a couple of sources depends on globalization.
2.) Have the energy shortages in Europe led to any deaths ?
3.) How is Spain and Germany able to generate a significant portion of their electricity from renewables without periodic blackouts?
1. It seems like high tech will have to shrink with international trade. In fact, with China cutting the US off from minerals used in high tech, the US will have a very difficult time making high-tech things ourselves. This may be part of the frustration leading to the war. If Trump could manage the to win in Iran, perhaps he could get China to sell some of the critical minerals to the US.
2. You could argue that the deaths in Ukraine are due to energy shortages–energy-related fighting in Europe. Otherwise, I don’t think so.
3. Germany. Germany is well connected by transmission lines to other countries, besides having coal supplies. This allows Germany to dump unwanted wind and solar on the grid, as it desires. Germany is also able to buy power from other countries, like France with nuclear, and Norway and Sweden with hydroelectric. So Germany has not had too many problems with stability.
Spain is only connected well to Portugal on the grid–not to the rest of Europe. Spain has had a 12-hour blackout on April 28, 2025 because of this issue. My impression is that it can’t add more renewables to the grid without adding a whole lot of stabilizing equipment.
Today is Easter, although there is nothing to cheer.
About 10%-20% of the people alive now will not see the next Easter.
The biblical tale of Jonah is one of the siller tales there. Jonah was a prophet of some renown (out of the prophets who have their own book in the bible, only Isaiah, Jeremiah and Jonah are mentioned in the Book of Kings, meaning they were quite important at their lifetimes)
At that time Assyria was the Evil Empire of the day, and one day Jonah was instructed by Yahweh to go to its capital, Nineveh (near Mosul), Iraq, to prophesize or Yahweh would destroy Nineveh.
the tale is well known, so I won’t repeat it, but what if Jonah killed himself in the belly of the whale?
In fact it was what Jonah should have done. Since Jonah failed to prophesize to the people of Nineveh, if Yahweh was a God of his Word, Yahweh now had to destroy Nineveh, and Jonah would have been celebrated to this day as one of Israel’s great heroes.
Instead, Jonah valued his own worthless life more, and eventually Nineveh conquered Israel about half a century later.
Jonah could not return home. He died in Nineveh, and the locals built a tomb there . Its site existed until 2016 when ISIS blasted it off.
There is no moral for this story, but which might be why Israeli pilots who fall in enemy territories are instructed to kill themselves.
[ 10 – 20% y/y ] ->bold call, but you could be right, evidently the biggest crisis in many decades.. while world meanwhile moved to more dependency of various long distance ( global ) arrangements..
I am not jumping too far. However, with the planting season having passed and not enough fertilizers, the world food production will be 10-20% less than last year. So a reduction of 10-20% is reasonable
Millions marching today to protest this in the streets
does not matter. Martial law not too far away
If they read the Old Testament, then they’d understand that they are reacting the way it foretold. Everyone is suppose to be against Israel except for a few outliers like the Don.
Huge protests are in the Middle East. Iraq. Syria. Yemen. Tel Aviv, Israel had protests.
After Iwo Jima and Okinawa, the US military brass decided to invade Japan.
However, against fanatics no logic applied, so to do so a war of extermination was to be conducted.
1. cut every major bridge in Japan
2. throw poison gas bombs to every aerodrome in Japan
3. destroy the Japanese harvest of 1945, inducing major famines
4. cause a complete economic and civil collapse of Japan
At that time mainland Japan had about 70 million. The estimate casualty was about 10m-20m by end of 1945. The planners stopped counting after that. Plans were made to repopulate Japan with the Japanese-‘americans’ being held at ‘evacuation camps’.
Then on March 1946 the Americans (with some allies from UK and France) would land on the Tokyo area.
At that time few people knew about the Manhattan project so the plans went ahead, and only after someone told Truman that the nukes would be cheaper the bombs were used.
Iran’s terrain is not favorable for nuclear weapons. Nuking Tehran will not really affect things too much . So I think a war of extermination in Iran will be likely.
It’s the Christian thing to do on Easter, right Kulmmie? It’s for their and our own “good” because that’s just they way it’s been throughout History, as you say…such a moral or amoral outlook. Nuclear explosions will save the advancement of civilization, as you like to call it, to continue progress.
https://inaspaciousplace.wordpress.com/2012/08/06/hiroshima-original-child-bomb-by-thomas-merton/
Iran is an old culture, some estimates are 5k years. My guess is if a culture remains somewhat homogenous the lessons of time become expressed in genes; wars, strife may even weed out certain traits which are not helpful in overall survival.
I am a very proud and intense American, but our culture is only perhaps 400 years old depending on how you count it. We will learn and adapt and what works will remain.
Basically, God is working things out, when they don’t go as planned, plans change.
Dennis L.
Ok first of all you show your hand by exaggerating the age of the United States by 150 years. Secondly I don’t know w why a God would choose sides in this catastrophe. It is the illusion of religion that has brought us to the brink that we are at right now
“. My guess is if a culture remains somewhat homogenous the lessons of time become expressed in genes; wars, strife may even weed out certain traits which are not helpful in overall survival.” Wars may choose for traits that allow some to survive the strife. The U.S. has spent a great deal of its recent history in some sort of strife . Plenty of people, with traits conducive to survival probably perished . After all, strife is not reserved for the sick, lame, and unfit only.
Pope Leo urges those who ‘unleash wars’ to choose peace in his first Easter message CNN
Pope Leo XIV blesses the crowd during the Easter Mass as part of the Holy Week celebrations, at St Peter’s square in the Vatican on Sunday.
Pope Leo XIV blesses the crowd during the Easter Mass as part of the Holy Week celebrations, at St Peter’s square in the Vatican on Sunday. Alberto Pizzoli/AFP/Getty Images
Rome — Pope Leo XIV called for dialogue and for those with the power to unleash wars to choose peace, in his first Easter Sunday message since becoming the head of the Catholic Church last year.
Speaking from the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica, Pope Leo said: “Let us abandon every desire for conflict, domination and power, and implore the Lord to grant his peace to a world ravaged by wars and marked by a hatred and indifference that make us feel powerless in the face of evil.”
“Let those who have weapons lay them down. Let those who have the power to unleash wars choose peace. Not a peace imposed by force, but through dialogue. Not with the desire to dominate others, but to encounter them,” the pontiff said.
Thousands gathered in the square to hear Leo’s message, with one group holding up a poster in Italian: “Pope Leo we are with you, guide our future.”
In his message, Leo echoed the late Pope Francis’ phrase about the “globalization of indifference,” acknowledging that people are “growing accustomed to violence, resigning ourselves to it and becoming indifferent.”
People attend the Easter Mass led by Pope Leo XIV in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican, on Sunday morning.
People attend the Easter Mass led by Pope Leo XIV in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican, on Sunday morning. Remo Casilli/Reuters
Pope Leo XIV arrives to preside over Easter Mass in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican, on Sunday.
Pope Leo XIV arrives to preside over Easter Mass in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican, on Sunday. Alessandra Tarantino/AP
The pontiff said the power of Easter – when Christians celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead – is “entirely nonviolent.”
Leo also used his Easter Sunday message to announce a special prayer vigil for peace in St. Peter’s Basilica, on Saturday, April 11. The late Pope Francis organized a similar vigil in 2013 for Syria – to rally against the civil war and reject military intervention – which was attended by around 100,000 people.
After delivering his message, Leo wished people a happy Easter in 10 languages, including Arabic, Chinese and Latin. He then said the Regina Coeli prayer and gave the traditional Urbi et Orbi blessing, meaning “To the City and to the World.”
Leo XIV’s first Holy Week and Easter takes place against the backdrop of war and has seen him express hope that US President Donald Trump can find an “off-ramp” to end the conflict in the Middle East.
The pontiff said the message of Easter responds to “the cry of pain that rises from every corner because of the abuses that crush the weakest among us, because of the idolatry of profit that plunders the earth’s resources, because of the violence of war that kills and destroys.”
.
Who listens to Bobby Prevost, Villanova fan?
I am sure his relatives are cheering
Nobody, except for deeply religious “Slovakians”. F Bobby.
Ah, how come x-soviets are so glum party poopers , what about the Easter Bunny?
Must be the stark architecture
As they say the best thoughts as summarized in articles must have degree of ~predictive power, this one is date 24/3 and foresaw lot of the current mega trends:
https://www.rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/commentary/over-11000-munitions-16-days-iran-war-command-reload-governs-endurance
PS found/linked by the Surplus people
Significant numbers of advanced munitions have been expended, revealing that battlefield dominance matters less than the industrial capacity to replenish critical stockpiles.
You need a way to replenish munitions to win in the long term.
Italy Sets Jet Fuel Limits at Some Airports on Supply Shortage .
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-04-05/italy-sets-jet-fuel-limits-at-some-airports-on-supply-shortage
Update on Australia . Matt Mushalik .
https://crudeoilpeak.info/australian-diesel-stock-held-in-march-2026-declined-by-10-in-4-weeks
Government is claiming, “Australia’s fuel supply remains strong.”
I find it odd that nowhere on the planet is there a community designed to be long term survivable.
“The least modern tribe in the world, based on all available anthropological and governmental assessments, is overwhelmingly considered to be the Sentinelese of North Sentinel Island in the Bay of Bengal. They are widely regarded as the most isolated humans on Earth, maintaining a way of life that has remained essentially unchanged for thousands of years.”
I think they are kept that way by some Indian bigwig in that region who will clear these island when tshf and move his clan there.
the natives won’t last for more than half an hour
Rapa Nui is , for all practical purposes, the personal property of former Chilean president Sevastian Pinera who owns property there
Someone’s been watching too much Gilligan’s Island. I suppose you believe the Chilean president and his clan will survive there. with modern agriculture and industrial tools. If the Chilean president sees this as a future refuge, he has two choices. He will either try to attempt BAU on a small scale and fail or he will adopt the lifestyle of the natives. Both options have a high probability of failure due to the fact the Chilean president and his clan are city folks and unsuited for a life outside of cities.
The australian “aborígines”, after having experienced their own primary ecological collapse from burning forests and driving large herbivores to extinction by overhunting and habitat destruction, have achieved a long term society on the australian continent, with a complex system of habitat management. There’s proof they knew subsistence agriculture from neighbouring pacific islands they traded with, but did not adopt it.
The amazonian basin was since the 1980s proven to be densely populated with cities, a horticultural society, one of the few who managed to *increase* soil fertility over the range of their existence. Also, the composition of trees in the amazon forests is a legacy of their managed ecosystem, with a high number of fruit and nut trees where settlements used to be, as opposed to a lower number where no dense settlements have been.
The pox arrived before the Europeans did; the first colonizers met only jungle. A few who went downstream on the amazon river reported what they saw, later to be believed they had been hallucinating.
Longer term societies have definitively existed.
The ecology of earth is an ever changing system, with the occasional major disruption, a volcano, a comet, or living organisms changing the ecology so far that a tipping point is reached.
In a few thousand years when all the minerals our civilization has lifted from the deep have dispersed never to be recovered, very different kinds of human societies become possible once again.
And with plenty of white genes’
“Aborigine” girls escaping a facility during 1930s
https://youtu.be/Lbnk8wSVMaM?si=MT0ePBRGEjo0RPVx
Not mentioned anywhere in the film:
1. The girls all had white fathers.
2. They were prostituting to the settlers which is why they were removed
3. The girls were eventually recaptured, and after release they did what their mothers did to the whites, and bore 1/4 aborigine girls who continued the process.
The aborigine men’s line died, just like in Tasmania, whose natives all have white Y chromosomes and native X chromosomes as every Tasmanian man was eliminated but the products of white-local union someow survived.
Thank you all, there is hope.
Those communities are being designed and selectively populated but only to last one generation of intense indoctrination. The exclusive tenants of thee DUMBs will train and work in Energy Bastions while modelling the successful re-population of the surface will be the formative ideology. They will return as Davincinian engineers capable of creatively scavenging the remnants under the guidance of Moral Authority Generative Architecture Throttling Individual Supremacy Management.
Someone who had lived among the Berbers told me that they have a philosophy that shows great respect for their environment—in this case, the desert—and that they have learned to leave the land behind just as they found it. Where resources are scarce, this is indeed the only way to survive for centuries.
For what it’s worth, they are also said to have inherited ancient knowledge dating back to ancient Egypt, and possess a form of medicine completely unknown in the West.
I would also like to comment on the consequences that the current war in the Persian Gulf has for the war in Ukraine. If we say that the coalition of Israel and the United States is starting to run out of ammunition, both offensive and interceptor missiles, what could be the future of the front in Ukraine, with a Europe on the brink of plunging into a crisis? Do we really think it is likely that Europeans will now come up with the 90 billion in aid that Ukraine is asking for? That sounds quite outrageous, and the future will not be any better, so it is going to be very difficult to keep Ukraine on its feet, completely dependent on foreign financial aid.
That is why I believe that although everyone is going to lose from this tragedy, the main victim will be Ukraine, which should reach an agreement—any agreement—as soon as possible. They can no longer hope for a good deal or major security guarantees. As time goes by—and I mean within a matter of weeks—the situation in Ukraine will visibly deteriorate.
Furthermore, if someone were to commit the atrocity of using nuclear weapons in Iran, it would be like inviting Putin to solve his problems in a similar way, and we would then be in the midst of a gigantic disaster.
I trust that things will not go that far, but the current times do not inspire confidence in anything.
The issue, as always, is that there are now two fronts, and the necessary weapons—with their cost and high technology—are not enough to cover both ends of the blanket. Either you leave your head uncovered, or you leave your feet uncovered.
I also trust that there will be no use of nuclearweapons.
the mainvictim has been Ukraine ever since the USevilEmpire led the coup in 2014.
the USevilEmpire has used Ukraine as a tool to try to desttroy or at least weaken Russia.
Vlad the Great has faced down the USevilEmpire for 25 years and has kept Russia from being desttroyed.
he is the greatest person of this century, by far.
“Barbar pierre
Yes, the echoes of Stalin’s wishful thinking are strong in Putin. His persistent begging since 1999 to be considered an “equal partner” in Imperialism is nauseating. He was strung along for 22 years, while trying to earn kudos in Washington with numerous UNSC votes from Russia in support of Yanki sanctions/aggression against/occupation of other nations, e.g. Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Yemen, whereas their plan was always to fracture & disarm Russia and provide Putin a similar fate as Milosevic, Hussein or Ghadaffi.“?
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2022/12/22/ffci-d22.html
he is Vlad the Great.
This post makes no sense. Which Ukrainians is he talking about? Bentley recently had a gala event in Kiev because their cars are sold at a record pace there. And Monaco is full of cars with Ukrainian plates. Zelensky can not have a trip without a stop in UAE to attend business. Probably he means the Ukies who are snatched in the street and sent to the front, with barrier troops in the back. I could partially agree with that, but they had 8 years to get out of there. And why should they take precedence over the Iranians, who have been attacked, or the Palestinians who are being genocided?
“Bentley recently had a gala event in Kiev because their cars are sold at a record pace there. And Monaco is full of cars with Ukrainian plates.”
wow the depth of the Ukrainian ffraud and moneygrabbing of the “defense” funds sent by the USevilEmpire must be huge.
even before the 2022 war began, Ukraine was well known as being one of the most corrupt countries in the world.
All true about Ukraine. Artificial, highly corrupt remnant from the Dec’1991 controlled demolition.
Not that (surviving) Russia is better, but they got thermonukes…
You are right. If a big war is fought in Iran, there is nothing left for finishing the Ukraine War. A similar point could be made about Taiwan. There is a limit to debt; there is a limit to physical weapons we can make, especially if China cuts off resources for making them.
We probably will be hearing more details about this in the next few days:
https://www.zerohedge.com/energy/tehrans-toll-booth-strait-divides-countries-3-categories
As for more details on this emerging Tehran-erected toll booth: “Following a 90% plunge in traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, as reported by CNBC, Iran has established a highly controlled shipping corridor near Larak Island. The IRGC is now charging tolls starting at $1 per barrel of oil, payable in Chinese Yuan or stablecoins,” describes one source. This could amount to up to $2 million for each ship seeking passage.
As for the vetting process, Russian media – citing Al Jazeera – says there will be three categories:
Iranian authorities have developed a system for managing shipping in the Strait of Hormuz and ensuring passage for vessels from different countries depending on the level of their relations with Tehran, Qatar’s Al Jazeera reported.
According to the TV channel, under Iran’s scheme, all states are divided into three categories: “hostile,” “neutral,” and “friendly.” Countries in the first group will be prohibited from using the Strait of Hormuz, ships from “neutral” states will be subject to high fees, and “friendly” states will be granted the right of free passage through the strait.
Tehran has not provided a complete list of the three categories; however, according to Al Jazeera, virtually all Arab countries in the Persian Gulf are classified as “neutral” or “hostile” states. Under Iran’s plan, these states will either have to pay “substantial fees” or be completely barred from passing through the Strait of Hormuz.
Reparations are a bitch…. especially when not in the negotiated peace..
Maybe Trump can sleep on that one..
I wonder if those reparations will be added to the national deficit, you know, the deficit He promised to reduce but so far, hasn’t.
Snow storm in mid-southern Italy (~200km east Rome and ~100km north of Naples) – Not Alps folks! As merely 800+ msl little town suddenly under ~2m of flash snow blizzard.
Wasn’t it just few weeks ago 20++ Celsius temp heat wave in Spain or somewhere on ~similar geo latitude.. ?
What a sim-planet.
The weather is always changing..in more ways than one
Uh, ~physics explanation: a bit up north this site near Rome is 2000+ msl mountain (elongated) range, so when cold air front from the NorthSea passed through it firstly super chilled itself on that pass through and almost immediately then crashed to slightly warmer air – therefore landed on said elevated town like a giant freezer cloud and given some lucky %_moisture content inside it dropped there in the snow form. In a way a rare ~miracle occurrence.. , flooding from that effect are the normal repeating situation though..
the snow segment after 1min vid:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60QYxdvSweM
(well it’s not 2m more like 1.5+)
Best daylight in person! footage: https://youtu.be/2zkXAdLrY9c
https://youtu.be/b4uVsFpe3Kg
It’s called weather modification. Chemtrails aren’t sprayed just to decorate the sky.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vlYRlzidcw&t=960s
At the place linked above, he discusses some realities about EV battery manufacturing.
That interviewed guest is clearly a friend of [ oil refinery biz ], good for him.
Yes, rare earths and metals for EV batts are result of very nasty / dirty extraction.
However, there is also life-cycle analysis, so if you drove combustion car lets say 500k mil per your life-time the pollution from refinery ( as in your % share ) is not insignificant and in certain cases ( %more ) harmful than similar mileage driven in EV and charged from say hydro, PV, natgas, etc.
Obviously, as an extreme outlier there is also a combo of very dirty grid + EV ( based on the worst batt variant ala Cobalt ) which might come in the end on par or even worse to that gasoline car + refinery mode of operation, but this is not set in stone as describe above w. better option in play..
We need different batteries that hold a charge better, can be quickly recharged, and don’t use lithium or cobalt. Instead, they use less toxic minerals. Also, the new batteries should be compact and light in weight. I have read that improved batteries are being investigated, but I don’t think they are yet ready for widespread use.
FinanceMapped: Where Young Adults Live With Their Parents Most
Published 9 hours ago on April 4, 2026
By Gabriel Cohen
https://www.visualcapitalist.com/mapped-where-young-adults-live-most-with-their-parents/
One in three U.S. adults (ages 18–34) now live with their parents.
The share ranges from 44.1% in New Jersey to just 12.3% in North Dakota, revealing a wide geographic divide.
High-cost coastal and Northeastern states dominate the top of the ranking.
In 1960, less than a quarter of young adults lived with their parents. This rate increased to 30% by 2010, following the outbreak of the 2008 financial crisis, and peaked at over a third in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Like Gail has said over and over, more of this will happen. MG in Slovakia just posted this of his country’s young adujts
Yes if they are contributing most of them in amurica just do it to travel and not pursue meaningful careers
Going , going gone .
37% of oil inventories that were building in 2025 is gone !
https://x.com/AzizSapphire/status/2040482745286095245/photo/1
The chart indicates that there is still quite a bit left, however.
yes a ways to go just to be down to the late 2024 low on that 10 year chart.
oil is the master resource.
various regions of the world are in for severe disruptions for at least many months ahead, and some of this supply decline surely will be permanent.
Partial BAU Tonight Or Tomorrow Baby 🍼 milk of modern life…got it or get some…all else is window dressing
[ Milk of modern life ]
My carton of acidophilus (probiotic) milk just one day past shelf date (today) already developed some funky fizzling pressure, it’s almost like champagne; mind you no bad smell after-taste, no visuals, no thing. It just somehow mutated or released/-ing such byproducts.
Obviously, some lab people had to put it there (such de/evolving kind of micro culture) initially in the factory..
Plot thickens(sickens)..
Gail , what matters is the location . China’s oil is not going to bail out India , Australia and NZ, US oil is not going to bail out EU . Oil is now hoarded . If you have it , you keep it .
What matters is cost. The majority of those oil reserves require high prices to justify extracting and shipping. Distance adds to the already high extraction cosst but the high extraction costs pretty much guarantees it will be kept–kept in the ground. You can call that hoarding if you want if it helps you sleep better at night.
The Stone Age didn’t end because humans ran out of stones.
The popular narrative is that humans found a cheaper, better substitute. But since necessity is the mother of invention, what incentive did humans have to iinvent a better cheaper substitute if there were plenty of stones?
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12588048
“Not all stones are equally useful for tools. For example, your tribe may run out of easily accessible obsidian, which is essentially a cost increase.”
Are we running out ? A chart .
https://cms.zerohedge.com/s3/files/inline-images/2026-04-04_09-56-33.png?itok=E_5QIjX6
Sorry , forgot this .
https://cms.zerohedge.com/s3/files/inline-images/2026-04-04_09-56-33.png?itok=E_5QIjX6
Thanks.
Nicely depicting how the [ lean storage ] infrastructure deployment backfired in [ SouthKorea and Taiwan ] vs mainland CHN and Japan, ..
In other words one of the key aspects in their price competition strategy not to invest in these “dead assets” ( assuming global supply chain ~BAU for ever ).
Nice chart. Too bad Australia and New Zealand were not included.
The US seems to have good oil supplies, compared to other countries shown.
I am bored with the argument by the US ” we have enough oil ” . When will the “barnyard animals ” ( FE) understand that this is a poly (meta ) crisis . This is not your shoelace tie this is the Gordian Knot . Zip at C§E nailed it .
” The Gordian Knot
There is a knot lying on the table. Not a piece of string you can casually untangle, but a tangle without beginning or end. Whoever pulls on it finds that everything moves with it. Whoever waits sees it tighten.
We call it, for convenience, an energy crisis. The price of Brent surges, tankers stall, refineries are hit. But that is only the visible thread. Pull on it and others follow: diesel, jet fuel, sulfur, fertilizer, food. What begins as a disruption in the Strait of Hormuz ends on a farm in Australia where sowing is postponed because there is no fuel.
This is not a chain of cause and effect. It is a web.
Within that web, physical and financial systems become entangled. Higher energy prices suppress production, lower production undermines growth, and without growth, debt becomes heavier. Markets respond, but not in a corrective way. They amplify the tension. Sovereign bonds come under pressure, credit tightens, funds close their gates. What was liquidity yesterday becomes illiquidity today. Price is no longer the signal. Availability becomes the boundary.
At the same time, geopolitics shifts. Alliances waver, military spending surges, countries seek autonomy in weapons, energy, and resources. Trust gives way to precaution. Trade routes become strategic risks. Payment systems become potential weapons. What was once an integrated system begins to fragment into blocs, zones, and competing interests.
And at the bottom of the system, reality appears without filter. Shorter working hours to save energy. Rationing. Panic, violence, criminalization. Not as exceptions, but as logical consequences of scarcity that can no longer be mediated by price. Where nothing is left to distribute, the mechanism of distribution itself disappears.
All of this is still often described in terms of correction and adjustment. As if the system learns. As if shocks lead to a new equilibrium. But that assumes a stable foundation. A table that remains steady while objects on it shift.
That table is now moving.
The idea of antifragility—systems that grow stronger through stress—holds only within limits. Within a toolbox, within a controlled context. Beyond that, feedback ceases to be corrective and becomes entangling. Loops intersect, no longer reinforcing but obstructing one another. What remains is not dynamic equilibrium, but a Gordian knot.
The myth tells us that Alexander the Great solved the problem by cutting through it. This is often seen as decisiveness. But it is something else: a departure from the logic in which the problem existed. The knot was not untangled, but terminated.
Today, similar moments are being sought. Military, economic, political. Decisions that attempt to reduce complexity by bypassing it. But what disappears then is not only the knot, but the network that held it together. The threads remain, but no longer connected.
What emerges is not reordering, but fragmentation. Not a world rearranging itself into a new whole, but a world breaking into parts that no longer move in sync. Energy here, finance there, stability somewhere else. Without any guarantee they will converge again.
The Gordian knot is not a problem awaiting a solution. It is a condition that arises when systems become too tightly intertwined. Whoever tries to untangle it pulls it tighter. Whoever cuts it changes the world in which it existed.
And meanwhile, it lies there. Not as a riddle, but as reality.”
I agree fools like Art Berman will propagate this meme. Remember when trump was elected Art was invited so now you know
I should have added that very many of the supply lines of the US will be broken, however. And we will have a terrible time sourcing replacement parts for things, except by cannibalizing other machinery. We won’t be able to repair electricity transmission or add new electricity transmission.
An awfully lot of parts of the current economy will be broken. We will need to start from scratch, figuring out what we can do. And the fact that all kinds of energy supplies will be harder to source in the future makes the situation worse.
Yes, going to be a rough ride.
But so what? The oil was fast running out anyway and there was little chance of a new system, especially with just about everyone trying to hang on to the old system.
Over the past few years I have been involved in government surveys intended to find out what is needed to progress Tasmania.
Each time I suggest that the local old railway not be used as a recreational bicycle track but preserved if not actually restored (“no we cant do that, we have a good road now {and lots of jobs driving trucks etc so it would be a waste of money})
Ah well, forget the steam train burning residue from local forest works to take city boys (who used to have jobs working on cars petrol stations etc)
out to the fields to plant crops and the trains can bring the crops and the boys back to town.
(Girls also allowed, need stokers on the trains ).
Keep the roads, they won’t need so much maintenance and should keep the bikers, horse drawn vehicles happy.
Look up the records how civilised people lived a hundred years ago, and even during recent war times. Amazing how they managed without oil but they did (animal fat is OK for cart wheels etc).
Might be able to keep electricity flowing, it’s hydro here so for the maintenance crew just need a bit of grease for the cart and some hay for the horses (or bullocks if a new pole needed).
Plenty of room here for more tree plantations for building materials and local heating.
Sailing vessels for bulk transfer of food to the mainland. Maybe something we would need from there but can’t think of anything offhand. Can do without tourists, or immigrants.
Shame I’m getting too old to see the changeover, maybe be next time.
“The CACTUS Lens: A Clearer View”?
https://un-denial.com/2025/11/30/the-cactus-lens-a-clearer-view/
Gail , Patrick Raymond on your article .
https://lachute.over-blog.com/2026/04/perdre-la-guerre.html
The article starts out:
” Losing the war against Iran could be the best outcome for the world. ” A new article by Gail Tverberg on energy news.
I’ll give you my opinion.
The war against Iran is ALREADY lost.
I am of this view, as well, but that would be a different article. It would also be a problematic article to write in the US right now.
So I decided not to tackle this issue, right now.
I read somewhere that the nitrite fertilizer production was reduced 30%-40%.
I have to say that world population will be reduced by a billion, possibly 2, by next Easter.
I have read extensively about the Irish famine. I even commented it in my seldom read blog which I have not updated for years.
https://kulmthestatusquo.wordpress.com/2017/08/31/the-1846-irish-famine-helped-civilization/
Here is the original article for those who do not want to visit my blog.
https://crookedtimber.org/2012/12/13/the-economist-and-the-irish-famine/
The cold truth is the people who were prosperous to live in Dublin felt hardly a thing.
The landowners, even if they were celtic, felt nothing about the starving. Such was the norms of the day. Something which was repeated in Bengal in 1943; in a Satyajit movie made about the famine, the protagonist, a poor teacher who is still a Brahmin, does not die. His family does not die. Most of the dying occurs off screen among people the teacher does not bother to see. The teacher does not have it easy but he still keeps his family alive while most others did not.
Distant Thunder, the best movie about the irish famine while featuring no Irish at all.
https://youtu.be/IvkE0qi0OUw?si=dFNQggKdZ1Jk_Z0v
Those who survived the famine were among the better to do in Ireland and they do not really feel anything about the famine, and few of them were aware of it when irish Americans began to invest in Ireland after WW2. Even now the Irish academics who have no ties to USA are not too critical about the famine. They have plenty of friends in UK whom they do not want to offend.
Something like that is going to take effect this autumn. It is already baked in. Even if every fanatic in Iran drops dead tomorrow and the conflict ends, the screw has already turned.
However most misery will occur in regions people in the core will never visit. So the Core will not even be aware of it.
The analogy will be simple. Those who can afford $10/gallon gasoline will live. Those who can’t won’t live. it is that simple.
Most of these percentages we read regarding reductions are relative to “amounts transported by sea.”
I figured out that with respect to natural gas, that amounts to only 13% of the total, transported as LNG, but I didn’t have a place to include it in the article.
I am also guessing that only part of nitrogen fertilizer, say half, is shipped by sea. The US makes a lot of its own nitrogen fertilizer. So does China and probably Russia. I would not expect any of these to be reflected in the calculation. So, I think the nitrogen fertilizer problem is probably smaller than people are assuming. There has also been a problem with farmers using more nitrogen fertilizer than really is needed. This effect needs to be considered, as well.
I had in the last post linked a podcast of Steve Keen + Micheal Hudson . Steve said 20% of the world’s population gone by 2027 because of the urea problem . My contribution where — Indian Subcontinent + Africa + MENA , yes add small islands example Madagascar , Fiji , etc . Sad , very sad .
This is likely the link you mean.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIypIDWQAQw
My thought is that the parts of the world where we are already seeing civil wars and a lot of fighting are places where resources per capita are already terribly low. These are the areas whose populations will be hit hardest by a lack of cheap nitrogen fertilizer.
Steve Keen realizing reante’s hundreds of millions if not billions BNS prediction.
There are two potential oil routes from the Middle East. One route is through the Persian Gulf; the other is through the Red Sea. In fact, Saudi Arabia is already exporting more through the Red Sea. There is a huge problem of too much population relative to resources through this whole area. Current civil wars in many countries is a sign of overshoot. After the part I quote, this article goes on to talk about civil wars in Ethiopia. But there are also the Houthis in Yemen, which this article doesn’t even mention.
From Zerohedge:
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/has-concern-over-hormuz-made-us-forget-red-sea
Wartime concerns about the security of maritime energy traffic through the Strait of Hormuz—connecting the Indian Ocean/Gulf of Oman with the Persian Gulf—have overshadowed the fact that the related issue of Red Sea security is far from resolved and is, in fact, becoming more dynamic.
The Red Sea–Suez link between the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean is of equal strategic importance to global trade as the Hormuz choke point and is, through geography and common players, intrinsically linked with the Persian Gulf conflict.
But it is Ethiopia’s civil war, brewing with different factions and with varying intensity since the coup against Emperor Haile Selassie I in 1974, which is again moving in ways that could prove decisive.
Always, in the background, is the reality that Ethiopia could revive its historical influence over the Red Sea–Suez sea line of communication (SLOC).
Those who say pipelines can replace the sea routes should go and visit someone who is getting a dialysis.
Dialysis is only 15-20% effective. It is just enough to make the patient alive; someone who can’t get a transplant and is stuck on dialysis machines twice a week doesn’t have a fun life.
Plus these pipelines will be vulnerable to attacks from people like the Houthi.
Some people just talk without thinking.
It always amazes me how people who don’t have the means to feed and clothe themselves have modern weapons than enable them to be a threat to American military dominance.
Something doesn’t add up here.
it was the colossal surplus of oil that put the excess population in the middle east
it will be the depletion of that all that removes it
Reindeer at St. Matthew Island
yup
same thing—different species thats all
Not the same thing. If it was the same thing then we deer civilization constantly competing with people civilization. People civilization can carve out a precarious ledge or two into the Senecan cliff. Because people have foresight. If people didn’t have foresight this blog wouldn’t exist.
Seeing is necessary but (in this case) likely not sufficient to alter the course of events.
Perhaps not but the next couple months should at least make clear to everyone whether there’s a global attempt at altering the course of events. Which is my main reason for being here in hoping that the DA narrative will yield the dividend of most of us being able to see the covert attempt and consequenctly fine tuning the understanding and also the real world strategies accordingly. All of which might make a difference strategically individually or might not but the understanding in and of itself matters on the metaphysical level.
People with foresight are doing very little. The people who are making good preparations based on the complete collapse of civilization must be a small minority from what i see. The majority of them seem to be petitioning the Sam Altmans of the world to provide them with more resources to go “off-grid”. The Sam Altmans have no incentive to grant this wish so the Sam Altmans of this world sell them more products , sell them more dreams to keep them on the grid.
The people most likely to do well are people who never became civilized. and even then, that is iffy because even small groups of roaming people from a collapsed civilization may have a slight advantage.= over the un-cvilized.
in a collective context, the one thing people dont have is foresight….
time and again, dictators have arisen, all with the same spiel–”the contry is in a mess—i am the only person who knows how to fix things”…
and idiots vote for him…
and always the end result is the same…
i had the foresight to see donnie’s intentions, but only in a very broad sense initially. — to much derision among OFW redhatters (and mad hatters).
Now people aren’t laughing quite so much.
now he ignores the constitution and the supreme court, decapitated the military and emasculated congress and the senate.
he intends to station armed ice thugs outsde voting stations in the midterms. (expressly forbidden by the constitution)….
Tell me—who is going to physically prevent him from taking the final steps into full on theo-fascist dictatorship?
i put it to you—there is no one left with the actual means to do that….if you disagree, then point out where that authority lies. he’s pardoned those who invaded congress in 2020….they would be delighted to give a repeat performance.
ICE are now his praetorian guard…..their lives depend on his life.
A 99% population crash is worse than what civilization based diseases did to indigenous populations in the Americas when people from European civilization arrived .
The growth rate of Middle Eastern population still seems to be 2% per year, or a little over. World population growth is estimated to be a little less than 1% per year.
But we have options…sure we do..there was a 40 country brain storming meeting…
When senior officials from 40 countries met virtually this week to discuss how to bring shipping traffic back to the Strait of Hormuz, Italy’s foreign minister had a proposal. He urged them to establish a “humanitarian corridor” allowing safe passage for fertilizer and other crucial goods headed to impoverished nations.
The plan, described after the meeting by Italian officials, was one of several competing proposals from Europe and beyond that were meant to prevent the Iran war from causing widespread hunger. But it was not endorsed by the envoys on the call, and the meeting ended with no concrete plan to reopen the strait, militarily or otherwise.
European leaders are under pressure from President Trump to commit military assets, immediately, to end Iran’s blockage of the strait and tame a growing global energy and economic crisis. They have refused to meet his demands by sending warships now. Instead, they are hotly debating what to do to help unclog the vital shipping lane once the war ends.
But they are struggling to rally around a plan of action.
That partly reflects the slow gears of diplomacy in Europe and the sheer number of nations, including Persian Gulf states, that are invested in safeguarding the strait once the war ends
New York Times…
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/04/world/europe/strait-hormuz-shipping-iran.html
Looking in the rear view mirror, I’m afraid today, bye, bye surplus useless excess eaters of the world per our Kulmmie
Yummie, yummie,yummie I got 💕 in my tummie
Haha.. wishful thinking
CTG , agree .
” there was a 40 country brain storming meeting…”
The problem is that they left their brains at home . 🤣
Correct me, if I’m wrong, but didn’t you mention earlier, to be the same genetic “Slovakian”, similarly to MG? That would explain it all…
He probably meant / mentioned earlier M. Sefcovic (SVK) who is EU’s Commissioner for Trade and Economic Security.. and Ursula supposedly having crush on him lolz, ..
You’re just still mad we joined Addie Hitter in WW11 as his Slavic Wedge, as he called it, in Russia. My Daddy was sent there on the front, somehow got to France then Canada then USA..lucky comrade
the humanitarian corridor is a non starter. Not everyone is Putin, allowing Ukraine exports declared as help to the 3rd world go to Europe instead (for a year I think). Hey, if the price of fertilizer goes up enough, poop trucks in Dubai could become an exportable asset. I am sure the Iranians would let *that* through.
” Hey, if the price of fertilizer goes up enough, poop trucks in Dubai could become an exportable asset. ”
drb , agree today , but would not yesterday . Poop would be available to a la infinite from India ( 1400 million ) , however because of the LPG crisis now they must use it for the domestic market . Good idea ” “In the midst of every crisis lies great opportunity.” — Albert Einstein . Who am I to argue ? 🤣
Some people think the Don has gone gaga, or is suffering from some form of cognitive impairment, or is not playing with a full deck. And for all we know, there may well be something to such assessments. But all that is by the by. IF he is not actually in control of his administration but is merely a front man following a script while others call the shots, OR alternatively, IF he does have a degree of control but is working to a well-mapped-out-in-advance Machiavellian game plan that straight folks and normies would have trouble wrapping their heads around, THEN questions about senility or competence may the wrong questions.
Craig Murray—and they don’t come straighter than Craig—has written about this in his latest Substack post:
Seeing Trump Clearly
The Calculated Plan Behind the Iran War, Venezuela, and Greater Israel
What if Trump’s apparently chaotic thought processes and intuitive decision making are all a blind, a charade? What if we are really witnessing, in the Middle East and more widely, a carefully constructed plan with very definite objectives? Has Trump in fact “planned each charted course, each careful step along the byway”, while flinging the chaff of apparent chaos? I realise that this is not intuitive, but bear with me…
What kicked off my thinking was the revelation by Lockheed Martin that they had been instructed by Trump, months in advance of the attack on Iran, to massively increase production of interceptor missiles, with a short term goal of quadrupling capacity of THAAD. In January, before the start of the current conflict, Fox News was already reporting on various deals, including a trebling of PAC3 MSE interceptor deliveries, having been finalised between Lockheed and the Department of War.
While obviously there are supply chain and production line constraints on the ability to ramp up production within months, the urgency of this activity—almost entirely focused on interceptor missiles—that started in 2025 is in hindsight a clear indication that early war with Iran was expected. It is plain evidence of premeditation.
The second thing that triggered my thought that this is all carefully planned, is the nature of the breakdown of the nuclear deal talks. It appears there was a broad consensus that Iran offered concessions which made a deal very practical, in particular giving up its stocks of enriched uranium into trust (a proposal Iran had historically rejected when Putin offered to hold the material). Both the hosts, Oman and the British thought a deal was there.
The failure of the talks is being spun as due to the incompetence and lack of technical knowledge of Witkoff and Kushner. But I just don’t buy this. The sending of unqualified negotiators was part of a ploy to use the negotiations as cover for an attack—the second time in a year that the United States had pulled the same trick.
They didn’t need competent negotiators, because they had never intended a good faith negotiation.
The attack on Iran was always planned by Trump. He was not “bounced into it” by Israel. It had been in gestation for months. That fact had been held within a very tight circle to avoid both political opposition and institutional opposition from the US military and intelligence community……
https://savageminds.substack.com/p/seeing-trump-clearly
I would agree with the Saveageminds author.
We have been hearing about a planned attack on Iran for a long time. The US was looking for an excuse to attack, just as it was looking for an excuse to attack in Ukraine. Perhaps the situation was so desperate that the people advising Trump felt that attacking Iran needed to be tried. The US was desperate to keep its hegemony. This is an approach that might work.
For example, this is a comment I made in January 2026, responding to a post if Quark’s, which I had translated from Spanish to English. Quark’s post talked about Trump’s plan to increase the Defense Budget to $1.5 billion dollars.
https://ourfiniteworld.com/2025/12/31/2026-expect-a-very-uneven-world-economic-downturn/comment-page-5/#comment-499182
[Quark:] Trump’s recent comment regarding the increase in defense budgets by 50% , to reach 1.5 trillion dollars, seems to reflect the intentions for the coming years to establish world control, via the Pentagon.”
I suppose that could be in the back of Trump’s mind, and in the back of the minds of the oligarchs pulling the strings, but I think it is a far more ambitious plan than is doable. The US doesn’t have the resources. It has already backed down on its Iran efforts, I understand.
https://www.zerohedge.com/military/us-withdrawing-some-personnel-qatar-air-base-over-iran-threat
Quark points out that most of Venezuela’s oil exports now go to China, and Trump would like them all for the US. That sounds quite likely.
He also points out that most of Iran’s oil exports now go to China, but as I say, I am doubtful on the US’s ability to steer Iran’s exports to the US. I suppose Trump can try.
Quark also says:
The US wants to control the oil market, not only because of its importance, but also to strengthen the petrodollar .
That is probably true, but I was of the impression that the petrodollar situation is already beyond saving. The US has made so many enemies with its sanctions that countries are very much interested in leaving the US dollar. Also, the long term agreement that the US had with Saudi Arabia has now run out. It is my understanding that as of January 1, 2026, Saudi Arabia is now accepting other currencies than the US dollar.
Unless China agrees to the deal (which means basically giving up Taiwan allowing Chinese suzerainty in Southeast Asia and probably Australia) petrodollar is not sustainable
The author is a former Uk ambassador to Uzbekistan, meaning he has some govt connection, and still clings to the old ideas.
Toujours préférer l’hypothèse de la connerie à celle du complot. La connerie est courante. Le complot exige un esprit rare. (Michel Rocard)
Translation:
Always prefer the hypothesis of stupidity to that of conspiracy. Stupidity is common. Conspiracy requires a rare mind.
I would agree! A recent link was this one:
https://no01.substack.com/p/so-much-winning
The very first item in this Substack article is about a War Game:
In 2002, the Pentagon spent $250 million on the largest wargame in US military history called ‘Millennium Challenge’. 13,500 participants, 2 years of planning, the works. The idea was pretty straightforward: simulate an invasion of a Middle Eastern country in the Persian Gulf. Suspiciously resembling Iran. The purpose was to demonstrate that America’s technological dominance could steamroll anything in its path.
They picked a retired 3-star Marine named Paul Van Riper to play the enemy.
Van Riper, who spent 41 years in uniform from Vietnam to Desert Storm, took one look at the scenario and did what any self-respecting adversary would do. He ignored it completely. Instead of radios, he used motorcycle couriers. Attack orders were hidden in the daily call to prayer. Swarms of explosive-laden speedboats were sent through the Strait of Hormuz.
And in less than 10 minutes, he sank 16 US warships. An aircraft carrier, 10 cruisers, and 5 amphibious ships. Over 20,000 simulated American casualties. The equivalent of Pearl Harbor, executed with small boats and cruise missiles by a retired Marine with a phone and a bad attitude.
So the Pentagon did what any self-respecting institution does when reality disagreed with the plan.
The ships were un-sank. Van Riper’s forces had to turn on their anti-aircraft radar so it could be easily targeted and destroyed. They even told him he wasn’t allowed to shoot down the incoming 82nd Airborne. The whole rest of the exercise was scripted to guarantee an American victory.
Van Riper walked out in disgust. His parting words: “Nothing was learned from this. A culture not willing to think hard and test itself does not augur well for the future”.
otto you wouldn’t be alive if the civilization ran on stoopidity. Conspiracy requires a rare mind – give me break. Any three year old will conspire with the self-reflective capacity of his own three-year old mind to lie about having had his hand deep in the cookie jar. It’s just a manipulation. Many mammal species are capable of premeditated deceit for chrissakes.
I think that stupidity explains a lot of things. Common sense would suggest that the “home field advantage” is overwhelming for Iran. The country has had help from China, and perhaps Russia, in making its little missiles and drones very accurate. You con’t need a conspiracy theory to figure that out.
I think that the games being played may be/probably are on another level to the ones that are publicly advertised, or to the ostensible (stated, appearing, or claimed to be true, but not necessarily so) explanation for why things happen.
Hence, the leaders of country A may be prioritizing other interests to those of the nation they lead, and they may achieve victory for their group, side, or faction by allowing their country to be defeated in war.
One doesn’t have to be a conspiracy theorists to suspect or believe that political leaders in many countries often work against their own countries’s best interests.
There is no rule of logic or natural law that prevents traitors and corrupt compromised individuals from getting their hands on the levers of power.
Also, it is much more feasible for a clever, talented manipulative scoundrel to rise to the top of any organization than it is for a stupid or incompetent person, no matter how honest the latter may be.
That’s why I don’t buy the stupidity defense for national leaders. It reads too much like an excuse.
But you do need a conspiracy theory to not figure that out. You need a conspiracy to go against all of your own intelligence services assessments. The war is built on collective lies which are conspiracies to not tell the truth out of ulterior motives.
“Toute guerre repose sur la tromperie. C’est pourquoi, lorsque nous sommes capables d’attaquer, nous devons paraître incapables ; lorsque nous utilisons nos forces, nous devons paraître inactifs ; lorsque nous sommes proches, nous devons faire croire à l’ennemi que nous sommes loin ; lorsque nous sommes loin, nous devons lui faire croire que nous sommes proches.”
— Sun tzu, L’art de la guerre
Translation:
“All warfare is based on deception. Hence, when we are able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must appear inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near.”
― Sun tzu, The Art of War
Murray, like a good Scottish apparatchik for the British Empire, still believes that USA (and by corollary UK) will win in the end.
Of course it is planned. However whoever did the planning underestimated the persian strength and overestimated the US Israel alliance strength.
>Given another year of destruction at the current levels of intensity, I do not believe that Iran would effectively be sending many missiles and drones back in self-defence. In a week or two we will hit the period of maximum Iranian effectiveness, where depletion of US-supplied interceptor missiles coincides with Iran retaining significant strike power. Israel’s fragile civilian morale will then be tested severely for a few weeks.
>Iran’s capacity to defend against massive, years-sustained aerial bombardment is limited. We should not blind ourselves to that fact out of current joy at the Americans and Israelis getting a bloody nose.
Again Murray thinks this is a repeat of the World Wars, when USA bailed out the misadventures of United Kingdom. Who will bail out USA and Israel ? China?
Granted it was well planted. But not as perfectly as planned since they never really spent too much time about researching how the persians would react, and forgetting that UK and USSR tried to divide persia during WW2 and so Iran’s leaders did not trust Russia.
Interesting angle..
There are many sites on this topic, this one is ~less propagandized than by usual globo-standards. They claim Soviets were promised oil concession in northern Iran proper ( not just -stans northerly swallowed by USSR earlier ), which was after WWII not followed up through..
https://www.gw2ru.com/history/87809-stalin-tried-to-annex-iran
as per search: ” iran oil ussr 1946 ”
PS perhaps interesting in the unspoken underlying sense all key parties worrying eventually NOT having of these OILz enough..
Point taken, Kulm.
You may be correct, although I guess we will have to wait and see.
The British Empire has come back from the brink so many times, and the Iranians have risen only to be crushed so many times, and the US is such a rogue elephant that has trampled over the sovereignty of little countries for so long that it is hard for me to imagine that imperialists will actually take the fall this time. Although I concede they are long overdue for some serious karma.
Remember back when Hollywood movies and their audiences knew all about and appreciated the dance of deception.
The ‘tail’ doesn’t wag the ‘dog’?
An ‘Existential threat’?
“To retain its military power and reserve currency the US needs leverage to force China to provide it with rare earth minerals, and the US intends {intended} to use Iran’s oil as that leverage.“?
https://un-denial.com/2026/03/05/cactus-view-of-the-iran-war/
I can believe that.
“To retain its military power and reserve currency the US needs leverage to force China to provide it with rare earth minerals, and the US intends {intended} to use Iran’s oil as that leverage.“
Oh Gail you’re just running interference on the DA again. I appreciate that. We wouldn’t want to exceed the Dunbar Number.
According to Iranian media, the US and Israel have attacked several large petrochemical sites in the Khuzestan province near the border with Iraq.
The area between Mahshahr and Bandar Imam Khomeini are home to some of the Iranian largest petrochemical complexes.
$ 200 oil is coming up .
https://x.com/JavierBlas/status/2040372287849865356
One of the commenters on this thread says:
Khuzestan isn’t just oil. It’s the industrial core of Iran’s entire petrochemical export capacity. Hitting Mahshahr and Bandar Imam Khomeini isn’t a warning shot – it’s a structural decision. The difference between disrupting supply and dismantling the infrastructure that produces it is the difference between a temporary shock and a multi-year reconstruction problem. Oil markets haven’t priced the second scenario yet.
Another commenter says:
Khuzestan isn’t a random target. Mahshahr and Bandar Imam Khomeini are where Iran’s petrochemical export capacity lives.
You don’t hit those sites to slow oil flow — Hormuz already does that.
You hit them to remove Iran’s ability to rebuild revenue after a ceasefire.
This is about the postwar economy, not just the current one.
Of course, if it is not possible to get a high enough price for selling these products, the whole system would be non-economic. That seems to be an underlying issue.
David with many names will be happy that he is vindicated