Almost There,
Our "owners" (per Carlin) are "members of a great big exclusive cluband we're not in it". What their club does is to manage the rest of us humans as grazing animal-herds, to profit from us, and also to cull us with wars and other convenient means, when we exceed the system's carrying capacity, and threaten their future profits.
The discoveries of how to use fossil-fuels like coal, oil and natural gas to mine and refine metals, then build machines that would work hard to mine more coal and iron ore to make more machines, vastly increased the profits available to them. There were tractors, and the ability to pump irrigation water to farms, and diesel to run heavy machinery and transport food and goods wherever industry could profit.
Profit is extracted by financially and physically controlling trades and extracting some toll or tax. This can be an official tariff, or through printing a fiat currency which others accept for nice things they make. People who don't want to use that currency can be told of the bad things that will happen to them if they refuse.
The more essential to life the good under control are, the more that can be extracted, until people can't afford it, extraction drops, and people attack you.
Global diesel fuel usage peaked and plateaued in 2014. That is the main fuel of bulk-transportation, mining, drilling and farming. Jet fuel and bunker fuel are similar. That implies a plateau of real economy, also. Net oil production and real economy are 90% correlated, so economies can be starved of this lifeblood. Those who control the flows of oil control the machinery that feeds, clothes, waters, cools, houses and employs other humans.
We are seeing a war that has halted about 20% of the world's oil and natural gas flow, and 40% of fertilizer, needed for spring planting. The war is now spreading, with Israel blowing up Iranian ships in the Caspian sea, and Ukrainian troops apparently preparing to storm the Bushehr nuclear reactor comples that Russia is building for iran. Russia's Duma just approved sending troops to protect it. Ukrain may hope to get leverage over the Zaporizhzhia nuclear reactor, now under Russian control.
This is a war largely about who will control the Strait of Hormuz choke point, and who will get the flows of oil, gas and fertilizer through it, and also the other ports of Arabia and the Persian Gulf.
This is an existential war for farmers who rely upon that fertilizer, and the people who rely upon that food. It is an existential war for the oil-producing states, and the people who live there on food and water from other places, and vulnerable desalination plants. This is an existential war for the ruling elites of Israel and Iran, and for the people who live in and near those countries, who are being killed, maimed and disposessed by war.
Who will the owners cull to reduce the demand on declining diesel, jet, and bunker fuels? Who will get the natural gas for heating, electricity, chemical and plastics production? Who will pay the owners the most?
Are there too many owners now? Will some of the owners die, too? How will the owners decide those difficult points of the mass cull?
How might we manage to survive the next decade, or even longer?
CBS reporting 'heavy preparations' for ground troops as Trump says 'no ceasefire' for now; Trump calls NATO a 'paper tiger'; says "close to meeting our objectives", offramp?
Energy war ongoing: Major sites damaged across the region - Haifa refinery hit, Qatar LNG output cut 17%, Kuwait facilities ablaze.
Kharg Island escalation looms: Trump admin weighing seizure of Kharg Island to reopen Hormuz; Thousands of Marines in route, reports of low US jet strafing runs over strait. https://www.zerohedge.com/
Energy war ongoing: Major sites damaged across the region - Haifa refinery hit, Qatar LNG output cut 17%, Kuwait facilities ablaze.
Kharg Island escalation looms: Trump admin weighing seizure of Kharg Island to reopen Hormuz; Thousands of Marines in route, reports of low US jet strafing runs over strait. https://www.zerohedge.com/
Natanz nuclear site attacked: Iran says "no nuclear radiation" detected, even as attacks on core sites like Isfahan nuclear facilities signal clear escalation despite earlier Trump signals of maybe "winding down."
War expands with furthest ever Iranian missile launch: Iran fires missiles at Diego Garcia in a failed but unprecedented long-range strike.
US claims"degraded" Iran's threat to traffic through Hormuz: CENTCOM says Iran has lost “significant combat capability” after 8,000+ strikes, and bunker-busting attacks on coastal facilities tied to control of the Strait of Hormuz.
23 'allies' sign statement of support for Hormuz traffic safety, signaling their readiness to support secure transit through the Strait,
Kharg invasion risk rising: US still weighing a high-risk seizure of Kharg Island as more US warships and Marines surge to the region, raising odds of boots-on-the-ground escalation. https://www.zerohedge.com/
War expands with furthest ever Iranian missile launch: Iran fires missiles at Diego Garcia in a failed but unprecedented long-range strike.
US claims"degraded" Iran's threat to traffic through Hormuz: CENTCOM says Iran has lost “significant combat capability” after 8,000+ strikes, and bunker-busting attacks on coastal facilities tied to control of the Strait of Hormuz.
23 'allies' sign statement of support for Hormuz traffic safety, signaling their readiness to support secure transit through the Strait,
Kharg invasion risk rising: US still weighing a high-risk seizure of Kharg Island as more US warships and Marines surge to the region, raising odds of boots-on-the-ground escalation. https://www.zerohedge.com/
Gold & Geopolitics, Daily digest: 2026-03-21
Iran shoots down two US F-35s over Iranian airspace - Pentagon confirmed at least one F-35 damaged by IRGC air defense, “fuel leaked, emergency landing.” Second shootdown reported by multiple sources.....Iran fires ballistic missiles at Diego Garcia (~4,000km range) - WSJ confirmed two Khorramshahr-4 IRBMs launched; one failed in flight, one intercepted by SM-3. Diego Garcia is INDOPACOM territory - war has geographically expanded. Iran demonstrating IRBM reach to ~4,000km, implication for China/Taiwan theatre...
..US Treasury lifts Iran oil sanctions for 30 days - Scott Bessent authorized “narrowly tailored, short-term” sale of ~140M barrels of Iranian crude stranded at sea, including into US markets. The country you’re at war with can now legally sell you oil. In Chinese yuan.....IEA: Iran War is greatest threat to global energy in history - 18M barrels/day offline, 6+ months to restore Gulf flows, “no immediate way” to replace supply. Oil at risk of $180/barrel by end of April per Saudi official forecasts...
..IRGC fires 70th wave of strikes, hits Haifa/Ashdod refineries with new “Nasrallah” missile system - First use of that system confirmed. Also claimed strikes on Israeli air defense centers, satellite installations, and US bases across the region.....The war is going badly for Team America - and everyone knows it
Armchair Warlord: “The summary invalidation of the US Air Force’s entire 21st century concept of operations the instant they tried to implement it.” If strikes are restricted to standoff weapons, the US will simply run out - “unlike Russia and China we don’t have missile printers” - and Iran wins by default...
..Hegseth breaks record for least popular wartime SecDef, -17 points underwater... https://no1sdailydigest.Armchair Warlord: “The summary invalidation of the US Air Force’s entire 21st century concept of operations the instant they tried to implement it.” If strikes are restricted to standoff weapons, the US will simply run out - “unlike Russia and China we don’t have missile printers” - and Iran wins by default...
‘No, I didn’t say anything along those lines,’ Charles Simmons told NBC News in an interview Thursday https://www.the-independent.
The USS Boxer, USS Comstock, and USS Portland carrying the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit just departed the west coast.
That's 4,400+ Marines on two amphibious groups converging on the Gulf simultaneously...
..They will link up with the USS Tripoli group, already traveling from Japan with 5,000 personnel.
The combined force of six amphibious ships will increase regional force strength by approximately 8,000 personnel.
There's no point deploying Marines to the region unless the U.S. intends to launch a full-scale ground invasion of Iran.
Their probable objective is to secure the Strait of Hormuz and seize control of Kharg Island. https://halturnerradioshow.
That's 4,400+ Marines on two amphibious groups converging on the Gulf simultaneously...
..They will link up with the USS Tripoli group, already traveling from Japan with 5,000 personnel.
The combined force of six amphibious ships will increase regional force strength by approximately 8,000 personnel.
There's no point deploying Marines to the region unless the U.S. intends to launch a full-scale ground invasion of Iran.
Their probable objective is to secure the Strait of Hormuz and seize control of Kharg Island. https://halturnerradioshow.
Just a reminder that they can hit the Dimona reactor at will: Iranian missiles hit residential areas in the city of Dimona, home to a key Israeli nuclear facility, injuring at least 20 people. https://www.
Gold & Geopolitics, Daily digest: 2026-03-22
Iran strikes Dimona nuclear zone — ballistic missiles penetrated Israeli air defenses and hit Arad (88+ injured, ~20 buildings destroyed) and Dimona (33+ injured), the towns flanking Israel’s Negev Nuclear Research Center. Iron Dome failed to intercept. Iran framed this as retaliation for the US/Israeli attack on Natanz. Lord Bebo | Fox News confirms
Diego Garcia IRBM reveal — Iran fired two ballistic missiles at the US-UK base in the Indian Ocean (~4,000km from launch sites), proving IRBM capability far beyond the previously assumed 2,000km ceiling. One reportedly intercepted by SM-3. Paris and London now theoretically within range. WSJ via multiple sources | Diego Garcia range analysis Trump 48-hour ultimatum — Trump posted that Iran must “FULLY OPEN” the Strait of Hormuz or the US will “obliterate their various POWER PLANTS, STARTING WITH THE BIGGEST ONE FIRST.” Iran’s military command responded within hours: if energy infrastructure is struck, ALL energy, IT, and desalination facilities of US allies in the region will be targeted — including Gulf desalination plants supplying drinking water to tens of millions https://no1sdailydigest.substack.com/p/daily-digest-2026-03-22
Gold & Geopolitics, Daily digest: 2026-03-20
..Gulf energy infrastructure under systematic destruction - Kuwait: Mina Al-Ahmadi (730,000 bpd) and Mina Abdullah (454,000 bpd) refineries ablaze. Saudi: SAMREF refinery at Yanbu attacked — the only remaining export hub after Hormuz blockade. Haifa oil refinery struck with cluster munitions. UAE gas facilities shut...
..Pentagon requesting $200 billion Iran war supplemental - WaPo: Pentagon asked White House to approve >$200B for Congress. US war cost already $25B. Hegseth: “It costs money to kill bad guys.”.....Iran winning the missile attrition war - Rheinmetall CEO on CNBC: “If the war lasts another month, we will have nearly no missiles available” - Lord Bebo - Estimated 1/3 to 1/2 of JASSM inventory (~1,000-1,500 of ~3,000) already expended in ~75 B-1B/B-52 sorties...
..Iran announcing permanent legal regime over Hormuz; charging $2M per tanker for passage https://no1sdailydigest.
One ship called the local port authority and BEGGED for permission to dock — just to get water.
They were DENIED. Let that sink in.
These aren't military ships. These are commercial vessels — carrying oil, grain, electronics — with civilian crews who are now stranded with NO supplies and NO way out. https://halturnerradioshow.
They were DENIED. Let that sink in.
These aren't military ships. These are commercial vessels — carrying oil, grain, electronics — with civilian crews who are now stranded with NO supplies and NO way out. https://halturnerradioshow.
DNI Gabbard Tells Congress Iran Was Not Rebuilding Its Nuclear Program https://scheerpost.com/2026/
Real Netanyahu or an AI Netanyahu? Iranian foreign minister says Israeli premier's 'open disdain for Jesus Christ is remarkable'
'For a man so reliant on goodwill of Christians in the United States, Netanyahu's open disdain for Jesus Christ (Peace Be Upon Him) is remarkable,' says Abbas Araghchi
Chilling one minute video of real or (I vote) AI Netanyahu saying that: https://www.instagram.com/
'For a man so reliant on goodwill of Christians in the United States, Netanyahu's open disdain for Jesus Christ (Peace Be Upon Him) is remarkable,' says Abbas Araghchi
The Israeli premier's "unbridled praise" for Genghis Khan, "the worst slaughterer our region has ever seen, also fits with his current status as a wanted war criminal," Araghchi said.
During a televised address on Thursday evening, Netanyahu said: "Jesus Christ has no advantage over Genghis Khan. Because if you are strong enough, ruthless enough, powerful enough, evil will overcome good. Aggression will overcome moderation." https://www.aa.com.tr/en/
During a televised address on Thursday evening, Netanyahu said: "Jesus Christ has no advantage over Genghis Khan. Because if you are strong enough, ruthless enough, powerful enough, evil will overcome good. Aggression will overcome moderation." https://www.aa.com.tr/en/
In 1980, when the Iran-Iraq war disrupted global oil supply, the volume lost was around 4 million barrels per day. Painful. The world went into recession. Volcker raised rates to 20% to kill inflation. It nearly killed the economy in the process. We called it a crisis and we meant it.
The current Hormuz blockade is running at roughly 20 million barrels per day.
The futures market, in its infinite wisdom, is pricing a quick resolution.
Trump says the war is “basically over”. His Defence Secretary says it’s “only just the beginning”...
The current Hormuz blockade is running at roughly 20 million barrels per day.
The futures market, in its infinite wisdom, is pricing a quick resolution.
Trump says the war is “basically over”. His Defence Secretary says it’s “only just the beginning”...
..Even in the most optimistic scenario - ceasefire tomorrow, everybody shakes hands - the Maersk CEO noted it takes at least ten days after a ceasefire for tanker insurance to clear. Then mine-clearing: Iran has been laying mines in the Strait, and removing them will take weeks to months. Then tankers reposition, loads getting secured, and finally the flow resumes.
The oil futures curve is pricing step five as if it follows step one with a 48-hour lag. It cannot physically happen on that timeline. https://no01.substack.com/p/
Gail Tverberg, at Our Finite World, April 24, 2025 Brace for rapid changes in the economy; the world economy is reaching Limits to Growth
The Honest Sorcerer, Iran War: The Chickens Come Home To Roost - Is this the end of the world or something completely different?
By starting the war on Iran, the US ... lit the funeral pyre of the complex globalized world economy it was building for eight decades. With the Strait Hormuz still being shut and with energy infrastructure under direct attack, the world has slipped into the biggest oil crisis in history, threatening to end in a global economic depression. But is this war really, as a few commentators like to put it, the start of a rapid, cascading collapse of high tech civilization? And if not, what could a world post-Hormuz look like?..As a symptom of this crisis world diesel consumption started to plateau around 2014, which meant a plateau in the combined output of mining, agriculture, transportation and construction worldwide.
You see, machines performing these jobs didn’t get suddenly more fuel efficient, nor were replaced with electric “alternatives." No, the flattening of diesel production/consumption worldwide was due to a lack of supply increases (when it comes to suitable crude to make diesel fuel from) and due to a lack of demand, as mining (especially coal) and global transportation/construction started to plateau then decline almost everywhere. https://thehonestsorcerer.
Are you out of debt and risk assets? Surplus Energy Economics Don’t mention the war” SOME REALITIES BEHIND THE ONGOING CONFLICT
Adjusted for inflation since 2007, these SEEDS estimates indicate that aggregate financial assets have increased by about $315tn in a period in which reported real GDP increased by only $37tn.
The idea that we have added about $8.50 in new financial claims for each dollar of reported “growth” is by no means outlandish, given the preference for ultra-cheap capital in the intervening years.
Asset price gains might only exist on paper, but such gains are an addictive drug in the corridors and offices where decisions are taken. This is one reason why 2008-era promises that reckless monetary expansion would be “temporary”, and would last only for the duration of the “emergency”, were never likely to be honoured.
Moreover, within the estimated $315tn real-terms increase in financial assets since 2007, less than 23% has been sourced from the regulated banking sector, and almost 68% from NBFIs. These non-bank financial intermediaries are known colloquially as the “shadow banking sector”, an opaque and hyper-complex system of cross-collateralised claims.
In essence, then, the financial system has been subject to increasing risk in two distinct ways.
First, there is the scale risk associated with creating upwards of $8 in net new claims for each incremental dollar in transactional activity.
Second, there’s ever-increasing complexity risk driven by the migration of the centre of gravity of risk itself from the comparatively conservative centre of the system to its unregulated and opaque periphery...
..But it’s in the economic field that reporting has been at its most shallow. We’re told that the costs of fuel, food and – as if it mattered, in the grand scheme of things – air fares might rise. We’ve also been informed that conflict-induced inflation might keep interest rates ‘higher for longer’.The idea that we have added about $8.50 in new financial claims for each dollar of reported “growth” is by no means outlandish, given the preference for ultra-cheap capital in the intervening years.
Asset price gains might only exist on paper, but such gains are an addictive drug in the corridors and offices where decisions are taken. This is one reason why 2008-era promises that reckless monetary expansion would be “temporary”, and would last only for the duration of the “emergency”, were never likely to be honoured.
Moreover, within the estimated $315tn real-terms increase in financial assets since 2007, less than 23% has been sourced from the regulated banking sector, and almost 68% from NBFIs. These non-bank financial intermediaries are known colloquially as the “shadow banking sector”, an opaque and hyper-complex system of cross-collateralised claims.
In essence, then, the financial system has been subject to increasing risk in two distinct ways.
First, there is the scale risk associated with creating upwards of $8 in net new claims for each incremental dollar in transactional activity.
Second, there’s ever-increasing complexity risk driven by the migration of the centre of gravity of risk itself from the comparatively conservative centre of the system to its unregulated and opaque periphery...
The citizen, it seems, might have to pay more for his or her fuel, food and travel, and might find mortgages somewhat harder to find, and costlier to service. https://
Consciousness of Sheep, A Storm Is Coming
In 1927, the world coal price spiked. The blame was cast onto Welsh miners who had been on strike through the previous year. But it turned out that the world had reached the peak of coal-based coal extraction. And while massive coal deposits remained, the economic (energy) cost of recovering these were too high. And so, the price of coal rose, and with it the price of anything made from, made with or transported using coal rose accordingly.....The problem though, ran far deeper than the Ponzi nature of financial bubbles. On the other side of the Atlantic, recovery from the war had been far slower. France in particular was struggling to repay its American borrowings because Germany was unable to repay its war reparations to France. Britain too was struggling with a weak economy and volatile labour relations. And at the time, each of these European economies’ primary energy was coal. So, when the coal price peaked, the risk of a default on war debts grew (The US government had to intervene with Germany and France to restructure the payments, and Britain would eventually default in 1934). It was the combination of the energy shock and the excessive debt overhang which made the 1929 Wall Street Crash and the ensuing Great Depression so devastating… propelling the Europeans – and eventually the world – on the road to political extremism and the outbreak of a new, and far more deadly, global conflict...
The massive 1953-1973 post-war boom owes much of its momentum to the European, Japanese and South Korean economies making the transition from coal to oil as their primary energy source… the continental USA providing a large part of the oil and printing the dollars to loan to the Europeans to buy it. But by 1970, the continental USA had peaked. And the following year, the dollar was forced off the gold standard, ushering in the fiat currency system which is coming to an end today...
..Another energy shock – the peak of global conventional oil production in 2005 – was the first domino in the chain of events which led to the 2008 crash, the European sovereign debt crisis and the depression which has plagued the western economies ever since. Oil prices rose above $140-per-barrel, and esteemed economists assured us that prices would rise above $200 by the end of the decade. But the western economies cannot sustain an oil price much higher than $80 (at today’s price) without going into a deep recession. And in the early 2010s, the oil price slumped back below $40 before gradually rising above $70 once more.
Not that the 2008 (private) debt overhang was ever really resolved. Rather, we have been involved in a game of extend and pretend in which governments and central banks attempt to shore up financial markets until such time as the growth fairy returns. But growth is not really to do with confidence or currency creation. Rather, just as each crash was triggered by an energy shock, so each was overcome by the development of new energy resources. Although the American shale bubble, because of its high energy cost, has proved far less powerful than previous oil developments.
..Since then, of course, we have been through... a new energy shock caused by western sanctions on Russia which has left Europe dangerously dependent upon Qatar and the USA for gas (which, among other things, is essential to load-balancing the UK’s electricity grid – the UK now having the most expensive industrial electricity prices in the developed world)...Not that the 2008 (private) debt overhang was ever really resolved. Rather, we have been involved in a game of extend and pretend in which governments and central banks attempt to shore up financial markets until such time as the growth fairy returns. But growth is not really to do with confidence or currency creation. Rather, just as each crash was triggered by an energy shock, so each was overcome by the development of new energy resources. Although the American shale bubble, because of its high energy cost, has proved far less powerful than previous oil developments.
..That was before the Trump administration embarked on Operation Epic Clusterfuck, the attempt to destroy the USA and its allies by creating a massive energy shock that will end the US dollar’s role as the global reserve currency. As with 1927 and 2005, the current energy shock may not instantaneously collapse the western financial system. But as with those two shocks, the world is again contending with a massive private debt overhang – particularly across the so-called ‘shadow banking’ system – which is likely to produce a crash far bigger than anything we have seen previously. More worryingly, this time around there is no new energy source – not even one as weak as fracking – waiting in the wings to bail the system out. https://consciousnessofsheep.
Silver is down 25% this month. Gold is off 13%. The world’s largest gas field just got bombed. Energy infrastructure is burning across the Gulf. Central banks have been stacking gold for three years straight. The structural case for precious metals has never - and I mean never - been more obvious.
So naturally, we’re selling...
So naturally, we’re selling...
..The Gulf states are hemorrhaging oil and gas revenue. Their infrastructure is on fire - sometimes literally.
So what do you do when your income stream evaporates overnight? You sell your nest egg. Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE accumulated gold (and silver) during the good times. Now those sovereign wealth machines need dollars to keep their populace from revolting. Time to liquidate something. Gold and silver sitting in those portfolios are the most liquid assets they have. Out they go.
They bought gold for a rainy day. It’s pouring now...
..A lot of leveraged money was sitting in … well … in about everything, but let’s go with oil and energy. Now that made perfect sense before gas fields started to spontaneously combust but stopped very quickly after. When those blow up - and I’m not talking about gas here anymore - you don’t get to choose what you sell. You sell whatever is liquid. Whatever is profitable. Gold and silver at January’s prices qualified on both counts. The precious metals dump isn’t people wanting to sell those. It’s people having to sell to cover positions they can no longer hold. Forced liquidation...So what do you do when your income stream evaporates overnight? You sell your nest egg. Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE accumulated gold (and silver) during the good times. Now those sovereign wealth machines need dollars to keep their populace from revolting. Time to liquidate something. Gold and silver sitting in those portfolios are the most liquid assets they have. Out they go.
They bought gold for a rainy day. It’s pouring now...
..Wars have a long and distinguished history of arriving at moments of extreme financial stress - stress that then conveniently gets attributed to the war rather than to the underlying rot... I’m just saying that the pattern exists, and it’s plausible enough to mention, and whoever benefits from the distraction usually benefits quite a lot...
..If this doesn’t push governments, companies, and ordinary people toward energy independence - off-grid, distributed, or at least not-dependent-on-a-field-that-And every single one of those alternatives runs on silver.
Solar panels? Needs silver for the photovoltaic cells - and no reasonable substitute exists at scale. EVs? They need it for their electronics. Grid storage, fast chargers, the entire electrical infrastructure being hastily bolted together as the world panics about the Middle East being, let's say, temporarily unavailable.
All of it silver-intensive, and all of it non-negotiable... This war turbocharges the case for silver...
..I’m not calling the bottom. No1 can do that. Silver could test $60 before this reverses. The margin calls aren’t done, the GCC liquidation isn’t done, and the Fed isn’t turning around tomorrow... This time I’m buying into a 25% monthly crash while missiles are still in the air. Picked up a small position in SILJ today - just toes in the water, nothing heroic. https://no01.substack.com/p/
Gold & Geopolitics, Diplomatic Impunity - God help us all.
No1’s left anymore to negotiate…
..The Oman FM published an op-ed this week. He said that the United States has “lost control of its foreign policy” to Israel. He was in the room for the February breakthrough. He confirmed the deal was real. Britain’s national security adviser Jonathan Powell confirmed the Geneva sessions were producing genuine progress. “We regarded Witkoff and Kushner as Israeli assets that dragged a president into a war he wants to get out of”, a UK diplomat told the Guardian.The people who could have stopped this have all been eliminated, one by one, on a nine-month schedule. Haniyeh. Shamkhani. The Doha negotiation team. The Oman breakthrough. Larijani now. What you’re watching is not a war that diplomacy failed to prevent. It is a war that was repeatedly kept alive by killing the diplomats.
..Simplicius put it concisely enough that I’ll just quote the frame: Israel’s strategy is running on two tracks simultaneously. Kill the moderates to guarantee that only hardliners remain. Strike Iran’s most sensitive sites to guarantee that Iran retaliates against Gulf infrastructure, dragging the whole region into a fire large enough to force the world to “finish Iran off”. The South Pars strike this week - on the facility that powers 75-80% of Iran’s electricity grid - and the immediate Iranian retaliation against Qatar’s Ras Laffan LNG hub, were not accidents. They were that strategy, executing...
..South Pars and Qatar’s North Field are essentially the same geological reservoir. One reservoir, with a border running right through the middle. Iran calls its half South Pars. Qatar its North Field. They share the same rock. The same methane. When Israel struck South Pars phases, it struck the geological twin of the installation that supplies 20% of global LNG exports and keeps European households from freezing. Qatar called it “dangerous and irresponsible”. Qatar - which, according to Reuters, has privately been pressing Washington to “finish the job” on Iran - is now watching its own gas facility burn as a direct consequence of the escalation it was encouraging.....Some engineers are saying the damage may be irreparable. I don’t know if that’s true yet. But even partial damage to Ras Laffan on top of the production suspension since March 2 is not a problem you fix with a maintenance crew and three weeks. You fix it - if you even can - in years...
..Trump’s response on Truth Social was to simultaneously claim the US knew nothing about the South Pars strike, blame Israel for striking it, and then threaten to “blow up the entire South Pars” if Iran retaliates against Qatar again.....The medium term is where it gets structural. A third of global seaborne fertiliser trade transits the Strait of Hormuz. China halted NPK fertiliser exports and extended its phosphate suspension through August. India requested emergency urea from China - denied. The nitrogen and phosphate that was supposed to go into the soil across the northern hemisphere’s planting season is not going in. Not this spring. The biological window for spring application in most of Europe and North America runs through May. It’s March 19. The war has no end in sight.
Case in point: Sri Lanka... One season of synthetic fertiliser ban in 2021. Rice production dropped 40%. Prices surged. The government fell. That was one country, one policy decision, reversed within months. What’s happening now is that that same constraint is applied simultaneously to the global seaborne supply, with no reversal in sight, across the single most important planting window of the year...
..Joe Kent, who ran the National Counterterrorism Center until his resignation Monday, said there was no imminent threat and that Israel drove the decision. The casus belli is dissolving in public, on the record, while the war continues anyway.Case in point: Sri Lanka... One season of synthetic fertiliser ban in 2021. Rice production dropped 40%. Prices surged. The government fell. That was one country, one policy decision, reversed within months. What’s happening now is that that same constraint is applied simultaneously to the global seaborne supply, with no reversal in sight, across the single most important planting window of the year...
The Gulf states who privately demanded escalation are now burning. https://no01.substack.com/p/
Late on Friday, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said the nation was prepared to facilitate passage for Japanese vessels through the Strait of Hormuz after consultations between the countries’ officials, according to Kyodo News.
"We have not closed the strait. It is open," Araghchi said in a telephone interview with Kyodo News on Friday. He also stressed that Iran, which was attacked by the United States and Israel in late February, is seeking "not a cease-fire, but a complete, comprehensive and lasting end to the war." https://www.zerohedge.com/
"We have not closed the strait. It is open," Araghchi said in a telephone interview with Kyodo News on Friday. He also stressed that Iran, which was attacked by the United States and Israel in late February, is seeking "not a cease-fire, but a complete, comprehensive and lasting end to the war." https://www.zerohedge.com/
President Donald J. Trump‘s approval rating has dropped to 42 percent, according to a new poll from Trump-friendly JL Partners. This marks the lowest approval rating of his presidency, down from 44 percent earlier this month and 48 percent in January. https://thenationalpulse.com/
A horde of extremist Jewish settlers broke into and ransacked al‑Lubban Girls’ High School in the village of al‑Lubban al‑Sharqiya, south of Nablus, on the first day of the Eid al‑Fitr holiday.
Local sources reported that settlers removed the Palestinian flag from the schoolyard before vandalizing and destroying several of its contents. https://english.palinfo.com/
Local sources reported that settlers removed the Palestinian flag from the schoolyard before vandalizing and destroying several of its contents. https://english.palinfo.com/
Tucker: "Iran poses no imminent threat to our nation... how did you reach that conclusion?"
Kent: "The President, Secretary of State, and Speaker all said the attack was carried out because the Israelis were about to strike. Had they not said that, proving otherwise would have been very difficult. There’s simply no case that Iran was planning an immediate attack. It did not exist."
Gilbert Doctorow, Last days of the Putin regime? With forcible incarceration of dissidents in psychiatric hospitals Putin has taken over the relay race of Sovietism from Brezhnev https://gilbertdoctorow.
Escape Key, on how Jeffrey Epstein seemed to manage JP Morgan from outside: Switchboard Operator - Exhibit 144: The JP Morgan Files
In 2023, JPMorgan Chase was forced to hand over its own internal files on Jeffrey Epstein as part of a lawsuit brought by his victims. The bank’s lawyers compiled a twenty-three-page summary of what they found. It was meant to assess legal risk.
But the files show that Epstein was effectively running one of the world’s biggest banks from the outside. https://escapekey.substack.com/p/switchboard-operator
Skynet autonomous AI-killer-drones-R-Us: U.S. Tests AI Pilot on Armed Talon IQ Drone to Prove Interoperable Combat Autonomy. https://www.armyrecognition.com/news/aerospace-news/2026/u-s-tests-ai-pilot-on-armed-talon-iq-drone-to-prove-interoperable-combat-autonomy
Series of articles by Jessica Rose Ph.D., about big pharma eliminating attempts to study vaccine injuries and change vaccine schedules:
If this is correct, a horrific deal has been made in hell: Breaking News: Chairman Milhoan Confirms that ACIP Disbanded in Response to Federal Court Ruling; Sources Indicate Administration Opts to Reconstitute ACIP Rather Than Appeal
IMA: “Big Pharma-Backed Medical Groups Use the Courts to Protect Industry Profits at the Expense of American Families.” https://imahealth.substack.com/p/breaking-news-chairman-milhoan-confirmsSex-changing drugs and procedures will continue on minors despite evidence suggesting permanent IQ loss, a 1,800% increase in suicide risk, and tripled mortality. https://www.thefocalpoints.com/p/breaking-federal-judge-blocks-rfk
Steve Kirsch, Please sign the petition to end the liability shield - If you can only take one action this year, this should be your top choice. https://kirschsubstack.com/p/please-sign-the-petition-to-end-the
Steve Kirsch, Grok searched the literature and found zero studies meeting basic epidemiological standards showing COVID shot mortality benefit in elderly - An AI trained on mainstream consensus literature, when walked through the data and forced to engage with the arithmetic, cannot defend the "safe and effective" narrative. Replicated 3 times! https://kirschsubstack.com/p/grok-searched-the-literature-and
About that bad new meningitis strain: Gain-of-Function at the Manchester Meningococcal Reference Unit?
"Handles live meningococcal cultures for characterization and vaccine response studies" https://www.thefocalpoints.com/p/gain-of-function-at-the-manchester Articles from Paul Marik MD at Cancer & Metabilic Healing:
Cancer Stem Cells - The Cells Oncologists Don't want to talk about https://substack.com/home/post/p-189590589 For years doctors have had to code COVID-vaccine-injuries as "long COVID" to get paid for care. Jessica Rose, T50.B25x - new ICD-10 code for COVID-19 vax injury thanks to React19 - GO REPORT when it's up! https://jessicar.substack.com/p/t50b25x-new-icd-10-code-for-covid
Feb. 18, 2021, End of Neanderthals linked to flip of Earth's magnetic poles, study suggests
Event 42,000 years ago combined with fall in solar activity potentially cataclysmic, researchers say https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/feb/18/end-of-neanderthals-linked-to-flip-of-earths-magnetic-poles-study-suggestsEvolutionary Remnant (pictured shovel-spreading organic compost this morning)
