Tuesday, March 31, 2026

Nobody Could Have Foreseen

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Doublespeak

The base? And the rest of us are chopped liver? It’s up to Trump to declare victory, and up to us to just accept that. Remind me again, when did Iran attack us? (And actually, that decision is up to Congress. I think Rubio sponsored that bill.)
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📦 🪨🪨

In a new post this morning on his Truth Social social media platform, President Donald J. Trump addressed the "countries that can not get jet fuel" and refused to join the strikes against Iran, such as the United Kingdom, telling them to buy oil from the United States instead and that they should "go to the strait and TAKE IT." He goes on to say, "You'll have to start learning how to fight for yourself, the U.S.A. won’t be there to help you anymore."
"Brent Crude" is oil from several European fields:
As the reference standard, the Brent Crude oil marker also is known as the Brent Blend, the London Brent, and Brent petroleum. This grade of petroleum is described as light petroleum because it is of low density, and is described as sweet because it is of low sulphur content. The Brent Blend establishes the prices for approximately eighty per cent (80%) of the global trade in petroleum, especially the Atlantic-basin grades of petroleum, which, along with West Texas Intermediate (WTI), is one of two commercial benchmarks for pricing petroleum.[4][5]
Oil is a commodity. It is priced and sold internationally. 
Trump doesn’t understand this. 

He also can’t explain why Britain should “go to the strait and TAKE IT” when the U.S. hasn’t done so. 
That seems to be a pretty good reason for us to act.
WSJ GIFT LINK: Trump might end the war without trying to forcibly open Hormuz.

It stinks, but this is likely the least bad choice in a situation of all bad options. Ending the U.S. war is a necessary condition, but possibly not a sufficient one, for Iran reopening the strait.

I get that it feels irresponsible for the U.S. to simply leave after creating a mess. It’s maddening, but might be for the best. Hear me out.

Trump created a global public bad by attacking Iran and prompting the regime to close the strait. It was a colossal mistake that has caused pain in the U.S. and beyond.

But cutting U.S. losses in a failed war makes more sense than continued fighting for a lost cause. And if the U.S. keeps fighting, no doubt Iran will continue to threaten the strait.

If the U.S. quits the war, that would increase the political pressure on Iran to reopen the strait now that hostilities are over. Iran may try to extract “tolls” and if the Tehran Tollbooth persists after the war, it will be a lasting reminder of U.S. policy failure.

But the tolls themselves aren’t that high — $2 million on a VLCC carrying 2 million barrels is just a $1/barrel surcharge, amounting to a 1% tax. Not great, but better than what oil prices are doing now.

It would also incentivize Iran to keep traffic moving securely through Hormuz by monetizing safe transit. Yes I know it rewards bad behavior and morally it stinks for an odious regime to profit, but that’s the reality that Trump’s blunderous war has bestowed on us all.

There’s a reason most of us don’t worry about Egypt (today) closing Suez or Panama closing its canal — the profit motive is powerful.

Overall if Trump ends the war (which he should) with the Tollbooth intact, we are all worse off than we were on February 27, but better off than where we are now, and better than where we could be if the war stretches on for months or years.

I know it’s not a satisfying ending but it’s pragmatic and we don’t live in the best of all possible worlds.

There is one problem, though: Israel. Trump will almost certainly need to restrain Israel from continuing its war for Iran to reopen the strait. It should be a no-brainer: Israel is the junior partner and Trump should have the leverage to make them stop, given how much military aid the U.S. gives to Israel.

But it’s not clear Trump will use it.
It is of a piece with Trump yelling at Starmer, though.
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“Why’s Everybody Always Pickin’ On Me?”

MESSAGE

I wholeheartedly endorse the powerful appeal for peace made by the Holy Father, Pope Leo, during his Palm Sunday Mass. His call for the laying down of arms and the renunciation of violence resonated profoundly with me, as it speaks to the very essence of what all major religions teach.

Indeed, whether we look to Christianity, Buddhism, Islam, Hinduism, Judaism or any of the world's great spiritual traditions, the message is fundamentally the same: love, compassion, tolerance, and self-discipline. Violence finds no true home in any of these teachings. History has shown us time and again that violence only begets more violence and is never a lasting foundation for peace.

An enduring resolution to conflict, including the ones we see in the Middle East or between Russia and Ukraine, must be rooted in dialogue, diplomacy and mutual respect — approached with the understanding that, at the deepest level, we are all brothers and sisters.

I urge for and pray that the violence and conflicts may soon come to an end.

DALAI LAMA

31 March 2026
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Early Morning, Scouring The Usual Political Sites For Insight

An AI gun pic? 🤔
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Monday, March 30, 2026

🦗🦗🦗🦗

Reporter: The president said we might blow up and completely obliterate all of their generating electric plants, oil wells, Kharg island, and possibly all desalination plants. Under international law, striking infrastructure is generally prohibited. Why is the president advocating potentially a war crime and how do you square that with the US aying it does not target civilians?

Leavitt: Their best move is to make a deal or else the united States armed forces has capabilities beyond their wildest imagination

Reporter: Including potential war crimes?

Leavitt: With respect to achieving the full objectives, the president is going to move forward…

Reporter: Which of those objectives would destroying a desalination plant most help?
Ask Bibi.
Reporter: The Pope said, "God does not listen to the prayer of those who wage war." Can you comment on that?

Leavitt: Our nation was a nation founded 250 years ago almost on Judeo-Christian values. And we have seen presidents, the leaders of the department of war, and our troops go to prayer during the most turbulent times in our nations history and I don't think there is anything wrong with our military leaders or with the president calling on the American people to pray for our service members overseas. If you talk to many service members, they appreciate the prayers and support from the commander-in-chief and his cabinet.
"Almost on Judeo-Christian values” is unintentionally right. There’s that, too. I am surprised Hegseth hasn’t ordered military uniform belt buckles emblazoned “Gott Mit Uns.”
Reporter: if Iran is cherry picking what tankers get to go through the strait, is that consistent with the president's message about wanting the strait to be fully open?

Leavitt: I would reject that they are cherry picking. As you know, these tankers moving through, the 10 previously announced and now 20, are a result of the direct and indirect talks taking lace between the United States and Iran. You wouldn't have seen those tankers if not for the presidents diplomacy engaging on this
So Trump is negotiating in the best interests of Pakistan and China? "Shut up and eat your gruel.” Basic negotiating tactic. Business people do it every day.
Leavitt: The United States is conducting more intense targeted strikes with devastating power. It is no surprise that we are seeing the remaining elements of the regime eager to come to the negotiating table while they still can. Despite all of the public posturing you hear from the regime and false reporting, talks are going well.
Which is why the war hasn’t ended, and we make even more outlandish threats every other day.

Pretty much what we did for the five years of the Paris Peace Accords. In 1973, North Vietnam got what they wanted.
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So, The “Policy”…

... U.S. whatever we say it is, whenever we say it.
According to White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, despite reports that Iran is unwilling to accede to U.S. demand, or any wider negotiations framework for that matter, behind closed doors, Iran is signaling different things than what they are saying publicly. Additionally, Secretary Leavitt reiterated that should Iran fail to seriously come to the table, U.S. President Donald J. Trump has a number of options on the table, likely including a ground operation, to realize the administration’s goals.
Which goals are whatever we say they are, whenever we say it. The destruction to our stockpile of weapons is… whatever we say, whenever we say it.
According to the spokesperson for the Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Iran did receive the U.S. request for talks via key intermediaries, possibly Pakistan and/or Turkey, but called the U.S. proposal “excessive and illogical.” This, as reports indicate that the demands made by both sides remain maximalist in nature, causing the likelihood of a ceasefire deal in the near-term to remain highly unlikely.
Trump is fucked so hard, but we’re the ones getting screwed. This representative government ain’t all that representative.
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Because Reparations Worked Out So Well…

... for Germany and Europe from 1919 to 1933. And even thereafter.
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2 Corinthians Walk Into A Bar During Holy Week….

Get Trump to explain Holy Week, in 25 words or less. Extra points if he can give the name of any day in Holy Week.

You are allowed to tell him it has something to do with 2 Corinthians.
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In Conclusion….

War crimes, crimes against humanity, butchery, and then…we bug out and leave the smoldering sands and new “Gaza Strip if the East “(Bibi really does run this war effort) to its own devices because…they deserve it for being upset 47 years ago that we imposed a dictatorship on them 63 years ago so…we could have the oil?

We all learned that punishing Germany after WWI is what led to WWII, right? I mean, that’s why we rebuilt Germany and Japan, rather than leaving them in ruins. 

Besides, we’ve nearly emptied our arsenal, and we still haven’t bombed Iran into the Stone Age, much less significantly destroyed their war making capacity, or industrial base. Not that we should, but how do we carry this braggadocio out?
Trump’s threat is a pretty important window in the current U.S. position if you take a step back.

*If you are considering winding down the war, as Trump said this AM, hitting energy infrastructure would have the exact opposite effect.

*But you can’t wind down the war without the strait re-opened - despite Trump’s contention to the contrary.

*So you threaten to do the thing you’ve intentionally avoided, precisely bc: 1. the retaliation would make the energy shock much worse while directly targeting the most valuable cornerstones of GCC economic success
2. You want the Iranian energy infrastructure left in good shape for your strategic goal of post-conflict Iran never threatening energy supplies again.

*The latter of which still feels pretty, well, aspirational to be generous about it at the moment, given the de facto weekslong closure of the Strait and the strikes on GCC in general, and specifically energy infrastructure last week.

*And now Trump’s threat puts a 48-hour timeline/redline on the table - which Trump and his team have intentionally avoided boxing themselves in on from the start - on the one thing Iran has a clear asymmetric advantage on for leverage, which they’ve made clear they know, understand, and have no intention of letting go for nothing.

Maybe the deadline sparks something real diplomatically, or is TACO-d with claims of some concession or Iranian capitulation.

Or maybe it’s red line that is followed through on. No idea.

But the Truth post is a good snapshot of the complexity of the moment for the WH.
Or the Administration’s absolute inability to handle what they started. 

Trump’s threat is classic bullying, if it works (it won’t), he claims victory. If it doesn’t, he claims it worked anyway, and claims victory.

Either way, TACO is assured. Or, troops go in, and Trump sinks to depths of denial never before seen. 

And more people die, needlessly. But we seem to be stuck with that outcome no matter what happens next.
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The Enemy Of My Enemy

Just gotta say: Boomers are all old people (it will happen to you someday). But not all Boomers are idiots.  I mean, I would have said Coulter and Greene were irredeemable, once upon a time.
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More To The Point

Why is DAG Blanche doing this on social media? What governmental function does it serve? Except, of course, following his master: Just for the record: 81 countries follow birthright citizenship. 36 have “unrestricted” citizenship, 45 have some restrictions. American citizenship is actually both jus soli and jus sanquinus. By statute, children born to American citizens abroad are American citizens at birth. 

Trump is bothered by the brown and black and “non-white” in general, babies.  He’s also just disgustingly racist in his legal arguments.
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Christ As Commodity

And once you’ve got that, what else matters?

A/k/a the reductio ad absurdum of the Johannine gospel. Words alone matter; deeds are nothing.

How should we then live? Like everyone else in the world. Just more smugly.

Soteriology as the Golden Ticket. 

Feh.
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Sunday, March 29, 2026

I’ll Just Leave This…

.... here.
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A Reminder That It Is Palm Sunday

While addressing tens of thousands in St. Peter’s Square in Vatican City on Palm Sunday, the start of the Holy Week leading to Easter, Pope Leo XIV said that God rejects the prayers of leaders who start wars and have “hands full of blood,” clearly directed at the ongoing conflict in the Middle East. “This is our God: Jesus, King of Peace, who rejects war, whom no one can use to justify war,” Pope Leo said. sunshine. “(Jesus) does not listen to the prayers of those who wage war, but rejects them, saying: Even though you make many prayers, I will not listen: your hands are full of blood,” he added citing the Bible.
The power of powerlessness. 
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It’s The…

This man is quite persuasive, almost sensible. Where is he now?
White House modeling $200. Macquarie: 40% probability if Hormuz stays closed through June. Bloomberg Economics: $170 is the stagflationary threshold. BlackRock: $150 triggers recession. Brent was $73 in January. It's $112 today. Asian diesel already topped $200 in spot markets. Pakistan rationing fuel. Australia reporting shortfalls. TotalEnergies CEO: "more than three or four months and it becomes a systemic problem for the world." The war is 30 days old. The diplomacy is in Islamabad without Washington. My conclusion: $200 is what the models say happens if nothing changes.
What if it gets worse?
$200/bbl isn't the story. The story is that Q2 BAF surcharges are still being set on Q1 averages. Rotterdam VLSFO is already at $746/mt with Brent at $112.57, and every $10/bbl adds ~$73/mt to vessel fuel costs. Container rates are sitting at $3,777/box today and haven't priced any of this in. The real supply chain bill doesn't arrive until May.
And then comes the harvest:
Within 48 hours, Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz, a 21-mile-wide channel between Iran and Oman through which 20 percent of the world’s oil travels every single day.¹ A third of the world’s fertilizer travels through that same strait.² And it needed to arrive this month. The planting window does not wait so timely delivery is unwaveringly critical within the planting window.

Here is what nitrogen does to a corn plant. Applied at the right moment in the growing cycle, it drives the plant to produce grain. Cut the application in half and you do not get half a crop. The corn plant runs out of nitrogen mid-growth and stops producing. Farmers across the Northern Hemisphere are making their nitrogen purchases right now, ahead of spring planting. The ships carrying that nitrogen are anchored on the wrong side of a closed strait, or rerouting around the southern tip of Africa, adding weeks to delivery schedules and close to a million dollars in additional fuel costs per voyage.³

Urea, the most widely traded nitrogen fertilizer, cost $475 per metric ton at the Port of New Orleans the week before the war started. It cost $683 the following week.⁴ That is a 44 percent price increase in seven days. The American Farm Bureau, which does not typically use alarm language, called it a “double whammy” and warned that if farmers cannot get fertilizer in time, we will see reductions in planted acreage and lower yields across the country.⁵

There is no strategic reserve for fertilizer. The United States maintains a Strategic Petroleum Reserve for oil. There is no equivalent for nitrogen.⁶ When the supply runs short, farmers absorb the price, reduce their application, or switch crops. The harvest pays for it in the fall.
Mind you, I grew up on apocalyptic visions, and I don’t mean the Biblical stuff. Death by nuclear holocaust was the fare of ‘50’s movies I watched on television. “The Twilight Zone” was just as dramatic, with simply good narratives (it was a running theme for the entire time the show was in the air) in place of any special effects. I read Ehrlich’s The Population Bomb decades before I learned it was based on the 18th century ravings of Malthus (the English class system turned into “science” and so, inevitablity, and the foundations of Darwinism and Social Darwinism, which are really the same coin). The excuse for the failure of that bomb to explode was the “Green Revolution.” That is, science fed people. With? Petroleum based fertilizer. 

Ironic, no?  Also the reason for a desire for “organic” farming. Equal and opposite reactions. Except not equal. But reactions, nonetheless. (The true failure was the 18th century analysis, but science cannot fail, it can only be failed. Or improved on, by more science. The true failure”scientific method.” Ask Kuhn.)

Reactions are what change predictions of the future. Predictions are always simplistic. They rest on a handful of factors. Reality is always more complex. Weather prediction cannot examine all the factors of the next day. It can only make generalized guesses, which can be fairly accurate for 24, maybe 48, hours. But useless beyond that. Weather forecasting says a new hurricane season will be active; and then it is not so. Or it’s worse. Or it’s right. Only time will tell. 

So, is the U.S. set for an apocalyptic collapse because the Strait of Hormuz shut down 48 hours after the bombs started falling on Iraq? Maybe. Maybe not. Too many factors, too many variables. And too much attention to be provided by predicting apocalyptic disaster on a national, or a global, scale. Look at it this way:
47,900,000 Americans went hungry last year. The USDA counts a household as food insecure when its members cannot reliably access enough food to eat. In 7.2 million of those households, someone skipped a full meal or went an entire day without eating because there was no money. 14 million of them were children.
Did you even notice?

I’m not being cruel or callous, but apocalypse always comes out of nowhere and always wipes the slate clean. That’s biblical idea: apocalypse is the revealing upon which there is no going back. But if the apocalypse is the status quo, is it still apocalyptic?
2022, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine disrupted grain exports from one of the world’s largest wheat-producing regions. That disruption, which hit grain rather than the inputs that grow grain, produced 13.5 percent grocery inflation at its peak in the United States.⁷ Bread up 13 percent. Dairy up 12 percent. Meat up 10 percent. MST Marquee’s head of energy research has called the current disruption three times more severe than the 1973 Arab oil embargo.⁸ The 1973 embargo removed 5 percent of global oil supply. This one removes 20 percent by closing the Strait entirely, and it does so while simultaneously severing the fertilizer supply for the spring planting season, during the deepest cuts to American food assistance in the program’s history.⁹

Simon Johnson, MIT economist and 2024 Nobel laureate, put it plainly: “There is no excess capacity anywhere in the world that can fill that gap.”¹⁰ Maurice Obstfeld, former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, said the effects will be most devastating in low-income countries where agricultural productivity is already challenged, and that adding this cost component produces “the prospect of significant food shortages.”¹¹

Obstfeld was talking about the world. He could have been talking about the U.S.

We don’t actually know how many Americans are food insecure right now. The USDA published its annual food security report every year for three decades. In September 2025, the administration cancelled it.¹² The last official number, 47.9 million, describes conditions in 2024. That was before new SNAP work requirements began removing people from the program. Before the deepest cuts to food assistance in the program’s history cleared Congress. Before the first bomb fell.
This is bad, don’t get me wrong. But it doesn’t reach American daily life unless it reaches the daily life that counts. (Sad, but true. And I’m speaking in the context of electoral politics, which has fuck all, in the final analysis, to do with morality. Also bad, but true.) Like Covid did. And even then, we (the people) didn’t understand what was happening. We rejected the reality of the disease, even as it killed us; we rejected the consequences of the disease and the need to slow it down.  And even though the U.S. economy recovered better than almost any other country on the planet (thanks to Biden), IT WASN’T GOOD ENOUGH! And so we rejected Biden and Harris and figured the guy who fucked us the last time was the guy who would unfuck things this time.

Covid was an apocalypse; a revealing. And it cost us a lot. But it didn’t teach us anything. Except how weak our systems are; especially when we rely on them to do it for us.

That’s all the fertilizer crisis is; another reminder that our systems won’t save us from ourselves. Except they won’t destroy us, either. People will die. People will go hungry. People will suffer. That’s what happened during Covid. And what did we do about it? What did we do, through our political systems, do about it?

We re-elected the idiot who made it worse.

So what will we do about this crisis? Will we notice? Or will we vote based on grocery prices, and who promises to lower the price of eggs this time? Will our systems fix things? Or will we just vote out the incumbents again? Meet the new boss, same as the old boss?

And what will we learn?  Except that we want food costs to go down. Oh, and No Kings. We want no kings.

But mostly, it’s food prices. Because almost entirely, it’s the economy, stupid. The rest is mostly wishful thinking.
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Nature Abhors A Vacuum

When I travel outside of Ukraine, I get daily intelligence updates online. This morning, I was briefed that U.S. military facilities in the Middle East and the Gulf region were photographed by Russian satellites in the interests of Iran.

On March 24th, they imaged the U.S.–UK joint military facility on Diego Garcia located in the Chagos Archipelago in the Indian Ocean. They also captured pictures of Kuwait International Airport and parts of the infrastructure of the Greater Burgan oil field. On March 25th, they took pictures of the Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia. The Shaybah oil and gas field in Saudi Arabia, İncirlik Air Base in Türkiye, and Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar were all imaged on March 26th.

There are no Ukrainian facilities on this list. But who is helping whom when sanctions are lifted from an aggressor that earns daily revenue and provides intelligence for strikes against American, Middle Eastern, UK, and U.S.–UK bases and so on?

When surveillance is carried out over facilities in Ukraine, we always understand that they must be protected, since plans are in motion to destroy them – energy and water infrastructure, military facilities, and so on. Everyone knows that repeated reconnaissance indicates preparations for strikes. How can sanctions be eased if this is what the Russians are doing?

There must be pressure on the aggressor. And lifting sanctions is certainly not pressure. It looks strange. Sanctions are being lifted, while the aggressor is providing intelligence to strike facilities, including those of the countries that are discussing or have already lifted sanctions.

From my conversation with journalists (3/3).
I wonder why the Pentagon is silent? 🤫 
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This Again?

That dead horse is dead.

And Trump really is clueless….
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I’m Sticking With My Pelikan

The less expensive one that replaced the much nicer one I left to dry up in a dark drawer. 😿

I also have a Lamy Safari which is extremely nice. And affordable for those of us who don’t live in gold rooms. A steel nib, but I don’t write by hand much anymore, anyway.

Any excuse, really, to mention fountain pens.🖋️ 
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Signs O’ The Times

Since I can’t post the pictures (Apple is no longer playing well with Google/Blogger), I can only post the link.

My personal favorite is the last one: 

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN IRAN AND VIETNAM, 
IS THAT TRUMP KNEW HOW TO GET OUT OF VIETNAM.
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