Quote from: RE on May 17, 2026, 12:00 AMAI is handy for saving time on responding to trolls.
RE

And for those needing data showing world population isn't decreasing. Want to bet I can still get ice in my drinks along the AlCan Highway? Nah, I didn't think so.

WHO said. The organizaton has called the outbreak "extraordinary" as there are currently no approved treatments or vaccines specific to the Bundibugyo virus.  Ebola symptoms include fever, muscle pain, rash and sometimes bleeding. The virus is transmitted through direct contact with bodily fluids, including the handling of contaminated materials or someone who has died from the disease.

Looks like Africa's population might take a hit.  Will it go global?  Stay Tuned.

RE

Trump said he received requests from Qatari Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and United Arab Emirates President Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Dan Cain should still "be prepared to go forward with a full, large scale assault of Iran, on a moment's notice, in the event that an acceptable Deal is not reached," Trump said.

Trumpolini Always Chickens Out...again.  Tomorrow is Tuesday, so he "cancelled" the attack which he had not even announced before announcing the cancellation.  lol.  The market has taken a beating last couple of sessions, so obviously he's trying to juice it.  You'll know when the bombs actually will fall when a mysterious Whale takes $1B Short on the S&P.

Supposedly this is because Iran is suddenly ready to deal, because his latest threats were so much more scary than the last dozen times he's threatened them with TOTAL ANNIHILIATION.  Didn't his mom ever read The Boy Who Cried Wolf to him at bedtime?

We're now less than 2 weeks from June, the point at which most of the pundits have predicted the "cushion" of oil in storage will be mostly depleted and real shortages will develop in the market that will start a bidding war for available product.  It's also when the window closes for fertilizer application in the Northern Hemisphere.  I would be seriously concerned with the Rice production in India, where 4/5 of their fertilizer production facilities are shut down.  Famine in India could easily wipe 100M people out in a couple of months.


RE

Remembering that the original text is in Farsi explains the choice of words.

Quoteexcessive demands and lack of realism

Quote from: K-Dog on May 17, 2026, 07:01 PMAnd AI means you will no longer have a personal computer soon.  It will all be subscription to data-centers behind your keyboard and screen.

The only thing most people use a computer for nowadays is as a glorified TV and Phone anyhow.  That's why all they have is a Smart Phone and tablet and don't bother with a laptop.  Laptops are only used by people with White Collar jobs and students who are training for those jobs.  As long as they can view & send video, take & share pictures, chat & send emoticons and use it as a calculator to do basic math to total their spending while shopping, that is all they need.

Thing is of course, what good is having a laptop today in Cuba or Iran or Ukraine or most of Africa?  How often is the power on to charge it up and use it?  How many years away are we from most of Eastern Europe, SE Asia and S & C America being in the same condition?  Of course it's still pretty far away in the Belly of the Beast here in the FSoA, W. Europe, China and Russia, but the conflicts and collapse of trade will get to these places in due time also.  The sand is running down in the hourglass as we speak.

I also wonder how long they'll manage to keep the high tech war going?  Hell, a few weeks of just bombing parts of Iran and they were running short of Ammo.  How long would the munitions factories keep running in a war with China, even without Nukes?  How long would the Aircraft Carrier Groups stay floating?  How long would the electrical grid stay intact?  Where will the AI data centers get their juice from?

Personally, I have an Air Gapped Win 10 computer I keep around for when the net goes down and I just need a machine to write on and stay entertained doing 3D design or playing old games on CD-ROM.  However, I only am likely to live for another decade or so, and  the electricity up here hopefully will last that long.

RE

Silence is the best plan.

The end is nigh. All China and Iran have to do  is wait while America's fuel cost induces total collapse.  Trump does not care, and it does not matter anyway because he is well into a second childhood.  Trump is an ineffective dead wait.  He started this shit and his incompetence will now cause America to collapse from his own blowback.

QuoteWe are screwed through the rest of the year.

In the Irish potato famine ships loaded with grain sailed from Irish ports.  Now history will repeat as oil exports will be more profitable than keeping what Joe Six Pack pays at the pump under six bucks.  People who own are going to make out big.  And AI means you will no longer have a personal computer soon.  It will all be subscription to data-centers behind your keyboard and screen.  And it is happening because people are too stupid to give a shit.  The AI bubble is the total failure of NI Natural Intelligence.  The Rentier economy is the end game.  Rent-seeking and exploitation by companies is Joe's future.  If Joe does not plug into the system he/she will have no life.







And you don't have to travel to a Greek cave and sniff fumes to see this future.

Oil and shipping markets remain on edge as Hormuz disruptions increasingly look structural rather than temporary, with insurers, shipowners, and traders losing confidence in U.S. security guarantees. The world is entering a fragmented new trade order where maritime access and energy flows are becoming tied to geopolitical alignment instead of open global markets.

It's about time someone in the MSM said out loud what EVERYBODY KNOWS, which is that oil shipping is NEVER going back to the status quo antebellum.  Hormuz is just the tip of the iceberg, there are numerous places on shipping routes where  tankers can be threatened with Piracy or interdiction.  China certainly will not accept the FSoA blockading Iranian Oil from heading to Chinese ports over the long term.  On the other side, as long as Iran can sell its Oil to China, Trumpolini's blockade doesn't fulfill the intended purpose of starving Iran of funds.  Who gets the oil produced anywhere but inside their own borders is now subject to the political vicissitudes of who is aligned with who.  The possibility of wars escalating past the Proxy War level has increased by orders of magnitude.  Xi made that clear in his statement about the Taiwan situation.

It's hard to figure how the new reality will be priced in to the cost of shipping insurance and then further to the price of oil.  A single market price for delivery is no longer possible, since each route has a different level of risk associated, and each transaction depends on who the buyer & seller are & where the vessel is flagged.  Needless to say, that makes for a very confusing market situation, and even without overt hostilities in play energy movement  around the globe will be seriously impacted.

It's a whole different world now, and there is no going back.

RE

DuM-DUM  DUM-DUM...

50% Lethality Rate.  That's impressive

Quote from: TDoS on May 16, 2026, 06:32 PMAs far as what was "renditioned", it was the usual population growth stats circa 2026 showing population still going up, as expected.

No, in the states mentioned such as China, Japan, Russia, Greece etc with low immigration, their populations are already decreasing.  The only ones such as the FSoA, Canada etc where it's still going up slightly is from immigration.  India hasn't had a proper census in over a decade, it's currently underway and likely going down.  Africa is basically a big black hole with no reliable numbers, but with war, disease and famine all over the continent, it's not looking good.

AI is handy for saving time on responding to trolls.

RE