Prisoner of War or Peace

Quote of the DaY: "The market is inscrutable — and a terrible predictor of price moves. One thing we do know, though, is that we can’t separate ourselves from the global marketplace." Mark Finley an energy fellow at the Baker Institute at Rice U. (James Baker?) This is his answer as to why the price of gas won't go down. The deeper revealed truth is that we have all been captured and colonized by an "inscrutable" force, one from whose tentacles we can't escape. Apart from that minoir glitch, we are all kinds of free! Free to post on X, free to choose any deoderant you choose... This is an interesting take from a minister in the UAE government, basically set up as a mafia, saying they want to invest over a trillion of their hard earned dollars in the US. If only we can bring some stability to the region: "American firms increasingly see the Emirates as a launchpad into Africa, South Asia and the wider Indo-Pacific. In the other direction, the country’s vast network of family-run businesses, a largely untapped force in cross-border investment, is ready to deepen its stake in the American economy alongside Emirati sovereign capital." I guess No Kings doesn't include our new friends in the Middle East. To hear the neo-neocons, bringing freedom to the Iranian people is of the highest order but they are less concerned with the people living under the Gulf monarchies. Of course, the Iranian people would not be free to build a nuclear weapon, as are the Israelis. Sure, they can vote on it - but we have veto power. On the climate front, Microsoft has decided to back off on its committment to carbon removal. The latest IPCC report says not only do we have to stop burning fossil fuels starting yesterday, we also have to remove 5-16 gigatons of CO2 from the atmosphere every year from now to 2050 to prevent massive overshoot of 1.5 degrees. So there was investment in technologies like direct air capture followed by burial. Bill Gates was buying carbon offset credits from these unproven projects but now he sees the need to invest in AI data centers instead. Air capture and storage was always a joke and planting trees isn't going to cut it either. All this news is on the bottom of page six because what are you going to do? Massive overshoot, obviously. Now just imagine the emissions caused by these latest wars. Yes there is some slight possibility that nations will begin to orient more toward renewable energy, but it will be added to the mix of fossil fuels.