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#50 | Posted by LampLighter at 2026-08-21 09:48 PM
And all your current alias seems to have in reply is deflection.
So, allow me to ask once again ...
How many ships per day pass through the Strait now? Yer up ...
What does your current alias see?

So either your "current alias" didn't read my post or your "current alias" now pretends it didn't read it - let me repost, it was at the end:

|------- Besides that, there are verified reports of US Navy escorting some tankers through (similar to Operation Earnest Will in 1987-88), near the coast of Oman - depending on source, anywhere from 3M to 8M barrels are flowing out... though both numbers are far less than ~ 20M pre-closure and the insurance on these is much higher, thus still affecting the price of oil futures. -------|

So, again, your "current alias" keeps ignoring the answer and now deflected a second time by trying to change the subject and move the goal posts from inane "The Iranian control of the Strait of Hormuz may be a more potent force to face the world than Iran possessing a nuclear bomb" by asking non sequitur question about the flow of oil through the Straight of Hormuz.

And your "current alias" has not addressed at all the issue of "Trump has taught them that", which they obviously knew and tried using many times since 1980, as we [hopefully, now] know from history (see link in my first post) - if anything, the question is whether he understood what he was getting into, because knowledge or understanding of history (or much else) is not his strong suit.

Maybe you should retire your "current alias" shtick - it has an "arrogant, not too smart" look and doesn't serve you well.
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#45 | Posted by ClownShack at 2026-08-21 08:07 PM
So you're saying they'll have one any day now?
Any day ...

Where did I say that? Isn't that what IAEA was monitoring against, and the Obama's agreement with Iran was about?

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#4 | Posted by LampLighter at 2026-08-18 03:14 AM
So, Iran is now saying publicly something that Pres Trump has taught them...

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#26 | Posted by Effeteposer at 2026-08-16 09:50 AM
You must be a Szechophrenic or,. Something?

I feel your pain, Comrade Troll. You're still using Russian spellchecker, but very good post - short and pointless.
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#15 | Posted by madbomber at 2026-08-14 12:45 PM
Between us girls, because of this failure to produce the results Israel was hoping for, I don't know how much use they will have for Trump - or the US - going forward.

The night of November 5 2024 was a special nightmare for both Zelensky and Netanyahu.

Trump botched Abraham Accords that Netanyahu was working for almost 10 years to make with SA. Instead, Trump took the idea and rushed to sign something before 2020 elections to get the credit and bask in glory of "peacemaking" ceremony, so he got UAE and Bahrain (who already had informal trade relations with Israel) joined at the time, and later removed Sudan from state sponsor of terrorism list to get more signees. Unlike would-be accord with Saudis, that obviously didn't change geopolitics of the region, but Trump got the resume enhancement he could brag about, and the "peacemaker" / "no forever wars" cred he took into his 2024 campaign.

Not to mention Trump's habit of saying stupid things which he takes back an hour or day later, but which cause havoc and demand immediate attention and need to be taken "literally and seriously" by any serious government... which is much harder on [former?] "friends and allies" who - if that's possible - want to keep "normal" ties with the US for "post-Trump" (and post-traumatic) era, than adversaries who can and do just blow him off.

Iran just warned Syria, Turkiye, Qatar, SA and Iraq to not interfere with Hezbollah in Lebanon, to avoid "a broad regional confrontation."

Syria and Russia are now reestablishing the ties, importing > 80% of wheat and about half of daily crude consumption from Russia, and discussing joint exercises on former Russian bases inside Syria, while there is a possibility of another coup, or at least good old-fashioned tribal genocidal blood-letting, the way it's happening against Alawite, Druze, Kurds, Yezidi, Christians...

The $3.3B FMF to Israel (100% of it flowing back to the US, in addition to facilitating joint R&D, intelligence and commerce) is going away soon anyway, but Israeli companies have good trading and cooperation relationship with the US companies, which is more important than any "agreement" that US government can tear up or "limit" or slow-walk as has been done in the past, and particularly recently.

Trump has a knack for making a mess anywhere he goes and anything he touches turns to crap... yet he keeps inserting himself into everything, because of his ego and as long as he thinks he and/or his crime family can financially benefit.
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#20 | Posted by REDIAL at 2026-08-14 03:48 PM
Which is what? $3B per year?
- - - - - And a couple of aircraft carrier groups on hand.

Missing the fact that they are there for protection of US and allied countries' bases, datacenters and other assets in the Middle East, which became evident when Iran attacked UAE, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Jordan ($2.2B annual FMF+ aid), Egypt ($1.3B annual FMF)... and that it were Saudi and UAE rulers urging Trump to turn heat on when they saw Trump claiming victory and dithering ("Surrender!" mistakenly assuming it would follow the earlier militarily operationally successful "Venezuela playbook"), and/or turn it off when they understood that thought that making [another] deal with Iran was a better option.

As Trump [quite accurately, for a change] said many times, "Bibi doesn't tell me what to do, I tell him what to do".

Israeli command understood long ago that the only way Iran could be defeated was through real "regime change" (not Trump's "Venezuela model" or killing Ayatollah and top clerics, in which case IRGC and Basij would assume direct government control and become more entrenched) and had plans to accomplish that in late 2024 when they ran into Biden's/Blinken's "take the win," and in June 2025, when they ran into Trump's ego (he was still pining for that Nobel Peace Prize at the time) and micromanagement (he made it known "loud and clear" that he was "generalissimo" of the ops) when, after bombing a few Iran nuclear sites - operation "Midnight Hammer" which he wanted to be a punctuation point, to take the credit for "obliterating" Iran's nuclear WMD program - he abruptly called a ceasefire, then stopped the second phase of regime change plan ("They don't know what the f**k they're doing!") and Israel had to abort the op and turn back IAF planes that were on the way for another raid wave and to provide support for the IDF and Mossad's fully prepped "ground game" of dismantling and removal of IRGC and Basij command and control (by various means, including providing safe passage for them and families to neutral countries) with the uprising follow-up...

A few months later, out of the blue, Trump made another idiotic call, now for an impromptu uprising promising "Help is on the way!"... when no help was forthcoming, and more than 40,000 Iranians were slaughtered by IRGC within a few weeks.

Trump finally realized this made him look bad, as was the news that most of the nuclear "dust" was removed from the bombed plants... so that's how Trump's decisions were made.

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#28 | Posted by donnerboy at 2026-08-12 12:04 PM
"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damn lies, and statistics." ~ Mark Twain

That's for damn sure.


Obama added 54.6% ... or a total increase of $9.3 trillion.
Biden added 30.5% ... or a total increase of $8.16 trillion.
Trumpy added 29.1% ... or a total increase of $19.8 trillion
So far..
Now do you see the problem?


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AI Used to Create New Viruses

As opposed to what, using special programmable automation software and "manual" lab work, the way it's been done since "computers" became commonplace?

Using new technologies to speed up, automate or develop new capabilities is as old as the hills.


... raising hopes for medical advances while also raising the disturbing possibility that the technology could someday be used to invent dangerous pathogens.

Oh noez!

"Gain-of-function! Gain-of-function!"
"Wuhan flu"!
"Experimental mRNA killer vaccines!"
"Chinese biolabs!"
"Ukrainian biolabs!"
"Fauci! Fauci! Fauci!"

Amazing how much of Luddite fears and "back to the future" attitudes are in common recently between the "educated" Left and "uneducated" Right, when it comes to "manufacturing" and science, particularly in the fields of biotech, genetics, pharma, nuclear, AI, autonomous driving, robotics etc.

As technology improves, "AI" will be used to do / automate almost everything for what we now use "computers", for good and/or bad - that's the nature of technology.

Why create all the unreasonable, manufactured anxiety about progress that is inevitable and can be making our lives better?
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62 percent of young people want to see significant changes' to government.

Only 62%? And can these "yoots" agree on what specific 'significant changes' to government they want to make? When they grow up, start working and start families, do they want to make the same changes to government as when they were "young people" or are they staying pretty much as economically and politically illiterate and static in their opinions as some people on this board seem to have remained?

How does this compare with the adults who "want to see significant changes to government" and do they differ in many ways re the parts they want to see changed? **

Most of "young people" have no idea of how the world really works, how and why the political and economical systems evolved in history, and what the consequences were, except what they already "know" from schools and parents, and then learn from influencers and their social media "clubs" which explains why the young are easily inculcated and radicalized.

It's usually made easier in times of difficult economic environment, political corruption and wars - that's how Fascism and Communism rise and die.

"When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years." - old proverb


Let DSA win a few municipal and state seats with their "rousing" speeches/rallies and then, as is expected, fail at governing (like Trump and Mandani et al) - that just might bring Democrats back to sanity in 2028 primaries.

Trump has been more of a threat than DSA, but he is already breaking GOP similarly to DSA breaking Democratic Party - maybe we're having simultaneous "conservative crack-up" and "liberal crack-up" - they just keep coinsiding with [expected] electoral losses.
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#7 | Posted by CutiePie at 2026-07-27 04:06 AM
Or we can keep listening to notable "climate scientists" like Jane Fonda and Greta Thunberg et al, that impeded development (and/or were pushing a phase-out) of one of the cleanest and safest energy solutions...

- - - - - #11 | Posted by snoofy at 2026-07-27 10:31 AM
???
Trump cancelled $35 billion in the cleanest and safest wind and solar energy projects.
Not Greta and Jane.


First, before reflexively responding to a line in a post, try reading what it says in the supporting links I posted - these were written by REAL environmentalists, not political "activist" hacks looking for a "cause" to become an "influencer" or to stay "relevant" with the cool "in-crowd."

Second, you're still stuck in almost 2-decades-old Musk-induced haze of "clean" EVs and utility-scale solar and wind that have been debunked long ago... and you clearly haven't been paying attention to actual science and economics (physics and math) which cannot be fixed by politics/politicians (FOOTPRINT, ENERGY DENSITY, TCO), which I and few others here have been posting - let me refresh that for you (requires actual reading and attention to detail):

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Trump Administration to Lower Radiation Safety Standards

Oh, noez! If it isn't one "nuclear" scare, it's another. Anything to stop or slow down the development of new, much safer SMR (small modular nuclear reactors) and catch up the current and future energy/electricity supply with energy/electricity needs.

New regs don't affect safety or dosage limits, they just provide better clarity for developers by removing legal ambiguities of ALARA ("as low as reasonably achievable"), which should significantly speed up the R&D designs and testing.

Stated even simpler it wouldn't ever affect anyone not working on or near reactors, i.e., the scientists who know better what is and isn't safe and wouldn't jeopardize their lives or health.

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The economic advantages are undeniable, as evidenced by you not denying them:

You would make a lousy lawyer - "not denying" something (especially when someone was not asked to "confirm or deny") is not an "evidence" of anything...

This is a common fallacy - "Illicit Negative, i.e., affirmative conclusion from a negative premise" - it's a bad practice and bad form (could be considered an ad hominem), you should try to avoid.

That said, the benefits of "free trade" and "freedom of movement" are obvious ("thanks, capitalism!") so, given the chance, why would I deny that?


1. I've already explained to you what happened after Brexit - just because majority in UK were fed up with some of the heavy-handed EU ("Brussels") rules, mandates and, given that UK already had much less trade with EU than with the USA and the rest of the world (IOW, the "least integrated") they wanted a social "divorce," and it was extremely stupid of EU to be "Trumpy" to UK which, unsurprisingly, generally negatively affected both economies - you don't need to be a "rocket surgeon" to understand that.

And, as I've already pointed out in first post, economically EU was even worse off for it - "Play stupid games - win stupid prizes."

The "divorce" didn't end as well as it could have because of hurt feelings and stupid desire to "punish" one party by the other party - it happens too often in politics.

Again, that doesn't mean that the "remedy" is for UK to re-join ("remarry") EU, which, fortunately, EU is finally recognizing, and that is why they're moving toward "reset" with UK - "free trade" and "freedom of movement" and other agreements will fix economic things.

2. Once "reset" is accomplished, the "many young voters" won't be interested in reversing Brexit, because all their current complaints and grievances will be addressed.

Even "many young voters" can easily understand that a country can enjoy social and economic benefits of partnership, without having to become a unit of a larger entity and be a subject - e.g., just like having the benefits of "free trade" and "free movement" doesn't mean that Canada should merge with the US / aka become "51st state"... even if some "AI Summary" would speculate that it would benefit more.


--AI Summary

Be careful with "AI" or this could happen to your brain:

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#7 | Posted by snoofy at 2026-07-21 08:29 PM
"UK has done significantly better economically "under Brexit" than EU"
- - - - - Rich people in UK, sure. Rich people are doing significantly better globally.

Don't know what this has to do specifically with the subject, but it's generally the case "globally" (including UK) that the "rich" usually do better than "not-rich", Brexit or no Brexit.


If you're a young person in UK, your job prospects are not what they used to be, because you can't go work in EU any more.

Not accurate, even in the article they say that they could work in EU, it would just cost them and they would have to jump through hoops for visa and permits.

Would it be nice for them and others, not affiliated with larger companies, to travel and work without the hassle and expenses? Sure.

But none of this requires or is a good reason for the world's fifth-largest economy to re-join EU and share dysfunctional EU's economic and political problems with UK's own.

These are really minor issues that could and should have been very easily resolved long time ago without undoing Brexit, if only EU stopped being so "Trumpy" towards UK, trying to "punish" them for dissing EU by making some unreasonable demands and/or stalling economic and cooperation agreements; it also didn't help that UK itself had many changes of government over this period.

Hence, movement toward some kind of "reset": FTA: The good news is that the U.K. and EU are starting to repair their broken relationship... Officials on both sides are also working toward closer integration on a range of issues, including trade, energy, security, and crucially, freedom of movement.

Both UK and EU economies would benefit if they embraced as much "free trade" as they could, and some of their politicians stopped feeding either "full integration" or "Britain First" nonsense to people.

Just like Canada doesn't have to be "51st state" to have great economic and social relationship with the USA... the vote to rejoin EU is not needed and is unlikely to be successful; it would only take time, resources and reopen old divisions and acrimony.
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Ten years after Brexit, many young voters in Britain think rejoining the European Union is a good idea.

"Many young voters" think spending beyond their means is a "good idea"... because YOLO and FOMO!

They think BNPL or maxing out and paying monthly minimum on their credit cards is a "good idea"... until they find themselves in financial trouble.

They think getting their knowledge on TikTok or Insta or other social media is a "good idea."

"Many young voters" think that what politicians promise is "for real" and a "good idea" because they are economically illiterate and don't know better... then, after an election or two, they grow up. Then again, some never grow out of "good ideas" and carry their fantasies into adult life despite those having been debunked and proved categorically wrong in the past, because they can't accept having been duped by politicians,.

Particularly in Britain, that just has proved that Labour has no "better ideas" on how to fix UK's recent social and economic problems than Tories, and flipping the government every couple of years didn't work, "many young voters" are now thinking that voting for a fascist party and giving them a chance to govern is also a "good idea."

One reason for this sad state of affairs is due to the stupidity of EU politicians, behaving like jilted lover/spouse, attempting to "punish UK" for Brexit and taking time to re-establish trading agreements, instead of fixing their own issues which created impetus for Brexit in the first place, at the cost to economies of both UK and, even more so, EU.

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#15 | Posted by Effeteposer at 2026-07-14 09:02 AM
Wall of Text... blah blah blah ... I know I never read any of your posts all the way through.

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#2 | Posted by oneironaut
Do you have any idea what it costs to live here? Pretty close to 10x elsewhere in the country.

- - - - - #11 | Posted by Derek_Wildstar at 2026-07-13 01:05 PM
- - - - - Isn't that capitalism?

Generally it would be, but it's also that the CA government in the last 20+ years was hell-bent on increasing the cost of living by constantly raising "minimum wage," taxes, and regulatory costs of mandates for "clean energy," emissions or almost anything - that's why cost of living under "capitalism" in e.g., TX, TN or GA is different from cost of living under "capitalism" in CA, NY, WA etc.

Unlike Vegas ("What happens here stays here"), just because capital currently flows into VCs in Menlo Park and Palo Alto in CA, it doesn't mean it's going to stay in CA - VCs are really just way stations, capital distribution points - exactly like Wall Street in NYC.

And while the "whales" Anthropic and OpenAI are HQ'd in CA / SFO area, their datacenters, R&D and other offices (which require capital) may well be located in other states and countries - see Oracle, SpaceX and many other companies either closing shop in CA or moving significant parts of their businesses elsewhere

Chasing businesses out with higher taxes and capricious regulatory burdens and mandates is not providing a healthy long-term economic climate. Look at "Hollywood" CA problems - you can't constantly raise costs of doing business in the state or city, and then try to "protect" the people in it from consequences - you can read any number of headlines about it, e.g., more recent:

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#15 | Posted by LampLighter at 2026-07-12 10:02 PM
The question in my mind currently is...
Will AI's huge CapEx debt ever be recovered?

The same question you asked before?

Depends on who you ask. See #12


And then, debt aside, there are things like ...
Data centres account for almost a quarter of Irish electricity usage in 2025
So, aside from the increasing debt burden, then is also the operational cost burden.

Yes, it's called infrastucture and every company has operational costs. See #14.
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#13 | Posted by LampLighter at 2026-07-12 09:16 PM
The cost of AI tokens (cost per transaction) has risen significantly.


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#11 | Posted by LampLighter at 2026-07-12 08:16 PM
They currently seem to be losing money on every transaction, but hope to make up for it with volume ...

They are not necessarily losing money on every transaction because defining "transaction" in AI is very complex and involves many different, non-uniform costs.

However, they are losing a lot of money because the costs are huge, and they will definitely need a lot of subscription volume and high revenue growth to pay for their infrastructure, recurring expenses and continuous upgrades.

That's how it usually works in the early stages.


Will the revenue generated by AI catch up to the CapEx for the hyperscalers?

Depends on who you ask - early/mid-rounds investors, founders and companies accountants, sell-side analysts, buy-side analysts, critics of technology, critics of financial structure, competition, etc. - and answers may depend on knowledge and assumptions, but also on what their financial incentives are.
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#7 | Posted by donnerboy at 2026-07-11 02:23 PM
If you think AI is just about automated office tasks then you haven't been paying attention.

Today's "AI" is, mostly automation.


AI's reach extends far beyond basic "office tasks" because it handles complex workflows, accelerates physical and digital problem-solving, and increases the overall speed of tasks with less human error.

Instead of just drafting emails or sorting data, advanced systems will coordinate projects, analyze deep patterns, and drive major operational shifts. There is even an AI running its own business in SF now.

"Luna / Andon Market: An autonomous AI agent given a budget and lease to run a real storefront in San Francisco."

That sounds like a really lovely marketing material template of almost any "AI" prospectus.

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lots of VC in AI right now

#6 | Posted by ClownShack at 2026-07-12 12:20 PM
- - - - - The Vietcong are back and they're doing AI???

VC stands for "Venture Capital" - quite a lot of VC firms are in Silicon Valley.

If you read a little further in the article than the hype about SV you'll find this about "why" and concentration of capital in a specific industry within technology sector:


|------- ... To be sure, the surge in the size and number of monster deals could be overshadowing other money-raising efforts from smaller companies and investment by smaller funds, industry experts said.

Nearly 90% of invested dollars went to AI firms, up from last year, when around 65% of new funds were allocated to AI.

"If you're a tech company and you're not an AI company, you have a very, very difficult opportunity ahead of you to raise capital," Stanford said.

This concentration of capital in AI leaves smaller, middle-of-the-road venture funds without large AI holdings struggling to return capital to their investors.

Only the largest funds, such as Andreessen Horowitz and Sequoia Capital - which possess the war chest to back OpenAI, Anthropic, and SpaceX - stand to gain from their initial public offerings of stock.

"It's going to concentrate the fundraising over the next few years as well into these already very large names," Stanford said.

Beyond the two potential blockbuster listings - Anthropic and OpenAI, each valued around $1 trillion - the IPO pipeline is thin.

"We don't really have a strong IPO market," Stanford said. "Obviously, SpaceX's IPO is great. OpenAI and Anthropic, if they go out this year, will be very large drivers of distribution. But a vast majority of investors do not have exposure to them, and so that money will not make it back to them." ...
-------|


Well, OpenAI delayed IPO because of fear that the current valuation is closer to $750B, which is far short of $1T and would be considered a "failed IPO"... Anthropic is watching for now, since it's in only slightly better position than OpenAI.

There are already doubts about when or if the ROI on AI will materialize, and the tremendous debt needed to be raised for capex, due to rising costs of datacenters, memory and quickly outdated processors and availability of energy and qualified AI personnel, as well as ongoing "brain drain" due to Trump's immigration and "China Initiative" policies.

If OpenAI and Anthropic IPOs "fail" it could spell the beginning of the bust of entire hugely overvalued market, e.g., SPCX has already given most initial gains from IPO price.

Concentration is not just in the US - TSMC, Samsung, and SK Hynix now make up more than 30% of the MSCI Emerging Markets Index - as much as the exposure of the "Mag 7" in the S&P 500. Overall, technology accounts for 45% of the emerging market index.

Some may remember the high concentrations in overvalued markets during dot-com bubble of 1999-2000 and financial bubble of 2006-2008.
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#26 | Posted by LampLighter at 2026-07-10 01:53 PM
Pres Trump says that the US is in full control of the Strait...

As I have explained before, if a sentence starts with "Trump says..." you can safely ignore the rest of it.


Now Iran may be starting to realize that control of the Strait is a better way to get global attention than having a nuke.

Entirely different purposes and timelines:


1. Unlike Trump, Iran doesn't really want "attention" - they want real regional power - that's why until recently they waged terrorist war against Israel through multiple proxies, like Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah (Lebanese and Syrian), Houthis et al, helped by Soviet Union / Russia.

Tenuous "control" of the Strait of Hormuz is, at best, a desperate short-term opportunity to "haggle" with Trump by making temporary inconvenience to our regional allies and Trump in an election year (and, most importantly for him, interrupting his numerous "concepts of plans" to enrich and ingratiate himself through various grifts while attempting to insulate himself and family from consequences).


There are plans and game's afoot already of countries in the region for alternatives, land-based bypass routes and/or pipelines, some of which may include Turkiye and Israel, e.g.:

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1. Musk in 2025: AI Will Take All Jobs - complete BS, as usual...

So far, there has been little, if any ROI on enterprise AI rollouts, and companies found they are blowing their budgets by token-maxxing, and that was even before deploying agentic AI, when they don't know how many tokens the model's agents will burn doing requested tasks, and then get surprised with the bill:

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#12 | Posted by ClownShack at 2026-07-05 05:18 AM
If America wasn't dependent on oil, the Middle East would be meaningless to us.

#13 | Posted by donnerboy at 2026-07-05 11:43 AM
... to have your economy be so completely reliant on fossil fuels from the Middle East.


The US is not at all reliant on 'fossil' fuels from the ME - we are net exporter of oil, gas and coal... but most developed countries do: e.g., Japan just relaxed the rules - for a year (for now) - to increase the use of coal-fired power plants, despite increased coal prices, because they're very dependent on imported energy, partly because of shutting Fukushima nuclear reactors - they are importing LNG to meet 98% of gas demand, of which only 6% goes through Hormuz.

Outside of France - which has ~70% of domestic energy needs delivered by nuclear power, and is the world's largest net exporter of energy - large industrial countries in Europe and Asia are reliant on 'fossil' fuels, despite (or because of) heavy investments in renewable energy. EU even categorized NG as "green" energy and, with Hormuz closed, relaxed restrictions on methane emissions.