@Melbourne_says Wait, you are John? I always like reading your posts and your take on the world here.… And I cried along with John. I'm so glad to see you out for a meal and feeling brighter x
This is not a movie about meteor showers before the apocalypse; this is Russia bombing Kyiv last night. A city with several million people in it - children, the elderly, and normal families just like yours.
JD Vance is lecturing the Pope on Catholicism and Pierre Poilievre is lecturing Mark Carney on economics and RFK Jr is lecturing scientists about vaccines and Donald Trump is lecturing the world on tariffs and Pete Hegseth is quoting Pulp Fiction and thinking it’s the Bible
🚨UN-FU*KING-BELIEVABLE
Donald Trump says the Iran War is a “true investment in your children’s and grandchildren’s future.”
He SLASHED healthcare, education, even FOOD assistance. And a WAR is an investment? Is he out of his mind?
#HealthcareNotTrumpsWar
Four humans are about to fall into a 10,000°C wall of plasma at 25,000 mph with a heat shield NASA knows is flawed. Tomorrow evening. Off the coast of San Diego.
Orion hits the atmosphere at 36 times the speed of sound. The air can't move out of the way fast enough, so it compresses into a shockwave twice as hot as the surface of the Sun. The plasma ionizes the surrounding air and blocks all radio signals. For several minutes, the crew is falling faster than any humans have ever traveled inside a spacecraft, and nobody on the ground can talk to them.
The heat shield is 186 blocks of a material called Avcoat glued to a titanium skeleton. It works by charring, melting, and disintegrating on purpose. The destruction of the outer layer is the cooling mechanism. There is no backup system. No redundancy. The heat shield works or the crew doesn't come home.
The Artemis I heat shield came back with over 100 locations where chunks had ripped off. NASA spent two years figuring out why, concluded it was gas pressure building up inside the material during reentry, and decided not to replace the shield. They changed the flight path instead. Steeper angle, less time in the danger zone. NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said publicly that this approach "is not the right way to do things long term."
The capsule will slow from 25,000 mph to 17 mph in thirteen minutes. Parachutes don't even deploy until the last four. Everything before that is managed by a curved piece of titanium and glue entering air twice as hot as the Sun.
Tomorrow at 5:07 PM Pacific, San Diego might hear a sonic boom. That sound is four people betting their lives on NASA's math being right.
@ShawnRyan762 The Pentagon threatening the Pope. Let that sink in. The US military is now bullying the Vatican because the Pope had the audacity to call for peace. This country has lost the plot entirely.
I love it -- JD Vance comes to a foreign country to openly campaign for a candidate ahead of an election, and then accuses other countries of interfering in those very elections.
Call me crazy, but we shouldn't have to wake up every day trying to figure out if the president of the United States is trying to manipulate the market or start a nuclear war.
i do not care if Trump's comments result in nothing tonight. no one who even thinks of saying the phrase "a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again" should be allowed to operate an ice cream stand, nevermind the most powerful office on the planet
15/ After these dates, the Gulf oil currently at sea runs out, and the next wave of deliveries will arrive later, costlier, and in smaller volumes from different producers.
14/ 🔺 Southern Africa / Indian Ocean — March 20th–April 1st (earliest)
🔺 East Asia — April 1st (China, Japan, Korea cluster)
🔺 Europe — April 10th
🔺 United States — April 15th (latest)
🔺 Australia/Pacific — April 20th (latest)
The oil crisis is spreading throughout the world. Many countries are going to extreme lengths to ration their supply as a result. Here are all the cases I could find:
1) The Philippines declared a national energy emergency. Government offices have shifted to a four-day work week, and agencies must cut fuel and electricity use by 10–20%.
2) Sri Lanka instituted a weekly public holiday for public officials and schools. It has also revived a QR code-based fuel rationing system that limits private cars to 25 liters of petrol per week.
3) Pakistan closed schools for two weeks and cut free fuel allocations for government vehicles by 50%. It also hiked high-octane fuel prices by 60%.
4) Bangladesh, shut down universities and colleges and implemented five-hour rolling blackouts for households to prioritize the garment export sector.
5) South Korea launched a nationwide energy-saving campaign and released a record 22.46 million barrels of strategic oil reserves. It also temporarily lifted limits on burning coal.
6) Thailand ordered civil servants to work from home, set office air conditioning to 26–27°C, and halted petroleum exports to preserve domestic stock.
7) Japan and announced its largest-ever release of strategic oil reserves, approximately 45 days' worth, to stabilize local markets.
8) Egypt ordered early closures for malls, restaurants, and government offices while switching off illuminated billboards.
9) Myanmar introduced an "odd-even" rationing system where private vehicles can only purchase fuel on alternating days based on their license plate numbers.
10) Nepal is a state-run oil corporation has begun rationing cooking gas by filling cylinders to only half their normal capacity (7.1 kg) and is urging a nationwide switch to induction cookers.
11) India has invoked emergency powers to divert liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) away from industrial users to prioritize household cooking needs.
12) Slovenia became the first EU member to implement fuel rationing, limiting private drivers to 50 liters of petrol per week and businesses to 200 liters.
13) Bhutan has officially banned the sale of fuel in jerry cans to prevent hoarding and has established strict rationing priorities for emergency services.
14) Vietnam is accelerating a transition to ethanol-blended gasoline ahead of schedule to reduce its reliance on pure fossil fuel imports.
15) South Sudan has begun rationing electricity in its capital, Juba, due to the high cost of oil used for power generation.
16) Laos has made working from home mandatory for all non-essential civil servants and introduced rotational shifts to reduce commuting demand.
It gets worse. Gulf producers are nearly at their maximum storage capacity; once they run out of space to put unsold oil, they will be forced to "shut in" (permanently close) wells, which can cause long-term geological damage to the oil fields.
This is the worst oil crisis in history. And it is going to get so much worse. unlike previous shocks, this crisis has wiped out the world's spare capacity because major producers like Saudi Arabia and the UAE are physically cut off from their customers by the Strait of Hormuz closure.
All for what?