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Strait Outta Competence

The Oil War

Dave Pell

Mar 11

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My knowledge of the oil industry comes primarily from watching episodes of Landman, but I know enough to realize that Iran is trying to turn the battles in the Gulf into an oil and energy war. But you’d have to be sort of a dipstick not to have war-planned for this eventuality. Iran can’t directly fight militaries like the US and Israel, so they’re targeting the world’s pocketbook and issuing related threats. “In response to the Iranian threats, commercial shipping has come to a standstill in the Gulf, oil prices have spiked, and the Trump administration has scrambled to find ways to tamp down an economic crisis that has triggered higher gasoline prices for Americans. The episode is emblematic of how much Mr. Trump and his advisers misjudged how Iran would respond to a conflict that the government in Tehran sees as an existential threat.” NYT (Gift Article): How Trump and His Advisers Miscalculated Iran’s Response to War. The bigger question is whether, inside the White House, they calculated at all. They’re definitely calculating now. Well, with certain limitations. “Inside the administration, some officials are growing pessimistic about the lack of a clear strategy to finish the war. But they have been careful not to express that directly to the president, who has repeatedly declared that the military operation is a complete success.”

+ “The lesson that the Trump administration seemed to learn from the failed planning for postwar Iraq is that planning isn’t worth the effort at all.” Franklin Foer in The Atlantic (Gift Article): The Obvious Is Taking Its Revenge on Trump.

+ WSJ (Gift Article): Iran’s Control of Hormuz Means It’s Exporting More Oil Today Than Before the War.

+ “It would be reckless to predict precisely where this conflict is headed. But it no longer seems reckless to say that this war is going to be a mess: if not just a military mess, or a diplomatic mess, then at least an economic mess. The vast majority of headlines in the Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg are about the price of crude oil. But the deeper story is about everything crude becomes, everything that moves alongside it, and everything that depends on the narrow maritime chokepoint at the mouth of the Persian Gulf.” Derek Thompson: This isn’t just about the price of oil. It’s about everything oil becomes.

+ There’s no doubt that an already weakened Iran has been seriously damaged by the aerial bombardment. But it’s hard to say whether that achieves the goals of the Trump administration because those goals have never been made clear. The same is not true for Israel. And Bibi’s steadfast vision that includes regime change vs Trump’s wavering goals could be the battle that ultimately determines how this war evolves — and what things look like for the Iranian people when it’s over. WSJ (Gift Article): Trump Says the Iran War Is Nearly Won but Israel Has Other Ideas. How will it all play out? Maybe I’ll let Billy Bob Thornton as Tommy Norris in Landman answer that one: “Wish in one hand, shit in the other, see which one fills up first.”

2

School Bombing

“An ongoing military investigation has determined that the United States is responsible for a deadly Tomahawk missile strike on an Iranian elementary school, according to U.S. officials and others familiar with the preliminary findings.” NYT (Gift Article): U.S. at Fault in Strike on School in Iran, Preliminary Inquiry Says.

+ War is hell. That’s not just a saying. Everyone knows that airstrikes often hit unintended targets and kill innocent civilians. But only a certain type of leader lies about it. Sadly, today, that includes ours. His latest response to the findings. “I don’t know about it.”

+ ProPublica: The U.S. Built a Blueprint to Avoid Civilian War Casualties. Trump Officials Scrapped It.

+ We’re not getting the truth about Iran’s casualties. Are we getting the truth about ours? Dozens of U.S. service members in Kuwait suffered serious injuries, including burns, brain trauma and shrapnel wounds.

3

Creatives Have Seen This Movie Before

“The public appearance of Ellison on his property-to-be underscores the new world order that is about to engulf the industry. The rich and powerful are poised to get richer and more powerful, and much of the rest of the industry is wondering what comes next. The Paramount-Warners marriage is perhaps the quintessential example. A year ago, Ellison was the CEO of Skydance, a studio with a valuation of $4.75 billion. When this deal closes, he will control two of Hollywood’s legacy studios, an empire valued at north of $120 billion.” The Hollywood Reporter on the big merger. David Zaslav Gets the Last Laugh. (But this isn’t a comedy...)

4

Down to the Wire

“Wired headphones have become so ubiquitous among the rich and famous that some see these tangles of plastic and wire as a cultural symbol. One social media user posted a viral tweet with photos of actors Robert Pattinson and Lily-Rose Depp sporting wired earbuds. ‘It’s becoming a class thing,’ they said. ‘Wearing wireless 24/7 tells me you don’t own any land.’” BBC: Wired headphone sales are exploding. What’s with the Bluetooth backlash? (It’s either sound quality, celebrities switching to wired, nostalgia, or the fact that my kids alone have lost at least half of the Airpods in circulation.)

5

Extra, Extra

Snake Oil Sells Itself: “This rejection of empiricism makes selling falsehoods easier and contradicting them harder, which creates a fertile environment for anyone with something to sell, whether shady businesses or authoritarian governments. Gullicism creates not just a void but also an opportunity. It creates an ideal business opportunity for snake-oil salesmen to peddle products whose whole appeal is that they’re notscientifically validated.” Adam Serwer in The Atlantic (Gift Article) attempts to explain everything. Gullible, Cynical America.

+ Slam, Jam, Thank You, Bam: “It was a perfect confluence of chaos channeled into a willing and able vessel. Adebayo had already set a new career high in points by halftime; he’d more than double his previous best of 41 points en route to history. Adebayo made as many 3s against the Wizards (seven) as he did in his first five seasons in the league combined.” The Bam Game: The 83-Point Night That Broke the NBA’s Order.

+ Photo Bombing: “Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is banning press photographers from department briefings on the U.S. war on Iran because he didn’t like the way he looked in recent photos.” (Guys, I’ve told you a million times. He likes that blue steel lethal look.)

+ Air Time: We were promised flying cars. And we might be getting them. Electric air taxis are about to take flight in 26 states.

+ Beeing There: “Using specialized laboratory chambers and sensors, the researchers discovered that queen bees in diapause are consuming oxygen and producing carbon dioxide while underwater. Somehow, it seemed, the insects were breathing.” Bumblebee Queens Can Breathe Underwater.

+ Story With Layers: “It looks like an onion. It smells like an onion. In short there is nothing to suggest that within the brown papery skin sits anything other than a bog-standard allium. Yet the curiously named Smile Ball sitting on my chopping board is the result of 20 years of cutting-edge research, research that has led us to the very boundaries of human endeavor.” These onions will never make you cry. (I wonder if they can use the same technology on the news...)