How The Story Begins

                                                                                         written 8 March, 2026

                                                                                             for 15 March, 2026

 

            As I write, we are now into the second week of the latest Republican initiated war in the Middle East, this time focused on Iran.  The president originally stated this would only take a few weeks (much like Putin invading Ukraine), but they are now suggesting it might last into the fall.  The impact is already being felt.  With the Persian Gulf closed to tankers, global oil and natural gas prices jumped 50 percent, estimated to perhaps double again, and the stock market is declining.  The administration is still struggling to state why this war started, with numerous excuses floated, and sometimes reversed within a day. 

            Republicans have normally been good at presenting a unified party line.  Remember the relentless drum beat a few decades ago, stating the reason to invade Iraq was the "weapons of mass destruction"?  Of course, there weren't any.  It was about oil.  But we spent a decade, $1.6 trillion dollars, and almost 4,500 dead US soldiers.  This time around, the story slowly emerging is that we needed to "destroy the terrorist threat".

            Iran has, in fact, spent decades funding attacks all over the world, in order to achieve their national goals, and the US has been a primary target.  But any story can be spun depending on where you begin the story and what gets included in the narrative.

            For example, if we start the story a few weeks ago, the country of Iran experienced a surprise attack (like Pearl Harbor), by the US, with the world's largest military, and Israel, the only nuclear power in the region, which killed their national leaders and destroyed their defensive capacity, even though they were in the process of working out diplomatic solutions to their problems.  That story makes the US less of a hero, and more like a blood thirsty imperial bully.

            In contrast, for decades, the Republican story of Iran starts in 1979, when the established government of Iran was overthrown by a fanatical Islamic regime, which immediately oppressed their citizens and enforced strict religious purity laws.  Since then, Iran has built the largest military in the region, developed missile, and now drone, capabilities, and spent billions funding "national liberation movements", fighting a holy war in the Middle East, as well as targeted attacks and assassinations all over the world.  Western nations designated all these groups as terrorist organizations.  This story makes Iran look like a rouge nation assaulting the stability of western nations.

             However, if we start the story in 1944, it changes again.  Mohammad Mosaddegh was elected by popular vote to the Majles, the Iranian parliament.  He was a vocal advocate for nationalizing the Iranian oil reserves, which had been controlled by the British Petroleum Company for decades, to the economic detriment of Iran.  In March, 1951, the elected parliament nationalized the oil resources, and Mosaddegh was appointed prime minister.

            This action offended British interests, which, in August, 1953, supported the Shah's attempt to remove Mosaddegh.  But popular support was behind Mosaddegh, and the Shah was forced to flee the country.  A few days later, with US support this time, a coup overthrew the elected government, restored the Shah, and Mosaddegh was imprisoned, spending the rest of his life under house arrest.

            Control of Iranian oil was returned to the British, and now American, oil companies.  The Shah became the US agent in the Middle East.  With US funding, he built the largest military in the region, and established a repressive, US trained, security police, killing and torturing anyone who disagreed with the Shah.

            In early 1978, after decades of repression, popular uprisings began.  The Shah was eventually forced to flee the country once again.  As all the moderate politician had been killed or left the country, what remained were Islamic fundamentalists, which formed the Islamic Republic of Iran in April, 1979.  A few months later, the US allowed the ailing Shah into America for medical help.  An outraged Iranian populous stormed the US embassy in Tehran, taking 52 Americans captive, which is where the Republican story starts.

            The US was responsible for creating the Islamic state of Iran, complete with terrorist inclinations, because we wanted the oil resources.  We taught the Shah repressive tactics, and, with our support, he oppressed the larger Iranian population.  Oil, money, power, and ego were the coin of the realm then, as they are today.  We don't seem to learn.  But the story isn't over yet.

 

 

 

Age Of Disaster

                                                                                         written 1 March, 2026

                                                                                     published 8 March, 2026

 

             In physics, a shock wave results when forces change the world faster than is can respond smoothly.  The January, 2025 Los Angeles fires created a cultural shock wave.  

            In the new book "Firestorm", Jake Soboroff describes his live news reporting on those fires.  The winds were so intense, and the land so dry, a fire hurricane engulfed the city, overwhelming all efforts to stop it until the winds died down.  The numbers are grim.  Five fires, 40,000 acres burned, 12,300 structures destroyed, 32 dead, more than 200,000 people displaced, with cost estimates over $21B and counting, the most expensive in California history.  

            Soboroff interviewed Captain Jonathan White, of the Health and Human Services Strategic Preparedness and Response.  Based on his years of disaster investigation experience he believes we are in an age of disasters.  "This is the result of four powerful forces coming together: the global climate emergency, aging infrastructure disintegration, changes in how we live, and politics of blame and disinformation".

            Over decades, human actions have changed the climate, amplifying normal conditions, enhancing the extreme drought and high winds that drove these fires.  Infrastructures, such as fire equipment and personnel, water reservoirs and urban water mains, are decades old with massive deferred maintenance and sometimes stressed under normal conditions.  This was no match for the magnitude of the fires.  As cities expand into new wildlands, fire impact increases.  Even as the fires burned, and resources were focused on saving lives, the president elect spewed out his trade mark invectives and lies.

            White said "Democrats are wrong that what we are facing is a future threat.  Republicans are wrong in saying there is no threat.  The threat is here."  Unfortunately, shock inducing changes are not limited to climate issues.

            The Artificial Intelligence (AI) explosion, already disrupting the economy, is rapidly accelerating.  Perhaps half the 70 million mid-level office workers could be fired in the next year or two.  These are mostly good paying jobs, so personal bankruptcies will spike.  The impact will spread as businesses servicing these people will also be affected.  Recent college graduates will face increased unemployment.  College loan defaults will grow.  Office parks will become vacant, depressing real estate values.

            That is the result of AI working, but the entire AI bubble may burst before such extensive damage can be done.  Investors are growing concerned there is little to no return on their massive investment, and the rising value of the stock market is dependent on AI investment.  The frenetic pace of AI data center development demands an equally rapid spike in electrical power production and water for cooling, however, in the real world, these resources can't grow nearly as fast as expected.  The resulting "correction" could crash the economy like the bursting of the housing bubble in 2007.

            Another impending shock is called the "Kessler syndrome".  In 1978, NASA scientist Donald Kessler said "the more stuff we put in orbit, the higher the risk that some of that collides, creating a cascade of collisions, distributing the debris around the entire planet."  Such a runaway cascade could make productive space orbits unusable for generations.  This kind of event is portrayed in the 2013 movie "Gravity", starring Sandra Bullock and George Clooney. 

            Material orbiting below 320 miles altitude is slowed by atmospheric drag and soon falls to Earth and burns up on re-entry.  Satellites with commercial and military utility must last longer, and orbit between 320-600 miles altitude.  About 14,000 satellites are now in orbit at those altitudes, 2/3 of which are the Starlink fleet.  This is where a cascade could start even if we stop adding anything else.

            As of March, 2025, the debris density at that altitude already exceeds the runaway threshold, with more than 50,000 objects larger than 2.5" and more than 1.2 million larger than .25", all of which can cause damage, given the relative speeds involved.

            Starlink reports currently making 800 course correction every day to avoid debris.  If satellites lose the capacity to correct, perhaps due to a large solar flare, the first collision would happen within 5 days, up from 5 months 8 years ago.

            The climate, AI, and space debris problems have a common root: domination by exclusive gain strategies while ignoring impacts on the whole system.  In a unity reality, any solution that doesn't include everything, isn't really a solution, but just part of the problem.  Case in point, another Republican president starting another middle east war.

            

  

 

 

 

When The Leader Lies

                                                                                   written 22 February, 2026

                                                                                     published 1 March, 2026

 

            When our current president was elected the first time, it was documented that he lied over 30,000 times in those four years, one every 45 minutes he was awake.  Lying is a form of cheating on reality.  Chronic liars and cheaters believe everyone else lies and cheats as well, reflecting their poor view of humanity.  

            The president may know he is lying, or is just so disconnected from reality that he actually believes everything he says.  In either case, anyone expecting constancy, or honesty, from the man will be disappointed sooner or later.  This is difficult to bear in anyone, but a complete disaster when the leader of our country is a liar and a cheat.  His small lies, such as being a stable genius, or being our only savior, can be ignored as simple bloated egotism.  But his big lies have costly consequences.

            The lie that the 2020 election was stolen rises from his egoic assumptions that he can never be a loser and everyone else cheats.  This resonated with enough of his followers that they stormed the Capital to change the results of the election.  A few people died, many were injured, and the global image of the US took a hit.  This lie is still active today, even though 70 lawsuits, and multiple ballot recounts, have shown Biden won in fact.

            The tariff issue is a collection of lies.  The president lied that other countries rip off the US, yet we consume 6 time our share of global resources.  Our trade imbalances, the supposed proof of the rip off, come from US companies investing overseas to maximize profits from cheaper labor, combined with our voracious consumer economy. 

            The president lied that other nations would pay the costs, yet tariffs are a tax paid by US consumers, a reality known to economists of all political orientation, and recently affirmed by a report from the New York Federal Reserve.  But this administration is undeterred by reality, preferring "alternative facts" whenever the truth is too inconvenient.  In his first administration, surrounded by a few competent people, the president was hindered in his freedom of action.  This time loyalty is preferred over competence.  Rather than discuss the facts, White House economic advisor Kevin Hassett quickly condemned the recent Fed report and called for the authors to be prosecuted.

            The president lied that he could unilaterally apply tariffs anywhere he wanted, yet the Constitution gives Congress the power to make tariffs, not the president, a point recently affirmed by the Republican majority Supreme Court.  In response, the president berated two Justices he appointed, and they immediately began receiving death threats.

            The president's tariffs have cost Americans over $200B, disrupted global trade, alienated long term allies, and thrown uncertainty into the entire business community because tariffs change on presidential whim.  The Supreme Court decision means all that money has to be refunded, a complicated process on its own, and there is no guarantee the president will even abide by the ruling.

            While the tariff lie is expensive, the big lie, that the climate crisis is a hoax, risks killing us all, because we have no more time to waste.  With the power of the president pushing this lie, the US has halted all efforts to address the issue, stopped all research on the issue, and even banned all mention of the issue.  He has also pressured other nation to stop responding to the issue.  Instead, hundreds of billions of dollars are being redirected to investments in obsolete, expensive, inefficient, and polluting energy sources.  He wants the Pentagon to run on coal.

            This abrupt change in direction costs the economy for all the investments now stalled, as well as all the investments needed to retool.  The fact that his decisions are out of step with popular sentiment, and the direction of the rest of the world, confuses the business community.  Does it make sense to manufacture internal combustion cars that the rest of the world is moving away from?  Can any domestic company survive without export trade?

            Just because the president believes a fantasy, are we all required to live within that fantasy as well?  The Republican party leadership has deferred to the almost all the president's whims, and don't seem to be willing to address the truth: the president is not fit to lead.  But Americans seem to be waking up from the dream being sold to them.