thethirdgracchi

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Chainsawman part 2 finale waiting room in c/anime@hexbear.net
[–] thethirdgracchi@hexbear.net 6 points 1 hour ago (4 children)

I have to imagine Fujimoto wanted out of his contract or whatever, was kind of bored with Chainsaw Man, and totally burnt out from weekly releases. It wasn't a terrible ending, just not fleshed out and insanely quick. We were knee deep in the shit just two chapters ago, and then all of that is just gone and it's like "yeah it's over." Thematically it makes sense, so it's not awful or anything, just rather sad that it all just ends so quickly and there's little permanence or growth.

Bulletins and International News Discussion from March 22nd to Whenever We Reach About 3000 Comments - The Empire In Zugzwang in c/news@hexbear.net
[–] thethirdgracchi@hexbear.net 14 points 17 hours ago* (last edited 17 hours ago)

Sad part is they won't get fucked because they can produce the underlying asset. If it costs them like $60 a barrel to pump (which would be very high, most oil can be produced for far less than that) then they're still making $40 of profit. Their only "loss" is the opportunity cost of making even more profit had they not sold these futures contracts.

I don't think it means oil majors think it'll end any time soon, they're just banking so locked in long term profits now to smooth out any price volatility in the months ahead. There's little downside for them.

Bulletins and International News Discussion from March 22nd to Whenever We Reach About 3000 Comments - The Empire In Zugzwang in c/news@hexbear.net
[–] thethirdgracchi@hexbear.net 19 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

It's 100% this; Miller cares more than anything about mass deportations and creating a white ethno-state. For him, Iran is just a distraction from his domestic agenda.

Bulletins and International News Discussion from March 22nd to Whenever We Reach About 3000 Comments - The Empire In Zugzwang in c/news@hexbear.net
[–] thethirdgracchi@hexbear.net 18 points 18 hours ago (2 children)

Yeah pretty much. One side of the trade is pledging to buy oil at, let's say, $100 a barrel in six months. x number of barrels; they're now obligated to buy x number of barrels at $100 each. If the market price is above that, then the hedger wins and gets a "deal" that the oil producer/seller is obligated to honor. If it's the opposite, the seller wins, and gets to profit by however much the oil price is lower than $100. So it's basically locking in high prices now for six months down the line, which yes so long as the companies involved decide to raise prices to cover their now locked in more expensive energy costs (which they most likely win) consumers are getting hit.

Bulletins and International News Discussion from March 22nd to Whenever We Reach About 3000 Comments - The Empire In Zugzwang in c/news@hexbear.net
[–] thethirdgracchi@hexbear.net 18 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I think that's part of it, but also because it would recreate the same issue of oil, just in miniature. Uranium and thorium are not equally distributed across the Earth. Sure, China and Russia and the United States can be self sufficient in uranium. Even nations as large as France cannot, and rely on uranium mines in Africa. Going all in on nuclear does not solve this problem of control. Given nobody can control the wind or the sun (yet, let's hope the fucking atmospheric seeding shit never happens!), renewables avoid this.

Bulletins and International News Discussion from March 22nd to Whenever We Reach About 3000 Comments - The Empire In Zugzwang in c/news@hexbear.net
[–] thethirdgracchi@hexbear.net 52 points 1 day ago (19 children)

OK effort post underway, so I'll spoiler it. Long story short is that energy transitions are almost never "economic" and are instead dictated by political and power considerations, and I believe the third Gulf War is going to solidify a broader shift away from oil and into renewables for the same reason we switched from water power to coal and from coal to oil.

spoilerOK so with that introduction out of the way, we first turn to Andreas Malm's Fossil Capital, a really wonderful book. He shows thoroughly how the British bourgeoisie first set up factories using water wheels connected to streams across the midlands, and these water wheels provided the power necessary for the operation of various factories across the island. This water was cheap (free, really!), effective, consistent, and these factories worked great. There was a problem though: they were located very far into the countryside, because they had to be built where streams for the water wheels were. This ended up giving their labourers immense power, because they had to be housed there, far away from everything else. If those workers decided to strike, it was really hard to break it because you had to ship a shit ton of labour to bumblefuck nowhere English Midlands, and also house them, and provide food, and all these other logistical nightmares. So strikes were short and workers usually got what they wanted. This was obviously a no-go for factory owners, so they switched to coal as the power source for their factories because they could build those factories in cities, near a ton of other labour, and didn't have to provide for food or lodging. And they could utilize the reserve army of labour to keep wages down and worker power at a minimum, as they could be easily replaced during strikes. Malm does a great job of detailing how coal during the switch was actually more expensive than water wheels; the reason for the switch, as documented in lots of correspondence he goes through between factory owners, was coal allowed for factories to be moved to cities and therefore more power to the owners vs their workers. The main concern with energy in this instance was accessibility and the power it gave, not price. Of course coal couldn't be prohibitively more expensive than water, sure, but price was not the main motivation here at all.

Timothy Mitchell in his Carbon Democracy also examines another energy switch, this time from coal to oil as the main source of power and energy. Contrary to "progressive" narratives of oil just Being Better, the switch to oil was again motivated by control and power rather than price. You see, the problem with coal is that it's heavy and physical, and relies on trains to be moved around. You had to physically move coal from place to place on railways, and railways require a lot of workers. You see where this is going. The bourgeoisie realised real quick that coal puts way too much power into the hands of railworkers, who could disrupt the entire economy of a nation by going on strike, blocking coal and thereby closing factories. Coal requires workers to move, and the workers in charge of moving that coal, which now powered the entire economy, had too much power. This had to be broken, and the solution was oil. Again, oil was not cheaper than coal. Oil was just less liable to disruption, because rather than rail you just needed to build a pipeline. Pipelines required no workers. Oil derricks, too, required few workers to operate, as opposed to coal mines. And a disruption to a pipeline can be fixed quickly; oil flows, it does not need to be transported via the rail network, and there's no group of workers who can go on strike and shut down the entire country. Again, this switch was about power and control, not price.

Now, with Iran shutting down the Strait of Hormuz, we see that one country can control the flow of oil to the entire world, and this makes the global economy far too vulnerable. You might be thinking wait, didn't this already happen in the 70s? Yes, the oil shock of OPEC already demonstrated this, but during that time there was no alternative to oil at all. Regardless of price, you couldn't buy another energy source besides coal, but at this point coal can't power cars and jets and all sorts of other things. So this kind of energy transition didn't happen. But now you can get cheap renewables and electrify everything. China will sell you solar panels at low cost with no issue. You can buy EVs, you can electrify factories, and thereby take energy control back from oil. Long term I think this kind of trend is inevitable, just like the above two cases. The third Gulf War is highlighting this path, and many countries will take it. Whether the West does so however remains to be seen...

Bulletins and International News Discussion from March 22nd to Whenever We Reach About 3000 Comments - The Empire In Zugzwang in c/news@hexbear.net
[–] thethirdgracchi@hexbear.net 20 points 1 day ago (2 children)

He deleted and reposted to correct typos it looks like https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/116278232362967212

Bulletins and International News Discussion from March 22nd to Whenever We Reach About 3000 Comments - The Empire In Zugzwang in c/news@hexbear.net
[–] thethirdgracchi@hexbear.net 22 points 1 day ago (4 children)

The tweet in question; note the typos, proobably composed in great haste

I AM PLEASE TO REPORT THAT THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, AND THE COUNTRY OF IRAN, HAVE HAD, OVER THE LAST TWO DAYS, VERY GOOD AND PRODUCTIVE CONVERSATIONS REGARDING A COMPLETE AND TOTAL RESOLUTION OF OUR HOSTILITIES IN THE MIDDLE EAST. BASED ON THE TENOR AND TONE OF THESE IN DEPTH, DETAILED, AND CONSTRUCTIVE CONVERSATIONS, WITCH WILL CONTINUE THROUGHOUT THE WEEK, I HAVE INSTRUCTED THE DEPARTMENT OF WAR TO POSTPONE ANY AND ALL MILITARY STRIKES AGAINST IRANIAN POWER PLANTS AND ENERGY INFRASTRUCTURE FOR A FIVE DAY PERIOD, SUBJECT TO THE SUCCESS OF THE ONGOING MEETINGS AND DISCUSSIONS. THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER! PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP

https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/116278159912794855

Bulletins and International News Discussion from March 22nd to Whenever We Reach About 3000 Comments - The Empire In Zugzwang in c/news@hexbear.net
[–] thethirdgracchi@hexbear.net 33 points 1 day ago (7 children)

chatgpt i need good kharg island tips 100% success rate no mistakes free need fast failsafe perfect plans now thank you chatgpt hormuz open quick easy no losses

Bulletins and International News Discussion from March 16th to Whenever We Reach About 3000 Comments - The Straits Are Not Okay in c/news@hexbear.net
[–] thethirdgracchi@hexbear.net 17 points 2 days ago

Fog of war comes for us all

Bulletins and International News Discussion from March 16th to Whenever We Reach About 3000 Comments - The Straits Are Not Okay in c/news@hexbear.net
[–] thethirdgracchi@hexbear.net 40 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Wait until the United States has to buy RMB from China to provide reparations to Iran. Century of Humiliation just getting started.

Bulletins and International News Discussion from March 16th to Whenever We Reach About 3000 Comments - The Straits Are Not Okay in c/news@hexbear.net
[–] thethirdgracchi@hexbear.net 39 points 2 days ago (3 children)

What kind of "deal" could they possibly offer Iran where Iran would accept even one of these demands? These are the ravings of a lunatic.

5
Éliane Radigue (RIP 1932-2026) - Jetsun Mila (www.youtube.com)
 

A superb artist and pioneer of ambient electronic music, Éliane Radigue died yesterday at the age of 94. Radigue was making music like nobody else in the late 20th century. She's an icon, and her music is simultaneously so simple (often just one note layered over itself on an ARP-2500) and yet as vast as the ocean, seemingly containing the entire universe in the soundscapes she constructed. She was composing and making music until the last years of her life; in fact, one of my favorite pieces of hers is Occam XXV, which she made just a few years ago. Truly a titan that will be dearly missed.

37
Irish White Status Revoked: Irish man with valid US work permit held in ICE detention for five months (www.irishtimes.com)
 

Culleton has lived in the US for more than 20 years, is married to a US citizen and runs a plastering business in the Boston area. He has spent five months in US Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention and faces deportation despite having a valid work permit and no criminal record.

Pretty crazy stuff in the article, including the horrible conditions ICE is holding these folks in. Not surprising in the slightest, but they really are running concentration camps:

After being held in ICE facilities near Boston and in Buffalo, New York, he was flown to a facility in El Paso, Texas, where he is sharing a cell with more than 70 men. Culleton said the detention centre was cold, damp and squalid and there were fights over insufficient food – “like a concentration camp, absolute hell”, he told the Irish Times, which first reported the story on Monday.

7
The Hermit and the Recluse (Ka) - The Punishment of Sisyphus (RIP) (www.youtube.com)
 

RIP Ka, unsurpassed in hip hop

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