NZ Govt took a huge bet on fossil fuels. NZ was spending $8 billion/yr importing fossil fuels, and now the global fuel crisis is going to make it worse. Betting on fossil fuels turned out to be a losing bet for NZ. This is the 15 point policy record of 2 years of the NZ Govt:

1. Removed the Clean Car Discount, which supported sales of EVs and low emissions vehicles and disincentivized sales of high fuel consumption vehicles. This removal resulted in a collapse of EV sales.

2. Weakened the Clean Car Standard, which incentivized importers to sell more fuel efficient vehicles and penalised them for selling more high fuel consumption vehicles. This weakening led to an increase in sales of heavy fuel inefficient vehicles;

Day 51 of the Hormuz crisis.
Brent $94. Consensus: "priced in."

My read: the biggest macro dislocation of 2026 is loading — and positioning is brutally wrong.

Here's what happens in the next 48 hours 🧵

The IMF warned this week: "We're not going back to the Goldilocks scenario." ( CNBC )

Translation: even with a deal, the inflation premium is structural.

13M bpd shut-in. 500M+ barrels of cumulative lost supply. CNBC A deal tomorrow still needs months to clear the backlog.

Watch this week's tape:

Thu: Brent rips to $99
Fri: Iran says "strait open" → −10% to $90
Sat: Iran reverses → +6.5%
Sun: USS Spruance seizes the Touska
Mon: Trump floats new talks → −4%

Every headline = a scalp. This is a regime, not a trend.

@Nucleocapsoid We absolutely should be working hard to set up,clean air policies in all schools, too,educate on these things including teach about masking.

Because schools have always been major sites of spread because of the high#s of contacts/numbers per room, per day like daycare,

/1

@Nucleocapsoid somewhat college campus, nightclub is another of ex but doesn’t occur as many hours per week, others. schools are just such a huge consistent volume of a country’s pop of usually approximately 5&up (though many younger in some counties are also in daycare).

/2

@Nucleocapsoid Starting about Aug-Sept ‘20, US had many huge outbreaks in schools, lighting up news, same 1 yr later w Delta, same w Om variants, even more noticeable earlier before nadir became as high (w peaks lower (after first $ but area under curve high) .

/3

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson has issued another sole stinging dissent. In a 7-2 decision (with liberal justice Elena Kagan joining the majority), the Court upheld the authority of police to make a stop based on the totality of the circumstances...

...Jackson wrote that "I cannot fathom" how the seven justices could second-guess the lower court in rejecting the police claims. She accused her colleagues of mere "wordsmithing." Just for the record, it would be useful to review those words...

...The stop that Jackson (and the DC Circuit) found to be unjustified occurred after a call over a suspicious vehicle at 2am. When they arrived, two people ran from the car and the remaining passenger slowly began backing out of the parking lot with a door still open...

On this day in 1939, Billie Holiday recorded the first great protest song of the Civil Rights Movement, 'Strange Fruit’

The Chilling Story of Strange Fruit and Billie Holiday.

A THREAD!

"Strange Fruit" was originally a poem written by Jewish-American writer, teacher and songwriter Abel Meeropol, under his pseudonym Lewis Allan, as a protest against lynchings and later set it to music.

The song soon came to Billie Holiday's attention & after so many frequent requests of that song, she closed out EVERY performance with it. The waiters would stop serving ahead of time for complete silence, the room would darken, a spotlight would shine on Holiday's face…

Alex Jones is siding with Iran, the #1 terror state in the world that seeks nuclear weapons and a Marxist North American caliphate ruled by sharia law.
1)

https://twitter.com/GREENESJ333/status/2046299234589429856

Alex Jones owes about $1.5 billion to Sandy Hook victims’ families and a first responder and they are
Reality: They’re still trying to collect through bankruptcy and asset seizures.
2)

Has someone paid him to flip against President Trump & America? I'm just asking questions. Twice Iran has tried to assassinate President Trump and four of their Twelver Shia Muslim clerics (same faith as Mayor Mamdani, by the way,) have issued fatwas against President Trump.
3?

The UAE has a ton of options --

1) It has a ton of bills (natural source of liquidity), over $50b
2) It can use the Fed's repo facility ("FIMA repo", something I advocated for in the past) to borrow cash v its Treasuries
3) Abu Dhabi (the largest emirate) can borrow infinite sums and put them on deposit at the central bank

1/2

https://x.com/Brad_Setser/status/2046205540791898200

Remember Abu Dhabi raised several billion quite easily last week (its SWFs have trillions in assets so not a surprise ... )

The request was a signal that the UAE wants a few concessions from the US more than a sign of any real need for cash

2/2

p.s. it will be interesting to know how many reserves the UAE lost in March ...

and there is a budget hole from reduced oil exports (but that hole will be bigger in Kuwait and Iraq ... who haven't asked for a swap)

Let's explore this AT&T 6300 that I picked up from consignment at VCF East this weekend. It's going to go to a friend soon, but we can at least look at it first! Time for a 🧵

First of all, here it is with the cover removed. What a weird computer!! Two disk drives. Apparently the video card connects the top logic board with the motherboard below.

Let's get the cover back on. First, I removed the degraded foam after it made a mess everywhere. And then I learned that I really need to "pull" the left support a little to put it in place so that the case would latch properly. You can see wear marks where it was "hitting."

What if Hollywood's next massive blockbuster was made by one person?

A Cannes-awarded director made this 22-minute AI film in 7 days.

He gave me the FULL breakdown.

Let me show you how he made this in 9 simple steps: 🧵👇

Phase 1: Narrative & Strategy

Malik Zenger, a Cannes-winning music video director, joined the Higgsfield Originals team just three weeks prior with no previous AI experience.

He brought a traditional "old school" filmmaking lens to the project, focusing on narrative depth and realistic cinematography rather than just "cool" AI shots.

His goal was to prove that AI tools can deliver the same emotional weight as a high-budget live-action series like Game of Thrones.

The AI Writer’s Room

Despite having existing assets, Malik took the team back to a "writer's room" phase to develop a real screenplay.

Using Claude as a collaborative partner, he workshopped a revenge story that centered on a complex relationship between two brothers.

This shift turned a one-dimensional "action" piece into a full narrative season arc, complete with value shifts and character secrets.

NEW @CSETGeorgetown + @emergingtechobs piece!

Does China's access to US semiconductor technology help the PLA develop and deploy military AI?

After 3 years reading thousands of PLA procurement docs, @sambresnick and I say yes.

Here’s how, and why it matters:

🧵/13

In the piece, we identify two mechanisms through which US compute can enable the PLA’s adoption of AI systems:

1. The PLA is procuring AI models trained on U.S. compute or distilled from U.S. models.
2. The PLA is acquiring advanced U.S. chips.

As @HouseForeignGOP and @HouseForeign debate 20 measures related to restrictions on China’s ability to access US compute and AI tech on Wednesday, we offer three key takeaways for US policymakers from our research:

1. Greater access to advanced U.S. compute will likely strengthen China’s military AI capabilities.
2. The PLA will benefit from advances in China’s civilian technology sector, including in AI.
3. The PLA’s adoption of advanced AI capabilities may be used to undermine U.S. military advantages.

2/13

First, the PLA is procuring AI models trained on US compute.

Our analysis shows the PLA is actively adopting commercially available LLMs from DeepSeek, Alibaba, iFlytek, and others.

Many of these models—including DeepSeek's—were trained on US-designed chips.

3/13

I've dated hundreds of women

Different countries, different ages, small town girls, famous girls, you name it

Here's 11 brutal truths nobody tells you

1. Everything you FEAR doing, women are secretly BEGGING for

Playing it safe, being afraid to push the envelope when it comes to how you communicate/treat women

Is a catastrophic mistake

The boldness is perceived as POWER through the female lens

Meaning masculinity, meaning INSANE desire

2. Without fear, she will never respect you

Women are hardwired to seek powerful men

Those powerful men ALL make them feel some sort of fear

Fear of approval, fear of replacement, etc.

Without it - she doubts your power, destroying desire

Just out of curiosity, I started digging through this year's "mass shootings," as counted by GVA.

Obviously, I take issue with their parameters. But what we should ALL take issue with are the clear patterns we see of suspects and circumstances.

Let's start on Jan 1. 📜

Jan. 1 - 4 people are shot during a 2am shootout at a nightclub. Both suspects were already out on bond - one for making terroristic threats with a machine gun, and the other for TWO counts of murder.

kingfish1935.blogspot.com/2026/01/catch-…;

wlbt.com/2026/01/23/man…

Jan. 1 - 5 people shot around 12:30am during a large house party at a short-term rental attended by over 100 young adults. No suspects arrested because most people fled before police arrived or were uncooperative.

click2houston.com/news/local/202…;

khou.com/article/news/c…