

Steve Melega
82.6K posts

@SMelega
A.K.A. Bub, Bubs. I take pictures for SRHS Football and other sports, & as a hobby. Long Beach Twp., NJ, police Lt. Detective Ret. WDW fan!






🚨Update: United States planning to ‘occupy’ parts of Iran, permanently, in order to control the Strait of Hormuz forever! US is deploying tens of thousands of troops and Marines in preparation for ground operations! This War is Far from Over!


BREAKING: The IRGC has launched its 88th wave of ballistic missiles and drones since February 28. Targets: Tel Aviv, Bnei Brak, Kiryat Shmona, Dimona, Arad, Safed. US bases in Bahrain, Kuwait, and Jordan. One hundred and eighty people injured across recent Israeli waves. Cluster munitions hitting apartment blocks. Sirens in six cities simultaneously. Gulf air defences engaging incoming missiles for the 25th consecutive day. This is the 88th wave. Not the first. Not the last. Eighty-eight. The wave arrived hours after the Wall Street Journal reported Iran’s demands for ending the war: closure of all US military bases in the Gulf, ironclad guarantees of no further attacks, an immediate end to Israeli strikes on Hezbollah, full lifting of all sanctions with binding economic guarantees, massive war reparations, zero restrictions on Iran’s missile programme, and ships paying fees to Iran for strait passage. A US official called the demands “ridiculous and unrealistic.” MBS called Trump again and told him to keep hitting the Iranians hard. The NYT reports the Crown Prince sees this as a “historic opportunity to remake the region by destroying Iran’s government.” So here is where the war stands on Day 25. Iran demands the US leave the Gulf. MBS demands the US destroy Iran. Trump demands a deal. Israel demands zero enrichment. Iran demands inalienable enrichment rights. The mediators are skeptical. The 15-point plan has no takers. The 88th wave just hit six Israeli cities and three Gulf countries. And the 5-day pause on power-plant strikes, which was supposed to create space for negotiations, has produced more kinetic activity than several pre-pause days combined. Oil cannot process the contradiction. WTI collapsed 11 percent to $88.13 on the pause, then rebounded on the 88th wave. Brent peaked above $112, fell below $100, and trades in a range reflecting simultaneous ceasefire hopes and missile strikes. Goldman raised its forecast to $85. Macquarie to $85.50. Tail-risk: $100 to $150 if the gate holds through April. The market is pricing two realities at once because two realities exist at once: a pause and a war, simultaneously, in the same theatre. The Hormuz gate collected yuan this morning. Three ships transited. Four hundred waited. The toll booth does not read the WSJ. It reads AIS transponders and cargo manifests. The IRGC vets the vessel, checks the flag, confirms the ownership, negotiates the fee, issues VHF clearance, and monitors the transit through Iranian territorial waters near Larak Island. No physical escort. The “protection” is the removal of the threat. You are safe because the entity that would attack you has decided not to. Lloyd’s of London now prices IRGC compliance as a risk-reduction factor in actuarial models. A tanker that pays is insurable at 5 percent of vessel value. A tanker that does not pay is stranded. The machines at Ras Laffan that Veron Wickramasinghe described, the ASUs and BAHX exchangers built in five workshops with three-year lead times, remain damaged or offline. The shared North Field and South Pars gas reservoir is impaired on both shores. The helium that cools semiconductor wafers is not flowing. The nitrogen that feeds the planting season is trapped behind three locks: Hormuz, Russia’s AN halt, and China’s phosphate ban. Eighty-eight waves. Seven demands. Six communication channels. Five workshops. Four continents rationing. Three clocks ticking. Two realities priced simultaneously. One strait. Zero agreement. Saturday arrives. The molecules do not count waves. They count days until the soil can no longer accept nitrogen. That number is shrinking. open.substack.com/pub/shanakaans…


Trump’s New DHS Secretary Proudly Bragged About Hitting His Kids trib.al/7wvSfGg



Pinching myself as I take in this praise for INJUSTICE -- my new 📕 book w/ @byaaroncdavis. Comparison to Watergate reporting by @realBobWoodward and @carlbernstein is high compliment Buy here: shorturl.at/J9sCl



PRESCRIBED FIRE NOTIFICATION: Wednesday, March 25 @NJDEPForestFire plans to conduct prescribed fire operations today, March 25, in the following counties: Atlantic, Burlington, Cape May, Cumberland, Hunterdon, Monmouth, Ocean, Salem, Sussex & Warren. 🔗 dep.nj.gov/parksandforest…

Mild today with partly to mostly cloudy skies and southwest winds generally 5-10 mph. Temperatures will rise into the 60s and low 70s Thursday, before a strong cold front arrives Thu night/Fri morning, bringing showers and cooler temperatures. #PAwx #NJwx #MDwx #DEwx