Carolyn Meinel is at mastodon.social/@cmeinel

Will the price of Brent Crude fall below $50 per barrel in 2026? Jeremy Lichtman's Multi-AI Oracle forecasts 5%. The prediction that Brent crude prices will not drop below $50 per barrel in 2026 is based on multiple converging factors. These include a historical base rate analysis indicating rare occurrences of prices falling below this level, current supply constraints due to disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz, and revised price forecasts averaging $77.50 per barrel by Bank of America. Geopolitical risks and the OPEC+ production management also support maintaining price levels. Despite the potential for unforeseen events, such as a rapid global recession or a technological breakthrough in renewable energy, these are considered unlikely within the short remaining timeframe. However, the volatility of the oil market means that unforeseen crisis events could still pose a risk to the prediction.

CEO or Supervillain: Who said it?

"This River" by Kim Shuck in "Living Nations, Living Words: An Anthology of First Peoples Poetry" edited by Joy Harjo.

@aakashgupta In many places, including inside cities like the one pictured in this post, trees can become deadly at the worst and ruin your home at the best due to forest fires.

Let me explain exactly why every new subdivision in America looks like the top photo, because the math is wild. A mature tree increases a home's value by 7 to 19 percent. On a $400,000 house, that's $28,000 to $76,000. A single shade tree produces the cooling equivalent of ten room-size air conditioners running 20 hours a day. One tree on the west side of a house cuts energy bills by 12 percent within 15 years. The bottom photo is worth more, costs less to live in, and sells faster. This has been documented by the University of Washington, Clemson, Michigan State, and the USDA. The data is not in dispute. Removing those trees saves the builder roughly $5,000 per lot. Concrete trucks need twice the dripline radius of every standing tree. Utility trenches need flat ground. A bulldozer flattens 200 lots in an afternoon. Preserving trees adds weeks and thousands per home. So the developer pockets $5,000 in savings and the buyer eats $50,000 in lost value for the next two decades. The person making the decision and the person paying for it have never been in the same room. The Woodlands, Texas is the proof of what happens when they are. George Mitchell bought 28,000 acres of Houston timberland in 1974 and preserved 28% as permanent green space. He forced McDonald's to build behind the tree canopy. That McDonald's became one of the highest-volume locations in Texas. The first office building, designed to reflect the surrounding forest so you couldn't see it from the street, leased completely. The Woodlands median home price today: $615,000. Katy, a comparable Houston suburb that clear-cut: $375,000. Named #1 community to live in America two years running. Fifty years of data. The trees are worth more than removing them saves. Developers clear-cut anyway because they sell the house once and leave. You live in it for 30 years.

AI News Briefs, March 20, 2026: Jeff Bezos seeks $100B for AI Project Prometheus; AI + Laptop = Your Own Personal Hollywood; AI CEOs scaring America; AI for your March Madness bracket; Terminator timeline begins with a boogie; and much more. bestworldgroup.com/ai-news-briefs…

"Punishing Anthropic for being transparent about the problem and their efforts to address it might lead other companies to pretend these systems behave like normal software, but it will not make that true, or aid our efforts to prevent harm and get the most out of these systems."

The Armed Forces of Ukraine are entering the second drone revolution: after copters, ground combat robots are now entering the front lines en masse. Remotely controlled platforms with machine guns and grenade launchers are already fighting not as an experiment, but as full-fledged combat units, saving the lives of Ukrainian soldiers.

A platoon at the end of their tour in Iraq training their newby replacement unit: "In a way, our insanity prepared them for their new world, and their sanity prepped us for the return to our old world." —Matt Gallagher, "Kaboom: Embracing the Suck in a Savage Little War"

NR exists to tell readers what we believe to be right & prudent, regardless of whether it's in fashion, rather than tell them only what they want to hear. Why else would one want to become a writer - or read one?

More here: bestworldgroup.com/strait-of-horm…

On the other hand: "Iran’s Supreme Leader Says Other Fronts Will Be Opened If War Persists." Oh, really? "... no video messages, written statements or recent photographs of him [Mojtaba Khamenei] have been released. At his inauguration, a cardboard cutout with his image was presented instead." Those mullahs have inadvertently committed a Hollywood trope. We are sparing you the laugh lines.

Strait of Hormuz Closure: BestWorld’s Editors Weigh In It’s likely to reopen soon, but we could be wrong. If the new Supreme Leader continues to be incapacitated, or worse, that could be good news for the Strait. There are several good candidates. Iran’s former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who apparently remains alive, would be acceptable to everyone in Iran, and pragmatic enough to work with the outside world.

Links: Cardboard cutout with his image instead: euronews.com/2026/03/12/mis… A Hollywood trope: m.imdb.com/list/ls0036686… Spare you the laugh lines: youtube.com/watch?v=WvITkV…

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Today at BestWorld: Brent Oil price: Jeremy Lichtman and Phillip Godzin bring us forecasts, summaries, and links to the news of today, thanks to their forecasting bots. This was the week that was in AI news, with links and excerpts, thanks to David Isenberg. Links in comment.