Greg Merrill

$100 OIL WON’T HIT LIKE THE 1970s UBS says today’s global economy is far less vulnerable to oil shocks than in the 1970s, despite rising prices.

Taiwan has about 11 days of liquefied natural gas reserves—a limited buffer that has become critical after Iran disrupted shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, cutting off key supplies from Qatar. Because Taiwan relies heavily on LNG to power its grid and semiconductor industry, any prolonged disruption could force energy rationing and threaten chip production. Source: POLITICO

Extremely impressive yet highly concerning dynamics at play in the Middle East this week. An area of low pressure deepening over Iraq is accompanied by very strong wind shear and massive instability across Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, UAE, and Oman. Thunderstorms forming in this environment have the potential to be dangerous and destructive with intense precipitation leading to flooding, large to very large hail, severe winds, and even tornadoes.

The Afroman Trial. -Cops raid Afromans house for bullshit reasons. -Steal money, break his door, fuck his house up. -No criminality found whatsoever, no charges at all pressed on Afroman. -Afroman spends the next 3 years making songs that make fun of all the officers involved by name, even using footage of the raid from his own CCTV cameras. -Songs had titles like "Randy Walters is a son of a bitch" and "Lick Em Low Lisa" accusing one of the officers of being a lesbian and sleeping with the other officers wives. -During the raid one officer looked like he was about to eat some lemon pound cake sitting on Afromans counter, Afroman made a whole album calling the officer fat. -The cops get mad and file a lawsuit for defamation. -Afroman turns up to court in a whole American flag suit. -Officers performatively mald and cry while listening to the songs really trying to oversell how badly the songs upset them. -One officer was suing because Afroman made a whole song about him saying he was fucking the officers wife. When the officer was asked if Afroman was really fucking his wife, he said "I don't know". Nuking his own case and establishing that there is a non-zero chance that Afroman might actually be fucking his wife. -As his only witness for the trial, Afroman brought a deputies EX FUCKING WIFE. -The jury ruled completely in favour of Afroman. This entire thing has been a great win for free speech and absolutely fucking hilarious.

Steak & lobster is back on the menu. No energy shorts are allowed into the weekend, rules are rules.