Manuel L. Quezon III

"Out from some timeless wintry fog shambled the hairy old beast - history - big with memories." --Simon Schama, on Churchill's funeral.

I’m currently in SK Seoul, and here, you have to throw out your trash in government-issued prepaid bags. That’s the rule. Two days ago, news broke that the Korean Ministry of Environment had launched an investigation into nationwide inventory after reports showed that bag manufacturers only had a month’s worth of raw materials left. With the Strait of Hormuz facing a potential blockade, the supply of naphtha has tightened, leading to growing concerns over production hiccups for the polyethylene bags made from it. My wife nagged me to go out and buy some in advance, so I just got back from the convenience store. I was curious, so i slipped the clerk a few bucks and asked some questions. "How much has the volume of sales increased compared to usual?" "At least several times over." "Is there enough stock here?" "I’m not sure. The owner told me not to sell more than two bags per person from now on." "Does it seem like ppl are panic-buying after seeing the news?" "Yeah i think so. Just in case i even told my boss and set a few aside for myself." This is happening in a country with the world’s fourth-largest ethylene production capacity. Right now it’s just a minor anecdote tucked away in a corner. But in two weeks, this will be felt everywhere on the planet. By then there won’t be any "nothing’s going to happen" talk or pointless questions. The clock is ticking at this very moment. #oott #iran

Cheerful sunday reading. open.substack.com/pub/chinatalk/…

1/ 15 years living in Korea and I have never seen anything quite like the wall-to-wall coverage of the past few days. Every channel, every paper, every conversation. BTS's comeback at Gwanghwamun tonight has consumed this country in a way I think demands some explanation.

At the start of the war, America, Israel and Gulf states had divergent aims. Trump might have done a quick deal with the regime; Israel wanted to shatter it. The Gulf was worried about chaos. My piece this week @TheEconomist looks at how Iran is pushing them all into alignment by making this a war over energy and the global economy. The Iranian strategy is meant to impose costs that induce Trump to end the war and deter him from launching another one. So far, though, what it has done is drive all of Iran's foes toward the same conclusion: that the war cannot end until the regime is crippled. economist.com/briefing/2026/…

@mangunonmarkets Do we have any options then?

@mlq3 Probably not. Indo already supplies our imported coal needs. On a scale of 1 to 10 of being damaged by the Hormuz situation, CHN gets an 11. And, when CHN gets an energy cold.....SEA gets pneumonia.

About 60% of Philippine electricity comes from coal. Another 15% from natural gas. Oil barely registers. The grid isn’t collapsing because of Hormuz. But inflation absolutely will creep higher, because fuel prices poison everything else in the economy. businessmirror.com.ph/2026/03/19/nob…

FILIPINO DREAMWORKS MOVIE 📢 So far most of the cast are Filipino and they even got a Filipino composer on this. Which means we're already miles ahead of Raya.

For nearly 30 years, journalists have relied on the Internet Archive to see how stories were originally published, before edits, removals, or changes. We need to safeguard that. eff.org/deeplinks/2026…

Range! Much greater than previously known or admitted. Range now includes Central Europe and almost Paris

PHILIPPINE DEER REEMERGES IN MARINDUQUE LOOK: The Philippine deer (Rusa marianna), once presumed locally extinct after going unseen for decades, has been sighted again across several towns in Marinduque. According to DENR MIMAROPA, recent monitoring recorded multiple sightings within the Marinduque Wildlife Sanctuary, including at least 10 individuals in one area, along with footprints in nearby towns. COURTESY: DENR MIMAROPA/Facebook

Stephen Kotkin: How Strong Are Iran’s Strongmen? | Foreign Affairs youtu.be/wdUhGQhNBWk?si… via @YouTube

🚨Someone just open sourced a computer that works when the entire internet goes down. It's called Project N.O.M.A.D. A self-contained offline survival server with AI, Wikipedia, maps, medical references, and full education courses. No internet. No cloud. No subscription. It just works. Here's what's packed inside: → A local AI assistant powered by Ollama (works fully offline) → All of Wikipedia, downloadable and searchable → Offline maps of any region you choose → Medical references and survival guides → Full Khan Academy courses with progress tracking → Encryption and data analysis tools via CyberChef → Document upload with semantic search (local RAG) Here's the wildest part: A solar panel, a battery, a mini PC, and a WiFi access point. That's it. That's your entire off-grid knowledge station. 15 to 65 watts of power. Works from a cabin, an RV, a sailboat, or a bunker. Companies sell "prepper drives" with static PDFs for $185. This gives you a full AI brain, an entire encyclopedia, and real courses for free. One command to install. 100% Open Source. Apache 2.0 License.

#SciFeature 𝗠𝗜𝗗𝗗𝗟𝗘 𝗘𝗔𝗦𝗧: 𝗠𝗜𝗗𝗗𝗟𝗘 𝗙𝗥𝗢𝗠 𝗪𝗛𝗔𝗧? When it was first popularized in the late 19th century, the term "Middle East" was not used to refer to the lands in the Arabian Peninsula, but those in South Asia. Historically, Western scholars used “Near East” for lands closest to Europe, from the Mediterranean to the Persian Gulf, “Middle East” for areas extending toward India, and “Far East” for regions along the Pacific. After World War II, usage shifted, with “Middle East” replacing "Near East", especially after it was adopted for the British military command in Egypt. It is now widely used to refer to the countries in the Arabian Peninsula, Egypt, Iran, and Türkiye. Some reference books also called this area as "Western Asia" or "Southwestern Asia." #MiddleEast

El Nino looming. What's in our toolkit beyond cancelling classes? India has cooling centres where the public can rest during sharp rises in temp. Are our evac centers ready for extreme heat? Do we need public cooling centers? Or should LGUs work with malls? We need this convo.

Timely reminder of when this guy reviewed that guy... Iggy Pop on Gibbon's Decline and Fall (Classics Ireland, 1995): Caesar Lives by Iggy Pop In 1982, horrified by the meanness, tedium and depravity of my existence as I toured the American South playing rock and roll music and going crazy in public, I purchased an abridged copy of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (Dero Saunders, Penguin). The grandeur of the subject appealed to me, as did the cameo illustration of Edward Gibbon, the author, on the front cover. He looked like a heavy dude. Being in a political business, I had long made a habit of reading biographies of wilful characters — Hitler, Churchill, MacArthur, Brando — with large profiles, and I also enjoyed books on war and political intrigue, as I could relate the action to my own situation in the music business, which is not about music at all, but is a kind of religion-rental. I would read with pleasure around 4 am, with my drugs and whisky in cheap motels, savouring the clash of beliefs, personalities and values, played out on antiquity’s stage by crowds of the vulgar, led by huge archetypal characters. And that was the end of that. Or so I thought. Eleven years later I stood in a dilapidated but elegant room in a rotting mansion in New Orleans, and listened as a piece of music strange to my ears pulled me back to ancient Rome and called forth those ghosts to merge in hilarious, bilious pretence with the Schwartzkopfs, Schwartzeneggers and Sheratons of modern American money and muscle myth. Out of me poured information I had no idea I ever knew, let alone retained, in an extemporaneous soliloquy I called ‘Caesar’. When I listened back, it made me laugh my ass off because it was so true. America is Rome. Of course, why shouldn’t it be? All of Western life and institutions today are traceable to the Romans and their world. We are all Roman children for better or worse. The best part of this experience came after the fact — my wife gave me a beautiful edition in three volumes of the magnificent original unabridged Decline and Fall, and since then the pleasure and profit have been all mine as I enjoy the wonderful language, organization and scope of this masterwork. Here are just some of the ways I benefit: I feel a great comfort and relief knowing that there were others who lived and died and thought and fought so long ago; I feel less tyrannized by the present day. I learn much about the way our society really works, because the system-origins — military, religious, political, colonial, agricultural, financial — are all there to be scrutinized in their infancy. I have gained perspective. The language in which the book is written is rich and complete, as the language of today is not. I find out how little I know. I am inspired by the will and erudition which enabled Gibbon to complete a work of twenty-odd years. The guy stuck with things. I urge anyone who wants life on earth to really come alive for them to enjoy the beautiful ancestral ancient world.

Why did Leonardo da Vinci use silver drawing tools to draw his artworks

Even though the Philippines operates in a single time zone, sunrise varies significantly across the archipelago. Here's an animation showing the shifting day-night boundary at 5:30 AM throughout the year. #MarchEquinox

In the Philippines, filming commences for Francis Ford Coppola’s new epic film, “Apocalypse Now.” The film is scheduled to release on April 7, 1977.

🚨: After 48 years of travel, NASA 's Voyager 1 is nearing one light-day from Earth, almost 16 billion miles away. A proud milestone for humanity, and a humbling reminder of how small we are in an infinite universe.