Locator: 50219ARCHIVES.
Friday/Saturday overnight. By Monday we may be living in a new world -- a world never imagined.
1. Kharg Island. Under serious consideration / discussion: US Marines. From whom does US need buy-in? Xi. Once you understand this, everything begins to fall into place. It becomes a small step to take when Xi-Trump discuss Taiwan at the end of the month.
2. Chip count: after months of no change over at wiki, we now have two new entries. Huge. Will discuss later. First step: a pledge to adhere to "Hong Kong 2" principles. As one starts to go down this road, can one see Xi-Putin-Trump the new Churchill-Stalin-FDR? How far has Britain fallen: can't even send one ship to the Mideast -- not because it doesn't want to, because it can't. Trump: most transactional president ever? One word: audacious. Thank you, Mr Obama.
3. California off-shore oil: deep in the weeds, wonky, and geeky. Executive order signed March 13, 2026, Friday, less than 24 hours ago, Insertion of four new words changes everything. California. Sable. 9th Circuit will step in; put a hold on it. Slip opinion a must read. Who is T. Elliot Gaiser?
4. Portfolio: I haven't paid attention to the market since February 28, 2026, nor have I watched CNBC since then, with some very minor exceptions in early March. But yesterday, after a note from a reader, I have checked a few tickers. I was pleasantly surprised. To say the least.
5. Epstein Files: absolutely unnecessary to bring this up now, but has this story just gone away?
6. Qatar: the house of cards finally fell.
7. Natural gas -- rather, LNG exports: Venture Global on steroids.
8. Market commentary -- ticker -- daily summary: brand new.
I just noticed this and it's only going to get better. Every day I wish I could get a bulleted summary on any ticker in which I was interested. Google AI now has it. Amazing. Google search the ticker, make sure you have selected "All" and not "News" at the top, and near the top, below the graph, you will see a bulleted summary of that ticker for the day. Amazing. Check out "MU" now, for example. Google doesn't do it 100% of the time, but I haven't found an exception yet. Still limited, but going to get much, much better.
9. AI regs: incredibly good news. Entirely unexpected. US pulled highly contentious draft regulations on chip exports. I don't understand it yet; need time to explore.
10. Apple: absolutely stunning what MacBook Neo is doing. Yesterday, it was reported that the MacBook Neo is Amazon is number 1 on the Amazon best seller list. Under "Computers and Accessories. Link here.
- #1: 2026 MacBook Neo
- #10: 2025 MacBook Pro M5 14.2-inch -- absolutely top-of-the-line for Apple
- #11: 2025 MacBook Air M4 15-inch
- #13: MacBook Pro 14-inch privacy screen
- #15: 2025 MacBook Air M4 13-inch
- #17: 2026 MacBook Air 13-inch
- #22: all years MacBook Air Pro charger
- #24: MacBook Air M2, M3, M4 13.6 / 13-inch privacy screen
- #26: 2026 MacBook Air M5 15-inch
- Dell? Hits the list at #28 -- a Dell Laptop Charger
- Intel? Hits the list at #33 -- HP 14 Laptop, Intel Celeron
- Dell? Hits the list at #71 -- a Dell 15 Laptop 15.6 FHD Intel Core 3 (8GB DRAM, 512 GB SSD)
11. TSA: oh, yes, these folks still aren't getting paid. Among the least financially insecure, hardest working Americans and the multi-millionaire grey-haired men and women (with colored hair) in DC don't seem concerned.
12. Biggest worry: US elementary school or Jewish synagogue viciously attacked. Remember Uvalde?
13. AI: remember all the crap Apple took because it "failed" at AI first time around. It appears AI is not as easy as folks think. Exhibits A, B, C, and D:
- META says it may have to partner with Google (Gemini); META's AI not meeting Mark's standards, and his standards are pretty low;
- Elon Musk (xAI / Grok) says he's starting starting over; doesn't like current version of Grok, now a subsidiary of SpaceX; faces scrutiny over safety, deepfakes, and intense development pressure.
- META (again): could cut 20% of company's entire workforce to pay for AI
- MSFT: if you want to see real issues, AI prompt -- Microsoft news with issues with its AI
- confidential data exposure (February 2026) -- 365 Copilot Chat -- could be Achilles heel for Copilot
- AI "recall" feature delays -- huge concerns regarding privacy, leading to delays and re-evaluation
- lawsuit over safety (March 2026) -- GPT-4o
- forced AI backlash: "every class of user" has expressed frustration with the "AI everywhere" approach, particulalry the forced integration of Copilot into Windows
