Notes From The Mideast -- December 16, 2018

I'm going to take a break in a few minutes, but there are huge things happening in the Mideast right now.

More and more stories that OPEC is more and more irrelevant (something we talked about years ago).

Saudi Arabia is under huge pressure from all sides. MBS has his hands full, not to say, that he also has blood on his hands, regardless of what Mike Pompeo and his boss have to say about that.

Saudi Arabia may end up "recognizing" Israel in 2019. From wiki:

As of 2018, 161 of the 192 UN member states recognize Israel. 31 UN member states do not recognize Israel. These include 18 members of the Arab League: Algeria, Bahrain, Comoros, Djibouti, Iraq, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates, and Yemen.

Whether it's official or not, a handshake photograph seen around the world will be almost as good.

Jared Kushner could get a lot of credit if that were to happen.

Qatar, breaks from OPEC, says it may invest $20 billion in the US -- and not just in its core competency, natural gas. 

And that's just what is being reported in the past couple of weeks.  

By the way, regardless of how Pompeo/Trump are addressing the Khashoggi affair, imagine how #44 would have handled it. Or #43. Or #42. Or #41. Scary.  

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Top Ten Movies

Updates

May 12, 2020: add The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. Definitely on the top ten list. Looking at the original post, how did I miss Twin Peaks (television movie/series) and Mulholland Drive which I would put together as a set. 

Original Post

We've talked about this before. For a movie to get to my "Top Ten" list, I have to be willing to watch it many times a years. Not that I necessarily would but if someone were to ask me if I would like to watch "such and such a movie" tonight -- a movie that I had seen a dozen times and willing to watch again -- that movie would be a candidate for my "Top Ten" list.

I saw Clint Eastwood's The Mule yesterday. A good movie, but I have no desire to see it again.

I watched Birdman again two nights ago; it's on my "Top Ten" list.

I watched Casablanca again last night: it's on my "Top Ten" list and might be #1 on that list. 

Others on my "Top Ten" list: Midnight in Paris; maybe, Lost in Translation." 

Dr Zhivago is an interesting exception to the rule. It's on my "Top Ten" list but I can't watch it  -- it is way too sad. Incredibly sad. I'll re-watch it rarely.

Another exception: Lawrence of Arabia. To some extent, same reason as given for Dr Zhivago. 

A movie on the cusp of moving into the "Top Ten": The Great Gatsby.  

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas? The first half. 

A top ten music video disguised as a movie? Kinky Boots.



Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow? Norah Jones

Another Example Of Headlines / Stories Being Written Ahead Of Actual News -- April 10, 2018

Updates

Later, 6:58 p.m. Central Time: apparently a US destroyer with 60+ Tomahawk missiles is not off-shore Libya. It is being reported that Russian jets are buzzing our destroyer. It is now being rumored that if North Korea actually agrees to denuclearize and join the "world community," for all practical purposes there will only be two rogue nations left: Russia and Iran.


Later, 6:57 p.m. Central Time: I don't know too much that is going on in that part of the world right now, but my simple mind suggests there are only two or three ways to accomplish the May-Trump objective:

Original Story

The story in the screen shot was posted at 3:44 p.m. CDT. The data was released by the API at 3:30 p.m. CDT. The last time-stamp in the article was 3:36 p.m. CDT.

So, Ms Julianne Geiger read the API release at 3:30 p.m; analyzed the data; confirmed the data; wrote the story; reviewed the story; edited the story; sent it to the editor; the editor posted it; with an obviously incorrect headline (not once in the story is there any evidence that the price of oil "slipped"); and then linked it to other pages at the website. The last time-stamp in the article was 3:36 p.m. so Ms Geiger could not have sent the article up to her editor until at least after 3:36 p.m and yet by 3:44 p.m. a fairly long article was written, revised, edited, sent, posted, and linked -- all in eight minutes.

The headline writer probably had two headlines ready to go; the headline writer was simply waiting for the API number. With an "unexpected" increase in both crude oil and gasoline inventories, the headline writer assumed the price of WTI and Brent would "slip" and that's the headline that was selected.

Here is the screenshot of the article. Because it was a long article, it took three screen shots and did not include irrelevant parts of the story:

This was the API data:

Here is the "price chart" for oil taken from the same site at the same time.

The good news: a great day for oil bulls and there is a suggestion the price will continue.

There are a number of factors pushing the price of oil up, but one wonders if the likelihood that there will be some kind of "allied"  military response to the recent gas attack is not the main driver.