Sunday, March 15, 2026

Iran's Economy Would Collapse If It Lost Kharg Island: Energy Analyst

The United States has now started targeting Iran’s most strategic economic asset, Kharg Island. Situated in the northern Persian Gulf, Kharg Island deals with 90% of Tehran’s oil export and President Donald Trump has characterised the attack as an attempt to pressure the Iranian administration to end the blockade of Strait of Hormuz.

Described by Trump as the “crown jewel” for Iran, a dozen targets were struck on Friday night by the US military on Kharg Island that likely led to a sharp rise in fuel prices in China. Retail gasoline and diesel saw their sharpest increases since March 2022 on Monday. Trump, in a new threat, said he might hit the Kharg Island again “just for fun.”

Tesla FSD and Robotaxi: The Long Road from “Driver Assist” to Autonomous Mobility

Tesla discount Referral Link

** If a new Tesla buyer clicks and uses this referral link they will save between $500 and $2,500 on a new Tesla (Model 3, Y, S, X, or Cybertruck) by using this referral link.

Specific promotions vary, with some reports indicating up to $2,500 off Model 3, $1,000 off S/X/Cybertruck, and $500 off Model Y, often paired with 3 months of Full Self-Driving.

Tesla’s story in self-driving is a mix of real technical progress, bold marketing, and a moving finish line. On one hand, Full Self-Driving (FSD) has evolved into a system that can handle complex navigation—turns, merges, lane changes, intersections, parking maneuvers—99% of the time with startling competence. On the other hand, Tesla itself is explicit that today’s product is not autonomous: it requires active driver supervision and does not make the car self-driving in the legal or technical sense. (Tesla)

Meanwhile, “Robotaxi” is the bigger promise: cars that don’t just help a driver, but replace the driver—turning vehicles into revenue-generating autonomous fleets. That leap is not merely incremental. It’s a jump across technology, regulation, safety validation, business operations, insurance, and public trust. This article explains what Tesla’s FSD really is today, how it works at a high level, what “Robotaxi” requires that FSD doesn’t yet deliver, and why the next phase will be harder than many people expect.

1) What Tesla FSD is today (and what it is not)

Tesla currently sells Full Self-Driving (Supervised). Tesla describes it as a system that can drive you “almost anywhere” under your supervision, and Tesla emphasizes that enabled features require active driver supervision and “do not make the vehicle autonomous.” (Tesla)

Regulators largely categorize this as SAE Level 2 driver assistance, meaning the system can control steering and speed in certain conditions, but the human driver remains responsible and must continuously supervise. NHTSA’s automation-level descriptions make that distinction clear: Level 2 still expects the driver to monitor the environment and be ready to take over immediately. (NHTSA)

This matters because “self-driving” is not one thing—it’s a ladder:

Level 2 (driver assistance): the human supervises everything.
Level 4 (true robotaxi in a defined area): the system drives itself within an Operational Design Domain (ODD)—for example, specific cities, geofenced neighborhoods, certain weather limits—without expecting a human to watch the road.
Level 5 (anywhere, anytime): full autonomy in all conditions.

Tesla’s consumer FSD today is still, by the company’s own characterization and by regulatory framing, on the Level 2 rung. (NHTSA)

2) How Tesla’s approach differs: “vision-first” and fleet learning

Tesla’s technical strategy has been distinctive: heavy reliance on cameras and neural networks, with a philosophy that the best path to scalable autonomy is to solve driving the way humans do—primarily through vision—then scale via software and data.

Over the last several years, Tesla moved further toward “Tesla Vision.” Tesla has published support material describing the transition away from certain non-vision sensors, including the removal of ultrasonic sensors (USS) from vehicles and the shift to camera-based replacements for some features. (Tesla)
(Separately, multiple automotive outlets documented Tesla’s earlier move toward camera-only for certain models/markets by removing radar, as part of the broader “Tesla Vision” shift.) (The Drive)

The upside of this approach is scalability: millions of cars can collect real-world driving data, and Tesla can iterate quickly via over-the-air updates. The downside is that vision-only autonomy has to be extraordinarily robust in the messy corners of reality: glare, heavy rain, occlusions, odd construction layouts, faded markings, emergency scenes, human gestures, and rare-but-critical edge cases.

pic.twitter.com/0pCiasn4V9
— Tom -🇺🇸 🇺🇸- I follow back Patriots (@TomNo1Patriot) November 14, 2025

History of France -- France’s story stretches from Paleolithic caves to a nuclear-armed democracy at the heart of the European Union.

A Concise History of France

France’s story stretches from Paleolithic caves to a nuclear-armed democracy at the heart of the European Union. Its past is not a straight line but a braid of languages, faiths, dynasties, revolutions, and ideas that have radiated outward—law, literature, cuisine, philosophy, and the modern notions of citizenship and rights. What follows is an overview of the history of France, from early settlements to the Fifth Republic.

From Prehistory to Roman Gaul

Long before “France” existed, humans left traces in the southwest: the painted caves of Lascaux (c. 17,000 BCE) testify to complex symbolic life. By the first millennium BCE, Celtic-speaking peoples—whom Romans later called Gauls—lived in fortified hill towns (oppida), traded Mediterranean wine for northern metals and furs, and practiced syncretic religions alongside druids and local cults. Greek colonists founded Massalia (Marseille) around 600 BCE, linking the region to Mediterranean trade and ideas.

In the mid-1st century BCE, Julius Caesar conquered Gaul after long campaigns against tribal coalitions, notably the Arverni leader Vercingetorix, who surrendered at Alesia (52 BCE). Under Rome, Gallia prospered. Roads, aqueducts, and cities like Lyon (Lugdunum) embedded Roman law and Latin speech, while rural life blended Roman customs with local traditions. Christianity spread during late antiquity; bishops became pillars of urban life as imperial institutions waned.

The Franks, Charlemagne, and the Birth of a Kingdom

As the Western Roman Empire fractured in the 5th century CE, Germanic groups established successor states. The Franks, under Clovis of the Merovingian dynasty, consolidated much of Gaul, converted to Roman Christianity (c. 496), and secured the support of the Gallo-Roman clergy and aristocracy. After Merovingian decline, the Carolingiansrose; Charlemagne (r. 768–814) forged a vast empire across western and central Europe, crowned “Emperor of the Romans” in 800. Carolingian rule encouraged monastic learning and legal order, yet after Charlemagne the empire splintered. The Treaty of Verdun (843) divided the realm among his grandsons; West Francia, roughly the nucleus of modern France, went to Charles the Bald.

Key West Florida Vacation & Holiday - Boycott

By: Tom Forrest

Why You Should Boycott Key West Florida for Vacations & Holidays.

I flew into Fort Lauderdale Florida and drove down to Key West Florida with my family for my Mother's birthday party. I wish someone would have warned my about the evil scams the Monroe County Sheriffs implement on innocent tourists. Most of the drive is one lane and it becomes clogged up during the high season in January and February, except over a few spots where there are two lanes going each way. I never speed and have never had a speeding ticket in my entire life, I was following a black Dodge Charger in the right lane and it seemed odd when this Dodge Charger pulled over into the left lane illegally not using his turn signal, indicating that he wanted me to go ahead of him, and it appeared he was waving to me to go ahead of him as we were just about to merge into one lane again. Since I am a courteous driver I accelerated slightly and then Sheriff Bubba the evil scammer pulled me over, he was driving an unmarked black Dodge Charger and had heinously lured me into his evil unethical trap. I told Sheriff Bubba that I was not even speeding and he lied and said I was going 72 miles per hour and gave me a ticket. I told him I knew he was preying on innocent tourists and doing an evil scam. He could not even look me in the eyes and turned his head away because we both knew exactly the devious tricks he pulled on me. Then when he handed me the ticket he told me he did not know what the amount of the ticket was, and this was just another lie, because he stays in the exact same spot all day long pulling the same evil scam on tourists all day long. We phoned my brother to warn him and my brother told me when he went by the same spot on the road Sheriff Bubba was giving a ticket to another innocent tourist. So if this has also happened to you please email me at tomforrest@htpcompany.com and I will publish your story for free and promote it all over the Internet on Google, Twitter and Facebook. This is a worthy endeavor to help stop terrible Monroe County Sheriff scams like this on innocent people. This is the USA and I do not want tourists from Europe and other parts of the world thinking Americans will tolerate this sort of crap. Sheriffs should be here to serve and protect people, not use dirty tricks to rip off innocent tourists.

Why does the Governor of Florida allow these dirty tricks by the Monroe County Florida Sheriff's Department?

It hurts tourism and now I am on a project to expose and help stop these evil scams.

My Rescue Dog Toby -- Toby is a professional dog model, LOL

Why you should Rescue a Pet

Each year, it's estimated that more than one million adoptable dogs and cats are euthanized in the United States, simply because too many pets come into shelters and too few people consider adoption when looking for a pet.

The number of euthanized animals could be reduced dramatically if more people adopted pets instead of buying them. When you adopt, you save a loving animal by making them part of your family and open up shelter space for another animal who might desperately need it.

Andrew Yang on AI's impact on jobs, Anthropic's battle with the Pentagon and NYC Mayor Mamdani.

How many human jobs will AI tools eliminate?

AI tools can eliminate many jobs for a few reasons.

First, they lower the cost of doing cognitive work. In the past, automation mainly replaced physical, repetitive factory tasks. AI can now help do parts of writing, customer service, coding, design, analysis, scheduling, research, and back-office work. That means companies can get the same output with fewer people in some roles.

Second, AI hits task bundles, not just single tasks. A job is usually made up of many smaller tasks. If AI automates 30% to 70% of those tasks, a company may not need to fully replace every worker, but it may need fewer workers overall. That is how job reduction often happens in practice.

Third, AI spreads faster than older technologies. Software can be deployed across millions of workers almost instantly. A new factory machine used to require buying equipment, building plants, and retraining staff over years. AI can often be added through a browser, an app, or an API. That makes adoption much faster.

Fourth, AI affects both high-skill and lower-skill work at the same time. Earlier waves of automation often hit narrower categories. AI can pressure entry-level white-collar jobs, support roles, clerical work, and some professional work all at once. That broad reach is why people are worried.

On your second question: not necessarily because it is already larger and faster than any time in previous history. The stronger claim is this:

It has the potential to displace workers unusually broadly and quickly compared with many past technologies.

But we do not yet know that it will be the single biggest or fastest job disruption in all history. Past disruptions were enormous too, such as mechanized agriculture, industrialization, and computerization. Those changes eliminated huge categories of work, but they also created new ones over time.

What makes AI feel different is:

speed of deployment
impact on knowledge work
ability to improve itself rapidly through better models and tools
low cost of copying software once built

So the concern is less “this is already the biggest job loss event ever” and more “this could outpace society’s ability to retrain and reallocate workers.”

The real danger is when three things happen together:

jobs disappear faster than new ones appear,
workers cannot retrain fast enough,
the gains go mostly to the owners of the technology rather than displaced workers.

That is when you get wage pressure, unemployment, and social instability.

So the best one-sentence answer is:

AI may eliminate many jobs because it can automate a wide range of mental tasks cheaply, at scale, and very quickly, which could reduce labor demand faster than workers can adapt.

If you want, I can also give you the best argument on the other side — why AI may change many jobs without causing mass permanent unemployment.

Learn the truth about Slavery.

Did the British help to STOP evil Slavery?

Yes.

Not by themselves, and not everywhere—but Britain did play a major role in ending slavery in the British Empire and suppressing the transatlantic slave trade.

Britain ended (most of) its slave trade in 1807. Parliament passed the Slave Trade Act on 25 March 1807, making it illegal for British subjects/ships to trade enslaved people across the Atlantic. (parliament.uk)
Britain abolished slavery across most of its empire in 1833/34. The Slavery Abolition Act 1833 received Royal Assent on 28 August 1833 and took effect 1 August 1834, freeing 800,000+ enslaved people in many British colonies (with important exceptions and transitional “apprenticeship” arrangements that delayed full freedom in practice). (Encyclopedia Britannica)
Britain then enforced suppression at sea. The Royal Navy’s West Africa Squadron (formed 1808) patrolled West Africa to intercept slave ships; estimates commonly cite roughly ~1,600 ships captured and ~150,000 people freed from ships.

But a couple of big caveats matter:

Britain had been a major slave-trading power before abolition. The 1807 law ended a trade Britain had helped build and profit from. (slaveryandremembrance.org)
Abolition came with compensation to slave owners, not to the enslaved. The British government set £20 million aside to compensate owners after abolition—one reason the legislation was politically achievable. (Bank of England)
Slavery didn’t end globally in 1834. Slavery continued (and in some places expanded) in other empires and regions long after Britain’s laws; Britain’s efforts were significant but not “the end of slavery.”

So the most accurate framing is: Britain helped stop its slave trade (1807), abolished slavery across much of its empire (1834), and became a leading force in suppressing the Atlantic slave trade—yet it did not single-handedly “stop slavery,” and its earlier role in slavery was enormous.

True https://t.co/nYCxoI5ABH
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 25, 2026

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