Intel Update - Sep. 19 - Just Walk Away

Hello again everyone and welcome back to The Underground. This is the intel update for September 13th through the 19th 2026. This week things are getting pretty serious as the exponential problem curve within the energy crisis begins to arrive. We seem to be in it now, and things are escalating quite sharply. In the Middle East, the multiple wars we've been tracking for months now have continued on. The Houthis have made significant gains this week and spoiled the world energy market in their own way by completely destroying several pumping stations along the Saudi East-West pipeline, taking that vital resource offline until further notice. To the north, the Iranians have continued slugging it out with the United States in the Strait of Hormuz as the United States continues to sneak convoys through the strait as best they can. In Europe, the fuel crisis has reached emergency levels and various serious infrastructure problems are starting to manifest as shortages are starting to emerge. Within the United States, the fuel crisis has arrived to some degree and we are starting to see sharp increases in the price of gasoline and diesel nationwide. Some reports of shortages are starting to spread, but it's too early to say definitively whether or not this is representative of a larger trend. So let's get to it and start with Saudi Arabia, as that situation is the more imminent threat at the moment. And the situation there is not looking good. As we know, earlier this week the Houthis struck the Saudi East-West pipeline, which was the only other way for Saudi Arabia to export oil that was not through the Strait of Hormuz. Since the start of the war, this pipeline has been a vital resource for mitigating the effects of tanker vessels being struck as the war with Iran escalated. I believe it was Clausewitz who said that if you're going to go to war with a primitive adversary, always make sure to do so when your entire nation's wealth and income source is within missile range of the adversary. And the Saudis have made sure to abide by that doctrine because a few weeks ago, the Houthis struck the terminals at the processing facilities in Yanbu, which sharply cut the output of this pipeline from around five million barrels down to just one million barrels per day. This was a couple of weeks ago, and back then this was a devastating blow because even though five million barrels was nowhere near the capacity that was needed to replace pre-war demand of twenty million barrels, it was better than nothing. Well, earlier this week, the Houthis did exactly what everyone knew they were going to do, and they struck several of the major pumping stations along this pipeline. By my count, they've struck four different major pumping stations and probably a handful of other smaller sites as well. This took the pipeline out pretty much for good. Repairs are underway, but just looking at the damage on the satellite imagery, there is no way that these pumping stations are coming back online within a few weeks. It will probably take a few months, and it may even take a few years to get back to where they were before. Just for context, we have heard about Russian refineries getting hit by Ukrainian drones for many weeks now. If you just scroll X or Twitter, you can see dozens of these videos a week just coming out of all these, you know, Shahid type drones or other unmanned systems hitting Russian refineries, big fireball, all that kind of stuff. Right? Well, it turns out that despite these being quite flashy, they're not actually that significant. Some certainly are, and some Russian refineries are taken offline for a very long time. However, most of these attacks from Ukraine end up being one or two drones evading defenses to strike a random bit of machinery at a huge Russian oil refinery, which again results in a very big flash and a very bright fireball. But the Russians are able to get back in operation surprisingly quickly in most cases. In Saudi Arabia, however, that is not what is happening. The Houthis are going for the jugular, and they did not strike these pumping stations with one or two drones. They hit them with ballistic missiles, along with many other drones. They did not strike these facilities with the intent to cause a nuisance or to just take them offline temporarily. No, they hit these sites with the intent to fully destroy them. And by most accounts so far, they might have gotten pretty close to this goal. I highly doubt that these pumping stations and the port facilities at Yanbu will be offline forever. They will of course rebuild and repair, but the rhetoric that is going around right now claiming that the Saudis will be back online within a couple of days is laughable. Even the Saudis themselves know that this is a lost cause for now because they are bypassing the pumping stations altogether. We can see this on satellite imagery, which is quite obvious. You can actually see the pipeline itself. They are skirting around the perimeter of these pumping stations and just kind of ignoring the pumping station altogether just to get some kind of capability back, at least while they're trying to repair the pumping station itself. Obviously, this will be fairly minimal in terms of effectiveness because that pumping station was obviously needed for a reason, i.e., to keep a set standard of oil flowing through that pipeline at a certain speed. So essentially, adopting the running a garden hose across the yard kind of approach to the problem is not going to get very much, but I will be very interested to see how much oil they can actually get through this pipeline after bypassing some of these pumping stations. Once again, full capacity might take years to achieve, and that is of course assuming that the Houthis don't attack again, which is a false assumption because everyone can see that they certainly will. The very hour that Saudi Arabia announces that they have made some partial repairs to this pipeline, the Houthis will hit it again, I guarantee it. But right now, as it stands, the only non-Hormuz pipeline alternative is offline, and the world has lost a further five million barrels per day from the global market. This is going to result in a major and immediate emergency for Europe, which we will get to in a moment. But while we're in the region, let's talk about what comes next. Right now, attention has shifted back to the Strait of Hormuz. Yes, we're back to Hormuz once again, where we have some good news and some bad news. The good news is that per Tanker Trackers and Kepler, two really good sources, the amount of oil that is coming out of the Gulf has increased over the past couple of weeks. So finally, we have a smidge of good news for once. This increase in exports is still minuscule and nowhere near pre-war levels, but I think at this point, we're desperate for any sort of positive news, so we'll take it. Tanker Trackers says that we have been fluctuating between two and six million barrels of oil per day for the past week, which is better than we have been doing so far, and this is largely the result of communications and training. Funny how it all comes back to communications and training sometimes. This has been happening for a few weeks now, but now that The Wall Street Journal has spilled the beans, I guess it's no big secret at this point. But the United States has been running convoys through the Omani route for a few months. This we know. These convoys are essentially the same handful of ships that are bouncing back and forth between the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman because it's cheaper to get one ship to run the high-risk route. So think of this as getting one ship to run the gauntlet 10 times instead of 10 separate ships running it one time. This is what became known as the Omani shuttle operation, which we have been talking about for a couple of months now. So again, nothing particularly new. Well, as time has gone on, these crews who are actually doing this sort of thing have gotten better at their craft, and now they can form up more quickly, they can now get on station a lot more easily. They're now more familiar with the waterway, so they don't need as much guidance. And since the days are getting longer now, we're past the summer solstice, right? So every day that goes by, we have more hours of darkness to work with, so a wider window to try to make the crossing. I also speculate that we have installed communication suites in these vessels as well so that they can communicate more clearly with the military assets, providing top cover for the ships trying to run through the strait. I don't know if we're going as far as to have, like, a JTAC on board these ships, but it would not surprise me if that was the case. What I think CENTCOM has done over the past few months is eased the liaison relationship between these tanker vessels and the military assets that are providing cover for them. And to do that, I think they've probably put a couple of American contractors on every one of these ships with a flyaway kit so that they can communicate back to CENTCOM, or really NAVCENT, and coordinate defenses that way. Think of these flyaway kits as more like portable TOCs and radio suites that can be flown in by a helicopter, hence the name, hoisted down to the deck with a technician and installed on the bridge of ships that have no comms but the standard VHF radio, and boom, you've got comms with whomever you need. Better comms equals better coordination, and better coordination equals more effectiveness. That seems to be the reason why we're getting slightly more oil out of the Middle East right now. These types of flyaway kits have been kind of standard in the maritime world for a while now, also in the aviation community as well. But if we take this idea a step further with the more military-grade flyaway kits, I would bet that they're dropping off radios with proper encryption fills for the week, or Starlink kits, or some more modern and super special version of a flyaway kit, which probably includes improved navigational equipment, integration with team awareness platforms, and probably more well-rounded comms procedures and plans. That would be my guess as to why the US has done better considering the fixed parameters of the problem set. The geography of the region cannot be changed. You cannot change the hours of darkness, and you can't really camouflage a commercial ship that well. So at best, all you can do is increase the likelihood or increase the chances for success and being able to form up more quickly, have really good comms between the helicopters providing overwatch, the fixed wing assets providing overwatch, the Navy ships providing missile defense, and the ground control stations that are working all the drones in the area. If all of these assets are linked up together, it becomes less of a goat rodeo to get a few merchants through the, uh, through the hot zone each night. Now, of course, they're not doing this every night. They're only doing it, you know, every other night or every third night or whatever. It's sporadic. It's decently random. That's why it kinda comes and goes. That's why the US can say, "Oh, well, we got, you know, so many million barrels of oil out today," but, you know, the previous three days there was nothing. Well, they just waited for a bigger, uh, sort of convoy to go through. So again, you can fudge the numbers. That's why tanker trackers and Kepler, they're working off of weekly averages because, again, it ebbs and flows based on the ships that are getting out. You take this and you combine this with whatever special things are happening in the region, and my guess is that's the reason for the increase. Also, if you have any understanding of how our more special operations forces or the more clandestine community operates, you can probably guess that there are probably some special people on board these ships, or even spread out around the region. Even with every single convoy still being struck by Iran, the net result has been a slight increase in efficiency, which has translated to a slight increase in export capacity. So great job all around and credit where credit is due. It's not going to get the job fully done, but it's better than nothing and, again, we'll even take a Pyrrhic victory at this point. So that's the good news. The bad news is that all of this is about to not matter anymore because the Saudis are going to pivot back to the strait in order to get more oil exported. So there is about to be a surge of ships trying to exit the strait and a lot more ships that are about to be struck. The Saudis have already stated that they will be increasing exports through the strait, so the Iranians know they're coming. They can see this just like we can, and the Saudis don't really seem rather keen on paying the Iranians or cutting a deal with them. So I highly suspect that the Strait of Hormuz is going to see a lot more fireworks in the next few days as these exports start increasing. So all of this hard and dangerous work is already kind of a hard thing to describe because it's, it's literally the definition of diminishing returns. We're spending a lot of money, and we're expending a lot of special forces capacity, and we're expending a lot of aviation fuel, and we're putting a lot of aircraft in the air just to ensure one more ship gets out of the Strait of Hormuz. And now that Saudi is going to start having to rely on the Strait of Hormuz once again, I don't think we're gonna have the same success we've had over the past month or so. Aramco, which is the, um, main Saudi state-sponsored oil company, they're desperate to get oil out however they can. But right now, their only option is to head right into the shooting gallery that is the Strait of Hormuz. So this is a pretty desperate situation all around. We are really maxing out our diminishing returns here, committing more and more resources for just the slightest possible conceivable gain. We can most certainly take that gain and, uh, be glad that we get it. However, that's a tactical victory. You know, getting one more ship out per day or one more ship out per week, that is a tactical victory. That is not an operational victory, and that is not a strategic victory. We need some strategic victories or even some victories at the operational level, and right now the situation still is very desperate. So speaking of desperate situations, let's transition to Europe, where the effects of this crisis are starting to manifest. The East-West Pipeline being knocked out for a while is already resulting in extremely serious energy shortages throughout Europe because Europe is the main customer for this pipeline. Of course, this varies by country, but Saudi Arabia was a pretty big exporter of oil to Europe since the Ukraine war caused most nations to shift away from Russian oil. Right now, the main import sources for Europe are the United States and Norway, so that's where, uh, Europe gets a good chunk of their oil from. So decently protected sources, I guess. But Saudi Arabia is a big producer too if we factor in specific countries. For example, figures vary throughout the year depending on the time of year, but roughly half of Poland's entire crude oil supply comes from Saudi Arabia, specifically through the pipeline that is now cut off and the Hormuz Route that is highly restricted. Same thing with other nations like Iceland, Lithuania, and Greece, all of which get a huge percentage of their oil demand from the Middle East. But that's just crude imports, right? Let's talk refined products such as diesel and gasoline. Right now, the immediate problem is gasoline for vehicles and diesel for freight and agricultural needs. Right now is peak harvest time throughout Europe, so the agricultural need for diesel is at its maximum for the year, and farmers are quite literally being faced with the question of whether or not it's cheaper to harvest their crops and sell them for a profit, or if it's more financially viable to literally let the food rot in the field because the cost of running the equipment to harvest makes it not viable when compared to the already high cost of fertilizer and other costs relevant to farming. Remember, a lot of farmers are working season to season now, and they really have to make plans on next season based on what they do this season. And if this season it becomes extremely expensive to get the food out of the field or whatever crops are growing out of the field, it's a pretty tough spot to be in. I don't know how big of a problem this will be. Maybe it's not that bad of a problem for most farmers. I, I just don't know, but it is absolutely certain that the smaller farms are really weighing the costs of running their equipment and really trying to cut costs wherever they can. The obvious result of this is that food prices are going to get way more expensive. Not only is fertilizer way more expensive right now, but also the fuel to get the crops out of the field itself means that prices are going to go up across the board no matter what. On the consumer side of the fuel crisis, there are several major problems. Firstly, Europe is approaching the winter season with natural gas levels that are the lowest they have been in years. That alone would be pretty significant, but in the context of all of the other shortages, it's going to be a pretty cold winter in Europe. More immediately, the major concerns right now are the disruptions to the automotive fuel supply brought about by the events in the Middle East over the past week, and both gasoline prices and gasoline shortages are a concern. In France, this problem was illustrated quite clearly overnight. France's national dashboard currently indicates that 11% of all the gas stations in the country are experiencing gasoline shortages. But if we look at the larger picture, France actually has a surplus of gasoline, and there should be no shortages whatsoever. So what is going on? The shortages in France are the result of one company, the TotalEnergies petroleum company and gas station chain, which put a cap on their prices I think last week or maybe a few weeks ago, which they did as a result of pressure from the government. As one might expect, oil companies around the world are raking in huge profits from the oil crisis, and in France, TotalEnergies was looking at the implementation of a tax on their profits, a windfall tax, so to speak. So what they did was implement a price cap on their gasoline to appease the government by keeping citizens happy, even though it cut into their profits because they were selling gas below market rate. For those that don't know, a lot of gas stations here in the United States and in Europe, this is a thing that we both do, a lot of gas stations, especially smaller chains, they don't actually make any money off of their gasoline. They, uh, some stations, especially in France, even sell their gasoline at a loss. They sell the gas at a loss because they're making up that loss based on people going inside the store to buy snacks and drinks and whatnot a- and other services, right? So even though people, you know, kinda shake their fist at the gas station for having expensive gas, it turns out that both in Europe and in the United States, uh, the actual gas price itself, that gas station is not really making a whole lot of profit from that. Now, the petroleum companies who make the gasoline, that's a different story, but talking about the actual gas station itself, they're not making much money off of gas. So back in France, TotalEnergies decided, "Hey, we'll just put a price cap on our gasoline, and we'll just make it up on the back end," because they are also a refiner. So they refine their own gasoline, so they're not a third-party retailer. They, they own the process start to finish. So they were able to do that and appease the French government so they don't end up taking a lot of their profits, you know, well into the future. Well, this plan went out the window when the Houthis blew up the Saudi pipeline, and all the other gas stations in France had to raise their prices because Aramco said that they would be canceling their oil deliveries to Europe for September and October. That's at least what a lot of the oil traders in Europe are saying right now. They're saying that Aramco told them that there's going to be not a single drop of oil going to Europe from Saudi Arabia for the rest of September and the month of October. I don't know about all that. I'm just saying what they're saying, but they're saying Europe is getting absolutely zero barrels of oil, from Aramco at least, for the months of September and October. I think they're probably gonna be able to deliver some because Saudi Arabia's gonna be able to surely get some tankers through the Strait of Hormuz. I know, knock on wood, right? But the planning factor is zero. So what happened to prices throughout Europe? Well, all the other gas stations except for TotalEnergies had sharp increases in prices once we realized that, oh, this, the Saudi pipeline is down. All the other gas stations who did not have a price cap, they got more expensive instantly. And what happened? Because gas was cheaper at TotalEnergies, citizens flocked to these gas stations and sucked them dry, which, as of this morning, resulted in about 11% of the country being without gasoline. So congratulations. You played yourself essentially. So that's what's happened in France, and it's quite an interesting, uh, conglomeration of things. As with most things in France, it's a very fascinating nation, to be honest, and in this case, you have both the sides of extreme capitalism, right, from a privately owned oil company and also extreme communism from the sort of central planning of energy resources throughout a country kinda coming to a head to, to rear, uh, the ugly side of both sides of that coin. So at this point, we have Schrödinger shortages. On paper, there should be no shortage at all, or at least not yet, because they should have a healthy reserve that makes up for the loss of that pipeline for at least a few more weeks. However, in reality, the way this works out in the real world means that there are indeed shortages, even if localized or due to factors not explicitly related to refining capacity. This is how the nerds with their spreadsheets can be wrong. On paper, there should be no shortages throughout France, but right now, 1 out of 10 gas stations is completely dry, and how exactly that happened is more complicated than the spreadsheets will indicate. Similar story here in the United States. I am guessing that most of you looking over to Europe are rather concerned about the potential for fuel shortages here in the United States, so I will do my best to address that. Bottom line, shortages are not likely in the immediate short term, as in the next few weeks, but you do need to be concerned about the potential for diesel shortages over the next couple of months. Right now, there's a lot of fear about gas shortages, and I myself have to be pretty careful about what I say because I certainly don't wanna feed into the hysteria that is already brewing. Right now, the data indicates that the United States has plenty of gasoline and diesel, so on paper, again, kinda just like France, uh, there should be no shortages for the next few weeks. Granted, we also don't have, uh, companies here in the United States trying to price-fix their own gas to avoid a government tax on their gains, at least not yet. Uh, so we don't have that complicating factor. But world events will trigger people to start-Buying more, so when that happens, outages can't really be predicted. I'm not saying that's undue hysteria or panic. Even the most responsible person who makes the decision to keep their vehicle topped off can affect the gasoline supply, and then it snowballs from there. If everyone in your city said, "Hey, you know what? Maybe I'll fill up the tank on the way home from work instead of waiting another day," that's going to result in a localized shortage. That's just how fragile our logistical systems are around the country. All it takes is one viral photo or video of a gas station sign to trigger rolling shortages around the nation, which cannot be predicted. Down here in the South, we see this every single time there's a hurricane too. As soon as those yellow bags start appearing on gas station pumps, people rush to the other gas stations in a frenzy because they think that gas is running out, even if it was just a truck that was late by a few hours. So all of that being said, that's why there's a disconnect between reality and the numbers, and how in just a few minutes' time we can have shortages in local areas. The guys over at GasBuddy are saying that there are no abnormal shortages. The numbers from the feds and independent organizations say that we have plenty of gas and diesel right now, so there should be no shortages. On paper, there should be no shortages. But guess what? Panic and genuine and proper preparedness are both going to result in fuel shortages in random places regardless. You can't predict it, it's not indicative of a nationwide catastrophe, but it's something to be aware of. So looking outward to the next few weeks, I myself am not expecting the situation to get much better on the energy front at least. I can only tell you what I'm going to do, and I myself am personally shifting into more of a preparedness mindset and is trying to make sure that I'm rotating gasoline through my jerry cans to make sure that I've got a steady supply of gas on hand to help insulate against localized shortages. I'm not going crazy and filling every container and water bottle in my house with gas just yet, but I am thinking about this and I'm being more pragmatic as, uh, as we move forward, just to help insulate from those, uh, localized shortages that are probably going to start happening as more and more people become aware of just how serious this energy shortage has become. That's just me, though. You're gonna have to weigh your own preparedness needs and, and see what's worth doing for you. Since the Joliet Refinery is still offline, those of you in the Midwest will be hardest hit with the high gas prices and maybe some availability issues if this refinery remains offline for even longer. You can go to GasBuddy and look at the map to see which states are being affected by this. Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, and parts of Pennsylvania are the main areas being affected by this refinery being offline, at least in terms of prices. Granted, these states have high gas taxes, which would bring prices down by a lot if they weren't there, so they have been artificially high for years, but it's been a week since that refinery went offline, and most of the Midwest and parts of the Northeast get their diesel from that refinery, so that's gonna be an issue for a while, at least on the diesel side of things. Otherwise, prices for goods are going to be increasing due to the increase in diesel prices, which make everything more expensive. If the US does implement an export ban on diesel, which is being talked about right now, I'm sorry to say to my friends in Europe, but you guys are hosed. If the US implements an export ban on diesel and you are in Europe, I would very seriously consider stockpiling diesel if your vehicle needs it. I know that right now about 40% of all passenger cars in Europe run on diesel, so for you guys, it would be worth making sure you have a backup supply, because the diesel markets are gonna get pretty crazy if the US cuts exports. A lot of what the US has been exporting, especially from our strategic petroleum reserve, we've been refining it here and, uh, sending it overseas, is diesel, so that's gonna be an issue, uh, if we decide to cut e- diesel exports. More strategically, concerning the series of wars that has, uh, caused all of this problem, the war in the Middle East will probably remain hot for a while, and many people in the know are expecting another window for major escalation to open up the week of October 7th. As one might expect, that week is a rather tense time period, and it is also a couple of weeks before the election in Israel. So if there is to be a sharp escalation of the war, that week will be a window of opportunity. No guarantees either way, but that's the next time I expect the pucker factor to be dialed up to 11 once again, and if there is to be a return to a more kinetic phase of the war, that's the next time where it's decently likely. Another window of opportunity will be, again, later on this year after the midterms here in the US. So those are the two main potential flashpoints that I'm, uh, kind of forecasting out in the future. Just something to be aware of, something to keep, you know, in the back of your mind sort of thing. There is a lot of debate and conjecture about if there is to be an escalation either around the October 7th anniversary or after the midterms, if there is to be an escalation, what it might entail. I'm not gonna get into that right now because we just, we just don't know what's going to happen, and speculating tends to freak people out. But the bottom line is that the just walk away option is not really on the table anymore, at least I don't think so. The US is too heavily invested in the war, and we can't just declare victory and leave because all sides are too entrenched in the war to stop now. And finally, cutting back to something that I've been wanting to talk about for a while, there is another threat looming that regardless of whether or not it's real is relevant because it's wishing itself into existence anyway, which is what has been coined to the hybrid war that is well underway throughout Europe. Over the past few weeks, we have seen a lot of, shall we say, kinetic activities being undertaken throughout Europe, which seem to be escalating by the day. We've had everything from drone attacks at airports to Boris Johnson almost getting greased by a Russian drone in Ukraine earlier this week. The infrastructure attacks in Germany have also been a rather high-profile example of this hybrid war, and the sabotage on Polish rail lines have also been rather important in the context of everything that's going on. Once again, this is fifth generation warfare to a T. We can't exactly determine who's behind certain attacks or incidents, and even if we could point the finger at one specific culprit, half of the time we think that any given incident might be a false flag attack. So we act kind of dismissively towards some of these incidents. But at the end of the day, trains stop running, gasoline stops flowing, and the power goes out, even though on paper it should not have happened and we can't point the finger at any- The one particular cause. All of the attacks, the incidents, the situations, the kinetic activities, whatever, whatever you wanna call them, all the stuff that's happened throughout Europe over the past couple of weeks has been escalating, and it's interesting to just kind of pause, take a look back, and see all the stuff that's happened in the European theater, especially now that a lot of European leaders are starting to beat the war drum again and saying that a conflict with Russia is, you know, becoming increasingly more likely. So that's something to be aware of. I know a lot of, uh, Europeans are, are way more on top of this than I am, but it's really hard to get a good bead on whether or not leaders are particularly serious about a certain threat or if this is kind of orchestrated for some other kind of personal reason. Again, politics is just always hard to kind of judge. But, but regardless, the tensions between NATO and Russia are reaching new heights every single day, and there doesn't really seem to be any motivation to kind of pump the brakes on any of this stuff. So as dire as the situation is, the good news with all of this stuff, from the energy crisis to what's going on in Europe, the good news is that we can indeed prepare and operate within a fifth generation warfare environment. It is possible. It's certainly more challenging, but we now have the benefit of all of the experience and preparedness skills obtained during the COVID years. So I myself am thinking about the current energy crisis and the war escalation both in the Middle East and in Europe. I'm thinking about all of this stuff in similar terms as to what we learned during COVID, right? Being able to do more with less and live more within our means is a valuable skill to have and will allow a lot of flexibility when things get more serious. Right now, things are not that bad, and we've got a lot more that can go wrong before I would personally start to be moving into more of a wartime footing for my own daily life, so to speak. Once again, if you want to know when to freak out, I would not freak out just yet, but I would very much start moving towards more of a preparedness footing. And if we take a step back, we can see how this escalation starts to, to increase, right? A couple of weeks ago, I said, "Hey, I'm starting to think about what kind of preparedness stuff I might need moving forward." Last week, I started to consider my energy needs, and now I'm starting to make more concrete plans to prepare for the effects of the next few weeks and any craziness that might pop up. So that's my own personal plan moving forward. Again, we talk about the escalation ladder all of the time in terms of the wars overseas, but here at home, there's a ladder of preparation. As things get more serious, we take another step up the preparedness ladder. This week, the steps are ensuring a minimum gasoline and diesel supply to help insulate from various hiccups in the logistical chain and starting to plan for logistical price increases as the cost of moving cargo becomes more substantial. As always, remaining aware and having a reasonable but deliberate outlook on what threats to prepare for is what this is all about and will help us to remain capable and confident as the crazy times continue. It's going to be okay. We're going to make it through this just fine, but things might get a little tough, and if we can prepare now to make things not as tough later, that's a good thing. And speaking of remaining aware of what's going on around us, the Ghost Net Radio Network was quite informative this week as many of you took to the airwaves to share information in its purest form without any censorship. For those of you who are not aware, the Ghost Net project is a shortwave radio plan to help organize a more formal information exchange system over the radio. Using the plans and procedures outlined in the field guide, anyone can tune in at specific times throughout the week and exchange information about what's going on in their area. I try to highlight some of the screenshots from the software that we use to pick up these transmissions so as to show some of the more interesting reports that people have transmitted, which I have picked up here from my own location. This week, I was able to pick up quite a few, and it's really reassuring to know that if all else fails and a total fantasy-grade apocalyptic scenario were to break out, there are still hundreds, if not thousands, of people out there that we can directly link up with thousands of miles away to stay informed about what's going on over the horizon. I know this comms stuff, this radio stuff is not the most interesting thing in the world, and it's quite difficult to learn sometimes. But hopefully, in the context of the energy crisis and the craziness going on with all these wars going on around the world, I would hope that the radio stuff really does solidify the impact and the benefit of being prepared when everything else is failing. It sounds really, really stupid, it really does, until you've been in that situation where you realize, well, if all else fails, I still have this capability. Same thing with energy, same thing with electricity, same thing with food sources. Having the smallest bit of preparedness and having the smallest bit of readiness that can function and to be reliable no matter what happens, that's going to be a huge morale boost and really reassuring through these pretty tough times we're, we're starting to go through right now, and it's a very good confidence booster, even if the situation gets a little bit bleak sometimes. So that's what I try to focus on myself, doing more with less, being ready no matter what, and doing the best we can with what we have. So that's all I have for today. Thanks again for sticking with me, and thanks again to those of you on Patreon who keep the project going. It's been a pretty wild ride this year, and as we start moving into the cooler months, I hope that we are all able to weather the storm of the strange times ahead. I know we'll do our best no matter what, and that's all that matters. So thanks again, and I'll see you next time. And as always, fight in the shade.