I prefer a "sinking like a turd" analogy.
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Iran Reportedly Warns Apple is Among Potential Targets
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My point? YOU made the claim that specifically US gas prices have risen less than elsewhere, which I pointed out was false. I reacted to YOUR argument about purely gas price.
Double sigh. Just acknowledge that you were wrong, and move on.
Edit: Go back through the conversation. I reacted to a post where you replied to a comment (which was not mine) about US gas prices. I did not make it about gas prices. Maybe you didn’t intend to either, but that’s what you replied to.
More edit: Just to be clear, natural gas as an energy source has largely not been affected in US. The discussion was about gasoline, for cars.
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I always meant petrol and diesel - I'm British (thankfully) and don't use the term gas for petrol or diesel.
The response from ChatGPT: -
Short answer: the UK has seen the sharper percentage increase, although US drivers are now facing very high absolute prices.
Here’s the breakdown based on the most recent data since the Iran conflict began (late Feb 2026):
🇬🇧 UK (petrol & diesel)
- Petrol prices have risen roughly 7%+ early on and continued climbing (Reuters)
- More recent figures show:
- +22p per litre for petrol in about a month (The Scottish Sun)
- Diesel up ~30% in the same period (The Guardian)
- Earlier data showed diesel rising ~13% in just two weeks (Pound Sterling Live)
🇺🇸 USA (gasoline)
- Prices have risen to $4+ per gallon, with forecasts of $4.25–$5+ (Reuters)
- The jump is significant, but:
- The increase is typically described as ~10%+ from recent levels (Reuters)
- US prices remain structurally lower (less tax), so percentage jumps tend to look smaller than in Europe.
Why the UK is hit harder (in % terms)
- Higher baseline taxes → amplifies retail price swings
- Greater exposure to global refined fuel markets
- Currency effects (oil priced in dollars)
- Stronger diesel sensitivity in Europe
Bottom line
- Percentage increase: UK > USA
- Headline pump price shock (psychological impact): USA feels severe too (e.g. $5/gallon territory)
surferfb
macrumors 68030
I don’t have a dog in this particular back and forth argument, but you do realize that this literally says gas is up 7% in UK, 10% in US, and then UK has a higher percentage.
I also think the numbers ChatGPT cites are wrong. I know they are for the US, I would assume they are for the UK too. From the NY Times last Friday:
The average cost of a gallon of diesel in the United States was $5.38 on Friday, according to AAA, up nearly 45 percent since the start of the war. Gasoline, by comparison, has climbed about 33 percent.
Well, thanks for that. I accept that using AI could be inaccurate and seemingly somewhat confusing! Luckily, the Americans already pay less for their fuel so it's all relative.
What I think will happen is that, in the long term, the UK will be hit far harder by Trump's crazy actions.
Statistics are obviously not my forte so perhaps I'll shut up now!
Seriously? You ask me to “put in the effort”, and then cite some clearly wrong and confusing numbers from ChatGPT?
Try actually looking up the petroleum price on January 31 vs today, and do the math. Use AI if you want, but do fact check. It’s quite clear the US has risen more as a percentage.
EOD.
There is no higher level of office than POTUS. Previous incumbents have been intelligence, considered, brave all whilst knowing that whispers of wise words to the right ears pull more strings and influence more global politics that bluster and hot air.
This president has all the verbal dexterity of a 13 year old playing Call of Duty in the dying minutes of his attack sequence before his mommy takes the xBox off of him. All of the intelligence, cunning and strategic insight of a twice lobotomised lemming.
The Iranians have disliked America for 47 years and have largely done nothing to attack. All I can think is that perhaps they were right to be wary of the USA.
I blanked out letters in the screenshot so as not to cause offence and break rules, nonsuch exist on TruthSocial as you can see below
Disgraceful, utterly Anti-American behaviour. That you can put your faith in this animal is hard to understand for Europeans.
I was convinced that “tweet” was fake when I heard about it, and the mainstream media was pretty slow to report on it. I think they delayed to ensure it was real, and the account was not hacked. Even for Trump, that post is bizarre.
It shows how much he is panicking right now, because his bullying tactics isn’t working. Iran essentially answered his threat with “Yeah? Bring it on, ************”. He’s realizing how close he is to having to choose between two catastrophic options: pulling out, or pulling through and bombing Iran to smithereens. Which means, say hi to 8$ a gallon.
We will see on Tuesday how he’s going to TACO himself out of this one.
Madhatter32
macrumors 68000
I always wondered whether the depiction of English Bob from the Unforgiven had some truth to it. I guess I know now.
I guess the lump is English/Scottish by heritage. It’s real mean to compare him to the legendary Dumbledore (Richard Harris) though.
Scepticalscribe
macrumors Haswell
And what are your thoughts on that particular post/tweet?
Are either the tone or the content something that one could consider appropriate - that is, is it appropriate language (and I am not just describing the attempted murder of the English language in that disgraceful post/tweet), behaviour, or conduct - from a person who is an elected leader of your country?
Or, shall I put this another way: If President Bill Clinton, or Secretary Hillary Clinton, or President Barack Obama, or, even, at a push, President Joe Biden had penned and published such an appalling post/tweet, would you regard it with quite the same degree of detached equanimity?
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That tweet exhibits signs of late-stage dementia.
Madhatter32
macrumors 68000
Trump's tone/language is totally bizarre. I suppose that ForkHandles post was directed to me assuming I am a MAGA/Trump devotee because I think American action against Iran is justified. Wrong assumption.
Europeans complaining about Trump was what I was going for with the English Bob comparison.
On the foreign policy front, the United States went to war against Germany in WWII to help/save our European allies in a literal sense. Germany did not pose an immediate threat to the United States. It had not attacked the United States. So .... just wondering why Keir Starmer and Macron have decided to cut off any kind of support for the American war effort against a internationally recognized terrorist regime that has been in a de facto cold war against the United States since 1979. They certainly do not have to join the war. But preventing the United States from using its own military bases? This underscores a lot of the Trump rhetoric that the NATO countries are no longer committed allies. It makes it appear to some Americans that France/UK side with the IRGC and Ayatollah over the American President ... because, as ForkHandles states, the President is crass and speaks with the "verbal dexterity of a 13 year old playing Call of Duty".
Because we read different news outlets we have different view points.
eg NATO - North Atlantic Treaty Organisation. Created by America as a result of WW2, it was their interest payment for bank rolling other countries in their times of need.
The central theme of the treaty is that if one NATO country gets attacked, it's a pile on, guns a blazing. All for one, One for all. All countries are expected to lend a hand to put an end to the invasion. It’s only ever been invoked once, by America after 9/11.
What it is explicitly not is an international army, prepared to bully boy anywhere it likes in the world, starting conflicts because one of it's members got a little tetchy. America started a war! That has as much to do with NATO as it does the AAA or The Comedy Club or a squirrel climbing a tree. Shear mention of it isn’t ignorance on the part of POTUS it’s deception of the American people. You using it as evidence that other countries have let America down, is the repetition of a lie, you were lied to by people you trust.
You’ve been in a Cold War since ‘79. It was cold, kept cold by level heads and diplomacy, diplomacy is cheap, no jet fighters required, just words, understanding and pressure. There were no factors in clear view that meant it had to be heated up, except one, a 13 year old brain playing call of duty.
The truth is we remember the cost of Iraq, we see the chaos left behind. We feel the effects of migratory patterns of Middle Eastern families fleeing unrest.
Nobody here wants this war. Even our far-right, Putin loving, Trump fanboy called Farage is silent.
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Scepticalscribe
macrumors Haswell
Okay.
I am a European, and yes, everything about Trump fills me with disgust, dislike, and horror.
I'm an historian by profession, even if I no longer grace the halls of academe.
Check your facts: While FDR most certainly detested what AH stood for, for over two years, he lacked (or believed that he lacked, which amounts to much the same thing) sufficient electoral support to declare war against Germany, and was confined to offering Britain support through programmes such as Lend-Lease Programme.
Oddly enough, in a little remembered footnote, Germany actually declared war on the US on 11th December 1941, four days after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour. Until then, the US was not at war with Germany.
I have - and hold - no sympathy for the dreadful regime in Iran, but dislike of a loathsome regime is not a justification to go to war against it. Nor is vengeance for 1979 a justified reason to go to war; there were very solid reasons why the regime of the Shah fell.
In any case, this is an illegal war (and has not been argued for, let alone authorised, by Congress) with aims that are unclear, opaque and constantly changing, aims built on lies, aims buttressed and reinforced with outrageous threats that increasingly look like, or resemble, war crimes.
Since Ukraine (and just to be clear, the US not only does not support Ukraine's attempts to defend itself against an invasion that is wholly illegal and entirely unprovoked, but attempts to actively undermine it by invariably offering support to whatever form the Russian perspective takes), the threats against Canada and Greenland, (good grief, I cannot believe that I am even writing this), it is clear that the US can no longer be considered a reliable, or trustworthy, ally on anything. In fact, it cannot even be considered an ally, trustworthy or not. Increasingly, and unfortunately, given the tone and content of its attacks on Europe, European governments, and European values, it would be more apt to consider it as something of an antagonist.
Moreover, many Europeans have not forgotten the Iraq war, another conflict that was sold to them as a country - led by an unpleasant regime - posing a nuclear threat but which ultimately transpired to have been based on nothing but a tissue of lies. The costs of that war, - not just financial, but in lives lost, and, worse still, in a corrosive erosion of trust in the credibility of the democratic governments who went to war knowingly on the basis of what they knew to be lies, - have not been forgotten by European governments or European electorates.
To my mind, the Iranians have every right to defend themselves against an illegal and unprovoked war.
The fact that Israel (and initially, possibly, some of the Gulf States) may have seen in this an opportunity to persuade the US to take what they may have considered as a hostile piece off the board - and the further delusion that this would be easy and would earn them vast and obscene profits - does not excuse or explain the fact that the US deluded itself that this would be the sort of effortless easy victory that the adventure in Venezuela was, and also appears profoundly shocked that a country would fight back to defend itself by every means at its disposal.
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jon9091
macrumors 6502
He’s an embarrassment to the office he holds. And when he’s gone, the world will celebrate.
I don't think people in the MAGAsphere are really understanding how widespread and jubilant the celebrations will be.
jon9091
macrumors 6502
I will be using his exact quote about the passing of Robert Mueller…I’ll just swap his name in.
Do you know why the Islamic revolution in 1979 happened? The Iranian people were revolting against a dictator backed by the US, who was put in place because the Iranian government post WW2 tried to take control of their own oil away from the brits.
Read that again: The Iranian people revolted against a US backed dictator.
Perhaps taking hostages from the US embassy wasn’t the most clever political move, but the US was the oppressors, not Iran.
Wrong. It proves that the *US* is no longer a committed ally. Do we really have to spell that out, after the Greenland debacle? Threats against Canada?
Do you still not accept that NATO is a defense consortium, not a commitment to support unprovoked attacks by any NATO member?
True, many Americans are too uneducated to understand the concept of NATO, and Fox News is certainly not helping them. So they will believe whoever yells the loudest.
Madhatter32
macrumors 68000
Thanks for the history lesson but I do know what happened. So what? Using this logic, America would be in a perpetual conflict with England. Peace with Japan, Germany and Vietnam would not be possible either. Leadership in Iran has chosen to use this history to reap chaos and death for its own politcal purposes.
Don't know. Recent conduct by European capitals to not only prohibit fly-overs but also to prohibit the use of American bases underscores the American concern about strategic access/use of its bases in Greenland and other places frankly. The US spends $20 billion per year on bases in just Germany and the UK. Maybe that should be spent on healthcare at home.
I never meant to suggest that NATO counties are obligated to take action in this matter by way of the NATO Charter/Treaty. My comments were really only directed to European allies being unwilling to help in a very minimal way -- (i.e., use of the US's own bases) -- against a regime that is working to destroy the western world.
ClaraStahlbaum
macrumors 6502a
As someone who certainly leans more to the right than the left - I am inclined to say that it will be a breath of fresh air when Trump is out of office. I am ready to move on from Trump. Completely. The chaos, division, the neverending lies, childish behavior, etc will not be missed.
You’re the one who brought up history to justify the attack. Whois the arbiter of the cutoff point where we should look no further back - you?
It’s pretty clear your view is heavily biased.
It’s US who is backing out of commitments, not Europe.
Right now the regime that is working to destroy the western world is the United States of America. You just refuse to accept reality.
I agree that US has tons of issues to resolve, including but not limited to health care and military spending. Many of the conflicts around the world that US is spending billions on fighting, are it’s own doing. If US had kept it’s hands out of the Middle East to begin with, most of the current issues would not exist, and neither would Israel.
Trump got himself elected among other things by promising to stop the endless wars. Right now he is doing the opposite.
I refuse to believe that there was no ways to combat the issues Trump has been pointing out, without the stupidity, lies, fraud and back-stabbing. That is not the same as saying the issues do not exist.
I think you misunderstood. The point was that when Trump dies, we will use Trump’s own words about Mueller against himself.