Jessica, don’t spread panic.

Hormuz is not closed, just dangerous, and the US is already busy fixing things. Oil prices will spike for a week then calm down.

Besides, tech stocks have already crashed in response anyway, so too late.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Thursday, March 05, 2026 - 01:49 pm: Edit

We saw the police video of the Austin massacre shooting. Three brave cops carrying only pistols went after a gunman with an assault rifle and took him down from fifty feet, an impressive shot with a pistol but automatic death range with an assault rifle. They all deserve the highest award that police can bestow.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Thursday, March 05, 2026 - 01:59 pm: Edit

Trump just fired Kristi Noem. Details unclear. This seems to have been expected. She made some public statements and spent $250 million on advertising that featured her as the star. (You gotta admit she is easy on the eyes. ) The new DHS chief will be Markwayne Mullin, currently a senator from Oklahoma. This may have been a trade off to get funding for the department.

By Jessica Orsini (Jessica_Orsini) on Thursday, March 05, 2026 - 02:48 pm: Edit

In a new interview with Axios, President Trump said he must be involved in selecting the next leader of Iran, and said the son of the late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is an "unacceptable" choice.

Mr. Trump said Iranian officials who are working on selecting the next supreme leader are "wasting their time."

"Khamenei's son is a lightweight. I have to be involved in the appointment, like with Delcy [Rodriguez] in Venezuela," Mr. Trump said, referring to the interim president of Venezuela who took power after the U.S. captured Nicolás Maduro.

By Jessica Orsini (Jessica_Orsini) on Thursday, March 05, 2026 - 02:51 pm: Edit

Re: Noem: President Trump said that she would be moved to the newly-created position of special envoy for the Shield of the Americas, which he said would be a new security initiative for the Western Hemisphere.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Thursday, March 05, 2026 - 03:04 pm: Edit

Trump was upset when she testified that he had signed off on the $220 million ad campaign that he said he never heard of.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Thursday, March 05, 2026 - 03:06 pm: Edit

Noem leaves at the end of March.

Kristi (married) reportedly had an affair with a married man, which annoyed Trump.

By Mike Erickson (Mike_Erickson) on Thursday, March 05, 2026 - 04:34 pm: Edit

The rumor I like is Noem got axed as the price to restore DHS funding.

--Mike

By Burt Quaid (Burt) on Thursday, March 05, 2026 - 05:33 pm: Edit

How many ships does Iran have left that are not in the Gulf? Could they run for a friendly port and sit things out?

By Dana Madsen (Madman) on Thursday, March 05, 2026 - 05:55 pm: Edit

The straight of Hormuz is effectively closed today, in that traffic is down >95%. From approx average traffic of 100 container / tanker ships per day to less than 5 per day over the last 4 days. Although those numbers are murky according to a bloomberg site tracking traffic as ships are turning off their transponders for some reason.

We may start seeing ships transiting again tomorrow or by end of week, or within two weeks, it's not a crisis today. The price of oil is up, but not significantly yet. If it stays effectively closed for weeks or months, that could lead to many issues throughout the world, and we would see oil go up a lot more than it has now. So Steve, you are right, in that today, and this week, there is no issue that can't be mitigated.

I don't know that I agree that Taiwan is the biggest issue. While it imports 90% plus of all it's energy, it has really no local energy production except solar. There is also oil being exported from many other places in the world, including the US, Canada, Africe, South America, etc. Taiwan is wealthy enough to buy cargoes from places still exporting even if prices go up a lot and they could keep the basics of their economy running. Many European countries are bigger population wise, so they need to import more energy (oil or LNG) than Taiwan does on a total cargo basis.

If the price of oil/gas doubles, I would be very upset, but I can still afford to fill my gas tank. But maybe my neighbour can't afford to fill their truck if the price doubles, they would either stop driving or travel half as much. Poorer countries than Taiwan who import a lot of mideast oil, ex India, would probably overall feel any really sharp jump in prices more. A large percentage of their population is at or below poverty level, they can't afford to pay double for energy, they would be forced to cut (or go back to buying more sancitioned Russian cargoes). Many large European countries would feel the loss of mideast oil and LNG cargoes hard. As Europe is no longer taking any significant Russian oil/gas they need to fill their LNG storage every spring / summer to be ready for the following winter. Right now they are getting large amounts of that LNG from the mideast.

By Burt Quaid (Burt) on Thursday, March 05, 2026 - 06:55 pm: Edit

Mullin as Noem replacement? Huh. Well that is a choice.

burt

By Mike Erickson (Mike_Erickson) on Thursday, March 05, 2026 - 07:03 pm: Edit

Taiwan only imports something like 900KB per day, and that's for all uses. For just semiconductor manufacturing it's a fraction of that. Given the extreme value on that particular use of energy, its easy to pay the price. And if the oil is not available at any price, there are plenty of nations who would provide it, to unlock the semiconductors. So my sense is this concern may be a bit of a red herring? Time will tell.

The broader concern is that, out of roughly 100MB per day of oil production worldwide, the Gulf is around 27MB peak, and only about maybe 9MB per day can exit via pipelines. That leaves maybe 18MB or 18% of world supply cut off. And that's not sustainable for very long.

Seeing the pace at which Iranian missiles, drones, and launchers are being destroyed and the commensurate reduction in launch rates, my sense is within 7-10 days escorted tankers will be transiting Hormuz safely. And the global oil supply will return to its former balance fairly quickly.

--Mike

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Thursday, March 05, 2026 - 08:12 pm: Edit

The Hormuz crisis is mostly the result of one guest editorial by a retired admiral who now teaches at a far left university. (Hint: people who like Trump or disagree with Jessica don’t get get teaching jobs at leftie schools.) the article grossly overblows the supposed crisis that supposedly will wreck the entire world economy.

The “closure” is caused by justifiable fear, not a big steel chain. The US war plan assumed Iran would pull this stunt and was ready for it. The tankers won’t run the strait because their insurance was cancelled. Trump already fixed that; new policies are being issued now.

Destroyers and frigates are now moving to position to escort tankers. Air strikes are already hitting the Iranian positions along the strait. (This won’t be easy. You can launch ship killing missiles from a heavy truck, ship killing drones from a pickup.) this brief interruption (which lost me a temporary bit of my retirement account) will e resolved shortly (and I will make a profit on the money I moved into tech stocks today, plus getting back everything I lost today).

Even at that, this is market panic, not the surrender of the 106th Division. Chill.

By Eric Snyder (Esnyder) on Friday, March 06, 2026 - 06:54 am: Edit

WSJ: UAE weighing whether to freeze Iranian financial assets as retribution for strikes. Value estimated as ~300 billion.

By Eric Snyder (Esnyder) on Friday, March 06, 2026 - 06:59 am: Edit

World Insights posted an interesting tally of Iranian launches for the 1st 8 days:

Ballistic Missiles:
Day 1 - 350
Day 2 - 175
Day 3 - 120
Day 4 - 50
Day 5 - 40
Day 6 - 32
Day 7 - 28
Day 8 - 15

Drone Swarms:
Day 1 - 294
Day 2 - 541
Day 3 - 200
Day 4 - 85
Day 5 - 45
Day 6 - 38
Day 7 - 30
Day 8 - 12

By Eric Snyder (Esnyder) on Friday, March 06, 2026 - 07:03 am: Edit

I might add that I have no idea where they are getting these numbers, especially for "day 8".

By Jessica Orsini (Jessica_Orsini) on Friday, March 06, 2026 - 11:44 am: Edit

Per his preferred social media venue, President Trump announced the following this morning:

"There will be no deal with Iran except UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER! After that, and the selection of a GREAT & ACCEPTABLE Leader(s), we, and many of our wonderful and very brave allies and partners, will work tirelessly to bring Iran back from the brink of destruction, making it economically bigger, better, and stronger than ever before. IRAN WILL HAVE A GREAT FUTURE. “MAKE IRAN GREAT AGAIN (MIGA!).” Thank you for your attention to this matter!"

By Carl-Magnus Carlsson (Hardcore) on Friday, March 06, 2026 - 01:20 pm: Edit

"Russia is providing Iran with targeting information to attack American forces in the Middle East" - Washington Post
It's behind a Paywall so I haven't been able to read it myself.

By Douglas Lampert (Dlampert) on Friday, March 06, 2026 - 01:24 pm: Edit

Not unreasonable, I'm fairly sure that we've been providing Ukraine with targetting information to attack Russian forces on the Black Sea.

So, we can't reasonably claim that providing targetting information is an act of war, and it's not like we can hit Russia even harder with sanctions or other non-military actions than we already are.

Editted to add: Of course, I tend to assume that Trump takes being deliberately unreasonable as a reasonable method of opperation (which it sometimes is, there's a reason Game Theory says the optimum tactics often include a random element). So, in my estimation, counting on Trump being reasonable is not in fact reasonable.

By Mike Grafton (Mike_Grafton) on Saturday, March 07, 2026 - 11:56 am: Edit

Treasury Secretary proposed getting rid of sanctions on Russian oil.

By Mike Grafton (Mike_Grafton) on Saturday, March 07, 2026 - 11:59 am: Edit

"The US treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, said on Friday that his government was considering lifting sanctions on more Russian oil"

By Paul Howard (Raven) on Saturday, March 07, 2026 - 01:56 pm: Edit

A Temporary removal of Russian Oil 'already at sea' I beleive was implemented by the US - as India was wanting to buiy it.

On also the Iranian Ship being sunk of Sri Lanka - it is being reported that the ship was returning from a Joint Exercise which involved several nations (Indian and the US and others) and one of the requirements was that no live weapons was permitted on ships.

Therefore it is being questioned that did the US sink an unarmed ship, outside of the combat zone, without giving any warnings and then allowing the suvivors to be left at sea?

Other comments mention they may have been a Iranian Supply Ship in the area - so it is not clear cut if the 'rules of war' have been breached or not - but it seems both India and Sri Lanka are not happy with the attack.

By William Jockusch (Verybadcat) on Saturday, March 07, 2026 - 04:00 pm: Edit

Yeah well I'm not happy with 47 years of Iranian outrages.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Saturday, March 07, 2026 - 04:10 pm: Edit

The US widely proclaimed that all of the Iranian military was subject to attack.

By Carl-Magnus Carlsson (Hardcore) on Sunday, March 08, 2026 - 04:03 am: Edit

I found this funny in the dark way:

"Trump said this week he had found some likely candidates, but then admitted that unfortunately they were now lying dead in the rubble of a bombed government building. “Most of the people we had in mind are dead. Now, we have another group. They may be dead also, based on reports. So I guess you have a third wave coming in. Pretty sure we’re not going to know anybody.”" -The Guardian