Missiles in Arabia, and why it matters to you

The Mideast war is almost certainly about to escalate massively.

About ten days ago, the Houthi rebels in Yemen took control of the Yemeni side of the Bāb al-Mandab.  The Bāb al-Mandab is the narrow strait between the southern corner of Yemen and the southern end of Eritrea (see map above); it connects the Red Sea to the Indian Ocean.  At the opposite, northern end of the Red Sea are the Suez Canal and Israel.

The Houthis, officially called the Ansār Allāh, meaning Partisans of God, are a fanatical Shiite force allied to the Iranian regime (Iran, southern Iraq, and large minorities in Lebanon, Syria, and Yemen are Shiite, while the rest of the Middle East is mostly Sunni); they have been fighting a civil war against the so-called "Presidential Leadership Council" (basically remnants of the former Yemeni government) for years.  The PLC is supported by Saudi Arabia, and the Yemeni civil war is largely a proxy conflict between the Iranian and Saudi regimes.  Here is the Houthi official emblem:

The Arabic translates as:  "God is great, Death to America, Death to Israel, Curse be upon the Jews, Victory to Islam" -- just so you know where these guys are coming from.

The reason all this matters to the rest of the world is that a vast amount of shipping between Europe and Asia goes by way of the Suez Canal and the Bāb al-Mandab, so this strait, like the Strait of Hormuz between Iran and Oman, is a critical global economic choke-point.  The Houthi advance means that the Iranian regime now has de facto control over both straits, increasing its power to inflict economic damage on the West.  Since it is now part of the regime's policy to torment Donald Trump as much as possible, it can be expected to take full advantage of that power.

The Houthis have attacked Saudi Arabia (backers of their enemy the PLC) before, but just this last few days have seen a serious escalation -- a wave of missile strikes deep into Saudi territory.  One ballistic missile was fired at Riyadh, the Saudi capital city, but was shot down.  The red pointers on the map with underlined names are other targets of Houthi missile strikes; it's currently unclear how many missiles got through to these places vs how many were shot down.

The Saudi regime, which is as repressive as the Iranian one but stupider and more fragile, will likely retaliate hard against the Houthis -- an attempt to attack its capital cannot go unanswered.  If the Houthis escalate in response, their next step could include attacks on Saudi oil facilities, which would send global oil prices skyrocketing.

Beyond that, there are some signs that Trump is planning a massive military escalation against Iran.  If this happens and is serious enough, but fails to bring down the Iranian regime entirely, the regime would very likely respond with an all-out attack on Saudi Arabia's entire oil industry, both from Iran itself and from the Houthis, with the aim of wrecking the US and other Western economies.  Iran is certainly capable of devastating strikes -- we now know that in the earlier fighting it inflicted far worse damage on US bases than the US admitted at the time.  Also, Saudi Arabia's Persian Gulf coastal area, where most of its oil is, has a partly Shiite population which is brutally oppressed by the Saudi regime.  It's conceivable that Iran could succeed in inciting an uprising there.

Trump recently tried to reduce upward pressure on oil prices by demanding that Ukraine stop attacking Russian oil refineries, but of course the fact that Trump stupidly started a war with Iran without adequate planning or determination to overthrow the regime is not Ukraine's problem, and its drone strikes on Russian refineries have continued.

Iran has dominated the Middle East for the majority of the period since the founding of the first Persian Empire in the sixth century BCE.  What we see today is a historical norm re-asserting itself.

In attacking the Iranian regime, Trump picked a fight with people far more evil and far more intelligent than he is.  The rest of the world, including the American people, is about to start suffering the full consequences of his blundering.

[The origin of the name "Bāb al-Mandab" is of some interest.  It translates as "The Gate of Lamentation" and originates from the Middle Ages, when the vast Arab slaving network in Africa used to ship black African slaves across the strait to Arabia.  It refers to the lamentation of the slaves at their last sight of Africa before leaving to spend the rest of their lives in servitude in the Islamic world.]

Link round-up for 19 September 2026

Various interesting stuff I ran across on the net over the last week.

Six weeks to Halloween!

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Probably the worst possible place to do a backflip.

Fairy tales need to be modernized a bit.

Don't sit on that.

Too absorbed in gawking at her phone to pay attention.....

Cats have things their own way.

Joy has come into the world.

Zap not, lest ye be zapped.

Here's the most popular cat name in each state.  Some of them are distinctly odd.

Don't steal my bowling ball!

Apparently they're hungry.

Never be the last one to let go.

Sometimes you need to create your own miracle.

Blogger KO has been driven from the seas by oversize cnidarians.

Have a few amusing videos (NSFW blog, requires Blogspot login).

Scariest zombie apocalypse ever (even at just five seconds).

Today, the combat instructor is teaching target selection.

Just too much vodka, I guess.

Michael's is the go-to place for Halloween décor -- but it's not cheap.

Two dogs, two personalities.

Lots of pictures here from the Outer Hebrides.

More photos here from Salem MA, a town full of character.

Overlapping circles create optical patterns.

Elephants imposed justice for a threatened rhino.

Mansfeld Péter was the youngest person murdered by the Soviet puppet regime in Hungary after the 1956 rebellion.

Covid probably killed far more people than was reported at the time.

This was one of the most important events in recent history, and almost nobody noticed it.

If you are a crime victim and hesitate to register to vote, apply for a driver's license, etc because it would make your address public, check if your state has an address confidentiality program.  Such programs are designed to protect people in that situation.

Here are some of the activities being planned to support election integrity and encourage turnout.

If you have a small business, resist the temptation to use "AI" -- it will eventually destroy you.

Fybe is a new art marketplace site guaranteed free of "AI"-faked "art" (unlike Etsy).

California's billionaire wealth tax initiative still narrowly leads in the polls despite the massive billionaire propaganda campaign against it.  There are also two scam initiatives on the ballot which would at least partly negate the wealth tax if passed.  The parasites are desperate to stop this thing.

If you believe transgenderism is valid, you need to watch this.  It's less than a minute and a half.

Here's a program which claims that it can get rid of all the "AI" in Windows 11.

This is the superhuman machine intelligence which is going to overthrow humanity and take over the world.

OpenAI employs hundreds of workers to read your "private" prompts and chats with ChatGPT.

The vast majority of people prefer traditional architecture over modernistic crap.

"This entire 'AI is going to kill us' was an orchestrated psyop."

Woketardia is even ruining our indie bookstores now.

You've never heard of this bass player, but you've heard her.  She's finally getting some recognition.

This is who that Macklemore character is.

Yet another company adopts "AI" and immediately turns to shit.

What are women supposed to do if only a small minority of men are worth dating?

A Christian pastor calls upon the Arapaho Indians to abandon their silly primitive religious ways and adopt modern rational practices like hating gays or eating a cracker and pretending it's God.

Colonialism is still colonialism even if you don't use the word.

Nashville airport is being renamed after Dolly Parton.  Unlike some recent "renamings", this one will actually take effect.

This is not what apartheid looks like.

A lawyer vents frustration at the persistent intrusion of "AI".

"These are the people we're supposed to believe are women."

The activist left's routine use of threats of violence to intimidate opponents is totalitarian in spirit.

Data centers are causing a huge surge in toxic pollution.

The medication she needs to stay alive is "no longer medically necessary".

There's internet buzz about a possible nationwide trucker strike starting on October 1 and lasting until diesel prices come down.  It's not clear whether this is real or not, but if it is, it would be awesome.  With grocery store shelves bare until fuel prices were cut, Congress would have to act and not just blather about market forces.

A stalker terrorized a woman by taking control of the software running her car.

In a win for the First Amendment, a federal court has ordered ICE to stop harassing people who criticize it.

"AI" is dangerous, not because it will wipe us out or take over, but because it's controlled by malignant people.

ChatGPT has ads now, but they don't work.

Some women in forced-birth states are already under effective travel bans that prevent them from going to free states to get abortions.

Hackers analyzed the data from a surveillance camera to find out what they're really doing.

The leader of one of our closest allies (yes, they still are) speaks about the September 11 attack.  This is how a serious and mature leader talks -- these days it's easy for Americans to forget.

This guy is charged with possession and distribution of kiddie porn, bestiality, and the rape of a 14-year-old.  And he's a cop!

Iranian drone strikes on Amazon data centers caused some permanent loss of customer information.  Obviously Amazon doesn't back up its data adequately.

Democratic candidates are being advised not to attack "AI" too forcefully for fear that tech CEOs and companies will spend big to defeat them -- another example of the billionaire parasite class undermining democracy.

State officials are preparing to defend against ICE interference in voting.

More than 70% of people here in Oregon oppose building any more data centers in the state, but our useless governor is doing nothing while construction pushes ahead.

Speaking up against anti-Semitism carries some risks these days.

That picture of Trump kissing Natalie Harp is probably fake.

One police investigator conducted over four thousand illegal surveillance camera searches, partly to stalk her ex-girlfriend.

The city of Boston is dumping Flock over a contract violation, but looking for another camera vendor to replace it, so there will be no improvement in privacy.

This New Mexico lawyer submitted an "AI"-generated brief full of fake testimony, some of it apparently from witnesses who don't exist.  This was for an appeal of a murder conviction, a serious matter.

Besides data centers, Trump also supports surveillance cameras.  He seems to have no clue how much damage these statements from him are doing to Republican candidates.

Support for unions is rising rapidly, even as membership remains low.

96% of voters in the British village of Piddington have voted to leave the UK.  The village cannot actually do that, but it's a protest against the government's plan to settle more than a thousand migrants nearby.  The village has just 350 residents.  Discussion here.

Here's why Beira's Place is so necessary.

Germany's nativist AfD party has reached 30% support nationally, far outstripping the establishment-right CDU.

The election the AfD won in Sachsen-Anhalt state two weeks ago had record-high turnout, and the party won almost half of younger voters.

Foreigners commit a hugely disproportionate share of the violent crimes on France's public transport.  The situation in Europe is totally different from in the US, where immigrants commit a relatively low share of violent crimes.

This Russian missile launcher exploded impressively.

Lots more stuff blowing up here.

The Russian city of Taganrog has no air defenses left -- Ukraine has destroyed them all.

A Ukrainian drone flies freely over the Russian city of Belgorod, showing the total lack of any countermeasures.  The upper left caption at the beginning says "Welcome to Blyedgorod", basically renaming the city "Dullsville".

This is an attack on Rostov's airfield.

Russia's land corridor to Crimea looks like a complete mess.

See a Russian shahed drone shot down over Odessa.

The Iranian regime is probably heading for collapse, but external pressure can help speed up the process.

Four years after it killed her, the regime is still afraid of Mahsa Amini.

A man who grew up in Gaza describes what it was like.

Turkey is carrying out mass arrests of gay people.

More links at Red State Blues, AutisticAF, and Comedy Plus.

My posts this week:  some truths and inspirations, a problem with scheduled posts on Blogspot, and miscellaneous observations.

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Miscellaneous observations

Man is fundamentally an animal -- specifically, a species of great ape -- and only secondarily a "rational being", a "spiritual being", an "economic actor", or anything else.  Any attempt to understand human psychology or behavior which does not take our animal nature as its starting point is a waste of time.

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No one ideology can give correct or even sane answers to every question.  Pragmatism and moderation must always temper our adherence to our belief systems.

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A new survey shows Nebraska's economic-populist independent Senate candidate Dan Osborn leading his Republican opponent 46% to 42%.  This is not a sure thing but it is winnable.  We really could soon have an economic populist in the Senate who is not beholden to either party -- hopefully the beginning of a whole new movement.

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I'm well aware that the way I write sometimes does not strictly adhere to standard grammar (splitting infinitives and suchlike).  This is because I prioritize clarity and ease of reading.  If the clearest way of expressing an idea happens to transgress a grammatical rule, then I will ignore the rule.

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We now know that Mitch McConnell is technically alive, but he is clearly in no condition to handle the job of being a senator.  Then there's the obvious mental deterioration lately shown by Trump's increasingly unhinged social media posts and pronouncements.  We have systems in place to remove people who are obviously incapacitated from political office -- they just aren't working because the people who should be using them are prioritizing partisan political interests over the interests of the country.

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When somebody makes a blanket denunciation of "the left" or "the right", our suspicion should be directed first against the person who is doing that, rather than against their target.

The extremist on one side looks at the extremists on the other side, gathers their most stupid and outrageous statements and actions into a broad brush, and proceeds to tar the entire other side with that brush. The trouble is, many individuals who start out as moderates read what the hard-liners on their own side have to say (since those hard-liners are over-represented among people who write about politics) and are gradually swayed by it, polarizing the country into two camps, each convinced that the other has gone crazy.

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The first loyalty of a congresscritter or senator should be to his or her constituents, not to his or her political party.  Their job is to represent us.  "Party discipline" is contrary to democracy.

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The cynic is the most shallow, most naïve, and most gullible type of person ever to exist -- and also among the least interesting.

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In the Lindsay Clancy case, as with all violent crimes, my concern is for the victims, not for the perpetrator.  What haunts me is the horror that those children must have felt, being killed by the one person that they should have been able to count on most of all to protect them.

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Most people who think it would be "unnatural" to cure aging so that people can live for centuries probably do not think brushing their teeth is "unnatural", but fundamentally it's the same thing.  In both cases, one is using tools created by human intelligence to prevent damage which would otherwise slowly degrade one's health.

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The reason why the moan-groan-doom-gloom mentality is so dangerous is that the way we perceive our situation can affect how we deal with our situation.  Wallowing in doom and gloom leads to pessimism.  Pessimism leads to despair.  Despair leads to paralysis.  And paralysis leads to defeat even when defeat was not inevitable.  If you convince yourself that everything is hopeless, you will not take action, because you will have trapped yourself in a state of mind where you believe that taking action is futile or will even be counterproductive, regardless of the actual track record of such action in the real world.  This is why the enemy within the mental gates is so dangerous.

Blogspot issue with scheduled posts

Blogger Mary Kirkland reports a problem with scheduled posts on Blogspot -- four posts that she had written and scheduled simply vanished and had to be re-written.  I never use post scheduling myself, but if you do, you might want to take precautions, such as copying any post you've written and scheduled onto a non-online document, or posting them at some time when you can just do it manually.

Update:  Mary reports scheduled posting seems to be working again, at least for her.

Truths and inspirations for 14 September 2026

If an image is hard to see or read, right-click and open the link in a new tab for the full-size version.

[For the link round-up, click here.]

This will be me, when the time comes.  People getting all bovinely "philosophical" about the inevitability of death makes me want to vomit.

Gloria Steinem with Billie Jean King and Sally Ride in 1983.

I can hardly remember any election that the activist types weren't calling "the most important election of our lifetime" at the time.

Our country is the center of the plague and it is up to us to stop it.