The US will blockade Iranian ports after Islamabad talks fail to end the war.

 

Vice President JD Vance after the negotiations. AP. 

The US military will blockade Iranian ports after Islamabad talks fail to end war. AP. The blockade was announced this morning and will block all ships coming out of Iranian ports in the Strait of Hormuz. Ships leaving from other ports in the region will not be affected. The 21 hour talks in Islamabad fell apart mostly due to the nuclear issue as Iran has refused to give up their supply of enriched uranium. US destroyers are reported to be in the Strait in an effort to prepare for mine clearing operations. 

My Comment:

First of all, the peace talks. I had some hope that the talks would have worked but it was never a sure thing. The United States and Iran were far apart on the nuclear issue. As long as Iran has nuclear material, it's going to be a red line for the United States and any peace deal is going to require Iran to give it up. They weren't willing to do so yet and that means that the talks were going to fail. 

That doesn't mean that the war is back on. There is a real chance that a 2nd round of talks are going to happen soon. Right now, the ceasefire is still on and neither side has really broken it. Pakistan, in their role of mediator, has said that contacts are still being made between the two sides. And everything I have heard has said that both sides were actually pretty close to a deal besides the nuclear material issue. I think there is a real chance of another round of talks in the "days to weeks" timeline. 

Aa for the blockade, it's mostly symbolic in nature. The elephant in the room is that few ships were willing to run the strait in the first place, even after the ceasefire was put into place. Why? Because was able to lay a few naval mines but they don't actually know where they are. Nobody does because after laying them, the mines drifted out of position, making them a major threat to shipping, and, more importantly, the insurance companies that insure the ships bottom lines. 

The blockade does have a major effect though. A few ships have ran the strait throughout the conflict after paying bribes to Iran. The blockade will absolutely prevent this if the US Navy is up to snuff. Those ships won't be able to escape into the Indian Ocean. This will cut off the last real lifeline in terms of funding that Iran has and it will put some pressure on Iran to cut a deal. 

It's also going to put pressure on the rest of the world to do something about Iran. America doesn't really need any of the oil coming out of Iran. Not only are we the biggest oil producer in the world right now, we are getting oil from our new vassal, Venezuela. Europe, China, Australia and many other countries are going to hurt a lot unless they pressure Iran into making a deal. 

The bigger news is that the United States Navy is moving to remove mines. Supposedly two destroyers have already entered the area and are preparing for mine removal opperations and mapping of safe routes. Once that happens and the mines are gone, or at least a safe path is opened, the Strait of Hormuz will be open for non-Iranian traffic. This would remove a lot of Iran's leverage and I don't think they can really do too much about it. 

Eric Swalwell's campaign for Governor of California has fallen apart after accusations of sexual assault.

 

Congressman Eric Swalwell. New York Post/AP.

Congressman Eric Swalwell's campaign for Governor of California has fallen apart after accusations of sexual assault. New York Post. An anonymous staffer said that Swalwell had sexually assaulted her on two occasions, one in 2019 and another in 2024. In both cases she said she had gotten blackout drunk and woke up the next day with little doubt she had been raped. Swalwell has denied the accusations and even threatened defamation suits, but it still has led to an exodus of staffers and endorsements for the front runner in the California Governor's race. 

My Comment:

I am on record as saying that Swalwell is one of the most disgusting people in politics today and is one of my most hated political enemies. I will never forgive him for threatening to nuke American Citizens just because they didn't want to go along with his assault weapons confiscation scheme. He's been one of the most prominent advocates of gun control in his party and if I was confident that these allegations were true I'd be celebrating the end of his political career. 

But I have serious reservations to the point where I feel I have to defend Swalwell a bit. He absolutely might be guilty but at this point? We should wait for actual proof. Right now there is no way to confirm or deny the accusations against him as we don't even know who the person is that brought them. He hasn't been charged or convicted of any crime and the presumption of innocence should absolutely apply. A man's career should not be ruined because of an anonymous accusation of sexual assault. It has to be on the record with a name attached to it for any real investigation to occur.

Swalwell also denies he has ever had sex with a staffer, consensual or otherwise. Right now it can't be proven that he has done anything at all. The accusations against him are serious and worth investigating but nothing has been done to prove the allegations one way or another. And they appear to be a classic case of "he said, she said" which might just be unprovable either way. Plus, Swalwell doesn't have a history of this kind of thing, as far as I am aware. 

Regardless, the timing of this is extraordinarily suspicious, which is why I am so reluctant to believe the accusations against a man I otherwise hate. Had these accusations come off cycle when there was no huge election I might give them more credibility (Not much more, the accusation being anonymous is a huge red flag). This wasn't done when the incidents occurred, they were done at an absolutely critical time in the California governor's race. 

Some context is necessary here. California has, the frankly ridiculous, open primary system where the top two candidates, regardless of party, advance to the general election. This year two Republicans, Steve Hilton and Chad Bianco were leading in the polls because the Democratic field was far to large. The Democrats needed to get one of the major Democratic candidates to drop out in order to make sure the nightmare scenario for them, two GOP candidates on the ballot in November, didn't occur. 

Taking down Swalwell was the best way to do this. With him either dropping out of the race or damaged to the point of irrelevance, the nightmare scenario will not occur as presumably the voters that were going for Swalwell will go to Tom Steyer or Katie Porter instead. Indeed, it's possible that it will be both of those candidates now instead of Hilton and Bianco. 

This doesn't necessarily mean that these accusations are a fabrication. Indeed, it's possible they are legit and it's just the timing that is suspicious. But I have to think that given these circumstances Swalwell should at least get some benefit of the doubt. He still deserves to lose the Governor's race, after all, lost in all this was the absolute fact that he was for a time compromised by a Chinese Spy. But I can't help but think that this was a plot against him. 

Man accused of murdering Iryna Zarutska found not competent to stand trial.

 

Iryna Zarutska before her death. New York Post.

Decarlos Brown Jr., the man accused of brutally murdering Iryna Zarutska in Charlotte North Carolina has been found not competent to stand trial. New York Post. The finding complicates his state murder charges and will delay the trial 180 days. If the judge in the case decides to accept the report, charges against Brown would be dismissed without prejudice. Under North Carolina law a defendant is found incompetent if they can't understand the charges against them and can't assist with their own defense. Brown is in federal custody for additional charges of violence against a railroad carrier, but has not been mentally evaluated in that case. Zarutska's murder caused massive outrage after it was caught on video and it was revealed that Brown was a habitual offender that was still on the street.  

My Comment:

This is not an unexpected outcome but folks are not going to be happy with it at all. The Iryna Zarutska case was hugely important and anything other than a life sentence or death penalty for Decarlos Brown Jr. is going to be extremely unpopular at the least, and could even lead to changes to how people are found incompetent to stand trial. 

To review, Zarutska was an Ukrainian refugee that fled the war. She was on her way home for work on a Charlotte light rail car. Decarlos Brown Jr. stabbed her in the neck and she died. High quality video of this murder were posted by the government and caused extreme outrage given the pitiful way she died and the total lack of remorse shown by Brown. 

Decarlos Brown Jr. was mentally ill. He was schizophrenic and obviously unwell. But mere mental illness isn't enough to declare someone not competent to stand trial. In order to do so you can't be able to understand the charges against you or help with your defense. It's supposed to be a high bar to clear and without seeing him personally I don't know if he clears that bar or not. 

People are also pointing out that if Brown was so out of it that he can't even understand the charges against him, why was he on the street in the first place? Decarlos Brown Jr. was a menace, having been arrested multiple times, some of them violent. But soft on crime laws let him out on the street and he also wasn't committed. Folks aren't going to tolerate a system where a man can't be held for his crimes and can't be sent to a mental hospital  

The murder of Zarutska might change things, especially in North Carolina. There is already legislation there to make it easier to hold people who have serious mental health concerns and if Brown is found to be permanently unable to stand trial and the case(s) gets dismissed the calls for changes will be even louder. 

Regardless, folks aren't going to be happy about this regardless of the outcome. I do understand that there should be some standards for trying people who are so out of it that they can't even show up in court, but there also has to be some justice. Given the horrific nature of the crime and the outrage already being about how Brown seemed to be immune to actual consequences for his actions, I can't see people accepting anything other than a long prison sentence or an execution. 

Fragile ceasefire between Iran and the United States brokered by Pakistan.

 

President Trump and the Strait of Hormuz. UPI/Getty/Orbital Horizon. 

A fragile ceasefire between Iran and the United States, brokered by Pakistan, has been called in the conflict. Fox News. President Trump had made threats against Iran, preparing a massive strike against Iran's infrastructure and power plants saying it could end the Iranian civilization if a deal was not made. However, a last minute deal, brokered by Pakistan, stopped the fighting for now and will reopen the Strait of Hormuz. Both sides have agreed to start negotiations formally in Pakistan in Islamabad on Friday. 

My Comment:

This is a positive move towards and end to the five week war with Iran. Both sides have some major incentives to end the war and a ceasefire is the first step. But the real question is if the ceasefire will hold and if a real peace deal will be reached. 

To be clear, there is a chance that the deal could fall apart fairly quickly. There are other parties involved besides the Iranian government and the United States. Indeed, the elephant in the room is Israel. They have been more aggressive when it comes to Iran and they want actual regime change as opposed to a simple deal like Trump and Iran want. Israel will probably require, at the very least, and end to the Iranian nuclear program, and end to Iran's ballistic missiles and an end to Iran's support of their proxies, like Hezbollah, Hamas and the Houthis in Yemen. Only the first, ending Iran's nuclear program, is likely to be agreed to. 

Iran could torpedo things on their end too. The Iranian secular government seems incredibly tired of this war and want it to end and it looks like the religious Mullahs want it done too. The real problem is the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC). They have a lot of hardliners and they are in control of some of Iran's forces. They could try to undermine any ceasefire and they actually have been doing so previously. 

Still, this is what is needed to end the war. It's also very possible that talks in Islamabad will end the war. Iran would be allowed to save a little face and Trump will be able to crow that he was able to defeat Iran with very little cost. There's a lot of incentive to make this work and I am cautiously optimistic that it will. 

I will also say that if it does work out it will vindicate a lot of Trump's actions over the past five weeks. Launching this war was controversial to say the least. Folks were mad about it to the point where a lot of folks when fully unhinged. 

But it also shows that brinkmanship does indeed work. Trump launched a very credible threat, one that Iran had to take seriously. If Trump had launched his energy attack it would have destroyed Iran. When a regime can't even keep the lights on that's the end of the road and a major reason why the Ukraine conflict has gone on so long is that Russia has refused to destroy Ukraine's remaining power generation. Seeing this, Iran finally blinked, possibly with a nudge from China as well. 

Some people are accusing Trump of chickening out, but it's a fundamental misunderstanding of what Trump is. He was always going to try and get a deal. It's like nobody has actually read his book, Art of the Deal, or failing that, a summary of it. Of course those people were also claiming that Trump was going to nuke Iran too, so we probably shouldn't be listening to them anyways.   

City councilor in Indianapolis attacked in anti-data center attack.

 

Bullet holes in the councilors home and a no data center note. CBS News/Ron Gibson.

A city councilor in Indianapolis reports that his home was attacked in an anti-data center attack. CBS News. Ron Gibson reported that his house was shot at 13 times at midnight. A note saying "no data centers" was left at the door. He was with his 8 year old son at the time, and neither were injured. Data centers are used for AI applications but have come under heavy criticism due to the effects on energy prices, water usage and reducing jobs. Gibson was advocating for a new data center in Indianapolis at a recent meeting and faced heavy opposition. 

My Comment:

Of all the things to get upset by, a new data center doesn't seem like it should be one of them. Certainly not to the point where you are trying murder people who disagree with you. That's obviously an extreme reaction, but it baffles me that opposition to an AI datacenter is that extreme. It's lucky that nobody was hurt and the fact that an 8 year old was put at risk is outrageous. I hope this shooter is caught and punished to the full extent of the law. 

To be fair, AI datacenters do have disadvantages for locals. They use a lot of water, most of which ends up being evaporated into the atmosphere. In arid regions where water use is already a problem, I could see that being a legitimate concern. Indiana is not one of those regions, they have the Great Lakes and many rivers to cool these data centers down. 

Power use is another problem and it does lead to higher prices. These datacenters do suck up power like nobody's business and some of those costs are put on consumers. This is compounded by the fact that the same NIMBY people who hate datacenters also hate building new powerplants, most notably nuclear ones. 

There's also general opposition to AI in general. Folks are indeed afraid that they are going to lose their jobs to AI and that isn't really inaccurate. A lot of tech jobs, for example, have already been lost and many of the white collar "do nothing daycare" jobs will probably go away as well. Stopping data centers isn't going fix that but people feel like doing something to oppose AI given how much of a major social change it is. Indeed, I feel a bit of this myself as it's pretty obvious that this blog is obsolete when AI chatbots exist...

Still, the AI genie is fully out of the bottle and these data centers are going to be built somewhere. The demand for more AI generation is extreme, and unless there is a massive crash in AI demand, more data centers will be needed. 

I would rather these data centers be built in the United States. Sure, there are some places they shouldn't be built, like anywhere with water issues, but I absolutely don't want what could be critical infrastructure to be built in foreign countries where China or other adversaries could target them. AI is going to be important and I don't want the United States to be cut off because NIMBY's couldn't deal with it. 

And it's not like the datacenters don't have benefits as well. They do involve some high paying construction jobs and when complete there are also some well paying maintenance tech jobs as well. Those jobs can help locals. Plus there is a large property tax base that these datacenters can provide which will offset some of the costs. 

Regardless, the pro and anti-datacenter arguments should remain those. When folks are shooting up the homes of politicians then things have gotten too heated too quickly. I do think that the anti-datacenter people are going to win a lot of these fights but if they keep resorting to violence it's not going to go well for them...