Tea at Trianon: How Iran-Backed Pirates in Yemen Are Raising Your Gas Price

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Sunday, September 13, 2026

How Iran-Backed Pirates in Yemen Are Raising Your Gas Price

From Tierney's Real News:

Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthis just seized the strategic port of Mocha (Mokha), pushed into the coastal town of Dhubab, and took Perim Island (also known as Mayyun) in the heart of the Bab el-Mandeb Strait. Multiple reports confirm the group now effectively controls Yemen’s entire Red Sea coastline and the critical island that splits the narrow strait’s shipping lanes.
The stretch between Perim and Ras Siyyan in Djibouti is the most narrow point of strait, measuring just 20 km. This will give the Houthis excellent opportunities to block this maritime trade route leading up to the Suez Canal. If the Houthis decide to expand their naval blockade from just Saudi ships to all international cargo vessels, then all maritime trade will have to be rerouted around Africa again.
Bab el-Mandeb is the southern gateway connecting the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden—the “other” strait that has become Saudi Arabia’s primary remaining outlet for crude. It normally carries about 10–12% of global seaborne trade and, pre-crisis, 8–9+ million barrels per day of oil and products. India, China, Japan, South Korea and others depend on it for Middle Eastern and Russian crude.
The Houthi forces have publicly stated that their blockade explicitly targets Saudi-linked shipping. Despite their public assurances that wider international commercial traffic is safe, energy markets react to the geographic proximity of heavy weapons to a channel that is only 18 miles wide. (Read more.)