Simon Vandore

@shanaka86 Pre-war it was 250+ tankers weekly.

The Strait of Hormuz is not closed. It is filtered. And the filter selects for ships that break American sanctions. TankerTrackers published its satellite-verified count just while ago today. Since March 1, 108 tankers have departed the strait. Before the war, approximately 130 to 138 vessels passed through every day. The flow has collapsed by 95 percent. But it has not stopped. Three tankers per day are getting through. The question the data answers is not how many. It is which ones. Seventy-eight of the 108 are known sanctions violators. That is 72 percent. Of the 31 VLCCs, the supertankers that carry the largest crude cargoes, 29 are sanctions violators. Ninety-four percent. Of the 20 LPG tankers, 12 are violators. Only one sanctions-compliant LNG tanker has passed through the strait in 35 days of war. One. The legal fleet is locked out. The illegal fleet sails freely. The IRGC’s toll system has inverted the normal order of international shipping: compliance is punished, violation is rewarded. The 29 supertankers that passed are heading east. Their transponders are dark. Their flags are convenience registrations. Their cargoes are Iranian crude sold to Chinese refiners at negotiated discounts off a physical price that the closure itself inflated to $140. The IRGC vets them, charges a toll in yuan or stablecoins, issues a clearance code, and escorts them through the Larak corridor. The sanctions violators are the IRGC’s customers. The strait is their service. The toll is their invoice. And the war that closed the strait to legal traffic created the scarcity premium that makes the illegal traffic profitable enough to justify the risk. Iran’s oil exports continue at approximately 1.1 to 1.5 million barrels per day through this shadow fleet, and revenue has reportedly doubled because every barrel sells at war-inflated prices. The IRGC is not blocking oil. It is curating oil. It decides who passes and who burns. The selection criterion is simple: if you comply with American sanctions, you do not transit. If you violate them, you pay the toll and sail under escort. The system rewards the behaviour the United States has spent two decades trying to eliminate. The 30 compliant tankers that made it through represent the negotiated exceptions: Indian LPG carriers brokered through diplomatic channels, one Japanese LNG vessel, Pakistani-flagged ships using transit slots purchased from Islamabad, and a handful of Omani and French vessels that paid the toll directly. These are the countries that negotiated bilaterally with the IRGC or through intermediaries in Beijing. Every one of them submitted documentation, passed geopolitical vetting, and paid in a currency that is not the dollar. The “legal” transits are themselves a form of de-dollarisation, conducted outside SWIFT, settled in yuan or crypto, and approved by a sanctioned military organisation operating as a sovereign customs authority. One hundred and eight tankers in 35 days. Seventy-eight sanctions violators. Twenty-nine of thirty-one supertankers running dark. One compliant LNG vessel. The strait is open for business. The business is sanctions evasion. And the entity operating the customs desk is the same organisation the United States designated as a foreign terrorist organisation in 2019. The world’s most critical waterway is now a sorting mechanism that separates ships that comply with American sanctions from ships that do not, and charges admission only to those who violate the regime the waterway’s former guarantor built. The sanctions are still on the books. The enforcer has lost control of the gate. open.substack.com/pub/shanakaans…

@ekkesqrn @shanaka86 The price of oil is the price of oil.

@shanaka86 Could you elaborate on the ways in which this is relevant to domestic American markets?

@robbystarbuck @WilliamShatner @marychastain Cigars

@WilliamShatner @marychastain You look 60. What are you eating???

At 95, I'm still smokin'! 😝 I’ve learned two things: Never waste a good cigar. Never trust anyone who says you should ‘act your age.’ 😉👍🏻

Footage shows a fire burning near Dubai International Airport after a drone ignited a fuel tank, according to authorities in the UAE. Flights have been suspended. Civil defence crews say the blaze is under control.

Nobody: Absolutely nobody: Hardware people: lets get doom running on a pregnancy test

All flights to and from Dubai have been temporarily suspended. Please do not go to the airport. Emirates will share updates when available. We would like to thank our customers for their understanding and patience. The safety of our passengers and crew is our highest priority and will not be compromised.

@supremeMilo @TheRickWilson @NickMorin8 Even if you have 600, that's 170 days' supply at the rate of damage in the past 2 days.

@TheRickWilson @NickMorin8 I thought the same and then I found out we have 600.

Dear God.

@DBCoope16925665 @WarshipCam They don't need any names now.

@WarshipCam Minefield clearing ships need names like USS Leroy Jenkins

Merchant vessel Seaway Hawk transporting decommissioned U.S. Navy Avenger-class Mine Countermeasures Ships USS Devastator, USS Dextrous, USS Gladiator and USS Sentry in the Delaware Bay to unload in Philadelphia tomorrow - March 9, 2026 SRC: FB- Delaware River Shipping / Andy Wyrick 📷

The 4 minesweepers we had in the Gulf arrived in Philadelphia yesterday to be scrapped and decommissioned.

NBC EXCLUSIVE: Trump has privately shown serious interest in US ground troops in Iran His comments have been focused on the idea of a small contingent of troops that would be used for specific purposes, sources tell @ckubeNBC @katiadoyl @glubold & me nbcnews.com/politics/white…

This story is actually insane: • dude drops $2000 on a DJI robot vacuum like a lunatic • refuses to use the normal app like a peasant • Sammy Azdoufal fires up Claude to crack the API so he can drive it with an xbox controller • Claude delivers the goods • pulls an auth token from their servers, connects successfully • except the system thinks he controls 7000 vacuums • checks again • yep, seven thousand • DJI built authentication with zero device ownership verification • any valid token works for any unit on the planet • Sammy now has eyes inside homes across 24 countries • live vacuum camera feeds everywhere • full floor plans from the mapping data • some guy in germany eating cereal at 3am, unaware his roomba is snitching • one API call away from being the most informed burglar in history • all he wanted was to steer his vacuum with a joystick • does the right thing and reports it • DJI fixes it in two days • back to normal life with his stupidly expensive floor cleaner • IoT companies stay undefeated at shipping garbage security

Go for it.

Billy Joel could do a whole new We Didn’t Start the Fire just about the last week

“Luckily they are not based on real life experiences and these things definitely did not happen at this hotel,” Lily Allen quipped before performing “Tennis” at Chateau Marmont during Chanel’s Coco Crush campaign party with Gracie Abrams.

Lily Allen can't help but chuckle as she sings an acoustic version of "P---- Palace" at Chanel’s Coco Crush dinner.

It would be nice if some of the Twitter diaspora returned. So many creatives, but also many developers, that generally enriched the experience are no longer active. Those that performatively left and those with a seething hatred of Elon probably won’t be back soon, but a lot of people just disengaged on vague cultural grounds that can be reevaluated. There are probably some technical tweaks to the algorithm that could make them more comfortable. I don’t mind the existence of independent echo chambers that people are happy within. There is only a problem when some echo chambers are allowed and others aren’t. Reach out to lapsed friends!

For almost 60 years, I have been the sole suppository of wisdom for News Ltd. Now evicted by Rupert and Lachlan. Flags to half mast

No. I will enter the new year and exit on 12/31/26 like everyone else. 😑

Wow i can’t believe it but I have just been informed that I will be receiving the Bulwark Peace Prize. It’s an annual award that was started last month. What an honor. We have saved millions of lives.