(7 September 2026) We have been watching events centered on Iran and its regime, waiting for escalation of what looks to be the Second Signpost.
We have been watching since February 28. The Strait of Hormuz was mostly closed from March 2 to August 23 or so, being about 175 days. The Strait was sporadically open, and is now basically closed, although there are rumors of oil tankers getting through.
Oil Price At $100 Again
This Newsmax story reports that oil is again almost $100 per barrel, as Iran attacked anew an Aramco facility in Saudi Arabia. That refinery processes 400,000 barrels of oil per day.
The regime has just shown it still has the capability to attack and shut down oil refineries.
Regime Threatens Faster and Heavier Responses
In this second Newsmax story, it is reported that the Speaker of Iran’s parliament stated,
“From now on, any attack against Iran’s interests and security will receive a faster, heavier and more painful response.”
Conclusion
The idea that the regime could hit anything after the first ten days of US bombing Iran seemed fanciful. Yet here we are, 6 months later, with the Persian Ram still projecting its power on to an Arab oil refinery, bringing down its operation.
To get the Second Signpost going, the regime would need to bring down much of the Arab oil pumping and/or refining. It doesn’t have to be all at once. Maybe one every three days or so would be all it takes. The second horseman may operate quickly or slowly.
Keep watch.
Categories: In The News, Signpost #2: Iran, World in the End Times
THE FOUR SIGNPOSTS 
In one sense, things developing slowly is a blessing. Individuals and governments that have their eyes open can then cope better with the consequences, and roughly guess where we are going, so they can prepare for things remaining the same for the foreseeable future, or getting worse slowly.
In another sense, things developing slowly is a curse. For individuals and governments that choose to remain blind will not adjust and not prepare. They just keep betting on everything magically going back to what we were used to in an overseeable timeframe.
Should we have had a big oil/fuel shock in the first few months of the war, nobody would have had the luxury to remain blind. Both governments and individuals would have become frugal quickly, and taken and accepted all sorts of emergency measures. Strategic reserves would be used up much slower and much wiser, only to ramp up construction of all sorts of things to help move away from oil as quickly as possible and as far as possible. Probably the financial bubbles would have burst too, sobering up even the finance people, forcing even them to acknowledge reality.
But as it is, the situation develops much in the favour of Iran and, to an extent, also China.
Fortunately, not everybody in the world chooses to remain blind. In recent days there was much attention in the news that the Dutch Central Bank (DNB) immediately after the Gulf war started, moved most of its gold out of the USA and Canada to the UK and the Netherlands itself. In case of a huge crisis, with a desperate US government and with less shipping across the Atlantic, it is better to have your gold right at hand than across the Atlantic. Before World War II the DNB saw reality too, and moved its gold to America so it never fell in the hands of the Nazi’s. Part of it was brought back to Europe immediately after the Ukraine war started, and now most of the rest is back too.
Like oil from different fields has different compositions, all gold is not equal too. Its purity varies, and so does the weight per type of bar. The DNB countered this too, by selling its lower-grade gold and buying the best grade in the worldwide most easily accepted weight. All of this was finished in August. In principle this strategic gold reserve is meant to never be used. Yet the recent measures show that the DNB is preparing for a situation in which it really has to be used out of dire need.
Of now, governments can no longer fail to notice that gasoline and diesel are getting ever more expensive despite emptying strategic oil reserves. So both the US government and European governments last week asked their oil refiners to blend their products more with bio-fuel. Many plant oils like olive, palm and sunflower oil can be added to diesel without having to change the engines, just as ethanol (alcohol, mostly made from sugar) can be added to gasoline for cars without having to change the engines.
The industry has answered that they technically can do this, but that it will not lower the fuel prices at all. On the contrary, this will make the fuel prices higher still. For we no longer have a cheap surplus of plant oils and sugar in the world. Because of higher transport costs, lack of fertiliser, high fertiliser prices, lack of food export from Ukraine and Russia, and the upcoming severe El Nino, the prices of plant oil and ethanol are rising rapidly. Sugar prices are even skyrocketing.
Yet in the near future this blending probably will be done anyway, when governments are forced to acknowledge and mitigate critical fuel shortages. Then we will end up in the evil situation where the price of fuel is not only paid in dollars and euros, but also in numbers of humans starved to death because their food is in our tanks. I am afraid though that this number will not be displayed at the pump when you fill your car or truck.
Adamant: That reminds me of an article I read two decades ago in Mother Earth News. I found a recent updated version of it from 2022. https://www.motherearthnews.com/sustainable-living/green-transportation/run-a-diesel-vehicle-on-vegetable-oil-zmaz07djzgoe/
I hope these seeds oils will not damage engines as they damage the bodies that consumes them.
And I hope that we NEVER go back to a national 55 mph speed limit to solve our energy problems.