Matisyahu's Blog

I went for another walk today – three days in a row and the weather was a big miserable with plenty of drizzle but I didn’t get too damp. I set my alarm to 10:00 am which is a reduction from 10:30 am but eventually next week I want to get it down to 9:30 am which will give me 30 minutes to get out of bed, get changed, do some stretches, got for my walk, come back at around 11:20-11:30 am then I’ll have a shower which will give me plenty of time to either relax before work or catch the train into the office.

Google released another update to Chrome which updated the version from Version 150.0.7871.182 to Version 150.0.7871.187. There were four security fixes included with it (link) and an update for Edge was also released – I don’t use it on my work computer but the Outlook client makes use of the Edge rendering engine so it is important to keep it up to date. It would be good if Google did some ‘deep dives’ in terms of the methodology of picking up these security bugs internally – how much of it is uBlock Origin Lite 2026.723.1724 was released today and it is in the Edge extension store however it hasn’t arrived yet in the Chrome store or the Apple App Store.

There has been discussions online regarding the rumoured leak of JD Vance saying that if the US is to go to war then it has to be ‘all in’. Some on the left view this as JD Vance showing his true posture when it comes to interventions when compared to what he said on the campaign trail but I’d beg to differ. I have to say straight off the bat that I’m not a fan of JD Vance or the Trump administration but then again that shouldn’t be surprising to anyone who reads my blog. I think the point that JD Vance was trying to make is that when you do something like an intervention you need to remember two things, a) do not have romanticised ideas b) if you’re going to do it then you’re all in or don’t do it at all.

The reason I think JD Vance said that because politicians have a habit of jumping into something with a whole lot of gusto right up to the point that it starts to become politically unpalatable and then try to ‘cut and run’ resulting in the situation being worse than if they never did the invention in the first place. The problem with Trump is that when things gets tough he tries to back out – that may work when it comes to really poorly thought through domestic policies but if you’re going to enact regime change then it isn’t the moment to suddenly back track – you cannot uncrack an egg or put toothpaste back in the tube.

As for what I would have done, the US should have returned to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) and if there was evidence that Iran wasn’t living up to their side of the agreement then the I would bring that evidence to the other countries involved with the agreement and come to some sort of solution. End of the day the agreement was only written to deal with one thing and one thing only – for the Republicans to incessantly whine about peripheral issues not being addressed tells me that the Republican strategy. That strategy isn’t about coming up with a solution but rather to create a pretense to justify regime change by dragging out the negotiations then claiming that there is no partner for peace on the other side – just as they’re doing right now.