I hate it when Republicans do this; I might hate it more when Democrats do it

Governor Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania has decided what kids in his state need to learn. It’s cursive handwriting.

Letting our kids be kids also means getting back to the basics. That’s why, earlier this year, | signed into law a bipartisan bill that requires cursive handwriting to be taught in Pennsylvania schools.
It may seem strange, but cursive handwriting is a fundamental skill that all of our kids should learn. They may not get why now, but that’s how they’ll sign their very first check — or maybe even someday, a bill that gets to the Governor’s desk (trust me, you’ll want good penmanship for that).

Nope. It’s not an essential skill anymore. You can sign a check with a barely legible scrawl…it’s still accepted. The President of the US can sign bills with a peculiar string of pointy squiggles that is completely illegible…it still works, unfortunately. When I have to sign a series of papers, it starts out OK, but I use a kind of sloppy block printing, and by the time I’m done the “yers” in my last name has eroded down into a kind of uneven flood plain. That’s a really stupid reason to force kids to write in cursive.

Also, Shapiro has a law degree, not an education degree. He is not qualified to tell people what educational initiatives are “fundamental”. Leave that to educators.

It reminds me of my early disaffection with Bill Gates. He was doing all this philanthropy, and one of his pet projects was reforming US education…by taking it out of the hands of teachers and promoting charter schools. Like Bill Gates, Shapiro is meddling in subjects in which he has no authority and is going to end up doing more harm to education.

We need to topple a wanna-be king

It’s happening again this weekend. NO KINGS. Protest on Saturday.

I signed up to participate in the march in Morris at 1:00 Saturday afternoon. Then I saw there’s another march in Cyrus, less than 10 miles away, at 2:30, so I signed up for that one, too. I only regret that the constraints of space and time forbid me from participating in every protest march everywhere on that day.

Down with Trump!

Hell is an American airport

Today is the day the Trump administration is sending ICE into our airports, to help reduce long lines. Does anyone actually believe that?

Donald Trump and his border czar, Tom Homan, have followed through on promises from the president’s administration to send in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents to US airports beginning on Monday to assist with security amid extremely long lines – and to help airport security agents who have been working without pay since 14 February because of a partial government shutdown.

I fail to see how adding more overbearing security to a system that is already packed with pointless security theater will help the lines. I also wonder if these ICE goons will be armed and masked? It sounds like a recipe for greater chaos and inefficiency to me, and that it’s really a strategy for increasing fear and tension.

Take a look at the current situation. Will ICE actually help?

To amplify the problem, check out this video on Bluesky.

Incredible scene: Travelers wait on hours-long security line at George Bush International Airport in Houston while Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the USA” blasts through the speakers.

Yeah. Long lines plus Lee Greenwood? This is precisely what Hell would look like.

My experience with air travel in the last few years has been absolutely miserable and convinced me that I never want to fly anywhere ever again…and it’s gotten even worse.

Madman at the wheel

On Friday, we got one confusing message from our president.

“I don’t want to do a ceasefire. You know you don’t do a ceasefire when you’re literally obliterating the other side,” he told journalists at the White House.

However, later on Friday night, he wrote on his Truth Social platform that the US was considering “winding down” military operations in Iran. “We are getting very close to meeting our objectives as we consider winding down our great Military efforts in the Middle East with respect to the Terrorist Regime of Iran,” he wrote.

The reports that Washington is considering plans to occupy or blockade Kharg Island come despite earlier suggestions by Trump that he was not leaning towards putting “boots on the ground”.

I approve of the “winding down” idea, and in fact favor apologizing, offering reparations, and skedaddling out of the region. Unfortunately, those two words mean something different to the lunatic who started this whole mess.

Donald Trump said he was considering “winding down” military operations in the Middle East even as the US is reportedly sending three more amphibious assault ships and roughly 2,500 additional marines to the region.

Sending in more assault ships and marines doesn’t sound much like a “winding down.” That sounds more like escalating and threatening greater engagement. Especially since he has now delivered an ultimatum.

Donald Trump has given Iran 48 hours to reopen the strait of Hormuz to shipping or face the destruction of its energy infrastructure, as Tehran launched its most destructive attack yet on Israel.

The ultimatum, made just a day after the US president said he was considering “winding down” military operations after three weeks of war, came as the key oil passage remained effectively closed and thousands more US Marines headed to the Middle East.

Trump wrote on Truth Social that the US would “hit and obliterate” Iranian power plants – “starting with the biggest one first” – if Tehran did not fully reopen the strait within 48 hours, or 23:44 GMT on Monday according to the time of his post.

I think the “winding down” comment was nothing but TACO’s instincts coming to the fore — I suspect he’s sweating over the fact that a disastrous decision is coming back to bite him in the butt, and he’d like to chicken out if he could find a way to save face while doing so. I doubt that Iran will give him a way, and so…get ready for a half-assed, stupidly managed attack on Kharg Island that will leave a lot of American soldiers dead. He’s just going to vacillate for a bit before committing to an even bigger blunder.

Breaking news: TRUMP ALWAYS CHICKENS OUT.

I AM PLEASE TO REPORT THAT THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, AND THE COUNTRY OF IRAN, HAVE HAD, OVER THE LAST TWO DAYS, VERY GOOD AND PRODUCTIVE CONVERSATIONS REGARDING A COMPLETE AND TOTAL RESOLUTION OF OUR HOSTILITIES IN THE MIDDLE EAST. BASED ON THE TENOR AND TONE OF THESE IN DEPTH, DETAILED, AND CONSTRUCTIVE CONVERSATIONS, WITCH WILL CONTINUE THROUGHOUT THE WEEK, I HAVE INSTRUCTED THE DEPARTMENT OF WAR TO POSTPONE ANY AND ALL MILITARY STRIKES AGAINST IRANIAN POWER PLANTS AND ENERGY INFRASTRUCTURE FOR A FIVE DAY PERIOD.

So what’s happening with all the assault ships and marines heading to the Strait of Hormuz? It sounds now like he’s calling the whole thing off.

Good.

I don’t like this feeling of deja vu

I’m a child of the 1950s, and I grew up with those stupid duck-and-cover drills and a general feeling of fear. The threat was that a foreign power might decide to shut down the US for their advantage, and the fear would escalate with the amount of sabre-rattling we’d hear from elsewhere. We were also concerned about the Strangelove scenario — what if a madman got control of our nuclear arsenal?

Now we have the new nightmare: what if we had a conventional war with all sides shouting hatred AND a madman with a finger on the button? That’s where we’re at now: our president has staked his already massive ego on achieving a quick, easy victory over Iran, which isn’t going to happen. He’s gone from claiming that there will be a quick surgical strike to we’ve already won the war to begging for $200 billion to continue the war. The polls are plummeting, the public is finding him unpopular, and we know how much his ego hinges on his poll numbers. As the war worsens, as the oil stops flowing, as we eventually decide to back off because we can’t afford to continue, someone is going to be looking for a quick fix. And if that someone is remarkably stupid, launching a few tactical nukes will look increasingly attractive.

I’ve been checking out my desk. There’s room under there, I’d fit.

How to respond to a death

Robert Mueller has died. It’s not that I have strong feelings about this guy, but I was pleased to see that Donald Trump did have strong feelings.

Robert Mueller just died. Good, I’m glad he’s dead. He can no longer hurt innocent people! President DONALD J. TRUMP

Remember this! When the old orange dotard finally dies, he has nicely set an example of the appropriate response. “Donald J. Trump just died. Good, I’m glad he’s dead. He can no longer hurt innocent people!” It’s perfect!

Fascinating things I learned today

We get helium as a byproduct of liquified natural gas processing. So it’s a nice side effect of our dependence on oil.

I did not know that.

Helium is heavily used by the semiconductor industry. Making all those fancy high end chips requires helium in the process.

I had no idea.

30% of the world’s helium supply is extracted in Qatar, which ships it the semiconductor manufacturers in Japan, South Korea, Singapore, and Taiwan.

There are all kinds of surprises in the global supply chain.

The ships that transport that crucial element are currently bottled up in the Strait of Hormuz.

I can see where this is going.

Iran just blew up one of Qatar’s helium plants.

Uh-oh.

All this destruction was triggered by a rogue American president, who is also a raging asshole and incompetent moron.

At least I already knew that!

I hope no one was hoping to get a new computer (or an MRI) in the future.

Oh, and hey, if you’ve got a birthday coming up, maybe ixnay on the artypay alloonsbay. They just seem wasteful.

What’s with all the pedos nowadays?

They’ve been here all the time, but somehow were allowed to continue to assault children. I don’t get it. This ought to be one of the greatest taboos in our society. We regard abusers of children as the lowest of the low, when they are caught, but when they’re running free our institutions seem to actively protect them.

The latest story is that another Duggar man has been caught. Joseph Duggar, one of the swarm of children exploited by The “Learning” Channel TLC in their show “19 Kids and Counting” has been arrested.

Former reality TV star Joseph Duggar is facing a child molestation charge in Florida, almost five years after his brother Josh, who also starred in the TLC show “19 Kids and Counting,” was convicted of downloading child sexual abuse images.

Joseph Duggar, 31, was arrested in Arkansas, where he lives, and was awaiting extradition to Florida on Thursday. Duggar is charged with lewd and lascivious behavior on a child under 12 years old, according to an arrest affidavit from the Bay County Sheriff’s Office in Panama City, Florida.

Police officers in Tontitown, Arkansas, on Wednesday contacted deputies in Bay County, saying they had interviewed a 14-year-old girl who told them that Duggar had molested her several times during a family trip to Panama City Beach when she was age 9, according to the affidavit.

Remember that that show was cancelled in 2015 when Joseph’s brother Josh had abused his sisters and a babysitter. He’s in prison for that right now. I guess raping children was a family tradition. He’s from a Baptist family whose only claim to fame was a self-righteous belief that they should have more children than they could care for, and were further entitled by a terrible television network that thought it was entertaining to pump up their privilege by pretending they were role models. Maybe the parents and a few network executives should also be spending some time in a jail cell.

But if you thought the Duggar family saga was appalling enough, get a load of this. The Epstein files have been redacted and censored and hidden away under the shelter of an evil witch, Pam Bondi, who really doesn’t want the truth about her boss, Donald Trump, revealed. But there’s a way around that: congress people have been able to read the uncensored version, and here Representative Dan Goldman reads aloud one of the passages that the Republicans don’t want you to hear.

Trump tried to compel a 13-15 year old girl to perform oral sex on him, she was disgusted and bit him, so he struck her and called her a “bitch”. I am further disgusted by him.

Put Deviant Donald in a prison right next to Josh and Joseph Duggar. That’s one way to prevent him from bombing other countries to distract from his molesting of children.

But somehow we’ve got to fix this problem of rapacious older men attacking children — I don’t have an answer because I can’t even comprehend wanting to do such things.

The mad tyrant speaks

Well, we know that gas prices are rising, the Strait of Hormuz is closed, oil tankers are stacking up before the strait, bombs are falling on Tehran, Tel Aviv, and all kinds of nearby countries, and honestly, I don’t know what’s happening or what’s going to happen, because my country is being run by a senile madman. Also, the media aren’t helping. For instance, here’s a report from Bloomberg that says that Trump is adamant and is going to keep the pressure on.

A senior Arabian Gulf official warned that it would ultimately only be the sustained rise in oil prices that would force Trump to stop fighting and claim victory, leaving regional allies to deal with the residual threat from a wounded and angry Iran.

For the moment, Trump is vowing to continue the campaign, claiming he’s not ready for a deal — though Iran is. Officials in Tehran remain convinced they can outlast the mercurial US leader, but the damage is mounting.

He shouldn’t have started this war in the first place, but OK, he’s taking a position. A stupid position, but let’s deal with it. Except this is the very next paragraph:

Trump pivoted sharply over the weekend to calling for other countries to join the fray to reopen the strait — a possibility seen in those capitals as ranging from questionable to fanciful. From his Florida golf course, Trump sent a string of mixed messages on social media, calling for support in a war he’s said repeatedly he’s won, and for help in a strait his administration has insisted remains open. He claimed Saturday that Iran wanted a deal, which Iran dismissed.

So now he’s begging for aid from his “allies” to reopen the strait while simultaneously claiming that he has “won” his “war”, if that’s what they’re calling it now. What’s obvious is that Trump done fucked up, has delusions of grandeur, and is going to continue to screw up the world. Now he’s talking about “taking” Cuba.

He can do whatever he wants, and the institutions of the United States, the Supreme Court and Congress, will do nothing to oppose him…while 30% of the country is also cheerleading for his insanely destructive assault on responsible leadership.

We’re the most dangerous country in the world. This is not going to end well, and we’ll deserve it.