GENIUS trolling about the "Golden Dome"

 Ben Cohen NAILS IT.  No joke

RantWoman finds this gesture hilarious on multiple counts.

The US is down one AWACS and ...

#MiddleEast #Excursion

If a country has a little excursion that goes all "kinetic," but leaves a bunch of very expensive military hardware out in sight of satellites and much cheaper drones....

Can you spot the arguments that might be made for more, more, more defense spending?

Update and The real humanitarian disaster in the Strait of Hormuz: 20,000 mariners stuck with dwindling supplies, fuel, fresh food and water

#Iran #Shipping

Various takeaways:

President #StableGenius is apparently misrepresenting the degree to which the Strait of Hormuz is open, as in a daily single digit trickle of ships apparently sailing in Iranian territorial waters and paying a toll to Iran.

Interesting video of an actual shipping transiting the Strait.

Big ships are pretty resilient to missile and drone attacks

20,000 stuck on vessels with problems about supplies because the ships are not moving. See long description from X on the other side of the video

<

Absolutely right to highlight the human tragedy behind the headlines. While geopolitics and shipping lanes dominate discussions, we must not forget the 20,000–40,000 seafarers trapped on stranded vessels in the Persian Gulf amid the ongoing conflict. Many face severe shortages of… https://t.co/feSjhTZTjn

— Pravesh Jain (@PRAVESHPARAS) April 1, 2026

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Happy Transgender Day of Visibility 2 Remembering Mateo Hayes Hansen

 RantWoman lifts up many Friends who have found freedom among Friends to be fully who they are. RantWoman especially wants to lift up two people in her orbit.

Here, slightly edited are comments RantWoman posted elewhere.

Remember last year? Some of RantWoman's social media was filled with complaints that transgender people were trying to steal Easter because Transgender Day of Visibility fell on or near Easter. Here are two people especially to lift up, whether it's Easter or not.

Julia P. memorable for favoring Value village formal wear for daytime events. Julia and her friend Maria are both deaf-blind and have many stories about interpreter challenges. They now live somewhere in CA.

Mateo Hayes Hansen of Bellingham who passed away recently. RantWoman has known Mateo since before he transitioned so RantWoman has to keep checking herself to avoid deadnaming him. Mateo was a special ed teacher. He lost vision in mid-life and for a time was not in contact with Friends in places where he had previously worshipped. RantWoman never had the impression that he was interested in either blindness consumer group in spite of his tireless encouragement to RantWoman to keep speaking up about ableism and patience with other Friends struggling with vision loss.

 Here is an article about his life, including his gender & sexuality journey to becoming himself: https://www.westernfriend.org/magazine/attunement/attuning-to-the-self/

For RantWoman it is remarkable that the article mentions nothing about Mateo's blindness even though he and his guide dog Batik and RantWoman did a presentation one time for the children's class at our Quaker meeting.  Children sometimes are much more interested in guide dogs than in the humans who come with them. Enough said?

Mateo served on the board of Western Friend, wrote at least one book of historical fiction about Quaker history and is remembered for many insights.

RantWoman will link further information when a memorial minute is published.

Happy Transgender Day of Visibility 1. love #SCOTUS

 RantWoman is NOT a deep scholar of the US Supreme Court or of first amendment freedom of speech issues. RantWoman is not letting that deter from a couple comments about the Supreme Court announcing its ruling overturning the part of the CO law that bans conversion therapy as practiced against people struggling with their sexuality and / or gender identity.

Will RantWoman follow Justice Sotomayor's persistent recommendation to READ THE OPINIONS? Maybe.

Does RantWoman concur with what has been reported about Justice Jackson's view? YES, the kind of speech that the CO law is trying to bar absolutely is harmful. 

But as long as the court is going to hang its opnion on freedom of speech issues, speaking out loudly and clearly and embracing people for who they are becomes even more essential than before.

What's going on with Shipping: March 30 and ways to fact check the President

#Iran #Shipping

The President is misrepresenting the number of ships actually getting through the Strait of Hormuz

Why are there still 5 US merchant marine vessels in the Persian Gulf even if military vessels are out of there?

Cyclones affedt LNG, on top of damage to production facility in Bahrain.

Who gets oil from where.

Australia specifics.

Oil markets and shipping markets

 Tons of shipping jargon

The Biggest oil shock in history: Bloomberg

#Iran #Israel

Happy Monday world. Happy Holy Week. Happy Holy war? 

The view from Korea

You are being kept in the dark on this

Matt Goetz says boots on the ground are a bad idea.