Thursday, April 2, 2026

What's Going on with Shipping today: SOME ships going through the Strait of Hormuz

#Iran #StraitOfHormuz


RantWoman is presenting coverage from sources she considers well-informed. Presenting information is not necessarily endorsement of specific policy recommendations.


 Random takeaways:

President #StableGenius is bonkers. For example US Merchant Marine academy cadets stuck on ships in the Persian Gulf.


One reference to something US troops MIGHT be doing 


Ship passage appears to be in national territorial waters, Iran to the N and someone else to the S.


RantWoman cynical comment: the oil market is global. If global prices go up, US oil companies are going to make out like bandits at least for awhile.


Sal says it could take MONTHS to straighten out the impact on world trade of having the Strait of Hormuz closed as long as it has been.


Recreational Blood Pressure elevation but not only from Ambassador Bolton

#Iran

#NuclearWeapons


RantWoman definitely does not share every assumption articulated by Ambassador Bolton but does find some of his commentary informative and relevant. 


RantWoman will spell out issues with assumptions elsewhere.



Rep. Moskowitz is my hero: oversight of the Pentagon compared to just taking an ax to US-AID

 2.5 TRILLION dollars cannot be accounted for by the Pentagon.

And who has $200 BILLION for more #WarOfChoice in the middle east?


Channel description describes sources in general terms.

Comments refer to "AI slop." RantWoman caught one inaccuracy but is not going to listen again to point it out. Anyway, approach with care.

RantWoman is going to subscribe at least for a little while to see what gets cranked out and how the quality looks.

Wednesday, April 1, 2026

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



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Tuesday, March 31, 2026

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.