Random Notes from a Crank

I got this image and quotation from some dude's Bluesky posting. It's true. 

Poltico has a good article about how gas prices are hopefully a major issue that voters take into account when they vote in the midterms: "A 'Sleeper Issue' in Red States This Fall: Diesel Prices." 

I've written about this important issue in a previous post: "Musing of the Moment: US Debt, Gas Prices, & Inflation." 

I agree with the professor quoted in the Politico article about how the Democrats are not seizing on this issue like they should. They need to talk less about "oligarchs and the billionaires" and more about pocketbook issues related to high gas prices, inflation, and food safety. 

Keep it simple stupid: Talk about affordability issues. 

MAME: Making America More Expensive

I'm in Week 2 of my basic writing class that I'm teaching, and based on the results of my second reading quiz, I can already tell who has a strong chance of passing the class and who is more likely not to pass. 

Reading what I assign, paying attention, and coming to class on time make a difference.

Random Notes from a Crank

Existential Comics is back it again by taking down Plato through David Hume. The comic explains why people vote for imbeciles and take positions on issues without a lot of forethought. 

As reported by The New York Times, The U.S. is back to bombing civilians in Iran: "New U.S. Missile Hit Iranian Sports Hall and School, Analysis Shows." 

As a result of President Adolf "excursion" (sarcasm intended), gas prices are skyrocketing, especially the price of diesel that drives up the costs of lot of products because semis haul all kinds of stuff around the U.S. 

Inflation and possibly stagflation here we are. 

Making America More Expensive

And the idiotic attacks on Iran are simply going to create less safety for Americans because many terrrorist groups are aligned with Iran from a philsophical standpoint. 

Making America More Dangerous

Here are some interesting stats and figures from the March "Harper's Index":

• Portion of people detained by ICE between October 1 and November 15, 2025 who had a prior violent criminal conviction: 1/20
• Who had no prior criminal convictions: 3/4
• Port of U.S. small business owners who plan to hire new staff or otherwise expand this year: 1/10
• Who worry that their business will not survive the year: 3/4

The cost of diesel fuel is going to drive costs for everyone. So I see why business owners are worried. 

Random Notes from a Crank

Politico reports that there's a massive trade deal brewing among Canada, Mexico, Europe, and Pacific Rim countries: "Carney Constructs a Mega Anti-Trump Trade Alliance." 

That forthcoming alliance cannot be for American farmers and manufacturers. 

Please join the resistance against this administration. 

I know a bunch of people are selling the car decals with a loon as a rebel resistance symbol, but this one works for all the subsequent places President Adolf and his goons are going to terrorize. 

I got one on my car and one on my office door. 

Pam Bondi is protecting pedophiles. Here's some excellent work from M2Bulls. 

Talking about the DOW during the House Judiciary Committee hearing is one of the best examples of a red herring I've seen in a while.

Random Notes from a Crank

Before Sunday I had no idea what a scorpion kick was, but now I know. Thanks Dominic Solanke. 

And COYS. 

In another special election, this time in Texas, Taylor Rehmet won a State Senate seat in a conservative district that President Adolf won by 17 percentage points. Rehment won it by 14 percentage points: 57 to 43. 

I'm looking forward to all whining about the Super Bowl halftime show with Green Day and Bad Bunny performing. 

MAGA supporters are truly American idiots. 

President Adolf and his lawyerly goons just had another federal judge hand them a loss in trying to shut down a wind farm that is 35 miles away from the coast of New York state (Montauk Point). The Interior department argued that the wind farms were somehow a threat to "national security." 

Nonsense. 

What a bunch of nitwits and losers. They are 0 for 5 in shutting wind farm projects on the east coast. 

Where I live in east central Illinois got a lot of snowfall like most of the upper Midwest this winter. However, unlike where I grew up in Iowa, my town has no law that homeowners who have sidewalks on their property have to shovel them. 

That fact pisses me off. 

I walk my dogs in the winter unless it's unbearably cold, but I'm reduced to walking up and down my cul de sac when sidewalks are not shoveled. And my dogs need walked for a good length of time. They're not being walked very long right now, and they're driving me crazy with having to go out in the backyard so often. 

Plus, as I'm driving around town, because sidewalks are not shoveled, people are just walking on the side of the street, which is dangerous. 

Random Notes from a Crank

Countries are quickly learning that they can strike deals with other countries instead of dealing with the insane trade policies of President Adolf. They call it "'de-risking' ties with the U.S." 

Check out the Reuters article about this topic: "World Discovers It Can Hedge US Trade Risk." 

These moves make sense. Who wants to negotiate with a senile, crazy person?  

I recently subscribed to The New Yorker. I had a subscription years ago. I was inspired to get a subscription again after watching a documentary about the magazine on Netflix: The New Yorker at 100. 

The Phil Hands political cartoon reveals the hypocritical nature of the American Fascist Party, formerly known as the GOP. 

The videos of the two murders just show how despicable ICE and its supporters are.

No one is above the rule of law. And the complicity of members of the AFP in Congress and elsewhere is astounding. 

 Thanks for Clay Bennett for the above cartoon. Simple yet effective. 

Sunday Hangover: Indiana

What an atrocious performance at the Rose Bowl for the Tide. 

It's pretty simple what happened. Indiana beat Alabama at line play. 

If I were Alabama's offensive line coach, I'd be worried about job security because that OLine roster is littered with four- and five-star talent that is not living up to its potential. 

The same can be said for the defensive line. 

Random Notes from a Crank

The Washington Post has an interesting article about the concept of "gray rocking": "Gray Rocking Is the Way to Deal with Difficult People. Here's How It Works." 

I've been using this method for decades. In fact, I used it in a tense meeting this past week. 

It's been yet another day that the Democratic representative in the House Adelita Grijalva has not been sworn in because she will vote to release the Epstein files. 

Here's her opinion piece in USA Today: "I Was Elected 6 Weeks Ago. Speaker Mike Johnson Refuses to Swear Me In." 

She finally got sworn in. Finally.

South Park is doing some great work about the problems with AI. Part of the plot of this week's episode featured the kids generating videos of each other and the "national problem of AI-generated abuse," as an article in The Washington Post describes it. 

Check out "Louisiana Middle Schooler Charged with Sharing Fake AI Nudes of Schoolmate." Disgusting shit. 

The deal struck to reopen the government is simply a ruse used by the GOP, which now stands for Grand Old Pedophiles. 

Random Notes from a Crank

This political cartoon from Gary Markstein what happened in D.C. and what is now happening in Chicago and Portland. 

I'm loving all the TikTok videos showing all the goofiness that is meeting the ICE agents in Portland. The satire runs deep.

The way this administration is going we might as well put a Hitler mustache on the Statue of Liberty. 

And very few people believe this government shutdown is the fault of the Democrats  unless you're full-on MAGA. The GOP hold the Executive branch, Congress, and the Senate. They created this nonsense based on LIES. 

I recently finished a biography of Napoleon. It was a good read. 

He was a brililiant general, and some of his battle tactics are still studied to this day. 

His downfall was not listening to his advisors who told him to wait to invade Russia. And by the time he came back from Elba to engage in the Battle of Waterloo, he was past his prime. 

President Adolf has Napoleonic tendencies. 

Random Notes from a Crank

As I get older, I worry about how my brain is working. 

So when I got onto The Washington Post during our vacation here in Fort Morgan, Alabama, a couple of articles jumped out to me.

The first one is "Want to Keep Your Brain Sharp as You Age? Science May Have a Recipe." 

It's pretty clear that the Mediterranean diet is something to aspire to. I get regular exercise walking the dog weather permitting, but I could also go back to using dumbbells. 

And in this dark time during the administration of President Adolf, "7 Short, Simple Science-based Ways to Add Joy to Your Life" is worth a read. 

The phrase "little earthquakes in the mind" reminded me of this song by Tori Amos. 

Being down here in the Deep South has reminded me about how so many southerners drive way too damn slowly.

Way too many drivers are camped out in the left lane and driving slowly and clogging up traffic. 

Musing of the Moment: Ineptitude at Tottenham

It's June 3rd, and over ten days after Tottenham won the Europa League, fans like me are not sure if Ange is still the manager, and there appears to be a shakeup with the board. 

It's ridiculous. 

After winning the Europa League and then finishing the season with an unfortunate loss, the chairman of the ENIC board Daniel Levy went on vacation. 

He went on vacation during a time when other clubs are taking advantage of this new mini-transfer window. 

Other clubs are signing players while there's silence in N17. 

Ineptitude. 

Ange In. 

Levy out.

Why did I have to choose a Premier League club that is so poorly run? 

Random Notes from a Crank

Lots of things are going to get more expensive. 

A bunch of idiots are counting on Moscow Don to make some deals that help the U.S. and bring business and industry back to the United States. The New York Times has a good article on this nonsense: "A Flashing Economic Warning and a Sharp Political Jolt." 

The Canadian Prime Minister, who has a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Oxford, has a more realistic view of what's happening: "Our old relationship with the United States, a relationship based on steadily increasing integration, is over. The system of open global trade anchored but the United States, a system that Canada has relied on since the Second World War, a system that, while not perfect, has helped deliver prosperity for a country for decades, is over."

What's more menacing is how President Adolf tariff nonsense has strengthened China's position in the world economy. China is now importing soybeans from South American and getting its beef and pork from other countries. 

I woke up in a pissed-off mood this morning because I was thinking about how the head coach of high school basketball team basically wasted my son's junior year. And to a certain extent, the head coach of the high school baseball team is doing something similar. 

As I was driving to a baseball game yesterday, I caught the broadcast of the Barcelona-Inter Milan Champions League match, the first tie of two matches. It sounded like it was bananas. 

Based on the highlights, it was. 

I don't have a team I'm rooting for in that competition, but I certainly want PSG to beat Arsenal. 

Random Notes from a Crank

In the wake of all kinds of deregulation from the Adolf administration, the U.S. is set be a hell of a lot less safe and more polluted: "Inside Trump's Plan to Halt Hundreds of Regulations." 

I saw a clip from The Daily Show with Jon Stewart talking to Rahm Emanuel about who will become the next leader of the Democratic Party, who will become the next presidential candidate. 

Emanuel seemed to think that the next leader will be a governor, which got me contemplating which governors would be good choices: 

• Gretchen Whitmer (Michigan)
• Josh Shapiro (Pennsylvania)
• J.B. Pritzker (Illinois)
• Andy Beshear (Kentucky)
• Tim Walz (Minnesota)

I'd be fine with any of those people. Beshear is the only person from a traditionally red state.

The notion that other countries "stole" American jobs is asinine. The ultra wealthy and greedy corporations moved those jobs to other countries because they didn't want to pay U.S. workers what they deserved and didn't want to follow sensible environmental regulations. Instead, they wanted to employ sweatshop cheap workers in foreign countries. 

Moscow Don and his cronies are defying court orders. We are in a constitutional crisis. 

President Adolf has bankrupt this country morally and ethically. And don't forget money. The guy who somehow got a casino to go bankrupt is fleecing Americans because of his stupid tariffs and his dumb economic policies like tax cuts for the wealthy. 

Random Notes from a Crank

I've been an avid viewer of Saturday Night Live since I was a kid. 

The sketch about Zelensky's visit to trap in the White House was spot on. And the new agency DOUCHE is strikingly accurate. That's what they're setting out to do: Department of Unmaking Child Healthcare and Education. 

Mike Myers had to have a lot of fun imitating Musk's strange mannerisms. 

I recently watched the Netflix movies about the start of SNL, Saturday Night. If the depiction is true, I never knew Chevy Chase and John Belushi disliked each other so much. 

It's now once again what I call the dead season of sports. I neither watch the NBA nor the NHL. And March Madness hasn't started. Since I quit playing fantasy baseball, I don't watch much MLB. And because Hulu doesn't have the Marquee Network, I don't watch the Cubs. 

Democrats are inviting federal workers who were fired because of the draconian efforts of DOGE to Moscow Don's Congressional address on Tuesday. Many of them are veterans. 

I like this move because it shows how Trump, Musk, and their goons are just indiscriminately firing people. And I like how pissed-off constituents are showing up at town halls. 

Of course, craven Republicans will just stop having town halls if I had to guess. 

Random Notes from a Crank

The image below has to be one of the best covers on magazine I've seen in a while. 

It's not a coincidence that I'm currently reading a biography of Napoleon and Prequel by Rachel Maddow.

The present is currently rhyming with the past.  

Speaking of Maddow, she shared an article on Bluesky about a town hall in which many residents were loudly pissed off at a Congressman: "Jay Obernolte Preaches Deficit Reduction, Support Musk in Raucous Town Hall." 

I hope more citizens show their anger and opposition to what's happening at the hands of President Adolf and the complicit GOP. 

The U.S. is currently living in a kakistocracy. 

Here's an advert (as the English say) at a London bus stop. The Swasticar...

In the German election, the party that the above dipshit supported didn't do as well as they wanted thankfully. Merkel's party, the Christian Democratic Union, won, and the incoming Chancellor has vowed not to work with the far-right Alternative for Germany party. 

Mother Jones has a good article up about the election. Check out "Eighty Percent of Germans Voted Against the Far Right. Can That Happen Here?"

Random Notes from a Crank

A video project at UNC-Chapel Hill is brilliant to me. It's discussed in this article from The Washington Post: "A Campus Sign Said: 'Tell Us Something Good.' Students Delivered." 

What the US is currently experiencing is a Trumpdemic, a pandemic of stupidity, spite, graft, and unconstitutionality caused by the executive orders of President Adolf. And it's all aided and abetted by Congressional Republicans who have no spines. 

I started reading Rachel Maddow's Prequel: An American Fight Against Fascism. It's topical. 

I will make sure to read this book during the warm-ups and halftimes of my son's high school basketball games in front of dipshits who voted for Racist Tariff Man. 

And this basketball season has been a repetitive exercise in frustration. My son is a junior who is a very good player. He was told that he was going to play both JV and varsity. However, he rarely gets to play varsity games because the coach is playing seniors and one junior who are clearly not as good as him. 

In addiition, our offensive set-up sucks. They don't even hint at trying to do anything inside, and the system they use to press could be described as "next level bad." 

I look forward to basketball season being over and moving onto baseball season. 

Random Notes from a Crank

A while back one of the words of the day was "kakistocracy," which means "government by the worst people."

With Adolf's number of executive orders and with the GOP having majorities in the House and Senate, that is the country the U.S. is living in, unfortunately, 

It's all very depressing. The Late Show with Stephen Colbert helped get me through his first administration, but I haven't girded up my emotional loins to watch the program since Adolf took office. 

But what can we expect with 54% of Americans reading below a sixth-grade level?

One of the better editorials I've read is from Bernie Sanders in The Guardian: "What Trump Didn't Say in His Inauguration Speech." 

Here are the last two ¶s of the opinion piece, but I recommend reading it all. 

Bottom line: as we enter the new Trump presidency, we have got to remain focused. We can’t panic. No matter how many executive orders he signs and statements he issues, our goal remains the same. We have got to educate. We have got to organize. We have got to bring people together around an agenda that works for all, not just the few.

Now more than ever, we have to fight to create an America based on economic, social and environmental justice. Let’s get to work.

He's right. 

But what's happening is damn depressing. 

Nothing like "backing the blue" when you release the Jan. 5 insurrectionists.

And repealing civil rights protections. 

Music Friday: "Until the Day Is Done"

After the results of this Tuesday, this song seems appropriate. 

"The battle's been lost. The war is not won./ An addled republic, a bitter refund." 

Keep fighting for what's right and all people's rights. 

Random Notes from a Crank

On a mainly weekday basis, I've been posting definitions from the Dictionary of American Slang, which was published in 1967, in alpha order on my FB feed. 

Today I was on the letter M in the alphabet, so I posted this definition from the dictionary:

"meatball meat ball n. 1. A dull, boring person; an obnoxious person; anyone regarded with disfavor, esp. one of flat or uninteresting character; a creep, a drip, a square, a wet blanket. 2. A tactical signal flag bearing a black dot on a yellow field; also, the Japanese national flag. #. A swelling of or on the face, cause by a blow in fighting. 4. In baseball, any pitched ball that can be hit readily by a given batter. v.t. 1. To strike someone with a fist. --ism n. 1. Anti-intellectualism; the state of willing ignorance or mediocrity. 2. A state of, or instance demonstrating, decreasing standards of integrity, ethics, intelligence, and individualism in culture, politics, education, and the like; democratic rule by an uneducated, non-thinking majority."

I'm particularly fond of the term "meatballism" because I think it properly describes the U.S. for quite some time. It's an anti-intellectual country, and it's been like that for centuries. 

The amount of willful ignorance is astounding, and the if you follow politics for any amount of time, the "decreasing standards" will make you depressed. 

I think the U.S. is currently engaged in "democratic rule by an uneducated, non-thinking majority." 

I guess there are glimmers of hope though with the Labour Party coming back into majority power in the U.K.: "How Ken Starmer Overwhelmed Britain's Conservatives."

And over in France, Macron's gamble to call an election turned out better than expected since left-leaning folks flocked to the polls and put down the right-wing idiots trying to take power: "France Electioin Results: Far Right's Rise Suffers Unexpected Blow as Left Surges." 

But what does this mean for November? 

At least if you're going by a flash poll by YouGov that I took today Trump hopefully is in trouble. At the time I'm writing this post, 36% of people polled think Moscow Don is mentally fit to be President, 5% think he was mentally fit to be president in 2020 but is no longer mentally fit to be president, and 54% believe he was not mentally fit to be president in 2020 and is not mentally fit today. 

At least on that last answer, Biden only clocks in at 31%. 

In better news, the people polled were asked about their opinion of the GOP's "Project 2025," and 53% have a very unfavorable opinion of it. 

The biggest challenge before Biden is that he has to hit the swing states hard since we still live under a system that relies on the idiocy that is the Electoral College.

Musing of the Moment: The Danger and Stupidity of Bottled Water

The Washington Post has a great article out today about the danger of not just microplastics but also nanoplastics in bottled water: "Here's What You're Really Swallowing When Your Drink Bottled Water."  

Bottled water is one of the biggest scams out there because a lot of bottled water simply comes from municipal sources. 

And then there's an old Penn and Teller bit on bottled water that you can watch below.

So people are buying water they can get from their faucet or filtered from a refrigerator. 

They are voluntarily ingesting microplastics and nanoplastics, which I would assume it bad for one's body. They are paying an exorbitant fee for the water they could get from their municipality. And because so few people actually recycle the bottles, the world is awash in plastic polluting the very water they want to drink. 

The stupidity of humans.

Random Notes from a Crank

I doubt I'm the only person in the U.S. who does this, but when I change from one pair of shoes to another pair of shoes, I often have the Mister Rogers song in my head. 

"Won't you be my neighbor?"

Since Moscow Don is likely not immune to being sued for his critical part in the Jan. 6 insurrection as related by NPR ("Appeals Court Says Trump Isn't Immune for Jan. 6 Riot Lawsuits"), I wonder how may class-action lawsuits can be lodged against that fascist wannabe goon. 

I hope that white-supremacist grievance merchant is buried in even more lawsuits. The more the better. He's a serious threat to our country. 

And the people who support him are delusional morons. 

Even worse are the people who will vote for him who know he's a fascist-in-the-making, but they vote for him because of whatever issues he supposedly supports. In reality, he's a Republican in name only, a RINO. 

He's not really conservative except for the far-right social-issue dog whistling he does on a regular basis.