Monday, September 14, 2026
Sunday, September 13, 2026
CliffsNotes of the Zeitgeist 155th Edition. AI will kill us all.
The Terminator.
I don't know if it will, but that's the prediction being made by those working on it.
And within ten years.
Frankly, I think AI is wholly negative and that we'd be better off it it was impossible to develop. But it isn't, and we've never been able to restrain anything we've developed. What I think the likely consequences are, however, is that it proves so destructive it may end up undoing much of the computer development that's come to date, as a defense to it.
Trump assures us that whatever comes out of it will be "mostly good".
Nothing good will come out of it whatsoever.
Boo
Ted Cruz was so loudly booed that he could hardly be heard in an ESPN interview from Austin.
Cruz deserves to be booed. He's one of worst examples of Republican toadyism in Congress today.
Big statute
Donald Trump, who was in Ireland when I last checked, has proposed that a 30-foot “Washington Colossus” be built to replace a modernist sculpture outside the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History. He's ordering the institution to put on a Washington exhibition in advance of the late President's 300th birthday.
It's interesting that Trump is interested in Washington. Washington would not have been keen on Trump.
Trump doesn't like the piece of modernist art that's in front of the Smithsonian. It doesn't do much for me either, but I don't hate it.
The odd interesting thing here is that Trump spends so much time messing with the architecture of Washington D. C. A big statute of George Washington wouldn't necessarily be bad, as long as it wasn't gilded, but Trump's taste in things is generally complete crap.
Trump golfs in Ireland. M'eh
Tá Trump ag imirt gailf in Éirinn. B’fhéidir go mbeidh an t-ádh linn agus go bhfanfaidh sé ann.
An opinion that nobody cares about.
Trump ventured an opinion that Ireland should be united, by which he meant that Northern Ireland should be incorporated into the Irish republic.
That immediately brought rebuke from Na hUltaigh, who didn't appreciate the US President making the comment. Southern Irish, who have protested his presence in their country, most likely just ignored it.
At any rate, this isn't something that a US President has any business commenting on in the first place.
And, speaking of comments. . .
Open the North Sea
A reporter asked Trump when petroleum prices were going to go down, which was a veiled way to basically saying when is your stupid war going to end, Donald.
Trump replied that oil prices in Ireland would go down as soon as the Irish opened the North Sea.
Wha?
The North Sea is between Great Britain and Scandinavia.
In terms of water depth, while the North Sea is deep, it is shallow enough to be exploited and the seabed is associated with the continental landmass, which is why there are petroleum deposits there.
And the plan is. . .?
FWIW, the North Sea is reaching its terminal production date pretty quick. Most of the petroleum has already been extracted, at least from the British areas. BP is pulling out.
On this, it was North Sea petroleum that made Norway rich. Norway is expanding its production, but the time is coming.
It's coming for Wyoming too.
The plan?
Well, there isn't one. Screaming at the news seems to be the plan.
Shutting down the supply
It's not only the case that King Donald has not managed to restore pre war shipping conditions to the Persian Gulf, over the past week new hazardous conditions were created in Red Sea by the Houthis, Iranian allies and clients, who further caused Saudi Arabia to shut down a transarabian pipeline. All petroleum is back up over $100/bbl.
And in spite of what the Trump administration would have people believe, Venezuelan oil will take at least four years to hit the market in significant quantities to matter, if not ten.
Inflation
Inflation is clearly decelerating even with this slight uptick.
Keven Hassett.
Um. . .okay.
Chickens.
Chuck Gray and Harriet Hageman are refusing to debate their opponents.
That fact alone should mean that they forfeit any votes in the upcoming election.
Their refusal is arrogant at best.
It's noteworthy that neither one of them is any good at debating under stress, and debates this time would be stressful. Both of them tend to just go hostile when pressed.
Voters shouldn't let either of them get away with this.
Last edition:
CliffsNotes of the Zeitgeist 154th Edition.Trump's approval rating in Wyoming falls from 75% to 54%. Privation. The idiotic "republic not a democracy" line surfaces again. Viking funerals. Miley.
Monday, September 13, 1926. Bigots march in Washington.
15,000 member of of the Ku Klux Klan marched in Washington, D.C.
At one time this would truly seem like something relegated to history. But in the Trump era, large groups of the ignorant and bigots are features of national life once again.
Last edition:
Saturday, September 11, 1926. Assassination attempt on Mussolini.
Wednesday, September 13, 1911. That high lonesome sound.
The Qing Dynasty, hoping to hold off growing revolutionary impulses in China, promulgated a new constitution featuring some democratic reform.
Legendary Bluegrass musician Bill Monroe was born in Rosline, Kentucky. He is regarded as the father of Bluegrass.
Tuesday, September 12, 1911. Trap.
Friday, September 13, 1901. McKinley approaches the end.
President McKinley's condition worsened and it became event to all that he was on death's door and he would not recover. At 8:00 he fell asleep and would never wake up.
Harrison Hall, a mountain guide of 50 years of age, was detailed to find Vice President Roosevelt, who was camping. His hike to locate TR took fourteen hours. As it was night, Roosevelt determined, quite correctly, it was best to remain the night and return the following day.
Last edition:
Wednesday, September 11, 1901. McKinley doing well.
Wednesday, September 13, 1876. End of the Horsemeat March.
A supply train for Crook's command caught up with him bringing into an end the starvation phase of the Horsemeat March.
Sunday, September 10, 1876. The last day of Slim Buttes.
Best Posts of the Week of September 6, 2026 and the Feral Week.
Friday, September 6, 1901. McKinley shot.
Friday, September 6, 1946. A new direction on occupied Germany.
Tuesday, September 7, 1976. Mao dies.
Something is going on, and I'm not the only one sensing it.
Sunday, September 10, 1876. The last day of Slim Buttes.
Last edition:
Best Posts of the Week of August 30, 2026
Saturday, September 12, 2026
Thursday, September 12, 1946. Wallace takes a different route.
Commerce Secretary Henry A. Wallace delivered a speech at Madison Square Garden contradicting the speech just delivered by Secretary of State Byrnes. The speech criticized the administration's foreign policy and ultimately made almost everyone mad.
Truman had reviewed a draft of the speech and when asked by a reporter if it representing the policy of his government, he said that it did, only to rapidly attempt to claw that back when he realized what the speech said.
The speech brought Wallace's career, which saw him rise to the position of a Vice President under Franklin Roosevelt, come to an end.
Wallace is an interesting character in that he's the most far left Vice President the nation ever had, and had Roosevelt died during his third term, it would have brought to power an administration that would have been on the extreme left. Indeed, Wallace was dumped in Roosevelt's last run as those close to FDR knew that he would not live through it.
Wallace had a bit of a track record of making embarrassing speeches. He'd made one regarding a prior Commerce Secretary in 1943.
Wallace was a curious figure. He was from the political far left and has been accused of being a Communist, which historians discount. He ran against Truman in the 1948 Presidential election on a revived Progressive Party ticket with Sen. Glen Taylor of Idaho. He became the editor of The New Republic in one of its down cycles. Interestingly, when TNR turned 100, one of the editor of the "back of the magazine" asserted that Wallace was a Communist.
He was an expert on chickens.
A headline that, thanks to vaccines, we don't see anymore.
Last edition:
Wednesday, September 11, 1946. Longest scoreless tie.
25th Amendment Watch, 24th Edition. He's crying for help, or completely insane.
You know the drill.
Republicans will claim he's "trolling". MAGA will say "watch the libs, har, har, har, pass me my twelfth Bud. . . " Mike Johnson will claim he was too busy to notice. John Barrasso will look like he's badly constipated.
The Trump will do it.
J. D. Vance will claim it's a good idea, while going back to spruce up his resume for his inevitable Starbucks job application.
Seriously, he's either completely insane, or crying out for intervention.
This is not normal. Trump is not normal. He's not alright.
September 8, 2026
And then there's this: https://x.com/Amy_Siskind/status/2097119661884162247/video/1
Yesterday he appeared to be lecturing a Marine Corps helicopter pilot shortly after Marine Corps One landed and omitted saluting the guards, which has become an unfortunate tradition.
Part of Labor Day he devoted to a deranged series of tweets.
He's insane and the Republican Party just won't do anything about it. It's up to the voters, but even at that we'll be facing two more years of untold destruction due to GOP cowardice.
cont:
The government of Iceland has summoned the US ambassador to the country for Donald Trump's having posted an image yesterday showing the island nation as a U.S. possession. Mexico, Canada and Greenland were included in the same crazy image.
cont:
I just thank my people. I was building a big building in New York and I took the whole crew down there right after this happened and they had no hesitation. Everybody went down with me. We went down as a big group of people ... we thought it was coming down on top of us ... two fireman lifted me up and started running with me.
Two fireman, big strong guys, they grabbed me under the arms -- 'got to get our of here!' -- and they literally lifted me up, and they started running with me.
Donald Trump about 9/11. It's a complete lie.
cont:
And later today:
The Failing New York Magazine wrote a story that I wasn’t down at the World Trade Center after the Tragedy of September 11th, because nobody saw me there. Well, I don’t think I would be the first thing on anyone’s mind but, I was there, obviously not on the same day as the collapse, but shortly thereafter…
The Fake News doesn’t want to listen, even when they know their story is false. That’s why their approval ratings are at an All Time LOW, but mine are VERY HIGH!
On another September 11th front, Maggot Hagerman continues to say that I did not go to the New York World Trade Center event, but the Pentagon instead, because they wouldn’t let me speak in New York. Maggot knows that this is a lie!
This is actually a fairly big event as Trump was caught in a lie so large that he was forced to attempt to step away from it. He wasn't there, and was called on it, and admitted he wasn't there.
He's a liar whose occupation of the White House dishonors the country.
September 12, 2026
It's difficult to see how MAGA continues to call Joe Biden "Sleepy Joe".
Last edition:
Subsidiarity Economics 2026. The Times more or less locally, Part 9, 25th Amendment Watch, 23d Edition. The Canadian Harvard and Oxford doctor in economics vs. the Wharton playboy. The Trade War with Canada edition.
King Donald's War, Part 12. The "Economic D-Day" edition. CliffsNotes of the Zeitgeist 152nd Edition, the irony edition.
August 26, 2026
King Donny sent the fearsome Scott Bessent out to cause the Iranians to quiver in their boots, announcing that the US would inflict an "Economic D-Day" on Iran.
Except the US is going to exempt China, meaning that Operation Economic Outcast was stillborn from the very beginning.
Midweek Update#25: Sanctions Without China Are A Sign Of Defeat
So, It Turns Out That The US Is Winning!; A Story Illustrating Why This Pentagon Cannot Be Trusted
The US is moving its ambassadors back to the Middle East, however, which suggests it either naively thinks this will work, or that it's just going to give up.
Meanwhile:
Pentagon reveals hundreds of new Iran war casualties
This post, by the way, is the first one that I've ever had Bessent's name as a label, which surprises me. He's been mentioned before, but I've never put in a label.
One thing I've thought about doing is posting how he's sort of uniquely a symbol of hypocrisy in the Trump Administration, or maybe in MAGA. MAGA proclaims loudly that it's for "Christian" values by which it means far right Evangelical values.
Christianity pretty clearly holds that homosexual sex is a mortal sin. St. Paul was blunt about it. And yet Bessent is a homosexual in a homosexual union in which two children are being raised. Most actual Christians of any type would question this, and if Evangelical Christians are to be believed, they find it completely abhorrent.
But then, by the same token, having an alleged president who is a serial polygamist, a special envoy for the Shield of the Americas, whatever that is, who seemed to be having an affair while in her earlier role and whose husband was wearing giant fake boobs in internet photos, etc. etc., is pretty odd too.
Indeed, it's impossible to reconcile.
Mind you, I'm not saying that a homosexual, including one who is in a homosexual union, cannot be an effective Secretary of the Treasury. I'm saying you can't have an implied policy that everyone who isn't, white, straight, and sympathetic to far right Evangelicalism isn't a real American and still have a homosexual as one of your primary cabinet members and really mean any of that.
Making it all the more odd, Bessent is one of those cabinet members who has in recent months been dragged out to try to explain away whatever brain fart the Trump has uttered.
That feature of this administration has been there all along. Whereas for a transportation issue you might, in normal times, get a Transportation official, in this administration you might very well end up getting the Chief Chef of the White House to address it. And people appear and then disappear in that role pretty rapidly. Chris Wright, the Secretary of Energy, regularly was being hauled out to address the Press on all sorts of things for awhile, right up until he said that Biden was validly elected to the Oval Office.
Goodbye Chris.
Anyhow, there's something extra weird about Bessent, who always seems extremely nervous, being hauled out to address the Press on the war while we have Pete "High T" Hegseth in charge of the "War Department". Hegseth definitely fits into the far right Evangelical mold and is loud about it, while also being loud about the services being for manly men.
Well, anyhow. So much for Operation Economic Outcast.
August 31, 2026
Trump just shot some missiles at Iran and nobody cared
September 1, 2026
Iran, which you will recall supposedly lost the war, numerous times, hit Jordan with missiles within the last couple of days.
Only somewhat related, Army Secretary Dan Driscoll, who is close to J. D. Vance, submitted his resignation. It is well known that he does not get along with Hegseth.
September 8, 2026
Iran, which we are repeatedly assured is on the edge of complete collapse, is imposing a restricted zone in the Strati of Hormuz.
September 9, 2026
Houthis attacked four Saudi Arabian cities and their oil installations yesterday opening a new theater in the war.
The US hit Iranian tankers.
September 11, 2026
Iranian allied Houthis seized control of Yemen’s port city of Mocha on Thursday and advanced down the Red Sea coast to strategic islands giving them extended control over the Bab el-Mandeb Strait. The movies are likely Iranian backed themselves and squeeze Saudi Arabia and the world further.
Meanwhile Donald Trump stated that he expected the Iran war to end after the U.S. midterm elections. D'uh.
If the Houthi advance isn't arrested, it will draw Saudi Arabia back into the Yemeni civil war which will be an expansion of King Donald's War.
September 12, 2026
It's being reported that Saudi Arabia asked for Trump to intervene against the Houthis. Trump declined.
What an absolute irony. Trump illegally engaged in war against Iran where Israel undoubtedly had an influence, if in fact it didn't convince Trump to do it. That war has caused the Houthis to advance in the Yemeni Civil War, which was always a risk given that they're an Iranian client and have been active previously. They've struck Saudi Arabia, probably at Iran's request. Saudi Arabia has legitimately asked the US for assistance as a result, and we've said no.
If only we'd said no to start with.
The Houthis have taken islands in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait.
Saudi Arabia has halted transfers on its East-West Pipeline.
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