THE TAOS TATLER.

From the Connection Centinal, via Truth Social.

President-Elect Donald Trump announced Linda McMahon will be the next US Secretary of Education, which could be a short-lived job if Trump keeps his promise to end the Department of Education.Trump promises McMahon will fight to expand “Choice” to every state in America, even Connecticut.McMahon spent a couple years on the Connecticut State Board of Education and has served on Sacred Heart University’s Board of Trustees for over 16 years.She’s also been an advocate for Parents’ Rights through her work as Chair of the Board at the America First Policy Institute and America First Works where she worked to achieve universal school choice in 12 states.Congratulations, Linda!

Indeed, but your Tatler hopes, as alluded to above, President Trump will shut down this redundant, unneeded, and hugely expensive cabinet position. As Bickerstaff well remembers, this absurd department was the creation of the Carter White House and served as payback, nothing else, to the teachers’s unions for endorsing, campaigning and delivering lots of voters to Jimmy Carter’s successful presidential campaign.

The unions lusted for a DOE for one reason: to extend their reach by providing a mechanism for them to worm their way into every state in the Union’s educational programs. Since they knew their socialist ways would never pass in the voting booth, a powerful DOE could force them upon state and local governments via fiat. That was DOE’s raison d’être.

Since its creation, DOE has greatly expanded and now has 4400 employees and a budget of $238 billion. Not bad for a totally useless arm of the government.

Ms McMahon, please shut this monstrosity down.

Bickerstaff was in the waiting room of his garage while his auto was getting its 30K service. CNN was on the TV and as the sound was off, it was watchable, barely (it was the first time he had watched CNN in decades). The Chryon on the screen was declaring the big, big item of the day, which was Trump’s margin of victory had dropped to 49.9%. Zounds! It stayed up for at least 10 minutes while interviews, analyses, etc., ad nauseam were aired, thus proving these deluded jackasses will continue to grasp at anything and everything to delegitimize Trump’s election. Meanwhile, CNN’s ratings are at their lowest in decades.

Forget it, children, the game is lost. It’s 5 PM and it’s time to go home.

Making America fun again.

See all the action here.

To have even more fun, pretend you’re Joe Biden dancing the Trump®. Then, after picking yourself up from the floor, pretend you’re Hillary doing the dance. Your Tatler found the latter to be impossible, but of course did have fun trying.

There really has been a sea change in this country.

Thanks to GR

From the New York Post.

Knife-wielding maniac goes on random NYC stabbing spree, leaving 2 men dead and one woman critical

Two men were killed and a woman was critically injured by a knife-wielding maniac who went on a random stabbing spree in Manhattan Monday morning, cops and sources said.

The sickening spree began around 8:20 a.m. when the 51-year-old killer approached a 30-year-old man on West 19th Street near Eighth Avenue and knifed him in the stomach, police said.

Long ago in this ageing blogger’s life sickos like this were locked up, not only for our protection but their own. That is no longer the case and the time is long past to return to the practice. By no means should they be locked up in the manner of El Salvador’s prison for violent gang members, rather, since they are mentally ill, in institutions which in the past were titled “hospitals for the criminally insane”, or similarly. The purpose of the institutions, and admittedly there were numerous abuses committed by them leading to their eventual closure, was treatment, if they were treatable.

If the inmates can be cured of the maladies haunting them they can be released to halfway houses, where they enjoy greater freedom but still closely watched for signs of reversion. If so, back they go to the lockups.

When the criminally insane are not treatable they must remain incarcerated, but at least they will be in stable environments where they are fed, clothed and provided with diversions to make their lives tolerable.

Certainly  mental institutions are not perfect but are vastly preferable to dumping sick people on the streets. The present situation can be blamed on, like so many of our social woes, the so-called advocates who insisted the incarceration of the mentally ill somehow violated their “civil rights,” nevermind the rights of the sane not to be attacked by knife-wielding nut jobs roaming the City. Like most left-wing social solutions, they failed and deadly chaos has resulted in the City streets.

Now that it is dawning on our citizenry that left-wing solutions to social problems only make things worse, it is time to revisit the notion of institutions dedicated to the care of those unable to care for themselves, removing them from the streets and protecting the rest of us from the havoc they create.

Also see Elon Musk’s X post on the subject.

CNN (and good for them!) have given us a first-hand view of how career gang criminals are dealt with in El Salvador. The word “pampered” will not enter your mind while viewing it. Similar treatment in this country of violent career criminals would not be amiss. Mr Trump?

https://x.com/CNN/status/1857168610852000247?t=VvAFQ2_Pb5X3qrZgm-ENRw&s=09

From Not the Bee.

From the New York Sun.

The man who sits on the throne of St. Peter is taking sides against Israel in the war precipitated by Hamas and its backer, Iran.

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In September, the AP notes, the Pope called Israel’s attacks in Gaza and Lebanon “immoral” and “disproportionate” — and beyond the rules of war.

Why is the Holy Father sticking his craw into this matter? The Vatican has nowhere near the intelligence capability Israel has, if it has any intelligence capability at all. Instead it looks as if Francis is relying on hard-left commentators for his opinions on the remarkably complex and deadly goings-on in the Middle East, matters this blogger believes he should stay out of. How about, Holiness, you pay more attention to the deplorable state of Catholic worship in the West, for example.

Throughout history Catholic relations with the Jews have ranged from indifference to downright hostility. Lately they have been improving; why then does the pope now take sides with a foe that hates Jews (and Christians for that matter) with every fiber of their being and want to see them exterminated. The hatred Hamas bears for its foe will not in the least be mitigated by Francis’s remarks and may well be encouraged. While Israel wishes only to be left alone, Hamas and their murderous pals want to destroy it.

The Sun offers a possible explanation for Francis taking sides here.

It’s unclear, at least so far, for what kind of investigation the Pope is calling. Or whether it is just political leftist blather of the kind this leader of the Church has sometimes indulged in.

For your Tatler, that is spot on.

The remarkable thing about Eco’s essay is it improbably, somehow, makes sense. DOS of course is history, but Eco later addressed that in an addendum (included in this post).

The fact is that the world is divided between users of the Macintosh computer and users of MS-DOS compatible computers. I am firmly of the opinion that the Macintosh is Catholic and that DOS is Protestant. Indeed, the Macintosh is counterreformist and has been influenced by the “ratio studiorum” of the Jesuits. It is cheerful, friendly, conciliatory, it tells the faithful how they must proceed step by step to reach – if not the Kingdom of Heaven – the moment in which their document is printed. It is catechistic: the essence of revelation is dealt with via simple formulae and sumptuous icons. Everyone has a right to salvation.

DOS is Protestant, or even Calvinistic. It allows free interpretation of scripture, demands difficult personal decisions, imposes a subtle hermeneutics upon the user, and takes for granted the idea that not all can reach salvation.

the system work you need to interpret the program yourself: a long way from the baroque community of revelers, the user is closed within the loneliness of his own inner torment.

You may object that, with the passage to Windows, the DOS universe has come to resemble more closely the counterreformist tolerance of the Macintosh. It’s true: Windows represents an Anglican-style schism, big ceremonies in the cathedral, but there is always the possibility of a return to DOS to change things in accordance with bizarre decisions…..

And machine code, which lies beneath both systems (or environments, if you prefer)? Ah, that is to do with the Old Testament, and it is Talmudic and kabbalistic.

Three years later Eco updated his piece with the following.

The various releases have led Windows 95 and 98 to become decidedly Catholic-Tridentine, along with Mac. The torch of Protestantism has passed into the hands of Linux. But the opposition remains valid.

From here.

With thanks to TR.

Answer: no, of course, but God willing, less and less attention will be paid to them over time

From Not the Bee:

United Airlines just received the blasting of a lifetime from this lady who is sick and tired of the trans agenda touching every area of life.

This dude, who LARPs as a lady, is allowed to pretend to be a stewardess on United Airlines flights. And given the recent history of United, we shouldn’t be shocked.

The horrors committed by this walking horror show are too numerous to enumerate here. Read the Bee‘ account of this being’s manifold sins and wickedness.

*Live Action Role-Players

Indications were Trump was gaining substantially in New Mexico, which is why he held a full-scale rally in Albuquerque thatwas well attended. Instead, he not only lost, but did so in every county, including the more conservative ones.

This might explain why.

Would someone please inform Bickerstaff what the purpose is of the seemingly superfluous apostrophe in the name of recently fired FEMA employee (for instructing her charges to walk on by when there was a Trump campaign poster on a property) Marn’i Washington?