The Walkway of Absolute Bullshit

The Walkway from the West Wing to the White House residence has 47 gold-lettered plaques summarizing each of the presidential terms.  The messages were written by Trump.  In the Times today a panel of eight historians commented on the wording on the plaques and found them to be full of lies and downright silliness.  You don’t need to be a historian to figure that out, of course. 

Trump’s plaque, for example, says he announced the “Golden Age of America,” and “he delivered, ending eight wars in his first eight months, securing the Border, deporting gang members and migrant criminals, making our Cities safer, helping our Farmers, defeating Inflation, reducing Energy costs and drawing Trillions of Dollars of new Investment, a RECORD, into the United States.”  It goes on like that.

The Joe Biden plaque starts off “Sleepy Joe Biden was, by far, the worst President in American History.  Taking office as a result of the most corrupt Election ever seen in the United States....” etc., etc.

I’m not sure what’s with the capitalization.

Running the numbers on Elon Musk

Musk’s net worth as a trillionaire has been calculated as worth five million times as large as the average American family.

If the trillion dollars were converted into $100 bills, how high would the stack be?  679 miles high.

Musk’s stated goal:  To be worth $10 trillion.

How many children does Musk have?  14

How many women had those children?  Four different women.

If Jalen Brunson of the New York Knicks, making $39 million a year, were to equal a trillion dollars, how many seasons would he have to play?  More than 25,000 seasons.

How many people are estimated to have died as a result of Musk’s DOGE cuts to the U.S. Agency for International Development?  600,000, many of them children.  (Musk’s 14 children were not affected.)

Some of these statistics are from David Lay Williams, “Musk Confirms Ancient Concerns About the Superrich,” New York Times, (21 June 2026),  p. SR 5.

 

"Forever Chemicals" in North Carolina

The chemical company Chemours reported $1.4 billion in net sales in the first quarter.  The Trump Administration’s E.P.A. reached a settlement with the company, which has been dumping PFAS into North Carolina waterways, to pay a fine of $480 million.  The company should be able to afford that rather easily.

Chemours will not be asked to clean up the PFAS.  The Company also does not need to make public its “plans” to clean up future contamination. 

The E.P.A. is also repealing some of the Biden Administration limits on PFAS in drinking water.  And so it goes.

Some of the information in this post is from Hiroko Tabuchi, “Officials in North Carolina Assail U.S. Plan to Settle ‘Forever Chemicals’ Case,”  New York Times, (June 26, 2026), p. A16. 

Why are we blockading Cuba?

Cuba has ended the school year early and scrapped its college entrance exams.  Buses can’t run because of the American oil boycott.  Students are up at night and are exhausted because of lack of air conditioning, and school meals can’t be served because of electrical power failures.  

I have yet to hear a good explanation of why we are doing this to the Cuban people.  Did Congress authorize this?  Are we at war with Cuba?  Are we planning to invade or just being cruel for the sake of cruelty?

I hate to say “we,” since “we” are supposed to be running our government.  Right?  It acts in our name. 

Notes on the hearing on the proposed solar "farm" located in Kidder Township, Carbon County, PA

The hearing was held at 6 p.m. on Tuesday, June 23, 2026, in the Jim Thorpe High School.

The site

If an environmental scientist were given an assignment to locate the one place in Carbon County where a a 390 acre solar installation would do the most damage to flora and fauna, that scientist might well pick the proposed site in Kidder Township for the Mora solar installation.  The installation will impact cold water trout streams, the headwaters of the Lehigh River, acres of wetlands, a mature forest, and wildlife habitat.  It will necessitate extensive earth moving, require an upgrade on the electrical grid, and when removed in 30 years leave a scar on the land.  

This project should not have proposed, let alone seriously considered.  We can assume some real estate agents and some investors looked at a map, saw a large parcel devoid of homes or businesses, nodded their heads, and said, “Hey, I’ll bet we could make a profit here.”

The optics of the hearing

The D.E.P. is misnamed.  It stands for the Department of Environmental Protection.  It should be the Department of Expedited Permits.  The preliminary application has already been approved.  At the hearing the two representatives from D.E.P. sat on a stage looking down while the supplicants opposing the project stated their case.  On the stage with the D.E.P., also looking down, were two representatives from the investors of the project.  They said nothing other than their names.  It reminded me of a a group of medieval peasants appearing before their lord to beg a favor.

My impression

In Fen, Bog and Swamp (2022) Annie Proulx wrote about the importance of wetlands to the global environment.  She detailed their continuing disappearance and the effect on climate and hydrology.  And yet, here we are, ignoring science, common sense, and the future of our children.  

What is Mora Solar?  

Do they provide campaign contributions?  Are they concerned about the bottom line?  Do they ever take a walk in the woods?  Have they read Walden?  Do they care?

Finding a treatment for measles

I keep asking myself,”How did we get this dumb?”  We have a vaccine that prevents kids from getting measles.  It has been proven safe, but if you are an anti-vaxxer, you are already saying,” No it’s not.  It causes autism, and cancer, and probably Ebola.”

But there are enough stupid people out there who believe stuff like that, plus we have vaccine denier Robert Kennedy as the head of our Department of Health and Human Services, so we have the most measles cases in the U.S. since 1991.  Biotech companies, seeing a money-maker in the works, are now attempting to produce a medicine that will be helpful for children who catch measles because their parents didn’t have the sense to get their children vaccinated.  And there are enough of those parents to make such a medicine potentially very profitable.  

How did we get this dumb? 

By the way, how do we know that medicine won't cause autism?

Was this election rigged?

Flatland County has only two towns within its boundary.  Smallville has 400 voters, 100 of whom are Democrats and 300 whom are Republicans .  Bigville has 500 voters, 400 of whom are Democrats and 100 are Republicans.  Every voter votes a straight party ticket for his or her party.  The election this year is for county commissioner.

It’s election day. Smallville votes by machines and the votes are tabulated within one hour of the closing of the polls.  Results as of 10 p.m. on election day:

Dem county commissioner candidate–100 votes

Rep. county commissioner candidate–300 votes

Bigville voters vote by mail.  All the votes are mailed in a timely fashion and are received by election day.  The 500 ballots are then opened and counted.  The counting is complete at noon on the day following the election with these results:

Dem. county commissioner candidate–400 votes

Rep. county commissioner candidate–100 votes

The Democratic candidate now pulls ahead.  She has 500 total votes in Flatland County.  The Republican candidate has 400 votes.  

If this is like the mayoral election in Los Angeles or any election which involves Trump, Trump followers, MAGA candidates, or any other observer who lacks rudimentary knowledge of arithmetic, you will hear the cry “the election was rigged.”  They are that stupid.