Satisfaction guaranteed or money back?

The environmental group Save Carbon County ordered an air quality monitor.  It was fairly expensive, but it was also quite sophisticated, able to monitor and record six different kinds of air pollution.  The monitor was imported from New Zealand.  Then Trump slapped his tariffs on goods from countries around the world, including New Zealand.  The price went up $600.

The Supreme Court subsequently ruled that the tariffs were illegal.  Money had to be returned.  The New Zealand company should get the $600 back.  What do you think the chances are that Save Carbon County will get its money returned?  

Protecting Big Oil from lawsuits

Congress in 2005 passed the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act that shielded companies that manufacture guns from getting sued.  We saw how that worked.  Hey, we just make the guns.  Not our fault if they are used to shoot up schools.

Now oil companies want the same protection from lawsuits that involve climate change.  In March Utah enacted a law that shields oil companies from any climate-related damage lawsuits.  Republicans have introduced similar bills in Louisiana and Oklahoma.  And the Trump administration wants the same policy at the Federal level.  

We will pay additional insurance and deal with climate change while the oil companies continue to rake in profits and wreck the globe.  Over 100 Republican members of the House agree.

See Dave Jones, “Oil CompaniesWant What Gun  Manufacturers Have,”  New York Times, (April 19, 2026), p. SR8.

The "Annoyance Economy"

I hadn’t realized there was a term for it until I read about it in the Times.  The Annoyance Economy consists of a whole group of costs and fees that have been estimated to add up to about $165 billion.  Not a typo–billion.

How many minutes did you spend last week on hold?  How many robocalls did you answer?  How many hours did you wait in line at the airport?  How much spam did you need to delete?  How many minutes did you take to fill out the medical forms in the waiting room that you had just filled out the week before?  

And now, with AI, you will get more of this.  More robocalls.  More spam.  More political ads that lie to you.  More frustrations.  More time wasted.  Annoyance economy is such a great term.

No Mow May

Lawns are environmental deserts.  They are over fertilized, often sprayed with weed killer, and don’t provide any food for insects or birds.  In some areas people have embraced “No Mow May,” an effort to allow weeds like dandelions to flourish in the early spring.  I tried this, but No Mow May is suitable for more northern states like Wisconsin and Minnesota.  Here in Pennsylvania No Mow April is more realistic, and even here if I don’t mow for the entire month of April, I would need more than a mower to cut the grass at the end of the month.

Today, when I mowed for the first time, I didn’t cut some patches of dandelions and some small blue flowers.  The lawn looks a bit raggedy, but I noticed that a number of bees seemed happy, if bees can be happy.

The Gospel according to Quentin Tarantino

In the past few days the Secretary of the Treasury said global warming was a creation of the “elite,” Lee Zeldin of the E.P.A. pushed the use of “clean coal,” Trump appeared in a post as Jesus healing a sick man while armed angels flew overhead, a “Door Dash Grandma” delivering food to the White House was found to be a propaganda set-up, recent convert to Catholicism J.D. Vance lectured the Pope on theology, Todd Blanche said all the Epstein files had been released, Trump delivered an eight-minute lecture on Peruvian snakes, and Pete Hegseth quoted a Bible verse from the Gospel of Quentin Tarantino.

I am not making this up. 

Scott Bessent isn't that dumb

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent at the meeting of the International Monertary Fund said it was difficult to determine the causes of global climate change and said global warming was a belief of the “elite.”  He said global institutions should emphasize economic growth.  He said emphasizing measures to fight warming would harm the poor.

He is the goddam Treasury Secretary.  He knows that the world’s poor will (and are) suffering the most from climate change.  Jeff Bezos won’t be affected by forest fires and tornadoes and loss of cropland.  Scott Bessent won’t be harmed either.  He will be dead before the worst effects are felt, but he will die rich.  That seems to be what motivates these people.  They want to die rich.  The hell with the rest of us.  They will live like kings, and the hell with the rest of us.

See Alan Rappeport and Lisa Friedman,”Bessent Questions Climate Change Cause and Financial Toll,” New York Times, (Apr. 15, 2026), p. A19.

Bombing hospitals

When Trump threatened to destroy the Iranian civilization, most people viewed that as a future threat.  Little did we know the process had already started.  The Times today on page A10 published a partial list of some of the dozens of civilian structures hit by U.S. and Israeli bombs.  Those are two countries that brag about their accuracy in targeting.  

I can’t list all of the buildings damaged or destroyed, but they included the Isfahan University of Technology, the Gandhi Hospital, The Khatam al-Anbia Hospital, the Motahari Burn and Trauma Hospital, the Tehran Emergency Center, the Ghazal Surgical Center, the Imam Ali Hospital, the Delaram Sina Psychiatric Hospital, the Hedayat Boys’ High School, and the Shahid Mahallati Elementrary School.  

This is what Hegseth was praying for.  These are our bombs.

Pope Leo is "weak on crime"

Do we really need to respond to this kind of idiocy?  Is there anything left to say?  Or do we just throw up our hands and move on?  Evidently that is what members of Congress and members of the Cabinet are doing.  

And how do you respond to Trump as Jesus?  Evidently somebody got to him on that one, since he removed the picture some hours after he posted it.  And then he said he thought he was being portrayed as a doctor.  That was so cute.

There is some debate about whether Trump is mentally ill.  Why is that up for debate?  Let me make it clear in case you have doubts.  Yes, Trump is mentally ill.  Period.  And he is in charge of nuclear weapons.

Orban loses in Hungary

In June 2016 the people of the U.K. voted to leave the European Union.  This was a huge shock to many people, including me.  I had a very bad feeling.  If that could happen in the U.K., I saw it as an omen for our own Presidential election that November.  My fears were justified; Trump won.

Today in Hungary the Tisza party won a smashing victory, and the authoritarian dictator Viktor Orban is out.  He didn’t even claim the election was stolen; he congratulated his opponent.  This was after Orban received the support of Putin and Trump.  Netanyahu and J.D. Vance both campaigned for Orban.  None of that mattered.  In fact, all of that probably hurt him.  

I have a very good feeling.  The tide is turning.  This is an omen of what will happen here in November.  You read it here first.

My friend Roger

This morning I emailed my friend Roger in New Jersey to ask him how goldfinches could change from drab grey to bright yellow in less than a week.  Roger in his later life became an amazing birder and photographer of birds, and I figured he would know.  I also asked him about Zillow, the real estate company.  I wanted to know how it worked, and I figured he could tell me, since he had been a realtor for most of his life.

At noon I got a call from his wife, and I had a bad feeling.  She said their daughter had read my email, and she wanted me to know that Roger had died last evening from heart-related issues.  

I met him my first year at Ursinus College, when he was a sophomore.  We lived in the same dorm for three years.  When I went to grad school at Penn State, Roger was an MBA student, and we were apartment mates.  We each had one daughter, and we kept in touch for the last 60 years, occasionally visiting and emailing.  

My father died when he was 91.  He said the hardest thing about getting old was seeing your friends die.  I had five really good friends from my Ursinus days.  I’ve lost touch with two of them, and the other three have died.  I didn’t see Roger that often, but I will miss him.

Another rant about cats and deer

Two species have a deleterious effect on Pennsylvania’s natural environment–cats and deer.  House cats kill millions of birds each year.  The Audubon Society reports that many bird species are in major decline, and one of the big reasons is cats.  We actually have a local organization that takes care of feral cats, raises money for them, and feeds them.  The cats are neutered, but neutered cats kill birds.  But the cates are so cute and furry and cuddly.  No, they aren’t.  They are killing machines.

And deer.  Tonight I counted 23 deer in our fields behind our house.  We rent out those fields to a friend and nearby farmer.  This year I will tell him not to pay me.  With a deer herd that big eating soybeans down to the ground, how can he make any money?  In the Poconos you can see though the forest.  There’s a “browse line.”  The deer eat all the vegetation as far as they can reach.  And people feed them!  But the fawns are so cute.  No, they aren’t.  They are destroying crops and forests.  The only natural predators are coyotes, and there aren’t nearly enough of them.

Raising the retirement age

Social Security was enacted in 1935 and payments began in 1937.  Life expectancy for men and women at that time was in the low Sixties, although, like today, it was roughly two years higher for women than men.  The retirement age for collecting Social Security was 65.  

Now recipients can retire earlier.  I retired at age 62, although I did continue part-time employment for another five or six years.  The average life expectancy for men is about 79, although it is inching upward.  This means that more people are receiving Social Security payments for more years, and it is putting a strain on the system.

A number of proposals have been advanced to ensure that the system does not go bankrupt.  One is to have more undocumented workers, since they often pay into the system but don’t collect the benefits.  This seems both unfair and immoral.

Another proposal is to raise the retirement age.  Who advances that idea?  If you check, you will find it is often proposed by members of Congress, economists, and the Republican business class.  You will not find it proposed by janitors, long-haul truck drivers, warehouse workers, miners. and construction workers.  

My idea is to peg the year you collect Social Security to the life expectancy of the workers in your field.  It should be relatively easy to figure that out.  Then you pass a law that you can collect your payments five years before your average life expectancy.  You’d probably need to factor in incomes and the availability of medical care.  If you are working as a college professor and you didn’t like that system, then become a construction worker or a miner.  I think that would work.

Return of the Flip Phones

Quite a large number of members of the Gen Z generation are turning in their Smart Phones for old-fashioned flip phones.  According to a recent article by Matthew Shaer, there are “Luddite clubs” at some high schools and on college campuses.  There is even a phone-free campaign known as the “Reconnect Movement” which has as its slogan, “We’re all craving something real.”  According to a recent poll, over half of the Gen Z respondents had experimented with “digital detoxing,” far more than baby boomers.

I am always so pleased when I am on the cusp of a new trend.  

Trump threatens genocide; claims major victory

Obviously, I’m guessing about the second part.  The first part is clear.  Trump did threaten genocide.  Destroying a civilization fits the definition of genocide, the killing of a people.

The second part I am predicting.  Trump will point out that the stock market has jumped, oil prices are dropping, and the Strait of Hormuz is open.  All of those things were actually in place BEFORE Trump launched his war, but he will still claim victory.  The Iranian regime is still in place, oil shipments will go back to where they were five weeks ago, gas prices may decline to what they were before the war started.

What is different from before the war started is that we have spent billions of tax dollars, a number of young American service members were killed or wounded, the NATO alliance was wrecked, and thousands of Iranians are dead, including school children.  If this is a victory, I’d hate to see a defeat.

What is the latest stupid thing he's done?

I thought of re-naming my blog using that as the title.  You all know to whom I am referring, and I am reasonably sure I could find something every day.  Sometimes it would be hard to choose.  That Easter message about opening the “fuckin’ strait” wasn’t really his, however, since there is no way he would have known to put in an apostrophe.  I’m thinking little Marco might have helped on that.

Now he wants to reopen Alcatraz as a prison.  It’s been closed as a prison for about 60 years and was always difficult to supply and maintain.  It would be incredibly costly to bring it up to prison standards, although Trump obviously doesn’t care about wasting tax dollars.  And while we are at it, let’s do one of those renaming things like the Gulf of America.  Instead of Alcatraz, we can call it Epstein Island Two and use it for pedophiles. 

Working on my income tax return

That’s what I spent most of Easter Sunday doing.  I’m not very good at it, but at least this year I should get it in early.  It is always a bad time for me.  Did you ever see the photos of people lined up at a post office to get their returns postmarked before the midnight deadline on April 15?  I’ve been in those lines more than once.  At least this year, if the preliminary figures are correct, I won’t need to sell the car to pay the tax bill.  (Yes, that really happened.)

It does seem to me that a country as advanced as the U.S. is should be able to produce a reasonably simple tax form.  Why should we have to pay someone to fill it out for us?  That shows to me the forms are way too complicated.  

Where do I put money I got for selling scrap metal and aluminum cans?  Is the small check I get for my New York Times stock a qualified dividend?  What makes it qualified or unqualified?  And that worksheet on what percentage of social security benefits are taxable is beyond my comprehension.

Plus the I.R.S. wants me to make quarterly payments.  Really?  They want me to do this FOUR times a year.  The heck with that.  I just pay the penalty.

It also amuses me when people talk about their refunds.  They forget that they still paid taxes.  I also bet that I pay more income tax than Donald Trump.  (I’ll be happy to compare if he would ever release his tax return.)

Trump's moods

My friend Anne sent me a link to a Wall Street Journal article by Peggy Noonan entitled “A Republic, Not a Mood.”  Noonan quotes Ronald Reagan late in his presidency:  “You don’t become president of the United States.  You are given temporary custody of an institution called the presidency which belongs to our people.”  He said he thought the presidency was “a sacred trust.”

Noonan points out that Trump governs by his “moods.”  The weightiest decisions depend on the President’s mood, how he feels personally at any given time, and people around him try to anticipate those moods.

Noonan explains that we live in a “democratic republic,” and both words are essential.  Democratic is the adjective; republic is the noun.  “In a democratic republic the people choose [their] representatives through elections with broad suffrage.  The republic brings with it constitutional limits, separations of power.”

Trump, of course, understands none of this.  Nor do his followers.  In a recent poll over 90% favor the war against Iran.  Note–these are not Republicans; these are MAGA.  MAGA is a cult made up of people who have no idea what a “democratic republic” involves.  Many of them are in Congress.  One of them is my Congressman, Ryan Mackenzie.

My statement to the Towamensing Township Supervisors

The Towamensing Township municipal workers are on strike.  So far the Township supervisors have spent more money fighting the union than the workers asked for.  Here was my statement I handed to the three Supervisors tonight:

Why we need more women in government

Male and female government officials often approach problems differently.  Men tend to see disputes in terms of winning and losing; women are more likely to see disputes in terms of possible solutions.  Women legislators are also more likely to answer constituent complaints than their male counterparts.

Males often think in terms of domination, of victors and losers.  Women more often think in terms of collaboration and problem-solving.  The domination-submission format works well in football games; the problem-solving format is more appropriate to fixing problems faced by governmental bodies.

The current Township labor dispute is an example.  I firmly believe that if we had three female supervisors (in the history of Towamensing Township, we have had a total of one and only one), this dispute would have been solved months ago.  It’s not all that complicated.  A mediator could suggest steps forward.  Yet here we are, spending tax dollars, seeing a decline in services, punishing long-term employees, and, I believe, for one main reason.

It is to show who is boss, who are the alpha dogs, who are the silverback gorillas.  It is not helping our township. 

Lay off Kristi Noem's husband

He has suffered enough being married to Kristi Noem.  He never said unarmed people shot in the streets of Minneapolis were terrorists.  He never bragged about how tough he was.  He never deported anyone.  

As far as I know, he never shot a dog.

What he did never harmed anyone, at least from what I’ve read.  He never went to Epstein Island.  He never raped children.  Focus your attention on those bastards who did.