Monthly Archives: May 2025

And it’s quite exhilarating.

I think, at this point, Defense Secretary Hegseth is accepted by government observers to be profoundly incompetent to his job. He may have been great as a Fox News host, but anything else?

So this report from Steve Benen (because I don’t have NYTimes access) isn’t surprising:

Among those joining [AG] Bondi for the inaugural meeting of the [anti-Christian bias task] group was Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who, it turns out, held a related event one month later. The New York Times reported:

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth led a Christian prayer service in the Pentagon’s auditorium on Wednesday morning, during working hours, in which President Trump was praised as a divinely appointed leader. The event, billed as the “Secretary of Defense Christian Prayer & Worship Service,” was standing room only and ran for about 30 minutes, with Brooks Potteiger, the pastor of Mr. Hegseth’s church in Tennessee, as the main speaker.

Bold mine, added in case my reader is skimming.

When it comes to being incompetent, it’s vital to legitimize your occupancy of your important and prestigious position, and what better way than to have your boss be divinely appointed?

The light generated by that appointment, or at least the propaganda megaphones, will reflect on their incompetent minions, such as Hegseth, Noem, Luttnick, and so many others, and distract casual observers from the basic shortcomings of these minions by enticing them into casting about for any hints of divine favor for these incompetent.

Never mind how these chronic incompetents subtract all that divine glory stuff from the divine. You can’t tell because, well, God doesn’t make appearances.

So this anti-Constitutional meeting isn’t really about spreading Christianity so much as excusing Mr Hegseth’s vast and profound incompetency. He can impress himself by how much God favors him. Why, God said so during his last appearance.

Didn’t he?

Things will get better!

I took that on a cloudy day. It’d have been better in full sunlight.

Friary:

a building in which friars live [Cambridge Dictionary]

While clear from context, I thought it best to get the exact definition in case there was nuance, which there was not. At least, to the extent we can be exact when there are several distinct sources. Noted in “A new pope confronts his church’s abuse scandal amid praise and scrutiny,” Karin Brulliard, Samantha Schmidt, Jonathan Edwards and Jonathan O’Connell, WaPo:

Although I neither follow nor go out of my way to read Mark Sumner at Daily Kos, when I have read his stuff I’ve generally thought what he writes is rather good. That makes this bit of fury and arrogance all the more disappointing.

In case my reader has yet to run across a reference to TACO, here ya go:

Trump lashed out at a reporter on May 28 who asked for his response to financial analysts embracing a new term called “TACO trade.” The acronym stands for “Trump always chickens out” ‒ a jab at the president’s propensity to impose or threaten steep tariffs on imports, only to later back off. [USA Today]

He seems a trifle touchy.

Jan-Werner Müller in The Guardian notes of the amateur circus that is the Trump Administration:

The background noise to the official letters has been a steady stream of social media posts from the president, throwing invective at Harvard instead of conducting the serious government business of maligning Bruce Springsteen and Taylor Swift. The founder of a university whose attendees received a $25m settlement has accused the US’s oldest university of “scamming the public”, constituting a “threat to democracy”, and exposing innocent young Americans to “crazed lunatics” (as opposed to non-crazed lunatics). It is a well-known pattern in authoritarian regimes that underlings try to please the leader by anticipating his wishes and imitating his style. Official letters, posts, and press statements from DHS and the Department of Education not only fail to provide evidence and violate procedural safeguards; they not only make up ad hoc demands that have no basis in law; they also contain the signature capital letters, spelling mistakes, and kindergarten-level invective familiar from the president’s rhetoric. It is governance driven by a desire to please Fox viewers, online Maga mobs, and the Avenger-in-Chief.

In what might be called the anti-apotheosis of the Republican Party’s embrace of the Gingrichian principles that Democrats cannot be permitted victories, that only policy stands are important, that it’s loyalty over competency.

That last one may be the most obvious in view of Mr. Müller’s observations. Are any of President Trump’s appointees quietly competent individuals? Noem and habeas corpus, Kennedy and anything to do with health, Hegseth and his arrogant belief that he knows better than anyone else, that clown Luttnick and his grandma not caring about Social Security, even Treasury’s Bessent doesn’t seem as bright as word had him.

And Rubio seems to have become an idiot.

The Republicans have scurried right over to where I predicted: Mass incompetency, as the fringe rode in on their broken tricycles. And they don’t even seem to know it; they arrogantly believe they’re as good, or better, than their predecessors, Democrat or Republican, over the last fifty years. Meanwhile, they open their yaps and prove otherwise everyday.

The question du jour is to ask: what’s next? Will the Democrats do they same thing? Will the Republican Party meltdown in the elections of 2025 (a couple of gubernatorial elections), 2026 (Congressional), or 2028 in the Presidential?

Just what sort of clown could think they’ll succeed Trump? The mind boggles.

On a day where the NASDAQ is up nearly 2.5%, the price of DJT, the stock of the company of Donald J. Trump … fell:

This five day chart clearly shows shares of DJT dropped 10% today, in contrast with the indices. What went wrong? Bad news?

How about this?

Trump Media & Technology Group (DJT) is doubling down on cryptocurrency, unveiling plans Tuesday to create what it claims will be one of the largest bitcoin treasuries held by any public company.

The initiative is backed by a $2.5 billion private funding round, with commitments from roughly 50 institutional investors, according to a company press release. The deal includes $1.5 billion in Trump Media common stock and $1 billion in convertible senior secured notes, set to close on or around May 29.

Once finalized, the move will place bitcoin directly on Trump Media’s balance sheet, alongside existing cash, cash equivalents, and short-term investments totaling $759 million as of the end of Q1 2025.

That’s dated today. It sounds like good news.

Or are the rumors concerning Walmart steaks being served at his dinner party for big-time investors in $TRUMP, the President’s vehicle of corruption cryptocurrency, true?

Donald Trump’s exclusive dinner party for investors in his $TRUMP meme coin turned into a spectacle of disappointment, with critics slamming it as an “orgy of corruption” and guests complaining about the food and lack of access to the US president.

Held Thursday evening at Trump National Golf Club in Virginia, the high-profile event gathered 220 crypto investors who collectively poured in $148 million for a chance to meet Trump and dine in style. Instead, many left underwhelmed—by both the meal and the man.

Social media personality and prankster Nicholas Pinto, who says he invested $360,000 in the memecoin, attended the event and told WIRED and Fortune that it was “the worst food” he’s ever had at a Trump property. “The only good thing was the bread and butter,” Pinto added, calling the steak “trash” and likening it to something bought at Walmart. [The Economic Times, via MSN]

Tacky but irrelevant, you mutter? Try adding in his performance in speechifying:

The president began both speeches by sticking to a script but then veered off course. At West Point on Saturday, his speech went on for over an hour. He attacked diversity, equity, and inclusion programs and said: “The job of the U.S. Armed Forces is not to host drag shows to transform foreign cultures, or to spread democracy to everybody around the world at the point of a gun,” he said. “The military’s job is to dominate any foe and annihilate any threat to America, anywhere, anytime, and any place.” (In fact, the mission of the Department of Defense is “to provide the military forces needed to deter war and ensure our nation’s security.”)

Trump veered off into immigration and a chat about golf, then repeated a story about William Levitt, a real estate developer whose post–World War II housing developments became synonymous with suburbia, that he had told at a 2017 Boy Scout jamboree. On Saturday, Trump talked about Levitt becoming “very rich, a very rich man, and then he decided to sell. And he sold his company, and he had nothing to do. He ended up getting a divorce, found a new wife. Could you say a trophy wife? I guess we can say a trophy wife. It didn’t work out too well, but it doesn’t—that doesn’t work out too well, I must tell you. A lot of trophy wives. It doesn’t work out. But it made him happy for a little while, at least, but he found a new wife. He sold his little boat, and he got a big yacht, he had one of the biggest yachts anywhere in the world. He moved for a time to Monte Carlo, and he led the good life, and time went by, and he got bored and 15 years later, the company that he sold to called him, and they said, ‘The housing business is not for us.’ You have to understand when Bill Levitt was hot. When he had momentum, he’d go to the job sites every night, he’d pick up every loose nail, he’d pick up every scrap of wood, if there was a bolt or a screw laying on the ground, he’d pick it up, and he’d use it the next day and putting together a house.” [“May 26, 2025,” Professor Richardson, Letters From An American]

Somewhere else – I regret that I cannot find the link – I read that whitehouse.gov is no longer publishing an index to his speeches. Or maybe his speeches at all.

His probable dementia is affecting his most effective communications device – his performance art.

The cryptocurrency folks, the earnest ones, must have been appalled, even terrified, to find themselves in the presence of a leading conman, although how the dementia plays in his harder to say; the rest were, no doubt, trying to figure out how to work the crowd, regardless.

But these rumors and/or facts appear to have reached the market, and the thought that Trump Media and Technology Group Corp is buying $2.5 billion worth of bitcoin may be a bit unnerving for larger investors, when the company is under the influence of someone with dementia. Add in the chance that President Putin’s not happy with President Trump and may be manipulating the market to let the price drop ….

Well. All speculation on my part, I’ll freely admit. Someone make some popcorn for me, eh? I’d feel faint if I owned any DJT, not because it fell, but because it’s completely unpredictable.

I gotta love this report from Steve Benen’s campaign roundup (I’d take it right from the Wall Street Journal, but I lack a subscription):

The lovely orange azalea has now entered into bloom, which will last maybe a week.

I’ve not been paying much attention to the outside world this weekend, as it’s a tiring and dispiriting situation, despite my optimism that, soon enough, even his outer-ring supporters will realize he’s only working for himself, and not them.

But this weekend, peering through cataracts and typing hampered by recovery from shoulder surgery and triggerfinger in both hands, I’ve been taking care of myself.

Jacquard machine:

The Jacquard machine (French: [ʒakaʁ]) is a device fitted to a loom that simplifies the process of manufacturing textiles with such complex patterns as brocade, damask and matelassé. The resulting ensemble of the loom and Jacquard machine is then called a Jacquard loom. The machine was patented by Joseph Marie Jacquard in 1804, based on earlier inventions by the Frenchmen Basile Bouchon (1725), Jean Baptiste Falcon (1728), and Jacques Vaucanson (1740). The machine was controlled by a “chain of cards”; a number of punched cards laced together into a continuous sequence. Multiple rows of holes were punched on each card, with one complete card corresponding to one row of the design.

Both the Jacquard process and the necessary loom attachment are named after their inventor. This mechanism is probably one of the most important weaving innovations, as Jacquard shedding made possible the automatic production of unlimited varieties of complex pattern weaving. The term “Jacquard” is not specific or limited to any particular loom, but rather refers to the added control mechanism that automates the patterning. The process can also be used for patterned knitwear and machine-knitted textiles such as jerseys. [Wikipedia]

Noted in this reader-provided article, “Gaurav Gupta Channeled a Message of Healing for Spring 2025 Couture,” Alex Wynne, WWD:

In one look, a specially created jacquard with a Sanskrit chant woven into the cloth was used to create a dramatic sculptural collar in gold on black, with the text repeated on the model’s face.

This is related to the fashion show I linked to for a Video of the Day, and I think I recall the referenced work. My thanks to the readers who contributed to the VOTD thread.

Ah, ladies, you’re charming but … two-dimensional.

The Adventures of Prince Achmed (1926) is a version of the tale known to most Americans as Aladdin and the Lamp. but wherein Aladdin is a supporting character.

Prince Achmed is tricked into mounting a mechanical flying horse provided by the Evil Sorcerer. Upon proof that it does fly, Caliph offers anything in his kingdom for the horse; the Evil Sorcerer selects Princess Dinarsade.

The horse then conveys Achmed away on an uncontrollable and wondrous voyage to Wak-Wak, an island ruled by the beautiful Pari Banu. The Prince, entranced, presses himself upon her until she finally relents.

Meanwhile, the father of Prince Achmed, the Caliph, places the Sorcerer in chains, but these are nothing to an Evil Sorcerer, and, escaping, he takes Dinarsade away in pursuit of Achmed.

Achmed, and this all gets confusing in retrospect, loses Pari Banu to the Sorcerer and is trapped. While the Sorcerer takes Pari to China and sells her to the Emperor, the Sorcerer’s arch-enemy, the Witch, frees Achmed; Achmed rescues Aladdin from a monster, and it turns out Aladdin, who has a magical lamp, is secretly married to Princess Dinarsade.

Then it’s just a matter of taking care of the Evil Sorcerer and getting home.

It all sounds a bit silly, but it’s actually rather fascinating because this is allegedly, and subject to future cinematic discoveries, the earliest surviving animated film, and the fifth (another source claims third) animated film ever made. It was constructed using the silhouette animation technique, resulting in a shadow effect in which living things are portrayed in black, while background and buildings are in various shades of the dominant color.

The effect captures the eye, and the efforts of the artists involved, these being the director Lotte Reiniger, and animators Walter Ruttmann, Berthold Bartosch, Carl Koch, and others, are sometimes amazing; they had my Arts Editor exclaiming with delight. This alone makes it worth tracking down a print for viewing.

Speaking of prints, the principals of this film are German, and, it being quite an old movie, it’s a silent movie. The expository intertitles are in German.

We viewed a German-only version of The Adventures of Prince Achmed first, and found it a bit mystifying, as neither of us are fluent, or even knowledgeable, in German. Then we viewed a version with English captions, and it really brought the story to light for us, as if an extra light source had been added to the film.

Metaphorically, that’s exactly what happened.

This seems to be the English print we viewed. Enjoy!

Not that I am a fan of the spoken poem that leads this off, or of all the pieces displayed. But it was certainly different from the normal fashion show.

I see Spring as the season of light; Summer is the season of glare and oppressive heat.

Have a safe and pleasant Memorial Day.

Back in January I mentioned, and haphazardly analyzed, the Trump memecoin, a species of cryptocurrency:

But the big news of late was just-now-President Trump has his own cryptocurrency, called $TRUMP, which may cause illness in those aware that President Trump allegedly grew up in a prosperity theology church. Maybe he figures inadvertent chanting of “$TRUMP” will bring him more money?

And so what’s been happening? WaPo has the analysis from a couple of weeks ago:

At least 67,000 new or small-time crypto investors like Davis have bet on Trump’s meme coin, pouring $15 million into the volatile venture endorsed by Trump and benefiting his personal wealth, a Washington Post analysis found.

But virtually all of them bought near the coin’s peak, just before the inauguration, and 80 percent of them have seen the value of their holdings nosedive, The Post’s analysis shows. One buyer who spent $10,000 has already lost, on paper, more than $8,000.

The President and his team?

The losses point to the risks for Trump supporters and crypto speculators eager to bet on the loosely regulated venture of the self-described “first crypto president.” But they also draw a stark contrast with the president’s team, which has made millions in trading fees from transactions for the meme coin, even when its value goes down.

Welcome to the con, folks. People with money to the right, people without will please leave through the door with the attached automated boot.

Erick Erickson is confusing tools with punishments:

Only the House Freedom Caucus has the will to reform entitlements. Entitlements are weighing down the country and pushing us off the fiscal cliff. The “big beautiful bill” does not reform entitlements enough, does not close the deficit, and grows the national debt further.

This is not sustainable. At some point, bond investors will give up on the American economy. In the worst-case scenario, they’ll stop buying leaving the government without an influx of cash. In the less worst scenario, they’ll demand much higher yields, which will suck up more tax revenue and expedite the debt spiral of doom.

Without massive reforms, all our taxes will go up and our economy will shrink. In the meantime, our costs of doing business will go up, including higher mortgage costs, etc.

I’m not entirely sure that he understands this, or is just so foursquare against taxes that he blindly afflicts the citizenry with hammer blows and saw blades under the assumption that taxes are punishments.

A lot of people think – as a shortcut, perhaps – of taxation as confiscatory. It’s not. It’s your contribution to improving society where the free markets are inefficient, or even inoperative. To do something that the free markets won’t doesn’t mean it’s a waste of time or money. Consider the campaign to land on the Moon. Was it worth it? Yes – not because of what we found, but from the technologies we developed to get there. Tomes have been written detailing all the lovely things we developed to support the endeavour, from physics to dental drills.

Back on point, railing about taxes is reflective of this key misunderstanding about their purpose. If we need to boost taxes to cover debts incurred by foolish politicians, regardless of their Party affiliation, then lets do it, learn from our mistakes, and get on with the business of governing the United States.

Eh?

My Arts Editor directed me to this:

AlgiKnit is the New York-based biomaterials research group that researches biomaterials derived from kelp, a rapidly reproducing organism that is readily and abundantly available. The team creates their material using a biopolymer derived from kelp and then transforms it into bioyarn through an extrusion process. This process allows the creation of a monofilament comparable to a traditional yarn, which is then able to be knitted.

They have developed a compostable yarn from kelp which can be knit into zero-waste, fully-fashioned garments or transformed into a textile for applications in footwear. AlgiKnit was developed from the winning concept presented at the first Biodesign Challenge in 2016. The FIT team competed against renowned science institutions such as the University of Pennsylvania, New York University, and Carnegie Mellon University to name a few. The students were challenged to come up with innovative biological design ideas that could have a positive impact on the planet. [FIT]

It’s a cool thought. I wonder how long clothes made in this manner will last; my Arts Editor reports the clothes made from this process are expensive, so their lifetime matters.

“One of his better ones” – my Arts Editor.

It appears Rep Buddy Carter (R-GA) is trying to make up to President Trump with this proposed legislation:

A study says:

The study population consisted of 11,905 individuals, and the response rate was 54% among cases (n = 1398) and 47% among controls (n = 4193). The tattoo prevalence was 21% among cases and 18% among controls. Tattooed individuals had a higher adjusted risk of overall lymphoma (IRR = 1.21; 95% CI 0.99–1.48). The risk of lymphoma was highest in individuals with less than two years between their first tattoo and the index year (IRR = 1.81; 95% CI 1.03–3.20). The risk decreased with intermediate exposure duration (three to ten years) but increased again in individuals who received their first tattoo ≥11 years before the index year (IRR = 1.19; 95% CI 0.94–1.50). We found no evidence of increasing risk with a larger area of total tattooed body surface. The risk associated with tattoo exposure seemed to be highest for diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (IRR 1.30; 95% CI 0.99–1.71) and follicular lymphoma (IRR 1.29; 95% CI 0.92–1.82). [eClinicalMedicine]

Keeping in mind this is a single study with no confirmation, it’s a bit dismaying that a seemingly harmless activity such as getting a tattoo can result in cancer.

Hopefully, if confirmed, the composition of tattoo ink can be changed.

Checking in on Trump Media and Technology Group Corp, stock symbol DJT:

This monthly chart shows DJT’s picked up nearly 30%, although Friday’s after-hours trading cut that gain a bit. Over the same period the NASDAQ is up nearly 18% and the S&P 500 is up nearly 13%.

News? Well, President Trump authorized creation of a strategic bitcoin reserve, which is a bit bizarre since, in an emergency, the Internet would certainly become erratic, despite its elegant design, and might even disappear. No Internet, no bitcoin. This is also true if a solar flare comparable to the Carrington Event were to occur and impact Earth – at the very least, most computer communications would go down; if of sufficient magnitude, most computers would crash irrecoverably.

And so much for bitcoin miners.

But we’d have greater problems than all the cryptocurrencies disappearing, so it’s not all that important in a direct and practical manner. It’s simply President Trump trying to advance an industry that he’s become deeply enmeshed in, and, for those of us who still believe corruption is a vast societal negative, that’s a problem. Or an opportunity, as he accumulates more and more criminal charges.

I also see the Company has reincorporated in Florida:

At the Annual Meeting, the Company’s stockholders approved the reincorporation of the Company from Delaware to Florida (the “Reincorporation”). In connection with the Reincorporation, the Company filed its Articles of Incorporation (the “Articles of Incorporation”) with the Florida Secretary of State and adopted new Bylaws (the “Bylaws”). The Reincorporation became effective as of April 30, 2025. The forms of the Articles of Incorporation and Bylaws were each attached as an exhibit to the Proxy Statement. The Articles of Incorporation are filed as Exhibit 3.1 and the Bylaws are filed as Exhibit 3.2 to this Current Report on Form 8-K.

They don’t like Delaware, a traditional incorporation location because of its judicial capabilities when it comes to corporate governance? Florida is Republican?

Corporate scams are easier in Florida?

Whatever the real reason, I expect it’ll be unsavory and a segment of the American population will trust in DJT – and regret it.

But DJT’s jump in price may be due to the covert influence of those attempting to please the President for their own reasons. We live in a world where the gloriously, deliriously wealthy are jealous of each other. They compete to accumulate more wealth, more power, and more prestige, because that’s what they’ve done all their lives, and they don’t know how to change the focus of their lives to something else, such as advancing society in general. As if their wealth is independent of the society in which they live, rather than inextricably and completely dependent.

It’s a bit pathetic, really.

If we see the markets plunge again, we may or may not see DJT’s price drop even more. I’m neither a financial professional nor a clairvoyant. I’ll simply state that I won’t go anywhere near a stock which is weak enough to be manipulated, and for which the risks of manipulation are actually worth it. Predictability, the philosopher’s stone of the investor, approaches zero in these situations.

From “This common phrase is widely misused. Is it worth salvaging?” Mark Lasswell, WaPo:

Don’t take just my word for it. Let’s consult Ngram Viewer, a Google data tool that is such a marvelous time-wasting diversion, it’s almost enough to make you forgive them the intrusive, erratic AI Overview (AI: Accuracy Intermittent).

My bold. My laughter. I love it.

There may be a bit of an uproar over this:

President Donald Trump on Saturday said Walmart needs to stop “trying to blame tariffs” after the retail giant announced its products would become more expensive.

Walmart’s CEO said the price increases were a result of Trump’s tariffs being “too high,” particularly when it came to Chinese goods.

“We will do our best to keep our prices as low as possible. But given the magnitude of the tariffs, even at the reduced levels announced this week, we aren’t able to absorb all the pressure given the reality of narrow retail margins,” Walmart CEO Douglas McMillon said Thursday in an earnings call.

Trump responded on Saturday, posting to Truth Social that “Between Walmart and China they should, as is said ‘EAT THE TARIFFS,’ and not charge valued customers ANYTHING. I’ll be watching, and so will your customers!” [CNN/Business]

And who would take it in the rear if Walmart decides to accede to President Trump’s delusions of how economy and tariffs work?

Investors.

Regardless of whether it’s a public or a private company, I think the lion’s share of eating the tariff has to come out of profits; workers and logistics have been the target of cost reductions for decades. What does that leave?

The greedy investors.

How will the clash between President Trump, his delusions, and investors play out? It’s hard to say, but this may turn out to be just the first exchange in a long war between retailers and the President Trump-led xenophobes.

I don’t have much insight here, but it’ll be interesting to see how long President Trump can hold it together. His history suggests he may back down fairly quickly.