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My track record in prophecy is certainly mixed, but based on what I’ve seen so far, RFK Jr will be the next HHS secretary. He’s certainly no more unqualified than Pete Hegseth is to be secretary of defense, and it looks like Hegseth is headed for approval. “Amid reports that the adults in Donald Trump’s room may be convincing him to put some guardrails in place on his HHS nominee — whom he vowed to let “go wild on health” — there are also reportedly some cracks forming around the nominee himself within Republican circles.   “But it’s not clear if the anti-RFK contingent of Trump allies is yet strong enough to actually make a dent, let alone imperil, RFK Jr.’s ability to be confirmed as HHS secretary.” That RFK Jr is even being seriously  discussed  as secretary of HSS is testament to deep cynicism of Trump and the modern GOP. Vaccines are a triumph of public health that have saved billions of lives, and RFK Jr is a notorious anti-vaxxer who repeats long-debunked lies...

Kevin Drum has a post up at jabberwocking.com about Trump’s proposed “External Revenue Service.” This agency, which would duplicate the work currently done by Customs and Border Protection, would allegedly be responsible for collecting tariffs from exporting countries. Only that’s not how tariffs work—they’re collected from the importers, who in turn pass them on to consumers. Higher tariffs -> higher prices -> inflation. Look, this is just a charade to set Trump up to blame foreigners when prices go up. It's a pre-emptive deflection, and the Trumpenproletariat and MSM will fall for it.   The Internal Revenue Service is widely hated, so an “External” Revenue Service” would be the opposite, the anti-IRS, right? The ERS isn’t new policy, it’s purely marketing. https://jabberwocking.com/trump-creates-federal-department-that-already-exists/#comments

When I was in first grade, we had daily bible readings. Each child was allowed a turn to read a verse or two from their bible. This was in a public school. The problem of how to manage verses from, e.g., Muslim or Hindu children was solved by the fact that in East Tennessee there *were* no Muslim or Hindu children in my class. Still, as a little Catholic boy, I was somewhat embarrassed to read from the Douay-Rheims bible, the RCC-approved version, with its awkward and stilted phrasing. I don’t recall whether there were readings in second grade, but for sure, there weren’t any in 3 rd   grade or after. I grew up right at the inception of Vatican II. When I started going to mass, it was in Latin and the priest faced away from the congregation. With Vatican II, the mass was (mostly) in English and the priest stood behind the altar, facing the congregation. I remember as a young Catholic boy embracing the new spirit of ecumenism and religious tolerance. In fact, I was shocked when I we...

Pete Hesgeth, Trump’s nominee for defense secretary, thinks that Fort Liberty should go back to its previous name, Fr. Bragg. “Fort Bragg, one of the largest Army bases in the US, was named for Braxton Bragg, a general in the Confederacy and slave owner who lost nearly every battle he was involved in during the Civil War. A naming commission set-up by Congress to study renaming bases noted Bragg is “considered one of the worst generals of the Civil War,” and was “widely disliked in the pre-Civil War U.S. Army and within the Confederate Army by peers and subordinates alike.”” It seems fitting that a Trump appointee, working for a man who advocated overthrow of the government in 2021 and who saw nearly every business enterprise named for him fail, should advocate naming a military base after a traitor and a failure. https://www.cnn.com/2025/01/13/politics/pete-hegseth-confederate-generals-military-bases/index.html

Most of the media finger-pointing by Trump and his cult has been about sullying Gavin Newsom as a presidential candidate in 2028. Trump and Fox don’t actually care about the reason for the fires (anthropogenic climate change) or how to mitigate the consequences. Over at jabberwocking.com, Kevin Drum has a long but excellent summary of the history and challenges of controlled burns as a way to mitigate risk. I recommend you read the whole thing (link below) if you really care about the California fires and their implications. Tl;dr? “Bottom line: regulatory hurdles are real for both prescribed burns and mechanical treatments, but they aren't the biggest obstacles by any means. The biggest impediments are public opposition, rising insurance costs, resource constraints, and the risk-averse views of forest managers, many of whom are still wary of prescribed burns. This is partly for technical reasons and partly out of fear. Only one out of a thousand prescribed burns gets out of contro...

A Facebook friend just posted this: “So wildfires and the threat of wildfires is a part of our lives. Our homeowner’s insurance company, American National Property and Casualty (ANPAC) has notified us they are pulling out of New Mexico because their claims (especially fire claims) are higher than their reserves and they can't cover the costs or make money. I have until the end of July to find homeowners and car insurance coverage. Something needs to change. I don't have the answer.” This is New Mexico, not Southern California. But I imagine this will extend to Arizona and Texas in the next few years. And I expect a similar problem for Florida, the Gulf Coast and much of the Eastern Seaboard because of coastal flooding due to sea level rise and increased hurricane intensities. When we moved to Rhode Island—"The Ocean State”—we checked the elevations and 100-year flood risk for our neighborhood. While this could end up as beachfront property by 2150, we’ll be too dead to app...