Fantastic plan for Atlantic salmon

Many times on this blog I have decried overfishing, particularly for bluefin tuna, but it's a problem for a lot of commercial fisheries.

Well, Greenland is doing something remarkable - they're essentially stopping all commercial fishing for Atlantic salmon for 12 years, to let the stock rebuild.  Hopefully this will lead to much improved salmon runs in North America.

I applaud this plan, and wish that a lot of other nations, and a lot of other commercial fishing operations, would follow Greenland's lead.

Greenland to halt commercial salmon fishing for 12 years

I have one question about this article, though.  The article says:

"Greenland fishermen will still be able to catch up to 20 metric tonnes each year for personal and family consumption."

OK, so a metric tonne is 1,000 kg, or about 2,205 pounds.  So the annual 'limit' here is about 44,000 pounds of salmon.

A family of Greenlanders eats 44,000 pounds of salmon a year??  Either that, or the extended family is pretty darned big.

They do eat a lot of fish;  this article about fishing and aquaculture of Greenland says per capita fish consumption is 86.9 kg.  That's not all salmon, hopefully.  But still, if it was, a family of four would be eating 764 pounds of fish per year.  That means, if they fish their quota, they'd have 43,236 pounds left over.

Doesn't that seem like a lot to you? 

I wish I could clarify why the family exemption is so high.

(OK, I clarified it. That's the total annual catch allowed for all the fisherpersons in Greenland. Much more sensible.)

French Open tennis 2018, women's third round

Only a couple of surprises in this round.  Simona Halep had little difficulty in the second round against Taylor Townsend of the USA, with a 6-3, 6-1 romp.  Also into the third round are Maria Sharapova and Serena Williams, who did drop the first set of her second round match.

There were two upsets;  Maria Sakkari of Greece knocked out Carla Suarez-Navarro (23);  Sakkari is ranked 38th, just outside the seeded players, so not a major upset.   A slightly larger one was Pauline Parmentier, ranked 78th, defeating Alize Cornet, who had the 34th seed.  Parmentier gets 2nd-seed Caroline Wozniacki next.

Sakkari looks strong.  Seriously strong.  This picture was from last year's tournament.

Spectacular video of Kilauea rift eruption

I've abstained from posting a lot about the recent events at the Kilauea volcano in Hawaii, but this was too good to pass up.  If you haven't been paying attention, which if you've got any interest in volcanoes is probably impossible to do, Kilauea's long-term eruption suddenly changed styles recently.  Rather than having a side vent emitting slow and easy and safe lava flows, along with a summit lava lake, the side vent (Pu'u O'o) suddenly drained as the magma underneath suddenly drained to the east.  At the summit, this drop in pressure meant that the lake level fell until there were collapses and possible phreatic (water+lava = steam) explosions.

So while the summit was explosively tossing up ash clouds, on the east side of the volcano, known as the East Rift Zone, fissures opened up and began releasing gas and lava. If you've been watching any of the news, you know that one problem with this was that they opened up near or in a residential neighborhood named Leilani Estates, similar in fashion and not far in distance from what Kilauea did in 1960 to a now-historic village named Kapoho. 

So the various fissures have been opening and closing, with the lava burning houses, burying cars, covering roads, and making its way to the nearby sea.  It covered a site that generated power from steam created by heating water on the hot underground beneath Kilauea, and has closed at least one road out of town.  Fortunately most of the affected residents have gotten out, avoiding the toxic gases and flowing lava.  One feels for them, but hey, if you live where there have been lava flows before and the volcano is obviously still active, the chances of this happening are significant.

So, after all that, I saw this amazing and short video made by the U.S. Geological Survey of what happened on May 29, when Fissure 8 reopened and lava fountains began spurting 200 feet or so into the air.  And that is pretty darned impressive.

Here's the video.



It's certainly permissible to be amazed, even as we wish that this lava wasn't destroying homes and property. But this is what volcanoes do. In this case, it's not killing anyone, which isn't always true.

More commentary from the Morning Joe

Joe Scarborough, writing in the Washington Post, said this:

"Republican candidates justifying their support for a man who lies about payoffs to porn stars, lies about policies that rip infants from their mothers’ arms and lies about the existence of White House staffers speaking on his own behalf now have more than Supreme Court Justice Neil M. Gorsuch to justify their devotion to the “carnage” president. 

For starters, they can point to Trump’s conservative judicial nominees beyond Gorsuch as cause for celebration. But their talking points can also include massive tax cuts, a bigger military budget, regulatory reform and the gutting of the Environmental Protection Agency. Other wedge-issue winners include the planned withdrawal from the Paris climate accords, scrapping of the Iran nuclear deal, undermining Obamacare, moving the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, attacking federal employee unions and promoting extreme immigration policies. Add to that the mocking of political correctness and identity politics, and you have a platform sure to inspire the activists who drive today’s Republican Party."

Read it all:

Trump's short-term success might just do the trick for midterms

As Democrats, we have to pound home the message that what is described in the second paragraph up there is mostly bad, bad, bad.

We HAVE to do that.

French Open 2nd round

Looks like most of the seeded women are rolling easy in the second round of the French Open. Simona Halep dropped her first set in the first round to American Alison Riske, but then cruised 6-1, 6-1.

On the men's side, Sam Querrey is out, and Dimitrov got pushed to five sets, 10-8 in the fifth, by American Jared Donaldson.

Follow the action:

Roland-Garros:  The 2018 French Open

America's Top 10 Beaches 2018

Public Service Announcement: the 2018 list of American's Top Beaches has been released by America's Doctor Beach.  I've been to two of them.


Hawaii's Kapalua Bay tops 'Dr. Beach's' best beach in America list for 2018 (but don't worry, it's on a different island from the lava-spewing volcano)

As I said, I've been to two (Caladesi Island and Coronado Beach) and I've been pretty close to two others.

A stunning picture of Alessandra Ambrosio

She's newly single, and she's a mom, but that doesn't seem to be a problem for Alessandra, and she's been posting more pictures on Instagram recently.

Which is wonderful.

As is this picture.  Casual, sensual, erotic, intimate... very well done.

Is "preventive" preferable to "preventative"?

Say that three time really fast.

But still, it's a good question.  They both mean the same thing, but in the Merriam-Webster Dictionary (online version), preventive gets the definition, and preventative gets "another term for preventive".

So I did some searching, and found this information.

• 'Preventive' or 'Preventative'? Why not both, just to be safe?
• Preventative vs. preventive
• Preventative and Preventive: What’s the Difference?

If you look at all of these, you'll find that basically there isn't a difference. But... the words are used at about the same frequency in England, whereas in the United States, preventive prevails.

(Paused for appreciation.)

So, there's really nothing to prevent us from using preventative, but at present, I prefer preventive.

Perfectly profound, right?

Are they SERIOUS? (Yes, apparently they are)

The Trump presidential disaster - also known as an administration, loosely speaking - has specialized in rolling back, tossing out, overruling, or overwriting a lot of the good things that the Obama administration did.

For that reason, Trump and his staff, whoever they happen to be now, basically suck.

But it is somewhat astonishing the depths to which they will sink to overturn commonsense and humane rules that the Obama administration passed.

This story provides a prime, supremely sickening, example.

Trump administration wants to reverse rules barring hunters from baiting brown bears with bacon and doughnuts and using spotlights to shoot hibernating mothers and cubs

Ugly excerpts:

"Under the proposed changes, hunters would also be allowed to hunt black bears with dogs, kill wolves and pups in their dens, and use motor boats to shoot swimming caribou."

and

"The Obama-era restrictions on hunting on federal lands in Alaska were challenged by Safari Club International, a group that promotes big-game hunting. The Associated Press reported in March that [Interior Secretary] Zinke had appointed a board loaded with trophy hunters to advise him on conserving threatened and endangered wildlife, including members of the Safari Club."

OK.  So,

1) I thought hunting black bears with dogs went out with the rise of Cro-Magnon Man.

2) What possible hunter would feel a sense of accomplishment from killing wolf puppies in their dens?

3) Trophy hunters should be anywhere near an advisory board on conserving threatened and endangered wildlife?

Unbelievable.  Horribly true, but hard to believe.

Now, this is just a proposed set of rule changes, but for modern humans to even consider such rule changes is appalling.   And they might get passed, too.

Impeach all of them.  ASAP.

Was Ethelred really Unready?

The recent royal wedding suddenly conjured in my mind the name "Ethelred the Unready".  He was a king, I knew, and I never knew anything about him, other than the somewhat humorous name.  When I thought about it, I figured he must have been a young man who got on the throne when he was still a bit youthful, i.e. boy king, and thus he would not have been considered ready for the big chair.

Well, I was wrong.

It isn't difficult in this Internet era to find information on topics, and so I did.  Here's the Wikipedia link:

Æthelred the Unready

But here's a quick summary from the Britroyals Web site:

"King of England from 978, following the murder of his half-brother, Edward the Martyr. He was son of King Edgar. Aethelred tried to buy off the Danish raiders by paying Danegeld. In 1002 he ordered the massacre of the Danish settlers, provoking an invasion by Sweyn I of Denmark.In 1013 King Sweyn Forkbeard of Denmark landed in England and was proclaimed king. Aethelred II the Unready fled to Normandy but was recalled in 1014 on the death of Sweyn. War with Sweyn's son, Canute, occupied the rest of Aethelred's reign. His nickname is a corruption of the Old English 'unreed', meaning badly counselled or poorly advised."

So he wasn't unready.  He just didn't have anyone to tell him the right thing to do.  Killing a lot of Danish settlers was really not a good move.

Actually, the attached moniker is a pun.  Æthelred means "well advised".  unræd, or "unreed" as shown above, looks like "unready".  So his full name and title means "The Well-Advised Who Is Badly Advised".  Ha ha ha.

Oh yeah, he had 9 children and reigned for 38 years, except for that little break when Sweyn Forkbeard took over.  That was an incredibly long time back then. He became king when he was 10 years old (I was right about that!).   Also, he's given credit for the concept of a grand jury.

He was buried in Old St. Paul's Cathedral in London, which was destroyed in the WWII bombing campaign of Germany, and his grave was lost. 

But his name lives on.

Big prices for little rocks

By little rock, I mean diamonds.

A few of them went on sale recently.  I was not one of the buyers.

Farnese Blue diamond fetches $6.7m at Geneva auction

It's only 6.1 carats, but it is blue.

The Farnese Blue is a 6.16-carat, pear-shaped blue diamond given in 1715 to Elisabeth Farnese, wife of King Philip V of Spain.

A couple of other big rocks were on sale, too.

"Sotheby's spring sale also included two D-color white diamonds discovered in Botswana. A 51.7-carat round-cut diamond ring sold for $9.2 million. A 50.4-carat oval-cut diamond went for $8.1 million."

Nice things to have if you can afford them.

Most of us can't.

An interesting word

I accidentally typed the word "prill" into a Google Search instead of the world "pill". That led to the discovery that "prill" is a real word.

What's it mean?

" a pellet or solid globule of a substance formed by the congealing of a liquid during an industrial process "

That's what it means.  So what does a "prill" look like?

Here's an example. These prills are made of calcium chloride.

Exciting, right?

What do you mean, "lost"?

Not very comforting:

Astronomers have lost track of nearly 900 asteroids that could be on a deadly collision course with Earth

"Between 2013 and 2016, 17,030 NEAs [Near-Earth Asteroids] were listed by the International Astronomical Union's Minor Planet Centre in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Of these, 11 per cent - nearly 1,900 - were labelled 'initially unconfirmed', meaning they were observed a few times but not enough to pin down their orbit."

We probably shouldn't be worried.  It's much more likely that lava will erupt in your back yard than a big asteroid will hit Earth and cause problems.

And of course, molten lava in your back yard is pretty rare.

A new view of Earth from a CubeSat

There are a couple of mini-satellites headed to Mars right now.  They launched with the InSight Lander, and they are basically intended to watch the lander land.  And that's it.  They're going to do that and then head off into the far reaches of the Solar System.

These satellites, called cubesats or CubeSats, are named MarCO-A and MarCO-B  (stands for Mars Cube One A and B, truthfully).  Here's more about them.

Now well on their way to Mars, they took a look back in the direction of the Earth and caught two specks of light in the universal darkness.   The picture was taken about the time that they set a new distance record for CubeSats operating in space.

Below is the picture;  you can read this article for more information about it.

A little bit salty

This is a very interesting video of how salinity varies in the global ocean, as measured by the SMAP (Soil Moisture Active Passive) satellite.  Even though the main thing it is designed to measure from space is soil moisture (how wet the ground is), it can also measure sea surface salinity (SSS).

The main features of interest in this, at least to my untrained eye, are the seasonal outflows of the Amazon and Congo Rivers, and the cold upwelling off of Panama, that occasionally sends out a jet of really low salinity water.   There's also some seasonal changes around the Ganges River delta, and off the U.S. East Coast.

Watch it a few times; maybe you'll see something you think is interesting that I didn't notice. I recommend doing this full-screen.

Palace finishes with a win

Crystal Palace finished the Premier League season with a 2-0 win over relegated West Bromwich Albion.  They ended up 11th in the table, tied with Newcastle United and Bournemouth on points at 44, but the goal differential put them behind Newcastle and ahead of Bournemouth.

As I've noted before, that's a pretty impressive way to finish the season when it started with seven straight losses and no goals.

It's an interesting league when it's expected that one of six teams will very likely win the championship and the rest will be also-rans or survivors.  Because of money and tradition, that's the way the Premier League goes, with the occasional supremely rare exception of a Leicester City.

But anyway, the Crystal Palace Eagles survive to play another season in England's highest-level league.

Crystal Palace 2-0 West Brom: Wilfried Zaha and Patrick van Aanholt secure final-day win for Eagles as Darren Moore's Baggies go down with a whimper

Checking in with Cheryl

Cheryl (formerly Cheryl Cole) left baby Bear at home, presumably with a babysitter, and went to the Cannes Film Festival. Baby Bear is the child she had with her young beau, Liam Payne, singer and entertainer, formerly a fifth of One Direction.

And she looked great doing it.

Cheryl flaunts her sensational figure in sheer lace gown for Ash Is Purest White premiere at Cannes Film Festival

Lighthouse of the Week, May 13-19, 2018: Högbonden, Höga kusten, Sweden

This is the fourth time I've featured a lighthouse from Sweden, and this one is both picturesquely situated and located in a World Heritage Site named Höga kusten.  So before I give the background on the lighthouse, and the pictures, I will give a little background about Höga kusten.

Höga kusten is Swedish for High Coast.  The reason it's interesting (to geologists) is that it's an area where the ground has risen about 290 meters or so since the continental glaciers melted.   I learned that from the Wikipedia article about it.

Now, Wikipedia is one thing, but I think it is more interesting to go directly to the Swedish Web site dedicated to it.   (Alternatively, there's this one.)

So, Höga kusten is a very interesting place, and Högbonden is an island with a lighthouse there. (Click here to find out where it is.)

So now, here are some things to know about the lighthouse.

"1909. Active; focal plane 75 m (246 ft); four white flashes every 12 s. 14 m (46 ft) round cylindrical tower with lantern and gallery, attached to a 2-story wood keeper's house. Lighthouse painted white; the upper story of the house is painted red and the lower story white.

This is Sweden's second highest light. The 2nd order Fresnel lens (1845), formerly one of the most powerful lights of the Gulf of Bothnia, was transferred here from Ölands Södra Udde (see the Öland page). It was retired in 2010 but remains mounted in the tower."

And it's not just a lighthouse; it's spectacular.  (And it's even on a stamp.)

Still time to enter National Geographic's Travel Photographer of the Year contest

The National Geographic Travel Photographer of the Year Contest is accepting entries until May 31, 2018.

Good luck.  The competition looks pretty tough so far.

Lighthouse of the Week, May 6-12, 2018: South Point, Barbados

You might think that every small piece of land in the middle of an ocean should have a lighthouse.  But in the case of the islands of the Caribbean, that isn't necessarily true.  Most of them have at least one lightouse, but not all of them.  I looked for a lighthouse on Martinique, where explosive and deadly Mont Pelee is located (to have something related to the Kilauea rift eruption that's happening right now in Hawaii).  Alas, Martinique doesn't have a lighthouse.


But nearby Barbados does.  A few of them, in fact.  The one chosen here wasn't actually built on Barbados first, it was built in London, then disassembled and sent to Barbados and re-assembled.  As Wikipedia says:

"It is the oldest lighthouse in Barbados. It was brought to Barbados in 1852, one year after being shown at London’s Great Exhibition, and reassembled on the southernmost point of the island. Although still listed as active, the lighthouse is now considered to be more of a national landmark and tourist attraction..."

It's located on the southern end of the island, as you might have been able to guess, and it's south and east of Bridgetown.

So here's some quick picks, including the lighthouse on coins and stamps:

Oh my, what a great idea

Every time I go to a hotel that has little complimentary containers of shampoo and conditioner, I think about how much plastic gets used to make them - and how much plastic gets thrown away even when they're barely used.  There are a couple of solutions -- you could travel with your own supplies, but they have to go in your checked baggage if there's more than a little.  For long stays, you could buy some at the destination.  You could buy a couple of travel sizes, too (but there might be a travel rule about that).

I do use the conditioner and shampoo, but I try to use them up.  I know not everyone does that. So when I read about this great idea, I wondered why more hotels hadn't thought of it.  I think more of them are going to this, and they should.

Hotels set to replace tiny shampoo and conditioner container with bulk dispensers

"InterContinental Hotels and Marriott International are starting the switch to bulk dispensers in a move that, according to the Wall Street Journal, will help them save money in the long-run and help the environment. This is because it will reduce the amount of plastic waste generated by the miniature bottles."

Cue the applause.  Well done.

SAFE !

Here's what I wrote long ago in October 2017:

Something had to change

It ended with:  "Next step: score a goal."

I was realistic at that point about Crystal Palace's chances of staying in the Premier League this season, which at that stage were in the transition zone between hopeless and really unlikely.  The article was about the replacement of Frank de Boer with Roy Hodgson.  They hadn't scored a goal so far in an 0-4 start, and they didn't score a goal in a league record 0-7 start.

Somehow, they scored their first two goals in a 2-1 victory over Chelsea.

Well, by defeating Stoke City (and in so doing sending them down the relegation chute), CP was safe.  Meaning they stay in the Premier League next season.  Which I truly did not think possible.

Now they just have to figure out how to compensate for losing their best players (which is likely) and getting some decent ones, so next year does not have so much stress.


Roy Hodgson is the 'bandleader' who conducted Crystal Palace's relegation escape miracle... how the veteran manager led the Eagles to safety

Paint vs. reality

Occasionally and recently, I have posted a couple of pictures converted to pseudo-paintings using online image converters.   ("Clara, artistically" and "Might be like a painting").  These converted images notably lose a lot of resolution.

One of the artists I admire for his treatment of the female form and figure is the late Steve Hanks. Steve didn't lose resolution; his remarkable watercolors looked like oil paintings.  In fact, I actually compared a picture of the slender yet curvy Russian model Ekaterina Zueva to several Steve Hanks paintings in which the subject was in a similar position to Ekaterina's pose. ("Just like art").

Well, Ekaterina has done it again, which is to say her photograph looks like a Steve Hanks painting.  See the examples below and see if you agree with me.

First the photograph:

Then the paintings:

Keep working toward November

The following is excerpted from the Washington Post's Plum Line column, penned by Greg Sargent.  It was published on May 3, 2018:


GOP PANICS ABOUT SENATE SEAT:

     "With Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee refusing to give a full-throated endorsement to GOP candidate Marsha Blackburn while praising Dem Phil Bredesen, Politico reports that Republicans are in panic mode:

The drama between Blackburn and Corker, combined with Bredesen’s crossover appeal, hint at a potential train wreck … that could swing the narrowly divided Senate to Democrats. Recent public and private polls show Bredesen leading Blackburn … Republicans … worry that Corker’s Bredesen-friendly comments amount to a tacit permission for pragmatic-minded GOP voters to cross the aisle."

    As we keep pointing out, if Dems can win the Tennessee seat, the path to a Dem majority (via Nevada and/or Arizona) becomes a lot more plausible."


The goal is in sight. It's time to keep working (and also time to support Dem candidates around the country.

A good quote means a good day

From the Washington Post op-ed by Doug Sosnik, entitled "Trump is sowing the seeds of his own demise":

"Since taking office, Trump has taken a quite different approach. He has yet to build a White House structure and team that can perform even the basic functions of government. His second-rate and understaffed legal team seems overwhelmed by the widening and deepening scandals."

There's something very unsettling about that, but it still makes me strangely happy.

A straightforward observation

Though Kelly Brook has evolved from a svelte yet well-endowed young ingenue slash starlet into a curvier, yet just as sexy, 38-year old woman, one thing remains very clear.

She's still gorgeous.

Let me demonstrate.

Should he stay or should he go?

The current head of the EPA, Scott Pruitt, is both an environmental disaster and a prime example of a corrupt, entitled politician.

That much is obvious, except to people that would vote for Donald Trump after he committed murder in broad daylight on Fifth Avenue.  (Hey, that's not my idea -- he said it.)

So it's not a surprise that the Washington Post called again for his removal in an editorial.  They have a lot of good reasons for that, and it seems that list keeps getting longer every day.

On the other hand...

Pruitt has been so obvious, so classless, and so blatant about what he's doing to derail the EPA's mandate to protect the environment - which means basic things like keeping air and water less polluted (preferably unpolluted) -- and he has been sooo horrifically profligate with his first-class flights, high class hotels, junkets to foreign countries, listening booths in his office, cushy housing arrangements with lobbyists -- and add to THAT his end-run around personnel requirements to garner big pay raises for underlings/friends on his staff -- that he is a perfect visible example of the true awfulness of the Trump administration.

And therefore he could be as useful a symbol of what the Democrats are running against as Trump himself.   So it may be useful to have him continue to be the snake he is, in the position he's in, to serve as a really good campaign issue.  (Add to that his positions on climate change, which is a potent issue especially for younger voters, providing another recruiting poster.)

That point is made here:

Representative Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) says if Trump keeps Pruitt, it will help Dems

As a Democrat trying to take back the House, I think having Pruitt there is an awesome symbol of corruption [that] helps Democrats,” Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) said in an interview with The Hill. 

Lieu added, “if Donald Trump wants to keep him in the cabinet of corruption it helps Democratic messaging, absolutely.”

So while I know Pollutin' Pruitt is contemptible, having him at EPA for a few more months could play to the Democrats' primary goal - retaking control of the House and Senate.  So while I want Pruitt gone, I'm willing to wait a few more months that can make him look even worse -- and thus more potent as a lightning rod attracting Democratic votes.

Lighthouse of the Week, April 29 - May 5, 2018: Montauk Point Light, New York, USA

Every now and then, instead of featuring a single lighthouse (sometimes a pair) as the Lighthouse of the Week, I do a "special feature".   I did one of those last week, showing three lighthouses photographed at sunset.  Previously, I featured lighthouses decked out for Christmas.

In both of those special features, I included the extremely historic Montauk Point Lighthouse, located on the eastern end of Long Island.   But when I checked the blog, I discovered that I had never featured Montauk Point as the solo, individual LotW.

That changes now.

There is a LOT to write about on this one.  So I'm going to excerpt a lot from the esteemed and incredible Lighthouse Directory listing on Montauk Point Light.

"1797 (John McComb). Active; focal plane 168 ft (51 m); white flash every 5 s. 110 ft (33.5 m) octagonal sandstone tower with lantern and gallery; VRB-25 aerobeacon (2001). Tower painted white with a broad brown band, lantern black. Fog horn (2 s blast every 15 s). The keeper's house (1860) is used as a visitor center and museum; displays include the 3-1/2 order Fresnel lens used 1904-1987 ..."

"The light station is endangered by beach erosion, previously held at bay by a 400 ft (120 m) stone revetment built in 1992. In 2006, the Army Corps of Engineers received $12 million in funding to build a much longer and stronger barrier. These plans had to be redone after Hurricane Sandy (2012) and the project was still pending in 2016. In March 2012 the light station was designated a National Historic Landmark."

That should be enough. It's been there a long time, credit to its ability to survive some pretty nasty weather off the Atlantic. And it still stays so photogenic, too.

It's May, it's May, a sonnet about sex in May

the essential enigma


The rage of rapture poses an extreme
dilemma -- meant for sharing pleasure, yet
composed of elements that make it seem
invasive -- even dangerous -- a threat
delivered and accepted joyously;
her cries, akin to pain, might indicate
unwelcomeness, though that is boisterously
untrue, for it is an inherent trait
to want this lusty linkage, mating fer-
vently and openly with passions un-
constrained, our needs and love converged and sur-
ging with a fearsome shine that makes us one
with nature's wildness and our primal base
and blazes on our bodies and our face.

Oh yeah - about that stupid tax cut

Paul Krugman, the New York Times eminent liberal economist columnist, wrote this:

How's that tax cut working out?


This op-ed column contains this:

"The effects of the Trump tax cut are already looking like the effects of the Brownback tax cut in Kansas, the Bush tax cut and every other much-hyped tax cut of the past three decades: big talk, big promises, but no results aside from a swollen budget deficit. You might think that the G.O.P. would eventually learn something from this experience, realize that tax cuts aren’t magical, and come up with some different ideas."

Now, how many of us aware of prior events (like the kalamity in Kansas and the ordure in Oklahoma), knew that this was going to happen?  A lot of us did.

But that doesn't make it feel better.