April 2025 Blog

4/3: The fact that Americans elected Trump exposes America’s basic tenets. — that of confrontation., fear, ignorance. Read William Lederer’s 1961 book, A Nation if Sheep.

Nothing’s changed, as Tom Lambert wrote in 2006. “He [Lederer] details how Americans threw away our good money and goodwill for little return in nations we didn’t bother to understand. Sure, in retrospect, our industrial resources allowed us to spend the Soviets into the ground and win the Cold War. Still, Lederer shows how poorly that money was spent and how much more effective we could have been had we bothered to send diplomats and journalists who actually knew the local language rahter than ones that had to depend utterly on translators who often fed them a line of bull, as just one example.” https://raisedbyturtles.org/lederer-nation-sheep

Trump is reflecting that in spades but, because of his ignorance, is basing it on the wrong reasons.

4/3: "America is being looted, pillaged, raped and plundered by nations near and far," said Trump. "America being “looted, pillaged, raped and plundered by Elon and me, both near and far," thought Trump.

4/2: Will “Liberation Day” put Italy’s olive oil mafia out of business?

4/2: "It’s downright scary to watch this close up. President Trump is focused on what teams American transgender athletes can race in, and China is focused on transforming its factories with AI so it can outpace all our factories. Trump’s “Liberation Day” strategy is to double down on tariffs while gutting our national scientific institutions and work force that spur U.S. innovation. China’s liberation strategy is to open more research campuses and double down on A.I.-driven innovation to be permanently liberated from Trump’s tariffs.

Beijing’s message to America: We’re not afraid of you. You aren’t who you think you are — and we aren’t who you think we are." — Thomas Friedman, NYT

"with all the new U.S. “overseas investment restrictions and disincentives to collaborate, we are now blind to China tech developments. China is defining the tech standards of the future without U.S. input. This will put us at a serious competitive disadvantage in the future.”

4/2: Mr. Trump, Tear Down This Wall!

America now represents a vastly larger market than its four percent of the world’s population. The wall we are creating will shut us odd, totally, from that other 96%. We already stymy our world competitiveness such as not conforming to standards such as the metric system and not making our automobiles with interchangeable left/right driver positions. But focusing on gender standards and DEI standards will not lift us to the technical level which China is rapidly raising — to our exclusion. It feels like we are racing, at flank speed, in the opposite direction — to Mao’s Cultural Revolution.

Let’s take that mind-altering drug that allows us to rebuilt that self-confidence we once had — less defending what we are, how we think and more proud of who we are, what we’ve done. Let’s change our national anthem to make this possible. Let’s sing America The Beautiful. Make us alive again!

Let’s tear down our walls and build something new — a loving, sharing, cosmopolitan nation — America The Beautiful.

4/1: The serial rapist has just raped the entire world!

4 /1: ### One of the leaders on the Food and Drug Administration response to bird flu was laid off today, according to two people familiar with the matter. Tristan Colonius, chief veterinary officer at the F.D.A., was supervising efforts to investigate bird flu illnesses of pets, determine how they became infected and try to limit further exposure of the pet population. He also worked on an Agriculture Department effort to award funding to develop vaccines and therapeutics to protect humans and animals from bird flu. Several other senior veterinarians were also cut as well.