“It’s really not at all clear what it is we should do”
– Fed Chair Jay Powell explaining at a news conference this week why the Federal Reserve Board decided to keep interest rates steady (instead of cutting them)
We are 30 days into the 90 day-hold that was announced by Trump for the (ridiculous) reciprocal tariffs on April 9. Now he ‘might’ lower the rate from 145% to 80%.
And what were the tariffs before all of this insanity?
Average US tariffs on Chinese exports now stand at 124.1 percent. These tariffs are more than 40 times higher than before the US-China tariff war began in 2018 and are already 6 times higher than the average US tariff on China of 20.8 percent when the second Trump administration began on January 20, 2025.
[Source: Peterson Institute for International Economics]
VATICAN CITY — Habemus Papam! The world’s 1.4 billion Catholics have a new leader — Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost, the first American-born pope.
Prevost, 69, is originally from Chicago and has chosen the papal name Leo XIV. He was most recently the head of the dicastery responsible for the appointment of bishops and the archbishop emeritus of Chiclayo, Peru.
– Senior Reporter Alexander Smith writing for NBC News
The new pope on the balcony in Vatican City. [Still image from NBC News]A 2018 tweet from Cardinal Cupich, archbishop of Chicago at the time, that was retweeted in 2018 by the new pope. At the time in 2018, Robert Prevost was bishop of Chiclayo, a city in Peru. He became an archbishop in January 2023, and a few months later pope Francis made him a cardinal.
I found these bearded irises on my walk tonight.
Similar-looking ones online are called ‘Stepping Out’, and that may be what this white-and-purple variety is called.
It felt like summer today.
The high was near the record for this day on the calendar:
78°F (26°C) today, and the record is 81°F (27°C) recorded on May 6, 1957.
There will be cooler weather again for the rest of the week.
I updated this page in my stamp album today.
I added a new line of ½ penny springbok stamps, from 1947.
Only a very finely calibrated ruler will show the ¼ mm size difference between the printed designs of the stamps issued in 1937 (18½x22½ mm), in August 1947 (18¼x22¼ mm) issue and in November 1947 (18×22 mm).
A quarter mm is only one one-hundredth of an inch!
The postal authorities tried to squeeze in a little more white space between the stamps in the 1947 printings, for the perforation machine.
I added in one more line with ½ penny springbok stamps, and pushed the red 1d Dromedaris* ones onto the next page.
*The “Drommedaris” was a Dutch ‘jaght’, a type of sailing vessel, built in 1645. It was operated by the Dutch East India Company (VOC) from 1645 to 1661. The Drommedaris played a significant role in the establishment of a halfway stop for VOC ships on the trade route between Europe and the East Indies. Ultimately, the Drommedaris’s voyages to Table Bay led to the establishment of a crucial trading post and settlement at the Cape of Good Hope, in what would become the Mother City— the city of Cape Town, South Africa.
Here’s a Hummer EV SUV that I found on the street tonight.
It made me look up the history of the Hummer, as well as a picture I had taken in Chicago of a Hummer stretch limousine.
Here it is (information gleaned from Wikipedia):
The High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle (HMMWV; colloquial: Humvee) rolled into service in the US military in 1985, and saw widespread use in the Gulf War of 1991.
The Hummer H1 was released for the civilian market in 1992, followed by the Hummer H2 (2002-2009) and a Hummer H3 pickup truck (2005-2010). There was a Hummer HX open-air, off-road prototype concept car in 2008, and a prototype plug-in hybrid in 2009.
It was only in late 2021 that the GMC Hummer EV (badged as HEV) made its debut, though— a line of battery electric heavy-duty vehicles produced by General Motors, and sold under the GMC marque.
Here’s the GMC Hummer EV. There’s a HUMMER EV 2X (2 electric motors) and a 3X (3 electric motors) but I don’t know which one this is. I believe this color’s name is Tide Metallic. Look for H-U-M-M-E-R in the small headlights under the hood. Hard to say exactly what this beast cost its owner, but it must be close to $100k, or even more than that..Here’s a Hummer stretch limousine from 2005, in downtown Chicago, Illinois. A Hummer H2 was cut behind the cab, and the chassis was extended to create a passenger section for more than a dozen passengers. There is surely a mini-fridge inside as well, to chill a bottle of champagne, or two— right?
It was beautiful outside today (68°F/ 20°C).
I walked down to Capitol Hill library to return two books, where I found the latest issue of The Atlantic on the magazine rack, with some unsettling writing inside (see below).
In the upside-down place we find ourselves with the Trump administration, it’s almost a positive that his 42%-or-so approval rating after 100 days in office is the lowest of any modern US president.
P.S. The US stock market held up surprisingly well this week, and April’s jobs report showed a gain of 177,000 jobs, exceeding expectations. Unemployment remains steady at 4.2%, and average hourly earnings rose modestly.
Here are the headlines and taglines from inside: I Should Have Seen This Coming When I joined the conservative movement in the 1980s, there were two types of people: those who cared earnestly about ideas, and those who wanted only to shock the left. The reactionary fringe has won. DAVID BROOKS —- The Hollow Men It takes a special talent to betray an entire worldview without missing a beat. GEORGE PACKER —- America’s Future Is Hungary MAGA conservatives love Viktor Orbán. But he’s left his country corrupt, stagnant, and impoverished. ANNE APPLEBAUM —- Watching the Rise of a Dual State For most people, the courts will continue to operate as usual—until they don’t. AZIZ HUQ
Three of us went down to Cal Anderson Park at noon, to protest in support of workers’ rights, and those of immigrants. (A panoply of other protestations were depicted on the posters that people had made). We joined the march to downtown that started at 2 pm.
The crowd that marched was not huge— reportedly somewhat over 1,000 people— and the protesters spanned two to three blocks as they walked.
We stepped out of the march by the Seattle Convention Center to look at the crowd and the rest of the protest signs. The marchers went further on down Pike Street, and turned on First Avenue to reach the Henry M. Jackson Federal Building.
The U.S. economy shrank in the first three months of 2025, contracting by an annualized rate of 0.3 percent — a stark reversal after nearly three years of solid growth, as tariff-related uncertainty upended spending patterns and raised fears of an impending recession.
– Abha Bhattarai writing in the Washington Post
The new report on gross domestic product, released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis on Wednesday morning, showed the first deceleration of the U.S. economy since the pandemic-fueled supply chain woes of early 2022. [Graph and text from the Washington Post]This economic slowdown came primarily from a dramatic increase in imports — which count against GDP — as businesses rushed to purchase foreign goods ahead of President Donald Trump’s promised tariffs. The trade deficit — the difference between incoming and outgoing goods — is the widest it has ever been, which is expected to be a significant drag on economic growth. Sales of American-made goods to other countries help bolster GDP, while purchases of foreign-made products count against it. [Graph and text from the Washington Post]
The weather was cool today (55°F / 13°C), with a light rain— just enough to form pearly droplets on plants with large, waxy leaves.
I believe these are redwood sorrel (Oxalis oregana) leaves.
It made me look up the surface tension* of water again (see table below). Water has the highest surface tension of almost all common liquids. There is mercury of course, that blows all the competition away. On the low end, liquid helium stands alone with virtually no surface tension, and in a state of superfluidity it flows without friction or viscosity.
*Surface tension is the tendency of liquid surfaces at rest to shrink into the minimum surface area possible. Surface tension is what allows objects with a higher density than water such as razor blades and insects to float on a water surface without becoming even partly submerged. [Wikipedia]
Congratulations to Prime Minister Mark Carney and to the people of Canada with their election results.
Headlines from the Washington Post, with a pictures from Reuters.
P.S. There was this post on Truth Social (read: anti-truth, anti-social) from the President of the United States this morning. Illuminating. Hallucinating.
Good luck to the Great people of Canada. Elect the man who has the strength and wisdom to cut your taxes in half, increase your military power, for free, to the highest level in the World, have your Car, Steel, Aluminum, Lumber, Energy, and all other businesses, QUADRUPLE in size, WITH ZERO TARIFFS OR TAXES, if Canada becomes the cherished 51st. State of the United States of America.
No more artificially drawn line from many years ago. Look how beautiful this land mass would be. Free access with NO BORDER.
ALL POSITIVES WITH NO NEGATIVES. IT WAS MEANT TO BE!
America can no longer subsidize Canada with the Hundreds of Billions of Dollars a year that we have been spending in the past. It makes no sense unless Canada is a State!
I walked around downtown’s Third Avenue this afternoon, and took a few pictures of the new First Light 48-story condominium complex at the edge of Belltown neighborhood. I had no access to go inside, but just look up “First Light Seattle” for glamorous pictures of the pool deck, and views of Puget Sound and the Space Needle.
It has 459 units that range from studios ($650k and up) to 3-bed, 3-bath penthouses ($3m and up).
This is Virginia Street, with 3rd Avenue at the traffic light. The First Light condo tower has 48 stories. That cantilevered structure at the top is a deck with a swimming pool and a hot tub.Third Avenue is on the route for several buses; also the C-Line Rapid Ride. Great for the condo residents and their visitors to have bus stops right there, but one has to wonder how many will actually use it. There is an 8-level parking garage with 373 parking spaces below the tower!Looking up, standing on 3rd Avenue. The City of Seattle has made great strides at keeping the downtown streets tidy and clean. There actually were cleaners out and about today with their three-wheel bikes fitted with large baskets with brooms and cleaning supplies.The base floors of the building have these strands of cables fitted with disks of glass. The First Light website says designer John Hogan’s “veil” of strung glass disks by the office floors diffuse the bland looks outside (parking garages and brick walls), and at the same time increases the privacy inside.So yes: in the immediate vicinity of the First Light building (looking south down 3rd Avenue), the old parking garages and brick buildings do not offer a whole lot to look at.
I touched up my stamp album pages for Namibia today, and noticed that there is a mineral on the R5 stamp named after me*: Willemite.
*Actually, it is named after King William I of the Netherlands 😁.
Willemite is a silicate mineral (Zn2SiO4), discovered in 1829 in the Belgian Vieille-Montagne mine. Mineralogist Armand Lévy was shown samples by a student at the university where he was teaching, and he named it after William I. It is occasionally spelled villemite.
[From Wikpedia]
These stamps were issued in 1991 and 1992, and are still denominated in South African rand. The Namibian dollar (NAD) was introduced in 1993, replacing the country’s use of the South African rand (ZAR). South African rand is still widely accepted in Namibia, though.On Mar. 21, 1990, the territory called South West Africa became independent from South Africa, and a new country called Namibia was established. Here is the front page of the New York Times reporting on it.
Happy Friday.
I got up early this morning and went outside to look for the crescent moon, Venus, and Saturn close together in the sky, but didn’t see anything.
They might have been too low on the horizon for me to see here from my house.
This is an image generated by Stellarium’s planetarium software for April 25, 2025, at 5:30 a.m. CDT, of the conjunction of the crescent moon, Venus and Saturn. These three together, form what has been billed as a cosmic “smiley face.” It takes a little imagination to see the smiley face, but OK— we’ll go with it. I believe the red E at the bottom of the image stands for Earth. [Brenda Culbertson via Stellarium]
The cartoonist is Dave Blazek. [Hint: That is a gnome and a gnu*, sitting at the bar]. *Gnu— a wildebeest, a large antelope native to eastern and southern Africa.
The video is short — just 19 seconds — and not particularly compelling. A viewer would be forgiven for clicking away before it ends.
The grainy footage, uploaded on April 23, 2005, of a man standing in front of the elephant enclosure at the San Diego Zoo — “All right, so here we are in front of the elephants” — does not look like the sort of thing that would touch off a video revolution.
And yet, two decades after that inauspicious start, YouTube is now a cornerstone of the media ecosystem. It’s where people go for music videos and four-hour-long hotel reviews. It is a platform for rising stars and conspiracy theorists. It’s a repository for vintage commercials and 10 hours of ambient noise. It has disrupted traditional television and given rise to a world of video creators who make content catering to every imaginable niche interest.
-Amanda Holpuch writing for the New York Times
Text by the New York Times and video still image from YouTube. Says the narrator, Jawed: “The cool thing about these guys is that they have really, really, really long trunks. And that’s cool”.
Headlines and graphic from the Wall Street Journal online.
Another Monday, and another big down day in the US stock market.
The latest is that Trump is threatening to fire Fed chair Jerome Powell. (Can he do that? Powell, has repeatedly stressed that his firing is not permitted by law, but I don’t think that will stop Trump).
Here are excerpts from Heather Long’s opinion piece in the Washington Post, titled ‘There’s only one way the U.S. avoids a recession”
The alarming signs just keep coming since President Donald Trump announced massive global tariffs on “Liberation Day.” The price of gold has soared to an all-time high as people rush for the ultimate safe asset. The U.S. dollar has tanked to a three-year low as investors would rather own about anything that isn’t American. As if the tariff chaos wasn’t enough, Trump is also threatening to “terminate” Federal Reserve Chair Jerome H. Powell, one of the only trusted economic leaders the nation still has. … The United States is probably not in a recession today, but it’s looking inevitable that it will be soon unless the White House dramatically shifts on trade. There’s only one way the U.S. avoids a recession: if Trump stops the tariff madness.
Trump has ushered in an economy of distress, even among the rich. His tariffs are the highest since the Great Depression. Americans are terrified that prices are going to spike again, and they might lose their jobs. Businesses are equally alarmed and entering an almost-comatose state as they wait to see what happens with trade, budget cuts and taxes. Traffic at the Port of Los Angeles, the major hub for Asian imports, has dried up so much it resembles early covid days.
… “I think we’re going into a recession,” said Neil Dutta, head of economic research at Renaissance Macro Research. “What’s the upside case for the economy? Even if we go back to where we were before the trade stuff and Trump just declares victory, so much damage is done, it’s hard to undo.”
There’s no safety net left to stop a downturn. The Fed isn’t going to come to the rescue and cut interest rates to prop up the economy because there’s too much concern about inflation returning. Trump is slashing government spending, especially on many areas that help the poor. Congress isn’t going to do a big stimulus package with “stimulus checks” for most Americans as it did during the pandemic. Meanwhile, consumers no longer have a ton of savings to cushion price hikes or job losses as they did coming out of covid. And the bond market freak-out has only made it more difficult — and expensive — for anyone trying to refinance their loans.
If layoffs really start to pick up, consumer spending will nosedive and a downturn is almost certain. Already, there’s been a surge in Americans who are paying the bare minimum on their monthly credit card bills — an early sign of widespread distress. The number of “minimum payers” is at a 12-year high, according to the Philadelphia Fed.
