Is Trump about to start World War III? Will big US cities be here in two days? (Look up “Eve of Destruction” on YouTube. It’s from 1965, and notice how many of the images are familiar in 2026.)
How far does Trump have to go before his fans see how unhinged he is? Before the rest of the US government does something? Before he is removed from office?
Washington Post, today: Trump threatens Iran with ‘Hell’ over Strait of Hormuz in profane post, subtitled “Trump escalated threats against Iran’s power plants, bridges and other infrastructure in an expletive-laden post on Truth Social on Easter morning.”
*This* morning.
President Donald Trump escalated his threats to target Iran’s infrastructure if it does not open up the Strait of Hormuz, warning the country will be “living in Hell” in an expletive-filled message on social media Sunday. He later suggested that the United States could target “every power plant” in the country — an attack that experts warned could amount to war crimes.
“Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran,” Trump wrote on Truth Social, his social media platform. “There will be nothing like it!!! Open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell — JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah.”
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One more.
The Guardian, today: ‘Unhinged madman’: US politicians react to Trump’s expletive-laden threat to Iran, subtitled “Marjorie Taylor Greene and Bernie Sanders among those responding with alarm to Trump writing ‘open the fuckin’ strait, you crazy bastards’”
Some US politicians have reacted with alarm and questioned the US president’s mental state after Donald Trump issued an abusive, expletive-laden threat to Iran in which he called on the regime to “open the fuckin’ strait [of Hormuz], you crazy bastards”, as he threatened to further attack the country’s energy and transport infrastructure.
Of course, they can’t just press a button and ‘open’ the strait. It’s full of mines that would take weeks to remove, even with Iran’s help. But don’t bother Trump with details.
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This is actually not a religious story. Well, yes it is, mostly.
NY Times, guest essay by P.G. Sittenfeld (who “delivered a version of this essay to his fellow prisoners at Ashland Satellite Prison Camp in Kentucky”), today: Resurrection Is Everywhere
If you were to pause the Christian story of Easter at the moment Jesus dies on the cross, it would look like a victory for power and cruelty. But soon there’s the empty tomb, the angel of the Lord proclaims, “He is risen,” and a resurrected Jesus tells his disciples, “I am with you always.”
In other words, death isn’t death. That is the radical, provocative, hopeful message of Easter. I believe that same familiar notion of resurrection applies to events in our lives, too.
He goes on with his own story (he was a Cincinnati City Council member convicted of public corruption) and many more religious allusions, but to me what he demonstrates is in the last sentence of what I just quoted. Things die all the time; it’s part of nature. But things grow anew as well, as happens every Spring. Stars live billions of years and explode; their remnants, complete with heavier elements formed in the explosion, collapse to become new stars and new planets. But these are not “resurrections” in the simplistic way that Christians think. (If Jesus sacrificed himself for humanity’s sins, what was the point of him being resurrected? Didn’t that negate the sacrifice? But Christian theology does not bear close examination.)
The whole Easter story is such an obvious analogy to these ideas of Spring and renewal that happen everywhere and are observed by every culture in various ways. Also, it’s notable how religion conflates so many separately obvious and implausible ideas, with the implication that, if you accept one, you accept the whole package (e.g. how the traditional arguments for the existence of God (e.g. the Cosmological argument) are taken by believers to prove that Jesus hears their prayers.)
Thus eggs, and flowers, and so on. Enjoy the season.
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Example of how the motive to privatize everything is actually driven by big business. Certainly not efficiency.
NY Times, opinion by Binyamin Appelbaum, 4 Apr 2026: Trump Killed the One Thing That Made Filing Taxes Easier
This tax season, as you wade through the absurdly expensive and complicated process of filing income taxes, remember to thank the Trump administration.
Filing taxes should be really easy and completely free. It is in most other developed countries. And in 2024, the Biden administration debuted a pilot program called Direct File that could have made tax filing easy and free for most American taxpayers, too.
President Trump killed it.
Why did he do that?
Because tax preparation companies and Republican lawmakers have a shared interest in torturing taxpayers. The companies want to ensure that Americans remain dependent on their services. The Republicans want people to hate paying taxes.
With details.
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On the same theme, but stepping out.
NY Times, book review by Jennifer Szalai, 25 Mar 2026: Will the Miracle of Capitalism Destroy Us All?, subtitled “A new history by Trevor Jackson argues that the economic system that transformed global living standards depends on endless growth impossible to sustain.”
Review of The Insatiable Machine: How Capitalism Conquered the World by Trevor Jackson.
In 2003, the literary theorist Fredric Jameson wrote that it was “easier to imagine the end of the world than to imagine the end of capitalism.” Trevor Jackson seems to agree, but only to a point. In “The Insatiable Machine: How Capitalism Conquered the World,” Jackson says that the prevailing economic system has already gone a long way toward destroying our “finite planet.” He argues that if we don’t find a way to change course, the end of the world won’t be something we have to imagine; it will actually arrive.
As a lot of us have thought this for a while. Those who think we’ll always find new resources to keep the economy growing, and that the population can keep expanding indefinitely, aren’t thinking long-term enough.
The review concludes:
Whether intentional or not, Jackson’s overall message is that the system becomes so self-reinforcing that it pushes individual humans into insignificance. Luther, Newton and Lenin are included in this book merely because they provide “snapshots” of their economic worlds: “The people themselves are not important, which is exactly the point.”
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Briefly noted.
- LA Times, Barret Baumgart, today: Unspoken cost of U.S. military is a stunning volume of pollution | Of course, Trump and MAGA don’t care about pollution. They probably don’t even “believe” in it.
- Scientific American, 4 Apr 2026: Trump administration proposes massive budget cuts to science | Of course, he was a $1.5 trillion war to pay for!
- Trump changes his story every day, and a few days ago he claimed the current Iranian regime was more amenable to negotiation, as if to credit himself with some sort of accomplishment. But he’s just making things up. | CNN, 4 Apr 2026: Iran’s ‘new’ regime looks much the same, only harsher
- JMG, 3 Apr 2026: Franklin Graham: Pope Leo Is Wrong, God Does Justify War In The Name Of Jesus, As Hegseth Does. | Christian zealot Graham knows better than the Pope.
- Related: Salon, Andrew O’Hehir, today: Why does the right hate the pope so much?, subtitled “It might be the weirdest fact of this upside-down decade: The church is on the right side of history (sort of)”
- Hemant Mehta explore the teleportation story. | Friendly Atheist, today: Trump-appointed FEMA leader says he teleported to Waffle House, subtitled “Gregg Phillips’ conspiracy-laced, religious worldview is now FEMA’s problem. And ours.”
- JMG, today: Scamvangelist Paula White Claims Her Glorious Leader Attended Sunday School “Three Times A Week” | Is she trying to reassure the base that Trump has been properly brainwashed?
- AlterNet, Matthew Rozsa, today: Trump Christians claim religious revival is sweeping America — but scholars say otherwise. And NY Times, Lauren Jackson, today: Is Christianity Making a Comeback?, subtitled “Some see Easter Sunday’s packed pews and overflowing chapels as a sign of a religious revival. But experts are urging caution.” | First, why is this so important to them? Second, this is wishful thinking. They don’t do data. They just claim it, based on anecdotes.
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I’m not keeping up here in the blog with my revisiting of Radiohead albums. After Hail to the Thief came In Rainbows in 2007, which has nearly as many great songs. Nude, All I Need, Reckoner, House of Cards. Let’s pick this one.
Reckoner
You can’t take it with you
Dancing for your pleasureYou are not to blame for
Bittersweet distractor
Dare not speak its name
Dedicated to all you
All human beingsBecause we separate
Like ripples on a blank shore
Because we separate (In rainbows)
Like ripples on a blank shore (In rainbows)
Reckoner
Take me with you
Dedicated to all you
All human beings
