Frank's Musings

The tech world has expressed its concern that AI agents have proven themselves able uncontrollably to act on their own. That is not so worrisome as the fear that human values may be ignored by artificial decisionmakers and their implementers.  This anomaly is referred to in the industry as a misalignment of a chatbot's behavior with accepted human norms.  Even the CEOs of the leading AI companies believe their organizations are unable to impose adequate standards of behavior on the independent actors they may create and prevent them ultimately from violating society’s rules of self-preservation.

It mystifies me why the NYTimes Editorial Board continues to ignore the real reason that President Trump has so persistently tried to impose tariff taxes on America’s imports.  He has identified tariffs as a major source of funds to finance his vanity projects, like his triumphal arch, his ballroom, his gold-plated statues, and others without having to ask Congress for approval by appropriating more federal revenues and raising income tax rates or adding to the country’s $40 trillion debt.

The courts cannot allow him to impose tariffs as a Presidential privilege.  The Supreme Court should make it clear that the Constitution did not establish a royal tax assessor.

Careerist Congressmen are happy when the President comes up with a way to raise revenue without having to increase income taxes. Trump’s tariff scheme makes American consumers pay higher prices for imports by adding higher duties to the cost of buying foreign goods. Those consumption taxes are politically more palatable to wealthy funders of both Trump’s construction projects and legislators’ reelection campaigns.

Back in the early 1970s, I shared an apartment with several male and female schoolmates who decorated one of our bathrooms with an anomalous poster. It depicted a woman with her dress hitched up standing alongside several men before a row of urinals.

That contemporary curiosity would be less startling these days. The transgender urinator would presumably be expected, when necessary, to occupy a stall or use a commode in the women’s or bisexual bathroom now. Nevertheless, it illustrates that transgenderism is really a cultural choice rather than a biological event, no matter how much corrective surgery is undertaken.

The point is that a politician's acceptance of a person's differences from standard norms is not at all corrupt. It may reflect other factors about which they are transparent, like family, occupation, sexual orientation, inability physically to come to a polling place on Election Day, etc. Blanket official derision of specific uncommon circumstances is not only "unwoke"; it actually perversely obstructs human invention of reasonable accommodation.

Careerist Congressmen are happy when the President comes up with a way to raise revenue without having to increase income taxes. Trump’s tariff scheme makes American consumers pay higher prices for imports by adding duties to the cost of engaging in global trade. Those consumption taxes are politically more palatable to wealthy funders of both Trump’s dishonest schemes and of legislators’ reelection campaigns.

In her opinion piece in the 8/13/2026 NY Times, Natasha Sarin is vain to “hope that Congress will eventually push back” against Trump’s audacious subterfuge. He wants to give politicians a way to spend more on government contracts without having proportionately to assess those contractors for the privilege.