Shortly after Jeff Bezos — the world’s richest man — completed his first spaceflight, Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D., Oreg.) announced he’s working on a plan for a new tax targeting space tourism.  The Securing Protections Against Carbon Emissions (SPACE) Tax Act would create new excise taxes on commercial space flights with human passengers for non-research purposes. 

Masters of the Universe!

Slipping surly bonds of Earth

Seeking to escape the curse

Of taxes based on your net worth.

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Space is just a cavity

For billionaires to fill,

Suspend the law of gravity

Or bend it to their will.

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And because it’s hollow

Different rules apply

The IRS can’t follow

You into the sky.

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Since the time that man first knew

The night sky’s strange seductions

The dream lives on inside of you,

Of infinite deductions.

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And in the rocket’s bright red glare

Your glory is reflected

Hate or love a billionaire,

He doesn’t get elected.

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The rockets of Apollo

Opened up the door

To space. And as you follow

Just keep out the poor.

To the Editor:

I am writing to express my disappointment over Paul Krugman’s June 8 column, “Yellen’s New Alliance Against Leprechauns.” This is not the first time your columnist has used the word “leprechaun” when referring to Ireland, and I see it as my duty to point out that this represents an unacceptable slur. I do not go along with Mr. Krugman’s disingenuous excuse that “the Irish have a sense of humor” about his attacks on us...–Daniel Mulhall, ambassador of Ireland to the United States, New York Times, July 11.

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In Ireland they get the joke.

But nowadays, we all are woke.

They got their Irish up and spoke

On behalf of Little Folk.

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Sharing our weird obsessions:

With mini-slurs, micro-aggressions,

Seeking out those small transgressions

No matter how baroque.

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Now we all must watch ourselves

Not to speak ill of the elves

Always be alert and wary

For words that might insult a fairy,

Or any unintended slight

Toward a dwarf or gnome or sprite,

Meanly cast aspersions on

The iconic leprechaun.

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And so we come, on both knees bended,

To any creature we offended.

Just because you aren’t real

Doesn’t mean that you can’t feel.

Help us cleanse our hearts and souls.

We respect you even if you’re trolls.

The Centers for Disease Control warns Americans not to get intimate with their pet chickens

The CDC has spoken and the question must be asked

Is it safe to kiss your chicken if you both are masked?

Can you snog your poultry with relative impunity

If you’ve reached the threshold for achieving “flock immunity”?

If you’ve locked down your cages, then is it safe to sneak

A cuddle with your fowl, cheek to cheek and beak to beak? 

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Home the chickens come to roost, but check to see they’re glatt 

Do they all have feathers, or could one be a bat?

Make sure there are chicken feet on those chicken legs

And better look beneath them, to see if they lay eggs.

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So if your chicken has been called to heaven’s chicken coop

Rinse her off with Clorox first, before you make that soup.

And keep a social distance and enforce a quarantine

If you plan to serve her up as chicken Florentine.

Just take a little Q-tip to perform a rapid test

To look for antibodies in a drumstick or a breast.

And for your Caesar salad, you must boil your uovo

According to an order that comes straight from Andrew Cuomo.

Heed what Dr. Fauci says, make sure she gets her shot

Before you put your chicken in the oven or the pot.

‘Cause you don’t want your henhouse to be guarded by a Fox

You don’t want Tucker Carlson to give you chicken pox.

“What does all this mean to you?”

Can I get an exemption

From the fate of every Jew

To achieve redemption

Directly from the angry god

Who laid down the prescription:

You should never spare the rod—

It might spoil an Egyptian.

Slavery is worse than jail

But if freedom must be won

By locusts, boils and frogs and hail

And the death of Pharaoh’s son

I’ll take my chances making bricks

Of straw and clay and mud

There’s nothing you or God can fix

With a river turned to blood.

“I wish him good health.” — Vladimir Putin, about President Biden, after the U.S. imposed sanctions on Russia over the poisoning of opposition leader Alexei Navalny. Navalny says Russian agents tried to kill him by putting a nerve agent, in his boxer shorts.

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Wear a sweater when the wind blows

Don’t go swimming far from shore.

Stay away from open windows

Higher than the second floor.

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Don’t eat eat hard things, they can choke you

Only eat things soft and mooshy

A pretzel is enough to croak you

Maybe you should stick to sushi.

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Buy new briefs from Kohl’s or Nordstrom

Or maybe you should wear instead

—If you think you can afford some—

Underwear that’s made of lead.

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Don’t be always hot to Trotsky.

Bear in mind you’re getting old.

Anthrax germs can make you zotzky.

Smallpox starts out like a cold.

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Illness can be cruel and stealthy

Death is always sad and woeful.

So here to keep you fit and healthy

Is cabbage soup straight from Chernobyl.

There are very few opportunities in life to have it both ways; semicolons are the rare instance in which you can; there is absolutely no downsides. — The Case for Semicolons, New York Times Magazine, Feb. 9, 2021

Why all this sudden Sturm und drama

Over a dot above a comma?

English rules and norms and laws

Allow for one before a clause,

That only has a passing link

To what precedes. It meant a wink

When nestled in a right paren

(Before emojis;), way back when.

True, it is a fine gradation

Of grammar, sense and punctuation. 

But there are such a myriad

Of other marks: the period,

The asterisk, the bracket, dash

The forward and the backward slash

So let’s discuss apostrophes,

Not semicolonoscopies. 

The bare-nosed wombat squeezes out nearly 100 six-sided turds every day—an ability that has long mystified scientists. Now, researchers say they have uncovered how the wombat intestine creates this exceptional excrement. —How do wombats poop cubes? Scientists get to the bottom of the mystery

I never saw a purple cow

I hope I never see one

But I can tell you anyhow,

If I did, I’d flee one.

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I never saw a purple wombat

I think they must be scary

Like creatures out of Mortal Kombat,

Big and mean and hairy.

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They howl and screech just like a tomcat

When shit comes out all square-y

Dogs that like to nom-nom-nom scat

Better should be wary.

A sudden silence fills the air, hush overtakes the crowd noise.

The Twitstorm passes out to sea, and blows away the Proud Boys,

Militia men and QAnon and all those other loud goys,

Living out their fantasy, a life of endless MAGA,

Patriotic cosplay, a neo-Nazi saga.

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The alt-right herd of Boogaloos, “fine people on both sides,”

Have boogied out the exits, glad to save their hairy hides,

As changes sweep the landscape, unstoppable as tides,

And wash away the unwashed mob, who never got to MAGA.

The voice they hear inside their heads belongs to Lady Gaga.

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The snake that’s on the Gadsden Flag is just an ouroboros,

Biting its own tail while being stepped on by George Soros.

The lizard-brained one lumbers off, just like a brontosaurus,

Or maybe a RINOceros, driven mad by MAGA,

Gone extinct like dodos, woolly mammoths or the quagga.

What was it like going deep in the Deep State?

Storming the doors like a herd of mad sheep? Fate

Called your name and you took that big leap. Great

Minds think alike, but thinking comes cheap. Wait—

What were you thinking when you said “Hang the Veep”? Eight

Years in Leavenworth? It’s a date you should keep, mate.

Your god is a tyrant, a blowhard, and cheapskate.

What you have sown you also will reap:

Hate.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump Administration wants to change the definition of a showerhead to let more water flow, addressing a pet peeve of the president who complains he isn’t getting wet enough.

Publicly talking about the need to keep his hair “perfect,” President Donald Trump has made increasing water flow and dialing back long held appliance conservation standards — from light bulbs to toilets to dishwashers — a personal issue.

The bathroom in the master suite high up in Trump Tower

Has a marble toilet, but its flush is lacking power.

And if you want to wash your hair, it sometimes takes an hour

Until your head gets wet enough inside your golden shower.

It takes a lot of water to lubricate your brain

And lots of water pressure to wash out a moral stain.

(Could there be a metaphor in there for your campaign

At the sight of soapy water, swirling down the drain?)

If you don’t want some bureaucrat standing in your tub

Counting out each gallon as you lather up and scrub

Then throw out your old showerhead and go buy one that’s newer

And you know who you have to thank, the nation’s Chief Shampooer.