And I guess I did that intentionally, my .bashrc has
# I use emacs shells, I got a "pager" already:
export PAGER=''
PAGER= psql --pset=pager=always -c 'select 1;'
<nothing on the screen>
Remove PAGER= and I'm good.
I guess that psql could be a bit more helpful by reporting something to stderr if the value of PAGER is not an executable (platform dependent...)
I find it a bit odd that all of your queries were using the pager...did I miss where you reported that setting?
David J.