Robot Jazz

This is your reminder that it is now 200 days since the Trump-Epstein cover-up began. 🔽🔽🔽🔽🔽 Remember that story from a few months ago where Trump suddenly started talking about how he was going to re-open Alcatraz because he thought it was a really neat place (an expected belief, seeing how he is really into cruelty)? Immediately, anyone who understood how simple-minded Trump is just knew that that bit of idiocy was the result of the couch potato-in-chief watching Escape from Alcatraz.  And, sure enough, it took only a little sleuthing to learn that, indeed, the movie was shown on television the day before he made his announcement.   I bring that up because something similar happened today. As per the New York Times:  Trump Directs Military to Target Foreign Drug Cartels President Trump has secretly signed a directive to the Pentagon to begin using military force against certain Latin American drug cartels that his administration has deemed terrorist organizati...

  At last, the heat broke!  Huzzah! Interestingly, in breaking, it shattered. That is to say, we have been running below normal in terms of temperature, even to the point of nearly sundering an all-time low temperature for August. How wonderful. 😀  Unfortunately, NOAA, or what is left of it,  is predicting a well-above normal August through October. Around these parts, that is known as an "Indian Summer", which is to say a summer that refuses to leave. It is what we had last year, too. Sadly. 🔽🔽🔽🔽🔽 Ironically, it is during these not-so-august days of August that I found myself watching a snowy Cold War thriller called Gorky Park . Of late, I have been in a Cold War mindset.  Perhaps it is due to the excellent Underground '80s music channel via soma.fm , but I suspect it really has to do with the raging hot war in central Europe, aka the Russo-Ukrainian War, combined with an American presidency that is historic not for its alleged successes as much as for i...

  'Trump Reinvents the Wheel' by Ideogram It's another torturous day of summer - 95°F as I write this at 5:40 PM - so I am finding it hard to focus on what to write about today.  I guess I will just see where I wind up! 🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞 As expected, the recent economic data from the Commerce Department shows that the economy is slowing down due to the Trump administration's chaotic and antediluvian economic policy. As the New Zork Times reports: Economic growth softened in the first half of the year, as tariffs and uncertainty upended business plans and scrambled consumers’ spending decisions. Gross domestic product, adjusted for inflation, increased at a 3 percent annual rate in the second quarter, the Commerce Department said on Wednesday. That topped forecasters’ expectations and appeared to represent a strong rebound from the first three months of the year, when output contracted at a 0.5 percent rate. But both those figures were skewed — in opposite directions — by big s...

Here I sit during another warm and humid summer day, sipping a Tom Collins, and trying to recall how many days are left in summer (a dreaded sixty-four).  As someone who eschews air conditioning, I've got my fans blowing with abandon, as I try to keep the hairshirt of humidity at bay.  Likewise, I got my elderly but cool-running Chromebook as a companion to complement my furry feline friend, who is the only creature I know who despises summer more than I do. There are rumors of thunderstorms this evening, and rumors of rumors of thunderstorms as well, but at the moment, I continue to suffer from the baleful gaze of the sun as it continues to take an interest in making me as uncomfortable as possible.  It knows that I oppose its seasonal tyranny, this ridiculous charade known as 'summer' where people walk around with pained smiles as they reassure themselves, and everyone they meet, that summer is the best season, pinky swear and all.   🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞 It is at times ...

  As per the New Zork Times: Attorney General Told Trump His Name Appeared in Epstein Files It was not clear what those documents were, or in what context the president’s name was raised. Attorney General Told Trump His Name Appeared in Epstein Files It was not clear what those documents were, or in what context the president’s name was raised. Attorney General Told Trump His Name Appeared in Epstein Files It was not clear what those documents were, or in what context the president’s name was raised. Attorney General Told Trump His Name Appeared in Epstein Files It was not clear what those documents were, or in what context the president’s name was raised. Attorney General Told Trump His Name Appeared in Epstein Files It was not clear what those documents were, or in what context the president’s name was raised. Attorney General Told Trump His Name Appeared in Epstein Files It was not clear what those documents were, or in what context the president’s name was raised. Attorney Gene...

  Recently, I had an unexpected confrontation with two MAGA fanatics on X. I didn't expect it because the verbal assault was triggered not by any comment I made about Trump, but by a response I made to New York Governor Kathy Hochul's post about her successes for the state.  Apparently, my flippant comment about how Democrats were leading the country while the GOP was doomed to go the way of the failed Whig Party got under the thin skin of two Red Hats.   Now, the first question one might ask is, why would two hardcore Trumpists be lurking around a Democrat governor's social media feed?  Good question! I wish I had an answer.  Perhaps they were paid trolls whose job was to troll the governor - it should be ' governess'  to be precise, but politically incorrect - but I don't think so, as their attacks were so facile as to be meaningless. If I had to guess, I would say that they were acting as MAGA cultists always act: as jilted lovers stalking their hea...