Robot Jazz

  In the late 1920s, two Republicans, Senator Reed Smoot of Utah and Representative Willis C. Hawley of Oregon decided that they had the solution to America's worsening economic situation due to what would become known as The Great Depression. Their answer was simple: tariffs. America would tax its way to prosperity - a tariff being nothing more than a tax on imported goods paid by the consumer.  Anyone with a high school education in either history or politics knows the results: an economic disaster that only worsened the depression. As  Wikipedia relates: Some countries protested and others also retaliated with trade restrictions and tariffs. American exports to the protesters fell 18% and exports to those who retaliated fell 31%.[18] Threats of retaliation by other countries began long before the bill was enacted into law in June 1930. As the House of Representatives passed it in May 1929, boycotts broke out, and foreign governments moved to increase rates against Amer...

  I've been struggling to get a handle on my recent effort to maintain a journal of the dark days we now find ourselves in as a country. My usual preference is to do a "deep dive" on one particular topic, but I realize that, at least for now, that will not be a viable method as I lack the energy and, frankly, enthusiasm for such a frequent task. So, instead, I have decided to do something easier, which is to say just a daily log of stories that catch my eye (and believe me, we are in a time where "when sorrows come, they come not single spies, but in battalions").  ↓↓↓ Today's story is the ongoing market meltdown as a direct result of the Trump regime's destructive command economy dictates. As the New Zork Times reports: The S&P 500 tumbled 2 percent, marking one of its worst days since Mr. Trump’s election. The drop extended modest declines from earlier in the day, after the Federal Reserve’s preferred inflation measure came in hotter than economis...

  Where to begin? I used to love to write. Indeed, at one point, I was a video game journalist with the supremely entertaining job of covering the ever-shifting world of PC gaming. However, as life shall we say  progressed, I lost my muse to real-world distractions, resulting in sporadic writing streaks at best, something easily seen just by perusing the publication dates of the entries for this blog.  From what I have heard, it happens to even the best writers. Writing is a habit or a hobby like any other. Once you stop practicing, it begins to fade. Throw Mama from the Train 's frazzled writing instructor Larry Donner concluded every class with the reminder that "A writer writes always!" That is the truth of it.  I want to try  to get back into writing because I believe we live in historic times. These times will have far-reaching consequences that we haven't seen since 1861 and the start of the American Civil War. I know that sounds hyperbolic. Perhaps it is....

  Recently, a pair of stories set an army of tongues wagging. Both dealt with the somewhat dismal prospects for cable news. First, there was the announcement that MSNBC, the political mirror image of Fox News, was being spun off by its parent company, Comcast .  In addition to this, there was more grim news: CNN, which has faced stormy internal waters, had lost 34% of its audience since 2016, while competitors Fox News and MSNBC  gained 5% and 35% respectively. (Despite the rosy growth numbers for MSNBC, the network nonetheless has roughly half the viewership of Fox News  in 2023 - 1.5 million versus 860,00 respectively.) Be that as it may, growing viewership or not, all three national news networks are on the same sinking ship as Americans continue to "cut the cable." Since 2016, there has been a 28% decline in homes carrying the networks in cable packages. This death spiral cannot be suffered for long for an industry dependent on the ad revenue generated by cable s...

  If you are like me, you are probably somewhat desperate for some fresh yuletide entertainment. Sure, The Hallmark Channel offers a seemingly bottomless bowl of copy-and-paste pottage that is their yearly Christmas lineup, but who can stomach that for long? How many times can we watch lazy iterations of the fem-fantasy of the girl boss who travels to the country to find the man of her dreams (who invariably arrives as a rustic but is later revealed to be a former doctor, lawyer, or reclusive entrepreneur)? In the world of Hallmark , love is only for professionals. Well, if you are tired of watching St. Valentine's Day romances thinly disguised as Christmas fare, here is an alternative: Satoshi Kon's Tokyo Godfathers. Seeing that some of the all-time Christmas classics are cartoons ( Frosty the Snowman, A Charlie Brown Christmas , and How the Grinch Stole Christmas , to name but a few!), it shouldn't bother anyone that Tokyo Godfathers  is itself a Christmas cartoon, if of...

  [The following is another short fiction inspired by a session with one of my favorite 'Cold War gone hot' wargames, this time WARNO.  I'm sorry: I just have too much fun with these games not to memorialize the session! As ever, don't expect any of these World War III chronicles to tie together in any sort of sensible way. I am not writing a novel. I just look at the battle's events and try to come up with a backstory.] East German Border Incident  GDR claims West Germany launched a cross-border night raid West Germany denies the accusation Many casualties reported [EuroNewz] Today, the government of the German Democratic Republic accused its neighbor, the Federal Republic of Germany, of engaging in cross-border hostilities. The incident allegedly occurred overnight in the sparsely-populated Zhornhorst region. "We are outraged by the unprovoked hostilities of the criminals in Bonn," said Jens Wirtz, spokesman for East Berlin's Ministry for Foreign Aff...