Robot Jazz

One of the advantages of keeping a blog for over a year is that it becomes a private journal of sorts — a record of what you got right, what you got wrong, and what you saw coming before the pundit class caught up. And so far, my prognostications have been, to borrow a phrase, “bigly” correct. Recently, I wrote that Unconditional Surrender Trump has surrendered. I said this when Trump abruptly declared that hostilities with Iran were over and that he had accepted Iranian demands as the basis for a long‑term settlement. At the time, I wrote: “Somehow, America went from demands for regime change, an end to Iran’s nuclear program, an end to its drone and ballistic missile production, and an end to support for groups like Hezbollah, to an agreement that discards all those demands and instead cements Iran’s status as a regional power. After over a dozen U.S. servicemembers dead, hundreds wounded, and a fortune in destroyed equipment and bases — not to mention the damage to GCC states and th...

  Despite my aspirations to the contrary, I don't have a memory as brief as a goldfish's. What is more, I possess an IQ higher than that of a goldfish. Because of these two factors, I did not vote for Trump in 2024 after witnessing the stunning incompetence,  corruption, and criminality surrounding him over the last decade. However, much to my chagrin, 2024 demonstrated that almost half of voting America possessed a piscine mind when it came to politics, and Trump was re-elected. Knowing what would soon be unleashed on this formerly great nation, I began chronicling these regressive days out of schadenfreude, if for no other reason. I knew payback was going to be a bitch, and I was looking forward to adapting William Tecumseh Sherman's civil war-era maxim: voters have chosen Trump as a remedy; let us give them all they can stand. Well, here we are, not even two full years into Trump's second term, and his voters are now rejecting the very remedy they have chosen: The Ir...

Ouch. That is all I can say. "Ouch!" Why? Because I hurt my back! Now, if I had hurt my back doing something reckless, say,  like doing handstands after having a triple-martini lunch, it would be an easier injury to bear as there would be a clear reason for it. However, in reality, I hurt my back by...putting on a sock!  A sock! Don't ask me how! I wasn't doing anything I hadn't done a thousand times before. And before you ask, no, I don't have a history of back pain or back injuries. In fact, I felt just great the day it happened! Ironically, I was getting ready to hit the free weights again, a long-practiced routine in which I deadlift up to 100 pounds.  Yeah, I have a strong back. Dr. Copilot informs me that such an injury is common in "middle-aged men", so...yeah.  No reason, other than I am slowly decaying, I guess. Be that as it may, today is the first day when I feel I can sit up and do a little writing to catch up on our depressing days. This...

  Well, the peace talks in Pakistan have now come and gone, and, as expected, failed. I don't think anyone expected it to succeed. As I wrote in my last post, the American delegation was what I called the Three Idiot Horsemen of the Apocalypse: Vance, Kushner, and Witkoff. Yeah, that bag of mediocrity was never going to accomplish much of anything, and they didn't. The explanation for the failure seems to be that Vance and his team went into the negotiations with a maximalist position, which is to say making inflexible demands despite not having the cards, as Trump would say. Iran called their bluff and refused to concede. And that is where the talks ended, albeit there is a contingent of professional diplomats remaining behind from both parties, an important detail because it is often these unseen professionals who are responsible for succeeding where the high-profile envoys fail. Before they occurred, I wasn't sure if the talks would end with the Trump regime agreeing to ...

  Well, this is something I never thought I would be writing: that the United States of America lost a war to an inferior military and economic power in a mere thirty-nine days.  How's that for making America great again? Now, if you will recall, Trump initially said that his ill-conceived and executed war against Iran would only end with an unconditional surrender from the Iranian leadership. Just about a month later, and after threatening to end Iranian civilization with apocalyptic fury, a statement that itself constitutes a war crime when expressed as policy, Trump has not only given up on that demand, but has agreed to Iran's terms for his surrender: And just to prove that the above was not a mistake but official policy, please see this statement by Iran that was  reposted  by Trump: In diplomacy, amplification is endorsement. And just what are those ten points that Trump agreed to? Here is an accurate summation: That, dear readers, is a surrender to Iran's term...

I never suspected that my most self-referenced post would be " Day 334: The Final Number ." In that post, written after Trump gave one of his ad hoc television addresses, I wrote: What we saw Wednesday night was an entertainer who is way past his prime, reduced to cliches and tired routines that only his most diehard philistine fans would appreciate. We are watching the final act of a failed reality television show, one with ratings so bad that even A&E wouldn't renew it for another season. No matter how frenetic the song and dance routine he does, the audience is leaving the theater in droves, and he is powerless to stop them.  The other night's update on his Iranian "excursion" was just more of the same: a tired old man having the verbal equivalent of a hissy fit; a man insisting that you believe him on every issue, rather than trusting your own lying eyes. But unlike his address in December, this one was more surreal because the nation got to see the ...