Robot Jazz

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 ...

  I have to give Epstein-in-Chief Donald Trump credit for one thing: successfully uniting a large swath of the anti-statist, anti-racist, anti-war, and pro-democracy movement like never before or, at least, since the late 1960s.  Yesterday, Americans across the land, and some non-Americans around the globe(!), turned out in record numbers to protest the corrupt, incompetent, and authoritarian regime currently ruling the nation. As USA Today  relates : "No Kings" protests swept the nation on March 28, with millions of people demonstrating their objections to President Donald Trump and his administration. The over 3,000 protests included colorful costumes, pointed chants and a myriad of signs addressing topics ranging from the Epstein files, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and calls for Trump's impeachment. ... Organizers state that 8 million people participated in the third iteration of the protests, though that number has yet to be independently verified.   In an...

  Things are happening so quickly with MAGA's illegal war that it can be a challenge to keep up with events.  As I read over my last post , I saw how I was floundering to keep up with the news.  I also saw how I unnecessarily narrowed my focus by comparing Trump's Operation Epstein Fury to Hitler's Case Blue.  The truth is that Epic Fail  is more of an amalgamation of both Hitler's greatest blunders: Operation Barbarossa  and Case Blue, as well as a smattering of other interesting parallels from World War II . In other words, this isn’t one historical blunder but a composite of every major strategic delusion of the most destructive war in human history.   Does that concern you? It should. 💥💥💥💥💥 As with Hitler believing that Stalin's Russia was so weak that a furious invasion would cause the entire country to collapse (what would come to be known as Operation Barbarosa) , Trump, who, it must be pointed out that, often read from Hitler's My New Orde...