Robot Jazz

  '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...

  One of my favorite pet peeves of this dreaded season is what I call the "zombie dog walkers of summer," who take to the streets en masse, shambling through the neighborhood. While it is true that there are always people walking their dogs year-round, I've found that summer brings out a unique brand of dog walker, one where the dog often seems to be walking the human. Unlike the routine dog walker, the zombie dog walker appears to shamble along behind their dog with their arms held listlessly at their sides, seemingly unaware of their motive or purpose. It's an eerie thing to observe these zombie dog walkers. Their attention is rarely fixed on the dog but rather shifts constantly, as if they're relentlessly scanning the neighborhood for their next meal. With them, though, I suspect it won't be brains, but rather the neighborhood gossip that's essential for a suburban zombie feast.  Their peculiar behavior is further enhanced by their propensity to speak i...

  What a summer of discontent!  The summer of 2025 is similar to last summer in that the weather is running ahead by a month.  June was very hot, much as July usually is, and July has been warm with jungle humidity, something more reminiscent of August. I would like to know if this trend will continue as it did last year, where August felt like September and October...felt like September, too!  Be that as it may, I am not enjoying this season, as I never do. Every fool out there who has "I love summer!" on their lips should be boiled in their own pool water and buried with an air conditioner through their heart.   🔽🔽🔽🔽🔽 When I last wrote, Trump was having a rare good day. His strike on Iran came off flawlessly, and his love affair with Russia seemed to freeze over as Trump began to take shots at Dmitri Medvedev. However, as I said then, this happy place for Trump 2.0 would not last, as this is a remarkably incompetent and incoherent administration....