Noose at Eleven

As expected, Donald Trump crushed his opponents in the Iowa caucuses after which he made a live victory speech in which he said...(Bzzzt!)...he said...(Crackle!)...he said...

Sorry about that. The problem is NOT with your television set. Rather, if you were watching alleged "news" networks CNN or MSNBC, the transmission of Trump's message was cut off by an ideological problem that technicians are most definitely not rushing to repair.

Rather, the management of both networks decided to just not air anything Donald Trump says live anymore - even if it's a politically salient victory speech - because they claim they don't want to knowingly transmit anything that might be lies. Of course, they can't just leave the airtime unfilled while they're protecting you from whatever lies they've had premonitions about. So they open up the conversational floor to their (ahem) "news" people who then tell rock-solid truths like Trump has declared that he will be dictator for life, that if Trump wins he'll order the "crazies" who follow him to kill his political enemies, and that Trump will clearly destroy our country if re-elected because he forgot to do during his first Presidential term in which he was sending the economy through the roof, keeping us out of wars, improving employment and opportunities for minority Americans, projecting strength to our nation's adversaries, and giving away his salary to charity. The rat bastard.

This is among the most blatant acts of election interference imaginable and every minute of airtime devoted to talking up Joe Biden or talking down Trump needs to be listed as a political "contribution in kind" to the Biden campaign. Additionally, any special First Amendment protections applied to news organizations should be immediately yanked from these two propaganda mills. 

But why do CNN and MSNBC think they need to hide Trump's words from their viewers? If what Trump is saying is offensive, then the people should hear it to help them decide who to vote for. And if what Trump is saying is lies, then the networks should air those lies along with the proof that Trump is lying - again, for the benefit of their viewers.

Then again, CNN and MSNBC may believe that their viewers are such bone-headed morons that they'll simply believe any outlandish thing they hear on cable news. In fact, that's their entire market strategy.

AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY ARTIFICIAL

I'm still fiddling around with AI programs and music generators (hey, I need to do SOMEthing when I'm avoiding the news) and I recently came up with a song that is...dare I say it...kind of good?

I asked ChatGPT to write lyrics that sounded like a Byrds interpretation of a Bob Dylan song. I then plugged those lyrics into app.suno.ai and told it to generate a pop song with good harmonies. There were a lot of false starts, but then a good iteration. Which started a process of prompting the engine to add a little bit more and a little bit more until it was a whole song. And I added a music video (barely) so I could stick it on Youtube.

The song itself isn't intended to be a joke nor is it political. In fact, it's a bit of feel-good inspirational throwback rock that I've been listening to when I need a mood boost (hint: hourly). And maybe you'll enjoy it, too!

And for any Karaoke fans...sing along!

"Echoes of Tomorrow"

[Verse 1:]

In the whispers of the morning,

Through the mist of dawn's embrace,

Lies a truth that's softly spoken,

In the lines of every face.

Winds of change are blowing,

Across the fields of time,

Where dreams are sown like golden grains,

In the garden of the mind.

[Chorus:]

Oh, echoes of tomorrow,

Ring through yesterdays of sorrow,

And the songs of freedom hum,

Beneath the setting sun.

May the words we say,

Light the path and show the way,

For the echoes of tomorrow,

In our hearts will stay.

[Verse 2:]

See the river's constant flowing,

Past the mountains, through the plains,

Like the endless quest for knowing,

That in every heart remains.

Shadows of the evening,

Dance with the glow of fireflies,

While stars above keep weaving,

Tales of love beneath the skies.

[Chorus:]

Oh, echoes of tomorrow,

In the laughter and the sorrow,

Like a melody that flies,

Underneath the moonlit skies.

Let our voices rise,

Through the dark and stormy skies,

For the echoes of tomorrow,

Are the dreams that never die.

[Bridge:]

In every whispered wind,

In every songbird's call,

The answers lie within,

In the rise and in the fall.

[Chorus:]

Oh, echoes of tomorrow,

In the love that we can borrow,

From the chapters yet to write,

In the silence of the night.

Hand in hand we'll go,

Through the high and through the low,

For the echoes of tomorrow,

In our hearts will glow.

When Life Gives You Pangolins...

Believe it or not, this really isn't just another crass use of the no-longer-copyrighted "Steamboat Willie" character. Because the story above is true and if that terrified rodent isn't the original humanized mouse, I'd like to know who is.

Having learned nothing from creating and releasing Covid into the world (other than that pandemics are awfully good for political tyrants and pharmaceutical companies), playful Chinese researchers have now modified a pangolin brain virus to make it completely deadly to humans, because such medical research is absolutely vital if you hate humans. 

So far (or at least as far as we know...) it's only been tested on "humanized mice" which have been scientifically altered to have human genes so they can be tortured without having the ability to file lawsuits. And the new virus has killed every last one of those little humanized cheese nibblers, presumably when their brains turn into an inflamed slurry and ooze out through their perfectly circular ears. Which is likely what would happen to 100% of infected humans if the virus escaped, so isn't it good that Chinese virus labs are so very, very secure except for their open windows, screen doors, and tendency to sell dead animal specimens to wet markets for soup stock?

There's pretty much no reason that researchers would want to create such a thing unless it could A) be used as an apocalyptic bioweapon, B) make a lot of money for companies coincidentally selling pangolin brain virus vaccines, or C) beat AI to the punch of killing us all, giving humans quite literally the last laugh. 

Which is why we should immediately be taking common sense safety measures including, but not limited to, calling together the world's leading gain-of-function researchers and, after careful deliberation, displaying their heads on pikes.

Until then, whether mice or men, we should all have the willies.

UPDATE

Here's the full story, but the first 60 seconds or so of the video tell you what you need to know.

UPDATE 2

Sorry, the video has been removed because its creator - who I truly, deeply trust - would otherwise have been thrown off Youtube.  Hopefully some of you saw it. And I'm kicking myself for not having downloaded it.

Breaking and (Barely) Entering

Saturday is January 6th and I want to wish each and every one of you a glorious "Insurrection Day." Fly American flags, stroll around casually, take selfies with friends, then call it a day early and go to a nice restaurant for a 4 p.m. early-bird dinner special. You'll want to do all of this carefully, of course, because apparently, those activities could cause Democracy to fail, our nation to collapse, and be so generally apocalyptic that it will make the Holocaust look like no big deal - although in fairness, the former president of Harvard already thought that. 

Personally, I plan to hang my solar-powered American Flag LED lights and maybe a festive "Don't Tread On Me" flag. And what the hell, once I've done that I might as well leave them up until November...

FROM THE PEDO FILE

A long-hidden list of Jeffrey Epstein's (ahem) "associates" is finally being revealed in court proceedings, showing the names of the high-and-mighty who took advantage of his private jet and allegedly may have taken advantage of underage privates on Epstein's "pedophile island."

To no one's surprise, Bill "Stink Finger" Clinton's name is on the list. As are the names of legal eagle Alan Dershowitz, magician David Copperfield, Britain's Prince Andrew, and irrepressible party animal Stephen Hawking.  Everyone involved is denying participating in any sex trafficking activities and it seems likely that not much will come out of all this. After all, if these players could off Epstein in a locked and guarded prison cell, there's no way they're going to let unfiltered documents get to the public.

Rather, an old adage reminds us that "the Devil mixes his lies with truth" and I'm betting we're being fed just enough truth for things to look credible while the really explosive stuff remains buried.

(UPDATE: I owe everyone a huge apology! An earlier version of this mentioned Donald Trump being on a list because I fell for fake news. But we're talking professional fake news here: USA TODAY is even now billboarding this story with the headline "Clinton and Trump are named in Jeffrey Epstein documents." But if you read the whole story down to the fine print, you learn that Trump's name was only on "a document" that said Epstein planned to invite Trump to meet him at a casino. I'd say more, but I have a date with my cat-o-nine-tails for some self-flagellation.)

SLIPPING A MICKEY

So this is legal now...

"Steamboat Willie," the first iteration of Mickey Mouse, fell into the public domain on January 1st and everyone is now legally free to use his image for whatever fun and debauchery they like.  Multiple horror movies have already been announced and the Internet has been having a field day with inappropriate imagery. Not that I would ever do that...

Does this one strike you as too out of bounds? If so, don't blame me, blame Walt Disney - because that final frame is lifted straight out of the "Steamboat Willie" cartoon in which the frisky mouse enjoys playing squeazy-peasy with the horrified sow after shaking loose her suckling babies. It was a simpler time. And often weirder.

A NEW SONG BY THE STILTONES

Who can ever forget the innocent delight we old folks all felt back in the 1960's when a brand new song by The Stiltones debuted on our AM radios...?

Full confession: this is a one-minute song I created with the help of artificial intelligence while screwing around on the Internet. Most of the lyrics are old Burma Shave signs, I wrote the chorus, then AI produced the tune and lead vocal. After which I added harmony vocals using my computer's mic and made the video on another Internet website I was playing with. And I'm sharing it not because it's great, but because I had fun making it.

Considering that Burma Shave advertising signs haven't been posted in 60 years, I expect this already cryptic song to be absolutely baffling to anyone under AARP-age. But as an artist and musician, I care neither about their approval nor that of the horse they rode in on.