We'll Always Have Paris .....

        From The Copy Desk: The sadness we feel for the loss of Notre Dame de Paris cannot dampen our joy for having been witnesses ... all things must pass. The singing throng around the pyre reconsecrates the ground. 

Working Humans

     From The Copy Desk: Warren was calmer, but still upset. It had taken Marty a long time to convince him that John Hiatt was kidding and was not planning any trips to western Pennsylvania - indeed to Punxsutawney - to shoot Phil. Wintertime Blues is, however, a great song. The threats of violence are near the end of the song.





     "It's been a harrowing afternoon for both of us," Marty said. "You're like the damsel in "Jukebox Music" by The Kinks, 'and you believe the stories are real. You let the music dictate the way that you feel.'"
     Warren, still breathing slowly into the brown paper bag Marty gave him, wondered about this exact point, "But if a happy song makes me happy isn't it the same thing," he asked his now distracted brother.
     "Where did the remote disappear to this time Warren," Marty said. "There it is, we should watch some football."
     Firing up the DVR, Marty picked a Bundesliga game from the list of Premier League, Champions League and various UEFA games. "I understand Bayern is struggling this year and may not even win the title for once, that would make me happy," Marty said. "Just try not to get too extreme over stuff. Life is short, try to spend your time doing useful things."
     "What, like those career-minded humans there on the screen. It looks to me like T-Mobile has hired some 'voke' to perform at this game as pixels," Warren said. "Go back and freeze the DVR."

T-Mobile pixels at work in Allianz Arena.

     "Wow, humans deployed in the crowd as pixels, good work if you can get it I suppose, they look like great seats," Marty said. "I wonder what the compensation for this work might be ...... just a ticket to the game and a white Devo suit to wear or actual Euros as well."

     "Remember, this is Germany," Warren said. "There's probably an impressive apprenticeship program for these jobs. Standing training, care of the Devo suit and how to be a good upstanding T-Mobile pixel."

  "Very funny. This isn't robots replacing humans, but of humans doing robots' work," Marty said. "This runs agains the trend, usually humans lose jobs. This drive to automate everything should be resisted it could help a lot of 'voke' with their livelihoods."

     Putting down the paper bag for good now, Warren took a deep breath before saying, "So you think we should resist the onslaught of the machines, in little ways when we can."

    "That's right halph-bro," Marty said. "Now comes the bit where he pontificates a bit .... "

     From The Copy Desk: Indeed, still sore from sitting on our soapbox for too long yesterday, it is that time. If enough people around here sign up for the pharmacy robots to mail your meds, the kid who grew up down the road and went to pharmacy school won't have job in her hometown anymore.

     Does somebody still have to handle all those checks we write instead of letting the all the banks, utilities and other friendly corporations electronically take the money. We hope so.

Simpler Times

     From The Copy Desk: The Boys have been yearning for things the way they used to be .... for example 5.1/4% interest on your passbook savings account and they could afford to hire many, many humans to collect and count the money. 

     Warren was hoping for so much more, but alas there it was ...... now he has to deal with it. "I hate dealing with ATMs, robots and 'interfaces' - where are the humans who used to serve us," Warren shouted at the locked glass door of the now-closed bank. "How are we going to access Marty's DARPA pension money now."
     Returning home, Warren had already figured out what Marty was going to say about banks, robots, the financial 'industry,' AI and the eventual obsolescence of humans. Even the climate seems to be against them, and like marmots, it's expected that underground living (sounds like a future magazine title) will become normal for humanity.

The Boys watching a favorite show.

     So Warren wandered off into the burrow and joined Marty watching one of their favorite TV shows, which thanks to the DVR-robot they can now enjoy any time. "Some things are way better with this technology and these robots," Marty said. "But indeed there is a substantial dark side," Marty added.
     "You remember that story about the plutocrats lounging in the Alps plotting to replace all their workers with either AI or robots. It was pretty disturbing. Or the report from the federal reserve that I saw a few weeks ago, or was it Brookings, that forecast which occupations face the most job losses."
     Warren couldn't resist and chimed in ..... "I remember that one, it was Brookings Institution. I liked the metro area data set. It was phun."

A robot?

 

 From The Copy Desk: Warren is, of course, easily amused. He liked the metro area map because when you mouse over the cities, balloons pop up. Warren really, really likes balloons.

     "As for the robots, don't get too down on them," Marty said. "It's not the fault of the soul-less machines, but rather the aforementioned plutocrats. Lots of people are very angry about the way things are going, but many of them are mad at the wrong people. Who got all the benefit of the last big tax cut, not the everyday Joe ..... "
     "Do some people have different names for different days," Warren interrupted, "Yet some people just use the same name every day, making them an everyday ..... Bob or whatever?"
      Marty continued on, " .... six-pack. That's not how it worked out. I'll show you which people benefited the most from the last Republic Party tax give-away .....

Mr. Burns.

     From The Copy Desk: The small picture above is hardly a robot.

Nake Fews

 URGENT:

 From The Copy Desk: Don't believe everything you read on the Internet. 

Holiday Cheer

    From The Copy Desk: As The Boys prepare for the most somber of days on their calendar, certain sacrifices must be made. It wouldn't be Groundhogs' Day without all the traditional foodstuffs - but especially the bundt cakfe. So they'll be cutting it close, what with having to wait until Friday, Groundhogs' Day itself, to buy the mix for the two cakfes.




     The Boys were just unpacking the yellow bags from the DG when Warren squealed with delight.
     "It's amazing. I never dreamed this would happen," Warren said. Holding up the receipt from the store, Warren proudly said, "This my dear brother, is a Groundhogs' Day coupon."
     Marty checked it out and indeed the holiday now has a tiny pawhold in corporate America ..... "It's perfect timing," Marty said. "We'll need the five bucks off to stay on budget this week."


     From The Copy Desk: We did notice the misspelled words up there in our introduction, but if you're troubled by these days and times or even the state of our uniom, you can understand why the original typo made us smile and so we not only kept it, it was repeated. Perhaps we were thinking about an earlier post from The Boys about the holiday, Gugelhuph Time!

I'm (sic) of it all ....

....to President of the United States (on my first try). I think that would qualify as not smart, but genius....and a very stable genius at that! -

Donald J. Trump

 Do you know who often proclaims their stability? Crazy people. Do you know who often proclaims their intelligence? Stupid people. Do you know who often brags about their stability and their intelligence? Crazy, stupid people. - “Zender” one of 2 authors at Electoral-vote.com

Morning Mr. Orwell

     From The Ministry of Truth: Turkey recently launched an offensive against U.S.-backed forces in northern Syria. As odd as it seems that a NATO ally is attacking another's forces in a third country, how about the actual name of the attack ...... Operation Olive Branch.

Hey Congress

     From The Copy Desk: It's Friday and once again the Dotards of Democracy are "debating" if they are going to do their job. The House of Representatives had passed a "CR" - Congress-speak for continuing resolution - which basically says that we continue to authorize spending at the levels set by the last time they actually passed a budget and the 12 individual appropriation bills.  Now of course the inaction moves to the Senate. And that's where we find The Boys, watching it on CSPAN.......


     "Hey Warren quick come see," Marty shouted. "Here comes Chuck E. Schumer. He's making his way to mic and is gonna give the Republic Party a piece of his mind."
     Warren, not rushing into the room, responded, "I'm not sure they're willing to accept it. Let me know if anything interesting happens."

Sen. Chuck Schumer

     And so it goes. The Senate Minority Leader from New York went on to point out all that was wrong with this CR, lamented all the other problems we're not dealing with and criticized his "friends" across the aisle - to a mostly empty room. But there was the Senate Majority Leader, Mitch McConnell, R-Turtle, on hand just in case Chuck E. decided to attempt some parliamentary action - like asking for unanimous consent to do something useful. He did, and McConnell objected. Parliamentary maneuver defeated.
     "What he said," Marty shouted. "That's it, we've got them. Hey Warren get in here. And grab the pocket constitution on your way."
     Warren arrived and Marty opened the little book to Article 1, Section 8, Clause 12 of the U.S. Constitution. "Congress shall have the power to raise and support Armies, but no appropriation of money to that use shall be for a longer term than two years," Marty read out loud. "They can pass this CR but the spending is un-constitutional."
     Warren looked confused, which isn't unusual, but this seemed more than normal. "What are you talking about," Warren said. "What's unconstitutional about this CR?"
     "It's like this," Marty said, "Schumer just read a statement from the Pentagon that said forcing them to operate under a CR for the last three years damages the military and it needs to be fully funded by its own appropriations bill. So in effect, they've issued a three year long military appropriations bill, which is not allowed."
     Warren was skeptical. "That can't be right, you're kinda stretching a point here aren't you."
     "I got the idea from the Republic Party," Marty said. "They've been pushing odd views of the constitution for a while now. Why not try it ourselves."
     Warren saw the point, it is after all the Republic Party that has a case in federal court challenging the apportionment of Congressman based on population. The GOP (Generally Obtuse People) claims that the constitutional provision that representation should be based on "the whole number of persons in each state," really means only registered voters - which would help them at the ballot box.
     "It's one of the places where the constitution is clear and unambiguous," Marty said. "Yet they they say it means something else."
   

     From The Copy Desk: It would be nice if there was somebody in the U.S. Senate brave enough to stand up firmly for common sense, decency and for the return to a 'regular order' that lets us all move forward without so much useless drama. Who ya gunna call?

Sen. Smith, in Washington.

   

   

Cold Comfort

The view from the winter burough.

     "Hey dear brother, it says here you should move out," Warren said, looking up from the iPad. "It would help us both live longer."
     Marty, pondering the thought of having Warren move out instead, asked, "What the heck are you reading anyway?"
     Warren flipped the iPad around and handed it to Marty, who read the story about lonely yellow bellied marmots.

Cousins, yellow bellied cousins.

     The story, Being Antisocial Leads to a Longer Life. For Marmots, made Marty laugh out loud and want to spray his brother with disinfectant.
     "I'm not sure this actually applies to us," Marty said. "We're a different sub-species aren't we?
     And besides, we're civilized, we clean ourselves and we certainly get plenty of sleep, even if we don't hibernate anymore."
     Handing the iPad back to his halph-brother, Marty's dark thoughts continued .......  a burough to himself, nobody to disturb him, nobody to clean up after but himself .... blissful it would be he thought.
      "I know what you're thinking," Warren said. "I have no plans to move out and I don't want you to move out either. I like it here and we're staying."
     Marty, acknowledging the sense his brother was making, said, "It's just the season, the cold, being cooped up in here most of the time. We'd have to be stupid and crazy to think we could get by without each other."
   
     

Just One

The lone "ladybug" 

     From The Copy Desk: This time The Boys got their bug, since this week's subject moves a bit slower than the butterflies that eluded Marty's camera this past summer. We here at The Copy Desk are thrilled to avoid curious excursions north of the 38th parallel to find "suitable" artwork for their post.




     "Well that's it, I'm all done cleaning up the window sills," Warren said. "That was easy, just one bug."
     Indeed, Warren had swept up, sprayed and wiped down the entire winter burough sun room.  Marty, suspiciously, wandered out into the sun-warmed enclave and looked around.
     "Hey it really does look good. Nice job Warren," Marty said. "And I thought you were grossed out by dead bugs, what's up, you turning 'normal' on me?"
     Marty need not worry. There's a half a roll of paper towels in the garbage can to prove Warren's still a scaredy-gopher when it comes to dead things. And besides, it's Thursday and Warren just woke up.
     "It was easy," Warren said. "It wasn't dead. So I let it crawl onto a beer mat and then I let it go outside.
     And there were no other bugs, dead or alive, anywhere ..... " Warren paused, realizing that ..... "there were no huge bunches of ladybugs to vacuum up, or cluster flies or even June bugs this past summer."
     "You're right, brother," Marty said, "And there's the sudden lack of birds around here. If all the bugs are gone, birds would leave."
     The Boys stared at each other for a moment, then leapt (well, kinda) into action. Gathering snacks, craft beverages, pillows blankets and iPads they settled into the Adirondack chairs to catch the late afternoon sun glistening off the year's first snowfall.
     "There's a story here that may explain our anecdotal observations," Marty said.
     "Aunt who" Warren asked.


     From The Copy Desk: Yes, there is a story HERE that may explain The Boys' observations.