SPY vs SPY.
Remember that?
New politics
have same format.
The Young Fall for Scams More Than Seniors Do. Time for a Warning.
(NYT)
My kids warn me
of balderdash,
then they invest
in cyber-cash.
Confident in Its Impunity, the Myanmar Junta Ignores Diplomacy.
(NYT)
In Rangoon,
with bodies strewn,
the junta grins --
admits no sins.
Policemen have got a hard job/Messes they constantly swab/They don't get much thanks/keep little in banks/No wonder they quit in a mob.
Britney Spears: ‘I Just Want My Life Back’
(NYT)
Poor Britney Spears wants control/of a life that her guardians stole/She wants to be free/not as parolee/But unfettered, messy, yet whole.
A Culture War Between Hungary and Europe Escalates Over L.G.B.T. Bill.
(NYT)
Hungarians have passed a law/that sticks in the E.U.'s wide craw/Hungarians prate/you'd better be straight/or we'll turn you into scrimshaw.
Members of Congress from states hit hardest by planned Postal Service delivery slowdowns say the agency should restore service and look elsewhere for cost savings.
(WaPo)
The Post Office wants to go slow/It's already glacial in flow/To save a few cents/they now will dispense/with anything like allegro.
China free?
Of course it's true!
If you think that
white is blue.
Tech Giants, Fearful of Proposals to Curb Them, Blitz Washington With Lobbying.
(NYT)
Deck the halls
with lots of calls
from lobbyist
who do insist
with cash in hand
that Tech is grand.
So get in line;
the money's fine!
Kim Jong Un, fearing loss of control, has grooming and parenting advice for North Korean women.
(WaPo)
Kim Jong Un,
the stylish one,
tells comrades fair
to brush their hair.
He also sez
don't wear a fez.
His words are sweet,
though folk can't eat.
Writer's block
does not constrain
reporters from
their old refrain:
Call us any
name you choose,
as long as we
can get some news!
The economy isn’t going back to February 2020. Fundamental shifts have occurred.
(WaPo)
Economies
are frenemies;
first they hug
and then they squeeze.
Unmasking the far right: An extremist paid a price when his identity was exposed online after a violent clash in Washington.
(WaPo)
It's called 'doxing'
and it's poxing
ultra-right
to lose their fight
by online outing --
but still they're shouting.
Laughing, clapping, cheering/the circus came to town/showing skill and pity/with acrobat and clown/No more those days of wonder/no blending of a crowd/as we sit home a-brooding/the TV on too loud.
I received the following in an email today and thought I'd share it . . . because I am a flaming egomaniac.
Old McConnell had a farm/where he did a lot of harm/blocking legislation aimed/at injustice to be tamed/A Senator who slops the hogs/while we're going to the dogs.
Record-setting heat blasts the West: ‘Your skin is almost sizzling.'
(WaPo)
It's so hot in western states/there's a law against ice skates/Temperatures have gone so high/that the lakes do ossify/Even Mr. Scratch won't stay/but tucks his tail and runs away/This is global warming writ/large enough to make us . . . um, sit up and take notice.
Bitcoin miners exit China, beat a path to the U.S. as crypto climate shifts.
(WaPo)
From their humble little cottage/bitcoin miners use much wattage/They consume entire grids/putting climate on the skids/What that means to you and me/is we won't have much a.c./Rolling brownouts soon will start/showing miners have no heart.
Some states are cutting off emergency food-assistance programs and making it harder to qualify.
(WaPo)
20 million people in the good ol' USA/go hungry on occasion -- not from diets, anyway/State governments are cutting aid to those who need it most/and think they're saving money -- so, at least, is what they boast/Just remember, governors, that starving people vote/maybe at the ballot, or perhaps with creosote.
After the war/there was no one left/I signed the peace treaty/all by myself/then marched away/to start/a strange new world/Homo sapiens/were obviously out of the running/So I started with rabbits/Very efficient breeders/Too efficient/as it turned out/They soon went to war/with each other/over Lebensraum/hiring weasel mercenaries/to do the dirty work/So I tried tortoises/slow and steady/never lose their tempers/and very hesitant breeders/They liked to eat/only prickly pear cactus/and tried to turn the entire planet/into a desert/the perfect environment/for prickly pear/I turned from them to iguanas/After all, look at Godzilla/an iguana who made good in Tokyo/They sat on rocks/and sunned themselves/Never argued or pushed an agenda/Of course, their tendency to blow sea water out of their nostrils/was disconcerting/but I figured/Hey, if that's the worst thing/about them/they can become the dominant species/no problem/But then the space aliens/landed/and were in cahoots/with the weasels/and everything/went to hell/in a hand basket/The upshot/is that planet Earth/is now nothing/but a parking lot/for spaceships/managed by/Cleverciti Systems/out of Beta Centauri/And me?/I run a gazpacho stand next to the veeblefetzer works/It's a living.
When the world ran out of soap/it ran out of heart/It all happened this year/when the algorithms for/soap manufacturing were /hacked and held for ransom/Nobody/thought it important/enough to pay anything/so the ability to make soap disappeared/Do you know how to make/soap?/No one does/Not even Bill Nye the Science Guy/He tried/ and came up with pink gelatin/Me personally/I ran out of soap/on May 15th/and now smell like a dead carp/I have dirt blisters/and my hair hangs down lankly/like Severus Snape's/Without personal hygiene/the social fabric/becomes rank and filthy/Bulldozers level homeless camps/Old baseball cards are burned in public squares/Every third person/in Vermont/has joined an amateur clown club/Billboards are up with movie spoiler alerts/Hasbro taks over Bitcoin/and turns it into Monopoly money/The FDA bans dill pickles/Not to mention/spelling 'Albuquerque' correctly becomes/mandatory/in order to vote/Me/I've bought an olive press/in Italy/When I get there/I'll lather myself/with olive oil/and then scrape it off/and go lie in the sun/That's how the ancient Greeks kept clean/You can look it up in Ulysses.
My friends will forgive me when foolish I act/My lust for the spotlight still leaves me no tact/Absolve me, my dear hearts, and let folly slide/if I have embarrassed you with my ill pride.
While intensive examinations of large multinational companies are common, the I.R.S. rarely conducts detailed audits of private equity firms, according to current and former agency officials.
(NYT)
So I dropped a dollar bill on the sidewalk/and this guy pounces on it like a cheetah/I said "Hey that's mine!"/He gave me a serene smile before answering/"Mister, this is your lucky day/I'm gonna use your dollar/for a private equity deal/that will knock your socks off/"I don't want my socks knocked off" I told him severely/"I just want my friggin dollar back!"/He paid no attention to my outrage/Instead he gathered a large crowd around him/and began tearing bits off my dollar/and handing them out/to complete strangers/telling them "Give me all your spare change for this bit of bona fide/U.S. currency/and I'll guarantee twenty percent profit within two weeks"/People were slow to respond at first/but then he added/"And folks, you'll never pay any taxes on the money you make with this deal"/That did the trick/The crowd almost smothered him/giving him quarters and dimes and five dollar bills/even credit cards/He pocketed it all/looking as smug/as a Republican denying the vote to a new minority/When the crowd was gone he told me/"Meet me back at this exact same spot in one week and we'll divvy up the loot"/Then he disappeared in a cloud of brimstone/I was skeptical/but I came back in a week/and by golly/he was right there/with a satchel full of hundred dollar bills/which he handed to me with a wink/then mounted his Tengu/to fly off into the marmalade sunset.
