Hammer Mill Days

  Okay, I know I drew the short straw. Let’s give it another go, shall we? Best two out of three. Ready …. steady … pull. Damn. Short straw again. Best three out of five? Oh, hi. I’ll be honest – I’ve never been much of a gambler. And yet here we are, drawing straws to see who will go out and do the weekly shopping. Now I know what you’re going to say – “Joe!” you’d say, “You have a personal robot assistant. Why not send HIM out to shop?” Very good question. The trouble is, Marvin (my personal robot assistant) is a dead ringer for some rogue ripoff automaton that has been terrorizing the local shops for a good six months. No matter how we identify Marvin as distinctly himself, the store owners around here lack the … um … subtlety to imagine that Marvin might not only be a totally different robot but, in fact, one that shares none of the nefarious habits of the nasty robot. Appearances can be deceiving! Look at us , for crying out loud. You’d think we were a band...

The dust is settling on election 2020, at least for some of us. The Trump team is still in full-blown denial, and most of the rest of the Republican establishment is rolling right along with them. In the parking lot of a landscaping company in Pennsylvania, presidential lawyer and confidante Rudy Giuliani scoffed at the idea that the networks would project the winner of a presidential election … like they have for my entire life and probably longer. Rudy seems to think only the courts can decide elections, but to be fair, I think his mind might have been on the porn shop next door when he was saying that. Strange, strange man. Unfortunately, Rudy isn’t the only one smoking crack these days. I found this in my daily briefing from the New York Times ( The Morning , November 9): Democrats are almost certainly fooling themselves if they conclude that America has turned into a left-leaning country that’s ready to get rid of private health insurance, defund the police, ab...