The $300 Billion Ayatollah

A perfectly normal week in America

It’s an incredible time to be alive. Dr. Mehmet Oz, a man who once spent 45 minutes on national TV extolling the benefits of consistent bowel movements, is now the official White House Press Secretary. Usually, a press secretary’s job is to gracefully dodge tricky questions about foreign policy or inflation. But with Dr. Oz at the microphone, it is entirely possible that a reporter’s question about the Strait of Hormuz could be answered with a recommendation for a green coffee bean extract. “Look, I don’t know much about the armed forces strategy, but I can tell you that three servings of wild yam root can do wonders to relieve your constipation.”

Texas has decided that the best way to prepare school children to enter the modern world is to have them read the Bible. Third graders will deal with the plague of frogs before they encounter long form division. In the same week, Trump signed two executive orders directing federal agencies to protect Americans from “future quantum computers.” While Washington mandarins try to figure out post-quantum cryptography algorithms and how to avoid hacks from 2040, Texas school kids will be tested on how many cubits make up Noah’s Ark. No word yet on whether they’ll be taught that Jonah’s whale was a mammal and not a fish.

The Supreme Court entered the chat this week with a pair of 6-3 rulings that essentially allow the administration to strip deportation protections from hundreds of thousands of immigrants and turn away asylum seekers at the southern border before they set foot on US soil. Samuel Alito, one of the justices, commented, “A guest does not arrive in a house when he knocks on the front door.” Fair point. Well played, Samuel. Just so you know, all four of Justice Samuel Alito’s grandparents immigrated to the United States from Italy. They came from Calabria on a ship and knocked on the front door. Times have changed. Now, we can hide behind the couch and pretend no one’s at home when someone rings the front door bell.

AI is now coming for your wallet. There is a shortage of memory chips. Why is there a shortage? Because artificial intelligence companies are buying every single piece of silicon on the planet to train their large language models. Apple announced this week that this memory shortage has pushed the costs higher, and ergo, raised prices on their laptops and iPads. Basically, you have to pay more for a laptop because a server farm in Utah needs those chips to power an AI bot that can generate a picture of a golden retriever dressed as a pirate.

First, Trump said that he had destroyed Iran’s nuclear enrichment capabilities. And then he said they had to go to war with Iran. Not sure exactly why. Hadn’t they already destroyed it? This is the guy who started his second term promising to end “Forever Wars” with “a single phone call.” Somehow, we have ended up in this logjam between the Art of the Deal and the Axis of Evil, where Trump has agreed to pay the Iranians 300 billion dollars for having assassinated their Ayatollah. At this rate, Iran is three Ayatollahs away from pocketing a trillion dollars.

At this point, Trump is handling matters with the precision of a toddler playing with a grenade. He is getting his lunch money stolen from both sides. At one end, the Iranians are treating him like an escape room enthusiast who doesn’t know how to read the clues. They signed his “historic” peace deal on Monday and then casually lobbed a drone at a cargo ship on Thursday. Meanwhile, Netanyahu is treating Trump like a confused resident in an assisted living facility. Bibi holds his hand, points him toward the cameras for a photo-op, nods politely at his rants, and then bombs Beirut, wrecking peace talks.

Come to think of it, learning about Noah’s Ark might not be a bad idea. If things go to hell, we might need one.

Have a great weekend!

PS; The FIFA World Cup is on. More on that next weekend. Enjoy the games!