After spending most of this week on the road, accompanied by The Wonder Dog, we returned to a bit more chaos than we had planned. And I’m still down a Winsor McCay rabbit hole from which I have not extracted myself; I grew up appreciating the wonderfully surreal complexity of Little Nemo, but I’m now discovering much of his editorial art. The politics are generally retarded, but the art is… amazing. Worse yet, I’m way behind on two pieces from my paid writing gig, and deadlines in that business are hard ones. But my obsessions and obligations will not derail my efforts to present high quality links, my usual clumsy snark, and a small dose of cheery music.

First, though, it’s birthday time. And a rather momentous day it is, what with the birthdays of the fifth Marx Brother, Margaret Dumont (about whom legend says the jokes had to be explained to her, but never believe a legend), the brilliant and insanely underappreciated modernist composer Charles Ives, the wonderfully hammy Bela Lugosi, hookmaster Tom Petty, and Willie Brown’s protege and fuck-socket Kamala Harris.

For reasons totally unclear to me, Saudi execution number 116,489 still seems to be a headliner. Along with massive shrieking that THIS one is the most important and the thing on which we ought to be focusing our national attention- and perhaps yet another war. Or maybe it’s not so unclear why this has become The Most Important News Story.

[Congressman Joaquin Castro (D-Bedlam)] cited unspecified reporting “that Jared Kushner may have, with U.S. intelligence, delivered a hit list, an enemies list, to the crown prince, to MBS, in Saudi Arabia and that the prince may have acted on that.” Castro continued, saying “I’ve seen reporting to that effect … That needs to be investigated.”

I like how smoothly the segue from Russia to Saudi Arabia has been managed. Of course, we need a full investigation.

Know what I love? Good theater. Even when it’s produced by amusingly sleazy lawyers. Maybe especially when it’s produced by amusingly sleazy lawyers.

Manafort, appearing visibly grayer, was pushed into court in a wheelchair, missing his right shoe. “There are significant issues with Mr. Manafort’s health concerning confinement,” his lawyer, Kevin Downing, told the judge.

Downing requested that the court expedite Manafort’s sentencing so he could be moved to a facility better equipped to deal with his health issues.

“His physical well-being requires a continual supply of Champagne, big screen television, a private jet, and hookers,” stated the physician hired by Manafort’s attorneys. “Denial of these basics of medical care constitutes cruel and unusual punishment.”

It wouldn’t be a Saturday without a sex robot story.

Jimmy Mehiel uploaded a sex robot to Tinder as part of an experiment for his documentary about cyborgs, “I Want My Sex Machine”. The 39-year-old, from New York, wanted to see how many people would be willing to sleep with a sex robot. He gained permission from Matt McMullen – the creator of the world’s first commercially available doll Harmony – and shared photos of the robot on the dating platform.

In an exclusive interview with Daily Star Online, Jimmy revealed a whopping 56% of people polled said they would have intercourse with a sex robot.

I talked about this story with a female friend, who was horrified. “That’s absolutely disgusting. Fucking a machine? What is WRONG with men???” She then grabbed her vibrator and left.

Seattle continues to be a source of entertainment to the rest of the country. San Francisco might have a problem with homeless, but Seattle says, “Hold mah beer!”

“I looked up the street and there was a sea of balls rolling down the hill making an incredible noise and hitting the cars that are here,” Robert Duffy, a West Seattle resident, told KOMO News. “Got home from work and I couldn’t park on my street, ’cause there’s hundreds of thousands of steel balls on it,” Luke Gills, another neighborhood resident, also told KOMO News.

If these had been brass balls, the story would be perfect.

As fucked up as things are here, at least we can say, “We’re not Europe. Yet.” The brilliant Besserwissers have managed to transform a freebie from Google into something that will cost European consumers significant cash.

Google’s licensing terms are changing in Europe later this month on account of a European Commission ruling that barred the company from requiring phone manufacturers to bundle Chrome and search with the rest of its suite of apps. EU countries are divided into three tiers, with the highest fees coming in the UK, Sweden, Germany, Norway, and the Netherlands. In those countries, a device with a pixel density higher than 500 ppi would have to pay a $40 fee to license Google’s suite of apps, according to pricing documents.

The European Commission ruling does not explicitly require Google to charge licensing fees, but Google is required to break apart its traditional bundle of apps. The court ruled that by bundling search and Chrome within Android, Google stifled innovation and cut off opportunities for device makers to sign better deals around preinstalled browsers and search engines.

Chrome and search are where Google’s profits come from, and without them in the bundle, it’s chosen to fund the distribution of the rest of its apps and services with this per-device fee. If phone or tablet companies want to include any of Google’s apps, they’ll have to pay, and then decide whether to make a separate browser-and-search deal with Google to make back some of the costs.

Of course, all of that is still free in the US, but that’s because we don’t have a government that cares as much about us as the EU does for its citizens.

Well, I might mourn what the Orioles have become, but at least they’re spreading the infection.

The Brewers’ crowd booed Machado as if he were in town to introduce Prohibition. Machado responded with a dry night at the plate, meekly going 0-for-4 and stranding three.

“It was a tough loss for us today,” he said when asked about the crowd, which was the polite way of checking on the ringing in his ears. “We’ve got to come back and play better baseball tomorrow night.”

HAHAHAHAHA!

Old Guy Music time! And to class the place up a bit, I chose a wonderful song from today’s birthday boy. This one commemorates the founder of the Salvation Army by setting Vachel Lindsay’s paean to music. It’s a fine example of Ives, with complex and dissonant lines, a difficult piece to comprehend and even more difficult to play. But worth the effort.