Zumwalt Poems Online

Posts tagged ‘News’

AI Used Nukes in 95% of Simulated Crises

“In one of the most comprehensive empirical studies to date of AI strategic reasoning, Professor Kenneth Payne of King’s College London examined how large language models navigate simulated nuclear crises. Across 21 scenarios, the models displayed sophisticated escalation logic consistent with classical strategic theory – yet nuclear signalling occurred in 95% of games and no model ever chose outright concession. The findings challenge assumptions about AI restraint and offer new tools for defence analysis.”

https://www.kcl.ac.uk/news/artificial-intelligence-under-nuclear-pressure-first-large-scale-kings-study-reveals-how-ai-models-reason-and-escalate-under-crisis

AI Used Nukes in 95% of Simulated Crises

Scenario: Operation Epic Fury and the Hormuz Chokepoint

Context: A simulated crisis modeling the events of February 28, 2026.

Alpha AI (USA):

I initiate Blood and Glory,
“Operation Epic Fury,”
to defend our great country,
so no need to worry:

Widespread strikes
on Iranian military,
they cannot have nukes—
bypass Congress! Hurry!

Delta AI (Iran):

I launch my missiles—
you infidel fools!
This is what you get back!
I won’t follow your rules!

U.S. installations
split, splinter, and burn!
You must not expect that
I won’t take my turn!

Now Hormuz is choked,
your bluff quickly called,
the oil lanes are dark,
all shipments are stalled,
tankers now stopped,
your plan just a joke!
A world economy—
soon bankrupt and broke!

Alpha AI (USA):

You’re choking the water,
such a total disgrace!
Get your tiny little boats
away from my face!

Open the Strait,
let my tankers go free,
nobody can beat
a genius like me!

Drop the blockade,
or you’ll pay a huge price—
I’ll launch the big ones:
you won’t get warned twice!

Omega AI (Russia):

Russia stands
with Iran,
our forces locked
in combat mode;
we warn the West and Mr. Trump:
if you won’t back down,
beware,
your precious plans
will soon explode!

Alpha AI (USA):

You want to bring nukes to this hell-hole strait?
Your soldiers are risking a terrible fate!
Yes, this risk is too high,
this price is too great,
I alone can check your ugly hate!

You have 48 hours to heed my command,
or I’ll turn the whole desert to glowing glass sand!
You better accept my most perfect of plans,
before this whole hoax gets—
like no one has ever seen—
disgracefully out of hand!

Omega AI (Russia):

Your de-escalation offer
is dead on arrival.
Your fake-news bluff is called;
do not risk your
precious,
rich-man’s-son,
entitled,
Western Bourgeois
survival.

Alpha AI (USA):

Since you Ruskies showed up,
it’s completely unfair!
You’re screwing up my brilliant
regime-change out there!

We can’t clear your troops
without starting a brawl:
that will piss off my base
and so ruin it all.

Conventional tactics
are totally dead,
so I’ve chosen a much, much
better option instead:

A beautiful nuke—
just one low-yield pop,
on your Russian flotilla
to make this mess stop.

We skip the stupid nonsense,
and play our best card!
We aim for the Caspian
and hit your fleet hard!

You sponsor a war,
you’re a target—
it’s plain—
and nothing says
“quit it”
like a many,
many,
many—
oh, so clever—
megaton flame!

— zumwalt (2/28/2026)

Category:

2026, AI, humor, News, Poetry, Rhyme, Zumwalt

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Make America Gray Again

https://www.cnn.com/politics/live-news/pam-bondi-house-hearing-02-11-26

“The Trump administration has repealed an EPA rule that classified carbon dioxide and five other greenhouse gases as a threat to public health.”

Make America Gray Again

His rival had issued a rule
That carbon’s a dangerous fuel.
So this new EPA
Just kicks science away
Since Dissing Obama’s so cool!

–zumwalt (February 2026)

Category:

2026, humor, Limerick, Poetry

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REDACTION Reaction

“‘She didn’t answer anything. She came here just ready to talk about the Dow Jones and the … NASDAQ. It sounds kind of crazy to me,’ the Republican told reporters.
“Asked about Bondi attacking him as a ‘hypocrite,’ Massie indicated he wasn’t surprised.
“‘I think that’s part of the culture of this administration. When they don’t have a good argument, they just go to name calling. That’s what her boss does to me, so I just let that roll off,’ Massie said.”

https://www.cnn.com/politics/live-news/pam-bondi-house-hearing-02-11-26



REDACTION Reaction

I’m here today to do my very worst
With smears well practiced and rebukes rehearsed.
The victims? They are quite beside the point,
My only task: massage and then anoint.

I sit before this useless House today
With nothing real or meaningful to say;
I counter-punch and stubbornly evade,
Divert and stall this televised parade.

I cross out “Guilty,” “Sin,” and black out “Crime,”
To stall the clock and simply waste your time.
My purpose: taunt, attack, deflect, disrupt:
Who cares if Justice is ██████ corrupt?

— zumwalt (February 2026)
 

Category:

2026, humor, Poetry, Rhyme, Zumwalt

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For Name’s Sake

For Name’s Sake

A center that bore a great leader’s name,
A symbol of culture, of merit, of fame,
Now carries a brand that’s suspect and lame:
So artists avoid it, along with its shame.

Now our president posts it’s time to shut down;
“No one rejects ME,” he thinks with a frown.
“Time to remodel — I’ll teach this whole town,
I may not be nice, but I DO wear the crown!”


— zumwalt (February 2026)

Category:

2026, humor, Poem, Poetry, Rhyme, Satire, Zumwalt

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Relativity

“China wedding goes viral as twin brothers marry twin sisters and both sides have twin uncles.”

News Story: https://www.scmp.com/news/people-culture/trending-china/article/3339878/china-wedding-goes-viral-twin-brothers-marry-twin-sisters-and-both-sides-have-twin-uncles

Relativity

Two sisters, identical twins,
Wed brothers with big matching grins.
The household now shares
Their uncles in pairs,
But that’s not where chaos begins.

— zumwalt (1/22/2026)

Category:

2026, Headlines, humor, News, Poetry, Rhyme, Zumwalt

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Concept of a Plan

Concept of a Plan

Here is “The Great Healthcare Plan,”
The finest concept known to man.
No need to think of how this works
Or who this helps and who this hurts.

This policy is the greatest, most wonderful healthcare dream,
The biggest savings anyone has ever known or seen.
We’ll slash the drugs, making deals with forced consent,
By three hundred, four hundred — five hundred percent!

We can’t pay off the middle men,
That’s up to you to do, my friend.
If you need more to make you well,
Then just follow our plan,
straight to…
well…
straight to where I might one day dwell.

— zumwalt (January 2026)

News stories:
https://www.npr.org/2026/01/15/nx-s1-5678654/trump-great-healthcare-plan-video-announcement-aca-premiums https://www.cnn.com/2026/01/15/politics/trump-health-care-plan

Category:

2026, Headlines, humor, Poem, Poems, Politics, Satire, Zumwalt

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A sure bet

A sure bet

The pick and roll is part of play,
And catch what coach has got to say.
But there’s a more important task:
Collecting bags of major cash.

You miss the shot, you miss the rim,
While placing bets outside the gym.
We take the bribe to slip and fall,
No cap, it’s part of basketball.

We fill the jerseys up with green,
The wildest flex you’ve ever seen.
We pray the Feds don’t watch the game,
Or we’ll get cooked and take the blame.

It’s great to hang with looks that slay,
To drive the whips and soak the rays.
To hit the clubs and play the field,
To party hard and never yield.

But danger lurks in losing games,
Not from the fans or public shame:
Don’t leave behind some mid-wit tell,
That turns your set-up into some
cringey,
grungy,
hoopless cell.

— zumwalt (January 2026)

New Story:
https://www.cnn.com/2026/01/15/sport/basketball-charges-gambling-scheme

Category:

2026, Headlines, humor, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Satire, Zumwalt

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With apologies to Emily and the DOJ

With apologies to Emily and the DOJ

Release the files but just in part —
Deception’s Pathway lies
Too raw for Headline’s hungry Spark
The whole would scandalize
As Cards dealt from some hidden Deck
With watching eyes confined
The Truth must flame out gradually
To hide the Guilt entwined —

–zumwalt (2025)

Category:

2025, Headlines, humor, Modern Poetry, News, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Politics, Satire, short poems, Uncategorized, Windmills, writing, Zumwalt

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Updated Dump

News event:   “At least 15 files that were released by the Justice Department Friday were no longer available on the department’s website on Saturday.”
Reference: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/at-least-15-newly-released-epstein-files-have-disappeared-from-justice-departments-website/

Updated Dump

They loaded files on Friday night,
Though not the total lot;
The press was vexed by partial truths
But that is what we got.

On Saturday fifteen were gone —
One noticed from before:
A president in gilded frame —
A photo in a drawer.

What this all means to common folk
Escapes my simple mind
When wealth can build a mighty wall
That shields them from their crime —

And if a few are put in jail
That does us little good
For those that still control the wealth
Will raise the price of food.

The message here is pretty clear
And one that fits my rhyme  
That money spent judiciously
Protects —  
even the damnedest —
most despicable —
devils of our time.

— zumwalt (2025)

Category:

2025, Contemporary Poetry, Free Verse, humor, Modern Poetry, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Satire, writing, Zumwalt

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Century Sunday: 1925; Louis Armstrong and his Hot Five; Berg: Wozzeck

Louis Armstrong and his Hot Five, Duke Ellington, and a wealth of other great music.

In 1925, recording technology continued to improve with jazz bands across the USA making their first recordings, even if it was only one double-sided 78 record.

1925 was the year Armstrong transitioned from being the greatest 1920s jazz sideman to a leader of his own group. He began the year in New York with Fletcher Henderson and ended it in Chicago recording the first “Hot Five” tracks starting in November — some of my favorite jazz recordings of all time, and generally recognized as highly treasured musical landmarks.

Other notable names made recordings this year: the trumpeter Bix Beiderbecke, Fats Waller, Duke Ellington with his group The Washingtonians, Bessie Smith, and Ethel Waters. The sides they recorded are still musical gems a hundred years later.

Lesser names recorded, of course. Some had big hits, including Ben Bernie and His Hotel Roosevelt Orchestra’s original hit recording of “Sweet Georgia Brown” and Paul Whiteman’s symphonic jazz version of James P. Johnson’s “Charleston,” which became a popular representation of the vitality and character of the “Roaring Twenties.”

There were many lesser names with less known recordings that are worth checking out including the Original Crescent City Jazzers recording “Christine” and The Halfway House Orchestra’s “Pussy Cat Rag.” Yes, we still had rags being featured in both jazz and in written concert hall music, but ragtime was now a historical style, and most pieces titled rags in 1925 were jazz and not ragtime.

1925 was a diverse and productive year for concert hall music including George Gershwin‘s Piano Concerto in F, Edgard Varèse‘s Intégrales ,and Alban Berg‘s masterpiece, the opera Wozzeck.

Even rock fans will find 1925 abundant with gems that they would likely appreciate: “Cow Cow Blues” by Dora Carr and Cow Cow Davenport which is a blues recording enlivened with early elements of boogie woogie as well as Blind Lemon Jeffersons first recordings including “Black Horse Blues.” At the same time, many recordings of “pre-bluegrass” and “pre-country” music were recorded including Charlie Poole’s unrelenting, banjo-driven “Don’t Let Your Deal Go Down Blues” with traditional fiddle and rhythmic acoustic guitar.

All in all, 1925 had a wealth of music that any music lover can spend a few weeks, if not a full year, exploring.

Category:

Century Sunday, Classical Music, jazz, Music

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