Showing posts with label Biden. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Biden. Show all posts

Friday, July 12, 2024

Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

 
Image by kalhh from Pixabay

Letters from Flyoverland featuring the wit and wisdom of a garrulous geezer and {Dana}a persistent hallucination and charming literary device.

                     ABOUT                                              GLOSSARY 

"Time changes everything except something within us which is always surprised by change." -Thomas Hardy 


Dear Gentlereaders,
Yes, some of the "boilerplate" that formerly preceded my greeting is gone.  

"There are five parts of a friendly letter, and one optional part. The five include a heading, greeting, body, closing, and signature. There's also an optional postscript a writer may decide to include." -Sister Mary McGillicuddy

Yes, Virginia, in the distant past H. sapiens had to compose letters on sheets of unformatted paper, sometimes called stationary, and apply a format they had learned in grade school.

{So it's true, you've disinherited the Stickies!}

Nah, but they're all over 18 now and two have moved out so they've all been promoted to gentlereaders. None have left Canada's version of the Deep South yet (Northern Ohio) and our lives remain closely intertwined. Duuude moved to Tennessee to launch his life now that school's finally behind him but returned two minutes later, burned by some extended family members. 

I say finally because to him, as it did to his beloved grandfather, being done with mandatory schooling feels like having completed a prison sentence imposed on an innocent man. 

Fortunately, he's an easy-going, well-adjusted young man who doesn't hold grudges (unlike his beloved grandfather who often does despite his best efforts to the contrary) who plans on trying again once he can afford to do so without "help" from anybody.

Like me, he would prefer to live south of the Mason-Dixon line. Unlike me, he doesn't mind hot and humid weather as much as I do.    

There's a bit of drama in my life right now (some good, some bad), and given that I've recently obtained Cosmic Geezer perspective, I thought it would be a good time to make some changes. Not just in my column, but in other aspects of my life that I won't bore you with. Now that I've been blessed with CGP much has become clear.

And of course, we all gotta do what we need to do to maintain the illusion of control. 

{The illusion of control?}

The subject of a future column, stay tuned. Now, if you're still here, and still awake...

{Wait-wait-wait. What's with the title? What's this got to do with David Bowie?}

Nothing, the title is just clickbait. 

{You're gonna make people mad!}

People who are only interested in reading about Mr. Bowie will flee in short order. People who are interested in reading about Mr. Bowie but who are also naturally intelligent, inquisitive sorts who like to read the work of clever columnists will keep reading, at least for a bit. 

Perhaps I'll pick up a new fan. Hopefully, no one will try and track me down and kill me. I wouldn't mind an attempted cancelation, all publicity is good publicity if you spin it properly. The Information Age is also the All Show Biz all the Time Age. 

{Hmmm... You may be smarter than you look.}      

Good thing, right?


The classics never get old. For those of you reading this via the dead trees format: BA DUM TSSS!

{Hi-LAR-ious. Can we hope for some meat on this sandwich?}


The Wall Street Journal, as my millions of regular readers know, is my personal paper of record. 

Although the news division now is forced to demean itself by drifting slightly leftwards... 

And featuring slightly more in the way of celebrity/fashion/self-help/sensationalist/doom-mongering shtuff that many H. sapiens can't seem to ever get enough of to maintain circulation numbers (or at least I hope that's why they're doing it),

They still also publish the sort of high-quality journalism they're famous for, including stories that are not widely reported on elsewhere but should be.  

For example, the Emperor's minions, lackeys, and sneaky students are stealing our chips.

{Frito Lay products are as popular and widely distributed in China as they are here. Personally, I can't get enough Roasted Fish, why do they need to steal our chips?}

I'm talkin' computer chips, specifically Nvidia AI chips. "Nvidia’s chips are highly coveted for their ability to handle the massive computations needed to train AI systems that are critical to China-U.S. tech rivalry." -Raffaele Huang/WSJ 

{Just a sec', I'll be right back... Hey, I enjoy reading lengthy articles about the technology sector as much as the next guy person. Still, I think you'd be doing your gentlereaders a public service by providing a summary.}

Easy Peasy, here's another quote from the article. 

"The student is part of a barely concealed [widely known, easily accessible] network of buyers, sellers and couriers bypassing the Biden administration’s restrictions aimed at denying China access to Nvidia’s advanced AI chips..."

{Student, what student?}

The article begins by describing how a Chinese student studying in Singapore brought home a half dozen Nvidia AI chips when he flew home to China for a vacation for which he was paid $100 each by a Chinese middlemanperson. 

Depending on the particular chip, they will be resold for roughly 20 to 30k — each. 

"The Commerce Department, which oversees enforcement of the U.S. restrictions, didn’t respond to requests for comment." 

Given that we're fighting Cold War Two, even if The Fedrl Gummit doesn't like to acknowledge it — we shouldn't needlessly risk offending a country that supplies slave labor (and lots of customers) to build us cool sneakers and smartphones — you'd think we'd be all over this. 

{Hey, If you would stop ignoring the artificial intelligence built into your spell checker you would know that you should have written you would think that we would be all over this. You'd and we'd are some pretty ugly lookin' contractions...just sayin'.}


On an unrelated note, I'm officially endorsing Camalla Harris and Pete Buttigieg for president and vice president (respectively) this year. 

Kamala Harris and Pete Buttigieg, vote for them and we'll all win big! I'm on a fixed income so I wrote a slogan in lieu of a donation.

{AI wants you to write instead of in lieu of in lieu of.} 

She's a woman, of a couple of different colors, and he belongs to the LGBT+ club. Between them, that's three (or four, depending on how you count) different historically marginalized minorities. Most importantly, there's no trace of Satan's inadvertent minions, straight white males. 

Being a straight white male myself, this is my way of apologizing for being responsible for everything that's wrong with the world. 

{Pete who?}

Have an OK day, 
Colonel Cranky

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Friday, March 26, 2021

The National Guard vs The Plague

Photo by Clay Banks on Unsplash

This is: A weekly column consisting of letters to my perspicacious progeny. I write letters to my grandkids and my great-grandkids — the Stickies — to advise them and haunt them after they've become grups and/or I'm deleted.

Warning: This column is rated SSC — Sexy Seasoned Citizens — A Perusal by kids, callowyutes, or grups may result in a debilitating intersectional triggering. Viewing with a tablet or a monitor is highly recommended for maximum enjoyment.

Please Note: If ya click on an Amazon ad, thus opening a portal to Amazon, and buy anything, Lord Jeffrey will toss a few pence in my direction and you won't have to feel guilty about enjoying my work  well, hopefully  for free. Win/Win.  

About 


Glossary 


Erratically Appearing Hallucinatory Guest Star: Dana — A Gentlerreader

"I’ll get vaccinated when politicians make it easier to get an appointment than front row Springsteen tickets." -Peter Van Buren


Dear (eventual) Grandstickies and Great-Grandstickies (and Gentlereaders),

I've been wondering why the National Guard presence isn't so ubiquitous in every state of the union that posted conspiracy theories have bogged down the internet. 

[Why would you expect...]

Vaccinations, Dana, Covid vaccinations. I'm not talking about troops behind barbed wire-topped fencing like the ones still in Washington. The last of those battle-scarred troops will hopefully be going home by the end of May as promised. 

[Battle-scarred? Are you making fun of said soldiers?]

Oh hell no. I thank God for the fact there are about 2.2 million active and reserve volunteers serving their country.

If you count armed paramilitary forces Emperor Xi has a million more minions serving in his military than we do, as does the Pooteen, voluntarily or otherwise. North Korea's Dear Leader has 7,769,000 hungry minions at his disposal according to Wikipedia.

I'm making fun of the fact that 26,000 troops were deployed to protect the center of the Swamp in January as compared to virtually none to protect the country from mostly peaceful protestors last summer.

[Which has exactly what to do with Covid vaccinations? ] 

I'm glad you asked.


I've been trying to get vaccinated for awhile now. I recently scored an appointment for my first jab on April the eighth. My home state, Ohio, has been threatening to open Regional Mass Vaccination Clinics for several weeks but the last time I checked only two were open. 

In the meantime, getting vaccinated is a catch as catch can game. One clicks around hoping to snag an appointment at one of the many authorized sites but the vaccines are being doled out in dribs and drabs. 

I get it. The stuff can only be manufactured and distributed so fast. But why didn't The Fedr'l Gummit's highly successful Operation Warp Speed, which produced vaccines in record time, include a distribution plan given how long they had to put one together?


[So why do you think the National Guard should be the master jabbers?]

The Interstate Highway System and the military's logistical expertise. 

[Well, that explains that then.]

Quick point, I think the shots should be administered by local, qualified volunteers under the supervision of a Doc or three in light of some... interesting experiences I've had at a local outlet of a national drugstore chain where I no longer get my prescriptions filled. 

[Whatever, but...]

The building of the Interstate Highway System that we take for granted was begun in 1956, three years after I was born and three years after Eisenhower began his first term. 

(Note to my younger readers: America used to be able to get all sorts of amazing things done but around the time we landed men persons on the moon things started going south.)   

In fact, its full name is the Dwight D. Eisenhower National System of Interstate and Defense Highways. 

Note the word defense

The Interstate Highway System includes the STRAHNET, the Strategic Highway Network, which according to Wikipedia is: The entire network of highways which are important to the United States’ strategic defense policy and which provide defense access, continuity, and emergency capabilities for defense purposes.

Note the phrase emergency capabilities.   

Emergency capabilities... Like a pandemic, for instance?


As to logistics expertise, despite its flaws (which stem primarily from the officers at the very top of the food chain, but that's another column), the military of the United States knows how to get stuff from point A to point B. 

So why wasn't Brigadier General Amos T. Halftrack tasked with securing the cooperation of large, more unused than used facilities— from small concert halls to ginormous, domed stadiums that are in every state of the union — to serve as distribution centers/mass vaccination sites?

The Guard could also have been tasked with building pop-up sites wherever needed, or commandeering the secret FEMA concentration camps... 

[Why haven't you been canceled yet? And hasn't the Guard been involved...]

In a limited way, yes, but America could've made some much-needed positive history. The country, if only briefly, could've experienced the buzz that comes from everybody — well, most bodies — being on the same team and working towards the same goal.

The country that put persons on the moon should be making the rest of the world look bad.  


On a related note...
According to NPR.org, in the US (in which roughly 15% of us have been fully vaccinated) "...the White House announced it is working through the technicalities to loan 2.5 million doses to Mexico and 1.5 million doses to Canada from its stockpile of 7 million doses."

[Like, seriously dude?]

Keep in mind that the Fedr'l Gummit funded the development of the vaccines and guaranteed they will buy the vaccines developed by Big Pharma to get vaccines ASAP — fortunately for us. 

This means that the Feds can, by law, since there's taxpayer money involved, force the drug companies to hand over the technology to manufacturers in poor countries, which is how you end a global pandemic before ever new versions of the bug come looking for fresh meat.

The Donald and Uncle Joe apparently didn't/don't think this is necessary. 



Poppa loves you,
Have an OK day


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