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While I have no problem with working from home, can't beat the commute and my co-workers are awesome (The Missus Herself and the feline staff), it just isn't as productive as actually being at work in the lab. There have been times where I wanted to check something out on the system but couldn't, I'm here, system is there. There is no connection to the outside world at the lab, it's on the company intranet which, thank you very much, we don't want outsiders playing with. With good reason.
As the guys still at work are upgrading the system anyway, there isn't much system to access at the moment. Still, it would be nice to be there with my colleagues, good lads and lasses all. At home I'm a team of one. There I'm actually on a team. A damned fine team if I do say so myself. (And I do.) I had little to do with that, they were a good team when I joined up, they'll be a good team after I retire. Provided, of course, they stay together, which is probably not going to happen. Projects come and go and the people needed to work on those projects come and go as well.
But enough of my whinging.
I started the day with the intention of writing a historical post, that's when an attack of the lazies overwhelmed my outposts and got inside the wire. Leaving me all unmotivated and the like. Nevertheless, I wanted to toss something out there for you all to chew on, discuss, debate, or ignore, as the case may be.
The friction of the day, kinda put me on a different path than I'd started on. That being said, let me give you a mini-rant.
I think the Chicoms** need to pay, and pay dearly, for the massive perturbations they caused to the economy, not to mention the deaths caused by this virus-thingee. Why should they profit from this? They are, not to put too fine a point on it, assholes. Giant assholes. They are the idiot bully in the neighborhood who needs his ass kicked once and for all.
When Nixon went to China I was pissed at him, I still am. They are the reason that North Korea suffers under a brutal dictatorship. Without Chicom help Kim Il Sung would probably have been put up against a wall and shot, eventually, Ceausescu-style. Then his progeny wouldn't be around to inflict their particular brand of misery on the Korean people. Anyhoo, to me the legitimate government of China is currently exiled on the island of Taiwan, that corrupt bunch in Beijing are thieves and murderers. Thanks Nixon, I liked you up to that point. /rant
At any rate, that's all I have to say about that for the time being. Historians and current events are a bad mix, not enough data to really know just what the heck is going on, dontcha know?
So here's some music. I like this particular live version as I like watching the musicians actually play their instruments. What's more, I get to see the incomparable Neil Peart do his thing. Man, I miss that guy.
Tom Sawyer
Pye Dubois, Geddy Lee, Alex Lifeson & Neil Peart
A modern-day warrior
Mean, mean stride
Today's Tom Sawyer
Mean, mean pride
Though his mind is not for rent
Don't put him down as arrogant
His reserve a quiet defense
Riding out the day's events
The river
What you say about his company
Is what you say about society
Catch the mist
Catch the myth
Catch the mystery
Catch the drift
The world is, the world is
Love and life are deep
Maybe as his skies are wide
Today's Tom Sawyer, he gets high on you
And the space he invades, he gets by on you
No, his mind is not for rent
To any god or government
Always hopeful, yet discontent
He knows changes aren't permanent
But change is
And what you say about his company
Is what you say about society
Catch the witness
Catch the wit
Catch the spirit
Catch the spit
The world is, the world is
Love and life are deep
Maybe as his eyes are wide
Exit the warrior
Today's Tom Sawyer
He gets high on you
And the energy you trade
He gets right on to
The friction of the day
A modern-day warrior
Mean, mean stride
Today's Tom Sawyer
Mean, mean pride
Though his mind is not for rent
Don't put him down as arrogant
His reserve a quiet defense
Riding out the day's events
The river
What you say about his company
Is what you say about society
Catch the mist
Catch the myth
Catch the mystery
Catch the drift
The world is, the world is
Love and life are deep
Maybe as his skies are wide
Today's Tom Sawyer, he gets high on you
And the space he invades, he gets by on you
No, his mind is not for rent
To any god or government
Always hopeful, yet discontent
He knows changes aren't permanent
But change is
And what you say about his company
Is what you say about society
Catch the witness
Catch the wit
Catch the spirit
Catch the spit
The world is, the world is
Love and life are deep
Maybe as his eyes are wide
Exit the warrior
Today's Tom Sawyer
He gets high on you
And the energy you trade
He gets right on to
The friction of the day
The opening photo, with the French infantry circa 1914? Let's just say that they represent the lazies which overran my plan for the day. Ya know what they say about plans, right? No plan survives contact with the enemy, or reality for that matter...
* From Tom Sawyer by Rush
** Chicom/Chicoms, i.e. Chinese Communists, I use the term to distinguish and separate those bastards from the Chinese people who have been exploited and enslaved by those bastards. Again, not to put too fine a point on it.
Cut the funding for the WHO since their Director-General (HAH!) parroted what the CCP said about human-to-human transmission about the China virus back on January 14. And I agree with you Sarge about the CCP, they have have kept the NORKs alive to use as foil against the West and especially the United States. Time to bring home critical manufacturing to the USA from China, relocating to another country still leaves the USA at the mercy of that country. Maybe more people in this country will now recognize China, ruled by the CCP, as a threat and not just a source of cheap goods at Walmart. Unfortunately the bottom line is that the lowest labor costs will drive a lot of the location effort.
ReplyDeleteAgreed, those are the areas where we need to start. We can't tolerate their behavior any longer.
DeleteI seem to recall reading somewhere that NK's principal source of hard currency derives from the sale of textiles to China, who then turns them into clothing which is exported to us. Old Guns
ReplyDeleteI think you're right, I'll be looking at labels, if it says "Made in China," I'll pass it by.
DeleteIIRC, they also make 'good' money with state of the art forgeries of American currency. Not to mention drugs, though their cut is much smaller than the final cartels, of course.
DeleteThe Chicoms' goal isn't to make money but to directly control the lands immediately bordering China and reduce the rest of the world to vassal states. They take that "Middle Kingdom" stuff seriously.
DeleteOf course, the thugs who rule over China are not averse to making a bit of money on the side.
I wish I could blame my lack of doing stuff on lazy. I sleep 10 to 12 hours a day, and nap a bit in between. Sitting in dark rooms with white noise playing in headphones. Old Ace Reid had a cartoon that reminds me of my mess. Old Jake is up a little stick tree, and a steer has him cornered. Jake yells out, "If I ever git down from here, it's stew and boots for you buster!"
ReplyDeleteI don't know if I'll ever want to just sit after this go round.
Well, you've got to take it easy with that concussion thing, that's nothing to mess around with. But yeah, enforced idleness due to a medical condition is no fun at all.
DeleteGet well!
That song and the message in the words of the song are perfect framing for the problem you've outlined. Brilliant on stilts! :-)
ReplyDeleteThe tough part in a free country, particularly America, is that "we" are millions of people, we're each in complete charge of our little bit of the whole, and none of us agree completely about how to proceed.
It's a very dangerous time, because while everyone has their eyes and brains stapled to the big flashy crisis, a lot of bad actors are trying very hard to subvert and destroy the Constitution. At the same time, everyone thinks China is just like America, only different food and snake whiskey for medicine. But China is actually controlled not by a billion and change individuals, but by a couple of lizard-apes who might well decide to nuke us while we're watching tee-vee and drooling into our bag of cheetoes. The collective "we" just doesn't believe our representatives would screw us or China would nuke us. So, the world is, the world is. What are we 300 million Tom Sawyers gonna do?
It's a big problem, but we can't forget to get high on each other and trade energy and move forward against the friction.
All this crazy stuff is illuminating the hard but best path to take. Are "we" going to take it? Stay tuned...
Great post Sarge. Well played in the arena of much friction.
That song popped into my head while I was involved in an internal rant. (Those never see the light of day, women would swoon, men would cry, and ministers would be driven to drink.) The song seems to sum things up nicely for me.
DeleteMy mind is definitely not for rent.
Hey AFSarge;
ReplyDeleteI know the feeling about the lazies, I am furloughed from my job as a chemtrail technician, and I have been doing a lot of stuff around the house, but there are times the "lazies" get me also. I have to do a blogpost for tomorrow and I have no idea what I'm gonna post. Red China is the 800 pound gorilla in the room, they are afraid to upset it so they dance around it. China has been buying up influence around the world for the past 15 years,perhaps longer.They plan long term and we got distracted with the GWOT and well Obungler is Obungler. President Trump policies on China to me are correct, he doesn't kiss their A** like everyone else has and that action by the others have embolden the Chinese.
Spot on MrG.
DeleteOh, what can I say about Communist China that hasn't been said about Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, and Khmer Rouge Cambodia?
ReplyDeleteWell, that covers everything. Bye.
Succinct!
DeleteHa! Gotcha!
ReplyDeleteYes, cuddling up to the Middle Kingdom full of Socialistic Communistic Dictatorial intact Mandarins was the only thing I truly fault Nixon on. Big mistake. Big. Huge.
And then they basically bought the Clintons, and We the American People sat back and let the commies in the State Department and commie lovers and paid-shills elsewhere in the various governmental bodies do the whole 'Bureaucracy Knows Better' thing and Communist China has since bought huge amounts of These United States.
Fortunately we finally got a president who doesn't like the way their, pardon the expression, shit stinks, and has fought them, with both hands tied behind his back due to impeachment this and investigation that that all started the day he won. And now this.
Communist Middle Kingdom China lied, deceived, covered up, stalinized and sanitized the news from the start. Now we know that Corona-Wuhan looks to actually have started somewhere in November of 2019, with the first shout to the WHO in December 2019 by a doctor bypassing Communist China leadership, and we all know how that went down.
If the Farking Middle Kingdom Anal Tumors had just allowed us, early in January, to get access to their info, life would have been much better. Wait, no. No it wouldn't. Why? Because President Trump was already acting, by the middle of January, to start reacting to the Corona-Chan. Except, wait for it, the CDC and NIH shut him down by openly saying, "Nothing here, move it along." And then when he finally started restricting flights, against the consul of our national health agencies, everyone in the media and in the DNC flipped out.
What was the DNC and the Media doing during Trump's actions to restrict travel? Impeachment and harassment of the President.
What was the DNC and the Media doing during Trump's announcement at the SOTU? Impeachment and harassment of the President. And SanFranNan tore up government documents on national TV and still hasn't been punished for it.
What was the DNC and the Media doing up to the end of the whole impeachment sham? Impeachment and harassment of the President. SanFranNan even went on a PR tour of Chinatown in SanFran to say Corona-Chan wasn't to be worried.
And then Impeachment failed, failed big. And that's when the Media and the DNC all flipped and turned what was a semi-disaster into the full-court attempt to Destroy America and Blame Trump that we are now experiencing. And the DNC is trying to develop IMPEACHMENT-THE SEQUEL.
Meanwhile we have state governors who are banning the sale of such non-essentials as house repair and upgrade products, seeds for gardening, fabric stores from being open and so forth.
We have Virginia's governor who, during the lockdown of the state, took the opportunity, with his pals in the state house, to enact all the laws that 22 thousand people stood outside his office and kept him from doing earlier. Hey, Aesop, if congregating and gun-larping is so ineffectual, how come it took shutting the whole state down in a health crisis to enact legislation that has nothing to do with the health crisis and everything to do with leftying the state of Virginia? Thanks to people like you, Aesop, Virginia is now well on the way to being your wonderful state of California, Aesop.
Mayhaps the phrase, "Sic Semper Tyrannis" may soon be applied upon the State House and Governor's Office of the formerly great state of Virginia so they can win back the title of the Great State of Virginia. Assuming pseudo-2A and pseudo-freedom bloggers allow them to.
Okay, you had me worried. This is more Beansian, what we expect from you.
DeleteWell said on all counts.
A rational person could make a case for the "leadership" of a certain political party in this country to be guilty of treason. Aid and comfort to the enemy, that's what treason is, that's what SanFranNan et al are all about.
Make a case? It isn't a case. It's actual. They are guilty of treason, from the local DNC operative all the way up to the top, along with their shadow masters.
DeleteThey are all oathbreakers, one and all. And the police and other law enforcement agents that don't resist unlawful orders, but instead enforce unlawful orders, well, oathbreakers.
Oathbreakers.
Who are now Enemies Domestic. Sorry if that's harsh, but it's true.
How do I know? Well, at one job, due to illegal orders and stupidity of certain persons, we (all the employees) had to sit through a 2-day class on illegal orders and illegal actions, especially as related to the My Lai Massacre. So, yeah, well, knowing something is illegal and still doing it because your superiors said so is still illegal. Yes, you may lose your job, but morally and legally and ethically it is your duty to not follow illegal orders and to report said activity up the chain of command or higher. So these Stasi cops following illegal orders? Well, not innocent, to say the least.
Sorry if that seems harsh. It's just as illegal as your boss ordering you to cook the books, and you doing it. Or knowing your boss is cheating a customer or embezzling, and doing nothing and allowing it.
Oathbreakers. Treasonous louts and lackwits. Our founding fathers would be emptying their pillows of all the feathers and having a run on rope and ammo by now.
Nuremberg should have put paid to the "following orders" defense. But these asshats think they're going to win. So they don't care.
DeleteEventually they'll be surprised.
As to North Korea, the Hermit Kingdom...
ReplyDeleteThey are to Communist China what Cuba and East Germany were to the Soviet Union.
Puppets. Puppets to be used to push the needs and wants of their Communist Overlords. Dance, puppets, dance. Distract the free world, Distract.
Cuba used to send armed mercenaries under the control of the Soviets to all the worlds tropical hotspots.
North Korea shares nuclear technology and launders other technology from Communist China to all the world's hotspots.
Dance, puppets, dance.
One of the greatest things about the South Korean Olympics was the opening spectacle when the Korean Tiger kicked out the un-named foreign invaders from the north back in historical times. Gee... who exactly were those foreign invaders??? Could it be... CHINA? In one of it's many expressions of the Middle Kingdom? D'oh! Nice internationally televised jab to the ChiComs that was.
Communist China. Communist China must pay. Even before Corona-Wuhan, there were lots of reports that Communist China had overextended itself financially and they would have to do something big as there was going to be a sever economic crash in Communist China. All the money for the One Road project, while bright, shiny new buildings in Communist China were already falling apart or weren't habitable.
And then there's the Trumpening of anti-Communist China, and the return to America First!
China must Pay! Pay for all they've done. Like accepting payment for medical equipment and then not sending it. Or, even worse, sending such substandard equipment that it's useless.
Dangit. FDR, you feckless commie-arse-sucking arsehole, if you (and your commie riddled and commie loving State Department - Joseph McCarthy was right) hadn't supported the Communist Chinese under Mao, and just supported fully the Nationalist Chinese under Chang-kai Shek, the world would be a much better place. But, nooooo, you never saw a Commie Bastige you didn't bend over for!
Again you've stated the case very nicely.
DeleteAmen!
We've also helped build China due to our insatiable demand for low prices, allowing them to grow their military, their confidence, their GNP, and their international arrogance. We expect American superiority in all things, but that and low prices are somewhat incompatible. I don't know if we can ever go back though- our society has changed, standards of living have become what they are, and our culture has changed (for the worse). Am I wrong? Can we get back a culture like we had in the 50s and 60s? One that was more family oriented vice consumer oriented? I don't know.
ReplyDeleteBtw,I never really knew what those lyrics were and now I do, but I still don't know what the song is really about. I was never good at deciphering poetry anyway. Maybe I'm think of Mark Twain's character too much.
Yes, there is that. We need to remind people that this virus-thingee, which originated in China and was helped to spread by Chicom arrogance, has already killed over 24,000 Americans, over 21,000 more than were killed on 9/11.
DeleteBut yeah, the culture has changed and not for the better. Cheap crap seems to be our watchword these days. But if we made things here, instead of in China, there would be more jobs and perhaps folks could afford those higher prices. FWIW, I think those prices are going to go up anyway, like maybe a 100% tariff on ALL goods imported from the PRC?
Tom Sawyer is a mischievous independent kind of guy. The lines:
Though his mind is not for rent
Don't put him down as arrogant
His reserve a quiet defense
Riding out the day's events.
Explain him rather well. At least that's my "take away" from the song.
Awesome song!!
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure I can add much to the above commentary, agree with 99% of it. I'll just throw out there for consideration (at the risk of being labelled a conspiracy theorist nutjob)(better than a dog faced pony soldier?): Did the virus accidentally leak from Wuhan Institute of Virology? or was it more of an "accident"? China was getting a lot of pressure prior to that - Hong Kong protests, internal troubles with dissidents and Uyghurs, trouble with Trump, trade, etc. They always play the long game - could they have calculated that losing a few thousand of their citizens was worth the trouble caused to the US and Europe and resultant lessening of pressure, assuming they could keep a lid on the source of the virus and blame the local market? I personally don't think it was an "accident" but more likely a genuine accidental leak. Would make a great plot line for a novel, though, wouldn't it?
I also agree that they should pay big time - how about forgiving all the US debt they have on their books?
Not only the Democrats but also the press (yeah, I know, redundant) are bordering on treason. How would their idol FDR deal with them if they acted that way in WWII?
And did you know that protesting is not an essential activity? The governor of NC and the Raleigh Police Dept. said literally that and shut down a libertarian protest of about 100 people, all maintaining social distancing, yesterday in Raleigh. The Police even arrested the leader of the protest - so what about their oath of office did they not understand? Or did they have their fingers crossed when they swore to uphold the Constitution? The rights guaranteed by the Constitution do not get put in limbo when a state of emergency is declared. IANAL, but there have been several court cases over the years upholding that principle, including one here in NC when the governor tried to abridge second amendment rights during a post-hurricane state of emergency.
I think it was an accident, though why they were playing with that crap in the first place begs the question. Why?
DeleteThe courts will be busy when all this is over. I am really hoping that the voters remember the petty tyrannies of these wannabe tinpot dictators and add them to the unemployment roles in November.
As much as I hope for that sort of thing, it probably won't happen. Voters are lazy and, for the most part, uninformed with short memories.
Well, to be fair, the Canadians and the the Brits and the Germans and just about anybody doing epidemiological investigations would be futzing with various Corona viruses.
DeleteWhy?
Because the various Corona viruses are one of the most numerable and common virus attacks to humans. With known transmissions between animals to man, and from man to animals.
It's known as... (duh, duh, DUHHHHH) the Common Cold (duh, duh, DUHHHHH.)
So everyone is futzing with Coronas.
One of the chief ChiCom epidemiologists, from Wuhan even, was 'Fired' or 'Escorted out' of one of Canada's viral research labs.
And it was a known fact before Corona-Wuhan came about that Communist China's viral labs were selling, directly or indirectly, the animals used in research, for food.
My conspiratorial take off of it was, once it was accidentally released and the ChiComs figured who it was most affecting and they were quite happy to let it reap old people and ill people, the very people who were beginning to become a financial and physical burden upon the ChiCom state.
And, yes, voters are lazy. And for the most part fed a constant diet of lies and outright fantasies by the Media, the DNC and those who control the Media and the DNC. Even those that try to search for the truth are shut down by leftist controlling organs like Wikipedia, Google, Snopes and now Drudge Report.
Try to use a non-'normal' search engine like Duck-Duck-Go? People think you are a far-right conspiratorial fruitcake. Even using Bing makes people think somethings wrong with you.
Back during the McCain/Palin vs Obama/Biden, I did a side-by-side comparison of search results between Google and Bing. It was illuminating. Bing at the time was the Fox News version of search engines at the time.
All true.
DeleteOh yeah, regarding the song, I remember sending this to you a while back, but not sure it was shared with the distinguished commentariat - apologies if it's redundant... but what a talent this kid has!
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MR_x_vrSZBM
Yes, I watched that before. Kid is amazing! Good to watch it again!
Delete