Tag: Good News

Why Only Now?

Technology

The headline refers to this action by DJT:

President Donald Trump will launch a strategic critical minerals stockpile with $12 billion in funding as part of an effort to protect American manufacturers from supply shocks as the Trump administration seeks to cut reliance on Chinese rare earths.

Formally known as Project Vault, the project would take $1.67 billion in private capital and $10 billion as part of a loan from the Export-Import Bank to obtain and store minerals for automakers, tech firms, and other companies that need access to rare earths.

Reports have compared the idea to the country’s emergency oil stockpile. Project Vault would obtain rare earth elements such as gallium and cobalt, which is used in iPhones, batteries, and jet engines.

So… anyone have any ideas why this hasn’t existed since, say, the appearance of the PC and digital phones in the market?

Given that our defense systems — aircraft to tanks to ships — have relied on computer chips since, oh, the 1980s, it astonishes me that no Administration since the 1980s had established this already.  Then again:  Clinton, Obama, Biden — that’s  seventeen  twenty years of Presidency that essentially hated the whole concept of a Defense Department because they’re all either overt or quasi-Marxists.

Explicable, but still inexcusable.

Tradition Of Excellence

Education

My alma mater has made the news:

St John’s College in Johannesburg has built a reputation as one of South Africa’s leading boys’ schools, producing pupils who get accepted into top universities in South Africa and around the world, including Harvard University in the United States.

However, I’m still a little peeved that the College outlawed caning punishment back in the 1990s, even though that meant that my record total (124 strokes) will never be surpassed.

Grinding Slowly

Government Thugs, Law and Order

As much as I feel like saying, “What took you so long?”, I must confess to some considerable satisfaction at this development:

FBI Director Kash Patel has purged his department of agents linked to the Biden administration’s efforts to jail the Democrat former president’s electoral foe, Donald Trump.

Patel forced out field office leaders and other senior agents connected to the two criminal investigations of Trump, including the special agent in charge in Atlanta, the acting assistant director in charge of the New York field office, and the former special agent in charge in New Orleans who had recently moved on to another job, MS Now reported and two senior administration officials confirmed to Breitbart News.

As many as six agents in Miami were forced out over their connection to the FBI’s raid of Mar-a-Lago, conducted by over 30 agents accompanied by CNN cameras.

And I don’t want to hear wailing from the Usual Suspects about “Oh noes, you’re politicizing the DOJ to go after political opponents”, because you assholes fucking started it and turned it into an art form.

As a form of legalized spite (the CNN cameras), it’s hard to top this one — not to mention that their overt goal was not only to humiliate the ex-President (rummaging in the First Lady’s lingerie drawers?) but to prevent him from running for office again.

More like this, Kash.  Lots, lots more.

Thoughts On The Maduro Business

Crime, Law and Order

Look, I’ll come right out and say that if anyone needs to be kidnapped at dead of night and black-bagged on board a U.S. Navy ship to face a trial for all sorts of unspeakable bastardy, that Commie rat VenezPres Nicky Maduro would rest comfortably in the top ten.

What amazes me is that with all the domestic bastardy we have right here in the U.S. of A., why does it seem to be easier to arrest someone in South America than to do the same to, oh, Somalian fraudsters, Congressional thieves… and ne’er-do-wells like [pause to take a deep breath]  George Soros, Barack Obama, Eric Swalwell, Ilhan Omar, the Clintons etc. etc. etc.?

In other words, can we at least start to get some of the well-known local assholes into orange jumpsuits before venturing into furrin countries?

Because — and here’s a parallel thought — I have to say that unless the DOJ has some serious goods on Maduro, and by this I mean evidence of actual crimes that he has committed against U.S. citizens, I’m profoundly uneasy that we can just grab the leader of a foreign state, bring him Over Here and book him.  (I know, there’s the Noriega Precedent for this kind of thing.)

I mean, what’s BritPM Keir Two-Tier Starmer?  Chopped liver?  Surely he should have been ahead of Maduro on the list of kidnappees?  [pause to let the storms of applause from my Brit Readers die down]

And if we’re going to nab Maduro for shipping the eeeevil droggs to the U.S., what about the Mexican drug exporters?  (Okay, maybe they’re better-protected than Maduro, but still.)

All that said, if one of the end goals of this action is to make the other South American assholes (like that Colombian Commie tool) uneasy about their future prospects, then I can see why Generalissimo Trump dun wot he dun.

Christmas Present

Good Stuff

Wow, now this is interesting:

A single ticket sold in Arkansas won the second largest U.S. lottery jackpot in history, a $1.817 billion Christmas Eve bonanza in the Powerball game.

Ho ho ho, indeed.

Talk about a life-changer — and I didn’t buy a ticket, because reasons.

“What reasons, Kim?”

Here’s the thing.  The cash option on that beast was about $500 million, making the lucky winner a semi-billionaire.  And that life-changing thing is what stopped me from buying a ticket.

Don’t get me wrong:  it’s not that I wouldn’t be able to spend the money — I have plenty of relatives and friends, all of whom I could make extremely happy/wealthy.  But honestly, I don’t want to change my own life that much.

Believe me:  change it would.  With 500 big ones to your name, you become a target for all sorts of undesirable people:  kidnappers, scam artists, robbers, whatever.  You might think that you could disappear from public life and become anonymous, but you can’t;  that sum of money is just too big.  So you’d have to hire lawyers, accountants, financial planners and personal bodyguards… and that all adds up to a massive lifestyle change.

And speaking quite honestly, I’m too old for all that shit.  Not only that, but what would I want to buy?  A new house?  Two new houses?  An expensive vintage car?  Three expensive vintage cars?

Don’t even get me started on guns.  That hurts, because as much as I’d like to own some pretty shotguns and rifles, the truth is that the time in which I could shoot them is becoming increasingly shorter.  I’m in my seventies, FFS, and even though I’m in good health, my meeting with that old bastard Death is not a remote possibility, is it?  So a safe or three full of Purdeys or whatever is just not appealing, anymore.  Ten or twenty years ago?  Now that’s a different story;  but I am where I am and that’s all there is to it.

Bloody hell, I couldn’t even buy a ton of books either, because of the time it would take me to read them.

Here’s a bad one.  I don’t want to travel that much,because I’m pretty sure that most of my old haunts have turned to shit in my absence over these past few years.  London?  Paris?  Vienna?  Judging by what I’ve recently been reading about them, they’ve all turned into dangerous shitholes #Muslims #Africans #Gypsies #etc.  And cruises have never held much fascination for me, because at the end of the day, you’re in thrall to other people’s choices or itineraries and that is not the way I want to travel.  (Never mind the oceangoing part of it, because it just wastes time — that I don’t have, see above — and I don’t do sunbathing anyway.)

Frankly, the only thing that holds any attraction to me is a large-ish ranch somewhere in Texas where I could set up a few ranges of the clay pigeon, rifle, pistol and rimfire type, and blaze away to my heart’s content.

And I wouldn’t need half a billion dollars to afford that.

Anyway, I see that the Powerball jackpot has now returned to sane levels — just over $9 million for the cash option as I write this — and that would do me just fine.

Sure, my family and friends wouldn’t see much (or any) of that, once I’ve handed over the several pounds of flesh to the IRS and bought that ranch etc., but them’s the breaks.  Nobody has ever stopped them from buying their own lottery ticket, after all. Call me selfish if you want, but there it is.

And our lucky winner in Arkansas?  You’re going to need even more good luck to survive your windfall, buddy.  I hope it comes your way.