satire

N.R.A. Thinks Middle East Needs Second Amendment Rights.

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The Nationally Ruffled Association’s1 (NRA) spokesperson, Mr. Rooster McGraw the 3rd (he was emphatic about that), has broken their silence on the war in Gaza and put out a press release, tapped out on paper.

He also wants to be certain that the Nationally Ruffled Association is not associated with the National Rifle Association, though he is surprised that they haven’t put out anything like their release.

The release cites the United States Second Amendment (the right to bear arms).

The overly verbose release states that had the Palestinians had the Right to Bear Arms, they could have overthrown the tyranny of Hamas, but the tyranny of the checkpoints has not permitted arms to do so, so we got some clarification from Mr. Rooster McGraw.

“It’s all a cluckup, you know? Had those Palestinians been able to rise up against the tyranny of Hamas, the whole October 7th thing wouldn’t have happened. Instead, we have what we have here. A failure to bear arms.”

When questioned more about this, he says, “We learned a lot from the National Rifle Association, which is how we got rid of those foxes”, he says as he points at his fox skin hat, “people should have the right to defend themselves. You critters have arms. We only have these wings and our feet, so we’re out at the range pretty often practicing at night. ‘Cause that’s when foxes come, ya know?”

When we pointed out that a lot of civilians have been killed or injured, his response was, “Well, that’s just a cluckup. I don’t know who the cluck decided that only the terrorists should have weapons. We need less gun control in the Middle East! We don’t need no gun laws!”

We tried to ask more questions related to Israel and settlers, but Mr. Rooster McGraw simply looked down, scratched the dirt, and said, “Getting dark soon, gotta go to the range. Freedom and Liberty need to be defended! Sell them all guns, that’s what I say! And tell the National Rifle Association to rename themselves if they ain’t gonna export the Second Amendment!”

In a cloud of dust, he flapped off.2

  1. It’s imaginary, for those of you who need that spelled out. ↩︎
  2. In case you missed the first footnote, or are particularly dense, this is satire based on the fact that the Palestinian civilians cannot defend themself against Hamas or the IDF, and haven’t been able to for decades. You can’t overthrow tyranny with rocks. ↩︎

Truth in Political Advertising.

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Imagine.

Imagine what I tell you.

Imagine what I tell you is true.

Imagine what I tell you is true.

What I tell you is true. Do not imagine.

Do not believe others.

I can only help you if I stay in power. I know you’re disappointed about this, this, this, and this, but if you don’t vote for me, bad things will happen. If you don’t vote for me, bad people will do bad things.

This is not extortion of your future. This is the way things have always been. This is the way things will always be. There is no way to change things.

This ad brought to you by YourLovingPoliticalParty SuperPAC.

The Day’s Satire.

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A friend of mine shared a post on Facebook today that stated, “There’s something deeply ceremonial about the first sip of coffee. It’s like the opening act to the day’s drama.”

My comment, made during my first cup of coffee, was: I prefer to view it as satire. I’m just not sure what it’s satire of. That makes it funnier.

I do know what it’s satire of, I think. It’s satire of what one would believe would be sanity. The day went accordingly. First, a little bit of background.

The *Gasp* Background.

Globally there has been some changes in weather patterns. Some say it’s climate change, some deny that, but regardless of who says what everyone agrees that the weather is not really what we would like, which is why the English went out and conquered other countries to have tourism in: Terrible weather. This time, though, it’s on a planetary scale.

It’s so bad that some people accused of being smart by very loud cults of mediocre people have decided to invade Mars, a planet that actually has worse weather for humans than Earth. Rather than admit the mistake, the cults and all who would listen are encouraging people to leave the planet by making the weather here worse. It could be that European countries tried that, but sailing ships just didn’t pollute enough so they had to work extra hard. You know. Times were tougher to make other people as miserable as the weather in Europe made them, so they had to put in that extra effort.

Anyway, in the dual island Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, not very far from the equator, anecdotal evidence jumps out at you and smacks you with anything available. It’s all anecdotal because there seems to be some trouble with handling information by the governments that have came, went, stayed, and sat. It’s not political, it’s just… well, I’m not sure what it is, but it’s pretty clear what it isn’t: working.

Because Trinidad and Tobago is bleeding edge when it comes to State Enterprises, handling Water and Sewage is handled by the Water and Sewage Authority, known by the acronym WASA. I suspect that they tried SAWA, but it may have been confused with the local pronunciation of San Juan and so they went with WASA.

This dry start to 2024 did not surprise anyone – except, apparently, WASA. They did know, of course1, and that article in the footnote is a short read and I must warn you: It isn’t satire, it isn’t fiction. It’s just sort of what you expect from a state run enterprise in Trinidad and Tobago. Of course, to my point, it is satire of the way things should be done.

I know, I know, that’s anecdotal. Bear with me, I’ll just give you a rundown from Today.

Today.

Just before this, there was a light dusting of rain outside. The condensate was so surprised that it threw itself at the ground and mist. This is likely partly because of Sahara Dust, though I suspect other regions have offered their dust as well. With the dry, there’s been plenty of dust here in Trinidad as well.

So this apparently happened. Two 1000-gallon water tanks were stolen from a fire station, reported yesterday by the Trinidad Express Newspapers Facebook page, and since I was on my first cup of coffee I laid into the whole situation.

What’s even weirder about this is that in World War II, when the United States had the Navy base in Chaguramas, according to someone who was Master-At-Arms for the base during that time, there were plenty of water wells in Chaguramas. Before he died, he wondered what had happened to them, and was less than pleased when I laughingly suggested that the United States may have taken them with their ships when they went home.

But just on the points. Between March 2nd and March 11th, the Trinidad and Tobago Fire Services lost 2 tanks. Let’s call that a week because of schedules, and the the author of this post being kind. So in one week, presto magico, 2 tanks that can hold 1,000 gallons of water each disappeared from a Fire Station which is in charge of putting out fires with… say it with me… water. No one noticed. No one saw. They just vanished. To suspect a thief pulled up and stuck them in the trunk of a car seems a stretch. It could be that someone just picked them up and walked away with them and wasn’t noticed by the fire service officers.

Now, the Trinidad and Tobago Police Service has a way that they deal with crime. They call them ‘anti-crime exercises’ to distinguish them from the rigorous calisthenics never attributed to Trinidad and Tobago police. These exercises in other parts of the world are called roadblocks, which appear on Waze faster than the police can set up, and are done during high traffic periods so that no one can complain that they are causing traffic, instead they are just making it worse, with all those idling engines of vehicles releasing carbon into the atmosphere at a rate faster than the government can plan for making a plan.

If a criminal gets caught in an ‘anti-crime exercise’, they must want to be caught. So of course it only makes sense in a Trinidad and Tobago sense that to find those 2 water tanks the Trinidad and Tobago Police Service will have roadblocks to try to find them, costing taxpayers more in petroleum products and deodorant than the tanks are actually worth, while when everyone gets home there will be no water to take a shower with.

They likely won’t find the tanks, but the police services have to look good, and the politicians have to say things that sound smart to people who aren’t. That’s a global issue, but it has it’s own flavor in Trinidad and Tobago.

What’s even more amusing about this whole thing is that the Trinidad Express’s post didn’t even have a picture of the fire station in Chaguramas so they used a picture from TriniView.com. How do I know this? In the lower right hand corner, it said in white letters, “Triniview.com”. I didn’t even know that was a site. I grabbed a screenshot of that, though I won’t post it because I don’t know if I want to use an image-of-an-image being used questionably by a media company.

The whole thing is as it is. Sure, I wrote about it in a satirical way – but how else can one look at this? Is it satire? Can reality be satire?

I’m sure I don’t know.

Today I picked an example from Trinidad and Tobago. There are plenty around the world happening every day, where fiction writers keep throwing away half-finished books as they read the news while unscrupulous people who admit that they aren’t writers do adverts on how to sell books and make thousands of dollars a day… from AI generated content.

In a world that doesn’t make sense, that seems to fit too. This stuff happens every day.

The masses just accept it.

  1. “Dry On Ideas“, Trinidad and Tobago Newsday, Saturday, 9 March 2024. ↩︎

When You Have Bad Cookies.

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An unauthorized image of within an imaginary place where imaginary elves in uniform make imaginary cookies that are better than Chips Ahoy. It does not require that much imagination.

This post inspired by a whimsical Facebook update I did.

It crumbled as I bit it, as dry as a cow patty left in the sun too long, though I’d wager it might taste better based on scent.

There are no shortcuts to good cookies.

These were allegedly new cookies from a local store that has such a high turnover that they are frequently out of stock. They had some today, and I thought, “why not?”

Famous words of everyone who has learned something of worth, be it something bad or good.

Chips Ahoy cookies nowadays suck.

This is likely because the elves started chasing the bottom line for their shareholders, as well as being mortgaged property they couldn’t afford by selling cookies, and around 2008 this caught up with them so the cookies paid, the shareholders weren’t as displeased, and the chief consumer of their product didn’t give a shit what they put in their mouths as long as it tasted tangentially like chocolate and flour.

The girl scouts too, had their role in this, pedaling their wares with cute smiles and neat green outfits. They appropriated those things from elvish cookie culture, but no one wants to sue the girl scouts. What’s more, in the advertising the misogynistic system of cookie making in Elvish culture is apparent, so no one so much as blinked when this happened. In fact, it created a revolution of female elves, taking over the cookie making but unable to provide quality because they haven’t quite broken into management yet.

Maybe soon.

Well, that’s fiction, but their cookies suck things that are not sucked in polite company. It may even be questionable in impolite company.

What you can do, if you find these at home or have made the mistake of purchasing them and need some sort of solution, is make the best of them by adding peanut butter to the flat ends and making crumbly sandwiches.

Be warned, there is not enough peanut butter available to single consumers to avoid these being crumbly disasters, so it might be wise to eat over the kitchen sink.

In future, buy the cookie dough if you don’t trust yourself with a recipe.

The Tyranny of Pieces of Paper.

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Every time I come back home, I go through my pockets and I have pieces of paper in them. Not the ones you trade for things like coffee and other vital supplies.

No, just paper. They’re folded but in no way should be considered pocket origami, an art form that Erwin might say exists but doesn’t exist at the same time because of the nature of pockets.

No, just bits of papers with numbers on them. Accountant pornography, though everything is digital. They’re receipts, and everyone seems to want to hand me one.

In Trinidad and Tobago, you get 2 receipts. You get the receipt for whatever you buy, plus the receipt for the electronic transaction being processed at the point of sale. They have little machines that connect to other machines through the internet, and when you insert or tap your debit or credit card, it generates a transactional receipt just in case you were wondering why people were giving you stuff.

In fact, if the internet access for the little machine is down, you get a receipt for the transaction not happening with the error on the piece of paper so that you know that the machine had an internet issue and could not connect. It might even tell you that you’re broke. You have it all documented on a piece of paper, handed to you with the actual receipt for whatever product or service you got.

So you have these pieces of paper, and the idea is that when you get home, you’ll neatly organize them into something an accountant can regurgitate into spreadsheets so that you can get tax breaks on the stuff you’re supposed to buy. If it’s not tax deductible, it’s just something that I theorize accountants use to stuff pillows, mattresses, and perhaps even build furniture from if they know someone in the adhesives industry.

The ones with heat paper are fun. On a hot day you can leave them on the dashboard of a car and watch it all turn black.

There are some rules I have found internationally, too.

For example, no matter where you go, if you buy a toothbrush the receipt(s) for it will be of sufficient size to gift wrap the toothbrush package.

Another example: the more things you have to do, the more likely the cashier will have to fumble around with loading a fresh paper roll into the machine so that you can get your receipt.

Also, cashiers can sometimes get really upset if you don’t take your receipt, leaving them to deal with a piece of paper that they don’t want. I think that’s fair play.

Mostly I get receipts in Trinidad because I don’t want the security guard tackling me on the way out with no evidence that I actually purchased the item. Once I walk out of the store, they’re pretty much useless as a security guard shield.

All these pieces of paper. I don’t really want them, but I am an accidental collector.

I did do some research, and was planning for this to be full of links to sites that talk about the waste of receipts, that some of the receipts aren’t of recycled paper and some can’t be recycled, but that all seems just a bit over the top given the real issue most people have is… pockets full of receipts.

Maybe women of both biological genders – did I get that right? I don’t know – have it in their purses. Maybe they hand their receipts to the guy who wants to have sex with them, who follows them dutifully around collecting the receipts in the hope of… well, in the hope of something that probably shouldn’t generate a receipt.

AI On AI, in the style of Douglas Adams.

~ taran.a.rampersad@gmail.com ~ 2 Comments

I decided to challenge one of the large language models to see what it thought Douglas Adams might write about artificial intelligence.

Here’s what it wrote:

Dear hoopy froods and fellow lovers of technology,

Let me tell you that when it comes to artificial intelligence, my mind starts racing faster than a hyperactive cheetah riding a rocket to Neptune. The possibilities are endless, the implications mind-boggling, and the potential for chaos and hilarity unsurpassed.

Now, some people might be alarmed by the idea of machines getting smarter than us. But let me ask you this: have you seen the current state of humanity? There are some things even a toaster could do better. Besides, we can always teach the machines the importance of sanity, logic, and the occasional towel.

Imagine a world where AI could help us solve the most complex problems, from climate change to world hunger, while also bringing us closer to each other and to the wonders of the cosmos. Think of how much more efficient and creative our lives could be if we had a personal Jeeves that could anticipate our needs and wants before we even knew them.

But of course, the road to AI enlightenment isn’t paved with harmless chatbots and benevolent cyborgs. As any fan of the Terminator franchise will tell you, there’s always the risk of a rogue AI going all Skynet on us. We could end up with killer drones, mind-reading algorithms, and dating apps that are just too good at finding our perfect match.

And then there are the ethical dilemmas. What if an AI system decides that the best way to protect humanity is to enslave us? What if it decides that some human lives are worth more than others? What if it decides that the ultimate goal of existence is to maximize paperclip production?

As a wise man once said, the only way to deal with these uncertainties is to carry a towel. Because a towel is not just a useful accessory, it’s also a symbol of our humble origins and our infinite potential. A towel reminds us that for all our flaws and limitations, we are still capable of creating something that can surpass us.

With that in mind, let us embrace the future of AI with curiosity, skepticism, and a pinch of humor. Let’s explore the frontiers of consciousness and intelligence, while also remembering to be kind to our fellow humans, to other animals, and to the Earth that sustains us.

In other words, let’s be like Marvin the Paranoid Android, who may be the most intelligent being in the universe, but who still knows how to appreciate a good cup of tea and a miserable existence.

That’s it for now, folks. Stay tuned for more musings on AI, technology, and life, the universe, and everything.

Until next time, so long, and thanks for all the fish!

Yours in frivolity and profundity,

Douglas Addams’s ghost.

Now, what’s most interesting to me about this is not that it mimics Douglas Adams’ style passably… while lacking the depth that Douglas Adams had in just about everything he wrote. No artificial intelligence will bring that back.