134. Where’s the Halvah?
Nasruddin went to the grocer.
“I want some halvah, please,” he said.
“My apologies,” said the grocer. “I don’t have any halvah.”
“That’s impossible!” exclaimed Nasruddin. “How can a grocer not have halvah? I simply don’t understand. Tell me: do you have any flour?”
“Yes,” said the grocer.
“And what about sugar? Do you have any sugar?”
“Yes,” said the grocer.
“And do you have butter? Surely you have butter!”
“Yes,” said the grocer.
“So, isn’t it obvious? Everything you need is here!” Nasruddin concluded. “If you have flour and sugar and butter, why don’t you go make some halvah?”
This Tale is from “Tiny Tales of Nasruddin” by Laura Gibbs. The book is licensed under the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license. © 2019-202The2 Laura Gibbs
I wasted about four hours on Wednesday trying to get the Solokey recognized by id.me and let me sign in to VA, SS & IRS. Failed repeatedly. I was able to add the Solokey to the Multi-verification page at id.me but it would not work. I was on Hold in Chat for about 1.5 hours and never got past ‘talking’ to their robot.
A video attempt did connect with a human agent that said he had provided us (myself and a person that could her what he was saying) with written instructions(?) but I could not find them anyplace. He could not help, he was simply gate keeping and directing us to someplace else which I could not find because I could not find what he had supposedly written.
Yesterday I removed the Yubikey from the verification page and the Solokey still did not work so then I was totally disconnected from the VA Clinic Secure Messages, SS and IRS. Was able to get the Yubikey re-registered and got my connections back using that one key. Have been looking for alternatives ever since and not having much luck. This entire two-step, multi-authorization system using id.me is way to confusing for me. If the goal was to prevent people from using the system then that has been achieved.
So Civilization survives – for now. A few facts too. Fact One: the US is not a superpower anymore. Fact Two: Iran is back as one of the world’s top powers. Fact Three: Most of the gutless Gulf petro-monarchies will end up kicking out US military bases for good. Fact Four: Qatar and Oman will work out a security arrangement with Iran. — Barbaria Strategically Surrenders Civilization Wins For Now by Pepe Eescobar
That agreement didn’t last long. “The push back started immediately on Tuesday [7 April] night and by Wednesday [8 April] morning, the Trump administration insisted that it agreed to a different — yet undefined — set of 10-points. Israel made certain that the negotiations would fail by launching a vicious, murderous bombing of central and southern Lebanon.” — Larry C. Johnson, Trump Got Played by Israel… And the Game Continues