A light on the horizon

 awesomeness, blather, Hmm..., news, politics, weapons  No Responses »
May 102023
 

A new Supreme Court case seeks to legalize assault weapons in all 50 states

The Supreme Court could hand down a decision any day now in National Association for Gun Rights v. City of Naperville, a case that could legalize assault weapons and high-capacity magazines in all 50 states.

“Assault weapons:” Normal semi-automatic rifles

“High-capacity magazines:” the standard capacity magazines that come with the gun

Most of the article, apart form the above bit of Scare Text, is pretty straightforward. However, there’s this bizarre bit:

And there is good reason to fear that this Court could, at the very least, decide to make semiautomatic assault rifles legal throughout the United States.

“Fear:” a funny way to spell “hope.”

Anyway, “National Association for Gun Rights v. City of Naperville” is on the Supreme Court “Shadow Docket,” which means they could issue a ruling without the usual trouble of oral hearings. This would speed things up a *lot.*

The concept of a Shadow Docket is a bit strange, and one I’m not entirely sure I’m entirely behind. However, I would accept any Shadow Docket ruling *IF* that ruling came down in favor of rolling back government power, impositions on the citizens or curtailments of rights. If s Shadow Docket ruling was in favor of the government, then it should automatically be set aside in favor of a full court proceedings.

 Posted by at 1:22 pm

Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s Net Worth

 Hmm..., politics, russian empire  No Responses »
May 082023
 

Every now and then I see posts, tweets, comments, etc. mentioning that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has a net worth over a billion dollars. For a comedian to be that rich, especially when his nation is gettign bombed into gravel, is suspicious to say the least. The implication, of course, is that there is financial chicanery goign on… likely American tax dollars being funneled directly into his pockets.

But as with so many Interesting Stories, this appears to be complete BS.

An article from Forbes:

President Zelensky Is Not A Billionaire. So How Much Is He Worth?

In short, he’s nowhere near a billionaire. Forbes estimates he’s worth $20 to $30 million, which is a surprisingly high amount. But there is a fair explanation for that:

His main asset: an estimated 25% stake in Kvartal 95, a group of companies that produce humorous shows, which he transferred to his partners after being elected president, though he’ll likely regain his shares after leaving office. Kvartal 95 produced and owns the Servant of the People series, a popular political comedy starring Zelensky as a Ukrainian high school teacher who is elected president. Netflix, which previously streamed the show between 2017 and 2021, snapped up the rights again in March. With estimated revenues of $30 million annually, Forbes Ukraine values Zelensky’s stake at $11 million.

He was an entertainer, and prior to the war had a goodly stake in an entertainment company. This makes sense.

If there is evidence that he’s substantially richer than that, in the “Russian Oligarch” category, I’m sure the world would be interested to see it. But “evidence” has to be more than the say-so of some Russian talking head.

 

 Posted by at 7:10 am

Interesting times

 AARRRGH, blather, Crazy, dumbassery, Forward!, Gah., Hmm..., news, politics, Worldwreckers, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
May 072023
 

Interesting times *here* and interesting times forthcoming. In the past day or so Texas has seen a mass shooting with 8 dead, and an SUV *apparently* intentionally rammed a group of “migrants” at a bus stop, killing at least 7. In both cases it appears that the killer was a narrative-busting Hispanic male. In the former case, the shooter has been ID’ed as one Mauricio Garcia… and HERE the narrative is being spun that this Hispanic guy, who had a prominently displayed tattoo for the “tango blast” Hispanic prison gang, was a white supremacist and a neo-Nazi. In the latter case the suspect has been arrested but not yet identified, but a potato-cam video of him being arrested *appears* to show a Hispanic guy, though that’s uncertain.

 

With hundreds of thousands to potentially *millions* of illegal aliens preparing to invade in the coming days and weeks, expect this sort of thing to only increase. You’ll get a vast increase in third-world cartel members in the US here to sow chaos, and who knows how many native Americans losing their minds and going buggo. When you couple that with the Just In Time For Summer deaths of a nutjob on a subway train in Manhattan and a thief in Oakland, BLM and related activists are getting ready to start up another summer of burning cities to the ground. Stock up on essentials while you can; if you live in cities, your favorite stores may well be ashes and bits of broken glass before you know it.

UPDATE: A photo reportedly of the SUV driver:

 

 Posted by at 8:14 pm

Well, we’re doomed

 AARRRGH, Crazy, dumbassery, Gah., I'm from the government, news, politics, science, science fiction, Worldwreckers, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
May 052023
 

The AI apocalypse has just been made inevitable:

White House Names Kamala Harris ‘AI Czar’ to Save Humanity from Artificial Intelligence

How is a woman of no intelligence going to save us from artificial intelligence? The only possibility i can think of is that once a suspected threatening  AGI is produced, the CIA/FBI/NSA/USSF/NASA will plop Harris down in front of it and have her begin to babble her incoherent nonsense in the hopes that the machine will do like Landru or Nomad and burst into flames, it’s processors driven past the the point of incandescence trying to make sense of her gibberish.

 Posted by at 1:55 pm

False flag drone attack?

 aircraft, Hmm..., news, politics, russian empire, weapons, youtube  No Responses »
May 032023
 

Three main options:

1) Ukrainian quadcopter flew hundreds of miles.

2) Russians PO’ed about their crappy government and their stupid war

3) The Russian government did it themselves.

Personally, #3 makes the most sense to me. Caiming that Ukraine launched an assassination/terrorist attack against Dear Leader is good propaganda, and it gives the Kremlin permission – as if it really needs it – to launch further extermination campaigns against Ukraine. If evidence can be manufactured to show that the drones came from, say, Germany or Finland or the US, that gives that much more evidence that Mother Russia needs to wipe out the west.

There are, of course, other options:

4) The Chinese did it. Why? For the same reason Red China hired SPECTRE to develop reusable launch vehicle technology in the med-60’s in order to snatch both US and USSR capsules from orbit: to spark a war between the other two powers. China stays out of it, then moves into the chaos and rubble afterwards.

 Posted by at 3:49 pm

Looks like the Illinois gun/magazine ban has been smacked down

 awesomeness, Forward!, news, politics, weapons  No Responses »
Apr 282023
 

Given that this ridiculous bill is *clearly* unConstitutional, it was largely inevitable, but it’s nice to see it happen. Of course Illinois will doubtless continue to fight for this nonsense, eventually dragging it before the Illinois Supreme Court and then doubtless before the US Supreme Court when the bought and paid for Illinois SC rules in favor of the bill. But it looks like, for now, reason has temporarily prevailed and Illinois residents can once again buy and transfer perfectly legal inanimate objects.

 

As Americans, we have every reason to celebrate our rights and freedoms,
especially on Independence Day. Can the senseless crimes of a relative few be so
despicable to justify the infringement of the constitutional rights of law-abiding
individuals in hopes that such crimes will then abate or, at least, not be as horrific?
More specifically, can PICA be harmonized with the Second Amendment of the
United States Constitution and with Bruen? That is the issue before this Court. The
simple answer at this stage in the proceedings is “likely no.” The Supreme Court in
Bruen and Heller held that citizens have a constitutional right to own and possess
firearms and may use them for self-defense. PICA seems to be written in spite of the

clear directives in Bruen and Heller, not in conformity with them. Whether well-
intentioned, brilliant, or arrogant, no state may enact a law that denies its citizens
rights that the Constitution guarantees them. Even legislation that may enjoy the
support of a majority of its citizens must fail if it violates the constitutional rights of
fellow citizens. For the reasons fully set out below, the overly broad reach of PICA
commands that the injunctive relief requested by Plaintiffs be granted.

I do wonder if there will be a rush among Illinois residents to buy standard capacity magazines and AR-15’s before the next round of political hackery overturns this injunction. And will in-state and out-of-state businesses sell?  It seems to be legal, for now, for businesses to do so… but this is Illinois we’re talking about, and no amount of corrupt chicanery is too much for the shrieking baboons who run the state government. I can see them trying to harass businesses and customers *now*, and then when they get their way again, retroactively harassing businesses and customers.

 

Plaintiffs have satisfied their burden for a preliminary injunction. They have
shown irreparable harm with no adequate remedy at law, a reasonable likelihood of
success on the merits, that the public interest is in favor of the relief, and the balance
of harm weighs in their favor. Therefore, the Plaintiffs’ motions for preliminary
injunction are GRANTED. Defendants are ENJOINED from enforcing Illinois
statutes 720 ILCS 5/24-1.9(b) and (c), and 720 ILCS 5/24-1.10, along with the PICA
amended provisions set forth in 735 ILCS 5/24-1(a), including subparagraphs (11),
(14), (15), and (16), statewide during the pendency of this litigation until the Court
can address the merits.

The ruling is readable HERE.

 Posted by at 6:12 pm

“Fine Art”

 AARRRGH, art, blather, Forward!, Gah., Meh., politics, Worldwreckers, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Apr 282023
 

I listened to part of an NPR piece earlier today on the subject of art forgery and the economics of it. Part of the discussion revolved around a case where a museum had a special display of “art” produced, supposedly, by Jean-Michel Basquiat in the 80’s. If you’ve never heard of Basquiat, there are two things to keep in mind:

1) His paintings have sold for over one Hundred MILLION dollars.

2) His paintings look like this:

Yeah. That’s really what passes for “fine art” these days.

As it turns out, this museum exhibition was populated by *forged* Basquiat paintings, which caused headaches all around.

Anyway, the thing that made me laugh out loud was one of the admissions by one of the forgers: the paintings took less than half an hour to create. According to THIS ARTICLE, some of them as little as five minutes. If you can forge “art” that passes *any* sort of muster in a matter of minutes, I gotta question whether said “art” is worthy of any real mention.

 

In the NPR piece, the expert they talked to yammered on about how “important” Basquiat was, along with Andy Warhol and Jackson Pollock. There’s yer problem: you think *that* is art worthy of remembrance. But where is your reverence for Chesley Bonestell? Norman Rockwell? Robert McCall? You know, artists with actual skill and talent, producers of art that inspired and uplifted… and demonstrated craftsmanship and ᚠᚢcᚲᛁᚾᚷ effort? Artists you couldn’t create “previously unseen” art from in the time it takes to listen to a mediocre podcast?

This is just a part of the uglification of the world, the exaltation of the mediocre, the banal, the bland.

 Posted by at 6:05 pm

Cleopatra

 AARRRGH, Crazy, Forward!, Gah., history, politics, Worldwreckers, youtube, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Apr 142023
 

Netflix will be releasing a “documentary” about Queen Cleopatra VII. This “documentary” is apparently based on the fictional notion that she was a sub-Saharan African. This is a long-debunked and remarkably silly idea, but welcome to 2023, I guess. Here’s a good takedown:

When you race swap enough fictional characters, you start in on race swapping the historical characters. then you re-write history entirely. then you *erase* and *invent* history. And then society is whatever those in power want it to be.

 Posted by at 11:12 pm
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