Venezuela

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Feb 252019

So at the same time Venezuela enters either a death spiral or the beginnings of a civil war, Americas very own Bernie Sanders, backed up by a complicit media such as the NY Times, enters the fray and continues to argue that what America needs to do is follow in Venezuelas dying footsteps.

As may be expected, I’m not a fan of this. As has been pointed out ad nauseum, I have a number of cats (that number is 4, as it happens). Why do I have cats? Because I *like* cats. I like their personalities and their company. What I *didn’t* get cats for was as a convenient food source for when the socialists take over the US and I’m forced to consume my pets to stave off malnutrition for another week.

If you find someone *actually* flacking for Nazism, it is fair to assume that they are cool with the idea of genociding Da Joooz, and it’s fair to pre-judge them for that. Similarly, if you see someone proposing socialism, it’s fair to pre-judge them for doing what socialists have always done. Personally, when I see a socialist, I see someone who wants to kill and grill my cats. I leave it as an exercise for the student to determine my feelings about someone who would murder my critters on the altar of their ideology.

I’m not terribly good at providing a proper emotionally satisfying rant. I leave that to the professionals. Fortunately, Razorfist has produced an informative and entertaining rant on just this topic. I wholeheartedly recommend giving it a listen.

Welcome to the cheap seats

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Feb 232019

The very latest in Stalinism chic sez:

Yup. If you don’t like the #GreenNewDeal, then come up with your own ambitious, on-scale proposal to address the global climate crisis.

Until then, we’re in charge – and you’re just shouting from the cheap seats. https://t.co/h3KSJhHqDN

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) February 23, 2019

I have some suggestions.

1: Nukes. And lots of them.

2: Solar power is great. Let’s start building solar power plants on an industrial scale. On the moon.

3: Make birth control free, easy and mandatory in the poor regions not only of America, but the world. Norplant free with every welfare check or EBT card.

4: Start terraforming Mars. Begin work on converting asteroids into independent space habitats. The best way to make sure that the environment remains good is to create as much environment as possible.

5: Devote substantial funds to perfecting thermal depolymerization. Industrialise it. Hook TDP plants up to every municipal waste treatment and garbage system; pay rent to food production facilities to park a TDP plant on site and convert waste products into petroleum.

6: Incentivize colleges and universities to take the funds currently being spent on racial and gender studies and instead devote those funds to nuclear, electrical and industrial engineering.

7: Start splitting public schools apart. Use schools to educate the educatable. Start up trade schools starting in, say, the 4th grade for those who would benefit from that rather than learning about Shakespeare, algebra and the Diet of Worms. Create a manual labor force starting in the 6th grade for those too thuggish and dull witted to be good fits in either of the school systems; use them to replace illegal aliens. While this is not *immediately* of obvious “climate crisis” value, the result will be that exceptional students will get exceptional educations; others will receive useful skills training, and all will be able to go about their day free from the disruptions, bullying and criminality of the worst members of their generation. This sort of thing will benefit *every* aspect of society.

8: Revise the penal system. For some violent offenders, exchange sentences of “years” with sentences of “kilowatt hours.” Put them on stationary bikes hooked up to generators. Measure their output, subtract the energy value of the food they eat and the utilities and other resources they consume. Let them out when their books balance with their sentence.

The “Green New Deal” meets the real world. Let’s see how that worked out.

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Feb 122019

One of the Green New Deal ideas that the current crop of Democrat Presidential hopefuls have all supported is eliminating air travel in favor of high speed rail. What could go wrong?

California to pull plug on billion-dollar bullet train, cites ballooning costs

Imagine that. More importantly, imagine that *nation* *wide,* with every single commercial air route replaced with this sort of high speed rail. The Los Angeles-San Francisco train ~~has apparently already~~ will eventually cost $77 *billion* dollars, and hasn’t transported anyone anywhere. Pretty sure Boeing and Lockheed could develop a series of competitive hydrogen-fueled VTOL regional airliners for a fraction of that. But even if California had managed to actually build their little train and put it in service for $77 billion, here’s a map of the routes just for US Airways and American Airlines. How many hundreds of *trillions* of dollars would be needed to replace these routes with bullet trains? What sort of environmental damage would be done? How many farms, homes, businesses and whole towns would have to be displaced?

Bonus round:

The Trouble With Solar

I was up in Ramsey [Minnesota] picking up my camper, and next door is this fantastic $30,000,000 brand-new solar installation.

Doesn’t look like they’re making much electricity today, but it sure is going to make for good union jobs clearing the snow off these things.

It’s a good thing lawmakers are such professionals

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Jan 302019

Virginia lawmaker says she wouldn’t have co-sponsored controversial abortion bill if she had read it closely

I make no statement regarding the law itself (which allows for abortion up to the moment of birth), but “oops, I didn’t bother to read the law I co-sponsored” really aught to be the sort of thing that should cause an elected official to suddenly enter the private sector.

A proposal: every law must be read IN IT’S ENTIRETY by the sponsors on the floor of the legislature. Other lawmakers are allowed to butt in at any time to ask relevant questions about the text that has just been read. Only those lawmakers who are present *and* *awake* for a minimum of 75% of the reading will be allowed to vote on the bill. Anyone who doesn’t put in the time will register “abstain” when the vote is counted. If it takes (handwave) two minutes to read each page, then those 2,000page monstrocities – taking 2.8 solid days to read if there are no interruptions – should become a thing of the past.

BONUS ROUND:

Here is the governor of Virginia (Ralph Northam – D) saying that the law would allow for babies to be delivered and *then* “aborted.” Yeah-huh. Fourth trimester abortions. Totally cool. Not at all infanticide.

This is why, at least for now, US > UK

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Jan 262019

Humberside Police tell man to ‘check his thinking’ after he likes ‘offensive transgender limerick’ on Twitter

If you ever somehow needed more evidence that “hate speech”laws are inherently stupid… here ya go. Police time and resources spent on intimidating British subjects because they simply “liked” a limerick.

Britainlanders… it’s getting about time y’all took your country back.

Some are more equal than others

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Jan 112019

Why Ald. Ed Burke May Have Been Allowed To Have 23 Guns In Government Building

Y’all will doubtless be shocked to hear that a Chicago politician is corrupt.

He’s been a staunch supporter of gun control measures for decades, but in a surprising twist, federal prosecutors revealed Thursday that nearly two dozen firearms were discovered in Ald. Ed Burke’s offices during their raids in November.

It’s still not known if the guns that were found in November were discovered at Burke’s ward office or at City Hall, but it’s hard to miss the irony of a staunch gun control advocate having to turn over 23 guns as a condition of his bond.

Things could be sped up by the simple expedient of simply arresting anyone suspected of being a Chicago politician.

And so it begins… again

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Jan 112019

Diane Feinstein Proposes New Gun Ban

The bill bans the sale, manufacture, transfer and importation of 205 military-style assault weapons by name, but it does say existing owners may keep existing weapons.

Any assault weapon that accepts a detachable ammunition magazine, has one or more military characteristics (including a pistol grip, a forward grip, a barrel shroud, a threaded barrel or a folding or telescoping stock) will be banned. Owners may keep existing weapons.

Magazines and “ammunition feeding devices” that hold more than 10 rounds of ammunition, which allow shooters to quickly fire many rounds without needing to reload will be banned.

Unlikely to pass the Senate or White House, but eternal vigilance against this sort of evil should nevertheless be forever maintained.

Full text and list of everything Feinstein wants to ban (for now) follows…

I can’t tell if this is ironic or not

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Jan 062019

Soldier ‘to quit Army’ after his face is used in snowflake advert

Short form: the British Army has recently crapped out an ad campaign of dubious value and appropriateness. Instead of something that would make sense like “Join the Army and Defend Britain” or “Join the Army and Be a Badass” or “Join the Army and Chicks Will dig You,” or at least “Join the Army and Go Kill People,” instead they decided to try to make the Army appealing to some of the worst personality cliches of Generation Z:

Along with the posters, they are also producing TV ads, such as the one below that makes the rather remarkable leap of assuming that someone who is such a slow worker in a grocery store that her co-workers are seriously annoyed with her, will somehow make the perfect soldier:

But where things are most interesting is that the solider whose photo is shown on the “Snowflake” poster turns out to be a real solider. A real soldier who was peeved at being used as the posterboy for “Snowflakes,” so he’s quitting.

He said he was bombarded with sarcastic messages from colleagues and has accused the army of leaving him open to ridicule by placing his face alongside the derogatory term snowflake which is used to describe someone being over-emotional, easily offended or unable to deal with opposing opinions.

Mr McWhirter, who joined the Army in 2016 and has protected the Queen at Buckingham Palace, said he will resign at the ‘earliest opportunity’.

So… obviously, being labelled across the entire planet as a “snowflake” is a pretty substantial insult. But ditching your career in a tantrum over it? Does that make one a snowflake by definition?

Loud cars merit an armed police response. Who knew?

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Dec 172018

While there have been times when I’d’ve loved to have had the police show up because some idjit had an excessively and needlessly loud vehicle – such as the Honda in this video – it would be best if the police actually knew *why* they were showing up toting fully automatic assault weapons with barrel shrouds, 30-caliber clip to disperse with 30 bullets within half a second, 30 magazine clip within half a second and shoulder things that go up.

Lest ya thing I’m drunk posting… here’s what I’m yammering about.

“Nobody wants to take your guns”

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Dec 152018

Remember that line from *every* time gun control has been raised? Heh.

NJ State Police Refuse to Rule Out House-to-House Enforcement of High Capacity Magazine Ban

New Jersey has made standard capacity magazines illegal to own, and may be considering sending cops to the homes of gun owners to take their Constitutionally protected stuff.

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