So a student ran a joke campaign for student senate and won. This is nothing new; it certainly worked for Trump and Obama. But this guy ran as a squirrel, wearing a squirrel costume, under the moniker “Furry Boi.” Some people are displeased at that, such as the editors of the Daily Californian, the campus newspaper:
It’s a shocking display of privilege to vote for a squirrel over candidates who have actual plans to help students who need it. Instead of electing qualified students who had real, tangible ideas — improving UCPD relations, boosting housing, bolstering sexual violence or mental health awareness — many of you (at least 538 strong) thought it might be a funny joke to have a man dressed up in a squirrel costume with no real platforms represent you at the administrative table.
A “shocking display of privilege.” Privilege. PRIVILEGE. The single word that, when used in earnest to disparage the other guy, most quickly says “ignore my opinion.” Anyway, the comments section is more full of sanity than the editorial, with nuggets of sanity such as:
Rest comfortably knowing that New York county Legislator Jennifer Schwartz Berky (Democrat: do you know who I am???) knew just exactly how to handle a speeding ticket:
And Caren Z. Turner, a Democratic lobbyist from Tenafly and a commissioner from the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, uses her position in a responsible manner after her kid gets pulled over:
Three cheers for dashcams. This technology has brought the behavior of these brave souls to the public eye and has allowed them to pursue different career goals.
You know how it’s a popular joke to point to some dumb kid doing something monumentally stupid and then say something along the lines of “ladies and gentlemen, the leaders of the future.” Well, guess what: the leaders of the present aren’t that fargin’ impressive either.
The photo, taken in 1935, depicts a woman in a dark dress shuffling down a street in Norden, Germany. A large sign hangs from her neck: “I am a German girl and allowed myself to be defiled by a Jew.” She is surrounded by Nazi stormtroopers.
D.C. Council member Trayon White Sr. (D-Ward 8) studied the image. “Are they protecting her?”
Lynn Williams, an expert on educational programs at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum and White’s tour guide for the day, stared at the photo.
“No,” she said. “They’re marching her through.”
“Marching through is protecting,” White said.
I… but…
And what’s better: there’s even more stupid on display in that story, and not all of it is the council members. It sounds like he hired out of the shallow end of the pool for his staff, of which he has a surprising number.
This is *spectacular.* So some Sri Lankans moved to Britain and had themselves a kid, but did not effectively learn the language. The kid was born with cerebral palsy. Because the parents didn’t speak adequate English, the medics who attended the birth could not explain to the parents that, you know, you need to feed the kid from time to time, and now some nine years later the kid is in bad shape in part because the parents didn’t adequately feed the kid. This is, of course, the fault of the medics who, and I’m quoting here, “failed to overcome the language barrier, directly resulting in the child suffering catastrophic brain injuries.” And now the British taxpayers are on the hook for some millions of lawsuit lotto that the family has won.
Because it’s every medical practitioners job to be proficient in every language on the planet, so long as that medical practitioner is in a western country.
Gah.
If you are a parent, isn’t it kinda *your* duty to see to it that your kids are properly taken care of?
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Anyway, there was also this on the side of that page:
Commissioned by anti-fascist group Hope Not Hate, the Yougov poll of 5,200 people also found that 51% of people believe immigration is putting pressure on schools and hospitals.
Huh. Wonder why.
The article says that 40% of respondents agreed with a speech given in 1968 by some guy named Enoch Powell, who was a politician of some kind. In case you are an American and don’t have an encyclopedic knowledge of all things British, here’s the speech:
In looking that up, I came across the following. It’s apparently a speech in a British TV crime drama, made by the villain of the piece. And it is a speech, if you read the YouTube comments, that speaks to just a whole lot of people. That’s the problem with forced multiculturalism: the natives didn’t ask for it. They weren’t consulted. And when they complain, they are cast as villains for wanting to keep things they way they have known them to be. And once you decide that someone is a villain for wanting to live in their own homes with their own cultures, they will sooner or later no longer give a damn about whether or not you see them as a villain. You can call someone a racist or a fascist or a Nazi or a misogynist or a sexist or a what-the-hell-ever only just so many times before the nasty word loses its sting and becomes meaningless. And when you call them that bad word for being opposed to something they can *see* as being *actually* bad… you will make them decide that that bad word isn’t something to run from, but is instead their natural ally. So good job, “progressives,” you’ve made the rise of fascism and nationalism and actual racism pretty much inevitable.
… how terrified the Mayor of London would be if he saw *me* walking down his street:
No excuses: there is never a reason to carry a knife. Anyone who does will be caught, and they will feel the full force of the law. https://t.co/XILUvIFLOW
Scissors? A file? Pliers? Really? REALLY? I carry a multitool at all times. I carry a modest pocketknife at all times. And when I go for a walk, I take a walking stick (friggen knees… bah) that I made from a garden tool handle and a hammer. And sometimes I carry concealed. Why? because I want to, that’s why, and that’s all the reason any free man needs to do anything that neither picks another mans pocket nor breaks his leg. So what is it that they have on the streets of London if not free men?
Sigh. Now the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Agency is using it’s power to help ruin the promising future of spaceflight that SpaceX is trying to usher in.
The National and Commercial Space Program Act requires a commercial remote sensing license for companies having the capacity to take an image of Earth while on orbit.
Now that launch companies are putting video cameras on stage 2 rockets that reach an on-orbit status, all such launches will be held to the requirements of the law and its conditions.
The NOAA thinks that you need a special license to take a photo of THE EARTH. Apparently this new development is a result of the Starman videos.
Expect this sort of thing to become a *real* problem if someone looks likely to make a real go of orbital tourism. Imagine if you need a special license to take your Nikon with you… or even your cell phone.
If one was of a conspiratorial bent, one might conclude that the government is doing a “death by a thousand cuts” thing, using a mountain of seemingly small regulatory headaches to keep the private companies from getting too uppity. Just imagine what new and innovative laws will be interpreted if the BFR actually looks likely to start sending private citizens to Mars.
Did anyone else watch “Waco” on the Paramount Network? I recorded the series but have only now started watching it. I’m into the third episode and the ATF has launched their initial assault… and *MAN* the ATF does NOT come off well. The Branch Davidians? Yeppers, crackpot cultists. But the ATF is being depicted basically as a pack of blood-thirsty gloryhounds.
The series starts off with the disastrous and equally stupid raid on Randy Weavers home in Ruby Ridge. That event, coming during the GHW Bush administration and basically approved of and made worse by the Clinton administration, is I think one of the foundational events that led to the current political climate. The Weavers and the Davidians were whackos to be sure… but they were in any rational measure essentially harmless. But the FBI and ATF went after them with a level of force that was wholly unwarranted. Those events led to the the Oklahoma City bombing and the 1990’s militia movement and pretty much the complete collapse in faith in the US government by a great many people who otherwise thought of themselves as patriots. Prior to these events, militia types were a *very* fringe element; after these events they went kinda mainstream. Would we have President Trump today if Randy Weaver had been simply arrested away from his house? If David Koresh had been picked up when he went into town to get some groceries? Would we have the 3-Percenters and Oath Keepers and the like if the government hadn’t actually acted like an organization that people might actually need top worry about? Similarly, I wonder where we’d be today with “ghost guns” and 3D printed firearms, as well as school shootings carried out by lil’ whackjobs obsessed with guns, if the government hadn’t banned modern sporting rifles and standard capacity magazines back in the 90’s, and hadn’t kept threatening to ban them again.
It doesn’t help that prior to the 1980’s or so, a “cop” would look like this:
And seemingly around about the late 80’s, early 90’s, far too often police started looking like this;
And this:
When SWAT teams were first formed in the late 1960’/early 1970’s, their purpose was pretty specific: combating terrorists and heavily armed bank robbers and the like. At the time that was an important function; urban crime and terrorism were on the rise in the 60’s and 70’s. But then SWAT was turned loose on The War On Some Drugs. And then after the crime peak of the 1990’s, SWAT didn’t go away: SWAT teams were used on lesser and lesser criminals, sometimes storming homes on the rumor that someone in there might have a few ounces of weed, for Grud’s sake.
So you’ve got an increasingly militarized police force – ATF, FBI, even the local PD – that has been caught on camera using military tools, weapons and force on American citizens… and we’re supposed to be surprised that some people have concluded that it might be a good idea to gun-up against the day the government turns full-blown fascist?
When i see stuff like this, I have two basic responses:
1: You ask “what does a civilian need with an AR-15,” and I’ll just point to armor-plated cops with automatic weapons. If *they* aren’t safe on the streets without such weapons, why should I feel safe without my own personal General Electric minigun?
The Assault Weapons Ban of 2018 will prohibit the sale, transfer, production, and importation of:
· Semi-automatic rifles and pistols with a military-style feature that can accept a detachable magazine;
· Semi-automatic rifles with a fixed magazine that can hold more than 10 rounds;
· Semi-automatic shotguns with a military-style feature;
· Any ammunition feeding device that can hold more than 10 rounds;
· And 205 specifically-named and listed firearms.
This would basically make everything more modern than a revolver eventually illegal, since “transfers” would be illegal. Which means you could not leave your pistol or hunting rifle to someone in your will.
This is the dream of the civilian enfeeblement movement: the eventual removal of the means of defense from all of the little people. Keep this in mind the next time someone lies to you and says “nobody wants to take your guns:” this bill may not make confiscation plain, but it makes it plain that theydon’t want to let people keep them.
