Nov 072022
 

So the latest news freakout over Elon Musk buying twitter is that he is banning people impersonating him:

 

Furious Elon Musk Pledges to Ban Anyone Who Changes Their Display Name to “Elon Musk”

Twitter bans comedian Kathy Griffin for impersonating Elon Musk

And so on. Lots of lefties are screeching that this means Musk is opposed to free speech.

 

Here’s the thing, though. The accounts getting banned are “Blue Checks.” You will see a little blue check mark next to some Twitter accounts; these accounts have been verified through some process to be actually who they say they are. This might be a corporate account like Ford or Lockheed; this might be the President of the United States; this might be a journalist or an actor. For most people it doesn’t really matter. But if you’re making Big Money on Twitter and you want to make sure that people know that they can trust that You are in fact You, I guess that little blue check mark is important.

Great, whatever.

But the moment you take your blue check account and change the name to someone else’s – like, say, “Elon Musk” –  and then start making posts impersonating that other person, you are committing fraud. The blue check is supposed to say that You are You, not You are Some Other Person.

So, it’s simple. If you want to have a parody account, great, go right ahead. Just don’t use your already established “blue check” to try to fool people into thinking you are someone else. I’m not sure how this was even supposed to be controversial.

 

And there is another issue with the “blue check verification.” It is supposed to be proof that you are who you say you are, and it is supposed to be an impartial procedure. But there are accusations that the verification was refused sometimes unless you paid someone a bribe. And the bribes were reportedly not small. For a celebrity, fifteen grand might be chump change; but for journalists or “lesser” notables, it was a lot of money. But it would have been worth the price for that little blue check mark. It might even have been *necessary* in some fields, like journalism. In some respects, it’s like a drivers license… needed to do your job, open and available to everyone on a supposedly even playing field. So finding that *anyone* can be verified for a mere eight buck after you blew fifteen large? Yeah, that’s gotta grate.

 

 Posted by at 6:21 pm
Nov 052022
 

Huh.

But then…

There are a lot of weird aspects to this story, a lot of apparent contradictions and inconsistencies. Most news stories that initially seem like a conspiracy theorists wet dream fall apart once the facts come out (witness virtually *every* story related to “racial justice” over the past five or more years); I can easily imagine that this story could just as easily turn into exactly what the official narrative is if the evidence which *should* be available was released. The police body cams, the security camera footage, the identity of the mystery third person. These are not difficult things, like the results of some complicated chemical analysis; these are just “push a few buttons and upload” issues. And yet… that hasn’t happened. Why?

 

 Posted by at 12:18 am
Nov 032022
 

So, yet another attempted political assassination attempt. Let’s watch the national news media fall all over themselves to report on this, shall we?

Midterms horror as Republican candidate’s daughters, three and five, are almost KILLED after gunman opens fire at North Carolina home – where Democrat rival filmed campaign ad – with bullet landing close to where they slept

And

Shot Fired at Family Home of N. Carolina US House Candidate

Can we expect to see the same talking heads and political animals yapping about how the Republicans and right wing rhetoric are responsible for the attack on Paul Pelsosi, now talk about how the Dems and lefties are similarly responsible for this?

 Posted by at 9:17 pm
Nov 032022
 

David DePape is an illegal alien, having come from Canada through the Mexican border and overstayed his visa. But he was in California, a “sanctuary state,” and more specifically San Francisco, a “sanctuary city.”

I wonder if Pelosi will ever wonder if the immigration laws were enforced, maybe this wouldn’t have happened? But then, how can you possibly hold back the vast, virtually infinite tide of illegal alien nudist drug addicted BLM supporting pride flag flying hippie MAGA supporters? There are so many of them that they pose a threat to democracy.

Not a threat to democracy:

 

 

 Posted by at 3:02 pm
Nov 012022
 

This guy tells a joke, the short from of which is that learning about science in school is useless, because he didn’t become a scientist. Now it could well be that he doesn’t actually believe that; perhaps a longer video with more context has him redeem himself later. But the basic notion expressed here grates on me more than a lame joke by an unknown standup comic really aught to. It would be better by far for kids to learn about science and math and then have them not go into STEM fields, than to replace science and math with the latest trendy identity politics subjects. Because even if the kids *do* go into the fields of gender studies or LGBTQ studies or racial grievance activism… society is *worse* off. Learning math helps a kid order their mind. Learning science helps a kid learn skepticism. Learning critical race theory helps a kid become a racist monster. Learning about the latest innovation in pronoun-invention helps a kid become schizophrenic and sterile.

 Posted by at 8:20 am
Oct 312022
 

Minneapolis looks like… well, “fun” isn’t really the word. After Fentanyl Floyd died there, the protestors wanted less policing and that’s what they got. Look at the utopia that sprang up.

 

 Posted by at 9:56 pm
Oct 312022
 

Back in the Bad Old Days, a whole lot of people were trapped as serfs. While not technically slaves, they kinda were… they were legally trapped onto a particular piece of property and had to work for the landowner (generally some flavor of “nobility”). You could get in a *lot* of trouble if  you just decided to get up and walk twenty miles away. It’s a good thing that that concept is dead and buried. Right?

Right?

Behold the “15-Minute City.” As described on Wikipedia, this is straightforward enough… a form of civic planning where the bulk of your necessities – groceries and such – are available within a short walk (you can walk there in “15 minutes”). It *sounds*… well, maybe sorta kinda nice enough, maybe, on a limited basis; probably more so for people who have never actually known wide open spaces, but there are of course large sections of urban areas where groceries and medicine and whatnot are *not* available anywhere near you. But whether it was the intention of the people behind it or not, the “15-minute city” concept is a lead-in to modern serfdom. Gentlemen, behold:

Anger after travel chief announces traffic filters are ‘going to happen, definitely’ ahead of decision

Mr Enright explained in the Sunday Times that the heart of the traffic filters policy was to turn Oxford into “a 15-minute city” with local services within a small walking radius.

The new traffic filters on St Cross Road, Thames Street, Hythe Bridge Street and St Clements would operate seven days a week from 7am to 7pm.

Two more filters on Marston Ferry Road and Hollow Way would operate from Monday to Saturday.

People can drive freely around their own neighbourhood and can apply for a permit to drive through the filters, and into other neighbourhoods, for up to 100 days per year. This equates to an average of two days per week.

 

Translation: if this comes to pass, people within these “15 minute cities” will only be allowed to freely leave their plots of land 100 days out of the year by means of their own vehicles. Sure, you can walk out… but how far can you walk, carrying all your property? Sure, you can ride public transportation… which goes where it goes, not necessarily where you want to go. And I look forward to seeing people try to carry their beds and fridges and libraries on the bus. And sure, you can leave 100 days out of the year. Then 90. Then 75. Then 50. Then “papers please.”

The process seems to be to slowly acclimate Brits to accept that where they are is where they’ll stay.

Curiously, at the same time the British citizens are being trained to become sedentary, to reduce their horizons to little further than they could throw a rock (not that they’ll be allowed to throw a rock, of curse), they are also being trained to accept that an Englishmans Home Is Not His Castle:

Homeowners are being offered contracts to take in illegal Channel migrants as govt hotel bill rises to £2.4bn-a-year

As Britain continues to be colonized by military age males from the third world, Brits are being conditioned to not only accept these world travelers into their country, but into their homes. Right now the British government is attempting to get this done via bribery. When that fails to take care of the problem, I’ll but utterly unsurprised when eminent domain is used to appropriate second homes, unoccupied apartments and other currently-unoccupied places. And when *that* fails to solve the problem – and why the hell would it, as the British government would be throwing the door open to a full invasion, providing room and board to the latest waves of colonizers – then people who are deemed to have Too Much House will be required to share. Got a barn? Not anymore. Got a spare bedroom? Not anymore. Got a living room? Not anymore.

 

Haha. I got me a 3rd Amendment, chumps!

 Posted by at 11:59 am
Oct 252022
 

So, antiAmerican American Brittney Griner was arrested a long time ago trying to bring illegal substances into Russia. This is not really a debatable point; Griner admitted it. You can argue whether or not its appropriate that hash oil should be illegal or not, but in Russia, it is. And it’s not a profoundly stupid law, like “no wearing purple on Tuesdays” or some such; prohibitions on drugs are virtually universal though the specifics vary. I believe it’s illegal to simply transport it across state lines *within* the United States, so taking it internationally was either profoundly stupid, or profoundly arrogant in the “those laws don’t apply to me, I’m too important” form. Well, she was arrested, put on trial, convicted, sentenced to nine years and just had her appeal denied. So, sucks for her, but at least she doesn’t need to worry about being subjected to the US National Anthem for a while. So that’s nice for her.

Listen to the news piece below. One thing I’ve noticed in the coverage of Griner over the past couple years is you don’t hear her speak too often. Gee… I wonder why.

Huh.

 

 

 Posted by at 1:16 pm