Captain Obvious Comes To Town

From John Lott’s guys:

Murders occur overwhelmingly in dense urban areas, many with tough anti-gun restrictions, and far less in suburban and rural areas where firearm ownership is more common, according to a national study of killings.
“This research shows that murders in the U.S. are highly concentrated in tiny areas in the U.S. and that they are becoming even more concentrated in recent years,” said the report from John R. Lott’s Crime Prevention Research Center.

You don’t say.  Next thing you’ll be hearing is that the socio-demographics of these concentrated areas are poor, overwhelmingly Black, and that the guns used to commit the murders have been stolen.

Nah, couldn’t be.  Ask any big-city mayor.

The key to all of this is climate change / racism / white supremacy / thuggish police / all the above.

Except that we all know the truth.

Got ‘Em

Two men were arrested for allegedly attacking four power substations in Washington state on Christmas Day as part of a plan to shut down electricity and to steal from an unnamed local business.

Matthew Greenwood, 32, and Jeremy Crahan, 40, were charged on Tuesday with conspiracy to damage energy facilities. Greenwood was also charged with possession of unregistered firearms.

Can’t wait to see who these little shits really are, and which local business they wanted to rob.

I have to say that I feel somewhat relieved that they appear to be just ordinary criminals, as opposed to radical eco-terrorists, Muzzies or two of those millions of White supremacists the Gummint is always warning us about.

Early days yet, though, so I’m not making any bets.

A Better Class Of Criminal

“I’ll take corrupt Communist politicians for $500, Alex.”

I have to say that the Commies are at least stepping up their game a little.  Whereas in the past the typical corrupt money-grabbing Commie politician looked like you-know-who:

…the latest example of a politician caught with hand in a bagful of cash is someone named Eva Kaili (story in link):

…and even:

As a wall decoration, at least she wouldn’t cause mass vomiting in the firing squad like Her Filthiness.

Next To Go

Here’s a fun exercise:

Fallen crypto guru Sam Bankman-Fried is likely to be placed on suicide watch when moved to a tiny cell in his hellhole jail in the Bahamas.

The former CEO of collapsed currency exchange FTX – who takes medication for depression – remains under evaluation in the maximum security sickbay and is expected to be there until the end of next week.

His next move inside notorious His Majesty’s Prison Fox Hill will be decided by the jail’s Classification Board and a medical assessment.

Ordinarily, this would be a post about his impending “suicide” — — but this skulduggery is of the Ponzi kind, and nothing to do with the Clinton Foundation, so all we have to think about is this pudgy little asshole doing away with himself out of self-pity.

Frankly, given that he’s a vegan and future inmate, there’s not much reason for him to live, so he might as well.

One of the “side benefits” of being old is that one spends a lot of time in waiting-rooms — in this case, at Discount Tires — where I happened upon the Aug/Sep issue of Forbes magazine which had an interview with the above asshole (long before his financial criminality and -irresponsibility became well known, of course).

I read the interview, which spent a lot of time looking at all FTX’s acquisitions and share purchases, and I thought (not with hindsight, but as a contemporaneous reader):

“Where the hell are you getting all your investment capital from?”

FTX was either leveraged to the hilt — couldn’t be, because he was paying out mouthwatering returns to his investors — or he was playing the old Bernie Maddow game of using fresh investor money to pay out earlier investors.  Certainly, he wasn’t getting anything like dividends from flaccid blockchain exchanges or collapsing software companies — his favored purchase targets, so the money had to be coming from new investors.

What suckers.  It’s even worse when you learn that some of his new (and earlier) investors were not individuals, but institutional.  Don’t these places have any safety controls or risk-assessment checks?

I am not a nihilist by any stretch, but I swear there are times when I want the whole fucking house of cards to collapse, rich people / institutions to be impoverished, and crowds of the now-desperately-poor (that would be people like me) roaming the streets with shotguns and AK-47s, shooting these bastards as they walk out of their office buildings, or using their plummeting bodies as skeet targets as they try to escape the shame and ruin that has ensued from their greed, mendacity and foolishness.

No doubt someone will have a problem with this scenario.

“Less Jus’ Defun’ Da Po-Po”

In the face of rampant crime and such, one gas station owner has had enough:

“They are forcing us to hire the security, high-level security, state level. We are tired of this nonsense: robbery, drug trafficking, hanging around, gangs,” Patel said.

The guards he hired wear Kevlar vests and train regularly, maintaining firearm proficiency.

Prior to hiring the guards, Patel’s car was vandalized and an ATM was stolen from his gas station.

Best part:

But FOX News notes Patel’s observation that crimes – including loitering – ended once he hired security.

I bet they did.

If the cops can’t or won’t enforce the law, then it’s up to us ordinary folk to push them aside and take law enforcement back into our own hands.

The only people who would object to this action (other than the criminals) are government flunkies and hoplophobes.

Good Return

As I get older, more cynical and less fearful of this Game we call Life, stories like this have a strange appeal — and not necessarily from good intentions, as you will see.  Here’s the executive summary:

Guy gets hired by a company, and over a period of nine years swindles enough money to fund a “fantasy lifestyle of Las Vegas and New York trips, stays in The Ritz and Savoy and Harrods shopping sprees”.

Thinking about it in the Murkin idiom, that would mean trips to London and Monaco, staying at the Ritz and Fairmont, and of course Harrods shopping sprees.   (The story also mentions that the man paid for house improvements, but never mind that nonsense.)

Which brings me to the point.  Eventually, the gravy train came to an end when Freddie The Fraudster was caught (ironically, through invoices for his house improvements), and he’s just been sentenced to five years in jail.

So let’s see.  If I somehow stumbled onto a scheme like this, I’d live the life of Reilly for nine years (taking me to age 77), and then get to spend my dotage (assuming I even got that far) in government-subsidized accommodation with free food and healthcare until I snuffed it.

Five years of boarding school in return for nine years of utter hedonism?

Granted, there are parts of this story that are truly reprehensible — such as the fact that this mope was hired by a good man who wanted to give him a second chance at life, and he repaid the kindness by stealing the company blind for nearly a decade.  That’s about as bad as it gets, and under those circumstances I would never countenance doing the same as the prisoner in the dock.

But if I could do the same while being employed by a wealthy stranger (or even better, Global MegaCorp Inc.)…

Not to mention:

Don’t even talk about it.

Unfortunately, I have a conscience, and her name is New Wife.  So none of that’s gonna happen.