Category: Mocking Furriners

Dangerous Consequences

Mocking Furriners

I couldn’t help but compare the BritRoyals to the Democrats when I saw this article:

The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, both 40, and Prince George, eight, Princess Charlotte, seven, Prince Louis, four, and their black cocker spaniel Orla were seen leaving their Kensington residence on Monday evening.

The Queen’s antipathy towards helicopters is well known, because she views them as dangerous (e.g. Stevie Ray Vaughan).  Not to be too ghoulish about it, but if that particular chopper went down, it would create an interesting situation vis-a-vis the Royal succession line because after Charles would come — yes — Prince Ginger and his son Archie.

Imagine the scenario where Duchess Meghan CaringSlut one day became Queen… and most likely, Queen Mother in the reign of King Archie.  I would suggest that inheritance of title through birth suddenly looks a lot less appealing.

This is somewhat similar in outcome to the prospect of President Kamala SexToy for the Democrats.

France And Russia

Mocking Furriners, Politics

This is a seriously, seriously good article by Soeren Kern at Gatestone.  An excerpt:

On March 21, less than a month after Russia invaded Ukraine, European officials announced an ambitious plan for the EU to achieve “strategic autonomy” aimed at placing the 27-member bloc on equal footing with China and the United States. The implicit objective was to enable a “sovereign” EU to act independently of the United States and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in matters of defense and security. That plan is now in shambles.

As the war has dragged on, European unity has collapsed and efforts to transform the European Union into a European superstate — a United States of Europe — have been exposed for what they are: delusions of grandeur.

It’s long, but if you only want to read one article today, this would be a good choice.

Taxing Gas

Mocking Furriners, Veggies & Vegans

JHC, now I’ve seen everything.

The left-wing Labour government of Jacinda Ardern has drafted proposals to levy taxes against farmers for the methane emissions produced by cows and sheep in what would be the world’s first green tax on livestock.

Had this not been the People’s Soviet of New Zealand, I’d have suspected that the Babylon Bee  was giving us a giggle — but not even the Bee  dreamed up this one.

On a more sinister note:

The move from the socialist government comes amid a wider effort by governments and globalist institutions to push people away from meat. The United Kingdom, under Prime Minister Boris Johnson, has also discussed levying border taxes on meat and dairy to, they claim, fight climate change.

Institutions such as the World Economic Forum, which has long advocated for the consumption of bugs, recently called for the widespread adoption of veganism and the eating of “climate beneficial foods” such as seaweed and algae.

Had I not just finished my morning breakfast of boerewors and eggs, I’d be tempted to cook a steak, or even one of these:

That can wait till tomorrow, I think.  And one of New Wife’s exquisite steak ‘n mushroom pies for Sunday lunch or dinner.

I’m just doing my bit in the fight against Communism.

Never Again

Gummint, Mocking Furriners, Third World, Travels

It is only when one leaves America does the shattering truth emerge that as much as we hate U.S. bureaucracy and deplore its inefficiency and tortoise-like attitude, just one encounter with the Third World has us weeping with relief when all we have to do, say, is renew a driver’s license down at the local DMV.

So New Wife and I decided to deplete our savings and try to repeat our earlier, abortive attempt to visit her #1 Son and family (grandchildren!!!) in Sydney, Australia.  (The first trip, of course, was nuked by Covid and the OzGov’s pathetic overreaction thereto.  That only cost us $1,500 for NW’s air ticket.)

Of course, even without Covid, Straya throws all sorts of shit at anyone who might want to spend some tourist dollars to visit their poxy country (pop. 25,000) — you have to apply for a visitor’s visa (from a list of about 50 different categories) before you can even get onto an airliner.  Cost of said application:  ~$340 per person.  However, the Dept. of Home Affairs boasts, it only takes as little as 36 hours for it to be approved (except where otherwise indicated by ).  Of course, using Covid as an excuse, the time was not 36 hours, oh no:  New Wife applied in February of this year, and it arrived promptly on May 15;  I applied for mine on April 1, and ATOW it still hadn’t arrived.

So I wasn’t able to get on the plane with her last Friday evening, but I was told that if I changed my flight to Sunday evening, they would help me take care of my little visa problem.

Which is where the (further) problems began.  I wasn’t able to change my flight because Expedia can’t do anything if the departure time is less than 10 hours away (on Friday evening, it was about two hours away by the time I’d got home).  No problem, thinks I, I’ll just go to Qantas’s website and change it there.  Except that Qantas must have used the same guy to build their website as homeaffairs.gov.au — there is no way to “manage” your booking — nowhere to enter your ticket number or reservation number, nada.

Last night I discovered the following:  because I hadn’t been able to change my flight, Qantas was going to take the whole fare and give me a “coupon” for $500 to use for my next flight;  additional expense to fly out on Sunday night: $800.

Even worse was my visa experience.  I could actually get an ETA visa (don’t ask) approved in about 20 minutes, except for a couple of teeny-weeny little problems:  the Qantas mobile app downloaded onto my phone, but couldn’t open;  and the visa application cost was going to be another $340, because this was a new visa application fee, you see, and no they couldn’t (okay wouldn’t) credit me for the failed visa application because they are two different visas.

Oh, and did I mention that the Sunday flight was overbooked anyway?

The hell with that.  I would rather take that $1,100-odd and pay for the grandkids to come and visit me.

Hence the title of this post.  Ain’t gonna happen, never, no way, uh-uh am I going to try to visit Australia ever in the future.  It’s just too much frigging hassle, and expensive, to visit a place that was never high on my Wannagothere List in the first place.

It’s not like I don’t have other options;  here’s one just arrived in my Inbox last night:

Cheap Flights: Dallas to London $566-$589 r/t

Don’t need a visa, either.  Buy a ticket, arrive at the airport, fly eight (not seventeen!) hours, and it’s tea and sausage rolls at Greggs for brekkie the next morning.

Other destinations ditto, with local cuisine variations.

Too bad, for everyone.

I think I’ll go to the range later today and get some AK-47 practice.  That’s one thing I can do that I’d never be able to do Down Under.

Quote Of The Day

Mocking Furriners, QOTD

From Johnny Rotten, about Britishland’s Royal Family:

“A bunch of German tourists, with a Greek thrown in.”

I know several Brits who still refer to them as “the Germans”, with one saying witheringly:  “My family has been noble for well over six centuries.  Theirs hasn’t.”