Nosebleed And RCOB

Yesterday I went to buy someone a Dallas Cowboys cap (don’t ask), and at Academy I was just about to throw one into the shopping cart when I caught a glimpse of the price.

THIRTY FUCKING DOLLARS?  FOR A LOUSY CAP????

So back on the rack it was flung, with some force, and I was so angry I had to buy some new .45 ACP ammo to settle my nerves.  (And at just over a dollar per round for primo self-defense stuff, it wasn’t that bad or else I’d have had a stroke.)

I can sorta see how a thermal cup, for instance, could cost maybe fifteen bucks (don’t get me started about that stupid Yeti crap):  there’s a combination of materials and a little quality thrown in, and then there’s the “brand” to pay for (although the way the Cowboys have been playing recently from all accounts, they should be paying US to take their shitty merchandise).

But $30 for a common-or-garden baseball cap, made (as they all are) in China?

FOAD, America’s Team.

Language Nannies

And then there’s this development:

Google has announced the launch of an “inclusive language” function to help users eliminate politically incorrect words and expressions. The feature is being introduced initially to Google’s “enterprise-level” users and will include both warnings and suggestions as part of Google’s new assisted writing features in Google Docs.
Typing in the word “landlord,” for instance, generates a warning the term “may not be inclusive to all readers” as well as the suggestion to replace the offensive locution with “property owner” or “proprietor.”

Similarly, Google takes issue with the word “mankind” and proposes substituting it with the more appropriate “humankind.” Use of “policemen” and “housewife” provokes a correction as well, and Google will urge replacing them with the gender-neutral “police officers” and “stay-at-home spouse.”

Curiously, the new software seems targeted only at a specific sort of communication infractions.

How nice.  Wait till this feature turns into “obligatory” rather than just “advisory”…

My message to Google:  take your wokist nonsense and stick it up your excretion aperture.

Oh, and fuck you.  And your poxy email.

Seriously?

Some fuckwit decided that this would be a nice window display for Easter:

Let me tell you:  I’m not a Christian, and even I’m pissed off at this.  Had I been in North London and seen this, I would have:

  • gone to Primark and bought a cheap, throwaway hoodie jacket
  • found a brick or large rock somewhere
  • waited till dark
  • you can guess the rest.

I await the time when this asshole puts up a display of the Prophet Mohammed fucking a young girl, just in time for the first day of Ramadan.

For the sake of “equity”, of course.

And Here’s Another Thing

As though we haven’t had enough of our beloved English language (words like “gay”) being appropriated (and not in a good way) by the forces of Communism, Greens and the LGBTOSTFU movement* (some overlap;  quite a lot, actually), now we have to deal with the degeneration of the word “grooming”  — an excellent description of what we do to make our appearance pleasing to the eye, and ditto to dogs, horses and such.  Now we have to use the word to describe the disgusting, perverted way in which pedophiles and the Education Establishment (also, some overlap) set about corrupting young people so that these sick individuals can play out their depraved sexual fantasies on children’s bodies.

It’s only been a couple of days since I was at the range, and already I can feel my trigger-finger twitching.

My suggestion:  make child molestation a capital offense, and shoot / hang / [your suggestion here]  these bastards whenever they’re caught.

(stolen from Kenny, thankee)

And people in league with child molesters (the “groomers”) should face life sentences in prison, without parole.

We’d be doing it For The Children©, literally.

Argue the point with me, I dare you.

Doing Nothing

I am curious to see My Readers’ response to this bit of bastardy, bureaucracy and pussification:

A homeowner was left disgusted after a stranger parked their Range Rover on his driveway for days.
Zekarias Haile, who lives a five-minute drive from Manchester Airport, said he waited four days for the owner of the grey car to return and pick it up. The 51-year-old man woke to find it abandoned on his driveway on Thursday and he suspects the cheeky owner had jetted off for a holiday from the nearby Jet2.com and Ryanair hub.
The father-of-two, who lives in Wythenshawe, Manchester, said: “Someone, without my permission, had put the car there and they didn’t care. I just went out and it was there. Then it was there Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. On Monday morning when we woke up it was gone. I was very angry but I resisted doing anything to the car – just. I definitely didn’t feel alright about it. We couldn’t access our garden and we couldn’t take out our bins.”
Zekarias, a lecturer in Engineering at a college, called the police but was told it was not a criminal offence and there was nothing they could do. They said Zekarias’ car, parked on the road, wasn’t being blocked in so their hands were tied.

Okay, firstly:  what kind of asshole parks his car in another guy’s driveway and just takes off?

Secondly:   what kind of pussified man does nothing about the situation for four whole days?

Thirdly:  what kind of police force won’t have the car towed?

Finally, what would you have done in a similar situation?

Over-Complexity

The nice thing about getting into a car, back in the day when I first got into a car is that it was like a fork:  everything about it was self-evident, and it was easy to use (hold the end without the pointy bits, stab your food with it and convey said food to your mouth).  It even allowed for different styles of use, e.g. the American (hold the food still while cutting it into baby-sized pieces, then transfer fork to right hand, slide the fork under the food and shovel said food into your mouth).

I pass no judgment about the American way other than it’s fucking stupid and it’s the way a child eats.

Anyway, the same methodology applied to a car of an earlier era:  you open the door with the handle thoughtfully attached to the outside, get in and sit down;  then insert key into ignition and turn the engine on, put the car into gear, release the handbrake and off you go.  (A couple of steps have been omitted for sake of brevity.)  Then when you get to your destination, you pull up the handbrake, turn off the car, open the door with the handle thoughtfully supplied, and get out to go to the pub.

None of the above required a user’s manual or anything other than a thirty-second explanation from an adult.

Compare that simple procedure to this concatenation of silliness:

Jeremy Clarkson was test driving a brand-new Maserati MC20 when he and Lisa decided to drive the motor to their local pub, where they were planning to indulge in a fish pie, but the couple soon realised they couldn’t get out.

Jeremy said: ‘We were in the car and five minutes after that we were in the pub’s car park. And five minutes after that we were still in the pub car park because neither of us could find anything that even remotely resembled a door handle’.

‘Eventually I turned on my phone’s torch and found the little button that you must press to unlatch the door, and then we were out.

‘And then I was back inside very smartly because the car was starting to roll down a hill.’

After finally discovering a button that activated the handbrake, Jeremy thought he had fixed the issue only to hear ‘bonging noises’ when he got out of the vehicle.

‘After an hour of swearing and wondering out loud whether it would have been easier to stay at home and make a soufflé out of ant hearts, I called a colleague, who said that to engage ‘park’ and turn out the lights I had to stop the engine twice.

‘So I pushed the button to turn the motor off, then pushed it again. Which caused it to start. I then called the colleague again, who said that when I pushed the button the second time my foot had to be off the brake pedal. And he was right, which meant that we just caught last orders.’

Let’s hear it for Technology!

As Longtime Readers all know, I have a long and abiding passion for Maserati cars, despite the dreaded which causes fits of laughter among American engineers and drivers.

Now imagine that same applied to a system which (nominally) controls the “hand”-brake and door-“handle” functions, in addition to lights, mirrors, windshield wipers, turn indicators, window- and trunk controls, ignition, transmission and (gawd help us) onboard computer.

Compared to this mobile disaster area, even my old Fiat 124 looks like a dream come true.

Manual everything — gearbox, ignition, doors, windows, seats, rearview mirrors, turn indicators, trunk opener and even, on occasion (!), windshield wipers.

All this modern shit?  You can stick it.

Even for an MC20.