Latest Posts

What Woody Said

Big Brother, Surveillance Society

In one of his rare funny moments, Woody Allen once referred to people glued to their cell phones as “connectivity assholes”.  Here’s a story which, if true, provides ample proof of the pitfalls thereof:

Amazon reportedly shut down a customer’s smart home after the delivery driver claimed he heard a racial slur coming through the doorbell, even though no one was home. 

Brandon Jackson, of Baltimore, Maryland, came home on May 25 to find that he had been locked out of his Amazon Echo, which many devices, including his lights, are connected to.

Yeah… so much for that “convenience” that people are always bleating about when the discussion moves to “smart homes”, “self-drive cars” and all that similar nonsense.

So don’t complain when Big Tech, or Big Brother, or Biggus Dikkus turns off your lights, takes your house through “emininent domain” then bends you over the desk and gives it to you good and hard in your connectivity asshole.

Life Lesson

Gummint, Lies and Untruths

…well, not for me, nor for most of my Readers, but this story reminds us why we should never believe what the fucking government tells us:

Michael Shellenberger’s Public today released a blockbuster story, “First Person Sickened By COVID-19 Was Chinese Scientist Who Oversaw “Gain Of Function” Research That Created Virus,” which generously credits Racket. The story cites three government officials in naming scientist Ben Hu, who was in charge of “gain-of-function” research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, as the “patient zero” of the Covid-19 pandemic.

This is a major story, contradicting early official explanations pointing to zoonotic cross-species “spillover” at the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan, colloquially known as the Wuhan wet market. The mystery bat or pangolin suspected of transmitting the disease to humans at that market was never found. The Public story for the first time asserts the source of contamination: a Wuhan Institute scientist fell ill after exposure to a virus engineered at his place of work.

The implications of this are enormous and represent a major problem for the federal health bureaucracy, several intelligence agencies, and the news media, to say nothing of politicians in both parties (but particularly those on the Democratic side) who’ve deflected public interest from the Wuhan Institute and gain-of-function research. The secrets of both the pandemic’s origin and the reason for America’s at-best-sluggish investigation of same have become the mother of all political footballs, and today’s news is likely to be just the first in a series of loud surprises.

So all that bullshit about “markets” and “bats” was just that:  weapons-grade

My trust in government was always on the low side, having grown up in a totalitarian society.

Imagine my surprise when I discovered that our own American government is, if anything, worse than that.

Trust nobody — and most especially, don’t trust anything the government tells you, when the likely outcome is that they can increase their control over us, with our consent.

Like I said:  a life lesson.

News Roundup

Bad News

And in this, the (extended) 300th(!) News Roundup, a segue:

From our Dear Leader:


...has anyone told him that the Covidiocy is over?


...probably for the best — he’d only fuck things up irretrievably by referring to Belgium as “Germany”.

And in other LGBTOSTFU News:


...doesn’t matter because nobody watches women’s tennis.  Might as well let giraffes play, as well.

In the Dept. of (In)Justice files:


...so can we expect Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden to be indicted soon, for precisely the same offense as Trump is supposed to have committed?


...yeah, but she’s a Democrat.  Forgive me for sounding cynical.

In ShowBiz! News:


...never mind, Disney will cast Amy Schuler as Jack Sparrow in the next episode, and all will be well.  Also:


...”accidentally”.


...he’s been a total tool for over forty years;  why should he change now?  And speaking of tools:


...please adjust your target coordinates accordingly, because he’s worse than Daddy.


...just another feather in the cap of the Biden administration’s foreign policy (see:  Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, etc.).

From the Dept. of Global Cooling Climate Warming Change:


...EVERYBODY PANIC!!!!  Or not.

From the Dept. of Child Molestation Education:


...looking at the next Teacher Of The Year, here.


...that’s nice of you, but it’s not going to forestall the hangings.  And speaking of people to be hanged:


...mind the step, Fatboi.

And in your favorite INSIGNIFICA:


...and if anyone actually understands what any of that means, you need to get a life.  Also: “Snoochie” sounds like a euphemism for a lady’s love tunnel.

And finally:


...”incredible” being the mot juste.  Honestly, if Salma isn’t the sexiest woman alive, then she’s #1(a).  Or the rating criteria are totally screwed up.

It’s a fine way to end the 300th Roundup, anyway.

Sale Item

Gratuitous Gun Pics

I have long loved shooting the Browning Buck Mark .22 pistols, having owned several in my lifetime.  They are accurate, have an excellent trigger, and the only small drawback to ownership thereof is that stripping them for cleaning can be a PITA until you get used to it — unlike say the Ruger pre-Mark IV models, which were almost impossible to reassemble without assistance.

Anyway, here’s Browning’s excellent Buck Mark Micro Bull Barrel, on sale at Collectors:

What makes this model so special?  As Collectors notes, it has a threaded, suppressor-ready barrel.

And they have four of them on sale.

Read into that what you will.

And Texas residents should note, there are some interesting legal developments coming up re: the issue of Texas-made suppressors and the Supreme Court.  But I’ll cover those in a separate post later, once the dust has settled.

I have to say that I’d like to own one of these little sweethearts anyway, but this may be a deal-closer.

Different Universe, Part 17

Economics

The usual snow job on the economy:

The CPI report shows that inflation rose four percent from last May, which is less than half of what it was at its peak in 2022, when it hit 9.1 percent year-over-year in June. Economic forecasts had predicted inflation would come in at 4.1 percent, meaning that the current economic climate is doing better than expected.

Uh huh.  Considering that our “expectations” were of the Four Riders genre, that doesn’t mean much.  And it gets worse:

However, core CPI – which excludes volatile food and energy prices – rose 5.3 percent from last May, which is a far less-rosy picture of the state of the economy.

Yeah, I’m so glad that the first inflation “estimate” just happens to exclude the two categories which affect ordinary people’s lives the most.  And for the record, I’m still of the mind that the “5.3 percent” inflation rate is only about a third of what I’m seeing at the grocery store — i.e. 15 percent would be closer to the mark, which is about how much my closely-budgeted grocery spend has gone up in the past three months.

By the way: has anyone priced tires recently?  Holy shit.

When the history of this era comes to be written, one of the most egregious falsehoods to be exposed will be the “official” inflation rate.