Latest Posts

Incremental Costs

Business, Economics

Soft-headed Lefties are always going on about the evils of cheap labor, using children as workers, and paying “fair wages”.  Then there’s the use of agricultural pesticides to improve yields, which is doubleplusungood.  Of course, they still expect to pay low prices for, say, their fruits and vegetables, as these neo-Marxists don’t have the first clue about how an economy actually works.

So we come to this breathless headline:

Jeremy Clarkson’s Diddly Farm Squat Shop is over 200% more expensive for essential items than the nearest supermarket.

Well, yes.  He pays his staff (“workers”) well, doesn’t use pesticides, and charges prices that will yield his business a profit so that he can afford the costs of complying with government regulations.  (He does not pay himself or his shop manager / girlfriend Lisa a salary, for obvious reasons, although technically speaking he should.)

All that said, the quality of the farm shop’s products is beyond reproach — fresh milk, vegetables and fruits, homemade honey from his own bees — and all those things that the high-end Waitrose chain, for example, have traded on for years.

And so his prices are higher than those of the local supermarket (Aldi, a “budget” operation if ever there was one) only six miles away, leading one to ask that if his prices are indeed that unbearably high, why are there long lines of people queuing up to buy the stuff? (Answer:  because it’s the Diddly Squat brand.)

One would question why the “researchers” chose to use EDLP (everyday low price) Aldi rather than pricey Waitrose — answer:  because the price disparity might not be that great, if there was any disparity at all… oops.

And let’s not forget that The Greatest Living Englishman is a frequent target for The Envious Set, because he’s wealthy and successful — just not as a result of farming.

Journalists… those who talk about everything, but know absolutely nothing.

Gratuitous Gun Pic: Ithaca Flues (20ga)

Gun/Ammo Tests, The Gun Thing

Here’s a lovely old beauty at Collectors:

A little background:  Ithaca’s “Flues” shotguns were based on that eponymous patented action, and were so popular that they ended up driving Remington our of the double-barrel shotgun business.  Some believe that the single-barrel variant shotguns were the best-selling ones of all time.

For me, the only speed-bump on this particular gun is the semi-pistol grip (rather than the straight “English” stock that I prefer).  That said, I’d get this one in a heartbeat.  Know why?  Here’s its description, from Collectors:

The barrels have 98% blue with just a bit of surface pitting, on the underside, probably from holding them there. Bores are excellent. The receiver has about 60% faded case colors with some light staining and speckling. Stock is very good with most of the varnish and some light marks. A good looking example you wouldn’t be afraid to shoot.

And the kicker:  its serial number places its manufacture (I think) in the mid-50s — when I was born — and the above description could be an answer to the question:  “If Kim was a gun, what would he be like?”

Old-fashioned, well-used, a little battered, but still trustworthy, and deadly.

Quod erat demonstratum.

News Roundup

Bad News

Sponsored by the makers of:

From the Dept. Of Global Warming Climate Cooling Change:

...Snowflake City.


...I prefer to keep things simple: don’t trust ANY government agency.

And speaking of government-run institutions:


…


...because of course he would.

From the Dept. Of Irony:

...or as he himself might say:  “Burn, baby, burn.”

From the Dept. Of Education:

...only 55?  They need to try harder.


...what’s gambled in Vegas, stays in Vegas.

Dept. Of International News:


...as are all who dare challenge the Great Cultural Melting Pot Experiment.


...♫ ♪ ♫ ♪…it’s raining beasts, hallelujah...♫ ♪ ♫ ♪


...laugh all you want, but in a couple years’ time this won’t be satire.

And in INSIGNIFICA:

 

This Roundup’s Hotty Totty:

There’s this Brit TV show about people leaving gloomy Britishland for sunnier climes, and one of the show’s hosts is named Laura Hamilton:

 

 

Little toothy, but still quite MILFy…

Slipped On The Soap

Crime

The headline for this story says it all:

Arkansas cops rule suicide in death of Clinton aide linked to Jeffrey Epstein – who was found shot and tied to a tree with an electrical cord around his neck – despite no sign of weapon

Keyword:  Clinton.

This poor schmuck didn’t die because of his ties to Epstein — who also didn’t kill himself — but because he knew too much about Bill Clinton’s ties to Epstein (who, lest you missed the earlier comment, didn’t kill himself).

The sooner this crime family disappears from this Earth, the better off we’ll all be.

Escalation And Hammurabi

Deep Thoughts, Law and Order

I can’t find the link to the correct Jordan Peterson talk, but he talks about what happens if someone kills your son, so you kill his wife and daughter, then he kills your sister, cousin, brother and mother, and so on, with escalating results until you have complete chaos and a bloodbath.

As Peterson explains it, the law is there to punish the guilty, protect society, avenge the innocent and — just as importantly — take away your responsibility of vengeance.

Hammurabic law postulated, among other things, that if a judge wrongly convicted a man to death, the judge had to be hanged too — thus making the decision important not just to the family of the wrongly convicted, but to the law and its enforcers.

In Mario Puzo’s The Godfather, when the undertaker’s teenage daughter is raped and beaten up by a group of young men, and the young men are set free without serious punishment, the undertaker says to Don Corleone (and I paraphrase):  “The young men were freed by the law — but there was no justice for my daughter.”

Let me apply all three principles to our world today.

We all know that several criminals have been released from prison after a minimal period of incarceration, or freed by Soros prosecutors / liberal justices with minimal or no bail, and these criminals have gone on to commit the same, equivalent or even worse crimes soon thereafter — sometimes within hours of release.

They, in other words, have benefited from the law (whether rightly or wrongly applied is irrelevant, the outcome is the same), but their victims have received no justice.

Under Hammurabic law, the prosecutors would themselves be imprisoned / executed for the subsequent murders;  the parole boards would be likewise punished for the crimes committed by the freed parolees.  But of course, we know that sadly, none of this will ever happen (unless I become World Emperor, in which case…).

So while the law has been ignored, misapplied, twisted, or even broken, the victims of these crimes have received no justice from the judicial system and its agents.

Now remember this part:  “the law is there to… take away your responsibility of vengeance”?

At some point soon, it will come as no surprise to me that the families of victims may seek to take revenge — in the absence of the law’s application — upon the people who are responsible for the criminals’ actions:  prosecutors, judges, parole board members, whoever.  And it will be no use wringing hands and wailing about people “taking the law into their own hands” or “becoming a lynch mob” or anything like that, because when the law breaks down and does not fulfill any of its duties to society, ordinary people are going to seek their own vengeance.

What’s more, I will refuse to condemn their actions, because as far as I’m concerned, these legal charlatans deserve their fate, all of it.  It’s not even a question of saying, “Well, I deplore their actions but I sympathize with their feelings.”

I’m going to applaud their actions, because at the end, what alternatives did they have?

I just feel sorry for the people who are going to be driven to exact the vengeance that the law failed or refused to provide, because they are going to be fully punished, you betcha.

This dam is going to burst, and it’s going to happen sooner than anyone thinks.