Tag: Foreigners

And You Thought We Were Exaggerating

Food & Drink, Freaks & Loonies, Funny Stuff

Here’s a Vegan-Goes Crazy story from… Italy?

A 48-year-old Italian vegan has been ordered to pay her mother compensation after threatening to kill her for making traditional Bolognese meat sauce.
The smell of one of Italy’s most cherished dishes — ragù — was enough to set off a domestic disturbance that ended with the mother being threatened with a kitchen knife, a court heard.
Newly unemployed, the daughter had recently moved back in with her mother, who cooked in the typical tradition of rezdore, as housewives are called in the local Emilia Romagna dialect.
One of the signature dishes of every rezdore is Bolognese meat sauce, slow simmered for hours using a variety of meats including diced prosciutto cured ham, ground beef and sometimes chicken livers, then served over pasta or polenta.
Lawyers for the mother, who asked not to be named, said the family dynamic had degenerated due to irreconcilable conflicts over the mother and daughter’s different food cultures — the former heavy in butter, cream and meat, the latter exempt of all animal products.
The daughter told a court she’d long had “no sensory nor olfactory contact” with animal products before moving back in with her mother, for whom the rich, red meat sauce was standard fare.
Lawyers said there had been an escalation of aggressive episodes – always over food — before the threat that triggered the complaint.
Exasperated by the smell of meat sauce simmering for hours in the small apartment they shared, the daughter grabbed a knife and threatened to take matters into her own hands.
“If you won’t stop on your own then I’ll make you stop. Quit making ragù, or I’ll stab you in the stomach,” she said, according to the mum’s civil complaint.
Justice of Peace Nadia Trifilò sentenced the woman to pay a €400 court fine and ordered €500 be paid in compensation to her 69-year-old mother.
The case, argued in the Modena tribunal and reported by the local Gazzetta di Modena newspaper, stems from an argument that escalated out of control in March, 2016.
After failing to reach a peaceful mediation of the dispute over the last two years, the judge closed the case ruling in favour of the mother, ordering fines.

And this happened originally in 2016?  It’s just like Bill Sitwell and I said:  they’re getting out of control.

By the way, am I the only one who started to salivate at the description of that Bolognese sauce?

Not As Painted

Crime, Immigration, Politics

It’s often said about the .dotmil that while amateurs study tactics, professionals study logistics.

And considering that the “caravan” of mopes moving through Mexico to El Norte The Promised Land has often been termed an invasion (which it is), let me point out that over at Sarah’s place, Bill Reader has been studying the logistics of said caravan.  Not to be a spoiler or anything, but the conclusion is simple:  they ain’t walking.  Bill’s details will supply you with ample ammunition — another military allusion — for any conversations you may have with scumbags of the no-border persuasion (provided you’re actually conversing with them and not kicking their asses, that is).

Example:

The caravan started in San Pedro Sula, Honduras. Sources vary slightly on the exact day they set off, with Fox and USA Today saying the 12th, and Daily Mail saying the 13th. By October 23rd, according to USA Today, they were interviewing people passing through Huixtla, Mexico. We also know that the caravan didn’t take the very shortest route per GoogleMaps, because some of the places noted in the NBC photo-essay—Quezaltepeque, Guatamala, and Chiquimula, Guatemala—are on a slightly more southern route. All told the distance traveled in 12 days—and that’s being generous, counting from the 12th, counting the full day of both the 12th and the 23rd as travel days, and ignoring that the caravan seems to have stalled out for almost a full day when it hit the border starting on the 18th— was 471 miles. That’s a pace of nearly 40 miles a day.

And as Bill points out later, elite units of the .dotmil (SEALs, Rangers etc,) can only do 50 miles a day on tarred roads in perfect weather conditions.  Civilians with families?  Feel free to draw your own conclusions.

But here’s his best bit, in my opinion:

“But in recent days, officials from Mexico’s immigrant protection agency have organized rides for straggling women and children as a humanitarian effort. And police have routinely stood by as migrants piled aboard freight trucks.”

To which I will add only two other comments—while the story given here sounds plausible, isn’t it convenient that the women and children, depending on how far they get rides, could also be the first to arrive at the border, to be confronted by several Army divisions? I’m not alone in thinking this is the long game of this caravan. Sarah and I have talked at some length about this, and if it follows the history of communist organized protests everywhere (stay tuned!), we can expect a pregnant woman to be shot.  We’re calling her Maria De La Cruz, at present, as a convenient placeholder name until she presents herself.

Yup.  We’re already being shown pictures of wailing infants in the caravan, to start the knee-jerk charitable reaction of Americans when confronted with same.  I’m not taking bets on Some Pore Refugee Woman / Child getting shot or beaten — it’s a sucker bet.

This is also the same policy with Palestinians:  when it comes to conflict with an army, it’s women and children first.  “Human shields”, in other words, while the organizers sit in air-conditioned offices far away from the strife (e.g. Chicago — read Bill’s post for an explanation).

The best part, however, is that Maria De La Cruz probably won’t make it to the U.S. border before the mid-term elections on Tuesday — not unless she’s got a Ferrari to carry her the rest of the way.

Don’t bet against that, either.

Now, as for who is behind this caravan business, read Bill’s second article on the topic. (Spoiler:  Commie ratbastards.)

Lies, More Lies And The Guardian

Lies and Untruths, Politics

So the Grauniad discovers that rich people fund political issues.  (Quick:  Alert The Media!  Oh, wait…)

Of course, being the Lefty bastards that they are, the Grauniad deplores that fact that most billionaires are in fact quite conservative — e.g. rich people don’t want their heirs to pay estate taxes;  quelle surprise!  Where the liberal rag indulges in its usual mendacity is that it classifies opposition to measures like the estate tax as “unpopular” — which is true if you’re a socialist like they all are, but in fact the estate tax is enormously unpopular in the United States, as poll after poll will tell you (if you do the research, which the Grauniad didn’t).

In fact, the estate tax is unpopular even amongst Americans who will likely never have to pay the tax themselves, which no doubt horrifies the Left because a.) those stupid peasants haven’t swallowed all the Left’s lies about the Eeeevil Rich and b.) said peasants think that the estate tax is wrong in that it’s simply coercive wealth redistribution.

Maybe the estate tax is generally popular in Britain — I wouldn’t be surprised — but all the numbers they quote come from the United States, so that’s the usual Lefty misrepresenting of data to reflect their dogma rather than actual, you know, reality.  There’s only one solution to these socialist bastards and their lying:

Resi

Business

That’s the in-house slang used by real estate agents (realtors) to describe residential real estate (as opposed to commercial).  So we have this, from Britishland:

Centre Point joins growing list of empty luxury skyscrapers as developer gives up trying to sell apartments for up to £55m each after receiving too many ‘detached from reality’ low offers

I would suggest that someone trying to sell a simple apartment for £55 million is the one who’s detached from reality, but then again I’m no market expert.  Even Mr. Free Market, who is, has expressed disbelief at some of the prices being asked for places that are, in a word, overpriced even for one of the most expensive cities in the world.

Judging from some of the pictures of said places, they could best be described as “not memorable”.

(Me, I’d call them pig-ugly but that’s because I detest modern architecture and decoration.)

Not Your Money

Gummint, Politics

Upset that multinational corporations use such things as legal tax havens and the law to minimize their tax burden, the Germans want to impose some sort of “international” tax on technology companies like Google and Amazon.

“We need a minumum tax rate valid globally which no state can get out of (applying),” Scholz, a social democrat in conservative Chancellor Angela Merkel’s coalition government, told the “Welt am Sonntag” weekly.
Europe is trying to devise a strategy to tax profits from the likes of Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple and digital platforms such as YouTube and Airbnb which currently manage to keep fiscal exposure to a bare minimum.
Digital platforms “aggravate a problem which we know well from globalisation and which we are trying to counter — the shifting of profits to fiscally beneficial regions,” said Scholz.

Of course they do.  In the minds of statists and the governments they support, the State owns all capital and corporations and individuals have no right to avoid (note: not evade) paying the taxes said governments feel they are owed.

Shareholders of said corporations, however, insist on the companies’ avoidance of paying unnecessary taxes.

Mind you, I’m anything but a fan of Big Tech myself, the poxy monopolists;  but given the option between Big Tech and Big Government… no prizes for guessing my choice here.  To paraphrase Trey Parker (of South Park fame):  I hate Big Tech; but I really hate Big Government, and the foul neo-socialist European governments most of all.

Transplants

Immigration, Politics

Here in the Plano area (and in Dallas generally), we’re seeing a ton of companies and their employees moving here from all over, but especially from the West Coast.  Needless to say, this influx of people from Cuidad California has created some mixed emotions here, as it has in many other states but most especially in those bordering the Golden [shower] State.  A billboard on TX 121 (which connects DFW Airport to the Plano/Frisco/McKinney area) reads:

Welcome to Texas!
Just don’t vote for all the things you fled.

And I recall seeing this bumper sticker on several cars out in the border states:

We Don’t CARE how you did things in California

This sentiment can be seen in this article, where Californian registration plates earn their owners the bird from locals in Idaho.

Here’s the thing.  If you’re a conservative moving out of California — a real conservative and not a “California conservative” like, say, Arnold Schwarzenegger — you’ll be welcomed almost everywhere you go.  If, however, you move to conservative north Texas (Trump 65%+ in 2016) and start talking shit about gun control and eco-bullshit, you’re gonna get flattened, and justifiably so,  Leave all that nonsense behind.  (I illustrate the point by how Californians would feel if a large bunch of South Africans had emigrated to San Francisco and immediately started voting for apartheid laws targeting Asians and Blacks.  And for people who think that’s a ridiculous analogy, lemme tell y’all right quick, if you’ll forgive the colloquial expression, that people round here take the Second Amendment just that seriously.)

Of course, politics is not the only issue that motivates our xenophobia of Californians.  Another is what happens when a Californian sells their piece-of-shit bungalow for millions, and drives up the real estate prices in their new location simply because real estate outside California is, relatively speaking, far cheaper than their overpriced postage-stamp-property in Sherman Oaks or Cupertino.  Here’s the map:

As locals find their home towns less and less affordable because arriving Californians (and East Coasters, to a lesser degree) have driven up the cost of real estate, it’s only natural to resent the newcomers.  (We in north Texas haven’t had that problem to the same degree because this part of the state has hitherto been underdeveloped, and we have lots of room to expand.  Nevertheless, we’re starting to see the “Californian effect” take place, where people have to move further and further out to find affordable property, which means traffic jams on otherwise-deserted country roads.)

My own experience, when selling the old Plano house a year or so ago, was not that I got a massive price increase on the place.  What I did get was a quick sale — eighteen hours after its listing, the house sold for the full asking price with no significant conditions attached.  And no, I didn’t leave money on the table;  all the “comps” (comparable properties) in the area were listed for about the same amount, and that price was nowhere close to nosebleed levels (for north Texas;  for Californians, it was a steal).

To be frank, I’m far more concerned about the political shit that Californians bring with them.  We Texans are the most hospitable and friendly folks around — but we will get cranky if you start voting for politicians like Skateboard Jesus* who want to advocate more regulations, wealth redistribution, statism and gun control.  Then watch us get ornery.

*Senatorial Democrat candidate Beto O’Rourke — and many thanks to the incomparable Iowahawk for the nickname:  it’s beyond brilliant.