Month: May 2023

Farming Or Party?

Crime

Then there’s this little snippet:

About 30 tons — or 60,000 pounds — of ammonium nitrate went missing from a rail car during transit.

Well now:  either a couple of farmers have adopted a DIY attitude towards beating the rising costs of fertilizer, or else someone’s planning a party, Timothy McVeigh-style.

The way I feel about our beloved government right now, I find myself feeling curiously… how can I put this? —  neutral? uncaring? apathetic?

That kinda thing.  Anyway:

The company was shipping the ammonium nitrate in pellet form and believes it may have begun falling out of the rail car at some point during the trip, a Dyno Nobel spokesman told KQED.

“The railcar was sealed when it left the Cheyenne facility, and the seals were still intact when it arrived in Saltdale [Calif.]. The initial assessment is that a leak through the bottom gate on the railcar may have developed in transit,” the spokesperson told the station.

Why, it’s quite the Agatha Christie “locked room” mystery.

And let’s never rule out plain old incompetence, where someone just forgot to lock the delivery spigot underneath the car.

Natural Suckage

Bad News, Nature, Tragedy, Travels

Whenever some natural disaster strikes a place where I’ve been before, there’s always a hint of a personal tragedy for me.  (I don’t think I’m any different from most people, of course, but there it is.)

Such is the case with Ahrweiler in Germany, which lies on the banks of the Ahr River right before it empties into the Rhine at Remagen, and it’s a town that has many happy memories for me.

I remember that when I was there, about a dozen years ago, I thought that I could easily live in Ahrweiler — the town is gorgeous (although come the summer every year it floods, only with tourists), but the scenery everywhere you look is just spectacular.

The Romans thought so too:  the mountainsides are festooned with grapevines dating back to those days, and there’s a large Roman villa outside the town that was only discovered a year or so before I got there.

Some pics I took when I was there:

And the town is shot through with drainage canals and pipes: 

…which didn’t seem to help much.

One would think that Ahrweiler’s proximity to the Rhine outlet would spare the town from flooding — especially as the town itself is ringed by a wall dating back to medieval times or earlier:

…but that didn’t happen this time:

The people of Ahrweiler received no warning of the impending crashing waves.

Leonie from Ahrweiler had the terrifying experience of watching the water destroy the city.  At about 11pm Leonie and her family had gone to bed, but before falling asleep she was disturbed by loud noises outside their home.

The electricity had gone out and it was pitch black. The only way they could see was with candles and flashlights.

She looked outside to notice that there was a lot of water running down the street, but didn’t realise the severity of the situation until the water level started to rise to her doorstep.  She woke up her mother and grandfather and they started to bring food and water upstairs.  However, the nightmare had just begun – a massive wave burst through the front door, obliterating everything in its wake.

I should point out that Ahrweiler lies at the very foot of the Ahr Valley, which starts way up in the Eifel Mountains.  It’s a steep drop from up there to the Rhine Valley below:

I hurt when I think about it.

News Roundup

Bad News

And on the topic of Ford Motor Company:


...this would be like getting upset over pink AR-15s.  If FoMoCo wants to target fegelehs for their F-150s, let them.

And still on the Gayness Chronicles:


...the more I read about the EyetiePM, the larger my crush becomes.

And now for some voting “irregularities”:


...”human”, yes;  “error” — I don’ theenk so, Miguel.

And speaking of criminals:


...but they’re promising to do better in future.


...may as well read about it here, because you damn sure won’t see it on TV or in the New York fucking Times.


...in the old days, a vibrator used to be enough;  now you have to take out its batteries and attach crocodile clips too?


...none of us do, buddy.

From the Heart Of Stone Dept.:


...seems to have been a lot of this going on recently.  Me, I have my own anti-pit bull defense.  No prizes for guessing what it is.


...even back then, I had little interest in seeing her below-average boobs and well-trodden hairy vag.  Now?  Some idiot’s going to pay a quarter-mil… it is, as they say, to laugh.


...didn’t believe it at the time, still less now.  Besides:

...which says it all, really.


...the nice thing about the BritRoyal Family is that they don’t really care what we think about them, and we don’t care about them, period.

And in further INSIGNIFICA:


...dunno who she is either.  But to help you identify her should she get anywhere near you:

And that’s all the news worth spreading.

Let Them Die

Gypsies Tramps & Thieves

You know what I’m getting sick of?  All these Press reports of some new illegal (or even legal) street drug which fucks up the (ab)user horribly.

It started with PCP (a horse tranquilizer), continued with crack cocaine, and now we have the flesh-eating drug (xylazine*) and “monkey dust” (to name but some), all of which have dire consequences for the user — which would be fine by me, except that people who take this shit don’t kill themselves with the first dose, alas, but instead go berserk and screw up other people’s innocent lives, like this prime specimen did.

I’m not interested in seeing newspaper pictures of people in Seattle or San Francisco or Manchester or London lying in the streets, bodies contorted by the effects of this new plague-drug as their systems slip into dementia or decay.

Not fucking interested.  Let them all die, because it’s clear that they want to.  Just throw more and more of their drugs of choice at them, and let them carry on.  No hospital services, no medical care of any kind other than the drugs.

Yeah, it’s Krool & Hartless, and people are going to start wailing and moaning.  But at some point, decent citizens have to say “Enough is enough” and refuse to enable this human waste matter to pollute our streets and neighborhoods.

Let them go.

* Xylazine adds multiple layers of complexity to an already treacherous drug crisis. Xylazine is a depressant. It slows a person’s breathing and heart rate, and lowers their blood pressure. An overdose can put them into a coma-like state, leaving them frozen and vulnerable for hours on the street.
Xylazine has an especially devastating side effect: gruesome wounds that don’t heal. The exact reason for this still isn’t understood, but scientists suspect xylazine could be affecting blood circulation in a way that affects skin repair. That means that for someone using xylazine, something as small as a pimple or a needle puncture could turn into large sores of dying flesh, in some cases eating through to the bone.

Remember:  nobody’s forcing this shit into people’s bodies — they’re doing it all by themselves.  Fuck ’em.

About Face

Marketing / Advertising, The Gun Thing

I see that following their woke cock-up (is there any other kind?) last week (my commentary here), Heckler & Koch have reversed course faster than Clint Eastwood finding out his date is a trannie:

The next day, Heckler & Koch revealed a colossal corporate change of heart. It deleted the tweets and seemed to suggest someone may have been fired.

Didn’t help, judging from the responses:

  • “I’d expect nothing less from the brand that will never compromise.
  • “Finally, a company that understands the toxicity of engaging in identity politics.”
  • “A fully-armed and bikini-clad apology would smooth things.”
  • “Someone got fired!”
  • “No, not good enough. Send me a free gun.”
  • “I’m so sick of the PC crap… Folks have enough to deal with without having to worry about offending some thin-skin’s sensibilities.”
  • “This almost does it. Need an ad with a good-looking woman in a bikini…with guns, and a beer…”
  • “Nope, I’m still upset! I will be requiring a VP9 and an HK45 as reparations before my feelings are unhurt.”

Companies need to keep tighter control on their employees’ social media, methinks — and especially if said employees have access to the corporation’s social media.

Beyond that, HK got reminded of something like a gun-safety lesson: Don’t point your tweet at anything — including your marketshare — that you aren’t willing to destroy.

Yup.

In the meantime, here’s a gun bunny to make us all happy again:

I know, she’s not carrying one of H&K’s overpriced guns, but that just shows her good sense (which is more than they have).