Added Snoopery

Reader Mike L. points me at this latest example of Panopticalism:

Baystate Health is introducing new artificial intelligence-based weapons detection systems across its hospital facilities to enhance patient and visitor safety.

The technology combines traditional hardware with AI tools to screen people as they enter the building. By detecting specific metal masses and weapon-like shapes, the system allows daily items such as pacemakers, wheelchairs, phones and wallets to pass through without setting off alarms.

The system utilizes technology similar to what is used at schools and sporting events to detect prohibited items, including firearms, knives and electronic smoking devices. To accommodate the system at Baystate Medical Center, the hospital is closing its pediatric emergency department entrance to establish a single entry point where everyone passes through the detector.

Forget it, Jake.  It’s Massachusetts.  (Motto:  Where your pets have more rights than YOU do.)

That said, BOLO for similar fuckery in your state or city — and not just in hospitals either, because if the tech exists today, expect it to spread like the bubonic plague by tomorrow.  It’s like the loathsome Flock cameras, only with added bastardy.

Just One Leetle Difference

Here we have James May hammering on about the joys of driving a Beach Buggy, and I agree with everything he says.

However, I have one small difference of opinion with him, and it’s about that “no protection from the rain” thing.  Maybe the Brits are inured to being wet, given that it’s always raining Over There;  but ever since I got caught in a tropical downpour whilst riding in the back of an open Army truck, I’ve hated it.  (I don’t mind a gentle drizzle falling on me, by the way, as long as I’m wearing a waterproof hat and raincoat — but trapped in an open car?  Nope.  Pure misery.)

So my alternative would be, lessee:  something in fiberglass, wrapped around a VW engine (just like the Beach Buggy)… but with at least a token amount of protection against the wet stuff.  Something like this (no it’s not a real 356, but a  deepfake  replica):

…and with its hat on:

I know it looks faintly ridiculous, like some old fart with his cap pulled down low over his eyes (yeah I know, I know), and that flimsy canvas thing would not be very good at fending off a Texas-style rainstorm (like that tropical rainstorm I spoke of earlier, only with Added Hail).  But it would keep me dry enough until I got home, or under a freeway overpass or whatever.

Want. Badly.

For all the same reasons James May loves his Buggy.  And just like the Buggy, it has a near-total lack of electronica:

…and trust me, I could do without the radio.

Certainty

There’s not much certainty about life nowadays, but there is one thing that is:  when Bill Clinton opens his mouth to speak, what will come out is either a lie, an obfuscation, exaggeration or misdirection.

Hence this:

Hours before the 9/11 terrorist attacks, former President Bill Clinton told an audience in Australia about his missed chance to kill attack mastermind Osama bin Laden, according to audio released this week.

Clinton was speaking at a business meeting in Melbourne when the topic turned to terrorism.

“I’m just saying, you know, if I were Osama bin Laden … He’s a very smart guy. I spent a lot of time thinking about him. And I nearly got him once,” Clinton said in the audio, which was recorded by former Liberal Party head Michael Kroger and aired by Sky News.

“I nearly got him. And I could have killed him, but I would have had to destroy a little town called Kandahar in Afghanistan and kill 300 innocent women and children, and then I would have been no better than him.

“And so I didn’t do it.”

I leave it to you to decide which of the above four characterizations apply.

Incidentally, what happened to that TV show that (I think) ABC aired about this very topic?  Shown once, never been seen since.

I wonder why that is?

I guess we’ll never know.

Comeback

I have to say that I’m starting to get more and more impressed by young Sydney Sweeney as time goes on — and not just for the usual reasons.

First it was that wonderful jeans commercial, and her total unconcern about the critical response.  Next was the followup, which also met with disapproval, and her “don’t give a damn” response.

Then came that infamous interview with some feministical harpy, which gave birth to hundreds if not thousands of memes.

Now she’s posed stark naked (well, not actually) for some sports betting commercial or other, and when the usual harpies started wailing about how she was demeaning wimmens’ sports by appearing naked, she simply responded by posting pics of several sportswomen’s naked pics from their own ad campaigns.

Gotta love the gal.


Yeah, no Sydney pics, only links.  Blame the lawyers.

Bribe Not Needed

So The Donald wants to give us $5,000 after the November midterm elections:

“If the Republicans win the House of Representatives and the United States Senate, both of them, because of our… tremendous economic success, like in history we’ve never had anything like what’s happening, but because of our tremendous strength and success economically, I will issue a dividend to every adult citizen in the United States of America for $5,000,” Trump said on night one of the convention, comparing the move to “a successful company” that does a “cash distribution to its shareholders.”

I know what I’d do if I were a shareholder in a company drowning in debt and unfulfilled obligations and the CEO stated that he wanted to pay a cash dividend because of a recent short-term upturn in sales.  I’d tell him to do something better with the company’s money, like retire some of the debt the company has been incurring under his stewardship — firstly, from 2015 to 2019, and likewise from 2025 until today.

Failing that I have a question:  how, exactly, is he going to fund this so-called “dividend”?

Look, it’s all very well to dress up this little bit of voter bribery in corporate-speak, but the fact remains that it’s essentially a political action, and therefore it’s going to be paid by the Treasury.

Memo to the President:  what you really need to do, Mr. President, if you want to offer us a bribe, is not offer us cash — cash which, by the way, we’ll have to pay taxes on — but instead promise us to pass a permanent cut in the tax rates (all brackets) after the mid-terms.  Drop the top rate (37%) to 25%, and by similar percentages all the way down the line.  (The DSA Communists want to increase our taxes; make the Republican point of difference to lower taxes.  See which one works better come election time.)

If you thought the economy was doing well before, see what happens after that.

And when the tax revenues increase hugely as a result — and they will, of course —  use that growth in income to pay down the debt, buy back T-bills from foreign investors (like China), or use at least some of it to fund the terminations of federal employees.  (I know you’ve been doing okay so far in terms of the latter activity, but you need to do better.  Try to get the non-Defense federal workforce to fall to the equivalent levels of, say, the Coolidge Administration.)

On that topic, feel free to get rid of the busybody government departments — you know, the ones that have crippled industry and innovation by adding more and more federal regulations.  (And on that topic:  FFS, why are the Dept of Education and ATF still in existence?)

Anyway, to return to the main point:

Don’t give us a cheap “dividend” that is only valuable until it’s spent;  give us lasting relief through lower taxes.

We’ve been doing our bit to help you by eliminating ur-Democrats and RINOs like that Cornyn weasel in the Republican primaries.  When Ken Paxton gets to D.C., he’s going to be on your side, I promise you.  He’s not the best we Texans might have done, by the way, but he sure as hell is going to be a better MAGA Senator than Cornyn.  And he sure as hell will be a “yes” vote on lower tax rates when that legislation come up for a vote in the Senate.

We’ll do our best in November to get you the Congressmen and Senators that you’ll need in 2027 and onwards;  do your best to lower taxes and get government off our backs.

That would be a real dividend for us.

Things I’m Going To Miss

….following my decision to stop posting tottypics:

Kelly Brook

And her feelings about herself:

“I love my facials, massage, I have a little Botox because I frown a lot. I do do things, but when it comes to my body, I’m really precious about my body.

“I love my body, I absolutely love my body. I did a marathon this year.

“My body has got me through so many things, and I just love my curves, my husband loves my curves.

“I just think it’s unfortunate that women feel the need to change who they are.”

(This may become an ongoing feature…)