Author: Kim du Toit

Oz Reich (2)

Behind Enemy Lines

Following on from yesterday’s post about Festung  Australia comes a report from an Oz resident:

[Victoria Premier] Andrews has vastly increased state power under a “state of emergency” that was promised to run for four weeks. It’s now been in place for over a year, with no end in sight. The only sunset clause in Victoria is that the premier has declared it out-of-bounds to sit on the beach to watch the sunset.
Police in Victoria may now detain any person or group for as long as “reasonably necessary,” restrict the movement of any person in the state, close any premises, and “require the destruction or disposal of anything.” Police can enter homes and seize property without a warrant.
Police and army patrol the Murray River—the border between Victoria and New South Wales—like Stasi watching over the Berlin Wall. Drones buzz in the Melbourne skies, and snitches diligently scan social media for WrongThink.

Horrifying.

You know, the reason I’m banging on about this is simple.  Were this kind of stuff taking place in some Third World hellhole, former Soviet satellite state or Muslim pisspot, I’d be largely unmoved, because tyrannical oppression is a longstanding albeit ugly tradition.

But this bullying is taking place in the Anglosphere, to one of our longest-standing allied people and in a country I’ve always respected (although it may not seem that way at times).

And the pity of it is that I don’t see it ending soon, and don’t see it being changed nor even challenged at the polls either.  It’s pretty fucking bleak, Down Under.

Oz Reich (1)

Gummint, Mocking Furriners

Oh boy:

Intrastate travel within Australia is also severely restricted. And the government of South Australia, one of the country’s six states, developed and is now testing an app as Orwellian as any in the free world to enforce its quarantine rules. People in South Australia will be forced to download an app that combines facial recognition and geolocation. The state will text them at random times, and thereafter they will have 15 minutes to take a picture of their face in the location where they are supposed to be. Should they fail, the local police department will be sent to follow up in person. “We don’t tell them how often or when, on a random basis they have to reply within 15 minutes,” Premier Steven Marshall explained. “I think every South Australian should feel pretty proud that we are the national pilot for the home-based quarantine app.”

Holy shit.  Frankly, the best response to something this awful is gunfire I mean mass disobedience.  (Gunfire, of course, is not an option because the OzGov has all but disarmed their entire population already.)

Everyone could just refuse to follow instructions to download the app.  But what if that was no longer an option because the app would be automatically downloaded when, say, they used Google (and don’t for a moment think that Gurgle wouldn’t cooperate in this)?  But if everyone just refused to stay at home, how soon before the “local police forces” ran out of steam and just stopped chasing after these doubleplusungood citizens?

Wouldn’t ever happen, of course, because it appears that Australians long ago decided to lick the chains that enslave them.

Quote Of The Day

QOTD, Two-Minute Hate

This follows on from the post above.

In responding to a question about whether he had gone too far with respect to imposing a curfew (avoiding the question of why a curfew was needed when no other state had one), Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews replied: ‘It is not about human rights. It is about human life.’

Just a quick question, O Fascist Motherfucker:  What kind of human life exists without rights?

Oh yeah, silly me:  it’s called “slavery”, and Australian government is forcing its citizens in that direction at a rate of knots.

Monday Funnies

Funny Stuff

So let’s walk that weekly tightrope:

Baby Kim:


(that’s only a minor exaggeration;  .30-30 has gone AWOL)

 

And here’s some elderly ginger named Patsy Palmer, who’s a star on some obscure Brit TV show or other (no, I’ve never watched it either):

 

Freckled boooobs.

As Long As You Look Mahvelous…

Drive Time

Some time back, I was watching some EewwChoob thing about cars that looked good but were absolute rubbish, either to drive or because they were completely unreliable.  I can’t find the video, of course, because Internet Confusion, but here’s a short list of cars that I wish had been made properly — i.e. with today’s machining, fit and electricals — so that one could drive them for a long distance or time without having to have a mechanic/towing service on speed dial, and drive them without impaling yourself on a tree at the very first kink in the road. I’ve left off the Usual Suspects (e.g. the E-type, Ferrari 246 and various Astons, because I’ve looked at them often enough).  Also, because they’re mostly tourers, to be driven for long distances in comfort, I’ve set aside my normal disdain for cabrios and soft-tops.

They’re not in any specific order, pretty much just as they came to me.

Triumph Stag
One of the best-looking touring cars ever made, the Stag was uniformly horrible, not the least because of Both Mr. Free Market and Drummer Knob had a Stag;  as I recall, Knob exchanged his for a Mini-Cooper (!), while Mr. Free Market’s memorable quote was:

“Dear boy, that Stag used so much oil that every time I put my foot down, I shifted BP’s share price two points.”

But…

As Jeremy Clarkson says, it still looks good, even today.  With the Rover (a.k.a. Buick) 3.6-liter engine, it might have been a world-beater except for the fact that it would rust faster than a Lancia.

Jensen Interceptor
One of the best names ever for a car.  The 1972 Jensen MkII is my favorite, with the Chrysler 7.2-liter (443 cubic inch) V8.  Built properly, with today’s machining, finishing and wiring, I’d take one in a heartbeat.

Getting the cabrio would leave off that PITA big rear window, but in either guise the Interceptor just looks fantastic.

Maserati 350 Vignale (1964)
I think Maserati has always made superior tourers (as opposed to sports cars), and this one is no exception.

Alas, like all Italian cars of that era, they suffered from and Terminal Rust Condition, but if you could address those two problems as above, the idea of setting off across Europe or the U.S. behind that wonderful 3.5-liter straight six… oh, man.

Sunbeam Alpine MkI Drophead (1953)
Why would I want to drive this oldster with its silly 2.3-liter 95hp four-banger engine?  Because it’s the car in which Cary Grant seduced Grace Kelly in To Catch A Thief, is why.  Also:

Actually, being underpowered was the least of the Alpine’s problems.  It suffered from post-war to such a degree that no two were ever wired the same way, and in some cases they used metals other than copper (Britain still suffering from post-WWII shortages of copper even though other nations e.g. Italy and Germany weren’t), with MTBF* often measured in hours.  The steering was totally shit, and the suspension was given to breaking when going over so much as a driveway entrance.

The saloon version won several rally races, but that was because they were modified beyond recognition.

But the drophead looks mahvelous, hence its inclusion in this post.

Which old cars would you like to see, resto-modded / remanufactured?  (Limit three per comment.)

*Mean Time Between Failures