A Good Start

Looks like the Izzies have got the bit between their teeth:

The Israeli Air Force (IAF) destroyed the Islamic University of Gaza — dropping bombs on what the Israeli military said was a training hub for engineers who helped carry out terrorist attacks.

The Israel Defense Force (IDF) confirmed the bombing, saying the university served as “an important center of political and military power” for Hamas and a “training institution for the development and production of weapons,” The Times of Israel reported.

Sorta like the West Point of Muslim Terrorism, huh?  One can only hope that there were lots of casualties among both staff and students.

Keep it up, guys.

British Worms Turning

I haven’t been Over There for a while, and it’s probably a Good Thing I haven’t because in addition to London’s “congestion charge” (a.k.a. let’s create an additional tax revenue stream by scalping drivers) there’s now something called the Ultra Low Emissions Zone “ULEZ” (here’s the explanation, I couldn’t be bothered to type it out).

Anyway, it seems that more than a few Londoners have taken exception to this little scheme.  Cameras (both fixed and in mobile units) are used as an enforcement tool, like London doesn’t have enough of those poxy things already — and the fed-up public have decided to take matters into their own hands, to show Hizzoner the Mayor what they think about this nonsense:

For the first time since the anger of the Poll Tax riots during Margaret Thatcher’s time as Prime Minister or the anti-Iraq war demonstrations under Tony Blair, we are witnessing an outpouring of anger against the government. In this case it is anger at the anti-car measures by the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan. Citizens are attacking and disabling the network of cameras in London that monitors all traffic and fine cars that do not meet certain standards.

The attack on the motorist in London goes back to 2003 when the then London Mayor, Ken Livingstone, implemented the Congestion Zone whereby drivers would have to pay to enter. The public were told that this would cut congestion but many felt it was just anyway to extract money from the motorist. Public transport in London is very good but never before has there been a road charge in the UK. The London Congestion zone was, and probably still is, the largest in the world.

The next attack on motorists was the Low Emission Zone (LEZ) which was also introduced by Ken Livingstone in 2008 and was, as the name suggests, a charge/fine based on vehicle emissions. It was expanded a number of times and now covers all of London. This was to target older trucks and large vehicles. Ken Livinstone was a Labour socialist mayor but the next intrusion came from the so-called Conservative mayor of London, Boris Johnson.

In 2014 Boris announced the creation of the Ultra Low Emissions Zone (ULEZ) which was targeted at car drivers. Five years later the ULEZ zone started in central London and older cars entered the zone to pay for the privilege of driving on London roads for that and every day. The cost of driving an older car into central London was now £12.50 for ULEZ and £15 for Congestion Charge. That’s over $30 a day to drive on a public road.

The fightback we are seeing today has been dubbed the ULEZ “Blade Runners.” Hundreds of the ULEZ cameras have been damaged or destroyed across London. Campaigners/vigilantes/angry citizens (take your pick) are cutting wires on the equipment and spraying the lenses with paint. Up to a quarter of all the cameras have been attacked. To combat this fight back, Sadiq Khan has employed an army of CCTV camera vans to drive around and fill these blackspots. But now we are seeing vans parking in front of these vans to block their camera and render them useless.

There is so much frustration against this onslaught in motorists that the legacy media is even running stories on the Blade Runners and interviewing them so their story can get out. This “lawbreaking” seems to be championed by sections of the media which is intriguing and encouraging. The public has been invited to take part in consultations on the introduction of both of these charges but the government was always going to implement them. They claim it is about the environment but it seems to be about something else which the government are always short of. Money!

The congestion charge rakes in £220 million every year. That’s a quarter of a billion dollars every year. A quarter of that (£55 million) is used to administer the zone but the rest is pure profit. A tax on the motorist. The ULEZ expansion is estimated to net Sadiq Khan up to £300m in its first year. That’s half a billion dollars a year.

The attacks on this network are only increasing. Not only are the public against the fines but they are also against this new level of surveillance. Sadiq Khan operates a network of 1,544 Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) cameras. ULEZ will add another 2,700.

Does anyone believe the lie that this is about saving the planet and nothing to do with raising more tax?

LOL.  Keep it up, British people.

Ordinarily, I’d suggest a more drastic solution to the problem, i.e. an ancient and much-used British legal device:

…but no doubt some Brit rozzer would have a problem with that.

Gunfights

I remember listening to some comedy record or other a long time ago, which featured a radio interview (à la Bob Newhart) of a captured Confederate soldier just before Antietam.  When asked his opinion about Union soldiers being armed with the new Winchester repeating rifles, the Reb thought for a moment, and said laconically, in a deep Southron accent:  “Yeah?  Well that’s all well and good for you Yankees… but we know how to aim, boy.”)

I was reminded of that exchange when I read this report (sent to me by several Readers, thankee) concerning this little incident in Seffrica:

Heavily armed attacks on armored cars are so common in South Africa they are known as Cash-in-Transit heists (CIT).

“15 robbers armed with automatic rifles carried out a CIT heist in Hoedspruit, killing the Fidelity driver,“ reports YouTuber Willem Petzer.

According to police spokesman Colonel Matimba Maluleke, the suspects shot at the escort vehicle before disarming the guards (a driver and crew) of their official rifle and pistol. “Unfortunately the two guards were shot at and sustained injuries that resulted in the death of the driver. The suspects then pursued the armoured vehicle while shooting at it until it stopped. The driver of the armoured vehicle and his crew were allegedly ordered to disembark the vehicle, disarmed of two firearms and chased into the nearby bushes. The suspects used explosives to blast the vehicle and made off with an undisclosed amount of money,” Maluleke said.

All was seemingly going according to plan for our Robbin’ Hoods;  however, things went downhill for our choirboys soon thereafter:

“A community crime watch group, Hoedspruit Farmwatch, was alerted to the incident and went in pursuit of the robbers, putting obstacles on the road to prevent their escape. A shootout ensued,” Petzer writes. 

“The volunteers blocked the roads outside of Hoedspruit with boulders after they were alerted of the attack. A skirmish, lasting about 20 minutes, ensued at one of the blockades between the robbers [armed with AK-47s] and the farmers, who were armed with pistols. The farmers managed to kill 4 of the robbers and wound 3. No farmer was hurt. The other suspects fled into nearby bushes after the shootout on foot.”

Apparently, untrained criminals spraying bullets from their rifles are not a match for trained shooters with handguns.  But it gets better:

“The Hoedspruit farmwatch tracked them down using their dogs and arrested the rest of them, recovering all the money from the heist.”

One of the arrested suspects is a highly wanted Mozambican suspect who has been on the run for some time for a spate of crimes he committed in the Free State in 2022 including the murder of a police officer. The injured suspects were found in possession of suspected stolen money, a rifle and a pistol.

For background on the whole “neighborhood watch” thing, read the full report.

So to summarize:

Asshole criminals with AK-47s:  1
Trained Afrikaners with pistols:  4, plus 3 wounded and the rest captured.

I don’t know the full details, but the farmer’s dogs were likely a mixture of Boerboels and Ridgebacks.

Yeah, I’d pretty much give up, too.

We may now begin the

Worse Ways To Go

I have to admit that I’m not only sympathetic, I’m a little envious of the way this guy decided to go out.

Porn was being filmed onboard a retired doctor’s party yacht before cops swooped and arrested him on suspicion of drug and gun charges, according to new police documents. 

Authorities raided his 82-foot-long yacht called the JessConn, named after his two children, on September 5 in Nantucket after a woman on board called a friend for help. The woman told the man, ‘they were doing drugs all weekend long and people on the boat had been making pornographic films’. She added that she wanted to leave the boat before passing out, causing her male friend to contact authorities – telling them that she had overdosed.

The man told the Nantucket Police Department that the boat had ketamine, Adderall, ecstasy and cocaine on board.

Law enforcement sources told the Current that several prostitutes were found on the boat. No charges have been brought on these claims.

Scott Burke, 69, was charged with one count of trafficking a Class B drug, one count of possession to distribute a Class A drug, one count of possession of ammunition without a license and four counts of possession of a large-capacity feeding device.

He pleaded not guilty to the charges and was ‘extremely uncooperative’ when police boarded the yacht and was placed in handcuffs and detained because of his behavior, according to an affidavit.  The married father-of-two claimed that the woman who overdosed had been working for him for a few weeks, and her female friend was staying on the boat.

But here’s the kicker:

Burke was released on a $200,000 bail last week after his lawyer told Plymouth Court that he has terminal stage four cancer — and just months to live.

So if you know you’re going to die soon, and if you have the money, why not go batshit crazy and spend it on one last over-the-top sex orgy?

The charges, by the way, are bullshit.  He’s a doctor, so presumably he has the Rx prescription for all those drugs, and the “unlicensed ammo” charge is idiotic — but it’s Massachusetts, so anything’s possible.

And by the way:  I want to know what a “large-capacity feeding device” is, and why possession thereof is illegal.

Now that he’s out on bail, Burke might just off himself with an OD of drugs they didn’t find, rather than letting the cancer take him.  Under the same circumstances, who wouldn’t do the same?

Up Yours, Governor (Part 2)

Adding to the fun and games response to NewMexGov Grisham’s “I’m banning gun carrying because it’s a health issue” initiative comes this most excellent news:

There are now six lawsuits (and counting) challenging New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham’s public health order suspending Second Amendment carry rights in the Bernalillo County and the city of Albuquerque. While literally no local authorities are willing to enforce her clearly unconstitutional diktat, Grisham is still claiming that the New Mexico State Police will do her dirty work.

The State Police, however, have remained strangely silent on the matter and no one has been cited for any violations.

This afternoon, however, New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez delivered the latest body-blow to the Governor’s authoritarian tendencies by announcing in a letter to Grisham that his office will not be defending her in court.

So this anti-gun asshole bitch will either have to pay the legal defense costs herself, or get some liberal law firm to do it pro bono — or beg for money from the Soros-type socialist billionaires.

Of course, she could always end this quite easily by killing herself rescinding the stupid order (thereby making the issue moot).

We await developments with bated breath.