Category: Behind Enemy Lines

Speed Bump

Behind Enemy Lines, Travels

I saw an article about how expensive car rental has become in Yurp, but in fact it seems to have become more expensive in Britishland.

A cursory look showed me that a 7-day rental in Vienna would run about $450 (base cost before add-ons), whereas at Heathrow the same car would cost $800.  Seriously?

Unlike a lot of people, I have no problem with driving in Europe or the U.K., so a rental car is always preferable to waiting for trains or buses.  (Not in the cities, of course, but around the country to small towns and villages.)  Even Britain’s perennial parking problems don’t really worry me, and I really prefer the freedom of the open road.

When I stayed at Free Market Towers back in 2017, I rented a car which, if memory serves, cost me about $320 per week, fully loaded (insurance etc.) and I fondly imagined that the next time I get Over There, I’d be able to afford the same.

Fat chance, at those prices.

And train travel has become prohibitive too, not just in Britishland but also in Yurp;  but I’m not interested in just staying in cities (ironically, other than maybe Vienna).

So here I sit:  proper fucked, as the Brits say.

Stop It, You’re Killing Me

Behind Enemy Lines, Crime

…and if you live in upscale areas in Los Angeles, that might be “literally“:

Crime has risen dramatically in Los Angeles, as well as in many other major cities, since the start of the pandemic and last summer’s protests against police violence resulted in the slashing of many law enforcement budgets. News stories document rising fear across LA and crime has become the major issue in both the upcoming mayor’s election and a possible recall of the district attorney. It may not be surprising that issues of race and class are driving this concern, though they have a new twist.

Wealthy and predominantly white neighborhoods have experienced the sharpest upticks in a wide array of crimes.

It shows that the richer and whiter the area, the greater the increase in both raw crime totals and percentages of total city crime. This includes a wide range of felonies, from robbery, burglary, shoplifting and car theft to aggravated assault and rape.

California voters have moved the needle on crime in recent years. Proposition 47 decriminalized a number of theft and drug charges, making them misdemeanors, as it did several “non-violent” felonies. Voters also approved Proposition 57, which allows for early release of non-violent offenders.

Imagine that:  you vote to decriminalize all sorts of crime, and those types of crime increase and the goblins goes to where da money izz (/Willie Sutton).  Read the article for the breakdowns.

Who could have seen that coming?

Well, nobody except the 70-odd million people who voted for Trump last time around.

And stop giggling like little girls, you lot;  it’s unbecoming.

Turning Brownouts Into Blackouts

Behind Enemy Lines, Marxists

In the latest insanity emanating from California, we see this:

The California Air Resources Board (CARB) passed a regulation aimed at “Small Off-Road Engines” on Thursday that will ban the sale of portable generators in the state — which includes generators mounted in recreational vehicles.
The ruling bans the sale of gas-powered leaf blowers and lawnmowers in the state beginning in 2024. Portable generators will be required to meet more stringent standards in 2024 and meet zero-emission standards starting in 2028.
In the 2024 model year, portable generators will have to improve their efficiency by somewhere between 40% and 90%, which seems unrealistic in such a short period of time, so the reality is, it will be very hard to find a generator in Cailfornia in two years.

The song will be rewritten to show that the lights all went out not in Massachusetts, but California.

Morons, fools, imbeciles.

N.B.:  Insty wants to open up a portable jennie store in Nevada, just over the CA border.  Won’t work:  California will be stationing some Stasi state agents in the parking lot to report the car numbers back to the Fuehrer HQ , and woe betide the CA plates caught “smuggling” generators back into the Dark State.)

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.

There Today, Here Tomorrow

Behind Enemy Lines, Watermelons

Writing from behind enemy lines, Longtime Reader MartinK sends me this message:

This will give you an idea about today’s fuel prices in Germany; translated into $/gal. for your convenience:
Diesel: $6.30/gal; Unleaded: $7.34/gal.
…
The Green candidate (Annalena Baerbock) for the Federal elections in September 2021 openly speaks about raising these prices by another €0.16/litre (= $0.74/gal.) if she should win the elections.
Please not to worry though because these price levels will come to the USA soon.
After all, our Green Party is nothing but a carbon copy of the US Democrat Party.
Hope I have not spoiled your weekend.

Actually, this is small potatoes compared to our Greens, who want to destroy the oil industry altogether.

And this Kraut Greenie looks pretty much as you’d expect her to look: