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More Busybodies

Health, Nannies

Oh NOES we’re not going to meet our gooooooooooaaaaaaaallll!

Not a single country is on course to meet targets to reverse spiralling obesity rates by 2025, a damning report has revealed.
Countries are ‘worryingly off-track’ to meet World Health Organization targets agreed to by member states, according to the World Obesity Federation (WOF).
Research suggests there is a less than a 10 per cent chance the world will meet targets within five years, while the UK and US have zero chance.
Around 200 countries had pledged to significantly cut their obesity levels by making sure levels didn’t rise any more from 2010.

Wait just a fucking minute.  “World Obesity Federation”?  When the hell did this quango come into being, how  is it funded, and how much do its members get paid?

I am so sick of self-important fuckwits telling me how to live my life:  what to eat and drink, how to spend my money, when I can do this or that, what cars should look like, how much water toilets may use when flushed, where I can and can’t shoot my guns, what light bulbs I can and can’t use, et cetera, et cetera, et  fucking cetera.

The world is getting fatter because people are no longer two meals away from starvation (which was the case for pretty much most of human existence until about 1970), and our metabolisms haven’t adjusted — because this stuff takes a lot longer than a few years, and it does not respond to scolding, shaming and guilt-making.

“Oh but that’s unhealthy and if you don’t do what we tell you, you’re gonna diiieeee!” comes the perpetual whine of Busybodies International (the parent company of the World Obesity Federation, also of the Federal Highway Administration, the Food & Drug Administration, et al.)

Well, to use a Texas expression:  fuck all y’all.

It’s a little early to have another pint of gin, but it’s never too early for one of of these:

Back in a bit.

Waffen Durch Plastik

Modernism, The Gun Thing, Traditions

Yeah, I’ve noticed this alarming development too:

Taking a look at some of the most popular firearms companies, I was honestly a bit shocked to see how the synthetic/polymer/laminate wood stocks have come to dominate the market. The vast majority of Ruger, Remington and Savage rifles and shotguns are stocked in something other than walnut. The Winchester Model 70 maintains a walnut stock advantage, as does the lineup of Winchester lever-action rifles, but synthetic-stocked lever-actions are popping up regularly these days; Marlin and Henry being two examples which come quickly to mind.

This bullshit is something I’ve bemoaned ever since I was first able to hold a gun.  Here’s why:

A well-sealed walnut stock will actually stand up well to most hunting situations, though they aren’t as rigid or easy to produce as a synthetic stock. While the mass-produced stocks are created by machinery, the higher-end walnut stocks are finished by hand. Custom stocks are a work of art, and to watch a classically trained stockmaker hand-carve a stock is like watching Michelangelo work. Names like Ralf Martini, Todd Ramirez, D’Arcy Echols, Mark Renmant and JJ Perodeau, just to name a few, can make the stock of your dreams. And I firmly believe that, like a fine watch, everyone should own at least one gun with a stock they are truly proud of.

That’s part of it, but not all of it.  I love the feel of a wooden stock in my hands, a feeling that is entirely absent when I hold a piece of fucking plastic.  Wood is warm, it feels natural and somehow seems to form a bond between gun and man in a way that some synthetic material just… doesn’t.

And I don’t buy this “wood warps and pushes the barrel out of register” bullshit.  I’ve shot rifles in some pretty damn extreme conditions (African heat and Wisconsin cold, not to mention Scotland windy and wet) and I have never experienced that, in any rifle.  I suppose it could  happen, if the stock is too tight against the metal (which it shouldn’t be to begin with);  I’ve just never noticed it.

Frankly, I think the clue to this nonsense lies in here:

Those [wood] stocks—even the blanks from which they are made—are not cheap. The custom walnut stock is extremely labor-intensive, and the highly figured walnut, which was much more common a century ago, has become a rarity. Many of the hardwood stocks in use today are rather plain looking, and the figured stocks come at a premium, for certain.

Much easier, cheaper and more “efficient” (fuck, I’m starting to hate that word) just to pour some polymer crap into a mold and screw the rifle action in, ten seconds’ work and all done.

Bah.

I have only two rifles with Tupperware stocks — my Marlin 880SQ and 882SSV rimfire rifles — simply because Marlin doesn’t offer those two models with wood stocks, and it’s a long-term project of mine to replace the soulless black plastic with wood, one day, even though the stocks will probably end up costing me more than the original rifles themselves.

Compare the above with the rifle below, and tell me I’m wrong.

Let’s not even GO here:

(I note, by the way, that fine shotguns seldom come with PoliGrip stocks, so that’s all I need to say about that.)

I know:  yelling about this is like moaning about the wind-tunnel shape of modern cars — it’s pointless, and as a trend, plastic stocks are no doubt here forever.

But I’ll tell you this (and it’s a promise):  the day that new rifles are ONLY offered with plastic stocks is the day I stop buying new rifles altogether.

Overriding The Vote

Elections, Marxists

Ordinarily, I have the same degree of interest in Democrat Party election processes as I do in, say, fungal growth [there are some similarities].  But if I read this right, it seems that the “candidates” can go to all the trouble and expense of running campaigns in the primaries, arrive at the convention center with all the state delegates they’ve acquired through their wins at the polls… and then get told to fuck off because the Democrats have something called “super delegates” who are not elected, but who appear to function as some kind of overriding process so that if the Democrat voters elect a fucking nutcase (like, say, Bernie Commie Bastard Sanders), these super-delegates can just put their collective thumb on the scales and elect someone else.

Did I get this right?

Wow… small wonder, then, that Hillary Bitch Clinton (who benefited from just this process in 2016) has essentially told Breadline Bernie that he is never going to get the nomination, despite the number of electoral delegates he might bring to the convention (again).

And this is the same party who wants to impose this bullshit on national elections.

All I can hope is that the Socialist convention in Milwaukee ends up as a furious melee between the Bernie fanatics and the “regular” [snort]  delegates.  Fistfights, tear gas, cops wading in with nightsticks — Chicago 1968 all over again — which might actually make me watch the thing.

My only problem is that I tend to clean my guns while I watch Democrats on TV, and gun oil doesn’t taste good with popcorn.

Conflicted

Business, Health

I read this news piece

Airlines Face Loss of Up to $30 Billion in Revenues in Wake of Coronavirus

….and I find myself torn between two emotions:

and

In the first place, I hate all airlines without regard to race, class, religion, nationality or gender.  [25,000 reasons omitted for brevity]

Secondly (according to the article), most of the losses are supposed to befall the Chinese airlines, but considering that they’re owned engines, wings and tails by the loathsome Commie Chinese government, who cares?

Of course, people are going to think that this disruption will mean lower fares and/or less-crowded flights for the rest of us… [pause for scornful laughter] …but the airlines will simply cancel most of their flights, cram the remaining planes to the brim and then (you heard it here first) raise their fares to make up for lost revenue.  You see, international  travel may feel an impact, especially for those fools who inexplicably visit China all the time, but most U.S. airlines get the bulk of their revenue from domestic flights (i.e. corporate passengers who are largely immune to fare increases anyway).  (And you can ignore bullshit articles like this one — I tested the claims, and couldn’t find ONE.)

I know that in a Black Swan scenario, the people most likely to be hurt are people like myself, but at the same time there’s something awfully appealing about watching corporations getting shafted by random events, kinda like what they do to us on a daily basis…

Great Moments In Bad Timing

Bad News, Business, Health, Marketing / Advertising

Given how the Corona virus thing has completely knocked the pleasure-cruise industry off the shelf, one would think that this is a bad time to launch a new one, yes?

Step forward Sir Richard of Branson:

On the bright side, every dollar this Left tool drops into nonsense like this is one less dollar for the dozens of Lefty causes his company supports.

Even before the emergence of passenger liners as floating pox-palaces, you wouldn’t have got me on one of them at gunpoint.  Now… uh huh.  Hot needles, meet scrotum.