Latest Posts

Neck What?

Grooming

I see that Insty is all over this thing called  “neck gaiters” — and I had to follow the link he posted just to see what the hell he was talking about.

Oh.  What we used to call “neck warmers”, I suppose.  Of course, people of my age have always had neck warmers, only we called them “scarves”.  Here’s your humble host, wearing one of the objects in question:

You will note that the thing is quite long, so that you can wind the thing around your neck multiple times if the weather turns Minneapolis on you, or else loosen it if a winter’s day in Rome turns out warmer than expected (as was the case above).

And the scarf’s advantage over the gaiter is that if your neck starts getting hot, you can simply loosen it to adjust the degree of warmth, whereas the gaiter is kind of a binary thing — it’s either on or off.

Failing that, of course, you can always wear a gilet with a zippable high collar:

…which I seldom zip all the way up because it’s a little tight — kinda like one of them gaiter things — and if I (literally) get too hot under the collar, I have to unzip it, whereupon my neck is exposed the the cold — once again, just like a neck gaiter.

Now that I think of it, the problem may be with the word “gaiter”, which to me has always referred to the things we wore over our army boots in high school:

…so using a footwear word to refer to something one wears around the neck is akin to calling gloves “foot-socks”.

Anyway, I think I’ll stick to my scarves.  I have about half a dozen of them, ranging from thick wool to loosely-woven cotton — and differently-colored withal, to add a touch of color to my otherwise-quite monochromatic outfits.  Plus, I’ve worn them in cold weather for decades, and I’m not one for change.

Not even if Insty likes neck gaiters.

Ditto

Conservatism

Yeah, you can count me among those people who no longer go to the Drudge Report for daily news.

I don’t know when it happened, but I think Matt decided that the role of his website is to be the “loyal opposition” to whoever’s in power.  Obama as POTUS?  Run links to anti-Obama events.  Trump as POTUS?  Ditto.

Or maybe, as a homosexual man, he believed the propaganda that Trump was going to set up gulags for fairies, hence his change of attitude.

That’s fine, I suppose.  Trouble is, I just couldn’t be less interested about another anti-Trump news outlet:  we’ve got plenty enough already with CNN-CBS-MSNBC-ABC-NBC-NYT-WaPo etc.  So like many, I’ve switched to WhatFinger News for my news jollies.  To be honest, I prefer the old Drudge Report because he always showed both sides of the aisle — but he doesn’t anymore.

Hell, I go to Insty more often than any of them, really.

MOAR Guns

Good Stuff, The Gun Thing

From the Examiner  comes this wonderful news:

Gun sales are expected to push past the 13.8 million sold last year, in part because buyers are growing more concerned that if a Democrat is elected president in 2020, sweeping gun control will pass in Washington.
Small Arms Analytics and Forecasting, a group that watches the arms industry, said today that it expects sales to reach 14 million this year.
Other groups said sales recently spiked as the Democratic presidential race heated up and after Virginia voters gave Democrats control of the state legislature in an election where gun control was a driving issue.
Last weekend, for example, a gun show in Northern Virginia reported that many dealers sold out.
Permits for those wishing to carry a concealed handgun have also surged to a new high.

This actually supports what I’ve noticed anecdotally:  just about every gun store I’ve visited in the past couple of months tells me that sales are brisk — especially among women buying handguns (!!!) — and I’ve already talked about gun shows, where the high prices reflect strong demand.  Also anecdotally, I commented on the ubiquity of AR-15 displays at said gun shows, which likewise seems to reflect steady demand for the Mattel poodleshooter.

And then there’s this:

Americans Bought Enough Guns on Black Friday to Arm the Marine Corps – Yet Again!
According to the FBI, over 200,000 background check requests associated with the purchase of a firearm were submitted to the agency on Black Friday, marking the second highest gun sales day ever. The previous record was set on the day after Thanksgiving in 2016. In both 2017 and 2016, enough guns were potentially purchased on Black Friday to arm every active duty United States Marine.
…
These numbers also do not take into account firearms which were purchased online. Those firearms will then be shipped to a license seller in the purchaser’s area and a background check will be done when they pick up the firearm, so those checks could be spread out over the following weeks.

Excuse me for a moment…

And so in the spirit of this joyous news, I will be running (completely unsolicited) gun ads each day for the next week or so (see below for the first).

Just because.

It Ain’t That

Drive Time

The Car God opines:

Jeremy Clarkson blames “idiot” climate change activist Greta Thunberg for killing the car show.
The former Top Gear presenter, who is returning with another series of Amazon Prime motor series The Grand Tour, claimed young people have been turned against cars by the 16-year-old environmental campaigner.
Clarkson, 59, told The Sun: “Everyone I know under 25 isn’t the slightest bit interested in cars – Greta Thunberg has killed the car show.”

Most of the time, I agree with Clarkson, but I’m not so sure about this one.

My opinion is that young people aren’t interested in cars for two reasons:

  • They all look the same.  (I’ve ranted and raved about this situation so many times, I’m starting to bore myself.)
  • New cars cost too much, and youngins don’t have the cash to buy them — hence the popularity of the “no-car” ownership and Uber.

Much as I detest her and her ilk, neither of the above is the fault of that little bint Thunberg.  The real fault lies with government — our government, European governments, all governments — who have mandated expensive changes to cars in the name of SAFETY and CLIMATE.  The first is arguably a good thing, but the second a lot more questionable.

But when an “entry-level” (i.e. modest) secondhand car like this one costs nearly 20 grand…

I’m not sure that many under-25s are going to want to spend this much even if they have it.  College loan repayments, ObamaCare medical insurance, under-25 auto insurance rates… even if they’re filling the stereotype and living with Mom and Dad, money is going to be tight, assuming they’re pulling in the typical youngin annual salary of $24k – $36k.

(Yeah, I know  you can get cheaper cars — the Son&Heir scrimped and saved out of his paltry waiter’s income until he could afford to buy a twelve-year-old Oldsmobile Beater from a friend for $1,500, but his maintenance costs almost killed him.  If he’d had more money, it would have saved him money to buy a Honda like the above;  but he didn’t have the money.  I don’t think today’s kids are any better off — they may even be worse  off, come to think of it.)

Of course, adding the Blame Game onto all that via Thunberg and the other EarthFirsters doesn’t help — nor does it help that the under-25 group are malleable and vulnerable thanks to their crap secondary education and foul neo-socialist tertiary education, so they’ll believe anything and hope that Mommy and Daddy (or Big Brother Gummint) will bail them out.  But that’s not the primary reason for their lassitude in matters automotive.

In my day, boys had wall posters on their bedroom walls which featured supercars (and supermodels).  Nowadays?  They can’t afford the fucking posters.  They can’t even afford the ticket price for the car show.

And that’s because their priorities have changed.  Why spend money on a four-wheeled money pit when they can spend as much or more each month on a money pit which can fit in the hand?

And why drag-race your buddy down Main Street (à la American Graffiti ) when you can play Grand Theft Auto?  Or pick up your girlfriend and take her to the movies, when she can catch a Lyft over to your place and the two of you can “Netflix and chill”?

It’s not just the money.  Times and priorities have changed.  And as with all this stuff, it’s not just one thing (like Greta Thunberg) that has caused the change;  it’s everything.  Our kids live in a different world;  and in that world, the car isn’t important anymore.  Too bad.  Here’s a pic of my teenage dream car:

In today’s dollars, the Alfa Romeo Giulia Sprint GT  would have cost about $14,000 — brand new.

Here’s #2 Son’s dream car:

Brand new, the Honda Fit costs about $17,000.  He has less chance of getting this econobox than I did the Alfa Romeo.

Undecided

Freaks & Loonies, Veggies & Vegans

There are things that are crimes (e.g. murder, acting like a Clinton etc.) which carry penalties and punishments.  Then there are things that are sorta-crimes (like spitting on the sidewalk, or voting for a Socialist) which carry few if any penalties.  Then there are things that are technically  non-crimes, but which should  carry a penalty.  Like this one:

PARENTS were left furious after a nursery [preschool daycare] banned meat and dairy and instead force children to eat from a completely vegan menu.
Mums and dads have blasted the controversial move to switch their kids to an entirely plant-based diet which they claim was done without consulting them first.
Meat, fish, eggs and dairy products will be completely off the menu from January for 260 children, aged 0-4, at Jigsaw Day Nurseries in Chester.
Instead, staff at their two nurseries will offer the likes of a lentil-based “Shepherdless Pie”, coconut rice pudding desserts and cereal served with soy or oat milk.
Some parents say they are fuming at the decision to “impose a lifestyle choice” which “discriminates” against their meat-eating children.

Here’s the loony boss’s opinion:

Claire Taylor, founder of the nurseries, which is Chester’s largest private childcare provider, defended the decision which she says was “made with the children and the planet’s future in mind.”
She added: “We appreciate that this is a decision that comes with a business risk associated, however we feel passionately that a sustainable path is the one we wish to follow for the benefit of our children’s future.
“The food that the children eat within our nurseries not only has an impact on everyone in the setting but also on the health of our planet.”
…
She cited the “overwhelming” evidence published over the past few years highlighting the impact of animal farming on the planet.

So my question, O Gentle Readers, is this:  what this stupid bitch is doing is clearly not illegal.  But other than withering scorn, what should the penalty be for this kind of idiocy?  (And don’t say, “Just pull the kids out of the school” because some parents have no choice in the matter.  Myself, I’d just feed my kids steak every night and give them biltong to take to school to make up for the nutritional shortfall, but that’s not the matter under discussion.)

It’s not an infringement worthy of scourging or suchlike;  but I feel that it should  be punished in some way.

I welcome suggestions in Comments.