Civilization vs. Barbarians
From our mole in Scandinavia comes this little gem:
Seriously? You mean just laughing at this bullshit would send me to jail?
…and:
And who is this priceless little feministical?
So all that study in the hard sciences, and young Ashleigh is analyzing the implications of gender differential in flatulence?
Send me to jail now, Judge Sotomayor. Because I’m never going to quit making fun of these spoiled First-World fuckups and their loony little “philosophy”, ever.
Britain is set to be put on a nationwide diet from March this year as public health officials impose new calorie caps.
Lunches and dinners are to be cut to 600 calories at fast food outlets and on ready meal shelves at supermarkets, in new guidelines from Public Health England (PHE).
Breakfast portions will be cut down to 400 calories as the government aims to stop Britons overeating and combat high obesity rates.
FFS; is there no area of our lives that is exempt from this busybody we-know-what’s-best-for-you bullshit? (My advice: if the nu-meal seems inadequate, buy two instead of one. That will do two things: stick it in their eye, and end your stomach’s growling.)
But it gets worse, O My Readers. From the same article:
A separate study by researchers at Oxford University also found that current alcohol guidelines may be too generous.
As one of my heroes once put it:
As any fule kno, I’m on a diet at the moment. But when I see shit like this, I want to go to a pub, eat a double portion of fish ‘n chips, and wash it down with five pints of Wadworth 6x. Here’s the starter:
Or, if this bullshit ever comes to this side of The Pond, take down a couple-three family buckets of KFC (Original Recipe) with a dozen Classic Cokes.
Now, this wouldn’t be a pretty sight. But it would be a lot prettier than the alternative:
I’m so sick of people (mostly in the Comintern media) yammering about how The Donald hasn’t achieved anything during this, his first year as POTUS (or “God-Emperor”, as one of my favorite commentators puts it).
Allow me to quote Patrick J. Buchanan, surely the sourest of conservative commentators, on the topic:
The largest tax cuts in decades. Elevation of Neil Gorsuch to the Antonin Scalia seat on the Supreme Court. A record number of new [conservative, originalist – K.] U.S. appellate court judges approved by the Senate. The U.S. is out of the Paris climate accord and out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
NAFTA is being renegotiated. Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge will be open for drilling. The U.S. is at full employment, with minority unemployment near record lows. The stock market has consistently broken records, with the Dow having added 5,000 points. The Obamacare individual mandate tax is gone. Obama-era regulations have been cut and some eliminated.
Can’t add much to that, except for the inevitable:
Ol’ Pat forgot that one. All by itself, it’s a major Trump accomplishment.
My hostility towards Apple (the company and its poxy little products) is a well-known fact of this blog. It dates back to when I first used an Apple IIe — I was the very first person at the Great Big Research Company to own a personal computer, back in the early 1980s — and discovered that while the Apple was a fun toy, it clearly lacked the serious horsepower to perform any complex or large data management/manipulation. And that situation never changed.
Along the way, though, Apple developed into a cult: first of personality, through its founder/tinpot dictator Steve Jobs, and then its ethos, through its “cool” design and cutesy, “user-friendly” operation.
The writing was on the wall, though. For such a cool company, Apple was always remarkably totalitarian — closed operating systems, inflexible programs, antagonistic towards non-corporate developers and hostility to DIY improvement and maintenance by its users — witness the “unlocking” commotion when the iPhone originally mandated AT&T phone service with its product. Without the logo and corporate blessing, it seemed, everything was pretty much streng verboten — but implicit with all this, as with so many totalitarian systems, was the promise of “Trust Apple”.
So much for trust. It appears that Apple has been caught with its grubby little fingers in some pretty shameful corporate skulduggery, slowing down the operating system of its older iPhones to “persuade” users to upgrade to newer (and, of course, more expensive and more profitable) models:
Apple has long inspired an almost religious devotion among customers and tech aficionados — but it just seriously undermined its fans’ faith and loyalty.
The company on Wednesday acknowledged what some people have long suspected: that it has been secretly stifling the performance of older iPhones.
Critics have accused the company in the past, based on anecdotal evidence, of purposely slowing phones to compel users to upgrade to the latest model.
While Apple admitted to the practice on Wednesday, it sought to underscore that it had done so for a purely altruistic reason: to prevent older phones from shutting down unexpectedly.
Yeah, of course you only had good intentions, you bastards. That’s like telling the judge you raped the woman not for your own benefit, but so that she could have an orgasm.
And this is not the usual weasel “some rogue employees done it” bullshit: this was corporate policy. Management had a meeting, and decided on this action.
There are two lessons to be learned from this little bit of malfeasance. The first is for Apple users: your little idol has not only feet of clay, but claws under the velvet glove. (Non-Apple users like me have known this for some time, but all we got was abuse from Apple acolytes and groupies.) Enjoy your pain and disillusionment.
The second lesson is a broader one for all of us: Never trust a corporation, no matter how altruistic they may sound, even when — and maybe especially when — their corporate mantra is “Don’t be evil”. Your benefit is not their primary concern; their primary concern is either market share or profit, or both.
I’m not saying that this is a Bad Thing, necessarily; profit is the sole purpose of a corporation, after all. Just don’t let them fool you into thinking that your benefit won’t get compromised if it interferes with their ultimate goal (see: Microsoft, elimination of Outlook Express, MS Paint, etc., to name just one other example).
And cultists are always easiest to fool because all religious adherents are easier to fool, by whatever deity they follow, be it companies like Apple, charities like the United Way, or Big Government.
Don’t be gullible, don’t be fooled by the marketing and the PR, don’t follow the herd, don’t be loyal. Trust no one, and especially do not trust institutions created by men for motives of profit or power, because ultimately, you too will get “throttled”.
And so it begins… the pussification of Harry.
Prince Harry will not be taking part in the traditional royal Boxing Day shoot because he doesn’t want to upset his fiancee Meghan Markle. The 33-year-old was just 12 when he took part in his first festive shoot but has pulled out because Miss Markle is a keen animal rights campaigner. Miss Markle, 36, doesn’t like hunting and Prince Harry is said to have shocked gamekeepers at Sandringham after he informed them he won’t be there on December 26.
Couple of points need to be made, here.
I have it on good authority that Harry is an excellent shot, and as the article indicates, he’s been doing this for two decades — i.e. most of his life. Why should he care what this totty thinks about hunting? He’s a bloody royal, FFS, and she’s the one who gets the most out of their upcoming nuptials. Hell, he can get pretty much any woman he wants — and better-looking than her, for sure. (He certainly has in the past; here’s Cressida Bonas, for one.)
So why he has to accommodate this Markle woman’s silly nonsense is beyond me.
She’s a “part-time vegan” and an animal-rights activist, according to reports. Oh, isn’t that special. Well, he’s a member of a royal family, a decorated war veteran and a keen birdshooter, which I think is a lot more special than some two-a-penny divorced actress.
I never cared about this relationship one way or the other, because it’s none of my business and celebrity stuff bores me to tears. But I get truly irritated when a woman comes into a family with traditional values — and it’s hard to think of a family with more traditional values than Harry’s lot — and wants to make everyone change around her. Arrogant bint.
I always used to think that the penchant for royals to marry other royals (or at least nobility) was silly. But the more I see of it, the more I think it makes sense: the odds are always better if you marry into your own class. No good is going to come of this marriage; you heard it here first.