Weather Vain

Here’s a consequence of being entrusted to collect critical data, then using that data to peddle a false narrative:

The US government’s weather agency has been dismantled by the Department of Government Efficiency (Doge) after it was accused of peddling “misinformation”.

Hundreds of weather forecasters at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) were fired last week as part of Donald Trump’s plans to slash the federal workforce.

In total, at least 800 civil servants are thought to have lost their jobs, including meteorologists, radar specialists and crews of hurricane hunters, who fly aircraft into storms to help forecasters, according to CBS.

Of course, out come the apocalyptic doomsayers:

The job cuts have triggered protests at the agency’s headquarters in Maryland, with some scientists and lawmakers warning that removing staff involved in predicting natural disasters will “endanger American lives going forward”.

No, they won’t — at least, no more than they ever did before.  There are several other avenues of getting such warnings — from private enterprise — and not from some Gummint malignancy.

But here’s the critical part, from someone who’s been doing the hard work of tracking this nonsense for a decade and a half:

Prof Roger Pielke, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute who focuses on the politicization of science, said that the agency is “reaping the whirlwind” for “cutting corners on science”.

“By not upholding the highest standards of scientific integrity, we’ve opened the door to politicians meddling,” he said.

According to experts, studies and former NOAA officials, the chart proves little about the effects of climate change, and instead shows that disasters are becoming more expensive because Americans choose to build in hazard-prone areas.

“The problem is you can’t use economic data to say anything about climate change,” said Prof Pielke.

Quite right.  Collecting data to forewarn of disaster, then using that data incorrectly and unethically to further a boutique (and flawed) worldview — that would be Global Warming Climate Cooling Change©, of course — deserves censure of the second-highest order.  (“First-order” censure would be imprisonment and so on.)

So of course this little clique of taxpayer-funded climate alarmists deserves to be shut up and disbanded.

MOAR DOGE like this, please.

Counter-Revolution

So now we are faced with this line of bullshit:

…this, in addition to the attacks on Tesla dealerships all over the place.

I have two thoughts on this.

Firstly, I’d love someone to find out which organization, precisely, paid for these bumper stickers.

Secondly, there is a Tesla dealership in Plano — specifically, in the uber-trendy Legacy West strip — which, coincidentally, is literally less than a hundred yards from a Plano P.D. mini-station.  I think I’ll swing by said cop-shop in the next few days to see if they’ve increased surveillance of the dealership — there are cameras a-plenty already installed in the area — because if they have, they’d be able to nab any “protesters” (vandals) pretty much in the act.

What I’d really like to do is sit across the road in my parked car late at night with some kind of anti-goblin accessory* at hand, e.g.

…but I doubt whether New Wife would let me, and the Plano fuzz would probably also disapprove thereof.  Pity.

In general, it appears that as Trump and DOGE are becoming more and more successful in their attempts to MAGA, the Left are beginning to despair — which means that there’s an ever-increasing prospect of Antifa/anti-Israel/BLM/eco-terrorist-type violence in the offing.

In the above article, the author writes:

In a free country of hundreds of millions of people, bad and destructive ideas are bound to catch on among a few thousand lunatics. But we have a cure for anti-American and anti-Semitic criminal behavior: put the criminals who act unlawfully upon those ideas in prison, confiscate their funds, uproot their criminal networks, deter their would-be imitators, and give public spaces back to the decent Americans who deserve them.

He left out another kind of cure:  a contrary populace who are just as angry as these anti-Western terrorist wannabes and have had it up to here with their bullshit.  Just remember:  they fucking started it, and they should not be surprised if there’s a visceral, bitter reaction to their little reindeer games.

Just sayin’.


*Of course, I don’t actually own anything evil like that — may I remind you of that Tragic Boating Accident On The Brazos all those years ago? — but you get my drift.

Mugshots

Came across this rogues’ gallery of all the  villains  leaders of the EU (click to embiggen):

Of course, I only recognized a few of them, EUPres Ursula van der Leyen over on the right, the dwarf Zelensky in the middle (but unless things have changed, Ukraine isn’t a member so WTF?) but anyway…

Then on the left of the pic are our two heroes:  my girl Giorgia Meloni from la bella Italia, and Viktor Orban of Hungary:

Giorgia, as always, looks lovely and stylish because Italian duh, and ol’ Viktor looks like he bench-presses an 18-wheeler every day before his breakfast of rusty nails ‘n blood — a manly man, especially when compared to his chinless counterparts among the rest.

Take out those two (and throw in that filthy Commie Keir Starmer from the UK), and you could pretty much just machine-gun the rest.  The world, and certainly Europe, would be a much better place for people to be.

♫ ♪ ♫ ♪♫ ♪ ♫ ♪ Write lightly, yours truly, dear diary...♫ ♪ ♫ ♪♫ ♪ ♫ ♪

Unbelievable

Not that we should believe anything that Josh Sugarman’s Violence Policy Center ever says, but even for them, this is egregiously terrible:

“More Than 2,500 Non-Self Defense Deaths Involving Concealed Carry Killers Since 2007, Latest Violence Policy Center Research Shows”

Yeah, except that the data shows no such thing — unless you lie, twist and conceal data which negates your premise, that us.

When you discount all of the categories that don’t match VPC’s horrid headline—suicide, murder/suicide victim, cases still pending, accidents and cases still under investigation—the final total is 625 over a 17-year period. Do the math, and it equals 36 a year, equal to about two holiday weekends in Chicago.  (Of course, this assumes that VPC’s figures are even close to being correct.)

And they pretty much aren’t.  Considering that only a (shamefully) small percentage of gun owners carry concealed, I wouldn’t even believe that annual number of three dozen.

The only problem with bullshit like this — Sugarman would call it a feature, not a bug — is that the numbers will be uncritically used by The Usual Hoplophobic Suspects — media, Congress, etc. — to bolster their demands that All Guns Should Be Confiscated, Right Now.

Uh huh.  Dream on, assholes.

Appropriate Age

As Colorado continues to turn blue — from Californian expats, and not from the cold — we have situations like this one:

On Friday, Colorado House Democrats approved a measure, HB25-1133, which would raise the minimum age for purchasing rifle and shotgun ammunition to 21 years and require that ammunition be stored behind the counter at retailers that sell it.

The battle against young adults’ Second Amendment rights is extensive, with many states and even the federal government debating and enacting laws that restrict the right of 18-, 19- and 20-year-olds to keep and bear arms. For every other constitutionally protected right, Americans are nearly universally regarded as adults at 18 and afforded protection under the Constitution.

It’s really quite simple.  If 18-year-olds are old enough to be drafted, sign a contract, get married (or get abortions) without parental consent, and vote:  then they are entitled to full Second Amendment rights as the adults they are.

Oh by the way:  as adults, they should be allowed to consume booze as well.  Adult privilege, in terms of the law, is kinda like virginity.  You either have it or you don’t.

And it’s long past time that we acknowledge that fact, under the law.

That said, if people think that 18-year-olds can do this, but not that, depending on the opinions and prejudices of politicians and moralists, then we should just go ahead and overturn the 26th Amendment and restore the age of majority (and the voting age) to 21 and have done with it.  (Oh, and make the 18-20 age group ineligible for the draft and ban them from driving, while we’re there.  Let’s at least be consistent.)

No?

Then the current age of majority should preclude any and all restrictions under the Equal Protection clause, no matter how popular or how we choose to address the topic of “immaturity”.

Fucking busybodies can all go to hell.

Double Whammy

I know it was just a coincidence, but these two headlines came one after the other at Townhall.com last Thursday, and the combination thereof has pissed me off mightily, for two different reasons.

Here’s the first:

Dem Congresswoman: Musk Can’t Be Trusted Because He’s an Immigrant

…because he’s only been here for 22 years, you see, so naturally his patriotism must be suspect.

Well fuck you all to death, Congresswoman Kapur.  Like Elon Musk, I’m a naturalized U.S. citizen (since 1990, i.e. 34 years ago), and I was living here for four years before that.  That’s nearly five decades, you fucking socialist sow, and I’ll tell you what:  I’ll put my (and Elon’s) patriotism ahead of yours, for one, any day of the week.

You see, Musk and I have a lot in common.  We were both born into the same racially-stricken society.  He left to get away from it, while I (briefly) struggled against it — by lawful means, of course — but left because I could see no solution to the problem that would not involve pain and bloodshed.  We both arrived in this country legally, and both made our respective ways as productive, law-abiding citizens (he a lot more successfully than I, but that’s the way it goes).  What we came to was the promise of America, where everyone was equal under the law, and had the freedom to seek the happiness and success that would probably have been denied to us in our country of birth.  Our story, or its foundation, is no different from millions of others, and what the country has come to mean is a place which has absolutely replaced any allegiance to another, and instilled in us a lasting gratitude for the opportunities we were able to grasp.  Our patriotism is not one that we were born into, but one we chose — and in all fairness, it may run still deeper in us than in many native-born Americans.  We were not changed by the “magic dirt” of the United States;  we found that magic for ourselves, and I bitterly resent your belittlement of our patriotism.

Then there’s this little slur (behind a paywall,sorry,  but the headline says it all):

Violence Policy Center Tries to Paint Citizens Carrying Concealed as Threat

Fuck me, another country heard from.

Listen, assholes:  I am a gun owner who carries a gun, and I can say categorically that the only person who could ever be “threatened” by my gun is someone who wants to do me or mine harm.  In other words, it would be a reaction to a threat, and not a threat to others.

I came from a country where not everyone was “allowed” to own a gun, because there was absolutely no Second (or First, or any other) Amendment.  And guess who was denied that right?  Yeah, Black people.  That’s how oppression was maintained, and it was one I fled as rapidly as Elon Musk did.  And the only way my right to own a gun (or carry;  the two are indistinguishable) might ever be a “threat” is to those who would deny me that right.  Or to threaten me with violence, in any form, whether felonious or State-inspired.

That’s it.  End of sentence, end of statement, end of story.  Leave me alone, and all will be well.  The alternative is your choice.

These people — both groups (and there is considerable overlap between the two) — make me fucking sick, projecting their fears and their prejudices onto me and others like me.  I won’t stand for it, and I will fully exercise my First Amendment right to make statements like the above.

Fuck you, all of you.