Tag: Stupid people

Gone Forever

Foreign Affairs, Third World

Here’s one statement from the Trump administration that’s guaranteed to get me angry:

The larger issues facing Europe include activities of the European Union and other transnational bodies that undermine political liberty and sovereignty, migration policies that are transforming the continent and creating strife, censorship of free speech and suppression of political opposition, cratering birthrates, and loss of national identities and self-confidence… if current trends continue the continent and its economic issues are “eclipsed by the real and more stark prospect of civilizational erasure.”

Back in 2004, after I returned from a trip to Paris, I posted this pic of an impromptu street concert by some students from the Sorbonne, taken in the little square just in front of the university:

The classical music was quite lovely, the musicians very accomplished.  I stood, entranced, and watched them for the entire time they played — well over an hour, as I recall.

I also remember commenting on the old website that if the Muslim theocracy and culture were ever to establish itself in France, joyful concerts of this nature would completely disappear, suppressed no doubt by some bullshit aspect of shari’a law, and a little bit of the joie de vivre  would be gone from Paris streets.

And that is precisely what the Trump administration means by “civilizational erasure”.

The Usual Suspects

Anti-Gun Nannies, Crime

Probably the only scenes I found objectionable in the classic movie Casablanca  was when Inspector Renault utters the line: “Round up the usual suspects.”

Of course, in the context of the movie, the line is heavily ironic not to say satirical because Renault knows exactly who the criminals are, but he deflects suspicion away from Rick Blaine by saying that.

In reality, however, rounding up the usual suspects is not only sound police procedure, it generally solves about 90% of the crime, as seen here (and read it all because it’s good):

Almost every perpetrator of horrific crimes is a “known wolf.” Most of the violent crime in our society is committed by a very small group of easily identified criminals, and most of them have had many interactions with law enforcement over the years.

Violent crime in U.S. cities is not evenly spread. Not culturally. Not geographically. Not mathematically.

It’s concentrated – absurdly concentrated – in fractions of fractions of the population.  This isn’t ideology. It’s decades of DOJ, PD, and academic data all pointing at the same tiny cluster:

• ~0.5% of residents linked to 50–70% of shootings
• Most homicide suspects have 8–12+ prior arrests
• Victims usually know their attackers
• Violence clusters block-to-block, not citywide

We all know this, but when I say “we”, I’m referring to people who live in the here and now and can read statistics unencumbered by dreamy and mistaken dogma and its mantras, e.g. “Ban guns and violent crime will end” or some such crap.

Honestly?  I’m heartily sick of talking about this because I’ve banged on about it so often in the past that I don’t want to talk about it ever again.

But as long as these assholes keep on with their bullshit, the more I feel I have to rebut it, again and again and again and fucking again.

I think it’s time I let off some steam, so if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to the range.

Nailbiting

Good Stuff, Sports

I know:  most of y’all have about as much interest in Formula One as I do about soap operas.

However:  the last race of the 2025 F1 season will take place this weekend on some track in the Arabian desert #DontCare, and it promises to be quite unlike the usual formation-lap snore fest.

At the middle of the season, current (and four-time) champion Max Verstappen was 100-odd points adrift of the top of the standings, driving a car which was not in the same class as the eventual manufacturer’s champions McLaren (who clinched the title a couple races back).

Thanks to his incredible skill behind the wheel, and aided by said McLaren team totally screwing up their race strategy in the past two races, Verstappen finds himself in actual contention for his fifth (consecutive!) driver’s championship in the final race.  He’ll need some help from McLaren, of course, but given their recent screwups that’s not completely out of the picture — and as both McLaren drivers are 1-2 in the standings and are after the same title, there’s also a good chance that they’ll collide with each other and take themselves out of the picture, leaving it all to Verstappen.  One thing is for sure:  if it’s just up to his own driving, he’s an odds-on favorite

Anyway, I told you all that so I can share this, said before the Las Vegas Grand Prix:

Me, I’m rooting for Max this weekend.

Quote Of The Day

QOTD

From Kruiser:

“It’s not just that Biden & Co. got so many things wrong — one expects that from Democrats — it’s that they got them so spectacularly wrong.”

And of course, so much effort is required by each and every incoming Republican administration to fix the mess (diplomatic, defense, social policy, economics — oy, the list goes on and on) before starting on any positive work.

Two (or three, or four) steps backwards each Democrat administration, half a step forward with the Republicans, then a single step forward again (if we’re lucky) — and then the ungodly get back into power by the usual means (fill in the blanks) and the whole horrible pattern starts all over again.

Small wonder that the U.S. is so much a failing neo-socialist state despite our economic strength.

And our only hope is that the Trump administration manages to get a few steps forward before the cataclysm so that the ungodly have to spend time trying to undo what he did — putting them on the back foot, for a change.

Hey, I can dream, you know.

180 Degrees Wrong

Health

I often comment sardonically that if today’s medical warnings make you fearful, all you have to do is wait a little and there’ll be a discovery that OOPS! salt isn’t all that bad for you after all.

That’s all very well.  But what if the previous warning was not only wrong, but massively wrong — i.e. that something that was said to be bad for you (could even kill you) — in that it was not only wrong, but diametrically the opposite.

Say hello to our old friend caffeine:

Although people with heart conditions such as atrial fibrillation* (A-Fib) are often told to avoid caffeine because it might worsen symptoms, new research suggests the opposite may be true. A collaborative study conducted by the University of California, San Francisco, and the University of Adelaide found that drinking one cup of caffeinated coffee per day lowered the risk of A-Fib by 39%.

Let’s just extend that thought.  People were warned off caffeine because it might kill them, but in fact drinking that daily cup of coffee might actually have saved their lives, but didn’t.

WTF?  And people ask me why I’m such a supporter of the spirit of Hammurabic law, where the “experts” who originally proposed the anti-caffeine law could conceivably be executed for spreading dangerous, possibly deadly advice.

While I am grateful for doctors, generally speaking, it’s also true that they’re a bunch of interfering busybodies and utter killjoys, if we listen to them all the time.

*that’s irregular heartbeat, to those of us who prefer simple, comprehensible terminology instead of obscure medical jargon, don’t get me started.

Roost, Chickens Coming Home To

Anti-Gun Nannies, The Gun Thing

It is, as they say, to LOL:

Gun control politicians, long in control in the Empire State, have passed so many restrictions on law-abiding New Yorkers to exercise their constitutional rights that far too many simply give up out of frustration. Those roadblocks, in essence, deny New Yorkers their ability to keep and bear arms and, at a time when many rush to licensed gun retailers, the backlogs and bottlenecks can be jarring— especially for first-time buyers. Erecting barriers to the exercise of Second Amendment rights to frustrate citizens into just giving up is the intent of this regulatory scheme.

And now?

Gun permit applications are skyrocketing. Prior to the Bruen decision, on average, fewer than 100 law-abiding New York City residents each month applied for a permission slip to carry a firearm in the city for self-protection. There was a surge during the coronavirus pandemic and a post-Bruen surge, with the monthly average reaching 600 before stabilizing at between 400 to 500 for a consistent stretch, according to data from the New York State Police Department. Following the October 7 terrorist attacks in Israel, the next month permit applications reached an all-time high at more than 1,270 — led by Jewish New Yorkers who decided to exercise their Second Amendment rights. Since then, an average of 700–800 permit applicants attempt the process each month, all just to exercise a God-given right enshrined in the Constitution.

But New York still has in place restrictions that make it overly burdensome, time-consuming and difficult for law-abiding New Yorkers to purchase a firearm — a process that can take up to a year or longer. That includes a rigorous firearm training and safety course despite the fact that “New York hasn’t standardized the classes beyond outlining a handful of topics to touch on.”

That makes it extremely difficult for would-be firearm purchasers to go to their neighborhood firearm retailer and go home with a safe and reliable self-defense tool.

Extremely difficult?  Try impossible.

I can’t get worked up about this, because the people who are being inconvenienced are for the most part the people who voted for the politicians and bureaucrats who actively built and maintained this situation in the first place.

So fuck off, you New York assholes.  You created this problem;  now you get to live with the consequences.  You don’t need a gun (you told us smugly for decades and decades) because you have the police to protect you.

Well, good luck with that.