Tag: Stupid people

Simple Question, Answered

Morons & Idiots

Whenever I’m asked stupid questions involving fights or struggles against Nature, it’s always on the scale of “What chance does a man have against a Great White shark?”

…to which my reply is generally along the lines of:  “Pretty good, provided that the man is sitting in a sturdy boat with a few hand grenades.”

So it is with today’s stupid question:  “How many men would it take to win a fight against a gorilla?”

Answer:  “One, holding a 12ga. shotgun loaded with 00 buckshot.”

Let’s just remember that when it comes to this kind of thing, Man is unquestionably at the top of the food chain.  And the reason this is so is that we don’t fight with our relatively-weak bare hands or with our pathetic little teeth;  we fight with our brains, and those brains are what enabled us to create, build and use things like hand grenades and shotguns.

Give that shotgun to a gorilla, and he’d only swing it like a club — if that.

Just as we are like candy to a lion with its teeth and claws, they are like candy to us with our A-10 Warthog.

Bite on that, Fluffy.

Hell, let’s take that one step further.  If there was to be combat between a lion and a woman…

…and she didn’t even need an A-10.

Been There, Done That

Disaster, Eco-Crap, Gummint

Reader JC_In_PA sends me an article about electricity, suggesting that it’s worthy of a 10,000-word rant.  An excerpt:

In our modern age, the electric grid is the mother of all networks. Without electricity, advanced forms of transportation and communications virtually grind to a halt and nearly all digital and electronic devices are rendered practically useless. When the grid goes down, we lose conveniences like air conditioning, lighting, and other amenities that we often take for granted.

Several days ago, Spain, Portugal, and parts of France and Belgium lost power for an extended period of time, demonstrating just how devastating a total grid collapse can be to our modern way of life.

During this colossal blackout, the largest that Europe has ever experienced, more than 50 million people were left without electricity. Traffic signals did not work, creating utter chaos on the roadways. Subway systems couldn’t function, leaving people stranded far from home. Stores and businesses closed, as payments were limited to cash only. Mobile phone service was spotty, at best. Even some hospitals and medical facilities, which generally have backup generators, were left without power.

As of now, it seems that the sudden, system-wide grid collapse was caused by a malfunction at two solar power plants in southwest Spain.

And further down the page:

Now, you may be thinking that enormous, system-wide blackouts could never occur in the United States, the most prosperous nation in human history. That is not only naïve, but dangerous.

As the American Energy Alliance notes, “power outages have increased by 93 percent across the United States over the last 5 years — a time when solar and wind power have increased by 60 percent. Texas, who leads the nation in wind generation, and California, who leads the nation in solar generation, have had the largest number of power outages in the nation over those 5 years.”

Unbeknownst to many Americans, the federal government, in cahoots with state and local governments, has pushed electricity grid operators to build more solar and wind power facilities instead of dependable natural gas plants while prematurely shuttering perfectly operable coal power plants. As is almost always the case, government subsidies, loan guarantees, and tax breaks have created a skewed market in which utility companies are incentivized to build more solar and wind power plants instead of dependable and affordable coal, natural gas, and nuclear power plants.

Due to this short-sighted money grab, the long-term reliability of the U.S. grid is being put in peril.

Well, I’d add my two cents to this little diatribe, but Loyal Readers will recall that I have spoken about this issue several times, to wit:  February 2021, June 2021, January 2023, November 2023, and January 2024.  (I have no idea what happened to 2022 — a mild winter, maybe — but there it is.)

Adding all that up comes to somewhat less than 10,000 words, to be sure, but I’m pretty sure that collectively, the “rant” part has been well addressed, e.g.:

We need to stop being fearful about our energy needs, toot sweet, and if the existing electricity providers are being hampered, the reasons for said hampering need to be eliminated before we start having Third World problems of rolling blackouts and “load shedding”.

And by “eliminating” I mean this:

Back-Door Marketing

Marketing / Advertising, Travels

No, it has nothing to do with ass.  Sorry.  Before “back door” (like “adult”) became a porn industry expression, back-door marketing was a kind of marketing whereby you appealed to a consumer via unfamiliar (or apparently so) means — you know, get a free trip to Florida, free as long as you agree to listen to a 60-minute sales pitch for a time-share purchase.  That’s about the best example I can give.

Here’s another:  in my Inbox yesterday came this offer from American Airlines:

Note that the ticket may not be on American, but on their “partner” airline Qantarse, on which I have vowed never to fly, ever.  (Details here and here, for Those Of Short Memory.)

In my case of course, not only have I blanked Qantarse but also the entire continent of Strylia because fukkem, the foul bureaucratic pricks.  Even the presence of Beloved Grandchildren are insufficient incentives to get me to that poxy country, which should tell you everything.

And the next time I fly American — which is going to be a looooong time in the future — I’ll use up my paltry not-so-frequent flier miles instead of dollars because fukkem too.

Being Patient

Bad News, Business, Economics

Like many, I suspect, I was somewhat surprised that our GDP shrank a little during Q1, especially as the job market continues to grow (despite hundreds if not thousands of government jobs ending).  However, we have to remember that we essentially started off the year in Q1 with the last remaining month of Bidenomics, and no doubt the hangover from four years of said stupidity was one hell of a handbrake to the start of the year.

Still, I refuse to be a slave to the “Q” mindset so beloved of financial types, where every fiscal quarter has to show growth even if market conditions make it impossible.  Which, I suspect, is what happened here, for all sorts of reasons.

It’s short-term thinking like this which causes trouble in the longer term.

What we do know, however, is that large corporations are moving production back to the U.S. and away from Asia (especially from China yay) to the tune of some $5.2 trillion — but those are just planned investments, i.e. promises, which will take some time to be realized.  In addition, there are planned growths in ship-building which are almost certain to revive once-moribund areas, not to mention making us both more independent in trade and more secure militarily.  But those too are still in the planning stages.

Factories don’t just spring up overnight, in other words.

Listen:  we all knew that to reverse the tide of red ink, both in government spending and the trade deficit, we would have to experience some discomfort.  And while ICE is doing well — from all accounts, over 60,000 illegals (mostly of the career criminal persuasion) have been booted out in the past three months — but as I’ve said before, that still leaves many millions more that still need to be expelled:  millions of whom, we all know, that are sucking up public money in healthcare and education, to name but two areas of ongoing concern.

The question is:  are we on the right track?

I think so.  The moves to reduce tax burdens on the majority of the population, the DOGE-inspired slashing of government spending and the efforts to cut deadwood and make both business and government more efficient — by stopping the inherent inefficiencies of DEI policy, for one — all mean that the long-term prospects for our economy look promising.

And to a large degree, the market swings caused by the tariff business are simply due to the fact that markets hate uncertainty, because they’re slaves to short-term thinking — remember, stock prices are tracked daily.  These are very uncertain times we live in.

But we need to give the whole thing more time to develop.  We didn’t sink into quasi- (and in some cases actual) socialism in a single quarter, either.  That took decades of work by socialists like Bill Clinton, Barack Obama and their cohorts in Congress from even before then.  And we’re not going to reverse this tide in a single quarter.  Hell, it may take years.

It didn’t take that long for Javier Milei to effect massive changes in Argentina, but it should be remembered that taming an inflation rate of hundreds is considerably easier than doing the same to an inflation rate in the teens (as we experienced under Biden), let alone getting inflation into low single digits, which in today’s world is almost impossible and takes a supreme effort of will.

But although cheaper energy and the concomitant lowering of the prices of goods and services is going to make a difference, that’s not going to happen immediately because we still have to drill new holes, build new refineries and get more nuclear power generators online to replace the unreliable and fragile Net Zero-style solar- and wind-based power generators so beloved of the Eco-Nazis.  None of that can happen in a single quarter, either.

We’re doing the right thing — and by “we” I mean the Trump Administration, whom we voted into power.  We just need time to get it done, and not be swayed by short-term thinking.

Leading Indicators

Mocking Furriners, Politics

No, not the economic stuff like M1 or M2;  I’m talking about the old “180-degree” rule:  if what you’re doing is pissing off the right people, then do more of that.

As is happening in Europe, who are collectively [sic]  dismayed and appalled about what the Trump Administration is doing.

Of greatest pleasure to me is the handwringing coming from Britishland, where they are bemoaning our disestablishment of DEI policies.

Wait a minute, that may not be true.  I’m getting still more pleasure from the fact that the Frogs put it all into words:

“Environmental policies have been rolled back, entire government departments and bureaus dismantled, and decades-long diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives were abruptly ended.”

Yup, and you know why all this has happened, Frog-people?  Because the American voters told Trump to do it by voting him back into power.

And as for the Krauts (lol)  saying:

“From banning reporters from the Oval Office to trying to dismantle VOA, Trump’s moves against the press have sparked legal battles, with experts warning that press freedom — and US democracy itself — is threatened.”

…you assholes may want to take that “democracy being threatened” bullshit and burn it to generate some electricity for yourselves.

What the Euros are seeing is… wait for it… actual democracy in action.  Americans voted, and the government is simply doing what a majority of the voters want.

Oh, and as for those “experts” you rely on?  They’re even more full of shit than your politicians.  We don’t need experts to tell us that we have to open our borders to be flooded with criminals, foreign spies and (likely) terrorists — as you Euros have been doing for the past few decades.

And for the writers and readers of the Grauniad:  I can freely say all the above without being afraid of a visit from your English-speaking Stasi agents to warn me that I could find myself in trouble if I carry on publishing such hateful speech.

Fuck you, all of you, and the Socialist / DEI / nation-self-hating horses you rode in on.  You’re becoming irrelevant, and the only interest we have in your future is an academic curiosity as to who will conquer you first:  the Russians or the Muslims.

Quote Of The Day

QOTD

From Steve Kruiser:

“Trump is also aware that there is no guarantee that the GOP will continue his work when this term is done, so he knows that he has to assume that making America great again is all on him. It would be nice to believe that he’s getting things moving in the right direction for years to come, but we have all met the Republican Party.”