If London is trying to make itself into some kind of copy of Manhattan, it’s looking like a roaring success — if, that is, you’re going for the “soulless, impersonal, could-be-any-city” look.
Of course, I think it looked better back when I were a nipper:
That looks like London. The other looks like shit.
To the surprise of precisely nobody, a government which welcomes illegal immigrants, allows people to live like animals (under the guise of “compassion”) and muzzles the police from actual policing ends up with a situation that is (unexpectedly!) dire:
Images from the downtown area show trash piling up as workers struggle to keep the area sanitized. They are pictured wearing face masks among the dirt and grime.
Rows and rows of tents line the sidewalks of Skid Row in the sprawling 50-block area, home to around 4,200 homeless people, many in tents and shantytowns.
Some lay passed out in the street, seemingly from the effects of drugs as others are pictured lugging their property around, in search of the next spot to set up.
I’d post lots more pictures, but I imagine that some of you haven’t had yer breakfast yet, so I’ll content myself with the most inoffensive thereof:
There is no amount of money that could persuade me ever to visit L.A. again. I come from the Third World, I’ve been back to it a couple of times, and I have no desire to see it here in the United States.
Received in the mail: the NRA’s latest sweepstakes details — “Win 44 guns!” or something — which works as follows:
Out of a total of 44 guns, First Prize Winner must select 12 guns from Group A, 2nd Prize Winner 10 guns from Group B, 3rd Prize winner 8 guns from Group C, and so on.
Sounds good, but there’s a HUGE problem with the way it’s set up. Here, for example, are the 18 guns from the 1st Prize selection, which I’ve grouped for easier comprehension:
Semi-Auto Rifles
Armalite M-15 Tactical Light Carbine (5.56mm/.223)
Bushmaster XM-10 Standard (7.62mm NATO)
Savage Arms MS Recon (.224 Valkyrie)
SIG M400 Elite TI (5.56mm)
Benelli R1 (.338 Win Mag)
Bolt-Action Rifles
Browning X-Bolt (6.5mm Creedmoor)
Remington 700 XCR (.308 Win)
Winchester 70 Extreme SS (.30-06)
Semi-Auto Pistols
Colt Delta Elite (10mm)
Desert Eagle (.44Mag)
Kimber 1911 Raptor II (.45 ACP)
S&W SW1911 Performance Center (9mm)
Revolvers
S&W 500 (.500 S&W Mag)
Colt King Cobra (.357 Mag)
Shotguns
Benelli Vinci (12ga)
Beretta A440 Extreme Plus (12ga)
Remington 870 (20ga)
Browning A5 Sweet Sixteen (16ga)
It’s a decent-enough selection of guns, I suppose — but the problem is that I would only want to own a few of them (4/18), namely:
,,,and I’m kinda iffy about the short barrels on the last two anyway. The rest of the guns are either in the wrong chambering (.224 Valkyrie?), duplicates of stuff I already own (.30x bolties), or a type of firearm I don’t care to own anyway (AR-15 variants) — even for free. (If I were promiscuous when it came to guns, then I could take any of the eighteen, but I’m not That Guy.)
The same, by the way, is true of every other group of guns they’ve arranged for the prize winners: 3/10 in 2nd Prize, 5/8 in 3rd Prize, 3/6 in 4th Prize, and 1/4 in 5th Prize. And of these prize guns, only a couple get me really panting.
But here’s what’s interesting. If you add up all my choices across the prize groups, you’d get 16 in total — and if pushed I could easily trim that to 8 or 10.
So why shouldn’t the NRA ask contestants to rank their top 10 favorites (out of the 44) on their entry forms, with a guarantee they’d get at least eight guns for 1st prize, six for 2nd, etc. That way, contestants would get at least some guns they actually want/need, instead of moaning that all the guns they wanted were in 4th Prize and they’d won 2nd instead, which contained only one favorite.
Yes, there might be a duplicate or two, but that’s not important. And the NRA could share the “favorites” aggregate with the various gun manufacturers — and let me tell ya, that info is valuable.
Here’s the thing: right now, I have little inclination to enter the sweepstakes, not only because I know it’s just a ploy for the NRA to get extra donations, but also because quite frankly, I don’t care for many of the guns they’re offering and even if I won a prize, it’s not worth my time to fill in the stupid form.
And because this wouldn’t be a Kim post without at least some kind of “favorites” list, here are my Top 10 Guns from all prize offerings in the NRA’s Stupid Sweepstakes, in order of “want”:
Feel free to add your own thoughts in Comments.
Here’s one of those wealth-envy headlines which makes me want to load up the old AK-47 and take a day trip, not to the offices of the tax-avoiding corporations, but to the offices of the Daily Mail (and not for the first time either):
Big companies avoid £100billion a year in corporate tax thanks to ‘spider’s web’ of British offshore tax havens
Looks like the Brits are finally doing something right, because anything that breaks down the so-called “global corporate tax system” can only be A Good Thing.
Reminder to the Daily Mail:
Then again, if I’m going to be paying an AK-enabled visit to anyone, it should be to the offices of this “Tax Justice Network” crowd. They seem like an evil bunch of assholes.
Apparently everyone who lives within fifty miles of a beach is soon going to be drowned because of rising sea levels caused by SUVs, the Koch brothers and plastic straws, etc. At best, yer house is going to float away.
The oceans could swell nearly seven feet by the end of the century – destroying the homes of almost 200 million people, according to new research.
It would wipe out over a million square miles of farming and other food producing lands – having ‘profound consequences for humanity.’
This is over twice as much as previous ‘doomsday’ predictions – suggesting the world really is facing a global warming ‘apocalypse.’
The shock finding is based on a technique called structured expert judgment (SEJ) that pooled the knowledge of 22 climate change specialists.
…none of whom have any kind of agenda or may derive government funding to further their “research”, of course. [/sarc]
As for “structured expert judgement”: can anyone think of a better euphemism for average guesswork than this one?
And here’s where the fun begins. Apparently, SMOD is now a glacier:
Global sea levels could rise as much as 10ft (3 metres) if the Thwaites Glacier in West Antarctica collapses.
Sea level rises threaten cities from Shanghai to London, to low-lying swathes of Florida or Bangladesh, and to entire nations such as the Maldives.
In the UK, for instance, a rise of 6.7ft (2 metres) or more may cause areas such as Hull, Peterborough, Portsmouth and parts of east London and the Thames Estuary at risk of becoming submerged.
The collapse of the glacier, which could begin with decades, could also submerge major cities such as New York and Sydney.
So, SUVs etc. are going to cause the Thwaites Glacier to melt away and drown us all? Before we all start to panic, exchange the old F-150 for a Prius and head for the Appalachians, let’s acknowledge that said glacier is melting — just not because of anything we’re doing. According to the Oracle Watts:
The Thwaites Glacier has been the focus of considerable attention in recent weeks as other groups of researchers found the glacier is on the way to collapse, but more data and computer modeling are needed to determine when the collapse will begin in earnest and at what rate the sea level will increase as it proceeds. The new observations by [University of Texas Institute of Geophysics] will greatly inform these ice sheet modeling efforts.
Using radar techniques to map how water flows under ice sheets, UTIG researchers were able to estimate ice melting rates and thus identify significant sources of geothermal heat under Thwaites Glacier. They found these sources are distributed over a wider area and are much hotter than previously assumed.
The geothermal heat contributed significantly to melting of the underside of the glacier, and it might be a key factor in allowing the ice sheet to slide, affecting the ice sheet’s stability and its contribution to future sea level rise. [my emphasis]
The cause of the variable distribution of heat beneath the glacier is thought to be the movement of magma and associated volcanic activity arising from the rifting of the Earth’s crust beneath the West Antarctic Ice Sheet.
Put simply, for Men Of Simple Brain such as myself: the Thwaites Glacier is melting, but there’s sweet fuck all anyone can do about it. Unless swapping the F-150 for a Prius will prevent tectonic plate shift, that is. (I’m going to shut up now before I give these climate loons any ideas.)
Frankly, any natural event which drowns all of NYFC, Lawn Guyland and Joizee City can’t be all bad…
Just when you thought commercial flying couldn’t possibly get any worse, comes this news:
JetBlue ditches Coca-Cola from its flights in favor of rival drink Pepsi
Now I have not a single dog in this fight as a.) I don’t fly JetBlue and b.) I last drank a Coca-Cola on an airliner during (I think) Ronald Reagan’s first term. Nevertheless, from what I can remember of the taste of Pepsi-Cola (circa 1969), I can quite understand why people are getting upset. Somebody at JetBlue was either not thinking, or else had his kids’ college tuition fees “subsidized”, if you get my drift.
Besides, I’m told that “Jack & Pepsi” sounds silly and tastes worse — and lemme tell y’all, nobody wants to piss off Jack Daniels drinkers. Especially at 27,000 ft.