Tag: Stupid people

Theft In Pursuit Of An Agenda

Taxes and Theft, UN and other scum

The redoubtable Stephen Moore brings to light this little bit of internationalist skulduggery,:

Later this week the United Nations will hold a vote on a multibillion-dollar climate change tax targeted squarely at American industry.

This resolution before the International Maritime Organization will impose a carbon tax on cargo and cruise ships that carry $20 trillion of merchandise over international waters.

The resolution is intended to advance the very “net zero” carbon emissions standard that has knee-capped European economies for years and that American voters have rejected.

This international tax that would be applied to American vessels and as such is a dangerous precedent-setting assault on U.S. sovereignty.

As with all great crimes, the first question is “cui bono” ?  And to nobody’s surprise, the answer is:

Worst of all, if the resolution passes, it will require the retirement of older ships and enable a multibillion-dollar wealth transfer to China — which has come to dominate ship building in recent years.

China strongly supports the tax scheme — even though, ironically, no nation has emitted more pollutants into the atmosphere than it has. Yet WE are getting socked with a tax that indirectly pays for their pollution.

Needless to say, the U.S. will have no truck with this nonsense — at least, the current generation of U.S. leaders won’t:

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, U.S. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright and U.S. Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy have jointly stated that America “will not accept any international environmental agreement that unduly or unfairly burdens the United States or our businesses.”

They call the financial impact on the U.S. of this global carbon tax “disastrous, with some estimates forecasting global shipping costs increasing as much as 10% or more.”

So fine.  But given that in the United Nations, there are seventeen likely “yes” votes to our single “no” vote, how are we to combat this nonsense?  As usual, Moore has the answer:

To prevent this sinister tax, the White House should announce a set of retaliation measures.

This could include a dollar-for-dollar reduction in U.S. payments to NATO, the U.N., IMF and World Bank. No foreign money should be directed to any nation that votes for this assault on American ships.

And as the old (paraphrased) saying goes:  “They may have passed this law;  now let them enforce it.”

My additional solution would be for the United States to leave the U.N. altogether, cease its funding thereof, and kick these assholes out of Manhattan for good.  Let them play their little reindeer games all they want, just in someone else’s backyard and with their own money.  See how long that little internationalist dream lasts.

Just. Go. Away.

Eco-Crap

…and I only used that title because my original thought (“Just. Fuck. Off.”) may have been judged as a little intemperate.

Once more unto the hysterical breach, my friends:

The planet is grappling with a “new reality” as it reaches the first in a series of catastrophic and potentially irreversible climate tipping points: the widespread death of coral reefs, according to a landmark report produced by 160 scientists across the world.

As humans burn fossil fuels and ratchet up temperatures, it’s already driving more severe heat waves, floods, droughts, and wildfires. But there are even bigger impacts on the horizon. Climate change may also be pushing Earth’s crucial systems — from the Amazon rainforest to polar ice sheets — so far out of balance they collapse, sending catastrophic ripples across the planet.

“We are rapidly approaching multiple Earth system tipping points that could transform our world, with devastating consequences for people and nature,” said Tim Lenton, a professor at the Global Systems Institute at the University of Exeter and an author of the report published Sunday.

In other words:

Sorry, but nobody with any form of humanoid brain should give any credence to these hysterical “Do this NOW or we’re all gonna dieeeeeee!”  doomsayings anymore.

In the first place, “climate change” is not the major consequence of human activity.  Considering that almost every “landmark study” — from Mann’s infamous (and debunked) “hockey stick” graph onwards — has been based on flawed, incorrect or fraudulent data manipulation, not least in predictive climate models, there is no reason to suggest that there is anything we as humans can do to somehow affect any form of climate change, let alone reverse it.  (Even assuming that mankind — and I’m looking at you, China and the other Third World nations — can actually act in concert, the entire activity could be reversed simply by the Sun doing one thing instead of another.)

In other words, there are greater forces in play here, and it doesn’t appear that people can do anything to affect them, even if they wanted to — and that’s a big if.  Try telling the people who own these seafront properties in Hawaii, for example, to abandon them because the properties’ existence may be harming the offshore reefs:

They’ll tell you to fuck right off, and I can’t say I blame them.

Now tell China and India to stop the pollutant-heavy flow of the Yangtze and Ganges rivers (to name but two) into the ocean, and the response will be “fuck right off, squared“.

As for the statement:  “…multiple Earth system tipping points that could transform our world, with devastating consequences for people and nature”, what’s happening here is the old extension of Murphy’s Law (If something can go wrong, it will) which states:  “If a number of things can go wrong, they will either go wrong simultaneously or else in the order best designed to create the maximum damage.”

It’s a humorous take on failure, but like “strange women lying in ponds distributing swords” is not a good basis for government, basing ecological policy on Murphy’s Extended Law is just as foolish.

Of course, the greater the preponderance of factors pointing to massive failure, the greater the need for panic and precipitous action to prevent it.  Hence the grouping of ocean current weakening, coral reef disintegration and cataclysmic weather events into one Great Big Disaster.  (They left Donald Trump out of the list of calamities, but that’s probably just an oversight.)

Sorry, but we’ve seen, and recently, the dolorous consequences of precipitous, fear-driven action as a response to perceived calamity (#Covid).  The same attitude (“we won’t be fooled again”) should apply equally to these climate loons’ dire predictions.

By the way:  if you really want to worry about something occurring in nature, try this one.  And there’s not a single thing we can do about it.  Not even selling our evil SUVs or eliminating plastics.

Countermeasures

Anarchist thugs, Riotous Assemblies

From the People’s Soviet of Portland:

An online anarchist platform encouraged people on Wednesday to shine lasers at federal helicopters in Portland, Oregon, a crime that law enforcement officials say can create extreme danger for pilots.

A post on the leftist, Portland-focused website “Rose City Counter-Info” tells viewers to scatter throughout the city’s streets on Saturday for the attack — nicknamed “Laser Tag” — as federal agents respond to demonstrations near the city’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility. The goal is to “ground” the helicopters by making it difficult to safely fly them and flash too many lasers for law enforcement to hunt down those using them, according to the anonymously-written post.

“All you need is a laser. Leave home – they can see where the laser is coming from,” the post reads. “Go to a park, a field, or some other public place, and once the clock strikes 9 unleash your beam at the cop copter. Mask up. Coordinate with friends to throw a laser party!”

“Let’s take back the night together!” the announcement continued. “It won’t take many of us to ground the helicopters!”

Wouldn’t it be nice if there were a few patriots scattered around said parks and fields, likewise equipped, so that when one of these goblins shines a laser up at a chopper, he or she could find themselves lit up in turn…

All together now:

“♫ ♪ ♫ ♪ You say you want a revolution, well you know…♫ ♪ ♫ ♪”

What Price The Big Day?

Good Stuff, Men & Women

This story got me nodding my head in agreement.

One couple ditched their plans for a conventional wedding and instead jetted off on a month-long honeymoon.  Hannah Bird and Charlie Camper, both 26, had originally budgeted £30,000 for their big day.  However, the pair from Burnham-on-Sea soon realized the huge sum would be blown on just one day and could instead be used to make more memories exploring the world. 

So they did just that:  offering their guests supermarket cup cakes instead of buying an expensive wedding cake, got the bride a free (i.e. secondhand) wedding dress and offered their guests a buffet (“grazing table”) instead of the traditional sit-down meal.  As for the venue:  they booked a woodland retreat for a whole weekend’s festivities — which ordinarily would strike some as excessive — but reduced the cost by charging their guests sixty quid, in lieu of wedding presents.  Which makes a great deal of sense, by the way:  it may sound tacky, but from a guest’s point of view, where are you going to get a weekend getaway for only sixty bucks?  A bargain for everybody, and guests wouldn’t have to mess with buying presents into the bargain.

I never bought in to the wedding-industrial complex;  it always seemed to me a cynical exercise in gyno-centric excess — the idea that a girl somehow “deserves” to have a Special Day wherein she’s the absolute center of attention.  What bollocks.  And this is especially true when one looks at the statistics and realizes that the chances of said nuptials actually producing a long and happy relationship are vanishingly small.

I have no problem with the bride’s parents paying lots of money for the occasion, by the way — it’s their money to do with what they wish, and as long as they don’t bankrupt themselves (a distressingly-common occurrence), why not?  But as with the couple in the above story, it makes so much more sense to take the money that would have been blown on fripperies such as massive flower bouquets and a one-day-use dress, and spend it instead on something worthwhile to the couple, rather than just feeding the bride’s giant ego or need for self-aggrandizement.

I actually did that with my first marriage.  As time passed, I noted with alarm that the whole thing was growing faster than a Democrat politician’s spending plan, and I did two things:  first, I secretly bought our honeymoon air tickets (to the U.S., incidentally, where neither of us had been before);  then I presented that fact to the bride’s family as a fait accompli, and said that this wedding day was going to be made on a strict budget because we needed to save money to afford a month-long’s stay in the U.S.  Unbelievably, over time pressure was brought upon me by her family to cancel the U.S. trip for a shorter honeymoon at some resort somewhere in South Africa — said pressure only disappearing when I threatened to walk away from the whole wedding (and marriage) and go to the States on my own instead.  And I meant every word.

Anyway, that honeymoon Over Here was truly beneficial for me, in that I fell in love with this wonderful, fantastic country, big time… and the rest you know.

And all because like the couple above, I refused to spend a boatload of money on some one-day extravagance.  In their case, they got a lifetime’s worth of memories;  in my case, I changed my life’s entire path.

A bargain, for both of us.

More Food Scolding

Food & Drink

This time from some group I’ve never heard of before, the “2025 EAT-Lancet Commission”, who are “a coalition of experts in nutrition, climate, economics, health and agriculture from more than 35 countries.”

Needless to say, when this august body issues a report that contains this word garbage:

“The evidence laid out in our report is clear: the world must act boldly and equitably to ensure sustainable improvements.”

…you just know that it’s going to be total bullshit.

And so it is.

If people worldwide adopted their “Planetary Health Diet” (PHD), up to 15 million premature deaths could be avoided annually. 

Note the usual weaseling:  “up to” [some massive figure], and “could be” avoided.  No mention what the “premature” figure actually is and how it’s been derived.

Oh wait, I forgot this little snippet:

“Changing how the world eats could reduce premature deaths, save trillions of dollars and slow the impacts of climate change.”

Ah yes, the (by now thoroughly-debunked) bogeyman of Global Warming Climate Cooling Change©, and the promise of endless amounts of money to be saved — all undermined by the single word “could” — that would improve our world, if only yadda yadda yadda.

So what is this PHD master plan, exactly?

PHD is a plant-based menu that includes three to five daily servings of whole grains, at least five daily servings of fruits and vegetables and daily servings of nuts and legumes.  The diet doesn’t call for the complete elimination of animal proteins for those who wish to continue eating them, but instead encourages people to consume red meat, poultry, fish, eggs and dairy in moderation. For example, the group recommends only one serving of red meat, two servings of fish and poultry and three to four eggs per week. They also call for strict limits on added sugars, saturated fats and salt.

You mean we shouldn’t all go completely vegan, then?  Color me surprised.  So to sum up;  eat pretty much what you want, in moderation.  Well, except a lot less bacon, steaks and hamburgers, you filthy carnivores.

Whatever.

What gets up my nose, however, is the implicit meaning of the expression “act boldly” in the very first paragraph of this post.  To pricks like this, “act boldly” means that some authority should begin to dictate how we eat, and enforce this foul nonsense.

Because the stakes are so high, you see.

And exactly how does this new buzzword “equitable” feature in this, anyway?  (I’ll save you the trouble of thinking about it:  it’s just a fashionable way to add justification to the cause du jour.  Ditto “climate change”.)

Simple conclusion for us:  fuck right off, assholes.  You have as much credibility on this topic as the assholes who gave us the (tragically wrong) Food Pyramid:  i.e. none.

It amazes me that over the past half century or so, while we have undoubtedly been eating more junk food, the worldwide stats for death by starvation — surely to be included in any count of premature deaths — have plummeted.  In fact, if one were to exclude acts of deliberate starvation perpetrated by government (hello, Comrade Stalin and various African / Asian warlords), there’s a convincing case to be made that starvation has become far less of a worldwide calamity than it was even in, say, 1950.

And now, if you’ll excuse me, I think I’m going to make myself a brekkie of bacon and (two) eggs with some toasted French bread on the side, and then head off to the range.

Exactly what I’m going to be shooting must await tomorrow’s range report.  It will, however, cause something of a stir.

Problem, Solution

Eco-Warriors, Hippie Filth

From Insty:

In the interests of saving precious avgas, may I make a humble suggestion — because there’s no need to take them all the way over to Yurp, after all.:

I’m sure Doom Goblin* Greta Thunberg of all people would appreciate the IDF’s effort to save eeeevil fuel and thus pollute Gaia’s atmosphere less.

Just a thought.

*okay, who came up with that wonderful nickname for the little Swedish retard?