Tag: Suckage

Things that totally suck

False Expectations

Foreign Affairs, Politics

I saw this headline a couple-three days ago:

What to Expect from Trump’s Summit with Xi

…and I have to say, I think there’s little point in actually meeting with anyone from CommieChina, let alone with this little egomaniacal dictator.

I mean, seriously:  whatever Xi says, it’s going to be non-committal at best, but mostly it’s going to be a series of outright lies, or else some promises that he has not the slightest intention of keeping.

So what’s the point?  I know:  “Jaw-jaw is better than war-war” (W.S. Churchill).  Didn’t really achieve much with his predecessor at Munich in 1938, and I have the feeling that were Xi to say that the Spratley Islands are his last territorial demand (cf. our friend Adolf re: the Sudetenland), his promise would have about the same degree of credibility.

Ditto any reassurances from Xi that his regime will stop meddling in our internal politics (i.e. our elections, funding subversive organizations and so on).  He might say something acceptable, but will it stop?  Of course not.

I don’t have any good ideas about what to do with this asshole regime, other than waiting for Xi and his cronies to overstep — let him invade his Poland, so to speak — and then unleash hell on his ass.

The only problem, however, is that most of our brimstone has been emptied into Iran — not that this is necessarily a Bad Thing, mind you — but it does mean that any threats or bluster coming from Trump would be pointless.

We’re not even capable of waging economic warfare on China, mostly because our Treasury is not only empty, but in debt.

Like I said, I’m all out of ideas.  But having some kind of meaningless “summit” is a bad one.

Unbearable

Grammar Nazism

I can remain silent no longer.

Oh good grief… there is no such thing as “on accident”.

It’s BY accident, BY accident, BY accident, FFS.

It stings all the more because Stephen is one of the more erudite writers on the Internet, and should know better.

This New Thing

Marketing / Advertising, Morons & Idiots

Probably the modern word I hate the most is this “influencer” tag.  Fuck me, every totty with some kind of EeewwwChoob / TikTwat channel is now suddenly an “influencer” because her views of makeup / clothing / (whatever fad the younger audience of today are obsessed with) seem to cause advertisers to swoon with delight, according to the number of “followers” they are supposed to have according to some impenetrable measurement method.

There’s nothing wrong with the latter, of course:  the Nielsen ratings were once the yardstick whereby advertisers could approportion their spending among the various TV stations and shows according to the shows’ audience size.

Or maybe it’s just sour grapes on my part, because these (mostly-brainless) girls are raking in the cash with their “content” — the latter being nothing but opinion (largely shaped, I assume, by the brands’ sponsorship of such).  And apparently, being beautiful with large breasts increases their allure (no idea why).

I find it interesting that male “influencers” tend to have more actual content on their shows;  the wonderfully-low-class Mat Armstrong, for example, has made hundreds of thousands of dollars (okay, pounds sterling) out of repairing crashed supercars — he’s just bought a house in England and another in Miami, so we can safely assume that his business is profitable —  while stalwarts like Garand Thumb (two guys with actual expertise, being former SpecFor and Ranger operators) skimp along, apparently, with sponsorships from various gunny-type companies (but have a lot of fun along the way).

I suppose that even I could call myself an influencer, judging by the number of (tongue-in-cheek) complaints from people over the years, wailing about how they were perfectly happy with their firearms until they came to this website and were compelled — forced, even — to buy yet another gun they didn’t know they needed until I spoke glowingly about its allure and excellent qualities.

Did I get any kind of remuneration from this “influencing”?  Don’t be ridiculous.

So yes, maybe I am jealous that today’s influencers make money hand over fist each week while I have made, at a rough guess, a few thousand dollars — over twenty years — from my type of influencing.

Of course, my own cussedness hasn’t helped, in that I refuse to take on advertising (I did, once, very briefly for a few months during the NoR days, until an advertiser complained that I’d said Bad Things about his industry and I told him to fuck off and pulled the plug on the whole thing).  Ditto sponsorships, mostly because gun companies don’t need me when they have “gun writers” to pimp their products via the various gun magazines, but also because I absolutely refuse to be tied to any kind of influence over my opinions on, well, anything.

It also doesn’t help that my “likes” are confined to a really small list of products and such, either.

So I guess I am and have been my own worst enemy in this regard.

Oh well.

Here’s an unsolicited (and unpaid-for) recommendation (link in pic):

It’s a pre-WWII Sempert & Krieghoff tube-fed semi-auto chambered in 8x60mm, and it’s so beautiful it makes me swoon like a schoolgirl groupie.   Okay, at $17,500 it’s not the cheapest gun you could buy, and good luck finding the obscure 8x60mm S ammo anywhere, which means it’s strictly for reloaders.

And its performance is pretty much on a par with its smaller 8x57mm Mauser cousin, which is plentiful and can be fired far more cheaply from rifles like this mil-surp K98k:

…which are sold everywhere and can be had for under $1,000.

But you have to admit, that one-of-a-kind Sempert sure is pretty.  If you do decide to buy it, mention my name to the folks at Collectors, which will result in nothing more than a “who?” from them and not a single penny of kickback to me.

Par for the course, really.

Flock News Update

Surveillance Society

And the hits just keep on coming — this time, from Sweet Home Alabama:

The company is Flock Safety, and it runs the largest mass surveillance network in American history, with more than 100,000 cameras by its own count. But don’t be confused; these aren’t run-of-the-mill red light cameras. Every Flock camera photographs every vehicle that passes by, around the clock, whether anyone suspects a crime or not.

On any given Saturday in Alabama, a man can leave his driveway, gas up, run by the gun shop for ammo, shoot all morning at the range, and be home for lunch. He hasn’t broken any law or bothered a soul. And in more of our towns than you’d guess, a camera on a pole photographed his truck at every stop and filed it in a searchable database owned by a private company in Atlanta.

And the record contains far more than your tag number. Each image becomes a searchable record containing the plate, time, location, direction of travel, make, color, body type, and other identifying features. Flock calls this part of their system the “Vehicle Fingerprint,” and their own materials advertise the ability to conduct searches using unique vehicle details, including bumper stickers and decals. That matters in Alabama. A Gadsden flag, Glock sticker, BamaCarry decal, or other Second Amendment message on the back of a truck is not just something another driver sees at a red light. It’s now a searchable data point tied to that vehicle, the owner, and your movement.

These cameras came into Alabama the way kudzu did: quietly, then… boom, everywhere.

And it gets worse:

But here is the craziest part: most of it arrived by consent agenda and contract renewal. The Legislature never voted on a statewide surveillance network. Yet ALEA’s administrative rules let plate reader data sit for five years, the longest of any state, per a 2026 legislative survey, and require every read to feed a statewide registry once ALEA stands it up.

That should stop every gun owner in their tracks. Alabama law, through Act 2024-232, prohibits the government from keeping a list or registry of privately owned firearms or their owners. Gun owners fought hard to secure that protection. Yet today, Flock has effectively created a searchable, five-year archive showing which vehicles with Second Amendment decals park at gun stores on Fridays, attend gun shows, or regularly visit shooting ranges. It may be built from “license plate photos” instead of firearm records, but for all practical purposes, it’s a hard registry of gun owners.

Got the Warm & Fuzzies yet?

Only For Me, Not For You

Gummint, Law and Order, Rights

Ah don’ theenk so, amigo:

Fresno County officials are pushing to let prosecutors carry concealed firearms after a shocking daylight stabbing of a senior deputy district attorney last week.

Supervisor Garry Bredefeld is working with Sheriff John Zanoni and DA Lisa Smittcamp on an ordinance allowing them to be armed on county property.

Sorry, but fuck you.  If the ordinary people living in your county can’t carry concealed guns to protect themselves, then nor can you.

Newsflash (for the elites):  ordinary people are just as likely to be victims of violent crime as you are, and depriving them of their Constitutional right to self defense, as so often happens in California, is bad enough — so you don’t get to benefit from some “exception” that you might carve out for yourselves.

“Our prosecutors come to work every day committed to pursuing justice, standing up for victims and protecting our community. They should be able to do that work without fear of violence.”

No more than anyone else who gets stabbed just because he was standing outside a convenience store minding his own business, when some mook decides it was time for a little impromptu knife action.

And yeah, I get it that because of their occupation, prosecutors are sometimes likely to become stabbees (as was the case recently)… and I don’t care, especially as California prosecutors are pretty much feral themselves when it comes to, for example, charging some hapless guy with murder just because he whacked a violent criminal in his own living room.

Follow the laws you support, assholes — and you don’t get any special treatment.  If you find that you have to change them, change them for everybody, or not at all, and live with the consequences, just like we do.