Tag: Things that totally suck

News Desert

Bad News

I have to say that the past week or so has had news of little or no interest to me, and even less worth commenting on.

Yeah, Trump has finally got Iran to sign a “deal” which will do something or other, but I suspect that those assholes have no intention of following any of its terms — at least, those terms which would prevent it from continuing their jihad against Israel and the West — so I suspect that at some point we’ll have to go back and do it all over again.

And the Brits are totally fucked under Labour — we all knew that anyway — but I see little light at the end of that particular tunnel until a proper alternative can be found for the Socialists.  Don’t hold yer breath. If we think that repatriating the millions of illegal aliens Over Here is difficult, it will be exponentially more difficult Over There with the millions of “refugees” they’ve welcomed in and allowed to infest their once-proud society.

I don’t care about Europe as a whole, anyway, so whatever happens to them will happen — they brought it all on themselves anyway — and yeah, whatever.

Everyone keeps saying that China’s economy is going to collapse soon, but I think that’s bullshit.  As the man said:  there’s a lot of ruin in a nation, and anyone thinking there’ll be some sudden cataclysmic collapse is deluding themselves.  (They said that about the Soviet Union too, and it did collapse;  but I see no evidence of a Chinese Gorbachev to start the ball rolling.)

As for our economy… don’t ask.  At some point we too are going to be well and truly fucked, thanks to our feckless government spending levels, but if there’s a lot of ruin in China, there’s a hell of a lot more ruin in the U.S.  If we can somehow solve the issue without wholesale executions (quit that cheering), it will be a win.

The only bit of cheering news I see is that the stupid and self-destructive Green movement is starting to see the air escaping out of their little balloon, and not a moment too soon, says I.  As Insty says, faster please.

I think I’ll go to the range and shot off a whole bunch of .22 because why not?

No Authority

Immigration, Legal Stuff

I’m getting really sick of the judiciary usurping the Constitutional power of the POTUS.  Here’s the latest little tick on the hide of our republic:

A federal judge, appointed by former President Barack Obama, has blocked President Donald Trump’s administration from halting legal immigration and asylum applications from nearly 40 countries deemed “high-risk” by officials.

“Each of the Challenged Policies — the Global Asylum Hold Policy, the Benefits Hold Policy, the Comprehensive Re-Review Policy, and the Country-Specific Factors Policy — are declared unlawful and are hereby VACATED and SET ASIDE,” McConnell wrote in his ruling.

See, I thought that we Americans — and most especially the President — could absolutely decide who and who not to allow into the country.

Needless to say, the aforementioned judge is not only an Obama pustule, but also resident in Rhode Island (as if we needed any more proof of his Leftism).

I’m curious as to what grounds this creep used to classify all those policies as “illegal” — I’m hoping that one of my Powdered Wig Readers will be sufficiently interested to cast an eye on the actual ruling and decipher it for us.

Also just out of curiosity:  how many federal judges has Trump appointed in the past eighteen months?  Because that seems to be the only (legal) way we can overwhelm assholes like this from subverting the Executive.

Note that I’m not advocating this:

… although some might.

I’m Thinking Jail

Government Thugs

…with weekly ball-kickings, having committed this piece of bureaucratic foulness:

This entire monstrosity started when the ATF sent a confidential informant to buy machineguns from Adamiak, who never sold any machineguns, of course. Adamiak never had any machineguns.  Instead, Adamiak sold the informant barrel shrouds, which were even cut up into pieces.

Barrel shrouds surround a machinegun barrel. They’re meant to keep a young soldier from burning their hands on a hot machinegun barrel. The weapon can fire full-auto with or without a shroud. They certainly aren’t vital parts. They definitely are not a “machinegun.”

Anyone who misclassifies cut up barrel shrouds as machineguns shouldn’t be working for the ATF, but that’s exactly what ATF Firearms Enforcement Officer Ronald K. Davis did. He put this deception into a report, which ATF Agent William S. Harston, Jr., quickly used as evidence to obtain a search warrant of Adamiak’s home. Hairston, the ATF’s lead case agent, even held up a toy during Adamiak’s trial, which of course was also classified as a machinegun.

“If they never lied about those shrouds, they never would have gotten a search warrant,” Adamiak said Wednesday.

During his trial, Adamiak’s defense team tried to argue that the barrel shrouds weren’t machineguns, so the search warrant was flawed, and the ATF’s entire investigation was based on lies… but the judge cut them right off.

So the ATF agents who cooked up this specious bullshit (up to and including the senior officer who signed off on it), the prosecutor and team who decided to prosecute it, and the judge who allowed the cooked-up evidence into court:  each and every one of them should be charged and imprisoned because every single thing they did subverted the course of actual justice in one way or another.

And screw this “hearing next month” nonsense.  Patric Adamiak should be freed within the next hour, following a pardon by President Trump.

One last word to POTUS:  inactivity on manifest injustices such as this one are the kind of thing that persuade once loyal supporters to stay home at the next election.  Yes, it’s that important — because what happened to Adamiak could happen to any one of us, if allowed to proceed unchecked.

Get it done.  Hundreds if not thousands of people have been pardoned for far greater crimes — and Pat Adamiak never committed a crime in the first place.

Unmasking

Terrorism, Traitors / Fifth Columnists

Let’s take the lace panties off this pork chop, shall we?

California woman arrested, accused of trafficking weapons for Iranian govt

The lace panties would be the “California woman” appellation.  In fact:

On Saturday, 44-year-old Shamim Mafi was detained at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX).

According to First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli, Mafi, a California resident, was charged with brokering deals involving Iranian drones, bombs, and ammunition that were allegedly intended for Sudan.

In addition to the accusations, authorities say records linked her to Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security. Court documents indicated that the ministry allegedly provided instructions and funding for her to establish a business in the United States to operate from.

Here’s the pork chop:  this Iranian tart is in fact an Iranian government mole, involved in all sorts of subversion and other Fifth-column activities.  She’s a “California woman” only in terms of her place of residence — she is apparently a resident alien and not a U.S. citizen  — but the term used is just a figleaf to conceal her true nature and activities.

I’m just surprised that One America News used the figleaf in their headline — it’s normally the Left who use such nomenclature in referring, for example, to a criminal rapist illegal immigrant as “a Maryland man”, and so on.

Note to OAN:  Stop doing that.

Owning, Or Being Owned?

Corporate Fuckery, Drive Time, Technology

Several Readers (thankee) have pointed me to this article at American Thinker:

There was a time — not very long ago — when the automobile represented one of the clearest expressions of individual choice in a free society. Limited only by fuel, roads, and imagination, a person could choose where to go, when to go, and how to get there. The car was not merely a machine. It was mobility made personal — an extension of autonomy and freedom.

Sadly, that is no longer the case. Increasingly, this same instrument, once a tool to facilitate individual independence, has been repurposed into a system of monitoring and control. Though advertised as safety measures for the consumer, these measures were clearly designed to empower the state.

Modern vehicles are no longer just mechanical devices; they are computers on wheels. Embedded sensors track speed, braking patterns, seatbelt usage, location, and even driver attention. Event Data Recorders — commonly referred to as “black boxes” — have been standard in most new vehicles for years. Originally justified as instruments to reconstruct accidents, these devices record data in the moments before a crash. Few object to understanding the causes of collisions. But it is worth noting that once data exists, its use rarely remains confined to its original purpose.

Insurance companies now seek access to driving data to adjust premiums. Law enforcement agencies have used vehicle data in criminal investigations. Courts have admitted such data as evidence. Each of these developments can be justified in isolation. Together, they represent a quiet but unmistakable shift: the automobile is no longer simply your property — it is a source of information about you.

More recently, legislative developments have accelerated this trend. The federal infrastructure legislation passed in 2021 includes a mandate for advanced impaired driving prevention technology to be installed in all new vehicles within the coming years. While often described in benign terms — systems that passively detect intoxication or driver impairment — the practical reality is that these systems must continuously monitor driver behavior in order to function. Monitoring creates data. And data, once created, rarely remains unused. It takes on a life of its own.

Proposals and discussions around remote vehicle disablement — popularly referred to as “kill switches” — have raised further concerns. While proponents argue that such features could prevent high-speed chases or stop stolen vehicles, the existence of remote-control capabilities introduces a fundamentally different relationship between the individual and the machine. A car that can be disabled remotely is clearly not under the control of its owner.

I’ve ranted about this little bit of rampant evil on many occasion, and the gist of all my screeds has been all around this concept:  giving up control — to anyone, for even the most laudable purposes — will, inevitably, end your freedom.

I’m unlikely ever to buy a new car, and certainly not a “modern” car which would contain all the electronic snoopery and filth as discussed above, and most especially at today’s bloated and excessive prices.  But if I were ever to be forced into buying a replacement for the Tiguan or the Fiat, and given that no matter what I buy, it would carry a horrible price tag withal, then why would I just not get a much older car that while expensive, at least allows me the freedom that cars of yore gave me?  Something like this one, for instance:

I know, fifty-odd grand for what is in essence a gift-wrapped VW 2300cc engine may seem excessive to some;  but I don’t need much more than 145hp (especially on that featherweight chassis), and it least it doesn’t look like every other car on the road (#WindTunnel).  But most of all:

…please note the refreshing absence of all the modern electronic geegaws which bedevil today’s automotive offerings.  The only thing missing (which I’d add with alacrity) is air conditioning. (#TexasSummer)

For the faint of heart, let me point out that a new VW Tiguan base model will set you back close to $40,000, and a Jetta (with a stick shift!) only five grand less.  And you can bet your ass that both the VWs will come equipped with all the latest in snoop-‘n-control electronics.

Sorry, but no.  To hell with all that.  I want simple, and I want freedom.