Month: April 2025

That Tariff Thing

Business, Drive Time, Economics, Gummint

Ignoring any sensationalism from the Daily Mail  (like ignoring rapaciousness from the IRS), I see that Britishland faces a 10% tariff hike.

Which, using Kim’s patented Law Of Ten Method, means nothing.  (The corollary to said law, when applied to budgeting, says that you can always take 10% off anything without much or indeed any problem.  This is true of a household or corporate budget.)  Remember too that tariffs are not applied to the retail sale price — i.e. what you pay for them — but to the cost of goods in the home country.  Even so, I expect that U.S. retailers will eat some of any wholesale price increases, so the retail cost of goods to the consumer will not be that onerous.  Especially after we’ve just gone through Bidenflation. [25,000-word rant on that topic deleted]

I see this, with amusement:

The UK currently exports around £60billion worth of goods to the US. 

Almost all of these goods will now be taxed 10% to send them to the US, making it more expensive.  

Within this £60billion, British cars make up just over £6billion of the exports. Trump last night announced a 25% tariff on all imported cars, again making it more expensive, and less attractive, to buy UK-made motors.

So those Rolls Royces, Bentleys and NuJaguar Duracell cars are going to cost more (not the full 25%, as I expect that the manufacturers thereof will eat at least part if not most of the tariff).  Somehow, I’m pretty sure that the Murkin buyers (plutocrat scum) of said luxury items will not be  driven away by what is not a significant price increase.

Doubtless, my post-lottery Eagle E-type will cost more:

…but I’m pretty sure the lottery winnings would absorb the hit with little notice.  [/snark]

As for companies like AstraZeneca (the Covid guys) with their ~5,000% profit margins, my heart bleeds custard, the chiseling scum.

The Euros (20%), on the other hand, may have a harder time of it, and the Chinese (34%) harder still.  Whatever.  Peruse the table below, and feel free to comment about any of the countries that you may know about.

The Balkans are not listed, but I’ll be curious to see what if anything happens to the price of, say, Prvi Partizan ammo.

Finally, just remember that the United States is the world’s largest market for just about everything made in that world, so if prices rise too high, Americans will just stop buying that imported shit.  Which suits me just fine.  I’d like to see a whole bunch of textile mills, for example, re-open in places like Mississippi, who could sure use the jobs that they lost to the cheaper sweatshops in Asia in not-so-long-ago times, when the Finance assholes moved their operations abroad.

Interesting times.

Dept. Of Righteous Stabbings

Righteous Shootings

Okay, it wasn’t actually a shooting, but I think everyone will agree with my bending the rules in this case.  Here’s the headline:

Schoolchildren disarm robber and stab him to death after being held at gunpoint

The 40-year-old man reportedly approached the two schoolchildren, a girl and a boy, on a bike. They reported that he was armed with a gun and knife and tried to steal their phones. The Public Prosecutor’s Office said that the victims got into a struggle with the man, with one of them snatching the knife off him. The man was stabbed two or three times but managed to get away on his bike. Shortly after he was found lying in the road.

I guess the moral of the story is:  Don’t mess with Chilean teenagers.

And this last item will come as a surprise to exactly nobody:

The prosecutor also confirmed that the deceased had previous criminal records.

…which ended right there, on a dusty street somewhere in Chile. [/Hemingway]

Oh, The Humanity

Gummint

Why am I reduced to peals of helpless laughter at these tales of woe?

Thousands of federal employees who were forced to return to their offices in recent weeks have made some disgusting discoveries – including a lack of toilet paper and rodents.

Donald Trump promptly ended work from home options for federal workers upon taking office, saying anyone who does not ‘show up to the office on time and on schedule’ will be fired.

Ever since, federal employees across the country have found themselves in cramped offices where they have been forced to clean toilets and take out the trash, according to the New York Times. 

One Bureau of Land Management employee even detailed to NPR how ‘we have to go to the agency head to ask if we can buy toilet paper’ because the government-issued pay cards they used to use have been capped at $1 under Trump’s spending freeze. 

Together, the unidentified employees have said the Trump administration’s efforts to bring back federal workers has been marred by a lack of planning and coordination, leading to confusion and even more inefficiency.

At times, the federal workers are even forced to share office space with people from other agencies – creating chaos as they all try to video conference at different times.

Some have said they were not even fortunate enough to get a desk at the offices, with shortages of anywhere to 80 to 100 desks, according to a Federal News Network survey. 

The lack of space has left some working out of conference rooms, cafeterias, hallways and even storage closets.

At the Food and Drug Administration, employees who flocked to the Maryland office on March 17 also found that parking was scarce, and a line snaked around the neighborhood as workers tried to get through security.

Once inside, they told the Times, they found the cafeteria had not stocked up enough food and there were not enough office supplies to go around.

A scientist with the agency, who was hired for a remote position, also said she now has to share office space while she works on sensitive and proprietary projects – creating ethical and practical concerns.

Meanwhile, at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Georgia, employees were told to brace for limited parking at the two campuses.

One employee there said it can now take up to an hour and a half just to leave the campus because the parking lot is so full and there are choke points at every turn.

Read the whole thing, because there are so many more tales of woe.

Listen, you motherfucking taxpayer-supported slackers:  change is always uncomfortable, and sometimes it takes a little time for things to get worked out properly.  In the meantime:  deal with it because after all, if the conditions are that problematic, quit.   (You know, the way people in the private sector have to deal in the midst of corporate downsizings and the like.)  The fact that these pampered little Gummint apparatchiks now have to live in the real world — a world that they seem to have had no problem with forcing onto the private sector — is just one of those things.

I also note with amusement the source of this whining:  the New York fucking Times and National Pussified Radio.  Haven’t seen much about it in conservative media, of course, but there ya go.

I needed a good laugh, anyway.

Spreading The Rot

Health

There was an 80s movie once in which a high-school girl “passed” as a boy (no details, they’re unnecessary), and in getting ready for the role, she was asking her younger brother for advice on acting like a boy, leading to this classic exchange:

“You’ll need to scratch your balls every so often.”
“Why?”
“Because they itch, and you gotta scratch them.”
“Maybe I’ll just be a guy whose balls don’t itch.”
“All men’s balls itch.”

…and it’s true.  Now, thanks to some doctor bloke, we can perhaps see the reason why this is so:

Putting underpants on with bare feet could put millions at risk of a gruesome and embarrassing groin infection, a top doctor has warned. 

So-called ‘crotch rot’ is caused by the fungus, tinea corporis, commonly known as ringworm, and appears as scaly, itchy and sometimes red skin.

And according to Dr Samuel Choudhury, a GP who specialises in skincare, the infection often spreads to the genital area via the feet.  Dr Choudhury explained that underwear comes into contact with the fungal spores on the feet, and carries them up to the groin.

‘So this is what you need to do to avoid jock itch [crotch infection],’ he added.

‘Not wearing underwear is not the solution, but wearing your socks first is. It acts as a barrier so you contain the infection.’

I hate to say it, but this sounds quite plausible.  I mean sure, it may not be true — just as any article in the Daily Mail  generally isn’t — but it seems to be as good a reason for the Dreaded Itch as any other.  It doesn’t seem to matter even if I’ve just had a shower;  the old ‘nads always start itching at some point or another.

So are socks the solution?  Even when I used to wear a suit as a working man, my balls still itched, for reasons best known to themselves.

The only problem, as I see it, comes for men who are like me:  we only ever wear socks on high holy days and holidays, or when we put on winter- or cowboy boots.  Most of the time I’m either going barefoot around the house, or wearing moccasins without socks when I’m going out.  (Sheesh, I’m retired and I live in Texas — socks are just not part of the daily clothing requirements.)

For us Sockless Ones, is the answer then a lifetime doomed to frequent applications of Gold Bond powder?  Gawd, I hope not:  that stuff is horrible.

Readers of the Leech-Application persuasion may feel free to debate this in Comments, of course.

Racism, Straight Up

Legal Stuff, Mocking Furriners, Rights

Here’s a fun item:

The British Sentencing Council has decided that starting Tuesday, white men will be sentenced to longer prison sentences than women and ethnic minorities.

From Tuesday, new judicial guidelines in the United Kingdom will introduce sentencing policies that apply differential treatment based on ethnicity, gender, and age—leading to harsher punishments for white men compared to other groups in society.

Under the updated guidelines, judges will prepare pre-sentencing reports where necessary for defendants from ethnic, cultural, or faith minorities, as well as young people under 25, women, and pregnant women. Historically, such reports have resulted in mitigated sentences, including reduced jail time. The practical implication of these changes is that white men, who do not qualify for these reports, will face relatively harsher sentencing outcomes.

I’m not sure that any Brit, ever again, can accuse anyone else of being a racist.

Travel Insanity

Psychos, Travels

I know that flying on commercial airlines can drive one crazy, but this is outstanding:

Naked woman stabbed people with pencil after screaming ‘I speak all languages’ in airport

A completely naked woman allegedly stabbed two people, ran through a busy airport screaming, “I speak all languages”, broke monitors and threw beverages all over the place in a bizarre rampage. A disturbing two-minute clip of the deranged woman disrupting Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport on March 14 was shared widely on social media.

The police were called for a welfare check on a woman who had suffered a “manic episode” that led to her allegedly stabbing two people with a pencil and biting a restaurant manager trying to subdue her. The traveller reportedly stabbed the restaurant manager in the face and head with his own pencil and also bit his right forearm.

The woman was covered in blood, according to an eye-witness, which was later confirmed to not be her own by medics. When the police managed to restrain her, a police report says she “wanted to be with the flowers” and was “in a forest”.

Gotta say, if you want all that then DFW is definitely not the place for you.

I’m going to bet that her little episode came from trying to make some kind of change to her Qantas ticket — that would make even me do all that.

Or else she’s just a Spirit Airlines Platinum-level customer.