5 Worst Things To Say During A Traffic Stop

In ascending order of ill-advisedness:

  • “Only 120?  That’s disappointing;  my speedo was showing 135.”
  • “If I give you a sip from my hip flask, will you let me off with a warning?”
  • “I’ll have a hot dog with fries, and a vanilla shake… darlin’.”
  • “Apparently, radar speed guns cause testicular cancer.  I fucking hope so.”
  • “Here:  hold my gun while I look for my wallet.”

Your suggestions in Comments.

Thanksgiving

Last year I missed Thanksgiving because I was over in Britishland chez  Mr. Free Market.  As I recall, I went out and had fish ‘n chips for dinner with The Englishman, as the Free Markets were unavailable.

This year I’ll be doing it properly.  Daughter is doing the cooking, and Son&Heir will be hosting the dinner at his place.  Today I will be back with my family again, and for that I am truly thankful.

May your Thanksgiving be as blessed as mine.

Winter Hammers Britishland

Temperatures are expected to fall to as low as -6C (21F) tonight after millions of people woke up to frost and icy conditions this morning – with snow falling as far south as Brighton and Devil’s Dyke in the South Downs of Sussex. The first flurries of snow hit high ground on hills in northern England, Wales and Scotland as November closes with an icy blast after the mercury dipped to below freezing overnight.

I Just Call Them “Men”

Saw this article via Insty, and had to add my thoughts.

Who are the kind of men who still carry pocketknives? They are the type of men who earn an honest living, work hard and stand fearless in a world gone mad.  To put it simply, they are the type of men the world could use a lot more of these days.

To me, this whole idea is such a “duh” situation that I can barely articulate it.

Of course every man — not just the ones in the quote — should carry a pocket knife (and even more than one, maybe) on their belt or in their pocket [sic].  I for one cannot imagine leaving the house without a knife on me — as the writer’s father said, “I’m wearing pants, aren’t I?” — and other than when boarding a flight (don’t get me started) I can’t remember when last I went knife-less out of the house.  (Yeah, I carried a knife even in Britishland, where it’s streng verboten, sorry P.C. Plod.)

Sheesh… next thing we’ll be talking about men not needing cars or trucks*.


*with apologies to the urbanites, who like me when I used to live in downtown Chicago, don’t need one.

Stupidity

Sometimes I fear for us all.  In an otherwise-interesting article on the world’s “vanishing countries” which talks about how China’s population growth is slowing, we also see examples of foolishness such as this:

China is relaxing its one-child policy — but it may be too late. In addition to lacking workers, a fifth of China’s homes are empty, reported Bloomberg news — more than 50 million apartments and houses have no inhabitants.
Fertile countries have a far brighter future. They are a good place to invest your money, said Hans Rosling, a Swedish professor and demographic “prophet” who died in February.
“You will find an emerging China in Africa,” he told the BBC in a final interview. “Go there to invest if you want to earn money, if you want to have nice pensions when you retire, place part of your capital there because there you will see fast growth.”

Clearly, Rosling never set foot on the African continent, where there’s never been a shortage of workers, only a shortage of honest government.  Allow me to revise his statement for you:

“Go invest in African countries if you want to lose money, if you want to have no pensions when you retire, and place part of your capital there if you want to see fast growth in African politicians’ bank accounts and not in yours, and to see no tangible results from your investment.”

That’s the reality of investing in Africa.

It reminds me of that old, withering observation:  “Your suggestion is so stupid, so devoid of commonsense and logic that it could only have been made by an academic or intellectual.”  (Note that the latter two are not synonymous.)

And these are the people who are regarded as the intelligent ones, who advise governments and tell us how to run our lives.

Unintentionally Funny

This idiot cartoonist was trying to make a point about how White men are bad, or hateful or something — only it kinda had the opposite effect, judging from popular reaction:

I’m trying to find what’s so bad about all that… can’t.  He did omit “socialists” from the “NO” column, but he probably caught a good few of ’em anyway with the others.

Or am I missing something?