No doubt there’ll be BLM-inspired rioting after this one:
A man was shot and killed by Los Angeles police officers in front of horrified bystanders on a packed Hollywood Walk of Fame on Thursday after he pointed a replica gun at them.
Here’s a thought: why don’t we flood the ‘hoods with replica Glocks?
All I ask is that the LAPD keep their lapel cameras running so we can all enjoy the fun that follows.
I spoke of Victoria Coren a little while back, and now it’s time to call on her brother Giles, albeit for different reasons:
Giles Coren exploded with rage on social media this morning as he revealed thieves pinched his £65,000 eco-Jaguar for the second time in just three months.
The TV presenter, 51, turned detective back in April after his beloved car was stolen but police told him they didn’t have the ‘manpower to investigate’.
Of course they don’t. Perhaps it’s because if you go on Twatter and call a footballer a nigger, the response will be dramatic, and immediate. But to continue:
In an incredible thread, [Coren] posted pictures of his journey in tracking down the Jaguar I-Pace, which he eventually found in Highgate, north London, telling followers he ‘got his electric kitty cat back’.
Didn’t help much. After spending a small fortune to re-key his car and change all its “anti-theft” doodads, the car was stolen again, leaving Coren in an incandescent rage.
In a furious tweet, Mr Coren wrote: ‘They’ve stolen my fucking car AGAIN!!!! Cost me three grand to reset the keys and put in a new tracking system after last time and what good does it do? FUCK ALL.
‘If you see a black Jaguar iPace reg ending JVN could you tell me? I’ll give you a million pounds.’
Giles, ol’ buddy: if you’re going to drop a million bucks, you should rather move out of London, to a more law-abiding place like say, Reading.
I’ll give him the last word, though:
The food critic began: ‘Last night the cunts stole my new Jaguar I-Pace. So Fuck them, fuck the environment and fuck any sort of giving a shit about cars.
‘I’m buying a six year old diesel fucking Skoda and everyone can just fuck off.’
Note to the Greens: when you’ve lost the food critics… after all, this electric car thing will soon lose its allure for other reasons.
…we have this little situation developing in Mandelaland:
Looting broke out in several cities in South Africa this weekend after the country’s former president, Jacob Zuma, began serving a 15-month sentence last Thursday for contempt in relation to an investigation of corruption during his tenure.
I should note that Zuma — corruptus maximus on a continent renowned for its systemic corruption — was convicted of perjury, rather than his extensive and bald-faced plundering of South Africa’s already-straitened treasury.
So why are the Usual Suspects copying their BLM counterparts in the U.S.?
Well, it’s all happening in Kwa-Zulu/Natal, because Zuma is a Zulu, you see, and so why not riot and loot all over his homeland?
Needless to say, just as Baltimore was set on fire after some strung-out Black asshole was killed by cops in Minneapolis, so Natal’s little exercise in ad hoc property redistribution is spreading outwards, and the boys in Johannesburg aren’t going to be left out of the fun, no sirree.
The background to all of this is actually a combination of two factors: the grinding poverty that persists in South Africa, and the fact that the hapless and incompetent government has not been able to get even close to vaccinating its people against the Wuhan Menace. The plague that has ensued has resulted in knee-jerk lockdowns, preventable deaths by the hundreds of thousands, and a deepening of the already-critical economic slump.
The second article on the topic is priceless, and contains this gem:
Perhaps most alarming are reports of ordinary people “forming armed groups to protect businesses, homes in KwaZulu-Natal”, and videos on social media which purport to show armed, ad hoc citizens’ militias and private security out on the streets.
Alarming? This is Africa, old son. That’s what you get when you have this situation:
A mosque has also been set on fire in Mayville Durban.
“They were not fighting, they were running for their lives. They were innocent people. We don’t know how they died,” Ismaeel said, alleging that there are “no police” — and indeed that “Police are themselves are targets. You call police they can’t come.”
This squares with reports from Pietermaritzburg, where at least two malls have been looted and one raised [sic] by fire, with the BBC saying that riot police who attempted to disperse looters with rubber bullets were met with live ammunition in return.
Police also came under fire on a freeway near a mall in Durban, where many malls, stores, and at least one factory have been looted, with one officer being hit in the leg.
For some reason, I feel an urge to go to the range…
Saw this little piece via Insty, and had to laugh:
Worlds are colliding in Denver’s Capitol Hill neighborhood. Homeless encampments are popping up right outside million-dollar homes.
Michael Beckley is one of a growing number of homeowners who are taking matters into their own hands, trying to keep tents from appearing in the parkways in front of their streets. “It’s brutal, because it will effectively kill the grass. When the first tent showed up here, I fenced it off and said you f—— aren’t coming up here,” Beckley said.
Fences can now be seen roping off parkways throughout the neighborhood. The action is legal, according to the city, because homeowners are required to maintain and care for the parkways adjacent to their homes. Many homeowners are convinced the homeless encampments will lead to a spike in neighborhood crime, especially thefts in the neighborhood.
I don’t know Denver at all, but I’m willing to bet that the Capitol Hill neighborhood votes solidly Democrat/Socialist at every election. If this is true, then:
Update: Longtime Reader Tim M grew up in Denver, and agrees with my analysis.
Read all about it. Too bad that ordinary Brits aren’t allowed to carry guns over there, because I bet that if they were, not only might this asshole have been stopped more quickly, but a lot more of his type might think twice before getting all Stabby For Allah.
…in which the vast majority of serfs people never actually own anything, but rent everything. We’ve seen this trend in innocuous stuff, of course, such as in the online music business where the foul recording industry can take (i.e. repossess) music away from purchasers simply by removing it from “The Cloud” and similarly in TV shows and movies, where the equally-foul studios can do likewise. (Consumers owning the physical media of CDs and DVDs has always been the bane of the respective industries’ profit plans, both because they can’t control “unlicensed” third-party distribution and because once the sale is made, they can’t claw it back.)
According to Big Business, therefore, property is theft (of the products they consider their own, and not the purchasers’), a sentiment which would have made that foul mountebank Proudhon rub his hands with glee — except of course that he wanted “the people” (i.e. the State) to own everything rather than giant corporations (in his time, the Church).
So what’s brought this rant on? The Germans — or, to be more specific, the German auto industry. Try this little scenario on for size (courtesy of Insty):
Volkswagen recently announced that it plans on making massive amounts of money by introducing more vehicles with over-the-air updates (OTAs), many of which will be able to store and transfer personal profiles so that users can effectively just rent their vehicles for eternity. Additionally, VW has suggested future models will have ability to lock features (that have already been physically installed) behind a paywall that users can unlock via subscription services — things like heated seats, satellite navigation, or even the vehicles top speed.
“In the future, our customers will buy, lease, share or rent cars just for a weekend, and we can use software to provide them with whatever they need over the air,” VW brand’s sales chief Klaus Zellmer said during an online presentation held on Tuesday. “The ID family has been designed for further development, with OTA updates to improve the software’s performance and tailor it to our customers’ needs.”
Other German automakers have pitched (or introduced) similar concepts over the last few years and it smacks of the terror that is the World Economic Forum’s “Great Reset” — a plan which envisions a near future were the general populace owns nothing and giant multinational corporations (and their heirs) effectively hold all the cards. It’s the kind of thing one might call you an unhinged conspiracy theorist for believing, until you head over to the WEC’s website to read a dozen or so articles explaining exactly how it’s to be implemented or notice that most Western governments seem to be pushing some variant of the “Build Back Better” campaign. The plot is often the same and hinges upon prioritizing stringent social controls, increased government spending, collaborating with large businesses/banks, and enhanced surveillance in exchange for some vague promises about public safety and environmental reform.
Not content with adding a whole slew of “conveniences” (unnecessary geegaws like remote starting, keyless- and stop-start ignition, “memory” seat adjustment and such) to their cars, said conveniences which simply drive up the cost (and profits) of cars into the fucking stratosphere, these bastards now think they can sell the cows and charge the owners for the milk they draw, ad infinitum.
Yeah, well, maybe not. I’ve been a lifelong fan of Volkswagen, having owned seven of their various models over the past forty years, but I have to tell you right now: when it comes time to replace the Tiguan — and it’s going to happen soon — it’s not to a VW dealer I’ll be going. No way am I going to give them any of my hard-earned dollars to support their evil machinations. Ditto Mercedes (I’ve been looking at their GLA 250 mini-SUV), or any other car company which wants to initiate a similar program to Volkswagen’s.
Given my age, this will most likely be my last-ever purchase of a new car; and I was planning on driving it for at least the next decade, or until my brain turns to rice pudding and, not needing a car anymore, I would have to be installed in some care facility which would feed me, wipe my decrepit ass and put up with my incoherent ranting and raving.
But that’s a topic for another time.
In the meantime, I’m going to shop for a new / low-mileage secondhand vehicle, just not of the VW / Mercedes persuasion.
Does anyone know which auto companies don’t plan on this thievery?