Category: Gummint

Couple Bugs There

Gummint, Modernism

Let’s hear it for the Surveillance Society:

Privacy advocates used Amazon’s facial recognition to scan thousands of random faces around Capitol Hill in Washington DC to highlight the dangers of this technology’s surveillance capabilities.
While walking around, the team found the facial recognition successfully identified a congressman, but also claimed to spot Roy Orbison – an American singer who died in 1988.
The demonstration was a message to Congress to ban the technology, as there’s no law preventing people from scanning your face without your consent anytime you step out in public.

Hey, I’m pretty sure that ol’ Roy did a few regrettable things in his lifetime (bonked underage groupies, etc.) so now that the gummint has found evidence of his “existence”, they can do a little retroactive post-mortem prosecution.  I’ve seen worse.

What I wanted to see was that the software identified someone who was provably somewhere else at the time — so that in times to come when this bullshit is used by the cops to break an alibi, the evidence can get tossed out of court.

Strangely Satisfying

Eco-Crap, Gummint

You know, if an Alpine mountain community lived in constant fear of avalanches, one could feel a certain sympathy if said avalanches caused severe damage to the place each year and some loss of life among its inhabitants.

I suspect, however, that one would feel somewhat less sympathetic if the community refused to deploy snowplows and rescue helicopters purely because of the emissions from those vehicles.  Indeed, one might even get unworthy feelings of smug satisfaction and even Schadenfreude  from the annual, tearful news reports of death and destruction.

How then, are we expected to feel when California gets plunged into darkness and suffers loss of property and life through the regular occurrence of wildfires?

Fire conditions statewide made California “a tinderbox,” said Jonathan Cox, a spokesman for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. Of the state’s 58 counties, 43 were under red flag warnings for high fire danger Sunday.

And just so we know exactly why these conditions have reached the point to where they have:  despite the fact that hot Santa Ana winds create an annual risk of deadly wildfires, California continues to ban the clear-cutting and controlled burning of deadwood and -brush in wilderness areas as well as in areas close to suburban development because of supposed-ecological concerns.  That’s the “tinderbox” referred to above.

Moreover, it’s hard for the rest of us to feel pity for Californians when it’s clearly the fault of their own elected officials and legislature who continue to force their wrongheaded Gaia-worship on the Golden Shower State, with consequences that have become not only annual, but predictably horrible.  (And which some, equally-predictably, somehow manage to escape.)

I should feel guilty about my Schadenfreude, but I really don’t — just as I don’t feel sorry for Californians who complain about high taxes, iniquitous government interference in their lives, high real-estate prices and the whole dreadful litany of self-inflicted ills, all without exception imposed on them by, once again, their stupid, venal and self-serving elected politicians.

Let ’em burn.  Maybe at some point they may even be forced to try and get some change enacted through the ballot box, but I don’t see that happening anytime soon.

Update:  unusually, I seem to have understated California’s problems.

End Times, California Style

Bad News, Funny Stuff, Gummint

It’s not often that I burst out with incredulous laughter when reading stuff on Teh Intarwebz, but this succeeded in making me do so:

There doesn’t seem to be any easy solution to the yearly wildfire season, and California policy has always seemed to work in opposition to fire safety. Environmentalists have, for decades, fought the clearing of underbrush that serves as fuel for these raging fires. Instead of doing basic maintenance, almost one million people will have to live without power. No one is ready for it.
The San Francisco Chronicle is reporting that people are stocking up on liquor and few of them have safety readiness kits. One resident they spoke to said she “knew she was woefully unprepared for days without power. Despite living along an earthquake fault and within a half block of where the 1991 Oakland conflagration destroyed the whole neighborhood, Weld didn’t have a comprehensive emergency kit ready to go.”

Then Megan Fox unloads on these idiots, wrathfully.  And I bet that 90% of them voted Democrat in past elections.

And Californians make fun of Southerners… while the ghost of Charles Darwin sniggers.

Fuck ’em.  I hope these Commie-enablers all go up in flames.

More Blue State Idiocy

Gummint, Marxists

NYGov “Fredo” Cuomo just ruled that the tides may not rise past a certain level in New York, ever again.

Just kidding.  Actually, he did this stupid thing (among so many  others):

The Cuomo administration is ordering National Grid to provide natural gas hookups to over 1,100 previously denied Brooklyn-based customers.  The Public Service Commission, the state body that licenses and oversees public utility companies, announced Friday that National Grid must provide service to customers or else face “millions of dollars in penalties.”  Previously, 1,157 customers had been denied service due to National Grid’s moratorium on all new gas hookups, announced in May.

Why did National Grid do this?

As you may recall, plans for a new natural gas pipeline from New Jersey were killed off by the state government under pressure from environmental activists.

In other words, there isn’t enough gas flowing into New York to provide service to new customers.  So what’s going to happen when gas demand starts to peak (as it usually does) in the bleak midwinter?

If they continue to hook up new customers, you’re going to see the backpressure in the lines start dropping during peak demand hours. If you look at the configuration of a typical gas furnace installation you’ll note that if the incoming gas pressure drops too low, the furnace will simply shut down for safety reasons until the pressure is restored. The same is true for many other appliances that use natural gas or propane.  Since peak demand typically hits during a severe cold snap in the winter, what Cuomo is ordering could result in a lot of people suddenly going without heat, most likely near the furthest extreme of the gas lines.

And New Yorkers are gonna start dying of cold and exposure.

Here’s my take:  Fuck ’em.

If the people of New York are going to continue to vote assholes like Cuomo into power year after year, decade after decade, I fail to see why I should have any sympathy when said assholes’ idiotic policies turn round and start biting the very people who voted them into power.

Hatin’ On The Feds

Gummint

Wah wah wah the FedGov alphabet agencies, after despising us and treating ordinary citizens like criminals and scum for decades, are suddenly waking up to the fact that we hate them back, and they’re all butt-hurt about it:

Many arms of government are unpopular with large swathes of the American population, and people are not shy about expressing their contempt.
For those of us who want a smaller, much less intrusive government, that should be viewed as a trend to nurture and encourage. And what a trend it is.

Remember a few years back when Martha Stewart was tossed in jail for lying to a federal agent?  They’d tried for years to get her on tax evasion charges, and failed dismally.  So when they couldn’t get her for that, they lied to her about some information they claimed to have, and demanded a statement.  When she couldn’t remember the details and relied on faulty memory, they nailed her for it — and it was all because she was a high-profile target (which they love because it brings attention to their untiring efforts to keep the country safe [eyecross] ).  So the feds can lie to you, about anything, but get one detail wrong and they can bend you over the desk.  That’s why they don’t record interviews — unlike local police forces, which have to — which means that there’s no evidence that they lied or tried otherwise to entrap you.  (Which is why President Trump refused to be interviewed by the Robert Mueller Gestapo, by the way, when those assholes wouldn’t give him written questions to answer — hint:  paper trail.)

And of course, the feds, be they the FBI, IRS or any of the other alphabet soup minions can have it both ways if they don’t  want to prosecute, by asking softball or irrelevant questions of the accused, then just ignoring any which might have been incriminating.  Which is why Hillary “Illegal Private Email Server” Clinton isn’t wearing orange overalls as we speak.

Let’s not even mention  Ruby Ridge or Waco.

So yeah:  put me in the camp of those who don’t trust, believe or support most federal agencies… anymore.

And that’s the important point, here.  For years — decades — after I came over as an immigrant, I always thought that these agencies were on the side of the right, and that justice was their goal in protecting us from criminals.  Silly me, it isn’t.  As the past decade has proved, they’re little different from the criminal enterprises they purport to be saving us from.  When agents start talking about their targets’ families, and how their  job prospects or college careers could be affected by their parents’ culpability, all I’m reminded of is that infamous Cosa Nostra phrase:  “Nice little business you have here.  Pity if something bad were to happen to it.”

Government agencies have been acting increasingly like petty gauleiters  and thugs, and now they wonder why people loathe and distrust them?

No More Trophies For You, Matey

Gummint, Hunting, Mocking Furriners

I usually email Mr. Free Market and / or The Englishman to tease them about the latest BritGov foolishness — it keeps me busy (because of the volume thereof) and I like getting the return emails, contents of which I cannot share because bloodthirsty / seditious / both.  Here’s but one example:

Mr. FM’s response to this idiocy, however, was different:

The government could ban trophy hunting souvenirs after a huge spike in the number of bloodsport mementos being brought back to the UK.
Animal welfare minister Zac Goldsmith said the sport ‘turns my stomach’ as he revealed there will be an urgent consultation over the controversial imports.
It comes after a strong public backlash to trophy hunting after the deaths of animals such as Cecil the lion in 2015, as well as elephants and leopards.

We’ll leave aside the necessity for a government “animal welfare minister” for the moment, and concentrate on Mr. FM’s response:

“Excellent.  Given the cost of taxidermy, not to mention the astronomical shipping costs, this ban will just leave me more money to buy tags to shoot more animals*.”

In other words:

Yeah, that’s going to work really well for the BritGov.  It’s a classic example of what happens when you want to legislate against something but know fuck-all about the subject.

*I should point out that in most parts of Africa, there are few limits as to how much game you want to shoot;  the degree of scarcity drives the price up or down.  If you want to shoot another one, you just pay the additional tag fee — which by the way, are nosebleed (see here for typical per-animal tags).