Prevention

The next time some whining liberal tells you that capital punishment doesn’t prevent murder, feel free to quote this article (once you have done kicking them in the balls, that is):

In March, two men were convicted in Newcastle Crown Court of the murder of a 29-year-old mother of two, Quyen Ngoc Nguyen. In a pre-meditated crime of unimaginable depravity, Stephen Unwin and William McFall robbed, raped and bludgeoned this 5ft-tall nail bar manager.
They dumped her — possibly still alive — in her own car, which they then set alight. They posed for ghoulish selfies at the scene.
Both men were already convicted killers, released as a result of parole board hearings.
McFall, now 51, had been freed after serving 13 years for battering to death with a hammer an 86-year-old woman whose home he had burgled.
Unwin, ten years younger, had been released after serving 14 years of a ‘life sentence’ for stabbing to death a 73-year-old retired pharmacist in the course of a burglary — on Christmas Day, 1998. Unwin had sought to cover up his tracks by setting fire to his victim’s bungalow.
There is no parole board on earth which can know if someone is truly remorseful (pictured: Nick Hardwick, former Parole Board chair) +6
There is no parole board on earth which can know if someone is truly remorseful (pictured: Nick Hardwick, former Parole Board chair)
He was released in 2012, because the parole board had believed his claim to feel ‘deep remorse’.

Yeah, he was remorseful, all right.  It bears no reminding that had these two bastards (and the others in the article) been executed, their subsequent victims would still be alive.  Prevention at its finest.

Frankly, I think that the parole boards who freed these animals should also face the needle / chair / gallows.  This was a basic precept of Hammurabic Law, and I for one regret its passing, in this respect at least.

Remember too that our Liberal Class want us to be more like Europe or Britain, and the modern-day “democratic socialists” have included the abolition of the prison system in their election manifesto.

Communistatis delenda est.

Rich Bastards Not Wanted Here

I’m not quite sure what to think of this situation:

New Zealand is set to ban foreigners buying homes after a spate of millionaires creating luxury doomsday bunkers has apparently pushed property prices up for local buyers.
It comes after purchases by PayPal founder Peter Thiel and disgraced former NBC host Matt Lauer, who lost his job after allegations of sexual misconduct.
The country’s centre-left government, led by Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, has blamed the wealthy expats for their major housing crisis with homelessness rates being among the highest in the developed world.
Yet David Parker, Minister for Trade and Economic Development, said the bill, for which he is responsible, isn’t only about house prices.
‘In this world of concentrating wealth, we don’t want this coterie of ultra-wealthy people overseas being able to outbid successful New Zealanders for what is our birthright, not theirs,’ he said.

From a free market perspective, it’s not right;  but on the other hand, seeing how Californians have done pretty much the same thing Over Here when fleeing their home state for other, less burdensome ones, I can sort of see the Kiwis’ point.  It’s also happened in Britishland, where wealthy Londoners have bought themselves country pieds-à-terre and have driven up real estate prices beyond the reach of the locals.

Here in north Texas, we’re facing a similar situation with regard to both Californians and Yankees moving into the area — real estate prices are constantly increasing — but there’s so much land around here for expansion that we haven’t yet reached that stage of feeling “trapped”, so to speak, by soaring prices.  That’s not the case in tiny Britain and New Zealand, of course and as I said, I can sympathize with the KiwiGov for wanting to at least arrest the phenomenon somewhat.

That said, New Zealand is prone to having some humdinger earthquakes from time to time, so the rich farts’ “doomsday bunkers” may ironically not be quite the secure bolt-holes their owners believe them to be.

At Last, Some Sanity

…even if it’s coming from the French, surely one of the loopiest nations on Earth.

Smartphones and tablets have been banned from all French schools ahead of the academic year, after a new law was voted through Parliament yesterday.  The phone ban will apply to all pupils in France up to the age of 15, as of the start of the new term in September.

I’ve always thought that giving kids smartphones was a recipe for disaster — similar to letting them go play all day and night in a mall, unsupervised.  And I don’t want to hear whines of “What about their securityyyy?” either.  If that’s so important to Mumsy (or actually, Madamesy), she can buy little Francine or Jacques a flip (dumb) phone.  Calls and texts only (and only a few of those, too).

Perhaps — and I know this is a radical thought — the schools can actually keep a closer eye on the little dears for a change.

And if the kids go all whiney at the indignity and the oppressive injustice of it all, we can call it a cheap life lesson.

About Damn Time

If you look at examples in history when ordinary Americans suddenly flipped out and killed government agents, you will find that most of these incidents occurred when the government took someone’s land without regard for the owner’s welfare, or “for the public good” without proper compensation.  When you consider that one of the few government functions that everyone can actually agree on is that government primarily exists to protect private property from the predations of others, it’s small wonder that people freak out and go to the guns when it’s government that turns into the predator.

Then we had the disgusting Kelo v. City of New London ruling by the Supremes, which basically said that Gummint could take your property and give it to a commercial developer, because his future development would result in tax income for the local authority.  (I’m still furious about this piece of unmitigated statist sophistry.)

Finally — and far too late — Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-WI) has done the right thing, and his bill will go to the Senate where it will likely pass by a massive majority (if it doesn’t, it will be time to warm up a few barrels of tar and empty a few down pillows) and be sent to the Oval Office for the finishing touch.  (I bet Trump will sign it into law with gritted teeth;  but sign it he’ll have to.)

Read the entire article, and feel free to break out into applause at the end of it.  As I suggested earlier, it’s just a shame this gross injustice wasn’t rectified thirty seconds after the Kelo ruling, but I’ll take what I can get.

Now Multiply That By A Million

I saw this little story via Insty, and it made me not just sad, but furious.  Read it first.

They didn’t lose a fortune, because they never had the opportunity to earn one. Nothing happened. There they sit. And there they’ll stay.

And that’s where the writer is wrong.  You see, economists and accountants have a terms for this phenomenon, and it’s called “opportunity cost” — in other words, the financial cost of a lost opportunity.  Because when people open up their own business and it’s even moderately successful, they have to hire other people to work for them.  Those workers in turn become successful, and pay taxes, and perhaps use the learning to open their own businesses.

The aggregate opportunity cost of this ripple effect, just for this little case study, is potentially millions of dollars.  The Toni & Guy chain of hair salons started in precisely this fashion with a single outlet in the 1960s, as did the JiffyLube chain, back in 1979 — and I chose these two businesses deliberately, because those are the two types of business that the above story deals with.  Who’s to say that Kaitlyn and her husband wouldn’t have had a success story similar to Tony&Guy and JiffyLube?  But we’ll never know, will we, because the heavy hand of government regulation reached into their lives and killed their adventure before it could get started.

So when Donald Trump’s first action as POTUS was to decree that all government departments had to delete multiple regulations for every new one they wanted to promulgate, it was to free people to get going with their businesses and dreams.

Lest we forget, the fucking Democrats are the party of massive regulation and government intrusiveness — and remember that if you’re toying with a “protest” vote against Trump (or a quixotic vote for a third-party no-hoper) in the mid-term elections later this year.  (If you’re a lifetime Democrat voter and want socialism, then you’re at the wrong website and, if I may say, in the wrong country.)

It’s all very well for the economy to grow when manufacturing opens new plants and what have you (which is what Trump has also been making happen) — but that growth is finite.  Individuals starting their own businesses and becoming successful isn’t finite:  that is where America is at its strongest, and that is what will create true economic success for the whole country.  And Donald Trump understands this, and because of it he deserves our unflagging support, if for no other reason.

Yeah, That Worked

“That” being the raft of laws and regulations which prohibit felons from owning guns.

Here’s the story:

Authorities in California acting on a tip swept into a rural home and seized more than 500 guns from a convicted felon, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department said.
The tip indicated Manuel Fernandez, 60, was “in possession of a large arsenal of firearms,” the department said in a statement. On Thursday, a team of state and local officers raided the house in Agua Dulce, about 45 miles north of Los Angeles. Authorities immediately seized 432 guns, the department said.
The next day, another 91 guns were found hidden at Fernandez’s home, authorities said.

Yup:  looks like all those laws which California adds to the federal laws really work, huh?  I mean, a felon possessing guns?  That’s doubleplusunpossible in the Golden [Shower] State, you betcha.

And yet he got the guns, 500 of them, somehow… so California probably needs more laws, like this one.  At least, that seems to be their thinking, such as it is.

Fucking morons.