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Beyond Redemption

Mocking Furriners

Amid all the breast-beating about how the recent floods have ravaged Venice boo hoo, with the mayor thereof (of course) blaming “climate change” for the disaster, the fact remains that in a nation where corruption is not just systemic but endemic, Venice stands apart from all the other cities as being the poster-boy for corruption.

The mayor of Venice has blamed climate change for the disaster but there was also anger among Venetians yesterday at the corruption which has held up a flood barrier project.

Just so we’re all clear about this, the phrase missing from that last sentence is: “…which has held up a flood barrier project for the last thirty years.”  The plans have been in place, the funding more or less allocated (if such a thing can happen in Italy, given their perpetual state of near-bankruptcy), but… nothing has happened, as bureaucrats argue and wrangle, projects are started then canceled, service providers arrive then leave, and in general, the whole thing resembles a typical Italian cock-up.

I remember arriving at Rome’s Da Vinci Airport dying for a pee, only to find that the men’s toilets at the Arrivals gate were “non operativo“.  I later discovered that the toilets had been “non operativo” for close to a year.  And this, by the way, in a place where reservations clerks faced with irate passengers simply switch off their terminals and go have a cup of coffee until said passengers have given up and left.

A Brit friend who was involved in a project with the Italian Army was even more dismissive.

“I have to say, their uniforms are magnificent — they look like they were each personally tailored by Versace.”
“How’s their organization and operational readiness?”
“Oh God…they have neither.  Christ help them if they’re ever faced with a real military problem.” 

So the Venetian imbroglio  doesn’t surprise me one little bit.  And this is why I say simply, fuck ’em.  Let their poxy city sink under the waves, and let the tourism dollars dry up (except from the most hardy of souls).

To coin a phrase:  let Venice sink.

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.

It’s Here

The Gun Thing

At least 100 rounds of your favorite centerfire ammo;  at least 500 rounds of rimfire.

…and forget not that it’s my birthday too;  so if any Kynde Soulle wants to send a token gesture of appreciation out to the sooper-seekrit mailing address, it would be much appreciated.

Both Sides

Business, Music

There’s apparently been some nastiness between Taylor Swift and her erstwhile recording company which has turned even more unpleasant since Swift egged her fans on to torment said record company.

I don’t claim to know all the ins and outs of this issue, but the rule of thumb in any imbroglio of this nature is that the money people (in this case the record company) are always going to try to screw the ideas people (that would be Swift, here);  so the default position in all this would be to think, with lots of justification, that once again, the record industry is trying to chisel the artist.  (Think of Creedence Clearwater Revival’s John Fogerty not able to perform Proud Mary  for years  because of the record company bastards and publishing deals.)

That said, however, this is  the serial feuder and generally-spiteful Taylor Swift we’re talking about, so I think I’ll reserve judgment, just this once.  Millionaires squabbling with millionaires:

Running Around In Circles

Drive Time

No, I’m not talking about the Republican Party (although I could be).  I refer here to a comment from last week’s post about traffic:

Unfortunately the only “foreign” traffic design feature that the local traffic “engineers” are looking to implement are traffic circles.

Yeah, I see a couple of these foul things have appeared just north of me, in Frisco TX.

Traffic circles work only under two sets of circumstances:

  1. When there’s absolutely no other traffic (e.g. at 4am), and
  2. If they’re located in Britain, where drivers are more polite and courteous.  (Not valid in Manchester, Sheffield or Liverpool.)

Don’t even get me started about New Fucking Jersey, where (unlike anywhere else in the entire world), cars entering  the circle have the right of way over cars already in  the circle.  How I survived that day is almost enough to turn one into a theist (guardian angels, etc. etc.).

And if any Murkin starts preaching at me about the superiority of circles over regular intersections, I invite him to rent a car in Paris, drive around the Arc de Triomphe, and emerge unscathed (in mind as well as vehicularly).

And anytime someone has a bright idea about “improving” traffic conditions in the U.S., I feel they should first test them on the Long Island Expressway, during rush hour.

Straightening Out The Military Brass

Military

Actually, I think the so-called “brass” need to be hammered flat like their namesake metal, but let’s move on.

During the awful Obama years, it became obvious that soldiers were not, in fact, supposed to really act  like soldiers.  And when they did, the criteria for punishment were not “this is what happens on a battlefield” but instead, “it’s not a battlefield, it’s a garden party.”

Soldiers got prosecuted for shooting bad guys because said bad guys hadn’t actually done anything bad, yet.  In WWII terms, this would have equated to not gunning down a column of advancing Nazi bastards because they hadn’t started shooting, yet.

Which as any fule kno, is ridiculous except when Obama-era senior officers say it isn’t.  Here’s the story behind the conviction of one unfortunate officer:

He ordered his men to shoot three Taliban insurgents who were charging at his platoon on a motorcycle in Afghanistan on July 2, 2012.
The Taliban did not heed orders to stop. Lorance could have let them men pass and possibly kill some of his own American soldiers by blowing themselves up with a suicide bomb (as has happened in other cases) or by gunfire. He chose to stop them and save American lives.
Sending a soldier to prison for defending his troops in a war zone should never have happened and should never happen again.

God-Emperor Trump, however, seems to know what’s what, and has pardoned or reinstated those unfortunate soldiers who fell foul of the Obama milquetoast rules of engagement.

And it’s about time.  He should have done it on Day One of his presidency, is my only criticism.

Now the next  item should be to go after the fucking officers (up to and including generals) who approved both the rules of engagement and this travesty of justice — it’s the .dotmil, there’s a signature on a document somewhere — and either demote them or toss their asses out.  And the sooner the better.

We need fighting spirit in our senior officer corps, not rules-bound wokeness and pussyfooting.