Oh, Really?

At first, I thought this was good news:

Given the uncertainties of COVID-19, major airlines stopped charging penalties to change your ticket through the end of 2020. Now, United Airlines says it’s locking in the policy — it’ll be free to change in 2021 as well…

That sounds great, until you finish the sentence:

…as long as you didn’t book the low-price basic economy seats fare.

Which accounts for the vast majority of airline tickets sold.  But wait!  There’s more:

Apparently this wallet-gouging feature will not apply to international travel — which is the type of ticket most likely to be affected by borders closed off by the Chinkvirus for the foreseeable future.

Here’s the best part:

Since 2010, Chicago-based United has scooped up nearly $6.5 billion in change fees. Last year, it took in $625 million, third behind Delta and American, according to Transportation Department figures.

I already have a built-in animus against United Airlines, for reasons too many and varied to tell;  so it will be a cold day in Hell when they drag me kicking and screaming onto one of their foul airliners.


Update:  And right on cue, from American Airlines in my inbox today:

Another Chink In Our Security

Here we go again:

A University of California-Los Angeles researcher has been arrested for allegedly throwing away a damaged hard drive while the FBI was investigating him for transferring sensitive U.S. data to China’s National University of Defense Technology.

As I noted in my post on a previous such incident, it would be a terrible thing if the spying motherfucker’s name was something like Professor Laydback Surferdude — but no, he’s an omelet-complexioned virus-spreader:

The U.S. Department of Justice announced Friday that 29-year-old Guan Lei “falsely den[ied] his association with the Chinese military” during interviews with federal law enforcement officials. Lei has since admitted that he participated in Chinese military training.
According to authorities, one of Lei’s faculty advisors in China also served in the Chinese military.
The Justice Department further alleged that Lei hid digital files from federal law enforcement and lied about having contact with the Chinese consulate during his time in the U.S.

I’m generally not a huge fan of piling on offenses just to add to the sentence, but I’m going to make an exception in this case because the little prick is so young.  So:  destruction of evidence (20 years), lying to a federal agent (5 years) and espionage (25 years), all sentences to run consecutively.

Or we could just shoot him in the back of the head, and make his family pay for the bullet — it’s what the ChiComs do to spies, after all.

I’m getting heartily sick of both this spying nonsense, and the aiding and abetting being given by academia.

We need to clean house, thoroughly, by expelling all Chinese nationals from faculty positions in academia.  And before the profs start squealing about “loss of intellectual capital” or some such bullshit, I would suggest that the only loss of intellectual capital is being caused by having these spies sending our work back to their Commie bosses.  Should our academic wailers wish to continue to work with these assholes, they should be quite free to do so:  in China.

DIY Security

Because we are not subservient Europeans who expect the State to protect them at all times, this development should come as no surprise to anyone:

About a 10-minute drive from Downtown Kenosha, two men stood this week with AR-15 firearms protecting their subdivision.
The armed men were Jason and Gilbert, part of a group of about 10 residents of the subdivision that have been out nights since Tuesday protecting their neighborhood in light of the unrest in Kenosha.

Gilbert, one of the armed residents standing guard, said, “All we’re doing is making sure the community here is able to go asleep, sleep fine and are not worried about anything.”
He noted that the armed residents use flashlights at night to alert approaching vehicles to their presence. If the vehicle pulls into the subdivision, the armed residents stop it and let the driver know he or she will be watched while in the development.

The message here is simple:  if government is unwilling or unable to provide security for the lives and properties of its citizens, the community will then take matters into its own hands.

And for the wailers who kvetch  about “taking the law into their own hands” and similar handwringing, let me remind you of this fact:  the law never left our hands.  We citizens deputize the enforcement of our laws to the police;  but if the police departments are unwilling, unable or ordered not to do so by their superiors (governors, mayors and so on), we reserve the right to enforce our laws ourselves.

I have to tell you, if our community was in a similar predicament, I would be the very first volunteer in line for such civic duty.  Happily, though, our local cops have told me in no uncertain terms to leave everything to them, because their superiors are not liberal asswipe Democrats.  (The actual quote was:  “If it’s at your house, then do what you have to;  but leave the damn streets to us.”)

I admit to sleeping better at night because of that.

Pushing Back

Here’s a happy ending:

A Los Angeles English teacher was forced to flee her home after receiving numerous death threats for wearing an ‘I Can’t Breathe’ T-shirt during one of her virtual class sessions.
The teacher at El Camino Real High School in Woodland Hills, California wore the shirt in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement and included instruction about racial injustice in her teaching, which the school allowed.
But a parent upset with her class allegedly shared a photo of the teacher on social media along with her e-mail address and invitations to harass her.
The photo was later shared by Elijah Schaffer, the podcast host of YouTube’s ‘Slightly Offens*ve’, on his Twitter account, which led the teacher to receive hundreds of emails and threats.

Meanwhile, oh boo-hoo-hoo:

‘I can’t afford to go to a hotel and I can’t go home. My daughter’s a ninth-grader starting at this school. We can’t stay in our home,’ the teacher said to CBS Los Angeles.

Not so much fun when the Alinsky Rules are used against you, huh?

The last word comes from one of the good guys:

Scott Blodgett is one of the parents upset with the teacher’s curriculum that covers the civil unrest unfolding across the country.
‘I just want my daughter to go to English class and learn about English,’ Blodgett said.

Yup.  Stick it to them, good and hard.  And this happened in Califuckingfornia.

Same Advice, Different Situation

I see that the Pantifa / Black oLives Matter crowd have taken to invading restaurants now:

Chanting “silence is violence,” the protesters demanded that people they encountered in the street, as well as the patrons of various restaurants, raise their hands to indicate solidarity with the goals of BLM.

My natural inclination to this kind of neo-Nazi thuggery and intimidation, of course, would be to raise my fist in solidarity, thus: 

…but that would probably be unwise.  Let me therefore remind everyone that the proper initial response to this nonsense is to insert earplugs in the proper manner:  This should be done for two reasons:  firstly, it will help drown out the silly chanting of this little shits.

I shouldn’t have to tell y’all the second reason, which might be necessary after you’ve put in the earplugs and then raised your (left*) fist in the manner above, and the Pantifastas take umbrage and attempt to do violence to you because they were “provoked”.  (Personally, I might be provoked to violence just by having some pasty-faced little middle-class weenie screaming in my face, but no doubt somebody’s going to have a problem with this.)

Anyway, this public service announcement comes on the heels of the first one.  Always have earplugs handy, folks.


*right hand, if you’re left-handed.