Tag: Evil Bastards

More Feinsteinism

Bad News, Politics, The Gun Thing

Reader Mike G. decides to elevate my blood pressure by sending me a link to this piece of filth:

Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and a number of her colleagues today introduced the Assault Weapons Ban of 2017, a bill to ban the sale, transfer, manufacture and importation of military-style assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines.
Joining Senator Feinstein on the bill are [the usual set of fucking GFW tools — Kim]

They never give up, so nor should we. Please write to your senators and representatives, just to remind them that we don’t support this bullshit. (I know, they probably already know that, but it never hurts to provide pointed commentary.)

Please use calm and reasoned language instead of what you’d really like to write. I just did, so you can too.

How do I really feel about it?

 

New Jersey Bastardy

Advice, Behind Enemy Lines, The Gun Thing, Travels

From Reader Mark D in Comments yesterday:

On the topic of suppressors, I’ve been saying for a while that I want to move from New Jersey to America, but I NEVER thought America would be found in Great Britain…

Don’t even get me started. On Saturday last, we got a text from Doc Russia in Newark Airport, while he was flying Edinburgh – Newark – DFW:

Fun fact: going through Newark with a federally-licensed suppressor will end up with you face-down on the ground, handcuffed.

Here’s the deal. Doc has a legal suppressor for his Remington, all the paperwork done, tax paid, blessed by the Pope, yadda yadda yadda. He was about to pack it in his rifle case to bring home, when both Combat Controller and I suggested that he shouldn’t, because New Jersey. He laughed it off, saying his luggage was checked through to DFW — but agreed that discretion was called for, and that he could bring it back another time when flying direct from Britishland to Dallas.

It’s a good thing he did. Here’s why.

As we all know, when arriving in a foreign country, you have to go through Customs and Immigration in your arrival “port”, even if you’re connecting to go further. Now, if your connecting flight is from the same terminal, you’re good to go. If you have to go to another terminal for your connecting flight, things might get more tricky.

As is the case here. Suppressors are completely banned in New Jersey — no federal blessing counts, no paperwork is acceptable. Set foot in the state of New Jersey with a suppressor, no matter how legal, and you will end up face-down on the ground, handcuffed.

So had Doc arrived in Newark with his suppressor and left the international terminal, the NJ State Police would have arrested him, even though he was simply in transit — going from one jurisdiction where suppressors are legal to another where it’s also legal — the very fact that he was in New Jersey at all with his suppressor, albeit only for a few minutes, would have made him an instant felon.

And we know all this because Doc happened to ask a member of New Jersey’s Staatspolizei what their policy is. Apparently the offizier got instantly aggro, and insisted on checking Doc’s luggage for himself — just asking the question is grounds for suspicion in the New Jersey Reich.

I’m curious as to how many other states would behave the same way. I can see New York and California doing likewise, but if anyone can shed light on this topic, I’d like to know.

In the interim, all New Jersey People Of Our Sort should make preparations to leave that shitty place and move to the United States as soon as it’s practically feasible. Like I once did.

Unreadable

Deep Thoughts

When we have our pictures taken for ID docs like drivers’ licences in the U.S.A., we usually have the option of smiling or unsmiling poses. I tend to smile, because in repose I look like this:

That’s my picture as it appears on some British railcard ID — and it’s a perfect example of what my kids call my “hitman” expression. (I think it’s more like “Wanted In 25 States For Murder”, but that probably means the same thing, really.)

When I had said pic taken, the photographer told me that H.M. Government doesn’t allow smiling pictures on IDs, because if you smile, their facial-recognition software can’t identify you.

Ponder on the implications of that, if you will.

Happily, my passport photo is of Smiling Kim, so the BritGov may never be able to identify me — and as I have no intention of breaking any of their poxy little laws, there’s no problem with that… right?

One of the reasons to travel abroad is that we can see how other countries screw their citizens / subjects over, and we can therefore resist similar bullshit on the part of our own government, which is already too fucking big for its boots.

Now read this.

You Motherfuckers

Politics, Two-Minute Hate

Even though I’m never going to qualify for this little “bubble” tax, it still makes me want to empty my gun into the TV the next time a Republican congressman shows his face.

Write to your U.S. Republican representative (if you have one), and tell him that if this piece of shit finds its way into law, you’re going to vote for his opponent next time round — because at this point, then, he’s no different from a fucking Democrat.

Your Money No Good Here

Bad News

I have long viewed the efforts of banks, retailers and government to make us a cashless society. I’ve heard all their reasons: money-laundering, efficiency and so on, and I remain unconvinced.

It’s even worse over here, and Ross Clark of the Daily Mail takes aim at the process:

The argument in its favour is convenience, but the truth is that it’s all about greed.
Firstly, there is the opportunity to collect fees. The Boston Consulting Group estimates that banks and payment companies such as Visa and Mastercard currently make $1 trillion annually worldwide in fees — typically paid by the retailer — for processing electronic payments.
…
And it won’t be just the retailers who are being fleeced. Currently, consumers are rarely charged fees to use credit cards and debit cards, but you can bet that would change if there was no option to pay in cash.
An even bigger prize is the opportunity that cashless payments offer to large corporations to collect vast amounts of personal information about individuals.
We are familiar with how tech giants such as Google, Facebook and Twitter harvest information about us via our internet searches and so on.
But few of us are aware that we are also feeding a vast data machine whenever we use our credit and debit cards.

It’s worth reading the whole thing, because Clark’s analysis is very good, especially hw going cashless makes us completely vulnerable to the vagaries of computer systems, their inefficiencies and the hacking thereof.

And while I share his cynicism about Big Business and its Marketing Department, I am even more cynical about Government and its attempt to make all transactions cashless — because as a former marketer myself I can at least understand the desire for more information about consumers (even if I don’t agree with the ruthless harvesting thereof) — but when it comes to government knowing every little detail about how I spend my money, certain part of my anatomy start to twitch uncontrollably.

And yes, we’re mostly talking about my various fingers.

Whenever I’m faced with any attempt to make a massive, wholesale change in society’s behavior, I get that same twitch — and this one strikes me as especially worthy of some digitized action. So I’ll start with the most innocuous one first.

Note to government and business: want me to stop using cash?

And now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to the range, to rid myself of another twitch.