Nothing New

Here’s an interesting consequence of the Chinkvirus:

Denmark is set to introduce a government-sponsored coronavirus vaccine passport in coordination with airlines early this year, a national Danish broadcaster has revealed.

Now the idea of a “vaccination passport” has a whole bunch of people tied in knots, as it’s just one step away from the old “Papieren bitte”  way to install restrictions, tracking and control on travel.

I’m not one of them.  In the first place, proof of vaccination has always been a fact of life when traveling anywhere outside your home country;  try visiting India or Africa without proof of smallpox/yellow fever/etc. etc. in your passport, and you’ll be turned away from the boarding area.  (This, by the way, is as much to ensure that not only are you immune to catching the pox whilst Over There looking at strange temples etc., but that you don’t bring said pox back with you to an un-vaccinated home population.)  The only reason one doesn’t need proof of vaccination when traveling from the U.S. to places like Britishland and Euroland is because said diseases are not only notionally extinct (except where, surprise surprise there are large numbers of illegal and un-vaccinated border-jumpers), but where children are routinely vaccinated in order to attend school and so on.

So I’m indifferent to the idea of a Chinkvirus vaccination passport as part of international travel — and for that matter, in terms of local travel and behavior as well — and especially because once inoculated, I wouldn’t have to wear a stupid and ineffective face-condom every time I wanted to go out of the house.

Of course, the conspiracy morons are going to insist that Gummint is going to use Pox Passports to track individuals’ movements and behaviors, and of course that is a valid concern.  Just remember, though, that we’re talking about Government here:  the morons who can’t find their own assholes with both hands, a map and a trail of crumbs.

I know that in movies, government agents always require just a few clicks on their (Apple — LOL) laptops to create all sorts of data reports at the drop of a hat — the risible Person Of Interest  TV series being the apotheosis thereof.  Longtime students of both government, database systems and the combination thereof know that this facility is very much part of the suspension of belief required to view any work of fiction these days.

Besides, I’m relying on the criminal marketplace to produce passable copies of said documents in sufficient numbers to make the entire thing untenable — just as fake driver’s licenses can and have been used to enable fraudulent voting.

It’s a non-issue, and we have bigger things to worry about.

Reverse Flow

Here’s the background:

The number of Los Angeles residents moving to Dallas and Houston declined in those years, but the number of Angelenos moving to Plano, Texas, tripled.

Or, rendered pictorially:

Yuck.  The only Texans in favor of more Californians in the state are people about to sell their houses (and I already sold mine), or Democrat politicians.

Excellent Reading

TakiMag‘s weekly summary of the news is generally so-so, but the latest is superb.  Here’s an example:

Last week, French authorities were left scratching their heads following the crowning of a new Miss France. It seems that the first runner-up, April Benayoum, is Jewish. And for some odd reason, when Benayoum, who holds the title of Miss Provence, mentioned during the telecast that her father is Israeli, French Twitter exploded with “hate tweets” directed at the 21-year-old beauty.  A few choice examples (translated into English):

“Uncle Hitler, you forgot to exterminate Miss Provence.”
“She should not be Miss Provence; SHE’S A JEW!”
“Hitler forgot one.”
“Into the ovens with her!”
“Death to Miss Provence! Death to Israel!”

This story has been widely covered by the French media, with everyone from the interior minister to the pageant winner speaking out to condemn the hateful tweets. Oddly missing from every news report is a tiny little detail regarding the offending Twitter accounts. Indeed, whereas some French politicians have tried to blame the anti-Jewish onslaught on the “far right,” one canny Twitterer made the following observation after reviewing the profiles of the “haters”:

“French far right tweeters do not have Arabic handles or North African surnames.”

Read the rest of it.

And Yet Again

As I’ve said in the past, here and here, Chile’s Augusto Pinochet was a conundrum.  Others, it seems, are even more positive than I am:

Almost nobody is more reviled by the international intelligentsia and media than the late Augusto Pinochet, the late 20th -century Chilean dictator. He holds a prominent position in the political left’s “rogues’ gallery” comprised of those who stood in opposition to their goals.
His supposed “crimes” included conducting a military coup to illegitimately grab control of the Chilean government from a popularly elected president, rounding up and torturing huge numbers of innocent citizens (killing as many as 80,000 in the process) and corruptly stealing vast sums of money while ruling as a dictator.
But many of those claims are either false or exaggerated — most credible estimates of those killed are below 5,000 — or they must be viewed in context. More important, if we raise the examination of Pinochet from the bitter soil of leftist ressentiment to the question of human flourishing, he appears as one of recent history’s shining lights.

Read the whole thing — and my earlier posts on the topic too, if you haven’t seen them before.

I will never forget two things about my visit to Chile:  the sight of old women placing flowers on the sidewalk outside Pinochet’s modest private home (now a museum) in Valparaiso, and at a formal dinner one night, one of the toasts was:  “To General Augusto Pinochet, savior of Chile.”

It was delivered without irony, well received and supported by all the guests, and even more telling, it was said in English — no doubt for our benefit, and to make a point.

Interesting stuff.

Quote Of The Day

From Teddy Dalrymple:

“With luck, the mass impoverishment that is quite likely to strike Great Britain in the near future will prevent the British from going abroad in any numbers, thus slightly raising the cultural level of the rest of the world.”

When I emigrated , the following was written on the Bon Voyage  card presented to me by my former colleagues:

“Kim is leaving South Africa for the United States, thus raising the average IQ of both countries.”

Who said statisticians have no sense of humor?

And?

Sometimes, I just wanna shoot people.  Here’s one reason:

The world’s wealthiest 1% account for more than twice the carbon emissions of the poorest 50%, a new UN report has found.

And what, exactly, are we supposed to do with that information?

FFS:  The world’s wealthiest 1% also account for about 75% of new job creation, about 99% of the world’s yachtbuilding industry, all the top end car / watch / jewelry / etc. business.  They drive cars, fly around the world (on business, mainly — business which helps sustain the poor and gives them jobs), and as a result of their industry, the world is a far better place than it was in the Middle Ages, for instance.

I know:  the hidden meaning behind this “study” is that we should take away their wealth so they can’t emit carbon or whatever.

I would also like to point out that the poorest 50% of the world’s population account for about 90% of all terrestrial and maritime pollution (i.e. garbage) and if you don’t believe me, take a trip anywhere in the Third World:  look at the garbage carried out to sea at the river mouths of the Ganges, Congo, Yangtze and Amazon — to name but some — and drive for any distance outside the major cities to see how the Pore & Starvin just fucking trash the place.

The sooner we defund or otherwise destroy the United Nations, the better off we’ll all be.  Ask me which is my preference.