Tag: Foreigners

Chart-Toppers

Funny Stuff

Every so often, something is said or written that deserves to be memorialized in stone.  Since the start of the new millennium, I’ve identified two — one from each decade — that I think are the best.

2001 – 2010:  “Democracy — Whisky — Sexy”  (Iraq)
There is no better encapsulation of the benefits of Western society.

2011 – 2020:  “Don’t Trust China — China Is Asshole”  (Hong Kong)
Six words that can (and should) direct U.S. foreign and domestic policy, forever.

That both were written on signs displayed by foreigners means that we need to up our game.

By The Numbers

Africa, Patriotism

It occurred to me yesterday that some wokester / Pantifa type (you all know the people I mean) might take issue with my statement in Comments, following my use of the dreaded Word That Shall Not Be Spoken (nigger):

I’m more African AND more American than most people of the Pantifa/BLM persuasion…

To use the revolting modern expression:  let’s “unpack” that sentence.

  1. I was born in Africa and lived there for thirty years.
  2. My family has lived in southern Africa since before 1690, a little longer than many of the so-called “Bantu” tribes, who only made their way south from central Africa in the late 1700s and early 1800s.
  3. I speak one African language (would be more, but my Zulu and Sotho… oy).
  4. I’ve lived in America for thirty-four years, and been a U.S. citizen for thirty.

Any way you slice it, I’m far more African than the average native-born Black person, and I’m more American than any recent African immigrant (e.g. Somali, Nigerian, etc.) by virtue of a.) my citizenship and b.) my length of domicile in the U.S.

“Aha!” a wokester may say triumphantly, “but you’re not Black!”

So it’s all about skin color?  Well… now who’s the racist?

[exit, singing Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika]

Killing Golden Geese

Anarchist thugs, BaconLettuceMayo, Business, Gummint, Marxists

The late and great Margaret Thatcher had it right (as usual) when she said of Communists that sooner or later, they run out of other people’s money.  What’s happening in many of the neo-socialist hellholes like New York lately is that the “other” (i.e. wealthy) people aren’t necessarily running out of money, they’re running out of patience with the filthy nest their government has created, and are running away.

It’s snapshot simple. The wealthy and the companies they work for pay most of the taxes. The poor consume most of the taxes through social programs. COVID is driving the wealthy and their offices out of the city. No one will be left to pay for the poor, who are stuck here, and the city will collapse in the transition.

Of course, that would be bad enough, because even if the wealthy folks came back to their Upper East- or West Side domiciles once the Chinkvirus had subsided, NYFC could continue to fleece them in the manner to which everyone has become accustomed.  But if their toney little brownstone houses and chi-chi apartment buildings are surrounded by homeless, aggressive beggars and rioting assholes of the BLM / Pantifa persuasion, the millionaires and billionaires will say (and are saying) “The hell with this shit” and leave for more hospitable climes — and their companies will go along with them.

I have another post bubbling under about the death of the traditional office-work model, but that can wait for another time.

What’s really interesting, from a socio-political perspective, is how quickly this has happened.  It might have happened at some point or another anyway, as the Blue Model metropolises collapsed under the weight of their underfunded pension plans and failing social services and infrastructure — but the Chinkvirus has been the Catalyst Supreme for our little domestic Lenins and Maos.  What’s even more interesting is that, being economic illiterates, our socialist pols have looked to Europe, their favorite model, and said, “But France isn’t collapsing!”

Oh yes, it is.  The difference is that rich Frogs can’t exactly load up U-Hauls and move to — where?  Germany?  Belgium?  Britain?  It’s the same situation in those countries.  There are no prosperous and successful business-friendly, low tax states in Europe like Texas, Florida or Utah — they’re all soft socialist states;  and the Chinkvirus is having the same effect on their economies and traditional business models as it is in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles.

So even in the best of times (booming Trump economy, no virus, no BLM / Pantifa riots), Illinois, California and New York — to name but three — would be sucking wind soon enough, and the writing has been on their walls for some time.  But in the current environment?  They’re screwed.

My only concern, as I’ve often said before, is that these fleeing rats don’t come to our happy little ships and infest them with their shitty ideas and political morality.

Quote Of The Day

Mocking Furriners

From the always-readable James Delingpole comes this outstanding zinger:

“Just when did Britain become so incredibly, embarrassingly shit?”

His take on the British people is curt and cutting (“an embarrassing mess: a nation of snitches and cry-bullies, tinpot fascists and mask-compliant bedwetters”), but that’s not his only target.

While Delingpole also hauls off at Boris Johnson (“a priapic lard-butted lightweight chancer who should never have been given the keys to Number 10”), he saves most of his ire for the Oily Little Shit Tony Blair (“closet Trotskyite”) and the mainstream media / government bureaucracy (“over-influential demagogues like the revolting Piers Morgan, not to mention the whole of the BBC, Channel 4, Sky News, and virtually every newspaper, the civil service, everyone in the judiciary…”).

It’s not often I read a rant which I wish I’d written;  but this is one for the ages.  Read it all, and chuckle.  (Or weep, if you’re British.)

And by the way:  if you see a large number of parallels to the United States… well, that was the whole point of this post.

Warm-Up

Advice, Africa

Every so often I get it right.  A few years ago, Mr. Free Market decided that he wanted to go hunting in Africa — South Africa, as it happened — and asked me for any tips I might have which would make his trip more successful.

There’s not a whole lot I can tell Mr. FM about hunting — he’s an excellent shot, has hunted all over Europe and despite all his skill, he’s always willing to learn more, whether from his guides or from other hunters.  Needless to say, he’s a very successful hunter, as I’ve occasionally noted on these pages.

I thought about it for a while, and really had only two pieces of advice:

Use enough gun.  African game is unbelievably tough, and what would be a killing shot on a North American whitetail with a .30-06 will not anchor a similarly-sized antelope (e.g. blesbuck) on the African continent.  Even a tiny warthog, when whacked with a light cartridge like the .30-06, will run for over a quarter-mile before dying.  The very fact that a .30-06 is characterized as a “light” cartridge should be a warning.  I used to hunt with either .308 Win or 7mm Mauser, but if I was going to shoot anything large or dangerous, I used borrowed rifles in either .375 H&H or (only once, because owie) .458 Win Mag.
But Mr. FM had that covered, using a .375 H&H Magnum chambering which could handle pretty much anything short of elephant or rhino.

The next piece of advice had nothing to do with hunting.

Get a suntan before going over.  Nothing quite prepares you for the African sun, especially if you’re hunting at higher altitudes than a few hundred feet above sea level.  You would think that as you go higher, the weather becomes cooler;  no, it just gets less humid.  (Think:  Arizona high desert vs. South Texas Hill Country, only with Arizona about ten degrees hotter.)
And Mr. FM is a Brit, with the typical fair skin — not, thank gawd, the fish-belly white of the Irish — that has led to all Brits being known colloquially as “Rooineks” (red necks, from the sunburn) by the locals.

So he did, visiting a tanning salon every other day for a couple-three weeks before setting out.  And on his return, Mr. FM said that of all the advice he’d been given, that was the best.  And even after arriving in South Africa with what he thought was a deep tan, he went still several shades darker after a week in the bush.  Had he not had the tanning sessions, he admitted that he’d have been confined to the indoors after the first day’s hunting.  And that’s no way to go through a hunting trip, son.

So why am I talking about this?  Because I was reminded of the topic by this picture, seen in The Sun [sic] newspaper:

In Africa, the girl on the right would burn slightly after a couple hours outdoors;  but the pale one on the left would blister after maybe fifteen minutes.  Yes, it’s that bad.