Tag: Foreigners

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.

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.

Cultural Diversity

Mocking Furriners, Two-Minute Hate

Let’s set the scene, here.  You and a bunch of your buddies go out to a nightclub in a foreign country — let’s call it Western Europe — and start doing what you always wanted to do with a bunch of women Back Home but couldn’t because the women’s brothers and cousins have no sense of humor and are likely to cut your nuts off.  Now these “foreign” women are not only dressed like whores but also seem to have no brothers and cousins whatsoever.  But for some reason, they get upset with being pawed, fingered and squeezed without giving permission (go figure, right?).  So they call the club bouncers and you get tossed out on the street because you’re acting like oafish animals.

Do you think, “Hmmm… maybe this isn’t the way to do things here.  Perhaps we ought to change our behavior somewhat.”  Of course you don’t — because, as it happens, you’re a bunch of oafish animals.  (And let’s take a wild guess at this point, and assume that Back Home is nowhere close to Western Europe.)

So what you do is return to the same nightclub and demand to be let back in and when refused entry, you try scaling the fences and getting in that way — you know, like you used to do Back Home.  The bouncers, for some reason, aren’t having any of this and toss you back out onto the street.

Whereupon you and your oafish buddies pull out a couple machetes (that you just happened to have about your person) and attack the bouncers.

No doubt, when these pricks are eventually captured it’ll be all about the pore starvin migrants and asylum seekers, and some asswipe German judge will rule that the bouncers were actually to blame.

And when the German people get upset about this, they’ll be labeled “rightwingers”…

This Means WAR!

Africa

…or maybe it might have, decades ago:

Britain could face a tea shortage in a row over land that was seized from native people in colonial-era Kenya.
A Kenyan governor is demanding £15billion of reparations for land that was ‘stolen’ in the 1930s and has warned of Zimbabwe-style farm grabs if Britain does not pay up.

You could do  all sorts of bad things to Brits… but take away their tea?  How would the island nation function?

Of course, in the good old days when faced with a sticky situation like this, the BritGov would simply have sent a gunboat over to Kenya, and either threatened to or actually shelled a seaport or two, and the Fuzzies would have capitulated, toot sweet.

Nowadays the BritGov has better things to do, like blocking the will of the people to leave the EU;  so the long-suffering Brits, deprived of their beloved tea. will just shrug and go to Costa, Starbucks or Caffè Nero instead.

Sic transit gustatum et bibendum.

Afterthought:  Needless to say, had the “settlers” not taken the land and farmed it, the land wouldn’t look like this:

…but instead like this:

…Kenyans being so good at farming, and all.

Damn

Drive Time

So here was the news:

Volkswagen announced in January 2019 that it planned to invest $800 million in its Chattanooga plant and bring 1,000 jobs with the expansion.

 

But:

Chattanooga will be the first manufacturing facility in North America that will produce vehicles using VW’s modular electric toolkit chassis, or MEB.  The first Volkswagen electric vehicle will roll out in 2022.

Oh, that’s just great.

That’s all we need…

Next thing, VW will announce that they’re replacing the Tiguan with Electro-Bugs, whereupon:

Just sayin’…

No Kidding

Disaster, Weather

I know, we all have a good chuckle at stuff like this:

And then there’s this, which pushes the needle even past Code Red (click to embiggen):

I know, I make fun of our Oz friends a lot on these here pages, but this is no laughing matter:

About 100,000 homes in the Sydney area are said to be at risk, with 31,500 of those being in the city’s North Shore. Residents have been warned to take action before it’s too late.
‘Under these conditions, some fires may start and spread so quickly there is little time for a warning, so do not wait and see,’ the Rural Fire Service said on Monday.
‘There are simply not enough fire trucks for every house. If you call for help, you may not get it. Do not expect a firetruck. Do not expect a knock on the door. Do not expect a phone call. Your safest option will always be to leave early.’

Sheesh.

Looks like everything’s more dangerous Down Under:  snakes, spiders, sharks, Train Smash Women — and now, fires.

Good luck, me old cobbers.  Holding thumbs on this side of the water…