Tag: Good Guys

Go Boris!

Crime, Good Stuff, Gummint

When I saw this sentence from BritPM Boris Johnson, my heart sank:

You can’t just arrest your way out of a problem.

Then he redeemed himself:

It certainly helps, but it is only part of the answer. You need to tackle all the causes and incentives that are encouraging the criminal mentality, and that means first of all exploding any sense that the law is weak, or that criminals can get away with it. When the police catch a violent criminal, it is vital they get the sentence they deserve.
At present, there are too many serious violent or sexual offenders who are coming out of prison long before they should.
In the past five years, we have seen literally hundreds of convicted rapists who have come out of prison commit another sexual offence. There are thousands of ‘super prolifics’ – criminals with more than 50 convictions to their name – who are being spared jail altogether.
This cannot go on. I am afraid that as a society we have no choice but to insist on tougher sentencing laws for serious sexual and violent offenders, and for those who carry knives.
Our first duty is to protect the public in the most basic way – and that means taking such people off the streets.

[pause to let the applause and cheering die down]

Of course, policies like “stop and search” are going to cause palpitations amongst the liberals and criminal-symps [lots of overlap], but the plain fact is that when the police can do their job — i.e. try to prevent crime before it happens — and the justice system is allowed to work — i.e. impose jail sentences that keep criminals off the streets — society as a whole improves.

Just ask the denizens of NYFC when Mayor Giuliani and Police Chief Bratton did just that, back in the late 1990s and early 2000s.  And if it made it worked there, it can make it work anywhere.

And to let the BritPM have the last word:

Yes, in the short term it will mean more pressure on our jails, and that is why today I am also announcing that we are creating another 10,000 spaces in our prisons. The Chancellor, Sajid Javid, has agreed to invest up to £2.5 billion to deliver this commitment.

Get going, Boris.

Enter Boris

Good Stuff, Mocking Furriners, Politics

I’ve always liked Boris Johnson — yeah, maybe it’s the Old Boy thing (Eton College was the “brother” school to St. John’s) — but what I like most of all is the predictable way the U.K. Left has responded to his accession to Number 10 Downing Street:

 

Just note that underneath Johnson’s jovial, stammering, Hooray-Henry exterior, there’s some serious intellect going on.  (See here where he talks about Winston Churchill’s oratory.)  In other words, he’s the complete opposite of ex-U.S. President (Half-)Black Jesus, underneath whose smooth and urbane exterior… not much was going on.

And if PM Boris can’t get Britishland out of the horrible European Union, the Brits deserve to get everything that happens to them.

Go Boris!

 

So What?

Business

Here’s one of those wealth-envy headlines which makes me want to load up the old AK-47 and take a day trip, not to the offices of the tax-avoiding corporations, but to the offices of the Daily Mail (and not for the first time either):

Big companies avoid £100billion a year in corporate tax thanks to ‘spider’s web’ of British offshore tax havens

  • Tax Justice Network ranked 64 countries on the tax avoidance they enabled
  • UK outsourced corporate tax haven game to ‘spider’s web’ of offshore territories
  • British Virgin Islands, followed by Bermuda and the Cayman Islands topped list
  • Network said UK bears the lion’s share of responsibility for the ‘breakdown of the global corporate tax system’

Looks like the Brits are finally doing something right, because anything that breaks down the so-called “global corporate tax system” can only be A Good Thing.

Reminder to the Daily Mail:

  • Tax avoidance means not paying unnecessary taxes according to the law
  • Tax evasion means not paying the taxes you legally owe.

Then again, if I’m going to be paying an AK-enabled visit to anyone, it should be to the offices of this “Tax Justice Network” crowd.  They seem like an evil bunch of assholes.

Food For Thought

Good Stuff

One of the reasons I love reading C.W. Swanson’s excellent Timewaster  blog is that one many occasions, the pictures evoke a tangential thought from me.  Here’s one:

And I agree that it’s disgusting.  That fine machine gun needs to be mounted on a full-sized Murkin Ford F-150, not that lil’ Jap thing.

Here’s another:

I mean, that’s a pretty picture, for sure.  But am I the only one who thinks that nickel-plating the utilitarian Ruger SP101 is akin to gold-plating a Willys Jeep?

I think I’ve said before that I know a man who has nearly a dozen SP101 revolvers scattered around his domain:  bedroom, bathroom, toilet (!), garage, toolbox, glove box, basement, hall closet and what have you.  When I asked him why, his response was simple:  “They’ll always work, even if I haven’t cleaned them for five years.  And some of ’em, I haven’t.”

Can you imagine that shiny SP101 in a rusty, grungy old tackle box?

Who Knew?

Music

We all know that Anthony Hopkins is a wonderful actor — but did anyone know that he was also a musical composer of some note?  Fifty years ago, he wrote a waltz, but was always afraid he’d be laughed at, thinking that it was no good.

He was wrong.

Some years ago, he asked pop orchestra leader André Rieu to see if he could play it — and Rieu heard it, loved it, scored it and played it last year at his annual concert in Maastricht, Belgium.

Enjoy.

And bravo, Sir Anthony.  If you’re going to be a one-hit wonder, it might as well be for this piece as any other. But he’s been writing music all his life — so encore, Maestro.