Tag: Suckage

Things that totally suck

Parallel Universe

Bad News, Economics

And in yet another flight of fantasy:

Consumer inflation the past 12 months has increased 6.0 percent, down from 6.4 percent a month ago—a 0.8 percent increase from Feb. 2022 just fell off the 12-month chart reading—according to the latest data compiled by the Bureau of Labor Statistics as the Federal Reserve continues to eye further rate hikes in order to tame what has been persistent inflation.

Uh huh.  Six percent, hey?

A 2 percent decrease in gasoline and a 13.6 percent decrease in used cars and trucks was offset by a 9.2 percent increase in fuel oil and a 5.8 percent increase in new vehicles. There was a whopping 12.9 percent increase in electricity and a 14.3 percent increase in utility (piped) gas service, indicating continued high demand for energy services. There was a 9.5 percent increase in food, plus an 8.1 percent increase in shelter and a 14.6 percent increase in transportation services, plus a 3.3 percent increase in apparel, a 3.2 percent increase in medical care commodities and a 2.1 percent increase in medical care services.

Let’s not get blinded by these carefully-constructed lies, here.  Gas prices went down for about two weeks, and then shot up again.  Supermarkets have published reports about 30-, 40- and 50 percent increases in commodity items,

True inflation is running well into the double digits (high teens or more), and we consumers are being bent over the government’s desk and shafted without lube.

Enjoy your day.

 

Spying On Spending

Gummint, Taxes and Theft

Oh, here’s a nice one, if the meaning of “nice” includes having the State’s Big Dick shoved up your ass in real time:

Government Will Track Every Dime You Spend

  • Under this new digital currency, any transfer of funds to family, friends, charities, or clients would be able to be tracked by the nation’s central bank that issued this virtual money. Big Brother will be in your wallet every hour or every day. You will not be able to buy a stick of gum without a Federal Reserve computer knowing where, when, and to whom you just put down a buck.
  • We should be rightfully concerned about inflation, energy independence, aggressor nations armed with nuclear weapons, and woke public policies that denigrate the very foundation of this great country. But these are jabs compared to the enormous destructive power of a digital currency “option” slipped into Executive Order 14067.

Read the whole article to get a full flavor of this bastardy.

And by Executive Order, not through law voted on by Congress.  My suggestions:

What About “Follow The Science”?

Military, Plagues and Poxes

Apparently, there hasn’t been enough study of the WuFlu for the DOD to change its policy:

A top Biden defense official on Tuesday during a House hearing rejected a leading medical journal’s recent conclusion that immunity is as effective as vaccination.

“Right now, natural immunity is not something that we believe in for this,” Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness Gilbert Cisneros said.

This, as opposed to back in 2021 when there were ZERO studies, but everyone just had to trust Big Pharma and ingest whatever snake oil they threw at us, or be fired / arrested / banned.

Here’s the “science” he’s ignoring:

Cisnero’s remarks ignore The Lancet’s analysis earlier this month on immunity. After an extensive review of 65 scientific studies, the journal concluded that immunity is “at least equivalent if not greater than that provided by two-dose mRNA vaccines.”

The journal furthermore suggested that future policies for workers “should take into account immunity conferred by vaccination and that provided by natural infection.”

Of course, given that most “reputable” medical opinion at the time was that “we’re all gonna diiieeeee unless you get jabbed!”, some would actually call for at least a little skepticism, but that’s true of all medical studies.

Remember when salt was the Big Killer?  And red meat?  Now, not so much — at least, until the next study is released.  In the meantime, watch your ass.

A plague on all their houses.

Speed Bump #2,701

Grammar Nazism

I heartily agree with the sentiment, but:

Is it “Males Out Of Female Jails” or “Men Out Of Women’s Jails”?

MAKE UP YOUR FUCKING MINDS

(Given the fact that “male” and “female” are adjectives FFS, the truly correct terminology in the former would be “Male Prisoners Out Of Female Jails” (which scans really nicely) — but that wouldn’t fit on the sign, would it, and by all means let’s not allow linguistic clarity and rhythm to crowd the real estate.)

Another gin, Kim?  Why yes, I think I will.

Unpleasant Truths

Bad News, Boomershoot

It really pains me to write this post, but here we are.

For whatever reason, the response to this year’s BoomerShoot Rifle thing has been quite underwhelming:  so far, I have received just under $1,500 in ticket sales — money which, as any fule kno, has to cover the cost of the rifle and scope, as well as at least some of my travel expenses to get up to Idaho in May for a proper long-range field test.  (I had also hoped to raise enough to sponsor at least in part some of Joe Huffman’s expenses — notably for the BoomerShoot Dinner, always a fine event — but that seems to be impossible now [sorry, Joe].)

So, unless I get a serious influx of ticket sales over the next couple of weeks, I will have to lower my sights considerably, so to speak, and buy instead a budget setup (or just a rifle) and forego BoomerShoot altogether.

Please understand:  I am absolutely not chiding anyone about this, nor is this some kind of guilt trip exercise.  But the facts are the facts, and they are all as stated above.  So here’s where we stand.

  • Right now, I’m going to forego BoomerShoot 2023 altogether, unless circumstances change drastically.  It’s okay;  I love the shooting and the chance to hang out with a bunch of Readers, but it is a long trip from Texas — without any dawdling, it’s three days up, three days down.  The gun is more important, and I can sight it in down here in Texas at my sooper-seekrit outdoor range.
  • I had already decided to go with a rifle chambered in 6.5 Creedmoor, as last year’s rifle was in .308, I got a lot of support from ticketholders for the Creed, and the prices of a Creed rifle and a .308 rifle are about the same.
  • Nobody was interested in a plain hunting-style rifle (“because I’ve got that covered”);  everyone wanted a bench-style rifle.
  • I’m insistent on getting a quality rifle first and foremost, so I’m looking at the Ruger American Hunter, at about $875 (including shipping and processing):

I’d love to get another Howa like last year’s, but they run over a grand, so there’d be little money left over for a decent scope (more on that below).

Anyway, this leaves me with the scope.

  • I’d really prefer to get an illuminated reticle because in low light conditions, it’s a game-changer
  • at least 18x magnification, which I consider to be the minimum at ranges exceeding 400 yards
  • first focal plane (FFP) scopes have to be ruled out because of price, so it’s SFP, I’m afraid.

Here’s the best option, I think, based on my own experience:  the Meopta Optika6 3-18×50 BDC-3, which costs about $800:

Doing the simple math, the two come to $1,675 (still less than the $1,500 on hand, but I’m hopeful).

So here we are, at the Last Chance Saloon.  If you’re still interested, checks and Zelle are your choices.

I’ll hold the call open until the end of the month;  then I’ll have to get busy with whatever funds are available.

Anger Day

Two-Minute Hate

My normal mood when considering the outside world is one of, at best, irritation — on a scale on 1 to 10, I wake up each morning at about 5 — and especially so when I haven’t finished my first cup of coffee.

I am furious.

Perhaps a little background is in order.  For my birthday last year, my kids chipped in together and bought me a Seiko Sports wristwatch with an automatic movement.

It’s a lovely watch, not too expensive, not too showy, and of course I replaced the silly canvas strap (which scratched my oh-so delicate skin) with a nice black leather one which didn’t.

All went well until I actually started using the fucking thing.  You see, the nice thing about an automatic movement is that you don’t have to wind it, and it doesn’t have a battery which runs down and needs replacing just about every year, which are the reasons I wanted one in the first place.  According to the specs, this watch, when the mainspring is fully wound up, so to speak, has a “reserve” power of about 36 hours, which means you can leave it lying around unworn for about a day and a half before you need to wave your arm in the air to recharge it.

So I wore the thing for a couple days to charge the spring up, then took it off at bedtime and went to sleep.  And found the next morning that the watch had stopped after about six hours.  No amount of arm-waving could get it charged past that paltry reserve.

So I sent the watch back to Seiko USA to get it fixed under warranty, but discovered yesterday that despite the proof of date of purchase, the watch was considered “out of warranty” because nobody had actually sent back the registration card.

The cost of repair was about the same as the original price of the watch.

So this morning I called Seiko and told them to send the thing back to me un-repaired — fuck ’em — and told the customer “service” rep that I would never consider buying another Seiko product, ever.  Of course, as the Seiko repair shop is in New fucking Jersey, my comment was met with complete indifference.

I’ll hand the watch back to Daughter and let her decide what she and the others want to do.

Now add this little irritation to my wake-up Irritation Level 5… and none of the posts which preceded this one helped matters at all.

If anyone wants me, I’ll be at the range.

Update:  Daughter informs me that the place where she bought the watch has a 3-year warranty on all new Seiko watches, so all I have to do is send it there for the repairs to be effected.  Now I just have to wait for it to get back from Noo fucken Joizee.