Tag: Things that totally suck

Coercion

Eco-Crap, Government Thugs, Gummint

None of this nonsense is going to happen, but it sure won’t be for lack of trying…

Joe Biden issued the most radical environmental rules in American history to phase out gasoline-powered vehicles and force customers to drive ineffective electric cars. Now, a new report has revealed the effort to finish off the gas-powered car is well-underway in eight states.

The rules being adopted in these states specify that only zero-emission vehicles, which include electric vehicles and certain plug-in hybrids, can be sold beginning with the 2035 model year. This is known as the Advanced Clean Cars II rule.

And the Crazy Eight?

California, Rhode Island, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, and Washington. The District of Columbia has also signed off.

Here’s the map, with my addition:

I’m just amazed that Illinois hasn’t joined the other Socialist Soviets (yet).  No doubt ILGov Fatboi Pritzker is working on it.

Hey, maybe they’ll get Texas to join up…

On a more serious note:

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) finalized aggressive emissions standards Friday for heavy-duty vehicles that will effectively require huge increases in the numbers of electric or zero-emission buses and trucks sold over the next decade.

Uh-huh.  Just the thought of all those 18-wheelers changing to electric power makes me really want to pee myself, just not with laughter.

Or start boiling the tar and oiling the rope, whatever.

As a wise man said:

Black Humor

Bad News, Funny Stuff

I’m not talking about Dave Chappelle, Eddy Murphy or Wanda Sykes;  that’s Black humor.

I’m talking about black humor, which has always made me giggle.  Here’s one example:

Another:

…and still another:

Of course, when FJB / whoever-the-Socialists-maneuver-into-the-nomination “wins” the 2024 election with 200 million mail-in votes cast, that won’t be funny as much as prophecy.

Still laughing?

No Need For Revisitation

Architecture

Here’s a piece at Modern Thinker  which revisits Modernism:

The forerunners of modernism were a mixture of eccentrics and revolutionaries. They agreed on the break with tradition — and the abominated institutions of the bourgeoisie, including classical architecture. Regrettably, several of the rebellious architects were also willing to renounce their integrity and enter the service of the totalitarians.

Several?  Try “almost all” and you’ll be closer to the truth.

Longtime — and maybe even Recent — Readers will know all about my opinion of Modernist architecture (just follow this link if memories need refreshing).

So while the above article is an interesting read, the executive summary is that modernism sucks, sucks green donkey dicks in fact, and is a blight on the landscape everywhere it is perpetrated.

As the title of this post suggests, there is no need to “revisit” modernism, unless it is to be used as a guideline which says, “Not that.  Anything but that.”

Fugly Houses

Architecture

I am often amused by the excitement (mostly negative) that arises over in Britishland when there’s any talk of housing development — i.e. building new houses where hitherto there have been none.  Mostly, of course, the fury arises from among the NIMBYs who, having purchased their houses in or near village A, don’t want anyone else to live nearby because of “character” and the loss thereof.

It makes no sense because there’s a distinct lack of affordable housing Over There, not the least because very little new housing gets built — and when it does, it is of surpassing ugliness.  Here’s an example of one such development recently built near Cambridge:

Yes, dear Readers, those are single-family homes, built according to the principles of Gropius and Le Corbusier, only with slanted roofs.  Anywhere else, they’d be called “apartments” because that’s what they resemble, and I leave it to your imagination to decide how people would feel about living in such surroundings.  Small wonder the existing population gets upset, if what’s coming looks like that.

Of course, it doesn’t have to be like that.  As our family often says, “architecture doesn’t have to suck”, and here’s an example of same, in Doc Russia’s neighborhood a couple of towns over from Plano.

I should point out that the interiors of the above houses are almost identical:  the floorplans and footprints are as close to uniform as can be imagined, and the square footage thereof likewise.  (It may not look that way, but that’s the genius of the developer’s architect.)

Basically, the developer said to the initial homeowners:  “We have about a dozen different looks for the houses here.  Pick one, but just note that no identical outside designs can be next door to or across the road from each other, and in fact we intend to keep the designs separate as much as possible so that the development looks like a group of custom homes, even if they aren’t.  Oh, and they’re all going to cost about the same, within a couple-five thousand dollars of each other depending on what cladding you choose for the front of the house.”  It is a remarkably attractive development, and the prices have increased massively over time precisely because people don’t want to live in a suburb looking like that Cambridge cell-block.

And I should point out that those Brit houses and the American ones are very close in price, even allowing for the currency difference.

So the Brits could have built something according to the same ethos, but they didn’t because… well, they didn’t care, they had no imagination,there were cost savings, they figured that the buyers would just want to get whatever they could regardless of appearance, I dunno.

Anyway, the good news is that after the Cambridge development was completed, the council housing inspectors found that the entire suburb had a systemic flaw in the foundation design, with this happy result a few months later:

…and yes, I laughed and laughed and laughed myself sick.  However, I will not offer odds that the rebuilt houses will look any different from their predecessors.

By the way, I have to point out in all fairness that we in Murka have similar problems;  Doc Russia’s little enclave notwithstanding, I saw on my way home from the drugstore this horrible fucking  thing that sprang up in Plano over a period of a couple months:

Those architectural pustules are townhouses, and in the normal course of events they’d lie empty for decades;  but sadly, there is such great demand for new housing hereabouts (Californians, uh-huh, uh-huh) that I think the houses were almost all sold before completion.  Yes, they look like nothing more than white-painted Monopoly houses all crammed together, and to say that they look nothing like any other townhouse development in Plano is an understatement.  These are a block or two away from my place:

I think I’ll drop an anonymous note to our housing inspectors, saying that those white blocky things may be too dangerous for habitation because of foundation problems;  but sadly, our inspection process here must be different from Over There because the foundations are inspected before any walls can be built on them.

Pity, that.

Losing Character

Architecture, Two-Minute Hate

I’ve ranted so often about shitty architecture on these pages that one might be forgiven for thinking that I’d be sick of it by now.

Silly rabbit.

Here’s the latest example of foulness:

Residents living next to one of the most expensive houses in Britain have blasted the home as a ‘monstrosity’.
The newbuild, in the exclusive London suburb of Chelsea, has been nicknamed ‘Gucci House’ by appalled neighbours because of its ‘gaudy’ appearance.
The ‘ugly’ mansion occupies land that was formerly a school playground and has a dark grey exterior and imposing metal gates outside.

The exclusive street is the oldest in Chelsea, dating back to at least 1566.

I know, it looks like a wart on a pretty girl’s face — not, mind you, that London residential architecture is anything like a pretty girl’s face:  it’s dated, and occasionally quite horrible — but whatever, it’s what gives London its character.

As to why some rich fuck and his equally-fucky architect would want to lessen or destroy that character, I leave it to you to decide.  But speaking of that architect, here’s a quote which describes the process perfectly:

Original architects, Gumuchdjian, describe the property as surrounding a garden courtyard with an entrance that echoes the Parisian Hotel Particular.

Okay, let’s just nip this little turd-piece in the bud.

There’s no such thing as the Parisian Hotel Particular — it’s not a specific building, so it shouldn’t be capitalized.  The hotel particulier  is a style of building, and denotes a grand townhouse.  Here’s a typical example of said style, in Paris:

To even suggest that this London carbuncle resembles the above is mendacity in the Clinton Class.

And here’s the final word on this catastrophe, from a neighbor:

‘My house has survived The Blitz, it was built in the 1780s, they’re not building to match the heritage of the area. It’s like vandalism. How can the council approve this when it doesn’t match the other ones?’

Here’s a clue:

The house changed hands just last year and according to data from the Land Registry, the price tag of £73.2million was 209 times the average house price last year which was £350,396.

When a house costs about $100 million, a hundred thou or so to the right councilor or planning authority is small change.

Just sayin’.

Outright Theft

Taxes and Theft

Here’s a little snippet that caught my eye briefly, then buzzed around in my subconscious until it turned into a raging tornado.

Inheritance tax receipts increased to £5.2billion in the eight months from April to November, data from HM Revenue & Customs reveals.

This marks a £400million increase from the same period a year ago, and continues the upward trend over the last decade.

Last month, the Chancellor shied away from slashing inheritance tax in the Autumn Statement, as it emerged the levy is on track to raise nearly £10billion a year by the end of the decade.

The body text concerns me hardly at all because it’s Britishland, and for centuries their governments have always stolen from the country’s wealthier citizens.

It was really just the first two words which snagged me like an errant fish hook.

Here’s how it’s defined by our own beloved IRS:

The Estate Tax is a tax on your right to transfer property at your death. It consists of an accounting of everything you own or have certain interests in at the date of death. The fair market value of these items is used, not necessarily what you paid for them or what their values were when you acquired them.

There are a whole bunch more words which on the surface are supposed to clarify the matter, but which in true IRS form serve only to create more questions, to be clarified by tax accountants and lawyers, and which can be re-interpreted (in the State’s interests, natch) by IRS agents in any way they choose.

Yeah, you have a right to transfer property — your own private property, how nice that they call it a “right” — but that right can be taxed (is it then still a right?) because reasons.

Basically, the State is saying that your private property isn’t really yours, it belongs to the State and therefore they are entitled to a piece of it.

Yeah, I know, it really only applies to “the rich” and we little peasants shouldn’t worry our silly little heads about it.  (The ceiling for application of the death tax is currently set at an estate value greater than $13.6 million.)

Even among people not affected by the estate tax, it is one of the most hated taxes in the nation.  Worse still, it used to cost the State more in the collection thereof than the income it generated — in fact, it only recently “broke even”, and now the revenue : cost relationship stands at something like 1.24 ($1.24 dollars is collected for every dollar it costs to collect it).

If ever there’s a piece of governmental thievery which needs to be taken outside and shot in the back of the neck, this one is it.  (Don’t even ask me about the politicians who support it and the government agents who collect it, because my response would put me on the Naughty List.)

Yes I know, there is a difference between “inheritance” taxes and “estate” taxes.  Regardless of how the godless IRS defines it or how/when it gets collected, however, the principle is the same for both.