It's the entitled attitude that gets me...

 

I can only hope she was hauled away in handcuffs - after being hosed down so that the paint didn't get all over the police cruiser!

I've seen that same attitude in many so-called "porch pirate" videos.  They blame the person who put out the booby-trapped package to catch thieves, but never themselves for stealing.  I can only blame their upbringing, for never teaching them right from wrong.  If I'd tried that as a kid, my parents would have laughed at me, then whaled my ass off for stealing, then taken me back to the scene of the crime to invite the residents to give me another whoopin' - just in case I hadn't got the message by then!

A tip o' the hat to the anonymous reader who sent me the link to that video clip.

Peter

Putting the economy in perspective

 

I'm getting, not merely irritated, but actually alarmed by the number of people (particularly journalists) who are prattling along about how US consumers are spending as much as last year, and that therefore there's no need to worry about a recession, blah, blah, blah ad nauseam.

The reality is very simple.  Sure, the dollar amount spent is about the same in most areas:  but the quantity and/or quality of goods and/or services those dollars are buying is a lot less than it was in earlier years.  Things are more expensive, and their quality is often less than it was in the past.  Where I could buy a self-propelled Honda lawnmower for plus-or-minus $400 two years ago, the identical model, from the same store, is today almost $900.  Where I could buy an expensive replacement part for my vehicle two years ago for $950 (dealer price), today it's almost $1,500.  Those are just two examples.  I'm sure my readers can supply many more from their own experience.  In short:  if I bought ten widgets last year for $100 apiece, and this year I bought four widgets for $250 apiece, I've spent $1,000 in each of those years - but I've got less than half as much for my money.

In other words, the actual dollar amount spent is no longer an accurate measure of the state of the economy.  It's buying a lot less than it used to, and the jobs that were supported by that quantity of goods sold - making them, importing them, selling them, servicing them, etc. - are no longer available in the same numbers.  When I take my vehicle in for a routine oil-change, I sometimes have to wait two to three times as long as I used to, because the dealership has half the number of mechanics on staff as it used to have.  They tell me they'd like more, and that they're offering high salaries in an effort to attract more, but in private chats with a couple of the managers, they're making it clear they can't afford to hire more, because the dealership's turnover (in terms of number of vehicles sold at a decent profit) has dropped, so it can't pay for them any longer.  Again, that's just one example of what I'm sure many of us are seeing.

There's another factor.  As Ernest Hemingway had one of his characters explain:

“How did you go bankrupt?” Bill asked.
“Two ways,” Mike said. “Gradually and then suddenly.”

A lot of us have experienced things getting worse over the past few years and decades, but on a "little by little" sort of basis.  All of a sudden, things are happening faster, and there are more problems coming to light.  One literally can't read a newspaper from one day to the next without some new item of financial nastiness catching one's eye.  We - or, rather, our economy - is/are moving from "gradually" to "suddenly" on a steepening downhill trajectory.  One can't blame President Trump for that;  he inherited the mess that President Autopen Biden left behind - but people, particularly on the left, are trying to blame that on Trump, because it's always easier to point fingers at others instead of accepting part of the blame ourselves.  For decades we've voted for politicians - of both parties - who've gleefully voted us money the country did not have, in order to gain our votes in future.  Now that bill is coming due.

Rudyard Kipling warned us of "The Gods of the Copybook Headings".  (I make a point of re-reading that poem at least once a year, and frequently more often, because it's so darned true!  I highly recommend that you do the same.)  Well, his warnings are coming true in our economy as we watch it unfold.  DiveMedic summed it up well last weekend.

The system is insolvent. There isn’t enough money in the world to cover the debts created by that system. Currently, Social Security owes everyone about $75 trillion more than we have to pay - an amount that is double what our national debt already is - in other words our national debt isn’t $34 trillion, it’s more like $107 trillion. If you total all of the money in the world: every nation, every currency, every ounce of gold, it comes up to $134 trillion.

In other words, we are on the cusp of owing more money than actually exists. Even the official national debt of $34 trillion wouldn’t be eliminated if the government confiscated every 401k, IRA, 457 plan, and all other retirement accounts. The retirement accounts of US citizens are only worth about $31 trillion.

We are about to see a collapse of the US economy, and with it, the world economy. It’s inevitable.

There's more at the link.  Go read it all.  It's worth your time.

Too many of us are trying to fool ourselves (and each other) that this is just another one of those periodic scares, that there's really nothing to worry about.  I hope and pray that's right . . . but I fear that it's not.  Therefore, I'm buying more reserve supplies to help my wife and I eat at night during harder times, and (even though I'm still facing significant medical expenses) we're reducing our debt load to an irreducible minimum, so that we're not caught short when things go smash.  We've spoken about that often enough, so I won't repeat it here.

I highly recommend that you do likewise, dear readers.  This is not a comfortable time.

Peter

Words to live by

 

I recently came across a post on Gab dating back to 2023.  User "Mandy_Poppins 🍎🍎🍎" posted:

Sayings of the Amish that go back to the 1600's

“Borrowing makes sorrowing.” (Bariye macht Sarige.)

"There are two kinds of leaders: those who are interested in the flock, and those who are interested in the fleece."

"That which controls your heart controls your life."

"A person may hoard up money, he may bury his talents, but you cannot hoard up love."

"He who has no money is poor; he who has nothing but money is even poorer."

"Many times we are climbing mountains when we ought to be quietly resting."

"Do more of less."

"The person who kills time has not learned the value of life."

"Today has one thing in which all of us are equal: time. All of us drew the same salary in seconds, minutes, and hours."

"An industrious wife is the best savings account."

"Generosity leaves a much better taste than stinginess."

"Wisdom enables one to be thrifty without being stingy, generous without being wasteful."

"Where love is, there riches be, keep us all from poverty."

"Beware of the barrenness of a too-busy life!"

Food for thought.

Peter

Blowing the lid off yet another corrupted government program

 

I was very pleased to read that the Small Business Administration is taking steps to put its house - and its finances - in order.  It appears to have been one of the main avenues for taxpayer money to be funneled to corrupt firms and individuals.  With luck, that may end very soon now.

The Small Business Administration on Friday ordered all companies that get preference for government contracts due to their status as “socially disadvantaged” minorities to provide detailed financial information to show they are not defrauding the program, The Daily Wire has learned.

The change represents a move to reevaluate a decades-old program that Washington insiders have long recognized as openly corrupt. The 8(a) program is one of the largest and oldest DEI initiatives in the country, affecting contracts at almost all federal agencies.

SBA administrator Kelly Loeffler said there is mounting evidence that minority contracts had become “a pass-through vehicle for rampant abuse and fraud,” especially after the Biden administration raised the target for contracts that are “set aside” for minorities from 5% to 15% of all contracting dollars.

“We’re committed to thoroughly reviewing every federal contract, contracting officer, and contractor — while working alongside federal law enforcement,” she said.

The records will shed light on the extent to which companies are subcontracting out the work to non-“disadvantaged” firms, while keeping a cut for serving as a middleman or “front” company. That would defeat the purpose of the program and result in higher prices for government services across the board.

Undercover journalist James O’Keefe caught employees from one such firm boasting that they did exactly that. O’Keefe Media Group published a video exposing ATI Government Solutions, an 8(a) firm based on Native American ownership that is run by whites. Anish Abraham, senior director at ATI Government Solutions, acknowledged that his company was a “pass-through” that got a $100 million contract, kept $65 million, and paid another firm $35 million to do the work.

Such reports “have raised questions about widespread misconduct within the 8(a) Business Development Program, adding to years of credible concerns that the program designed to serve ‘socially and economically disadvantaged’ businesses has become a vehicle for institutionalized abuse at taxpayer expense,” the SBA wrote to each of the 4,300 “disadvantaged” contractors.

There's more at the link.

If those contractors don't provide all the required information by January 5, 2026, they "risk losing their eligibility for contracts".  That in itself doesn't sound like much of a threat;  but we're talking 4,300-odd contractors and several billions of dollars a year.  That's an awful lot of pork being threatened, and an awful lot of grifters suddenly staring at the horrifying possibility that they might actually have to work for a living, instead of stealing from the rest of us.

This is part of the ongoing fruit of D.O.G.E., of course.  I've heard many people complain that D.O.G.E. "went away" without achieving anything like as much as they initially claimed they would.  They fail to realize that D.O.G.E. cracked open the vault of secrets, corruption, nepotism and all the other evils that have long pervaded the federal bureaucracy.  It got the information that pointed to areas needing attention, whether immediate, or in due course.  The Trump administration couldn't possibly tackle all of them at once, but it's knocking them out one by one.  This week, it's the SBA's turn.  Next week, there'll be another.  D.O.G.E. may well end up saving America every cent it had promised, and perhaps even more - but it won't happen overnight.

At any rate, the cockles of my heart are warmed by the thought of panic-stricken managers and leaders of corrupt organizations who've just realized that their comfortable cloak of anonymity is about to be stripped away.  That glint of light they see in the distance?  It's reflections from the handcuffs waiting to be used on them.

Excellent!  More, please!

(I wonder whether James O'Keefe and his organization get a finder's fee for each corrupt organization and individual they expose?  They deserve it - and I can't think of a better way to use taxpayer money!)

Peter

The sting is in the tail... sort of

 

Since I'm doing physical therapy at the moment, to recover from the removal of my kidney a couple of months back, this . . . er . . . resonated.  It's not as family-friendly as stuff I normally post, but it had me laughing out loud.

Is that "Get fit fast" or just "Get fast!"?

Peter

Bloody cheek!

 

If Greenpeace wanted to make at least half of America fighting mad, it's chosen a good way to go about it.

A North Dakota jury ordered Greenpeace in March to pay pipeline company Energy Transfer $667 million for the environmental group’s rogue campaign to stop the Dakota Access Pipeline. Now, Greenpeace is trying to get a Dutch court to nullify the jury award, which the trial judge reduced to $345 million in October. Energy Transfer is asking the North Dakota Supreme Court to block the activist group’s attempt to end-run the U.S. legal system. If Greenpeace’s efforts succeed, they would harm much more than the pipeline company. They’d open the door for activists to torpedo other American critical infrastructure projects under European law.

. . .

The suit claims that Energy Transfer’s litigation violated Greenpeace International’s rights under the European Union’s 2024 anti-Slapp law, an anagram for strategic litigation against public participation. The law seeks to protect journalists and nonprofit organizations from meritless lawsuits designed to silence or intimidate them.

Greenpeace’s case isn’t an ordinary appeal, in which a party asks a higher court to review a lower court’s application of the law. Rather, Greenpeace is asking a Dutch court to reassess the merits of the North Dakota case under Europe’s sweeping anti-Slapp directive. The case marks the first attempt to apply the law “extraterritorially” to stymie a lawsuit brought in a country outside the European Union.

If the European directive achieves this reach, it would extend the EU’s regulatory imperialism to the political and social spheres where Europe and America follow starkly different legal norms: In a nutshell, Europe’s speech rules are based on values, while America’s are based on rights.

. . .

Under the EU directive, courts can award damages to parties that have been subjected to “abusive court proceedings,” including those involving “an imbalance of power between the parties” or “excessive” claims.

Greenpeace claims in the Dutch lawsuit that the financial resources of Energy Transfer constitute an “obvious” imbalance of power and that the company’s demands for hundreds of millions of dollars in damages are “clearly excessive.” But the rule of law is based on whether the parties acted within their legal rights, not on whether they happen to run a successful business like Energy Transfer that is seriously affected by a shutdown in operations. If Greenpeace succeeds, expect other activist organizations to incorporate in Europe so they can wiggle out of liability by invoking the EU’s loosely drawn “abusive court proceeding” standard against U.S. companies.

There's more at the link.

I don't know whether the European Union envisaged its anti-SLAPP law being used in this way, to undercut and nullify the duly constituted courts and legal system of a nation that's not a member of the Union.  Nevertheless, it was worded loosely enough that Greenpeace sought to take advantage of it.

What happens if the Dutch court rules in Greenpeace's favor?  For a start, no US court will issue an order making the Dutch ruling binding under US law.  That right does not exist in terms of our constitution.  So, let's say the US court goes ahead with its proposed ruling, and orders Greenpeace to pay damages.  What if Greenpeace refuses, citing the Dutch court's ruling?  If the US government sues them in a US court to recover the money, they'll simply file another Dutch lawsuit in retaliation.  If the US does nothing, our laws will quite obviously no longer be adequate protection for our constitutionally enshrined property rights - and that will open the door to a Pandora's box of litigation, countersuit and wealthy lawyers.  What if the US tries to sue Greenpeace in a European court?  What if the latter rules that the US has no standing to do so, not being a member of the EU?

This is an appallingly complex can of worms.  What it might lead to is anybody's guess.  However, one thing I'm sure of:  from now on, if I come across anything Greenpeace wants, or motivates, or works towards, I'm going to oppose it.  I'll even donate to their opponents, whether or not I agree with their perspective.  Try to thwart our laws, would they, without so much as a "By your leave" to the American people?  To hell with them!

Delenda est Greenpeace!

Peter

Heh

 

From the "Foxes In Love" comic strip for December 5, 2025.  Click the image for a larger version at the comic's Web page.

I've felt that way sometimes during extended periods in the bush in various parts of Africa.  One's hair picks up all sorts of dust and debris, and long hair is much worse.  When finally able to wash everything out and dry it off, the result looked like a cross between a broom and a mop!

Peter

Memes that made me laugh 289

 

Gathered from around the Internet over the past week.  Click any image for a larger view.

Sunday morning music

 

The late Denis Norden, appearing on BBC Radio's "My Music" quiz program, famously quipped that his favorite instrument was "Bagpipes, receding into the distance".  Fortunately, not everybody shared his opinion!

The previous record for the number of bagpipers assembled in one place to play the same tune was set in Bulgaria in 2012 by 333 players.  Enthusiasts in Australia decided it was time to set a new record, and they chose AC/DC's current tour of that country to do it.  The Guardian reports:

On Wednesday afternoon (12 November 2025), 374 bagpipers gathered in Melbourne’s Federation Square to play AC/DC’s It’s a Long Way to the Top (If You Wanna Rock’n’Roll), setting a new world record just up the road from where Bon Scott and the band famously played the song on the back of a flatbed truck riding up Swanston Street 50 years before.

There's more at the link.  Here's how the record attempt went.

Looks like a good time was had by all.

Peter