Memes that made me laugh 295

 

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

Sunday morning music

 

A recent post at 357 Magnum reminded me of Eric Johnson and his smash hit instrumental from 1990, "Cliffs Of Dover".  How many of you remember it, too?

I remember when that track first came out.  It feels strange to think that it's now about 36 years old - more than half as long as I've lived.  How time slips away . . .

I looked through YouTube to see what other versions of the piece might have been recorded.  There were plenty of electric guitar look-alikes, but this bluegrass acoustic guitar version by Aaron Jaxon was spectacular.

Definitely a country flavor to a modern piece - and fantastic finger work.

Peter

Am I a prophet, or what?

 

In an article last week on how the progressive left is trying to turn ICE's anti-illegal-alien sweep into another George Floyd-like uprising, I advised several precautionary actions for my readers, including this one:

Expect there to be another run on firearms and ammunition, just like 2020/21, as those who hadn't prepared in time try to do so at short notice.  If your own supplies are a little threadbare, beat the rush and stock up now, while prices are still relatively low.

In their latest e-circular, received yesterday, SG Ammo, my favorite suppliers, had this to say:

We have seen a sharp increase in consumer demand for bulk ammo orders over the past 8 days. Daily sales volume initially rose 25% to 35%, and now 35% to 45% over the past 3 days when compared to the daily averages of the first week of this month. This also represents an even larger increase from demand in December. While some of this should be expected, as the busy season for selling ammo is generally November to April with a peak in March as income tax refunds get spent, we feel that the elevated demand signals a widespread urge by the consumer to stock up on ammo. In my opinion, it would be wise to stock up now if you need ammo while depressed market pricing lingers from 2025 and before 2026 price increases from the factories begin to force widespread increases in the retail market.

Yep.  It's as I predicted.  People are seeing what's going on in Minneapolis (where the George Floyd riots started in 2020) and realizing that "it's déjà vu all over again".  Many had become complacent since the last ammo shortage, and failed to maintain their stocks;  and others, new to firearms ownership since then, hadn't realized how rapidly ammo supplies can dry up.  They're looking at what's going on and realizing that forewarned had better be (ballistically) forearmed, and they're stacking it high, wide and deep.

I respectfully submit that at a minimum, if you're serious about preparing to defend yourself and your loved ones, you should have 100-200 rounds of quality defensive ammunition, plus another 400-500 rounds of training ammunition (enough for one to two years' practice sessions), for every defensive firearm you own.  Some can't afford that:  for them, I'd advise buying the quality defensive ammo right away (it's always the first to disappear off store shelves), and then accumulating training ammo one or two boxes at a time.

Buy in bulk if you can, because it's cheaper.  If you can't afford to do that on your own, get together with your buddies and put in a single group order so that you all save money.  I usually buy in bulk from either SG Ammo (free shipping over $200, which saves money) or Palmetto State Armory, but there are many other vendors out there.  Shop around and compare prices (not forgetting shipping costs).  However, don't forget to also patronize your local gun store(s).  They're more expensive, sure, but they need to make a profit to survive, and you want them to survive and be available in case you need something in a hurry.

If you're in any doubt about how tight supply can get, read the 2021 Shooting Illustrated article I linked above.  If you haven't yet assured your own reserve supply of ammunition, I strongly suggest you do so as quickly as possible.  I have no doubt that urban crime and unrest is going to escalate further, and may spill over from the cities to smaller towns and rural areas.  Remember the time-honored, age-old truth:  "It's better to have it and not need it, than to need it but not have it".  Truer words were never spoken about defensive weapons and ammunition.

Peter

So... what sex am I, again???

 

I went to a local hospital this week to pick up some CD's containing recent diagnostic imagery.  I duly reported in, and was directed to a small office, where someone would meet me with the CD's.  After a few minutes, a very pleasant young lady came in, handed me a brown envelope, and assured me that everything I needed was inside.

Being a trusting sort (NOT!), I opened the envelope. pulled out the printed records, and glanced at the first line.  One word jumped out at me.  It read, "HYSTERECTOMY".

I blinked, and looked again.  Sure enough, it hadn't changed.  I looked up at the nice lady, patted my (over-ample) belly, and said, "I may look pregnant, but I assure you, I'm not - and I've never had this surgery!"

She blinked in her turn, glanced at the paper, and turned beetroot-red.  "Oh!  OH!  I'm sorry!  I must have picked up the wrong envelope!  Wait just a moment!"

I waited, grinning.  The envelope had not had any name on it, so I presume they'd simply filed them in roughly alphabetical order based on the printed records inside.  In due course, she returned, still slightly pink, and handed me another envelope.  This time, the right records were inside.

I asked, "Do we need to look at the CD, to make sure it doesn't have happy snaps of a hysterectomy instead of my spinal scans?"

Her blush deepened.  "Er... I - I don't think so?"

I left it at that and departed, still grinning.  When I got home and told my wife, she almost collapsed, she was laughing so hard.  We're both looking forward to finding out what images another doctor might see on the CD when he reads it!

Ah, the joys of (mis)filing systems . . .

Peter

I agree

 

As regular readers will know, I have literally decades of experience in environments of civil unrest, terrorism, and societal conflict, ranging from more-or-less peaceful demonstrations right through to the worst terrorist acts you can imagine.  I'm frequently astonished at the complacency and ignorance of people who think that "It can't happen here!"  I assure you, it most certainly can.

The expatriate American living in the Philippines, blogging at Come And Make It, appears to understand the reality of our situation, from a different-but-similar perspective.

There was a noticeable lag—roughly a year—[in Iraq after the war] between the collapse of central authority and the full emergence of widespread insurgency.

I see troubling parallels in the United States today. We're in that uneasy "lag" phase: deep instability is already here, with large numbers of people armed and ideologically primed for violence, yet most still hesitate to cross the line into open, sustained conflict. Instead, we see the precursors: fireworks thrown as provocations, screaming crowds, disruptive "stupid games," and tantrum-like escalations when people don't get their way. These are the behaviors of spoiled children testing boundaries.

So far, it's mostly individuals or small groups acting out. But the pattern is clear: one or two incidents beget more, then more still, until the tipping point arrives—and suddenly we have IEDs on interstate highways, coordinated attacks, and true insurgency.

A great deal of money—funneled from foreign governments, wealthy donors, and outside interests—has been poured into inflaming divisions, arming radicals, and eroding trust in institutions. These investments are designed to create exactly this kind of volatile tinderbox.

We are now one stray footstep away from triggering an avalanche of violence that could be very difficult to stop once it starts.

There's more at the link.

I warned earlier this month that the unrest being fomented over ICE and illegal aliens is reminiscent of the artificially-whipped-up demonstrations over George Floyd's death in 2020.  It seems many others agree.  See, for example:

• Minneapolis ICE Shooting Shows Left Wing's Protest Industrial Complex Wants Another 'George Floyd'-Type Riot
• The horns of the ICE dilemma (recommended reading)
• Stumbling Towards A New Civil War

See also the links provided in my earlier article.

El Gato Malo provides this succinct assessment.  Note:  he eschews capitals in his articles.

the "activists" they pay to run around trying to stop ICE are just upping the ante and taking even more unreasonable actions to try to protect the original incursions.

and they are creating incredibly dangerous situations.

on purpose and as a matter of policy.

and when you play stupid games, you win stupid prizes.

this issue is being used to try to drive an irreconcilable social fracture.

it’s being managed like an insurgency in the same city that keeps spawning these (and whose governor and congressional rep (this took place in omar’s district) both look like they’re about to get indicted for massive corruption around immigrants they flooded the area with to sway voting.)

it’s more than a little curious how these folks were all so ready for this within hours.

there is coordination here.

. . .

there’s an actual insurgency being run here by the same political junta that caused the immigration mess.

but this is not going to be 2020. you can feel the national mood turning. people have had enough of being held hostage by these out of control hysteria cohorts.

and at a certain point, you stop trying to convince and realize that you’re basically just at war over a set of fully unreconcilable worldviews.

Again, more at the link.

Note the last sentence above.  It's true.  No reconciliation is possible between the two sides of the illegal alien debate.  One side sees it as a fundamental threat to what it has always meant to be an American.  The other side sees it as a wedge issue to redefine what it means to be an American.

Rudyard Kipling put it well, in a different context:

East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet

That's what we have here - and unless sanity and facts prevail over emotions and feelings, it's going to get much, much worse, more quickly than most of us can imagine.

Peter

Robotic crooks? AI con artists? Computerized criminals?

 

An article at Futurism suggests that we can expect all of the above, and then some.

In a new report, pan-European police agency Europol’s Innovation Lab has imagined a not-so-distant future in which criminals could hijack autonomous vehicles, drones, and humanoid robots to sow chaos — and how law enforcement will have to step up as a result.

By the year 2035, the report warns that law enforcement departments will need to deal with “crimes by robots, such as drones” that are “used as tools in theft,” not to mention “automated vehicles causing pedestrian injuries” — an eventuality we’ve already seen in numerous cases.

Humanoid robots could also complicate matters “as they could be designed to interact with humans in a more sophisticated way, potentially making it more difficult to distinguish between intentional and accidental behavior,” the report notes.

Worse yet, robots designed to assist in healthcare settings could be hacked into, leaving patients vulnerable to attackers.

Rounding out the cyberpunk dystopia vibes, according to the report, is that all the folks who were put out of a job as a result of automation may be motivated to commit “cybercrime, vandalism, and organized theft, often targeted at robotic infrastructure” just to survive.

Law enforcement needs to evolve rapidly to keep up, Europol says. For instance, a police officer may need to determine whether a driverless car that was involved in an accident did so after receiving deliberate instruction as part of a cyberattack, or whether it was a simple malfunction.

. . .

Advanced weapons have already “spilled over into organised crime and terrorism, impacting law enforcement,” the report reads. “There has also been a reported increase in the use of drones around European infrastructure, and there are examples of drone pilots selling their services online, transforming this criminal process from crime-as-a-service to crime-at-a-distance.”

In short, it’s a troubling vision of the future of crime, facilitated by rapidly evolving technologies.

There's more at the link.  The original Europol report may be found here.

This is hardly surprising, of course.  Criminals have always used every technology ever invented, as soon as it's come along (and often before law enforcement has thought about its criminal misuse, or considered countermeasures).  Today, however, the threat is greater than ever before.  There must be enough well-trained and -experienced drone operators in Ukraine and Russia alone that every criminal organization in Europe could hire a troop of them.  As that knowledge and experience proliferates, particularly in South American drug cartels (who are already using drones as offensive weapons against each other and against law enforcement, and using them to fly drugs and other contraband across the US border), we're sure to see police forces and other agencies setting up their own specialist units to tackle the problem.

I remain equally concerned about the use of drones by "ordinary" criminals to survey streets and neighborhoods, looking for targets of opportunity.  Examples:

• There are a number of gangs stealing cars to order.  If you want a specific make and model of car, you let the gang know, and they'll find one to steal for you.  A number of high-end autos have been exported in response to such interest.  A drone-equipped operator can fly over neighborhoods all across a city to find the vehicle(s) he wants, and choose those in the most vulnerable areas or homes for further attention.
• If a given suburb is popular with wealthier people, gangs can fly drones over it to check on security systems and precautions they use.  If they find a more vulnerable home, they can plot ways to approach the house under cover of garden vegetation, or plan rapid egress routes after they've broken in.  They can also monitor the frequency and routes taken by security patrols.
• Left-wing and progressive groups are doxxing the names and addresses of ICE agents and other law enforcement personnel.  If you happen to live near one, you and your family might find yourselves caught up in (potentially violent) demonstrations against that address and those living there.
• Kidnapping and human trafficking are in the news almost every day.  Using drones, the perpetrators can look for likely victims and observe them for long periods, to establish their patterns of life and determine when they will be most vulnerable to attack.

Those are just a few of the ways in which criminals can benefit from technology, or we can suffer because they have access to it.

Peter

Nothing succeeds like excess - Rolls-Royce edition

 

I'm still giggling at a highly sarcastic and snarky article about how truly over-the-top a personalized Rolls-Royce luxury car can become.  A tip o' the hat to the anonymous reader who sent me the link.  Here's just one paragraph to whet your appetite.

Rolls-Royce says the BLACK BADGE GHOST GAMER was "delivered to a tech entrepreneur", which somehow surpasses the American dog mom buyer of the SPECTRE BAILEY for obviousness. It also explains why the new owner wasn't worried about what women would think of his new car, because meeting a girl will be a theoretical concern for his entire life. Rolls-Royce, I should note, does not specify that the commissioning buyer is a man, but I am dead certain a woman's hand did not touch this car at any point in its construction.

There's much more at the link.  I won't steal the author's thunder by reproducing it here;  and besides, you really need to see the pictures to appreciate the length to which some car owners will go.  Fortunately, they can pay Rolls-Royce (a lot!) to take them there.

Go read the whole thing.

Peter

He has the right of it

 

Aesop, whom we've met in these pages on many occasions, is back from his blogging hiatus and demonstrating that sarcasm, acerbic wit, and not giving a damn do, indeed, convey points of view very well.  Here he is discussing the US dollar and fiat currency in general.

Wages since 1985 have cratered. Case in point, my parents' combined household income in 1985 was at the 50th percentile at the time, i.e the mid-point, nationally. Or notionally. Mine is currently at the 90th percentile nationwide, all by my ownself, IOW, better than 90% of US households. But for me to have the purchasing power they enjoyed near the household median in 1985, my paycheck would need to be larger than it is by seven- to ten-fold. IOW, I make 500% of what mom and pop did, yet the purchasing power of my income is only about 40% of what theirs was then. That's how much nothing my fiatbux "Real wages" command currently, and how badly "Real wages" have dropped.

Gold is gold, which is why the spot price is USD$4500/oz as I write this, compared to +/- USD$300 in 1985. That means a dollar in 2026 is worth less than 7% in real terms what it was 40 years ago.

. . .

For Common Core grads, that means your dollar now is worth less than 5/1000ths - 0.005% - of what a dollar was worth in 1932. ($1 x 0.065 x 0.07 = 0.00455. QED) A dollar currently is worth less, in real terms, than the cost for the ink and paper to print it. Maybe write that down on your hand in Sharpie, lest ye forget. We don't need zinc pennies anymore, because $1 bills are the new 1/2¢ coin. And the only people who've figured that out are EVERYONE who's selling you anything, worldwide, and why all your s***, from cars to houses to Happy Meals,  has zoomed in price. Gold hasn't zoomed. Your dollars are simply worth Jack, and S***. That's how inflation works, with the Treasury printing fiatbux three shifts a day, and inflating the unbacked money supply by trillions, year after year. Fun times, dead ahead. 

. . .

This reality is why Fiatbux - dollars, francs, yen, renminbi, whatever - are all finely engraved toilet paper. Don't make me do a retard crayon talk here. The only things that have cratered harder than "real wages" since 1985 are Russian armored regiment performance, or possibly Minnesota fraud investigations. Even Catholic church child abuse investigations have improved more than real wages since 1985. To suggest otherwise makes CNN economic reporters and hosts on The View sound wise. 

. . .

Sometime between tomorrow and death, most of the world is going to discover firsthand what the inhabitants of Weimar, Zimbabwe, and Venezuela all learned about financial reality. It isn't going to be pretty. In a Wile E. Coyote running off the cliff kind of way. Mind the drop.

Just saying.

There's more at the link.

Of course, he's saying nothing new to those of you who've been following our discussions on this blog over the past few years.  We most recently addressed the problem less than a week ago.  Nevertheless, there are relatively few people, in my experience, who actually understand the issues and/or will reorient their lives in such a way as to live according to reality as it truly is.  Most people will continue to spend money, not on things of lasting worth or that will retain their value, but rather on what the Bible calls "riotous living":  weekends in Vegas, fashionable clothes, fancy frou-frou imitations of coffee, and so on.  If most people would spend on true necessities what they spend every month on such fripperies, they could prepare themselves and their families for hard times and sleep easier at night.  However, most don't bother.

If you want a glaring example of evidence about our present situation, it's actually the absence of a piece of evidence.  It's simply this:  What happened to the audit of US gold reserves in Fort Knox that we were promised?  Where is it?  Where are the results?  The subject has literally vanished from view.  My conclusion is that it's being deliberately suppressed;  and if that's the case, then I can only assume that our gold reserves simply aren't there any more.  Where they are, and/or what happened to them, I have no idea:  but if we had them, there's no reason at all why we, the people who (in theory) own them, just as we own (hah!) our government, should not be told about them.  I'm pretty sure the powers that be understand full well that if they aren't there, they no longer underpin the value (such as it is) of the US dollar, so they'd rather ignore them and pretend the problem doesn't exist.  Trouble is, after we've been lied to and misled so often by so many administrations, nobody with two or more working brain cells trusts the deafening silence which is all we hear about the subject.

(If you think differently, I have this bridge in Brooklyn, NYC I'd like to sell you.  It's beautiful!  You'll make a mint out of charging people tolls to cross it!  Price on application.  Cash only, please, and in small bills.)

Oh, well . . .

Peter