Details later, since blogging from an iPhone sucks. Link.
News Flash: Colt Firearms Moving to Texas
April 8th, 2013More on Margaret Thatcher: Quotes, Videos and Tributes
April 8th, 2013More on the late Margaret Thatcher:
“I am not a consensus politician. I’m a conviction politician.”
“There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women and there are families.”
“We have not successfully rolled back the frontiers of the state in Britain only to see them re-imposed at a European level, with a European superstate exercising a new dominance from Brussels.”
Britain was a disaster: The lights frequently went out, trash was piled up in the streets, and the IMF was called in to bail the treasury out — in response to which the civil service decided that their role was to “manage” Britain’s decline and fall….’Diversity’ types are amusingly silent about her — and for good reason, as her example is utterly lethal to the culture of victimhood on which they rely. The global Left, likewise, has strong motives to disparage her: She realized that decline was a choice….She was right and they were wrong. While they blathered, she helped to defeat Communism, restored democracy to the Falklands, and saved Britain from the reds at home. She was, without doubt, our finest post-war premier and she made an incalculable contribution to the life of my country of birth.
Those on the Left who still probably regard Thatcher as a hate-figure, have either forgotten the history of the Cold War or possibly never understood that Communism meant the virtual enslavement of millions of people in the East European countries, who loathed its ideology as much as Margaret Thatcher herself. It is simply not possible to imagine Thatcher visiting Russia in the 1930s, like certain Left-wing useful idiots from Britain, and being taken in by Stalin’s propaganda machine. Ordinary East Europeans took a different view of her to her critics in this country. For them she symbolised opposition to Communism; indeed she was given a tumultuous welcome by the shipyard workers in Gdansk when she visited them. She wept at the sight.
Thatcher on Socialism
Announcing the invasion of the Falklands
Her statement on European integration (“No! No! No!”).
(Hat tip: Ace of Spades.)
Thatcher on William F. Buckley, Jr.’s Firing Line:
On the danger of the Euro:
Margaret Thatcher, RIP
April 8th, 2013Margaret Thatcher has died. With Ronald Reagan and Pope John Paul II, she made up the trio of moral leaders in the West who understood what a great evil communism was when so many wanted to appease it, paving the way for the West’s ultimate triumph in the Cold War. Her free market polices reinvigorated a strike-wracked UK economy many thought moribund. She arrested the British military’s decline and retook the Falkland Islands while Tory “wets” were quitely pushing to let them go.
She tamed the IRA and forced a Labour Party dominated by communust-friendly fossils Michael Foot and Neil Kinnock to reform and tack back toward the center.
She was hugely influential, smart, capable, and exactly the sort of leader the UK needed in the dark days of the late 1970s. The UK shall not see her like again.
LinkSwarm for April 4, 2013
April 5th, 2013Been a while since the last Friday LinkSwarm, so here it is!
Government spending on bailouts, subsidies, grants, salaries and entitlements commands a much larger share of these economies than it did just a few years ago. European austerity has been focused on the private sector — namely, taxpayers with high incomes.
That is the second thing the PIIGGS have in common. The highest income tax rate was recently increased in every one of the troubled PIIGGS except Italy (where it was already too high at 43%). The top tax rate was hiked from 40 to 46.5% in Portugal, from 41 to 48% in Ireland, from 40 to 45% in Greece, from 40 to 50% in Great Britain, and from 48 to 52% in Spain.
Texas vs. California Update for April 3, 2013
April 4th, 2013Time for another Texas vs. California roundup:
Pat Condell: Why Do We Give Palestinians a Pass on Barbarism? “We’re Racists.”
April 3rd, 2013Once again the irreligious, bracing Pat Condell tackles another PC shibboleth, namely our giving Palestinian barbarism a free pass. Why? “Because we’re racists.”
Too broad a brush? Well, it is a shame that 90% of Palestinians give the other 10% a bad name…
Adventures in Counterproductive Behavior
April 2nd, 2013You know what’s counterproductive? Trying to make satire disappear on the Internet because you’re offended by it.
Here’s a chart of my blog hits over the last two days:
Over 12,700 hits just today, and rising. In addition to the 7,000 hits yesterday.
By pitching a hissy fit and insisting my Locus April Fools piece be taken down, the failfandom brigade only ensured that it would be seen by 20 times as many people as would have seen it otherwise.
Emphasis on the “fail.”
WisCon’s Feminist Failfandom Brigade Gets My Locus April Fool’s Piece Taken Down
April 1st, 2013In an effort to prove that they’re not dour, humorless, thin-skinned avatars of political correctness with authoritarian tendencies, Wiscon’s Feminist failfandom brigade had my contribution to Locus Online’s April Fools Day festivities taken down. (Note that, under the transparent pseudonym of L. Ron Creepweans, I’ve participated in every Locus online April Fools Day since 2002.)
Locus forced Locus Online editor Mark Kelly to pull the piece only a few hours after it went up.
Thanks to the magic of Internet caches, you can still read it in its entirety:
And the text:
WisCon Makes Burqas Mandatory for All Attendees
Today the SF3 ruling committee for the Madison, Wisconsin-based feminist SF convention WisCon announced that starting this year, all attendees would be required to wear burqas.
“We were trying to think of what we could do to make Wiscon more inclusive,” said con chair Belle Gunness. “Suddenly, we realized that devout Muslims could easily be offended by the amount of sinful and wanton flesh on display at Wiscon. Therefore, starting with this year’s Wiscon, we’ve made burqas mandatory for all attendees. Allah Akbar!”
Both male and female members will be required to don the traditional black, face-covering, head-to-toe Islamic garb for all convention events. Gunness indicated that the convention would have substantial quantities of Burqas for rental to congoers, from Small to 5XL sizes. As an added benefit, she said that the new regulations would help eliminate “rampant lookism.”
Gunness said that guests would be required to wear the garb as well, “in the spirit of egalitarianism.”
Wiscon also announced that next year’s guest lineup would consist of J. K. Rowling, Stephen King, George R. R. Martin, Joss Whedon and Suzanne Collins. “At least as far as you know.”
For those tuning in for the first time, this was a direct jab (in humorous form) at WisCon’s previous decision to yank their Guest-of-Honor invitation to Elizabeth Moon for daring to voice (in the mildest possible form) politically incorrect thoughts about certain aspects of modern Islam.
How radical Islam became so sacred to radical feminists is a topic for another time, and I have hamburgers to cook. But it’s sad to think how a tiny, unimportant, radical fringe of disgruntled feminists (so aptly dubbed “Failfandom” by Steven Francis Murphy) have not only come to believe that their right not to be offended trumps the free speech of others, but that other people in the SF community have come to cave into their petulant demands. (Whatever happened to “The solution to free speech is more free speech?” It seems that fewer and fewer people on the left side of the political aisle believe that any more.)
But if there objective was to get this piece to disappear down the memory hole, I think they shall find that they are sadly mistaken…
Iowahawk Held Hostage: Day 175
April 1st, 2013175 days after it started, there’s still no resolution to the Iowahawk hostage crises, with the web pundit still held in captivity by the leftwing Al-Bama Dignity Brigade terrorist group.
“No more shall the infidel insult our prophet (peace be upon him) or make fun our sacred texts!”
Al-Bama has held Iowahawk captive “somewhere in the greater Des Moines area” since October 9, 2012, when a daring midnight raid snatched him from his fortified garage compound. Since then nothing has been heard from the beloved pundit except occasional tweets and pictures of hot rods.
The terrorist group has repeatedly threatened to kill the pundit, sending various media outlets severed piston rods from a 1931 Ford Model A to prove their seriousness.
Police promises to find the pundit (“Yeah, we’ll get right on that,” said a spokesman who asked not to be identified or disturbed while the NCAA basketball tournament was on) have thus far been fruitless.
Al-Bama’s initial demands were for the immediate imposition of comprehensive gun control, universal socialized medicine, $10 million in ransom, and the public flogging of radio personality Rush Limbaugh. When these demands were not met, Al-Bama gradually reduced them. Their most recent demands were for $325, a public apology from Bill O’Riley “for living,” and 12 cases of Olde Main beer.
Those with information on Iowahawk’s current whereabouts are urged to contact the National Bloggers Club.
North Korea Threatens to Nuke Austin
March 29th, 2013So North Korea is kicking its Crazy Invalid act up a notch with Kim Jong-Un threatening to attack the United States.
Which part of the U.S., you asking?
Dude, we’re all pissed off about the bag ban and the high cost of SXSW badges, but that’s a major overreaction.
Here, apropos of nothing in particular, is a video about the B-52:
And here, also apropos of nothing in particular, is a video of a B-2 hitting targets with 80 500 pound JDAM bombs.