Fun With Headlines - China

 Found these two articles in a newsletter from The Epoch Times:

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China Threatens to Withhold Vaccines to Paraguay Unless It Severs Ties With Taiwan On March 23, Alexander Tah-ray Yui, head of the Department of Latin American and Caribbean Affairs of the Republic of China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, revealed that ...  Read More

Beijing Says Third Dose of China-Made Vaccines Needed After Vaccinated Doctor Gets Infected Chinese health authorities have recently said that an additional third dose of the COVID-19 vaccine may be needed to boost its effectiveness. The announcement was released soon ...  Read More ------------------------ So toe our line or die of our virus. Oh by the way, our vaccine for our virus doesn't work very well so you will all need 3 shots instead of two. Wait till you find out what you have to do to get that third one....he he  he.

The Fourth Adversary

 A prominent Chinese professor has outlined his vision of how China intends to become the preeminent power in the world. Various approaches are discussed in his paper which you can see summarized here. Among them is cultivation of active adversaries to the U.S. which he sees as being unable to effectively handle more than 3. 

His list currently includes China (of course), Russia, and North Korea. He mentions Chinas attempt to use its belt and road initiative to coerce Brazil into becoming adversary #4, which Brazil declined to join. So let me ask: Who else in this hemisphere is in bed with the Chinese while having a significant footprint in the U.S. already?

Why the Mexican drug cartels of course! China already supplies the Fentanyl they send here in ever increasing quantities, and they have branched out into the immigrant smuggling business which is probably causing more disruption here because of the publicity the U.S. media gives it. 

Four enemies are needed to stretch the United States’ resources while bogging the government down in domestic debates over which threat to prioritize, Jin said.

For instance, before WWII the United States had two adversaries, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. “The Americans debated over and over about who is the real threat,” he said.

“If the United States has four enemies, it will totally lose its direction.”

RTWT and think about the most divisive issues currently in vogue with the media. 

 

The Future Of Transportation - China

 With a few caveats, of course. Here's a couple of offerings from our friends, the Chinese. The first is a GM China product, the Wuling Zhengtu pickup. 

Looks like a real pickup although it's much smaller, and features a 1.5l gas engine and a top speed of 75 mph. Look closely and you'll see hinges along the bed. Yes, the sides fold down to make a flatbed. This is a GM design made by Wu Ling and lists for $9000 in China. Shipping for something like this runs about $2500, but drops quickly if you order more than one. I suppose it depends on how many can be stuffed into a shipping container. It's 16 ft long with a 6-1/2' bed so not too small. No word as to whether it meets any U.S. standards for import yet.

Next up is the GenX camper from China by Everbright:

The traditional pickup over-cab camper meets the lambretta 3-wheel ice cream truck. Having only 3 wheels makes it a motorcycle, which skirts most U.S. vehicle safety laws and probably makes it legal to import. The big drawback is that its top speed is limited to 25 mph. Of course that also means that it's a low speed vehicle which in some places exempts it from licensing requirements. $4800 plus shipping (see above). They claim a 240 mile range which would be 10 hours at 25mph which I personally tend to disbelieve. Might be a job opportunity here though selling ice cream in the neighborhoods.

Not As Bad As It Sounds?

 Fake news hack Dan Blather is suggesting that it might not be a bad idea to elevate gun ownership from a constitutional right to a government granted privilege. He proposes that since driving a car on the public roads is usually predicated by obtaining a government license involving at least some training, insurance, and the car must be fitted with about 1200 lbs of safety equipment, that gun ownership should follow the same track. While I could argue that whatever training the average driver gets seems to be of rather limited benefit, let's run with that one.

How about extending this logic to the rest of the Bill of Rights? Should we allow just anyone, for example, to vote? Or hold elective office? Right now we extend the franchise to the ethereally(1) and metabolically(2) challenged without much question, and this seems to me to be a bit over expansive, at the risk of being accused of endorsing voter suppression. 

How about a voter licensing test and certification? You shouldn't be allowed to be involved in selecting those who would govern the rest of us unless you have demonstrated at least some minimal knowledge of how the system is supposed to work, and perhaps the rudiments of competing economic systems. 

What about the candidates? No one who thinks the federal government should be allowed to micromanage everyone's life down to the individual level should be allowed to hold federal office. Or any other office for that matter. Candidates should demonstrate some knowledge of the limitations of their chosen office in addition to their perceived powers. Demonstrating some knowledge of economics wouldn't hurt either.

(1) They don't exist

(2) Dead

Child rearing

 Found a great column on the topic at Ammo Grrrl. Ex:

I read a pretty amusing description of the difference between the parents’ protocol with the first child and the subsequent children. With the first child, when she drops her pacifier, you boil it. With the second child, you run it under the faucet for a few seconds to remove any visible dirt. With the third child, you have the dog fetch it.

 So all you secondary, tertiary, and etc. kids out there, remember that your parents didn't actually favor their first born over you, they just didn't know any better. As a result, I suppose the much better developed immune system of the younger siblings probably means that today they're only fractionally as likely to catch the Wuhan Flu.

Industrial Scale Vote Fraud?

 I got this through a newsletter, and here's a link to the original article. This describes the crime of sovereign fraud, or fraud committed by the government itself with respect to vote fraud.  A quick search turned up the original article at American Thinker.

The article describes a meeting of professional fraud detectives who feel that little further investigation is necessary since enough real evidence has been collected to get all the convictions one could ask for. The elephant in the room is the courts near universal refusal to go forward which looks suspiciously like they might be involved or at least have an interest in the outcome.

RTWT, it's well worth a little of your time.

This falls in line with Scott Adams observation that if a crime can be committed, and if the payoff is large and the risk of getting caught is small, then said crime WILL be committed. 100% chance.

Springtime In The Rockies

 I got a (measured) 15" of global warming here in Littleton which I removed in stages. My blower turned out to have a loose drive belt and no provision for adjustment. It's good to have a well equipped shop in the garage. Here's how it started on Saturday:

Here the snow is falling horizontally at 20-25 mph. The drive has been cleared at least once. 

Sunday we get blue skies and only 2 or 3 extra inches left to clear. Also 43 deg today so there's a good deal of melting starting. 

The distinctive lines of a '34 Dusenberg Landau ElGreaseian. Couldn't quite get the running boards in though. 

Official total at the airport, which is in another time zone from me, is 27". Mother nature is slipping. Usually a storm like this waits until all the trees have leaves, and the fruit trees have blossomed.

Domestic Terrorists and Gun Bans - New Definitions

 Everyone get out your Newspeak dictionaries as there are some changes that urgently need to be made. First off, 200 black-clad, masked, shouting individuals with Molotov cocktails, cudgels, and hammers are most emphatically NOT terrorists. They are "mostly peaceful" protesters.

Secondly, a homeowner, facing such a mostly peaceful gathering, say in front of his house, is now a Domestic Terrorist, especially if he's armed with a semi-automatic firearm.

So sayeth Dianne Feinstein who is demanding that said firearm be removed from the property owner, or at the very least, be limited to 10 rounds.

This is consistent with the unstated goal of the Democratic Party, to insure a uniformly safe working environment for the most anti-social among us. After all they are among the staunchest supporters of her party.

Latest Windows Update

 I have it from a strictly unconfirmed source that if you get the Gates-approved vaccination for the WuHan Flu, about 2 weeks after the second shot, if you have a Win10 computer, you no longer need either the mouse or keyboard. Your interface is a direct to-the-brain connection and is several orders of magnitude faster than typing or pushing a mouse around.

Possible side effects include automatic storage of all your data to Gates' cloud. If you query Microsoft about this, they will vehemently deny the whole story. I mean, what better proof can you get?

Springtime In The Rockies

 Or If you don't like the weather wait a bit week. Here's the Weather Underground forecast for the next 10 days:

That's nearly uninterrupted snow for 6 days straight with a total accumulation of 19.2 inches. Note that the temps are dropping very slowly. The stuff is predicted to be very heavy and wet. Broken trees, broken roofs, broken old geezers. Also looks like it may not be done come the end of this forecast sheet. 

You folks in the mid west: You're next. 

The good news: None of the deciduous trees have put out leaves yet, and the warm temps at the start should melt the first onslaught down to manageable levels. Maybe.

Suspect Statistics?

 Cali AG Beccara is accused of with holding firearm-related data from U. C. Davis who had the job of sorting through the data to "prove" that Cali's Red Flag laws actually had any effect on the gun death rates there. 

But this brings up a bigger point: what are Becerra and his DOJ hiding? What is it they don't what the UCFC – and the public, for that matter – to know?

The only logical conclusion is that the data would be a massive blow to the gun control agenda. California is constantly looked at as one of the leaders of "curbing gun violence." Any time members of Congress contemplate implementing stricter anti-Second Amendment laws, states like California, Illinois and New York, are frequently brought up. If red flag laws aren't working in the Golden State, that means they would be considered a failure in other states across the nation.

So I sacrificed a black chicken to Baron Samdi at a crossroads at midnight on Friday the 13th asking that he prevent any deadly rampage of pink elephants through the Denver downtown 16th st. mall, and what do you know, since then no rampaging pink elephants have threatened the mall! See? It works! 

NICS Checks/Gun Sales For Feb

 Big drop Jan to Feb, not entirely unexpected but the curve is still well above last year:

Several gun bills are up for consideration this month and I guess we'll see how far they get with them.