Who is in Control?

It’s a question that has been asked many times. Among the theoretical answers has been multi-national corporations with ties to china. Another prominent answer are the big money men. And then the one that encompasses the entire range – Blackrock.

If you are following along you probably know that EV sales have taken a nosedive, that startup EV manufacturers are going under, and the big three plus the other big foreign auto manufacturers are announcing the scale back of their EV investment. Rental companies can’t rent them and are dumping them on the marketplace. EV”s are piling up in the car lots.

Along comes the biden cabal to double/triple/quadruple on the EV scheme (the one designed to ultimately confine you to no movement), and look who is running the show – Blackrock with their true master – CHINA.


Blackrock and China Chairmen

China and Blackrock – Biden EPA Rolls Out USA Auto Mandates Forcing EVs to Make Up Two-Thirds of Passenger Vehicles – Who Benefits?

Update:
At Insty as well – Instapundit

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The three L’s: liberty, law, and ‘lections

Francis has an excerpt from Clarence Carson’s seminal 1970 book on the subject.

[W]e are told that there is no need to fear the concentration of power in government so long as that power is checked by the electoral process. We are urged to believe that so long as we can express our disagreement in words, we have our full rights to disagree. Now both freedom of speech and the electoral process are important to liberty, but alone they are only the desiccated remains of liberty. However vigorously we may argue against foreign aid, our substance is still drained away in never-to-be-repaid loans. Quite often, there is not even a candidate to vote for who holds views remotely like my own. To vent one’s spleen against the graduated income tax may be healthy for the psyche, but one must still yield up his freedom of choice as to how his money will be spent when he pays it to the government. The voice of electors in government is not even proportioned to the tax contribution of individuals; thus, those who contribute more lose rather than gain by the “democratic process.” A majority of voters may decide that property cannot be used in such and such ways, but the liberty of the individual is diminished just as much as in that regard as if a dictator had decreed it. Those who believe in the redistribution of wealth should be free to redistribute their own, but they are undoubtedly limiting the freedom of others when they vote to redistribute theirs.

 Effective disagreement means not doing what one does not want to do as well as saying what he wants to say. What is from one angle the welfare state is from another the compulsory state. Let me submit a bill of particulars. Children are forced to go to school. Americans are forced to pay taxes to support foreign aid, forced to support the Peace Corps, forced to make loans to the United Nations, forced to contribute to the building of hospitals, forced to serve in the armed forces. Employers are forced to submit to arbitration with labor leaders. Laborers are forced to accept the majority decision. Employers are forced to pay minimum wages, or go out of business. But it is not even certain that they will be permitted by the courts to go out of business. Railroads are forced to charge established rates and to continue services which may have become uneconomical. Many Americans are forced to pay Social Security. Farmers are forced to operate according to the restrictions voted by a majority of those involved. The list could be extended, but surely the point has been made.

Porretto’s conclusion mirrors my own oft-stated one:

I could start to rant about the Deep State, whose insulation from electoral processes is a great part of the reason for the diminution of our freedom, but I’ve done it before, and I dislike to repeat myself. My actual purpose here is to remind my Gentle Readers of the essential truth about freedom:

Freedom is not granted.

It is taken:

Whether by you, or from you.

Freedom’s price is always paid in advance. It’s usually denominated in blood. How, then, should we who have paid nothing expect to retain it?

As recent FUSA history has shown, we cannot expect to—because, assuredly, we WILL not retain it. “A Republic, if you can keep it.” Well, we couldn’t, evidently. The one and only thing our tainted “elections,” at least at the national level, guarantee us is more of the same old shite.

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Big Boeing trouble

Well, THIS certainly doesn’t stink to high Heaven or anything, now does it?

Boeing Whistleblower Found Dead of ‘Self-Inflicted’ Gunshot, 787 Suffers Another Mishap
Former Boeing Quality Manager John Barnett was found dead in a Charleston, S.C., parking lot on Saturday from a “self-inflicted gunshot wound,” according to local police — opening up yet another bizarre chapter in the troubled aircraft maker’s recent history.

Barnett had given “stark warnings” about quality control issues on two models of Boeing passenger jets, including substandard parts and using Dawn dishwashing soap as a lubricant. The 62-year-old had also claimed that Boeing executives were hiding the company’s safety issues rather than addressing them.

“My concerns are with the 737 and 787 because those programs have really embraced the theory that quality is overhead and non-value-added,” Barnett told TMZ after the infamous Jan. 5 incident when a door plug blew off an Alaska Air 737 MAX 9 that depressured the cabin and exposed passengers to open air shortly after takeoff.

Brian Knowles was Barnett’s attorney and described in an email to Corporate Crime Reporter what happened in the days leading up to Barnett’s death:

John had been back and forth for quite some time getting prepared. The defense examined him for their allowed seven hours under the rules on Thursday. I cross-examined him all day yesterday (Friday) and did not finish. We agreed to continue this morning at 10 a.m. (co-counsel) Rob (Turkewitz) kept calling this morning and his (Barnett’s) phone would go to voicemail. We then asked the hotel to check on him. They found him in his truck dead from an ‘alleged’ self-inflicted gunshot. We drove to the hotel and spoke with the police and the coroner.

If you’re thinking the whole thing stinks, we’re in agreement.

Oh, pish-tosh; don’t be ridiculous, you paranoid, cynical old grumpy Gus. I mean, just ’cause the poor guy shot himself six times in the back of the head with a bolt-action rifle, then hung himself, then ran himself over with his own car, then set himself on fire and swallowed a gallon of Drano, there you go getting all suspicious and untrusting-like.

Why, I have it on very good authority that Hillary Clinton was nowhere NEAR Charleston that night, for starters.

Update! Problem: SOLVED.

Boeing Proudly Announces It Has Fixed Malfunctioning Whistleblower
ARLINGTON, VA — In response to mounting public criticism of its quality standards, aerospace corporation Boeing proudly announced it has fixed its malfunctioning whistleblower.

The longtime industry leader in commercial aircraft manufacturing had been in hot water following a string of highly publicized malfunctions and accidents involving its planes, leaving the company desperate to find a solution to its problems.

“That should take care of everything,” a Boeing spokesman said. “After extensive investigation into the recent engineering and design quality issues, we determined that many of these problems could be traced back to this whistleblower. We are proud to announce that we have, in fact, fixed the whistleblower. Permanently.”

Following the decisive action taken to resolve its whistleblower issue, Boeing expressed confidence that it will be smooth sailing moving forward. “We don’t foresee any more problems,” the spokesman said. “Everyone here at Boeing feels much safer now.”

When asked how fixing the whistleblower would solve ongoing issues with the design and assembly of the aircraft, the spokesman offered the following response: “There aren’t any more problems. Got it? If you disagree, you can take it up with our newest board member, Hillary Clinton.”

Heh. Her Herness© DOES seem to keep popping up whenever one of these “fixes” is needed, doesn’t she? I mean, this makes twice just in this post alone. HMMMMM…

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Nuts

I had just about decided to give this item a miss and not bother mentioning it—it’s not as if there’s any news value here at all, it’s a “dog bites man” story if ever there was one—but…but…but…God help me, I can’t. I just can’t.

DOJ Interview Transcript: Joe Biden Made Car Noises, Often Meandered Off-Topic

Say it with me one mo’ time ag’in, everbuddy: UNDERSTATEMENT. OF. THE. CENTURY.

The transcript of Joe Biden’s interview with Special Counsel Bob Hur showed the president frequently wandered off topic, even making “car noises.”

The transcript, obtained by Breitbart News in advance of Hur’s testimony to the House Judiciary Committee, showed a prosecutor had asked Biden about his beloved Corvette, trying to pinpoint the timeline of when classified documents were moved to make room for the car in his home garage.

Attorney Marc Krickbuam asked Biden: “Do you remember whether it was when the Corvette was coming back after the Jay Leno show? So, in other words, it goes out for Jay Leno, eventually it comes back.” Biden responded, “Oh no, it was, it was in and out for a bunch of reasons,” before starting to chatter away.

“Because it drove me crazy; I wanted to drive it,” Biden continued. Krickbaum responded, “Got it. That makes sense. A beautiful car.” According to the transcript, Biden then proceeded to talk about his car, and make car noises.

“And the worst part was, they said I couldn’t drive it outside the driveway. It’s a long driveway. So I’d get to the bottom of the driveway, tack it up to about four grand (indiscernible) (makes car sound) (indiscernible) (laughter),” it quoted Biden.

After continuing on about how he got involved in politics, Hur finally interrupted him, saying, “So, sir, the material that you just — that you remember having, again, trying to steer us back to the end of your vice presidency and focusing on your move out of the Naval Observatory.”

Biden also meandered off on a tangent when asked, “Did you bring classified material with you from the West Wing or the Naval Observatory to the lake house?”

Biden responded, but then veered off into a detailed description of his office and pictures before recalling a trip to Mongolia.

“You know, I went to Mongolia and, and great pictures. I, unfortunately, embarrassed the hell out of the leader of Mongolia.”

“So we’re out in the middle of nowhere and they’re looking up on the hill and we see this tiny line. You know, it’s a 20-mile horse race with all these kids under the age of 16 on bareback racing to come down. And you know, there are sumo wrestlers doin’ everything they do.”

Biden continued to talk about how he was handed a bow and arrow and he hit a target on a hay bale. After that story, one of the attorneys requested to take a break.

Oh, I just bet he did at that.

Horse racing, sumo wrestlers, amateur archery demonstrations. No mention of ferris wheels, funnel cakes, Asian Transgender Cornhole, or Guess The Weight Of The Roundeye Gweilo-Bastard booths, but I betcha Too Old Jaux remembers all those too, every bit as vividly as he “remembers” anything else these days. Sounds like Mongolia has really got it goin’ ON, don’t it?

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HERE COME THE CANNIBALS!!!

Y’all ready for it? Because I assure you, it’s coming right enough.

Florida border agents placed on high alert for refugees following breakdown of order in Haiti

Heh. I like that “breakdown of order” business, I really do. Like there’s ever BEEN anything remotely resembling order in that shithole country. When Trump referred to it in those specific terms, he was understating the case. YUUUUGELY understating it.

Border agents in Miami have been told to prepare for a wave of migration from Haiti following the takeover of the country by bloodthirsty gangs, The Post has learned.

An internal agency email leaked to The Post pointed out it is unlikely Haitians who take to the sea and enter Florida illegally will be repatriated back to their home country, given its instability.

The message also warned that one vessel of migrants landing would overwhelm agency capabilities in the area.

“One landing will cripple the station and our ability to respond to other traffic,” the email to agents read.

I’m sure Biden has the transport planes loading ‘em up and preparing to move ‘em out of Port Au Prince already. I mean, as some wag or other has already noted, Haiti is, after all, an island nation, one it shares with their neighbors to the east the Dominican Republic…who built themselves a big, beautiful wall to keep the Haitians out a cpl-three years ago or so, I believe it was. That being the case, how the hell ELSE is Pedo Pete gonna get ‘em here, prithee tell?

More on the DR’s wall:

That wall, Dominican authorities admit, appears to have led to a confusion about where the Dominican Republic ends and where Haiti begins.

Even though the wall faces Haiti, both sides of the structure are actually within Dominican territory, the Dominican officials say, and their military has the right to patrol both sides of the wall. Some Haitians, however, claim that the area on the side of the wall facing Haiti is a no-man’s-land and that even if it isn’t, the Dominican Republic ceded its rights to that side once it built the wall. It’s unclear how far away from Haitian territory the wall is located, but the Dominican presidency’s office said that there are clear markers in the area indicating each country’s border.

Either way, the sudden appearance of Dominican soldiers crossing over the wall Monday led to Haitians protesting and burning tires.

Uhhhh HUH. Wall or no wall, Haitians gonna Haitian, I guess.

As for the cannibalism thing, I’ll let Stephen handle that.

There Is No Cannibalism in Haiti — Or Perhaps at Least Some
On a long enough timeline, every Monty Python sketch comes true. It seems like only a couple of years ago (Steve, it was only a couple of years ago—editor) that I reminded you of the classic scene from “Monty Python’s Life of Brian” that both mocked and predicted today’s transinsanity.

Today, we aren’t supposed to talk about cannibalism in the Royal Navy…er, in Haiti.

“May I take this opportunity of emphasizing that there is no cannibalism in the British Navy,” Graham Chapman’s RN officer said to a reporter in the classic “Expedition to Lake Pahoe” sketch. “Absolutely none, and when I say none, I mean there is a certain amount, more than we are prepared to admit.”

Western news sources are mostly hush-hush on the issue of people who eat people (the luckiest people in the world, according to the song) as Haiti collapses, but the most powerful man in Haiti is a gang leader they call Barbecue “because of his penchant of burning people alive.” There was at least one video going around Twitter/X of one gang member “tearing flesh from the leg of a burning corpse and eating it.”

The clip has since been pulled.

Some dispute whether or not any actual human leg was eaten or if maybe the video was a year or two old. What doesn’t seem to be in dispute is that a guy named Barbecue (“Babekyou” in the local parlance) has helped provide all the necessary ingredients — random violence, approaching famine, crispy human flesh — for cannibalism to come into practice in the Western Hemisphere’s poorest and most screwed-up nation.

“Rights group Plan International said many were fleeing the capital for Artibonite, traditionally Haiti’s breadbasket farming region,” Reuters reported last week, “but whose residents are now facing food shortages as fighting spreads north.”

Biden administration on Saturday was forced to close the U.S. embassy in Port-au-Prince and airlift out all American personnel. CBS News said the move was due to “escalating gang violence,” which is like referring to D-Day as “an Allied visit to the charming beaches of Normandy.”

Haiti’s prime minister, Ariel Henry, fled the country last week and on Tuesday announced that he will resign. The former was absolutely necessary for his own safety, and the latter seems superfluous.

Ace puts paid to the MSM’s usual bushwa.

It’s nothing but gaslighting 24/7 — inserting US troops into a foreign gangwar is “a common and routine practice worldwide.”

“The U.S. Embassy remains open, and limited operations continue, focused on assistance to U.S. citizens and supporting Haitian-led efforts to secure a peaceful transition of power,” it added.

The former president had to flee because of “unrest.”

“A peaceful transition of power” is out the door already.

Yep, I’d say that ship sailed from Haitian waters long, long ago.

Whichever turn matters take from here, there are two things we can be absolutely, positively certain of: 1) Biden’s offstage puppeteers are even now scheming how they can get as many Haitian savages into this country, sucking on Uncle Scam’s sugar-teat, and voting D卐M☭CRAT as they possibly can, as quickly as they can; and 2) El Supremo Generalissississimo “Babekyou” did NOT come by his colorful nom de despot because he’s a genial, honest, reasonable guy who only wants the best for his people and his country.

Which, by the way, is a total shithole. Yet another thing Trump was right about all along.

Flattery

Personally, I rather like having them think of me as a threat. I much prefer that to being regarded by them as basically harmless; any day I don’t annoy, inconvenience, or alarm such as they is a day misspent as far as I’m concerned.

Rural America Is a Threat to the Totalitarian Left
Last week Newt Gingrich tried to remind Americans how serious the threat of nuclear conflict remains. In a sober essay, he warned that the United States is not prepared to withstand nuclear or electromagnetic pulse attacks and urged Americans to prepare for unthinkable possibilities. Then a few days later, I woke up to read that “white rural rage” is the greatest “threat to democracy” and thought, “Well, at least we don’t have to worry about nuclear Armageddon now.” Such is the sorry state of the “woke” West that the “thinking class” moronically obsesses over trivialities, while ignoring everything that is disastrous.

This somewhat regurgitated “white rural rage” thesis comes from a “journalist” and an “academic” who have written a book explaining why white, patriotic Americans who just want to live their lives free from government interference are actually responsible for everything wrong in the country. Just when I think my white-hot contempt for closed-minded toffs couldn’t burn more brightly, a couple nitwits ratchet up my “rage” to eleventy. Dang, they got me. Turns out that if you scapegoat rural Americans long enough, some will get angry. Uff da.

The real fear of the “white rural rage” Chicken Littles is not that rural Americans are a threat to “democracy” but rather that they provide an immovable bulwark against the Deep State’s “master plan” for a totalitarian super-State. All over the West, politicians and pundits continue to extol authoritarianism as “democratic” and denigrate self-government as “populist.” It’s absurdly Orwellian, of course, but since we live in the age of censorship, propaganda, and linguistic chicanery, these word games will continue. Somewhere in the pits of Hell, Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini, and Mao are eager to remind Klaus Schwab and all the other Western globalists how “democratic” their “rules-based international orders” are, too.

The globalist authoritarians have instructed the commoners to stop eating meat. Rural Americans have said, “Nah, we’re good. We like steak.” The “new world order” folks have insisted that a great deal of speech must be censored in order to protect fragile adults from experiencing outbreaks of unapproved “hate.” Rural Americans have responded, “Suck it up, Buttercup. Maybe try listening to an opposing point of view sometime. It might just vaccinate you from the plague of groupthink.” The globo-Marxists have demanded that consumers hand over their keys to any car with an internal combustion engine. Rural Americans have laughingly replied, “Not only are we keeping every truck and tractor from the last century in a barn out back but also we can’t wait to buy some new all-terrain vehicles to ride through the backcountry.” Officials who betray their oaths to the Constitution have told law-abiding Americans that they have no right to own a gun. Rural Americans have calmly loaded their weapons in preparation for self-defense and whispered back, “Come and take it.” In disposition and beliefs, rural Americans are the natural “Minutemen” guarding American liberty.

Ultimately, attacks against rural Americans — like the left’s attacks against Christians — are a wretched form of bigotry designed to spread the insidious idea that people who live outside city limits are subhuman. Because rural America is filled with resilient people who adamantly defend the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights, it represents an antidote to the cancerous form of Marxist globalism killing cities across the country. Because rural America is filled with faithful people who are obedient to God’s will — and not D.C.’s — it remains a natural refuge for those immune from institutional brainwashing. Because rural America is blessed with an abundance of self-sufficient families, hard workers, and freethinkers, it provides a welcoming home for human liberty. For these reasons, aspiring totalitarians must destroy rural America if they are to have any chance at erecting a new system founded on censorship, surveillance, oppression, and tyranny. The problem for the Deep State is that rural Americans know what to do when the SHTF and, in fact, have been preparing all their lives.

Be afraid, shitlibs, be VERY afraid. As ferociously, as desperately as you hate us, our hatred for you still outstrips it, by orders of magnitude. Despise us for our religious devotion; our stable, loving families; our safe, pleasant, orderly communities; our self-restraint and moderation; our rugged individualism and independence; our reverence for the code of ideals, traditions, and philosophy bequeathed to us by America’s Founders, whom we also reverence; despise us for all these and much, much more—I assure you, your contempt is of no consequence whatsoever to us.

Little as we care about what your opinion of us and our way of life might be, a friendly word of advice: LEAVE US THE HELL ALONE; STAY WELL CLEAR OF US AND OUR SMALL TOWNS, RURAL AREAS, FAMILY FARMS, AND HOMESTEADS. You do NOT belong here, are NOT welcome here; we do NOT want you anywhere near us. We are entirely agreeable to leaving you alone in your crumbling, crime-ridden urban hellscapes, your gated residential enclaves, your expensive, exclusive vacation resorts, so long as you consent to leave US alone to conduct our own lives as we see fit.

That said, we do NOT want our children exposed to your sickness; your depravity; your diseased, anarchic monoculture; your total lack of rectitude; your amoral self-indulgence; your childish, pouty intemperance—in sum, your heedless, unthinking rejection of absolutely everything that, for us, makes life truly worth living.

Go your own way, then, and do us the courtesy of letting us go ours in turn.

And there you have it, that’s it: one hundred percent fair, honest, and above-board; simplicity itself, nothing onerous, oppressive, or obscure. This is what’s on offer; call it a fresh, new Social Contract between our two disparate and wholly incompatible nations, perhaps. Respect the provisions and obligations therein, and all will be copacetic between us. Fuck Around and traduce the contract, however, and you will most certainly Find Out—to your deepest dismay, boundless sorrow, and everlasting regret.

That’s the deal, like it or lump it. Get cracking on your answer straightaway, no shilly-shallying, waffling, or mucking about either necessary or tolerated. There’s a clock ticking here, and we ain’t gonna wait around forever. Not after all these years of putting up with your shit, we ain’t.

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The “virtual lifestyle”

Is compromised all to Hell and gone, fraught with risks and hazards we know not of, but dismiss or ignore at our direst peril.

The planet seems to have some teleological drive to save itself, a kind of immune system. Notice: in all the ongoing debates about the wonders and dangers of A-I, and Bitcoin, and suffocating surveillance, nobody ever talks about the sketchy condition of the electric grid that all these worrisome phenomena utterly rely on. In our chatter over Peak Oil, there’s little awareness of oil production’s utter dependence on steady capital flows. In all the guff about centralized control emitted by Klaus Schwab and his World Economic Forum, there’s no mention of the centrifugal forces driving human affairs to re-localization, dis-aggregation of large states, and down-scaling of many activities. In our zeal to become Gods, we miss a lot.

Imagine: Bitcoin shoots up to a million dollars. You’re a zillionaire! Uh Oh…somewhere outside Zaneseville, Ohio, a squirrel takes a final chaw through some old insulation on a wire coming out of a transformer. His head blows up in a blue arc flash, and in a few seconds all the electricity goes out from Chicago to Boston. It turns out that seventeen substations in ten states have blown relays, transformers, and switchgear. Some of those components were forty years old and are now manufactured twelve thousand miles away in a country that doesn’t like us anymore. The replacement parts get held up in a Chinese port. The power doesn’t come back on for weeks. Nobody who lives in the eastern USA can get to his Bitcoin wallet, which is just a virtual entity made of computer code residing in a digital “cloud,” i.e., nowhere real.

Of course, in an event that bad, a lot of other things would fail — really just about everything that comprises modern life — but for sure you could kiss your Bitcoin goodbye, perhaps forever, because by the time the juice comes back on (if it even does), nobody will ever again want to invest their wealth in digital “money” they can’t access, and Bitcoin will go back to whence it came: zero.

Likewise, the financial system we depend on is a gigantic apparatus grown extremely janky from over-elaboration and hyper-complexity — to the degree that all kinds of things denoted as having “moneyness” are simply hallucinations of the markets that trade them. How many quadrillions of dollars do “derivative” financial instruments represent on the landscape of “money” these days? Most of these things amount to little more than bets that some number — an interest rate, a currency, a revenue flow — will change either up or down. That is, they are figments.

Bitcoin has gone “hockey stick” the past month, meaning on a chart the move up looks nearly vertical. Do you know why it’s going up? I’ll tell you: it’s going up…because it’s going up. People and groups of people (wealth funds, banks) see the up-trend and deduce that Bitcoin is going “to the moon.” Meanwhile, they view the tea leaves of the currency scene and see a lot of brown, crumbly debris where there used to be “capital.” The money itself is losing its “moneyness” all over the place. The most vulnerable module of the system now is the bond market.

Many sentient beings viewing the scene warn us that the bond market is liable to blow, and with it most of the other modules in the current MMT-driven system. That will be the magic moment when a big theory gets disproven rather vividly and injuriously. The price of everything will vaporize in a mushroom cloud of malinvestment and when the dust settles — which might take a long time — everything will be priced differently, including many things to zero.

This is the kind of world we’re in now, and all this is why I don’t worry quite so much about the machinations of the various blobs that have self-assembled to defend their particular special interests while doing harm to many of us: the military-industrial blob, the censorship blob, the fake news blob, the intel blob, the corporate monopoly blob, the medical blob, the central banking blob. The systems we depend on to make all things blobish function are looking pretty ill, like they’re not going be working a whole lot longer.

Unlikely though it may seem, the tale has a happy ending (of sorts), which you’ll want to click on over to read.

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No, I am NOT a robot

Not that those CAPTCHA tests they force you to click on really care. That, after all, isn’t what they’re really all about. Of course, and as usual.

This is what clicking that ‘I’m Not A Robot’ button REALLY does — and it’s probably not what you’re thinking
This security method is known as a CAPTCHA, which stands for Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart. The Turing Test, originally named the Imitation Game, was created by British computer scientist Alan Turing in the 1950s and is designed to put Artificial Intelligence to the test and determine whether it’s indistinguishable from a human mind.

So, is Google simply checking whether AI is smart enough to know to click on the “I’m Not A Robot” button? Not quite.

As revealed by the researchers from BBC’s QI in an episode that first aired in 2020, ticking the box allows Google to trawl your internet browsing history to determine whether you’re a real user or a bot trying to force entry.

QI host and comedian Sandi Toksvig explained: “Ticking the box is not the point. It’s how you behaved before you ticked the box that is analysed. To be honest, I can’t tell you all the details because they keep it secret because they don’t want people trying to cheat the test, but broadly speaking, you tick the box and it prompts the website to check your browsing history.

“For example, before you tick the box you watched a couple of cat videos and you liked a tweet about Greta Thunberg, you checked your Gmail account before you got down to work — all of that makes them think that you must be a human.”

Google, which is behind much of the CAPTCHA security tests you’ll come across online — usually under its reCAPTCHA brand name, can’t access your entire search history. Instead, it’s likely checking websites that it owns (Gmail, YouTube, searches on Google, Google Maps) or those where it has some visibility thanks to the “Sign-In With Google” buttons, analytics or advertising, or the CAPTCHA itself.

That’s a huge proportion of the internet.

So, there must be SOME way out of this—some way of safeguarding your personal privacy and security that doesn’t cost an arm, a leg, and a lot of hassle to protect yourself from yet another Goolag intrusion into what, in the end, is really none of their goddamned business, right? RIGHT?!?

No. No, there is not.

Unfortunately, if you think that using a private browsing mode in your web browser, like Incognito Mode in Google Chrome, keeps your data out of reach ― that’s not the case. In fact, Google was recently forced to add a new warning to its Incognito Mode feature to keep users in the loop about the risks.

The only way to keep your browsing history completely out-of-reach is to encrypt everything with a Virtual Private Network. NordVPN is an example of a VPN that keeps everything you do online locked away— so that even Google or your broadband provider is unable to see what you’re doing. Prices start from £3.19.

As well as trawling a slither of your recent internet history to work out whether you’re behaving like a real human being, there is another use for the CAPTCHA quizzes that you complete. Picking the correct image of a fire hydrant, zebra crossing, or school bus is actually helping to train Artificial Intelligence behind-the-scenes.

Not a single bit of which most if not all of us are interested in helping them out with, or so I’d bet. Bastards.

I must say, Tor looks better and better all the time.

(Via Stephen and Ed)

The greatest story ever told

When it comes to guitars, at any rate.

“So many people lost their guitars. I lost 44”: Peter Frampton recalls how he lost and recovered guitars through floods and plane crashes as he shows off his eye-watering gear collection on Gibson TV
Gibson TV has released its latest episode of The Collection – a web series that sees the firm sit down with big name players to pick apart their vintage guitar gear, and reflect on the stories behind each historic piece.

For its newest hour-and-a-half installment, Gibson’s Mark Agnesi visited Peter Frampton to explore the guitars behind some of his most iconic cuts – as well as recount the tales of loss and recovery that have defined the rock master’s collecting career.

As far as guitar collections go, Frampton’s is especially steeped in history. Not only did he effectively have to restart his guitar collection after losing 44 individual guitars – and numerous pieces of other gear – in a flood in 2010, he also experienced what has become one of the most famous tales of lost-and-found guitars in history.

To that end, the most notable instruments in Frampton’s episode of The Collection are the ones whose histories are interwoven with such stories.

The “Phenix”, for example, takes center stage. The mid-’50s era triple-humbucker Black Beauty Les Paul Custom needs no introduction: as seen on the cover of Frampton Comes Alive!, it is one of the most iconic Les Pauls of all time, and made its way on “just about every track [Frampton] recorded between 1970 and 1980”.

However, in 1980, the “Phenix” went down in a cargo aircraft – which crashed while taking off from Curaçao – and it was believed to have been lost forever. Miraculously, 31 years later, the Les Paul was reunited with its rightful owner after it had been picked up and played over the years by a local musician.

“It was just one of the best feelings in the world,” Frampton recalls of being reunited with the “Phenix”.

Yeah, I just bet it was at that. What a great, heart-warming story, eh? You gotta love it. Didn’t watch the vid, because I almost never do, but I have a sneaking suspicion I may be making an exception in this case.

(Via Lonesome Ed Driscoll)

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Just when you think they can’t possibly surprise you anymore

How is this NOT an intentional FederalGovCo-sponsored invasion? How is this NOT a brazen, in-your-face criminal operation perpetrated by a lawless, gone-rogue central government? How is this NOT raw Treason Most Foul? Somebody explain it to me, please, I got nothin’ over here.

Biden Administration Smuggled Over 320,000 Illegal Migrants Into US Through Secret Flying Program
The Biden regime has acknowledged smuggling ‘unauthorized’ migrants into the United States on covert planes.

Immigration attorneys argue that disclosing the locations of these flights may cause national security “vulnerabilities.”

“Customs and Border Protection has refused to disclose information about a program last year secretly chartering flights for thousands of undocumented immigrants from foreign airports directly to U.S. cities,” the Mail reported.

“It means that while record numbers of migrants were flowing over the southern border last year, the Biden White House was also directly transporting them into the country,” the report added.

The use of a cell phone app enabled the nearly unnoticed entry by air of 320,000 foreigners with no legal permission to enter the United States.

It follows a debate over a 2022 transportation program in which the administration utilized taxpayer funds to ferry migrants around the country on nighttime flights.

According to the Center for Immigration Studies, Biden’s CBP approved the latest secretive flights that transported hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants from foreign countries into at least 43 different American airports from January to December 2023, as revealed in a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit first reported by Todd Bensman.

Incroyable. Also, sacré bleu! Lastly but not leastly, merde alors!

Hey, remember that absurd Reich Wing(nut) conspiracy-theory freakout over a looney-tooney “replacement” program being run by our benevolent, compassionate, not-at-all-insane D卐M☭CRAT Party, for purposes of importing hordes of new D卐M☭CRAT voters and consigning the hated White Devils to the trash-heap of History where the evil sumbitches belong? Nah, me neither, musta dreamed it after gorging on a case of the cheapest beer 7/11 stocks; three (3) of every item from Taco Bell’s dollar menu; and a party-size sack of Flamin’ Hot Cheetohs right before bedtime.

Aww, those kooky Reich Wing moonbats, they’re all crazy as a shithouse rat anyways, every last one of ‘em.

Oh, and while we’re gettin’ jiggy with it up in here: anybody besides me think the pro-Paleosimian “protest” which blocked the 4-5-600 car ***”pResidential”*** motorcade on its way to last night’s SOTU venue was actually a clandestine false-flag put-up job conceived, planned, and overseen start to finish by Biden junta Sekrit Squirrlz to provide the regime with semi-believable justification for arm-twisting Israel more vigorously than ever—via any and all measures including American boots on the ground in Gaza—into accepting the suicidal cease-fire the junta so desperately craves before the IDF can finish Hamas off for good?

I hope Netanyahu isn’t so foolish that he can’t see this diabolical stratagem for what it is, that he’s fully cognizant also of the gizzard-freezing fact that Amerika v2.0’s current regime is every bit as fanatical, relentless, and deadly an enemy of his own sore-beset nation as it is of Normal Americans here at home, thus will continue to respond with a hearty “Fuck YOU!” each and every time the demented old Kiddie-Diddler in Thief opens his drool-slathered yap.

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One step closer to Escape From New York

Somewhere, Snake Plissken is laughing his ass off.

New York Gov Hochul calls in National Guard, state police to help curb crime in NYC subways
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul is sending in the state National Guard to New York City to help police curb a surge in crime in the city’s subways.

Announcing a five-point plan on Wednesday, the Democratic governor said she was deploying 750 members of the National Guard to the subways to assist the New York Police Department with bag searches at entrances to busy train stations.

“For people who are thinking about bringing a gun or knife on the subway, at least this creates a deterrent effect. They might be thinking, ‘You know what, it just may just not be worth it because I listened to the mayor and I listened to the governor and they have a lot more people who are going to be checking my bags,'” Hochul said at a news conference in New York City.

The move came as part of a larger effort by the governor’s office to address crime in the subway, which included a legislative proposal to ban people from trains for three years if they are convicted of assaulting a subway passenger and the installation of cameras in conductor cabins to protect transit workers.

OOOOOOH, a three year ban? Yeah, I’m SURE that’ll do it. Those scofflaws and thugs are bound to respect that law, after having disdained so many other ones threatening much more serious consequences. It’s the same magical-thinking mindset that drives the “gun control” fantasy; shitlibs fervently insist just one more piece of legislation will end gun crime…after well over 20,000 others failed to turn the trick.

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The dullards who rule us

Their arrogance is exceeded by only two things: 1) their ignorance; 2) their presumptuous, egomaniacal assertion that they, and they alone, are fit to rule us when they so manifestly are anything but.

ATF Chief Tells CBS He’s Willing To Skirt Laws To Ban Guns He Doesn’t Even Know How To Use
President Joe Biden’s Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms Director Steven Dettelbach seems to know as much about guns as Democrat-nominated Supreme Court justices.

During his appearance on CBS’s “Face The Nation” over the weekend, Dettelbach outlined for CBS News’s Margaret Brennan the ATF’s desire to ban certain firearms and modifications he claimed are loopholes in restrictive gun laws.

In the sit-down portion of his interview, Dettelbach claimed his 5,000-person agency is “way, way, way too small” to fully satisfy Biden’s gun-grabbing goals. He also admitted the ATF, even though barred from creating a federal database of firearm owners, still devotes its time and resources to “work within that system” and link guns to owners.

When the interview shifted to a demonstration featuring a table of unloaded firearms, Dettelbach tried his best to make the case for more regulation of law-abiding Americans’ top self-defense option. Even with the help of one of the ATF’s “leading experts,” however, Dettelbach failed to demonstrate knowledge of even the most basic firearm anatomy such as the difference between a clip and a magazine.

Acting AFT division chief Chris Bort, the “expert” present for the demonstration, also struggled to disassemble a pistol in an attempt to show how allegedly easily Americans can swap firearm frames. Bort is acting head of the ATF’s Firearms Ammunition Technology Division.

The vid of that bit is as hilarious as it is disturbing.


See what I mean about presumption and egomania? Surely this Bort chucklehead had to be well aware that he knew nothing whatsoever about the devices he’d be handling before a national TV audience as a scarifying demonstration of their monstrous lethality and ease of use—yet he couldn’t bestir himself to spend even a few minutes practicing with said devices in his swanky hotel suite the night before? Maybe doing a little light reading-up on his high-end laptop before bed, say, to avoid making a damned fool of himself before the TeeWee cameras in the morning?

In his predicament, wouldn’t you have? I sure would’ve. Any halfway sensible person would’ve, or so I’d expect.

But noooo. From all available evidence, these two abject feebs aren’t even smart enough to know they should be embarrassed by their spectacular self-beclownment—much less a tad more humble—as befits those who, in a more felicitous era, used to pridefully refer to themselves as “public servants.”

May I remind you: these are the shitwits spending God only knows how many taxpayer dollars to A) regulate and/or ban useful things which are beyond their meager comprehension; and B) pursue, imprison, and otherwise harass far better Americans than they’ll ever be, for the heinous crime of conducting themselves as if the clear, easily-understood words of the US Constitution still meant anything at all in Amerika v2.0.

May I also remind you: this dearth of intelligence coupled with supreme arrogance is hardly unique to the BATF, nor can these two assclowns be excused as the proverbial exception that proves the rule. Quite the opposite, depressingly enough: in FederalGovCo, it’s assclowns all the way down.

A Wokester military

Is a Weakster military.


Stephen puts the (GI) boot in.

Raichik added, “There’s so much more where this came from,” and I don’t doubt it.

There is only one reason to teach soldiers that the country they’re supposed to be willing to fight and die to protect is irredeemable.

The U.S. military has had its ups and downs, but since ending the draft half a century ago, it has been the most expertly trained and exquisitely armed force the world has ever seen. Even during the draft years immediately before World War II to the end of Vietnam, we paid for and usually got the best weapons and training the country could afford.

And unlike those militaries in all those shi*hole countries, our forces were apolitical. They didn’t serve a president or a party, but the country.

In the last several years, wokeness has come to infect our military just as it previously had our universities, news outlets, and the entertainment industry.

Our readiness now is about what you’d expect: “U.S. military is only ‘marginally’ prepared to defend America’s interests at a time when adversaries are ramping up military capabilities.”

I’ve begun thinking of our postmodern military not as a useless Woke Force but as a Third World military: a force that isn’t any good at fighting foreign wars but is perfectly suited for putting down domestic undesirables.

Do I exaggerate? In 2021, Woke Army Sgt. Cindy Bronson had a message for her fellow Americans in case martial law is declared: “Understand that if active duty military actually get deployed within the United States, that weapon is not just going to be pointed at other people, other countries, it’s pointed at you.”

“If you do not get in your house when I tell you to,” Bronson warned, “you become the enemy. Martial law. You know, when your rights get curtailed?”

Roger that, Bronson.

Yep. Duly noted, SGT Cupcake; anytime you’re feeling froggy enough, do feel free to jump. One more time, I’ll just let Canuck punk rockers DOA say it for me.

Update! Steyn gives us the lowdown on the hoedown.

The decadence and unseriousness revealed by (self-styled “transgender” Manwoman) Lieutenant-Colonel Dram ought to be deeply disturbing. The planet’s most lavishly funded fighting force took twenty years to lose to goatherds with fertiliser, and on the way out the door gifted them with enough hardware to make them the world’s eighth or ninth most powerful military. That should surely occasion a certain circumspection. Instead, the Pentagon doubled-down on the wokery and the wankery – and, after a twenty-minute tea-break, started up the usual racket all over again, this time in Ukraine.

How’s that working out for the Ukrainians? Unlike Afghanistan, it’s a demographic wasteland. In 2001, the census counted 48.5 million people in the country. A year ago, it was headed down toward half that – just 29 million. Lindsey Graham and Boris Johnson may be standing shoulder to shoulder with the Ukrainian people, but even they must have noticed there are fewer and fewer Ukrainian shoulders to stand around with, at least if you go to Kiev rather than Poland or Hungary, Germany or Ireland. On the present rate of population decline, after the war there will be insufficient Ukrainians left to rebuild the economy – or, indeed, maintain basic demographic viability. Right now, thanks to Washington, Ukraine is flush with cash and weapons, but all out of fighting-age men.

Well, that’s what happens when you have the honour to be made the site of the Pentagon’s next Designated Fiasco. And yet back at home, thanks to the likes of Lieutenant-Colonel Dram and without benefit of Russian invasion, the US military is trending in the same direction:

Critical Staffing Shortage Prompts Air Force to Recruit Retirees

As goes the Air Force, so goes the Army and the Navy. Apparently, out in Flyoverland, there are few takers for a woke military that enriches generals-turned-lobbyists while you get blown up by Ahmed the “translator”. “Walk a mile in my heels” doesn’t really work when you’ve lost a leg in Helmand.

We are in the end-stage of a bad soap opera, when characters and plot have jumped the tracks, and there is no Bobby Ewing waiting in the shower. Three decades ago, it was pointed out that in the end Soviet Communism proved no more lasting than the span of one human lifetime: 1917-1991. Yet America’s blip of global dominance is looking just as fleeting: 1950-2020something – that last date being whenever the ever metastasizing brokeness causes total implosion. And, as things stand, the only thing the great republic (in Churchill’s affectionate designation) will be remembered for is that the entirety of western civilisation slid off the cliff on America’s watch. All the rest is details.

Pretty much, yeah. On the upside, though, when the fecal matter hits the rotary impeller for reals and the Great American Schism grinds ever on to the closing stages of its long, slow evolution from “Probably, someday, I think, very possibly” into “Current events, live and in color,” Amerika v2.0’s extravagantly broken Wokester military is going to find itself ensnared in yet another conflict it’s hopelessly incapable of coping with to tack onto its steadily-lengthening list of humiliating defeats.

Fish Tales and Harpoon to the Head

It’s just too good not to share. Some mighty fine writing in this piece.

“There you have it, folks: The proper emergency treatment for a harpoon to the head is, of course, a cigarette. (Those must be some really good cigarettes.)

It’s fortunate that the intrepid angler, following the attack, was able to get to a good sturgeon. He was evaluated, the harpoon removed, and reportedly no serious damage was done. Mr. Klingtalay therefore avoided turtle disaster. On the other hand, it’s unclear as to whether Mr. Klintalay’s unnamed friend will face any charges, as the Thai press seems to be pretty koi about revealing that information. Presumably, they don’t want to mussel in on the authorities in determining what charges might be appropriate.”

More Funny at the Link

Hat Tip: Liberty Daily

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9-zip. When you Lose the Kooky Marxist Judges

It means you are so full of merde that even your mother thinks you’re crazier than anyone currently held in the asylum.

The meltdown is predictable and ongoing. When a judge that cannot determine the gender of a person votes against you, you were solidly slapped upside the head with a clue stick.

Next.

Not the Bee, 9-0

we need a picture to go with this:

Picture from Sundance

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