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Let's set one thing straight for the record before I begin. I don't like hackers, criminals with no respect for privacy and who blatantly violate people's right to such over the internet. Cyber crime must be combated.
Nonetheless, it should be common knowledge to everyone that there is no such thing as safety on the Web. Hackers can slice through almost any level of security if they are determined enough. To post one's name, address and credit card details along with their deviant sexual fantasies and ads seeking illicit affairs can only be seen as foolhardy at best, irredeemably stupid at worst.
The hackers threatened to post the data on-line if site owner Avid Life Media did not shut down Ashley Madison and a similar site, EstablishedMen.com, for good. Sometimes you have to hand it to hackers and whistleblowers. Every now and then, they get it right by going after and exposing truly despicable people or businesses.
Avid Life Media CEO Noel Biderman responded to the hacking, noting, "Like us or not, this is still a criminal act." True. Yet, give me one good reason why these Ashley Madison users should not be exposed. They are low-lives; they had it coming.
Ashley Madison's motto was "Life is short. Have an affair." It was marketed to people who are either married or in a committed relationship. The site had 37 million registered users. Trish McDermott, the co-founder of Match.com—a dating website aimed at singles—called Ashley Madison a "business built on the back of broken hearts, ruined marriages and damaged families", an entirely accurate statement.
What the douches using Ashley Madison didn't realize was that not only was their information obviously not safe and secure, but the website itself cheated. Over 70 percent of Ashley Madison users are male, so the site created female ads that were completely fugazi to give the impression of more women using the service than actually were. In fact, Ashley Madison wanted to advertise during the 2009 SuperBowl, arguing that its core demographic would be watching, but NBC wisely refused.
Ashley Madison is not likely to back down as they have said that they are working closely with the authorities. If that's true, the information that the hackers received will probably be published on-line soon in what I'm guessing will be an Ashley Madison users name-and-shame site. There have also been reports of extortion e-mails being sent to individual users, requesting 225 dollars to keep the secret from their nearest-and-dearests.
The hack was an intervention that was almost divine in its execution. The irony is rich, indeed, because a website promoting cheating had previously told its customers "we'll keep this discrete and you can trust us". Justice has been done. These customers now know what it's like to be let down.
Screw them. Anybody that would break the trust that another human being has in them deserves this exposure. I'm sick of men who have no morals and just want to dip their wick. They made a very conscious choice. Their sexual pleasure meant more to them than their families. If their lives are ruined, that's great news. I have no sympathy whatsoever. There is no saving grace for any of these ogres. They can mutter "I'm sorry" all they want, but they're only sorry they got caught. I couldn't care less about the consequences for those exposed by the hack.
And I certainly will not lose any sleep over the jobs lost when Avid Life Media gets destroyed by the many lawsuits that are soon to come their way. This is what happens when you work for an organization that profits directly from immorality.
The wrong people brought Ashley Madison down. But at least a lot of rubbish is about to be cleaned up.
Would you like a fine example of the expression "just can't win" in practice?
Look no further than what happened to Bernie "Boin-ie" Sanders at an event at a Seattle park in which he was due to commemmorate the founding of Medicare and Social Security. Members from Black Lives Matter (Only When White People Are Involved) stormed the stage, grabbed the microphone from Sanders and said, "BLM on the mic! Break it down, yo!"
OK, what they really said was, "Bernie Sanders, I would like to welcome you this place called Seattle. Which is actually occupied Duwamish land. Stolen!"
Who'd have thought that Sanders' version of "This Land is Your Land" would come back to haunt him?
Now then, you cannot get more left-wing than Boin-ie Sanders. The self-avowed socialist, Independent senator from Vermont and Democratic presidential candidate has promised to apologize for slavery if he gets into office. Because a film about slavery and civil rights like 12 Years A Slave, Selma, Django Unchained and 500 Years Later, coming out every year just hasn't been enough to awaken the consciousness of those pesky Typical White People for whom racism is part of their DNA. (We know this is true, because President Barry Hussein said so.)
Not enough for the Black Lives Matter flotsam. No, not by a long shot. Bernie Sanders might as well be a far-Right wingnut as the protestors ripped into him for apparently being too complacent regarding alleged police brutality. You know, police officers holding the line and protecting themselves from thugs. Poh-lice bru-TALITY, son!
"Join us now in holding Bernie Sanders accountable for his actions," the Seattle chapter of BLM (OWWPAI) urged the crowd. The protesting rabble also cited inequality of schools and gentrification taking place in Seattle among their grievances. Evil, evil gentrification. Where the marketplace pushes out the undesirables who make bad neighborhoods bad. Because everybody just loves living next door to feckless, violent poster persons for Margaret Sanger's manifesto with chips on their shoulders. Right?
Sanders was pushed around by a couple of loudmouths, silently backed away and exited stage left, allowing the podium and the entire event to be taken over by brainless zombies. Now doesn't that just speak to great leadership abilities? (Trump will clean their clocks when they pull this garbage with him.) He did recover in time for the second rally at the University of Washington's Hec Edmundson Pavilion in which he criticized the "billionaire class" and told all assembled:
"Too many young lives are being destroyed by the so-called 'War on Drugs' and too many lives are being destroyed by our system of incarceration. No President will fight harder to end the stain of racism and reform our criminal justice system."
Golly gee, ain't that swell?
Too many lives destroyed by incarceration, Boin-ie? How about the lives destroyed which led to the incarceration of those concerned? Oh yeah, comrade, I forgot. Like most Lefties of your stripe, you don't care about those. Innocent victims will have no place in Sanders' America. Unless they're black or Latino or illegal.
As The Who once sang, "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss."
By the way, to go off on a bit of a tangent, if I may: Has anyone come up with a formula yet to determine what a liberal would do if one illegal alien killed another illegal alien? Is there an answer to this vexing problem? Would the origin of the person killed be revealed or would that be hushed as with the perpetrator of the crime? I think they would pretend to decry the illegal alien victim's killing while letting the illegal alien criminal—if that's not a completely redundant phrase—slip through the system. In other words, you can't even trust the progressives with illegal alien lives. I guess they too must suffer the occasional casuality in the country's race to the bottom.
Sanders has balls, I'll give him that. To pose as the savior of the nation and the candidate for the everyday man and woman forty-three years after penning an essay entilted "Man—and woman" in which he postulated that women fantacize about being raped by three men while having intercourse "with her man" takes some chutzpah. I guess that's the result of growing up in a hippie commune. Maybe he's learned from it. Only time will tell.
In the meantime, I wonder what these Seattle members of BLM (OWWPAI) are going to do if the land they're on is stolen, occupied Duwamish land? Are they prepared to hand it back and live elsewhere? Of course not. There are too many supermarkets and too few people on food stamps. That issue must be tackled first, you see.
I have been given cause to believe that my previous entry was lacking as it did not address the "elephant in the room" regarding an environmentally friendly planet.
Population.
Isn't it all for naught to fight "climate change," or advocate recycling or bicycling to work and whatever else these hippies come up with, when no-one dares to tackle population growth, either through cowardice or an unwillingness to believe it's an issue?
We're going to have 11.2 billion people by 2100, according to the U.N. Yes, I know, the U.N. But this is a statistic I can believe.
Now because I'm concerned about this does not mean that I am some Planned Parenthood-embracing fanatic encouraging abortions at every turn. I do not see, however, what is so wrong with educating people in the third world about family planning.
God did tell Adam and Eve in the Book of Genesis, "As for you, be fruitful and multiply; Populate the earth abundantly and multiply in it." I doubt very seriously that He intended for us to duplicate so much that space and resources on the planet come at a desperate premium. Is that what God wanted? For constant war to break out because there are simply too many people competing for too few life-sustaining supplies?
Sorry, I don't buy it for one moment.
Environmental activist George Monbiot doesn't think it's a problem. And I have to agree that the poorer you are, the less likely you are to produce carbon emissions. But that, as I think I'm trying to make clear, is not the central issue. We're so wrapped up in the climate change fairy tale, that we can't separate it from any other problem affecting life on this planet.
Humans have a right to be on this Earth. We are as much a part of its fabric, its life-affirming matrix, as any other living being. But we cannot keep up this fallacy that certain populations can breed out of control, such as in Africa and such as in Asia, and that it won't ever become a problem, for us and for every other living creature daring to try to live here.
For those who wish to imply that I'm racist because I'm singling out Africa and Asia, those are the two most troublesome population boom centers of the globe, like it or not. I'm just providing the facts. I'd be saying the exact same thing about Ireland or Norway or the Czech Republic if their population numbers produced a parabolic curve so steep that not even Tony Hawk would dare to descend it.
Folks, it's all BS of the highest degree to talk of any issue involving environmental awareness until we're willing to challenge the sanguinity regarding world population growth.
On August 2, the Prez introduced his "Clean Power Plan" in a speech at the White House. He told all assembled that, "We only get one home. We only get one planet."
What would we do without the World's Smartest Man bestowing on us such esoteric but crucial information?
The plan seeks to slash carbon emissions by 32 percent from 2005 levels by 2030. It will also encourage solar and wind energy. You know, because they've worked so brilliantly so far and there's such a market for them. Solyndra ring a bell, anyone? I'll refresh your memory: It was a solar power start-up company that received federal grants as part of Obama's stimulus package in 2009. Just two years later, it collapsed, leaving hundreds of millions that the taxpayer has to cover.
Wind power cannot be relied upon, either. All it does is blight the off-shore with huge wind turbines which don't deliver in energy costs what it takes to construct them.
Obama has said that climate change is the biggest issue facing our children and grandchildren.
"If you believe like I do that we can't condemn our kids and grandkids to a planet that's beyond fixing, then I'm asking you to share this message with your friends and family," Barry Hussein said.
Grandchildren? Let's take one generation's worry at a time, Dear Leader. The children will long have been either beheaded or converted to radical Islam by the time carbon levels will have reached that 32 percent reduction.
The grandchildren won't understand the snake-oil salesman words of Obama today, because they will be bilingual in Spanish and Arabic—two languages that go great together, just ask the Moors.
I have a question for you, dear reader. Has Friends of the Earth or the Sierra Club ever hounded anybody in the black or other minority communities into environmental-friendliness? Hell, no. These environmental groups consist of sanctimonious white people solely to bully, intimidate, harass and browbeat other white people.
You see, young 'uns, the longer you live, the more this stuff dawns on you. I know you weren't shown nor encouraged to question what you were taught or to consider the other side. Not in elementary school, middle school, high school or college. You've lived your whole lives thus far, towing the party line and being of the opinion that conservatives are unenlightened, boorish, unsophisticated vandals who need defeating. You call them evil, even though you don't believe in evil, because you don't believe Satan exists, because you don't believe in God.
The question has been asked many, many times. Where's the proof of global warming, or even of climate change? The best we get is An Inconvenient Truth, a film that follows around the lecture circuit a man whose house gives off more carbon dioxide in one month than the average American household does in a year.
Why have liberals abandoned the Socratic method? Why are they so afraid of points of view which question theirs that they forbid debate? All they ever have to offer are personal opinions and a few "facts" they read in Mother Jones or Rolling Stone. When asked for proof that those who dare to go against politically correct ideology are wrong, liberals stumble and parry. They won't provide facts; they can't provide them; and they can't provide them because they do not exist to back up their silly assertions. "Well, I think" said in a haughty manner is not a signal that facts or proof are going to be provided during the ensuing harangue.
Boston, Massachusetts had a record 108.6 inches of snowfall over the past winter. That's 9,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools worth of snow. A mound of snow and ice in a makeshift snowfield in South Boston was still alive and well in June. Maybe that's due to all the rubbish and dirt mixed within it. Nevertheless, from whence did all that snow come if it's so mild in the Arctic that all the polar ice is melting away? How and/or why did a location only 42 degrees north experience weather that would have taken Roald Amundsen's breath away?
Research has demonstrated that violent storm activity has decreased, not increased, over the past thirty years. Archaeologists and historians have said that wine-quality grapes grew in London one thousand years ago. That time period, the Medieval Warm Period, was warmer than today by nearly five degrees Celsius. Man was not around 120,000 years ago when glaciers melted and seas rose by eighteen to twenty feet. More than 30,000 scientists have declared that natural factors determine carbon dioxide levels and that there is no impending catastrophe on the horizon.
Even the co-founder of Greenpeace, Patrick Moore, has emerged as a doubter of the veracity of climate change. "There is no scientific proof that human emissions of carbon dioxide are the dominant cause of the minor warming of the Earth's atmosphere over the past 100 years. There is some correlation, but little evidence, to support a direct causal relationship between CO2 and global temperature through the millennia. The fact that we had both higher temperatures and an ice age at a time when CO2 emissions were 10 times higher than they are today fundamentally contradicts the certainty that human-caused CO2 emissions are the main cause of global warming," Moore told The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee last year.
The science regarding climate change is far from settled, despite Obama lecturing us that "the science tells us we have to do more".
Mankind has a big ego. He likes to imagine that he's created a huge problem so that he can go about solving it. How you solve a problem that doesn't exist is yet to be answered, but sane people didn't invent the phrase "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" for no reason. The atmosphere is not broken.
Here's what liberals won't admit. Entire careers and policy-making decisions revolve around a fantasy because it is all part of a $1.5 trillion industry. Whenever there's money to be made out of story in which facts are irrelevant, the liberals line up at the trough. Climate change has proven to be the story that has hoodwinked the most people.
Besides, are we really to trust the same people who tell us that Mike Brown was a "gentle giant" who was executed by officer Darren Wilson in cold blood? Even the Holder Department of Just-Us said that Officer Wilson shooting Brown was a case of legitimate self-defense. But the Black Lives Matter rabble refuses to acknowledge reality. Don't tell me for one moment that environmentally conscious hippies aren't part of these anti-police demonstrations whenever/wherever they occur.
With regard to climate change, Obama says, "There is no Plan B." I'm glad the President is so concerned with fighting an intangible bogeyman while the real world throws up real threats to our existence. A nuclear Iran, for instance? Don't worry, the mullahs are only interested in building infrastructure and looking after their people. They'll be on board once they see how great fighting climate change is.
There is not even a Plan A when it comes to ISIS raping, destroying and beheading their merry way across the Middle East. But, that's only in Syria and Iraq, dude. It won't be coming to a community near you, despite wide-open borders. We know that because moonbat liberals say so. So just play with your (energy-consuming) gadgets, sip your frappuccinos and be happy. The real world can't get us in Starbucks.
Can anyone explain to me why Megyn Kelly hates Donald Trump? Don't give me this argument that Kelly and FOX were doing him a favor by getting the subject of his past comments regarding women out of the way, so that he'll have a good answer by the time CNN and MSNBC get around to it.
Trump has spoken of the blood in Kelly's eyes—and blood "coming out of her wherever"—and it's a legitimate observation on his part. Go back, watch the debate, and tell me that Kelly wasn't failing to disguise her contempt for the Republican front-runner with her piercing eyes and facial grimaces.
FOX chief executive Roger Ailes has since apologized to Trump and guaranteed that neither Kelly nor anyone else from FOX will attack him unnecessarily from now on. Kelly herself said, on her first FOX appearance since the debate:
"You may have heard that there was a dust-up involving yours truly and Presidential contender Donald Trump. Mr. Trump was upset with a question I asked him at the debate last week about his electability, and, specifically, comments he has made in the past about women. A few words on that: Apparently Mr. Trump thought that the question I asked was unfair and felt I was attacking him. I felt he was asked a tough, but fair question. We agreed to disagree. Mr. Trump did interviews over the weekend that attacked me personally. I've decided not to respond. Mr. Trump is an interesting man [she trips over herself at this point] who has captured the attention of the electorate; that's why he's leading in the polls. Trump, who is the front-runner, will not apologize. And I certainly will not apologize for doing good journalism. So I'll continue doing my job without fear or favor ... This is a tough business, and it's time now to move forward."
Now then, the questions about women and about when exactly he became a Republican could be seen as mere clarifications intended to truly help voters understand the less savory elements to his past. If Megyn Kelly had asked them with a smile and a neutral tone, they could have been somewhat beneficial in the context of the debate if moving on to serious policy positions was next in line. Kelly's demeanor, however, when querying Trump was akin to one man smirking sardonically at another man and asking, "So, when did you start beating your wife?" That's when you know a fistfight is not only inevitable but merited. Maybe the insinuation about menstruating was unwarranted, but are you telling me Trump is to blame for fighting back?
Trump did not make his billions by backing off. If you intend to get catty with Trump, you'd better expect a push-back and probably not a very nice one.
Megyn Kelly intended to take Trump down. Ailes ordered the hit job and knew Kelly was just the obedient little soldier to carry out the ambush—because she genuinely dislikes him. Do I have to add a "duh" here or would that be gratuitous?
Kelly, like most FOX hosts, from Sean Hannity to Bill O'Reilly to Neil Cavuto, are notorious not for their supposed conservatism on an allegedly conservative-friendly news network. No, no. They're known for their contrarianism. They're known for sedating right-of-center viewers with tough talk, only to bash them in the face somewhere down the line by suddenly sounding like Noam Chomsky. Is being mercurial a requirement to anchor on FOX?
FOX viewers, why do you appreciate a network that clearly wants Jeb Bush in office? WRKO talk-show host Jeff Kuhner calls Bush "Jebito" or "Jeb Press-Two-for-English Bush". Howie Carr calls him "Juan Ellis Bush". Both are appropriate. I know CNN and MSNBC are balls-to-the-wall for Madame Hilary. But why torture yourselves by watching a network that pushes an NSA-admiring, Common Core-supporting, illegal alien-embracing sack of used toilet parts like Jeb Bush? This is what I just cannot understand. Sure, Jeb may be a lot better spoken than Dubya. In Spanish.
Trump, meanwhile, has been prevented from attending Erick Erickson's RedState event, with Erickson himself opining, "[I] just don't want someone on stage who gets a hostile question from a lady and his first inclination is to imply it was hormonal." Mike Huckabee, who spent his college years Jiffy-Popping squirrels, called Kelly a "remarkable woman" at the conference.
Here is Exhibit A is to why conservatives are constantly on the defensive and cannot win. They stand around talking about standards and common decency with their noses in the air and their fingers in the wind while liberals assault all that is good and decent and win, because, to give them credit, they know where they stand and they don't drag down their comrades, but find a way to slot them effectively into the equation.
If conservatives are going to be prickly cowards, then they deserve repeated ass-kickings by the electorate. We will keep getting people like Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders leading us into the abyss while conspirators like John Boehner, John Kasich and Mitch McConnell make up the "opposition".
Megyn, if good journalism as practiced by a female means showing off as much leg as possible and tee-heeing like a bimbo to bring in the male 18-50 age group who may or may not be conservative and spend much more time imagining you in a wet T-shirt contest than actually listening to what you say, then you're excelling.
This is a "journalist" who appeared with Howard Stern in 2010, discussing her breasts, her husband's penis size and their general sex life, and who posed for GQ during an interview about her being "unswerving in her beliefs". Do those beliefs include showing skin for the discerning gentleman? Because she sure showed a lot of it in an accompanying spread.
In April, Kelly resurrected herself by being one of only two at FOX—Sean Hannity being the other—who observed, correctly, that questioning Pamela Geller and her Mohammed cartoon drawing contest was giving in to the jihadists that want to kill us. Trump, if you'll remember, was in the O'Reilly-Greta Susteren camp asking, "why did she have to do that?" A remarkable turn of events. Maybe that's why Kelly hates Trump. She was more popular than him just five months ago. I too praised Kelly and questioned whether Trump could be trusted with protecting free speech.
But five months in politics is a lifetime, and with her previous hostile inquisition of Rudy Guiliani for doubting Obama's patriotism and her recent expressed desire to go for The Donald's jugular in the first Republican debate, it's clear that we cannot trust Megyn Kelly's insight.
Megyn, until you start covering up a bit and perhaps acting your age—you're 44, not 24—then I cannot take you seriously when it comes to questioning a man's attitude toward women. Whatever androcentric cheap shots Trump has been accused of, apparently harmless jokes on The Apprentice that the women involved knew weren't serious and themselves laughed at, you seem to be encouraging with your mini-skirts, low-slung blouses and provocative swishes of long blonde locks. Don't talk to me about "disparaging comments about women's looks".
Why don't you stop being a stereotype, Megyn Kelly, and then we'll talk about Trump's oversights? That would be a good starting point on the path to good, not to mention responsible, journalism.
Postscript: Sorry, dear reader, if the end of my entry on Cecil the Lion made it appear as though I admired Robert Mugabe. In fact, my loathing for him knows no bounds, as with Fidel Castro or the late Hugo Chavez. He's a racist dictator who himself has been responsible for decimating wildlife and ruining habitats all across Zimbabwe. He ate a baby elephant while decrying "white safaris" at his 91st birthday bash. The man says that the US "can't have it both ways … They can't say 'allow our people to visit, allow our people to have safaris,' to kill our lions and take safari trophies to America." He is a hypocrite, and that's his best attribute. I wish the best for Zimbabwe once this less-than-golden oldie finally stops coming down for breakfast. But if Walter Palmer has to answer to him, I'll turn a blind eye. I'm just saying.
By now, everyone has heard of Cecil the Lion. Once famous only in the deep heart of Africa, Cecil has been the name on everyone's lips.
Cecil was the head of a lion pride at Hwange National Park in Zimbabwe. He was a major tourist attraction, and could be regarded as the Zimbabwean version of Flipper or Skippy the Kangaroo. Cecil had previously been collared by scientists from Oxford University as part of a study of African wildlife.
Minnesota dentist Walter Palmer paid a professional hunter $50,000 to shoot a lion and lured Cecil out, wounding him with a bow and arrow. After that, they tracked the big cat for 40 hours before shooting him with a rifle, killing him.
Palmer has previously taken part in rhinocerous hunts. Rhinos are on the endangered list.
Palmer has stressed that he did not know that the lion he shot was valued so much by the locals and tourists alike. Investigation by Zimbabwe National Parks has revealed that the hunters Palmer paid did not have the correct permit for hunting a lion. Meanwhile, Cecil's brother has since taken responsibility for looking after his cubs, keeping rival males from killing them.
British Prime Minister David Cameron was among the big names who condemned Cecil's killing, stating that the U.K. has "a leading role in preventing illegal wildlife trade."
Walter Palmer has abandoned his dentist office and gone into hiding after a furious backlash. Even the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has not been able to track him down. Is it right that Palmer should be facing such rage?
Absolutely. I've had it with these twats pretending to be adventurous by shooting an animal with an arrow or a bullet and claiming their sick "trophy". Wrestle a bear, a lion or an elk and win—and then I'll be impressed. Sad for the animal, but impressed. When you as a human being track animals down to shoot them for the mere fun of it—don't even dare to call it a sport—or for food that you don't require because you're not trapped in the middle of a wilderness and starving, you're a coward, plain and simple. You very likely have psychotic tendencies as well.
These people aren't Lewis and Clark, braving unknown, unmapped territory. They get transport to the site and expert guidance through it. An animal appears, they shoot it. Where's the risk? Where's the danger? What makes this undertaking so brave?
Conservatives and liberals alike have reacted by saying, "With everything else going on in the world, everyone's getting worked up over a lion?" The politically minded allege that the media concentrating on Cecil takes away from the rage that should be felt toward illegal aliens or Planned Parenthood, according to conservatives, or gay rights, Islamophobia or eight-year-olds not getting free and easy access to condoms, according to liberals.
Yet, sadly, this is not a conservative versus liberal issue. I agree, the media will distract you with fluff whenever they can—it's all part of their "dull the masses with bread and circuses" agenda, all part of their game. But the news of Cecil's killing is not fluff. The media has highlighted Cecil's death because it represents the fight against illegal wildlife hunting and poaching.
There is life on this planet other than human that deserves to live. And if Walter Palmer must be the current cowardly face of a sick, barbaric practice, then so be it. The media, in this case, have gotten it right and are doing their job.
In a world dominated by humans, animals are at our mercy. They need us to leave them alone. If we do get involved in their affairs, it should be to help them not further dwindle their numbers just so some inbred cunt can hang another head on a wall and impress other brainless wonders willing to listen about his "courage".
Zimbabwe has reported a drop in tourist numbers since Cecil's killing. Cecil was worth a lot more when people shot him with cameras. Since getting shot by an idiot with an arrow and then a rifle, suddenly there's not such a big draw for tourists anymore. I hope Cecil's brother, and his cubs, once they've grown up, will provide the incentive for a spike in visitor numbers. Only time will tell.
I have no problem with scientists using tranquilizer guns to stun animals so they can collar them and study their movements and habits. We need to better understand the creatures we share the planet with.
And it's not that human life is not precious, I am not saying that. But we are in control of this planet. We are largely responsible for our own affairs. I can feel very bad for a guy who gets knocked off his motorcycle by a car and dies. News like that depresses me. But the man made a decision to ride a bike, to compete on the roadway with much bigger vehicles, and accepted the risks. Cecil did not choose to get shot. He simply stepped out to into the clearing to get what he thought would be an easy meal.
I am not going—in fact, I refuse—to feel sorry for all these migrants amassed in Calais. If the conditions they fled from were so bad, why risk their lives to get into the U.K. illegally? Why can't they happily settle in whatever European country they reach first? One letter writer to The Metro recently wrote:
I woke up to a media expressing more concern over the death of Cecil the lion than over the death of a migrant from Sudan killed overnight by a truck as he tried to cross from Calais. He was the 11th refugee to die at Britain's border in the past two months. How can the lives of these desperate people be deemed to be of less worth than a lion?
Really, now? Yeah, that's all we need, a migrant from Sudan. Someone whose way of life is extremely foreign to us and who might just pay us back for our generosity by being a welfare-dependent nuisance or, dare I say, slashing a soldier's throat as he walks down the street in his uniform in broad daylight?
These men—and they're always young men—trying to get into Britain don't have to risk their lives. They fled war-torn areas to only to endanger their lives a second time? Are you kidding me? I don't care if one hundred and eleven migrants die trying to get into Albion. It's their choice to try. I'll still sleep quite comfortably at night.
What threat did Cecil the lion ever pose to me? None. Therefore, he's much more important to me. Sorry, bleeding-heart letter writer, but it's the truth.
And as for you, Walter Palmer? Now you know what it's like to be endangered. I hope that never changes. You will get caught someday, and if it's by the authorities, consider yourself lucky. I hope they slap you with a punishment so back-breaking it'll make you weep in despair on the spot. Maybe you'll get extradited to Zimbabwe. Perhaps you'll face Robert Mugabe himself. An imperialist, insensitive white man like you? Mugabe will have a field day on your worthless ass. Let us see how brave you'll be then, mighty hunter.
The news broke early on Monday, July 27. Boston would not have the Olympics in 2024. Mayor Martin J. Walsh announced that he would not place the burden of overruns on the taxpayer and, hours later, the United States Olympic Committee (USOC) cancelled the bid.
Ah, gee, you mean that only a decade after The Big Dig project disturbed life for everyone in the city—and whose lasting image is that of Milena Del Valle, crushed when the ceiling of the Ted Williams tunnel collapsed—Boston residents won't be subjected to yet more union thuggery, corporate kickbacks and legislative hijinks, all in the proud name of the World's Greatest Spunkfest?
I'm so depressed overjoyed.
It's not often that the libertarian right, such as Citizens for Limited Taxation, and the loony left, the Black Lives Matter rabble, come together, but they did in Boston to oppose the business elites who wanted to foist the Olympics on the city and deny those who live and work there a say in the proceedings.
Progressive Boston city councillor Tito Jackson was one of the biggest heroes behind Boston 2024's collapse. On July 20, Jackson ordered a subpoena of documents from the USOC. The subpoena was approved by the City Council and this was the beginning of the end of the bid.
"Why are you asking the citizens of Boston and the Boston City Council to go forward without complete disclosure?" Jackson demanded as he requested the subpoena.
In desperation, the USOC asked Massachusetts governor Charlie Baker for his position on the Olympics and to let them know immediately. Baker, however, was still working out the figures and could not give them a yes or no answer.
In the end, it came down to Boston mayor Marty Walsh who, on Monday, put the kibosh on the whole sordid affair by announcing, "I cannot commit to putting the taxpayers at risk. If committing to signing a [taxpayer-backed] guarantee today is what's required to move forward, then Boston is no longer pursuing the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games."
The people behind the Boston 2024 partnership were not exactly what you would call transparent. They endorsed a referendum for the city in 2016, but then downplayed it by telling the USOC that it would have cost too much money to launch a ballot initiative and that the opposition consisted of just a small group of whiners on social media. In other words, money was talking too loudly for it to ever have been a reality. Boston 2024 would have collected signatures for the ballot, but then feigned an ink spill had destroyed them. They would have gone to the state Attorney General Maura Healey and asked how much she enjoyed her job, then sided up to judges and schmoozed the Legislature in opposition to the ballot. Referendum? What referendum? We don't need no stinkin' referendum.
To parse Boston 2024 chairman John Fish: "Now just sit in your cars in four-hour traffic jams, you silly little serfs, and think about how lucky you are. You're getting the Olympics! Whattaya' got to complain about?"
The whole Boston Olympics was a sham. Boston, while a big city, does not have the space to support the infrastructure for such a huge undertaking. As the city's Seaport development during the Big Dig proved, space comes at a huge premium. The Olympics would have ignored, and continued to delay, the city's need for affordable housing and school renovations. It would have snatched private land for public use, an act known as compulsory purchase or eminent domain. And, as all Olympics do, it would have raised nowhere near the revenue needed to break even on the billions spent on the travesty, never mind make a profit.
To neatly sum it up, as Howie Carr told a caller on Tuesday, "Can you imagine what it would be like when the Olympics are going on, and you are pushed over to the side of the road while stretch limos are going around you on a lane your tax dollars built? And in return, you, your children and your grandchildren are going to be saddled paying off the bonds that these rich bastards used to put this Olympics in Massachusetts. And then on top of everything else, the rich bastards are going to get the land that had been taken from other less affluent citizens by eminent domain."
I saw those priority lanes during the London Olympics. How much clearer of a message do you need that three weeks worth of corporate sports competitions are more important than you and the time, effort and investment you make everyday by living and working in that city?
It is time to do away with the Olympics. We're not the Athens of antiquity. We don't have ampitheatres to watch guys in togas grapple. So of what use, exactly, are the Olympics in this modern world?
You want to know what the Olympics are good for in this day and age? Big business/sponsorship, big labor and their bum-kissing acolytes in government. That's all.
Cities and countries all over the globe are either kicking the can down the road, saying they're not ready yet, but are pursuing a bid for the future. Or they're saying, no way, we're not prepared to deal with all the corruption that this event invites on a massive scale. I around during London 2012. Why would I wish that on the area I was born and raised in and where my relatives still live?
And don't give me any nonsense that it would have created jobs. If a normal schmuck like me approached a job site and asked about employment, I guarantee you that the first words out of the foreman's mouth would be, "what's your local?" No, these jobs were in the satchel. Only the illegal aliens standing on street corners every morning, chanting "¡trabajo!", would have gotten the non-union work.
Isn't it remarkable that the city in which an Olympics event is being held is called the "host city" and that the mayor of said city is required to sign a "host contract"? In what context is the word host so often used? That's right, in the context of another word: parasite. A parasite sucks your life blood and weakens you and puts you in a fragile state. A most fitting analogy for the Olympics, wouldn't you say?
How do you kill a parasite? You deny it its source of sustenance. In the case of Boston 2024 and the USOC, it was by withholding the money.
Good riddance to this Olympics bid. May it never darken the city's doorstep again. Boston is famous on a global scale; it has never required the debt the Olympics would wish to saddle it with just so it can have a velodrome and a track stadium that will be nothing more than crumbling "legends" by the end of the decade.
