Monday is a truly miserable day no matter where in the world you are – well, unless you’re in an Arab country, because their Monday is our Tuesday. (It’s a weird culture.)
But this Monday, in particular, absolutely blows – worse than any other in the calendar. And that is because it’s tax day.
This is the day that every American hates – and, to be honest, so does every other taxpayer around the world. The difference is that the American Infernal Revenue Service (see what I did there?) has powers to track down and harass individual citizens that are truly frightening in scope and scale, which is not true of most other countries.
Indeed, in countries ranging from Italy to India, tax-dodging is not merely acceptable, it’s a way of life. Nobody, but nobody, wants to pay taxes on anything in those countries.
You could argue – and I have heard this argument many, many times – that taxes are what pay for all of the roads, electricity, internet cables, law & order, and public utilities that everyone uses and needs in order to survive.
Having lived in the US of A, which is in places rapidly devolving to below Third World standards – I’ve seen better maintained roads in India than I have in New York City and large parts of New Jersey – I don’t really buy that one. There are parts of very-high-tax Europe where that argument sticks. There are also parts of zero-tax UAE and very-low-tax Singapore where that argument makes no sense whatsoever.
In the end, no matter how you try to justify it, income taxation is blatant and outright theft. There is no moral difference between taxing someone’s income using the full force and power of the government, and a burglar breaking into your home and stealing your most prized possessions.
The only major difference between the two is, of course, the fact that the burglar doesn’t expect you to thank him for doing what he did.
With that in mind, let’s get on with offending as many people as possible with the objective of getting our minds off the sheer terribleness of this day. And remember:
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Let’s kick off with a bit of humour at one of the rituals of the (((special people))):
Roissy’s riffs on this video are both wildly offensive and extremely funny. As for me, I can’t claim to have any problem with the “offensive” part…
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Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, who apparently wants to be President, doesn’t know the difference between “tactical” and “tactile”. Current National Security Advisor John “Mustache Man” Bolton had a rather pithy response to that one:
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To the batshit insane Left, the God-Emperor Trump truly is Thanos:
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Given that it is, after all, tax day, let’s take a look at the way that one of the greatest tax-cutters in all of American history dealt with his critics:
Also – Truman Capote was an utter poofter.
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Here is a good example of your tax dollars actually being put to good use – the SR-71 Blackbird, easily the greatest aircraft ever made:
It is truly saddening to think that Lockheed can no longer make anything like that. I mean, yeah, Lockheed can make planes like the F-22 (now cancelled), and the abominably stupid F-35 (sadly still alive and kicking), but it cannot make a Mach-3 super-high-altitude spyplane designed to beat just about every SAM around.
You have to read Ben Rich’s book, Skunk Works, to get some idea of just how incredible the Blackbird really was. It was truly a gigantic leap forward in terms of aircraft technology at the time – and much of what it achieved is simply not replicable today, even with vastly more advanced technologies, materials, and production methods.
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While we are on the subject of the truly legendary Habu (that’s the Okinawan nickname for the Blackbird, so named because its profile looks almost exactly like that of a highly venomous snake native to the island), here are a couple of hilarious stories from former SR-71 pilots about the simply mind-blowing performance of the Great Speed Lord:
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Charlize Theron is very much a warning to women everywhere:
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And here is another good set of warnings for young women, from a happily married Eastern European woman living in Canada. Yes, I know, that’s America’s gay effete cousin, but she certainly has her head screwed on properly:
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Some happy dance music and cool moves to lighten up your tax day:
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If you ever get captured by the Germans, just remember, you can use their own extreme punctuality and efficiency against them:
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So who’s actually bought and paid for by the Establishment – the God-Emperor, President Donaldus Triumphus Magnus, or Creepy Uncle Joe Biden?
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PJW breaks down, and thoroughly mocks, the latest Leftoid freakout:
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The Trap Lord destroys Gillette’s latest idiotic attempt at virtue-signalling:
That hambeast in the Gillette ad is truly disgusting. The only thing she triggers in me is my upchuck reflex.
Well, that, and the desire to grab a harpoon.
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Here is your long-form feel-good video for today – Bill Whittle and his lovely wife, Natasha Melnikova, who have been happily married for at least 2 years now:
I have to admit that I was rather sceptical that it would all work out well for them back when our buddy Bill wanted to marry her. But I am pleased and happy to admit that I was wrong. The two of them seem very well matched up. They share a similar sense of humour. They obviously adore each other.
I am delighted to say that I was evidently wrong.
Time will tell whether it lasts, but from what little I can see, the signs are good. And good for them both.
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Here are a couple of good longer reads for you to mull over, sent to me courtesy of Didact Sr.
First off, it turns out that Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, probably wasn’t actually the invention of Abraham Maslow himself, at least not directly:
Though Maslow gave us the hierarchy of needs theory, he did not envision his framework in pyramid form at all, according to a new study published in the Academy of Management Learning & Education journal. In it, three management professors—Todd Bridgman and Stephen Cummings, both of the Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand, and John Ballard of Mount St. Joseph University in Ohio—trace the origins of what may be the world’s most famous infographic. They propose that the symbol was actually created by a management consultant who had been inspired by a management theorist’s misinterpretation of Maslow’s earliest ideas.
The effects of the colorful final product, they argue, have not been benign. What we know as Maslow’s pyramid has tainted our view of work and our expectation that people are concerned with “higher” or “lower” level needs depending on their income or professional status. It gives the impression that some employees need to have their hearts and souls attended to, their creativity tapped and fostered, while others are merely concerned with covering the rent every month and putting food on the table.
It is an excellent read if you are willing to put in the time. Maslow’s pyramid is heavily used among us Men of the West too – a random scroll through Roissy’s writing over the last three years, or of mine, for that matter, will reveal very quickly just how much influence it has had on Hard Right thinking. This article does not exactly invalidate the usage of that pyramid, but it does make clear the fact that Maslow’s hierarchy was a bit more nuanced than the management consultant (i.e. bullshit) version.
And now here’s one for you metalheads (like me), about why heavy metal is good for you:
When fans of metal listen to the music, they don’t feel rage, anger, or despair, but “power, joy, peace, and wonder,” according to research published last year. A huge survey in 2010 sought to categorize people by their musical tastes, and found a significant overlap between metal and opera fans, who shared “similarly creative and gentle personalities.”
For more on heavy metal’s intellectual underpinnings, there’s the Metal Music Studies Journal, surely the rockingest peer-reviewed journal out there.
Of course, reading about the music isn’t the same as listening to it. Not everyone has a high tolerance for dissonance, and plenty of people are squeamish about queueing up tracks from bands like Cradle of Filth, Pig Destroyer, or 3 Inches of Blood in polite company.
And that’s fine! There are myriad metal subgenres to suit many tastes. All of them feature a certain amount of edginess, but why shy away from a bit of danger in your musical diet? You can summon a world of music at your fingertips, so don’t let inertia or algorithms serve up the audio equivalent of Diet Sprite.
Granted, heavy metal often comes with a generous helping of gore, demons, and sub-Lord of the Rings fantasy faffery. But if you’re among the millions anxiously awaiting the return of a certain blockbuster TV show that features ice zombies and undead dragons, then perhaps you’re more metal than you think.
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The first trailer for the next STAR WARS movie is out, and… honestly, there is nothing left in the franchise for anyone.
I watched the trailer. I hated it. Even the fact that Billy Dee Williams is in it, does nothing whatsoever for me – not least because, since he was in the original trilogy, odds are above 90% that he is now going to die in this movie.
(Then again… he’s a black dude, so maybe he’s protected by the Race Card. I dunno. I hate intersectional politics, since I find it unutterably stupid, but everything is rooted in identity nowadays, so it is what it is.)
They should have left Carrie Fisher to rest in peace, instead of digitally recreating her image for yet another horribly stupid and useless entry into a franchise that is, putting it bluntly, deader than she is.
They should have done the same with Mark Hamill, especially after the absolutely abominable way in which the producers and director treated the character of Luke Skywalker in the previous film.
Instead, they seem to take a sort of sadistic delight in prolonging the agony. And the sad part is that almost every fan who bitched so much about how bad the previous movie was, will still pay up to see this pile of shite.
Our buddy Adam Piggott was right. The guys who do stupid shit like that are MORONS.
I’m a bit different. I hated STAR WARS VII, and simply vowed never to pay to see another one of those films again, and I never have. I haven’t even bothered watching the last few movies on Netflix, such is my level of disillusionment with and hatred of what Disney has done with the franchise that I loved as a teenager.
I have ZERO interest in watching MaRey Sue doing her “I’m the most amazingest WAMENZ evah!!!” shtick. I don’t care in the slightest anymore about their attempts to distract fans with ham-fisted attempts at nostalgia trips while reaming them up the ass with all sorts of SJW-centric bullshit.
So let’s just mock the shit out of it instead, by smashing it face-first into another franchise that the SJWs wrecked:
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Apparently DC and Warner Bros. can’t make a good new Batman movie for beans without Christian Bale, so they’ve decided to give the Joker his own feature:
I mean, yeah, Joaquin Phoenix is seriously creepy as the killer clown, but from what I see in the trailer, he still ain’t no Heath Ledger.
And no one, but NO ONE, beats out Mark Hamill as the Joker:
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G.I. Drone might well be a stupid idea for a children’s cartoon, but I have to say… it would be vastly more effective than the paramilitary organisation that it replaces:
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I challenge you to watch this for more than a minute without collapsing into helpless laughter. I have never, ever been able to do it, and I listen to GLORYHAMMER, for heaven’s sake:
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This is what happens when the three blokiest blokes ever to bloke across a TV screen decide to take three front-engined rear-drive muscle cars to a beach in Wales and have a bit of fun:
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This here is the GRAND TOUR version of why you should never date (or marry) a horse chick:
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By the way, what do you suppose would happen if TOP GEAR – from back in the Goode Olde Dayes – would be taken over by Indians?
Well, Sanjeev Bhaskar – who was actually a guest on old TG once upon a time, and a very funny one at that – has the answer to a question that nobody in his right mind would EVER think of asking:
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Speaking of good old Sanjeev, his interview on old TG is a must-watch, because what he says is both extremely funny and absolutely true:
Take it from someone who has been there and KNOWS what the country is like. EVERY SINGLE WORD uttered by both Jezza and Sanjeev about Indians and their bizarre, yet brilliant, approach to driving, is 100% true.
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Pics from Power Line and other places:
Plenty of Flori-duh moments this week, for some reason:
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Dog of the week is the Irish wolfhound:
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Time to tax your patience (see what I did there?) with some gym idiots… Sorry boys, but it IS Monday, after all:
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And now for some gym beastliness to wipe that away – especially the oil-filled behemoth that you saw earlier:
Now, the Ukrainian powerlifter who got the most reps was DEFINITELY squatting high. They weren’t bad squats, but they certainly weren’t to parallel. I would have no-repped him on roughly a third of his attempts – that is, if he were in a strict powerlifting meet.
In a contest like that, though… it just doesn’t matter whether he was squatting (barely) to parallel or ATG.
Squatting your body weight for FIVE STRAIGHT MINUTES is, by any standard, insane. And astonishing to watch. I’m amazed that any of them were able to stay standing afterwards.
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And now for an ass-kicking martial artist too:
Sakuraba was a true beast at his peak, and his prowess at destroying the Gracies was something to behold. It has been rather sad to watch his decline over the past several years, now that he is way past his prime.
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#MercenariesOfMetal
Remember how I mentioned GLORYHAMMER earlier? Well, guess what – THEY’RE BACK!!!
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And finally, here is your Instathot for the start of the week – quite an exotic one, actually. You see, her real name is Ekaterina Andreeva, and she is from Perm Krai, which is, as you may have surmised, somewhere in Russia. (It’s actually about 1,500Km ENE from Moscow, which amounts to a solid 32-hour-long driving trip, if you’re so inclined.)
Yet she looks thoroughly Arabic, and is in fact a belly dancer. Judging by the evidence at hand, she’s quite a good one too.
She’s so good, in fact, that the Egyptians arrested her last year for – and I’m not making this up – “inciting debauchery”.
Just goes to show you that there really is no fun in Islam. All I can say on the subject is that I was in Egypt 10 years ago. I didn’t much like it then. Evidently it’s even less likable now.
Well, at any rate, good luck getting through your Monday here.
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