Two Anniversaries, Plus Criminals are Stupid (posted 3/20/23)

Today’s theme – as it is so tragically often – is Cavalcade of Stupid. 

But before I get to that, I need to mention two important anniversaries that happened this past week. 

Saturday was the 34^th anniversary of the greatest feat of a groom metaphorically outkicking his coverage and landing an out-of-his league bride in the history of nuptial achievement.  On March 18^th, 1989, Norwegian-American goddess Karen Ludwigsen became my wife. 

Thus giving hope to average-looking, average-earning hilarious geniuses everywhere.  You’re welcome.

Did I tell the same groan-worthy running joke that I’ve been using every anniversary for years?  Damn straight.

To wit: “Today we celebrate 25 happy years together.  And we’ve only been married for 34, so that’s pretty good.”  Boom!

Less happily, last Wednesday was March 15^th, the infamous Ides of March.  And it marked another anniversary, one which went about as well for our country as the previous Ides of March went for Caesar. 

Because on 3/15/20, President Trump was misled into announcing, “15 Days to Slow the Spread” of covid.  Three years later, Fauci is still pushing the merits of masks, boosters, and preventative lockdowns.  Which is a good transition to the Cavalcade of Stupid.

First up we have Stupid Cities, specifically Chicago and Portland (the bad one in Oregon, not the good one in Maine). 

It seems that WalMarts are leaving both towns, and for similar reasons: badly run and hostile political environments, and rampant crime.  Regardless of your feelings about WalMart – and there are plenty of pros and cons – it’s a red flag when stores that serve your middle- and lower-income citizens flee, and that’s exactly what’s happening.

In February and March, 3 Chicago-area Wal-Marts closed, citing “underperformance.”  In Portland, the last two Wal-Marts in town will shut down this month.  In a PR statement, WalMart cited generic issues of financial performance, customer needs, location, and blah blah blah.

But other people got to the real causes.  Journalist (and national treasure) Andy Ngo noted that “WalMart has long been harshly criticized by the city’s left-wing politicians & residents, but this shutdown follows the consequences of the 2020 BLM-Antifa riots that normalized urban criminality.” 

One customer complained that nearby options were “three times the price,” and stated the obvious: “We gotta resolve the shoplifting one way or another, because that is simply the problem. It’s gotta stop.”

 The moral to the story, as always, is that you get what you vote for, and what you tolerate.  And, unfortunately for them, the citizens of Chicago and Portland are getting both, good and hard.

On the “Thank God Most Criminals Are Idiots” front, I have two stories.

The first one happened in Chicago in January, but I just now came across it.  The appropriately named 19-year-old Thomas Battle (he fought the law, and the law won), was already on parole for carjacking and robbery.  But that didn’t stop him from either driving or riding in another stolen car, which crashed. 

(Criminals: not good at crime.  Also not good at driving.)

Battle and the others involved ran from the cops on foot, and he ultimately chose a dumpster for his hiding place.  Luckily for him, even though Chicago is a Dem-run dumpster-fire of a city, the dumpster he jumped into was not on fire at the time.

Unluckily for him, the dumpster was behind a building full of Chicago police dispatchers, who promptly called the cops with whom they are in constant contact and said, “The moron you’re looking for is right here, in a dumpster.”

Unbelievably enough, Battle was illegally carrying a pistol.  Which should have been impossible, since Chicago is practically a gun-free zone, where carrying illegal pistols illegally is illegal. 

Why, it’s almost like depending on a raft of gun-control laws that no criminal ever follows is not a bright idea!

The second story is a tale not just of a specific crime, but of an entire crime wave.  It involves the recently invented crime of stealing catalytic converters from underneath cars. 

The incentive is to get at the precious metals – platinum, palladium, and rhodium – in the converters.  (I’ve heard of platinum.  But I think “palladium” is a place where I saw Tom Petty in 1989, and I’m pretty sure that “rhodium” is the made-up thing the bad military guys were looking for in Avatar.)  The National Insurance Crime Bureau reports that the theft of this one part has increased by over 1000% between 2018-2022.

(To provide a useful comparison, that is nearly as much as grocery costs have increased since the plague of the Biden administration befell our country.)

But every dark cloud has a silver lining.  In this case, the skyrocketing theft rate has been accompanied by a skyrocketing dead thief rate, arising from a lethal combination – in the felon-American community – of a high level of laziness with a low IQ. 

A few of the cases have happened when car owners returned to their vehicle and unknowingly ran over a Biden voter who was beneath their car trying to rob them.  I’d like to think that at least a few more were from owners firing warning shots into the thoraxes of thieves whom they caught in the act. 

(In which case the thieves came for a few troy ounces of rhodium, but left with a few troy ounces of lead. In their chest cavities.)

But the vast majority of the time, the cause of death is that the vehicle falls on the hapless thief, resulting in a fatal case of SOOCS.  (Sudden-Onset Organ Compression Syndrome. Duh!)

(Criminals: bad at life choices. Also bad at jack deployment.)

Sometimes these dullard-squishings happen in driveways or on the street, and sometimes they occur at car dealerships or mechanics’ shops. 

Unfortunately, many people, when faced with a choice between 1. finding a job and putting in an honest day’s work for an honest day’s pay, or 2. grabbing a wobbly jack and risking contracting a nasty case of SOOCS under some taxpayer’s car, make a wrong and fatal decision.

So let’s all have a respectful moment of silence…

…for the hundreds of innocent catalytic converters that have been dented or otherwise damaged from falling on the thick skulls of many low-down dirty thieves.

From the, “These Open Borders are Working out Great!” files comes the story of two Hondurans who illegally came into our country (Thanks, Brandon!) and made their way up to Nebraska, where they killed a bald eagle.  They planned to cook and eat the bird, and sell its talons and other parts “as ornaments.” 

If you were making this up for a screenplay or a short story, no editor would accept it. “Who is going to believe such a thing?” he would say, if he’s been in a coma or under a magic spell for several years, and just woke up last Friday. 

But it’s true.  Two Hondurans showed such disdain for our country and our laws that they illegally crossed our border – amidst literally millions of others – and then made a beeline for Nebraska, where they killed our national symbol.   

Rumors that their next plans were to steal an American flag to use as toilet paper, wrap packets of deadly fentanyl in torn-up copies of our constitution and sell them to kindergartners, and then hitchhike to Philly and pee on the Liberty Bell have not yet been confirmed.

I have two modest proposals.  First, we build a series of gigantic trebuchets in south Texas, and fire these two Hondurans back across the Rio Grande as our first test of what I hope will be called, “the Simpson Slinger™.”

Second, since the illegal community apparently has created a market for black market bald eagle parts, I move that we pass a law requiring that any illegal alien caught wearing eagle-beak earrings, or hanging bedazzled eagle talons from the rear-view mirrors of their non-registered and uninsured cars be immediately deported.  (Preferably via the aforementioned Simpson Slinger™.)

Or at least be given $10 and a defective jack and told to crawl under the closest heavy SUV and don’t come back without a catalytic converter.    

Finally, I did another appearance on the “Mitch Wonders” podcast, this time discussing the pros and cons of the rapid advancement of technology, and especially the internet, in recent years.  If you’re interested, the segment is called, “The Gutenberg Parenthesis,” and you can listen to it at   https://www.buzzsprout.com/2041434

“Dr.” Jill Biden/Thomas “Dumpster Boy” Battle, 2024!