It's Better To Die On Your Feet Than To Live On Our ONTs

Greetings 'rons and 'ettes! Thursday night, shall we see what interesting things happened on the interwebs this week? Before we do that, here's a pro-tip: Make sure you coordinate your outfit with your terrorist buddies before you make a hostage video.

For All Our Problems, America Is Better Than This

Outrage in Italy as 'hero' jeweller who shot dead two robbers jailed for 17 years

A jeweller who shot dead two robbers who targeted his shop in Italy has been jailed for 17 years, sparking an outcry.

Mario Roggero’s store in the town of Grinzane Cavour in the northern Piedmont region, was held up by three men in an armed robbery in April 2021.

They tied up his daughter and threatened him and his wife with a pistol.

Mr Rogerro chased after the robbers and shot dead Giuseppe Mazzarino, 58, and Andrea Spinelli, 44. He also injured a third robber, Alessandro Modica, 35, who was arrested hours later.

He told the Italian press of the ordeal: “They made me count down: five, four, three. I think I could be dead."

Now a court has sentenced the shopkeeper to a seventeen-year jail term after prosecutors said the killing amounted to vigilante justice

Vigilante justice is exactly what you get when the legal system stops being fair and impartial and starts being a mechanism for punishing political foes or excusing certain groups from answering for their crimes, and we are heading that way at 100 per.

Steaming

How the New York City Steam System Works

I saw a meme about those orange and white smokestacks you see in New York. Here's an article explaining the system. It's really quite neat.

Today, there are about 105 miles of steam pipes underneath New York City’s streets, which serve as a cleaner source of energy than oil or coal to over 1,500 buildings. Some of New York City’s most famous buildings are steam powered, including the Empire State Building, the Chrysler Building, Grand Central Terminal, the United Nations, Rockefeller Center and more.

The story of steam actually begins in Ancient Rome, where enterprising Romans were already building steam pipe systems for heating buildings and baths. The technology spread to the rest of Europe, but it was in the United States during the late 19th century. Inventors and businessmen turned it into a commercially viable heating option for towns and cities. New York was the first major city in the U.S. to have a steam system and still has the largest one to this day. In fact, if you add up the next five largest steam systems in America, it’s still smaller than New York City’s.

Quick Look At The Canadian Open

Police State

Twenty FBI agents dressed in “tactical gear” just raided the home of a peaceful J6er because of his online “associations”…

The excessive use of force against January 6 victims has reached levels that are so absurd that they’re now in the realm of North Korea-esque treatment. It’s clear that the regime is trying to send a message to anybody who dares to dissent: if they step out of line, meaning they don’t bow down to the regime agenda, the full force of the United States government will come crashing down on them and their families. It’s a KGB-like tactic that is very powerful and rather off-putting to Americans who still appreciate and love freedom.

This blatant abuse of power was on full display recently, when 20 FBI agents, dressed in tactical “SWAT” gear, conducted a raid on the home of a peaceful January 6th participant who had simply walked through an open door at the Capitol. The man was charged with a misdemeanor, so why did the federal government deploy such overwhelming force against this poor soul?

According to the authorities, they justified this approach based on the “associations” this peaceful man had online.

Watch what you say if you want to talk about this one. And the fact that I felt compelled to issue that warning tells you all you need to know.

Awww, Rats

Ukraine Situation Report: Deluge Of Rodents A Common Enemy

It's miserable enough fighting in winter, but after an unusually warm early fall followed by brutal cold, large swaths of fields that have gone unharvested and thousands of human carcasses to feed on, troops from both sides are facing an additional scourge.

Rodents.

These Russian soldiers found out just how bad the problem was when they started up their 120-mm self-propelled howitzer 2S9 Nona-S. Scores of mice who sought refuge from the cold spewed out of the exhaust. One soldier is seen kicking at them in vain as the mice continued to pour out of the vehicle.

Mice have also infested Russian trenches, crawling over bedding and food stores.

There's a lot of info on the situation in Ukraine, not just about rats, although how accurate any of it is is anyone's guess. I remember reading somewhere that the one positive thing about WWI gas attacks was that they knocked back the rodents in the trenches for a few days. There's also a recounting at the link about a Nazi unit in WWII that could only deploy with 30% of it's vehicles because rats and mice had chewed the wiring, rendering them inoperable.

On The Waaay!

Terminally ill Army vet to get final wish, relive his tank gunner days

Jay Tenison’s last ride started on Reddit, of all places.

“I’m dying from stage IV stomach cancer. My wish is to do tank gunnery one last time,” read the title of his October 2022 post. The former tanker, whose active duty enlistment took him from Germany to Ramadi, Iraq, and back to Fort Irwin, California, had straightforward reasoning.

“Before I depart this land of the living, I’d love to feel the thunder of doom inside an Abrams MBT,” he said. More than a year later, Tenison has outlived his initial prognosis and will fire his final gunnery Tuesday at Fort Moore, Georgia, he and service officials told Army Times.

Tenison’s nostalgia for “the thunder of doom” dates to his time in Germany with Bravo Company, 2nd Battalion, 37th Armor Regiment at the now-shuttered Ray Barracks near the city of Friedburg. He did one gunnery there before deploying to Iraq in 2006, during which time his battalion fought in Tal Afar and Ramadi. Decades later, after two degrees and a successful career as a professional engineer, the experience looms large in Tenison’s memory during his final days.

Godspeed soldier. Please accept the thanks of a grateful nation.

When A Goose Walks Over Your Grave

14 Terrifying Stories That Actually Happened To People

"The next morning, my cousin's watching the morning news and sees that hitchhiker's face. Dude was a serial killer and had killed someone that picked him up. Cousin calls the cops and they have him come in. Turns out the hitcher had killed the very next person after my cousin who had given him a ride. He'd killed a few people who had given him rides, that was his MO.

They asked the hitcher why he didn't kill my cousin. He said 'Eh, I'd planned to, but he was a really nice young man, he bought me breakfast. I couldn't kill someone that bought me breakfast.'" 

Crazy People

The Unhinged Among Us

What protesters are furious about is that Israel is more effective at being disproportionate in retaliation than Hamas and its Iranian supporters were in their preemptive mass murdering.
Targeting innocent civilians? Hamas is among the current greatest offenders in the world.
It rockets Israeli cities without warning. It mass murders Jews in their beds during peace. It exposes Gazans to mortal danger by impressing them as human shields. Hamas shoots those who refuse.
The “rules of war” are violated by Hamas daily. Such protocols require combatants to wear uniforms so as not to blend in with civilians, not to use them as shields, not to murder noncombatants, not to rape them, not to mutilate them, and not to execute civilians without trial.
Why then would millions ally themselves with this odious reincarnation of the SS?
Are they ignorant of the history of the Middle East?
Are they arrogant since few challenge their hate and threats?
Are they opportunists who feel mouthing anti-Western shibboleths gains them career traction in leftist-run media, academia, and popular culture?

The last 2 months have really opened my eyes to hown many evil people there are out there. That's the word: Evil. Hamas is evil. Full stop. If you support Hamas, you are willingly supporting evil, and I will treat you accordingly.

Censorship.

YouTube Pulls Video Of DeSantis, Medical Experts For Saying Children Don’t Need Masks

YouTube pulled a video of a discussion between Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and four medical experts, including one former White House adviser, because the experts questioned the efficacy of masks for children. YouTube pulled the video on Wednesday and replaced it with a message saying, “this video has been removed for violating YouTube’s Community Guidelines,” as well as a link to the platform’s guidelines. The video and transcript of the deleted post may be viewed in their entirety at the American Institute for Economic Research. Last month, DeSantis held a roundtable discussion with Harvard University professor Dr. Martin Kulldorff, Oxford University epidemiologist Dr. Sunetra Gupta, Stanford University physician and epidemiologist Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, and Stanford professor Dr. Scott Atlas. DeSantis moderated a discussion evaluating the global response to the COVID-19 pandemic. YouTube pulled the video, originally posted by AIER, over the experts’ claims made about the efficacy of children wearing masks in schools to combat COVID-19.

This marriage between big tech and government sure is wonderful, isn't it?

Tonight's ONT has been brought to you by a cartridge in a bare tree:

posted by WeirdDave at 10:00 PM

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