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Month: March 2020
A Good Pardon
Most presidential pardons rub me up the wrong way (e.g. Bill Clinton’s of Marc Rich) because there always seems to be something sleazy and underhanded about the people involved.
But God-Emperor Trump hasn’t put a foot wrong, and especially so with Michael Milken (who I always thought got a rough deal from the Justice Department).
Indeed, there’s an old saying that “banks only lend to you when you don’t need the money.” Milken understood this truth all too well, having discovered in the 1970s that other than for the bluest of blue-chip businesses, growth financing was exceedingly difficult to come by for the 99% of businesses that weren’t blue chip, or investment grade. Financial institutions operated on the assumption that the present predicted the future. Not so Milken. His research revealed the opposite.
Milken discovered that a corporation’s balance sheet generally measured yesterday, not tomorrow. And so he set about “democratizing” access to capital. Having attended UC Berkeley in the 1960s, Milken had embraced the desire of some within the student body to improve society. He would work tirelessly to change the world for the better too, but as he once put it, “Unlike other crusaders from Berkeley, I have chosen Wall Street as my battleground for improving society because it is here that government institutions and industries are financed.” There are no companies, no jobs, and there is no progress without investment, and Milken would vastly improve the world around him through skillful development of the companies not recognized by traditional banks and investment banks, but that would be greatly enhanced through bespoke finance.
The Trouble With Cheltenham
As the racing season gets underway in Britishland, I can announce with some happiness that the first major race at Cheltenham doesn’t feature the usual assortment of Train Smash Women, as the clientele (various Royals and other toffs) are Not Of That Ilk, thank goodness. Here’s a representative sample of yesterday’s Ladies Day:
And of course avid racegoer Charlotte Hawkins looked lovely, as usual:
Maybe the shivery wet weather kept the ladies in check, who knows? And speaking checks, here’s Princess Anne’s daughter Zara (who, as a former Olympic equestrienne medallist probably knows more about horses than any other woman at the course):
But for those Readers who like me are impatient to see the Train Smash Brigade, never fear: Liverpool’s Aintree will be taking place in a couple week’s time…
Gratuitous Gun Pic: Browning Gold Hunter 20ga
I hardly ever talk about the coronavirus, and I’m heartily sick of the topic. So here’s a pic of a gun that the idiots at Browning decided not to continue producing, the semi-automatic Browning Gold Hunter:
Connie had one of these until her health problems curtailed her shooting activities, and so I sold the thing (because I’m a bigger idiot than Browning). I’ve regretted doing that ever since.
I loved this gun. It had almost no recoil — certainly much less than my own Browning Sweet 16 — and many’s the day we spent shooting at clays, golf balls and hippies actual watermelons with it. Randy Wakeman feels the same as I do:
The [Gold Hunter] 20 gauge, in particular, is just an amazingly soft shooter. Not a flyweight in standard configuration, with 7/8 oz. dove loads the recoil is exceedingly mild; you can barely feel the gun working.
He has a gripe about the Gold Hunter’s trigger, but ours was light and smooth as silk.
I have to say that if ever I stumble across one at a gun show in good condition and at a reasonable price, it’s going to come home with me faster than Carol Vorderman, seen here in RealTree camo.
(That’s called a “twofer” — Gold Hunter + Carol — by the way. Anything to forget about the Wuhan Virus.)
Whoopee
Inexplicable
Certain things in life cannot be explained, e.g.:
…and this:
…how this doofus ever became famous:
…and why people continue to believe that government-made levees won’t fail:
But in that set of of inexplicable things, this headline tops all of them:
Here’s what I don’t understand: how the hell did this story ever get out?
Did the hairdresser brag about her feat on Faecesbook? Were the hairdresser’s customers alerted to this man’s predicament by his muffled screams, and called the cops?
OR: did this helpless victim get free (either by being released by his captor, or somehow breaking free by his own efforts)… and then complain about it to the cops? What kind of man would do that?
And (if the newspaper account of this escapade is to be believed) even as the former were the case, why did the cops take him seriously?
Now if the hairdresser looked like this, then maybe I could understand it better.
…but once again, if the article is to be believed, she wasn’t that bad-looking (with the “Russian caveat”* in effect).
So… did this helpless sex slave think he was going to get his own back on her (so to speak) by shopping her to the cops? If so, that worked out really well for him, as he was tossed into jail for the action which got him into this predicament in the first place, and where he was likely to be raped again, only by men and without the after-sex reward of food, money and a pair of jeans.
Like I said: inexplicable.
*the Russian caveat: not all young Russian women look like worn-out Moscow street prostitutes, but it’s the safe way to bet.