January 2024 – Page 8 – Splendid Isolation

Take Your Pick

January 20, 2024 Kim du Toit Drive Time

Jeremy Clarkson, who knows a thing or two about these things, once suggested that the only reason you should buy a car is how it makes you feel when you walk into your garage in the morning. If it causes feelings of pride, vanity or even a slight protuberance in the trousers, then that’s the car you should get instead of that Honda Civic or Toyota Camry.

As ~~threatened~~ promised earlier in the week, today we are going to take a look at Sotheby’s 2024 Arizona auction catalogue.

Your job, should you choose to accept it, is to pick the top five (and only the Top 5) that would give you the above-mentioned feelings if you were to walk into your five-car garage in the morning for the purpose of selecting the car that you were going to drive that day. (And if you’re perfectly happy with your 1995 Chevy C-10 pickup and can’t imagine wanting one of these, feel free not to share that with us.)

As I said earlier in the week, please ignore the prices because they’re just suggestions — some or most of which may turn out to be hopelessly unrealistic come next Thursday’s auction.

I would recommend that you spend some time looking at the descriptions for each of the cars offered, because (as I discovered) your choices may well be influenced thereby.

What I’m looking for is a feeling of desire, and not investment. Please rank your choices, therefore, in order of desirability; and feel free to add the purpose of your drive that day (hot date, cross-country trip, visiting family, getting groceries, whatever).

My Top 5 are listed below the fold.

Master

January 19, 2024 Kim du Toit Movies, Sports

If you’ve got nothing special to do for a couple of hours this evening, take a look at Ronnie O’Sullivan, yet again wearing his opponent down by sheer persistence and peerless skill, even though down by three frames at the beginning of the video.

What’s amazing is that Ronnie was not at his best and it showed in a couple of careless misses, but even against an opponent who was the class of the field all week (scored more centuries than anyone ever has), the Rocket just held on and battered away, becoming the oldest Masters winner ever. And that with an elbow injury so severe he couldn’t raise the trophy afterwards, needing his kids to do it for him.

Pure magic.

If you want to do the marathon, here’s the whole match. Watch it over three days, like I did. (Of course, it’s been colder than the Witch of Endor’s tits this week, so I had little else to do. YMMV.)

Today’s Earworm

January 19, 2024 Kim du Toit Music

The best version of this song, ever.

Gotta Be A Good Thing, Then

January 19, 2024 Kim du Toit Business, Journalist Scum

Whenever the Left goes all Hair On Fire, that generally means good things are happening. Take this little bit of news, for example:

After it was announced Monday that local businessman and Sinclair Broadcasting Group executive Chairman David Smith had rescued The Sun with plans to revitalize it to a robust status, the left is apoplectic.

Why? Sinclair, the local news behemoth Smith runs, has been accused for years of tilting right. Based on the hissy fits pitched by the AP, the Baltimore Banner (an online site started after the Alden purchase), CNN, The New York Times, and The Washington Post, it seems like journalists would rather the paper die all together than be run by someone who’s not a leftist.

Well, duh; if the Left can’t control something, they try to destroy it (see: Donald Trump).

And if, Lenin forbid, that change may tend towards conservatism, the screaming will ratchet up exponentially.

And so it happened in this case.

CNN reacted the way you’d expect. Oliver Darcy, their deranged liberal media hall monitor, whined in his media newsletter that it’s a “deal that has set off alarm bells” since Smith’s local stations around the country “has previously inserted right-wing editorial segments into its local news broadcasts.”

Writing on Threads and X, NPR media writer and former Sun reporter David Folkenflik huffed that “Smith was dismissive of the Sun’s journalism” and “deflected questions about his own political activities.”

He also seethed that “Smith has been a major funder of GOP candidates; more recently he has funded far-right outfits like Project Veritas and Turning Point USA & financed local ballot initiatives.”

Folkenflik made sure to take a swipe at Sinclair stations: “Sinclair…has pulled the news coverage and commentaries on those stations markedly to the right, ultimately becoming quite supportive of Trump.”

Oh noes… I see the End Of Democracy all over this one. That, or the End Of Civilization As We Know It.

Who knows? The Sun may even turn out to be a decent newspaper.

Either Is Good

January 19, 2024 Kim du Toit Funny Stuff, Immigration

Had to laugh at Chris Muir’s little running fantasy of his pet Texas county holding off the invaders from the south:

Drive, drop… whatever.

News Roundup

January 19, 2024 Kim du Toit Bad News

And believe it or not, ladies: it’s the truth. Unless, of course, she’s so worn out by all the work that she comes after him with a cleaver when he just asks her to make him a sammich.

In Military News:

...wait: you mean that young White men are actually wanted in today’s Army?

From the Dept. of Health:

…

...wait: don’t they want us to start eating bugs?

Things Political:

...and even fewer people care what you think about Rand Paul, you RINO loser.

And in ShowBiz News:

...key word: died. What’s next: a mass pee-in on his grave? Can you assholes leave the fucking guy alone, now that he’s beyond “manipulating” anyone?

In GlueBall Jewhate News:

...because their Arab terrorist compadres hate Israel. There: saved y’all the trouble of following the link. And speaking of terrorsymp shitheads:

...food for thought, fuckwit: Jews aren’t going to be setting off bombs in your mosque — although if they behaved like your terrorist buddies, they would.