Author: Kim du Toit

Stuff

Good Stuff

This Daily Mail  story caught my attention:

With most of us confused about when or if Brexit will actually happen, one woman told This Morning hosts Ruth and Eamonn today that she wasn’t frightened by the prospect of a Halloween Brexit.
Jen McEnhill, 36, from Stoke Newington, north London, said she wasn’t concerned as she’s stockpiled food and toiletries to see her through for six months, just in case there are important shortages when Britain eventually leaves the European Union.

I understand exactly how she feels, because I’ve had to do without in the past, and I don’t like it.

I’ve been poor several times during my lifetime.  When I was much younger, I lived in my VW panel van for a couple of months as I drove around looking for jobs, and even as I got older, there were times when the decision had to be made whether to pay this bill OR that bill.  We’ve all been there, I suppose, but the lasting effect on me is that I suffer from what’s called “shortage panic” — which is why I always have an overstocked pantry, why I buy in bulk rather than in the more cash flow-friendly smaller pack sizes, and so on.  I have far more clothes than I need — if I find a particular brand / type of shirt, for example, I’ll go back and buy half a dozen of them, using one at a time and replacing it only when it starts falling apart.

I seldom let my car’s gas tank drop much below half-full — and I did this long before I started driving for Uber, by the way.

This shortage panic is why I have a shitload of ammunition stored in Ye Olde Ammoe Locquer, and it’s also why I advised people to start stockpiling food items in case the current Midwest floods should cause shortages in basic foodstuffs over the next year or so.

This condition, by the way, is common among Depression-era folks, less common among Baby Boomers, and (it seems) non-existent among the post-Boomer generations.

Am I the only one who has this problem?

Another Veteran Passes From View

The Gun Thing

…well, in the opinion of this bloke at NRAHunting, anyway:

No matter what happens tomorrow, next year or even a decade from now, the .30-06 Springfield will be regarded as one of the best centerfire rifle cartridges of all time. Adopted by the U.S. military in 1906, it was originally loaded with a 150-grain bullet, with a muzzle velocity of 2700 fps. With a 100-yard zero it would drop less than 16 inches at 300 yards and deliver 1,435 ft.-lbs. of energy on target.
These were impressive ballistics for 113 years ago, and in reality, they still are. Jeff Cooper thought it adequate for general-purpose rifle work, and it proved more than capable for Stewart Edward White and Theodore Roosevelt in Africa. Since then, it has admirably served soldiers and hunters all over the world.
Even so, the .30-06 is dying. In fact, it has been dying for almost 100 years.

And Richard Mann then fingers the cartridges which are responsible.

I confess myself to be agnostic on the .30-06 cartridge, having grown up instead with its Euro-equivalent, the 8x57mm Mauser.  And I’ve seen the 8×57 likewise eclipsed, but not by newer cartridges which outperform the Kaiser’s cartridge ballistically.  Instead, as for the .30-06, it was replaced by shooters who preferred other, lighter-recoiling cartridges like the 6.5x55mm Swede as well as the “newcomers” like the .308 Win and so on.

And for the record, it may be a while before I shoot the 6.5 Creedmoor:  not because I dislike new cartridges (although I often do), but because the 6.5 Swede still does it all for me and I see little reason to change.

Which, come to think about it, may well be why many of my Readers (who are often as curmudgeonly and conservative as I) will cling bitterly to their trusted .30-06 Springfield rifles.  And I see nothing at all wrong with that.

U.S. Not There

Travels

Here’s a list of the world’s major international airports, voted on and ranked by over thirteen million travelers on a combination of (among others) amenities, cleanliness, shopping, ease of movement, and passenger treatment:

1. Singapore Changi Airport
2. Tokyo International Airport (Haneda)
3. Incheon International Airport
4. Hamad International Airport (Doha)
5. Hong Kong International Airport
6. Central Japan International Airport
*7. Munich Airport
*8. London Heathrow Airport
9. Narita International Airport
*10. Zurich Airport

11. Kansai
*12. Frankfurt
13. Taiwan Taoyuan
*14. Amsterdam Schiphol
15. Copenhagen
16. Shanghai Hongqiao
*17. Vancouver
18. Brisbane
*19. Vienna
20. Helsinki-Vantaa

21. Sydney
*22. Cape Town
23. Melbourne
24. Dubai
25. Cologne / Bonn
26. London City
27. Auckland
28. Hamburg
*29. Durban
*30. Paris Charles De Gaulle

31. Dusseldorf
*32. Denver
*33. Johannesburg
34. Seoul Gimpo
35. Madrid Barajas
*36. Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson
*37. Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky
*38. Houston George Bush
39. Guangzhou
40. Jakarta

41. Haikou Meilan
42. Athens
43. Barcelona
44. Xi’an
45. Gold Coast
46. Bangkok Suvarnabhumi
47. Lima
*48. San Francisco
49. Quito
50. Toronto Pearson

51. Christchurch
52. Perth
53. Bogota
54. Kuala Lumpur
*55. London Gatwick
*56. Dallas/Fort Worth
*57. Seattle-Tacoma
58. Baku
59. Delhi
*60. Lisbon
61. Muscat
*62. Montréal
63. Moscow Sheremetyevo
64. Mumbai
65. Shenzhen
66. Hyderabad
67. Fukuoka
68. Guayaquil
*69. Bangalore
70. Oslo
*71. Los Angeles
72. Beijing Capital
73. Stockholm Arlanda
*74. New York JFK
75. Chengdu
76. Adelaide
*77. Minneapolis St.Paul
*78. Phoenix
79. Porto
80. Moscow Domodedovo
*81. Boston Logan
*82. Rome Fiumicino
83. Malta
84. Dublin
*85. Houston Hobby
86. Hanoi Noi Bai
87. Abu Dhabi
88. Bahrain
89. Budapest
90. Halifax
91. Warsaw
*92. Detroit Metropolitan
*93. Nice
94. Mauritius
95. Luxembourg
*96. Chicago O’Hare
97. Prague
98. Birmingham
99. Changsha
100. Billund

Source: Skytrax World Airport Awards (and asterisks indicate that I’ve been through them myself, some admittedly a while back)

Some comments:

  1. I’m told that anyone who has been through the top 10 airports with any frequency (e.g. Mr. Free Market) will be unsurprised by those rankings. I’m only surprised by Munich’s #7 ranking — I found it quite ordinary, but it’s been over a decade since I was there so maybe it’s improved.
  2. Excluding JFK, most of the U.S. “international” airports aren’t really that — they handle way more domestic- than international flights, so they’re light on amenities and shopping (compared to Heathrow and Singapore, for example, where international flights comprise probably 90% of the total and long waits for connecting flights are the norm).
  3. The numbers are not weighted by airport size or traffic, which is why some of the Third World airports (e.g. India’s) are ranked where they are.
  4. I’m amazed that JFK is ranked as high as it is.  For all its pretensions to being a world-class city, New York’s Kennedy and LaGuardia are Third World airports — in fact, they’re worse than that — and not one person I’ve ever spoken to (including New Yorkers) has ever taken issue with me on that comment.
  5. Unless Bangalore has been rebuilt since I’ve been there, I cannot believe its ranking.  Ditto Johannesburg’s O.R. Tambo, which is a nightmare, and Charles De Gaulle in Paris.  All of these have set some kind of record for staff indifference to passengers’ needs.

“Flight Shame”

Travels

Add another one to the “frightening the neighbors with sudden roars of laughter” category:

Saddled with long dark winters at home, Swedes have for decades been frequent flyers seeking out sunnier climes, but a growing number are changing their ways because of air travel’s impact on the climate.
“Flygskam”, or flight shame, has become a buzz word referring to feeling guilt over the environmental effects of flying, contributing to a trend that has more and more Swedes, mainly young, opting to travel by train to ease their conscience.
Spearheading the movement for trains-over-planes is Sweden’s own Greta Thunberg, the 16-year-old climate school striker who refuses to fly, travelling by rail to the World Economic Forum in Davos and the climate summit in Katowice, Poland.

Well, isn’t that just too precious.  Of course, the Swedes can afford to do this because their poxy country is no more than a few miles from everywhere in Yurp, and they can indulge their foolishness accordingly.

I think we should help them out by banning all Swedish passport holders from entering the United States by air.  (And by ground if they landed in Canada or Mexico first, to try to get round the ban.)

All aboard the Stockholm–New York Express…

Outta My Wheelhouse

Drive Time

Well, I got dragged into the Clickbait Matrix the other day, and ended up at 30 Greatest American Sports Cars.  I know a great deal about sports cars — especially those of yesteryear, and as I’ve written before, I love them.

But honestly, I know close to diddly about American  sports cars.  I mean, sure, there’s the ’67 Ford Mustang, the various Thunderbirds and Corvettes and so on, but to be frank, on the above list (and to nobody’s surprise, probably), the only two models I would consider owning would be the Duesenberg and the Stutz Bearcat — and of the two, I’d only consider the Bearcat as a true sports car (the Doozy’s a touring  car, and if I were to dump the Doozy as a non-sports car, I’d go with the AC Cobra, reluctantly).  And among the others, they’re akin to muscle cars* or even supercars (e.g. the Vector).

So, O My Readers: enlighten me about this so-called “Top 30” list.  Is it a valid one, or just a load of crap?  Are there other “real” American sports cars which have been missed?  The floor (via Comments) is yours.

*The list which follows the “30 Top Sports Cars” is the 25 Top Muscle Cars.  I confess myself to be confused.  The one after that  is Classic Cars;  them, I know about.

And The Last One Falls

Bad News, Conservatism, Men & Women, Sports

As any fule kno, I hate change, especially change which won’t necessarily improve anything.  I also hate it when “change” is replaced by a euphemism such as “overhaul” — because “overhaul” to me means improving something or, at worst, restoring it to its original form or function after neglect.  Imagine then my disgust at this development:

Overhaul of Augusta National ahead of the Masters is sign of the times as golf seeks to be the ultimate family sport

  • Historic occasion for women’s golf on Saturday with first amateur Augusta event
  • It was the turn of some of America’s best juniors to play the course on Sunday
  • The club where nothing changed for decades is undergoing huge transformation

…and all the dreadful details are included in the link above.  Several comments come to mind immediately.

Unless the something that has been going on for decades is genocide, institutionalized child molestation or South African-style apartheid, there’s no need to change anything.  What has gone on for decades at Augusta National GC is a policy of men-only membership (only recently relaxed [spit] ) and a culture which creates a male enclave — and only to the most fevered feminist could this equate to the three horrors above.  I know, wimmens are going to say, “It’s not that important;  why are you making such a fuss?” to which my response is: “If it’s not  that important, then why the fuck  are you trying to change it?”  I’ve written about men-only places before, and the benefits of such places where men can be unholy assholes without some woman or girly-man taking offense at their language / behavior.  It’s a safety-valve  for such activity, and I for one miss it terribly.  I see nothing wrong with gender-specific institutions, whether female-only universities or, like Augusta, male-only golf clubs.  (Don’t even get me started  on military schools.)

So:  why allow women to play at Augusta, when there are thousands upon thousands of other golf courses for them to play at?  Pure symbolism, is why.  (And I’ll bet these Amazon golferettes didn’t play off the back tees, either.)

Then there’s this crap about golf as the “ultimate family sport”?  What the fuck is that all about?  Let’s be honest:  golf has always been a male preserve, except for the many lesbians who participate in the women’s tour and for the wives of male club-members who need to take a full day out of the week for a “Ladies Day” to get together and fuck around  — don’t get me started on the double standard involved with that.  (The truth of the matter is that male golfers prefer  a Ladies Day because women play too slowly and pathetically, and it beats having to wait for twenty minutes per hole while Agnes, Pookie and Frances each take four or five shots to reach a green easily reachable in two by a pre-adolescent boy golfer.)  And how can golf be the “ultimate family sport” when it bores everyone but the golfers involved to tears?

And Augusta’s decided to go along with this bullshit?  Why?  The Masters is already one of the most popular sporting events on TV, it’s already regarded as the world championship of golf by all golfers, and if even one of the tournament’s big sponsors decided to quit because feminism, other equally-large sponsors would get into fistfights to be their replacement.  (The Masters allows for only a few sponsors and severely-limited advertising time, which is probably a prime reason why it’s so popular.)  In other words, Augusta and The Masters are dealing from a position of strength, here, and — let me be quite blunt about this — they have no need to change anything.

But they’re going to, and that’s the pity of it.  And if Augusta goes, what chance do any of the other men-only clubs have of continuing?

It’s enough to make a man have a double for his morning gin.