Author: Kim du Toit

Temptation

Business, The Gun Thing

Over at Insty’s, Stephen Green commented on this little story that he couldn’t imagine going into a Levi Strauss store ever again, and I agree.

Levi Strauss announced on Tuesday it would be creating a new gun-control group with billionaire Michael Bloomberg and donating millions of dollars to a collection of established gun-control groups.

I don’t wear jeans often — in fact, I last wore them about a year ago, so I’m hardly in Levi’s target market anyway.

But that’s not the “temptation” I refer to in the headline;  this is.

A couple weeks back I gave a woman a “lyft” to the airport.  She’d just come out of the Levi Strauss store here in Plano, and as we drove off I asked her what she’d just bought there.  She said “Nothing;  actually, I work for Levi Strauss.”

For a moment I considered — really considered — whether I should act like someone from the Left would act, and terminate the ride then and there, declaring that as a member of the National Rifle Association, I refused to provide a service to an organization which supported gun control.

I didn’t do that, of course, because I’m not some virtue-signaling asshole.  What I could have done was start to talk about how much I loved guns, and shooting, just to piss her off;  but I didn’t do that either because that might have “triggered” the woman into giving me a one-star Uber rating at ride’s end, running the risk that she was a virtue-signaling asshole (she was a San Francisco native, so the odds would have been high).

As it stands, though, I’ll just have to content myself with never again buying anything associated with Levi Strauss (which would be Dockers, Signature and Denizen).

Bastards.

News Alert — Not

Entertainment

Let me see if I’ve got this straight:  you’re reporting on an industry which is peopled top-to-bottom with lowlife scum and where the amoral depravity of the performers is matched only by the greed, avarice and venality of their managers;  and when you discover that the place was basically Sodom & Gomorrah squared, you clutch your pearls and reach for the smelling salts?

Porn, sex toys, cocaine, a Rolodex of groupies and boasts about manhood size – the sordid truth about life inside Atlantic Records, the label behind Aretha and the Rolling Stones

This is like finding condoms in Bill Clinton’s wallet:  not news.  And lest we forget:  it’s not like journalism is much different, morality-wise.  What a bunch of tools.

As for the [whistle] blower:  she lived in a world of sex, drugs and rock ‘n roll for year after year, but didn’t quit.  Then she jumped a few musicians and wondered why she was treated like a spare piece of ass in the office.

Sympathy have I none.

Ten Inconvenient Facts For Liberals

Politics

The Spectator (U.S. version) lays them out in detail.

The more ambitious liberalism has become in its efforts to transform the United States, the more it has run up against one intransigent circumstance after another. For eight years, the idol worship of Barack Obama gave liberals confidence that they could remediate society and reeducate the citizens. But reality isn’t political. It doesn’t obey the principles of progressives. Some facts aren’t pliable.

Read and enjoy.  Feel free to discuss your favorite fact (if you can decide on just one) in Comments.

Spanking Time

Grammar Nazism

Back when I were a lad — this would have been just after they discovered the wheel — it was common practice for a teacher to smack your hand with a ruler each time you made a mistake in your grammar.

[pause to allow Millennial snowflakes to recover from this tale of unspeakable brutality]

So I’d like to find the person who did the copy for this sign, and whack their grubby hand three times:

The first transgression is easy:  their  for they’re  — or to be an even bigger stickler for form (and I am), “they are” because an apostrophe on a sign is a big no-no.  That said, I’ve pretty much given up on complaining about the “their” / “they’re” / “there” mistake because most people nowadays are fucking illiterate and are either too uneducated or too lazy — both are inexcusable — to bother with correct grammar.

Ditto the incorrect use of the word they for “their privacy” in the sign-off statement.   Without bothering to check, I’ll take an educated guess that the copywriter is Black because this grammar is right out of Ebonics 101.  (I may be wrong, but I doubt it.)

The third  transgression on the sign, however, is one that drives me absolutely crazy, and if offered a ruler and the offending copywriter’s hand, I would instead deliver a resounding smack to the side of the fool’s head with my open hand.

Folks, this isn’t difficult.  If you want to make sure of something (e.g. customers’ privacy as in the above), that is to “ENsure”.  If you’re going to “INsure” something, you need to call Liberty Mutual and take out a policy.  So unless an INsurance company is going to pay out money each time Wally World breaches someone’s privacy, the correct word is “ENSURE”.

And speaking of Wally World:  whoever hired the moron who wrote the copy for this sign also needs not a smack on the hand but an almighty kick in the balls.  I know that WalMart generally feeds out the bottom of the staffing barrel because they’re too stingy to pay decent wages, but that doesn’t excuse this.  Nothing can.

FFS, I need to stop reading so early in the morning:  it’s barely light outside and I need a bloody gin & tonic already.

Another RFI

Advice

This time, it’s for a cordless screwdriver, of this ilk:

Confession:  for most of my life I’ve used a variable-speed electric drill to drive screws home, because my experiences with the battery-type were universally bad.  But my Bosch drills are too cumbersome, too powerful and too heavy for furniture assembly — they’re fine for construction, less so for cabinetmaking — and as I’m about to assemble some Ikea bookcases in the near future*, I need a decent cordless screwdriver.  As always, I want to buy quality — not professional, but close to it — because if the damn thing breaks in mid-task, I will not be responsible for the rage which ensues.  Ditto if the damn battery only works for ten minutes before expiring.

All recommendations will be gratefully received.

*Don’t chide me, I have very specific dimension needs, and the Swedish joint is the only place which has suitable bookcases — believe me, I’ve looked.

Oh FFS

Pussification Parade

If ever we need to be reminded that today’s (so-called) young men are a bunch of whiny twerps, here’s additional proof (and carries an extreme barf warning). One example should suffice:

And out of all the “Best Of Bread” memes in the article, only one guy seems to have a little spunk:

But as for the rest?  Sheesh;  it is, as they say, to puke.

And now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to the range before I start growing breasts.