Author: Kim du Toit

Fudging The Numbers

Lies and Untruths, Numbers & Statistics

Oops. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has been caught with its dirty little fingers in the fudge drawer… again.

NOAA has been cooking the books. Yet again – presumably for reasons more to do with ideology than meteorology – NOAA has adjusted past temperatures to look colder than they were and recent temperatures to look warmer than they were.
We’re not talking fractions of a degree, here. The adjustments amount to a whopping 3.1 degrees F. This takes us well beyond the regions of error margins or innocent mistakes and deep into the realm of fiction and political propaganda.

This all started when some smart guy looked at the raw data covering the recent polar vortex storms in the Northeastern United States, and found the disparity as noted above. The data had been “smoothed” (weasel statistician word meaning “altered”) and guess in which direction? Why, to support the Glueball Wormening narrative, of course.

And by the way: you know how the Arctic ice cap is at its lowest level in history? Ummm not so.

And you know how it never snows in Rome? Also not so. And Naples?

And you know how The Independent said that British children will grow up never having seen snow? Not this generation, anyway.

Enjoy the read.

Worthy Cause

Patriotism, The Gun Thing

Longtime Readers may remember that the Son&Heir once belonged to a shooting club here in Dallas known as the Shooting Stars, doing air pistol, air rifle and free (.22LR) pistol disciplines. For a tiny club, their output has been impressive. When the Son&Heir was a member (he’s now emeritus):

  • Greg Markowski just missed representing the U.S.A. at the 2010 Olympics (ranked 5th, but they only took the top 3) — he started at the Stars, and was recruited into the U.S. Army Marksmanship Unit, then got a place on TeamUSA, going on to several World Cup competitions
  • Taylor Gallegos was a several-times Air Pistol Champion, has been on three national teams in Air Pistol, went to the World Cup in Munich and to others since
  • Mindy Miles won collegiate championships in Air Rifle, and is now on the Texas Christian University (TCU) Women’s Air Rifle team, which is rated as the top women’s air rifle team in the world
  • and of course, there was the Son&Heir himself, who was several-times the Texas Junior State Champ in Air Pistol and Free Pistol, and made TeamUSA’s development (farm) team. Like Markowski, he missed the London Olympics despite being in the top 10 rankings.

So: the Shooting Stars need some equipment, i.e. some of the electronic targets that are used in airgun competition, which are especially needed as the club often hosts the state championships. They are looking for some angels to help them out.

That would be you lot. Once again, this is not a bunch of goofballs; they’re a serious outfit who have contributed much to the shooting sports in Texas as well as nationally and internationally. Here’s their website (check out their recent achievements, good grief!), and follow the link to their GoFundMe appeal. 

With all the nonsense that’s being thrown at us shooters these days, this is a worthy cause. I’ve sprung for $100; I just wish I could do more.

Please join me in helping them out.

Black Just Doesn’t Work

Drive Time

This is not a post about rayyycism.

Had the Tiguan in for a major (30k) service yesterday, and on the way out of the dealership I drove past the usual couple miles of new VWs waiting to be sold. Then something caught my eye and I made a double U-turn, then repeated the trip.

At a rough estimate, well over half the new cars were black. In North Texas. Where in summer (May 1 to November 15) you can see lizards cooking on the sidewalks, tar melting in the streets, people grilling steaks on the hoods of their cars, and where 100-degree days beget 95-degree nights. Where diving into a swimming pool means not cooling down but just getting wet because the water temperature is so close to blood temperature as makes no difference.

So I ask you all, with tears in my eyes: WTF is it with all these black cars? Don’t people know that black draws in sunlight and makes things hotter? Was everyone asleep in Science class that day when you put a cube of ice on a piece of white paper and an identical cube on a piece of black paper and watched as the latter melted in about half the time in the sunlight as the other?

Take a look at this Escalade:

In North Texas, the inside temperature in that beast is going to reach “broil” in about twenty minutes — and “let’s melt some steel” in another twenty.

When I first arrived in Texas (Austin, to be precise) I rented a car for the first month I was here before buying one for myself. The rental was a black Camaro, and (coming from a guy who’d lived in Africa) I couldn’t get into the thing during the day without first opening the door, reaching inside quickly to start the thing and turn the a/c on (just that simple action raising a torrent of sweat on my face), then scuttling back inside the air-conditioned apartment to wait about ten minutes. By doing that, re-entry into the Camaro would become simply unpleasant as opposed to intolerable. (Also, the 1985 Camaro had that giant rear window which helped turn the thing into a mobile sunroom.)

I’ve never owned a black car since. Even my wine-colored previous Tiguan was lousy in the sun, which is why Tiggy II is snow-white — and all my future cars will be white as well.

I can understand (sorta) why someone who owns a big Mercedes, BMW or similar “executive” car might choose black — some pretensions to class or grandeur, I suppose — but not in Texas. It’s just stupid.

And Another Thing

Gratuitous Gun Pics, The Gun Thing

Mostly in reaction to all this “Boo-hoo!” / “guns are eeeevil” / “let’s ban all guns” / “think of the chilluns” bullshit from the Usual Suspects (GFWs, Commies, Leftists, academics, journalists, intellectuals and other assorted filth, you know who they are), I’d like to make an announcement:

The Gratuitous Gun Pics feature will soon reappear on these pages.

It’s a moral imperative. Here’s an appetizer, taken from a range session I had with Mr. Free Market at TDSA several years ago:

The funny thing about this pic is that all those guns supposedly came from my personal collection at the time, but I have absolutely no idea how the little SIG .22 Mosquito (top left) got there; I don’t remember buying one (I’ve never owned a SIG of any description), and it’s no longer in Ye Olde Gunne Sayfe either, so it’s a complete mystery. Also, for those interested: the Ruger Blackhawk (top center) was chambered in .30 Carbine.

And I would kill to get the stainless S&W Mod 65 back (third from bottom). If the current owner sees this post, send me an email, willya?

#FuckYouGunFearingWussies

Pussification Parade, The Gun Thing, Two-Minute Hate

So it looks as though a whole bunch of companies are running away like little girls from being affiliated with the National Rifle Association. Well, screw them all, the gutless pussies; it’s nice to have the discounts and such, but I can live without them.

What I can’t live without is my guns, which these pussified corporations seem to want to deprive me of, or at least they don’t want to associate themselves with the gun owners’ representative organization because they’re afraid of GFW pressure or something. Well, assholes, it cuts both ways.

Which is why I rejoined the NRA last Friday, after a long absence (explanation some other time).

And I don’t have too much to do with most of the companies on the list — but starting immediately, I won’t be renting cars from Avis, Dollar, Budget, Enterprise, Alamo, or National anymore (I kissed good-bye to Hertz over a decade ago, after being a #1 Gold cardholder for most of my corporate life, because they fucked me on an insurance claim). Looks like my future business will have to go to Ace, as they aren’t part of the Hertz / Avis / Enterprise oligopoly.

And if you’re moving house, you may want to strike North American Van Lines and Allied Van Lines from your list.

Here’s a comprehensive list of these corporate assholes, for your consideration. (Note the Wyndham Hotel group and all its subsidiaries — sheesh, if ever there’s a cogent antitrust argument against mergers and takeovers, this is it.)

Now, before I do anything stupid: I see that Symantec (Norton Anti-Virus) has joined The Movement [/Casablanca]. Anyone have any thoughts on replacing them with McAfee or some other (non-Russian) security system? All experiences and / or recommendations are welcome.

And as for First National Bank of Omaha: a big fat hearty “FUCK YOU”, you pissant Midwest moneylenders. (I don’t have one of their credit cards or a banking account with them, but now the likelihood of me ever applying for either of them is a stone-cold zero.)

I don’t fly United or Delta anyway because they’re even bigger assholes than American. But they’ll have to have the cheapest fares, and I mean by a LONG way, before I’ll consider using them again. (Yeah, I can be bought — but my sellout is tempered by the fact that they wouldn’t be making any profit off a severely-discounted fare.)

And the AARP is never going to see my business either, because they too are a bunch of insurance-peddling hoplophobes. This, too.

I’m not going to tell you folks how to live your lives. But this is my response to all this emotional GFW nonsense. Gun-owners’ boycotts might not hurt these corporate cocksuckers too much — there are over one hundred million of us, which in the normal course of events would surely give some cause for alarm, but clearly not — but I sure as hell am not going to support these corporate cowards by giving them any of my business.

So join me, if you wish. Oh, and speaking of joining: should you too want to join / rejoin the NRA as a protest too, there’s a handy little link over on the right in my blogroll. This would be as good a time as any.

One last thought:  it’s not like I need any more, but in the very near future I’m going to dedicate some of my meager earnings towards buying myself a new semi-auto rifle — maybe even an(other) “assault-rifle” type, just because all these pricks want to ban them. Details to follow.

Lastly, from Tami Keel:

If they only knew…

Sophisticated Comedy

Entertainment

Reader Harry F. writes:

“In your rant about horrible modern movies, you mention the ‘sophisticated comedies’ of Ernst Lubitsch and Billy Wilder. Can you suggest some for me to watch? (I want recommendations because if they’re that good, I’d rather buy the DVD, but if I’m going to buy them, I don’t want to risk getting a dud.)”

Okay… no pressure there. Before I go any further, though I’d like to set some parameters first.

In the traditional sense, “comedy” is not just that scenario which which makes you laugh out loud (although, of course, it can). Mostly, comedy involves situations that are not thrilling or dangerous, or even life-threatening. The best example of comedy writing, by the way, is that of the various P.G. Wodehouse stories, which place its characters into situations that seem ridiculous to the reader, but which are taken very seriously by the characters themselves — which is part of the comedy.

If you think of comedy as amusing, therefore, then most of what follows will make more sense.

But while I’m going there, let’s broaden the scope of movie comedy to beyond Lubitsch and Wilder, and include others just as good or better. I’m going to confine myself mostly to the b&w movies, because nowadays everybody seems to have their favorite color movie comedies*, and the oldies need to get their due. (Note that I’m leaving out comedies like those of the Marx Brothers and Chaplin, because everybody knows about them and in any case, their comedy is often too broad for my taste. I’m also going to leave out the better-known comedies of the era like the Astaire/Rogers movies, because everyone knows them — and if you don’t, this would be the time to remedy that shameful omission).

If you want a better idea of my suggested movies’ plots, look them up on Wikipedia or IMDB. Here goes.

The Lady Eve (Preston Sturges, 1941) starring Henry Fonda and Barbara Stanwyck — quite possibly the greatest comedy ever filmed. I cannot count how many times I’ve watched this movie, and every time I get the same enjoyment that I did from the very first viewing.

If you get your hands on no others of my recommendations, get this one.

Trouble in Paradise (Ernst Lubitsch, 1932) starring Kay Francis and Miriam Hopkins — each of the ladies has impeccable comic timing and the pre-Hays Office repartee is wonderfully saucy.

Love In The Afternoon (Billy Wilder, 1957) starring Gary Cooper and Audrey Hepburn — the ending had to be rewritten because the Hays Office thought the original was immoral. ‘Nuff said.

And it’s much better than Wilder’s most famous comedy, Some Like It Hot.

A Royal Scandal (Ernst Lubitsch, 1945) starring Tallulah Bankhead and Anne Baxter — Catherine The Great’s love life, as portrayed by Tallulah. Word is that the best scenes involved Ms. Bankhead’s improv of the dialogue, the language bluer than the Pacific Ocean. Had it been filmed in 1932, it would have fitted in with today’s movies. Because it was filmed in 1945, though, the improvised dialogue was all cut out. Still funny, though, because Lubitsch.

Bluebeard’s Eighth Wife (Ernst Lubitsch, 1935) starring Gary Cooper and Claudette Colbert — serial marriages, divorce, alimony and mistaken identity, oh my. How I love this movie.

Bachelor Mother (Garson Kanin, 1939) starring Ginger Rogers and David Niven — Ginger in a non-dancing role, and Niven at his not-so imperturbable best. Viewed in contemporary terms, the plot is ridiculous; back then, it was very serious — which is why it gets the comedy treatment.

All these are just the ones which come to mind first; I’ll post more later as I think of them.

And next weekend there’s going to be a spinoff from this post, brought to mind by some of the pictures.

*Blazing Saddles is not a comedy, it’s a farce — in so many ways.