Author: Kim du Toit

Now Multiply That By A Million

Business, Gummint

I saw this little story via Insty, and it made me not just sad, but furious.  Read it first.

They didn’t lose a fortune, because they never had the opportunity to earn one. Nothing happened. There they sit. And there they’ll stay.

And that’s where the writer is wrong.  You see, economists and accountants have a terms for this phenomenon, and it’s called “opportunity cost” — in other words, the financial cost of a lost opportunity.  Because when people open up their own business and it’s even moderately successful, they have to hire other people to work for them.  Those workers in turn become successful, and pay taxes, and perhaps use the learning to open their own businesses.

The aggregate opportunity cost of this ripple effect, just for this little case study, is potentially millions of dollars.  The Toni & Guy chain of hair salons started in precisely this fashion with a single outlet in the 1960s, as did the JiffyLube chain, back in 1979 — and I chose these two businesses deliberately, because those are the two types of business that the above story deals with.  Who’s to say that Kaitlyn and her husband wouldn’t have had a success story similar to Tony&Guy and JiffyLube?  But we’ll never know, will we, because the heavy hand of government regulation reached into their lives and killed their adventure before it could get started.

So when Donald Trump’s first action as POTUS was to decree that all government departments had to delete multiple regulations for every new one they wanted to promulgate, it was to free people to get going with their businesses and dreams.

Lest we forget, the fucking Democrats are the party of massive regulation and government intrusiveness — and remember that if you’re toying with a “protest” vote against Trump (or a quixotic vote for a third-party no-hoper) in the mid-term elections later this year.  (If you’re a lifetime Democrat voter and want socialism, then you’re at the wrong website and, if I may say, in the wrong country.)

It’s all very well for the economy to grow when manufacturing opens new plants and what have you (which is what Trump has also been making happen) — but that growth is finite.  Individuals starting their own businesses and becoming successful isn’t finite:  that is where America is at its strongest, and that is what will create true economic success for the whole country.  And Donald Trump understands this, and because of it he deserves our unflagging support, if for no other reason.

Always A Choice

The Gun Thing

Tami talks about snub-nosed revolvers and the joys thereof in the carrying of them.  Here’s a snippet:

The point Werner (the trainer) hammered home most was that accurate shooting is crucial. My 432PD holds six rounds, and the far more typical .38 Spl./.357 Mag. has but five. Ammunition management is important; you need to make good hits.
Werner emphasized the importance of getting a good sight picture and using ammunition that shoots to your gun’s point-of-aim.

Amen and amen, and I say again:  amen.

When I’m not carrying my 1911 (which is only about 20 percent of the time), I carry my S&W Airweight in its Milt Rosen holster, loaded with Hornady Critical Defense .38 Special +P (which the gun loves with a passion):

      

Over the many years I’ve owned both guns, I’ve fired more practice rounds through the 1911, but I’ve practiced far more often with the Smith — while I practice quite a bit with the 1911, I always shoot at least fifteen rounds with the 637 at every  range session, regardless of whatever other guns I’ve brought with me for the day.  Why?  The little Airweight .38Spl is far more difficult to shoot accurately than the Government .45ACP.

And in the much-lamented absence of the .357 Mod 65 in my collection, the 637 serves as my interim bedside gun.  In a bedroom SHTF scenario, you don’t want to be trying to remember how to align the sights and when the double-action trigger will let off.

Tami says it, and I repeat the advice:  if you carry a snubbie, practice shooting it more than you think you need to.

Africa Wins Again

Africa

News Roundup From Africa:

…and one lucky escapee from the African fate:

Read the full stories by all means, but if yer pressed for time, the headlines will suffice.

Then And Now

Men & Women, Sports

In days of old, when footballers were simple sportsmen and not the millionaire malcontents they are today, their WAGs (wives and girlfriends) were likewise a completely different sort to their modern-day counterparts.

You see, dating or being married to a footballer carried no special cachet back then — even if the footballer was famous or especially talented, the salaries were modest even by standards of the time.  So if one sees photos of, say, the WAGs of the English team which won the World Cup in 1966, they look like… well, like ordinary housewives:

Nowadays, of course, footballers are paid astronomical sums of money, and consequently they attract, shall we say, a different kind of woman (as seen by a companion pic of England’s 2018 national team’s WAGs):

I’m not saying that there’s anything wrong with this situation — women have always been attracted to famous and wealthy men — it’s just that nowadays, the rich and famous men have a lot more choices, and therefore the quality of the goods on offer has improved.

Although I have to say that “quality”, if applied to the 2018 WAGs, is a polite euphemism.  To me, most of them look like they’re off to the docks  to work Fleet Week.  But that’s just another factoid which helps answer the question: “Why do men play professional football?”

Only Just Good Enough

Crime, Righteous Shootings

My only quibble with this story is that the goblin wasn’t dead at the end of it.

An employee of a gas station in the 200 block of West Camp Wisdom Road, near the border with Duncanville, alerted the mother about 10 p.m. that a man was trying to get into her SUV.
She jumped into the vehicle. When the man didn’t stop, she pulled a gun from the glove box and shot him in the head, police said.
The vehicle then crashed into a utility pole.

So far, so good.  But the goblin didn’t croak, because:

“I should have just have emptied the whole clip but I didn’t. I didn’t. I just wanted to give him a warning shot that was it.”

I can’t criticize Our Heroine too much, because she stopped the danger to her kids, and that’s all that matters.  However, I just hope that the thing ends here, with the choirboy in jail for a long time — too long to come after the woman when he gets out, or too old to try this again with someone else.

Sometimes, you see, it’s better to end the thing properly, even if you aren’t a killer.

Buh-Bye

Drive Time

It would appear that you won’t be seeing any of these cars after the end of the year (not in new-car showrooms, that is).

None of the deletions are particularly shocking — they’re either dated or else never caught on, for whatever reason.

The only one I feel sorry about is the SmartForTwo, and that only for sentimental reasons:  had I continued to live in downtown Chicago, there is absolutely no question that I would have bought one, for its parking advantages if no other.

I know that a couple of you will pine for the Dodge Viper — Jeremy Clarkson, for one, will no doubt go into mourning — but while a lot of people may have liked the Viper, it was never enough for them to actually buy one.  Ditto the Chevy (Holden) SS.  Hence their passing.

As for the other 14 cars on the list… [shrug].  Ugly, dated, boring and superfluous:  it’s frankly amazing that they lasted as long as they did.  And the less said about the execrable Mercedes B-class (“no-class”, actually), the better.