Author: Kim du Toit

Another Possibility

Men & Women

Talking about people having extramarital affairs (and an article which discusses how younger people aren’t, while older people — Boomers, natch — are), Insty makes this comment:

On the one hand, that’s good. On the other hand, I’m slightly concerned that it has less to do with evolving morality, and more to do with declining libido.

On the gripping hand, maybe — and I speak from experience here — it’s about seeing their parents’ generation up close and concluding that all those affairs didn’t seem to make them happier, and did a lot of collateral damage.

I have a different theory, although I agree with all three of his hands’ suggestions. I think that younger married people are having fewer extramarital bonks because, quit frankly, the choices are not that great. When I see how many total fucking loons, nuts and batshit-crazy young people there are out there, it’s small wonder that a younger married couple will look at that, shudder, and decide that Hubby or Wifey are far more palatable options.

Seriously: I speak here from experience, having seen both Daughter and the Son&Heir (as well as their many friends) navigate their way through the shark-infested waters of their early- and mid-twenties, and I’m quite frankly shocked that anyone of that age managed to form a lasting relationship at all.

As for the Boomers… I believe that anyone who’s ever read anything I’ve written on the topic knows exactly how I feel about my own generation. (Cliff Notes: we’re goats.)

We’ll see, though, how it all pans out. Loons and psychopaths aside, nobody gets into a long-term relationship like a marriage thinking it’s going to fall apart, and maybe when it comes to extramarital bonking the Millennials are, as with so much of their lives, simply late bloomers.

Males Under Every Bush

Seen On Campus

No, that’s not a sexy double entendre. Apparently, some academic feministicals [redundancy alert] have decided that there are too many male-sourced citations in scholarly literature, or something like that:

In a recent academic journal article, two feminist professors claim that citing sources in scholarly articles contributes to “white heteromasculinity.” Rutgers University professor Carrie Mott and University of Waterloo professor Daniel Cockayne advance the claim in an article published last month in the Feminist Journal of Geography, but also suggest that citation can serve as “a feminist and anti-racist technology of resistance” if references are chosen with the explicit intent of promoting “those authors and voices we want to carry forward.”

Note that the second of these two feministicals is (I think) a man, ergo completely pussy-whipped into compliance with Teh Narrative. Of course, they don’t let actual, you know, facts get in their way:

The authors say that “white men tend to be cited in much higher numbers than people from other backgrounds,” but dismiss the idea that this is due to the relative preponderance of white male geographers.

And yes, the picture of Professor Mott (from Rutgers’s website, no less) should come as no surprise to anyone:

My sincerest apologies to anyone who is now unable to eat their breakfast. The other idiot’s picture will also be unsurprising:

Good grief, they’re making professors out of 12-year-olds. It’s becoming easier and easier to see why The Onion is no longer either relevant or funny, because bullshit like this and people of this ilk render satire totally irrelevant.

By the way, their final comment is really funny:

They caution, however, that this approach entails a certain risk of “basing assumptions of gender or cisnormativity on particularly gendered names.”

Speaking of cultural nominal cisnormativity (I think I got that right), I’d like to point out that the word “mott” is South African slang for a vagina.

And as an African-American with a gender-opaque first name, I can only hope that somebody leaps to cite my writings as a source, preferably when writing to professors Vag and Cockless.

 

Range Report: Mauser M12 (6.5x55mm)

The Gun Thing

Just got back from the range, where I gave the new Mauser M12 its first serious shooting. Here she is, topped with a Minox ZX5 2-10x50mm scope (with an illuminated German #4 reticle) and tipped with a moderator (a.k.a. “suppressor”):

…and for those interested in such things, the stock detail:

“Yes, yes, Kim; that’s all very well, but how does it shoot?”

First I fired a few lighter bullet weights (120 grain), just to warm up the barrel and foul it up a little. I left the sights at 1″ over center, and then got serious, using some RWS 140-grain hollowpoints:

Yikes. With only a tiny sight adjustment, I ended up getting sub-MOA (1cm) groups (with apologies for the metric nonsense, but that’s how the spotter called them) — that’s slightly less than 1/2″ groups at the 100-meter mark.

I took off the scope (via the quick-release Mauser ring system) and put it back on again — same zero, same groups. So that operation works.

Then I removed the moderator — which, by the way, I want to marry so it can have my children — and added a simple muzzle brake, just to see the difference, and popped off a couple of rounds. Much louder, same point of impact.

Mr. FM tried it out, and although the point of impact shifted (he’s a left-hander, ’nuff said), his groups were similarly sized.

He, by the way, was practicing with his Blaser R8 in .300 WinMag:

…which shall henceforth be known as the “DANE” (Death To Anything At The Naughty End) rifle.

Come to think of it, mind you: that could also be the name of my M12. Another few hundred rounds, and I’ll be really comfortable with it, although it must be said that I’m more than halfway there already. What a lovely little piece.

Here we both are, after a good cleaning:

Day By Day

Entertainment

If you guys haven’t yet given a helping hand to Chris Muir over at Day By Day, please do so. DBD isn’t a hobby for Chris, it’s his livelihood, and other than when his Dad passed away, I don’t think he’s missed a single day in well over a decade of wonderfully-creative cartooning.

Funny, conservative and sexy as all hell: DBD is one of my five daily must-reads, and in fact it’s my first read every morning. Glenn once said about some other old fart that “he’s one of the good guys”. I think Chris is one of the best.

Help the man out, please.

Prison Work

Travels

While driving through the Cotswolds last week, Mr. FM and I stopped off for lunch at a place intriguingly named, “The Old Prison”.

The cop shop was on the other side:

While eating my ham ‘n three-cheese panini sandwich in the little restaurant, my eye happened to catch sight of this commemorative sign:

Try as I may, I cannot think of a reason why this excellent form of prison work should not be introduced into our modern U.S. prisons. Think about it: it keeps the inmates busy, keeps them fit, keeps them out of mischief and, for those interested in such trivia, it’s a completely green source of energy.

And speaking of energy, here’s a quick pic of Mr. FM’s little conveyance which had carried us up into Gloucestershire:

Not very green, of course; but then again, I’m not one of those who are interested in such trivia.

Perspective, And Numbers

Politics

I read in some article in the Dead Tree Telegraph this morning about how the BritGov (thanks to the foul Tony Blair’s NuLabour governance) has been spending £4 for every £3 it collected.

Yeah, we can all do the ratio on that one. But how much more effective would it have been to use the same ratio, only with actual proportions, i.e. “The Government has been spending £400 billion for every £300 billion it collects in taxes.” Same ratio, far more effective; and if I may say, also more truthful.

I don’t wanna ask what the USGov’s ratio has been, under Urkel Obama’s stewardship.