Author: Kim du Toit

That One Book

Literature

Onetime political prisoner Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe tells how one particular book kept her hopes up during her imprisonment in Teheran:

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has revealed how a copy of the novel The Handmaid’s Tale among other books allowed her to feel liberated while she was locked up in Iran’s notorious Evin prison.

Well, okay.  Considering how said dystopian novel is all about how a tyrannical government oppresses womyns, I guess that’s fair play (even though the actual Iranian Muslim government is far worse than Atwood’s).

But it does lead me to ask the question:  if you were to be imprisoned for six years and could have only one smuggled book to keep you going, which one would you choose to have?

Right off the bat, I’m going to exclude religious works like the Bible, because that’s too obvious (and easy) a choice, especially for my religious Readers, bless ’em.  But I will allow stuff like Thomas  Aquinas’s Summa Theologica  because they are essentially philosophical  works.

My own choice is a simple one, as much for its volume as for its complexity and erudition:

From Dawn To Decadence (Jacques Barzun)

List your choice (and remember, you get one and only one) in Comments, with reasons if possible.

Wasting Time

Elections

Whenever I read a headline like this one, it brings back memories:

What memories, you ask?

Back in the 90s, James Baker III (PBUH) was told that one of George H. Bush’s policies or campaign speeches (I forget which) was going to alienate a large number of East Coast Jews.

His immortal response?

“Fuck ’em;  they’re not going to vote for us anyway.”

And I can’t help but think that the Tories are in similar situation with young Brit voters — unless there is a “silent” bloc of Conservative youth who will vote for them and not the godless Commies of the Socialist Labour Party.

If such a bloc exists, they’re really silent, or else a tiny minority.  More likely, today’s yoot Over There can probably be written off completely, because they’re going to vote for the same foul socialism of their grandfathers of the post-WWII years.

I don’t wanna think about our young Murkin voters, although I’m fairly sure that our Red states may harbor a far larger number of right-thinking (in both senses of the word) young people.

I’m not convinced, however, that there are enough of them to overcome the many thousands of fraudulent socialist ballots that will no doubt play a huge part in the next, and future elections.

Looking Backside

Sports, Wokism

Now that the 2023 Formula 1 season has ended, Max Verstappen has been crowned King Of All Drivers, etc., some questions still remain.

Asks Onetime Drummer Knob:

Simple answer:  Liberty fucking Media.

Long answer:  Liberty fucking Media, a bunch of woketard American businessmen who bought into the trope that grid girls were “exploiting” womyns and glorifying “unnaturally beautiful” women because of the race organizers’ consistent refusal to make grid girls “more representative” of womyns by adding Lizzo-style fatties to the mix.

Imagine introducing this:

…to this:

…and I think you’ll see where I’m going, here.

So Liberty fucking Media just banned the whole institution from F1, the wokist assholes.  Which worked everywhere except Monaco, where the race organizers told them to take a hike.

Expect to see Monaco dropped from the F1 circuit at some point soon.  Oh there’ll be Reasons, e.g. “the Monaco streets are too narrow to race the new F1 cars*”, but it’s going to happen.

*The streets aren’t too narrow;  it’s the cars that have got fat and bloated.

…like Lizzo vs. the old-style grid girls.

News Roundup

Bad News

Let’s start off with some MuzzieNews:


...get used to it, fuckers.


...damn, a few pretty ones in there, too.  Amazing what losing the black sack will do for a woman.

In Global Warming Climate Cooling Change© News:


...wait:  wasn’t this supposed to have happened in 2015 already?  Oh wait:


...anyone else confused yet?  This might explain the following item:


...no wonder they lost their empire.

From the Department of Health:


...seven?  I can think of a dozen, without even trying.  See next item.


…

Time for some news of the Great Cultural Assimilation Project:


...mind you, the Irish have needed something to riot about since the Troubles ended.

Not to be confused with this lovely story:
...and if he does, the people responsible for freeing him should be jailed, or worse.


...that’s no way to talk about Mounties.


...it’s known as “The Crime Of The Century” by just about every Chicagoan.  Like substituting Burger King for Lawry’s.


...see, under the old Evil Apartheid Regime©, he’d have been dead for about nine years already.


...WTF is a dog influencer?

Time for some Nookie News:


...Rule #1 for threesomes:  don’t use cheap condoms, and nobody’ll get pregnant.


...we know, we know:  if you’re a guy, it withers and drops off;  and if you’re a chick, it grows closed.  Doesn’t everybody know this?

And now, it’s time for INSIGNIFICA:

...sheesh, Ozzy;  I’m pretty sure your sex has been well-driven by now.

Finally, there was some unimportant awards show in Britishland, and was attended by the Usual Sluts & Harlots:


Salma wasn’t there, but what the hell:

And that’s it, for the news.  Oh wait, there’s one more commercial:

Gratuitous Gun Pic: Walther PP (.32 ACP)

Gratuitous Gun Pics

From Collectors comes this little peach:

Okay, here’s my take on this classic.

The Walther PP / PPK models are quite possibly the sexiest-looking pistols ever made*.  Those sleek lines and usually-faultless operation make for a tempting package — on the surface — and as James Bond’s gun, it works.

Unfortunately, Reality intrudes.  The .32 / .380 ACP (7.65mm / 9x17mm in Eurospeak) Browning cartridges are not serious self-defense options, and unfortunately I find that shooting the “more powerful” 9mm Parabellum (9x19mm) to be rather unpleasant in the small PP frame.  (My opinion;  yours may vary.)

One would think that it would be fun shooting the smaller .32 ACP cartridge in the PP (as it is with the Colt 1905, for example), but it isn’t — at least, not for someone with large or beefy hands such as mine.

The last time I fired a PP pistol, I became aware of some wetness in my grip, discovered that the sharp edges of the PP’s slide had made two razor-like cuts in the web of my hand, and I was bleeding like a stuck pig.  Painful, and a pain in the ass to clean up (which one has to do immediately, because blood does ugly things to a gun’s bluing).

My shooting companion — the owner of the PP — was a slender woman who had small ladylike hands, and who had therefore never been cut by the recoiling slide.  She loved shooting her little “purse gun”, as she called it, and was horrified that it had wounded me.

So as pretty and sexy as the Walther PP and PPK pistols are, there is a public health warning attached to them.

All that said:  I’d get the above pistol in a heartbeat, because it’s beautiful and sexy.  But I wouldn’t shoot it that much, unless wearing a shooting glove.

*with the possible exception of the Beretta 70-series .22 pistols.

Repeat Performance?

Good Stuff

Reader JD asks:  “Are you going to do your Favorite Things post every year from now on?  There was some really cool stuff there.”

Hell, no.

What I might do is post links to Favorites #1 and #2, and create addenda to said lists — just not as many, because I don’t see that much stuff that I like anyway, nowadays.  (The aforementioned lists were created from untold links collected, and also a few purchases made, over many years of Intarwebz drooling.)

Unsurprisingly, my tastes don’t change that much, so few if any of the things will fall out of favor or be replaced by some new flavor-of-the-month item.  (This may not apply to cars, because I fall in live with different models at different times as often as I fall in love with different redheads and/or old rifles.)  On most things, I’m fairly set in my ways;  yeah, I know, you’re all shocked — shocked! at that.

Another Reader asked why single malt Scotches were conspicuous by their absence from the lists.  I dunno;  maybe it’s because I’ve settled on an “everyday” single (Glen Morangie) and see little incentive to change that — unless someone in a bar / barman suggests something else to try, in which case, sure.  I might give some of the new Japanese whiskies a shot (or two), just as soon as I can afford them.

Sorry, I appear to have wandered off topic and into the wilderness here, but that’s often how it goes, these days.