Author: Kim du Toit

Quote Of The Day

Diplomacy, Politics, QOTD

From Niall Ferguson:

“Henry Kissinger was a colossus who bestrode a century: he shaped politics like no other statesman and the world wouldn’t be in such a perilous state if more followed his wise and ruthlessly pragmatic approach.”

Amen to that.  If Kissinger had a fault, it was that his towering intellect, logic and pragmatism prevented him from fully understanding the attitudes of the fanatics on the other side of the negotiating table.

Of Kissinger it can truly be said that he was always — always — the smartest man in the room.  His enemies knew that, and it only added to their frustrated rage.

And you only have to see who hated him to realize that he was, mostly, correct in his approach to foreign policy — unlike the feckless and ignorant fools and children who are in charge of such things today.

Read the article.

Actually, No

Psychos, Seen On Campus

I think we all remember this little incident, where a 6’6″ schoolboy thug beat a teacher’s aide unconscious over a Nintendo Switch.  No?  Here’s the story, along with his mother — predictably — begging for clemency because “prison will kill him”.

Here’s the thing, Mommie Dearest:  your precious little baby belongs in prison, because he has demonstrated quite beyond doubt that he is a menace to society.

And frankly, I don’t care that he’s autistic, any more than I would care that voices in his head are telling him that Switch Is God, and therefore beating someone savagely is somehow acceptable.

He belongs in prison.  And if that “kills him”, that is just too bad — because if he’s allowed to run free, who’s to say that he won’t go nuts and beat someone (to death, this time) because they wouldn’t give him Cheerios for breakfast?

Maybe — just maybe — he should be confined to a mental institution instead, except that such institutions are usually staffed with bleeding-heart psychologists wearing wizard hats, who solemnly declare that after a few months’ therapy, little Johnny is Ready To Be Released Into Society.

Whereupon little Johnny murders someone else, because he doesn’t like Mondays.

And then people like myself call for the psychologist to be executed for being an accessory to murder (which they are, in cases such as these) under Hammurabic principles.

So the whole thing spirals out of control, simply because we as a society somehow think that mentally-retarded sociopaths like this Brendan Depa shouldn’t be incarcerated and kept from being a danger to anyone they come into contact with (e.g. a 5’4″ slender teacher’s aide).

Throw him in jail and melt the key.

The fact that modern prisons are dangerous places is a topic for another time, but it’s irrelevant to this discussion.

And some people might disagree with me, but they’d be wrong.

Actually, Yes

Morons & Idiots, Psychos

As with the above article, here’s a story which makes my fists clench involuntarily:

A female American Airlines employee was left permanently scarred after a male passenger repeatedly punched her, according to a report.

The reported incident happened on Monday night when Bruce Luke Machiavelo, 29, from Fairfield County, Connecticut, was on a flight from Miami to LaGuardia Airport in New York.

Machiavelo had told a flight attendant that he suffers from panic attacks and that he wanted to retrieve his medication that was in his checked luggage, according to a Miami-Dade police report.  Once the attendant explained to the passenger that he wasn’t going to be able to get his medication, he told her that he ‘took planes down with panic attacks in the past’, the report said.

Machiavelo was then escorted off the aircraft, arrested and hit with multiple charges including aggravated battery, battery, disorderly conduct and resisting an officer without violence.

When he was taken off the airplane, Machiavelo reportedly pushed and screamed at the American Airline’s manager who approached him, police said.  He punched her several times in the face before he threw her to the floor, causing her to bash her head on the gangway, according to authorities. As he rushed off the plane, Machiavelo also shoved a gate agent to the floor, leading her to injure her hands.

The manager was taken to a nearby hospital with permanent scarring to her face and head, the report said.

So you know you suffer from panic attacks, yet you pack your meds into checked luggage and not in a carry-on bag?

And then go Full Raving Psycho Loony when your ridiculous requests aren’t met?

Here’s my first question:  would anyone have a problem with the cops giving this punk a savage beating before slamming his ass in a cell?

Second question:  would anyone have a problem with this asshole being forced to pay for the hapless woman’s medical treatment and plastic surgery?

If you say “No, I have no problem with your suggestions, Kim”  to both the above questions, then we can be friends.

To be honest, I’ve sometimes wanted to go nuts when some airline employee enforces some ridiculous airline regulation on me.  The difference is that I haven’t.  And nor should this asshole, but clearly he’s been accustomed to have his every wish granted in the past, purely because of his “panic attacks”.

Well, fuck him and all the people of his ilk.

Classic Beauties: Mistresses (3)

Classic Beauty

As threatened promised last week, let’s look at some French royalty and their squeezes.  Today we’ll look at just one (for reasons that will become apparent):  Louis XIV a.k.a. the Sun King.  (The numbers in parentheses indicate the number of children he fathered with each.)

Athenaïs de Montespan (7)

Louise de la Valliere (5)

Bonne de Pons d’Heudicourt

Catherine Charlotte de Gramont

Anne de Rohan-Chabot

Claude de Vin (1)

Isabelle de Ludres (1)

Marie Angélique de Scorailles

(she probably would have given him yet another baby, only she died in childbirth)

And those are the ones we know about.  Formidable.