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The Old Argument

Advice, The Gun Thing

From Comments in yesterday’s post about the CMP 1911s, Longtime Friend & Reader Vonz saith:

Certainly, I love the 45 ACP quite a bit and have one (not a 1911 though, which are good but I think there are better options, at least for me).
What is with the hate on 9mm though? It is a great round as well (I have one of them too). It has different advantages and disadvantages, but that is why it makes sense to own both or at least to have as options for different people.
Why does, “I like this” have to morph into “everything else sucks”? It is not an attitude that makes any sense to me.

As with computers (Apple vs. Windows), cars (Ford vs. GM), guns (Colt vs. S&W), cameras (Pentax vs. Canon), etc. etc. etc., I think it’s all an ego thing.

The “bullet wars” probably started when some prehistoric hunters were arguing about the optimal size stone to use in their slings, and the stupid argument has persisted to this day because we guys are always searching for the “magic bullet” [sic] in all our endeavors.

As much as I make fun of the 9mm Europellet, it’s really all about the bullet itself: the typical 9mm FMJ projectile is (I believe) only slightly better than marginal as a self-defense option (and I actually have some personal experience to support that thesis); but put some more-recent technology (jacketed hollowpoints etc.) into the 9mm Para casing, and it’s a whole ‘nother ballgame.

I would have absolutely no problem carrying a Browning Hi-Power instead of the 1911, for example, as long as the 9mm bullets themselves were of the Hydra-Shok / SXT / Gold Dot / XTP / etc. genus. In fact, given that with the onset of age-related arthritis, my beloved Springfield 1911 is starting to really beat my wrist up, I can actually see a time in the near future when I might make that swap.

So nobody should take me too seriously when I slag off choices that people make. A lot of the time I’m just stirring the pot for fun, but underneath there lies a sound reason for it: if I question someone’s choice or action, they are forced to defend their position which means they have to think about the topic — and their rationale might even make me reevaluate my position, if it’s sounder than mine.

Good luck with that, though. Most of my opinions have been formed over many years of thought, contemplation and study, not to mention personal- or third-party experience. But it’s a stupid man who doesn’t listen to a sound, reasoned argument, and I’m not that stupid.

Just don’t try to convince me that Communism is a preferable system to free-market capitalism; scorn will follow in gargantuan quantities.

Clearout

Grooming

After having spent nearly all of the past six months living out of a suitcase — and quite comfortably, too — I’ve come to the realization that I (still) have too many clothes — and this after a major pruning of the old wardrobe after selling the house and moving into Doc Russia’s guest quarters.

I read an article somewhere that gave a good guide to deciding which clothes were necessary and which weren’t, involving hanging one’s clothes with the open part of the clothes hanger hook facing forward, and after wearing the garment, replacing it with the open part towards the rear. At the end of the year, those still facing forward (i.e. had not been worn for a year) would be candidates for Goodwill.

I’m not sure I need that, because I’ve also discovered that having gone from size 44 to size 39* trousers over the past year, that part, at least, will be easy. As a good friend said, when seeing me in my old 44 baggies, “Kim: it’s time.” And it is. I’m still overweight — another dozen or so lost pounds is definitely on the agenda — but  at least I don’t look like a beach ball trying to hide under a handkerchief anymore. Which means a bunch of the old tent-y shirts are going to have to go, too.

Fortunately, I was able to replenish my shirt collection in both Britain and South Africa. I discovered that Marks & Spencer’s XXL casual shirts fit me, which wasn’t always the case, and they actually had colors which don’t make me want to spew. On the advice of a friend, I bought in addition two pink shirts — one wag called them “aggressive salmon” — because the style was excellent and the color doesn’t make me look like Elton John on safari. In South Africa, prices were astonishingly low thanks to the USD : ZAR exchange rate, and it being summer in the Southern Hemisphere at the moment, the several shirts I bought there are going to be perfect for the north Texas heat come July and August.

Likewise, I found some excellent trousers at M&S and all those baggy cargo numbers I’ve been wearing for the past dozen-odd years are going to find a new home, either in the trash can or at Goodwill.

I know, I know: all this talk about clothing makes me sound like Perez Hilton or one of those other fegelehs, but I don’t care. The plain fact of the matter is that I enjoy dressing well — always have — and my two-and-a-half decades’ worth of corpulence took that small pleasure away from me.

“Dressing well”, of course, means “no short pants ever, regardless of the weather”, which is why I was able to resist buying a pair of these magnificent things in South Africa:

No man should.

I did, however, also purchase some fine footwear in both Britain and South Africa, viz. tan half-boots in London:

…and a pair of magnificent veldskoens in Pretoria (where they’re as common as slip-slops in Brisbane):

The essence of the latter is that they should look battered even when brand new, and I think you’ll agree that these are a perfect example thereof.

I love good shoes (I know, I’m sounding gayer by the minute), and in addition to the cowboy boots I bought before my trip Over There and the wellies I bought in Hardy Country, these will be excellent additions to the old wardrobe.

And now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to the closet. (Oh, shuddup.)

*Yeah, I know: still too fat for 38 and too skinny for 40.

“Take Away Their Guns”

Bad News, Numbers & Statistics

…and they’ll just use something else. Such as knives:

London saw four fatal stabbings on New Year’s Eve, taking the total of such knifings in the capital to 80 for the whole of 2017.
And the use of knives in general is now a serious problem all over the country. In June 2017, the Office for National Statistics listed thousands of ‘blade offences’ in the previous 12 months, including 214 killings, 391 attempted murders, 438 rapes, 182 other sexual assaults, and 14,429 robberies.
There were also more than 18,500 assaults involving an injury or intent to inflict harm with a blade and 2,816 threats to kill with a knife.

So much for taking away guns to reduce crime. But that’s not the worst part of the linked article. This is:

I have long known that crimes which would once have been classified as murders are often now downgraded to ‘manslaughter’. This is done to save money and time, and to make it easier to release the culprits early to stop the prisons from bursting. But in most cases it is legally difficult to point this out.
The Johnson case is different. He is a murderer, but people who should be alive are now dead because he was wrongly convicted of a lesser crime.
In 1981, Johnson pushed his wife Yvonne off the balcony of their ninth-floor flat, after first hitting her with a vase and an ashtray. He was allowed to plead guilty to manslaughter on the grounds of ‘provocation’. She had, he said, been arguing with him.
She was, of course, not there to give her own version of who did the provoking. He was sentenced in 1982 to three years in prison. That’s right. Three years, though in those days it really meant three years. He was out by 1985.
In 1992 Johnson strangled another woman, Yvonne Bennett, with a belt. She had annoyed him by refusing to accept a box of chocolates which he had bought her to try to win back her affections.
He tried to hang himself from a tree, but the string snapped. String? Yes, string. He was much better at killing others than at killing himself. Doctors decided he was suffering from a ‘depressive illness’ and he was sent ‘indefinitely’ to a secure hospital.
Not indefinitely enough. He was out and under ‘psychiatric care’ after two years. He went on to kill a third woman, Angela Best, by beating her with a claw hammer and throttling her with a dressing-gown cord.
As after his second killing, he tried and failed to commit suicide afterwards, this time by jumping in front of a train.Now, having first tried the manslaughter plea again, on the grounds of ‘diminished responsibility’, he has pleaded guilty to murdering Angela Best.
His injuries from the attempted suicide have left him in a wheelchair, though I wouldn’t like to guarantee that he is harmless even now. Far too late, the courts have sentenced him to 26 years, which might just be enough.
Once, I would have said this was all evidence of a system which had lost all force since it stopped treating murder as a specially hideous crime. So it is. Once, I would have said that we should restore the death penalty for heinous murder. Now, I know this cause is lost. So I can only urge you to take care.
The law refuses to protect you. Those in charge of it lack the courage or the resolve to do so. Get used to it.

The next time some idiot tells you that the death penalty doesn’t prevent murders, feel free to use the above example to show that the death penalty applied to this asshole after his first murder would indeed have prevented two more.

Fortunately, we in the United States don’t have to “get used to it”; it’s our criminals who have to get used to the fact that a career of crime might be deadly — to themselves.

Carry a gun, and make sure you know how to use it. The life you save might well be your own, or of your loved ones. The life you take will be of no consequence to anyone except the goblin’s future victims.

Remember: when anyone asks you if your wallet is worth a life, remind them that that decision was not yours, but your assailant’s. He made the decision that your wallet was worth taking a life (yours), and all you did was go along with his decision, simply substituting his life for yours.

And be glad that you live in the U.S. and not in Britain, where you would face imprisonment for self-defense, instead of congratulations.

About Time

The Gun Thing

So the Army is going to be selling off its old 1911 pistols through the CMP. About time, too. Thank you, President Trump. Under The Commie Obama, these fine old things would have been scrapped, and the world would have been a poorer place.

Because as I’ve said so many times before:

…and also:

 

Warning Sign

Business

When I first saw this little foray into feminism, I was amused:

People who yearn to become entrepreneurs may find guidance at the new Feminist Business School, an online program that aims to help women launch businesses founded upon the theory of “feminine entrepreneurship” and “body-loving business practices.”

But it gets better:

The only faculty member of this school appears to be [its founder] Armbrust, who does not appear to have any direct business experience, but did take a few business classes at Portland Community College. She concedes that her program will not teach any direct business skills, such as bookkeeping or legal knowledge, but suggests that she may offer such a course in the future.

Now when you’ve all stopped that cis-male giggling (and you Lady Readers are included in this), there is one positive aspect to this unutterably stupid venture: if any manager sees a graduate of this “business school” in an employment interview, the warning bells should go off, because if the applicant should be hired, the company can look forward to not only an incompetent employee but to endless complaints and whining about patriarchal hegemony or whatever they call ordinary business practices these days.

So this “Professor” Armbrust has done us all a great favor; her students, not so much.

And Evergreen State “College” should be proud of themselves: they’ve made their institution an even bigger laughing-stock than before, if that’s even possible. Here’s their mission statement:

Evergreen emphasizes collaborative, interdisciplinary learning across significant differences. Our academic community engages students in defining and thinking critically about their learning. Evergreen supports and benefits from local and global commitment to social justice, diversity, environmental stewardship and service in the public interest.

Translated: you won’t get an education here, just liberal indoctrination. Enroll at your own risk.

“Dear Dr. Kim”

Advice

“Dear Doctor Kim,
Is it OK to use a coupon when I take my girlfriend on a date? What about taking home leftovers?”
— Wondering in the West

Dear Blundering:
I suspect that you’re nervous about being called a cheapskate, but never fear: I have several ways through this minefield.

The only ironclad rule about coupons is: never ever use a coupon on a first date. I shouldn’t have to explain this.
On other occasions, however, whether or not to use restaurant coupons depends on a few factors.
1.) What restaurant are we talking about? If it’s McDonald’s or similar dreck, who cares? (The question in this case is: what kind of man takes his girlfriend to a hellhole like that in the first place?) If it’s Morton’s or Lawry’s, however, she should appreciate being taken there at all, so use that coupon at will.
2.) At what stage are you in terms of your relationship? If it’s still in its first bloom, you may want to hold onto the coupon for a while — once you’re settled, she won’t mind because (and I can hear the feministicals wailing already) less money spent at the restaurant means more money to be spent on her.
The only thing you have to avoid is not going to any restaurant on a date unless you have a coupon — it’s the infallible mark of a terminal cheapskate, and unless your girlfriend is of a similar bent, stand by for trouble.

As for leftovers: it depends completely on the food, the portion sizes, or whose food it is.
1.) No grown human being should take home leftover fast food, of any description.
2.) If the portion sizes are of New Jersey Diner Quantity (i.e. beyond the ability of anyone not Jewish or Italian to finish in a single sitting), then go ahead: there’s no shame in it.
3.) And regardless of portion size, if it’s her food we’re talking about and she wasn’t able to finish it but enjoyed it immensely, offering to take it home is going to be well received.

By the way: attempting to take home leftovers from an all-you-can-eat buffet joint should be punishable by scourging. There are limits.

–Dr. Kim