Month: April 2019

U.S. Not There

Travels

Here’s a list of the world’s major international airports, voted on and ranked by over thirteen million travelers on a combination of (among others) amenities, cleanliness, shopping, ease of movement, and passenger treatment:

1. Singapore Changi Airport
2. Tokyo International Airport (Haneda)
3. Incheon International Airport
4. Hamad International Airport (Doha)
5. Hong Kong International Airport
6. Central Japan International Airport
*7. Munich Airport
*8. London Heathrow Airport
9. Narita International Airport
*10. Zurich Airport

11. Kansai
*12. Frankfurt
13. Taiwan Taoyuan
*14. Amsterdam Schiphol
15. Copenhagen
16. Shanghai Hongqiao
*17. Vancouver
18. Brisbane
*19. Vienna
20. Helsinki-Vantaa

21. Sydney
*22. Cape Town
23. Melbourne
24. Dubai
25. Cologne / Bonn
26. London City
27. Auckland
28. Hamburg
*29. Durban
*30. Paris Charles De Gaulle

31. Dusseldorf
*32. Denver
*33. Johannesburg
34. Seoul Gimpo
35. Madrid Barajas
*36. Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson
*37. Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky
*38. Houston George Bush
39. Guangzhou
40. Jakarta

41. Haikou Meilan
42. Athens
43. Barcelona
44. Xi’an
45. Gold Coast
46. Bangkok Suvarnabhumi
47. Lima
*48. San Francisco
49. Quito
50. Toronto Pearson

51. Christchurch
52. Perth
53. Bogota
54. Kuala Lumpur
*55. London Gatwick
*56. Dallas/Fort Worth
*57. Seattle-Tacoma
58. Baku
59. Delhi
*60. Lisbon
61. Muscat
*62. Montréal
63. Moscow Sheremetyevo
64. Mumbai
65. Shenzhen
66. Hyderabad
67. Fukuoka
68. Guayaquil
*69. Bangalore
70. Oslo
*71. Los Angeles
72. Beijing Capital
73. Stockholm Arlanda
*74. New York JFK
75. Chengdu
76. Adelaide
*77. Minneapolis St.Paul
*78. Phoenix
79. Porto
80. Moscow Domodedovo
*81. Boston Logan
*82. Rome Fiumicino
83. Malta
84. Dublin
*85. Houston Hobby
86. Hanoi Noi Bai
87. Abu Dhabi
88. Bahrain
89. Budapest
90. Halifax
91. Warsaw
*92. Detroit Metropolitan
*93. Nice
94. Mauritius
95. Luxembourg
*96. Chicago O’Hare
97. Prague
98. Birmingham
99. Changsha
100. Billund

Source: Skytrax World Airport Awards (and asterisks indicate that I’ve been through them myself, some admittedly a while back)

Some comments:

  1. I’m told that anyone who has been through the top 10 airports with any frequency (e.g. Mr. Free Market) will be unsurprised by those rankings. I’m only surprised by Munich’s #7 ranking — I found it quite ordinary, but it’s been over a decade since I was there so maybe it’s improved.
  2. Excluding JFK, most of the U.S. “international” airports aren’t really that — they handle way more domestic- than international flights, so they’re light on amenities and shopping (compared to Heathrow and Singapore, for example, where international flights comprise probably 90% of the total and long waits for connecting flights are the norm).
  3. The numbers are not weighted by airport size or traffic, which is why some of the Third World airports (e.g. India’s) are ranked where they are.
  4. I’m amazed that JFK is ranked as high as it is.  For all its pretensions to being a world-class city, New York’s Kennedy and LaGuardia are Third World airports — in fact, they’re worse than that — and not one person I’ve ever spoken to (including New Yorkers) has ever taken issue with me on that comment.
  5. Unless Bangalore has been rebuilt since I’ve been there, I cannot believe its ranking.  Ditto Johannesburg’s O.R. Tambo, which is a nightmare, and Charles De Gaulle in Paris.  All of these have set some kind of record for staff indifference to passengers’ needs.

“Flight Shame”

Travels

Add another one to the “frightening the neighbors with sudden roars of laughter” category:

Saddled with long dark winters at home, Swedes have for decades been frequent flyers seeking out sunnier climes, but a growing number are changing their ways because of air travel’s impact on the climate.
“Flygskam”, or flight shame, has become a buzz word referring to feeling guilt over the environmental effects of flying, contributing to a trend that has more and more Swedes, mainly young, opting to travel by train to ease their conscience.
Spearheading the movement for trains-over-planes is Sweden’s own Greta Thunberg, the 16-year-old climate school striker who refuses to fly, travelling by rail to the World Economic Forum in Davos and the climate summit in Katowice, Poland.

Well, isn’t that just too precious.  Of course, the Swedes can afford to do this because their poxy country is no more than a few miles from everywhere in Yurp, and they can indulge their foolishness accordingly.

I think we should help them out by banning all Swedish passport holders from entering the United States by air.  (And by ground if they landed in Canada or Mexico first, to try to get round the ban.)

All aboard the Stockholm–New York Express…

Outta My Wheelhouse

Drive Time

Well, I got dragged into the Clickbait Matrix the other day, and ended up at 30 Greatest American Sports Cars.  I know a great deal about sports cars — especially those of yesteryear, and as I’ve written before, I love them.

But honestly, I know close to diddly about American  sports cars.  I mean, sure, there’s the ’67 Ford Mustang, the various Thunderbirds and Corvettes and so on, but to be frank, on the above list (and to nobody’s surprise, probably), the only two models I would consider owning would be the Duesenberg and the Stutz Bearcat — and of the two, I’d only consider the Bearcat as a true sports car (the Doozy’s a touring  car, and if I were to dump the Doozy as a non-sports car, I’d go with the AC Cobra, reluctantly).  And among the others, they’re akin to muscle cars* or even supercars (e.g. the Vector).

So, O My Readers: enlighten me about this so-called “Top 30” list.  Is it a valid one, or just a load of crap?  Are there other “real” American sports cars which have been missed?  The floor (via Comments) is yours.

*The list which follows the “30 Top Sports Cars” is the 25 Top Muscle Cars.  I confess myself to be confused.  The one after that  is Classic Cars;  them, I know about.

And The Last One Falls

Bad News, Conservatism, Men & Women, Sports

As any fule kno, I hate change, especially change which won’t necessarily improve anything.  I also hate it when “change” is replaced by a euphemism such as “overhaul” — because “overhaul” to me means improving something or, at worst, restoring it to its original form or function after neglect.  Imagine then my disgust at this development:

Overhaul of Augusta National ahead of the Masters is sign of the times as golf seeks to be the ultimate family sport

  • Historic occasion for women’s golf on Saturday with first amateur Augusta event
  • It was the turn of some of America’s best juniors to play the course on Sunday
  • The club where nothing changed for decades is undergoing huge transformation

…and all the dreadful details are included in the link above.  Several comments come to mind immediately.

Unless the something that has been going on for decades is genocide, institutionalized child molestation or South African-style apartheid, there’s no need to change anything.  What has gone on for decades at Augusta National GC is a policy of men-only membership (only recently relaxed [spit] ) and a culture which creates a male enclave — and only to the most fevered feminist could this equate to the three horrors above.  I know, wimmens are going to say, “It’s not that important;  why are you making such a fuss?” to which my response is: “If it’s not  that important, then why the fuck  are you trying to change it?”  I’ve written about men-only places before, and the benefits of such places where men can be unholy assholes without some woman or girly-man taking offense at their language / behavior.  It’s a safety-valve  for such activity, and I for one miss it terribly.  I see nothing wrong with gender-specific institutions, whether female-only universities or, like Augusta, male-only golf clubs.  (Don’t even get me started  on military schools.)

So:  why allow women to play at Augusta, when there are thousands upon thousands of other golf courses for them to play at?  Pure symbolism, is why.  (And I’ll bet these Amazon golferettes didn’t play off the back tees, either.)

Then there’s this crap about golf as the “ultimate family sport”?  What the fuck is that all about?  Let’s be honest:  golf has always been a male preserve, except for the many lesbians who participate in the women’s tour and for the wives of male club-members who need to take a full day out of the week for a “Ladies Day” to get together and fuck around  — don’t get me started on the double standard involved with that.  (The truth of the matter is that male golfers prefer  a Ladies Day because women play too slowly and pathetically, and it beats having to wait for twenty minutes per hole while Agnes, Pookie and Frances each take four or five shots to reach a green easily reachable in two by a pre-adolescent boy golfer.)  And how can golf be the “ultimate family sport” when it bores everyone but the golfers involved to tears?

And Augusta’s decided to go along with this bullshit?  Why?  The Masters is already one of the most popular sporting events on TV, it’s already regarded as the world championship of golf by all golfers, and if even one of the tournament’s big sponsors decided to quit because feminism, other equally-large sponsors would get into fistfights to be their replacement.  (The Masters allows for only a few sponsors and severely-limited advertising time, which is probably a prime reason why it’s so popular.)  In other words, Augusta and The Masters are dealing from a position of strength, here, and — let me be quite blunt about this — they have no need to change anything.

But they’re going to, and that’s the pity of it.  And if Augusta goes, what chance do any of the other men-only clubs have of continuing?

It’s enough to make a man have a double for his morning gin.

Scaring The Neighbors

Drive Time, Funny Stuff, The Gun Thing

At my advanced age and concomitantly-advanced skepticism, it’s not often that something has the power to cause roars of laughter of a volume sufficient for the neighbors to call apartment management to check in case I was injured or violently ill or something.  Reader Gwalchmai sent me this article via email, and I would caution you all to read it in a secluded spot, lest your laughter cause similar mayhem.

A (very) brief sample:

For the wilder Microturbo Thrust unit, advertising claimed for the model T-16-A Formula J Thrust Engine an additional 1,980 hp was at your fingertips. In reality a small rocket-thrust engine, once ignited, hot gases were instantaneously unleashed, spinning small turbine blades in the housing, with an optional turbine wheel available to create “spectacular flaming night runs,” according to Turbonique hype. This option was for those needing more sensorial input than the shockwave of 600-psi ignited rocket fuel slammed into a 100,000-rpm Inconel orb—all taking place right behind your head, as you glide an inch or two off the ground.
The snail-looking device, with what looked like a child’s bicycle horn protruding from one end, came with “easy to follow installation and operating instructions.” We assume the operating instructions were basically, “Don’t do it!” As for the bicycle horns, those were aluminum nozzles used by NASA in space. They were just for publicity, and in actual use would have melted in seconds.

And it gets better, when instances of “actual use” are described.

Now, in similar spirit, allow me to show a prototype cartridge I’m working on:  the .750 Kimbo self-defense cartridge* (shown with a .357 Mag cartridge to provide scale):

Manly men only need apply.  Even Ken Barrett took one look and went pale, as did the guys at Magnum Research.  Someone at Taurus apparently committed suicide when they saw the photo, and Smith & Wesson responded in the negative, via their attorneys.  Ruger called it “interesting”, but that’s all.

Only the folks at Bond Arms thought it looked “cool”, and are thinking of including a Derringer thus chambered in their 2020 catalog. Read more

That’s Not The Issue

Politics

When I first came to live in the U.S., there was the usual delay while my application got processed.  I wasn’t able to work (and I wasn’t going to do any sub rosa  work because a.) it was illegal and b.) if discovered, I feared being tossed out of the country).

So I watched TV.  All day and every day, for months.  As soon as the banality of daytime TV got to me (rough guess, about four days in), I looked for something else to watch that wasn’t going to bleed me of brain cells faster than a medieval doctor, and discovered C-Span TV.  Yup, live coverage of the daily business of Congress.

I watched it obsessively, as much from fascination as from wanting to discover exactly how my soon-to-be-adopted country worked.

And one of the highlights of that time was when proceedings of the Senate Judiciary and -Foreign Relations Committees came on.  I knew hardly anything about the judicial stuff, but more than a little of world politics.  A common speaker was Sen. Joe Biden, about whom I knew nothing, and as I watched more and more of his appearances and his speeches and questions, I soon realized that this was the most stupid man I’d ever seen on TV.  When he was reading from a prepared speech, Biden was fine:  articulate, witty and engaging.  As soon as he wandered off-script, and especially when he was interrogating witnesses appearing in the Senate, his stupidity and ignorance were always in evidence.  What he said sounded  plausible and in keeping with his speeches;  but the substance  of what he said was vacuous, ill-informed and often devoid of any kind of logic, let alone rhetoric.  I actually started to cringe whenever he was handed the microphone because I thought that surely, surely he would embarrass himself.  And he did, constantly — but he never once realized that he had.  (In this regard, Biden was very similar to how Socialist Rep. Ocasio-Cortez is today, incidentally — and he’s only better than she is now because of his many years’ experience in politics.)

When Biden ran for president back in 1988, I actually had an outside opportunity to work for the outfit handling his polling in Texas (Longtime Readers may recall that I was a researcher back then).  I turned it down because I couldn’t face the thought of working for this guy, no matter how peripherally.

Given all the above, I was perhaps the only man in America who was unsurprised when the equally-vacuous Barack Obama chose Biden as his VP — anyone brighter would have shown up Obama’s intellectual vapidity, and Biden’s superficially-plausible-but-intellectually-empty speechmaking was on a par with the future president’s.

So I don’t care about all the current brouhaha surrounding Biden’s current presidential prospects:  his fondling of women, his political platform (such as it is), or his age.  I do care that we only recently emerged from eight years of a stupid president (Obama), and I have no wish to be subjected to the same weapons-grade presidential stupidity all over again.