Author: Kim du Toit

Just… Not My Style

The Gun Thing

Friend and Reader Drew K sent me an email last week (appropos of my range report on the Howa HCR) which contained this:

One of ProMag’s first big projects was a replacement “precision” stock for the M1a.
Had a retired NGMU (National Guard Marksmanship Unit) armorer do a demonstration shoot, published in the old Shotgun News, of what just replacing the standard wood stock with ours would accomplish:  Improvement by 1/2″ at 100yds.

That same stock is now available for the Howa. Check it out.

Well, I did.

I’m sorry, Drew, but those don’t do anything for me.  I know they’re accurate, and improve a rifle’s accuracy and so on.

But here’s the thing.  I never could shoot that accurately anyway, and I don’t do competitive shooting anymore, so an improvement of 1/2″ at 100 yards wouldn’t mean much.

More to the point, I think those stocks are pig-ugly.  Conceptually, they look like some engineer made a robot of a woman:

…and said “See?  It’s a functional improvement over a normal woman.”

No, it isn’t.

So ask me again which one I prefer, between this:

…and this:

Or this:

…and this:

Or even this:

  …and this: 

I’m sorry;  what was the question, again?  I seem to have lost the thread.

Split

Men & Women

Here’s an interesting one:

In the wake of her breakup with Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers, Danica Patrick is sending out an important disclaimer to all potential future partners: “The next guy has his work cut out for him because my intuition, my standards, my boundaries, my wants and needs are, like, off the charts, because I’ve gotten to know me so much more. So it’s going to be so much more narrow and specific,” said Patrick.

When asked for a comment, Aaron Rodgers said, “Thank fuck I’m rid of that whiny, self-centered loser.  I mean, look at my record:

“Seriously,” Rodgers continued, “I did all that — and what’s her record?  Entered over a thousand races, won none of them except maybe some no-account shit in Japan or Korea or something.”  Pausing to chug a quick shot of Gran Patrón Platinum, Rodgers added, “She doesn’t even have a decent set of tits, FFS.”

Rodgers concluded, “Sorry, guys, I gotta go.  I have a date with a real woman.”

Some of the above might actually be true.  But this certainly is:

Danica Patrick has confirmed that she has split up with Carter Comstock after nearly a full year of dating.

Sounds like ol’ Aaron done dodged a bullet.

Monday Funnies

Funny Stuff

First it was TGIF;  now it’s OGIM.  Proof:

So let’s just laugh sourly… with a little help from a friend:

 

  …and cocaine.


(an actual exchange between me and Mr. Free Market)

And some random tart I found SOTI:

Apparently, she’s a sports reporter on Romanian TV — which is probably why sport is so popular over there.

Wrong Targets

Politics

As Putin’s little adventure continues apace, the retaliation against Russia grows, in various forms, both serious and silly.  The latter is exemplified by stuff like this:

EA is removing all Russia-linked teams from its wildly popular FIFA and NHL video game franchises.

Ouch.  That’ll get the Russkis out of Ukraine toot sweet, you betcha.  As will this:

FIFA and UEFA have suspended Russia’s national teams and clubs from international football until further notice due to the country’s invasion of Ukraine.  The move makes it likely that Russia will be excluded from this year’s World Cup and the women’s Euro 2020 tournament.

That’s going to hurt a little more, because the Russkis are football crazy.  Still, not much in terms of geopolitical leverage.  Then there’s this:

The Haas Formula One team has terminated Russian driver Nikita Mazepin’s contract “with immediate effect” following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.  The decision comes on the back of F1’s decision to terminate its contract with the Russian GP. That contract had been until 2025.  Haas also ended its sponsorship with Russian company Uralkali, owned by Mazepin’s father.

Now that’s interesting because the F1 cognoscenti  will note that the hapless Nikita was easily the worst F1 driver in years, only getting his seat because his Daddy owns Uralkali, Haas’s largest sponsor.

(As such, Haas may have killed two birds with one stone, so to speak.)

But they announced Mazepin’s termination before they pushed Uralkali away — which I have to admit, made me a tad uneasy.  Granted, Mazepin’s father is a crony of Putin, but it seemed a little like overkill to axe the driver — he wasn’t responsible for the Ukranian invasion, and if we’re going to toss every individual Russian out of their field of endeavor just for being Russian, that seems to me to be wrongheaded, as so many of these blanket actions so often are.

Which brings me to this injustice:

Soprano Anna Netrebko withdrew from her future engagements at the Metropolitan Opera rather than repudiate her support for Russian President Vladimir Putin, costing the company one of its top singers and best box-office draws.

Anna who?  This Anna, is who:

But that’s not the relevant part of this.  (As it happens, the 50-year-old Netrebko is not the svelte little thing she was at age 20, but then, who is?)

But all that aside, Anna Netrebko has one of the greatest soprano voices of the past century, and as she’s got older, it has only got better.  Forcing her to quit engagements simply because she “refused to repudiate her support for Russian President Vladimir Putin”  is clearly a bad thing.

Let’s be clear, here, and remember exactly who we’re dealing with:  regardless of her actual sympathies, if she were to come out and say, “This asshole Putin should quit invading Ukraine”, not only would her career end, but there is a good chance that she would be assassinated by the loathsome Unit 29155 for her opinions.

Think I’m exaggerating?  Try this, and this, and this.  Note that none of this took place in Russia:  nowhere in the world is safe when it comes to this criminality.

We should quit being childish about this — it’s not the first time, either;  remember “freedom fries”, FFS? — and while I have no issue with punishing teams or people actually representing Russia, let’s not take out the sins of the country on its innocent citizens, cursed simply by an accident of birth.

Oh hell;  Anna’s also one of the most beautiful women in the world, so why not indulge ourselves?