Retaliation

Combat Controller asks why I have yet to comment on the domestic terrorist attacks in Atlanta:

Police have charged 23 people with domestic terrorism after a violent clash between police and protesters at the site of Atlanta’s future Public Safety Training Facility, nicknamed “Cop City” by critics.

Sunday night, police say the DeKalb County construction site was on lockdown as crews worked to put out flames around the area.

In total, the Atlanta Police Department said 35 “agitators” have been detained.

In Kim’s World, the word “detained”  would be replaced by the phrase “shot dead”, because these little anarchist fucks are actually shooting explosives at the police, and I think that aiming anything at the police deserves a return of fire, so to speak.

What the Antifa movement really needs, I think, is a couple hundred-odd martyrs to their cause, and Atlanta would make a really good place for this process to start.

But no doubt someone will take exception to this sentiment.

Summer Beach / Island Car

Here’s the setup:  you own a seaside cottage somewhere pleasant — the Carolinas, southern Oregon, Cayman Islands, Aruba… you get the picture.  Wherever it is, you spend lots of time there:  the whole summer, the whole winter, nine months of the year, whatever.

You have everything in place, but you need to buy a runaround car:  something to get to the beach, go downtown to fetch more booze or groceries, or to just drive to the local restaurants for lunch or dinner.  There’s no car rental available, so you’ll have to buy one (which works out cheaper anyway).

Fortunately, there’s a retail auto dealer in town called “Island Cars”, which will cater to your needs and store it for you and keep it in running order when you’re not there.  Here’s what’s in stock, all with low miles, in good condition etc.  Assume the prices are reasonable, and all within a couple hundred dollars of each other.

Austin Mini-Moke 

VW Thing

Fiat Jolly

And now the kicker (you knew there was going to be one, right?):

YOUR WIFE GETS TO CHOOSE IT, AND YOU HAVE NO VETO.

Which one do you think she’d go for?  (For the unmarried / widowed among you, go back in time and guess.)

Accident Of Birth

Sarah writes about her decision to leave Portugal and take the Big Swim to Murka, and along the way she quotes Somerset Maugham:

“I have an idea that some men are born out of their due place. Accident has cast them amid certain surroundings, but they have always a nostalgia for a home they know not. They are strangers in their birthplace, and the leafy lanes they have known from childhood or the populous streets in which they have played, remain but a place of passage. They may spend their whole lives aliens among their kindred and remain aloof among the only scenes they have ever known.”

A friend once described me thus:  “Kim was born American — he just happened to be in the wrong country at the time.”

It’s even closer than that.  Right after my parents married in the early 1950s, my Dad (a civil engineer) got an offer — full-time job, permanent residence — in Canada.  He accepted the gig, and they were all ready to move when my Mom discovered she was pregnant (with me).  She was too scared to bring up a child in a strange country, far from friends and family, and so they changed their plans.

So I was born in South Africa, and for the first thirty years of my life there I felt rootless, with no ties to the country of my birth, just as Maugham describes above.  When I went back to South Africa in 2017 for the first time since the Great Wetback Episode in the mid-1980s I drove around Johannesburg, knowing every single street and suburb, and even went back to the house where I’d grown up from age 3 until I finally left it at age 24.

And I still didn’t feel at home.  It was as though I was looking at some place I’d seen in someone else’s movie:  very familiar, but not mine.

Unlike Sarah, for whom Colorado was the shining city on the hill, I had no “ideal” place to go to when I came Over Here;  I ended up living variously in Chicago, North Jersey, Austin and now, Dallas;  but none of them really felt like home, or a place where I’d dreamed of living either consciously or subconsciously.  I will admit that living in the city of Chicago (as opposed to the ‘burbs) probably came the closest, in that the North Side was very similar to where I lived in Johannesburg — apartments and houses, and literally walking distance away from downtown in both cases.  But Chicago was never my beau ideal  either.

Strangely, the places which did strike a chord with me were the West Country in England — many times I would look at a place (town, village, house, whatever) and think, “Wow, I could live there“, but of course that was impossible;  and the other place was Connecticut, which is so close to England (New England, duh) that it was scary.  But as with Old England, the liberal politics and societal foolishness (guns, etc.) of New England pushed me away from Connecticut.

I guess Texas is about it.  Unless something in my circumstances changes radically, I’m probably going to end my life here — not an altogether unpleasant prospect, by the way, except for the torrid summers and the fact that getting anywhere Not Texas requires considerable travel.

And I guess, too, that I’m getting too old to make that massive change in my circumstances.  Moving here from Africa:  massive.  Moving from place to place within the U.S.:  difficult at times, but bearable.  But my last move (from Lakeview to Plano) was over twenty years ago, and I very much doubt that I’d consider making a big move again, even if finances permitted it (they don’t).

And that’s enough introspection.  I think I’ll go to the range.  That, at least, is one of the huge advantages of Texas.

We Have A Winner

Reader Tom McH, call your office send me your details (your full name and address, and the name, address and phone # of your local Merchant Of Death).  Please include as well either the date of the Zelle transfer or (if you still have it) the confirmation code.  (For future reference, this is why paper checks make things a little easier… for the entrants as well as for me.)

Tom’s new gun:

Congratulations!

Improvements?

I’m told that there are ways to improve one’s AK-47 (quit that sniggering, there), and said improvements come in these options:

Here are my thoughts.

I’ve never cared for the AK’s trigger, and as far as I’m concerned it’s the only change I’d do immediately — if, that is, I actually owned an AK.

There is one good reason to dump the old wooden fore-grip, and replace it with item A:  when you plan to fire 700 rounds on the trot through an AK.

Watch till the end to see how he extinguishes the fire.  Try doing that with your Mattell poodleshooter.

News Roundup

Sponsored by:

And some people who have no clue:


...who’s this little gayboy, again?  Has he ever been elected to any office?

Then again:


...seems like these elected officials from Red America know more about the topic than the above gayboy.


...then maybe small-bore cartridges will do the trick? I’m thinking something around .357 (handguns) or 6.5mm (rifles), but I’m always open to alternatives.

And now on to less relevant topics:


...I’m trying to see why this is my problem.


...to the complete surprise of… nobody.


...I’d be too embarrassed to come along too, if I were the little shit who’d blocked all Trump’s border security initiatives.


...this report coming to you from Planet Obvious.


...I think “assisted suicide” should be left to the professionals — i.e. the Clintons.


...sounds about right.


...and this too sounds about right.  No mention of any pre-execution torture, however, which makes me sad.

From the Teacher Of The Year Competition:


...I know, I too wish I were of school-going age right now.

And from our Paige Three Department:


...wherein our girl makes us proud, once again.

Now for INSIGNIFICA:

   

...fixed it for them.

Finally, some news of a career change:


...for the Beanpole fans among you.

Now off to keep your careers going, such as they are.