January 2025 – Page 16 – Splendid Isolation

Discrepancy

January 7, 2025 Kim du Toit Corporate Fuckery

Look, I’m just an Old Man Of Little Brain, so can somebody ‘splain this difference to me?

DOGE Target #1

January 6, 2025 Kim du Toit Government Thugs, Shootin' Time

ATF Isn’t Talking About its Early Morning No-Knock Raid on a Baltimore Gun Rights Advocate

Manley estimated he owns more than 70 firearms, but all of them comply with Maryland and federal laws. He owns no full-autos, suppressors or destructive devices. The ATF learned this after threatening to blow open Manley’s gun safe, which he opened for the agents, who found nothing illegal.

After the botched search warrant, one of the agents who had told Manley’s wife he was the lead investigator, asked her for dimensions and other information about the doors and windows his team had destroyed, which he promised to replace.

Also:

ATF Murders Innocent Man

In March, agents shot and killed Bryan Malinowski, executive director of the Clinton National Airport in Little Rock, Arkansas, in his home.

Agents were clearly spoiling for a gunfight when they went in during early morning hours, and they got one.

ATF has yet to comment officially on the March 19 killing, other to claim Malinowski fired first. But Malinowski’s family released a statement, which confirms what everyone already knew: It is extremely unlikely that the 53-year-old airport executive director knew he was trading gunfire with federal agents. It is far more likely Malinowski believed he was defending himself and his wife from armed home invaders.

This entire agency needs to be defunded and all their asshole agents fired and then prosecuted for all the crimes they committed against law-abiding citizens — both the people who authorized the crimes and the people who carried them out, no exceptions.

Period, end of statement, end of story.

About That Beauty Thing

January 6, 2025 Kim du Toit Beauty, Drive Time

New Wife and I have a Saturday morning ritual which involves me making us tea and coffee and bringing the laptop to bed, where we read the online news and browse a few websites together.

The first thing we look at is this here website, because she doesn’t have time to read it during the week, so we scroll back while she gets a Whole Week Of Kim in one gulp, so to speak. (And yet she still stays with me, which is a miracle, quite frankly.)

Anyway, our first read this past Saturday was my post about beauty and the differing definitions thereof.

I should point out that New Wife has if anything more conservative tastes than I do, and anything that reeks of “flashy” or “loud” makes her nose turn up in disgust. Needless to say, she thought all the ’68-’72 cars I pictured were “dreadful” and “disgusting” except for the E-type (and even that gets only a begrudging pass from her).

One of the other websites we visit each week is C.W.’s Daily Timewaster, which on this occasion featured this vision of loveliness, a Jaguar Mk II from the early 1960s:

This she pronounced as the most beautiful car ever made, because it was classy (inside and out).

By her terms, of course, it is the most beautiful car ever made — because she thinks that almost all sports cars are “flashy”, and the family saloon car is the sine qua non of automotive desirability.

I would actually agree with her, because as 4-door saloon cars go, the Mark II is undoubtedly exquisite, especially when compared to others of its ilk and era both European and American. (With its 3.4-liter engine, it’s also plenty powerful, which she sniffily dismisses with “If you’re interested in that sort of thing”.)

And in case you’re interested in which sports car she would appreciate were we to win the lottery, it’s this one, the 1964 Mercedes 230SL W113 (“Pagoda”):

Can’t really fault her on that one, either. (I’d prefer the later-model W113 280 SL because MOAR POWAH, but she’s unmoved by that, as we’ve seen before.)