It seems that if a young actress wants to live to a ripe old age, she must at all costs refuse to play the wacky but lovable sister of any of Hugh Grant’s movie characters.
Item 1: Charlotte Coleman, wacky sister Scarlett in 4 Weddings And A Funeral:
Dead at age 33 (asthma).
Item #2: Emma Chambers, wacky sister Honey in Notting Hill:
Dead at age 53 (kidney failure).
Is Hugh Grant the Devil? I think we should be told.
So, O My Readers, riddle me this: we have two Colt double-action revolvers on display, first a Trooper Mk III:
and next, a Python:
Both have 6″ barrels, both are chambered for the fine .357 Magnum cartridge, both are excellent revolvers — quite possibly two of the best ever made — and yet even though the idiots at Colt don’t make either of them anymore [100,000-word rant deleted] the Trooper typically retails for under $1,000, while the Python is stratospheric ($2,300 and up).
I know the Python was built with no-expenses-spared quality, while the Trooper wasn’t — not that it was shoddy, anything but — and maybe it has a different feel to the Python’s silky triple-snick cocking sound. But I find it difficult to believe that the Python, based on its price alone, is three times better than the Trooper.
I’ve fired both revolvers many times, and owned a Python at one time. Yet now, as a retired old geezer, the chances of me ever owning a Python again are not good (actually, I probably have a better chance of winning the Pick 4 lottery). So why, I ask you all, should I not set my sights on a Trooper instead?
You Readers who are Colt cognoscenti, give me the scoop in Comments (after wiping the drool from yer keyboards, of course). And for once, ignore any arguments involving beauty and / or status. It would be my new bedside gun only.
Oops. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has been caught with its dirty little fingers in the fudge drawer… again.
NOAA has been cooking the books. Yet again – presumably for reasons more to do with ideology than meteorology – NOAA has adjusted past temperatures to look colder than they were and recent temperatures to look warmer than they were.
We’re not talking fractions of a degree, here. The adjustments amount to a whopping 3.1 degrees F. This takes us well beyond the regions of error margins or innocent mistakes and deep into the realm of fiction and political propaganda.
This all started when some smart guy looked at the raw data covering the recent polar vortex storms in the Northeastern United States, and found the disparity as noted above. The data had been “smoothed” (weasel statistician word meaning “altered”) and guess in which direction? Why, to support the Glueball Wormening narrative, of course.
And by the way: you know how the Arctic ice cap is at its lowest level in history? Ummm not so.
And you know how it never snows in Rome? Also not so. And Naples?
And you know how The Independent said that British children will grow up never having seen snow? Not this generation, anyway.
Enjoy the read.
Longtime Readers may remember that the Son&Heir once belonged to a shooting club here in Dallas known as the Shooting Stars, doing air pistol, air rifle and free (.22LR) pistol disciplines. For a tiny club, their output has been impressive. When the Son&Heir was a member (he’s now emeritus):
So: the Shooting Stars need some equipment, i.e. some of the electronic targets that are used in airgun competition, which are especially needed as the club often hosts the state championships. They are looking for some angels to help them out.
That would be you lot. Once again, this is not a bunch of goofballs; they’re a serious outfit who have contributed much to the shooting sports in Texas as well as nationally and internationally. Here’s their website (check out their recent achievements, good grief!), and follow the link to their GoFundMe appeal.
With all the nonsense that’s being thrown at us shooters these days, this is a worthy cause. I’ve sprung for $100; I just wish I could do more.
Please join me in helping them out.
This is not a post about rayyycism.
Had the Tiguan in for a major (30k) service yesterday, and on the way out of the dealership I drove past the usual couple miles of new VWs waiting to be sold. Then something caught my eye and I made a double U-turn, then repeated the trip.
At a rough estimate, well over half the new cars were black. In North Texas. Where in summer (May 1 to November 15) you can see lizards cooking on the sidewalks, tar melting in the streets, people grilling steaks on the hoods of their cars, and where 100-degree days beget 95-degree nights. Where diving into a swimming pool means not cooling down but just getting wet because the water temperature is so close to blood temperature as makes no difference.
So I ask you all, with tears in my eyes: WTF is it with all these black cars? Don’t people know that black draws in sunlight and makes things hotter? Was everyone asleep in Science class that day when you put a cube of ice on a piece of white paper and an identical cube on a piece of black paper and watched as the latter melted in about half the time in the sunlight as the other?
Take a look at this Escalade:
In North Texas, the inside temperature in that beast is going to reach “broil” in about twenty minutes — and “let’s melt some steel” in another twenty.
When I first arrived in Texas (Austin, to be precise) I rented a car for the first month I was here before buying one for myself. The rental was a black Camaro, and (coming from a guy who’d lived in Africa) I couldn’t get into the thing during the day without first opening the door, reaching inside quickly to start the thing and turn the a/c on (just that simple action raising a torrent of sweat on my face), then scuttling back inside the air-conditioned apartment to wait about ten minutes. By doing that, re-entry into the Camaro would become simply unpleasant as opposed to intolerable. (Also, the 1985 Camaro had that giant rear window which helped turn the thing into a mobile sunroom.)
I’ve never owned a black car since. Even my wine-colored previous Tiguan was lousy in the sun, which is why Tiggy II is snow-white — and all my future cars will be white as well.
I can understand (sorta) why someone who owns a big Mercedes, BMW or similar “executive” car might choose black — some pretensions to class or grandeur, I suppose — but not in Texas. It’s just stupid.
Mostly in reaction to all this “Boo-hoo!” / “guns are eeeevil” / “let’s ban all guns” / “think of the chilluns” bullshit from the Usual Suspects (GFWs, Commies, Leftists, academics, journalists, intellectuals and other assorted filth, you know who they are), I’d like to make an announcement:
The Gratuitous Gun Pics feature will soon reappear on these pages.
It’s a moral imperative. Here’s an appetizer, taken from a range session I had with Mr. Free Market at TDSA several years ago:
The funny thing about this pic is that all those guns supposedly came from my personal collection at the time, but I have absolutely no idea how the little SIG .22 Mosquito (top left) got there; I don’t remember buying one (I’ve never owned a SIG of any description), and it’s no longer in Ye Olde Gunne Sayfe either, so it’s a complete mystery. Also, for those interested: the Ruger Blackhawk (top center) was chambered in .30 Carbine.
And I would kill to get the stainless S&W Mod 65 back (third from bottom). If the current owner sees this post, send me an email, willya?