Author: Kim du Toit

Not Already?

Gratuitous Chick Pics, Weather

Yesterday saw our first of 90+ degree daytime highs.  Ugh.

But for the benefit of the Global Cooling Climate Warming Change© crowd, when I looked this phenomenon up, I noted that May 12 was the latest day in the past 43 years that the 90+ temperature arrived.  Not that it matters too much.  If the forecast for this week is to be believed, daytime highs will seldom reach the mid-80s, and drop into the high 70s by the coming weekend.  Sunday, in other words, was something of an anomaly.

Welcome to a typical Texas spring, in other words.

Still, there is one benefit to our searing summer highs:

Oh yeah, baby… Daisy Dukes and skimpy lil’ tops, gawd love ’em.

Monday Funnies

Funny Stuff

So here we go with our weekly diary entry:

Let’s get down to the silly business, then.

And on the topic of surveys:

And on a sorta-related note, some other people’s sisters:

That’s enough of that.  Now say good-bye and walk away…

FYLP

Music

…which stands for “For Your Listening Pleasure” — hey, if people are going to acronymize (lol) every damn expression under the sun — then I can get on the bandwagon, so to speak.

And speaking of bands and music, allow me to recommend this one, Piano Sonata #1 in B-flat by Richard Wagner.

“Wait… Wagner?  The opera guy?  The guy whose long-form operas were the basis for all sleep aids to come?”

Yeah, that Wagner.  Unlike his turgid operas, this sonata is light, airy and extremely pleasant on the ears, and it’s one of my favorite classical piano pieces of all time.

Enjoy.

Talking Semi-Automatic

Gratuitous Gun Pics, The Gun Thing

…shotguns, that is.

I must confess that in this here Gun Thing, it’s the firearms type of which I claim little expertise.  I’ve owned a couple, of course — as with most firearms types of the brass cartridge persuasion — both Brownings, the first being the fabled A5 Sweet Sixteen:

…which I have to say, in all honesty, I didn’t enjoy shooting.  Mine was an older version which didn’t have the recoil pad like the one above;  no, it was thinner and harder, and the Sixteen’s sharp recoil always beat the hell out of my shoulder.  It didn’t help that the 16ga ammo was kinda spendy, too — as Mr. Free Market, who knows more about shotguns than I could gather in three lifetimes, has often stated:  “All the unpleasantness of a twelve, with none of the advantages of the twenty.”

I far preferred shooting my other Browning semi-auto, the 20-gauge Gold Hunter:

I never regretted getting rid of the Sweet Sixteen, but I really regret losing the Gold Hunter in that Tragic Boating Accident On The Brazos — and since Browning has stopped making the Hunter line, those 20ga. Gold Hunters (predictably) are now scarce and if in decent shape, somewhat expensive, for a shotgun that is.

All this came to mind when some time ago I received a communication from some gun store about their reduced prices on Beretta semi-auto shotguns — no, I can’t remember which store and what the prices were, sorry — but I do recall which shotguns they were talking about:  the A300 line, and specifically which sub-variants.  They are two shotguns with diametrically-opposed functions.  First, the A300 Ultima “Sporting” 20ga:

I have to say, I like the looks of this one (despite the camo finish — yeah, I know, ducks and turkeys and what have you), but I have an abiding respect for Beretta and its various products so I bet this lovely thing is a dream to shoot.  Just get rid of the camo finish — oh, wait, here’s one I’d grab onto in a heartbeat:

I don’t care what you say, that is just plain yummy.  Unfortunately, like most Beretta products, these 30″-barreled beauties cost more than I want to spend — over a grand for a semi-auto shotgun?  Pass.

Not so yummy was the other Beretta piece in that email, the Ultima “Patrol”:

Okay, okay I know:  with that shorty lil’ 19″ barrel, it’s not a sporter.  It’s designed for the Swatties and Tactical Home Defense crowd, so that 7+1 ammo capacity is a sine qua non  requirement.  Whenever someone describes a gun as a “tool” — a topic for another time — then this is the kind of gun that jumps to mind.  Look, it’s going to work, and well, and that’s its purpose.  Fine.  (Frankly, I’d rather go with a pump action, but that too is a topic for another time.)  But as a gun I’d want in my gun safe?  Pass.

Going back the the semi-auto part, I recall reading about John Moses Browning’s design for the A5, and how it’s been improved over time so the recoil isn’t as intimidating.  As I said, I don’t know much about semi-auto shotgun designs (compared to handgun- and rifle designs, anyway), so I’m not going to talk about them and reveal my ignorance thereof.  I have no idea about whether the Remington 11-87 is a better design or whether it’s just copied from Browning’s… whatever.

I just know that if I were to have a desire for a semi-auto shotgun, it would invariably tend towards the blued steel-and-walnut variety.  But that’s pretty much true of my preferences for any gun, and you all know that about me anyway.

When We Do It, It’s A Game

Marxists

…but when the Left does it, it’s an action plan.

We’ve all played the “One Shot” game (“If you could pull the trigger just once, without any consequences to you, who’d be your target?”), but it’s always been a game.

With the Left, though, it’s hardly ever a game.

I myself live in dread that some day, some moron on the Right is going to try to make the One Shot game a reality and take a potshot at some Lefty.  Like that little shit in Pennsylvania tried at DJT.

History, however, sort of makes me think that as always, real political violence will come from the Left.  Let’s just hope that when it does, it fails (unlike it did with JFK and RFK Sr.).

We always allude to the shit storm that might follow open- and general violence from the Left, but the Pantifa / BLM riots — Kyle Rittenhouse wonderfully excepted — seemed to prove otherwise.

This time around, though, I think a repeat performance from these spoiled little middle-class tools might get a somewhat different response from law enforcement (or even the military, if necessary) than what they anticipated.

I hope so, anyway.