Author: Kim du Toit

Can’t Go With That

Morons & Idiots

Here’s a headline that made me scratch my head:

Are Nephilim Still Ruling the World?

Wait, Nephi-what?  Oh FFS, I wish I hadn’t looked this one up:

Genesis 6:1–4 tells the readers that the Nephilim, which means “fallen ones” when translated into English, were the product of copulation between the divine beings (lit. sons of god) and human women (lit. daughters of Adam).

I know, I know… it’s in the Bible, so it must be true.

So that means that all those Greek “myths” weren’t actually mythical at all?

Zeus and the other Olympians were constantly and permanently knocking up princesses, queens, nymphs, sirens, lesser goddesses, warrior women and just plain fair maidens who bathed in the pool with their handmaidens. And the handmaidens, too, sometimes. Zeus even managed to impregnate mortal women when he was a swan or a bull.

Hercules was the illegitimate child of Zeus and a mortal woman, as were Perseus, Helen of Troy and Minos (among other very, very famous offspring of Zeus). Yep, the Greek God family tree is very, very tangled. The genealogy is near impossible to try to map.

And ancient Greeks who literally believed in their religion also believed that Zeus could produce offspring with human women in the real world; among the many people who did was Alexander the Great’s mother, who claimed that Zeus had fathered her son. Alexander the Great was alleged to have actually believed this himself.

I can see why Alexander might have believed it of himself, but I cannot believe that anyone in this day and age would even be discussing this bullshit.  And yet they are, and I perforce must pass comment on their drooling fantasies.

Talk about yer animal husbandry…

Random Totty

Gratuitous Chick Pics

Okay, Fiona Vroom is one of them Canucki chicks, so you’d think she looks like this:

…or even like this:

But not really.  In fact:

And as the above pics show, that face is exquisite:

And the rest isn’t bad, either:

But that face…

Gratuitous Gun Pic: Farquharson (.577 Nitro Express)

Gratuitous Gun Pics

Once more, that Evil Purveyor Of Death Steve Barnett shows us this (albeit misspelled) offering:

I talked a little but about the joys of single-shot hunting back here, and honestly, the rifle above touches all my buttons:  history, heritage, challenge, and peerless reliability.  Also, it looks wonderful.  (Here’s the whole story on this rifle and action type, and looking at this particular one, the “NP” — No Patent — stamp means it’s most likely a Gibbs-made rifle rather than an original Farquharson.)

The Farquharson action has been much copied, most recently by Ruger for its No. 1:


…and subsequent models of the same ilk.  But if you do a side-by-side comparison, the older rifle has it over the Ruger by a country mile.  Is that difference worth about $12,000?  Maybe not, but then someone who wants to buy a different rifle (that “history, heritage, challenge, and peerless reliability” thing) isn’t going to worry about such trifles.

Me, I’ll stick to my Browning High Wall — Chuck Hawks compares the Ruger and Browning here — but were I to venture into single-shot-dangerous-game hunting, I’d have to get something else, because the High Wall was never issued in anything larger than .45-70 Govt, and certainly not in the monster .577 NE.  (I suspect that the High Wall could handle the larger cartridge, but I’d only test it on someone else’s gun.)

Not that I’m ever likely to want to shoot the .577 NE, of course.  The Winchester .458 Magnum is about as high as (and maybe even a bit higher than) I would care to handle, according to my shoulder.

But for the collector, this Farq is lovely and in my opinion, worth every penny.

New Car, New Problems, Same Company

Drive Time

As much as I love Jaguars, even I have to admit to their manifold failings:  crap electrical systems, rust at the slightest hint of humidity (let alone rain or snow), and engines that should have been excellent (and often were), but not always so.

I knew a man who owned an XJS, and apart from the terrible V8 — they should have just stayed with the E-type’s 6, but nooooo — it just could not handle any road conditions that weren’t dry midsummer.  And this in Chicago.  (In our company bowling league, I gave him the lane name of Jagno Snogo.)

And was it but a couple days back where I castigated the company for buying into the Global Cooling Climate Warming Change© nonsense and deciding to go all-electric?  (Why yes, yes it was.)

Well, paint me white and call me Paleface:

A driver who was trapped behind the wheel of an out-of-control Jaguar I-Pace has revealed to MailOnline how he almost cheated death as his car accelerated up to 100mph on the busy M62 motorway without brakes.

Nathan Owen, 31, was on his way back from his first day at a new job when his 2019 electric car started malfunctioning, sparking a huge police operation to bring his car to a stop after 35 minutes of hell.

But in a shock revelation, Mr Owen told how his car had also gone rogue on the motorway in December, this time reaching up to 120mph. He claims Jaguar handed him his car back 24 hours after he had taken it in to be looked at.

Oh yeah, did I also mention Jaguar’s legendary customer service?  Which is to “service” as Rosie O’Donnell is to being a Playboy model:  not even close to acceptable.

He admitted: ‘In the back of my mind, I was thinking I’m going to end up crashing the car, I’m going to kill myself or I’m going to kill an innocent person on the roads.’

Mr Owen, originally from North Wales, added: ‘The car was in its own world — it just had no brakes. The worst thing about it is that it’s happened before.’

And yet you kept on driving the stupid thing (#Wales).

‘The car literally just started speeding up,’ he said. ‘I couldn’t press the brakes. The speed was going towards about 100mph in the high 90s, going to 100. I thought this was a bit wrong. [ya thaink? — K.]

‘It came up on the dashboard saying there was a battery malfunction in my car.’ [I’ll say — K.]

But here’s the best part:

Mr Owen’s car was finally able to be brought to a stop when the miles on his electric car started running out.

Yeah, that’s $80,000 of pure automotive quality and reliability right there.

I wouldn’t accept one as a gift.