Author: Kim du Toit

Strangely Satisfying

Eco-Crap, Gummint

You know, if an Alpine mountain community lived in constant fear of avalanches, one could feel a certain sympathy if said avalanches caused severe damage to the place each year and some loss of life among its inhabitants.

I suspect, however, that one would feel somewhat less sympathetic if the community refused to deploy snowplows and rescue helicopters purely because of the emissions from those vehicles.  Indeed, one might even get unworthy feelings of smug satisfaction and even Schadenfreude  from the annual, tearful news reports of death and destruction.

How then, are we expected to feel when California gets plunged into darkness and suffers loss of property and life through the regular occurrence of wildfires?

Fire conditions statewide made California “a tinderbox,” said Jonathan Cox, a spokesman for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. Of the state’s 58 counties, 43 were under red flag warnings for high fire danger Sunday.

And just so we know exactly why these conditions have reached the point to where they have:  despite the fact that hot Santa Ana winds create an annual risk of deadly wildfires, California continues to ban the clear-cutting and controlled burning of deadwood and -brush in wilderness areas as well as in areas close to suburban development because of supposed-ecological concerns.  That’s the “tinderbox” referred to above.

Moreover, it’s hard for the rest of us to feel pity for Californians when it’s clearly the fault of their own elected officials and legislature who continue to force their wrongheaded Gaia-worship on the Golden Shower State, with consequences that have become not only annual, but predictably horrible.  (And which some, equally-predictably, somehow manage to escape.)

I should feel guilty about my Schadenfreude, but I really don’t — just as I don’t feel sorry for Californians who complain about high taxes, iniquitous government interference in their lives, high real-estate prices and the whole dreadful litany of self-inflicted ills, all without exception imposed on them by, once again, their stupid, venal and self-serving elected politicians.

Let ’em burn.  Maybe at some point they may even be forced to try and get some change enacted through the ballot box, but I don’t see that happening anytime soon.

Update:  unusually, I seem to have understated California’s problems.

More Snowflakery

Pussification Parade, Snowflakes

Hard on the heels of the Grimm’s Fairy Tales atrocity comes this blast of fetid air from the zeitgeist :

The youngest generation’s greater willingness to embrace nontraditional gender norms has opened up a new market within the beauty industry: men’s makeup.
One-third of young men said they would consider wearing makeup, according to Morning Consult polling, while 23 percent of all men said the same. Founders of men’s cosmetic brands credit the increased interest among young men not only to a wider acceptance of the idea that gender is fluid but also to the pressure to be picture perfect at any moment, thanks to social media.
…
In August 2018, Chanel debuted a line of men’s makeup, called Boy de Chanel, that includes a foundation and an eyebrow pencil.

Okay, you all may snigger at this, but even I am not immune to the siren call of male cosmetics:  a little dab of Hoppe’s No. 9 behind the ears does wonders for the self-esteem.

I even carry a small bottle in my gun bag purse for the occasional touch-up.  (And all you Kroil and CLP devotees can get knotted.  If Hoppe’s was good enough for my Dad, and his  dad, it’s damn well good enough for me.)

Gun Game

The Gun Thing

Here’s a quick game for us to play.

If someone gave you a voucher for a free new gun at your friendly neighborhood Merchant Of Death, what gun would you buy or order?  (Restrictions:  one gun only, nothing costing more than $2,000 and nothing not currently in the catalog.)

Answers in Comments.

Mine: 
That’s a Colt New Frontier Single Action Army, in .44 Special. Cost:  $1,995.  (I need a gun for the Governor’s BBQ.)  I’ll spring for the DeSantis holster out of my own pocket…

Triggering Update

Pussification Parade, Snowflakes

Here’s one which should make all grown-up people spit their breakfast gin into the Rice Krispies:

With the fragile millennial generation seemingly getting weaker by the day, a university in Scotland has fond it necessary to issue “trigger warnings” for college students asked to read Grimm’s fairy tales for class.

Now that said, I should point out that many of Grimm’s fairy tales — in their un-bowdlerized form, that is — are genuinely terrifying:  if one is five years old.

I remember being quite frightened by some of the darker fairy tales myself, but that, of course, is the entire point of the things:  they’re cautionary tales for children.  Just take Hansel & Gretel as an example:  don’t wander away from the house unaccompanied, or bad things will happen to you.  (I bet that young Miss Bambridge’s parents regret never having read that  story to their daughter during her childhood.)

But that supposed adults — university students, no less — who can vote, drive and buy alcohol (sometimes all at the same time) should require precautionary warnings before reading Grimm’s Fairy Tales ?  Just think:  some day these little weenies may be running countries and corporations.

Thankfully, by that time I should be dead.

Capital Flight

Business, Marxists, Politics

I haven’t spoken at all about the situation in Hong Kong before, mostly because there wasn’t much to be said:  (somewhat) free colony opposes colonial power’s aggression, mayhem ensues.

Several people have wondered why the ChiComs haven’t sent in the tanks, à la Tienanmen Square, to crush the waves of protests, but the answer is simple:  Hong Kong provides a means whereby the ChiCom government can move money around the world without provoking too much notice because currency movement in Hong Kong is completely unregulated.  Crush the protests, make Hong Kong just another province (like, say, Jiangxi or Shandong) and that flexibility disappears.

It is, however, a two-edged sword.  What has transpired since the protests began is that capital (money owned by individuals, that is) has been pouring out of Hong Kong and flooding into Singapore — to name just one such destination — thence on to parts unknown.  Which means that if Beijing does finally send the tanks into Hong Kong, they’re likely to find, like Old Mother Hubbard, that the cupboard is bare.  And the flow of  money is truly a deluge:  if you study how many major corporations have been purchased by Chinese-sourced money over the past few months, you’d be amazed.  Even better is that by and large, the corporations being thus purchased are characterized by their cash flow operations — in other words, the Chinese billionaires, canny businessmen that they are, are not just parking their money under an offshore mattress, they’re putting that cash to work and generating a revenue stream.

The ChiComs may not only be running out of other people’s money — they may soon be running out of their own.

Couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch of totalitarians.

By the way, you may have noticed that the above is somewhat short of details;  that’s because if I say more, I could jeopardize my several sources who are not only well placed in the area, but who do a ton of business there too and are close to said wealthy people.  One can never be too careful when dealing with Commie bastards.

And Back We Go Again

Two-Minute Hate

It’s not often that I agree with the doings of the foul European Union bureaucrats, but I see that they’ve just voted to do away with daylight savings time.  And as we’re coming up to the day (next Sunday morning) where we set the clocks back to Standard Time (where they bloody should be), I gaze across the Atlantic with something approaching envy — or rather, I will next year when DST becomes a thing here again.

Of course, this being Euroland, some people are going to be inconvenienced:

If member states give it the go ahead, EU countries will no longer put their clocks back in autumn and forward in spring.  But this would mean a time zone difference between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, with the province still adhering to Greenwich Mean Time and British Summer Time.

As if the Irish need a way to cock their lives up any further… in discussing the matter with Mr. Free Market during our regular Sunday night drunken phone call, his suggestion is to let the Micks have one time zone (either one, no matter), after pouring a boatload of guns and munitions into the hands of the Northern Irish DUP, and let them all fight it out among themselves, while the rest of Britain sits aside in (to coin a phrase) splendid isolation.

If they’re going to fight about a version of Christianity, they may as well fight over an artificial timekeeping system, too.