Author: Kim du Toit

Tolerance

Freaks & Loonies

Let’s hear from the “tolerant” wing of Gun Control, Inc.:

And we’re  the extremists?  (More of the same stuff here.)

I suspect that many politicians of the gun-controlling persuasion would clutch their pearls and decry such actions… while secretly egging loons like this on.

I’m also curious as to how he intends to “kill ever NRA member” without using a gun himself.  Spear?  Crossbow?  Kitchen knife?

I know:  we shouldn’t respond to nonsense like this because he’s just blowing off steam — at least, I hope he is, or else someone (not me) might find this cockroach, cut his head off and stick it on a pike in his own front lawn.  In true revolutionary spirit (circa 1789), of course.

Oh, and Mr. Walker:  congratulations.  You just gave gun owners yet another reason to carry a gun.

Makes Sense

The Gun Thing

As the Socialists (you know, politicians, mainstream media, teachers’ unions etc.) are going all “NO MOAR GUNS!”, the people who were actually affected  by the recent gun violence seem to be taking a different approach:

More El Paso residents than ever before crowded into a class over the weekend to become certified to carry a concealed gun in public in Texas after this month’s mass shooting at a Walmart store that killed 22 people.
…
The vast majority of people at the classes were Hispanic; El Paso is a predominantly Latino city. Police say the accused gunman deliberately attacked Hispanics in the Walmart.
…
“We actually had two people buy guns here who were actually in the Walmart on the day of the shooting. The other people are just saying, ‘Hey, you know I want to be able to protect myself in the event of something going on’.”

And, of course, most of the guns being bought were handguns — the eeeevil killing machines that were once the named target of an organization known as Handgun Control, Inc. (and now known by a pseudonym, although it’s the same bunch of assholes).

Whatever.  Despite the moanings of the aforementioned gun confiscators, it seems as though a lot of people are not going to be helpless victims anymore — which is exactly as it should be.  (I just wish that little turd had walked into a Wal-Mart where a dozen or so of his would-be victims were already  carrying guns — I suspect that the outcome would have been a whole lot different, in a good way.)

And now, if you’ll excuse me, it’s time to do a little practice myself.  In the spirit of our buddies in El Paso, I’ll be doing handguns today:  an hour or two of dry-fire drawing practice at home, followed by a couple hundred rounds sent into a target at the DFW Gun Range.

Chinks In The Armor

Lies and Untruths, Marxists, Numbers & Statistics

As much as the ChiComs claim to be a global economic powerhouse, we should always be aware that much of the economic numbers that come out of China are either flat-out lies or at best, exaggerations.  Hence:

The most important thing to understand about Chinese statistics is not that they are necessarily manipulated from the top. Certainly that happens too, as it does in every country in the world. Look no further than Wang’s example for that. But much of the manipulation of Chinese data actually comes from the lower levels. China is a country of over a billion people, but it has no unified or centralized statistical reporting system. Data is gathered at the local level and passed up the chain until it reaches the central government. The bureaucrats in charge of that system enjoy professional success and advancement when their numbers conform to the expectations and directives of the party. As a result, the numbers can be inflated to give the impression of success or moderated in order to avoid attention.

An example of how this can lead to catastrophe comes out of China itself, in the not-so-distant past:

In the 1958-1961 Great Leap Forward, Chairman Mao’s disastrous attempt to shift a backward agrarian economy to a modern industrial powerhouse, the failure of the statistical system contributed to catastrophe on a grand scale. Mao’s plan, such as it was, required producing an agricultural surplus that could be sold to fund investment in a modern industrial base. Whipped into a patriotic frenzy, and knowing that their future depended on meeting unrealistic targets for the production of grain, local officials engaged in rampant exaggeration of output.
But reality was distorted at a cost. The higher the production figures, the greater the tax owed to the central government. In some areas, the exaggerated claims were so great that the entire harvest had to be handed over as tax, used to fund investments and extravagances that China could ill afford. In some parts of the country, the only crops left behind were grown by villagers in secret locations, away from the acquisitive eye of the local production teams. But such success stories were few and far between. Tens of millions died in history’s greatest man-made famine.

Communists are renowned, of course, for perverting the facts to suit their own ends.  Remember this over the coming political election season here in the U.S., as our own home-grown Marxists fabricate lies and misquote or otherwise falsify data, simply to advance their political agenda.

Shapely

Drive Time

Longtime Readers are no doubt getting tired of me griping about the sameness of modern automobiles.  Yet the other day I found myself looking at a pic of the new Corvette C8 — which, I have to admit, I don’t hate too  much  — and asking myself:  “Where have I seen this before?”

 

Then it came to me:

 

That’s the Ferrari 458, and although the rear is different, the front isn’t, much.

I’m not into “supercars”, really, but I have to think that if someone asked me to pick one (ignoring the investment differential vis-a-vis the Ferrari), I’d probably refuse both.  Which begs the question:  “Okay, Kim… so which modern supercar of today would you pick?”

Only because I find it the least ugly of all of them, the Aston Martin DB11:

 

…although, as I stated earlier on these pages, I’d rather not have any  supercar, but a simple sports car, the 2015 Jaguar XK:

 

I saw one as it burbled past me the other day in Plano’s Legacy West area, and I was filled with an unreasonable hatred towards its owner.  And I’m not even an envious socialist.