QOTD – Splendid Isolation

Quote Of The Day

August 21, 2026 Kim du Toit QOTD

“Most of what we saw were crimes of poverty-people who are stealing things like toothpaste, people who were stealing things like, you know, soap. And that means if you’re stealing those things, you need them.”

Justifying crime on the basis of need. Were this not on the Planet Manhattan, I’d think we were all going bats.

Random thought: think this asshole would say differently if someone broke into her house and stole her $10,000 Persian carpet because they “needed” some floor covering?

#RhetoricalQuestion

Quote Of The Day

August 17, 2026 Kim du Toit QOTD, Technology

From Steven Miller:

“Data centers being built isn’t the problem, the data in those data centers is.”

It has always been my major concern about this whole business. It started way back, when I found out that Google was suppressing search results for my old Nation Of Rifleman website. Even keying in whole sentences or blocks of text from a specific post didn’t bring up the post, or even the website itself.

So now I’m supposed to trust artificial “intellgence”, when I have no idea what the search criteria are, or what sources were accessed to produce those “intelligent” results?

I don’t fucking think so, Simon.

Quote Of The Day

August 12, 2026 Kim du Toit Legal Stuff, QOTD

From this guy (via Insty):

“There is Chief Justice Roberts, the institutionalist, who strategically guides the Supreme Court by not deciding more than is necessary to decide. Then there is Chief Justice Roberts, the institutionalist, who strategically guides the Supreme Court by deciding more than is necessary to decide. Which Roberts do we get in each case?”

Going by past decisions, we get the Roberts which is most likely to piss off conservatives in that particular case.

Quote Of The Day

July 30, 2026 Kim du Toit Drive Time, QOTD

From Carl Hartley (of the Tom Hartley supercar dealership):

“The McLaren F1 tries to kill you. It treats you like you shagged its wife and beat its kids.”

Actually, it’s being a little cheeky: trying to kill you while it first plundered your bank balance to the tune of millions of dollars..

And he loves driving the thing. Go figure.

Quote Of The Day

July 24, 2026 Kim du Toit Old Age, QOTD

From The Divine Sarah, talking about depression:

“Anyway, part of the black dog these days is telling me that I’m done. I’ve done what I could, and now it’s over, and it’s time to shuffle quietly into that good night.”

I think pretty much everyone reaches that stage — I know I have — and I have nothing but respect for people who continue to do serious stuff well into their eighth decade (e.g. the current POTUS).

My old friend Max, he of the Busker Chronicles, put it in his usual cynical fashion: “Now all we have to do is wait for death.”

I find it increasingly difficult to summon up the enthusiasm to write about much — yesterday’s post about the German car business was one of the few times I could be bothered, because I was actually interested in the phenomenon that is German stupidity.

Otherwise, it’s one big shrug after another.

The only thing that continues to interest me is going “once more into the breech*”, i.e. shooting.

And now, if you’ll excuse me…

*I know, it’s “unto the breach”, thank you Shakespeare’s Henry V.