Latest Posts

Educating Immigrants

Education, Immigration

From Gates Of Vienna comes a “tl;mr” (too long / must read”) post by a teacher at the sharp end — probably literally so — of the effort to get newly-arrived immigrant children to integrate into the host society.  As you can well imagine, it’s going to fail dismally:

I know I will be called a “damned whore”, “damned pussy”, and I know I will hear, “You don’t decide for me.” There will be mess and noise in the classroom, the hallways, the schoolyard and the dining room. Changing rooms where classes change for physical education classes will, as usual, be places where girls don’t dare change since boys will show up and sneakily photograph the girls.
Showering is not on the world map for girls and even for some boys in school. It is enough that one or two pupils refuse to follow the instruction and scream “shut up” at me every time I am going to say something; thus is the lesson destroyed for 28 other pupils who want to learn something.When I call parents in for a conversation, I hear that I don’t have the right to tell their children off, that I should be careful so that I won’t be reported to the principal or school inspectors. They know where my family and I live, what car I drive, and I know that the risk is great that my car will get scratched or destroyed in some other way. I know that certain pupils threaten other pupils, but I don’t dare get in the middle because I risk being beaten.

Read it, and don’t weep;  get angry.  Because this (and the mindset which enables it) either has come, or will soon be coming to a school near you.

Hidden Agenda

Gummint, Legal Stuff

Talking about legislatures passing laws which seem to be quite insane, not to mention un-Constitutional and unenforceable, Joe Bob Briggs nails the mindset perfectly:

“We don’t like things as they are, and so we’ll make it really, really expensive for certain people to enforce their rights. We’ll make them fight every day for what should be rightly theirs for free. We’ll take away their birthright. We’ll screw with their businesses and screw with their wombs and screw with their assumptions about what the courts have guaranteed them, and some of them will give up, and some of them will make mistakes, and we’ll just make sure they have many bad days, and eventually they’ll get tired of fighting with us and we’ll get a team of brutal lawyers to take them down and put them in their place.”

And then having said that, Joe Bob concludes with the killer line:

Well, okay, I guess it worked with the Indians.

To us normal people, this is known as the “beating a dog till it snaps at you, then killing it because it’s dangerous”-style of government.

The only problem with this approach is that we’re not Indians.  And we have some serious fucking teeth.

Busted

Food & Drink

Seems as though most wine critics and tasters are  bunch of posers who couldn’t tell a Beaujolais from a Bass Ale.

In other news, Queen Marie Antoinette was guillotined yesterday.

As an aside, I once did a couple of wine courses over a period of two weeks at the Bellingham and Meerlust estates.  During that adventure, I learned that a.) there are some people who can in fact tell the grape varietals from a sip of wine, and b.) there are only about a couple dozen such people, tops, in the entire world.  Blindfolded, most people can’t tell red from white from beer (seriously, I’ve seen a few of those challenges).

Here’s a tip when dining out and the sommelier  asks you to “taste” the wine:  don’t do it.  Pick up the sample glass, swirl it a couple of times and then sniff it cautiously.  If it’s not rancid — and you’ll know that  when you smell it — just nod and say,”That’ll do.”  If he says, “Don’t you want to taste it?” reply “I don’t need to.”  Then sit back and carry on with your conversation, ignoring him.

For extra points:  if it’s a dark red like a cabernet or burgundy, wince slightly, then tell the sommelier  to let it breathe for ten or so minutes before he serves it to the table.  (That’s a cheat, by the way;  all  reds need to breathe a little after uncorking.)

The wine world is full of phonies who like to show off.  The way to make people think you know what you’re talking about is to say less, not more.  What you do  (see above) is more impressive than what you say.

Monday Funnies

Funny Stuff

Oh FFS it’s Monday already:

So before we get to fixing things, a little humor:

And just to speed you on your way, a couple pics of someone named Linda Lusardi, first as a youngin:

…and as she looks today:

Fine wine…

“Dear Dr. Kim”

Advice

“Dear Dr. Kim:
“I understand that you used to play in a rock band, so perhaps you can help.  Our gig band is in need of a keyboards player, so we set up a whole bunch of auditions.  Astonishingly, every single applicant was female, and we’ve never had any women in the band before.  The problem is that all the applicants were excellent musicians, and none of us guys can decide which one we like best.  I’ve attached pics in the hope that this will guide you to help us decide.”

— The Undecided Quartet

Dear Quartet,
Women are problematic in a rock band, for all sorts of reasons.  If they’re single, they will inevitably get a boyfriend who gets jealous of the guys in the band and will try to get her to quit.  If she’s already married, chances are that her husband will eventually start to feel the same way, AND the odds are also good that she’ll get pregnant and quit the band to look after her brat, or some such stupid reason.
I’m not even going to get into the scenario where two or more of your bandmates are going to fall in love with her and get jealous of each other;  or if they’re married, will have an affair with her thus angering the wifey — all of which means that the band could break up over the bitch.  Do you really want to have to deal with all that?
Anyway, now that I’ve got that off my chest, let’s look at the pics…

— Dr. Kim

 

P.S.  Choose the one who can read music the best.  Or the one with the biggest tits.  Either is good.

Not-So-Vintage Beauty

Drive Time

While wandering along the various highways and byways of Ye Olde Internette (i.e. looking at stuff that wasn’t written yesterday by some illiterate / ignorant Millennial), I stumbled upon something that I hold near and dear to my heart:  a Maserati 4200 GT from the early 2000s.  Here’s what it looks like, in both Coupé and Spyder configurations:

 

Now here’s why I love this creature [2,000 lines of drooling foolishness redacted]:

  • 4.2-liter V8 Ferrari engine giving
  • 385 horsepower (395 in the later GranSport)
  • Skyhook suspension system
  • manual transmission
  • proper 4-seater (not 2 adults + 2 amputees, like most of the ilk)

But those are just the technical specs, and impressive though they are, a whole bunch of cars today can produce the same or better.

However, what gets my various body parts tingling, moving and enlarging is the sheer beauty of this car.  This guy (who uses his twelve-year-old Mazza 4200 as a daily driver!!) puts it perfectly:

I’m a huge fan of the beautiful styling. I believe it’s a timeless design. When the 3200/4200 was initially released it may have seemed a bit bland for the time. But today with every new car resembling a transformer mated with largemouth bass fish front end, it really makes me appreciate the elegant smooth aerodynamic curves of 90’s vehicles.

I just hope he doesn’t mind if I steal “a transformer mated with largemouth bass fish front end”, because I’m gonna.  And a reminder of the topic under discussion:

I absolutely love the smooth, elegant lines that flow gracefully, compared to the angular offerings of most of today’s sports cars.  And I actually prefer the “standard” styling above over the later GranSport’s, which while also lovely, is starting to look dangerously fish-mouthed:

I am also completely cognizant of the fact that “older Maserati”  and “daily driver”  are not terms that should be combined in a single sentence.

But you could do worse.  A whole  lot worse.

Want.