Giving Atrocious Beer a Purpose

I used to smoke chickens occasionally, and they were delicious. Now I have a new smoker, and I can’t recall my old tricks. I’m trying to get back on top of my game.

Today I got me a chicken, and I use a cattle needle to shoot it full of Jim Beam, brown sugar, salt, Sweet Baby Ray’s, and garlic. Then I applied bacon grease. Then I put my rib rub on it. I bought one of those little chicken chairs to hold it up.

The bird is smoking at around 235°, and I put a can of Busch in there with it to add flavor.

Hoping for the best.

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I took the chicken out when the internal thermometer read 165. It looks like 165 won’t get it done. The meat was done, but it wasn’t really tender. At least not all the way to the bone. I had to use a knife to separate a wing and thigh.

It was very juicy, and the flavor was good, but next time, I need to use more salt and make sure I inject a lot of stuff into the bird.

This recipe will work just fine. Just a matter of fine-tuning.

Ribs Don’t Barbecue Themselves

I’m back on the barbecue warpath.

I fixed myself a bunch of leg quarters day before yesterday, and the main thing I learned was that I had forgotten how to smoke chicken. The skin drew up and hardened so the meat was exposed, and the meat wasn’t as juicy as it should have been. I started thinking about my old practices. One thing I remembered was that I didn’t use a rub for chicken. I used an injector.

I dug out my remaining horse syringe. I don’t know where the needles went, so I ordered a bunch of 1-1/2″ 14-gauge needles on the web. I also ordered a few more 60ml hypos. The vendors must think Keith Richards is stocking up.

I plan to do chicken again in two days. By then, I should be able to do it right. I think I’ll try leg quarters again. I’ll grease them so the skin doesn’t dry up. Bacon grease sounds right; it has worked in the past. I’ll shoot them full of a preparation containing diluted BBQ sauce, salt, garlic juice, hot sauce, and Jim Beam.

I’m going to get a new chicken chair. That’s what I call the little supports they make for beer butt chicken. They hold a chicken upright for smoking. I don’t think I’ll put a beer can inside the chicken. It slows cooking. When I smoke whole chickens, I’ll probably put trays of cheap beer under them instead.

I don’t use good beer for smoking. Cheap beer works much better. It’s disgusting to drink, but the green apple flavor of low-grade beer yeast is perfect for smoking.

Today I made a big error. I bought St. Louis-style ribs. These are made by cutting the big ends off spare ribs, I assume. I paid $4 per pound. I could have bought spare ribs for $2.49, cut the big ends off, and smoked St. Louis-style ribs as well as the big trimmed-off part, and I’ll bet it would have cost about what I’m paying for the little ribs by themselves.

I love whole spare ribs, but little ribs are handier and a little less trouble to eat.

I needed bourbon for flavoring chicken, so I went into the liquor store while I was at Winn-Dixie. I have always used Jack Daniel’s in the past. I consider it an inferior bourbon because it’s not smooth at all, but it has a ton of flavor, and it seems to me that the strong flavor is an advantage for barbecue. Today, though I decided to try Jim Beam. It was two dollars cheaper, and for all I knew, it was better.

I put it on the ribs. I applied it before the rub. Can’t hurt. I tried a little before applying it, and I was surprised. I hadn’t had Jim Beam since high school. I didn’t realize it was so much better than Jack Daniel’s. The flavor is not as strong, but it’s much smoother and more civilized. Maybe it won’t work as well for smoking, but I can make bourbon balls with it if I have Christmas guests. You really need smooth whiskey for bourbon balls.

If this doesn’t work, I’ll just keep smoking until I get results. Restaurant barbecue is not an option.

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The ribs are done. I had to give them 5 hours to make them tender. At 4 hours, I took one out to see how they were doing.

They are phenomenal. Best ribs I’ve ever had. I finally got it right. They’re juicy and loaded with flavor. Absolutely perfect. I’ll post a photo.

I’m all set for lunch for the next three days.

I may never be able to enjoy restaurant barbecue again.

New Smoker Beats the Pros

My smoker has smoked.

Yesterday, my new Smokin-It #2 smoker arrived, and I put it together. The manufacturer includes some wood with smokers, and you’re supposed to do a break-in run with wood but no meat. I tried to do this, and the smoker tripped my GFI outlet. I didn’t know about this until long after it happened, so I was not ready to smoke meat until about 6:30. I decided to do it. I had to see whether the smoker worked.

I made my usual rub, except I used cayenne pepper instead of chipotle powder. I didn’t have what I needed. I used three 1-1/2″ cubes of hickory. I smoked the meat until 10:30, and then I gave it half an hour in the oven at 300°.

Here’s the result.

I had forgotten how to apply a rub, so I put way too much on the meat. I didn’t know how much wood this smoker needed, so I used too much wood. The seasoning was heavy, and the ribs were dark because of the excess wood. The cayenne made the ribs a little spicier than I wanted. I think I may add more salt next time, but I can’t say these ribs were under-salted.

Yesterday, I thought my rub recipe was wrong, because it took two batches to cover one rack. Now I see what the problem was.

So I failed, right? Not exactly. With all their flaws, these ribs were much, much better than anything I’ve bought from local (or any) restaurants. They were juicy, tender, and loaded with flavor. My plan was to try a couple of ribs and go to bed, but I ate half a rack. I didn’t eat breakfast today. I didn’t need it.

I don’t know why restaurants can’t produce really good ribs. They have great equipment, and barbecue is extremely easy.

My verdict on the Smokin-It #2 is highly positive, apart from the circuit breaker problem. I assume the manufacturer will respond to my email and tell me what to do. Maybe the element is faulty, or maybe there is a fault in the wiring.

Because it was so late when I finished up, I have not cleaned the smoker yet. I’m not worried. It’s all stainless, and I have a steam cleaner. I assume I won’t need to do much apart from throwing the loose parts in the dishwasher, but steam is there if I need it.

This would be a wonderful machine for roasting turkey, smoke or no smoke. You could cook at 200°, use your oven for other things, and throw the turkey in the oven at the end to make the skin crisp and brown. A smoked, boneless, stuffed turkey would be wonderful for Thanksgiving.

I miss the Hoginator, but I don’t miss the extra work and fuss. This box should last the rest of my life, it will hold more meat than I will ever need for one event, and it won’t require much work.

I think the expense of moving up from bottom-tier electrics is worth it. They rust and break. By the time you’re on your second cheap smoker, you’ve paid almost as much as a Smokin-It costs.

More photos as work progresses.

Ribs in Progress

Call me immature, but I am smoking ribs even though they won’t be done until 10:30.

I ordered myself a Smokin-It #2 electric smoker, and it arrived today. It comes with instructions saying to run a load of wood through it without meat before trying to cook. I tried to obey, but after a couple of hours, I went to the smoker, and I saw that it had tripped a poolside GIF breaker. I had to move it to a real breaker. That put me hours behind schedule. I was going to forget about it until tomorrow, but it nagged at me.

I’m pleased with the smoker. It’s light enough to put in a vehicle. It doesn’t take up much room. The manufacturer says it will do 31 pounds of meat. Not sure why they think it’s 31 and not 30. Anyway, even if it only does 20 pounds, it’s ample for my use. If I had friends over for ribs, I would expect to be under 15 pounds every time.

I don’t expect to get heavily into cooking again, but a smoker is a good thing for any man to have.

I now have a rack of spare ribs going. I put my signature rub on it. By “signature,” I mean the rub I made up a few years ago in a couple of minutes. Is it the best? I have no way of knowing. Probably not. But it’s excellent, and it’s a known factor.

There was a mistake in the recipe. It said it was enough for two racks, but I wasn’t able to cover one with it. I made two batches.

All I did was cut the rack in half so it would fit and bury it in the rub. I don’t remove the membrane from my ribs. I think that would be like cutting the crust off a peanut butter sandwich to make a precious little snowflake happy. I like every edible part of the rib.

The smoker looks very nice. It should last forever. It’s a double-walled stainless box with insulation between the walls. It has casters, so I don’t have to slide it around.

The temperature control is way off. I set it at 250°, and it went to 341°. That’s a plus as far as I’m concerned. It means I can go higher than expected. I can always turn it down for proper barbecue temperatures. I’m using an additional remote thermometer anyway. I never planned to rely on a knob.

I emailed the Smokin-It company to see if they knew why it tripped my breaker. Hope they have useful input.

My old smoker, the Hoginator, was wonderful, but it was not handy. It had electric heat in the meat area, but I had to burn wood in a separate box for smoke. It used a great deal of electricity. Each heating element was like an electric hair dryer. The new smoker is very simple to run. I’m hoping for the best.

I haven’t seen any black smoke. The smoke is light-colored, and that’s a good sign.

This looks like a nice trouble-free way to get excellent barbecue. I won’t know until later tonight.

Getting too Southern for my Own Good

My oldest friend is a guy named Mike. Just to show you what a rotten friend he is, I will post a photo he sent me recently.

This represents part of his output for one week. He bought a Masterbuilt smoker, and he has smoked his weight in pork and chicken.

These days, I stifle my interest in cooking. It’s not good to be a lover of pleasure, and gluttony is an invitation to inhabitation by demons. I rarely cook anything impressive. But here is Mike, telling me one more rack of ribs won’t hurt.

I live in an area where even the worst barbecue is pretty good. It’s not like Miami, where Cubans and yankees think only of money when they prepare food. Still, the obvious truth is that I make barbecue better than any restaurant I’ve been to. Also, it’s much cheaper, and if I barbecue at home, I won’t have to go to restaurants, which are considered prime coronavirus transmission hubs.

These are the thoughts I had as I pitted Mike against mere reason.

Of course, Mike won. I ordered a smoker.

Years ago, I built my own smoker: the Hoginator. I took a big Char-Broil grill and cut holes in it so I could mount to electric heating elements. I cut another hole so I could feed smoke into it. I fabricated a steel smoke box that sat behind the smoker, and it had a hinged door in it so I could shove wood into it. I smoked with flaming wood, the way you’re supposed to, but the smoke box was over a foot away from the smoker, so not much of the heat got into the smoker. I was able to maintain a nice low temperature.

This time, I thought about building another smoker. For about three minutes. Yes, I think men who buy things they can fabricate are really women, but you have to choose your battles. In order to make a really good smoker, I would have to bend and weld a lot of stainless sheet, and I would have to make it double-walled so I could put insulation in it. Forget that. I already paid my dues with the Hoginator. This time, I’m going to let someone else do the metalworking.

Digression: yesterday I finished straightening the mounting tabs on my middle buster and welding gussets in to keep them from bending again. Metal still bends the knee to me.

I ordered a Smokin-It smoker. They’re made in Michigan, hopefully by Southern immigrants. They have double-walled stainless cabinets. People swear by them. I ordered the second-smallest model. I wanted to be able to jam a turkey into it, and the little one did not look promising. Also, when you buy the cheapest model of anything, you’re usually asking for a bunch of after-purchase Band-Aid modifications and add-ons that take the fun out of it. This smoker will come with everything it needs, including wheels.

I believe it’s a little smaller than a waist-high fridge. We shall see.

While I was trying to figure out what to buy, I learned some things.

First, people say Masterbuilts fall apart in a few years. I didn’t want to take a chance. There are competitors such as Pit Boss and Cuisinart, but they look to be of similar quality. I don’t want to drop $250 on a new smoker every three years until I die. The box I bought should last for eternity.

Here’s another thing: propane smokers are hard to use. The temperature fluctuates. Forget it; not interested.

I learned that electric smokers don’t produce smoke rings in meat. A smoke ring is a layer of reddish meat just under the surface. I was upset to read that I wouldn’t be getting one, until I learned that barbecue judges all agree that a smoke ring doesn’t improve the flavor of the food.

Smokin-It has a close competitor called Smokin’ Tex. Smokin-It gives you a lot more for the money, so that’s why I chose their product.

The smoker will be here Thursday, God willing. That means barbecue on Friday. I need to get some ribs.

I don’t do baby backs. I don’t get them at all. I think they’re for suckers. Spare ribs are much cheaper. They’re bigger. They have more fat and flavor. They’re not dry like baby backs. I plan to pick up a rack of spare ribs.

I’m about to dig up my rub recipe. I’m considering adding a little black cardamom.

I would post my rub recipe, but in all honesty, they’re all about the same. Sugar, salt, mustard, pepper, cumin, garlic…it’s not rocket science.

Actually, I shouldn’t say that. A barbecue celebrity named Myron Mixon opened a joint in Miami, and his rub was disgusting. Very litte salt. No flavor. This was after he talked a lot of smack, belittling the competition. His place went bankrupt, even after a lot of Miami people who knew nothing about barbecue posted ridiculous positive Internet reviews.

I prayed before ordering the smoker, and my impression was that God likes it when I entertain friends and that he was in favor of me buying it so I could barbecue for them and still have time to talk about Christianity. I hope my friends don’t read that.

The Hoginator was a lot of work to use. The new smoker should be much less bother.

I should be able to barbecue for 30 people with this thing, so the small gatherings I am likely to draw should be no problem.

Here’s a neat hint for applying a rub: use a bath towel. Drop your ribs on the towel, add the rub, and use the towel to contain the mess while you press the rub onto the meat. When you’re done, roll the towel up with the excess spices in it and put it in the laundry. It won’t stain. This is my original idea, so make sure you send me royalties when you use it.

What about sauce? Here is my conclusion. Store barbecue sauce is so good now, there is not much point in making your own. Yeah, I said it. Stubbs, Sweet Baby Ray’s, Cattleman’s…you name it. There are lots of good ones. Buy four brands every time you barbecue, and make notes on the ones you like.

I will post pork photos eventually.

Bullets and Barbecue

Do I need an intervention? Be honest. As long as you tell me what I already want to hear. Yesterday, I was fooling around in the workshop, and I found a thousand rounds of AK-47 ammo. It had been there for three years. I had no idea I had it.

When a thousand rounds of ammunition mean so little to you, you forget where they are, is it, maybe, time to ask yourself if you buy too much gun stuff?

NO! NO! IT ISN’T! I’M NOT THE ONE WITH THE PROBLEM! YOU’RE THE ONE WITH THE PROBLEM!

I guess I shouldn’t be afraid to take some target practice with the AK. I now have so much AK ammo, I need a handtruck to move it.

In related news, I visited the nearest long-range shooting range today. It’s down around Leesburg. Their website says they go out to 900 yards, but the lady who talked to me at the range said it was 850. Okay, whatever. It’s far enough to help me learn how to shoot.

To qualify to use the 850-yard range, I have to shoot at 400 and let them grade me. That means I have to get the Ruger Precision Rifle working. My plan is to shoot it this weekend and then go to the range when it reopens on Wednesday. Should be fun. I’m not sure why there is cow manure all over the parking lot, but you take what you can get.

The range reminds me of the pickle leftists are in if they seriously try to start an internal war. While I was there, I saw the other customers. They are not leftists, and they were happily plugging away at targets off in the distance. Ignorant urban terrorists who hold their guns sideways would do very poorly against them.

There is a hilarious Youtube channel called Tactical Rifleman, and the host is a guy named Karl Erickson. He’s a retired Green Beret. Wonderful channel. He says something really funny about pistols. He says that when you’re in a gunfight, you should bring “an adult gun.” He makes a very convincing case for semiauto rifles in home defense, which is good, because that’s my conclusion, too. Anyway, there are tens of millions of conservative men who already know how to use adult guns, and they’ll be fighting “men” who haven’t figured out how to pull their pants up.

When I got home, I went and got me a haircut at the Chamber of Excessive Testosterone, better known as the barber shop. I barely had time to get into my book on long-range marksmanship before it was my turn. When I entered, I had my Biden face diaper in place, not knowing what the current mask policy was. I saw that no one else was wearing one, so I took it off. There was a big discussion of everyone’s hatred of face diapers.

I don’t quite get the conservative hatred of masks. I hate them. Sure. But I hate them mostly because they’re uncomfortable and because people think they do things they don’t really do. I’m not that agitated about the political aspect.

Many conservatives get really mad when they have to wear them, and it seems to be because they think it’s part of a big conspiracy. There is definitely a conspiracy to exaggerate the danger of coronavirus and the effectiveness of face diapers, and it’s true that Satan is using masks to train people to serve the Antichrist, but I think my mask gives other people a small amount of protection (assuming I have the bug and don’t know it), so I am willing to wear it.

My understanding is that it does virtually nothing to protect me. If I go into a place where people aren’t wearing masks, I’m going to get their germs regardless of what I wear, but I can reduce the germs they get from me by wearing the diaper. That’s according to the last expert advice I read, which may be totally obsolete this week.

Anyway, I love the barber shop. It’s full of fishing tackle and dive paraphernalia, and the magazines are about guns and fishing. I haven’t seen a hipster beard or a fruity millennial hairstyle there yet.

I got something else done today. I have been thinking of building a steak cooker from a propane weed torch. The idea is to project an incredible amount of heat down onto the meat, giving it a somewhat blackened surface. I tried it today, holding the weed torch in my hand.

I prepared an inch-thick rib eye. It took very little time to go from raw to medium-rare. It was also nice and hot inside, in spite of not being overcooked. It had a good burnt flavor, as a steak should, and it was a little different from a fried steak’s flavor.

Still, fried steak is better. No doubt about it. I’m thinking I may continue to fry steaks while using a hand-held torch to add flavor.

I’m contemplating getting an electric smoker. I built one years ago, and it was great, but I threw it out when I left Miami. My friend Mike just got a Masterbuilt, and he sent pictures of the meat. It looked wonderful. It wasn’t black, so the smoke wasn’t full of creosote, but he said there was a deep smoke ring, so it wasn’t just roasted.

I don’t have much interest in pigging out or getting back into cooking in a serious way, but it would be nice to be able to get some decent barbecue. Yes, the barbecue around here is very good by restaurant standards, but I can beat it easily without leaving the house or putting on a face diaper. I can pretty well founder myself for 10 bucks.

I stopped typing and wandered off, but I’m back. I have a smoker on the way. I went for a nice stainless job. It’s electric. I read that electric smokers don’t give you a smoke ring, but people who judge contests claim the flavor is exactly the same, so good enough.

When it arrives, I’ll toss some ribs in it. Maybe I’ll low-carb for a blissful week. That would be nice.

One Less Thing to to Worry About

I’m having a Sierra Nevada Torpedo and reveling in my latest triumphs.

Today I had to go to the local Social Security office about some business, and I dreaded sitting in a dirty government chair, staring at Amazon Kindle for half an hour. When I arrived, the door was locked. Coronavirus! They had a number on the door. I called it, and wonder of wonders, they agreed to send me what I needed by mail. No hassle. No waiting. No demanding 52 forms of unavailable documentation. No videotaped colonoscopy like last time. Wonderful.

As blessing would have it, the office is not far from Harbor Freight. I shot over there and picked up two solid wheels for my new propane outfit cart. The air-filled tires it came with are garbage. For $9 each, I got wheels that will never go flat. I also bought a Bremen vise grip I didn’t need, just because I felt like it. People say they’re just as good as Irwin, and they’re a lot cheaper.

When I tried putting the wheels on my cart, I found they didn’t fit perfectly. The old wheels had a longer offset, so the new ones were too close to the center of the cart. If only I knew someone with a lathe, to make spacers.

Oh, wait.

I found a piece of steel on a shelf, bored it out, and cut two spacers from it. I slid them on the cart’s axle, and I was ready to go. Beautiful.

While I was at it, I washed my welding hoses with Or-Pine, a congealed pine oil cleaner made for yachts. It’s very strong, and it has a powerful odor. The welding hoses stank of gangrenous mouse sphincters because unwell mice had made a nest in the box they came in.

Before I washed the hoses, the stink came off on my hands every time I touched them. I don’t know what kind of bacteria those mice had, but they were the real deal. They must have had diseases that would turn heads even in San Francisco.

I don’t know what to do with the old pneumatic wheels. They’re worthless. I hate to throw out new wheels, but I see no point in keeping them. Maybe I’ll remove the tubes and save them for pool toys.

I straightened the workshop out a little before I called it a day. Things are going great. I’ve been working a lot. The yard looks better. My roof problem is scheduled to be fixed; the roof guys came today and put a temporary patch on the problem area. The weather is suddenly tolerable. On top of all this, I keep feeling God is telling me the rapture is coming this year.

I’m thinking of a new project. I bought a propane weed torch, and it shoots a mighty flame. I am tempted to make a bent tube for it so I can attach it to a propane fryer base, aimed downward. The idea is to put steaks and burgers under it and roast them from above. If it worked, it would be magnificent. The big steakhouses cook their steaks this way. They use powerful electric burners called salamanders, and they project heat downward onto the meat.

All I need is a way to bend a tube. I know I can figure it out. Maybe I can find some stainless braided hose.

Time to finish my beer and relax. I hope tomorrow will be at least half as good as today.

Next: I Cut Down the Mightiest Tree in the Yard With a Herring

It’s time for me to pat myself on the back again. I made my own hummus today, and then I installed some new shrubbery beside my house.

I’ve made my own hummus many times. Recently, I started making it again, because I eat it for breakfast nearly every day, and the store kind costs over 4 bucks. The price of the ingredients is around a dollar, so it irks me to get ripped off like that.

I found some recipes online. I wanted to see if I could do better than I had in the past. I learned something. The reason your hummus is coarse is that you’re not peeling your garbanzo beans.

Arabs remove the skins from their garbanzo beans, and it makes hummus very smooth. I guess it also removes most of the fiber, but I don’t care about that.

Removing the skin is a royal pain. You have to heat the beans with baking soda and then rinse them with cold water. This is supposed to make the skins “float off,” but it doesn’t. It only loosens them. Then you have to get in there with your hands and rub them off. It took me maybe 20 minutes. Maybe there’s a better way.

When I was done, I had very smooth hummus, so I would have to say that removing the skins is important.

As for my hedge, I killed the old one because it looked bad, and I had to put something in its place. You would not believe how many choices there were. Over a hundred. I decided to let the lady at the nursery tell me what to get. She gave me 4 choices, and I picked the one I disliked least. I came home yesterday with 6 Indian hawthorn plants, or, as we snowflakes call them, First Nations Oppressed Little Brown People hawthorn plants.

Today I learned that the name of this plant has no “E” at the end. Exciting.

You know what? There are no native Americans. Little fact there for you. Neither science nor the Bible says human beings are native to the Americas. And white people were never illegal aliens. The Indians didn’t have real borders or immigration laws, and many of them were fine with Europeans living here. I’m not saying white people turned out to be great neighbors, but then many legal immigrants end up causing problems, so nothing new there.

Yesterday, I used my Root Slayer shovel to rip out the old hedge, and today I went over the dirt. I hit it with my electric edger to sever any roots the shovel left behind, I torched it for a while, and I added a pre-emergent herbicide to keep weeds from coming back. I put down 4 cubic feet of expensive dirt, shoved the plants in, and covered the works with melaleuca mulch. I hope it works out.

I plan to poison the ground pretty heavily with imidacloprid, so that should also help.

I came in and had a burger, and I saw some news. Louisville malcontents are rioting over the Breonna Taylor shooting. Is this a surprise? No. I guarantee you, BLM terrorists have been going to places like Best Buy and the Timberland store, picking out things to steal during the inevitable riots. I am sure they do that. If you’re a thief, and you know your in competition with at least hundreds of other thieves, you’re going to do your best to get to the good stuff first.

Terrorists are out and about because the grand jury’s announcement came out. No homicide charges. Unfortunately, news sources are saying things like, “No charges in Breonna Taylor death.” To low-information, riot-prone people, this looks like, “Cops did everything right in Taylor case, and no one will be held accountable.” That’s not what happened. One cop apparently sprayed the place with bullets without thinking, he got fired, and he has been charged with a crime. He didn’t hit Taylor, and the cop who did shoot her obeyed the law, so that’s why there is no homicide charge.

Interesting fact: the cops identified themselves more than once. Everyone is having conniptions, claiming the people in the apartment didn’t know who the police were. Not true. They knew perfectly well, and one of them shot at the cops anyway. This is what caused Taylor’s death.

Yes, they had a no-knock warrant, but they announced themselves anyway. But news outlets are not making much effort to point this out, and some are still saying the cops didn’t identify themselves.

It doesn’t matter, because thieves and terrorists were going to riot and loot no matter what, but the rest of us might as well understand the facts.

No-knock warrants seem pretty risky to me. If cops broke my door down at 3 a.m. and didn’t identify themselves, I would do my best to kill as many of them as possible, and I’m a law-abiding citizen. You don’t lie in bed next to an unused rifle and hope the people breaking down your door turn out to be the police. It doesn’t work that way.

So now that opportunists are out in the streets looking for free stuff and a chance to do racist violence, what are they protesting? That’s not clear. Are they protesting no-knock warrants? The no-knock warrant had no effect on Breonna Taylor, and reforms are underway, so I would say there is no legitimate reason to protest. Are they protesting the racism of the police? That seems foolish. The police always shoot back when people fire guns at them, regardless of race. Are they protesting the grand jury’s racism? That would be a bit odd. Grand jurors are random citizens who have zero affiliation with the police, prosecutors, or the judiciary. They don’t belong to a secret organization that meets to burn crosses. For all we know, they were all black.

I’ll just pull back the curtain and tell you how juries are selected. Lawyers pretend it’s all above board, but the truth is that you try to get the most prejudiced people you can find. You want people who already think your client is right, without hearing the evidence. The procedure by which they find this out is called “voir dire,” which comes from an old phrase meaning “speak the truth.” It’s not the same as “voir” and “dire” in modern French. Attorneys ask a bunch of questions, jurors answer them, and then the attorneys try to eliminate anyone who might not see things their way.

Grand juries are different. Voir dire is basically about your ability to serve. They don’t ask you dog whistle questions to try to find out what your biases are.

The people who didn’t hand down a homicide charge in the Breonna Taylor case were not chosen for their unwillingness to indict. They were chosen at random.

I suppose the prosecutors may have steered things this way or that, but in the current atmosphere, and given the way unethical hack prosecutors railroaded George Zimmerman and Kyle Rittenhouse, I would not bet on anti-black prosecutor bias in this case.

Of course, it doesn’t matter. Free TV’s, and a chance to curse the police out and throw things at them without having your head slammed on the trunk of a cruiser…that’s what matters.

I’ll bet looters get into violent confrontations over who got the best stuff. You know they do.

Today I was praying about the rapture, and I asked God again if it was coming this year. I felt an overpowering surge, telling me the answer was yes. Can it really be true? It would be so beautiful to leave this place behind. It’s getting extremely filthy and violent. I would love to live somewhere where I belonged. I would love to stop seeing people who hate the truth, marching in our streets and tormenting the innocent with the consent of the leftist half of the population. I would love to know I would never have to see that type of person again. And what will the 7-year marriage of Christ be like? Best vacation ever.

Please, let it happen. I am ready TODAY. NOW. I intercede for people all the time, and I try to tell people helpful things, but there doesn’t seem to be much more I can do for God while the world is sliding into insanity. I don’t think there is a lot I can still accomplish.

Looks Like Time is Short

Fascinating stuff is happening.

First of all, I’m making great biscuits. Using bread flour made a huge difference, and it goes against everything the pros say. Here is today’s breakfast:

Second, it looks like we know who killed the Portland shooting victim.

It’s amazing how he was identified. There is a sick website called 4chan. It’s full of people who don’t have usernames. Posts appear under the name “Anonymous,” and they call each other “anons.” Some are true white supremacists. Some are pedophiles. They say whatever they feel like saying, because they assume they can’t be identified. They call each other “nigger” and “faggot.”

These people appear to have no lives outside of the web, and they joke about being autistic because they don’t socialize well. Here’s a meme one of them put up.

They found video footage, social media posts, and photos, and they showed that the person in the video looked like Michael Forest Reinoehl, a snowboarding instructor and roofer. Not to pick on roofers, but it’s a field known for filling up with criminals. When you have to take a roofing job, it may mean there is a reason why other employers won’t have you.

Reinoehl’s family also helped. They saw the coverage on the web, and maybe they saw the 4chan stuff. I don’t know. Anyway, they turned him in. He has a very distinctive appearance, and they knew him when they saw him.

Here’s something which isn’t surprising: they say he is irrational and estranged from his family.

Reinoehl is white, and he has a large black power tattoo on his neck. You can see it a mile away. He wasn’t smart enough to cover it or give up his bizarre everyday wardrobe, so he was not hard to identify.

A man who was with the victim confirms that it was an assassination. Terrorists approached them and identified them as Trump supporters. Then Reinoehl shot the victim.

Is there any possibility it was self-defense? It certainly doesn’t look like self-defense, but you can’t close any doors until you know everything. People say Reinoehl was pepper-sprayed before shooting. Ordinarily, the use of pepper spray can’t justify a response with lethal force. Lethal force can be used to prevent serious injury, but pepper spray doesn’t injure. On the other hand, a smart lawyer could say the victim pulled something out, and Reinoehl thought it was a gun.

Reinoehl ran away. He behaved nothing like Kyle Rittenhouse, who helped the first shooting victim and called 911 and then ran to turn himself in to the police.

Two very predictable things happened after the killing. First, liberals in Portland blamed Trump and conservatives, and they said a conservative had killed a leftist. Then when they found out a leftist had killed a conservative, they celebrated and danced. A lady with a bullhorn said they had “taken out the trash” by killing a “Nazi.”

It’s astounding that people say conservatives are just as bad as leftists. Conservatives don’t riot, although they do respond when attacked by rioters. There is no such thing as a conservatives-only riot. They don’t loot. They don’t burn buildings down. They don’t send caravans of rioters to burn distant towns. The difference is impossible for a sane person to miss. You won’t see large groups of conservatives celebrate a murder.

Unorthodox journalist Tim Pool says leftists are using the murder as a fundraising tool to buy bulletproof gear.

Will conservatives retaliate? As a whole, of course not. But there are always fringe nuts. The Boogalo Bois come to mind.

The Revelation mentions three hostile spirits that look like horsemen. They represent murder, lack, and disease. We’re seeing the lite versions already. God seems to be saying, “Here’s a little dose of what’s coming. Do you really want this?” The terrorists are losing their humanity because they reject the Holy Spirit and meld with demons. Many are so supernaturally blind nothing will bring them out of their delusion, but maybe a significant number can be reached.

We need to pray for God to open the eyes and ears of as many of these people as possible. Arguing with them is a waste of time. The Holy Spirit has to prepare the ground. We’re still showing we prefer futile carnal tools to the only weapons that work.

Terrorists are doing very bad things in America, and they deserve to suffer. They deserve hell. But so do the rest of us. Everyone deserves hell. Regardless of what these people are doing, who really wants them to burn for eternity? Their suffering will be beyond human comprehension, but the suffering they cause on earth is not.

I’m going to make a special effort to pray for them and for everyone else. Eyes and ears need to be opened.

Things are looking better and better for Trump. At least we have that going for us. I expect leftists to ramp up their terrorism to the point where a Biden win becomes impossible. I want Trump to win, but it shouldn’t be necessary for terrorists to put us all in fear to get us to vote for the right person.

I think we are in a short transition period between the age of the gentiles (age of the church) and the tribulation. I think this time has characteristics of both. Fortunately the tribulation characteristics are not very severe as of today.

I hope a lot of people come around. God’s patience is limited, and the consequences for stubbornness are terrible.

Chicken Breasts Fry While American Burns

Has the shooting war started?

A couple of days back, volunteer medic and guard Kyle Rittenhouse defended himself from a murderous armed mob and shot a rapist who was trying to take his rifle, a criminal who was approaching him with a pistol in his hand, and a rioter and documented repeat offender who attacked him with a skateboard. The left says he’s a murderer, he has been charged with first-degree murder, and the man who charged him with a pistol (and who says he regrets not emptying a magazine into him) has not even been detained.

Last night, Trump supporters drove through Portland to show their support for the president. Of course, this is their legal right. They were attacked many times. After things quieted down, a white terrorist walked up to a Trump supporter, shot him twice, and left. There is no indication that the Trump supporter did anything wrong. The shooting is on video. There was no struggle. So far, it looks like an execution.

Leftists in Portland and across America claimed a Trump supporter had murdered someone. Then the truth started leaking out, and they celebrated because a Trump supporter had been killed.

So what happens now?

It may be that a few fringe conservatives will become aggressive, but it’s very unlikely that the right will start emulating the unprovoked, wanton violence of the left to any significant degree. If we were that kind of people, we would be BLMtifa rioters.

Based on my knowledge of human nature, I think the left, not the right, will become significantly more aggressive. I think that when conservative violence becomes widespread, it will be defensive violence. If we hang back and refuse to take the bait, leftists will bring the bait to us. They’re not looking for change or peace. Their goal is to hurt, kill, and steal, and if we don’t engage, they will come to us and force the issue. They are already rioting in residential neighborhoods. Sooner or later, non-leftists will have to react with violence just to keep insane home invaders out of their living rooms. Bodies won’t pile up in public squares and city streets. They’ll pile up in the yards of whites, Asians, and Jews.

You’ve got my prediction.

Maybe people will say it was aggressive for Trump supporters to drive to Portland. Of course, that’s idiocy. I have the right to drive through any city in America, and no one has the right to block my car, throw things at me, or attack me personally. Anyone who blames non-leftists for “provocative” actions like driving through cities or guarding properties ought to be slapped. It’s gaslighting.

I feel very sad. There is a very ominous, serious feeling in the air, like the feeling I had during my dream of the rapture. It really looks like the end is here. You can say it’s not that big a deal because only a relatively small number of people are participating in the violence, but that’s wrong. They have huge popular support. There are tens of millions of leftists who are behind them completely, and they would be rioting, too, if it were convenient for them.

There is a limit to what God expects us to endure here. The Bible calls him the Lord of hosts, and a host is an army. He is the Lord of armies. Like any supreme commander, he will withdraw his forces when continued fighting becomes pointless. The left’s love of lies makes them impervious to correction and help, so our ability to bring them into the fold is dropping off quickly.

Last night I saw a police interview. A sergeant from the Portland PD answered questions. He was in one of the government buildings that was attacked. He said they hid from view in hopes of avoiding escalation. The leftists tore down plywood in order to restore contact. He said they threw bottles, rocks, and other things. He said they said terrible things to the female officers. They called them whores and said they provided sexual services for all the cops. One of them said he was going to take an officer’s baton and shove it up her vagina. Don’t think he didn’t mean it. Things like that have happened in wars.

The sergeant said he had never witnessed such hate.

God sees these things happen, and he makes decisions. He decides whether it’s still worth it to keep a presence on earth to try to help people.

I am ready to go. I wish I could do something for God before I leave, but my history is what it is, and the apocalypse can’t be postponed just so I can earn some more credits.

It looks more and more like Trump will win the election. People are afraid to support him in public, but they’ll show their true colors in voting booths. Leftist terror is having an effect on public opinion, and we have two Democrat candidates who insist terrorists are protestors. Harris actually said they have to keep it up. Biden issued a weak statement about violence, but that’s it. He is gutless and utterly without principle. He is hoping to stay under cover and avoid alienating anyone until November 3rd.

It’s bizarre that terrorists don’t understand that terror makes people look for help. There are three choices: join the terror, appease the terrorists, or resist. The terrorists are operating under the assumption that they can scare the entire country into voting for Biden and bending the knee (literally). They don’t seem to understand that people are free to vote for a man who will use force to restrain them.

I feel a little anger, but mostly I feel dread and sadness. I’m watching America steam toward an iceberg, and no one will listen.

The only answers are prayer and repentance, but almost no one is calling for these things. When Nineveh was threatened, the king forced the entire city to fast for 40 days, and God spared it. That can’t happen in America. Leftists hate Christianity, and most of the rest of us are just barely Christians. We don’t really believe God is powerful or responds to our actions. We have much more faith in politicians and ourselves.

I truly do not want to be here after the elect leave the earth. I don’t like being stuck here with terrorists right now. I can’t imagine what it will be like when all the good people are gone and the curses on the earth are unrestrained.

I hope Trump wins, but I think that if he does, we will live in atmosphere of hate and violence in spite of his efforts to combat terror. The USA will look like Israel or El Salvador. We’ll have to deal with the constant threat of shootings, bombings, kidnappings, rape, and arson. We’ll be fighting on our own soil, and our enemies will be cowardly guerrillas who live on our blocks and in our apartment buildings. They’ll never go away. That’s my best guess.

If Biden wins, these things will still be true, but the executive branch will be against us.

Leftists have no idea what they’re stepping into. They are much more likely to start violence, but we are much, much better at killing. If they want to compete, they’ll have to come up with new methods. Maybe chemical and biological weapons. Making WWI-style gas is not hard, and it would work great on civilian gatherings.

The left isn’t offering a solution. They’re not trying to get us to do something, with the intention of leaving us alone if we comply. They hate us for existing. Something we can’t stop doing. We’re like Jews in Nazi Germany. If we breathe, it’s violence against the left.

It’s interesting, if you think about it. In a way, we share a goal. They want us gone. God will eventually want us gone, because he will take us. Many of us want to be gone.

In other news, I fried chicken again today. I can’t stop. I bought whole chicken breasts because I realized drumsticks and wings were overrated. I cut the bones out and turned the breasts into smaller pieces. I saved the skin because without it, fried chicken is useless. I can’t buy boneless breasts with skin. Wish I could.

I still need more seasoning. I increased it a lot today, and it wasn’t enough. I’m going to jack up the white pepper, and I’m going to use a lot more ginger. I’m also going to throw in some sage.

It seems like 325 is the best frying temperature. Anything higher, and you get black marks on your breading.

I figure I’ll fry again on Tuesday. I’ll make smaller pieces, and I’ll increase the seasoning. I have high hopes.

MORE

Forgot to add this. I have not been happy with the time it takes biscuits to brown, so today I tried 475°, and it worked very well. After 12 minutes (not the usual 14), the biscuits were unusually tall, and they browned well. They really blew up.

I have to explore the insides of a couple to make sure, but it looks like high heat is the way to go. Women are usually the ones who make biscuits, and women are afraid to use high heat, so maybe I should not be surprised if most people are using the wrong temperature.

I decided to try frying chicken again. After the dubious results I got a couple of days back, I had to do it for my honor’s sake.

Today I bought a new thermometer so I could keep the fat at the right temperature, and I found a small chicken at Walmart. It was a 4-pounder, and I paid $3.03. Not sure how they can afford to sell them.

I got good results, except that the smaller parts of the chicken were a little too juicy. I brined it in orange juice and salt for about 45 minutes, and it looks like the chicken was already so juicy it didn’t need it.

It looks like 325 is the right temperature for chicken. I fried the first three pieces at 330-370 on one side, and the breading was too dark. I think the people all over the web who recommend 350 are just plain wrong. I kept the temperature between 305 and 330 later on, and the breading looked much better.

I don’t know how my grandmother did this over and over for years and never got it wrong. I don’t think she owned a frying thermometer.

I found other small chickens at a local Publix. Publix is the big Florida supermarket chain. In the future, I’ll use Publix chickens. A lot of Walmart products are great, but others are iffy.

I’m learning more about heroic high school senior and armed volunteer Kyle Rittenhouse, who shot three rioter/terrorists in Kenosha. Okay, he shot two dead terrorists and one man who is alive and appears, to me, to be a terrorist.

I’ve been watching Tim Pool a lot. He’s a Youtube commentator. He’s very big in the reaction business. If you can’t produce your own content, you can put up a video of yourself reacting to someone else’s copyrighted material. The idea is that you can invoke the fair use exception to the copyright laws. I don’t know how sound the theory is, but reaction videos are huge now. I’m thinking of putting up reaction videos where I react to my own videos. That might be a little mean, however.

Pool keeps saying he’s a moderate leftist. He’s fantasizing. He’s a conservative who can’t accept what he is. He’s horrified by the wave of leftist terror, and he promotes Trump as hard as he can. Anyway, Pool says someone alerted him to a Wisconsin law that allows minors to carry long guns. The law was probably passed in order to protect hunters.

This could be very bad news for the pro-crucifixion leftists. Rittenhouse is unquestionably innocent with regard to the second and third shootings, and he will probably turn out to be innocent in connection with the first. The man he killed was an extraordinary idiot. There is no other word for it. He was a tiny, angry man with a long rap sheet and his own page on the Wisconsin sexual predator site, which says he was not in compliance when he died. He called the armed volunteers in Kenosha “niggers” and commanded them to shoot him.

We don’t know what happened right before this man was shot because there is no good video. The deceased wrapped his shirt around his head and scampered as fast as he could toward Rittenhouse, who was far from those filming the scene.

Selling him to a jury as an innocent victim will not be easy, especially if witnesses say he was trying to harm Rittenhouse when he was shot. This will probably turn out to be the case. Rittenhouse had no reason to shoot someone who was minding his own business, and when Rittenhouse began shooting the second time, on camera, he chose his targets perfectly and only fired as many rounds as needed. He was impressive. If he were a leftist, someone would already be creating a video game based on him.

Barring the empaneling of a BLM jury which uses crack and PCP during deliberations, Rittenhouse only has one shooting charge to be concerned with, and it will probably collapse in court or even earlier. That leaves leftists with the gun charge. If that goes poof, Rittenhouse goes home and gets his AR-15 back.

Felony murder has been mentioned as a complication. Felony murder is a charge enhancement. If you’re committing a dangerous felony, and someone dies in the process, you may be charged with murder even though you didn’t personally hurt anyone. Example: you and your BLMtifa buddies start looting a building, and the 80-year old owner comes in and objects, and your pal Marquise Love smashes his skull with a two-by-four. You may go up for murder even though you didn’t kill anyone.

The theory with regard to Rittenhouse is that he was committing a crime by carrying a rifle, so the deaths of his terrorist assailants, though the result of self-defense, would be felony murders.

Wikipedia and I are here to save the day. Wikipedia says Wisconsin’s felony murder statute lists a limited number of qualifying crimes:

* Battery, including that to an unborn child
* Sexual assault of the first degree, or second degree if it is by use or threat of force or violence
* False imprisonment
* Kidnapping
* Arson of buildings or damage of property by explosives (heads up, rioters)
* Burglary with a dangerous weapon, explosives, or burglary of any inhabited dwelling
* Carjacking
* Robbery with a dangerous weapon, or even with an object that leads someone to believe there is a dangerous weapon

As you can see, carrying a firearm illegally is not on the list.

Here’s another wrinkle: in at least some jurisdictions, you lose the right to defend yourself if you’re committing a serious crime while you kill. Example: terrorist and known criminal Anthony Huber tries to bludgeon an innocent young man with a skateboard. The young man points an AR-15 at him, so Huber takes a lucky swing and fractures his skull, killing him. The law does not recognize Huber’s action as self-defense.

Problem with this theory: Rittenhouse was not committing a violent crime when he chose to defend himself. He was trying to get to the police to turn himself in. He was carrying a weapon, but he was not trying to harm anyone with it.

Maybe there is a legitimate legal theory that can put Rittenhouse on death row, but I don’t know what it is. I’m not a criminal attorney, and I don’t know a lot about Wisconsin. I know nobody has produced a sound theory as of this afternoon.

Here’s a great question: why hasn’t Gaige Grosskreutz been charged? This is the man who was shot in the arm. There are photos of him carrying a pistol openly at the riot. Why hasn’t the black man who stomped on Rittenhouse been charged or even named?

These are questions for Democrat prosecutor Michael Graveley. My bet: they will never be addressed. I think Graveley is completely in the tank for BLMtifa and has no intention of prosecuting these two criminals.

I’m still wondering about Rittenhouse’s ethnicity. I thought he was Hispanic when I saw him for the first time, and I still think we may get interesting news about his ancestry. Rittenhouse isn’t a Spanish name, but then neither is Zimmerman. Rittenhouse has black hair and what looks like olive skin. If I were identifying him to the cops, I would tell them to look for a Hispanic.

I ordered more magazines today. I hope that if the rapture comes and Christians who missed it need shelter and weapons, they’ll find what I left and keep themselves alive until they can square things with God. I can’t foresee using any of this stuff myself, except to have fun in the pasture with my targets. Maybe a black family will move in. That would be be a real poke in the eye to tribulation leftists still pushing the race canard.

If I find a way to send money to Kyle Rittenhouse, I’ll definitely pitch in. I hope conservatives make him rich.

The Railroading Begins

The Kyle Rittenhouse story seems to be fleshing out, and things don’t look good for his accusers. It’s funny how news stories almost invariably look worse and worse for leftists as investigations proceed.

I’ll run down the list of my conclusions.

1. Fatal shooting of Joseph Rosenbaum, the bald rioter/terrorist who chased Rittenhouse down and became the first casualty: insufficient evidence to make a determination. Rosenbaum, a registered sex offender, was seen trying to get at armed citizens at a gas station they were trying to protect. He had to be restrained by other rioter/terrorists. At least twice, he told the armed citizens to shoot him, calling one of them “nigger” in the process. Moments later, he ran to Rittenhouse, who was a long way off, and he was shot. We don’t know what happened. If he wrestled with Rittenhouse or grabbed the gun, or if he threw dangerous things at Rittenhouse, then the shooting was justified. No two ways about it. If he merely continued ranting, Rittenhouse is guilty of second-degree murder or manslaughter.

2. Fatal shooting of Anthony Huber, the rioter/terrorist/habitual violent criminal who ran up to Rittenhouse and attacked him with a skateboard: Rittenhouse is innocent. Rittenhouse was on the ground, after falling while running to escape the mob and turn himself into nearby police, and Huber put his skateboard in contact with Rittenhouse’s head. It’s not clear whether he was trying to hit him with it, because Huber dropped it in the process, but skateboards are commonly used as weapons in riots, and it’s not reasonable to expect a person being attacked by a mob to make a decision the rest of us can’t make with the benefit of replayable video and hindsight. Pressing a skateboard onto a person’s head is a crime. It’s not okay. Also, if habitual criminal Huber had succeeded in restraining him, the other assailants might have killed him. It was reasonable for Rittenhouse to think he was in danger of serious harm or death, so the shooting was justified.

3. Nonfatal shooting of Gaige Grosskreutz, the seeming rioter/terrorist who was shot in the arm: 100% innocent. No conceivable justification for prosecution. Grosskreutz was carrying a pistol openly at the scene, and he ran up to Rittenhouse, who was already fending off multiple attackers, with no legal justification. Got what he deserved.

4. Carrying a weapon openly while below the minimum legal age. Guilty. No way to dispute it. Rittenhouse is 17, and the minimum legal age in Wisconsin, according to admittedly shaky Internet sources, is 18. The only way Rittenhouse can beat this rap is to prove he’s over 18 or that the age requirement is 17 or lower. Ordinarily, for a minor with no other arrests, this would be pleaded down to a misdemeanor, and adjudication would likely be withheld in order to give him a chance to reform.

That’s my scorecard. Two innocents, a much less significant guilty, and a likely-innocent. It’s very unlikely that Rittenhouse shot Rosenbaum without justification, and Rosenbaum was clearly the less mature and responsible of the two.

I have to say that it’s disappointing, but not surprising, that our pro-terror press chose to release the name of an accused minor.

People on the web are claiming Rosenbaum threw a Molotov cocktail at Rittenhouse. Others are merely saying he threw bottles. If he threw bottles at Rittenhouse, then Rittenhouse is innocent. A strike from a thrown bottle can do very serious harm. You don’t have to let people throw bottles at you just because the alternative is to shoot.

One of the sad aspects to this story is that a 17-year-old was out on the streets, offering his life and liberty to protect others, while grown men were notably absent. Most notably: the National Guard and federal officers. Who is to blame? Wisconsin governor Tony Evers. As has happened in other jurisdictions, President Trump asked to be allowed to help, and his offer was rejected. Something for former business owners who now own heaps of ashes to think about in November.

The men of Kenosha are also accountable. In other towns, large numbers of better men have mustered themselves and discouraged terrorists. The men of Kenosha generally stayed home. The population of the city is 100,000. They could have done a lot better.

Kyle Rittenhouse is going to be the new George Zimmerman. He may as well move to Wyoming or Tennessee if he’s acquitted. He will only be safe in a solid-red state. His family is also likely to have to move.

For what it’s worth, he’s a bad guy to mess with. If he isn’t convicted, terrorists should abandon their hopes of lynching him. He shot three assailants in a very short time while under physical attack. He shot two from the ground after receiving a full-weight kick to the upper body and a skateboard blow to the head. He kept his cool, did only what was necessary, and stopped. He proved he can deliver in a crisis. If he can do it once at the tender age of 17, he can do it again as a grown man.

It’s strange that no one in the leftist pro-terrorist press is talking about the shots that were fired by other people. Well, it’s not strange. It’s to be expected.

Another thing they’re not mentioning: Jacob Blake had a knife in his car, close to the door he was reaching into when he was shot. And he was the reason for the police call. He was trespassing at an ex-girlfriend’s house, and they called the police to make him leave. Also, he’s a criminal with a history of gun crime, and he had at least one felony warrant when the police arrived.

Shooting him appears to have been the correct thing to do. The only question is whether it was necessary to shoot at him 7 times. Given the officer’s poor marksmanship (only a few rounds hit Blake), it looks like he did what he had to do. He shot until Blake was incapacitated, and then he stopped. A better shot would have killed him with one or two rounds, so maybe Blake should be glad things went as well as they did.

I thought the officer had shot Blake 7 times, because that was what I had read. Now we’re being told he was only hit 4 times. That’s not excessive under the circumstances. When someone is about to turn around and cut you with a knife, you don’t shoot once, wait for results, shoot again, and so on. You don’t have time. You shoot until the threat is gone.

As for shooting him in the back, well, Blake was facing away from the officer while he reached for a knife to cut him up. That was Blake’s choice. If Blake had chosen to face him, he would have been shot in the front, and I suppose somehow that would be better.

One paralyzed criminal with a permanent colostomy is a better outcome than one or more innocent cops carved up while trying to defend a family from a violent criminal. And we don’t know that Blake would have stopped with the police. He was clearly not happy with his ex-girlfriend.

Of course, the facts don’t matter. Only the party line matters, and the party line says Jacob Blake was a peaceful unarmed dad who showed up at the scene of a quarrel to make peace, like a therapist/superhero, and was shot in the back for opening a car door.

They’re talking about “unsurvivable” storm surge in the wake of Hurricane Laura. They should be talking about the unsurvivable storm surge of delusion which is inundating America. People can’t perceive the truth, and they don’t care about it. They just want to hurt whites, men, heterosexuals, Christians, Asians, Jews, the police, and successful people. The terrorism is about hate and sadism, injustice.

If justice matters to you, you don’t attack innocent people or burn their vehicles and businesses. The terrorists are harming many innocent people, and many of the innocent are liberals.

It’s astounding that we’re tolerating this. Look at the contrast between different areas. Democrat cities burn unrestrained, as though rioting and terrorism were normal, acceptable events, like block parties. In places where people have a backbone, protests are peaceful and brief, because terrorists know they face consequences. None of the prolonged riots have been unavoidable. Democrats chose to let them continue. In what significant way does this differ from psychosis? It’s as though these cities were neurotic girls who decided to start cutting themselves.

There is still no nationwide call for prayer and repentance. God is conspicuously absent from the news. He’s our only hope. His anger is the reason for the chaos. It’s the reason for coronavirus, too. Yet we’re ignoring him. If we turned to him, things would clear up. Doesn’t look like it will happen.

I wonder what will happen where I live. The nearest city is three times the size of Kenosha, so it could support riots. Of course, the police here would react very differently, as would the governor, as would the citizens. Extending terror to rural areas is one of BLMtifa’s priorities now. Is the highway by my house already on a list?

I’ve been thinking about buying more rifle magazines. I don’t expect to use them, though. I just feel I should have them. I asked God why I should get them, and the feeling I have is that they’re not for me. They’re for people who will take over this house after the rapture. They will need them.

I bought an AR-15 for target shooting and hunting, and I put a 14x scope on it. This scope is inappropriate for self-defense. Suddenly I’m considering picking up a red dot, just in case.

Maybe I should leave notes for people who miss the rapture. “These cartridges are for this gun.” “Here is a list of the best self-defense cartridges I have.” “There are hundreds of ear plugs in the workshop.” Maybe I should buy cases of canned tuna and hundreds of pounds of rice. My hope is that I’ll be at the wedding of Christ, dining somewhat better.

Obviously, I should leave Bibles.

I really pity people who live in cities. I pity people who live in the areas that are the most affected. Life must be extremely unpleasant, and watching a big percentage of Americans support politicians who back the terrorists has to be very discouraging and frightening.

What happened to George Zimmerman is happening to huge swaths of the country. People are being turned on by the authorities they rely on to protect them.

Maybe an explosion of riots, affecting places like Bel Air and the Upper East Side, is what America needs. Maybe fake hobby leftists would be knocked off their seemingly safe perches and driven to vote for what they really believe in.

I don’t know why I even mention politics. Turning to God is the only solution.

Bottles of Urine no Match for Rifles

Yesterday it suddenly occurred to me that the town my cousin lives in might be close to Kenosha. I texted her to find out. She says the closest part of Kenosha is 15 minutes away. Her son’s girlfriend lives in Kenosha.

I asked how things were going. She told me over 600 cars from Minnesota had arrived. Terrorists or protestors? It appears that the answer to that question, in many cases, depends on the local response. If the police and citizens show up in a display of force, visitors protest relatively peacefully and then leave. If not, terrorist rioting is likely. Her bedroom community has a population of around 20,000, so the arrival of several thousand potential rioters is a serious threat.

Illinois is in bad shape. It’s way off to the left. It’s so bad, the state imposes an unconstitutional requirement on firearms owners. They have to be cleared before they can own, and they have to have Firearms Owners [sic] Identification cards, or “FOID’s.” Imagine having to pay for a card and a background check in order to exercise your other civil rights. If Florida went that route, would have to have a card in order to blog, vote, or go to church.

I wonder how many people in my cousin’s town have gone through the aggravation of getting a card and preparing for the worst.

As for Kenosha, it’s starting to look like the BLMtifa terrorist movement is turning into a shooting war. Last night, a man with a rifle shot several people, killing two. I saw a video showing a young man with a grotesque arm injury. In the movies, when a person gets shot in the arm, he wraps a handkerchief around it, and everything is fine. In the real world, guns can tear large chunks out of limbs, and sometimes they tear limbs completely off.

There is video of the shooter. He is sitting on the ground, and a witness says his rifle was being jerked around. These facts suggest he was attacked, and if so, he very likely had a reasonable fear of death or serious harm. Witnesses claim the police saw him walking around with a rifle and did nothing. It’s impossible to say right now, but it looks like he was a local resident trying to protect life and/or property. He’s getting unfavorable, biased coverage, so it seems the liberal press is betting he’s conservative.

If you’re carrying a gun legally in order to prevent arson, aggravated battery, murder, and so on, and a group of rioters grab it and try to take it, you’re entitled to shoot to kill. End of story. No room for debate. It’s different if you were carrying illegally or if you performed a violent act to provoke the aggression. Depending on the facts and the party the local prosecutor jumps for, there is a very good chance the shooter will not be charged. That would go over great with leftists who think self-defense is a crime.

If he’s not with the rioters, there is zero likelihood the left will excuse him. Journalists certainly won’t. These are the people who still call Nick Sandmann things like “snot nose entitled kid” for being illegally accosted and menaced by rude leftists protestors.

Should the shooter have been where he was? Impossible to say. It’s generally legal to be present and defend people and property in a riot, and the use of guns is legal in many situations. It appears it was legal for him to be where he was, because witnesses say the police were not interested in him at first, and because other armed individuals are roaming Kenosha without consequences.

The story doesn’t fit a mass-shooter narrative. Mass shooters show up and shoot for no reason, and they empty their magazines. The video suggests this man shot a few times and then stopped, and the witness account about the rifle being jerked around suggests it was a response to a lethal threat. It looks like a measured response to grave danger.

It’s legal to carry openly in Kenosha. It’s not legal to riot or grab a person’s firearm. That’s what lawyers call strongarm robbery and battery. If the shooter was minding his own business, and terrorists tried to disarm him, they are probably guilty of felonies.

What’s in store for the next couple of weeks? Will we see opposing factions shooting at each other from cover, in scenes reminiscent of post-apocalyptic movies? It would be catastrophic for violent BLMtifers.

Leftists generally don’t own rifles, and many don’t even have handguns. The type of leftist who is most likely to engage in shootouts in riots is a street criminal armed with a semiautomatic pistol he doesn’t know how to use properly, along with poorly chosen ammunition. It doesn’t take much skill to stick up unarmed pedestrians or shoot out of car windows during drive-bys. It doesn’t take good equipment. Conservatives, on the other hand, are much more likely to own military-style rifles with large magazines and optics made for short-range battles. Conservatives are more likely to know which types of pistol and rifle ammunition work best. They are much more likely to shoot well. They are more likely to own protective equipment. If leftists try to turn the current wave of terror into a shooting war, in all likelihood, the leftist body count will be at least several times higher than the conservative and centrist count. It will be the mother of all mistakes.

Does that mean they won’t try? Well, have they made any intelligent choices yet?

Right now, many leftist terrorists are probably texting and Zooming about the need to buy guns and teach the rest of us a lesson. Others–white female hobby terrorists, for example–are probably feeling red-pilled and trying to discourage the use of guns. Who will prevail?

It seems safe to say that non-leftists will come out on top, by a wide margin, in a nationwide conflict. What happens after that, though? If leftists are enraged and eager to commit violence now, what will they be like after they’ve buried hundreds of dead terrorists and been forced back to their own communities? It won’t be a boon to race and class relations, and even if non-leftists shut the terrorism down, we will still have to live alongside the people we defeated. They will never admit their dead and wounded brought it on themselves.

Ammunition for popular calibers is extremely expensive now. I don’t like it, because I hate gouging, but maybe it’s a good thing. Non-leftists had large stockpiles before the gouging started, and violent leftists have no business with ammunition. Before the rioting started, it was easy to get 9mm ammunition–the most popular large pistol caliber–for 10 dollars a box. Earlier this year, I paid $7.35. Now, garbage FMJ is running $35. Jobless terrorists will have a hard time paying that much. Meanwhile, non-leftists have safes full of expanding rifle and pistol ammo, and many of us can make ammunition from scratch. All over the country, there are enthusiasts who make bullets from scrap lead.

What advantages do leftists have? Let’s see. They control cities, right? I’m not so sure. There are a lot of poor terrorists living in and around cities, and they cause a lot of problems, but the people with real power are affluent fake leftists who are likely to turn on the terrorists when push comes to shove. Leftists control the Internet. That’s true, but tech companies have stockholders, and again, many of the people in charge are affluent fake leftists who will change uniforms the first time someone spray-paints their Bentleys. Leftists run our banks, and they have a lot of money. Again, though…fake leftists abound, and greed often outweighs principle.

If fake leftists with money start coming around, we could end up with more of a class war than a race war. If that happens, the lower classes will be crushed. They’re just not very capable.

Non-leftists control the farmland and the natural resources. We control the oil-producing areas. We control much of the coasts, the border with Mexico, and the border with Canada. We have disproportionate numbers among the military and police. Many of us are spread out in rural areas where leftists don’t stand a chance in a conflict; it would be like Napoleon invading Russia.

Things look better for non-leftists than leftists, unless you consider the supernatural. The terrorists and their supporters are insane because of supernatural influences. They don’t know the Holy Spirit, and he’s the only source of good guidance. They’re under the influence of fallen angels and demons, so they are able to believe anything, no matter how preposterous. Right now, the insanity only affects maybe a third of Americans. Without the Holy Spirit, who’s to say that figure won’t double or triple?

The big divide isn’t left/everyone else. It’s children of the Antichrist/children of God. Most people are children of the Antichrist. They don’t have the Holy Spirit to correct them, so other spirits dominate their thinking and feelings.

Sooner or later, the Antichrist has to win. Prophecy makes that clear. Maybe it will happen when Trump is reelected, leftists go completely crazy, and non-leftists sink to their level on a national scale. The fact that you’re not a Marxist doesn’t mean you’re on God’s side. Carnal conservatives serve Satan, just like BLMtifers. If half of the nation starts acting like the Proud Boys, Satan will have his army regardless of what uniforms people wear.

I don’t want to be here for the civil war. I want to be in heaven at the marriage of Christ. I don’t want people coming to my house telling me it’s my duty to shoot terrorists. I certainly don’t want terrorists coming to my house. I hope my sense that the rapture is imminent is correct. I am ready to go.

If you want to get closer to God so you can prepare, get baptized with the Holy Spirit, repent, speak in tongues every day, fast, seek internal improvement, and try to serve God. Start speaking powerful things into existence. Here’s a strange thing that has turned out to be very powerful for me: start proclaiming holiness. Say, “Jesus is holy.” “I am holy.” “My body is holy.” “Everything I own is holy.” “Holy” means “belonging to God.” Proclaiming holiness releases supernatural power. If you look at the Bible, you’ll see that heavenly beings say God is holy, over and over. There’s a reason for that. It’s not pointless toadying. The Psalms say we should bless God with our words all the time.

Man, I hope I get to go when the horn blows. This place is getting too filthy to stand.

MORE

Fox has published two photos of the Kenosha shooter. In both, he is sitting on the pavement. For some inexplicable reason, Fox does not identify him as the shooter in the second photo.

In the first photo, he is holding a rifle that looks a lot like an AR-15, and a nearby rioter is supposedly reacting to being shot, although the rifle is pointed away from him. In the second, a man is in the air above the shooter, with a foot about to come down on the shooter’s upper chest or face. If he was attacked like that before he shot, then there is little hope he will be convicted of anything.

I think the second photo was taken before the first, because we know the shooter got away. If he had been attacked successfully before firing, he would have been disarmed and beaten.

If he wasn’t doing anything illegal, and he was attacked by morons willing to go up against a rifleman, then his attackers got what they asked for, and I’m glad he’s okay. We don’t know much now, though, so it’s impossible to say who broke the law and who didn’t.

Biscuit Victory Marred by Chicken FAIL

Has the civil war started? The news says a man in Pennsylvania walked out of his house and fired shots at demonstrators, hitting one in the face and inflicting a non-life-threatening wound.

The coverage is predictable. The stories say little is known about the incident, yet some outlets are proclaiming the protestors “peaceful” nonetheless. “We don’t know what happened. We don’t know the facts. And the protestors were peaceful.” Looks like cognitive dissonance to me. Or course, I don’t know what happened, and I don’t know the facts, so I may be wrong.

America is doing exactly what countries are supposed to do when they abandon God. It’s sliding into chaos because we do what we think is right instead of what God tells us is right. We cut ourselves off from our father, so we are living the lives of fatherless punks. Fatherless punks don’t know how to behave, and they get no inheritance.

Oh, well. How about another topic? I choose biscuits.

I’ve learned a few things about flour over the last few weeks. First of all, you don’t need bread flour to make bread. Some kinds of bread need high-gluten flour, but others don’t. The type of bread that surprised me is the baguette. You would think a crusty, airy loaf of bread would have to be made with bread flour, but it’s not true. Baguettes should be made with flour that is lower in gluten. That’s not my opinion. It’s the opinion of people unlike me who make prizewinning baguettes.

Today I learned that biscuit flour is the wrong flour for biscuits.

Yesterday I decided to fry chicken. I cut up a bird and put it in the fridge in a mixture of orange juice, salt, garlic, and tarragon. This morning I fried it in peanut oil and lard. Before I did this, I went online and got expert advice. I did what they said to do, and the chicken was not very good.

I think the single most important thing to do when you fry chicken is to find a small bird. I couldn’t find one smaller than about 6 pounds. That’s way too big. By the time the inside is done, the outside is too brown.

My dad represented Holly Farms, the chicken company. They sold chickens to KFC. One of the managers told him KFC required very small birds. My dad thought the purpose was to cheat customers by selling small chickens by the piece. This was probably true, but they also cook up better.

I don’t know where I’m supposed to find small chickens. Maybe it’s not possible. People in this area are not overly sophisticated, and they seem to be inclined to eat things that come out of boxes and bags. Maybe there is no market for fryers here.

I guess I can kill squirrels and forget chickens. Squirrels are actually better.

I could not fry chicken without making biscuits. When I looked at my flour supply, I was dismayed to see that I was nearly out of biscuit flour. I decided to use bread flour. How bad could it be? I also decided to give up on putting butter in my dough. I usually mix butter and bacon grease, half and half, but butter ruins the texture.

I flopped the dough onto the counter and folded it 4 or 5 times with my hands to put layers into it. They say working biscuit dough too much makes biscuits tough. I have never had a tough biscuit in my life, so that information appears to be wrong. I cut the biscuits out, greased and salted the tops, and baked them at 450°. They were very good. The texture was perfect. I’m going to quit using biscuit flour. I think it’s a mistake.

Now it looks like I’m in a position where I need bread flour so I can make biscuits, and I need biscuit flour so I can make bread. Go figure.

I know the biscuits were good because I could not quit eating them. It’s easy to lie to yourself about things you cook, but the dishes you can push away are bad, and the ones you absolutely have to finish are good. You can count on that.

I still have like 4 pounds of very mediocre fried chicken. Maybe it will be better cold. I can pull it off the bone and make chicken salad. The birds will enjoy the chicken as it is. This morning they each got a small piece, along with a biscuit fragment and gravy.

That’s the news from Free Trumpistan. Enjoy your day.

The End of Days Is no Excuse for Bad Cooking or Poor Shooting

I dare anyone to say I don’t make great use of my time.

Today two wonderful things happened. I got over the local-pizza-ingredient hump, and I put a new scope on my Thompson Center Venture rifle.

I probably should not be thinking about pizza, but the pandemic and the mythical food shortages associated with it shift one’s thoughts in the direction of shopping and cooking, and I am a casualty. Early in the crisis, flour disappeared from shelves, and when it reappeared, bread flour lagged by at least two months. I bought some wheat gluten before everyone else thought of it, and I started fooling around with it. I tried to make baguettes, for example.

Pizza is a mysterious food. It only has three major ingredients, and preparation is extremely simple, but it’s one of the hardest things to figure out how to make. I figured it out when I lived in Miami. It turned out ingredients were extremely critical. I had to use certain things, or it didn’t work. Then I moved north, and I was no longer able to get those things.

You can use just about any flour to make a great Sicilian pizza, but for some reason, thin pizza doesn’t work that way. Most of the flour at your local grocery just won’t cut it. The texture or the flavor or both will be off. Bread flour works well, and some bread flours are better than others. Some people insist on Caputo 00 flour from Italy. It’s a low-ash flour without much gluten. I tried it, and I didn’t think much of it.

A local store started stocking King Arthur bread flour a couple of weeks back, so naturally, I have been making pizza. The flour gave me good results, but I was not completely happy.

I researched, and I decided I should try diastatic malt powder. This is a dough conditioner. You add a small amount to your flour, and it makes the product blow up better and brown better in the oven. I couldn’t find it around here, but Amazon sells it. Today I put a little bit in my flour, and the result was very good. The dough browned earlier, it blew up better, and it wasn’t as chewy as it had been in previous efforts. It rose fast, and the flavor was good.

I knew something good was happening when I rolled the proofed dough out and started tossing it. It had a silky feel to it, and it opened up beautifully. It didn’t even try to tear. Tossing a 10″ pie took less than a minute. It was a snap. I don’t know how malt works, but it worked great today, and I plan to keep using it.

I also tried a new tomato product. Nearly all of the tomato products stores sell are useless for pizza. The manufacturers use unripe tomatoes or the wrong varieties. It’s easy to get or make a sauce that looks red and tasty, but when you take a bite of a slice, you will know you’ve been had.

My go-to sauce is Saporito, from the Stanislaus company. It’s tomato paste, basil, and citric acid. It’s very sweet and fruity. I doctor it up with a few things, and it’s excellent. But I can’t get it around here.

I’ve been trying various items from local stores. Today I decided to try Muir Glen “organic” paste. I put “organic” in quotation marks because “organic” is an empty Pavlovian stimulus which motivates people to spend three times as much for food that isn’t any better. There are no real standards for organic food production, except that you have to put “organic” on the label.

The can says Muir Glen is made in Central California, and the Muir Glen website shows big Roma tomatoes, just like the ones Stanislaus uses. Stanislaus is a California company.

I combined some paste with garlic powder, oil, salt, oregano, and a couple of other things, and I put it on a crust made with diastatic malt. I used sliced Sargento mozzarella and sliced Boar’s Head fontina. I sprinkled oregano and salt on top of the cheese, and I baked at 500° on a preheated stone. I can’t do better than 500° with my oven.

The pizza was very nice. I used too much cheese and not enough sauce, but it was a lot better than pies I had made earlier in the week. I feel like my suffering is over. Not that I plan to make a lot of pizza. I was just frustrated because I couldn’t figure out how to do it with things I could buy here.

I really want to make garlic rolls with malt, but I have to maintain some self-control.

I can supply the ingredient list, if you want to try it.

INGREDIENTS

125 grams King Arthur bread flour
80 grams warm water
2 tsp. instant yeast
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. diastatic malt

You can add oil to make it softer. My understanding is that you should knead, add oil, and knead again. Some food reason I no longer recall.

I gave it a pretty decent “kneading” in the food processor, going for at least 30 seconds after it formed a ball. I prepared the pizza on a square of non-stick foil, which I removed from the stone after two minutes. You just pull it out from under the pizza. If you use this method, you won’t have to try to shove a sticky raw pizza off a peel. You put it on the foil, and the foil slides off, taking the pizza with it. After two minutes of cooking on the foil, the crust is strong enough to tolerate having the foil yanked out.

As for the rifle, some Seekins scope rings arrived today, and I was able to mount a Vortex Viper PST 6-24×50 on it. This is a discontinued scope I bought accidentally. I was going to return it, but I decided it would be more than adequate for .204 Ruger, which is only useful at or below 400 yards. I think I did a good job of mounting it. I used a torque wrench and all that. I changed the trigger spring two days ago, so now I have a killer varmint rig with a very light touch. I still have my ATN night scope, so I have the Vortex for daytime, and if I ever decided to try shooting coons at night, I’ll have the ATN ready to go.

Very nice. It’s wonderful when you get a firearm working correctly. I can’t wait to zero the scope and see what the gun can do. Based on earlier results with a scope which is hard to use, I have high hopes of being able to put 10 rounds in a 1″ circle at 100 yards.

People call the Venture a cheap gun. Maybe so. I have never shot an expensive bolt rifle, so I don’t know what I’m missing. I think the most expensive bolt guns I’ve shot were a 6mm and a 30.06, probably Remington, when I was a kid. With the Venture, I have what appears to be a phenomenal trigger and a highly accurate gun, so what’s not to love? The bolt has been very sticky, and that led me to blow a hole in the pasture while trying to close it, but I have been running it back and forth in order to loosen it up, and it seems to be working. I should be able to make it nice and slick with some effort. After that, it will be really hard to see what an additional thousand dollars would have bought me.

On Wednesday, the scope base for my .17 HMR should arrive, unless it’s in the mailbox already. Then I can put an Athlon scope on my Savage 93R, and I’ll be all set for inexpensive, nearly recoil-free 100-yard practice.

Scoped rifles have been a source of frustration for me, and a lot of it has been equipment-related. By the end of the week, I should have 3 rifles set up well with MRAD scopes, and I may even have my AR-15 set up correctly. After that, I should be able to focus on learning to shoot instead of subduing uncooperative weapons.

I’m not shooting today because I don’t want to make my neighbors miserable. Any sane person should be satisfied with three sessions a week.

That’s what I’m telling myself at the moment.

I’m blessed to have a few readers who give me good advice and save me from myself. Jim from the now-defunct Smoke on the Water pops in from time to time to cut through the BS I’ve read and heard. Recently, he provided some tips on leveling scopes, which is a BS-intensive topic from one end to the other. I believe I will only need such information for my Ruger Precision Rifle and LR-308, because nothing else I have will shoot far enough to make leveling matter. Anyway, his comment will be there when I need it.

I still want to get a Tikka T3x in 6.5 Creedmoor. I do not hunt at all, apart from small annoying creatures of the sort taxidermists hide in their back rooms, but I have dreams of getting out there and trying, and I need at least one rifle for large game. The hunting picture is not rosy for me. There is nothing worth shooting (legally) on this property, and I feel funny about wandering around on public land wearing day-glo overalls, surrounded by beer-drunk weekend warriers with itchy trigger fingers and cataracts. Even if I did get out there and try, I don’t know what to do with a whole deer, and I can’t make myself shoot a bird smaller than a turkey. That’s what owning parrots will do to you. It’s really too bad pigs don’t come to visit.

I could pay for a guide and shoot some pigs on a hunting property, but that’s a little bit like going outside and shooting one of the cattle. I hope they would at least let me get out of the truck.

I shouldn’t joke. I remember shooting a rabbit from my grandfather’s Buick Riviera. He was a great grandfather.

My 6.5 Creedmoor dies arrived. I’m waiting for a case trimmer. I think I ordered bullets and powder. Yes, I remember it now. Primers are on their way to the nearest Bass Pro. Once my rifles are functioning, I’ll be able to think about making my first rifle rounds.

That’s all that’s happening here, apart from the apocalypse. Hope you’re enjoying it as much as I am.