I Have my Priorities

I am a degenerate. Our financial institutions are hurtling down the toilet, we have a pivotal election in about seven weeks, and all I can think about is my next trip to the gun range. I missed several outings in a row. Then I showed up with my new .17 HMR rifle, and finally, rifle shooting was nearly everything it was supposed to be. How long have I been trying to learn to shoot rifles? Almost three years? Finally, I have my chance. I was so stupid, not taking this route in the first place. Learn from my mistake. If you want to learn how to use a rifle, buy a shiny new Savage in a tame caliber, put a scope on it, and head for the range. You can buy milsurps and black rifles later, when you know what you’re doing.

With the strap, scope, and rings, this thing cost about what a Glock costs. Maybe less. That’s a deal, no matter how you look at it.

The one thing that still bothers me is the height of the rest. It makes it impossible to hold the gun on target without straining. I have to spread my elbows way out, to get low enough. I have to bend my neck back. Difficult. Maybe I’ll try a bipod this week. I don’t understand how anyone can be comfortable with a rest that short, but they seem standard at the range. I feel like a clown at the circus, riding a bike with three-inch wheels. To shoot in comfort, I’ll need a bipod maybe a foot high. I think the local Bass has one.

I don’t know why I shot so badly with the 27-2 last week. I’m going to look into a weaker spring. I don’t know why the spring that came with the gun is so stiff. Must be a safety feature, to keep cops from shooting themselves in the leg. The extra-wide trigger is odd, too. I wonder if that throws things off.

Last night, I wrote about my cunning plan: I want to use a Sonicare toothbrush to clean guns. A reader outdid me, saying they should make barrel brushes to fit Sonicare handles. That’s genius. I doubt it would work for a rifle, but most pistols have barrels under five inches long. I think a Sonicare has the horsepower to handle that.

I checked the web to see if anyone had already tried it, but I couldn’t find anything.

I guess there is no reason why I couldn’t cut up a Sonicare head and mate it to the end of a cleaning rod, so brushes would fit it. It would probably only work with plastic bristles, since metal brushes are so hard to move inside a barrel.

For me, most of the real suffering comes when it’s time to clean around the chamber. I end up using Q-Tips, which don’t work all that well. A tiny toothbrush head would get in there real good.

I must be the only person on earth who would search Ebay for used electric toothbrushes. I suppose I could use my own toothbrush handle, replacing the head when I clean guns.

My father thinks that in the long view, the US is slowly headed for pure socialism. I hope that’s not true. Socialism inevitably brings about totalitarianism. When that happens, forget about all the little pleasures that make American life enjoyable. Forget fun vehicles. Forget second homes and boats. Forget private planes. And most of all, forget your guns. The Mommy Dearest state won’t want you to hurt yourself or anyone else with a mean old gun. She’ll take them away and melt them down and make something useful out of them. Like a statue of Bill Ayres.

I don’t want to be poor and live in a cramped, state-funded apartment and shop at a grocery store that never has what I want. I don’t want to wait in line for shoes and toilet paper. I don’t want to be told I can’t have medical procedures because they’re too expensive. And I don’t want to be threatened with jail when I complain about the government. Socialism? You can have it. If it’s really in our future, the lucky people are the ones who are already old. They got to enjoy fast cars, big houses, sane gun laws, freedom of religion, and freedom of speech for decades. Regardless of what happens now, there is a limit to the overall damage a socialist state can do to their lives.

Life in America is so beautiful. We are so blessed. The mere thought that true socialism could be on the way only makes me appreciate our way of life more. It makes me conscious that I have to savor every second. Some day the political descendants of Barack Obama and Al Franken may be putting us in camps or shooting us as we stand in ditches. If a time like that comes, I’ll want to know I enjoyed life when I could.

Thursday is Range Day, but I may lose control and go on Wednesday. Wonder if I can find a way to transport a rifle on a Harley.

More Power!

My dentist keeps giving me toothbrushes. I don’t use them. I have a Sonicare. So I dedicated the toothbrushes to gun cleaning.

Yesterday I got a weird idea. What if I dedicated my ancient Sonicare to gun cleaning? I’ll bet it would make short work of powder deposits! Has anyone tried this?

Also posted at the forum.

I Kid

I’m reading about today’s Wall Street mess. I can’t believe it. Can someone help me understand how top investment professionals were stupid enough, en masse, to believe a housing bubble could go on forever, and how they could compound their stupidity by lending money to people who could not repay them?

I can’t figure it out. One thing no one seems to mention is the minority angle. The government pressured lenders to give money to minority borrowers, and lenders agreed, turning a blind eye to credit reports, and look what happened. Another victory for socialism. What a wonderful equal outcome. Minority members with low-paying jobs finally got houses just as nice as everyone else’s. And now they’re being thrown out of them, just in time to see Barack Obama lose the election. What a crappy year for them.

People say adjustable rates are the problem. That’s the PC thing to say. The reality is, a lot of borrowers never had a prayer in hell of paying, regardless of the interest rate.

Regarding the bubble thing, when are human beings going to learn that Ponzi schemes don’t work? That’s what this was. You buy a house. In six months, you sell it for 120% of what you paid. Six months later, the buyer sells it for 120% of what he paid. And so on. And so on. Eventually, somebody can’t pay! That’s just how math is. At the end of the day, houses are things people have to be able to afford. You can’t charge infinity for a house, no matter how long the mortgage runs.

A few years back, nice houses in this area sold for $250,000. At the peak of the bubble, they sold for maybe 900. What kind of fool could think that was going to last? A long time ago, my mother–a realtor–sold a house in this area to a firefighter. Can firefighters afford $900,000 houses? I don’t think so. The supply of expensive houses has expanded dramatically, and the supply of affordable houses has shriveled. And the supply of people who can buy expensive houses has declined. That is not a system at equilibrium.

Now even responsible people have to scramble. Got money in investment or savings accounts? Better make sure it’s insured. If not, you could lose a bunch of it. Got $200,000 in one bank? Only half of it is safe. Make sure you don’t lose it, because if Wall Street continues to falter, in a year, you might be able to buy four nice homes with it.

When I was in law school, I traded stocks. I knew there was a tech bubble. When the collapse started in earnest, I sold. I didn’t quite catch the peak. Other people laughed at me and said I should hold on. But I knew my stocks were overvalued, and I needed to pay my tuition. I got involved in the bubble, but I was too scared to be greedy. I think I took the right approach. I know people who came out of the tech crash with no retirement money. How could they let that happen? I’ll bet some of those same people just got caught flipping houses.

Actually, now that I think about it, I know two people who got caught with four expensive properties. I should have asked you all to do me a favor and say a prayer for them. They really need a solution. They’re wonderful people, but they can’t seem to get a handle on common sense. They should be enjoying retirement, but their lives are full of stress.

The Book of Proverbs says get rich quick schemes don’t work. It really says that. I’m paraphrasing, but it says that.

I have to tell you, when something this improbable happens, I tend to assume something supernatural is going on. This mistake was so obvious, and so many bright people made it, it can’t all be natural. Surely we are not that dumb. I recall a Biblical passage about God putting a hook in someone’s nose, to lure him into a difficult situation. I think that’s right; maybe some of you know what I’m talking about. I believe that still happens.

Sometimes I think we are headed for tough times, and God sent us John McCain so we would have someone mean enough and tough enough to watch over us. I think that’s how we ended up with George Bush. Imagine Gore, kowtowing and apologizing to the terrorists. We would have been vaporized.

I hope the worst of this mess is behind us. It would be fantastic to see all those new homeowners manage to stay where they are.

Some Fates are too Horrible to Contemplate

I had the funniest thought a few minutes ago.

I was watching a brokerage commercial, and it featured a middle-aged guy and his wife. He was wearing a baby-blue velour windbreaker type thing, which right away gives you a clue what his life is like (“It’s on SALE. You’ll WEAR IT”). His wife was talking about investing, and he kept saying he wanted to invest in a spiffy car. And she kept putting the lid on that suggestion, in a way that suggested she was used to shutting him down (Sex? Forget it! We did it in 1989!”).

It occurred to me that it would be funny if a third character walked into the frame, handed him a revolver with one round in the chamber, and said, “You know what to do.”

Black humor. Maybe some day I’ll get it out of my system. But it got me thinking. When is it okay to kill yourself? I am not the world’s leading authority on Catholicism, but I believe they consider it an unpardonable sin. I’m not sure if other churches have taken clear positions on it.

So often, in movies, you see people kill themselves, or plan to kill themselves, to avoid suffering. Could you do that? I’d be more scared of God than of whatever I had to face here. Earthly suffering is only temporary. Here, only your body can be destroyed. The Bible says God can permanently destroy your soul.

I also wonder: if killing yourself is a sin, how far can you go in military service, without dooming yourself? If you jump on a grenade to save your friends, surely that’s okay. But what if you fly a plane into the side of a ship? How much slack do you get? Where is the dividing line?

Today I was reading about assisted suicide and euthanasia. It seems to me that there is absolutely nothing wrong with refusing treatment. You shouldn’t be forced to exert yourself to save your own life. But acting affirmatively to kill yourself…no matter how you slice it, that’s suicide. Isn’t it wrong to do that, or to take any part in it?

The Pope (the Catholic one, not the other one) just gave a speech in which he said people should learn to accept their destiny and leave the earth when God chooses to take them. I think he’s right. Right now there’s a somewhat bogus debate going on, about using cells from aborted babies to keep people alive or make their lives better (it’s bogus, because so far, fetal cells have not proven useful). The practice of taking from the young to save the old is unnatural. The natural order dictates that the old sacrifice to preserve the young. It’s sick to carve up a baby to extend the life of an adult. For that matter, it’s sick to carve up a baby to prevent an adult who conceived it from being inconvenienced for a few months. Imagine what life might be like, if we ever reached the point where unborn life had no value at all, and we were able to use fetal tissue to keep adults alive. The world could become crowded with people who refuse to die. People who refuse to participate in a transition which is a natural part of our existence. It’s disgusting, if you think about it.

Being born is probably very unpleasant. Kids often hate their first days of school. Getting married is scary; so is having kids. So is retiring. Life is full of scary transitions, but healthy people don’t run from them. Death is one of these transitions.

A lot of my relatives are dead. I wish that were not the case, but when a loved one goes, I can tell you, no matter how bad you think it will be, the world doesn’t end. And death itself appears to be painless. I don’t think it’s healthy to fear it. We should avoid stupid risks like smoking and base-jumping. We should try to take care of ourselves so we’ll be around to spend plenty of time with our loved ones. But when it’s time, it’s time. It would be disgraceful to harm an innocent person, just to postpone something which is fundamentally healthy and right.

Sometimes a little part of me looks forward to death, simply because this world is so screwed up. Presumably, things make more sense in the supernatural realm. I certainly hope that’s true. I hate to think we’ll have to put up with corruption and injury and disease and taxes in the hereafter. The world is a mess. It’s easy to forget that, if you live in America. But look at the rest of the globe. Sudan. Somalia. Bangladesh. Any Muslim country you can name. For most human beings, life is very bad.

As a Christian, I know we live in a weird plane, where we are influenced and surrounded by beings we can’t see. If you’re a Christian, too, you should find that annoying. I do. Wouldn’t you love to get your hands around the neck of a demon just once? And just rip its rotten eyes out? Maybe it made someone deaf. Maybe it gave your grandmother, or a whole bunch of grandmothers, cancer. Wouldn’t you love an opportunity to strap it to a pole and roast it over the fire of hell and hear it scream? I know I would. At the very least, I would like to be able to see my enemies. Nothing is as frustrating as being tormented by someone you can’t identify or strike back at.

I know some people will think I sound crazy when I talk about demons. But Jesus believed in them, and he even had conversations with them. If you’re a Christian, that should mean something to you.

Truthfully, I think corporeal life is less natural than the state in which spirits exist. There are supposedly a number of types of intelligent beings with spirits, and we’re the only ones that live in the material universe, and we’re the only ones that die. Our state is unstable. It ends. The state of spirits is at equilibrium. It’s eternal. Maybe it’s more natural to be dead than alive.

If I get sick, I plan to stick it out to the end. I’ll take painkillers by the bucket, if necessary. I’m no John Wayne. But I can’t see arriving at the Pearly Gates with my own blood on my hands.

How Sharper Than a Serpent’s Tooth

According to some poll or other, Obama now leads by only 5% in New York State. That’s shocking.

Here is more bad news for Obama:

Ethics are as Old-Fashioned as John McCain

Moxie is blogging about Jill Greenberg, the photographer who brags that she tricked John McCain into posing for unflattering photos, so she could make him look “evil” on the cover of The Atlantic.

It’s an interesting situation. Because a member of the leftist media was unfair to a conservative? No, that’s not interesting. That’s routine. It’s interesting because it shows what happens when a profession has no ethical code.

I’ve complained a lot about IT professionals having no code and no oversight. If a hosting company employee or a web designer feels like messing with a customer, the customer has little recourse. There is no bar association to report them to, and litigation is expensive, and generally, you have to prove monetary damages. Unless I’m mistaken, the situation is the same with journalists.

You can’t license journalists. It would be a violation of the first amendment. That means you can’t have a bar association empowered to shut them down for ethical violations. Still, it would be nice if someone drew up a code of ethics to which journalists could voluntarily subscribe. There would be no enforcement power for violations, but at least victims would be able to point to the violations, and other members of the journalistic profession could take note.

Maybe it’s not a practical idea.

We are seeing egregious transgressions these days. US Magazine put a photo of Sarah Palin on its cover, behind the caption “BABIES! LIES! SCANDAL!” Three network anchors accompanied the Democratic Presidential candidate on his trip to Europe. Pundits have uncritically repeated discredited lies about Sarah Palin as truth. I realize it’s impossible to eliminate bias from reporting and commentary; that doesn’t excuse what’s happening. A journalist can be forgiven for involuntarily leaning one way or the other. It’s different when they don’t even try to be objective, or when they deliberately deceive.

The Greenberg case is unusual, because the perpetrator admitted what she had done. It’s too bad that doesn’t happen more often. I still remember the Ann Coulter TIME cover, which was clearly designed to make her look ugly and masculine and old. The people behind it defended it wholeheartedly, which was ridiculous. And we have never heard a good explanation for the troop of anchors on the Obama Europe trip.

I suppose Ms. Greenberg’s actions will end up generating votes for John McCain, just as a history of TV bias by other outlets generated high ratings for Fox News. But we would all be better off if she had never done this in the first place.

Will she pay a price for her actions? No. She might lose a job here and there, but other people will funnel work to her, in solidarity. That’s how the world works. I’ll bet she makes more money in 2009 than she will make in 2008.

It’s a sorry way to treat a candidate. Agree with him or not, he’s not an axe murderer. He doesn’t eat babies. He just tried to win the Presidency. He deserves a fair shake, like anyone else. And so does Barack Obama.

I suppose we should thank Ms. Greenberg for exposing herself by bragging on her blog. I wish the people at US had been that candid.

One Good Dish Doesn’t Make a Restaurant Credible

Even though I had steak for dinner last night, I am tempted to have it again. One of my Youtube videos got a comment that makes me want to thaw out a prime rib eye.

I was fed up with people making the ridiculous claim that steak should be “rested” before serving. Steakhouses don’t do it, and it makes no sense to begin with. Steak should be very hot on the outside, and you don’t get that if you leave it sitting on a plate for five minutes. It’s just dumb. It should be obvious.

Humoring the people who entertain this notion, as though it were worthy of respect and consideration, I made a video. I took an aged choice rib eye, cut it in two pieces, and ate it. I ate the pieces five minutes apart, so the second one got to rest. And as I could have predicted, the first piece was better, because it was hotter on the outside. All the BS you hear about the juices redistributing themselves…none of that stuff happened.

It was a good test. Perfectly valid. Not as conclusive as, say, 50 tests, with different cuts. But reasonably scientific. Two pieces of meat, from the same steak. One for a control. One rested. We’re not talking about a subtle, evasive piece of data, here. Not something that requires a particle collider and a supercomputer. My test was more than adequate.

Some guy who claims he worked at the Peter Luger steakhouse in Brooklyn left a comment, saying I didn’t know what I was talking about. In the video, I pointed out that Peter Luger doesn’t rest steaks. He said that was because their steaks were aged four weeks, so they had less “blood,” and they didn’t need resting. HELLO? In the video, I said I was using aged meat. And where was his evidence that non-aged meat needed resting? Where was his test? There wasn’t one. And who eats non-aged steaks anyway? Why would you ruin a good prime steak by eating it without aging it? I’ve done it in the past because I didn’t know any better, but it’s a very stupid thing to do. When you pay for prime, age it yourself or make sure it’s aged before you buy it. A fresh piece of prime will be surprisingly tough and flavorless. I avoid buying individual steaks now, because you can’t age them. I buy rib roasts and put them in the cooler until they’re perfect.

The Peter Luger religion is a pet peeve of mine. I’ve been there, and you know what? It’s a bad restaurant. That’s not a subjective statement, either. There are solid objective criteria this place fails to meet. First, the service is bad. This even extends to their unwillingness to take credit cards, forcing customers to walk in Brooklyn at night with hundreds of dollars in cash on them. Second, the atmosphere is horrible; they serve you on wobbly tables with no varnish or cloths, and it’s loud, and as one reviewer put it, it’s like eating in a frat house. Third, a lot of the food is bad. I was served cold rolls that probably came from a bag bought from a cheap restaurant supplier; you can do better in any grocery store. The salad is a big nothing. The sides are boring and not particularly well prepared; you can get better stuff from Birdseye. The sodas are tiny, and they sling them at you with little glasses half-full of melting ice. The steak was fantastic, but it’s also fantastic at restaurants that aren’t total failures in all other regards.

There are problems with the steak. For one thing, they don’t offer a variety of cuts. They really push the porterhouse. Guess what? It’s not necessarily the best cut, and it’s not what a lot of customers want. It’s a filet and a strip, separated by a bone. Filets lack flavor. Strips aren’t all that tender or juicy. If I were going to have a filet, which is not my first choice, I’d want it by itself, wrapped in bacon. If I were going to have a strip, well, I wouldn’t, unless it was something I fixed at home because it was cheap. Some people like rib eyes; I think it’s the best cut on the cow. Some people like Delmonicos. They have a right to their opinions. It’s stupid to pretend you know better than a sophisticated customer.

Here’s another horrible problem with their steak. You can’t order steak for one. So they cut the damned thing up when they bring it to you. I was appalled. I’m not a four year old. I don’t want a waiter cutting my steak, letting the juice and the heat out. Ridiculous. Give me a steak that’s the right size for one hungry human being.

People complain about the wine list, too. I wouldn’t know. I’m not a wine drinker. But when the cheapest steak costs $81, the wine list ought to be top-notch.

Here’s another insult. They sell steak sauce. It’s nearly the same thing as French dressing. In fact, they recommend you put it on the salad as well as the steak. Why would you prepare quality steak and then encourage your customers to ruin it with sauce? And this sauce isn’t even good to liven up a cheap steak. It’s nasty.

If I were rich, and I lived across the street from this place, I could see going there once in a while for lunch, just for steak and a baked potato. But to sit down and eat dinner with other people? To be treated like a hog at a trough, when I should be getting a pleasant all-round dining experience? Never. Not in a million years. For less money, I can go to Ruth’s and get a gorgeous cowboy rib eye, a baked potato, creme brulee, and a succession of perfect martinis. At home, for $26 per steak, plus a few bucks for a potato and dessert, I can outdo Ruth’s, eat my dinner with friends or a DVD, and end up with about four dishes to wash. I’d have to be an idiot to settle for Peter Luger’s.

People say it’s worth it to put up with the crap at Peter Luger’s, just to get the steak. Sorry. Incorrect. The other high-end steakhouses are just as good. The last steak I had at Ruth’s was magnificent. And any reputable grocer or butcher can sell you prime beef that will age and cook just as good as anything they have at Peter Luger’s. The stories they tell about special beef are just hype. Even if their beef is marginally better, aging and cooking are ten times as important as the quality of the meat. My home-aged choice bone-in rib eyes are better than the prime steaks a lot of restaurants serve. If you get a typical piece of prime, age it well, and cook it properly (a cinch), you’ll beat the professionals. If all you care about is steak, you might as well fix it at home and save yourself a trip.

If meat quality were that important, Peter Luger would use Kobe beef. And they don’t.

The ignorance of reviewers who kiss up to this place is amazing. One guy bragged about being able to eat his steak with a butter knife. If you can’t cut your prime steak with a butter knife, you got cheated. You can probably get by with a butter knife, even at low-end places like Outback. Which happens to be a restaurant I like. Good solid food at a reasonable price. The earth doesn’t move, but they don’t charge you $81 for something you don’t want, either.

I guess I won’t have a rib eye tonight. I’m just not hungry enough. I’ve been getting such great results with cheap Costco meat, I’ve saturated my steak receptors.

I’m considering trying to age a pile of Costco flap meat. That stuff is excellent for the price, and you can buy a big wad of it suitable for aging. I’ll bet it would be phenomenal. It requires a certain amount of sawing and chewing, but aging would tenderize it a lot, and the flavor would improve. Slap a little homemade chimichurri on it…oh, yeah.

When the emperor has no clothes, it’s best to be honest about it. It preserves your credibility. Having been to Peter Luger’s, I will never be able to trust any reviewer who gushes over it. “It’s a classic New York experience”? So is a mugging. Which is much less expensive.

When you criticize this place, you risk attracting fanbois who claim you don’t know what steak is supposed to taste like. Yeah, I got similar remarks when I criticized $5000 stereo cables. Highly credible.

Guess I better start thinking seriously about dinner.

Fill it With Treasure

I decided to take down my post about PJTV. I think it was a good Sabbath move, and besides, people like me, who pointed out PJM’s flaws, received a lot of abuse when it failed to succeed. As if criticism somehow prevented PJM from working. I don’t want to get involved in any more pointless squabbles.

I try not to stir up trouble these days. I try to avoid gossip and instigation.

It’s Sunday. Might as well write about religion.

My new thing is memorizing scripture. I used to do this a long time ago, but I quit. I started again. I think every Christian has a duty to do it. If you have to refer to the Bible every time you need guidance, you’re not very well prepared to face life. Much better to know the answers by heart. The Bible says the Holy Spirit will remind you of applicable passages when you need them.

I’m memorizing some Psalms. What a strange work. I think they got me in trouble a few times in the past. Looking at them, I concluded it was okay to pray for your enemies to be mashed from above. They do seem to condone that kind of prayer. On the other hand, somewhere in there, one of the psalmists says something about saying prayers for his enemies that he could just as easily have said for himself. And we all know what Jesus said about how we should treat our enemies. I now think it’s okay to pray for my enemies to face problems while they continue to do stupid, evil things to harm me. I couldn’t fault someone for praying prayers like that about me, if I were doing something reprehensible.

Another odd thing about the Psalms is their prophetic nature. A lot of the passages in the Psalms seem sort of pointless unless you look at them from your perspective as a believer. If I were an atheist–maybe even if I were Jewish–I would have a hard time making sense of some of the verses. But because I’m a Christian, they seem to confirm that what I believe is true.

For example, the 63rd Psalm. It begins, “Oh God, thou art my god.” Isn’t that an admission that there is idolatry in the world, and that you choose to reject it? Seems like it to me. You could always pick another “god.”

Then it says, “Early will I seek thee. My soul thirsteth for thee; my flesh longeth for thee, in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is. To see thy power and thy glory, so as I have seen thee in the sanctuary.”

Here’s how I see this. The world was given to man to run, and we chose to give up authority. So now it’s a place where the presence of God, which should be with us much of the time, is tough to enter into. The world is a dry and thirsty place, especially when you don’t live right. But from time to time, God manifests Himself. Once you’ve experienced it, you long for it to happen again.

I’m not completely sure what the sanctuary is, but my guess is that it refers to the area in the temple or tabernacle where the ark of the covenant stood. It was a place where the high priest encountered God very directly, perceiving Him with his senses and not just by faith. Let’s see…Google seems to confirm this.

A while back, I wrote about a couple of experiences I had, in which I felt a warm, loving presence in physical contact with me. At the time, I felt certain what I felt was the presence of Jesus. Now that these experiences are behind me, I feel the way the psalmist did. “Thirst” is a good way to describe it. I miss the sensation. I wish it would return. Maybe I’m wrong, but I suspect that what I miss is the same thing a person who had been in the sanctuary would miss. I don’t think I got the same experience the high priests received; I think I just got a piece of it. Nonetheless, it was enough to make me want more. You would have to be crazy not to want to be near a being that radiated peace and love and assurance the way a wood stove radiates heat. The psalm says “thy lovingkindness is better than life.” I have to wonder if that’s a reference to the sensation of being in God’s presence.

The rest of the psalm is also consistent with the experiences of modern Christians. “Thus will I bless thee while I live: I will lift up my hands in thy name.” This act is so common, it appears to be instinctive. “My soul shall be satisfied as with marrow and fatness; and my mouth shall praise thee with joyful lips: When I remember thee upon my bed, and meditate on thee in the night watches.” That kind of satisfaction is what you feel when God is near. And it’s funny how often these things happen when you’re lying awake in bed, as the psalm implies.

The experience of memorization–the repetition–helps you see new meaning in passages like these. It lifts them off the page and brings them to life. The most important property of great literature is resonance: we read books written by strangers, and from time to time, we realize we have felt things these strangers have felt. This is why people read great works of fiction; we see ourselves in them. We realize we are not unique in our experiences. The Bible has this same property, in a much deeper and more useful way. And memorization amplifies the sensation, making it more vivid and lasting.

I wish I had worked harder at this before my memory got so bad. But it still pays off.

I think having this stuff in my memory will improve me as a person. When you memorize scripture, no matter where you are, it’s always inside you, shaping your thoughts and acts.

I think the King James Version is best for this. It may not be the best translation, but as a piece of writing, it far exceeds anything else on the market. If there are problems with a few of the words, it won’t matter, because surely you’ll remember those problems, just as you remember the verses.

Rescind her High School Diploma

For some reason I can’t fathom, front-running Presidential candidate John McCain went on The View (maybe he’ll also do Sesame Street) and talked to Baba Wawa and Whoopi Goldberg. While he was talking about the need for judges who interpret the Constitution instead of rewriting it, Whoopi interrupted and asked if that meant she had to worry about being a slave.

Note to Whoopi: slavery was abolished by an amendment. And guess what amendments are? Part of the Constitution.

You can thank Republican President Abraham Lincoln, by the way.

If you don’t know who he is, don’t worry about it. He was just an old white dude from a red state.

Savage Rocks

I just got back from the range. I shot 100 rounds from the .17 HMR, 50 from the S&W 27-2 with new Pachmayr grips, and 50 from the SW1911. What a day.

I started with the target at 50 yards, and the first shot hit the paper. From then on, it was a simple matter of adjusting the scope. This is about 15 shots, I think:

The first shot is below the frame. You can already see how easy this gun is to shoot. Here’s the second 50-yard group:

The bullets started going through the same hole. It was clear that shooting at 50 yards was a complete waste of time, so I stopped and moved back. Here’s what happened as I sighted the scope in and tried to figure out what I was doing:

I had some trouble getting comfortable and finding the right place to put my right hand. When I grip the gun naturally, my finger contacts the trigger up by the stock, which is no good, so I had to keep moving it down. And I had problems figuring out where to put my cheek; it made the optics seem all wobbly. Finally I developed a little bit of a routine, but not before this happened:

Am I complaining? No. That’s a small target. The group is smaller than a tennis ball. By my standards, that is good shooting.

I started to get it together on the third group. You can see the shots glomming into several distinct areas. The central area, which is where they went when I did things right, and then the other areas, where they went when I did stupid things:

I still feel uncomfortable with my shooting rest. It’s too damned low. I don’t understand how anyone can be comfortable with a rest less than ten inches high. Maybe I should get a tall bipod. And I see what Chris Byrne was talking about, when he said target stocks make for better geometry. But I think this one will be okay once I get used to it. I think the scope is too far back; he mentioned that, too. When my eye is too close to the rear lens, the optical sweet spot gets small and wanders around, making it hard to center the target.

I ordered Pachmayr grips for my Smith & Wesson 27-2, so I decided to shoot it today. The results were horrendous. I think the heavy spring may be part of the problem. Also, after my long layoff, I just plain forgot how to hold the grip:

That was humiliating. So I took out the SW1911 to see if my problem extended to all pistols. I shot considerably better, so I didn’t feel the need to seek therapy.

Here’s the rifle on the rest:

I highly recommend the Savage Mark II .17 HMR rifles. This thing shoots itself, and it was cheap. The 14 power Burris Fullfield II scope is great. I’m glad I didn’t go smaller. At a hundred yards, I can see the holes without a spotting scope.

Fantastic day.

This Campaign has Performed an Illegal Operation and Will be Shut Down

I hope Karl Rove is keeping his payments to Barack Obama current. The Golden Child is doing a wonderful job, generating gaffes to help John McCain.

Today’s atrocity? A TV ad with the following message: JOHN MCCAIN SHOULD NOT BE ELECTED PRESIDENT BECAUSE HE’S OLD.

Proving they know exactly what they’re doing, “Obama spokesman Dan Pfeiffer said the campaign was not making an issue of the 72-year-old McCain’s age.” If this pig had any more lipstick on it, the weight would pull its hind legs off the ground. Pfeiffer went on to bulk up his credibility with the following remarks: “Up is down, September is actually July, and I’m definitely not wearing my underwear.”

The ad features a disco ball. It features unflattering 1982 footage of McCain in Congress. It has a short piece of what appears to be a commercial made in the Fifties. It reminds everyone that he hasn’t mastered crucial Presidential skills, such as email, Myspace, Google, Youtube, Napster, and Facebook.

John McCain is an old fart! He doesn’t know how to SUPERPOKE people! He can’t send Naughty Gifts or Booze Mail! He has ZERO Myspace friends! He has never answered a Nigerian spam letter! We can’t let a guy like that in the White House! Where are his piercings? Where is his Ipod? Where is his creepy little post-90s chin beard? Are you kidding me? This guy is DANGEROUS! We can have Mac, and we’re electing PC’s dad!

What are we going to do, when Putin goes nuts and decides to nuke Poland, and John McCain can’t put a rebuke on Putin’s Facebook Fun Wall?

I have to ask. When did we decide it was okay to discriminate against job applicants based on age? Didn’t liberals coin the term “ageism”? Didn’t they afflict us with laws making age discrimination an incredibly expensive federal tort?

You want age discrimination? I’ll give it to you. The Constitution says you can’t be President until you’re 35, and it was written at a time when a lot of folks dropped dead before reaching that age. What does that tell you? It tells you the framers were more worried about hiring immature punks than they were about Presidents who have to use reading glasses.

Some people–lunatics, I guess–have the crazy idea that human beings learn as they age. They think older people are wiser and more mature. We need to find these people and deprogram them. Then we can fix the Constitution and elect our new co-Presidents, the Olsen twins.

If old is bad, what the hell is Joe Biden doing on Obama’s ticket? He’s SIXTY-FIVE. Joe Biden is NINE DAYS OLDER THAN OBAMA’S MOTHER. On November 20, he’ll have a birthday, and then he won’t be able to serve, because it will be time to turn him into Soylent Green.

Please, please, let Biden pick up on this and try to change his image. He’s insecure enough to do it. He already has plugs and glowing blue teeth. Please, just once before I die, let me watch Joe Biden try to skate on a half-pipe. Let him throw up ONE gang sign at a debate. Then I could die happy. Here’s what he should say when they interview him on Nickelodeon:

Is it because they didn’t work hard? My ancestors, who worked in the Apple stores of Northeast Pennsylvania and would come up after 12 hours and play Wii for four hours? No, it’s not because they weren’t as smart. It’s not because they didn’t work as hard. It’s because they didn’t have a pair of Crocs upon which to stand. Dude.”

I want to see Biden in Mountain Dew commercials. I want to see him play a high school kid on his own DNC-financed sitcom: That 40s Show. That makes Obama Fez. Just imagine it. “Olbermann, to you I say good day!” Then John McCain can come in with a beer in his hand and call Biden “dumbass.”

Let’s see. The Democrats have made it clear they hate working moms. They hate Christians. They hate gun owners. They hate teenage girls who have sex before marriage. Now they hate old people. Who’s next? Who’s left? They call themselves the Big Tent party, but the biggest tent is the one they’re filling with people they detest.

I don’t know what McCain should do about this. Maybe Pfeiffer and Obama should both be grounded.

McCain continues creeping up in the polls, like the shuffleboard scores of a retiree who has just discovered Celebrex. Obama continues working his helpful magic. When a person whose primary job is PR thinks he can do no wrong, wrong is what he is most likely to do. Keep scolding the press, B. Hussein. Keep attacking demographic segments you need in order to survive. This is like the scene in Fight Club, where Ed Norton goes into his boss’s office and beats himself up. You’re doing something the Republicans could never do in their own right.

Hurry, November. Let’s get this thing finished before Illinois mounts a Senatorial recall election.

Get Oprah Some Fresh Dress Shields

The other day, I was writing enthusiastically about McCain’s poll numbers, and people told me the electoral map was what really mattered. I said it seemed to me that if the national poll changed, the electoral numbers would have to follow it. It doesn’t really make sense to have a big change in popular-vote polls without an accompanying, albeit delayed, shift in the electoral picture. Think about it. The planets have to line up a certain way in order for the popular vote and the electoral vote to conflict. It’s not normal.

I guess I was right. Take a look at Realclearpolitics: the latest electoral map shows Obama with 217 votes and McCain with 216. Nearly even.

I hope Obama continues to offend and pat himself on the back and cry victim. I hope he keeps scolding and patronizing the press. It might eventually become fashionable for mainstream journalists to pretend they knew he was a brat all along.

Today McCain said he would offer Obama a cabinet post. It was a silly thing to say, but it may have a positive effect. There may be some BO voters out there who aren’t totally sure about Obama as President, but who would like to see him in the picture somewhere.

If we’re still seeing good numbers on Monday, I think Obama will officially be over.

Wonder How it Would Taste on Toast

Based on advice from gun people, I took the Savage apart, blasted the metal parts with carb cleaner, and applied Eezox. And I cleaned the barrel with a Boresnake, while the barrel was wet with Eezox. We’ll see if it does anything.

I think I goofed by hosing the trigger mechanism with carb cleaner. It has some kind of thick grease on the spring. But since the carb cleaner didn’t do much to remove it, I suppose I’m okay.

I was not sure how much Eezox to apply. I sprayed the gun liberally and then wiped it until there was only a thin film. Now I’m letting everything dry.

Sound good?

Success

I only have one part left over! Doesn’t look too important.

Teach Him a Lesson

Jim from Smoke on the Water has issued a prayer request. He and his significant other, Iris, closed on a house five weeks ago. In GALVESTON. On a BARRIER ISLAND.

They are preparing for Ike right now. Pray it hits France.

Not really, but you get the idea.

I Need This

It’s Boliche Day. Winn-Dixie put eye roast on sale, so I snapped one up, along with a very long chorizo to stuff in it.

This is a wonderful Cuban dish. The best way to fix it is to use a pressure cooker. Regrettably, it’s not all that unhealthy.

I’m putting the recipe up at the forum.