Even Worse Than Guilt

Sondra K. wanted to know if I could offer gun advice to a female blogger who lives somewhere in my general area of the state. I’m not qualified to give advice, but I tried to direct her to some better resources. And I blogrolled her; can’t believe she wasn’t already on the list.

I don’t know what a woman should carry. The Glock 26 comes to mind. Some people recommend .38 snubnoses, apparently on the theory that women are too stupid to operate semi-automatics, but the .38 is not a good defensive round. If it’s not for carry, maybe a .410 shotgun is the way to go.

While I was looking for stuff to recommend, I came across an interesting report about the uncertainty of stopping an assailant with one shot. People like to criticize the 9mm pistol, and a sort of worship has developed around the .45 ACP round, but apparently some criminals barely notice 230-grain .45 ACP shots to the chest. They persist in attacking and then survive. How about that?

What’s the lesson here? Maybe the lesson is that you should shoot for the face, if you are capable of doing so. I know from watching shooters at the range that most people can’t do it, even up close. But many can. If you’re an experienced shooter, and you’re in a self-defense situation, it may well be possible for you to aim well and shoot the attacker in the brain. It wouldn’t work well if you were rushed, but I’m sure that if people who have been in gunfights could be questioned, an appreciable percentage would say they had time to aim. People always say to shoot for the center of mass, but every situation is different. Isn’t it a mistake to rigidly adhere to principles that don’t work well in every situation?

Another thought: maybe using a pistol to defend yourself is just plain stupid, when you could just as easily reach for a shotgun. Where movement is restricted, or where you have to carry on your person, a shotgun won’t work well. But in your house, why not? A shotgun is much more destructive, and because it has a long barrel (not because of the mythical giant pattern that covers an entire wall), you’re less likely to miss. And you can mount a light and a laser on it, and you can crush a burglar’s skull or testicles or push his teeth down his throat with the butt. The big drawback, I would guess, is low magazine capacity. But some shotguns hold a fair amount of ammunition.

I think a great idea would be to buy a high-capacity autoloader, put a laser and light on it, and pay the fee for a short barrel. I think you have to pay an extra $200 if you want to possess a “sawed-off” shotgun. Geez, that sounds like a bargain.

Finally, we are not devoting enough effort to point-shooting, which is shooting without using sights. I used to point-shoot an old CO2 pistol a lot, and it’s easy to get to the point where you really can’t miss at room-to-room distances. With a long gun, it’s even easier. Give me a day of practice, and I’ll be able to hit man-size targets from the hip all day long at 7 yards, even if they’re moving. A skill like that would be a horror for a burglar or even a team of burglars to face. For those times when you can’t aim carefully, a shotgun fired from the hip would be a life-saver.

I also ran across a news video of an interview with a man who was forced to kill two robbers with an 11-shot pistol. Sounds like he may be a Glock 26 man. This poor guy had a string of ghetto apartments, and he and his wife were cleaning one to get it ready for renting, and two idiots in ski masks came into the apartment and menaced him with some sort of pistol that looked like an Uzi. He managed to shoot both of them twice, hitting one in the face. They both died at the scene. I admire him tremendously. He fully expected to die, but he was determined to save his wife, so he pulled his gun and fired, and thank God, he survived. But it’s not really a happy ending. These jerks made him take their lives, and now he has to live with the memory and the reputation.

They knew he had rent money in his wallet, and the robber holding the gun told him he was going to die. Helpful hint for robbers: don’t tell your victims they’re going to die. Tell them everything will be fine if they cooperate. Otherwise, they have nothing to lose, so they fight back. This guy would probably have handed over his wallet, had he believed they would leave. I certainly would. Unfortunately, criminals are sadistic as well as greedy, so they enjoy terrifying their victims, hence the pointless and counterproductive death threats.

Better

I made myself watch Laura Ingraham today. I can never force myself to watch TV with any kind of regularity, but I wanted to see this show, because I thought maybe Fox was starting to make intelligent decisions again.

I saw maybe half an hour. I thought it was pretty good. For some reason, Miss Ingraham seems to look better and better with time. Of course, one explanation is that my eyes are getting worse and worse. And she’s more entertaining than Gibson and Nauert. One person I respect issued a stinging critique of her jokes, but I didn’t hear any of those, so I can’t comment. Her voice is not the sort of thing that makes for a career in the production of relaxation CDs, but it’s not a deal-breaker.

John Gibson startled me with his horrendous January remarks, much as Ann Coulter did when she put slurs in her column. I was amazed when he made fun of Heath Ledger, right after he died. Where did that come from? Never saw it coming. It made Fox look bad.

My take, when I realized they were offering Laura Ingraham a show, was that they were finally getting over their Michelle Malkin fantasy. Mrs. Malkin is a fine blogger, and her books are okay, but she was pretty bad as a host. She took everything personally and got angry and seemed childish. And she doesn’t think well on her feet. I guess when she issued her weird ultimatum, she did Fox a favor.

Here is my advice: when a woman offers you an ultimatum, take her up on it. Whatever the consequences are, they’re better than being around the type of woman who issues ultimatums.

I recall Miss Ingraham complaining about the mosh pit atmosphere of one of the shows she was on. I think it was Hannity & Colmes. She said it was why she wouldn’t do TV. I guess she got over that. They must have canned her radio show, which I actually enjoyed.

If the jokes stink, she’s probably relying on the hopeless and exclusive Conservative Humor Brigade, i.e. the folks who brought us the Half-Funny News Hour. That was the suspicion of the person who criticized her jokes, and it sounds likely to me. Miss Ingraham, whatever her positive points may be, is part of the clique, and positions in the conservative media (i.e. Fox News and AM radio) are so hard to come by, I doubt she’d risk ostracism by turning down a sheaf of Ned Rice knee-slappers.

I guess we’re stuck with hacks until the creaky old mediocrities (I insult mediocrity) die of old age. There is no way a new conservative humorist with talent will ever get a shot while these guys have air in them. Maybe that’s for the best. Overall, political humor probably has a negative impact on the world, even when it’s good. And when I say “good,” I mean “liberal,” since they’re the only ones doing it right. Except for obscure bloggers. If her jokes are bad, her best move is to quit buying them. O’Reilly and Limbaugh do fine, and nobody expects quality comedy from them.

I think Fox made a good choice. Hope I turn out to be right.

Forgive me, George

It’s a terrible, terrible thing to gloat when something bad happens to another person. Especially if that person is a friend. You should never do that. It’s unconscionable and petty and disgusting.

However…

GEORGE MONEO’S MAC JUST CRASHED! GEORGE MONEO’S MAC JUST CRASHED!

Okay, okay. I’m sorry! That was a momentary lapse! Pay no attention! I’m really ashamed.

It’s awful, but at the same time, come on. It’s funny. Every time I have a computer problem, George gives me a lecture about how it wouldn’t have happened if I had a Mac.

I confess, Windows is garbage, and IBM compatibles no longer offer any advantages other than initial price. I plan to buy a Mac when this computer craps out.

But it’s still funny.

Although maybe not to George. Not for another year or two.

Reject Him for Any Number of Reasons; Just be Sure You Reject Him

I got some interesting emails this week from Women in Green. This is a Jerusalem-based organization of Jewish women, established to support Israel’s interests. Their co-chairwomen are Ruth and Nadia Matar. Ruth Mater provides material for an email list and a blog, which you can find at this link.

The emails I got this week were a little confusing. Evidently, Mrs. Matar has demonstrated concern over Barack Obama’s Muslim background and his repeated admissions that he bears hostility toward white people. She also points out that he lied to a crowd of Jews recently. I’ll show you her proof.

According to Mrs. Matar, on June 4, Obama spoke to 700 AIPAC members. AIPAC is the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. They lobby in the US on behalf of Israel. I don’t know much about them.

Here is what she says Obama told them: “Israel’s security is sacrosanct. It is non-negotiable… any agreement with the Palestinian people must preserve Israel’s identity as a Jewish state, with secure, recognized, and defensible borders. Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel and it must remain undivided.”

Without taking sides with Mrs. Matar (yet), I can tell you as a lawyer that this is classic weasel-wording. “Israel’s security is sacrosanct.” That means almost nothing. If Obama pushes Israel to cede everything to the Palestinians but one acre, and then we help them defend that acre, Obama will be able to say that Israel is secure. It’s obvious to a fellow attorney that he chose these words because they sound wonderful but guarantee nothing.

“Any agreement with the Palestinian people must preserve Israel’s identity as a Jewish state, with secure, recognized, and defensible borders. Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel and it must remain undivided.” Again, he promises nothing. Israel will be a Jewish state? That was never seriously questioned. The borders will be secure, recognized, and defensible, but where will they BE, exactly? He avoids saying. The security of the borders is not the primary issue. Their location is the issue. Obama deliberately leaves wiggle room for the ceding of more Jewish land. “Jerusalem will be the capital of Israel.” That’s not much of a promise. It’s the capital now, even though Muslim squatters are in charge of much of it.

“And it must remain undivided.” This gem deserves its own paragraph, because it differs from the bits of lip service cited above. They were empty, misleading promises. This is worse. This is a deliberate lie. Look at what Obama said one day later:

“Jerusalem might also serve as the capital of a Palestinian state, or there might be Palestinian sovereignty over Arab neighborhoods…Well, obviously it’s going to be up to the parties to negotiate a range of these issues. And Jerusalem will be a part of those negotiations… As a practical matter, it would be very difficult to execute [a policy of the capital remaining undivided.]”

Yada, yada, yada. Don’t lead us up and down rabbit trails, Senator. You lied. Plain and simple. If Jerusalem is the capital of two nations, it’s divided. If Palestinians run certain areas, it’s divided. Nothing ambiguous there.

Ruth Matar is right to bring this to people’s attention. She also brought up the anti-white passages from Obama’s book, which are very disturbing. But she mentions other things that seem less worthy of discussion. For example, it turns out that Obama isn’t really black. He’s 1/16 black and 7/16 Arab, and the rest is good old American Wonder Bread. She is concerned about the wisdom of putting an Arab in the White House at this point in history. While I suppose it’s a factor to be considered, it’s insignificant compared to his indisputable record of snuggling up to communists, racists, and one unrepentant confessed terrorist. And it’s also a minor issue compared to his lack of experience and his abysmal qualifications.

This week IBD ran a piece detailing Obama’s active solicitation of approval from the New Party. IBD credits Rick Moran of Right Wing Nuthouse with bringing the matter to light. The New Party is a collection of Marxist kooks. And when I say they’re Marxists, I mean they use the word “Marxist” to describe themselves. You can be an Arab and be loyal to the US. But no far-left demagogue who buddies up to terrorists and communists should ever be elected to public office.

Marxism. There’s “change” for you.

New Stud in Town

I was trying to blog just now, when my concentration was interrupted by a sound like a car horn, followed by a long trilling noise. I had to go outside and find out what kind of creature made a noise like that.

There is an enormous peacock standing on the roof of the gazebo, picking its feathers.

I hope it didn’t have a big breakfast.

Tried to photograph it, but the humidity fogged my lens, and the light was coming from behind the bird.

It’s hard to find peacock recipes.

Back Off, Mortals

I’m still having emotional aftershocks from the prime rib. I just realized: I am now capable of cooking the finest meal in the universe. Prime rib, the perfect baked potato, homebrewed ale, and BLUEBERRY CHEESECAKE. Four-thousand-dollar prostitutes have nothing on me. The pleasure I can create puts their sorry efforts in the shade. This qualifies me for superhero status. No human should have powers like these.

Blueberries are in season right now. So cheap. So close.

NO.

Someone stop me.

Mastered

Yes, I have mastered prime rib. Is it wrong to brag? Well, not really. When you consider how easy it is to cook a perfect rib roast. It’s like bragging that you mastered falling down. Which I am also good at.

You have to try this. You won’t believe how easy it is. Get a rib roast. The one I cooked was choice, and it was so good, I don’t know if I’d bother buying prime in the future. Dry-age it for as long as you dare. Then roast it in foil or a bag (on a broiling pan) at 250 until it gets to a point ten degrees below your desired internal temperature. At that point, jack the heat up to 500, remove the bag or foil, and cook until the roast hits the final destination. I went to about 133 today, but 125 might be better. One thing I learned from this experience: even if you use the “bake” setting, cooking at 550 may cause your broiler to turn on. On my oven, it happens at 550 but not 500, I think. I started with 550 and turned it down, and I tossed a piece of foil on top of the roast to keep it from charring.

You might want a second pan under the broiler pan, one rack down, to keep the bottom of the broiler pan from getting so hot the drippings burn. I had a pizza stone on the bottom rack.

The one thing I need to fool with is the salt. This time, I applied it one day before roasting, and it was very good, but it didn’t penetrate quite as well as I wanted. I think next time I’ll apply it three days before cooking. Don’t give me a lot of whining about drying the meat out. Three days won’t have a significant effect. One day had no effect at all.

This roast was extremely tender, and juice poured out of it. I could drink that stuff. I really could. The combination of wet aging and dry aging worked fine. The meat smelled a little rank before I cooked it, and it was perfect when it was done.

I can’t believe I got to be this old without knowing how easy prime rib was.

I think the salt-crusting tradition is probably incredibly stupid and counterproductive. But that’s up to you. I’m telling you how to get a tender and juicy roast that is perfectly browned. It should work regardless of how you season it.

I did not “rest” the roast. At least not on purpose. It was out of the oven for a few minutes before I could carve it; that’s inevitable. It was magnificent. Would resting have improved it? I take no position. For steak, it’s a stupid idea. But I haven’t experimented with bigger pieces of meat.

I still have two pounds of roast. I feel like taking off my shirt, climbing onto the table, and resting my bare belly on it.

The main side dish was a guilty pleasure. Microwaved red potatoes with butter and garlic. The microwave burns them a little and makes them slightly rubbery, which I actually like.

Your assignment is to pick up a rib roast the next time it’s on sale and try my method. It is guaranteed to work. Not “guaranteed” in the sense that I will in any way take responsibility if you fail. Just guaranteed in that I think you’ll have success. Which isn’t really a guarantee at all. Shut up. Just do it.

More

Would 225 be even better? Hmm…

Prime Rib Rematch

Who’s the better cook? Me or Bobby Flay? Let’s find out.

A while back, I got a rib roast, aged it for a week, and cooked it using instructions from the Food Network site. The site credited Bobby Flay. I didn’t use his seasoning ideas, but I did use the temperature he suggested, which was 350 degrees. And the roast was tougher than it should have been. That temperature sounded fishy to me, but this was my first rib roast, and I figured surely a professional chef knew how to cook roast beef. I should have known better. Professional cooks give bad advice day in and day out.

I just put a new roast in the oven. I salted it well, but not to the “crusting” point. I tried that before, and it was disgusting. This time, I salted it the day before and let the salt soak in overnight. Before I threw it in the oven, I smeared it with pressed garlic. I’m cooking it at 250, with a probe. I intended to cook it in a plastic bag, but I forgot to buy them, so I wrapped it in foil. When I get close to the target temperature of 135, I’ll remove the foil and raise the heat to 450 to get some browning. Hell, let’s make it 550. Git ‘r done.

If it was just me, I’d stop roasting at 120, but my old man will be partaking, so I have to compromise.

Mike says the Showtime Oven is the way to go. I called him before the last prime rib, figuring he would have better advice than any TV chef, but he couldn’t remember exactly what he did when he used the Showtime Oven. Since then he claims he has remembered. Cagey guy, that Mike.

I aged this one for several days, but only one day of that was dry-aging. I forgot about it during the septic tank debacle, so I inadvertently left it in the wrapper for a while.

Place your bets. Delicious, tender, juicy roast, or another disappointment? Call me cocky, but I think I can’t miss.

How could anyone who cooks for a living think 350 was a good cooking temperature for a roast?

Rain

Temperature, 75. Humidity, 86%. Chance of rain, 60%. Welcome to another beautiful day in the Magic City. It was supposed to hit 90 today. Yo, Al Gore! You dropped the ball again!

The best way to describe the weather today is that it’s like living inside a damp grey sweater. It’s a shame I quit drinking coffee, because this is one of those days that requires over a quart. And the rest of the week won’t be much nicer.

Naturally, this happened on the very day the pool pump started smoking and quit. Yes, I mean the leaky pump I complained about. Leak fixed; motor dead. What will happen when I replace the motor? Maybe a sinkhole will open up and swallow the pool. I should set up a video camera.

Other irritating things have happened. I had an old JVC shelf stereo I was going to put out in the garage. I sat it on the floor so I could try it out before going to the trouble of rigging shelves. I stuck the CDs from two box sets in the funky 1980s magazine. And things went fine. Next time I turned it on, nothing happened. Yesterday, I gave up, took it apart and got my CDs back. But I have a part left over, and for the life of me, I can’t figure out where it goes. I guess I’m going to have to junk the whole stereo, which is too bad. It was a piece of crap, but it would have been a fine addition to the tool area.

I’ll say this. When you force an old magazine-style CD player open and twist up a lot of the parts, and then you have to straighten the bent bits and put it back together, it’s surprising how useful an ordinary claw hammer can be.

I can probably get a similar stereo for under a hundred bucks. But that ruins the fun of free stuff.

I think my parents paid $800 for this doodad, back in the Reagan years. Twenty watts per channel. Not a good deal.

I guess a magazine CD player is never a good idea. Don’t they always get stuck eventually? When that happens, kiss your CDs or your stereo goodbye. You have to make a choice. This stereo was used very little, but the plastic gears inside it are rough and yellowed. Maybe it was built to self-destruct.

I have a horrible DVD player which I hate. I paid like $90 for it years ago. Panasonic. I should stick it out there after I dump the JVC. Better to have five CDs on a carousel than six in a disk-eating magazine. I’ll still need a receiver. Bet I can find a junker for twenty bucks. Now that I think about it, I have my mother’s ancient CD clock radio, which would probably do the job. The speakers from the JVC are okay, so whatever I do, I won’t have to replace those.

My other plan to gentrify the garage: I want to take my $9 Home Depot fan and put it on a little shelf about six feet from my workbench. I want it situated so I can reach over and turn the knob when I walk into and out of the garage. I’ve found that no matter how miserably hot it gets out there, I can survive with the fan on me.

It’s really going to hurt, throwing that pretty, new-looking free stereo on the trash heap. But you don’t pay a hundred bucks to repair something which is worth fifteen.

But Killing Jews Is

Here is a guy who should run for prime minister of Israel:

Man, don’t you wish heads of state had the guts to talk that way? Well, actually, Muslim heads of state do, but everything they say is a lie.

Hat tip to Aaron.

Orange Rules

I am still trying to figure out which sliding compound miter saw is best.

Looks like 12″ is the way to go. They cut bigger stuff, which is meaningful if you’re hoping the miter saw will routinely allow you to avoid setting up your table saw.

A recent review puts Makita on top. Bosch came in second because they don’t cut accurately. Geez. That’s a deal-breaker. For me, a lot of the fun of a miter saw is making super-accurate cuts. Ridgid also did very well. The big problem with the Ridgid saw is that it tends to come open when you carry it. Do I intend to carry it? NO. The Makita saw looks like a great item, but it has a limited range of movement, which is a bummer. And my existing Ridgid tools are great, and they have that insane lifetime warranty. And the Ridgid is cheaper by far than Makita and Bosch. Let’s face it. If I get a saw, it will be a Ridgid.

Here’s some news for Bosch fans. A guy on Ebay has been listing the Bosch 5412L for $489 plus shipping. That’s over a hundred dollars lower than just about anyone. He lists the saws one at a time, and they get snapped up in a hurry, so if you search, you may not see them. The key to catching him is to search for his username, which is “mybumperpointswest.”

I don’t want a Bosch, but if you do, you will thank me for that information.

Here is the hard part of the deal. Would I be able to force myself to sell my precious 10″ Ridgid miter saw, which is in mint condition? I doubt I could get more than $75 for it. And as with all my pretty, shiny tools, I feel like it’s my baby. But clutter is bad.

Can’t I…can’t I just keep it for a while and see what happens? Wouldn’t that be okay? It wouldn’t take up much room. Honest, it wouldn’t.

I don’t think I can stand it.

Right now I have my miter saw set up on the Workmate. But if I wanted to be a real man, I would create a permanent station on the west wall of the garage, and I’d also mount my router there. I keep meaning to try to turn my old computer desk into a router table. If I could do that, maybe I could use half for the router and half for the miter saw. I don’t know if it’s true enough for a router table. It’s a thick MDF (I think) desk with a melamine top.

Here’s another strategy I might try: forget buying a new saw and go have pizza.

It has worked well for me in the past.

Question for the tool people: would I be insane to try to replace a sidewalk about 30″ wide and thirty feet long? I’m pretty sure I would have no problem creating the form. This would be to replace an old broken sidewalk which subsided and apparently snapped a waste pipe. I’m hoping that if I put in a better sidewalk with rebar or mesh it won’t crack or subside. Not sure how to prepare the dirt. Do I need some sort of giant vibrating machine to pack it down? The old sidewalk was apparently laid down with no preparation at all, over soft dirt. And no reinforcement.

I figure I’m looking at a little over 2 yards of concrete, so Sakrete is out of the question. Getting rid of the old sidewalk would not be fun. I’d have to find a way to break it in 2-foot-long chunks and cart them away on a handtruck.

Again, the pizza strategy looks viable.

Brains are in Short Supply

Walt Disney World is roughly fifteen times the size of the proposed drilling area inside ANWR. Think about that. Not one. Not two. Fifteen.

Another way to look at it: the drilling area is about twice the size of Central Park.

Liberals tell us the impact would be larger, because there would be roads and pipelines. Hmm…we already have a huge pipeline in Alaska, and it hasn’t caused any problems. And exactly how much road do you need to service a tiny patch of oil rigs? Not much. Here in Florida, we have something like six lanes of limited-access highway between Miami and Orlando, in each direction. Their impact on the environment is minimal. Would anyone seriously propose that ANWR would require more pavement than the main connections between two major US cities? Well, yes. An ignorant hippie would.

How can this still be controversial? The public supports ANWR drilling by a margin of nearly two to one. No President I can recall has won by a margin like that. Not even Reagan, who crushed Jimmy Carter like a peanut shell.

Far-left nuts also oppose offshore drilling, which has been perfected and has no negative environmental impact whatsoever. What’s that all about? Fish love oil rigs; they love any type of offshore structure. Here in South Florida, the greenies in the government deliberately sink old ships on our reefs, to increase fish populations. They’re fantastic for commercial and recreational fishermen, who contribute to the economy. Offshore rigs don’t have oil spills; they didn’t spill oil when Katrina hit them. We have technology to contain the chemicals released during exploration and drilling. Someone explain the problem to me.

The sad thing is, we’re going to have offshore drilling near our coasts. The Chinese are getting ready to do it. I would guess that the average American is too ignorant to know that we can’t regulate activity over twenty-four miles from shore. If the Chinese want to build an oil rig every fifty feet, from Key West to Maine, there will be nothing we can do to stop them. Shouldn’t oil close to our shores be our oil? We send China our money, but at least we get products in return. Should we give them our oil, too, for nothing? That oil is free for the taking. Whoever drills first will get it. And then, if we’re lucky, they’ll sell it to us.

Frankly, I support Chinese and Indian drilling off our coasts. I hope they drill the bejeezus out of those reserves. God bless them. We’re too stupid to drill; thank God not everyone has that attitude. Why do I say that? Because any increase in the world’s oil supply will depress costs on the worldwide market. It would obviously be better if we drilled the oil, but even if China gets it, it will reduce gas prices here.

Here’s an interesting fact I just learned. The “break even” price for a barrel of oil, which would make extraction from our gigantic, Saudi-dwarfing shale reserves profitable, is probably somewhere around $40 per barrel. And the reason we’re not extracting the oil is that investors are scared that the price will collapse. In other words, they invest while oil costs $140 per barrel, and then the price plunges to a point below the break-even level, and they have to close up shop. Is that likely? Are we ever going to see sub-$40 oil again? I tend to doubt it. Seems to me that if we’re going to try kooky liberal taxes and subsidies, the only intelligent ploy is to guarantee a profit to oil shale investors.

Look at the logic. As it stands now, these people have to invest a lot of capital, and they risk losing all of it. The up side is a potential bonanza, with profits beyond their fondest hopes. Do we have to guarantee an astronomical profit in order to get people to invest? No. An intelligent investor would be thrilled to get a guarantee of 20% per year, which we can easily afford. Wouldn’t you put your money in a project that guaranteed a 20% return? I sure would. I’d sink every loose dime into it and consider myself retired. In fact, I’d be thrilled with 10%.

We have recoverable reserves in the TRILLIONS of barrels. Most of the world’s reserves are in this country. Think about that. We have something like six times the reserves of Saudi Arabia. Remember now, that doesn’t include our conventional reserves, which are also huge.

Guaranteeing shale investment sure beats production-killing taxes and money-sink subsidies on oil produced by existing technology.

Now that I think about it, why do we persist in pretending we’re running out of oil, if we have enormous reserves which we are positive we can eventually extract profitably? There’s a good question for the Presidential debates.

Think how wonderful it would be. Cheap gas to keep us going until we do the responsible thing and build more nuclear reactors. To keep us afloat while we develop new energy sources that actually work. It would allow us to make a smooth transition to something like hydrogen fuel cells.

Still, the hippies have convinced many people that the answer is to slow down, do less, and kill the economy. I wish we had their PR resources and they had our standards of personal hygiene.

The great promise of the Internet is that because of it, truth can no longer be suppressed. Information can’t be controlled the way it used to be, and we should be reaping policy dividends from that change. Yet somehow we still believe in farcical concepts like global warming, ethanol, drilling bans, and the restriction of clean, safe, cheap, abundant nuclear power.

Before the Internet broke the MSM’s stranglehold on the information pipeline, we could be excused for making stupid decisions. But now we deserve whatever happens to us.

Guess I Need a Bullwhip

I have a startling piece of news. Publisher’s Weekly gave my cookbook a review which was predictably obtuse yet more or less fair. This is a far cry from the dishonest review they gave the spam book. My guess? Someone over there has finally gotten some badly-needed fiber.

Rather than quote, I’ll print the entire review and let them threaten to sue me. Which is not too likely. They’ll probably be thrilled that someone has heard of Publisher’s Weekly and is willing to mention it.

Nostalgic for a time when kitchen counters had a container marked “grease” right next to “flour” and “sugar,” author and blogger Graham (Keep Chewing Till It Stops Kicking) offers up a rambling, tongue-in-cheek, plaque-in-artery collection of recipes and essays for those dedicated to the “Art of Lard.” Graham delights in slaughtering sacred cows with his acerbic, at times wildly inappropriate humor, but also gets a terrific amount of glee from simple bacon grease, a key ingredient in ribs, chicken fried steak, hash browns and even popcorn. Predictably dense takes on macaroni and cheese, burgers and fries dominate, though more exotic fare like Turducken and Rotis with Goat Curry are also detailed. Graham’s glib instructions can frustrate; for fatty (but incredibly flavorful) twice-baked fries, “you get your fat, and you put it in a big pot, and you put it in the oven at 250 for like a day. Then you throw out the lumps that remain,” before you add potatoes for frying. Most of his dishes, however, fall within the capabilities of kitchen novices, and he peppers sound advice throughout on everything from the proper use of ham hocks to the care of cast iron skillets. Unfortunately, his wildly uneven tone and pointless digressions kill any sense of momentum, making this a comedic smorgasbord best consumed in moderation.

Let’s see. “Wildly inappropriate humor.” Here is a question for liberals everywhere. And I warn liberals in advance: there is no answer that will not make you look stupid. Liberals always tell us that in the arts, anything goes. A Christ figurine soaking in urine is art. A photo of a man with a bullwhip in his rectum is art. And we are told that any criticism of art based on good taste is simply wrong. Okay. Humor is an art. That is beyond dispute. So why do liberals constantly tell us the things humorists and comedians joke about are “inappropriate”?

The only correct response is “hypocrisy.”

I wonder what they would have thought of the original version of the book, which I bowdlerized heavily for the big-time-publisher edition. It was mean to parody Hunter Thompson so soon after his death. Is that what they’re moaning about? I wanted to take that chapter out, but I made the decision too late. In any event, it’s nothing like as tasteless as Thompson’s own work. I wonder if they would refer to his humor as “wildly inappropriate.” Doubtful, since so much of it was directed at traditional liberal targets like decency, sobriety, chastity, and civility.

As for their complaint that the instructions for rendering fat are too hard to follow, my only response is “say what?” You put fat in a pot. You bake it at 250 degrees. You throw out the solids after the fat melts. What part of this is confusing? Seriously, readers of this blog, tell me where the difficulty is.

The truth is, there are some places in the book where the instructions are not really adequate. But this isn’t one of them. So why mention it in a review?

“Pointless digressions,” they say. Is absolutely everyone in publishing completely dense? The first time I showed this book to an agent, she said it would be great if only I removed the “off-topic banter.” Hello? The off-topic banter is the whole point of the book. If anything, it’s the recipes that are superfluous.

Whenever I remember the “off-topic banter” comment, I mention something it brings to mind, i.e., the Arab theater owner who showed The Sound of Music and, feeling it ran too long, edited out the songs. Without the songs, it’s just a B movie about a flat-chested babysitter who falls in love with her boss.

For a long time now, I have worried that a big percentage of the human race is simply too dumb to understand my writing. And reviews like this only reinforce my anxiety. I almost wish I could be like Dan Brown, who is–sorry to be blunt–fairly dumb. He’s dumb, therefore he has no problems writing for the dumb. It’s easy for him to figure out what the dumb will like, but for a bright person, it’s very hard. It’s like trying to guess which bad smell a dog would most like to roll in.

I don’t even understand the “momentum” comment. Why would momentum be desirable in a book of essays? The whole point of a book of essays is to present different topics one at a time. You may have noticed that I didn’t call it “The Story of Eat What You Want and Die Like a Man.” That’s because it’s not a story. The chapters are unrelated. Does The Joy of Cooking have momentum? I’ll have to check. It’s a really bad cookbook; maybe the momentum makes up for it.

Seriously, if you’re thinking of buying The Joy of Cooking, don’t. I mean, okay, do, but understand that you will have to correct a lot of the recipes. Their brownie recipe actually produces chocolate cake. If you’re a good cook, you can use The Joy of Cooking to get a general idea of how certain dishes work, but unless your experience is a lot different from mine, following their recipes to the letter will give you pretty lousy food.

Where is this reviewer’s brain? I parodied what, maybe ten writers and celebrities? How many humorists can do that? I did Al Franken, Bill O’Reilly, Christopher Walken, Frank McCourt…even William S. Burroughs. They didn’t even notice. You know what? Dave Barry can’t do that. P.J. O’Rourke can’t do it. Almost nobody can do it. Couldn’t they have said, “Wow, he’s a fat Republican with guns, but he sure knows his parody”?

You want to know the difference between the devil and a Republican in the arts? People give the devil his due.

I guess it doesn’t sound like I’m thrilled with the review, but compared to the last one, it’s a gem. They almost admitted I’m funny. Coming from people with no sense of humor whatsoever, that’s a real gift.

Send me One

Here’s an interesting fact for people who, like me, are cleanliness and order freaks.

Shut up.

It turns out that once you have an electric dishwasher, it is not possible to wash dishes by hand any more. It’s true! The dishes just pile up on the counter. How about that?

I guess now I should launch into a story about how I spent half the day under the house, talking about pipes. But I won’t.

Now that I’m not under the house, I am taking a second look at the M1 carbine.

This is an interesting gun. When I was a kid, I had a Crosman M1 replica BB gun, which I loved. The peep sight was way better than the sights on my old Daisy lever action, and the BBs flew a little faster. Believe it or not, a BB gun is pretty accurate as long as you’re shooting short distances. I liked the styling of the gun and the way it felt in my hands. I would assume that a real M1 carbine would feel the same way. Actually, I know it does, because my grandfather had one, made by Universal. But I never shot it.

I’m talking carbines here, not the M1 Garand, which is the big .30-06 job used for combat. I had to look up “carbine” the other day, because I realized I didn’t know what the word meant, and it turns out it just means “small rifle.” I had this vague notion that it meant “semi-automatic rifle,” but I was wrong. The Winchester Model 1892 lever-action rifle (pant, pant) is a carbine.

Carbines are typically used by people who need rifles but don’t need them badly enough to justify big, heavy guns. Cooks, drivers, and officers are examples. Also cavalrymen and paratroopers. There are soldiers who don’t expect to find themselves in heavy fighting, yet who want something better than a pistol when they get in trouble.

I wonder if the horrible accuracy of military-issue 1911 pistols is part of the justification for the M1. When my father was a prison guard in the Army, they told him the best way to use a 1911 was to put it in a prisoner’s ear. Actually, I suppose all pistols are inaccurate for the majority of users. A shooter who can consistently hit you at thirty feet is well above average.

The M1 carbine shoots a little-bitty .30 caliber bullet that has a muzzle velocity of something like 1900 fps. Works okay up close, but not so great farther out, where the speed drops off. It has been compared to a .38 Special. I’ll bet that’s totally wrong. An M1 round has about 1.5 times the energy of a .357 Magnum.

The M1 carbine has been criticized for bad accuracy. That’s too bad. I can’t stand a gun that won’t shoot where I point it. I suppose there must be a way to make one shoot straight. Maybe a new gun (Auto-Ordnance/Kahr Arms) would shoot better than a milsurp. But a milsurp would have more soul. As I understand it, you can buy a carbine that was used by Americans in World War Two and then shipped to Israel for use by the IDF. Is that history, or what?

I’m checking the web…looks like the Kahr M1 shoots very well. Geez…this is a puzzle. The milsurp rifles have a reputation for bad accuracy, but the new ones are…new. And they depreciate.

The carbine is cheaper than the Garand. That’s nice.

Seems to me that this thing would be a nice step up from a .22 plinker, without the pain of .30-06 recoil. But couldn’t you say the same thing about Kahr’s delicious Thompson semi-autos in .45 ACP? The problem with those is that the accuracy is deplorable. A gun rag says the spread is over 3″ at fifty yards. I’ll bet my .45 pistol could approach that, from a machine rest. I wonder why the Tommy gun is so inaccurate.

Here’s something funny. M1 carbines were contracted out to a number of different manufacturers during the war. So you can get a carbine made by IBM or even Rock-Ola, the jukebox company. I think I’d want a Rock-Ola. How can you beat that for historic weirdness?

Some people like the Winchester-made rifles, but I have read that they had terrible QC issues.

It’s very hard, trying to get straight info on these rifles. I’d be afraid that if I bought one for what seemed to be a good price, I’d find out later that I had missed some important characteristic that lowers the value.

Anyway, I need one.

Papers in Play

Looking at Colt Woodsmans got me thinking about cruffling, so I got the process going.

This was a bad idea. I can see where the bulk of my net worth is going to end up.