Dang It

Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein just put up some information explaining the Jewish calendar, and how it’s based on religion.

Here’s something of interest to Christians:

We are in the midst right now of one of those minor observances. The Counting of the Omer, based on a biblical mandate in Leviticus 23, is a seven-week period extending from the second night of Passover until the night before the holiday of Shavuot. (An omer was a unit of measure in biblical times – on the second night of Passover, an omer of barley was brought to the Holy Temple in Jerusalem). Jews count these days to remind themselves that the physical liberation remembered on Passover was not complete until we received spiritual liberation through the gift of God’s word, an event remembered on Shavuot.

To Spirit-filled Christians, this is a “forest for the trees” moment. Many events in the life of Christ were associated with existing Jewish holy days. Passover is associated with the Crucifixion. Shavuot is Pentecost. It’s the day when God changed the world forever, by making the power of the Holy Spirit available to every Christian. It’s easy for a Christian to see how the original Passover and the handing down of the Torah (Shavuot) presage Jesus making salvation available to all men and then providing for the gift of the Holy Spirit, which, Christians believe, is what the Hebrew Bible refers to when it says that one day God will write his law on men’s hearts.

Seems obvious to Christians. But if you’re Jewish, this all sounds silly or just blasphemous.

“The physical liberation remembered on Passover was not complete until we received spiritual liberation through the gift of God’s word, an event remembered on Shavuot.” I know Christians got a kick out of reading that. Because the salvation provided by the Crucifixion was only part of the story. The completion was our own spiritual liberation, which occurred on Pentecost. That’s the part of the Gospels the world hates the most and fights the hardest to hide and slander. I’ll bet the vast majority of Christians think salvation is what Christianity is all about. But the baptism of the Holy Spirit is the other half of the gift, and here on earth, it’s the part where all the power comes from. It’s what enables you to live a good and powerful Christian life. It beats things like addiction and habitual sin, it fixes families, it heals the sick, it teaches, it makes you kinder and more patient and more industrious…it’s the difference between a disciple and an apostle.

Rabbi Eckstein said something funny in a video. He talked about a Christian who informed him that to Christians, the near-sacrifice of Isaac–or maybe it was the Passover sacrifice–presages the sacrifice of Christ. He said it was a beautiful analogy, and he seemed very surprised to hear it. I, in turn, was surprised. Learning that a scholarly Jew who studied Christians and worked with them every day hadn’t heard about this giant landmark notion (whichever it was) in Christian theology. Through the work of people like Rabbi Eckstein, Christians are learning a lot about Jews and Judaism. But it looks like the knowledge isn’t flowing the other way with the same speed.

I guess that makes sense. Christians believe in the Hebrew Bible, and many understand that Jews can help them figure out what it means. Jews think the New Testament is a mistake and a source of persecution. I suppose they don’t have much motivation to learn about it. The Bible says that a day will come when ten Gentiles will grab the hem of a Jew’s garment and ask to be taught about the Torah. It probably doesn’t say anything about ten Jews asking a gentile about Jesus.

The problem of proselytizing is a big one, because it causes such friction between Jews and Christians. And Christians have done crazy, cruel, sick things in the belief that they were winning souls. I used to feel frustrated because I couldn’t persuade a single person. But I now think pressuring people is completely wrong. I can’t think of an example of anyone doing it in the New Testament, with the exception of Jesus and John the Baptist. They were highly critical of Jews who wouldn’t listen. But they had great authority, and they were speaking to people within their own religion. Are there other examples?

I believe it generally worked like this. People went to various cities, and they spoke publicly, and they tried to lead exemplary lives that would draw converts who envied them, and whoever believed, believed. And that was it. Nobody threatened to execute people who refused to convert. I don’t think there are any examples of harassing pedestrians and telling them they were going to hell.

People criticize Rabbi Eckstein because he’s hostile to proselytizing. However, if memory serves, he has said he has no problem with witnessing. Which is different, I believe. You just speak the truth about what you’ve seen, in the appropriate context. That’s about the best I can do, so his attitude is consistent with my efforts.

His attitude toward proselytizing becomes easier to understand when you realize it has its roots in things like the Inquisition.

To a Christian, Passover is all about Jesus. The lamb as Christ. Eating the entire lamb and breaking none of its bones, as reflections of the prophecies that the Messiah would not be permitted to rot and that none of his bones would be broken. The blood as Christ’s blood. The homes on which the blood was smeared as the bodies of believing Christians. The leaven as sin; especially pride. The unleavened bread as the body of the sinless Messiah. Pharaoh as Satan. Moses as Jesus. The exodus from Egypt as salvation. One obvious parallel after another. To a Jew, though, I guess all this sounds like the nutty stories Charles Manson used to tell his “family” about the end of the world.

In the end, you believe what you want to believe. Like Abraham said in the parable of Lazarus.

Memorial Weekend Mitzvah

Aaron’s boss, Howard W., is going in for surgery. He has had a lot of abdominal surgery already, and he has a new infection that has to be removed.

Please say a prayer for his uneventful recovery.

I am too Stupid to Keep Fish

I finally managed to make myself clean my aquarium. What a drag.

When I started keeping fish two years ago, it was a breeze. I could do no wrong. My plants grew. My fish were healthy. Everything was swell. Then tuberculosis hit the tank, and my fish started dropping dead. And I got weird staghorn algae and a plague of snails. And the loaches I bought to eat the snails turned out to be vegans.

I ended up with only maintenance fish. Otocincluses. A Chinese algae-eater. And three loaches. And the tank looked like an algae display at a horticultural park. So today I took everything out and bleached the tank. My remaining fish are in a glass vase with 2 gallons of water. I believe I threw out an elusive Otocinclus with the dirty gravel.

Fish are fun when they work, but mine have been hopeless for quite some time. I don’t know what all I did wrong. I think I started the ball rolling downhill by getting overconfident and going a long time between water changes. I feel like I gave it the old college try. And I would like to have my three square feet of wasted space back.

Problem: what to do with the remaining fish?

I have killed zillions of fish without a second’s thought. I have crushed their skulls with clubs. I have tossed them in fish boxes to suffocate. I have run hooks through them and used them for live bait until they died. Frankly, I think fish do not suffer. Many times, I’ve seen mortally wounded fish–even fish heads–continue to behave normally. On top of that, the disciples killed fish by the tens of thousands, and Jesus endorsed the use of hooks. I think I should toss a handful of ice cubes in with these fish and let them drift off to Slumberland. But it seems coldhearted. I know absolutely no one I could give them to. Maybe a pet shop would take them.

In other news, Mike has tentatively decided to look for an SW1911 at the gun show. I had a hell of a time getting him to narrow his choices. I’m attention-deficient, but Mike is so bad, he actually asked me for help making a decision. Hopefully we’ll get to put in some range time this weekend.

New Career Direction or Temporary Insanity?

Hold onto your chairs and plant both feet firmly on the floor. I have shocking news. I have an urge…to buy a gun.

No, I’m serious. I really do. I know it sounds crazy.

I feel like my shooting has improved to the point where a more accurate gun would make a noticeable difference. The holes I’m shooting in my targets haven’t gotten much smaller, but they’re a little smaller, and sometimes they reflect 50 shots instead of the 25 I used to shoot. When you shoot 50 rounds instead of 25, your groups should get bigger, not smaller.

It’s hard to know how accurate guns are from reading reviews. If I were to believe reviews, I would guess that my 1911s will shoot about a 3″ group at 75 feet. That’s more or less what the SW1911 does in reviews, and the Colt shoots as well as the SW1911. BUT…gun writers are not great with science. I believe they’re talking about “best groups” when they publish these figures, and they only include three shots. I have a feeling that 50 shots would paint a different and less flattering picture. I suspect that the real figure is something like twice 3″. Discounting bad groups is bad science.

With either 1911 and a full clip, I can probably wound you reliably at a hundred yards. If you’re pretty fat and you don’t move. I extrapolate from my short-range results. That’s really good effectiveness, for a pistol. At least in my opinion. But at any range above 25 yards, all I can count on is hitting a person somewhere on his upper body. A more accurate gun would presumably be more effective, at long range.

Let me stress that I have absolutely no interest in shooting people. But I have a lot of interest in being able to shoot people, so I have some say in whether I or another innocent crime victim gets to live or die. So it makes sense to use the human body as a model when I talk about accuracy.

You can get a Les Baer 1911 guaranteed to have 1 1/2″ accuracy at 50 yards, with certain ammunition. I suppose if the gun is inherently that accurate, there is no way I would ever get good enough to have the size of my groups significantly affected by the failings of the gun. It would not be cheap. But I should never need to buy another 1911 for target purposes. Barring weird race guns.

Smith and Wesson makes a couple of Performance Center guns that are very nice, and Colt makes Special Combat models and other highly accurate pistols. I don’t know if I’d trust Colt, but my SW1911 and my 686 are the loves of my life. Seems like these and the Baer guns are the best choices below a certain price. Although you have to pay Baer extra money to get the 1 1/2″ guarantee. I’m inclined to think the Smith is the best choice.

I have learned to read between the lines when I read gun articles, and I’ve also learned to pay no attention to accuracy claims made by people whose targets I haven’t seen. About 3% of shooters shoot well. The rest don’t actually know whether their guns are accurate. To a person who shoots pie-size groups at 7 yards, a change to softball-size groups may seem like great accuracy. But it doesn’t tell you anything about the gun. I think you have to put a gun in a clamp or turn it over to a very fine shooter in order to learn anything about its accuracy.

Whatever I get, I can tell you this. It probably won’t be a .38 Super. I love my Colt, but with a .45 you get free brass for life. And I can’t tell any difference in accuracy or ease of shooting.

I’ll see what they have at the show. Maybe I can get a deal. On the other hand, maybe I should buy a Ransom rest instead. Maybe my guns are already super-accurate, and I don’t know it.

Hmm…Caldwell makes a machine rest I can get for $125. That sounds smarter than blowing $1500+ on a gun, on the mere suspicion that it will help.

People are congratulating me on not maiming myself with the cheesy round that failed to exit the SW1911 yesterday. I still can’t explain it. I had great confidence in the charges. The Lock-N-Load AP is designed so the filled cartridge rotates into your line of vision before you seat the bullet, and you can look into each cartridge. I am sure I did that, but I was more worried about overcharges than undercharges, so maybe I passed a round or two that clearly weren’t overfilled, yet weren’t right.

Somebody in the comments expressed surprise that I wouldn’t notice the difference in the feel of the round going off. Hey, that’s ADD for you. It doesn’t mean you can’t concentrate. People with ADD often have super-fantastic concentration. The difficulty is in deciding what to concentrate ON. So it makes sense that I would forget the noise and recoil while thinking about grip, sight picture, stance, trigger pull, follow-through, and so on.

When I was a kid, I used to exasperate my mother because I could never hear her when I was reading.

Maybe a powder checker is a good idea after all. I’m pretty sure overcharges will never be a problem for me, but undercharges appear to be a threat.

I keep thinking I would like to get into gun writing. I am not the world’s greatest gun authority, but I have a few other assets. As a lawyer, I can write with some intelligence regarding second amendment issues. As a former scientist, I have some hope of understanding ballistics. And maybe I can sell myself as a humorist. If I could just figure out where to look for opportunities. I’ll be working on that.

Except When They Stay in the Barrel

The range was a great experience today. I shot my .38 Super and .45 ACP reloads. I already knew my .45s were wonderful, but it turned out the .38s shoot very well, too. I was pleased.

The only irritating thing is that it seems like I invariably open up my groups with the last 10 shots, spoiling some very pretty targets.

I am pretty sure this is 30 shots from the Colt .38 super, at 7 yards. It’s roughly 30, anyway. I noticed today that some flyers seem to appear no matter how well you do your job. I’m not sure. Maybe it’s just me, but I had one shot that was way off, and I was extremely confident I was doing things right when I pulled the trigger. Someone who knows more about guns might be able to tell me. I always thought gun writers were making excuses when they said semiautomatics produce their own flyers occasionally. I know it’s possible I dinged a bullet during manufacture, or that I undercharged a round. I don’t think fouling was a problem. These babies should have been running close to 1200 fps, and I saw nothing of interest in the barrel when I cleaned the gun.

I got out the SW1911, and I thought it shot great. And of course, the group opened up at the end of the set. Fifty rounds:

Here are about 20 more rounds from the .38. I think I was concentrating badly here.

I started the last set with the .45, but a round stopped up the gun. I thought I had some casings that were too fat to chamber, but when I stripped the gun at the podium, I found that a slug was just past the chamber, and it was keeping the next round from chambering. Thank God. I don’t know how it happened. Undercharge, I guess? Anyway, there was no damage to the gun. No ringing. When I got home, I shoved the dowel from a mullet boner (look it up) into the gun and popped the round out, and after cleaning, everything was swell. Scared me, however.

I have to reiterate my concern about not knowing whether rounds have cleared the muzzle. As you can see, I was shooting through the same hole over and over, getting no feedback from the gun or target except for recoil and noise. I guess the undercharge fooled me when it went off. Maybe that’s because I concentrate too hard to really hear what the gun is doing. I wish I had a target that always told me where the bullets landed. Trail Glades won’t let you use multiple bullseyes any more. If they did, I could divide the rounds up among them, reducing the “same hole” problem.

Here are 50 more from the .38 Super, along with two or three .45s.

I shot next to a cop today. He was dressed in black (sunny and 90+ today), including SWAT boots, and he was wearing an H&K shirt. Had a badge on his belt, which seems like an odd thing to do at the range. Not a great shooter. I felt a little self-conscious, but after all, I went there to do my best. I think I could have helped him a lot. He leaned way forward. His gun must have been shaking all over the place. He looked cool, however.

I think people show up at the range, point the gun, and pull the trigger, without even thinking about studying or asking for tips. I used to do that. It’s a big waste of time and money. If you want to hit anything, you have to think about technique. I help anyone who asks me, although I am not qualified to teach. I tell them what works for me. I wish I knew how to not shoot to the left.

I really don’t understand cops who shoot badly. They get free ammunition and range time, and I’m sure they get training. And I know a lot of them like to shoot, because they show up at the public range with big boxes of ammunition and very pretty guns. It must be ego. They must be too proud to ask for help. Which doesn’t make much sense. You would think they would be too proud to let themselves shoot poorly. Their messed-up targets aren’t exactly invisible.

I ask for advice here, I read websites, I read books, and I pray for help. I may ignore your advice once I’ve heard it, but I do think about it.

I found out Miami is finally having a gun show. I never thought it would happen. I haven’t been to one in years. Hope it doesn’t stink.

I think I learned a few things today. For one thing, I tend to lean forward when I shoot, ruining my balance. So when I find myself doing that, I stop and fix my stance. My trigger pull is too slow; it takes so long, sometimes I start to shake, or I lose my sight picture, or my concentration fades. And I worked on keeping my weak fingers tight.

I don’t know if it’s possible for me to shoot much better than I am right now, with these sights and these targets. Once the center of the target is gone, I lose my point of aim. And the sights force you to guess where your POA is, within a circle, on the target, which is over an inch in diameter. And I don’t think I can reduce my natural shaking much more. If you’re alive, you’re going to shake a little. My guess is that if I keep working at it, I may be able to reduce the size of my groups by a third, but I don’t think I can get more accurate than that.

I don’t know why these Laser-Cast bullets are so accurate. I tried to choose the optimal diameters. Not much choice with the .45s, but I didn’t have to pick .356 for the .38.

Accurate No. 7 powder seems cleaner than Unique. It doesn’t matter. Unique isn’t filthy enough to be a problem. I’m shooting about 5.2 grains of Unique in the.45 rounds, and 8.2 grains of No. 7 in the .38 rounds.

Best achievement of the day: I killed two horseflies and smeared their guts on the pavement. MAN, I hate those things. I had to wear bug repellant, so I was afraid to drive my own car, which has leather seats. I had to borrow my father’s SUV.

I keep thinking about the new Colt Peacemaker clones they’re making these days, and how much fun it would be to have one. Then I ask myself: how do you hit anything with those crappy sights?

I also want a Colt Woodsman clone. But I don’t think they’re on the market yet. If I had any idea which grandchild ran off with the one my grandfather had, I’d make a cash offer.

I used Hornady One Shot to clean the 1911s. It hurts to say this about a product that costs so much, but that crap is incredible. It seems to dissolve powder much better than Gun Scrubber, although I haven’t tried them side-by-side. If I knew of a way to spray Hoppe’s with force and precision, I think I’d use that instead, but their aerosol is probably expensive, too. One Shot blows the crap out of your gun fast, and to get lubrication at the same time, you just wipe the residue off the parts where you DON’T want lubrication. The rest will have a nice silicone film on them. I left some of the film on the SW1911, which has a matte finish. But I used denatured alcohol to take it off the bright-finish Colt.

That’s the range report. God bless America.

Ask Pharaoh

I found an answer to my question regarding a way to store my spare magazines. If you enter “sunglasses pouch” in the Google Products form, you get microfiber drawstring pouches for 78 cents. That is pretty hard to beat. I would get them locally, but I have no idea who has them, and I would blow four dollars in gas just to find out. Then I’d have to pay tax.

I think the oil problem is going to crush bricks-and-mortar retailers. In the past, when you shopped online, you got better information, lower prices, and no tax. Now you get to save significant gas money. Tell me why I should ever leave the house again.

Very bad news, if you ask me. People will lose businesses and jobs. And what happens in the future when a hostile power effortlessly destroys our communications satellites and cables? Instant disruption of electronic shopping and transactions. Economic chaos.

In the meantime, good deals abound.

My great hope is that the oil mess is like the housing mess. Greatly inflamed by deranged speculators. Exacerbated deliberately by Muslims angry over our support of the only civilized nation in the Middle East. Temporary. People are saying it’s going to get worse, forever. I don’t see how that’s possible. It’s not like world demand for oil instantly increased to a degree that justifies current prices. Things are getting tighter, but we–the human race–could still pump and refine enough oil to meet demand, if we tried. And eventually, we will have to acknowledge that nuclear power is clean, safe, cheap, and abundant. A lie can’t persist for eternity. Some people say nukes are no good because it takes 20 years to build a plant. I say it takes that long because we’re not motivated. Kick the greenies out of the way, stop humoring the hysterical, and it probably takes more like three years. It didn’t take us 20 years to build the first plant at Hanford, when we were trying to create the first atom bomb. I very much doubt the construction of safe modern plants takes other countries 20 years.

I like to think our current hardships are a labor pain, to remind us of the horrors that lie ahead as the second coming approaches. Human beings increasingly accept the conceit that they run the world and that they can solve their own problems. In reality, God runs everything. If we have good harvests, if we have oil, if we have economic strength, it isn’t because Americans are superior. It’s because God chose to give these things to us. And He can take them away in a heartbeat. Maybe God is giving us a little prod to remind us that we can’t celebrate sexual perversion and let Israel down and indulge in idolatry and generally offend Him without losing our blessings. Lately we’ve been becoming more like Godless Europe. So it’s only natural that we should get a taste of their economic inferiority.

Could be worse. We could be on our way to slavery in Babylon, in chains. What has happened to us so far is pretty mild.

The global warming myth is probably the most ridiculous example of man’s belief that he is a god. Aside from the bad science, who could possibly believe in God and also think man could control the weather? Remember the book of Genesis. Who gave the Egyptians lean years and fat years? It wasn’t Halliburton.

I think our behavior has gotten so bad, we’re teetering on the line between “blessed” and “cursed.” The bad things that threaten to occur now are so ridiculous and avoidable, yet so possible, that they can’t be anything but the result of divine action. Who could be dumb enough to believe in ethanol, knowing it has to cause starvation and that it won’t help with our energy problems? Nobody with any common sense. Yet here we are, with food prices skyrocketing because we invested in this absurd, suicidal project. What nation could be dumb enough to refrain from using its own vast energy reserves, or from developing adequate refining capacity? Yet here we are, with gasoline threatening to hit twelve dollars per gallon and our own oil and uranium still in the ground.

Seems to me that one sign that a misfortune is due to a curse is that it happens even though it appears to be something that could be easily avoided. If man is so powerful and so smart, these things should not be happening. But they are.

In Exodus, God sent ten plagues to Egypt, and some scholars believe each one was intended to humiliate a particular Egyptian false deity, by destroying the particular blessings that false deity was believed to provide. Maybe what’s happening to us now is intended to humiliate the worst false deity of all. Man.

The other day I saw Dagen McDowell and Ben Stein on Fox, claiming we needed eleven-dollar gasoline. NEEDED. These are supposed to be experts. Imagine what life would be like if their prayers were answered. Bedroom communities all over America would be destroyed, because no one would be able to get to work. The wealth contained in the real estate in those communities would be annihilated; it would be as though it had never existed. Retail sales would shrivel. Food prices would climb out of sight, and production would plummet. Factories would close. Manufacturers would shut down. Goods would be unavailable. McDowell says mass transit is the answer. Tell that to people who live where mass transit does not exist, and where it’s not practical. And how do you build new mass transit with an economy destroyed by expensive energy? Where does the money to build it come from? Let me guess. Higher taxes. On people who no longer earn enough to contribute anything significant. You can’t starve the golden goose and then jack up the egg quota.

Economic prosperity comes from consumption. No sales? No prosperity. It’s that simple. And obvious. Yet intelligent people somehow believe the opposite. How can that happen, if something beyond the natural is not at work?

Some people say conservation is the answer. Some say increased production is the answer. Fundamentally, refraining from offending God is the answer. The world is too complicated for man to run. Without help from above, we can expect nothing but defeat. One of the big lessons I’ve learned over the last few years is that when things go badly for me, the way to start fixing them is to examine my own behavior and attitudes. Generally, that’s where the cause lies. And the same applies to Americans as a whole.

Trinidad Scorpion Pepper

I said I would try a Trinidad Scorpion pepper today, and I am true to my word. I just ate a slice the size of a Lifesaver. I only have two ripe pods, and they’re both small, so I cut through the middle of one and hoped for the best.

It doesn’t seem all that hot when you chew it, but once it gets going, it just won’t stop. It gets hotter and hotter and hotter for like five minutes. It has a nice, sweet, fruity taste, but after a while, you forget all about that and just want to die.

I can’t say it’s the hottest pepper I’ve ever had. I think my white habaneros and fataliis are worse. And for some reason, the fatalii heat jumps on you instantly; I’m not the only one who has noticed this.

I had an idea while I was eating it. Chili made with pork and apples. I don’t think beef would work with apples. I’m kind of stuck on the beans, though. I like beans in my chili; I’m not sure they’ll work with apples. Maybe white beans.

I feel better now, but I’m staying close to the bathroom. I’m not crazy.

I think this is a useless pepper, unless you have the tolerance of a cast iron bathtub. But it’s fun to have around, since it’s rare and legendary. Some believe it’s hotter than the bhut jolokia.

I have a number of huge pods about to get ripe. Seeds will be available.

Victory is Mine

I managed to generate 100 rounds of .38 Super ammunition. I hope it works.

Setting up the press was not too bad, although it seems like the decapping pin works best when it extends a lot farther than the manual says. The little 9mm bullets are harder to get a grip on than big ol’ .45 slugs. That was annoying. And the few times the primer feed didn’t work, the No. 7 powder whizzed right out through the primer holes. The huge flakes of Unique weren’t nearly as bad.

One nice thing about No. 7: if you double a charge, you can see it a mile away. It fills the case.

I can’t understand why a small, light round requires 1.6 times as much powder as a huge round. I suppose traveling 1.5 times as fast is part of it, and I assume the powders are inherently different.

Winchester primers are packaged much more intelligently than Federals. They’re upright in their trays, so you can plop them right out on your primer tray, close it, flip it, and start filling your primer tube.

I didn’t use case lube, but I put the cases in a bag, sprayed a quick shot of dry lube in there, and rolled them around. May have made life somewhat easier. Oddly, I had no trouble marking the cases later. I put Sharpie marks on the bottoms of the cases, to make them easier to spot at the range. I don’t care what happens to my other cases, because they’re free, but I am not losing a single .38 Super without a fight.

I’m up to 835 rounds of .45 ammunition! I now have no excuse for not shooting a minimum of 200 rounds a week. That should be good for my marksmanship. Instead of shooting 25 rounds per set, maybe I’ll go up to 50.

I don’t know if I want to screw with making up recipes. I think that if these loads work, I’ll just buy a big jug of Unique and a big jug of No. 7 and be satisfied.

Think

I”m surprised by some of the comments I’m getting about Ted Kennedy. It looks like some of us would be happy to see Senator Kennedy die from cancer.

I don’t know if they’re serious. I don’t know if they understand what they’re wishing on him.

I’ve only seen one brain tumor patient. He was a middle-aged man, sharing a hospital room with a person I went to visit. When I got there, he was smearing feces on his head. And he couldn’t talk. But he was aware of his surroundings and other people, and he looked healthy, physically. I don’t know much about brain tumors. I suppose sometimes they cause dementia. Who would enjoy seeing Ted Kennedy in that state? It wasn’t funny when it happened to President Reagan.

I’ve said similar things about Castro, and I suppose even that was wrong. But Castro murdered thousands of people. And he tortured and unfairly imprisoned thousands more, and he turned his nation into a penitentiary people were not allowed to leave. The main reason Castro never equaled the evil of Adolf Hitler wasn’t that he was morally superior; it was disparate opportunity.

Ted Kennedy is not in that class, even if he did take care of number one while Mary Jo Kopechne was suffocating in an air pocket in his car.

Sooner or later, we’re going to have to give up the fun of Internet rage and invective and start treating each other like human beings. I say that even though I’ve been as bad as almost anyone. We’re not helping our country by treating each other so harshly we make it impossible to cooperate. It’s actually unpatriotic. At some level, we’re supposed to be on the same side.

Ammunition Glut

I’m such a liar. I said I was going to do .38 Super today, but then I went out to the workbench and saw the .45 stuff sitting there, and one thing led to another…

I now have 750+ rounds of pretty lead .45 ammunition, and I’m tumbling enough brass to get me to about 850. At that point, continuing will not be an option. I have around 180 .38 Super cases ready to go. That’s more than enough to make for a fine range day later in the week.

I truly need to improve the rigidity of the press’s attachment to the bench. Two bolts just won’t cut it. I’m still getting enough powder flying out of cases to jam up the primer punch every 150-200 rounds. I may have improved the situation by using slow force instead of plain old momentum on the upswing, which sets the primers in the cases. We’ll see on the next go-around. When you swing the handle into the up position, it really rocks the press, and mechanical things don’t like momentum. Seats the primers real good, however.

I’m getting advice on the OAL for Hornady hollow points. Someone said the OAL wasn’t important, because you can get any OAL you want by shoving the bullet into the case the right distance. However, I thought the pressure inside the case was related to the depth to which the bullet was seated. I thought that was the big worry, with regard to OAL. Otherwise, why would they vary so much for similar bullets? It can’t just be about feeding smoothly, can it?

It’s hard to believe I have to worry about .45 cases, where the pressures are below 15,000. That’s less than half the pressure you get with .38 Super.

I guess I’ll have 2-3,000 rounds of ammunition on hand eventually. Imagine how scary that would sound, if a biased journalist got ahold of it. And of course, it only reflects a common-sense effort to save by buying in bulk. I’d be totally thrilled to buy and store less, if I didn’t get hammered financially for doing it.

Marv has seen the story about the Japanese parrot who told the cops his address. Marv is not impressed.

Someone get George Holliday

Someone tell me why reloading companies have such great service. Is it because they’re terrified of losing their customers to frustration, or is it simply because they’re solid conservative people who believe in giving customers a good deal? Probably the latter. A lot of gun companies have great service, too, paying to fix stuff their customers destroyed through stupidity. And I don’t think they have the same worries about frustrated customers who are ready to throw their products into canals.

I have a Lyman XP1000 (or 1000XP) powder scale. I kicked the power cord and knocked it off my bench. The little plastic lid broke. I could glue it together, but I hate it when I buy something nice and new and I screw it up and I have to patch it up like a hobo. I contacted Lyman and asked if I could buy a new lid, and I admitted I broke it. Their response? “We’ll send you a new one.”

How about that?

The scale seems to work very well. I have had no problems with it.

I am thinking it might be a good idea to try to worm my way into gun writing. I know virtually nothing about guns, but I’m very enthusiastic, and I’m a lawyer, so presumably I can be of some use, writing about gun rights. Something to think about. I could bring some fun to the genre; that’s for sure. Is there a gun humorist out there, in line ahead of me? Can’t think of one.

I decided to get some new clips. If you’re one of those people who has a seizure when someone says “clip” instead of “magazine,” let me just say that I will try to clip this habit in the bud, although at present I tend to say the word “clip” at a very high clip.

Try not to swallow your tongues.

Up until now, I’ve thought of the 1911s as range guns, but it can’t hurt to have some real-life ammunition for them. If I buy some, I’ll want to load two clips permanently. So to shoot cheap ammunition at the range, I’ll have to unload one clip for each gun and then reload it later. That’s not great for the bullets, and it’s a pain. So extra clips are a must. Here’s the big problem: how do you store them with a gun in a bag? If you toss them in loose, everything gets scratched up (Glocks excepted). My tentative solution: buy a really cheap sunglass case for each clip. If you have a better solution, let me know.

I only have one clip for the Desert Eagle. I don’t keep it loaded, because I don’t use it for protection. I will regret this if attacked by an elephant or a brontosaurus, but around here, most burglars are people, and I don’t want to shoot through one and have the round go through a wall and kill my neighbor’s Mercedes.

I am still not sure what the .50 Action Express is good for, other than fun. One good thing about the Desert Eagle: pimps like them. And they’re very hard to shoot, so this makes it less likely that a pimp will be able to hit anyone.

I looked at some bullet-casting videos the other day. Doesn’t look too bad, with a 6-bullet mold. Talk me out of it.

Before you start, let me tell you I already heard about the parrot in Japan that gave the cops its name and address. If it’s on Drudgebart.tv.com, I have seen it. I haven’t taught Marvin his address. It’s not really a great idea. What if you move? The cops would force an annoying parrot on the people who bought your house.

Marv has little useful information to impart to the cops. If they interrogated him, they would hear things like, “Can I rub your fat head?”, “Let me squeeze your toes,” “TURD TURD TURD,” and “You’re stupid.” I guess I could teach him to say “doughnut” or “pension.”

There is a beatboxing parrot on Youtube. If it ever gets caught by the police, they’ll beat it to death. You know how cops hate rap. Here:

I know I tempt people to buy African greys. Don’t do it. Some are good pets, but many are miserable.

I’m going to try to make .38 Super ammunition. I was going to finish off my .45 lead, but I can’t take the boredom any more. And I’m out of empty boxes to put it in. I looked at the prices of plastic ammunition boxes. Like 3 bucks for a 100-round box. Are they high? This is the kind of thing you get free when you buy things other than bullets. In fact, a lot of cheap bullets come in reusable boxes. I’d be thrilled to pay a dollar each, but three bucks seems like a ripoff. Maybe I’ll just put bullets in my pockets.

You laugh now. Next year, everyone will be doing it.

Free Lead

Just made another 49 rounds of .45 ammunition. Why 49? Because I ran out of lead.

Sort of.

As I said yesterday, it looks like Oregon Trail includes extra rounds in their big boxes of bullets. I shot 50 rounds, I ruined a few more, and then I made a total of 449 rounds. They must have given me a dozen or so more than I paid for. But I still ruined so many I was not able to come up with 500 good ones.

I came in here to check Alliant’s site for reload data on my Hornady jacketed hollow points, figuring I’d crank out one more round and put it in the box. Unbelievably, I forgot about the 500 Laser-Casts in the second box. Ha.

Still, I have a problem. I have a Speer manual, which is biased toward their bullets. It has load data for a jacketed 230-grain hollow point, but how am I supposed to know the OAL? For all I know, the Hornady bullets are longer or shorter than the Speer bullets. Sooner or later, I’ll have to get the figures I need.

Maybe there’s some info in the mini-manual Hornady gave me with the press.

I may as well go ahead and buy whatever pistol primers are available locally. Everyone tells me the size of the primer, not the brand, is what matters. Hope that’s correct.

Cancer

I guess everyone knows about Ted Kennedy’s malignant brain tumor. Say a prayer. Let’s not be Democratic Underground.

Gas Mask Required

My habanero gold bush gave me an embarrassment of peppers. That’s the correct term, I’ve decided. A pride of lions, a murder of crows, an embarrassment of peppers. Because peppers produce so prolifically, you can’t find uses for them, and it’s embarrassing.

I couldn’t stand to let them rot. So I took every last one off the bush, fed it through a food processor, and added enough fresh lime juice to keep the result from spoiling. It would be even better with a little garlic and maybe a bit of oil, but it should be very good just as it is. These things are so sweet and fruity, they’re perfect for this use.

Aaron hates pepper sauce with vinegar. Lime juice is a pretty good alternative.

I wore nitrile gloves while I worked on the peppers, but I’ll bet anything I still got nailed. I’m afraid to put my hands near anything sensitive.

My Trinidad scorpions are turning red. I plan to try one tomorrow.

Which End Does the Bullets Come Out of?

My copy of America’s First Freedom came this week. I was just flipping through the article on the Heller case. This is the second amendment case the Supreme Court is considering, regarding the draconian and totalitarian D.C. gun ban.

I saw something interesting in there. Justice Breyer tried to make the facially absurd argument that the second amendment only applies to militias. Mr. Gura, the attorney representing Mr. Heller, countered with facts, noting that research has shown that men familiar with firearms in their private lives make better soldiers.

The other day, I talked to my dad about his military service. He laughed about the tough Detroit street kids he served with. He said they turned out to be pretty disappointing. He mentioned one who cried when they cut off his greasy gangster haircut.

My dad grew up in Eastern Kentucky, where guns were–and are–a part of life. Like toasters and clocks and so on. For people like him, dealing with guns was not a challenge or a safety problem. But the Detroit boys were incompetent and dangerous. He said they had a bad habit of turning around at the range, with rifles in their hands, pointing them at instructors and other soldiers. You have to wonder what percentage of them got good enough to hit the enemy. Probably a very small fraction.

My father won some sort of marksmanship prize. I doubt he was competing against city kids.

He said he liked the M1 rifle, but that he couldn’t hit anything with the .45 pistol he was issued. Apparently, a lot of people had issues with them. Maybe they made them loose so they wouldn’t jam up.

I was thinking I would like to get him an M1, but then I checked the prices. Wow. A thousand dollars, for a beat-up milsurp. I love my dad and all, but geez. I have to think about that.

Part of our military strength comes from the private use and development of arms. Consider that when you vote against the second amendment.

Kim du Toit has written a bit about the importance of Supreme Court justices. I wish he had mentioned the lower courts, which have much more power. It amazes me that talking heads and second amendment pundits almost never bring this up. Federal district and appellate judges run your life, very directly. Much more directly than the Supreme Court or Congress. And the President appoints them, and they can’t be fired. They stay in office for life. They’re like the Pope, except they have power.

If you vote for a Democrat President, you’re voting for dozens of judges who will implement his policies. You’re voting for gun bans, late-term abortions, open borders, the disarmament of our intelligence operations, the end of privacy, freedom for criminals, and the end of states’ rights. You are voting for totalitarianism and the eventual abolition of state governments. If you can’t get that through your head, you don’t deserve to be free. You probably don’t want to be free, whether you realize it or not.

I keep thinking about the mess the GOP is in. People say it’s because of the war. They say it’s because of the economy. The most unfortunate thing they say, in my opinion, is that it’s because we don’t have a “big tent.” As a Christian, I think they have it precisely backward. The GOP used to be a party that was more closely aligned with Christian beliefs. Now we’re all about sexual immorality and abortion and coddling Israel’s enemies and every other non-Christian notion presented to us. And we’re getting the reward people always get when they get away from God. Failure. It may come soon, it may come later, but it always comes. In the Eighties, we were much bolder about our religious underpinnings, and our President utterly crushed the opposition. This was at a time when the country was more liberal than it is now. Now we cower and kowtow before the rudderless swing voters, and we are getting thrashed. I have come to believe that we were given success because we tried to do the right thing. Part of faith in God is believing that if you do what’s right, you’ll get good leadership.

I am so sick of “socially liberal but fiscally conservative.” Doesn’t that mean “sinful but selfish”? Wouldn’t the exact opposite be less offensive to God? I’m socially conservative. Maybe if we please God with our behavior and our faith, we’ll be so prosperous it won’t matter if we’re fiscally liberal.

I’m not getting a bunch of convict tattoos. I’m not going to shave my head and grow a chin beard. I’m not going to smoke dope. I’m not going to sleep around. I will not grow a ponytail. I will not join the cult of self-esteem. I’m not going to imitate the lost. If I ever advocated buddying up to “hip conservatives,” I apologize, because I was insane. It was a mistake. I am not hip, and I never will be. I refuse. I just want to become a better Christian and be better to other human beings. When you die, you can’t take “hip” with you.

Man, do I need to get out of Miami.