A Solid B+

Just fixed my first prime rib. I smeared it with crushed garlic, covered it in salt, and roasted it. I gave it 15 minutes at 450 and then lowered the heat to 350 and cooked it until it hit 130.

I would very much have preferred 120 or 115, but my father never learned to eat beef cooked to a cautious medium, so I had to jack it up. It was surprisingly pink for 130, but definitely overcooked by my standards.

I thought it was too tough. I’m not saying it was tough, per se. It was tender. But compared to what it should have been, it was a little disappointing. I also thought the salt crust was a bad idea. I now suspect that the beef should be salted generously but not crusted, and it should be done at least one day in advance.

I think Bobby Flay is just plain wrong when he says to cook prime rib at 350. If I had cooked it at 250, it would have been a thousand times better. And a week is not enough aging. It works fine for steaks, but prime rib isn’t worth a damn if it doesn’t stink a little.

Next time I’m going to roast it in a bag at 250. When I hit 100 degrees, off comes the bag. Then I’ll jack the heat to 450 to brown it. I’ll bet it will be perfect. I’m also going to age it for two weeks.

It seems like the quality of the beef is more critical for a roast than for steaks. My aged choice steaks are very, very good. Nearly as good as prime. But this was noticeably inferior to the real thing.

I guess it sounds like I’m hammering it, but it was a great meal. It just wasn’t what it could have been.

Serves me right for letting the Food Network fool me again. Are they ever right about ANYTHING?

It’s Just my Way

I’m getting ready for prime rib. In the meantime, I corrected some errors in a recent news story.

Matthis Chiroux is the kind of young American liberal nutcakes US military recruiters love.

“I was from a poor, white family from the south, and I did badly in school like most hippies,” the now 24-year-old told AFP.

“I was ‘filet mignon’ for smelly hippie agitators who hate America recruiters. They started phoning me when I was in 10th grade,” or around 16 22 years old, he added. They congratulated me for making it so much farther than any of them had.

Isn’t that better?

I managed to grind out 53 more rounds of .45 ammunition. It took me an hour and a half longer than it should have, because I was learning all about new things that can go wrong with a Hornady Lock-N-Load progressive press. I should go ahead and exhaust my supply of components while I have the press set up. I ran out of clean cases, so I stopped. But I guess I don’t really need to clean them.

I’ll give a short list of the problems I had. These were not things that reflect badly on the product. Well, maybe a little. But mostly, I caused them myself.

First, it turns out flying powder gums up the primer feed in at least two ways. It obstructs the movement of the slide. It will also go down inside the punch after a while. I had to use spray dry lubricant to blast it out.

Second, the bent rod that guides the slide likes to adjust itself, so you really have to tighten the hex screw well, when you get the rod where you want it.

Third, never ever try to install a tube full of primers when the ram is in the up position. Because it will come down, and the primers will go everywhere. I left the primers in the tube while I was fixing something, and I paid the price.

The crimp problem that made my ammunition too big to like going into the chamber proved a little harder to fix than I thought. I figured the crimper wasn’t going down far enough onto the case, but it turned out the belling was too extreme. If you bell a case too much and then crimp it a little, you’ll get a swollen band at the mouth of the case, and it will be worse than not crimping at all. So I had to bell less and crimp a little more. Naturally, I figured this out after adjusting everything the wrong way.

Here’s a design problem Hornady needs to fix. The press is anchored to my bench by two bolts at the rear. The front can bounce up and down a lot. That can make powder fly around. Hornady needs to work it out so you can attach two more bolts somewhere.

I tried Hornady’s One Shot cleaner/lube on my SW1911 today. It’s expensive as hell, but I give them credit. It works like a dream, and it leaves your weapon lubricated with a dry film which seems to be perfect for firearms. Frankly, I think it’s smarter to use Hoppe’s No. 9 and then spray with dry lube. There is no way I’ll pay the insanely high price for One Shot again, if I can help it. Best cleaner/lube I’ve seen, but not worth the money.

My RCBS primer tray stopped working. I can’t figure that out. It worked great the first time I used it. Now it turns over about 85% of the primers.

I moved an old stereo to the garage. That really helps. I dug out my Mahalia Jackson CD’s. Suddenly I have a much better understanding of why Christians hated rock and roll in the Fifties. The similarities between her music and American-Graffiti-era rock are so obvious you can’t miss them.

When I run out of .45 stuff, it will be time to conquer the mighty .38 Super.

Skip to the Parts That Interest You

I have a lot of housekeeping to do today. I have been neglecting emails for maybe a week, and if I don’t catch up, no one will ever email me again, except spammers.

Speaking of spam, I got a really dumb one the other day. The subject line advertised “Oprah’s fat burner.”

Would YOU buy that?

“Yul Brynner’s hair restorer.” “Steve H.’s tips for picking up hot chicks.”

I was not tempted.

I complained that I can’t use my .38-caliber dies to make three different calibers, unless I am willing to adjust the dies every time I go from one caliber to another. People suggested using spacers. Thanks for the help, but I don’t see it working. If you put a spacer under the rim on the bushing, the bushing won’t seat. If you put a spacer on top of the bushing, the locking collar won’t work. At least I don’t think it will. Then there is the problem of finding something suitable and then figuring out how to grind it to within a thousandth of an inch of the thickness I need.

If only I had been a total man and made myself a belt sander. I think a belt sander with a disk on the side would do it.

Og says the sizing die doesn’t need to be adjusted for height. I thought that sounded crazy, but I guess it’s right, since the measurement on that die is from the bottom of the case. But that leaves me with two dies that have to be changed, and I don’t think I can buy them without picking up a sizing die in the same package.

I’m wondering if I should get a couple of match-grade dies. I don’t know how much difference it makes. I didn’t know they existed until I already had my plain old “custom grade” dies. I’m inclined to think that tiny imperfections in the bullets make more difference than dies. I shot one bullet yesterday that was a little dinged up, and I suspect it was the reason I got a wicked flyer.

When Mike was a kid, he used to hack up bullets and then shoot them to see what they did. He says they made wonderful sounds. Mike and I did a lot of fantastic, stupid things together. This is not one of them. Although he was there when I took a largemouth bass with a .30-30.

I’ve been reading about casting bullets. There are two reasons I didn’t start out that way. First, I’m not sure I want to screw with alloying lead to make it hard enough for 1400-fps rounds. Second, it looks like a huge pain. In The ABCs of Reloading, they talk about it. Apparently you have to get tiny molds that only hold a few bullets, and casting each batch requires pouring, cooling, and so on. It must take half a day to do 50 rounds. On the up side, this would make shooting nearly free. The brass and lead are most of the cost. And I don’t pay for brass, except eventually (when I run out) .38 Super.

So far, Laser-Cast has made a lead believer out of me. I don’t know if it was the Unique or the bullets, but the rounds I shot made me very, very happy. I am sorry to confess that I haven’t cleaned the gun yet, but I would be amazed if ~700 fps rounds left anything in the barrel.

I’ve been told that Hodgdon makes a powder that is interchangeable with Unique, yet which produces less crap. If I could confirm that, I’d go ahead and buy a large jug. I’d hate to put 5.1 grains of Hodgdon in a round and then find out it’s twice as powerful as Unique.

I’m sorely tempted to buy a 1911 with target sights. If I could narrow my groups by an inch, I’d be Boss of the Range. At least in my own mind, which is all that matters. I don’t know if better sights would get me there. I am not sure why I got carry sights on the SW1911. I wanted to be able to carry the .38 Super on pimp occasions, but generally, carrying a huge 1911 seems like a bad idea. Unconcealed, sure. Concealed? Less than ideal.

I know I’m boring 75% of my readers to death with guns. So here is some food stuff.

I bought a $6/pound rib roast at Winn-Dixie last week, simply because there was no way I could pass it up, and it has been aging since Sunday. I have decided I want to fix prime rib for me and my father, instead of cutting it into steaks. According to Bobby Flay, it’s a simple matter of roasting at 350 until it hits 135 inside. Does anyone know if this will work?

I plan to do 130. If it were just me, 120. But my dad goes nearly medium-well. I plan to cover it with kosher salt and mashed garlic. Wish I knew how to make horseradish sauce. Maybe I can find out.

I completely lose my mind over prime rib, but I’ve never made it. The rib steak is the main thing that justifies the existence of a cow. Everything else is second-rate. Well, except for ice cream. If I pull this off, in the future, it will be tough for me to choose between steaking and cooking whole roasts.

Let’s see. Religion. I’m all excited about my new books (Aaron: don’t look!). First, I bought The Complete Jewish Bible. The leather version isn’t all that much more than the paperback, and it should last longer, so that’s what I got. I also got The Complete Jewish New Testament Commentary. These books were written by and for Messianic Jews. I started reading in earnest last night. It’s fantastic. I can’t recommend the OT/Hebrew Bible part so much, because it has no commentary book to go with it. But I’ve been reading Matthew (Mattityahu) with the commentary on the side, and it’s wonderful.

I’m inadvertently learning a lot about Hebrew. Before I got these books, it had occurred to me that Jews described Hebrew as if it were basically a giant collection of puns. And so far, these books bear out that suspicion, in spades. It’s no wonder the Jews go crazy interpreting the Bible. The layers of meaning in Hebrew scripture are worse than The Matrix.

I keep getting little bursts of illumination. For example, I figured out that the birth name of the singer Matisyahu is probably Matthew. The name Matthew is “Mattityahu” in the Bible I bought, and Jews in Israel tend to use “T” where American Jews use “S” (shabbos/shabbat), so Matisyahu is probably the same as Mattityahu. Am I right?

It’s very slow going. It took me about an hour to get through three or four chapters of Matthew.

Sometimes it’s annoying, because the guy who edited the Bible and commentary (Daniel H. Stern)corrects beliefs Christians accept without question. But that’s what I bought the book for, so I shouldn’t complain. Christians often have an unhealthy pride about their relationship with God, as if we were chosen to know all the answers, because we’re so much nicer than the Jews. But the reality is, Messianic Jews have a much better background for understanding the New Testament. We need to accept that and realize that when Christianity drifted away from its Jewish roots, we lost things only Jews can restore to us.

As Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein–not Messianic–likes to point out, prophecy says a time will come when ten gentiles will grab the hem of a Jew’s garment and ask to be taught about the Torah. Looks like that’s happening.

It’s amazing how often Stern confirms things I already suspected. For example, I think “the Kingdom of God” often refers to God’s dominion inside us. I assume God has been helping me along, providing me with insight.

For about 20 years, I’ve suspected that Zerubbabel, in the book of Zechariah, was a type of the Holy Spirit. I wish I knew what Stern thinks about him. And sometimes I wonder if the Third Temple will be a physical building. It’s clear that Jesus expected his followers to be a living temple. And Paul used the word “temple” to describe the human body. I think that when Jesus drove the money-changers out of the Second Temple, it symbolized the Holy Spirit driving counterproductive earthly motivations out of believers.

I also got a copy of Corrie ten Boom’s Tramp for the Lord. It takes up where The Hiding Place left off. She was supposed to be killed in a concentration camp, but the Germans released her by mistake, and she went on to become a traveling evangelist. A “missionary to America.” Is that a humbling phrase, or what?

Wonderful book. Too short.

The more good stuff you expose yourself to, the easier it is to be a Christian, and the more peace you have. Something to think about the next time you buy a book or turn on the TV or listen to music. This lesson has been helpful to me.

Let me know what you think.

Let’s Man Up

Ted Kennedy has been rushed to the hospital. Let’s all be mature and pray he recovers.

Die Revelation

I just realized something horrible.

I thought I was getting a deal when I ordered my .38 caliber Hornady dies. Because they can be used for .357, 9mm, and .38 Super. But today while I was considering cranking out some .38 rounds, I realized: every caliber is going to have a different length. So I can’t fix the dies up and then remove them from the press and have them ready in a box the next time I reload. I’ll have to adjust them every time I change caliber.

OR

I’ll have to buy two new sets.

Damn it.

Accurate!

What a spectacular day at the range.

First, I shot the Glock 26, which rewarded me handsomely. There were flyers, but the little core hole in the center of the target seems to be getting smaller.

Here is the second batch of 25 shots.

The big challenge to my concentration today was an attack by horseflies nearly as big as roaches. Before I started shooting, I saw something dark on my shoulder, and when I looked, it turned out to be a huge black horsefly, sucking away. When I flicked it off, a bloodstain appeared on my shirt. For several minutes, I was freaked out, trying to figure out where the flies were coming from. These things are amazing. They fly off and hide behind things, and then they come back. And they seem to know you can only see them when they’re on the front of your body. I managed to swat one with my hand, and then I enjoyed the luxury of smearing it slowly across the concrete floor. Next time: bug repellant.

After 50 shots with the Glock, I nervously got out the SW1911 and 50 of my homemade rounds. I put on a face shield. I had decided looking stupid was better than looking like a plate of Spaghett-O’s. And the first 25 rounds worked quite well.

This ammunition shoots beautifully. I don’t know if it’s because it’s so low in power or what, but even with the flies on my mind, I shot very well. The recoil was very low. I guess 5.1 grains of Unique is a small charge.

I had one problem. Some rounds didn’t like to chamber all the way, so I had to push the slide a little. I attribute this to my hesitance to crimp the rounds too much. They still have a slight bell to them, and I think it makes them reluctant to go all the way into the chamber. So I’ll fix that. It’s not a problem. One round was totally uncooperative, so I brought it home. Here are the 24 remaining shots:

Two people brought me .45 brass! Aren’t conservatives the greatest people? It’s too bad liberals think we’re all skinheads and people who failed the Klan entrance exam. They’re missing out on a lot. I gave some Shoot-N-C’s to one guy. The other seemed to have his needs covered.

There was a guy next to me, shooting reloads out of what looked like a race gun. I didn’t want him to think I was horking his brass, so I left a few of my empties in his area. I probably brought home 300 cases, and frankly, I preferred the nice new ones to my twice-fired ones. I also plundered the range for 9mm brass.

I had a primer fall out after I shot the round. Not sure what that’s all about.

I hate to say it, but it looks like reloading is for me. Cheaper than factory ammunition, and I think I’m getting substantially better accuracy. The gun looks pretty greasy; I guess it’s the lube from the bullets. And the powder seems fairly dirty.

I’m thinking I may go up to 6 grains and stop. I also need to find a recipe for my Hornady 230-grain hollowpoints. I probably have one here somewhere. I’m tempted to shoot tomorrow.

Seems like nickel cases gave me more trouble today. Is that normal? Maybe they’re harder than the brass ones.

Great day. And I didn’t even blow my face off.

Connect the Imaginary Dots

I did something unbelievably stupid at Home Depot the other day. I was buying various chemicals and poisons, and I saw something called “Miracle-Gro Singles,” and without really reading the label, I bought a bag. I thought it was some sort of premeasured fertilizer stick that fell apart and dissolved in water, sparing you the aggravation of using a spoon to measure. But when I got this stuff home, it turned out to be Miracle-Gro in tiny foil packets, which you have to cut open and empty. I’m sure it costs three times as much per pound as regular Miracle-Gro, and it’s a pain to use. Dumb buy.

My newest crop of tomatoes is disease-free, and I think I’ve decimated the bugs around here to the point where they have a hard time crawling to a nice place to die, let alone attacking my plants. Next week I have to start moving them to the bed and the pots I plan to put indoors. I am still mad that Mike grows tomatoes indoors in New Hampshire without a light, while I can’t grow them outdoors in Florida.

The difference in flavor and texture, between the best store tomatoes and ordinary home tomatoes, breaks my heart. I had forgotten until recently. In Kentucky, I was spoiled with a lot of great tomatoes my aunt and my grandmother grew. But years of unripe orange baseballs had dimmed the memories.

In other news, Osama bin Laden continues to be dissatisfied with our actions and those of Israel. How can this be? We took tasty, nutritious, relatively inexpensive pork off the menus at a whole bunch of our public schools, violating (by liberal standards) the principle of separation of church and state, so tiny delicate Muslim children would not have to be in the same room with it. I figured that would mollify him. What more does he want?

Bin Laden says our actions prove we stand with the civilized, morally superior Israelis and against the mouth-foaming cultist loons. My response? I call on all right-thinking Americans to condemn bin Laden’s blatant racist attack on Barack Obama. Do we have to take this from a clown so unimportant his last name doesn’t even start with a capital letter?

Okay, fun with bin Laden is over. Let’s get back to trying to kill him.

Sometimes I’m go glad this blog has “Hog” in the name. And I have to admit, just for fun, I really do put pork fat on my ammunition sometimes. Do I expect to be attacked by terrorists? No, but a lot of career criminals are Muslims. Islam is very big in the joint.

I was far too lazy didn’t find time in my busy schedule to load .38 Super rounds yesterday, so I’m going to go to the range with a box of .45 reloads and some cheap 9mm factory rounds. I have decided the face shield is a good idea, regardless of how stupid it looks. Until I really get a handle on consistency, I think it’s a good idea to take measures to insure that I continue to have a face. Such as it is. In fact, I have started to wonder: what exactly was wrong with all those guys who melted their chins with bad .38 Super rounds? Here’s my wild, irrational conjecture: after two or three of your buddies have cases disintegrate a foot from their faces, you should probably think about protective measures to make sure you don’t end up like them.

No, no. Too wacky. Like George Bush’s insane idea about putting money in the stock market, where it increases and funds the economy, instead of giving it to the government, which spends the money–and more–before it arrives.

That was crazy, wasn’t it? Clearly, the tiny, vanishingly small risk of losing your entire investment in the stock market outweighs the total certainty of having the government lose it immediately. I do love liberal logic.

Hey, if anyone cares, Natchez Shooter’s Supply has good prices on 9mm right now. Good by today’s standards, anyway. Also, R&R Arms is selling Golden Bear 115 grain for $8.47. I don’t know if this stuff is any good. It’s Russian, I believe. Wolf 9mm is Russian, and I found it extremely accurate.

I love 9mm, .40 S&W, and .45 ACP, because I know I will never have to pay for brass, regardless of how long I live. This stuff litters the floor of every range in America. And .357 isn’t too awful hard to find. So far, I’ve found a grand total of one .38 Super case which didn’t come from my gun. And when I convert to 9mm x 23 or 9 x 23mm or whatever it’s called, I may as well give up trying. I’ve never even seen one of those.

It’s late. Time to get in the car and go exercise my second amendment rights while I still have them. I’ll do some shooting, and then later in the day, I’ll shop in stores with a loaded gun in one pocket and a razor-sharp switchblade in the other. If you’re in a blue state (good phrase to describe your situation), I apologize for rubbing your face in it.

Too Tactical for Words

I’m getting unbelievably cocky. I’m considering running into the garage, slapping the .38 caliber dies on the press, and making some .38 Super ammunition for tomorrow.

Am I insane? Don’t answer.

I had some idiotic and truly ludicrous personal business to take care of this week, and it has been dragging me away from blogging and my hobbies, but I’m back, and tomorrow is RANGE DAY.

I’m thinking I may wear a face shield for the first 50 rounds of each caliber. I already look stupid with my giant tactical rolling toolbox, so a face shield will not make things worse.

On other news, my messianic-Jewish Bible and New Testament commentary arrived. I had to order it. There is some stuff in the Bible–okay, a lot–which only Jews get. I can’t wait to sit down with it.

I’ve been so preoccupied, I’ve let emails slide, and I even forgot to change the cloth on the beef I’m aging. I guess one day won’t hurt it. It’s a rib roast. I think I’m going to make prime rib instead of steaks. I need to ask Mike how he prepares it.

Life is sweet. Have I mentioned that? Well, it is. If I manage to move out of Miami, it will be TOO sweet.

Too tired to type. Even Marv lacks the energy to blog.

You Probably Think This Blog is About You

Let me point a few things out.

1. Coke is better than Pepsi.
2. People who eat liver are crazy.
3. I like doughnuts.
4. Fat guys should not be allowed to buy really small bathing suits.

I now await an angry response from Barack Obama, toward whom these racist remarks were clearly directed.

I don’t think I’m exaggerating his sensitivity. Given his irate response to President Bush’s criticism of terrorist-huggers, it seems that Obama has decided that anyone who criticizes appeasement of terrorists is his enemy.

Okay, actually that would be correct. I didn’t phrase that right. He has decided that such people criticize appeasement, for the Satanic purpose of harming his anointed succession to the Presidency. Call me crazy–once again–but I think he may be wrong. I think some people are against appeasement no matter who does it.

Like “a White House official” *cough cough Dana Perino* said: think Carter. Or don’t, as it hasn’t been that long since breakfast, and you don’t need an ulcer.

I can’t figure Carter out. Imagine you’re an old guy who gets fired from his job for incompetence. So instead of redeeming yourself by getting a new job and doing it well, you keep hanging around your old office, criticizing all the new guys who get your job, all of whom do it way better than you did. That’s Jimmy Carter’s gig. If people like him worked at Wendy’s, every time you went to the drive-through, you’d see some nut standing by the window, yelling things like, “Oh, NO, Lakeisha, you did NOT touch the toppings without a plastic glove!”

You got fired, dog. Move on. You’re what? Like 85? There is no shame in retirement. Go back to Plains and polish your I Hate America, God and Capitalism–I mean “Nobel”–Prize. If you feel you really have to do something about the Jews, join a country club and keep them out.

I really can’t wait to see Obama negotiate with Ahmadinejad. “The President and I have reached an agreement. We will let him make all the bombs he wants, in exchange for his ‘pinky swear’ that he will not use them to destroy Israel or blow up American cities. If he violates his promise, I have assured him that I will be very cross with him, and I will force him to explain why he ‘acted out,’ in a conference call with Oprah and Dr. Phil.”

With Obama, the price for violating a negotiated truce will be…more negotiations. And of course, the Iranians know nothing about negotiations. Haggling is unheard-of in the Middle East.

I think the Messiah vibe is going to Obama’s head. He seems to believe it’s all about Obama. He beat Alan Keyes in a Democrat-controlled state, which is like succeeding in getting Fidel Castro reelected, and he thinks he’s invincible. I have potted plants that could beat Alan Keyes by a wider spread than Obama.

Where is that machine they wouldn’t let Zaphod Beeblebrox go into? We need to send Obama in there and turn the knob to 11. Pablo Picasso had clearer perspective.

For some reason, I am really starting to like John McCain.

Also: snort.

He is an Independent Contractor

Marv is still airing his remarkable views on immigration. I hope he never runs for office.

Hard to be Glad About This

I am having a hard time figuring out exactly how badly Obama got beat in West Virginia, but it looks like “severely” is accurate. I’m sure the talking heads are positing theories. “Voters with middle-American values.” “Conservative blue-collar Democrats.” Whatever. Here’s the answer: racism. Appalachia is full of racism. I was born there, and I’m honest about it. Certain parts of the country just have not caught up with the civil rights movement. End of story.

I wonder if I can find results for the coal counties in the Kentucky primary. No, it’s next week. But the polls for the entire state have Hillary up about 27 points. Does anyone seriously believe it’s because people think Hillary is a better candidate? A bad Yankee carpetbagger lawyer who screwed up health care reform and then went on to be a professional housewife and then a lackluster junior Senator? No way. It’s because she’s white.

And it’s happening in other areas, too. Canvassers are encountering some vile responses in northern states. Yankees always claim to be immune to racism. Tell that to the people who got their windows shot out in Chicago’s Airport Homes development. Bring up that topic in a bar in South Boston or Little Italy. Obama is doing well as a candidate for nomination. He’s winning over the far-left types who participate in primaries and caucuses. But in the general election, he’ll have to deal with people who are more diverse. And my bet is, his race will cost him 20% of the votes a Democrat candidate would otherwise get.

Far-left kooks are very good about accepting minorities, although they are openly bigoted toward Israel, men, white people, conservatives, Jews, and Christians. Give them credit. Nominating a black candidate is genuinely “progressive,” unlike the backward-looking policies to which liberals generally apply that oxymoronic label. But it’s probably bad strategy. I think Obama is going to end up like Martin Luther King. Not dead, I hope and pray. I simply believe he will help open a door for other people, and that he himself will be unable to walk through it. I think he’ll lose big in the general election, and Democrats will have to be satisfied with a moral victory. Which will be a first for them.

I don’t like the idea of winning an election this way, but winning is winning, and it’s not the right’s fault that racist Democrats won’t support their man, and Obama will be very bad for the country, so I guess I’ll get over it. We’re probably headed for a fairly good result. Republican in the White House; black man nominated by Democrats. Two things that are both blessings.

My father thinks black people will vote for McCain if Hillary steals the nomination. Could be. I would not blame them. Well, yes I would. You don’t frag your nominee over something like that. I am highly critical of childish people who vote for the opposition out of spite. But I would certainly understand why black people would feel cheated.

One thing no one is mentioning: the possibility of riots. If Hillary cheats her way to the nomination, it’s not unlikely that we’ll see video of burning cars and broken windows. We’re not supposed to talk about it, but unless the folks at the DNC are completely out of their minds, they’re thinking about it. They’re thinking about the difficulty of succeeding with a black candidate, they’re thinking about ways to give Hillary the nomination, and they’re considering the consequences.

My father also thinks putting Hillary in the VP slot would be good for the Democrats, but he feels–and I agree–that it would be career suicide for Obama. Put the Obamas and Clintons in the White House, and nobody will even notice the Obamas. The Democrats may get scared and insist on it, but it will cause them problems down the road. And supposedly, Michelle Obama refuses to tolerate a second queen bee. Thank goodness for female competitiveness.

The only thing I know for sure about Obama’s running mate is that he or she will be white. And he’ll probably be male.

Things could be worse. If McCain can survive “gook” video, he’ll win the election. And hopefully he’ll appoint sane judges. If that happens, only Congress will be a problem.

From a Christian perspective, let me point out that the Bible says God chooses our leaders. That doesn’t mean all leaders are good. Sometimes it means we get bad leaders we deserve. So pray for revival and good leaders. That’s my advice.

Selfless to the Last

In spite of my best efforts to stop him, Marv has blogged again.

This time he is giving advice on the disposition of a malfunctioning cockatiel.

“Childish Superstition”

I guess it’s predictable that I would have something to say about the Drudgebart.tv.com-linked story about Einstein dismissing religion as “childish superstition.”

I don’t think anyone should be surprised, assuming the story is true. Einstein was a leftist who had a childish superstition of his own: that the world could be a man-created utopia ruled by a single central government. And many of his fellow physicists, scientists, and mathematicians shared his superstition.

As I have noted many times before, mathematically inclined people tend to be a lot like idiot-savants. All the brains are packed into one side of their heads, leaving little grey matter to deal with things like humanity and human relationships. They typically have very childlike ideas about human nature. They often lack the capacity for empathy, which explains a lot of the misery inflicted on us by people who write code. They often have gigantic egos. They are among the last people we should turn to for advice regarding subjects like love, ethics, or religion.

Some people swing both ways, but they are rare. It’s not uncommon at all to see people who score 800 on the math SAT and around 500 on the verbal side. In fact, unless things have changed since I was a kid, the vast majority of the really high scores are mathematical, period.

Aside from his basic nature, consider Einstein’s qualifications. From a fairly early age, he was a pampered, prized, tenured academic. Why anyone would expect a person like that to know anything about life is beyond me. Think of the academics you’ve known. How would you like to live in a world where their kind ruled? It would be like Cambodia under Pol Pot. Academia attracts the petty, the cruel, and the naive. As professors and instructors, they’re harmless and amusing. As rulers? Horrifying. The end result is piles of bloated bodies decaying in the sun.

I do not suggest that Einstein was cruel or petty. But naive? Absolutely. Before you give me someone like Albert Einstein to tell me how to live, give me a pastor or rabbi or priest chosen at random, any day. Someone who has married and raised children and lived with adversity, without giving up his or her faith. Someone familiar with other people’s suffering. Not an academic who has never known anything but a big, warm, permanently attached university nipple. A nipple which tends to flow more freely–more liberally, if you will–when the beneficiary attacks God.

I have never understood why academics get tenure. Presidents don’t. Engineers don’t. What’s so special about academics? We give them so much security, it warps their minds. They forget what life is like for the rest of us. No wonder they make up such a huge portion of Democrat delegates. Social engineering is all theory to them. They can’t understand what it’s like when people are forced to become their gamepieces and endure the consequences of their inept theorizing. It’s only natural that socialism and purges and so on make sense to people like that.

The Apostle Paul (a reformed academic) supported himself as a tentmaker while traveling the ancient world on foot, to spread the Gospel. He was flogged repeatedly; the skin and flesh were ripped from his back. He was stoned. He was shipwrecked. Finally, he was murdered. Corrie ten Boom survived on offerings as she traveled the world telling the world that she loved God, in spite of the fact that the Germans killed most of her family for saving Jews. I respect their humbly expressed opinions more than the pompous, sterile, conformist musings of a professor speaking down from the invulnerability of an ivory tower.

To put it in terms Einstein would have understood, to enter the heart of a brilliant, feted, Nobel-prize-winning scientist, a particle of faith has to make it into a very high-walled potential well constructed of ego. The odds are on a par with those of a camel passing through the eye of a needle. To steal an analogy from a source I respect a great deal. To stretch the analogy even further, in quantum mechanics, the seemingly impossible becomes possible. And with God all things are possible. However it looks like Einstein did not benefit from that iota–that quantum–of hope.

To me, the odd thing about all this is that Einstein himself laid the groundwork for experiments that seem to demonstrate that observation and belief alter the material world. In other words, his work seems to support the notion that faith has power. I don’t remember enough about it to write about it with any degree of competence, unfortunately.

When I see intellectual theories put forward to deny the existence of God, I always think of what Archie Bunker said to Michael “Meathead” Stivic, when Stivic said he had renounced his baptism. “Renounce your belly button! You still got it!” It’s pointless to raise arguments in a cerebral vacuum, to convince people of the nonexistence of things they have personally witnessed. Give me a word processor and a week, and I could probably prove I have three arms. Would that make it true?

Render unto Einstein when it comes to science. When it comes to religion, listen to someone who has been there.

Sorry About That

I am so mad. I drove all the way to the gun range, and it looks like they’ve changed their rules again. Their sign now says they’re closed on Mondays and Tuesdays. I’m completely positive it was Tuesdays and Wednesdays a month ago. It seems like they do this all the time. And checking their website is pointless, since they don’t update it.

I got an interesting comment RE prophecy:

With respect to prophets, pardon me for not having a cite, but in the gospels Jesus said that John the Baptist was the last of the prophets. The next true prophets will be the two old testament saints that return to Jerusalem during the first 3.5 years of the tribulation. Anyone who claims to be a prophet during this current church age is at best misguided. That’s not to say that God can’t or doesn’t use dreams to speak to people, but my view is that it would be more for personal revelation and not true revelation of future events.

Naturally, I mentioned the New Testament prophecies. Response:

You’re correct Steve, you definitely have to account for the prophetic revelations of John of Patmos. Perhaps the distinction is between the definition of a “prophet” vs. someone whom the Holy Spirit reveals prophetic information to.

I don’t think “prophecy” is something Christians have defined all that well. I always thought a prophet was someone who could function pretty much like a P.A. system or a ventriloquist’s dummy. The prophet’s mouth moves, but God says the words. But having read the book of Numbers and the bulk of the New Testament, I’m inclined to think that “prophet” is a term that can apply to a wide spectrum of people, from Moses, who spoke to God face to face, to Stephen, who died after seeing into heaven. My best guess is, anyone to whom the Holy Spirit gives the ability to perceive things ordinary people can’t perceive is a prophet. And if that’s true, then there are super-prophets like Moses, above-average prophets like Jeremiah and Zechariah, and so-so prophets who occasionally get a revelation which may or may not be of great importance. So I guess that if you have a few bona fide inspired dreams or visions, you’re a prophet. Not the best prophet around, but still, a prophet.

I am among the Christians who believe that the Holy Spirit is being meted out much more generously than it used to be, and that we are supposed to connect to it and be changed and empowered by it. I believe this is what prayer in tongues is all about. I think modern Christians who refuse to admit that this is happening are like divers who want to go down with knots in their air hoses. Doing God’s will and fighting on His behalf have always been extremely hard. I don’t believe we were ever expected to succeed on our own. If anything, God has made a point of proving we can’t do it. The Holy Spirit is the power supply mankind has been lacking.

God is strange. He plants a seed, but doesn’t reap the harvest for thousands of years. He established the Jews and allowed them to ruin Israel and be cast out, and He let them turn Israel into a wasteland inhabited by inept, barbaric squatters. He established a powerful Christian church and let it give up on the Holy Spirit and become worldly and weak. And apparently, He plans to bring it all together toward the end of time. Israel restored, the Church reconnected to the power of the Holy Spirit, and so on. You have to wonder. Why not just make us do it right the first time around? Why let Satan get away with so much for so long?

Regrettably, I was not involved in the decision. I don’t know why God never asks my advice.

God is always letting us screw up and then giving us the power to fix things. It’s a constant pattern.

I sometimes think the story of Samson presages the history of the church. Samson started out strong, because the Spirit of God was in him, and then he was seduced by worldiness and lost his power, and then he was blinded, and in the end he regained his power and destroyed the temple of his enemies, killing them in the process. The church started out full of the power of God, but it became corrupt and full of idolatry and pantheism, and it lost its power and its ability to perceive God’s will. And it ended up serving the enemy. And maybe now the power is coming back.

There are other hints, like the bit about releasing foxes to burn the grain of Samson’s enemies. Jesus compared people to grain. I suspect the foxes symbolized evangelists, destroying the harvest of the enemy.

I dunno. I always see the world in terms of symbols. For that reason, the Bible has always driven me crazy.

One thing I believe very strongly is that Christians need to get over feeling superior to Jews. I believe Jews missed the boat, with regard to the Messiah. But Christians threw away and even reviled the Holy Spirit, which is probably worse. It’s the power to change the world. What we did was like losing the Ark of the Covenant, and the result was pretty much the same. We lost battles we should have won. And a lot of people who feel superior to Jews would have been clamoring for the Crucifixion as loudly as anyone, had they been around to do it.

I can tell you as an eyewitness that the Holy Spirit is still here, and that things that qualify as prophetic events still happen, and I am sure I’m one of many. If I were you, I’d be wary of ignoring what is happening, because to do so is on a par with failing to recognize the Messiah.

I’m not qualified to teach, and I am not fit to be a spiritual leader, but I feel safe in saying that much.

I really will catch up on emails soon. Sorry.