Ships With Questionable Powder Measure

Once again the reloading press is driving me insane.

The powder measure on the Hornady Lock-N-Load comes covered with grease, which you have to remove. They suggest you use their proprietary product, which they do not include in the package. Way down on page 9 of the powder measure manual (but not the press manual), they say brake cleaner will work. However, that isn’t true. It leaves a residue you have to rinse out with another solvent. The press manual says other solvents will work. Guess what happens when acetone–the cleanest solvent known to man, and the most logical choice–touches the powder measure? It softens the paint and melts the plastic.

I think I finally have all the grease out, and the acetone didn’t damage anything badly enough to keep it from working. But the measure still does not work. When I weigh charges in grains, I get 4.6, 4.6. 4.6, 4.3, 3.8, 5.4…I am ready to kill someone. I can’t get 5.0 to save my life.

I’ve found a lot of other angry Hornady owners on the Internet. Apparently, to make this thing work, you have to have a friend who already owns one, or you have to call their tech line and work on the press while holding the phone to your ear, or you have to spend your life on the Internet, asking other people how to do it. I chose Option 3.

One guy claims the powder measure is worthless for pistol ammunition, because there is some part or other in it that only works for rifles. Other people say to buff the parts. Still others say to run a pound of powder through it to “break it in,” or to run powdered graphite through it. You can probably imagine how much powdered graphite I have lying around, waiting to be run through powder measures.

I finally fixed the indexing problem, after learning that the manual is wrong. Don’t bother me with questions, because I already forgot what I did. Other people have noticed the error. If your press quits indexing right, just screw with the pawl adjustments, see what happens, and take notes.

Okay, I found the pistol part you’re supposed to get for the Hornady powder measure. Someone please explain why they don’t have a boldfaced disclaimer in the manual: “YOU CAN’T LOAD PISTOL ROUNDS WITH THIS PIECE OF CRAP. YOU HAVE TO BUY MORE OF OUR JUNK FIRST!” Some people say it’s okay down to 4 grains. I hope that is true, but I’m going to get the pistol rotor and meter anyway.

Here’s what you need: 1. part no. 50128 – pistol rotor and meter assembly, and 2. part no. 50129 – micrometer for pistol rotor and meter assembly. Am I crazy, or wouldn’t it be better to just tell you this stuff up front?

It’s really nice to get free bullets from Hornady, but so far, trying to get their machine to work has been like a sick torture the Japanese would have inflicted on prisoners of war. The manual is crap. The machine is full of parts you can destroy while trying to follow the instructions for the first time. And when you finally get it set up, you learn that if you really want to do it right, you have to wait another week for parts they didn’t tell you you had to have. And unless the Hornady operation is situated at the bottom of a mine shaft, they must be aware of the misery their new customers suffer.

Harley-Davidson does the same kind of thing. They sell you a bike that only satisfies you until you notice all the crap more experienced riders have put on their bikes, and then you have to go back to HD to buy pimp accessories. BUT a stock Harley runs fine and looks great while you’re waiting for your new stuff to arrive. The Hornady Lock-N-Load…not so much.

I don’t see any way I can use the press until next week. Maybe if I hose it out with spray silicone, it will throw consistent charges. I have a feeling it won’t.

Dillon owners, if your experiences were better than mine have been, feel free to express yourselves in my comments. I ought to sell this thing and buy a Dillon just on the off chance that the suffering would be reduced.

Nature’s Tastiest Creature is Also Our Ally Against Islamofascism

Chris Muir just forwarded an irritating article from Front Page Magazine. Here’s a link. It’s called “Outlawing the Pig,” and oddly enough, it was written by a Jewish lady (Janet Levy) who is upset by attacks on our pork-based culture.

Jews actually have a very reasonable attitude concerning pork. They can wear Hush Puppies. They can use soap made with pork. They can handle pork all day, if they want to. They just can’t eat it. Muslims, on the other hand, seem to think my eating a ham sandwich on a public bus bench is a hate crime.

One fun tidbit from the article: the school system in Dearborn, Michigan no longer buys pork. They don’t want precious Muslim tots to eat it by accident. Funny, no one ever did that for Jewish kids. Maybe that’s because JEWS DON’T BLOW UP OFFICE BUILDINGS AND AIRPLANES AND SCHOOLS WHEN THEY DON’T GET THEIR WAY. Or, more correctly, because Jews would never dream of asking for this kind of pandering.

Here is yet one more example of Islam’s need to grow up. You cannot force other people to adhere to the tenets of your backward, inherently violent, inherently intolerant religion.

The concessions mentioned in the article are obscene. It says the UK–not businesses there, but the government–banned the practice of giving piggy banks to bank customers as promotional items. It says the American retailer Target allows Somali cashiers to refuse to ring up pork items. You know what? If our countries are too pork-contaminated for you, there is a solution. MOVE. If your job requires you to be near pork, QUIT. You don’t see born-again Christians taking jobs at nudie bars and then suing to make the dancers put on clothes. You don’t see Jews taking jobs that require them to work on Saturdays and then suing for relief. If Islam is so wonderful, and you can’t do it here because we won’t submit in our homes and offices, move to a country where its laws are imposed on all citizens and GET OFF OUR BACKS.

I have a recommendation for everyone who is annoyed by this insidious campaign of coercion. Buy yourself some good-quality lard, and put it in the wax the next time you shine your floors or cabinets. Put a little in your hand lotion. Add it to your shampoo. Use soap made with pig fat. Use lard to treat the leather in your car, including the steering wheel. Add it to your car wax. Emulsify it with dishwashing liquid, put it in a sprayer, and soak your yard with it. Buy a couple of pigs for pets. Polish your guns and ammunition with a rag containing a little lard. They use lanolin (sheep fat) for casing lube. Why not lard? When you’re done porking up your environment, tell everyone you know. Let’s make pork impossible to avoid, at least in our homes and vehicles. Become a pork commando. And never, EVER fly without a small canned ham in your carry-on bag.

You say our kids can’t have pork at school? Fine. We’ll surround you with pork. We’ll fix our houses and apartments so you can’t use them after we leave. We’ll fix it so any Muslims who enter our property are severely tainted.

It isn’t “Islamofascists” making these idiotic demands. It’s not Al Qaeda. It’s so-called “moderate mainstream Muslims.” Where is the moderation in forcing the general population to obey your religion’s kooky rules?

Look, tomorrow I could start a bogus religion, claiming all vegetables are unclean. If I managed to put together a hundred thousand followers in my city, would that justify taking vegetables off the school lunch menu? Of course not.

Pork is a magnificent thing. I was thinking about it the other day. It’s extremely versatile. It’s delicious. It does things for food which no other mainstream meat can do. It’s cheap. And pigs are easier to raise than cattle, and they require much less grain. On top of all that, it’s a powerful weapon against Islamofascism. Why on earth would we allow it to be taken away from us? Short answer: we won’t. We might as well start resisting now, because eventually, we will have to rise up and put a stop to this nonsense.

I should get me a plot of land and raise a few pigs and write a book about it. How to raise your own pigs, slaughter them, and prepare them, on the cheap.

Lately I’ve been having a blast, buying cheap pork from Winn-Dixie and doing magic with it. The glorious delights I’ve prepared! Fresh green beans pressure-cooked with bacon or ham hocks. Bacon-grease cornbread, with beef stew poured over it. One thing after another; things you just can’t do with beef, lamb, or poultry. And baked goods without pork fat? No way. There is no substitute.

If food prices continue to rise due to the ethanol scam, you’re going to see Americans raising meat in their yards. And there are only two options for most people. Pigs and poultry. Pigs may be very important soon, if we get into a serious recession or depression. Not just pigs, but old-fashioned, non-bioengineered pigs that produce lots of lovely, nutritious fat. As much as it would hurt to see our economy tank, I would love to see pigs in pens behind suburban homes. Driving the extremists out of their minds.

50-Shot Groups Tighten Up

The range treated me fairly well today.

I have fallen in love with the Glock 26, because it has been consistently shooting better for me than my full-size guns. So it’s what I started with today. I started with 25 shots. And things didn’t go all that well. I’m wondering if there is something about the Wolf ammunition I shot last time, that this gun likes. I shot okay today, but it seemed like I could not get in a groove and avoid flyers. Toward the end, this group tightened up.

The second 25 were a little crazy. Sometimes you learn something really valuable while you’re shooting a batch of rounds, but by the time you learn it, the target already looks bad.

I’m using smaller bullseyes now. They’re cheaper, and the big ones were a waste at 7 yards, because I only used the middle.

The SW1911 treated me very well today. I started with Federal ammunition, which I liked a lot. This is 20 shots. Don’t ask me why it’s not 25. I lost count somehow. More than once, I stopped shooting to make sure the barrel was clear, because the bullet literally went through the same hole as the one before it. That also happened with the Glock. I actually opened it up and sighted down the inside of the barrel. That was a satisfying sensation. If only I could do it consistently.

Here is the rest of the box. I held one back so I could use it to compare to my reloads.

After that, I shot 49 rounds of CCI ammunition I bought from the range. I liked it a lot, but it seemed like the first few shots went crazy. I wonder if that was me, adjusting to new ammunition. I held back a second round.

I was very happy with the .45 today. I felt like I improved my sight picture as well as my trigger pull and the way I gripped the gun with the weak fingers of my right hand. That last item makes a big difference.

The wind was insane, as usual. I had trouble with the target rocking back and forth, but I think I managed not to shoot while it was moving.

Some guy had a big box of Winchester .45 ammunition, and he was shooting the whole thing. Guess who got his brass? BAH HA HA. I score!

Another idyllic afternoon, in the pre-Hillary bloom of American conservatism.

In other news, Chris Muir is bringing the Colt nuts down on his head.

Some People Call Him Maurice

I was just looking at a Drudgebart.tv.com-linked story about Minnesota blogger Michael Brodkorb, who exposed Al Franken’s tax and insurance problems. It’s good to see a blogger getting court protection as a journalist. That’s one of the things the story mentions. On the other hand, I am not particularly impressed by Franken’s screwups.

I’m no Franken fan. He’s not much of a humorist, and he’s annoying. But he claims he paid his taxes in the wrong state, and as for failing to pay workers’ comp. insurance, it’s embarrassing, but not as embarrassing as his movie. If the GOP is hoping to portray Stuart Smalley as a scofflaw, I think they’ve failed. He’s probably just a doofus who screws up when doing paperwork.

There are an infinite number of reasons to avoid even considering voting for Al Franken. The tax and insurance things are insignificant compared to his general craziness and his addiction to discredited socialist notions.

One reason TO vote for him: it will make Bill O’Reilly mad. This will make his show much more entertaining during the weeks or months it takes him to get over it. The lugubriousness of his pecksniffian bloviations will increase a hundredfold. Popinjays across the globe will tremble before his wrath. Much as they already do in his fantasies.

Maynard is on a roll over at The Answer Bird. Not literally “on a roll.” Such as a toasted roll with lots of sauteed onions. But he is posting again, and this time he is answering questions about sharia.

I have to go to the gun range and practice being bitter and hating immigrants, so I don’t have much time to write. You know how hard reading and writing are, for Bible-thumping Republicans. Especially Southerners. If only I had Stuart Smalley’s giant Yankee brain.

Guess that’s all.

A Chance to Mitigate Your Mistakes

Don’t forget; until sundown, today is Yom Ha Shoah, or Holocaust Remembrance Day. I’m glad it falls on the first of May. Maybe it will take some of the wind out of the sails of the socialists who use this day to celebrate their cruel, godless, self-righteous, discredited ideas.

If you want someone to pray for, how about Holocaust survivors? They’re still with us. In fact, many live in Israel. And thousands of them are poor. You can bless them with a gift, if you want. Here is a link to a webpage describing Guardians of Israel, a program run by the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews. If you like what you see, you can donate online.

From the site:

The Fellowship’s Guardians of Israel program funds hundreds of projects across Israel that assist poor, elderly Jews by providing them with hot meals, home care, basic medicine and travel to and from doctors’ appointments, and other essentials.

I will tell you the very personal reason why this program touches my heart. My family is disappearing, and I know I did not always treat my older relatives as I should have. I wish I had another chance so I could make it right. I will never be able to do anything for the people I let down, but people like me can still stand in for the missing or selfish relations of needy elderly people who are still with us. And the Internet has made it so easy.

Why wasn’t I thinking about this five years ago? I have no answer.

I can’t erase the first forty years of my life, but perhaps I will live long enough, and God will grant me the opportunities, to make something out of the remainder. I hope my mentioning it will help some of you find a little peace and redemption in your own lives.

Chametz Banished

I had to practice a little law today. What a drag. But now it’s over, and I get to go back to farting around.

Against what passes for my better judgment, I decided to try to grow off-season tomatoes again. Hey, no! Don’t leave! I can do it! I’m positive! I just have to shoot them with copper and daconil twice a week.

I’ve figured something out. Miami tomatoes don’t like containers. At least, they don’t like my containers. I think keeping the moisture level right is just too hard. The tomatoes I grew in the ground last year looked better. Maybe I need to buy that super moisture-control dirt they sell, or maybe I need mulch. But I’ve decided to put tomatoes in the ground one more time and see what happens. In the past, they were the only plants that did any good.

I went to Winn-Dixie today, with a loaded pistol in my pocket, to buy pork and score more bottles of kosher-for-Passover Coke. WD is kind of ghetto, but now that Publix is attacking our civil rights with a draconian lawsuit, I no longer feel welcome to stroll their aisles as an armed citizen in search of tasty saturated fat.

I grabbed 8 bottles of Coke, bringing my stash to over 20. And to keep me from keeling over on the way home, I bought two protein bars and a Coke Zero. I kept looking at it in the little cooler case, thinking, “It CAN’T be as bad as I remember.” Oh, yes it can. How can people stand this crap? It tastes like window cleaner.

I was accosted on the way in and out by pushy volunteers collecting for something called DARE. I think they teach gang kids to play tetherball or something. Whatever. I almost never give money to charities that accost me on the street. Any moron can empty a chicken bucket and walk around in traffic trying to get people to put money in it. “Oh, uh, it’s for the Dalai Lama’s bladder surgery. No, really. And bunnies with cancer. Look, just give me a dollar before the liquor store closes.”

Here is my tip for the DARE volunteers. Annoy people going into the store or people going out. But not BOTH. Because they are the SAME PEOPLE. If I didn’t give you money before going in and finding out how much the ethanol scam has jacked up the price of my food, chances are, I won’t give you money after I pay an indirect ransom to Al Gore and the rest of the corn crooks.

I bought a bag of jasmine rice on a whim. Certain types of rice were flat-out missing, and I wanted some jasmine or basmati rice, and all they had was a four-pound bag. I have no idea what I’ll do with four pounds, but I can’t help it. I panicked. I was going to do something with lamb, but I’m not sure what.

It cost $4.69. When you imagine it prepared with water and swollen to its fully cooked size, you realize it’s still not a bad deal.

I should try to make some .45 rounds for tomorrow. I may be dragging my buddy Pat and his brother Mario to the range. They can drive me to the hospital if I weigh the powder wrong.

Hope your day is shaping up as well as the remainder of mine.

If They Existed, Surely we Would See at Least One on CSI Miami

Via Lucianne, Humberto Fontova patiently explains (for the thousandth time) that Fidel Castro is evil, and that it isn’t cute when ignorant and/or unprincipled American leftists visit him to celebrate his imaginary wisdom and humanity.

My advice? Save your breath, Humberto. This message just will not grow roots. Castro is the Third World Bill Clinton. A showpiece leftists are determined to bring out and exhibit to prove socialism works, regardless of the poverty and misery he brought to his people. When Clinton was committing perjury and losing the codes to our nuclear armament and selling the Oval Office to the communist Chinese, liberals closed their ears and insisted he was a fine man and a kind of martyr. It’s the same way with Castro. Torture as policy, the revokation of the most basic civil rights, corruption, thousands of executions without trial…if these things didn’t hurt Castro’s reputation over the last fifty years, you can’t hurt it, either.

I don’t really mean that. I may be right to say resistance is futile, but I may be wrong, and in any case, people like Humberto should continue to speak the truth. One thing he needs to write more about is the fundamental question driving the piece to which I linked: how did Cubans become the invisible minority? Was it their financial prosperity, which discredits the notion that all minorities need racist handouts and favors in order to do as well as ordinary white Americans? Was it their overwhelming rejection of liberalism? Part of it, probably, is due to the failure of Cubans to express their frustrations to the wider community, in English. Anyway, it’s a very bizarre and unfortunate phenomenon.

Here is Ysabella Brave, expressing what leftists feel when they say goodbye to the Caribbean’s Hitler. Close your eyes, and you would swear you were listening to Danny Glover.

I guess regular readers are wondering why I started writing about politics again. I’m not sure, myself. I know the conservative media will never have any use for my work. Their zero-sum attitude is probably getting worse now that conservatism is becoming unfashionable again.

I suppose I just got tired and decided to write what I thought was right and let God worry about whether anyone came to read it.

Let’s check some blogroll links.

Virgil has moved to Tennessee. And he is making homemade pizza, which suggests that his recent illness is behind him.

I haven’t checked Whacking Day in a long time. Funny picture up.

In case George Moneo is reading, let me point out that Andrea Harris just carted a bunch of her LPs to the dumpster. Steady, George.

Russ Emerson is doing better, and he felt well enough to come up with a Bible passage explaining the bizarre claim that God ordered us to be greenies.

Steve Gigl’s neighborhood is being terrorized by a trigger-happy granny with a BB gun. Andrea Harris will have to think about this in about 30 years.

Go read another blog now.

Stand Down

Maynard would like everyone to know that the situation is finally under control.

Hence Their Irrelevant Prefab Response

I complained to Wal-Mart about their efforts to disarm their employees and the employees of thousands of other companies and render them vulnerable to predators while traveling to and from work. This is their response:

Dear Stephen,

Wal-Mart understands its role as a leading, responsible retailer in the U.S. and is making strides to strengthen its already existing security processes to help combat illegal gun activity in the communities we serve. Wal-Mart has a long and proud history of offering the products hunters and outdoorsmen want and need and that will not change.

It is important to note that these procedures should not impede law-abiding citizens from purchasing firearms at our stores that sell them. These processes merely provide us, as a retailer, an additional mechanism to assist law enforcement when illegal activity occurs.

We are hopeful these enhanced processes with help from law enforcement and other retailers committing to do the same can make a positive difference in our communities.

Thank you,
Wal-Mart Customer Relations

This is obviously a boilerplate response they send out to anyone who seems like a “gun kook.” It has absolutely nothing to do with what I complained about. I wrote them about Wal-Mart’s sponsorship of a lawsuit to overturn HB503, a law which enables employees to carry arms in their private vehicles.

I am sick of hearing about “hunters and outdoorsmen.” That’s liberal propaganda. Obama uses those words, and he’s a gun-hating, anti-second-amendment nut of the first water. The second amendment is not about shooting rabbits. It’s about defending yourself from criminals and tyrants. It’s about SHOOTING PEOPLE. Sorry to put it that way, but that’s the truth.

Hunting is important, but it’s trivial compared to the second amendment’s true objective.

I can walk in and out of Wal-Mart all day with a pistol in my pocket, legally. Publix Supermarkets is co-sponsoring this anti-civil-rights legislation, but I carry a pistol into and out of Publix several times a week. Yet they want to fix it so their employees can’t have weapons outside in their glove compartments. Does that make sense? How would you like to be a battered wife with a ludicrous restraining order, raising kids on Wal-Mart pay, and have to drive to work without a gun in your car? I assure you, there are women in that situation right now, and Wal-Mart could not care less.

Statistics tell us about 7% of shootings at businesses are perpetrated by employees or ex-employees. That shows that the threat from these people is much, much lower than the threat from the general public. What it doesn’t tell us is how many of those shootings would have been prevented by allowing permit holders to carry at work. If I went nuts tomorrow and decided to shoot up a business, which would I pick? Gun-free Wal-Mart, or Jorge Garcia’s strip-mall liquor store, with the 12-gauge under the counter? See if you can guess.

As I’ve said before, it’s just plain stupid to think that an employee will be worried about breaking a company rule and getting fired, when he’s breaking that rule in the process of committing a stack of violent felonies. Employees who want to shoot up businesses will do so, regardless of whether it means receiving pink slips later in the month. When you walk in the door at your place of business and start shooting your coworkers, it’s safe to assume you’ve decided your job isn’t working out, and that you’re ready to move on. Some might go so far as to call it a constructive resignation.

In a “going postal” situation, the violent employee is about as concerned about being fired as he is about being fined for littering the parking lot with spent casings. Does anyone seriously believe Lee Harvey Oswald regretted losing his job at the schoolbook depository?

Do you realize what these rules mean? They mean that when I’m carrying at Wal-Mart, and a violent criminal comes in and starts trouble, the best hope this giant, well-heeled corporation has of avoiding a bloody catastrophe is ME. How would you like to have to rely on a fat old lawyer to shoot a lunatic while you cringe behind a girdle display? Let me warn you in advance: don’t count on much. My behind will be the first one out the door, if at all possible, and once it’s outside, it and my Glock will stay there.

God bless the NRA. I used to think they were extreme, but that was before I got to know the enemy. Extreme is the way to go. We have to push these pansy freaks back to the point where fighting them is like fighting terror in Afghanistan instead of letting it happen in America. We can’t retreat and concede until we find ourselves reduced to the nominal right to keep unloaded long guns in locked boxes under our beds, like the pathetic folks in DC. We have to keep pushing them back, nearly to the point where they have to mount lawsuits to prevent us from carrying on airplanes. The second amendment frontier is like the border of Israel. We need to keep it as far out as possible, so our enemies will have a terribly difficult job, fighting their way to the point where they can attack our most vital rights.

Wot a Chiz

Do I have the greatest friends in the world, or what?

Here is what just arrived in the mail.

This is a Molesworth reference.

And here are the contents.

This came from Aaron, creator of The Mohamsterdance. We met in August of 1980, and oddly, he looks real old now and I don’t. I had a birthday recently, and he remembered. I don’t tell people my birthday online, because I’m not crazy, but some people already know.

Centrally located, you will see a beautiful Zippo lighter adorned with bowling pins. At first I wondered about this, but then I realized. This is a lighter for a guy who rolls on shabbos.

In the plastic bag, you will see a Blazer Z-Plus butane insert, to turn it into a proper cigar torch. The can is a generous supply of butane.

The brown bottle? Bosco. Signature beverage of Christopher Walken. Who swears he no longer shoots people in the face for drinking Ovaltine.

The white bag…this is unbelievable…chocolate-covered coffee beans from Shkedia, a company which is part of Kibbutz Geva, the kibbutz where I lived in 1984. The plastic container beside the bag contains Shkedia Jordan almonds. Where on earth did he find these? When I was on Kibbutz Geva, I started out in the grapefruit groves and then moved to the almond fields. And on rainy days, I worked at Shkedia. It was like a visit to Willy Wonka. Candy and nuts all over the place, shooting into bags and moving on belts. And the rule was, “Eat all you want, but take nothing home.” I believe that was based on the Mosaic prohibition on muzzling the oxen that tread out the corn. It was a system that worked much better in Shkedia than during my time cleaning poop off dishes in the chicken house.

They said “shkedia” meant “almond tree.”

I added a couple of other things. The weird glass container is full of items I found while working in the fields. Odd little chips of white stone that had clearly been shaped by human hands, plus bits of ancient pottery. The jar? It’s full of Israel. When I got home to Kentucky, I put on the boots I wore in Israel, and I noticed that they were full of Israeli mud. So I scraped it out and put it in this jar. There’s a little Kentucky in there, too.

Thanks, Aaron.

More – Holocaust Remembrance Day

As if there were not enough Israel-related emotional material on my plate today, I just learned that Holocaust Remembrance Day is tomorrow. Saw it at Stand for Israel. I suppose I had been in Israel for a little over a month, the first time I participated in the observance. I heard the sirens go off and stood still by my ladder among the fragrant grapefruit trees.

You might consider the Holocaust victims for a moment as you sit down to your evening meal.

More

This morning while reading How Firm a Foundation, by Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein, I learned some interesting facts concerning Tisha B’Av, the ninth day of the Jewish month of Av. The post about Holocaust Remembrance Day reminded me.

On Tisha B’Av, the following events happened. The first Temple in Jerusalem was razed in 586 B.C.E. The second temple was razed in 70 C.E. In 1942, the first cattle cars loaded with Jews from Warsaw left for Treblinka. I’m sure Jewish commenters can supply other events.

Things to think about at sunset.

Love for Sale

It’s Meat Day! It’s Meat Day! My weekly Winn-Dixie ad just came!

Let’s see.

Lots of buy-one-get-one-free boneless chicken. And chuck steak. I don’t even know what that is.

Boneless top sirloin? Isn’t that palomilla steak? I sure hope so.

Shoulder blade or arm lamb chops! Man, those are good. I substituted them in a recipe for shanks, and they were better.

Hey, here is something I threw together recently, because brisket was on sale. It was really good, and it took literally ten minutes to fix.

INGREDIENTS

2-3 lb. brisket
1 pint dry red wine
1 pint beef broth
1 mashed clove garlic
1/2 tsp. salt
pepper to taste
2 bay leaves
5 red potatoes cut in chunks no bigger than 1.5″ cubes
1 big white onion, sliced
1 pint baby carrots
6 tbsp. olive oil or beef fat

The quantities are approximate.

Get a big stock pot and heat it up to browning temperature. Add oil or fat. Salt and pepper the brisket heavily and brown both sides. Pour in the liquid ingredients. Add the seasonings. Cram the other stuff in, doing your best to get it under the level of the liquid. Simmer for 4 hours or until it can be taken apart with a fork.

I used a stock pot only slightly wider than the brisket, so the liquid would be high enough to cover things. It might be better if you reduce the ratio of beef to everything else. It would be great with cornbread.

You could flour the beef before browning, or you might starch up the liquid at the end to thicken it. Consider leeks instead of onions.

This is very much like what I did with lamb a week ago. I think I might try the lamb again with white wine, sherry, or Marsala.

I can see why people make stews. You work for a few minutes, you dirty one pot and a cutting board, and you’re done. I should come up with a chicken stew.

Pork tenderloin is on sale. I dunno. I wasn’t thrilled when I cooked it. I think regular pork roast is way better. TC swears I did it wrong. Oh, God. I apparently forgot to blogroll TC.

Now that Publix has alienated me by trying to disarm its employees, I guess I better shop at WD more often. They have kosher Coke right now, anyway, and Publix is out, so I think a visit is mandatory.

Pony up to Fight Him

According to the NRA, Wal-Mart, Disney, and Publix Supermarkets are helping fund a lawsuit to have HB503 overturned. This is the new law that permits Florida citizens to keep arms in their cars for self-defense, regardless of their employers’ backward anti-gun policies.

You can contact Publix at this URL.

You can contact Wal-Mart at this URL.

You can donate to the NRA-ILA at this URL.

Feel free to post an appropriate Disney link or email address in my comments. I couldn’t find one.

Let your voice be heard.

More

Five states have passed laws like HB503. Here is a fact sheet debunking the BS.

If not, Shame on You

Today at The Answer Bird, Maynard reports on a serious bird rights abuse.

Thanks

Lately I’ve been getting very rewarding emails. Surprising stuff. One lady emailed me asking for a link to an old piece about sexual morality, to show her sons. She also planned to show them a more recent piece. Another guy said he was planning to resume daily prayer because of me. Other people have told me it was encouraging to read about someone else’s efforts to improve his relationship with God.

Part of what I feel is surprise, considering the mistakes I’ve made. Even when I thought I was doing well, I did things I later realized were wrong. I can’t hold myself out as a great example for others to follow. Every time I start to feel smug about how I’m doing, I find out about someone else who leaves me in the dust.

One of the things I pray for is that I will be a source of good to other people. I haven’t done a great job of that so far. It’s easy to spend your whole life being obnoxious and selfish, especially in times like these, when antisocial, self-glorifying behavior is encouraged and rewarded. So when someone tells me I helped them in their faith, it’s not just good news. It’s an answer to prayer.

There are a lot of things about my work which I would change, if I could. My third book is coming out, and there are things about it I don’t like. I would prefer that my fourth book be edifying as well as entertaining. I hope God will see fit to give me the success I need, to get to a fourth book.

Thanks for the emails and comments. I think the people who write them do me more good than I do, them.

With that behind me, let’s discuss shooting. My Burris Fullfield II scope needs to be shimmed. It’s mounted on my K31 rifle, and at 100 yards, the gun consistently shoots nine or ten inches southeast of the point of aim.

I checked Midway, and they sell shims for a scope bases. But a reviewer says they’re crappy bits of plastic, and that you’re better off carving something out of a blister pack. What’s the best thing to do? I guess I could put something under the rear ring. I’m not sure how to fix the windage error, though.

I’m hoping to crank out some .45 rounds today. I guess I’ll have to buy a package of expensive factory rounds as backup. Damn it.

Now that I’ve covered shooting, let’s talk tomatoes. The few I have managed to grow are cracking a lot, from the stem ends. What’s up with that?

Sooner or later I have to figure out how to grow tomatoes. I do a fine job with peppers and herbs and limes, but those things won’t make much of a meal on their own.

Let’s see what’s happening in the Blogosphere.

Uh oh. Ann Althouse is displaying her dark side once again. I saw this coming, but no one listened. Look for a new book soon: The Electric Kool-Aid Althouse Test. I have a feeling I made that joke before. Understandable; it’s so natural.

Maybe this explains all those colorful photos.

Speaking of photos, Mike Pancier is outdoing himself.

Oh no! A conservative blogger just called Jeremiah Wright a tar baby! It’s ON now! Fortunately, the blogger is black, or at least used to be, before she joined the GOP. It’s Baldilocks. She makes a point which I have been too lazy to make, i.e., in addition to his other flaws, Wright is a really bad preacher.

Wright has decided–get ready for a shock–that criticizing his racist remarks is the same thing as persecuting “the black church.” Dang, I’m glad he told me there were blacks-only churches, before I wandered into one and whited up the place with my ofay Mister Yakub wet-dog-smell pheromones. Like Baldy, I thought the term was “Christian,” not “black.” I guess we were bamboozled by tricknology.

Someone should print a T-shirt. “When it’s Wright, it’s wrong.”

Elisson invited me to participate on his blog while he was on vacation, and I went over and looked a few times and found the place so busy I couldn’t find a place to insert my great wit and wisdom. Then I forgot all about it! Now I’m embarrassed to talk to him. So as a pathetic gesture of contrition, let me link to his piece on the food of the future: whale bacon.

Dennis the Peasant has a new co-blogger, and she’s a major babe! But can’t we say the same of all radical feminists?

Uh oh. Gradual Dazzle is competing with Mike Pancier for the title of Spiritual Heir to Ansel Althouse.

That will have to do for now.

Uncle Wiggily Meets his Match

I have to go crank up the DVR. Tred Barta has a new episode. Guess what he’s doing? He’s using a longbow to hunt TINY LITTLE BUNNY RABBITS.

God, I love this guy.