Don’t Forget to Write

I got a call from a friend to whom I was very close in college. We hadn’t talked in years. He said my sophomore roommate was trying to put together a contact list for a bunch of us who shared a floor my freshman year. And the friend relaying this information wanted to come to Florida and charter a boat and take me and my father fishing.

Does that seem appropriate to you? It occurs to me that once you’ve been out of touch with someone for years, unless it’s someone very special, that person shouldn’t call you up and demand that you participate in a weekend of fishing, as if you were still tight. A person like that isn’t really a friend any more. He’s an acquaintance. And you wouldn’t call a mere acquaintance up and expect him to act like a pal. You wouldn’t ask to borrow money. You wouldn’t expect him to be an usher at your wedding. You wouldn’t ask him to be the godfather of your child. Dinner, maybe. Or lunch. Talk about old times. That’s about it. Say hi, fight over the check, and part for another ten years.

He was saying I should crash class reunions, even though he and I both graduated apart from our freshman class. Crash reunions? Hell, I’d hide if I spotted most of those people. My family was a mess when I was in college. I went through hell. Those guys would just remind me and make me feel all those sensations over again.

I gave him my contact information via email, but I told him not to give it to anyone else, and that there was no way I would participate in an email list or reunions. And I explained that I didn’t enjoy reliving college. I was polite, but he hasn’t responded, and I’m not going to follow up. Now I’m the bad guy, I guess, but it doesn’t matter, because things weren’t going anywhere anyway.

I belonged to a group of six close friends when I was in college. I guess we thought we’d be friends for life. Out of the six, the two I still treasure are Aaron and old gay Dave. One other is okay, but I can’t say I miss him much. The others, I chose to allow to drift away. One I just don’t like or respect any more, and the other wore me out by disappointing me too many times. I won’t say which one called.

I drop people right and left. No warning. Poof, you’re gone. I’ve always been that way. I try to treat people very well, and when I realize I’m not going to be repaid to any real extent, I just close up. Or if I realize a person is an incorrigible bad influence. And I am especially bad about dropping people who tell me what to do. That’s degrading, especially when it comes from a younger friend or a friend who knows I’m smarter than he is. People shouldn’t be like chickens, always trying to establish a pecking order. Friends should be equals. I don’t do well with competitive friends. If you’re insecure, spring for therapy. Don’t abuse me to inflate your ego; buy yourself some Tony Robbins tapes and watch Stuart Smalley.

A friend isn’t a tool. A friend isn’t something you use to achieve goals that benefit you. A friend is someone you like and respect, even if there is nothing he can do for you, and whom you try to help however you can. You take pleasure in the good things that happen to your friends, even if good things aren’t happening to you. You only criticize friends when you feel you absolutely have to. A friend improves you and helps you succeed and enjoy life. If you disagree with this stuff, you have no idea what friendship is. You probably have no real friends. You may be a psychopath. At best, you’re underdeveloped, and you need to grow up.

Maybe I should work harder to keep friends and change them. Maybe that’s one of my shortcomings as a friend. But I think you can tell when a person is willing to change and when he’s not. And now that I think about it, I know I’ve talked to friends many times about issues we’ve had. I should be better about going to them first instead of complaining to other people, though.

On balance, I think I’m right about letting friends go. No one has more than four or five friends. Regardless of what they think. The rest are just extras. Nice to have around, but not to be relied upon.

I feel like a friend ought to be able to tell when I’m no longer excited about the relationship. If I never call you back, or I never take you up on your invitations, you say we should do this or that and I always change the subject instead of answering, or you find yourself carrying the entire weight of the friendship, you ought to realize things have changed. Am I wrong? Sometimes you have to end romantic relationships very explicitly, maybe in some cases with tear gas and a bean bag gun, but I’ve usually found that friends don’t have to be told when things have frozen over.

I don’t want to spend the weekend with this guy and his kids. I don’t want him spending $1500 on a fishing trip for me. There is no way I’d spend that kind of money on him. I’d spring for dinner, sure. But I hope he doesn’t expect me to show up or send presents when his kids get married. I’m sorry to say it, but I wouldn’t pay for an airline ticket to go to his funeral. If it was across town, sure. But fly? No way.

Dinner would be fine. I’m really glad he’s doing well; he has earned it, and he has a family to support. It would be nice to hear from him every couple of years. But this is like appearing on someone’s doorstep after twenty years and yelling “ROAD TRIP!” Like everything will be fine if we just start texting each other every day. The lack of communication isn’t the problem. The problem is, I’ve changed.

Asymmetrical relationships are so uncomfortable.

Gun-Grabbing Liberals Create Fake NRA

Moxie just showed me a story in which the American Hunters and Shooters Organization endorsed known gun-grabber Barack Obama.

THIS IS A TINY, BOGUS ORGANIZATION CREATED BY GUN-CONTROL NUTS. DO NOT LISTEN TO THEIR B.S.

Read:

AHSA was created with the specific intent to provide political cover for anti-gun politicians by allowing them to claim support from a “sportsmen’s” group. In truth, the anti-gun credentials of AHSA’s leadership is well documented. For instance, AHSA president Ray Schoenke has a long history of giving political donations to some of the most anti-gun politicians, including Al Gore, John Kerry, Barbara Boxer, Bill Clinton, Dianne Feinstein and Ted Kennedy. In 2000, Schoenke donated $5,000 to Handgun Control, Inc. (now the Brady Campaign) and the Ray and Holly Schoenke Foundation also made donations to the Brady Campaign. AHSA Board member John Rosenthal remains the leader of Stop Handgun Violence, the Massachusetts anti-gun group. And one of the leading organizers of AHSA is Bob Ricker, who has been a paid expert witness against gun manufacturers in a number of reckless lawsuits. (For more information, see Anti-Gunners Don Camo As Elections Loom.)

And:

AHSA supported Bloomberg’s effort to repeal the law that protects confidential law enforcement data from disclosure that threatens the privacy of gun owners and the safety of law enforcement officers—all so that Bloomberg could use the information in reckless lawsuits against the firearms industry . . .

More at the NRA site.

What a disgusting bunch of lying pigs. This is like Catholic priests forming an anti-abortion group and calling it the Coalition for Abortion Rights.

Pass the word. Don’t let these frauds get away with what they’re doing.

HELP

I have realized it will take a solar year for Hornady to get my free bullets to me, mostly because I screwed up the application process, so I am trying to figure out what I should order from someone else to tide me over. Help me out.

My three favorite handgun calibers are .38 Super, .45 ACP, and .357 Magnum. So that’s what I’m looking at right now. Going by the Speer book, it appears that I can get what I want from all three with a single powder identified as “Blue Dot.” Is there any reason I should avoid this stuff? I know nothing about it. I want a fairly hot .38 Super load, a typical .45 load, and a hot .357 load, at 125, 230, and 125 grains, respectively. Blue Dot appears to fill the bill. But some people on the web say Blue Dot is too slow for a .45. And dirty.

Also, do I have to find different tables if I use lead bullets? The stuff in the book is mostly jacketed. I would assume that for pistol velocities, the weight is important and the jacketing isn’t. I don’t think a lead bullet will screw up at 1300 fps.

It appears that Hornady wants me to use 9mm bullets that are .355″ in diameter, but the .38 Super is really .356″, and Laser Cast sells .356″ 124-grain 9mm lead bullets, which ought to be perfect. Is that correct, or will the gun blow up and kill me and everyone near me? My research suggests to me that you don’t want a bullet too much smaller than the barrel. If these will work, I can use the same bullets for the 9mm and the .38 Super.

They also have .358″ rounds for the .357.

The book doesn’t tell me what primers to use. What’s up with that? Am I supposed to guess? Oh, wait. I found it. CCI 500 for the smaller calibers; CCI 300 for the .45.

Here is what I want. For the .38 Super, I want 125 grains and 1200-1300 fps. For the .357, 125 grains and 1300-1400. For the .45, 230 and 850-1000. Those are figures typical of good defense loads, so they’re what I want to get used to. I want good accuracy, but I don’t want to water the loads down to the point where shooting isn’t realistic. Or maybe I could make a certain number of wimpy loads for accuracy and make the rest normal, to keep me used to the recoil.

It seems like it’s taking an eternity just to get to the point where I know what ingredients to use. I have to start gathering stuff and get to work, or I’ll never get anywhere. Reading will only get me so far.

More advice I need: I have been trying to get used to concealed carry, with the Glock 26. At first I kept a round in the chamber, but then I got nervous and removed it. Since then, I have been acutely aware that if I needed to use the gun in a hurry, especially with one hand, I would be screwed. I know cops carry Glocks ready to fire. If you’re attacked in your car, you may have to use your left hand to shut the window or shield yourself. You may be unable to use it to rack the slide. Then you die from being too cautious. What’s your opinion?

I’m inclined to go back to keeping a round chambered. You would really have to work at it to shoot yourself. When you carry, you are constantly aware of the danger, so you don’t make stupid mistakes. Unless you’re a vice cop giving a lecture in front of a classroom full of kids. But enough mean references to famous Youtube videos.

Actually, some people do make stupid mistakes. I remember going into a store to buy shoes and finding a gun pouch on a bench next to me, where some genius had left it. But I’m really good about treating the gun with respect. Mostly because I dread the embarrassment of shooting myself. Not the pain. Not the injury itself. The embarrassment.

I can’t believe people carry 1911s cocked with rounds in the chambers. Seems like the 1911 safety would be very easy to bump into the “fire” position. I guess you have to have a super-safe holster.

Give me your handloading info, so I can load at least one cartridge before I die.

I See, I Buy

I had another fine experience at Costco today. Rib eyes were selling for $5.59 again, so I had to buy. They’re aging in the beer cooler now. Picked up some pork tenderloin as well.

They have really good Mexican blackberries, and what person from Kentucky could pass a blackberry up? So I nabbed those. Plus really cheap grape tomatoes. I think supermarket grape tomatoes are a little better, but I only eat the damn things for my health, so I don’t care. I bought a jar of assorted nuts for my gall bladder, and those were very good, too. And I got navel oranges. I have to eat fruit once in a while, and navels are easy to deal with.

I saw one item which I did not fully appreciate until I got home. A gigantic Crescent tool set. It had all sorts of stuff in it. Like 118 pieces. I know Crescent is a brand not known to explode immediately when you try to use them, so I figured it had to be worth the $29 price. But I didn’t think I needed them. Then after I got home, I realized: for $29 plus $5 for a Home Depot toolbox, I could have had a pretty decent emergency kit for the car trunk.

They also had Stanley tripod flashlights on sale, so I had to have one.

I managed to resist the truly stupid items this time. That’s always a challenge. And they were out of kosher Coke.

I would love to make a blackberry cobbler. That would be fantastic. I haven’t had that in years. I can’t believe my grandmother has been gone for half a decade.

They also had Pinch for $24 a fifth, but I didn’t buy any.

I think I’m starting to get the hang of Costco.

We are Going to Have to Develop a Taste for It

It’s Winn-Dixie weekly ad day again. My joy is without limit. Let’s see.

Skirt steak, $4.99 a pound! Not bad!

Winn-Dixie sausage, two for $4.00! They make really nice breakfast sausage. No boar taint.

Boston Butt, $1.49. Ground chuck, $1.99. Wings, $1.79. I only wish they’d put rib roasts on sale again.

Al Gore has worked his magic for a second day in a row. It is a bone-chilling 60 degrees here, or at least it was when I checked. I am loving this global warming. I hope the cold weather, which indisputably proves that the planet is warming up, continues into May.

The other day I was web-surfing, and I saw some information about Edgar Cayce, the “sleeping prophet.” This guy used to lie down and say things he claimed were supernaturally inspired. My mother thought he was fascinating. On a web site touting his predictions, it said that in 1934, he foresaw that Hitler would rise to power! Wow! Incredible! Then I checked, and guess when Hitler became Chancellor of Germany? Uh…1933. So it looks like you can be a great psychic, just by predicting stuff that already happened. Al Gore is even worse. He predicts the opposite of what actually happens, and once it starts to become clear that he’s wrong, he continues to predict it.

Al, please…predict a sharp increase in oil prices. Predict defeat in Iraq. Predict that Keith Olbermann won’t retire.

I’m really hoping this weather will score me some more tomatoes. If I could get Brandywines, my life would be complete.

Speaking of crops, have you noticed the increasing furor over the ethanol scam? This is one of those great unifying scams, because the perpetrators are both conservative and liberal. Liberals started it, and conservatives realized the public was hopelessly brainwashed, so they went along with it. And now the liberal press is raising hell, because it’s starving people. Unfortunately, being liberal, confused journalists are now starting to tell us that the answer isn’t more energy. It’s not more refining capacity, responsible drilling efforts, and plentiful, clean, safe, cheap nuclear power. Oh, no. The answer is to give up meat, because livestock eat grain.

So instead of progress, in the form of more energy, lower energy prices, and increased industry and commmerce–the only things that can save us–the left wants us to eat an unhealthy diet which conforms to their bizarre and unpopular prejudices. In other words, leftism caused the energy problem, by denying us oil and nuclear power and coal and God knows what else, and they caused starvation by pushing ethanol, and now instead of taking responsibility and admitting their ideas are backward and wrong, they are using the situation to promote another backward and wrong leftist idea. So far, we are being starved by environmentalism, and we are expected to suffer more, in the name of animal rights. I’m wondering…when do we reach the point where this can somehow be used to promote Wicca and gay marriage? The hook has to be in there somewhere.

Toplessness. Maybe our problems can be solved by public toplessness. By women ill-suited to the practice. Liberals resorted to this to end the war in Iraq, so I guess it will also end the grain crisis.

The world is down to a three-month supply of grain right now. I sure hope our harvests are good until we reach the inevitable conclusion that ethanol is a sick joke.

I Just Love That Religion of Peace

God bless Florida Power and Light. They do a real service, making other utilities look so good. My power went out today–first time in maybe three weeks–and I got to spend a good long time living without technology.

Fortunately, due to the incredible progress of global warming, it’s fifteen degrees below the average temperature here, so I was able to use the power outage as an excuse to open doors and windows and let fresh air in. Generally when you open a door or window in Miami, the cockroaches and mosquitoes stampede through your house like Vikings in a Bank of America commercial. But I have poisoned everything near me, and the cool, dry air isn’t to the bugs’ liking, so I was safe.

I had a pile of administrative things to do today, like convincing the Florida DMV once again that I really do have insurance. They forget once a year, minimum. And I didn’t know until this weekend that I was going to file a tax extension, and the juice went out at about the time I planned to print the form out and mail it, so I ended up in a line of fools at the Post Office, trying to get my postmark. And I did other crap even more boring than all this.

I want to thank the Religion of Peace once again, for one of its many blessings. There used to be a mailbox on every corner. Ever wonder what happened to them? The government took the damn things away to minimize the likelihood that Muslims would put bombs in them. Do I know this for a fact? No, but I’m not stupid, either. The boxes started disappearing after 911, and it cost the government a lot of money to do it, so it’s pretty clear what the reason was. It’s like the thick cast iron public trash receptacles in Israel, or the crazy trash containers they have in airports now. Thank you Muslims, for these wonderful advances.

In other news, you will be glad to know that Marv is finally accepting his new ceramic perch, after a week of pretending to hate it. I figured he needed a new perch higher in his cage, because he kept sitting on a steel ring intended to hold a food dish. It looked uncomfortable, but he sat there all the time, and finally I realized it was higher than his regular perch.

I bought him a “calcium perch,” which is some sort of calcium-based material dyed red. And for a week, he sat directly UNDER it. On the uncomfortable steel ring. But last night I realized things were working out, because one side of his head was pink. He had clearly been mashing his head against the perch, which indicates acceptance. He was probably trying to make the perch pet him. He does that with my computer mouse.

I thought it might be a black eye. African greys are among the few birds that fall down, and Marv was beating the hell out of his toys yesterday, and every so often he manages to give himself a shiner doing this. But it turned out to be perch dye.

Have you ever seen a bird fall down? Marv does it all the time. He’ll be hanging by his feet from a bird toy, screaming and cursing, and you’ll turn your head away, and suddenly you’ll hear a noise like “BUNG!”

That’s Marv, hitting the heavy wire poop grate. It rings for quite some time after he smacks it. He gets up and walks around, muttering “Are you okay?” He learned that from me. When he flies into a wall or dives into the toilet, I pick him up and ask him if he’s okay. He seems to appreciate it.

“I love your head,” Marv says. He’s upset because Maynard is walking around on me while I type. Maynard was whining for attention, and I ignored him, and when I looked toward his cage, he was sitting on the perch, looking at me while petting himself on the head. Cheap trick. It got him some out time.

Mike is supposedly in town this week on business. I haven’t heard from him. I hope he drops by for pizza and a trip to the range. If not, I’m going anyway.

I better put Maynard away before Marv loses his voice.

Do Not Let Logic Become a Buzzkill

I wish I had the number for Al Gore’s compost-powered personal cell phone, because I want to call him and thank him for this delightful weather. It’s about 60 degrees outside, bright and sunny, at almost 11:00 a.m., in Miami, in mid-April. For this city, that is COLD. I’m sure this somehow proves global warming exists, because everything proves global warming exists. Global warming exists, therefore anything that happens is evidence that it exists. That is the position of leftists everywhere, and it seems totally logical to me.

Here’s something that may make you laugh. One of the things I pray for every day is a collapse of the global warming fraud. Partly because it’s destructive and expensive and dishonest, but also because I want God to remind us that He controls the weather.

It used to be that when natural events made human beings suffer, people examined themselves to see if they had sinned or in some way fallen short. Even heathens worried that they had upset their false gods. Academics claim early religions were motivated largely by a desire to assure good weather and good harvests.

Now we begin by blaming George Bush, regardless of the nature of the misfortune, and then we blame capitalism and the United States and, if at all possible, the Jews. The answer to our problems is to cripple industry and commerce, so we can be just as happy and healthy as people in primitive cultures, who die at 30, in the dirt, infested with parasites. The truth is, the ultimate source of health and prosperity and peace and so on is God. And you can only cheat Him for so long before he cuts off your allowance.

Wealth is a tremendous gift. But now leftists call it a curse, claiming it’s “killing the planet.” On the one hand, we’re supposed to believe living things have the capacity to evolve and adapt to anything. On the other, we are told that a two-degree change in the average temperature will turn the world into a lifeless rock. And we’re positive the change is caused by the things that make us prosperous. The things that bring us money to buy medicine and food and books. The things that enable us to give our surplus to the needy. The leftist position is, we should kill our prosperity just to be on the safe side.

Okay. Good plan.

Some leftists say we can save the planet if we kill the economy right now. But the leftists I truly love are the ones who say it’s already too late. The world is definitely going to die because of the stuff we’ve already done! The first type of leftist, I understand. They want to use ecology as a weapon to inflict socialism and totalitarianism and atheism on us. A weapon to make us dependent on the state. The second kind…they’re just FUN. They’ve completely lost sight of traditional leftist goals. They’ve forgotten that they’re supposed to be manipulating us to change. They just want us to feel bad and die. For some reason, that cracks me up. They’re like a yellow light at a traffic intersection. They don’t inspire you to stop what you’re doing. They inspire you to FLOOR IT BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE. Get out there and burn some gasoline while you still can! Eat, drink, and drive a big tasteless Humvee, because tomorrow we will fry like earthworms on a hot sidewalk. Like computer-generated polar bears in a lying documentary.

I still can’t believe Al Gore says polar bears, which are semi-aquatic, are drowning. What next? Maybe we should go put little life jackets on otters! Parachutes for pigeons! I am too busy. I volunteer Heidi Cullen for these jobs. The otters will probably resist, because they’re bitter and religious, but that problem can be solved with a tranquilizer gun. When the pain of the bites and scratches gets to be too much, they can shoot Heidi Cullen. That will make her feel better.

April has been really nice so far. Sometimes April is hot and miserable here, but this year, I’ve been able to sit outside and relax without sticking to the patio furniture. Thanks, Al. Keep the good weather coming, my man. You probably won’t feel the weather, because you’re always inside a climate-controlled mega-mansion or an SUV the size of an aircraft carrier, but the rest of us–the bitter, religious, gun-loving haters of immigrants–enjoy it a lot.

The unseasonable cold is doing good things for my plants. Supposedly, it helps tomato blossoms set, and I suddenly have a bunch of them on my previously pathetic Brandywine vine, so I have newfound hope that I may one day grow a full-size red tomato. The biggish yellow tomato on my Kentucky beefsteak vine will be ready to pick in a day or two. I’m hoping the city-fied squirrels here are too stupid to know what a tomato is. Otherwise, it may be time to risk arrest by shooting them from inside the house. There’s a cool type of ammunition made for this purpose. It’s called a colibri round. It’s a .22 cartridge with no powder. The primer drives the slug at air rifle speeds. Very quiet. I guess if I were to go on a squirrel murder spree, I’d use a regular air gun, in order to avoid becoming famous as the nut who fired a gun in Coral Gables. Still, they’re neat. I almost wish I still had rats.

Funny thing about tomatoes…the vines seem to grow from the ground out. If you drive a nail into a tree when it’s a year old, the nail will be the same distance from the ground in a hundred years. Trees grow from their tops; the wood doesn’t rise as the tree grows. But it seems like my tomatoes keep getting higher and higher, as if the vines are growing from the bottoms, not the tops. Is that possible?

I have a new batch of Tobago seasoning peppers, which are supposed to be mild but otherwise similar to habaneros. I grabbed a few and put them on takeout Mexican the other day. First, I tried a piece of one to see how hot it was. It seemed very hot for a mild pepper. Then I realized it wasn’t hot at all, because I wasn’t crying or drinking from a quart glass of ice water. My truly hot peppers are insufferable. Still, even though the Tobago peppers were good, I have to say I prefer my Home Depot cayennes, which have tons of cherry flavor and just enough heat.

My Trinidad Scorpion bush is a monster. Huge leaves the color of spinach. Lots of blossoms. And I think the bugs are afraid of it. I don’t know what I’m going to do with the peppers. They are supposed to be hot enough to etch glass.

The peppers I’m most excited about are the habanero golds I planted from a store-pepper seed. The bush is beautiful, and it’s loaded with huge peppers. They’re nearly as big as Clementines, and they’re still green! The pepper I used for seed was gigantic. Maybe three inches long. And the flavor was stupendous. If these are as good as that one, you might be smart to ask me for seeds.

I hammered the yard and, as collateral damage, myself with bifenthrin spray yesterday. “Orange dog” caterpillars are constantly attacking the citrus. And I will not have it. For some reason, the Persian lime is immune to everything. It’s a beast. The other stuff, I have to keep an eye on.

Seems like I have no problem growing sour things and things that burn, but it’s hard to grow sweet things. Perhaps this is a reflection of my personality. Maybe I should put Marv in charge of the tomatoes and fruit. He won’t even bite the veterinarian.

Hmm…I spend a lot of time sitting. Maybe that means I could grow potatoes. That will be a useful skill in the full bloom of the Ethanol Famine.

We Can’t All Worship St. Obama

Been busy with boring tasks today.

Yesterday’s sabbath observation went well. I feel strange calling Sunday the sabbath, but I don’t know what else to call it. I read a lot and relaxed and spent a fair amount of time in prayer, and oddly when I woke up today, I was still not perfect.

Maybe it will take two consecutive Sundays.

I am still confused about prayer in tongues. I reviewed some NT teaching on it, and the scriptural support is there. I guess what I question is whether I have ever done it, because when I do, it always sounds unconvincing. It’s a tough issue for a sincere person. You want to do it, so you try, but how do you know you’re not making it up? What if you’re so good at making it up, you think you have it when you don’t, and you quit trying to get the real thing, and it passes you by? And then you feel truly stupid in the afterlife, because everyone else got it and you didn’t.

People being what they are, I can say with certainty that not all people who do it are really doing it.

I read more of the book of Enoch, and I tried to find information on why it was rejected by the Jews and by most Christians. The bit about angels reproducing is problematic for Jews, but it has also been suggested that they bailed on Enoch after Christianity appeared, because so much of the book seems to be about Christ.

I cannot buy into some of it. I do not believe there is a place where lightning is kept, ready to throw, like cigars in a box. But it seems like the facially weird bits can be pared away from the plausible parts that ring true.

I found out about it while I was researching Mt. Hermon. On my own, years ago, I got the idea that the Jordan Valley seems to be set up in a way that symbolizes the progress of human lives. I don’t think God’s symbolism is confined to the Bible. The water originates above, falls on Hermon, goes into several springs including one by an ancient shrine to Pan (the model for modern depictions of Satan), moves on to the lake where the disciples symbolically harvested fish, and then passes through the desert to the Dead Sea, which contains Sodom and Gomorrah. Not the new town, Sdom, which is on the banks. The actual cities. And we all know what they represent. From there, the only escape is evaporation.

If this idea pans out, it came from God. If not, it was all me.

The Enoch story lends a little credence to it. It says evil angels alit on Hermon and went from there to procreate with women, creating a race of superhuman beings which did all sorts of horrible things, leading God to flood the earth. The parable of the wheat and the tares seems to comport with this idea.

I don’t have it all worked out, but anyway, I haven’t yet accepted the notion that Enoch is garbage. Jesus’s brother quoted it, so surely it’s worth something.

I may sound silly talking about angels, but I know they exist, so I don’t care. Some day we’ll be dead, and you’ll have to admit I was right. If you’re a Christian and you don’t believe in angels, you must be watching too much Oprah. You have to believe Jehovah and Jesus are two real beings, and that they are observing us at this very moment, and that Satan is real, and that there are legions of angels and demons. If those things sound ridiculous to you, what exactly is it that makes you think you’re a Christian?

The shrine to Pan is located at a thing called the Banias. It would be called the Panias, or something similar, but Arabs don’t have the letter P. Pagans used to worship false gods there and throw sacrifices into the spring. You would think that would defile the Jordan all the way to the Dead Sea, but I haven’t read anything suggesting that the Jews cared about this.

I went to the Banias once while I was a kibbutz volunteer, on a weekend tour sponsored by the kibbutz. I didn’t realize at the time that it was adjacent to the location of Caesarea Philippi, an evil city and the site of Jesus’s declaration that he was the Messiah. Remember “Get thee behind me, Satan”? He said that near the Banias. Which may have some prophetic significance. He said it to Peter. But are we sure he was only addressing Peter, given the peculiar location?

The Banias is truly creepy. There’s a giant hole in a red rock face, which the kibbutz volunteer supervisor told us was believed to be the birthplace of Pan. And there’s a stagnant pool there, which used to be a bubbling spring. That’s where they threw the sacrifices. Not sure if they were all animals.

I’m dying to go back to Israel. I should just get up and go. Spend a week. I wonder if I can still go to all the places I went last time. Jericho is out, I suppose.

A recommendation: for some reason I no longer recall, I had a copy of The Spirit-Filled Bible, and it seems very good. Maybe the reason I used to read the Bible too little is that the versions I had lacked useful annotations and so on. This book is packed with them. Background on each author, historical information, insight on the actual words used, and it was written by people who believe in the baptism of the Holy Spirit.

Sunday was very nice. There is more to it than I’m telling, but it was a very good day. Peculiar thing; my tomatoes and peppers seem to be doing much better, suddenly. I don’t claim a causal connecition, but it’s true.

I Rest

This week I was very affected by some DVD lectures on the Jewish sabbath. Before watching them, and even with my considerable acquaintance with Jews and Judaism, I didn’t grasp the importance of the Sabbath. That the Jews believe it somehow preserves them. You might think of it as tillage and fertilizer and pesticide for the soul.

A long time ago, I was taught that Christians are not subject to the Jewish law, including the Sabbath commandment. I believe that’s true. I eat all the pork I want, and I don’t keep the Jewish holidays, and so on. The New Testament makes it very clear that I’m not a Jew, and that I don’t have to do all the things Jews do. Nonetheless, I think that one of the weaknesses of the more faith-filled and vibrant churches–the ones with which I have the most in common–is a tendency to mindlessly discard rules and ritual, simply because it’s permitted. The fact that you are not commanded to do something doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it. There is no commandment to brush your teeth. I still do it every few weeks.

Joke.

Anyway, I’m making an effort to clean up my Sundays. No work. Just rest and study and prayer and so on. I still have a Nowlive show scheduled for Sundays, but even though I like the free exposure, when you boil it down, it’s just a hobby. Not worth messing up the day. I’m going to ask about moving it, and if I can’t move it and stay on list of shows that are fed listeners, I’ll move anyway and talk to three people. Or quit altogether.

I don’t plan to be a fanatic who won’t take out the trash or run an errand or two. I’m no Walter Sobchak. But I think I can cut back a lot without noticeable strain.

Today I’m reading up on a few things that interest me. For one thing, I’m trying to get a handle on the Book of Enoch. It’s an apocryphal book, bits of which were found among the Dead Sea Scrolls. The Jews don’t consider it part of the Bible. One of their problems with it is that it contains references to angels reproducing with human women. They believe angels can’t reproduce. I think most Christians believe that, too, but I’m not totally sure. The Bible says angels can appear as human beings, and if that’s true…

I read the Book of Enoch the other day, online, and while some parts were impossible to swallow, other parts were remarkably consistent with New Testament thought. Some people believe the New Testament book Jude quotes the Book of Enoch, which lends it legitimacy. You never know. It may be that something real has been contaminated by attachment to a work of forgery, and that they are worth separating.

In case you don’t know who Enoch was, he was a figure in Genesis. So righteous that God removed him from the earth at the tender age of 365. Aaron says the Jews believe Enoch never sinned, and that God took him because there was a possibility of sin in his future.

Enoch tells a story of rebellious angels who came down from Mt. Hermon and mated with women and taught men things like metallurgy and witchcraft. I came across it while reading about Mt. Hermon, a place which I find interesting for reasons I may go into some day.

I’ll be reading about other stuff, too.

I don’t plan to do any blogging until right before the Nowlive show. I am hoping that in the future, I’ll have enough character to keep Sunday blogging to a bare minimum. So whether or not you believe in what I’m doing, at least I have spared you that.

If you are a Christian or Jew and feel like leaving a comment regarding your beliefs on observation of the Sabbath, please do.

Say another prayer for Leah Friedman. She is out of the ICU and managed to say the word “home.”

Love Thy Neighbor as Thy Doormat

Miami is unbelievable. Sometimes the rudeness is like something you would expect to experience in a federal prison.

I just went to Best Buy. They had a waiting area cordoned off. It was very obvious. You stand in the area, and the cashiers call you as they become available.

I arrived right after a lady with a big cart. She had her kids with her. Immediately, a man pushed his cart into the area in front of her, studiously avoided looking at both of us, and waited for a register. I was trying to be a Christian and not get into fights over trivia, and I guess she was, too, because we both let it go. Then someone with him–his son, I suppose–joined him with another cart. Still doing his best to pretend we didn’t exist, looking in one direction while he acted in another, as if looking in our direction would turn him to stone, he moved things from the other person’s cart to his and pushed the other cart directly in front of this lady, so she couldn’t get out of the waiting area unless she moved it.

“Nice manners,” I could not resist saying, very clearly and loudly. And she agreed wholeheartedly as she pushed the cart out of the way. Then another man and boy appeared, and they were headed for the register, when she flagged them and pointed out the big, conspicuous waiting area. They came and stood behind us, babbling with irritation, pretending to believe the waiting area was somehow irrelevant and that the proper thing to do was to barge ahead of other people. I could tell she was exasperated. Trying to get out of the store with her kids and her stuff, without killing anyone. “Miami manners,” I said. “Only in Miami,” she agreed.

She got a register, and the man behind me came and stood beside me, staring at the registers. I wondered if I was going to have to have a discussion with him. Imagine, acting like that in front of your kids. Teaching them to be trash. That other people are props in the grand dramas of their lives, to be used as needed. But he thought better of it and backed up.

I lived in New York, and while the people were nothing to brag on, you could generally count on them to wait in line at stores. In Texas, in a line dispute, the problem would be trying to convince the other person he was ahead of you.

I miss Texas so much. The people were wonderful. But I could say the same thing about other places I’ve lived. If you’ve lived in Miami and you’ve lived anywhere else in America, you know what I mean. Two kinds of people defend Miami manners. People who have never lived here, and people who have never lived in any other part of America.

Aren’t we human beings? Aren’t we better than rats and bugs, who think only of themselves? You have two choices in Miami. Live in constant conflict, or be treated like garbage.

I really want to move upstate. I’m going to visit another county and see what’s available. And when I’ve made the move, I want to have a shirt printed, reading, “Pardon my manners. I’m from Miami.” I guarantee you, it will be a hit everywhere I go. This town’s reputation has permeated the whole state.

His Rich Pastor Taught him Well

I see people are making hay regarding Barack Obama’s comments on small-town blue-collar people. I almost said “working people,” but that would tend to perpetuate the bigoted leftist canard that white-collar work isn’t work. It’s peculiar, how that myth is disseminated successfully by soft-handed liberals–politicians and journalists and academics–who sit behind desks and wouldn’t know which end of a shovel to hold.

People seem to hope Obama’s comments will kill his campaign. They say it proves he’s an elitist who looks down his nose at “flyover country.” I don’t see it happening.

Everyone already knows that liberals are elitists, largely concentrated in the northeast and on the west coast, who look down on flyover people. They are ignorant and provincial, and they believe their idiosyncratic ways should be imposed on the rest of us by the government. The knowledge that the rest of us can live in ways of which they have not approved eats at them like acid. No Democrat who is even dimly aware of what happens in this country will be surprised by what Obama said.

It kills these people to know that there are places where people drive pickups with gun racks in the windows. It infuriates them to know that far away, someone may be legally spanking a child. It enrages them to contemplate the fact that homeschooling is going on, pulling children out of their reach and destroying the left’s well-known plan to steal emerging generations and program them to do their bidding. It drives them crazy, not that other people are allowed to do things that affect them, but that other people are allowed to live their own lives, far away, as they see fit. The way refusing to submit to Islam in Nebraska infuriates an Islamist in Saudi Arabia.

Barack Obama sees religion and firearms and bigotry as refuges to which the simple run irrationally when life frightens them. So what? That’s not news. Hillary Clinton feels the same way. So do most people in Manhattan. Not the ones who’ve been mugged or burglarized or raped. I mean the ones who are still asleep, with visions of taxpayer-financed sugarplums dancing in their heads.

I don’t think this will hurt him. Most of the votes in Pennsylvania are in the cities, and the people who live there probably think Obama is absolutely right. “We really ARE better. This guy sees it!”

Obama was appealing to bigotry, pure and simple. Just like Jeremiah Wright. I think he knew what he was doing. I think he was saying, “We have to neutralize those crazy white Christians out in the boondocks, before they come to Philadelphia and hold lynchings.” The message will sell, among the people to whom he directed it. Not just white liberals, but also blacks raised on a destructive diet of victimhood. The folks who think Church’s Fried Chicken is a Klan operation that puts drugs in the food to sterilize black men (funny how they don’t go after those ubiquitous Planned Parenthood abortion abattoirs). The wackjobs who think AIDS was developed intentionally by the government/Jews/Bill O’Reilly/the Easter Bunny (take your choice) to kill blacks. The people who seriously believe the ancient Egyptians were black geniuses who flew around in helicopters, or that white people are a race of devils created in a laboratory by a mad scientist named Mr. Yakub.

Alicia Keys is an example of one kind of person I’m talking about. She says the government created gangster rap to drive blacks to kill each other. How do you counter that kind of willful stupidity and close-mindedness? “I’m hitting myself in the face with a hammer. It’s obviously the result of a government conspiracy.” If you’re prejudiced enough to believe a thing like that, what hope is there that you will ever believe the truth about anything? It’s not enough to treat black people well. In order not to be accused of genocide, you have to proactively prevent them from killing each other on their own initiative.

Please don’t take my word for any of this; take five minutes and check the web. I could not make this crap up if I tried.

Geez, I’m sorry. I’m sorry about all the drive-bys I caused by voting for Republicans. I’m sorry about that poisoned fried chicken. I’m so sorry I made people run around and have unprotected, sinful sex and get AIDS. I apologize for belonging to a race of devils created by a vicious lunatic; I take full responsibility for his actions. I am really, really sorry for destroying all evidence of those Egyptian helicopters.

I created crack. I admit it. I made the first batch on my very own stove. I’m the guy. I feel so bad about it now. I couldn’t help it. I’m a devil, after all. This is what I do. Because like all white Republicans, I have nothing better to do than make life miserable for black people I don’t even know.

How does a people improve and overcome and live in victory, when it cannot identify its mistakes and accept responsibility for them? Maybe Alicia Keys can tell me.

On the other hand, being continually accused of wrongs you didn’t commit eventually destroys your desire to help the accusers. Something to think about when you fraudulently cry “victim” for the five-millionth time.

It’s so frustrating, seeing American blacks, as a bloc, make the worst possible decision, time after time. Almost all Americans want to help. But how do you help someone who is willing to take extraordinary measures–willing to swallow any story, no matter how ludicrous–in order to believe the worst about you?

Anyway, to get back to the point, Obama was appealing to bigotry, both white and black, and I’ll bet it ends up helping him. I can’t think of a single example, in the recent history of blacks in America, where this strategy has not succeeded wildly.

Improvement!

I had a very satisfying day at the range. I got my rimfire scope on the paper, corrected some rifle-shooting problems, and made real progress with the .38 Super. And now you have to suffer with all of it.

I stuck the scope on the Nylon 66 at 25 yards and managed to find the paper.

I was never able to completely sight the scope in. One of the pamphlets for my scopes says you can get shims. I had this problem with the K31, too. These .22 shots are aimed at the top of the bullseye, which is 5″ in diameter. You can see they’re all low. I think I used 25 yards for all of the .22 shots, but I’m not sure.

I guess people were right about the Nylon 66 being too wobbly for a scope. I’m not positive, for reasons I’ll explain later. But I should have shot better than this at 25 yards. As I recall, I shot this well at 50 with the open sights. The pattern was about twice this big.

I got out the K31 and went back to 50 yards. I made a change. The other day, someone sent me a link to something called the Appleseed Project, and it had information on rifle shooting. One thing it emphasized was finding a comfortable position. This is very hard to do at Trail Glades, because the cutout where you sit is about eight inches wide and maybe a foot and a half long. It’s nearly impossible to get behind the gun, so you end up pulling on it to hold yourself in position. I decided to improve things by moving the rest as far to the left as I could, and it helped a lot. The first five shots literally went through a hole the size of a nickel. The Caldwell rest kept moving around with the recoil, and it was hard to be consistent, but things went very well. I believe this is a dozen shots.

Next bunch, at 100 yards. If I figure out a position, I think I can do a lot better.

Final round at 100 yards. Two flyers, but it looks like I’m starting to get a clue.

The K31 was really starting to hurt my shoulder. Something about the new position. So I went to the pistol side and got out the .38 Super. Thank God, the blonde lady who shoots tiny patterns at 75 feet had left by then.

I decided to try to maximize my concentration by gathering brass after every 5 shots. It gave me a nice rest. First 25:

Those made me very happy. The reason is that, even though I lost concentration once or twice, the vast majority went into a very small hole. Nearly where I aimed them. I feel like I’m getting close to the point where I should start thinking about the quality of the ammunition and the state of the gun.

Second 25:

While I was shooting those, I realized that sometimes the trigger has a catch in the action. It stops and then continues back, driving the gun off the point of aim before it fires. That explains some of the vertical variation. So I’m going to get a trigger job. I think most of the horizontal movement is just laziness. But look how much better things are getting. I’m finally getting to where I can shoot about like I used to.

I think I’ll give the .22 one more chance, with the rest moved to the left, before I give up on scoping it. But my performance suggests to me that the scope is not working. Even if my position is bad, I should shoot better with a scope, off a rest, than I did with open sights and no rest.

I wore my “My President is Charlton Heston” shirt while I shot. I hope somewhere he’s smiling.

I am All About Green

Today Aaron forwarded an interesting mass email from Ruth Matar of Women in Green. This is a pro-Israel women’s organization. I know little about it, but I like what I see so far.

I was going to email Ms. Matar and ask for permission to reprint the email, but it turns out I won’t have to. Women in Green has a blog, and the current post is the contents of the email. You can find it here. If you would like to know when the blog is updated, send a blank email to list4-subscribe at the domain womeningreen.org. They also have a Paypal link. I like the way they’re taking “Green” back from the idolaters and communists and flakes.

Here’s a digression for you. The International Federation of Christians and Jews has a blog called Stand for Israel, and you can subscribe to updates by using the form on the blog’s front page.

Ms. Matar’s blog entry (I don’t know whether she’s Miss or Mrs. Matar) is titled “ISRAEL, AN EVANGELIST PASTOR, AND A REFORM RABBI.” In it you will get a taste of the frustration religious, clear-thinking Jews feel when they deal with the press and secular and reformed Jews. She points out that John Hagee, a bona fide Bible-thumping American Southerner, gets the picture better than Eric Yoffie, the appeasement-minded leader of Reform Jews in the US. Better than Yuli Tamir, Israel’s Education Minister, who is actively opposing religious education. How odd this must seem to a Jew. Millions of Christians–those pogrom-loving, unwashed, proselytizing ignoramuses who wear scary crosses around their necks–are supporting Eretz Israel, and many Jews are actively opposing it.

You shouldn’t get the impression that Christians are generally more positively disposed toward Israel. I’m sure that’s untrue. But there are about 14 million Jews, and there are over a billion Christians, and even if the supportive fraction of Christians is tiny as a percentage, they may still outnumber pro-Israel Jews by a wide margin. I’ll bet they do. There have to be ten or twenty million in the US alone. In all likelihood, if you could count Israel’s true friends, you would find that most of them are not Jewish.

The bad news is that not all Jews have come around yet. The good news is that the people who have come around are probably richer and more powerful than the Jews, and impossible for the terrorists to reach, and their numbers will probably increase.

Think how wonderful this will be, if it continues. Will it be an end to anti-Semitism? No, that will never happen. But an Israel with its power multiplied manyfold, by the assistance of foreign Gentiles…a Jewry with true non-Jewish friends in the modern era, in large numbers…that would be a major shift and a tremendous blessing. And a fulfillment of prophecy. And a satisfying blow to Israel’s enemies.

While I’m on the subject of Israel, let’s check in on Leah Friedman, the young Haifa blogger who suffered respiratory arrest last week. Her family has been requesting prayer, and they continue to do so. Today a look at her blog reveals good news. She isn’t walking yet, but she has finally spoken. And what did she ask for? A Coke. The national beverage of the United States. She’s also using her hands. Things are getting better; keep her in your prayers. God heals in response to prayer. I’m a witness to it. So pray for Leah today. With a glass of Passover Coke in your hand.

In less important news, I’m headed for the range. I’m going to try my new rimfire scope, with the Nylon 66 and my giant box of bulk .22 bullets! I can’t wait. I love shooting this gun. My dad bought it for me when I was 12, and while I truly enjoy my other guns, this one and the two my grandfather owned are special. If you have a kid, and you haven’t bought your kid a gun and taken him or her to the range or on a hunt, you are missing a great opportunity that will not come around again. When you’re gone, that gun will be a priceless reminder of special childhood moments.

I’m going to tighten the screws on the receiver and see if I can get decent accuracy. If not, my next move will be to get a Savage. People are recommending Marlins, and I’m sure they’re great, but Savage has a reputation for flawless barrels, and they’re really cheap, so that’s what I want. Does anyone know if it’s possible to put a scope on a Mark II-FVT? I love peep sights, but they’re pretty big.

I’ll also take the K31 today. I need to do some grinding on the PSL’s trigger assembly to make it work, and I don’t think I have time before the range opens. Otherwise, I’d take it, too. And I plan to inquire about the shotgun range.

It occurs to me that you can’t be confident in your ability to defend your home unless you know how to hit a moving target. And using a shotgun will give you that skill. Something to think about.

Blog Post From the Heaven-Rescued Land

A longtime reader and MSM mole has informed me that Kathy Shaidle is being sued for libel. I don’t know Kathy. She has linked to me a few times.

Kathy lives in Canada. As the mole points out, CANADIANS HAVE NO CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT TO FREE SPEECH. I capitalized that. If you take nothing else away from this post, remember the big letters. Especially if you live in Canada.

A Canadian activist named Richard Warman appears to have created a profitable business, suing Canadian bloggers for libel. When he’s not suing libraries for offering books he doesn’t like. And Kathy just made his list. This business has been going on for quite some time up there. I’m sure you know about the Mark Steyn and Ezra Levant stories. It is evidently extremely easy to prove libel up there. Things that wouldn’t begin to meet the American standard satisfy Canadian judges, and the verdicts are big.

Kathy has a link to a defense fund. You’ll see it if you click the link above. She has pledged to fight this character to the end.

How very precious the Bill of Rights is. Look how crazy other countries are. This story really drives it home. Here in the US, liberals have worked very hard to outlaw conservatism and free speech, creating tyrannical “speech codes” and filing frivolous indictments against prominent conservative politicians. Think what they could do if we didn’t have the first amendment, and our laws were as left-leaning as Canada’s. The game would be over. What a beautiful sanctuary is America.

A reminder to any American who supports Kathy and her colleagues from within the US: sooner or later, this guy’s verdicts may generate a big enough war chest to fund lawsuits within the United States, against Americans. And he will clearly be willing to use it. So think before you mention him on your blog. Don’t say anything you wouldn’t say about your next-door neighbor. The facts more than suffice to condemn him. And if you plan on visiting Canada, don’t announce it on your blog.

It’s odd how our enemies are developing more and more power to reach inside the USA and shut us up. First the standard Islamist death threats. Now litigation-happy foreigners might pose a risk. According to Kathy, even if Warman hasn’t sued any Americans yet, he has tried to prevent our websites from being seen in Canada.

Maybe it’s time for Canadians who aren’t completely insane to move to America. I can’t imagine a better addition to our workforce than Mark Steyn. In some small way, he might make up for Keanu Reeves.

And now that I think about it, Canada appears to be a great permanent destination for liberals.

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Canadian commenter Paul C. says the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms protects freedom of speech. I am getting incredibly forgetful, and I failed to check the emailed assertion that Canadians had no constitutional right to free speech; sorry about that.

But while what I said was somewhat misleading in letter, the spirit appears to have been right on.

Via blogger Larry Borsato, here’s a bit from the Boston Globe’s Alex Beam:

How do you like your free speech — well chilled? Canada has no First Amendment and adheres to primitive British-style libel laws.

Here is a hilarious definition of defamation la Canadienne, from the Media Libel website: ”A defamatory statement exists if the publication tends to lower the plaintiff’s reputation in the estimation of those who are commonly referred to as ‘right thinking’ members of society.” Allow me to reiterate my widely known position: Celine Dion is the greatest singer who ever lived.

Just this year, the Canadian Parliament passed what the religious right has branded a ”Chill Bill,” or ”The Bible as Hate Speech Bill,” effectively preventing churches from using the Bible to preach against homosexuality. ”With the passage of Bill C-250, Canada has now embarked upon a course of criminalization of dissent,” according to a statement released this spring by the Catholic Civil Rights League.

Good Lord. Is it okay to say “good Lord” in Canada? If anything, it appears that I was too kind to Canada’s laws. If Beam is right, it is completely fair to state that freedom of religion does not exist in Canada. The right to criticize sinful behavior isn’t just an expression issue. It impinges on your right to worship as you will, by making it impossible to instruct other believers by teaching doctrine.

This is the direction in which the left wants to take America. If it doesn’t scare you, there is something wrong with you. Or maybe you’re just a right-thinking person.

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David Bernstein, at the National Review’s site:

In another incident, after Toronto print-shop owner Scott Brockie refused on religious grounds to print letterhead for a gay-activist group, the local human-rights commission ordered him to pay the group $5,000, print the requested material, and apologize to the group’s leaders. Brockie, who always accepted print jobs from individual gay customers, and even did pro-bono work for a local AIDS group, is fighting the decision on religious-freedom grounds.

Any gains the gay-rights movement has received from the crackdown on speech in Canada have been pyrrhic because as part of the Canadian government’s suppression of obscene material, Canadian customs frequently target books with homosexual content. Police raids searching for obscene materials have disproportionately targeted gay organizations and bookstores.

Moreover, left-wing academics are beginning to learn firsthand what it’s like to have their own censorship vehicles used against them. For example, University of British Columbia Prof. Sunera Thobani, a native of Tanzania, faced a hate-crimes investigation after she launched into a vicious diatribe against American foreign policy. Thobani, a Marxist feminist and multiculturalism activist, had remarked that Americans are “bloodthirsty, vengeful and calling for blood.” The Canadian hate-crimes law was created to protect minority groups from hate speech. But in this case, it was invoked to protect Americans.

Support the Troops With Fattening Grub

A reader asked about a link I once posted, to an organization that allows Americans to buy pizza for IDF soldiers. Rather than put it in an email, I’ll post it here.

PizzaIDF.org

You can have a pizza delivered, and you can include a personal message. I don’t know much about the organization, but you might like it.

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Prefer to buy pizza for American soldiers in Iraq? Here’s a link to GIPizza.org.

Caveat: for some reason you have to buy GI Pizza by the slice, which makes it obscenely expensive.