there is life after the US Senate

Kimball via Instapundit:

"Nelson is a pathetic pawn in this game. He’s history and I hope he has plans for a new day job. He’ll need ‘em."

Actually, his prospects are rather bright for a lobbying job in DC, or a regulatory or Executive job in, er, . . . DC. He has shown his future clients that he knows how to hold out for a better deal. He also knows that the Tea Parties have a tough time converging on DC a) during a snowstorm and b) the last weekend before Christmas.

What Mr Kimball should be hoping for, in addition to an end to Nelson's career in the Senate, is that Nelson doesn't file amended tax returns for the last umpty-ump years.

Our only hope of limiting that man's future influence on or service in the Federal Government now lies in catching his fingers in the till, someway, somehow. He needs to be Daschled, good and hard and right the hell now.

Home parkerizing

Bettie Jean got the home parkerizing treatment. The parts kit from Sarco had some parts in need of a refinishing. Trigger guard and housing in particular. Before:



Brownell's Zinc Phosphate was the source, though I read of some hardcore DIY people who will cook their own from concrete etch solution and steel wool. I wanted zinc because of the gray appearance. Most of the rest of Bettie Jean's furniture is done in zinc already, and in good shape.

I cooked the parts in the parkerizing bath in a Pyrex casserole from the Goodwill store, heated on a Coleman camp stove. After 15 minutes of immersion, I rinsed the part off with hot water from a 30-cup coffeemaker (damned handy item) then shot it with WD40 while it was still hot. After that, I wiped off then blew off with compressed air all the WD40 I could, and bathed the part in vegetable oil.

After:





Next up, the gas cylinder and rearmost of the op rod.

Cops and non-lethal weapons

If you object to the use of non-lethal weapons by police (as I do) then pop over to this post at Volokh.

The post examines legislative presumptions about the right to use force, lethal or nonlethal, in self defense, it isn't really about stun-guns in use by cops per se; I do want to see EV take that topic on, though, and if enough knowledgable commenters show up he might take the hint.

Kimchi

A fresh batch of kim chi is slowly fermenting in the fridge, waiting for the garden boxes to be turned over for the winter. The glass jar will move out there when the zucchini is pulled out and the winds blow cold.

Meanwhile, a teaspoonful of the brine of this kimchi is a nice addition to a martini, in lieu of the olives and their brine. That is, if you are into that sort of thing.

One full head of napa cabbage starts it off. Sterilize the gallon glass jar you found at WalMart. Two tablespoons of kosher salt are scattered among the fresh, rinsed and chopped cabbage, with its heart pared out. A gallon ziploc bag of sterile water is laid on top of the cabbage after its outside has been sterilized, and sterile water added around that bag so all the cabbage is submerged.

Two days later, lift out the ziploc bag, and set it aside on a clean surface. Drain the cabbage through a strainer, saving much of the brine, letting the last cup or so of brine fall back into the jar.

Then add finely minced red Fresno peppers, garlic, ginger root, and (for me) shaved carrot. Bring the cabbage back in, and mix, then cover again with the bag. Add only enough brine back to cover all the vegetables again. Refrigerate again.

Let her rip.

inverted V dipole

I'm hacking one, from CPVC, aluminum electric fence line, and .080-inch string trimmer line. Strung from two trees on the ranchito, in a roughly North-South orientation.
The angle of the vee is about 135 degrees.

It's not as high as I'd like, only about 3 feet above the ridgeline of the house, but that makes it easier to reach until it's tuned and I've wound a balun for the feedline.

My MFJ207 says it shows 3-plus-to-1 VSWR at 14.285 MHz, and bottoms out at 1.1:1 or so at 15.75 MHz. The balun goes on next, and a longer permanent feedline, and some more hardware so the CPVC feedpoint comes off without untying trimmer line. Then get that pup about 10 feet higher up, which involves ladder work on the trees.

I'll tune this better to 20-meters by reducing the angle (the guy points for the poles stay where they are, while the feedpoint rises) then later by cutting length off the two poles.

Let's see how this stands up against Wyoming's wind. Twas a bit breezy today and feedpoint was relatively stable.

Gets me to wondering

Dave Hardy notes that this week will be interesting for Supreme Court handling of cases that bear on the RKBA.

Thursday, the Ninth Circuit rehears Nordyke en banc. The following Tuesday, the Supremes vote on whether they'll grant cert to the Chicago cases.

Is not the Nordyke rehearing public, therefore covered by the media? I wonder whether the Supremes will, discreetly, read transcripts of the Nordyke hearing, and would Nordyke, in turn, influence any Justices to hear or not hear the Chicago cases? Nordyke, after all, contains in dicta an argument that the Second is incorporated upon the States.

Have we been in similar circumstances before, where a Circuit is hearing (or rehearing) a case that bears very directly on another case for which the Supreme Court is weighing cert?

"Interesting times" indeed. Civil rights era? Abolition of slavery? Hell, even abortion?

Rather concise

David Bernstein, at the ever-relevant VC:

The Supreme Court, institutionally, does not like to be exposed on controversial issues without any support from the political branches. The most ideological Justices (e.g., Thomas) may not care, but the swing voters do.

That kinda cinches it.

Update: Ilya Somin weighs in.

The most ideologically committed justices (e.g. - Thomas) might be willing to take the risk. But the moderates won't.

Then what's the purpose again of lifetime appointment and all the other bennies that come with the Supreme Court appointment?

Dude, where's my independent judiciary?

Tongue in cheek

SteveF, tongue firmly in cheek at DailyPundit:

As any manager or politician can tell you, you’re not important unless you tell other people what to do. Scientists, engineers, mechanics, and other people who work with their hands are all interchangeable.

God, it feels that way.

As a mere sprout reading my Dad's Popular Mechanics, I recall the fullpage ad, black and white, grainy and gritty, of clenched hands dramatically lit on perfect black background: "the future belongs to those who are willing to get their hands dirty."

I described this ad, and its sentiment, to a salaryman manager type in my salaryman days. He smirked at me as if I had been wearing a clip-on tie. I never liked that guy anyway.

Instead of telling my sons that they should know how to change oil, sharpen a knife, keep a backhoe from falling into the hole dug with it, or turn an animal he shot into a stack of meat wrapped for the freezer, should I tell them they must master telling other men to do these things for them?

Had to cut somewhere

Unread newsmagazines have been piling up in Chez Fûz since before this weblog was even born. I used to board a plane for somewhere almost weekly, thus having an uninterrupted block of 3+ hours twice a week to plow through my favorites. Those days are over.

Also, with the intertubes commonly available in the lodgings of choice these days, there's more incentive to read what's interesting online.

The weblog didn't help either: I have a hell of a lot more to say, on the basis of what I read, and far more of a means to say it, compared to October of 2001.

The sainted Spousal Unit has noticed and reminds me frequently. She is limiting where she allows the unread magazines to pile up, and threatens to pitch them. Sorry, that's not acceptable. I keep all of them, they are boxed in my basement.

But I had to cut somewhere. Reason, American Rifleman, American Spectator, Liberty, and Wired (links on the right). The scrip to Liberty lapsed about two years ago, and I miss it.

Reason gets the cover-to-cover treatment and always satisfies. American Rifleman gets a quick browse (who else is making a 1911 clone, or an AR clone, this month?) then into the packing box.

In AmSpec, I'll skip an article if not captivated two or three paragraphs in, and I haven't read Ben Stein bitching about his spoiled son for at least three years. Still I won't give it up.

Wired began arriving at my home very shortly after Condé Nast picked it up. They excited, they stimulated. They had the quirky sense of humor, they had weird typography and novel graphics. But they seem to have gotten completely into the tank for The Won, settling into the warm KoolAid quickly but painstakingly without splashing (ooooo, what will he do without a Blackberry?). It should have been obvious from how they front-cover adored Ahhnold the Governator. Praising some Microsoft executive as a visionary for suggesting that Office will become a subscription-basis application suite? I'll be visionary for letting my subscription to Wired lapse.

Besides, Wired is the absolute worst for packaging and advertising. My first duty upon handling a magazine is removing the blow-ins, glue-ins, and bind-ins, and Wired took the longest.

It's not the money, y'all. I'll probably replace Wired with a renewed scrip to Liberty, if they're still in business (and order the back issues I've missed), and the monthly journal for the American Radio Relay League. It will cost me every bit as much casheesh as Wired won't be getting from me any more.

What Wired content I need I will follow as a link posted by somebody else. I read more Wired that way than on paper today anyway.

It was a hard choice. Too bad.