The Great Feast of Easter

Happy Easter to you all. 

Mostly the great feast part is spiritual, but some take a lot of pleasure in physical feasting as well. We will be having ham and homemade bread, as well as hard cheese and baked eggs. [UPDATE: I added those Oregon Trail beans, which are as advertised very good.] It's not in my house that much of a physical feast, not like Christmas (or even Thanksgiving, which is only a physical feast). It's relatively simple but traditional food. 

By the way, if any of you have heard of the alleged Anglo-Saxon traditions of Ostara, mentioned once by the Venerable Bede as an early pagan goddess, here is a young lady who wants to disabuse everyone of that story. If you like myth debunking -- which I don't, always -- that's really her thing and you might enjoy her other videos.

James meditates on Judas, the man who made the day possible. 

Saddle Tramp

We had a good ride this evening after work. It’s probably going to rain much of the weekend, but I’m grateful for the good moments we do get. 

Just in the little town of Webster, we came across a lady who was riding her horse in the road. Horses can get spooked by motorcycles, but fortunately she and we both knew what to do. We slowed way down, and she got the horse off the road and turned him to face us. That meant he could see us, but also — important piece of horse riding knowledge — that if he wanted to bolt he’d have to charge right at the thing scaring him. He danced and champed his bit, but he stayed put. The lady waved, appreciating our care for her situation. 

Well, I rode horses before I ever rode motorcycles. 

Free-ish State

The FPC has put out a new scorecard for the various states on firearm rights. New Hampshire friends, congratulations on your top score! You beat North Carolina and Texas both, each of which only qualify as "free-ish state"s. 

In spite of my continued irritation with the various governments involved, we have seen a lot of progress on 2nd Amendment rights over the last decades. Partly this is due to the two big SCOTUS decisions, but also it is due to the hard work of state-level groups to press their individual governments in the right direction. It is exactly that work that is now under attack in places like Virginia (currently rated as a "state of confusion").

I remember when the only Constitutional Carry states were Alaska and Vermont; now there are 29 of them. The conversation has moved from seeking "shall-issue" versus "may-issue" permits to the press to disregard permits entirely for the practice of at least some versions of the Constitutional right. That is now the law in the majority of states, and the vast majority of the land area of the United States; and it has generally accompanied a downward trend in violent crime, although there was a spike around the COVID era. 

There remains more to do, but all is not dark. 

Moon labe

"You should be glad we let you look at it."

About time, part deux

Colorado court rules Tina Peters's 9-year sentence was excessive because it was enhanced as a penalty for free speech abhored by the trial court.

About time

Military bases are no longer gun-free zones.

Wanted Posters

In keeping with the Old West theme, the local university had a whole series of these. They were posted alongside Woody Guthrie posters and similar socialist propaganda, so I imagine it's the local student socialist union or whatever. I captured three of them, but there were several more for various Trump administration officials.

I guess they've collected on a couple of these lately. Not sure who gets the meat. At least it's real meat, or at least real pretend meat, and not Impossible Burgers.

Poker Card Shootout III

It’s coming back with a little practice. 

Mystery unveiled

Sewing machines have always baffled and repelled me; I never could get the hang of threading them. I like to crochet, however, and also have wondered how the two interlocking stitching methods compared, which led me to this instructional video.



Lots of people developed and perfected the machines, but it was Singer who figured out how to produce them at a price that ordinary homeowners might afford.

I note that tailors rioted and destroyed some of the first machines.

The Troubador Dale Watson

Dale Watson's got new music.

He's one of those who's holding the line.

Supper on the Oregon Trail

A fascinating article, with recipes. 

The journey was brutal in ways that the romanticized version of westward expansion tends to skip over. Illness and accidents were more serious threats than any attack, about 20,000 people died on the California Trail alone between 1841 and 1859, an average of ten graves for every mile....

For each grown person to make the journey from the Missouri River to California or Oregon (provisioned for 110 days) the following was deemed requisite: 150 lbs of flour or its equivalent in hard bread, 25 lbs of bacon or pork plus enough fresh beef driven on the hoof, 15 lbs of coffee, and 25 lbs of sugar, along with saleratus or yeast powders for making bread, salt and pepper. That is the entire daily provision list for a working adult walking fifteen miles a day in all weather for nearly four months....

The coffee, made by roasting green beans in the dry skillet, grinding them, and boiling them directly in water, was excellent. The coffee was always the highlight....

This is where the day completely turned around. The beans had been soaking overnight and simmering all day in their pot, and by evening they were soft, creamy, and had absorbed everything the salt pork had to give over eight hours of low cooking. Then the cast iron skillet came back out: more bacon, fried until the fat had rendered and the edges were starting to crisp, and then the beans went in with a generous splash of molasses and a hit of salt. The molasses caramelizes slightly against the hot metal and coats the beans in something that is sweet and smoky and deeply savoury all at the same time. Biscuits baked alongside in the same pan, golden on the bottom from the bacon fat still in the skillet, used to scoop and soak up the bean broth.

Palm Sunday

I always think of this Bible story on Palm Sunday. 

This reminds me of a story I can't remember if I related before. I was talking to a Jewish friend who lives in Texas. He was telling me about a stockman he knows whose business is buying large lots of cattle and selling them once they're 'finished.' 

My friend relayed the surprising claim, from this Texas stockman, that in his opinion the best cowboys in history were the Jews. This was as surprising to my friend as it might be to you. 

It turns out that during his short period of ownership the stockman has people pick out the ones who are fit for the kosher factory. This is because kosher beef fetches much better prices, partly because the process is so selective: all kosher beef has to come from cattle that are unblemished outside and, after slaughter and examination, found also to be unblemished inside. 

The stockman, who is a Bible-reading Christian, took note of the fantastic numbers of animals that are supposed to have been sacrificed during the Temple of Solomon era. Each of the cattle sacrificed in this way had to be unblemished, inside and out. To make that happen on that scale would have required marvelous cowboys. 

So too sitting a colt for his first ride, now that I think about it. Of course that was long after the era of sacrificing from the great herds.

Taxation is Theft

A punk cover of a Steven Foster song. 

Dorcha (The Dark Island)

Speaking of modern English dialects of Old Provence, we've been enjoying the BBC detective series "Shetland," but having the devil of a time understanding the dialogue.

Scottish dialects don't normally trip me up too badly. I've been listening this afternoon, for instance, to an 1969 BBC radio production called "The Dark Island," a fine old cold-war mystery set in the Hebrides. Half the dialogue is in RP, which is no problem, and half in Hebridean, also pretty easy to follow, either because I'm more used to it or because the late-60s BBC tended to regularize accents somewhat for a broad audience.

In contrast, try this Shetland accent, especially the second guy working on his Jaguar:



I found the BBC radio show because I was reading a WSJ article this morning about a guy who uses AI to generate completely forgettable pop tunes that sometimes are hits for some reason, which made me nostalgic for a time when people composed melodies. I thought of the tune "The Dark Island" that I sometimes run across on folk albums. The tune is so pretty and fitting that I assumed it was a traditional Scottish or Irish melody, but it turns out it was composed specially for the BBC radio show. So here's the radio show, and after it a nice tin-whistle version of the tune with the Irish Rovers. I do love me a tin whistle.

"The Dark Island" show also made me nostalgic for stories with competent plot exposition, deftly handled suspense, and characters who effortlessly identify like-mind sorts who can be trusted in a situation that calls for courage, patriotism, and loyalty.



The tune:

The No Rally

Maybe two hundred people came out for the rally today, although a lot of the crowd were cops in uniform. Signs were surprisingly negative. 

No: 

* Kings

* Capitalism 

* Crooks

* ICE

* War(s)

* New Wars

* Attacking ‘Civil Servants’

This movement is, in other words, purely conservative. It stands astride history, yelling “Stop!”

My hero Talarico

If anyone can inspire Texas to boot John Cornyn and embrace Ken Paxton, it's got to be the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senator, James Talarico. He didn't do himself any favors with his interesting take on the real evangelical Christianity, but he's surely torn it for Texans with a call to ditch meat to save the climate.

A magnificent linguistic mess

On Saturday's I enjoy PowerLine's "The Week in Pictures." This morning the meme roundup highlighted an essay by Bernard Cerquiglini claiming that English doesn't really exist, it's just badly pronounced French. This quip is recycled Clemenceau, who is also said to have quipped (or quoted Dumas's d'Artagnan as quipping) that England is only a French colony that turned out badly. By the same token, the U.S. could be called an English colony that turned out badly, which I guess makes us a disappointing venture twice removed.

The Cerquiglini argument is mostly a tongue-in-cheek rehash of John McWhorter's excellent book, "Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue," which sorts through English's complicated roots in Germanic, Scandanavian, French, and Welsh roots. Cirquiglini adds some interesting information about old Provençal vowel shifts and spelling that still show traces in English.

Requiem for Steel

I broke a couple of my grandfather’s tools this week. 

I was trying to free a lug nut that was put on entirely too forcefully by someone or other. Now these were old steel, and at least one of them was showing bending when I inherited it. Still and all, I guess I thought they were strong like he was. 

Nothing lasts forever, not even him. I raised a glass in his memory. I always like using his old tools. It makes me think of him. Today I got his air wrench out to finish the job. 

He’d probably be proud of me more than mad, breaking steel in my hands. My uncle could do that when he was young, and that with new-forged steel rather than older and long-fatigued stuff. 

Force multipliers

I found this RedState article about Apache Helicopter launching ALTIUS-700 "medium-range launched effect (MR-LE)" interesting. The author mentioned that he was "not clear on what the difference is between a drone and a 'medium-range launched effect,'" so as usual I asked Grok:

All launched effects are a type of drone (or UAV), but not all drones are launched effects. The term "medium-range launched effect" specifically refers to a tactical, host-platform-deployed, often expendable unmanned system optimized for extending a crewed platform's reach in contested environments—frequently acting as a loitering munition when armed. It blurs the line between a reusable reconnaissance drone and a guided missile by adding loiter, decision-making, and standoff capability.

I like to run these stories by you guys, because I'm interested in the developments but have too little background knowledge to put them in context.

A Revolution that Never Comes

In Europe, the Right wins but is never allowed to take power. There's a certain degree of similarity here, where the Republican establishment exists mostly to defang the American Right by giving them someone to vote for, but arranging to lose key votes (see Obamacare, John McCain; or the SAVE Act, John Thune). The powerbrokers claim to be on the side of the people, but they're really on the side of the powerful: that's how they got where they are, and how they stay where they are. 

In Europe, it's worse. At least we get some decent political appointees, until the next election at least. 

Last Sunday was supposed to settle the question of whether Europe’s populist right can govern, and instead it sharpened a different one: Whether the establishment can keep winning without solving anything. In France, Marine Le Pen’s National Rally dominated the first round of municipal elections — finishing first in at least 75 communes, roughly seven times its 2020 number — only to be beaten back in the second-round runoffs by the familiar mechanism of the front républicain, losing Marseille by fifteen points, squandering a thirteen-point lead in Toulon, and watching Paris stay comfortably in Socialist hands for a twenty-sixth consecutive year. The French firewall held, for now.

In Germany, no such firewall exists in the architecture of the ballot, only in the minds of party leaders. In Rhineland-Palatinate, the AfD more than doubled its vote share to 19.5 per cent — the party’s best result ever in a western German state — and among voters aged 18 to 24 it was the most popular party outright. Among manual workers, it reached 30 per cent; in some Westerwald constituencies it approached half of all votes cast. The SPD, which had governed the state for thirty-five unbroken years, lost nearly ten points and was displaced by the CDU. And yet, just as in France, the result will change nothing in the short term: All parties maintain the cordon sanitaire, a grand coalition will be formed, and the voters who chose the AfD will once again be governed by a coalition that exists primarily to exclude them. 

Likewise in the UK.

The same fault line runs through Britain, where the post-Brexit immigration surge – non-EU net migration reaching record highs under the very government that promised to “take back control” – has made a mockery of democratic consent. It runs through Germany, through the Netherlands, through Austria.

At some point this delegitimizes the democratic process entirely; it can't be legitimate if it's just another method of control, instead of a method of self-governance.