Buenos noches Glibs! Tonight, I am the only one left sober. Which I guess is okay because at least in Latin America there is something else to talk about besides allegations of grab ass at a party in the 80s.
Speaking of grab ass–Somebody at CNN pointed out there are technically two Popes, and I assume both would rather tell me I’m going to the hell of my own creation over my antipathy over climate change.
Los partidarios de ambos papas analizan su silencio en términos espirituales, formas de disciplina y fe en que la verdad se revelará, eventualmente. Otros dicen que Benedicto y Francisco son reacios a caer en una pelea de lodo con un exempleado. Algunos se preguntan si también pueden estar en juego estrategias más mundanas, como la autopreservación.
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The supporters of both popes analyze their silence in spiritual terms, forms of discipline and faith in which the truth will be revealed, eventually. Others say that Benedict and Francisco are reluctant to fall into a mud fight with a former employee. Some wonder if more mundane strategies, such as self-preservation, may also be at play.
You think?
Food prices are going up in Argentina, by 33% compared to last year. There is one reason in particular that come to mind, however it doesn’t appear to be mentioned in the article. *cough* socialismo *cough*
At least they do compare to a few neighboring countries, a few of which might have a few differences that jump right out.
En su último informe, de junio de 2017 con datos de abril a mayo, Argentina era el país de América del Sur con mayor tasa de inflación alimentaria: un 1,2%. En el lado opuesto se situó Perú, que presentó un decrecimiento de precios de un 2,1%, de acuerdo con este reporte de la FAO. En Colombia el costo de la canasta básica alimentaria mostró un pequeño aumento de 0,1%.
Por su parte, los datos del Departamento Administrativo Nacional de Estadística (DANE) de Colombia muestran que, entre agosto de 2017 y 2018, el aumento del Índice de Precios de Consumo (IPC) fue del 3,1%, una subida inferior a la experimentada en el mismo periodo del año anterior.
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In its last report, from June 2017 with data from April to May, Argentina was the country in South America with the highest rate of food inflation: 1.2%. On the opposite side was Peru, which presented a price decrease of 2.1%, according to this FAO report. In Colombia, the cost of the basic food basket showed a small increase of 0.1%.
On the other hand, data from the National Administrative Department of Statistics (DANE) of Colombia show that, between August 2017 and 2018, the increase in the Consumer Price Index (CPI) was 3.1%, an increase lower than the experienced in the same period of the previous year.
López Obrador se queda cinco horas atrapado en un vuelo comercial
Tras el incidente, el presidente electo reafirmó su postura de que nunca viajar en el lujoso avión presidencial, “me daría pena”, aseguró
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López Obrador stays trapped for five hours on a commercial flight
After the incident, the president-elect reaffirmed his position that never travel in the luxurious presidential plane, “I would be sorry,” he said.
Finally! Did your team win? I didn’t bet on mine today and lets just say SAM.BRADFORD.HAPPENS.
Translation services provided by the Alpha Beta Corporation, who totally aren’t in the business of filtering the totality of human knowledge in a manner to suit their political biases. No sir.
It’s not Christmas, but still. In one of the other cooking post comments, several of the Glibertariat complained that their stir-fries were just not… right. And most of the stir-fries I’ve gotten outside of heavily Chinese areas have been somewhere on the line segment between mediocre and really shitty. And that includes 95% of Chinese restaurants run and staffed by Chinese, but located in white, Hispanic, or black neighborhoods- they’re giving the people what they want (in the case of Jews, pork and shellfish- that was the code word for forbidden meats, “Chinese food”).
So sit back and I will attempt to make a Guide for the Perplexed. I clearly am not Chinese, or of Chinese origins, but I have decent cooking chops, traveled a lot over there, lived in Asian immigrant communities, and am not bashful about asking questions to chefs when I taste something really good, and that has reduced my level of ignorance. The word “Chinese” will be used a lot here, because that’s my personal epicenter for stir-fry cooking. But really, there’s a whole lot of other Asian cuisines that do these same sorts of things, so think Thai, Vietnamese, Laotian, or what-have-you, the principles are the same. Shit, you can even appropriate Chinese methods to prepare Italian-style food; that’s why America is great. Likewise, though I’m a vegetarian, what I’m talking about here is generic and applicable to the protein of your choice. If you prefer dead pig to seitan, you’re still making shitty stir-fries, and I’m still going to save your ass despite that offense to Yahweh.
We regularly fuck up stir-fries. Stir-frying is just a technique, widely applicable and flexible, and we still fuck them up. Here’s a partial list of the things that are most commonly wrong:
Too soggy. Everything in the dish is more like an Irish stew.
Singed ingredients that are raw in the middle.
Uneven cooking, so you get a combo of vegetables that are mushy and raw.
Gloppy. There’s a weird sauce-fetish that I think derives from old school American Chinese take-outs. The ingredients are drowned in a thick gooey brown or white sauce. And the sauces’ flavors tend to dominate the dish as well.
Sweet. And the worst offender is the sugar-fetish.
In order to help you avoid the common traps, I’ve got a couple of recipe-ish things here, but what I really want to harp on is some stupidly simple methods which come up again and again. While I’m at it, I’ll also beat you up about the shitty equipment you use. I hope that one or another of my random pieces of brain lint give you an easy fix so you’ll stop making shitty stir-fries.
Step One: Ingredients
The rule of thumb for good Chinese cooking is 60-30-10. 60% of your time should be seeking and obtaining good ingredients, 30% of your time doing preps, and 10% or less actually cooking.
By “good ingredients,” I don’t mean “exotic ingredients,” but rather quality stuff whose flavors and textures don’t need obscuring. The Chinese have been great about adapting their cuisine to local ingredients and freely appropriating. Yeah, it’s fun to use things like Szechuan pickled radish or fermented black beans, but that won’t make your shitty stir-fry less shitty. It will just be shitty but now exotically shitty. Here’s a crazy idea: buy great green beans or peppers or bean sprouts or mushrooms or chicken/beef/pork/seafood and don’t worry as much about the spices and condiments. Now you have a shot at a decent dish, even if you’re fresh out of huangdou jiang.
If you use canned bean sprouts or green beans or asparagus, I will personally come over and explain your porn history to your spouse and children.
The only real necessities peculiar to Chinese stir-fry cooking are soy sauce (have both dark and light on hand), toasted sesame oil, and Shaoxing cooking wine. Use a high smoke-point oil like peanut. All else is negotiable; I keep a variety of pastes, spices, and vinegars handy for specialty dishes, but my everyday stir fries do fine without ’em. Whatever you do, avoid the brand name generic “stir fry sauces.” Read the ingredients; most of them lead off with water and sugar. There will be other forms of sugar listed as well. And xantham gum for extra gloppiness. That stuff is a sure path to shittiness. Unless you like shitty, in which case, go get some deep dish with pineapple and spare the rest of us.
MSG frankly is rather common and not the devil that excess sugar is. Use it wisely and sparingly, but don’t reflexively avoid it.
Step Two: Tools
Since prep should be an outsize part of your time investment, it goes without saying that you need really good sharp knives to make the work go smoothly and quickly. I have a rather, um, eclectic collection. My default knife for stir-fry prep is a cheap Chinese cleaver. It says “stainless” on it and it isn’t. Which is OK, it takes a nice edge, but needs honing every ten minutes or so. Which is also OK because I bought it about 40 years ago for $8 at a Chinese grocery, given it a lot of hard use over the decades, and it’s still doin’ its thing. So while a $300 Shun is a delightful thing, it’s not really a necessity- I didn’t see many of them used in great kitchens in China.
My second-most used knife for stir-fry prep is also a cheapie, this one a 10″ Victorinox. It feels good in the hand, sharpens easily, and has held up well since we got it a few years back. Costs less than a couple of movie tickets and popcorn.
Victorinox Fibrox Pro Chef’s Knife, 8-Inch Chef’s FFP (I use a 10″ because of large hands)
Third most used knife is also a Victorinox, a 3.25″ paring knife, and cheaper than a slice of pizza and a Coke. Great for fine trimming (like the stems of tomatoes or the eyes of pineapple). I think these knives are Swiss, despite the lack of noticeable holes.
Victorinox 3.25 Inch Paring Knife with Straight Edge, Spear Point, Black
And obviously, you want your knives sharp. There’s folks among the Glibertariat who are masters of getting the finest possible edge. I am not one of them, so I cheat and use one of these, a Chef’s Choice Asian sharpener. It gives a good enough edge that I have no problem getting paper-thin slices of garlic or cutting through the skins of over-ripe tomatoes, and it’s so fast and easy, I can sharpen mid-prep without losing much time.
OK, next we bring the heat. Do you have a trendy wok, nicely ceramic non-stick coated and heavy stainless-aluminum clad construction? Toss the fucker, it’s a piece of shit. Ditto the abomination of cast iron woks. Donate them to a homeless turtle shelter or something, they’ll do more good there than on your stove. Know what you need? Something cheap, thin, and unlaminated steel. The kind of piece of shit you get for $20 at the Chinese grocery. Unlike nonstick, you can get these smokin’ hot. Unlike laminated or cast iron, you can get them smokin’ hot very rapidly. And when you turn down the heat, they cool very rapidly, so all in all, the shitty steel woks give you much better temperature control.
Shape is important. Round bottoms are the best BUT you have to have the right kind of cooking surface for that- I have a wok stand from Thailand which is superb, putting out approximately the same amount of heat as the engine from a Saturn V booster stage. I can get the wok to literally red heat in 20 seconds. It is absolutely the best stir-fry cooking I’ve ever done, with the food taking on a subtly smoky “wok hei” aroma and the food cooking in record time. THIS is the right way to do things. I shit you not, wok hei is the difference between indifference and real difference.
Unfortunately, there’s a catch- you either need a professional ventilator hood or you have to cook outside. And our outside cooking has been limited recently because of a heavy mosquito season. After our first frost, I’ll be able to do this again.
Lacking a wok stand like that, don’t even THINK about using a round-bottom pan on a flat cooktop, even with a wok ring, unless you have something like a 100,000 BTU burner. With normal stoves, you will have really shitty heat and that means really shitty, soggy, badly-cooked stir-fries without even a trace of wok hei. Find a thin steel shitty wok with a flat bottom. Not optimum, but you can at least turn out some half-decent product. Here’s mine:
Whichever you use, you want it well-seasoned and to maintain that seasoning. It’s the best non-stick surface you can get. I’ve got about 20 years of season on this wok, and as you’ll see below, I can fry difficult foods like eggs with no sticking.
You also need another utensil for the process- a steel spatula or wok turner. I don’t have one, so I get by with a big steel spoon (seen in the videos below). It works, but I’m a shitty person for not getting the right tool. Don’t be like me. Don’t be a shitty person. Get the right tool.
Techniques:
Did I mention heat? You want the ability to get that wok screaming hot, and the courage and attention to use it properly, which means not getting distracted and letting food burn, and most importantly… mis en place. You want EVERY ingredient to be prepped, chopped, measured, and handy. If you don’t make at least ten dirty little bowls and dishes for you ingredients, you’re doing it wrong and that’s why your stir fries suck. God invented dishwashers and orphans- make use of them.
Second, precooking. Most stir-fries use ingredients from their raw state, added sequentially. And that’s another reason most stir-fries are shitty. To get the best and most even degree of doneness with disparate ingredients, you need to precook (slightly undercooking) each of the major ingredients in advance, then bringing them together at the end. Typically, the protein will be cooked first, removed, then set aside. Various additives can be either parboiled and refreshed (i.e., dunked into an ice bath after boiling) or stir fried separately to get each one to the optimum cooking point. Then the actual building of the stir-fry commences by cooking aromatics (garlic, ginger, scallions, and the like), then adding the cooked ingredients and seasonings/sauces to reheat and finish.
I can’t overemphasize the latter point: stir-fry should be done in discrete stages which are brought together at the end. For years, my stir-fries were shitty because of misguided ideas about trying to time the sequence so that the ingredients were added on top of one another in the right order and would magically cook properly. This is an especially bad idea because not only does the timing become terribly critical and can’t be adjusted on the fly to accommodate variations in ingredients, but you also lose control of the cooking temperature- the first ingredients put in the wok will insure that later ingredients cook at a lower temp and with higher surrounding moisture. That is not generally a good thing.
The other advantage of the cook-shit-separately is that distinctive flavors and textures will remain distinct and not all blend together in a mish-mash. This is why German or British cooking is shitty and Chinese cooking is great. And why you need to spend time getting great ingredients.
Two Examples:
These are sort-of-recipes, but each illustrates points made before. Neither is “authentic,” but they each use mostly non-exotic ingredients and (when cooked right) show off the quality of the main ingredients. And each is linked to a video showing most of the process; the videos are pretty shitty because we didn’t have time to block out the shots or to do editing/voice-over, but future ones will be better.
Because of the aforementioned mosquitoes, I had to use my kitchen stove and the flat-bottom wok, so the heat was somewhat inadequate. But still, they turned out delicious.
Stir Fry Green Beans
This is loosely based on a classic Szechuan dish and is an example of a dry stir-fry. The Szechuan version uses pickled radish and Szechuan peppercorns, so feel free to exotify it if that’s your desire. Traditionally, the precooking is done by deep-frying in coolish (300 degree F) oil instead of the water-blanching that I do, and yard-long beans are used. Again, feel free- the important thing is to have the beans pre-cooked before the stir-frying commences.
1 lb fresh green beans, ends trimmed
1/4 cup raw peanuts
2-3 cloves garlic, sliced thin
5 or 6 dried red chiles
2-3 white parts of scallions, chopped
1 tsp Korean red pepper paste (gochujang); can substitute garlic-red-chile paste or chile-black-bean paste
1 tsp light (not lite!) soy sauce
oil to cook
Drop green beans into a pot of rapidly boiling salted water. Boil for 3-4 minutes or until the beans are about half-done. A few beans may need to be sacrificed to determine this; cook’s privilege. Drain and toss into an ice water bath, then after they cool completely, remove from the bath and drain. Set aside.
Mix the pepper paste and soy sauce together. Set aside.
Heat the wok until it’s smoking, then add in one or two tablespoons of oil. Toss in the sliced garlic and toss it around until it gets aromatic and starts coloring a little bit, 15 seconds or so. Remove the garlic from the wok. Add the dried chiles and stir around until they start to brown, then remove and set aside. Add the peanuts, and stir around until they start to color, 15 seconds or so. Remove the peanuts and set aside. Optionally, you can lightly crush or chop them after cooking for a finer texture.
Seeing a pattern?
Now it’s time to bring everything together. Add the chopped scallions, stir for a few seconds, then add the green beans. Stir-fry until the green beans are starting to show some black spots, a minute or two. Add the pepper paste/soy sauce mixture and a little extra soy sauce if you think it’s needed. Stir for a few seconds, then add the sliced garlic, the dried chiles, and the peanuts. Stir to combine, then remove to a serving bowl and eat up.
This is a standard Cantonese dish, seen in every university cafeteria in the province, and a home-cooking favorite. It’s stupid-simple and delicious. As with many standard dishes, every family makes it a little differently and will swear everyone else is doing it wrong. By contrast with the last dish, this one is very saucy, but the sauce comes mostly from the water in the tomatoes and is amazingly flavorful.
5 eggs, beaten
4 scallions, white and green parts separated and chopped
5 medium or 6 small tomatoes, cut into wedges
2 tbs ketchup
2 tbs soy sauce
1 tsp sugar (omit if your tomatoes are really good)
1 tbs shaoxing cooking wine
1/2 tsp toasted sesame oil
1/2 tsp white pepper (or more to taste)
1 tbs minced ginger
1 small onion or large shallot, slivered
1 tsp cornstarch dissolved in 2 tbs water
oil to cook
Mix together the ketchup, soy sauce, sugar, shaoxing, sesame oil, and white pepper, set aside. Heat the wok until it’s smoking, then add a couple tablespoons of oil and swirl around. Pour in the eggs. Let them fluff up a bit, then stir them around for a minute or so until done- they should be set but not browned. I like my eggs a bit loose, SP prefers them somewhere in the middle of the Mohs scale. Your choice. Scoop them out of the wok, chop them a bit with your spatula or spoon, and set aside. Wipe out any leftover egg.
Put a bit more oil in the wok. Add in the ginger and stir it for a few seconds. Lower the heat a bit, then add the whites of the scallion and the onion. Stir for a minute until they are fragrant and softened slightly, then bring the heat back up and toss in the tomatoes. Stir-fry for a minute or so until the tomatoes are heated through, then push them to the side of the wok. Add in the ketchup mixture and bring that up to a boil. Then stir everything together, stir in about half of the green parts of the scallions, and add the eggs. Stir, then add in about half of the cornstarch slurry (make sure the slurry is stirred before you pour it in) and cook until the sauce thickens. If you want it thicker, add more cornstarch.
Turn out into a serving bowl and sprinkle with the remaining chopped green parts of the scallions. Serve over rice.
I’ve been a scientist since joining the undergraduate research teams (think grad students for grad students) but it’s only in the last decade or so that I’ve noticed other people seeming to notice. Sure, it’s one thing being invited to speak at conferences, or being on the board to select SEMI standards, but you know how you really have made it in the industry? Junk mail. Although I don’t get junk mail actually related to my official, professional endeavors, I get them in reference to more, shall we say, recreational scientific pursuits:
Mad Scientists get THE BEST junk mail
And sometimes these are actually helpful
Maybe it shouldn’t be, but obtaining the right clone IS a hassle.
But you don’t care about that. So, on to the horoscope!
Not a whole lot of good news up there, at least not of the “wholesome” variety. The BARCO Sol-Venus-Mars that is crossed with Terra-Venus-Jupiter indicates success in conducting extramarital affairs, but with one major caveat — don’t do it on/near water. If you attempt unsanctioned nookie on a boat, you will get caught.
This pass through the year is especially good for Virgos, so enjoy it while it lasts — Mercury never hangs out in a sign for too long (unless it goes retrograde).
Aquarius, in addition to it’s seemingly unending strife from Mars, gets an extra instability whammy from the Moon. I hope that Rufus has some antibiotic ointment handy, those little bastards can bite.
For those of you in a formalized relationship, things are still good with Venus and Jupiter doing their thing in Scorpio. It won’t last, so make whoopie while you can.
Football Sunday is usually a boisterous day around these parts. SP is an animated and knowledgeable fan who won’t hesitate to scream at the announcers, the refs, and the fluffball sideline “reporters.” With her preferred hate-targets Jeff Triplett and Ed Hochuli gone, her ire now focuses more strongly on Joe Buck and Beth Mowins. “Please make her shut up. Oh my god, she’s awful. Why the fuck do they let this woman talk? Jesus christ, Joe, you’re a dummy! Who did you blackmail to get this job?” It livens up the games quite a bit. With her out of town, the only verbal excitement comes from the Wonder Dog, who barks constantly to protect us from anyone who might potentially urinate in our yard. And so far, it’s worked- none of the neighbors have dared burrow under the fence and let fly on one of our trees.
Today has two auspicious birthdays, one of them being the delightfully-named Hippolyte Fizeau, whose name has been tragically excised from the Doppler Effect. Maybe it’s because he was accused of groping a French teenager at a wine party? The other will be mentioned below.
And now the news, which unfortunately is totally dominated by the election Silly Season.
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., said that “as soon as Democrats get gavels”, the party will investigate the Kavanaugh allegations even if he is confirmed and sitting on the Supreme Court.“This is such bad practice that even if they were to ram this guy through, as soon as Democrats get gavels we’re going to want to get to the bottom of this,” he said on CNN.
“If the Republicans rush through a nominee where you have unanswered sexual assault allegations, I can promise you that Democratic senators will be interested in going and looking at those allegations, and if Judge Kavanaugh lied under oath, you could see a judicial impeachment, and that’s not good for anybody, so we should try and avoid that,” Eric Swalwell, D-Calif, said on “America’s Newsroom.”
What the saddest part to me is that any real objections to Kavanaugh (like his apparent disdain for the fourth and fifth amendments) have been totally ignored in this shitshow. It’s the equivalent of the Black Lives Matter bullshit appropriating the real problem of police abuse.
But after high school, and after the alleged assault, Ford left the Washington area and never moved back. She took up surfing. She dressed in jeans when she wasn’t in a wet suit atop a surfboard. Colleagues mistook her for a native Californian. Quietly, she garnered a reputation for her research on depression, anxiety and resilience after trauma — telling almost no one what she herself had endured.
Years later, Ford would describe college as a time when she “derailed,” struggling with symptoms of trauma she did not yet understand.
It was during Ford’s junior year when Goldstein, who now works as an English teacher in Japan, gave her the advice that would change the course of her life. “He said, ‘You’re really smart, and you’re just like totally [messed] up,’ ” Ford recalled. She remembers him saying, “ ‘What are you doing? . . . Everybody’s getting it together but you’re like not.’ It was kind of a harsh talk.”
In other words, the PR machine says that she’s a mentally unbalanced snowflake. Therefore she must be unquestioningly believed.
Ellison, who serves as deputy chair of the Democratic National Committee (DNC), decried Monahan’s story as “not true” and assured that an “ongoing investigation” will conclude that Monahan’s claims are false. He dismissed the medical record, saying it was written a year after his relationship with Monahan ended.
When pressed whether the investigation will be done before the election, Ellison said it’s an independent investigation and he remains uncertain about the timetable.
So if a medical record is written a year after an alleged incident, it’s no good. But if it’s twenty years after, it’s utterly reliable. Got it.
Six siblings of U.S. Rep. Paul Gosar have urged voters to cast their ballots against the Arizona Republican in November in an unusual political ad sponsored by the rival candidate. The television ad from Democrat David Brill combines video interviews with Gosar-family siblings who ask voters to usher Paul Gosar out of office because he has broken with the family’s values. They do not elaborate.
“It’s intervention time,” Tim Gosar says in the ad, endorsing Brill. “And intervention time means that you go to vote, and you go to vote Paul out.”
“My siblings who chose to film ads against me are all liberal Democrats who hate President Trump,” [Paul] Gosar said. “Stalin would be proud.”
OK, I’ll admit that there are some entertaining aspects to this election.
OK, as you might have expected, today’s other birthday of note intersects with Old Guy Music. And even the title intersects this weekend. It’s intersections all the way down. Happy Birthday, Mr. C. Your art left this world a more beautiful place.
I’m on the road this week, but that doesn’t mean you can escape me. You know that webcam that mysteriously turns on when least you expect it? Guess who’s really watching you!
OK, not really, because SugarFree stories scare me enough.
So what’s on tap for next week? Of course, there are always links–by Sloopy, Brett L, and OMWC, a beer post from mexican sharpshooter, (hopefully) the return of Vegan School from Web Dom–assuming she whipped those websites into shape, a Wednesday night poll from yours truly, your star forecast from Not Adahn, and perhaps SugarFree will be tempted by the sociopathic tendencies of the current White House residents to grace us all with a story. And, drumroll please, the ever popular What Are We Reading post!
Also coming your way is another week of magnificent Glibertariat-contributed writing: Suthenboy’s much-anticipated post on how to sell one’s timber for fun and profit; a subscription service review from A Leap at the Wheel; a possibly-depressing-because-plausible piece from trshmnstr (in addition to what will be for me a depressing GlibFit check-in); BakedPenguin’s NFL Pick-’em; the first in a Kitbash series from UnCivilServant; and an update on Omaha Beach from Yusef Drives A Kia.
(Ugh, sorry Yusef. Posting from my phone is hard!)
You may now proceed to a Saturday Night Open Post in an orderly manner. No pushing, shoving, name-calling, or line-cutting. See you next week!
At which point it became apparent that nobody liked my suggestion.
Later that week, it became apparent that nobody likes my music. Sad.
Surely, there must be somebody else around here with some level of discerning taste.
*raises glass to Certified Public Asshat*
Today is my review of beer that I picked because it got a song stuck in my head at the time of purchase. I will post links, but given my audience, you have my word as a Spaniard that none of them will be Metallica.**
First up, is this Belgian Style Ale from Victory Brewery. I should be H/T somebody here, but to be honest I forgot who it was. Here is the song.
This is not half bad, and while I generally do like the Saison and/or Farmhouse style this one is a tad on the bitter side. I think Boulevard does it better with their Tank #7. Victory Golden Monkey Ale: 3.5/5
Up next is Wells’s Banana Bread Ale (H/T: Riven) I regret this one. It is expertly brewed, but I believe I made my feelings for bananas clear in a previous review. For this one, there can really only be one thing running in my head. In the event you actually clicked that, and wish to murder me, consider that I only played you a clip. Wells Banana Bread Ale: 2.0/5
Left Coast Brewery VooDoo American Stout. This is a bit heavier than the run of the mill milk stout. It has more coffee notes so think of this as more of the type like Guinness Extra Stout. The song of course is something that also manages to be both heavy and mellow. I played it as loud as the terrible speakers in my car could play. Left Coast Brewery VooDoo American Stout: 3.8/5.
Finally, this one was pretty blatant about the music choice. I happened to like Deftones when I was in high school but they kind of fell off the face of the earth until that day I found this. They were always just a little bit…different. Anyhow, they picked an IPA and one that is particularly gruesome. Lot of heavy citrus notes in this one, and as you can tell is very hazy. A few of you will like the song, somebody here will like the beer, but nobody will like the price tag ($14 for 4-pack). Belching Beaver Digital Bath IPA: 2.5/5.
**Right, I’m no Spaniard, but none of the links were Metallica. At least give me that.
SP has cut me loose for the next few days while she wanders off to deepest rural Appalachia. This reduces the number of likable people in the household to approximately zero. The Mighty Wonder Dog is bereft, though not so bereft that she stops begging for Swiss to come over with his usual offering of pizza for her. The real victims will be the door-to-door campaigners, of which there are many; SP usually prevents me from answering the door, but without her here, I can enjoy the fine sport of trolling. The first question is almost inevitably, “Have you decided whom you’re voting for yet?” The proper answer, if you’re a sick fuck like me who wants to make them uncomfortable (and give them stories to tell) is, “No. Tell me why I should vote for your guy.”
In the Illinois governor’s race, I truly haven’t decided. As usual, the Team Red and Team Blue candidates are repulsive quasi-humans, with Team Blue offering a Chris Christie look-alike with Maxine Waters-level intelligence. Team Red offers us a completely ineffective Progressive. The third party candidates include a rather, ummm, colorful Libertarian and a so-con authoritarian hired by unions to pull votes away from Team Red. We watched the Browns play football instead of the debates, which made us winners. Other people unfortunately had to watch the spectacle.
Rauner said of McCann: “He has received funding from Mike Madigan for his campaign. He was put on the ballot by Mike Madigan’s attorney.”
“You’re a liar. You’ve been lying to the people of Illinois from the very beginning,” McCann replied.
Rauner continued his attempts to portray Pritzker’s support for a graduated-rate income tax to replace the state’s currently mandated flat-rate tax as “proposing a massive tax hike on all the people of this state.”
That prompted Pritzker to interject, “Gov. Rauner, you’re lying. You’re lying again.”
Sparkling rhetoric!
I don’t often feel sorry for members of the media, but I admit some sympathy here. The Browns game was much more interesting. And this increases my resolve to figure out how to get the hell out of this state.
Wait, did I forget birthdays? That’s awful because today is the birthday of the autodidact Michael Faraday, one of my personal heroes. Especially so, since I spent most of this past week setting up chronoamperometric experiments. Read all about him. Not just a great scientist, but an interesting human.
When I worked in Europe, my least favorite city was Venice. Insane traffic, smelly, dirty, and not terribly scenic. And whatever you do, DON’T SIT DOWN.
The city’s mayor, Luigi Brugnaro, has proposed a fine of up to €500 (about $585) for anyone planting themselves down in an undesignated spot. The proposal isn’t without precedent in Venice. People are actually already prohibited from sitting in tourist hotspots St Mark’s Square or the Rialto Bridge. The mayor’s proposal is part of the city’s #EnjoyRespectVenezia campaign, which has been in full swing this summer. It’s all part of a general Venetian crusade against rampant overtourism.
I think we all know how to help them with their overtourism problem.
Over 3 million people died from alcohol consumption in 2016, equating to 1 in 20 deaths globally, according to a new report by the World Health Organization. “The alcohol consumption level continues to be very high,” said Dr. Vladimir Poznyak, WHO’s Management of Substance Abuse coordinator. “All countries can do much more to reduce the health and social costs of the harmful use of alcohol.”
Alcohol consumption was also found to cause more than 5% of the global disease burden and reported to be a causal factor in over 200 disease and injury conditions.
Of course, there’s the expected goal here.
“Far too many people, their families and communities suffer the consequences of the harmful use of alcohol,” said Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of WHO. “It’s time to step up action to prevent this serious threat to the development of healthy societies.”
And by “action” he mean “rape.” Well, the statist version of rape.
Though 95% of countries impose taxes on alcohol, WHO expects more actions to be undertaken by countries, adding that fewer than half of them use other price strategies such as banning below-cost selling or volume discounts. The member states of the WHO agreed in 2010 on 10 measures to reduce harmful use of alcohol, such as pricing policies and actions on marketing and alcohol availability. As part of the agreement, they declared “its associated health and social burden” as a “public health priority.”
Conclusion: Mexican Sharpshooter is worse than Hitler.
Agents with the OIU had began investigating Twenty Two Fifty, Inc. which is also known as Sharky’s in May of 2017. During the investigation, agents say they were able to buy drugs and lap dances by using food stamps. During the five-month long investigation, agents exchanged more than $2,000 worth of food stamps to buy heroin, fentanyl, carfentanil, cocaine, methamphetamine and lap dances.
The New York City subway can be a daily adventure. Waterfalls cascade down stairways in storms. Ceilings drip and sometimes collapse. Elevators, when they work, seem to double as urinals. Panhandlers, dancers and musicians hustle for tips. People jostle, argue, clip their nails and eat smelly foods.
Officials at the Metropolitan Transportation Authority said the precious seconds lost to commuters… were partly to blame for delays plaguing one in three subway trains. The MTA has ordered conductors to be more assertive closing doors and not allow limbs or bags to force them open. The new policy is part of a broader push launched in August to reduce delays, in part by training riders to stand clear of closing doors. If subway workers can shave seconds off a train’s journey at intervals along its route, transit officials said, the MTA can significantly improve punctuality.
New York would be great except for New Yorkers.
And weekends would be great except for that Old Guy who keeps throwing out music that doesn’t even have light shows, dancers, and autotune. In this case, something triply appealing to me: Hot jazz, Django-style, Albanie Falletta, and a live performance in one of my favorite Austin clubs, the deeply-underground Elephant Room. Check out the bass line played on sax!
STEVE SMITH GRATEFUL TO FUNNY GLIBERTARIAN PEOPLE. THEM GIVE STEVE SMITH PLACE TO TALK FOR CASCADIA INDEPENDENCE. ALSO CHANCE MAKE STEVE SMITH FAMOUS! WHEN FUNNY GLIBERTARIAN PEOPLE SHOP HERE, CAN BUY STEVE SMITH MERCH! STEVE SMITH DONATE HIM ROYALTIES TO CASCADIA RELIEF FUND. RIGHT NOW FUND HAVE 31,198 LEAFS, 17 BIRD NEST, 2 SHINY ROCK. IT BASIS FOR EVENTUAL CASCADIA TREASURY. AS PROMINENT FOREST LAWYER, STEVE SMITH THINK FUND OFF GOOD START.
AND NOW GET LINKS!
SOUND LIKE FORMER NASA HOOMAN NEEDPROMINENT FOREST LAWYER!
Howdy, Glibs. Thanks for putting up with me actually working. I expect you’ll see a lot of guest authors in the Afternoon Links next week as I’m onsite for user testing. This week has been a hellish ordeal of Murphy’s Law and the Law of IT Projects (no matter how pessimistically you schedule a project, its never pessimistic enough). This has been a real death-march week, but things just turned around this afternoon. I feel like I have some hope of delivering something users can at least test. Note to Future Brett: Next time someone says “we want to integrate all of our organization’s disconnected databases with 6-15 years’ worth of data, AND build a CRM system in a year” — gut-laugh and run away.
Oh Florida Man — Conning straight guys into gay sex and uploading the videos. That’s not cool bro. I mean, who are the idiots who go have random encounters where you have to wear a blindfold?
Rod Rosenstein seems to be setting himself up for a 2nd career outside the DOJ after the NYT broke this.
Most folks who play around with shotguns know that, back in the day, there were a lot more shotgun gauges available than there are now. These days the 12-gauge is riding tall in the saddle, with the 20-gauge doing duty as a gun for youths and the small-framed, and the old .410 bore (not gauge) finding some use among elite skeet shooters and kids learning the business.
What happened to those other gauges? As recently as the post WW2 years, the 10 and 16-gauge loads were still seeing plenty of use. The 16 still remains popular in Europe, at least in those localities where the peasantry are allowed to own fowling pieces. But Stateside? Those have mostly faded out, leaving the 12 and 20 holding the bag. The 24 and 32-gauge guns were never popular Stateside (although I just examined a lovely 32-gauge double in a New Jersey gun shop the other day) and the big 4 and 8-gauge guns were mostly used by market hunters, not sportsmen. The odd little 28 is still around, and new guns aren’t too hard to find, but like the .410 it’s mostly used on the skeet ranges and quail fields; unlike the .410 it’s not found much in youth-type guns.
But the highly useful 10 and 16s are not much in use these days. Why? First, let’s run through some background on shotguns.
What Do Shotgun Gauges Mean?
Shell sizes, including a couple of real monsters.
Gauge as measured in shotguns is an archaic measure of bore size. A shotgun’s gauge is defined as the number of pure lead balls, the bore size of the gun, that it takes to add up to one pound. For modern purposes, bore sizes for the several gauges are defined as:
10 gauge: .775
12 gauge: .729
16 gauge: .663
20 gauge: .615
28 gauge: .550
The .410 is the odd man out, being defined by the actual bore size. Interestingly, the .444 Marlin rifle cartridge was originally loosely based on the .410 brass shotgun case, and there are revolvers ostensibly chambered for the .45 Colt that will also chamber and fire 2 ½” .410 shells, which strikes me as a solution in desperate need of a problem; but, as my Grandpa used to say, every cat its own rat.
A recent (as in, post-WW2) development in shotgun loads is the addition of lengthened “magnum” hulls. The 3” 12-gauge was first, followed by the 3” 20-gauge, the 3 ½” 10-gauge and finally the 3 ½” 12-gauge Roman candles. The .410, originally a 2 ½” case, had a 3” version developed, while the 28 and 16 gauges never joined the fun, still being available only in 2 ¾” versions. This is significant for reasons we’ll go into in a bit.
Guns and Loads
This is where we run into one of the reasons that the 10-gauge faded out. The 10-gauge was mostly favored by waterfowlers, who generally are stationary in a blind and not hiking over hill and dale looking for birds like upland hunters. There’s a good reason for this; geese and even ducks are tough, heavily feathered birds who take some knocking down, and even the old 2 7/8” 10-gauge loads threw big charges of heavy shot idea for this task. But the guns made for the big 10 were mostly large, long, heavy doubles, some weighing as much as 10 pounds. In the late Seventies the 10 saw a bit of a renaissance with the introduction of the Ithaca Mag 10, and later Browning introduced a 10-gauge version of its BPS bottom-ejection pump-gun in 10-gauge. But both guns remained big, long and heavy; I’ve fired an Ithaca Mag 10 and it’s like swinging a telephone pole.
The introduction of the 3” magnum 12-gauge and, later, the 3 ½” sealed the fate of the big 10. Now a hunter after a variety of game could buy a 12-gauge light enough to tote in the upland game fields that would still handle heavy magnum loads suitable for waterfowl or turkey.
With this, the 10 has kind of faded into the sunset. You still see them in the hands of hardcore waterfowlers, and ammo is still readily available, but the big 10 is now strictly a niche market item. And that’s too bad, because a hardcore waterfowler would be hard pressed to find a better gun for big Canada honkers or fast, tough mallards than a 3 ½” 10-gauge shell throwing two ounces of bismuth shot. The Browning BPS-10 is still available factory-new, and there are plenty of Ithaca Mag 10s and its later development, the Remington SP-10, on the used gun market.
But the sweet 16? That’s a whole ‘nother thing to ponder.
The big, tough action of the Ithaca Mag-10.
Why? Because none of the niche market criticism of the 10-gauge applies to the 16. The 16 may well be the perfect happy medium in shotguns. It can be chambered in small-framed guns, as Browning did in the famous Sweet Sixteen version of the Auto-5; that fine gun put the 16-gauge shell in a gun using the small frame designed for the 20. I have one and it’s a joy to handle, almost a full pound light than its 12-gauge counterpart. Ditto for the 16-gauge Model 12 Winchester.
The 16, in a stiff field load, packs plenty of wallop for big ringnecks and sage grouse, while the light, handy 16-gauge guns are light and handy enough for grouse, quail and doves. My 16s are great for just those things; Mrs. Animal is a fan of the 16 as well and has two, a newer Citori White Lightning from a limited run in that chambering and a 1950s-vintage Ithaca 37. Up through roughly the late 1950s, plenty of American bird hunters agreed and the 16 remained popular.
So, what happened? Three things: The increasing popularity of trapshooting, the 12-gauge 3” magnum and the 20-gauge 3” magnum.
Trapshooting is and always has been a 12-gauge game. The 12’s bore is just enough larger than the 20 or 16 to toss a one-ounce load of 7 ½s in a nice, tight compact pattern with a short shot column, ideal for powdering clay birds. In light trap loads recoil isn’t an issue, and dedicated trap guns can be heavy enough to eliminate even that bit of kick. But more to the point, the increasing appearance of trap ranges at American gun clubs led to a lot of folks taking their field guns out to the trap range to get some practice in, and the nature of trap shooting over the much more predictable skeet made it better practice for wing shooting – at least, until the advent of sporting clays.
But ammo – that’s where the bite really came, and when it came, it came from two directions. And in this case, it wasn’t so much the new 3” mags in 12 and 20-gauge as the 16’s sin of omission in not doing the same.
Following the advent of the 3” magnums in both 12 and 20-gauge, shooters who may previously have chosen a 16 as a great gun-of-all-trades no longer had as much incentive to do so. The 12 was suddenly now much more versatile, coming close to rivaling the 10 as a duck/goose/turkey gun while retaining utility that the 10 lacked for upland game, a trend continued by the later lengthening of the 12-gauge chamber to 3 ½”. For a shooter looking for one gun for all work, the 12 was now the clear choice; I’ve said as much myself, that if a person can only afford one gun, period, end of story, then that person should go forth and buy a 12-gauge pump shotgun.
Moving down the size spectrum, young shooters and those with small frames now had greater reason to choose the 20 over the 16. Both rounds were available in light, small-frame guns but suddenly the 20 opened up with a much wider variety of ammo available, including some loads that approached the level of older 12-gauge 2 ¾” field loads.
Meanwhile, the 16 languished in its 2 ¾” hull length, and sales of guns and shells declined. In the early 1970s, Winchester dropped production of its excellent AA trap loads in 16 gauge, and thus one of the last sources of high-quality low-brass 16-gauge hulls dried up; nowadays Winchester, Remington and Federal are still loading 16-gauge rounds but mostly in field versions with cheap, crappy promotional ammo dominating. Fiocchi still loads a variety of 16-gauge loads as the round is still more popular in Europe than here in the States, so the 16-gauge fan still has some options, but non-toxic loads for waterfowl are pretty limited, and new guns are not much in evidence.
The Upside
16 Gauge Model 12
Yes, there’s an upside to all this, especially if you’re a 16-gauge fan or are in the market for a big, powerful waterfowl-buster. What’s that upside? The market!
10- gauge and 16-gauge guns aren’t in much demand these days. There are some exceptions; the Browning Sweet Sixteen Auto-5, especially Belgian guns, still commands a premium price, mostly because of collectors (like me.) But Browning BPS-10s aren’t terribly expensive on the used gun market; Winchester Model 97s and Model 12s as well as Ithaca 37s and Remington 11s are readily available in 16-gauge versions and often at attractive prices.
And there’s hope, at least for the 16. The new, supposedly improved (and in my opinion, uglier) Browning Auto-Five is now available in a Sweet Sixteen version; the Browning Citori and the various CZ doubles are available in that gauge as well. Could we be seeing a minor renaissance in the best of all mid-range shotgun loads? Maybe. Time will tell.
The “Other Gauges”
Obscure gauges like the 24 and 32 were never popular in the United States. In the case of these oddballs, it’s not a matter of them fading out as much as that they never faded in in the first place. But could these in-betweeners be useful?
Sure. The aforementioned 32-gauge European double I examined the other day would make a sweet little item for hiking hills and swales for grouse. Fiocchi still loads 32-gauge shells, although loads are limited to a #6 field load and a lighter upland load with #8 shot; but this pretty little tiny-framed double with its graceful slim barrels and its lovely European walnut stock really belongs in the field, not languishing in some gun shop’s rack where it won’t likely move because of its odd chambering.
The 24, on the other hand, is one where I can’t really offer much information. As far as I’ve been able to determine the 24 isn’t loaded by anyone anymore, and I couldn’t tell you the last time I stumbled across a 24-gauge gun. While the 16 was left behind by advances in neighboring gauges, the 24 seems to have died a death of apathy.
In Conclusion…
Old shotguns are fun.
Now that I’m done belaboring the obvious: Just because a certain shotgun gauge is no longer popular doesn’t mean it’s not useful. Mrs. Animal and I have a lot of fun with our 16-gauge guns, and after our move to The Great Land, I may be in the market for a big 10 to bust tough northern geese for the table. I’d love for Winchester to bring back an AA trap load in 16-gauge, but then I’d love for someone to bring back the .25 Stevens rimfire again – or even bring out a nice new light lever gun in the .25-20. I probably won’t get any of those things, but the world’s got no shortage of windmills to tilt at.
If you have some extra bucks to indulge in a shooting addiction, don’t overlook the 16. The story of the oddball gauges is an interesting one and, given the changes in technology and markets, may have been inevitable, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t worth another look.
You know what? I’ll give AMLO this one.
First up, is this Belgian Style Ale from Victory Brewery. I should be H/T somebody here, but to be honest I forgot who it was. 
Left Coast Brewery VooDoo American Stout. This is a bit heavier than the run of the mill milk stout. It has more coffee notes so think of this as more of the type like Guinness Extra Stout. 
Finally, this one was pretty blatant about the music choice. I happened to like 
