Chris Johnson

Years ago, my lady discovered that one of my co-workers was plagiarizing content. She brought it to my attention. I reported it to the owner of the company. I cc’ed my boss to keep her in the loop.

When I arrived at work that day, my boss was waiting for me, took me to a private location and started to berate me for going over her head. I listened and waited for her to wind down. “Is it my turn to talk?”

“Yes”, and as soon as I started to speak, she would start up again. I’d wait for her to run down, then ask again. At some point, I asked, “You’ve been yelling at me for 10 minutes, do I have permission to yell back?” “YES!”

She finally let me speak, “You gave me permission to yell, I am not going to…” I did my spoke to her softly, without anger, without pushing into her personal space. It broke her.

She was not prepared to deal with somebody not responding and realized she had gone over the line.

People of all types respond to emotional cues in different ways. One of the easiest ways to make people look bad is to be good when they are not.

Arabs are very “honor” driven. They do not deal well with insults. This is why their screeds against Israel and the United States are filled with so many insults. They expect it to cause us pain.

In the same way, they cannot handle being laughed at. That is a grave insult.

Israel pulled off some super serious psychological damage to the psyche of terrorists, everywhere.

Operation “Below the Belt”, which has been reported as the official name of the operation, is an incredible feat of logistics, intelligence, and technological sophistication.

Israel was so embedded in the inner workings of Hezbollah that leadership decided that they needed to ditch the smartphones that were being used. Instead, they would go low technology, using pager technology.

Pagers do not indicate where they are located. They are simple radio receivers. There is no way to know where an unmodified pager is located. This is the type of security that Hezbollah leadership wanted, and needed.

Israel managed to intercept the shipment(s) of pagers and modify them. At what point in the supply chain this took place is unknown. They were able to modify or replace thousands of pagers. The pagers that were sent on had two known modifications. A couple of ounces of explosive with a thermal trigger, and some modifications to the code to increase the power draw to heat the battery enough to trigger the explosion.

Pagers are carried in pockets or on belts. When leadership handed out pagers to Hezbollah assholes, those assholes put the pagers on their belts or in their pockets.

In the afternoon of the 18th, the devices were triggered. They sounded a beep for an incoming message. Many terrorists assholes were able to take their pagers off their belts or out of their pockets to look at them before the boom.

If they were just holding the pager, there was significant damage done to the hand. If they had brought the pager close to their face, then there was serious eye damage. If they left the pager in their pocket, well, they are looking for their balls now.

This is one of the greatest psychological victories in modern history. These assholes were not martyred. They did not die in battle. They weren’t even in battle.

If they lost their dicks, the 72 raisins they are supposed to get aren’t going to do them any good.

And with no hands and no eyes and no dicks, they are never going to be a threat to people again.

Moreover, the stress this puts on the medical infrastructure is immense.

Well done Israel.

This was a good win and a good place to take a victory lap.

We were doing that lap for Israel, laughing at those dickless, less than wonders.

Israel, was busy lapping the track, again.

On Thursday, they initiated another round of devices exploding. This time on two-way handheld radios. This was not as successful as the original attack, but it still added to the toll.

Again, well done Israel.

So Israel was doing that Victory lap. Well, no. They were busy.

You see, Hezbollah leadership really needed to discuss this new turn of events. They couldn’t use the phone system, they knew that was hacked, they were unable to use pagers to call a central number. And the radios were out too.

So they did the sneaky-sneaky thing. They sent out the word to meet in the super secret place, known only by the trusted leadership.

Well, it just so happened that an Israeli fighter jet was doing that victory lap when this meeting took place. And since they really, really, really, felt the need to celebrate, they decided to set off some fireworks. Mostly sound.

So they dropped some noisemakers. These big ass noisemakers just happened to land right on top of that super secret meeting location. And they were so big, that it disrupted the party.

20 top commanders are dead. The snake’s head has been cut off. The arms and legs (and sausage plus dingle berries) are missing as well. Everybody is scared, or should be scared of coming close to a communications device.

I look forward to learning what new surprises Israel has in store for us. This story can get better, but I have a huge smile on my face tonight.

There are three ways of making pasta shapes. You can extrude the dough through shaped holes, cutting the forms off as needed. You can roll the dough thin, then hand cut the dough to be shaped. The same can be done using a “pasta machine” which rules the dough to a known thickness. Or you can use cutters to cut sheets of pasta.

I’ve been making pasta dough for a couple of years. I stepped up my game recently by deciding to roll my dough instead of squeezing it in the pasta machine.

Since I was going to roll out the dough, I decided to get rid of my mixing bowl and do it on my board with the well method.

This is a step forward. One of the lessons I’m still learning is how small a batch can be made this way. If the batch is not large enough, there isn’t enough floor on the board to create a well with deep enough walls.

I was lucky, there were only two eggs in play, so the eggs didn’t go everywhere, just a slight panic.

Which brings us back to dough. Normal pasta dough is an egg and floor mixture. My recipe is 3/4 of flour to 1 large egg. Occasionally, it is two eggs plus a yolk. It really depends on how the dough feels.

Today, the dough was too wet. I should have added more flour, but I didn’t.

The eggs are mixed into the flour until it comes together. At that point, I switch to kneading. I knead for 10 minutes, by the clock. The sad thing is that I always check the time remaining at 2:30. I don’t know how I get there, but I do.

This egg pasta works well for rolling out or squeezing. This was turned into rigatoni.

I didn’t know I could make this by hand, I thought I would need to use an extruder for rigatoni. I am happy with my results.

It does not look like machine made pasta. The dough was a little wet. I also had some issues cutting it. Next time I will use the bicycle cutter to get nice squares.

Ally took the other half of the egg pasta and made beautiful bow tie pasta.

The other type of pasta dough is made with water and semolina flour. Bluntly? I just guessed at the amount of warm water to add. It came out nearly perfect.

This pasta dough doesn’t roll out as flat as the egg pasta, but it is used for other pasta shapes. We started with Orecchiette. Those were easy to make, but I didn’t like them. Ally loved making them, so I let her do it.

This is made by cutting a 1/2 diameter rope of dough into 1/2 long chunks. Then you roll the under your thumb.

Malloreddus is made the same way, but the pasta is pressed on a grooved board to make a wonderful pattern. This was my favorite shape to make. They go fast, they look nice, and they have a good bite to them. Plus they hold the sauce.

The Busiate was another fun shape. It uses a 1/4 in rope of dough cut into 3 inch long sections. These are twisted around a skewer and the rolled flat.

I think they look delightful, I want to practice them some more.

I’m hoping that Ally will do an article about the sauce she made for our homemade pasta. I will say it is the best I’ve had in years.

Barnett v. Raoul, 3:23-cv-00209, (S.D. Ill.) is one of the cases filed in response to the Illinois Bruen tantrum. It was opened January 24, 2023.

It was decided at the district court level in favor of The People. It was part of the group of cases that went to the Seventh Circuit where Judge Easterbrook and Jude Wood decided that the plain text of the Second Amendment actually means, something besides what the plain text says.

It was remanded down to Judge McGlynn’s court for a do-over.

The state went into the “we need more time” dance. Judge McGlynn was having nothing to do with delay tactics, instead moving the case towards final judgement as rapidly as possible.

Of note, he had the plaintiffs, the good guys, file extra briefings to counter what the circuit court said. He has done everything in his power to establish a good record for appeal.

The case went to trial on Monday, the 16th, and is continuing for a few more days.

Yesterday, they heard testimony from one witness, James Ronkainen. He testified for around 4 and a half hours. They presented just shy of 60 exhibits.

In addition to his testimony on Monday, Mr. Ronkainen was disposed for hours. The transcript of his deposition runs for 240 pages.

So what makes this strange? There was an hour of discussion to define what a MSR was? This was mind-numbingly difficult to read. I gave up after 80 pages.

I am eagerly awaiting to hear what Judge McGlynn has to say in a couple of weeks.

You can read James Ronkainen’s deposition yourself, if you wish.

From the YouTube description:

The following are a series of war correspondence films from the Simba Rebellion in the Congo in 1964/65 set to the tune of “Roland the Thompson Gunner” by Warren Zevon. The film features a platoon of mercenaries from Europe conducting a platoon attack on the town of Boende in the Cong. The mercenaries primarily come from the Netherlands, Belgium, and Germany. Of note, there is an ex-ss officer in the film according to the source, I can’t confirm this, though.

EDIT: The German officer is Siegfried Müller, one of the mercenary captains. He was a Wehrmacht First Lieutenant in World War 2, not an SS officer.

This is the type of war the leftists are pushing for. I fear for my children and grandchildren.

Allyson had picked up a wooden box a few years ago to take to events. It was a plain wooden box with just a bit of decoration and a porcelain knob attached to the sliding top.

The knob and screw holding it are not period. The rest was pretty period. Or more precisely, it was period-20.

It looked period at 20 feet.

Over the years, it has taken a beating. This knocked the back off, pulling out the brads.

She asked me if it could be repaired. TiteBond III to the rescue. I pried the back out enough to get glue where it was needed. Clamped the entire thing closed and called it a day.

Until I decided that it could be better.

Today, we use petrochemicals to create high-quality, strong, enduring coatings for our cabinetry and furniture.

Modern finishes are long chain polymers that have all the right characteristics for a long-lasting, shiny surface.

I’ve used polyurethane finishes. They can be polished to a near mirror like finish.

But that is the modern world? What were they doing 100 years ago? 200? 300? They were using some of the same finishing methods we use today.

Read More

I’m trying to export a video from OpenShot-community, and it is refusing to cooperate. Switching to a filler article.

Poor Ricky, he thinks that government inspectors keep us safe from bad business practices. Maybe he should ask about all the mandated state inspections of Gosnell’s medical facilities?

MSNBC is likely lying by omission and by intentionally ignoring the rest of the story.

It isn’t that this one person posted a video, that may or may not be a correct interpretation, it is that there are now many such reports.

According to my leftist sources, this is Biden trolling Trump. I think they are half right. This is Biden trolling Kamala.

I’ve been advocating for the Right of The People to keep and bear arms for decades now. After the Sandy Hook shooting, I was in a discussion with somebody on Google+. They were attempting to come up with a “common-sense gun safety laws”.

After a couple of days going back and forth, they asked “Well, what law would you propose?”

“A well regulated militia, being necessary for the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”

He didn’t reply.

Regardless of what anybody tells you, the supreme law of the United States is the Constitution, as amended. It is not a document locked in amber, nor is it bright, transient dots on a display, it is the bedrock of our country.

It is difficult to modify, there have been only 17 amendments since 1791 when the first 10 were ratified. That is a very stable foundation to work from.

The problem that leftest have with The Constitution is that it is too stable. It does not progress as they would like to see.

If it doesn’t progress, then it must be thrown out. According to them.

So we have endless arguments about “well regulated”, and “being necessary” means it is a collective right.

They modify the meaning of the words so that they can twist the foundation of the Constitution. I fear for our grand children. They will have to depend on the translations of others to know what our Constitution actually says.

Consider this for a moment, how many times have you heard or heard of somebody saying that the King James Bible holds the words of Christ?

I promise you, it does not. Jesus Christ did not speak English. I can’t tell you what he spoke, it is not relevant.

My point is that most people cannot read the original Bible because we don’t read that language. I can read some Latin. I know others that can read ancient Greek. Those scholars are few and far between.

Words have meaning. Leftists don’t care what the meaning of a word is. They choose the meaning of the word as they want it now. Which can change in 10 minutes, or less.

So the arguments always start from the same place: How can we get away with breaking the law?

In Heller, the Supreme Court said that the Second Amendment protects the core right of self-defense.

So for 22 years we had people breaking the law because their needs were more important than the law. Justified by saying they weren’t hurting “the core right of self-defense too much”.

They were breaking the law, and they knew it. They knew it then, they know it now.

Shall not be infringed? Well, it isn’t too much. YES, it is too much. You are breaking the law every time you infringe on my Right to keep and bear arms.

A machine gun isn’t an “arm” under the plain text of the Second Amendment? Why? Because it isn’t used for self-defense.

Is it an arm? It is a firearm. This makes it an arm. FULL STOP.

This is an attempt to cleanse my palate after watching part of the debate.

The magic of the can…

Or better stated, the how to preserve food.

We are spoiled today, we go to the local supermarket and purchase almost any type of food we want, regardless of the growing season. It will be fresh and safe to consume.

My parents would not have dreamed of such luxuries when they were children.

We have a tradition of putting an orange into our Christmas stockings. Today, no big deal. When the tradition started, in my parents’ or grandparent’s time, it was a big deal. Those oranges were brought from far away at great expense. It was fresh and taste.

Yesterday, my wife went grocery shopping. We don’t eat as well as we did 4 years ago, inflation has eaten much of our purchasing power. Still, she was able to pick up fresh avocados and a bag of oranges.

If we don’t want fresh food, we can buy our food frozen. Still tasty. The quality is good, actually. Much better than I remember as a child.

But that food is not “shelf stable” and it will not last if the power goes out.

Smoked and dried foods will last a long time, but they too have issues, one of the large ones is that they are unprotected from the elements. It is no fun to find that your dried goods have been eaten by some critter.

Canned goods are, generally, shelf stable. They do lose nutritional value over time, but that time is measured in decades.

Read More