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Dinner Tonight

Irish Woman is off to a meeting at the zoo tonight, so I get to cook!

Ingredients:

1/4 inch cut eye of round steaks
Canadian Steak Seasoning (Course ground pepper, dried garlic, course salt)
1 large white or yellow onion, chopped fine
1 large red bell pepper, chopped
4 to 6 white mushrooms, sliced
1 can beef broth
4 cups broccoli florets, fresh

Parmesan couscous or whatever flavor you like

On a large plate or baking dish, lay out the steaks and sprinkle lightly on both sides with the steak seasoning.  Prepare couscous according to box directions.

In a wok or large saute pan, heat enough olive oil to coat the bottom.  Add onion and bell pepper.  Saute until onion starts to change color.  Add mushrooms. Saute until mushrooms are almost cooked through and onions are fully soft.  Move everything to the side of your pan so that there is a clear space in the middle and add steaks.  Brown on both sides, adding soy sauce to taste along with a sprinkling of ginger.  Mix steaks in with onion mixture and add broth.  Increase heat and bring to a boil uncovered.  When it boils, reduce heat and simmer for 5 to 10 minutes, or until half of the liquid is gone.  Add broccoli.  Continue simmering for additional 3 to 5 minutes until broccoli is bright green and tender.  Thicken with a corn starch slurry.  Serve over couscous.

30 Days of Reagan – Day 9

If we lose freedom here, there is no place to escape to. This is the last stand on Earth.

This is the End!

OK, people!  This is it!  This is what we’ve been training for!  This is the beginning of the end for civilization as we know it!  We may have a revolution up in here after this!

Hostess is going bankrupt.

The purveyor of Twinkies, Ho-Ho’s, and a myriad of other sweet treats has fallen on hard times.  American tastes, even as we have become fatter as a whole, has turned away from the basic ingredients of Hostess’ line:  fat, sugar, flour, and coconut.  Soon you will no longer be able to get coconut covered, cream filled cholesterol bombs at the Stop ‘n’ Stab.  Nuclear fallout shelters will be bereft of food that will truly last until the end of the world as we know it, with no need to seal it in mylar with an oxygen eater.

True story:  When I transferred to my first duty station in Germany, it was just a few weeks after the end of the first Gulf War.  During the war, shipments of non-essential items, such as snack cakes, to the exchanges and commissaries in Europe had been suspended so that the shipping could be used to support the war effort.   You can imagine the deprivation of military families having to subsist on German pastries when the supply of Ding-Dong’s dried up.  A month or so after we got there, my wife and I went to the commissary one Saturday afternoon.  Apparently, the first shipment of chips, snack cakes, and American candy had come in.  The scene we encountered after getting our shopping cart was right out of a nightmare.  There were housewives arguing over the last bag of Dorito’s, soldiers pulling rank over a box of Hershey bars, and even worse.  I heard, and may the Lord strike me down if I’m exaggerating, the wife of the local garrison commander exclaim “Hey bitch!  Get away from those Ho-Ho’s!”.

Now imagine that scene replicated all over the world as the last of the cupcakes and chocolate cakes runs out.  We are talking fat men playing chicken with grocery store scooters, housewives ripping at each other’s hair, and grandmothers knifing anyone who gets between them and those sweet, sweet Twinkies.  Blood will run red in the snack foods aisle!

If you haven’t stocked your larder high with Twinkies, then you should do so as soon as you can.  It’s like bulk .308 and 7.62x54r:  It stacks well and it never goes bad.

Being Honest

I try to be a practical man, especially when it comes to firearms.

I bought my first firearm, a Mossberg 835 shotgun, because I wanted a good gun for home defense.

I bought a Mosin-Nagant because I wanted an inexpensive centerfire rifle for plinking.

The same goes for all of my guns.  I see or feel a need, and I buy something to fit that need.  Be it a hunting rifle, a new carry pistol, or a .22 I buy so that I can shoot more inexpensively or use to train someone on, I have never looked for something new and shiny just because it was pretty or neat.

Then 2011 happened.

First, I went to the NRA Annual Meeting and decided then and there I wanted a new 1911.  And so I tried out as many as I could get my hands on, saved my money, and got one.

Then, I went to the Lucky Gunner Shoot, and met the Pied Piper of Gunbloggers, Oleg Volk.  He came to the shoot with a whole bunch of toys, and I fell in love with most of them.  The nice men from Kriss were there too, and I decided that a Vector would be just a lot of fun to own.

So now Oleg has new pictures of the KSG and Coonan pistol up, and I’m feeling lust in my heart.  And every time I go to my range and see the Kriss up on the rental wall, I want to start selling organs to afford one so bad I can taste it.

Hi, I’m DaddyBear and I want guns for no other reason than they’re fun and shiny.

30 Days of Reagan – Day 8

We’re at war with the most dangerous enemy that has ever faced mankind in his long climb from the swamp to the stars, and it’s been said if we lose that war, and in so doing lose this way of freedom of ours, history will record with the greatest astonishment that those who had the most to lose did the least to prevent its happening.

News Roundup

  • From the “No Kidding” Department – A new study finds that 25% of Iraqis polled say they are “suffering”.  This is an increase from 2009.  And to that I say this:  What did you expect?  You all had 8 years to create a functioning government, learn to keep the lights and water on, and create police forces that are more than well equipped gangs.  Now that we’ve taken our ball and gone home, you get to be big boys and girls and try to not re-enact Lord of the Flies on a national scale.  To be perfectly honest, I don’t give two hoots about whether or not Iraqis feel they are suffering.
  • From the “Doom” Department – The United States’ national debt has come to equal the countries GDP.  For those of you playing at home, that means that we owe as much money as the value of every transaction, service, and thing that we build in this country.  The economy, which is still growing at less than 2% a year, would have to grow at over 6%  a year in order to stay ahead of the debt at the rate it’s growing.  That sound you hear is our thrifty ancestors crawling out of the grave to pimp slap the lot of us.
  • From the “Atmosphere” Department – A man in France recently had a really bad night.  He dropped his wallet into the sewer, went in after it and got stuck, and spent the night with his head in a French sewer.  To add insult to injury, when police helped to rescue him, they noticed that he had been putting waste oil into the sewer at the time of his accident, and now he’s being prosecuted for polluting.  So what is worse than having your head caught in a French sewer?  Having your head caught in a French sewer you’ve been topping off with used motor oil.
  • From the “Public Employee of the Year” Department – A school worker in New York had her daughters call her employer to report that a fictitious sister had died of a heart attack, then she forged a death certificate so that she could get time off for bereavement and jet her way to the tropical paradise that is Puerto Rico.  School officials became suspicious when her poor job of photoshopping the death certificate was spotted.  Apparently she didn’t consult with Dan Rather on how to make sure the correct fonts are used.

Mental Note II

It is a sign that your evening is not going to be uneventful when you come home from work to find the 3 year old running through the house naked and singing “Get Back” at the top of his lungs, while his mother chases him and prays to at least one deity to give her patience.

Mental Note

In the future, do not take a good strong dose of NyQuil, then drift off to sleep while reading first hand accounts of the Western Front during World War I.  Drugged fever dreams about mud, gas, explosions, and barbed wire are no fun.

Quote of the Day

The fact that the Brady Campaign would use the blood of criminals to attack honest gun owners is reprehensible and should be rejected by all decent people.

Press Release from Sean D. Sorrentino about the recent “Light a Candle” campaign by the Brady Campaign.

Our People

A Girl and Her Gun articulates something that I’ve felt for a long time.  The first time I wandered into GBC and started commenting on gun blogs, I was treated as someone who belonged.  There was no “newbie” period where I had to sit and listen to my betters, and when I disagreed with someone, they didn’t take it personally. If I was factually wrong, I was gently corrected.  If it was a disagreement of opinion, our differences were respected.

These are our people.  We don’t have a real leader, just firsts among equals.  Showing respect for each other and being there when real life intrudes on our microcosm has been the way it’s always been. 

Go give her letter a read.  She says it so much better than I could.