Why Limited Government?

(from grandteuton.blogspot.com)

I really think this is an important question these days, in spite of its sometimes being asked simply as a pretext for a particular answer.

Here's my take on the question.  Basically it comes down to original sin and the total depravity of man.  This is just basic Christian doctrine that says (among many other things) that Man Cannot Be Trusted.

That's pretty much all it takes to understand why the Constitution is set up as it is - to make sure that the federal government cannot have too much power over the States or over the People, and to make sure that each branch is answerable to the other two.  Further, the right of citizens of the United States to move from State to State was an additional protection from despotism.

The framers had had some recent experience with individuals having relatively unlimited power, and they realised that it was not a terribly good idea.  Even if now and again there might be a monarch, dictator, ruler, leader, or whatever with whom they agreed, more often than not it would be the other way round.

There's the saying that power corrupts, and that absolute power corrupts absolutely.  I think it works the other way as well - when a corrupt person takes power, he corrupts the power he's taken.  Given the Christian understanding of human nature, the limited nature of federal power is something for which to be grateful.

Carnage du Jour - 11 September 2010

(from grandteuton.blogspot.com)

Ah ... Family Camping at Albert Sleeper State Park!

Thanks to the hunting skills of two of our intrepid campers, we had a few nice venison roasts for our annual Saturday night feast, and nice they were indeed.

The question then was how to prepare venison rump roasts for twenty five to thirty folks while camping (with all the comforts of home, such as electricity (that's hydro to our Canadian readers) and water - running water came from the sky, potable water from the tap down the road.

The appliance part of the answer was an electric roaster.  The cooking part of the answer was as follows.
A dry rub of salt, cocoa powder, and chipotle powder was applied to the roasts, and they were seared at the highest setting on that roaster (450F, I believe).  The temperature was dropped to more like 275F and they were slow roasted for a couple hours.  Part of the way through, a bit of vegetable stock and red wine were added, along with some diced onions, sliced mushrooms, and carrots, so I suppose it was more of a braise than a strict roast at that point.  A bit later, some fresh chorizo was added, making that sauce all the better with its spicy goodness.

I had never actually cooked venison before, although I had eaten it several times, and had an idea of what flavours would match well.  Further, knowing that it was a very lean protein meant that I knew it had to be cooked slowly to avoid drying it out too much.  All in all, a very successful entrée for the crowd.

Of course, that was far from the only dish at the feast - cheesy mashed potatoes, Greek peasant salad, bulgur and couscous salad, pasta with Alfredo sauce, jambalaya, I'd better stop before it looks like an exhaustive list, as there's no way I'll remember them all, and I don't want to offend any of the other cooks.  Suffice it to say that no one had any excuse to leave the table hungry.

The food was tasty good, and the fellowship was excellent.

Slowly I turn ...

(from grandteuton.blogspot.com)

That's right, I was just at Niagara Falls, and I have something very odd to report.



There are strange electrical phenomena there in the land of Tesla, that's for sure.

Those of you who know me personally will be shocked - shocked, I say! - to discover that my hair was forced to stand on end by the relentless electrostatic pressure of that mighty cataract.
(Heidi's hair was similarly affected, but clearly it's less difficult to believe - or picture - in her case.)

Not only was our hair affected, but the batteries in our camera were drained beyond reason, and our mobile phones lost 3G connexion - and thus picture messaging functions - while near the falls.

Clearly there is something extraordinary going on at Niagara Falls, something that neither government seems willing even to acknowledge!  Signs are plenteous along the Falls, warning of strange men climbing over the walls and fences to attack (or perhaps warning tourists not to climb over those walls, they were a bit ambiguous, really), but there were no High Voltage warning signs to be found.

This is likely a bigger cover-up than Area 51, but with some help from others out here on the interwebs, we're hoping to blow it wide open.

Carnage du Jour - 31 August 2010

Well, it was pork chops again, and that's always a good thing.

This time, however, I was looking for a way to make it a bit lighter - not a lot of rice or pasta or potatoes to go with the pork.  Besides, it was too hot to do much cooking.  So ....

A bit of onion, sweated in some olive oil.  Removed from the pan, where the chops were then cooked in that nice onion-flavoured oil.  They had been dusted with kosher salt, some beau monde, and some chipotle powder on one side.  At the turn (of the chops), some orzo was added to a pot of boiling water - it finished up shortly after the chops were removed to rest on a platter.
But perhaps the tastiest part was when the onions went back in the pan, and cucumber slices were added to the mix.
If you've never cooked cucumber, you ought to try it.  They didn't soften and dissolve as one might have expected (I didn't), but rather held up quite nicely, with the browning adding a nice sweetness to their flavour.  As they were finishing up, I added some chopped tomato to the pan and gave it a quick stir.  A small amount of chicken stock was added, and then in went the (well drained) orzo.

Quite a nice dinner, and very quick and simple.

Reading List Update 2

Well, I've thought of a few more books I'd like to recommend to my loyal readers here.
As before, I've included the full list from earlier posts so you don't have to go looking through the archives to see what all was on there.

Enjoy!

• Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury 
• The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, Robert Heinlein 
• 1985, Anthony Burgess

Here's the original list (including the earlier update), just in case you haven't finished them all yet:
Read, learn, and enjoy:

• A Wrinkle in Time, Madeleine L'Engle 
• The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe, C.S. Lewis 
• Bridge to Terabithia, Katherine Paterson
• Tuck Everlasting, Natalie Babbitt

• Darkness at Noon, Arthur Koestler
• Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand
• Anthem, Ayn Rand [free gutenberg.org version here]
  
• The Unheavenly City, Revisited, Edward Banfield
• The Abolition of Man, C.S. Lewis
• That Hideous Strength, C.S. Lewis
  
• Little Brother, Cory Doctorow [free creative commons version here]
  
• 1984, George Orwell
• Animal Farm, George Orwell
• Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
  
• We, Eugene Zamyatin
• The Martian Way, Isaac Asimov
• Freehold, Michael Z. Williamson
• Ted, White, and Blue, Ted Nugent

One More Reason ...

that I'm done with college sports.

In step with the tradition of going after the big bucks, rather than caring about the students, the "student" athletes, or even alumni, the Big Ten (10? 11? 12?) has expanded in order to add a football championship game to its schedule each year.
This extra game will bring in plenty of TV money, no doubt, but it has the added benefit of making all the traditional rivalry games of the end of the season less important, and much less likely even to be at the end of the season.
Michigan-Ohio State, Indiana-Purdue, Wisconsin-Minnesota, Et cetera-Et cetera. 
It doesn't matter if your students and alumni have always (or at least for several decades) looked forward to ending the season against that one main rival. 
It doesn't matter that in some cases, that win might be the only redeeming act in an otherwise futile season.
All that matters is that ESPN will give us a whole pile of money to spend on more football stuff, so we can play more football and get more money from ESPN.

What a bunch of crap.  College sports once were about the students and the student athletes playing for their school's glory and honour.  Now it's just the minor leagues, with major league budgets.  [I know, many will say there never was such a time, but I think that's simply revisionist history attempting one of two things; either to justify the current batch of hypocrisy (because it's always been this way), or to say that all college sports are always bad.  I don't accept either position.]

grr.

Carnage du Jour - 13 August 2010

Well, there are storms coming, so we'd better do our grilling today, right?  Right.

I've got some chicken breasts and some bone-in ribeyes - guess I'll just cook them both and we'll eat whatever.
The chicken is a couple boneless, skinless breasts, so I dropped in some Italian dressing and mixed in some smoky horseradish sauce as a marinade before cooking.
As to the steaks, I'm usually a "salt and pepper is more than enough flavouring for a good piece of beef" kind of guy, but with the horseradish working in my head already, I made a quick glaze / sauce / whatever of some prepared horseradish, a bit of (real!) vanilla extract, and some (also real!) maple syrup.  It still tasted mostly like horseradish, but with a little of the edge gone and its flavours mellowed and pointing slightly back from where it normally would be.

Once the fire was ready, on went the steaks, having been salted on both sides.  A turn halfway through the first side to give those nice cross-hatch grill marks was executed to perfection, they were flipped, and given their turn on that side when the mixture was applied.
Oh my.
The smoke and heat really did a number on that stuff - it was still a tad hot, but mostly it just melded with the beef flavour and did a virtual dance on our tongues.

As to the chicken, they went on once the steaks came off to rest.  With them went a nice little head of radicchio that had been halved and slathered with a bit of Italian dressing and a few leftover ears of red corn to reheat on the grill.
Wow.
The chicken was so tender, juicy, and flavourful that there were no complaints around the table.

Even better (although the radicchio and corn were fine), Heidi made her new variation on a Caprese salad, adding in some fresh chopped green chiles form the garden.  That extra heat is a beautiful addition to the flavour profile of that classic salad, and once again it was difficult to decide what to leave - so I didn't leave anything.  Fortunately, I didn't serve everything up, so there was only a little too much on the plate to start to go with the nothing left at the end.

Try that mixture on your next steak - it was spectacular!