The Gormogons

If the fertilized egg is not a new life, what is it, and when does it become a ‘new life?’ Q.E.D.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5b/Human_Fertilization.png

One of Dr. J.’s hep-cat progressive friends from on teh Facebook posted this article  from the Atlantic during her wailing, rending of garments and gnashing of teeth as a consequence of the narrow-in-scope Hobby Lobby decision.

The article tries, like so many, tries to blur the lines with regard to when life begins, stating:

What specific point in the reproductive process counts as “conception?”

…

The plaintiffs in Hobby Lobby define conception as the point when the sperm and egg come together to make a zygote, which is why they object to these birth control methods—they can interfere after an egg has already been fertilized. The American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, on the other hand, defines conception as the moment when a fertilized egg implants in the uterus. The Supreme Court noted in its decision that federal regulations also define conception this way—“pregnancy encompasses the period of time from implantation to delivery,” one reads.

Let’s take the second part first…The Supreme Court noted in its decision that the federal regulations also define conception [as implantation]. The CFR states c) Fetus means the product of conception from implantation until delivery and f) Pregnancy encompasses the period of time from implantation until delivery.

The regs do not define conception, (at least in 46.102). Period. The author of the Atlantic article is either stupid, dishonest or both.Now lets take the first part, regarding the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG). That was a head scratcher, as ACOG, like the ACC, is a medical organization, and intellectual honesty and scientific rigor are critical elements of developing guidelines for care. That being said, ACOG is a notoriously liberal medical congress. This isn’t the only time that ACOG’s been slippery with regard to the facts. When they talk about the financial burden of contraception on paid employees, in their amicus brief for this case, there are NO CITATIONS, unlike in all of the other sections, to support their argument.

So, Dr. J. googled ACOG and conception and found their ‘Statement on “Personhood” measures.’ 

The statement is an editorial in opposition to a Mississippi measure to define legal ‘personhood’ in that state as beginning at fertilization:

Like Mississippi’s failed “Personhood Amendment” Proposition 26, these misleading and ambiguously worded “personhood” measures substitute ideology for science and represent a grave threat to women’s health and reproductive rights that, if passed, would have long-term negative outcomes for our patients, their families, and society. Although the individual wording in these proposed measures varies from state to state, they all attempt to give full legal rights to a fertilized egg by defining “personhood” from the moment of fertilization, before conception (ie, pregnancy/ implantation) has occurred. This would have wide-reaching harmful implications for the practice of medicine and on women’s access to contraception, fertility treatments, pregnancy termination, and other essential medical procedures.

These “personhood” proposals, as acknowledged by proponents, would make condoms, natural family planning, and spermicides the only legally allowed forms of birth control. Thus, some of the most effective and reliable forms of contraception, such as oral contraceptives, intrauterine devices (IUDs), and other forms of FDA-approved hormonal contraceptives could be banned in states that adopt “personhood” measures. Women’s very lives would be jeopardized if physicians were prohibited from terminating life-threatening ectopic and molar pregnancies. Women who experience pregnancy loss or other negative pregnancy outcomes could be prosecuted in some cases.  

Again, there are two key points in the ACOG statement. The first point is that in this political statement, they say that conception is implantation, and not fertilization. That is their belief, opinion, and position, none of which changes biological and scientific fact. They hold that position because it transforms every agent is capable of preventing implantation into, linguistically speaking, a contraceptive, rather than an abortifacient. 

Indeed, prior to the birth of the Lil Medstudent, Mrs. Dr. J.’s OB/GYN discussed postnatal contraception options (as is routine), and he stated to her, “You probably wouldn’t want an IUD based on your values.” He knew, at the time, the mechanism of action of IUDs, and was intellectually honest about it, unlike post-Obamacare ACOG who has gotten Orwellian in its language to describe biology.

They reveal this in their second paragraph when they suggest that barrier methods, spermicides and natural family planning would become the only contraceptives permissible by law, should legal personhood be granted to all human life from conception (fertilization) until natural death. ACOG admits tacitly in this statement that all OCPs can prevent implantation. It is not their only mechanism of action, but it is a potential mechanism of action. Hobby Lobby didn’t even get that memo (or if they did, regular OCPs somehow didn’t bother them as much as IUDs and Plan-B).

As Dr. J. has said in the past, the problem, or perk, depending on your point of view, with OCPs, Plan-B and IUDs is that the patient has no idea IF a new life was created in their womb before an abortifacient mechanism prevents implantation, or if no life was conceived naturally, or due to prevention of fertilization (resulting in the Schrödinger’s Embryo argument ), they just know that they didn’t get pregnant. 

As an aside, the Mississippi law largely failed to gain public support because of the legitimate potential conundrum it placed in the management of ectopic pregnancies (a tragic situation where the baby is unsaveable, and the mother’s life is threatened by hemorrhage or potential for hemorrhage) and molar pregnancies (which is a bizarre tumor that formed from a failed fertilization, and is not a person)  and other life threatening conditions.

This is where words matter. Dr. J. holds that at fertilization, a new life begins and that is a biological fact. The life may or may not naturally succeed in implantation, successful gestational development, but miscarriages, sadly happen. Dr. J.’s had friends make the point that not all embryos naturally make it to birth in an attempt to justify abortion, but not all children make it to adulthood, does that make infanticide ok, not all adults die of old age, does that make murder OK? No.

But, where does life begin? Our friends from LifeNews cite three papers where the authors describe life beginning at fertilization (conception). Based on the context, it is probably a cited statement in the introductions in those papers, nevertheless, when talking about actual biology, life begins at fertilization. Their point is that you can do a very cursory search of the developmental biology literature and find thousands of papers to cite with similar statements. They also allude to an ethics article in a catholic journal that suggests that the language has been shifting as of late with regard to the definition of conception in the medical literature so as to reframe the argument. 

Even Dr. J.’s old med-school embryology text’s 9th edition (the most recent edition) affirms this:

The Developing Human, Moore, – Chapter 2:

• As the pronuclei fuse into a single diploid aggregation of chromosomes, the ootid becomes a zygote. The chromosomes in the zygote become arranged on a cleavage spindle in preparation for cleavage of the zygote.

The zygote is genetically unique because half of its chromosomes came from the mother and half from the father. The zygote contains a new combination of chromosomes that is different from that in the cells of either of the parents. This mechanism forms the basis of biparental inheritance and variation of the human species. Meiosis allows independent assortment of maternal and paternal chromosomes among the germ cells . Crossing over of chromosomes, by relocating segments of the maternal and paternal chromosomes, “shuffles” the genes, thereby producing a recombination of genetic material. The embryo’s chromosomal sex is determined at fertilization by the kind of sperm (X or Y) that fertilizes the oocyte. Fertilization by an X-bearing sperm produces a 46, XX zygote, which develops into a female, whereas fertilization by a Y-bearing sperm produces a 46, XY zygote, which develops into a male. – Developing Human, 9th Edition

Moore says that a new life is created without saying a new life is created. Dr. J. recalls it being clearer in the earlier edition, unfortunately he no longer has the text.

In Chapter 3, Moore explains the mechanism of action of Plan-B and IUDs:

Inhibition of Implantation

The administration of relatively large doses of progestins and/or estrogens (“morning-after pills”) for several days, beginning shortly after unprotected sexual intercourse, usually does not prevent fertilization but often prevents implantation of the blastocyst. A high dose ofdiethylstilbestrol, given daily for 5 to 6 days, may also accelerate passage of the cleaving zygote along the uterine tube. Normally, the endometrium progresses to the luteal phase of the menstrual cycle as the zygote forms, undergoes cleavage, and enters the uterus. The large amount of estrogen disturbs the normal balance between estrogen and progesterone that is necessary for preparation of the endometrium for implantation. An intrauterine device inserted into the uterus through the vagina and cervix usually interferes with implantation by causing a local inflammatory reaction. Some intrauterine devices contain progesterone that is slowly released and interferes with the development of the endometrium so that implantation does not usually occur. – Developing Human, 9th Edition

The Czar is glad Americans are watching the World Cup in such numbers, because since last week the number of people claiming baseball is way more boring than soccer has dropped to nearly nothing. No matter how tiring you feel soccer or baseball is to watch, remember that at least neither sport is as bad as golf.

Dear Moron,

Yes—the sport of soccer is intensely European to the point of disliking Americans entirely. Don’t laugh: even Kareem Abdul Jabbar agrees. Soccer is, for all intents and purposes, a perfect look at multinational Euro-organization. You have a bunch of men on a team—the number increases the worse you feel you are doing—who mostly run around and kick the ball back here and there. The real work is done by the goalie: he’s like the bureaucrat because he misses nearly everything he’s out there to do, but takes all the credit. The other guys, who like the workers spend most of their time running pointlessly around, get little attention…but they do receive tiny numbers on their uniforms.

Yeah, no kidding, big guy. Must be the second half.

At the end of 90 minutes, the game doesn’t stop. The judges add up all the time that is wasted during the game—let’s be honest, that’s pretty much the whole thing—and then add it to the clock. This is why it can take 45 hours to finish anything, again keeping in line with the Eurowork model.

If the score is tied at the end of extra time, extra time is added. Unless there is a second tie, in which case extra extra time is added to the first extra, and if no one scores a goal after this, the decision as to who won the game goes before a 13-member committee made up of unelected officials, each from a different country, who produce a lengthy set of forms to fill out. These forms are partially filled out and then rejected because they weren’t all in different languages…including Welsh, even though there isn’t anyone from Wales on the committee. In the event the forms are correctly filled out, a ten-part regulatory compliance tax is added to the initial form to be paid out by non-member states not presently allied with the IMF. This is why Belgium is involved when they technically have no country and Israel is ignored.

The winner is Germany, because historically that’s the only multi-national contest they tend to succeed at, and the loser will inevitably be Americans because of their aggressive cowboy diplomacy during the Nixon Reagan Bush Bush years. Eisenhower hated soccer. And, not coincidentally, Belgium.

Operative BJ writes in with something that has been bugging a lot of people, including your Czar, regarding the alleged loss of every critical Lois Lerner email—to and from—regarding the IRS scandal.

This claim is about one simple lawsuit away from exposing the truth.

Look, it wasn’t Lois Lerner’s job to back up her own email at work. But it is the IT department’s job. Now, admittedly, a lot of IT departments fail to do proper backups or think they do. Each night, the backup software carefully activates, identifies what data has changed since the previous day, and dutifully sends it to a backup storage device that was removed from the system in 2003, and no longer functions. The backup server cheerfully records the failed backup and writes it to a log that no one looks at. This happens, and we get that.

But it is ridiculous to believe that that the IRS has been able to luck out of needing a restored backup for 24 months. But is it possible? Certainly.

But it is possible that an email server can lose one person’s email for 2 years but no one else’s? No, because that is not how email servers work.

An email server for a large entity like the IRS (or even here at the Castle) has a large server with a lot of storage on it. The emails are indexed into a database. When the Czar sends an email and copies ‘Puter, GorT, and Dr. J. on it, the email server does not sends separate messages to all three of those guys. It saves one copy of the message to the server, and basically gives read rights to those guys’ inbox. And it indexes that a copy should be saved to our Sent Mail directory. Then, as they read the messages, the server records who read it and when. Each can then forward, reply, or more typically delete it—but then the deleted email remains on the server until everyone has deleted the original, provided no one forwarded it or replied to it.

If there is a large attachment, say like our Visitor’s Guide, that can be saved to an off-site storage devices in order to free up space on a busy mail server. But don’t kid yourself: the email message itself still remains, including all related data: date, time, to whom it was sent, whether each recipient read it, deleted it without reading, moved it to a different area, replied, forwarded, or whatever.

And because it is indexed and reindexed so many different ways, it is not conceivable that somehow Lois Lerner’s email, and only her messages, were magically lost. If her emails were truly lost, it would affect thousands of users who use the same server. All their emails would be lost too.

And that could happen, but it would be noticed within minutes. Heck, just make a mandatory password change and watch and see how many phone calls the IT support desk gets. Thousands of users on a server losing email instantly? Yeah, it would take minutes.

On the other hand, is it possible to edit the database on an email server and have it remove every trace of Lois Lerner’s emails? You know, remove her name from cc: and bcc: lists, and delete any message she created, replied to, or forwarded? Absolutely. in fact, that would be a great way to remove any chance of forensic discovery. And then if you do a complete backup of the email server so that it overwrites all backups for two years with this tampered database, yes, that could produce the desired result. Especially since no one really uses backup tapes: they duplicate data from one storage device to another as you described. That could take a couple hours at most, only. But of course, that would be incredibly dishonest.

The Justice Department doesn’t want to investigate Lois Lerner because it knows what will be revealed about the President as well as the Attorney General’s involvement in this scandal. But yes, Operative BJ, anyone who has some time on their hand could make the claim that their unpaid taxes are the result of this email loss—and thereby trigger an investigation into what really happened. And the Justice Department is going to have to deal with the truth sooner, rather than later.

And the Czar expects the Justice Department is really going to wish it came clean from the very beginning. Make no mistake—Nixon lost the presidency over much less than this.

Gentle Readers,

Superbusy is evolving into the new normal for Dr. J. Today’s mailbag has three letters. The first comes form Operative Run SMC regarding the Apple/Dr. J. Axis:

Dear Dr. J.,

So, I think Apple knows who you all are. Look at the result of its suggested text. I think I’ve only ever typed lil’ Jedi once in a previous email that isn’t currently on this phone. Well played Apple, well played.

Best, Operative Run SMC

Dear Run SMC,

Thanks for writing in. Don’t worry, Apple has no idea who we are. GorT can write code and, our pranks are legion, so make your own conclusions. Thanks for writing in!

Best,

Dr. J.

Operative Kansas, a.k.a. the Wayward Son writes regarding Dr. J.’s contraceptive update, and the Archivist’s reply:

Dear Dr. J.,

To your “The Science of Contraception” post, I would add a Group 0: “I’m on the Pill for my ‘lady problems’ and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. Why does the Church want me to suffer from all these ‘lady problems’?”

While there isn’t anything wrong with this (and this is Church teaching) it’s bad medicine. It doesn’t solve anything and can make the problem worse in the long run. Thus the many Catholic women suffering from infertility problems. Women go on Pill as a teenagers for non-contraceptive reasons at the advice of her doctor, then come off of it to find the problems worse than ever.

I’m not sure how the Church should address this, since it isn’t a moral issue, though it is a problem.

Otherwise, I would agree with Marie, most young Catholics I know are Group 1 or Group 2 aspiring to be Group 1 with the occasional Group 0. Group 3 and Group 4 are uncommon among Millennial Catholics. This is not necessarily because more Catholics are accepting the teaching as it is that many of these Catholics have simply left the Church.

Best,

Operative Kansas

Dear Wayward Son,

Thanks for writing in! Back in high school, all the girls on OCPs ‘were group 0.’ Yeah, right.

There are three excellent points that you bring up. Dr. J. will try to summarize them and respond to them in succession.

With regard to the longterm consequence of teenagers regulating their periods with OCPs, then trying to have children as responsible, happily married adults, Dr. J. isn’t familiar with anything in his training suggesting that there is an increased incidence of infertility after longterm OCP use. Dr. J. has combed the literature.

There is an article in which a study comparing patients amenorrhoea after OCP use, there was no difference in pregnancy rates in both groups. Furthermore, 83% (39/47) of patients for whom there was neither an organic cause preventing pregnancy and who desired to become pregnant became so. Dr. J. could not access the journal article, however, but if one assumes that the 83% is a %/yr, that’s not abnormal. If it’s over two years, than 83% is less than the 95% rate of the normal population. Keep in mind, however this is an at risk subset as they had amenorrhea after discontinuation of OCPs.

A second article from the Journal of Biosocial Sciences. This was a retrospective study of 5108 women, studying the time to conception after the cessation of contraception. What that study demonstrated was that there was a decrease in fertility in the women who did not have a waiting period. When the waiting period, or lack thereof was adjusted for, did not notice a decrease in fertility. Dr. J. does not have the actual article, but assumes that the hypothalamic/pituitary/ovarian axis needs to wake up, and those in a rush had more trouble than those who were in no rush (i.e. abstaining or  using barrier methods for an interval period of time not otherwise specified).

Dr. J. would also like to add, that ‘group zero’ ladies may also have other factors that may be confounding the situation. The ‘irregular’ subset of teens may represent an enriched group with underlying pathology causing them to be irregular (polycystic ovarian disease, other metabolic disorders, excessively high or low body mass index) all of which may confound this group.

Now please don’t take this as an endorsement of OCP’s by Dr. J., but when young ladies from group zero come off the pill to become pregnant, their troubles may be related to the pill (a small subset) or related to underlying pathology. Your local OB/GYN is better equipped to address these issues than Dr. J.

You are right, however that there aren’t a lot of group 3 and group 4 millennial Catholics, as unlike their Gen X and especially Baby Boomer predecessor, don’t have trouble leaving the Catholic Church, preferring to attend a church that serves their needs along with coffee, a Powerpoint sermon and a tattooed minister.

Our last email comes from Operative ERC who writes regarding Dr. J.’s lack of surety regarding the plural for .357 Magnum.

From: Operative ERC

To: Dr. J.

Date June 4th, 2014, 21:04

Subject: Plural of magnum

Is magnii

Best, ERC

Dear Operative ERC,

Way to keep it pithy. Duly noted!

Best,
Dr. J.

It’s truly that time of year, when we get on our summer duds and fire up the flames.

With the self-congratulations out of the way, the Czar can mention that he and GorT were discussing grilling the other day; the Czar confessed that we do not write about this enough. The Czar, in particular, loves grilling, smoking, and barbecuing foods. His pork ribs, in particular, are a favorite among everyone who has experienced them.*

Grilling and smoking are what the Czar knows best, and he would like to make some comments about the craft in no particular order. Probably he will be motivated enough in the future to post some recipes and more intermediate and advanced techniques. But here are some things to get you motivated as Summer begins.

First, you can grill an entire meal, and there is an awful lot you can grill you may never have considered. The Czar has grilled a huge variety of meats, dozens of vegetables…yes, corn on the cob, but also peas. Every tried grilled peas? Fruits, too: the Czar has done apples, peaches, and especially pineapples. How about a salad? The Czar loves Thai beef salad, and it is better grilled. Yes, desserts, too. The point is that the same grilling techniques you use to make a hot dog, believe it or not, can make an entire meal that will astonish your guests.

Gas or charcoal? The Czar gets asked this a lot, and the answer is unquestionably both. Some meals are just better on a gas grill—hot dogs and hamburgers are better on gas if you want even cooking and better control over final temperature. Garlic bread, fruits, fish, and other temperature-sensitive foods are better on gas. But charcoal reigns unbeaten for ribs, shoulder, briskets, and other slow-cooked foods that benefit from smoke.**

The Czar knows it is an added expense, but he uses both gas and charcoal. Ultimately, the cooking techniques are pretty much the same, but the design of the grill might require you to adapt slightly.

First, for all grills, obey these rules. We see these violated all the time by people who ought to know better. See how simple these are? They will make a massive difference in your ability to grill a good meal.

1. Clean your grill. Yes, your dad made great burgers, but if the grille itself was encrusted in black clumps of coal, you were taking in too many carcinogens. A seasoned grill is one thing, but a filthy one is pathetic. Use oven cleaner, soap, and a lot of hot water. Get the grille (the part you actually cook on) as new-looking as possible. Clean out the firebox (the thing under it that holds the coals or burners) of ash and grease. Get that baby clean; like a good car, a clean grill will last a long, long time. And produce superior results. Clean it before you fire it up, or right after the food comes off.
2. Lubricate the grill. Use non-stick spray, or wipe the grille with inexpensive vegetable oil, or smear the unused part of an onion all over the top of the grille rack. You don’t have to use much, but a well-slicked grate will let you flip and reposition food properly.
3. Keep the damn lid down. If you grill with the lid up, or keep checking the good every minute, all your heat is escaping. You are wasting charcoal or gas every time you do it. Food will cook faster if you check every 3-4 minutes or only as absolutely necessary. When the Czar sees his host trying to cook steaks or pork chops with the lid up, he knows dinner will be quite late.
4. Know the difference between direct and indirect cooking. More on this in a bit.
5. Use the right tools. For goodness sake, grilling implements are cheap. Get a good spatula with a long blade and long handle (the Czar’s has a serrated edge, a slicing edge, and built-in bottle opener, which is used more often than we should admit). Get long-handled tongs. The Czar nearly wept to see a home owner use little kitchen tongs when trying to grill, and she kept burning her hands. Third, get a metal grill brush to clean the grill. See step one.
6. For the love of God, stop squishing the food with the spatula. The Czar could punch a dude in the eyelid everytime he sees someone use a spatula to press down on a burger. All you do is squish the fat out of the burger, making it a cardboard drink coaster.
7. Lean to read the meat. When the juices pearl up on the top of the meat, flip it over. Not before.
8. Learn to read the meat. Know the difference between rare, medium rare, medium well, and well done. Guess what? You can tell the internal temperature of the meat by poking each piece with your tongs. Seriously.
9. Let your foods rest when done. Never cut right into meat or fish seconds after pulling it off the heat! Juices inside are well past the boiling point, and if you cut in, they escape out in the form of steam. Put a piece of foil over the meat and let it sit 5-10 minutes while you finish up some vegetables or something. Trust us: the steam will condense back into juicy flavor. Then you can cut and eat it.

Gas Grills

Get at least a three-burner grill. Yes, we know it costs a helluva lot more, but there is very little you can properly cook with a two-burner gas grill. Sorry, but it’s like buying a 60-watt microwave oven. Why three burners? Because you need to leave one burner off at all times.

Okay, that seems like a waste, but with two burners cooking your food, you need one burner off to be a safety area. Ideally, get a four-burner grill. Better yet, get one with a side-burner as well (although to be honest, we hardly use ours except for melting butter or warming a glaze).

Direct Grilling

Direct grilling is cooking the meat right over the fire. Hot dogs, burgers, thin or flat chicken breasts, thin pork chops, vegetables, cubed meats, and so on, all work well this way. Fire up all but one burner, close the lid, and let the grill heat up. When the temperature is about 400°, at least, put the meat directly over the fire and let it sear.

Generally, meats need about 3 minutes over the fire; then, open the lid and quickly rotate the meat about 90° to create the #-like grill marks. Close the lid. After another 3-4 minutes, lift the lid and check to see if the blood or juices have bubbled up on top of the meat. If so, flip it. Close the lid, and give it another 3 minutes. Repeat the 90° spin, and let it go 3-4 minutes. Check the doneness and if you think you got it right, pop in a meat thermometer to confirm. Otherwise, let it cook a bit longer.

Indirect Cooking

If you try to direct cook thick meats, we can assure you your guests will get meat burned on the outside and raw on the inside. To cook anything thicker than your hand, you need to use indirect cooking.

How to do this on a gas grill varies by manufacturer. Generally you turn on two burners and leave one or two off. On one grill we had, it was the outer two you turned on, and the inner two you left off. On the Czar’s current grill—same manufacturer, oddly—you turn off the two left burners and turn on the two right burners. Whatever.

The point is, you place the meat over the cold burners and let the other two warm the air. This turns your gas grill into a powerful convection oven. The internal temperature of the grill will stay around 350°. You will use less gas, and the cooking time is about the same as an indoor oven. So thick pork chops might take 20 minutes this way, but they will be absolutely perfect to serve when done. Yeah, you can flip them and get grill marks and everything guests like, but without the risk of burning them on the outside just to get raw meat when cut open.

Whole chickens and turkeys must be done indirectly, as well. This is a powerful grilling technique that is easily learned and produces incredible results. Most grilling recipes will indicate which method to use, and your grill manual should indicate which burners to turn on or off.

Charcoal Grills

Some rules:

1. Never use lighter fluid. It is a huge waste of money, and puts oily-black smoke on your food. Seriously: if you have lighter fluid, get rid of it. Use it on a fire pit or something. And don’t use charcoal with built in starter fluid. This is a huge waste of money.
2. And don’t waste money buying expensive lump charcoals or fancy-ass borax briquettes from Spanish hardwoods. You want to know what charcoal all the world-famous grillers use? And which brand the experts use? The Czar bets you do. But keep this a secret.
3. With good charcoal, you need to light it correctly. Learn to use a chimney starter.*** If you don’t have one, or wind up at someone’s house who doesn’t have one and expects you to take over the grilling (ahem), you can place newspaper under a mix of charcoal and twigs gathered from the yard.
4. Learn how vents work. Close the lid and open the vents at the top and bottom to increase airflow.

Direct Grilling

No trick to it. Find the hottest spot over your coals by hovering your hand over the grill. Place your meats here. Find the coolest spot—this is where you push your meats if they start to burn or you want to equalize the cooking time between different pieces.

Otherwise, follow the same steps above. 3-4 minutes, rotate. 3-4 minutes, flip. 3-4 minutes, rotate. 3-4 minutes, check the doneness. And keep the grill covered as much as possible.

Indirect Grilling

This is easier on charcoal because they all do it the same way. When you pour your coals into the firebox, push them into two piles, one on each side. Leave a gap in the middle.

Hot coals on each side, drip pan in middle. The Czar would orient the grill handles differently to make it easier to add coals, but this works.

Place a disposable aluminum drip pan (or make one out of thick aluminum foil) in the center, and put the grille on top.

Place the meat over the drip pan.

Cover the lid, and open the vent all the way. Turn the lid so the vent is over the meat, and not over either coal pile.

You’re now indirect grilling. That’s easy, but remember to check the internal temperature. And if you have to add more charcoal because you’re making a big turkey, you need to figure out how to do it carefully without burning yourself or dropping the food into the firebox. Be careful. This is why we like the gas grill for indirect grilling, by the way: it’s easy to control the heat.

In the future, we’ll look at tips and tricks for simple meals like hot dogs and hamburgers (yes, you can improve them with a couple of easy steps), and tackle some exotic meals with some very simple techniques.

Last word: experiment. You will learn a lot by making mistakes.

* If you want variation, check out GorT and ‘Puter’s recipes for ribs. We might all love us some knock-out outdoor cooking, but we each do ours differently. These are all superb recipes. Try any one.

** But if you want to invest in a smoker, you will be able to make proper, lacquered ribs, shreddable brisket and pork shoulder, smoked salmon, and—yes!—home-made bacon.

*** Get the Weber-brand one. It’s only $15 at Home Depot, and lasts a long time. Plus, it is really easy to use. Trust us. It’s a great investment, and will light your coals in less time than any other technique.

A lot of folks are going rightfully nutso over a recent image taken by the Hubble telescope, which is aged and obsolete by all accounts. But boy, it can take some pictures.

The Ultra Deep Field

Actually, this is an understated photograph. Most people don’t realize how amazing this picture is for what it doesn’t show: the rest of the night sky.

Here’s the deal: astronomers wondered what would happen if they pointed the Hubbell at a dark, uninteresting patch of the night sky. And they zoomed in (relatively speaking) on one piece of it. And then zoomed in on the least interesting part of that. They picked two points, one in the North and one in the South, and were astonished to see these uninteresting areas filled with lots and lots of beautiful galaxies.

Astronomers were so pleased with the results they went way further. They picked an absolutely useless and incredibly tiny piece of the sky. They used new techniques and technologies to really, really, really zoom in on the tiniest piece of sky, all all wavelengths of light. An ultra deep field, as it were. A spot so dark that no stars in our own galaxy would ever be in the way.

So small, it’s the size of a 1mm x 1mm square held a meter away from your eyes. That’s how small the spot is.

And the picture you see here is what they saw.

So think of it this way: this photo is something the size of a staple hole held 3 feet from your eye. How many of these fill the entire night sky all around you? About 12,560 of these, all around you, above you, and below you.

That’s how awesome this picture is: you are looking at a tiny piece of the entire thing. And this still doesn’t show everything: just what our telescopes are able to see.

GorT normally covers kids playing sports—and trust your Czar on this one, but he has a cannon ready to fire on that—but the Czar quite by chance found himself attending a regional volleyball tournament over the weekend. No, the Czar was not participating as this tournament was basically all teenage girls playing; he was there purely in the capacity of a dirty old man.

Look, when the Czar was younger we played volleyball with the head of a goat, and the rules were quite different. Only the serving team could score a point. A botched play by the serving team resulted in the ball being turned over to the other team, and they became the serving team. Today, every play results in a point for either team. If the serving team causes the far side to make a mistake, point for the serving team. If the serving team blows a serve by hitting it into the head of a girl in the front of the net, point for the receiving team.

The Czar was told that this makes the games go much faster. Yeah, we can see that: the score goes up to 25 points for the first two rounds, so if the final score was 25-22, the Czar can assure you the ball was served exactly 47 times that game. Everything results in a point for somebody.

This happens about five times a minute, no matter how non-critical the play was.

After the 400th-or-so eyeroll from the Czar, one of the team moms turned and apologized, admitting it gets to be a little much, especially during a tournament when the girls play something like 37 games in a row. But it has a purpose, she whispered.

Evidently—and this will be of little surprise—teenage girls basically all hate each other. And years ago, the coaches realized that if Lanie had a bad dream that Lexi was drawing hearts around Tom’s name, and everyone knows that Tom is going out with Amanda, although Lanie would totally take Tom away from Amanda if Amanda moved away tomorrow, that over-biting b-word, Lanie would deliberately not back up Lexi on the next eight games. Which of course would force Delaney to serve the ball into the back of Lanie’s head because Caitlin sighed at Lexi because Amanda isn’t that nice. And so the team loses.

But if you force the girls to Yaaayyy-hug after every single freaking thing that happens, roughly once every twenty seconds, something magical happens. Eventually, the entire team pretends to like each other and support each other, and soon everyone is playing like clockwork because they don’t want to be excluded from the Yaaayyy-hug, no matter how badly they screwed it up. It’s a lot like how the Obama administration functions.

‘Puter likes soccer more than any American should, but the Czar invites ‘Puter to give girls’ volleyball a much closer look.

And if the serving team scored right off the serve (an “ace”), the girls on the serving team all get together and do this foot-stompy dance like some bubblegum haka dance while the receiving team yaaayyy-hugs the girl who totally screwed up. This is very surreal.

Also, the concession stand served really good chicken-fried rice.

In between the yaaayyy-hugs and the ka mate aces, the entire event is like some bizarre-world television show that you cannot stop watching. Yaaayyys, hugs, haka dances, whistles blowing, and shoving spoonfuls of fried rice into your mouth. The team mom leaned in and said &#147:You get used to it,” with no sense of irony.

The Czar, who did not know her, asked how and when this happens. Sensing our disbelief, she explained that other sports do it, too. Like football.

This isn’t an official GSA award, but it is a real one. And we can assure you, Cub Scouts doesn’t have this.

The Czar knows when volleyball got this nuts. And GorT will have a more detailed explanation in the days to follow about how girls’ volleyball has become a cut-throat, political pressure cooker, but this all happened right around the same time that the Girl Scouts started giving out patches for having a birthday. So you know, the girls don’t all start hating each other.

Oh brother.

The President is very busy these days.

As the economy proves his policies have prolonged a stagnant economy for longer than the Great Depression, the President announced that he is very working to draw attention to youth sports concussions.

While Europe drifts apart, Russia overruns Ukraine, and the Middle East returns to its powderkeg ways, the President goes to West Point and begs people to give him a bit of break on his foreign policy because it’s a lot harder than anyone said while he was a candidate.

Thanks to an unneeded healthcare overhaul that Obama put in place, millions of Americans are worried they might not be able to afford any coverage anymore for their families; Obama says he wants to close Guantanamo prison before he leaves office.

As most Americans are thoroughly outraged that our own veterans are being corralled into holding pens to await death rather than give them treatment—in the one country where this was never supposed to happen—Obama threatens thousands of jobs with carbon restriction actions that he does not fully understand.

Just so you are aware that he his has dedicated the remaining years of his presidency proving to us that he is just as good a leader as Abraham Lincoln.

Thanks to long-timer Mark Spahn of West Seneca, New York—who suffers under the illusion that the Czar is the proprietor here and not a mere contributor—we heard back from Professor Eugue Volokh himself on the subject of intentionally posting improper “No Concealed Carry” signs on Illinois property as a way to shut up the anti-gun crowd while surreptitiously winking at concealed carriers that they are welcome.

Anyway, he wishes us all to note that Illinois law does permit a property owner to incorporate the legal requierments of the signage within a larger display or context. In other words, you can put the 4″ x 6″ sign within a much larger sign. Yes, the 4″ x 6″ requirements must still be met, but a concealed carrier must recognize that just because the sign itself is larger than the requirement does not mean the sign is invalid.

For example, a store owner can take the official 4″ x 6″ sign and put it on a larger poster board, along with all sorts of stuff around it (store hours, website address, whatever). As long as the official sign is present (and per usual in an easily seen space near the entrance), the sign is valid. Anyone bringing a firearm past that sign is asking for trouble.

Thanks, gentlemen, for the addition. Here are a bunch of signs you might see around Illinois; only one of them is valid.

	VALID (and may be incorporated in whole within a larger sign)
	INVALID
	INVALID
	INVALID
	INVALID
	INVALID
	INVALID
	INVALID
	INVALID
	INVALID
	INVALID
	INVALID

Our beloved Archivist, the one and only Marie writes:

I’m catching up on lackadaisical reading; my apologies.

Re: April 18th, “The Science of Contraception”, I think you nailed the 4 associations on the continuum quite fairly. As a Millenial Catholic, and one who has several friends who are either practicing Millenials or Gen-X’ers… I think many would be surprised to know that a fair number of us are in “group 1” [Faithful to the teachings. ed.], or group 2 with group-1 leanings [Pro-life who would only use non-abortive methods of contraception. ed.].

On the other spectrum, there are the many Catholics facing infertility issues. That is its own continuum which echoes the first, but it’s interesting to me (in a historical context) how many of the younger women today are facing difficulty with fertility – and had parents, or possibly grandparents – who spun their heads, or passively taught, that the Church was just so old fashioned.

Based on my own interactions with other Catholic women… there has been much misleading information for the past few decades. We aim to bring more truth into the conversation. Yay internet.

(Not really a response to your piece, per se, just some observations).
How are things with Clan J?

Dear Archivist,

You are spot on. Those with religiously conservative mores on this issue exist in greater numbers than people think. We’re just afraid to say something in public for fear of being shouted down as a science hating patriarchal misogynist.

You bring up a point regarding women with fertility issues. The big issue for Dr. J. is in vitro. In principle, it isn’t a big deal to him. While you don’t have the power and mystery of the conjugal act, you create a life. The problem is that practice does not align with principle. For example, a large number of eggs are harvested, fertilized, and those not implanted are left on ice indefinitely. What is one to do with those embryos? Put them up for adoption? Sell them to industry as raw material? Dr. J. would be happier with a ‘two fertilization at a time’ approach, implanting all embryos generated.

Clan J. is doing well. The Lil Resident starts summer vacation tomorrow. She had a fantastic year at the Bene Gesserit Chapterhouse. Indeed she was honored with an award voted on by her peers as the young lady in her class that most represents the Bene Gesserit ideal.

The Lil Medstudent had a good first grade year. He got high marks, and his behavior in the second semester was less Loki-like than in the first. Schools these days expect the boys to act like girls. He’s been off since Tuesday and has been spending his days sharing a babysitter with one of his fellow younglings. They had a Nerf Gun duel, went to a science museum where they get to touch things, went to a trampoline facility, and otherwise horsed around outside. The New Atlantis Country Club pool opens Saturday, which brings about the true opening of summer.

Lady J. and Loki J. are doing great as well. Lady J.’s kill list is growing. she killed two birds, a chipmunk, a mole and three baby rabbits so far this spring. Loki J. has even logged a baby rabbit a bird and a few butterflies.

Thanks for writing in!

The internationally famous drummer, author, and academic swimsuit model (truly one of our best disguises ever), Professor Mondo himself (@ProfMondo) writes in to add some spin to a recent topic here on the site:

Pow! This cracked a couple of us up here at the Castle when the Czar read this aloud. This could even be immortalized in the classic setup-punchline form, for those who wish to retell it. Heck, even Professor Mondo might want to rewrite that story for his preferred joke delivery method. We can get him started: “Onis for a hwile a lewed man was enditen a forme. Whan that forme axed his religioun, a hende man saw hym as he enditede in Baptiste.” And so forth.

No, GorT has been amazingly helpful (lately), setting up and debugging the new site. We have been itching to update it for a while, and Volgi—who let’s face, still runs the place when he shows up—finally agreed to change the whole look and experience here. In fact, there is a lot more about to happen. Keep checking the sidebar, as we will be creeping new silliness and horror for you all to share. The Czar is loathe to specify because, as always, bugs are being worked out and we prefer not to promise what we might not be able to package and deliver.

We are so glad you stuck with us!

If you do see anything amiss—sometimes, for the Czar, you have to hit refresh [F5] to correct the formatting—let GorT know and he will promptly copy down whatever problem you are having on a special blue form note, promptly throw the note in the trash, and delete your email.

Sorry we missed you, but there was such a secret meeting of the minds of the Gormogons in Chicago yesterday, that we could not tell you about it. Or ‘Puter. But GorT, Volgi, and your Czar got together at the Yuet Lung restaurant in downtown Chicago and ran up a ridiculous tab.

For those of you who were in the restaurant yesterday, we (a) hope you enjoyed a riveting discussion on sports, what’s wrong with various generations of kids, and climate change, and (b) apologize for the abusive language and shocking displays of vulgarity (or perhaps, Volgirity).

Dr. J. was of course away on vital business, and the Mandarin had to withdraw at the last moment as he spent the day with his son on a school event. However, he was nice enough to send us a picture of the two of them having fun “correcting” the rides’ scare factors at Haunted Trails, outside Joliet.

‘Puter was probably at the Castle wondering why no one was answering their phones.

The Czar writes a nice little something, expects that he will receive angry letters about it, but typically gets richly thought-out responses by really smart people. Case in point: the Czar wrote a feel-bad piece about whether Protestants are really protesting against Catholicism anymore, and figured he would hear from folks angry with his simplistic explanations. Instead, we found two nice Dear Czar letters worth sharing. The first is from Mitch, who is the proud owner and operator of Blogfonte:

And if that were not enough to perk up your gray bits this morning, Operative SMR adds a different perspective:

The Czar will add that pretty much every religion understands itself to be the best, otherwise recruiting for that branch, sect, denomination, or faith would be way down. Imagine: “Come to the United Fellowship of Christ Believers—We’re Almost As Real As Presbyterians!” That sure wouldn’t work. But you are correct in that searching for a single word that collects all those terms into one is tricky, so how about “bunch?” Mark Spahn—he of West Seneca, New York—will soon write in with the bon mot, which will trigger an email to us from Volgi pointing out some obscure 11th Century error, and the whole fight starts again, and pretty soon the Baptists produce a 453rd split, the Episcopalians appoint a non-Episcopalian as a bishop in an effort to branch out, and the media will gleefully announce that Pope Francis has legalized premarital sex. The usual, one guesses.

To all our spouses, mothers and mother-in-laws, the Gormogons wish a very Happy Mother’s Day.  We hope you have an enjoyable day in the mode that you wish to celebrate.

Mrs. GorT is coming to watch replicant #2’s soccer game which, for some reason, was scheduled at 5pm on Mother’s Day.  But we’ll have fun in the gorgeous day then enjoy a releaxing family dinner.

You might never think of it like this, but you know who has more in common than not? Ready? Atheists and biblical literalists. After Monday’s Supreme Court ruling, this spot-on tweet came out:

If you think a moment of prayer is "forcing my religion" on you, maybe you are very weak-minded.

— Cinco de Gayo (@GayPatriot) May 5, 2014

This is exactly correct. Most atheists fall into two categories:

1. Non-believers, who sincerely believe the universe does not bend to the whim of a supreme power
2. Humanists, who are assholes

Quite a large number of atheists don’t care about and don’t care for religion. They even say “Merry Christmas,” and take the day off. Whatever. If you want to get up on a Friday, Saturday, or Sunday and pray with the family, good for you. Just don’t expect them to join you.

The rest not only hate religion, they hate you for it. If two humanists get together, they spend most of their time reassuring each other how smart they are for rejecting the claptrap. They criticize you for not saying „Gesundheit“ after a sneeze, freak out when a park district storage locker has a bistro light up after December 15th, and basically want La Croix, Wisconsin, to change its name. Actually, no: what they really want is a news camera showing the world how much smarter they are. Humanists are the intellectual equivalent of the guy who sues a manufacturer of hard hats because they lack a sticker warning you that hard hats cannot stop bullets.

It’s so easy to get under their skin, and likely you have already thought of several examples. And you know why? Because they are so rickety in their beliefs they take on a characteristic engineers call an unstable equilibrium. Yeah, like a soda can balanced on its edge, it stands tall until the slightest tap knocks it over. The Czar is not the only one who thinks so.

Not surprisingly, of all theocratical beliefs, Georgetown University found that atheists have the lowest retention rates between generations. Only 30% of atheists’ kids remain atheists. We blame the parents: they are such neurotic pains in the ass that the kids will join almost anything to avoid being like Mom and Dad:

This suggests to the Czar that the more in-your-face a person is about their belief system (liberals, take note!), the less they can defend their position over time. This is not to prove that atheists are wrong about their non-belief—just that they make lack sufficient…dare we say faith?…about their convictions.

And now to biblical literalists. You know, the young-earthers. The folks who insist that evolution is just a guess-theory, and not something readily demonstrable in nature. The idea that every word in the Bible is the literal, absolute truth—without wiggle room—or else apparently the entire world falls apart.

Catholics, often perceived to be mired in an archaic belief system, are indeed the more scientifically advanced: a lot of the work proving the formation of the earth-moon system, evolution, and the Big Bang is the result of—gasp—Catholic researchers, many of whom were priests. St. John Paul II was quite clear on this, more so than the previous statements of other Popes: faith should never fear science but incorporate it. Moreover, the two are inseparable.

Non-Catholics are obviously welcome to reject this and forge their own beliefs. Perhaps this pronouncement is unreasonable. But it is more reasonable, by far, than the rejection of modern science because you believe your entire faith falls apart if the earth was not created on October 23, 4004 BC. This idea is most humiliating—young-earth creationists will reject a Catholic idea of the Big Bang demonstrable with photographs, but will certainly accept an Irish Catholic* bishop’s sketchy guess from the 1600s.

How weak is someone’s faith that it collapses when a galaxy is shown to be 20 billion light years away? Or that rock can be carbon dated to billions of years? Or that a yard weed is now suddenly resistent to RoundUp? None of these things are literally mentioned in the Bible, but the literalists insist they are because they have read every word, including the ones not actually there.

Here come the protests, the assertions, the demonstrations that science is wrong! That a Theory is just a guess, that your belief system is wrong, wrong, wrong because it contradicts how they think, and they are so much smarter than you.

Forgive the Czar if he finds humanist atheists and biblical literalists sharing an equal intolerance—one of equal instability. If a person’s convictions require shouting and spitting and name-calling, well, perhaps it takes the merest poke to tip the whole thing over. In which case, he isn’t as strong in his convictions as he hopes.

[*James Ussher (1581–1656) was technically not a Irish Catholic, but an Anglo-Irish primate of the Anglican Church of Ireland. Just in case you’re keeping score at home. —ŒV]

Here’s the executive summary, but if you’re at all interested in this stuff, you should really read the whole thing.

Vladimir Putin is exploiting the Ukrainian revolution—specifically, by manufacturing “crises” in Crimea and eastern Ukraine and nationalist euphoria and anti-Western paranoia at home—to fashion a more repressive and increasingly unpredictable Russian dictatorship for life.
With the Russian economy heading for recession, the Putin regime’s popularity largely depends on Russia’s foreign policy successes, which Putin hopes to achieve by humiliating, destabilizing, and eventually derailing Ukraine; by cajoling the West into rejecting sanctions against Russia; and by fueling Russian patriotism.
The West should, in an effort spearheaded by the United States, aim its sanctions at increasing the costs of the regime’s malignant transformation rather than simply attempting to dissuade Moscow from further action in eastern Ukraine.

“Judgmental Baltimore: So Much to Judge!” ©2014 The Notorious DGD. Source. Thanks to fellow native Washingtonian KRS-One.

There has been some talk around the political analysis circles lately, and the Czar is reluctant to admit he agrees with all of it. All of it, unfortunately.

Yes, the Czar agrees that the midterm elections will be disastrous for the Democrats, and that Republicans will win the Senate. In fact, the election may be another 2010-level blowout. The Czar cannot recall the last time back-to-back midterms were blowouts, which showcases what an awful president we have. Bottom line is that America seems to be genuinely sorry they voted for Barack Obama’s re-election. Fair enough.

But the Czar also agrees that Republicans will totally squander this victory into more posturing and missteps. Look, the Czar is the first autocrat who will tell you that these stories of Republican infighting between squishy moderates and venom-spewing Tea Partiers is largely a media invention designed to discourage voters from leaning Republican. But the national-level Republican party is so inbred now that a more accurate analogy are the blind banjo duelers from Deliverance, as well as possibly the pig farmers from said movie.

Further, the Czar notes that conservative Republican politics is all the rage on the state level. Blue states are running out of your money, fast, and red states are openly challenging the blue states to account for it. Everyone in either party knows that if you really want successful government, you need to look to Texas and Wisconsin long before you consider Illinois and New York. There are, incidentally, no blue-run states that can claim economic success right now and back it up with anything approaching a fact.

Eventually, Americans will notice this on a larger level; but until they do—unless they do—the national Republican party is not going to matter much. Until and unless America starts dumping most of the inbred pickers out of DC (from both parties), not much will change there. Senators and representatives are comfortable with their limos and lunches, and lobbyists are too happy to swing by the house on Saturday and drop off some promotional Ping clubs for the kids. When a horde of successful state Republicans get elected to displace them, the chaos will be horrific for DC…and generally great for the country. Yes, it happened before.

Alas, this will not happen in time for 2016. Democrats have never been weaker going into a presidential election: Carter was a foreign policy mastermind compared to the utterly bankrupt Hillary Clinton, and Walter Mondale was a genius compared to the village idiot Joe Biden. Know why the media isn’t informing you about a third choice for president? There isn’t one.

Likewise, Republicans have never been stronger. There’s a general popular sense that Mitt Romney was right about everything. Rand Paul and Ted Cruz are firing up voters and starting to monitor the crap that comes out of their mouths. Numerous other possible candidates are teasing the media, drawing negative attention away from Paul and Cruz. Younger voters are starting to look at the GOP, and the War on Women ploy has been exposed for what it was.

And yes, the Czar agrees with most analysts who agree the GOP will blow this opportunity big time in 2016. While there may not be this massive secret civil war going on, the party lacks cohesion. There are, if anything, too many quarterbacks. Soiled brands like John McCain and Lindsay Graham are souring the public.

The only thing that can save the Republicans in 2016 is if people get so fed up with Democrats, and so enamored with their state Republicans, that they pull the levers for the Republican candidates all the way down. It’s certainly possible, but the Czar doubts it.

And in 2020, if there are still elections, the only thing that will save the Republicans—maybe the country—is the inevitable reality that the Democrats’ candidate pool becomes so shallow that they can no longer field a competent national candidate. But we’re already there, considering Clinton and Biden. Until the state success stories become the basis of the national Republican party’s platform, not much gonna change.

Decades ago, the Czar used to to present lessons in the Russian language for you readers to learn. It has been quite a while since then, and the Czar will pick up exactly where he left off. We assume you remember the Cyrillic alphabet (for the most part, as the 1917 Revolution eliminated many of the letters the Czar first taught you).

Simply read the English phrase you need and then speak the Russian phrase that follows about five times. That should do it.

Is this a puppet show? — Является ли это кукольный театр?

When does the puppet show start? — Когда куклы начать?

How much are the tickets? — Сколько стоят билеты?

Two tickets to the puppet show, please. — Два билета, пожалуйста.

Do you have better seats, perhaps up front? — Могу ли я иметь хороший стул? Возможно, мы могли сидеть ближе.

Are these all the puppets there are? — У вас есть больше кукол?

That puppet is mocking me. — Это кукольный издевается надо мною.

Make that puppet open its mouth more. — Применяй силу разевать рот куклы шире.

Make the puppets fight. — Вынуди кукол бороться!

Have the big puppet beat the little puppet badly. — Я хочу большой ударять куклу куколку сурово.

Make then fight again. — Вынуди кукол бороться опять.

Do the puppets’ heads come off? — Можно головы кукол отделяться?

Arm the puppets with weapons. — Дайте куклы оружие.

These puppets do not bleed. — Куклы не кровоточат!

I am leaving. — Я оставляю.

I will eat that dead puppet if you do not want it. — Если вы не хотите куклу, тогда я хочу съесть его.

Thank you. Goodbye. — Спасибо, до свидания.

Our next lesson will cover the common Russian phrases for using metric-gauge knitting needles to stir various types of acids.

The IRS is considering a program by which they will offer a free, no-return-necessary tax filing service. No, really. In other words, you sign up for the program, and they fill out your tax forms for you and send you a bill or your refund. Presumably more of the former.

Right: you sign up, and the guys whose job it is to collect as much money as possible will determine the amount you suddenly owe. And without a return form for you, you have no idea what numbers they put down on it.

And this at a time when a tax preparation service estimates that Americans overpay a billion dollars by not checking their work on their own forms. Sounds like a great idea, if you are with the IRS.

Because we know the IRS is under no compulsion to save you money; in accounting circles, it has long been assumed that the burden of proof is on the preparer, not the IRS, to determine what you can deduct. This is more than the fox guarding the hen house: it’s the fox walking right in and deciding which hen is juicier.

Then comes the question as to whether millions of Americans participating in this service will trust the IRS not to make a mistake on any individual form. You can envision all sorts of no-fly-list, dead-people-collecting-social-security, we-regret-to-inform-you-your-son-did-not-actually-die-in-combat-telegram mistakes, but you don’t have to look at other branches of government to find horrors. The IRS has made plenty of mistakes just doing the narrowest definition of their job.

Unlike Obamacare, at least this proposed program has an assumed opt-out. For now.

You know, if the Czar were a betting man, he might suspect this free service has nothing to do with helping tax payers through the complexities of filling out their own tax forms. After all, there are plenty of free and inexpensive ways to do that now. Rather, it might have more to do with the tens of thousands of people the IRS will need to hire for this service.

The Czar is cynical, yes, but only a Democrat president would consider such a move a smart one.

Darn that evil Scott Walker, ruining Wisconsin with all those ugly jobs!

Good analysis of Illinois’ multiple, connected fiscal-political problems at the WSJ.

If the states are laboratories of democracy, then a great comparative policy experiment is taking place in America’s Great Lakes region. Democrats in Illinois have been pursuing their blue-state model of higher taxes and union-dominated government. Neighboring states since 2010 have gone for lower taxes and union reform.

The comparison is especially apt because Illinois Democrats are doubling down on their strategy in this election year. Governor Pat Quinn has announced plans to make permanent the “temporary” tax hikes that were supposed to sunset at the end of this year. Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan last month floated a 3% surcharge on income over $1 million, only to have it shot down by some in his own caucus. Yet Democrats are still flogging a progressive income tax, which Mr. Quinn all but endorsed last year.

All of which makes it an ideal moment to consider how the Quinn-Madigan policies are working.…

So many Americans are wondering why the hell the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform doesn’t just grant immunity to Lois Lerner so we can finally learn the delicious details of the IRS scandal, and discover once and for all how high up the illegalities go.

The Czar will reveal why Lois Lerner has not been granted immunity, and why this process is taking so long.

Imagine for a moment that you are a Republican candidate for US Senator, running against Illinois Democrat Dick Durbin. You are delighted to observe that the polls are starting to tip your way, and that you might be able to prevent a terrible and corrupt liberal squid from becoming a career politician.

Now imagine that you get a phone call from Lois Lerner’s office, then working at the Federal Election Commission. A staff member there explains to you that a campaign loan you made to yourself is illegal, but she would be willing to drop the matter if you drop out of the election and pay her $200,000. You are stunned by this blackmail, and explain patiently that the loan you took from your coffers was in fact perfectly legal. All right, she agrees: she can drop the matter if you pay her $100,000. You say no, and the counteroffer now drops to $40,000 cash and a promise to never run for office, anywhere, again. You hang up.

Lerner calls you and wants to know what your problem is. You explain that the loan was perfectly legal, but that her understanding of how it was reported to the Federal Election Committee could have been mistaken. Lerner than responds that if you drop out of the election and never run again, she will drop the case. You chuckle and ask if she would kindly put that letter in writing…since this must clearly be a legally authorized offer and not, you know, some extortion shakedown attempt by an official. Lerner tells you that the government does not work that way, and that you will “find out” what happens next.

Now imagine that your opponent, Dick Durbin, is running television commercials against you claiming that you refused to cooperate with a joint FEC/IRS investigation, and there is an unsettled matter pending in the courts about you making off with over a million dollars of campaign money. You realize you are losing the election.

Actually, this is precisely what happened to Republican Al Salvi in 1996, whose political career was ruined, even though an FBI investigation and civil court hearing proved he was innocent beyond a doubt.

In 2013, Lois Lerner offered to cut a deal with the Oversight committee: grant her immunity and she will tell what she knows.

She knows nothing. She wants immunity because her career is riddled with stories like Al Salvi’s. She knows it. The House Oversight committee knows it. And she knows they know this.

There is enough material on Lois Lerner—outside of the IRS targeting of conservative groups—to put her behind bars for a while. If she gets immunity, she walks…without revealing anything of substance to the committee. “Ha.” she might one day boast over a martini. “I shook down Republicans for cash, and all I got was this T-shirt,” with a clink of freedom. “And I didn’t have to reveal a thing. Oops. Sorry, Republicans.”

She knows little that will prove useful to the investigation: she was just a bit player. And the committee knows it. Why grant her immunity when she won’t be able to name a powerful enough official. Heck, the committee almost certainly knows who she would blame for it all, and they already know there isn’t enough evidence to get anywhere.

But if they stick her with a contempt of Congress charge, run her before a court and put her behind bars, other folks at the IRS will get nervous. Sweaty palm nervous. Loose bowel nervous. And maybe they will be willing to talk to avoid Lerner’s fate…you know, in exchange for the immunity the committee didn’t waste on her.

You need to make that stick. Be deliberate, and make sure everything is by the book. Take your time: the longer they stretch her on the rack of public opinion, the faster the next person in line will crack.

Lois Lerner is a patsy, a distraction. A red herring, even. That doesn’t mean she can’t be made into a useful lever.