Meandering Musings

So, North Korea has a popgun… sorta. But that’s not what disturbs me so. Subliterate dumbasses rule the Mass Media Podpeople Hivemind:

SEOUL, South Korea – North Korea’s rocket may have fallen into the sea, but military experts cautioned Monday against calling it a complete failure, noting that it traveled twice as far as any missile the country has launched.

What disturbs me is that I estimate that approaching 100% of politicians *spit*, Mass Media Podpeople and Academia Nut Fruitcakes, and at least 90% of the American public wouldn’t see anything wrong with the sentence above. *sigh* Expand “In a democracy (”rule by mob”), those who refuse to learn from history are in the majority… ” to include people who can’t count or even think.

There’s nothing like a good crisis for effecting a political control of private resources, is there?

Obama Wants to Control the Banks
There’s a reason he refuses to accept repayment of TARP money…

…The chairman offers to write a check, now, with interest. He’s been sitting on the cash for months and has felt the dead hand of government threatening to run his business and dictate pay scales. He sees the writing on the wall and he wants out. But the Obama team says no, since unlike the smaller banks that gave their TARP money back, this bank is far more prominent. The bank has also been threatened with “adverse” consequences if its chairman persists. That’s politics talking, not economics.

Think about it: If Rick Wagoner can be fired and compact cars can be mandated, why can’t a bank with a vault full of TARP money be told where to lend? And since politics drives this administration, why can’t special loans and terms be offered to favored constituents, favored industries, or even favored regions? Our prosperity has never been based on the political allocation of credit — until now.

Meanwhile, The O! wants to put everything but hopenchange back into Pandora’s Box. (And stop the tide from coming in and turn everything he touches into gold and all other manner of mythical accomplishments.) Will the Republic survive The O!? Will the planet? Film at eleven (of The Beast in another ugly dress, posing as Jackie O.)

I don’t know which is worse, President “Fifi” Bush holding hands with a Saudi “Prince” (read “Thug” for “Prince”) or The O! bowing to a foreign potentate (thug). You make the call”

FILES-US-POLITICS-INAUGURATION-BUSH-LEGACY

Meanwhile, at least 31 States have introduced (and some have passed) bills affirming the 10th Amendment. Perhaps there is some small hope for The Founders’ Constitution still remaining.

The odious Senator Ted Stevens was apparently another easy target for federal persecutors’ implementation of the central principal of modern governance: anarcho-tyranny or, “going after a ‘safe criminal'”. Until–this time, finally–federal persecutors got caught cooking the evidence. What republic can long survive when its people rightly view its law enforcement as capricious at best, normally corrupt.

Hmmm… notalotta encouragement from what passes as news nowadays, eh? Some, but not much. And what there is of encouragement doesn’t seem to find its way into Mass Media Podpeople Hivemind “reportage”.


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Another Thing I Just Don’t Get

One of the few TV shows I really enjoy features a gal who helps folks deal with their problem dogs. Recently, I saw her deal with some serious problem owners who had let their dogs become grossly obese.

I just don’t get it. Overeating, under-exercised dogs? Who’s in charge? Our son’s “big boy” started gaining more weight than he ought to carry. Investigated. He was stealing the other dog’s food. Now, we simply supervise them at meal time. Big boy still wants more than we feed him, but all he gets is what we give him. So, for the past several years, both boys have been trim and fit. They pretty well take care of ther activity part, chasing squirrels, groundhogs, etc., out of the yard, running around barking at passers-by (yeh, they’re very “terrortorial” and I like that about them–a lot. Better than an alarm).

Still, taking one or the other out for a walk is a good way for me to get off my lazy butt. *heh*

But, fat dogs? I just don’t get it. Lazy, stupid owners are just about the only reason for fat dogs.

Coda: “taking one or the other out for a walk”–not both. One medium sized male dog, another large male dog (who really should be pulling a cart)? Walked at same time by me? Sure, they’re well-behaved. Sure, I could do it, but why? It’d mean one dog on each side, both hands occupied (I’d never walk two such dogs off one hand–just not smart). Nuh-uh. Not gonna happen. I’ll do it once a year taking ’em to the vet, but aside from that? Nope.

Just for Fun: pico-brewing

I bottle condition the beers I make using a small shot of sugar and/or (sometimes) some of the trub, cos that’s the only way I really have of ensuring a good carbonation in the final product. OK, it also helps the flavors mature just a tad, as well. But since I add a tad of sugar to each bottle for the conditioning process, it does mean I have a lil sediment in every bottle–some more, some less.

So, as a lil experiment, I’ve been saving the sediment in one (clean) bottle and now I’m making a “one boittle pico-brew” out of it. *heh*

Added about a tablespoon of molasses and warm water, shook. Roasted some pearled barley (cos it’s what I had) and ground it up really fine; added a little Malt-O-Meal to that and ground it up some more; funneled about a tablespoon of that into the bottle, filled it with warm water, gently rolled it around a bit to get that mixed well, then placed the lid of the swingtop bottle loosely on top. Placed the bottle in my conditioning drawer. Last I looked, the top was acting as a kinda one-way airlock letting carbon dioxide out, but seemed to settle back on down after each lil mini-burp. Nice floculant on top & I can see it actually brewing.

It may be a tad high in sugar content, what with the molasses and malted grains, but… oh, well. 🙂

We’ll see how this turns out. Even though I used some trub-heavy sediment from the bottles, I don’t expect much in the way of hopsiness, and it’ll be REAL heavy on sediment (trub, in this case)… which I’ll save when I decant it into another bottle for further conditioning.

Heck. I just thought: shoulda added some coffee to it. *heh* Maybe next time, if this turns out at all well…

*heh*

Yeh, weird. And just for fun. Not going to count as one of my “real” brewing experiments, but might just turn out semi-drinkable anyway.

And the trub? Gonna make some bread. In fact, I have some I saved and dried just for that purpose. Think maybe I’ll make some “beer bread” tonight.


BTW, you know the oldest known beer recipe used bread to make the beer. In fact, it seems from the context of the Sumerian text that’s been translated that beer was thought of as something like liquid bread (as it appears some Medieval monastic orders also thought).