Category: Uncategorized

When will he sign? My bet? The Twelfth of Never

Notice the entry directly above the topmost post on my blog. It ought to read, “XX days ago, John Kerry promised, on national TV, to sign form SF-180 and release his military records. He has yet to do so,” with “XX” being the number of days since he told Tim Russert, on air, that he would do so.

Polipundit puts it this way:

“This should be a bipartisan effort. If you’re a Democrat who supports Kerry, his signing form SF-180 would help prove that he’s a genuine war hero, not the fraud that the Swift Vets claim he is. If you’re a Democrat or Republican who opposes Kerry, the contents of his military records would shine a bright light on his murky Vietnam War record. Either way, it’s in everyone’s best interest to get the senator to sign SF-180 and release his records.”

Polipundit offers the code to enter that lil script on your own blog, here. Just enter it in your blog template at a place you deem appropriate.

ht to Mickey Kaus via Instapundit.

(During the campaign last year, I sent a simple email to the Kerry campaign a couple of times a week that simply said, “Sign Form 180” about 100 times per email… I also got on their mailing list and returned every campaign email with that same form e-. I knew it would be ignored, but it was my small contribution to the kerry campaign.)

In the grand scheme of things… this ain’t.

Please excuse the light blogging. I just checked my “Zen” Freecell scores and it appears I’m closing in on a milestone, of whatever importance that may be. So, realizing the relative importance of attaining 5,000 Freecell wins (notice the loss entry *heh*) as compared to world peace (or even the Mets in the Series), I must take some time out to contemplate the approach of this significant event in the history of the world.

Now, I have heard there are people who take Freecell seriously. I have even heard that there are Freecell games that are not possible to win.

I play “Idiot” or “Zen” Freecell, so I wouldn’t know about that. Zen Freecell is like regular Freecell (it’s the same lil exe in Windows) with one difference: I play it as simple “white noise” while I’m waiting for my coffee to kick in or as I am zoning out before bedtime, about to nod off, kinda in a pre-dream state. Often, I play a game or two or three while on the phone, ALT-TABbing over to another app to take notes.

It’s mindless doodling for me. (I used to do the same kind of zoning out/relaxing during classes, “drawing” yet another set of doodles for my *Non Compos Mentis Coloring Book*)

And you know, in some ways it is more important, at least for my mental health (such as it is amid this world of woe), than keeping on top of the news or articulating a mini-aspect of my philosphy of life or whatever.

So, off to the Freecell Zone for a couple of minutes, when i could be supplying both of my regular readers *s* with another off-the-wall post.

Maybe add some sauerkraut?

I was thinking along a couple of very different lines at once and they converged in wondering about recipes for crow. (Don’t ask what led to this. It ain’t purty.) So in the end, I adapted a recipe for crow casserole I found on the web, in an attempt to make it actually edible. Looking for volunteers to try it out and let me know.

Crow Casserole
6 Crow breasts, skillet-browned
Horseradish to make one quart, grated
1 cup chopped onions
5 cloves garlic
6 habanero peppers, minced
1/2 cup cilantro, chopped
1/2 cup hot mustard

Mix all ingredients except for the crow breasts
Place half the horseradish mixture in the bottom of a baking dish
Cover with crow breasts
Cover crow breasts with remaining mixture
Bake in 350 degree oven for 1.5-2 hours

Discard and take family out to eat.

OR

Call bubba (or your congresscritter) and see if he’ll eat it. (Note: for some weird reason, it seems crows are a federally protected species. Maybe it’s cos congresscritters don’t want “gifts” of crow casserole sent them on a daily basis… )

Or, maybe not so coincidental

Several times recently, I have comented in conversations with various and sudry folk about the recent Supreme Idiots’ decision essentially banning execution of criminals “aged between 15 and 17 years at the time they commit a capital crime”* and here I sit down after lunch and read John Hinderaker’s piece, “A Government of Men” in The Daily Standard echoing many of the sentiments I’ve voiced (although in a much more well-developed and literate voice).

Most of my conversational invective has been leveled at the court’s reading (and citing) of international (read “old Europe”) goat entrails in order to backstop their extra-Constitutional excess. When Hinderaker comments,

“With all due respect to the Court’s majority, there is simply no coherent rationale for counting the “enlightened” opinion of foreign governments as a factor in Constitutional jurisprudence.”

He hits the nail pretty squarely. I’d like to refer also to this lil quibble the Founders had against boy Geoerge:

“He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation.” (Declaration of Independence)

Hmmm… seems the Supreme Idiots are taking another page from boy geoege’s book, eh? (Of course, “constitution” in that context refers to “nature, character” and perhaps being ruled by fiat is no longer foreign to the American spirit… )

April 15 approaches

For years, excepting only last year—in a private show of support for proper use of tax monies in legitimate Constitutional efforts to promote national security—I have grown a beard and shaved it on April 15, as a mark of my own self-proclaimed “National Day of Mourning.” The reason is obvious: there is so much wrong about the intent, structure, function and purpose[s] of Federal income taxes and the IRS, that April 15 has become a symbol, in my mind at least, of most of what is wrong about our once-federal (but now almost imperial) system of government.

And so I mourn for a Constitution—and system of government—that was designed by our Founders to protect liberty but which is now mostly honored in name only.

Of course—and here I wander into what the current state of revisionist history and polular memes would consider historical heresy—April 15 also ironically marks the death of the first American president to frog-march a federal income tax through Congress. Abraham Lincoln so severely trampled the letter and spirit of the Constitution during his reign that he really ought to be “honored” as the first American emperor…

*sigh*

Kill the Constitution to save the republic… A “republic” become less, as a result of his actions, in the model the Founders and framers envisioned than like it. What a concept.

*profound sigh*

And yet, that’s not the worst of it. The arcane tax laws and extra-legal regulations administered by the IRS are so convoluted and confusing (even to so-called tax professionals) that they make criminals of us all, regardless of our desire to be law-abiding and completely up-front with the IRS. I know I wrack my brains every year to make sure I answer each and every “interview” question in my tax software as accurately and completely as possible, and yet, I always have a nagging doubt that I got it right.

And that’s exactly the dividing line between the citizens of the Republic that once was and the empire America is becoming: No longer can we as soi dissant citizens understand or comply with the plethora of laws (not just tax laws, mind you) spewing from that cesspool in D.C.

Does that sound a bit harsh? How about this sentence from The Declaration of Independence referring to one of George’s abuses:

“He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.”

Sounds like our congresscritters and their minions in the civil service have been going to school on boy George’s methods of governamce, doesn’t it? (And maybe even done George one or two “better” with such as the Thousands Standing Around bunch of morons.)

Just take a moment and read the Declaration, would you? Don’t linger too long over the stirring and poetic intro, read and re-read the “long train of abuses” and see just how many are eerily similar to the behavior of the feds today.

OK. I’ve finished doing my taxes again this year. I hope (almost against hope) that I dotted all the “i”s and crossed all the “t”s and that I understood the different payments and deductions correctly and noted them in the correct places on the forms.

But the point is, even if I were audited, and even if I were to have a tax “professional” along with me, how could I know I had done right? I can’t. And protestations of tax professionals and auditors notwithstanding, they don’t know, either, because the tax code is too huge, too arcane and too absolutely and inexcusably obscurantist for anyone to know.

Read this. last August, Neal Boortz summed up a tax plan then being floated by Dennis Hastert (among others) that would, in my estimation, solve most of the woes, inequities and downright illegitimacies of the current federal tax code: a national sales tax instead of a national income tax.

Read the article. If it makes sense to you, contact Hastert, your own congresscritters (representative and senators) and the White House. If it makes sense to you, blog it. “Email log” it, too. Write letters. Phone congresscritters, White House, old media.

Someone, somewhere, sometime needs to put a stake in the heart of the Irredeemably Raunchy Scum and hang the corpse at the crossroads of America to warn off other such monsters.

I’d like to sleep well at night KNOWING I’d paid my fair share of taxes for proper federal (and state and local) governance, but the current system leaves me with that neverending, nagging question: Did i get it all right?

(Oh, and Intuit certainly messed with my mind this year, something I’ll hold them accountable for… )

Another “not-quite-a-recipe” for the lazy cook’s repertoire.

Apple Pockets

I like a nice “turnover” but I’m fonder of those made with bread dough than with pie crust dough. Here’s my version of a bread dough apple turnover that’s… not turned over.

Egg Bread crust:

Dry ingredients:
4 cups of white or mixed wheat and white flour
half teaspoon salt
tablespoon sugar
2 teaspoons active dry yeast

Wet ingredients:
2 eggs
1 cup warm water (115 degrees F ought to do)
couple of tablespoons oil

Mix dry ingredients in a non-metallic bowl. Add water/oil and mix. Add eggs. Mix well with hands. Knead lightly until it holds together well, cover and set aside in a warm place for about 30-40 minutes. Knead again until elastic & set aside, covered, in warm place while you mix the filling. See lazy cook’s note at bottom.

Filling:

Note: you can mix up a buncha this stuff, cos if you have too much, you can just refirgerate it and use it for other things–top hot cerals, on/in pancakes, etc.

Apples-some moderately sharp ones (well, I certainly don’t know how many you’ll want to use, just grab four or five medium apples, ok?) Core and slice them. Leave the peels if you want; I do. Avoid “delicious” varieties like the plague. Winesaps, Johnathons, even some Fujis would do.
Raisins
Nuts-(NOT peanuts, real nuts) I like walnuts, pecans or cashews.
Cinnamon. Do NOT use pre-ground cinnamon powder. Get some cinnamon sticks and make your own in your coffee grinder you’ve reserved for spices. (Don’t have one? Don’t whine to me. Get one.) To taste, of course. (You’ll be surprised how much richer freshly-ground cinnamon is. You’ll use less than you otherwise might. And it’s cheaper than old pre-ground stuff in the long run.)
Nutmeg–same as for cinnamon: get some nutmegs and grind your own fresh powder. About 1/8 as much nutmeg as cinnamon.
Ginger-I use crystalized ginger as perhaps the best compromise. A couple of small “rocks” for every four or five apples.
Cloves-four or five cloves per four or five apples. More to taste. 🙂 Whole cloves, ground freshly, of course.
Sugar-one-half to three-quarters cup for every four or five apples.
Butter or oil-maybe a quarter cup or less.

Prep? Easy. Pre-heat the oven to about 350 F now. Core and slice the apples as mentioned above; prepare the other ingredients as mentioned; put it all in a bowl and mix it up til all the apple slices are well-covered in the goodies. Pop it, covered loosely, in the microwave on high for about four minutes, then re-mix the “apple goody” stuff.

Knead the dough again for a bit, then roll out onto a floured surface. Now, divide the dough into four parts, if you want VERY LARGE pockets, more if you want smaller. [Forgot this next step earlier: don’t you forget it!] Spread butter or margarine on the rolled-out dough pieces. Put filling on rolled out dough, fold over and pinch shut. Place on well-oiled baking sheet. You can give the tops of the dough an egg wash at this time, if you want.

Pop ’em in the oven and give ’em about 25 minutes (oven temps vary, size of pockets makes a difference. Check back often after about 20 minutes).

Lazy cook’s note: When you’re feeling really, really, realy lazy, you can cut your prep involvement as I… um, have been known to do:

1.) Mix the bread dough in a bread maker on the “pizza dough” setting.
2.) Make one HUGE pocket and cut slices off that to serve. This does take a lil longer to bake, but who cares? Oven time isn’t work.

Oh, and do feel free to substitute. I can recall as though it were only yesterday (Oh! It WAS yesterday!) running out of sugar and substituting… cinnamon sugar I’d made up for use on some quick cinnamon toast. So there was a lil extra cinnamon in the mix. So? (Yum. Mom used to make cinnamon toast by buttering bread slices, sprinkling with cinnamon and sugar and placing the slices under the broiler. The untoasted side of her cinnamon bread was always an interesting contrast in texture. I just do something similar in our toaster oven.) No rasins? Try dates or… prunes! No nuts? Go buy some. Low on flour? I do NOT recommend substituting garbanzo bean flour. Don’t go there.

NOTE: I did say you could divide the dough and make more, smaller ones didn’t I? Some email indicates that wasn’t real clear. If you want to make “normal” sized apple pockets (like you may be used to seeing turnovers), you can make a good dozen out of these ingredients. But why? 🙂

BTW, as I ought to have noted when I originally posted this, you can use the egg bread dough very effectively with leftover Whatever Stew as filling, for a hearty main dish. Indeed, Apple Pockets originally grew out of finding an alternate use for some leftover dough after making some meat “pasties” out of… some very beefy leftover Whatever Stew.

Aarrrrgggghhhhhhh!!! I gotta get my taxes done… but I wanna read more of this stuff!! (OK, one ‘lover’ is abusive… )

OK, now he’s done it. Just what I need: a way to waste some time that yields more laughs. Dan’s blogroll at Riehl World View has some of the most off-the-wall possibilities I’ve seen since Dave Barry (said) he hung up his hat on column-writing. For example, at Topic Drift, this gem:

kheuh urhgi 4rgibflkur ???

When people say “Physician, heal thyself,” I always start weeping uncontrollably, because what if the physician is walking around, minding his own business, when both of his arms fall off? He won’t be able to pick up his arms, much less heal himself. Someone is going to have to pick up his arms for him – and this helper won’t be able to hand the physician his arms, because the physician will have no arms to hold his arms in his arms. That’s what I’m talking about.

Check out Topic Drift (courtesy of Dan’s blogroll @ Riehl World View Yeh, just do it. You have time to burn. Rub my nose in it. Go ahead. *sigh*

Woody beats up on the Mass Media Podpeople’s Army

In “Think On This (And hate Our Biased News Culture)”, over at Woody’s News & Views, is a good example of a measured, thoughtful response to the Mass Media Podpeople’s Army’s response to the lies, damned lies and stupid damned lying inconsistent tales from the mouth of a commie terrorist c sympathizer (and co-conspirator?), Giuliana Sgrena and its effect upon troop morale and safety.

Did I say, “measured” and “thoughtful”? Add “righteous.”

“… I can honestly tell you that I hate (yes, hate) the prevailing media culture in this country. CNN, CBS News, NBC News, ABC News, and especially morning shows like Today and Good Morning America that are trying to get the soccer moms weeping on a daily basis can all go to hell. Wake up people! This hand wringing and second guessing is making us a weaker nation. We can’t afford this during wartime, especially just for the sake of TV ratings.”

Count me in, Woody.

Read the whole thing (and the article he references).

Pamibe’s Carnival of the Recipes #30

Check out all the good stuff. I’ve already saved several recipes for future reference… and not all that far in the future at that! Indian Tacos, for example–how did I ever forget those! Well, folks don’t know how to make ’em here in America’s Third World Countyâ„¢ so I’ve missed the Indian Taco Dinners of old for the past ten years or so. Gotta have some, soon.

so to speak (off to the salt mines, more like 🙂

Here’s a parting shot. Think for a sec what changes you can make along the lines of “How can I live my day with LESS impact?”

Less spending.

Less hassle, etc.

“Can I buy/do Xxxx for less $$/effort?”

“Can I get a better quality (stuff/experience, whatever) for less $$/effort?”

etc.

It’s the essense of true tightwaddery: can I do better with/for less?

Heck, even simple things like washing the dishes. Do I need a dishwasher for two people? Can I clean the dishes for a two person meal faster and better by hand? Can it be a better experience than that muted rumble in the background from the dishwasher, that almost sub-sonic hum? I found the answer to that to be “Yes”—IF I make it so.

There are probably a myriad of things in our lives that we think are convenient and frugal but are not. Just try today looking at what you do and asking

“Can I do/have this better for less $$/effort? Can I have a better quality life for… less?”

Might be a surprise or two waiting.

Update: *sheesh!* Some folks are entirely too preoccupied with sex. After some offline queries, “Xxxx” above does NOT refer to

1.) Porn
2.) Getting some X-chromosome-laden “stuff,” as in “Four xes? Must mean two
women… ” *shee-e-esh* (slaps forehead… not my own, dope-slap on backswing)
2a.) No, the size of the xes has nothing to do with anything either.
3.) Anything but some unspecified “unknown”

OK? Golly, folks, get some algebra, would you?