Day: June 27, 2005

Recommended Reading between now and the 2006 elections

People of the Lie: The Hope for Healing Human Evil

I’ve actually met some of the people that fit M. Scott Peck’s criteria for a diagnosis of “human evil,” so I’m not as hopeful as he is that they can be healed… Still, perhaps his book could be useful in helping people avoid electing people to office who have the personality disorder he describes.

A very shorthand (and admittedly misleading and hugely inadequate) description of a part of the problem of human evil is that people who are evil attack others instead of facing their own failures. You know, kinda like politicians who insist that solutions to problems (real or imagined) involves simply throwing more money at programs (which means taking more from the taxpayers to do it) that have alrady proven harmful, are themselves a major cause of problems pols want to solve by blaming others for their failures.

Yes, it’s more complex than that. But I’ve become convinced that it’s not just liars, thieves, buffoons, poltroons and mountbanks who run for office. Along with the (supposed but not yet proven) sprinkling of honest and capable politicians—I assume there are at least two, somewhere—I believe one can likely find a relatively high concentration of people with the egocentric personality disorder Peck describes as human evil.

Let’s see if we can’t avoid sending them to our State capitols and to Washington, OK?

James Taranto comments on the obscenity and depravity of the Islamic jihadists

Fundamentalist Muslim mythology has it that terrorist “martyrs” are greeted in heaven by 72 virgins. With Palestinian Arabs increasingly making use of female suicide bombers, we’ve often wondered what they get in heaven. Now we have the answer, thanks to a report in London’s Sunday Telegraph from an Israeli prison:

*** QUOTE ***

One of the inmates, Ayat Allah Kamil, 20, from Kabatya, told me why she had wanted to become a martyr: “Because of my religion. I’m very religious. For the holy war [jihad] there’s no difference between men and women shaid [martyrs].”

According to the Koran, male martyrs are welcomed to Paradise by 72 beautiful virgins. Ayat, as with many of the women she is incarcerated with, believes that a woman martyr “will be the chief of the 72 virgins, the fairest of the fair.”

*** END QUOTE ***

That is to say, the highest aspiration for a fundamentalist Palestinian girl is murder, suicide and prostitution. Has there ever been a more depraved culture?

crossposted at Cathouse Chat

Here’s one such:

“Now that fox hunting is outlawed they poison the foxes as vermin. This is known as humanitarianism.”

Yep. The so-called “Liberals” who got fox hunting outlawed did it for the poor dear foxes, all right. “Liberal” sounds more and more like Nathaniel Hawthorne’s slanderous definition of Puritanism: the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be having a good time.

More blogging from Pournelle’s trip to England at Chaos Manor: Current View.

Welcome, Carnival Readers! Personal note: CLICK HERE for a personal request for help …for someone else

Bicuits and Sausage Gravy

When I was in college and working three part time jobs to fit my schedule, sometimes my last meal of the day would be at a 24-hour truckers joint that featured an unending plate of biscuits and sausage gravy and a bottomless cuppa coffee. Often, a drive out to a plate of biscuits and gravy would net a table of like-minded college students and together we’d spend the wee hours of the morning gorging on biscuits and gravy, tanking up on coffee and B.S.-ing the night away.

Ah, well.

Biscuits

Mixing bowl and fork to mix; measuring cups, spoons; glass baking dish(es)–I use a couple of Pyrex “pie pans”.

Ingredients:

• 2 C Flour OOPS! This isn’t how I made my biscuits this morning! Don’t know how I did this: it’s 4C Flour!

• 4 ts Baking powder (Check)

• 1 ts Salt

• 2 Tb Olive Oil (Used 4 this a.m.)

• 1 C Milk (for “buttermilk” biscuits–lighter and flakier–add one Tbs vinegar to measuring cup before measuring the milk.)

*sigh* Shoulda proofread the thing before posting… 🙂

Separate: margarine or butter

Preheat oven to 350 Fahrenheit. While the oven is preheating, place your baking dishes in the oven with a tablespoon or so of butter or margarine in each.

Mix dry ingredients in a bowl. Mix wet ingredients—milk and oil (and vinegar if used)— in 2 C measuring cup. Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients and mix together quickly.

Turn out onto a floured surface, dust with flour and roll out to about 1/2 inch thickness. Butter the top. Cut with cookie cutter and then stack them so that each final biscuit is two 1/2 inch pieces. Remove baking dishes from the oven and slide each biscuit around in the melted butter/margarine a little as you place it in the backing dish. Bake for about 8-10 minutes, until the tops are nice and golden.

Sausage Gravy

• 1C flour

• 2C milk

• 1Lb ground sausage—whatever your fav. I prefer a “hot” sausage of a brand I can usually find around here, but whatever suits you is the right sausage.

Crumble the sausage and cook until well done. Remove the saisage and leave the grease. Keeping the heat on the pan at a little above medium heat, add the flour a bit at a time to make a good brown roux. Back the heat off. Now, add the milk slowly and bring almost to a boil, and add the sausage back in. Simmer at a very, very low heat until the biscuits are done. If the gravy thickens too much before serving, bring the heat back up and add a lil milk at a time until the right consistency is reached (i.e., one you like).

Serve the sausage gravy over separated biscuit top n bottom halves. Scrambled eggs make a good addition. Scrambled eggs with Rotelâ„¢ or Tabascoâ„¢ make a better addition.

Oh, and coffee. Lots n lots of coffee. 🙂