Month: March 2006

(Just Click the Pic)

Spreading “Goodness, gracious, reat balls of fire…” at Adam’s Blog, Conservative Cat and Jo’s Cafe.

The Florida Masochist has asked folks to be praying for his sister, Patty, who has been diagnosed with acute Leukemia. Along with GM Roper and his lung cancer, add Patty to your prayers, would you?

Thanks.

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UPDATE! UPDATE! Christine, of Morning Coffee and Afternoon Tea, has the menu up for this week’s Carnival of the Recipes. (Fast work, Christine!) Head on over and “place your order” now, eh?

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Coupla tips on the way to the quasi-recipe, ‘K?

What makes this a quick snack or meal is advance prep of two essential ingredients. When I buy several pounds of ground meat (usually a mix of ground sirloin and ground chuck–just enough fat for flavor enhancement), I fry it up in advance, then divide it into “meal sized” portions, depending on how many folks I expect to be feeding at any one meal during the coming week. Usually, when I do this, I just go ahead and sautee some onion and garlic and add it in toward the end of the browning, cos I probably won’t cook a meal with ground meat w/o those two, anyway.

So, have the ground meat, already pre-cooked.

As for tostada “shells”–baked flat plain corn tortillas do just fine. I usually broil mine in my convection oven. Broken, they make great corn chips for dipping. Unbroken, perfect bases for tostadas.

Otras ingredientes

Chili powder or ground, dried ancho or annaheim chiles (a tablespoon or more per pound of ground beef, cooked)
Cumin (2 tablespoons or more per pound of ground beef, cooked)
Diced yellow (scourge) onion or freshly-chopped green onion
Cubed Roma or fresh, ripe beefsteak tomato
Shredded lettuce
Shredded jack, colby or cheddar cheese–or your fav mix of any two or three.

Place the pre-cooked meat and spices (and maybe a wee tad of water) in a covered microwave-safe glass or ceramic container and m-wave for 3-5 minutes, depending on your m-wave’s power, age, etc.

“Pre”-Assemble your tostadas: Meat, cheese
M-wave for about a minute to gooey up the cheese a bit if you prefer
Garnish with the rabbit food, some of your fav salsa or hot sauce (chipotle!) and chow down!

Make it a meal: add rice and beans (or refried beans).

Simple, exceptionally quick, and if you have rice and beans as leftovers, a frequent blessing here at third world county central, you can have a whole meal ready for two in about 10 minutes.

Zap! You’re done!

Because my Wonder Woman is a librarian, I get to hear some of the woes inflicted on other librarians by dumbass principals. While I’m already pretty darned familiar with the idiocies perpetrated upon classroom teachers (and students) in the name of school administration, librarians are often a particularly vulnerable crowd, because an amazing number of administrators (and teachers, it should be noted) think librarians aren’t a part of the education process, aren’t teachers and have damn all clue as to what librarians do for that matter. Many haven’t a clue what a library is, either, as a couple of recent Tales From the Crypts demonstrate.

NOTE: I have deliberately changed information, paraphrased and obfuscated in order to protect innocent librarians from whence these stories came. I will NOT attribute this information or in any way reveal whence it came. If you think that in any way impeaches the validity of these first-hand accounts, then you’re stayin’ for detention… we’ll teach ya a think or three…. 🙂

A principal at one librarian’s school decided the librarian should do away with the Dewey Decimal system. He wanted it arranged by class and course, e.g., all US History books, Biology books, Physics books, etc. grouped together in sections “so students could easily find them”.

*sigh*

Let’s see… DDC (Dewey Decimal Classification): History: 900; North America: 970. etc. In order to become a principal in almost any state of the union any more, a person needs an “Education” degree, experience and a grad degree in pubschool administration.

And the principal in the above example still doesn’t have a clue about the DDCS?

Idiot.

And then there’s the administrator who knew he needed to get an inventory of the library for the close of the school year. So, does he assign the librarian to do the inventory (she had one on hand, in fact, as simply a matter of course. She was, after all, a librarian.)? Nope. Assigned a “coach” to inventory the library.

The ath-a-lete turned in a one-page inventory that read: “One Library”.

And here’s my fav. A principal who had been “relieved” (that ought to have been a clue) was assigned to fill out the year in a vacant librarian position (clue two that the administration of that district was incompetent). Decided to reorganize the library. Organized all the books… by size. Yep. Largest to smallest. Made sense to this dumbass. And looked oh so much nicer! (But it would have looked even nicer had this dumbass rearranged the books by size and color! Incompetent even as an interior decorator… )

*sigh*

Pubschool administrators, not just arguably the stupidest people in public education, demonstrably the stupidest people in public education.

Sure, these are just anecdotal examples. But you could fill a book with these kinds of tales. And it’d be at the beginning of principal number three’s library reorganization. Biggest book in the library.

Updating the card catalogs at The Crazy Rants of Samantha Burns, TMH’s Bacon Bits, Rhymes with Right, People Are Idiots (mastering the obvious? :-)), The Liberal Wrong Wing, and Free Constitution: Transcending Sovereignty.

The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (And the Crusades)

(Click the image above to read reviews/purchase; click the image at the foot of thos post for a larger view of the book cover.)

I’ve found the Random Yak to be someone worth paying attention to, so when he recommended this book in a recent comment, I thought it wise to heed his words.

While I have a rag bin fulla factoids from years ago when I more than doubled the hours required for my bachelors by adding tons of unrelated courses (and continued the practice during grad school–heh, I could happily go back to classes again today… ), the smattering of stuff I recall from couses and personal rading in M.E. history and archaeology, comparative religion, Western Civ, et al, will no doubt be buttressed, challenged and filled out by this book. I look forward to its arrival, and if you want a broad-spectrum look at Islam through the ages, I’d suggest, based on Random Yak’s recommendation alone, if nothing else, you look into this one, too.

The barbarians are no longer at the gates; they are at our doors, thank to Muslim apologists and enablers on the left and poor border security as a whole. This is not Vienna in 1683, and there’s no John III Sobieski to ride to our rescue. Knowing the enemy is important if we are not to fall for its age-old strategies and tactics.

Get the book. it couldn’t hurt, and it just might help.

“The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (And the Crusades)”

Noted at Blue Star Chronicles

Jerry Pournelle (always worth reading. Always) has some interesting observations about ADHD… again (search his site for more).

“If children do not learn self-discipline in school, when and where will they learn it? …If boys don’t learn to take charge of themselves in school, and in Scouts, and without drugs, then what kind of men will they be? Our neighborhood lawyer found himself in middle age after “suffering” from ADHD all his life; and having found himself not only quit his job and became a bum living in his mother’s basement, but is now demanding that his wife sell the house so he can get his share. If this is finding oneself, staying lost seems preferable, for he is no longer a man at all.”

There’s more here, including the correspondent’s remarks that elicited Dr. Pournelle’s comments.

As a side note to Dr. Pournelle’s comments, when I was teaching and had a few students “diagnosed” (whatever that meant at the time—different strokes for different folks’ different ways on different days, as it were—with ADD/ADHD, I noticed the kinds of behavior modifications Dr. Pournelle talks about in his brief disquisition. When one (or more) would “forget” to take the meds that literally drugged them outa their (own) minds, they could and did learn to moderate their behavior in my classes. One or two instances of “or else” were usually enough. A firm hand, “the look” from me and… well-focused student.

Drugging kids (mostly boys, of course) out of their minds is not the answer, in most (approaching all) cases. Nor is giving adults an excuse to be babies.

Writing “I will not throw chalk” on the blackboard 500 times at The Real Ugly American.

And yeh, I know: don;t call you Shirley.

*sigh*

Anywho, y’all having fun with trackback spammers? Anyone? OK, now, riase your hands. Who has gotten over 1,000 trackback spams in the last day or do? Anyone? Else, I mean.

OK, you can put your hands down, now. (I wasn’t paying attention anyway,)

I need to send a nice email out to the guy who developed Spam Karma. Great lil plugin. Only two of 1,013 1,021 1,031 spam trackbacks (just checked;and again; it’d changed. twice, while writing this… so far) in the last 20 hours got through its filters. Three false positives (removed from the number above).

Not bad. The number of SPAMs—total, including your run-of-the-mill comment SPAM—Spam Karma has caught and nuked in the last five weeks is only about five times as many as in the last 20 hours or so. Somebody’s being a very bad boy (boys–or girls–actually) but I have several of the biggest offenders’ IP addresses logged, and am thinking long and hard on their fate…

So, a question: what circle of hell do SPAMMers belong in? What would be your fantasy method of arranging their transfer to that location?

It’s NOT trackback SPAM at Stuck on Stupid’s Weekend Trackback Party

Yep, this is an Open Trackback Alliance open post. Please link to this post and track back (LINK) all weekend long. Do see the foot of this post for a link to the Open Trackback Alliance for information on how you too can host linkfests and to Linkfest Haven for links to other blogs hosting linkfests this weekend.

And now, “We Need to Stop Pussyfootin’ Around, Folks”

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Just this week, I have read on otherwise Right-thinking blogs evidence that Islamic terrorists and terrorist-enablers are winning the war of words, the war of the mind.

Let me give you three paraphrased examples of lies about Islam that are far too widely accepted and even given byes by those who ought to know better (and no, I’ll not spefically name bloggers, cos that would be an unecessary embarrassment to them, IMO).

Mohammed taught that coercion of belief is not right, quoting Mohammed in Surah 88:21-22 as saying his god had told him coercion of belief was not his task, was wrong, BUT Mohammed’s entire life was an example teaching violence, murder, rape and enslavement as a means to expanding the rule of Islam. Who is the true follower of Mohammed? The one who follows what Mohammed said or the one who follows what he showed his followers to do?

The question answers itself.

Another blogger has said that if Islam is to legitimize itself as a religion that it ought to purge itself of the elements who do violence against non-combatants (commit terrorist acts) in the name of allah. But to do that would be to purge Islam of Mohammed! And once Islam has purged itself of the most brutal, violent, vicious and evil example it has (Mohammed) what do they have left? His testimony as the prophet of his allah would then be invalidated, and there could be no Islamic religion!

Continue reading “OTA Weekend Open Post/We Need to Stop Pussyfootin’ Around, Folks”

Rick, The Real Ugly American, has stolen a beat! See his interview with FRED BARNES.

Get outa here and go read it. What are you still sticking around here for? Git!

More W00Ts at TMH’s Bacon Bits, Basil’s Blog, Liberal Common Sense and Jo’s Cafe.

This week’s STACLU blogburst post is from Gribbit.

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Abstinence Is Harmful? News To Us

Today the American Civil Liberties Union issued a press release which is featured on their website’s “Newsroom” page that is titled, “ACLU Hails Rhode Island Department of Education Efforts to Stop the Use of Harmful “Abstinence-Only-Until-Marriage” Curriculum in Public Schools“. Only the ACLU and a liberal state like Rhode Island could find abstaining from sexual activity harmful.

The fact is that abstinence is the only form of birth control and STD prevention that works 100% that it is employed. By practicing the ultimate in safe sex, NO SEX, no children are unnecessarily slaughtered in the name of choice, no drugs are being used in order to prevent pregnancy for the sake of promiscuity, and no one will need to be treated for sexually transmitted diseases. So what is the ACLU’s difficulty with teaching this effective form of birth control? Homosexuals in this nation cannot be married in any other state than Massachusetts. And no other state except Massachusetts recognizes marriages performed to same sex couples. If abstinence is taught as it should be, as the ONLY effective form of birth control and STD prevention, homosexuals will not be receiving the indoctrination that the ACLU believes that they should.

By accepting that teenagers are going to have sex before marriage and taking a position of defeatism in the war to prevent this from occurring, we are then telling teenagers to go ahead and have sex. This is akin to telling your child not to shop lift but if they are going to anyway to not get caught. Then teaching them methods on not getting caught as opposed to teaching them to just plain not do it.

Continue reading “STOP the ACLU”