Month: March 2006

Quite some few years ago, after both of my Wonder Woman’s parents had passed away, we fell heir to, among other things from the estate, their collection of silverplate flatware. Didn’t think a thing about it really, cos we already had several sets of flatware (hers, mine and ours) that we were using at the time. Besides, it was just silverplate, anyway, nothing all that fancy.

But.

Cleaning “stuff” out last year, I ran across the set and gave it a good look. Huh! Looked exactly like the stuff I grew up using as a kid. It was. I guess the Oneida Queen Bess pattern was either really popular in the late 40s, early 50s when our parents—in widely separate parts of the country—started their homes. In fact, I actually had one serving spoon from the set we pretty much wore out as kids—silverplate almost entirely worn off, base metal worn. Here’s what the teaspoons in a Queen Bess pattern look like:

But, after sitting for years, even closed up in a “silverware” chest, ours didn’t look that nice. So, hours and hours of polishing? Nah. Too lazy.

Aluminum foil in bottom of large pan. Boiling water. Salt and baking soda. Whatever silver (or silverplated) item you need to clean MUST be in contact with the aluminum foil. Combine the salt, baking soda and boiling water and pour over the silver. Give it a little time and the tarnish will be gone.

Polish dry with a soft cloth and you’re good to go. (And yes, this works just as well with “real” silver items.)

I ended up putting away our other flatware, and we use the Queen Bess on a daily basis now. Memories for both of us, nice service for daily use, and easy to keep sparkling clean.

[See Update at tghe foot of this post.]

I can’t help it. Although I am often moody, curmudgeonly and downright snappish, just as often I am gay. To steal from Joe Sobran’s manifesto against the trope of homosexual/Mass Media Podpeople cultural propaganda,

…I am gay. It’s just my nature. I’ve been this way as long as I remember. Even as a boy, when I watched the dapper, suave comedy of Cary Grant or Fred Astaire, I felt I was looking into a mirror of my soul. Life should be taken lightly — that’s my philosophy. My favorite writer is P.G. Wodehouse. When I hear a Rossini overture on the radio, I can’t bear to turn it off. These are my gay brethren. I’ve learned to spot them across a crowded room.

I never thought Bob Hope was all that funny, but he was infectiously gay. He and Bing Crosby made some of the most popular movies ever to star a pair of gay men. More recently the fashion has favored black comedy, which can be hilarious too; but comedy is best when light and gay, without malice and aggression, but that tone is much harder to achieve and sustain than most people realize.

The reason the present age is difficult for gay people is that the word gay has been appropriated by homosexual activists. So real gay men have been driven into the closet, afraid to admit they’re gay for fear of being misunderstood.

A large part of my gaiety is no doubt due to my wife’s choice of a mate. My Wonder Woman is infectuously gay, happy, optimistic in her outlook and behavior. To know her is to love her… and to be infected with her gay nature.

Another contributing factor is my inate propensity to take myself with a grain of salt, to laugh at my own foibles (the dark side of that is that I sometimes brood over them, as well *sigh* So sometimes my self-mocking is dark humor).

But, by and large, life is a lark. Oh, sure, I sometimes skate to the edge of despair when I view the passing scene–Mass Media Podpeople, Academia Nuts, Loony Left Moonbats, non-conservative soi disant “Conservatives,” pop “music” so-called “artists” being manufactured by Sony (and other organs of “tastes-like sawdust–Yum!” production) and politicians of darned near any stripe.

But.

I am saved from despair by the ludicrous nature of them all, the silliness of their vain pronouncements, productions and all other efforts, and the fact that life is by and large a big suck on a sweet orange.

So, I am gay.

Too bad all the crop of weeping, wailing, teeth-gnashing homosexual activists and their brainwashed, neurotic, love hungry, approval-seeking disciples can’t seem to be gay, but that’s their problem. I’ll just smile, shake my head and give a chuckle. They just can’t seem to get the point that life’s a lark.

Oh. Well. The sun’s shining, the damned trees are budding (oops! Little dark disappreciation of allergens… but hey! I can still smell the flowers! :-)), God’s in His heaven and all’s right with the world, sorta. So lighten up, chill.

Be gay.

Swishing the light fantastic at Sam’s OTA Weekend Time, The Real Ugly American and Camelot Destra Ideale (Hey, I don’t read Italian well, but I’m sure someone does :-)).

UPDATE: Oh! When will the evidence that Muslims are stupid stop rolling in? See comments, where “AnumsTruth” whose email address points to “IslamicThinkers.com” (an oxymoron if ever there was one!) begins his comment with, “Is this site for real? It is very pathetic. I think you should keep your sexuality
to yourself.”

What. A. Maroon. This brings to a total of, oh, 100% of all Islamic commenters I have read on every single blog where I have seen Muslim commenters demonstrating that they are complete idiots. Just once, I’d like to read a comment by even ONE Muslim blog commenter that wasn’t a perfect example of subliterate stupidity.

Waiting. But not gonna hold my breath.

Earlier this week, I heard a few snippets of a sermon on Ephesians 2, and it’s really been sticking in my mind. Story of my life, of course: I can’t remember who it was who was preaching. My local station is WRVL-FM – Victory FM, broadcast by Liberty University. However, since I also have XM in the car (and that’s where I listen to the radio the most), it could also have been their Family Talk Radio station.

No biggie.

But what the pastor was talking about regarding Ephesians 2 was the huge and transformational difference between who we were before salvation, and who we are now after salvation. It’s been going around and around in my mind, and showing me, yet again, how wonderful, gracious and awe-inspiring God’s love is!

Continue reading “Sunday Thoughts”

Well, Lady Diane tagged me with this lil game that came out of the manufactured “outrage” Muslims expressed six months after the famous Mohammed cartoons appeared (either it was truly faked up, manufactured, or these people are some of the slowest, stupidest people on the planet. Take your pick. I pick both). This was particularly challenging for me, since cartooning is NOT an easy form. And, as you will see from my very crappy photomanipulation and the rest, below, I am NOT a cartoonist.

But still, I try not to turn down either a “tag” or any request by Lady Diane, so I was doubly bound, and so…

Laissez les bontemps roulez, Mohammed!

Shuckin’ n Jivin’ at The Crazy Rants of Samantha Burns (where else?)

I don’t know if I’ve posted this before, but if I did, it was over a year ago and at another address… besides, I’m too late for a Carnival of the Recipes post this week (Spring Break Fever). Anywho, the main dish in dinner tonight:

(FLAT) Chicken Enchiladas. (Yeh, I’m way too lazy to roll ’em.)

Ingredients:

~8 oz already cooked chicken, shredded
1 (or 2) 4-oz cans chopped green chiles
1 15-oz can of your fav green enchilada sauce (I could tell you the “made from scratch” green enchilada sauce recipe, but I don’t use it now so why should I inflict it on you?) OR about 4 4-oz cans (or 2 8-oz if you can find ’em) chopped green chiles, pureed.
1 10-oz can your fav creram of chicken soup
1/2 yellow (scourge) onion, diced
about 1 pound shredded monterey jack/cheddar mix
18 average-sized corn tortillas

Method:

Preheat overn to 350 degrees fahrenheit
Lightly oil 9’X12′ g;ass baking dish
Combine the chicken, geen chiles, green enchilada sauce and cream of chicken soup in a bowl
Nuke the chopped onion in the microwave in a covered bowl with a bit of olive oil for about 2 minutes

Layer in thusly:

Bottom: six tortillas, sauce, onions, cheese (use 1/2 the onions)
Next layer, same
Top layer same as above except no onions

Bake for about 40 minutes at 350 (oven temps vary. Yours could take more or less time).

Remove from the oven and let site for a couple of minutes. Cut into serving portions and top with shredded lettuce and/or your fav salsa, perhaps pico de gallo.

Serve with “spanish” rice and refried beans.

You ever get a tad frustrated when someone posts a darned good post (or an execrably bad one) and has comments turned off? No time to blog in depth right then, but really wanna comment?

Me too.

Here’s a simple solution. Well, it’s simple if you have a browser that’s all-in-one (browser, email client, FULL TEXT RSS reader) like Opera. And it’s still pretty easy even if you are stuck back in the dark ages using separate apps for each of those things.

Subscribe to the RSS feed for the blog. Especially if you read it often and often wanna comment, but can’t cos comments are turned off. That way, you can check the blog’s RSS feed regularly, and if you find something that’s comment-worthy (and your RSS reader is capable), just CLICK on Reply (or Right-Click> Reply) and send an e-.

Works great. As easy as leaving a comment, and depending on how their blog’s configured, maybe even more likely to get noticed and replied to.

Easy-peasy.

Noted at Conservative Cat, Imagine Kitty and The Real Ugly American..

(Yeh, I wanted to type “Red Hot Chili Peppers for Prostate Health” but I was sure that would be taken wrong…)

According to researchers at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and the University of California Los Angeles School of Medicine, capsaicin—the substance that makes hot peppers hot—was effective in reducing the size of human prostate cancer sells grown in laboratory mice by 80%.

“Capsaicin had a profound anti-proliferative effect on human prostate cancer cells in culture,” said Dr. Soren Lehmann. “It also dramatically slowed the development of prostate tumors formed by those human cell lines grown in mouse models.”

So, if you like spicy foods of the type loaded with capsaicin, eat up, men. It may just improve your prostate health.

And see other health benefits of capsaicin, here, here and here.

Crossposted at Balanced News Blog.

Rudyard Kipling,

The Gods of the Copybook Headings

AS I PASS through my incarnations in every age and race,
I make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market Place.
Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all.

We were living in trees when they met us. They showed us each in turn
That Water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly burn:
But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision and Breadth of Mind,
So we left them to teach the Gorillas while we followed the March of Mankind.

We moved as the Spirit listed. They never altered their pace,
Being neither cloud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the Market Place,
But they always caught up with our progress, and presently word would come
That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield, or the lights had gone out in Rome.

With the Hopes that our World is built on they were utterly out of touch,
They denied that the Moon was Stilton; they denied she was even Dutch;
They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings;
So we worshipped the Gods of the Market Who promised these beautiful things.

When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace.
They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.
But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “Stick to the Devil you know.”

On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller Life
(Which started by loving our neighbour and ended by loving his wife)
Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “The Wages of Sin is Death.”

In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;
But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “If you don’t work you die.”

Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew
And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true
That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more.

As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began.
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool’s bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;

And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will bum,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return.

Yeh, my Wonder Woman has a (very short) Sping Break, so I’m off to see the wizard with her today. A few interesting posts already noted below alla the PSA stuff. Meanwhile, while you are out and about, today, drop by Christine’s place and wish her a Happy Blogiversary, would you? Actually, on the 16th, but drop by anyway, would you?)

Link to this post all weekend long and track back, ‘K?

And check out the Open Trackback Alliance if you’re interested in hosting linkfests of your own.

While you’re at it, note the other fine blogs featuring linkfests at

Linkfest Haven.

Random Yak almost (yeh, I said “almost”) makes basketball sound interesting. Good Yak. It’s still watching guys in shorts jump around and sweat. Exactly what is the difference to watching Richard Simmons, again? *heh*

Diane explains what it means to be a PERV. Gee, I sure had that one all wrong…

Global Warming/Tunguska link? Now, that’d be explosive… (h.t. Chaos Manor Mail) Of course, the whole problem is really what to call a one degree warming (if that much is really true–climatologists can’t even really agree there, either) over decades… Global warming seems so very… chicken little-ish.

Rick points to a post about ideologies getting in the way of thinking. Good catch, Rick.

Canukistan poses the equation, Left = Wrong. Makes one yearn for the time when the Left wasn’t peopled by reactionary, petty (and not-so-petty) tyrants, but still had a few genuine liberals… *sigh*

For a change of pace, check out Kat’s place, Keep the Coffee Coming, for some Peter, Paul and Mary, then stick around for some more music you may not have heard for a while…

And while you’re listening to some great tunes, in the background, CLICK on over to Rick Lee’s place for a look through his eyes. Not going to single one photo out. They’re all good.

Over at Church and State, Nathan comments about Ruth Bader Ginsberg’s escape… Seems her meds need moderating. OK, he didn’t say that, but why not?!? The lady is absolutely around the bend.

The English Guy finds himself in agreement with *gasp!* Pat Robertson! (Hey, man! I coulda told you even a blind pig finds an acorn every now and then and a stopped clock is right twice a day… ) FWIW, I happen to agree with Robertson on this point too, Rich.

All for now. Have fun and be safe out there!

PSA’d at TMH’s Bacon Bits and Adam’s Blog.

Muslim clerics in UK claim they have won

In an article dated February 19, 2006 (yeh, I’m a month behind on this one), Dr. Patrick Sookhdeo claims that the appeasement of Muslims in Britain over the Mohammed cartoons “… warns Sharia Law will become commonplace in Britain in a decade unless the government takes action.”_¹_

And I don’t doubt it for a second.

Look, folks: getting control over our borders (kicking OUT those who have entered illegally, preventing further illegal intrusions and making gates whereby worthwhile immigrants may enter and become assimilated, truly assimilated, in the old melting pot tradition) is only a part of the task we must tackle if our children and grandchildren are to have an America to live in. Just as with the imminent possibility of “Britainistan” coming to pass, the Balkanization of the U.S. that the multicultural relativists seek is a very real possibility, if not in my lifetime (though I think that’s quite possible, since it is already proceeding apace), in my children’s lifetimes.

The positions in Rick’s immigration post—and more—need to be up front and openly debated, without the false attacks of racism being thrown in, as the disingenuous faux liberals who seek the destruction of the U.S. so often do.

But it’s more than that, even.

Continue reading “Britainistan?”