Day: January 26, 2007

I just sent this to Sen. Warner‘s office:

Senator, have you read about this pledge?

If the United States Senate passes a resolution, non-binding or otherwise, that criticizes the commitment of additional troops to Iraq that General Petraeus has asked for and that the president has pledged, and if the Senate does so after the testimony of General Petraeus on January 23 that such a resolution will be an encouragement to the enemy, I will not contribute to any Republican senator who voted for the resolution. Further, if any Republican senator who votes for such a resolution is a candidate for re-election in 2008, I will not contribute to the National Republican Senatorial Committee unless the Chairman of that Committee, Senator Ensign, commits in writing that none of the funds of the NRSC will go to support the re-election of any senator supporting the non-binding resolution.

I’ve signed it.

Should you support such a resolution, please be aware that I *will* remember, and I *will* do what I can to see that you are not re-elected. If you vote in favor of such a cowardly and despicable resolution, you are effectively spitting in the face of our brave troops, and giving aid and comfort to our enemy.

As a conservative Republican, I am disgusted with my party in general for falling away from the founding principles of our party. I abhor the pandering and the kowtowing to the enemies of America and the slavish adherence to political correctness. Please find a moral compass AND a spine, and stand for these principals with honor and courage.

Sincerely,
Kat
www.CatHouseChat.com

Admittedly, I am simply a small fry – a concerned citizen. Nevertheless, I am voicing my opinion. If enough of America voices their outrage at such cowardly and dastardly “resolutions,” perhaps our so-called “leaders” will actually remember who they work for…

(Crossposted from CatHouse Chat)

Jerry Pournelle offers a solution to the Iraq situation that I can live with.

Alas! it is politically infeasible.

*sigh*

*heh*

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Trackposted to Outside the Beltway, Is It Just Me?, The Random Yak, Adam’s Blog, basil’s blog, Stuck On Stupid, The Bullwinkle Blog, Phastidio.net, Cao’s Blog, The Amboy Times, 123 Beta, The HILL Chronicles, Woman Honor Thyself, The Crazy Rants of Samantha Burns, stikNstein… has no mercy, The Uncooperative Blogger ®, The World According to Carl, Pirate’s Cove, Dumb Ox Daily News, and Right Voices, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

I gripe all the time; it’s the nature of someone who’s naturally curmudgeonly, moderately intelligent, observant and besieged by stupidity, incompetence and outright malice at every turn. (Blog buds excepted from that litany of woes :-))

So, it’s only right that I would make special note of someone who goes the second (and third) mile offering help when needed.

Some of y’all may recall that shortly before the winter storm, power (and other services) outage here in America’s Third World Countyâ„¢, Lovely Daughter’s laptop “died”. Well, not so much died as seemed for all the world as though no power whatsoever were getti9ng to the thing. Battery down to zilch. No could boot. Comes down to looking likie a common problem with these (and many) notebooks: the CD adapter jack.

So, looked around the web. Found replacement jacks purporting to be the right jacks. Found ONE guy who was willing to go beyond just selling me one, offering a mini-tutorial on its proper installation (including pics of the actual implementation of an idea I’d had to lessen the chance of a recurrence of the problem).

Not only that, but he’s gone another “extra mile” offering help in getting the case open non-destructively. (Sony did NOT make it easy at all, at all… *sigh*).

If you need help with your laptop, here’s the go-to guy, IMO:

The Laptop Doctor I do believe he does more than just jack repairs, although that certainly should keep him busy. 🙂

Kudos, Doc.

Update: Paypal just sent me a notice (well, I just read it; it’s been in my inbox for a short bit) that Doc’s already sent the part. This is the kind of guy you want to do business with, folks.

Showing absolutely NO mercy whatsoever. StikNstein lays ICE policy bare.

”We know we probably should have tipped them off like we did at the Swift raid, but we just didn’t have time. It seems to get harder every day to not arrest these guys. When they just walk up to you and tell you they’re illegal, it’s tough to follow proper procedure and look the other way.”

Besides, He added, “If we’d been at the border like the National Guard, there’d be plenty of avenues of retreat…..You all know how hard it is to get away when you’re in a 7-11 parking lot…..they had us cornered.”

It’s so full of truth, it’s irrelevant whether it’s factual or not. Or at least, so the CBS “News” Ethical Guidelines and the Reuters “News” Policy would seem to indicate… Seriously, though, it’s hard to discriminate between fact and fiction here… is it satire or is it reality? You decide.

🙂

Keep “stiking” it to ’em.

h.t., TRY

Another “not-a-recipe” recipe from the kitchen of third world county central. You can easily modify this to be a made-from-scratch recipe.

Crunch time: needed a quick meal that didn’t seem like a quick meal… Had to use stuff on hand…

2-4 cooked boneless chicken breasts (I had three on hand), cubed.
one 24-oz can of hominy, including the liquids
one 20-oz can of pinto beans (yeh, I know cooking my own is better–and I prefer it, but not when it’s crunch time and I need a meal fast)
one 6-oz can tomato paste (it’s what I had–a can or two of chopped tomatoes would probably have been better)
one handful (yes, that’s a measured amount :-)) chili powder
one handful FRESHLY-GROUND cumin (only took a few seconds in an electric coffee grinder)

Pop all that (and any water you might want to add to please your eye) in a medium pot and bring it to boil, back off to simmer for a bit, and in much less than 30 minutes, a filling meal.

First night: a hominy soup. Next night, it’s stew. 🙂

Heck, some corn chips or cornbread (30 minutes is enough to make some cornmeal muffins) and it’s a filling meal. I added some sliced jalapeños to mine and Wonder Woman ate hers as it came out of the pot.

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Unrelated sidebar: I’ve not gotten around to buying raw beans and roasting my own coffee, yet, but I have stumbled across a way to “freshen” already roasted coffee beans a tad. I juat pop ’em in the microwave (along with a small glass of water, a separate container) for one or two 30-second bursts. It seems to bring out the oils a tad so whenI grind ’em in my hand-cranked burr grinder, the coffee at least seems to have a fuller aroma and the taste of the brewed joe is a little richer, it seems to me.