Doesn't Your Sense of Irony Just Get Overwhelmed

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Anthony Bourdain's Medium Raw Challenge

Pumpkin Pie Chocolate Chip Lazy Man Cookies

The used grocery store where I shop is getting thin in its inventory.  Probably makes sense.  I have been shopping there for ten years now, and the shelves are well stocked during the go-go times and get sparse during the times when things are heading south.

The big stores are a reflection of what the economy/society is thinking.  In the Martha Stewart salad days of the last ten years, the big store would buy crap so that they could fool the unwashed masses into thinking that they could buy “living large”.  Lots of extra crap on the shelves, lots of odd yuppie food to spice up the palate.   Lots of this stuff didn't sell,  so off to the liquidator stores where I could buy good eats at a fraction of the cost.
Now the big stores are looking hard at their inventory and their stocking practices. Have you noticed the decrease in stuff on the shelf lately, have you noticed the rise in prices. The inventory is getting squeezed and the liquidator stores are having trouble getting their stuff.

The only good deal this week was pumpkin.

Ingredients

Mix together

• 1 can (16 oz) canned pumpkin
• 1 cup white sugar
• 1/3 cup molasses
• 2 tablespoon vanilla extract
• 3/4 cup vegetable oil
• 3 egg

Mix in a separate bowl

• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 2 teaspoon baking soda
• 3 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 2 teaspoons ginger
• 1 teaspoon nutmeg
• ½ teaspoon allspice
• ½ teaspoon cloves
• 1/2 teaspoon salt

Mix the two bowls together, then add

• 2 cups semisweet chocolate chips

Spread the mess out onto a big cookies sheet and bake at 350(F) for around 35-40 minutes

Sadism

As you are well aware, I follow football.  Love the game.

This latest push to reduce injury by suspending/fining players who lead with their head has my complete and utter approval.

Look, the game is violent.  Got that.

But a 250 pound player running at full speed who drills his helmet into a receivers back is not "hitting hard" , he is a fucking sadist who is trying to hurt someone.  Injuring the other sides player to knock them out of a game is the act of a barbarian who is too jacked up on his own machismo to recognize that there is a difference between playing hard and trying consciously to injure.

I played for years.  I have had experience at every level.  I know for a fact that there are sadists in locker rooms.  Lots of them.  But to let them run the game, trying to tell us that their sadism is the nature of the game is an insult to the process.

Yes, there will be injuries.  Yes the game is violent.  But the conscious action of a sadist to injure another player through his contempt for safety cannot be tolerated.  The goal of the game is to tackle the other player, not to cripple him. 

If you perform an action that has a reasonable chance of permanently damaging another human, then you should not be allowed to take that action.  If you do take it, you should be punished.  If you continue to take it, you should be banned from the game.

The poor folks opium

I live in an area that can best be defined as "mixed".  The gentrifiers came through during the go-go real estate boom and try to force the white trash and minorities out, but the market crashed before they were able to finish the job and now there are clearly identifiable subcultures within a ten minute walking radius.

I have come to the conclusion from my observations in this mixed bag is that the cell phone and internet connections are the clearest indicators of poverty.   When I talk with A (poor dude, out working on his car) the cell phone goes off and he claws at his pocket like a junkie going after a fix.  The immediate conversation that he was having with a human being is unceremoniously trashed.  This behavior also seems to be widely practiced by his peers in the neighborhood.

The gentry take a different approach.  They are much more likely to mute their phones and ignore it if they are in a conversation.  Not always but the greater bulk of the time.  My favorite is a business type who's phone rings with the the "Money" tune from Pink Floyd when it is a business call.  He will always look you square in the eye, says "business",  tells you he is going to take the call and walks away.  He ignores the regular ring.

The other thing that shocks me is the amount of money that the poor folk spend on their phones.  The unemployed erstwhile mechanic had an iPhone.  The businessman had a beat up old razr.

I am thinking that the primary reason behind this differing way of approaching these odd appliances is simple.  The po' folk cling the phones and cherish them because whoever calls has to be in a better place than the suckage that they call a life.  The gentry knowS that whoever callS is probably not going to make their life better, they can safely ignore it.

Been Pondering On This One For A Bit

OK....let us consider this passage from Mr Cohen over at Decline of the Empire.

What are we supposed to think when the government releases statistics that fly in the face of every other non-government indicator we have? Should we conclude that the "official story" is merely propaganda? That the government methodology is flawed? Assuming no one is actually changing the numbers before the public sees them, we might surmise that the "flaws" in the analysis are driven by a hidden, unconscious bias in the methodology which puts a positive slant on the results.

These are deep mysteries, but the "official story" stands because it is the sanctioned view of our economic reality. People like me or Mish, who question those numbers, can be safely dismissed as wacko bloggers. The point of contention is September retail sales from the Census Bureau—

OK, now for the hard part, taking out ones preconceptions and analyzing them in the light of day.

Since the eighties, when that fucking fraud Ronald Reagan sold us the idea that anything government was bad, we have developed a mindset of immediate distrust of anything government.  Now, to a certain degree, this is a healthy skepticism that should be nurtured.

But consider the phrase "every other non-government indicator".  Now what the fuck does that mean.  Dry scholastic tomes from the ivory tower?  They sure as hell don't have any credibility from where I sit.  Business and corporate projections?  Yeah, I certainly trust those bastards.

So what we are left in is that we are swimming in a sea where all references are suspect.  Where any reduction of the data set to produce a decent sized solution space is suspect in a fundamental way, because the reductions are done per the requirements of power elites that have no desire to see that my needs have any forum or are considered.

I would recommend that one starts considering the economic projections coming out of the whores and charlatans that populate the government bureaucracies, K Street, corporate boardrooms, and Universities the same way you consider a sportwriter.  An interesting read, but in fact, having nothing to do with the game.

Monophysites

I am getting sick of the morons in the economic blogosphere ranting about Keynesian this and Austrian that and how the other side doesn't understand that their side had the hand stamped imprimatur of god clearly marked on its product.

After a while, it becomes like the ridiculous arguments the early Christians about the physical nature of Christ.  The Monophysites said that Christ only had one nature, the divine.  The Chalcedonian position was that Christ had two natures, both human and divine.

At the end of the day, it was morons, talking loudly about things that they really couldn't understand, trying to prove to other morons that they were more wronger than the original moron.  At the end of the day, no one could say for sure, so we managed to come to the less confronatational "who knows" followed by the "God will sort it out for us later" reality.

Economics is increasingly becoming a pissing match that cannot be won.  The reason for this is that most folk see the things that they own and the money that they have as the touchstones of their lives.  Economics must be important because the physical items that it allows us to accumulate have become the most important thing in our lives.

That is the reason for the decline of our culture.  We have become a nation of consumers and rentiers income is the dream of all.  Freemen are passé.

Juan, Juan, Juan

I haven't listened to the news for years now.  Buncha crap.

But when I did, I had a little ritual, first BBC, then NPR, then Fox News, kinda let it all stew around in my head then tried to make a decision based on what each of them were trying hard not to say.  Took a bit of thought, but it was always worth it.

Juan Williams was a slimey little puke then, toeing the company line for decent amount of coin.  I guess that I was surprised when he got a job at Fox a couple years back.  But being the liberal lapdog (I guess the best comparison would be the little weasel David Brook's role as the "nice" conservative over at NPR)

So, now Little Juanie has been fired for saying that some folks make him nervous.  Now, NPR can't have anyone raining on its Kumbaya parade, so off he goes.  Rupert Murdoch, on the other hand, just had the biggest erection he has had in the past two years at the prospect of a hispanic saying odd things about Muslims.

Juanie also just got a nice fat raise from Fox.

Gee, I wonder if they planned this in advance?

Just so you know whats going on

The reality behind the dry medical phrase "productive cough" is where my life has been for two days now.

I am not amused

Reposted From the Onery Bastard

Without Comments and as a complete home run

Thanks Busted

Jesus fucking Christ am I glad I don't own a television anymore.

Every where I look , all I see are stupid people who should be wearing size seventeen shoes and have round red noses.
Fucking clowns running for elected office that can't even spell, Elected Office.

On one hand, we have this silly little dolt named Christine O'Donnell who's claim to fame is that she is not a witch.

If this was the Gong Show she would be out on her little ass looking to find bus fair.

She claims she has that douchebag Hannity "in her back pocket" so she can do battle with the fuck wads in her own party, has no fucking clue what the first amendment is about and steals money from the  donations for her campaign to pay for pizza deliveries. I have to agree with my buddy Gordon on this one.

Then we have the ,Oh , So Lovable Meg Whitman, who has so far spent over a Hundred and Fifty Million Dollars, of her own personal money, to run for the position of Governer of Kalifornia.
.
 That pays what, 200 grand a year? Just a guess.
Some return on your investment there honey.
That poor undocumented maid she was paying 23 bucks an hour should have went on strike for better wages

Something stinks like a barge full of dead cat fish there.

Then we have little Miss Carly Fiorino, who has raised 5.9 MILLION dollars, to run against Senator Barbara Boxer, again, in Kalifornia, for a job that pays $110,00 dollars a year, plus 138.00 dollars a day PER DIEM FOR EVERY DAY THEY ARE IN SESSION.

Now explain to me how 5 million goes into a hundred grand.  OK, 6 million into a hundred and twenty five grand, my math ain't so good.

Either way, you should get my point.

The GOP and the Dumbocrats are both spending millions of fucking dollars for a job that pays one tenth of what they are spending on advertising to win.

What are we missing here folks?

Lobbyists.
Contracts, kick backs. That's what

Pay as you play.

California has one of the top ten largest economies in the entire fucking world.

Top Ten.

A hundred grand won't even get you a cheap seat in that economy.
That shit is just gravy.

Remember, Meg has ALREADY spent a hundred and fifty mother fucking MILLION dollars of her OWN money, trying to buy this election.

Ya wonder why us peons don't see the need to vote for any of these people?

Some are bat shit fucking crazy, I need not go any farther down this vein, others are so outright fucking power hungry and greedy, they are spending more than fifteen years worth of potential wages in one election season, just to get their hands on the levers of power.
Those levers must be some powerful mother fuckers is all I can say.
Might I add, none of the above give a rat fucking shit about you.
It's all about the power and they would kick you in the ribs if you had the audacity to fall over from starvation right in front of them while on their way to a corporate  fund raiser.

Better yet, they would have some hired goon do it for them. hey, those shoes are expensive, don't ya know.

Think about it, 5.9 million fucking dollars in advertising to get a job that pays a hundred grand a year.

Like I said, barge load of dead cat fish, something stinks to high heaven.
That's our political process these days.

Might Be the Theme Song

I have always liked the Supremes.  Great tunes.

I think that I will head over to the Cash and Carry and buy some meat and flour.  The freezer is getting a bit thin and the flour bin is getting empty.  I have a sneaking hunch that prices will be going up soon, so making hay while the sun shines might be a good idea.

I think that we are just hanging on.  The speed of a society is perceptible, but it moves slowly.  The frauds and self-deceptions on which we builded our lives and dreams are starting to come apart now.  The fraying of the fabric is becoming obvious.  Oh, the garment will hold together for a bit, but it is an old set of jeans that have been repaired a couple of times already.

I kind of think that we will be able to patch it up one more time.  But maybe not.

What we are running into now is the point in the garments life where a serious hole is going to rip out any day now.  Since we know we are going to have to fix it anyway, we are slacking a bit, trying to get one last use or two before we get busy patching it.

A lot of folks will see this as when the garment rips, the garment must be thrown away and we will go shopping naked until we find a new garment.  Sorry lads and lasses, doesn't work like that.

I guess that I am personalizing this garment analogy from my own experience.  My jeans always wear out in the crotch first.  So when are start seeing the strain lines, I know I am going to have to bring out the sewing machine soon, but usually I wait until they tear out and then go for it.

I just alway figure that if the seams in the jeans are looking rocky, I make sure that "going commando" is not done.  I always make sure that I have underwear on so that only mild embarrassment occurs.

Hence the trip to the cash and carry

Why I don't eat out

Other than the fact that I am a cheapskate. and prying money out of my wallet usually requires the jaws of life.

Oh, I will head down to Muchas Gracias and eat one of their burritos, God, are they great.  I will even head in and eat at the Jerusalem Cafe downtown.  The middle eastern food there is good beyond words. Local food shops usually gives you food.  Not corporate-blessed calorie units

This is what America Eats.

But if you eat at one of the corporate bullshit chains, I really don't care which one, you are putting shit into your body that no self-respecting organism would have anything to do with.  Now, don't get me wrong, I will do this occasionally, but I almost feel the need to go to confession and pony up some tithe to wash myself of sins afterward.

My youngest always describes his desire to go to Taco Bell as a craving for cheap, fatty goodness.  I try as hard as I can to dissuade him.  I am begining to realize that this is a ploy to get me to panic and offer to take him to Muchas Gracias as an option.

I'm on to you punk.

Sorry about the delay

Bacon/Potato/Cheddar Cheese Soup
Serves 3-4


Phase One

• Three Potatoes
• Two Carrots
• Two Stalks of Celery

Chop these up into approximately 1 inch chunks.  Stick them into a pot (3 quart) of cold water with 1 tablespoon of salt and bring it to a boil, take it off the heat and let it cool down for a bit

Phase Two

• About 1/4 pound of bacon, chopped up
• One large onion
• 2/3 cup of flour

Fry up the bacon till the bits are nice and crispy (for this part I would use the pot you will be making the soup in, in my case it is a 3.5 liter pot).  Pull the bits out and set them aside. Fry the onion till it is translucent.  Pull out the onion and put it in the bowl with the bacon. Keep the bacon grease and add the flour to it a bit at a time and stir the flour in to make a roux.  Cook the roux, stirring constantly, until it turns a shade of brown you find appealing, then take it off the heat (but leave the burner on).

Phase Three

• 1-1/2 cups of powdered milk
• 1 teaspoon oregano
• 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• 3/4 teaspoon pepper (I prefer white for this one)
• 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder

Drain the vegetables from phase one, make sure that you reserve the boiling water in a bowl (remember it is pretty hot).  Stir in the oregano, cayenne, pepper, garlic and powdered milk into the water from the boiled vegetables and mix it thoroughly.  Stir the vegetable water/milk mix into the roux (on the hot burner) and stir the mixture up.  Dump in the bacon, onions, and partially cooked potatoes, carrots, and celery.

Phase Four

• 1/3 pound of grated cheddar cheese

Cook this on a low heat (medium low or 2-3 on an electric range) for about five minutes minutes or until the vegetables are the right texture for you.   Add the cheese to the soup about 3-4 minutes before you serve.  It will melt in pretty easily

This is killer with garlic bread..

Great with

Trouble at the mill

You know, when I sit down and examine it rationally, I come to the conclusion that I have no clue whatsoever about what is going on in the world.  

It has always been a damned odd place.  It seems that things haven't changed all that much and it is still a damned odd place.  I think that one of my biggest faults is trying to make sense of it.  It may be a fools errand to even attempt to do so.

I made a couple attempts at surfing once.  I was sore for a week and my Hawaiian friend Mapu was gasping for breath with laughter at my early attempts.  But I did learn one thing, that when you are playing around with something bigger than yourself, there isn't a lot to understand.  It can squash you like a bug and you had better be getting out of its way, or just learn to get along with it.

A big wave seems to building up.  But anybody who has spent any time near an ocean will probably tell you that a whole bunch of the time what you think will be a big wave just washes your ankles when it finally gets to where you are.  I think that this idea applies here too.  

So, I will keep you posted, tomorrow will be the recipe for Bacon/potato/cheddar cheese soup.  

Maybe a decent idea for a post will come between now and Friday. 

Fuck the bondholders

Another of my pet peeves.  Bonds are sacred.  These fine people (ha) bought these bonds to fund their retirements of golf and pederasty.  They need their money...blah...blah....blah.

First things first, when you buy a bond you are loaning an entity money.  It is a business decision, just like when Louie does it down at the docks.  But, here is the kicker, when Louie lends money, he has the good sense to hire Guido the legbreaker to ensure prompt repayment.

Idiot individuals who buy bonds are loaning money to the big boys.  The big boys have the morals of an alley cat.  So, in toto, if you buy a bond from a corporation you are lending money to the most rapacious group of people in our society.  If you lend money to the government, outside of a war bond, you are loaning money to an extremely eccentric uncle with a poor prior history.

So, we can safely say that any individual that holds bonds is less than sharp, and, while not deserving a schooling, shouldn't feel an immense set of moral outrage.

But the main holders of bonds are corporations and other countries.  Well fuck them, haircuts for all.

Tribes

I have had an interesting set of comments on my observation that the Tea Party meetings are racist.

Mayberry (a daily read) and Russell (same) took exception.  Since these folks have my ear, I sat down and thought about it for a bit.  Unfortunately, I can't quite bring myself to looking at things their way in light of my personal experience.

I will freely allow that the Tea Party has no official racist doctrine anywhere around.  I can even live with the idea of shipping back illegals and their children to the country of origin (though we would first have to implement some changes in the laws, and there will necessarily be some legal ambiguity about the children born in the USA prior to the changes). Ex post facto is not a legal idea to be toyed with.

But there is a difference between the pubic platform of a movement and the tenor and hopes of the people within it.  The leaders of the Tea Party might be smart enough not to mention any racist doctrine, but a lot of the rank and file folks that I have met are not hampered by any such nicety.   As I stated earlier, I have never been to a public meeting where Spic, nigger, and other such words have been bandied about freely.  This was not the case in the Tea Party meetings that I attended.   While the Confederate Battle flag may have an marginally appropriate (emphasis on marginal) subtext in the South, the same flag being displayed on pickups in Washington State really has only one meaning.

I grew up a non-Mormon in rural northern Utah, the scorn and petty spite against Mexicans, Italians, Polacks, and Catholics was palpable, as there were almost no blacks, this wasn't really an issue.  I learned to fight often and well (the Mormon boys in Northern Utah tended to go after you in packs).

The experience of going to a Tea Party meeting was eerily similar to the constant racism and self-righteousness that characterized my happy youth in crackerville.

Now you guys at least know where I am coming from.

Go Check This Guy Out

http://www.redmeat.com

Just Wondering

(Sorry about no posting for the past couple of days.  Folks have been sick at work and I have had to step up from my usual lethargy and sloth)

So, lets for a moment talk about Millard Fillmore.   Compromise of 1850 was his baby along with sending Commodore Perry to Japan with a fleet of gunships to tell those Japanese that they did have to trade with us (they really didn't want to...globalization at gunpoint?) .   Guy was a Whig, served in the White House from 1950 to 1953.

The odd thing is, the Whig party vanished in 1956 (or so).  Fillmore's party self-destructed within three years after being in the White House and in control of Congress.  That is something to consider.

Most of this was a setup for the civil war.  No, not that the creation of the Republican party was a conscious effort to bring on the war, or that the war was inevitable at that point.  It was just that the state of the country's political debate and the polarization of the country needed a new party to continue.

So good old Millard saw the birth of the new party (the GOP) and the death of the party that gave him power.  All of this was done while he had fresh memories of the White House food.  Both of the paries have had their turns in the White House lately, both parties are increasingly out of touch with the country.

The point of this history refresher is that during times of stress, the political system of our country and our people is capable of dealing with the problems.  The parties that we have known and see as near-permanent are not branches of government, they can be changed.

Just remember that the changes might not be in your best interests.  I watch the Tea party with avid interest.  Having been to a few get-togethers, these folks are mostly pasty-faced white folk who can't seem to get it through their head that the world has moved past them.  They are heavily (my estimate is 3/4) weighted to the racist and for the most part educated in a manner that obviously did not cherish freedom of thought as a virtue.

The nature of the Democratic party is equally repugnant.   They are disorganized and, at best, venal.

The nature of the remaining Republicans is that of a slut puppy for corporations.

I am not positing that one of the parties will die soon.  I do want you to think about what a party should be.  And what the political system usually ends up being.

The New York Times has written in explaining why the political parties have lost the confidence of the public: "Their machinery of intrigue, their shuffling evasions, the dodges, the chicanery and the deception of their leaders have excited universal disgust, and have created a general readiness in the public mind for any new organization that shall promise to shun their vices."

The New York Evening Post, in explaining the same condition has written that the people "saw parties without any difference contending for power, for the sake of power. They saw politics made a profession, and public plunder an employment. ... They beheld our public works the plaything of a rotten dynasty, enriching gamblers, and purchasing power at our expense."

The dates of those articles were November and December 1855 (See The Origins of the Republican Part by William E. Gienapp, Oxford University Press, 1987).

The idea for this article and the quote came from a pretty good read over at the Huffington...

4:00 Whining

Gotta get up in eight hours.  I should be sleeping, but the beer hasn't kicked over my snooze meter yet.  

So I am catching up on reading.  Looking at the dollar and oil and gold and silver makes me think something is afoot.  But what?  I haven't a clue.  

I think that this is the way that things will be going for a while.  It is just the seemingly random removal of stability, a bit at a time.  Each loss of stability leads to an increasingly wild ride.  At first is seems manageable, but as you keep holding on, the ride becomes more and more wild.

Watch the basics.  What do folks think of the dollar?  Will anyone keep loaning us money?  When will the Fed start printing?  Hows the food supply? What is happening with the military?

Pay attention folks, the test is going to be a bitch.

The Residues of Truth

I keep scanning for information.  

There is no one that seems to have the whole thing nailed down.  Instead, there are innumerable (your faithful correspondent is within this set) writers trying to put out information to make sense of the storm times we are living through.   But there is no one clear prophet.  What one must do in read the many writers, smelting through the mass of information to purify a theme, a hint of truth that will allow a better chance of weathering the maelstrom.

Most of what we read is discarded as faeces of the purification.  Sometimes our hard work is not the philosophic mercury that we imagined, but instead a mass of dross showing a pleasing hue.

But we keep going, because it is most certainly better than the mass of lies that those other than ourselves wish us to believe. 

Back from the trip

Locutius and Cinna are the only two people in the world whom I would willingly sequester myself in a vehicle to drive to the end of a road to see what is there.  This time it only took 2 days and 800 some odd miles to get there.

I am not telling you where I went.  Nope, this one is a keeper.  Next to mountains.  Access to a major river.  Agricultural land.  Far from the madding crowd.  I am keeping this in my mental file as the place to get some land for the boys to keep.  Not a big chance, but you have to keep options opened.

Mostly squawked about politics.  One thing that always surprises me is how that moron Bushie is still being blamed for all of the problems in the world.  Whenever I pointed out that the current occupant of the White house seems to have done little or nothing to rectify the massive number of errors committed by the prior administration there was a dull silence.  When I mentioned that I thought that the policies that ol' 44 had implemented seemed to benefit the wealthy there was sullen assent.  When I mentioned that I didn't really see any difference in performance between 43 and 44, there were angry rebuttals.  As I didn't wish to cause a stink, I admitted that he gave a great speech.

I think that they, like myself and most other folks, are nervous.  The act of growing older limits the options available for recovery from obstacles. When you get past a certain point, the ability to recover vanishes altogether.  I pray for the success of their plans every day.