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Telfon Coated Presidency

For our friends overseas, imagine for a moment that when you go for a job interview you were asked what team you supported?  Perhaps, when you went to the doctor they asked you what Chapel you went (or didn’t go) to?  Outrageous, right?  You’d want to spit blood if you didn’t get the job when someone asked you in an official capacity what shirt you wore to the match, right?

The Folks in the Bush Whitehouse did this as a matter of process.  It’s fairly clear that the Bush whitehouse was a 100% self-sustaining political nepotism engine.  Which is outrageous when one considers how this was applied to non-political roles.

High-ranking political appointees at the Justice Department labored to stock a prestigious hiring program with young conservatives in a five-year-long attempt to reshape the department’s ranks, according to an inspector general’s report to be released today.

Report says partisanship reigned in Justice Department hiring program

When we see this kind of crap going on south of the border, amongst the “enlightened” conservative movement there, one wonders why Canadians still seem to think the Home-Grown variety are going to perform any differently.  The Liberals may have been fattening the coffers of their friends, but at least they weren’t destroying the Canadian way of life or giving in to the Bush Whitehouse while they were in office.  The Harper conservatives seem keen on only two things, social conservatism and emulating the conservatives south of the border.  Stay tuned for new scandals with the Tories mirroring those south of the sensible.

Meanwhile…

The internal audit already has produced one grand jury referral. Federal prosecutors in the District recently issued subpoenas to former employees in Justice’s civil rights unit as part of a probe into discrepancies in 2007 congressional testimony by Bradley A. Schlozman, an interim U.S. attorney in Kansas City, Mo.

Maybe this will come out in the wash, but when my Democrat friends were all telling me about how Patrick Fitzgerald was going to shake the Whitehouse like a bone and get the bastards, I knew that it would fall flat.  I imagine this will all come for nothing too.

Go Teflon Whitehouse!

George Carlin was Alive and now He is Dead

“The whole problem with this idea of obscenity and indecency, and all of these things — bad language and whatever — it’s all caused by one basic thing, and that is: religious superstition,” Carlin told the AP in a 2004 interview

In a typical wry response, Carlin said: “Thank you Mr. Twain. Have your people call my people.”

Carlin told The Associated Press this year he was “perversely kind of proud” to be “a footnote in American legal history.”

Few Comedians will have the balls and chutzpah that George Carlin carried around in his pants, his stuff was portable and palatable. At times he seethed with loathing for the trappings of society, struggling to suffocate the failings of others in prosaic language and invective. Other times you could see that he wanted so much for us to understand his world view that he was a wits end trying to use crude language (crude in the sense of imprecise for the task, not crude as in vulgar) to express his point of view.

George Carlin was a man of the monologue, streaming hours of precise and cutting commentary or just sputtering vituperation at his audience.  The only real tradgedy of Carlin’s work is that the people who stood the gain the most from it, his targets, were likely to be the selfsame people who would ignore or overlook it as brash, uncooth or un-pc.

I think we might see, over the coming days a number of groups trying to claim Mr. Carlin’s Corpse for their own, whatever stripe they may wear.  They will look at his death as an opportunity to say that he was in in their Camp, shaman of their particular tribe as it were.  I think George would have said it best, “go fuck yourself!” he was his own man and walked his own path, wearing only his own stripes and speaking only his own words.

Good-bye, you crazy hippy.  May you rot in the earth and fertilize a lawn or two.

More Food Price Worries

Record corn prices mean more expensive meat, dairy: Financial News – Yahoo! Finance

In the latest bout of food inflation, beef, pork, poultry and even eggs, cheese and milk are expected to get more expensive as livestock owners go out of business or are forced to slaughter more cattle, hogs, turkeys and chickens to cope with rocketing costs for corn-based animal feed.

How are your food stock plans going? Have to stocked up on your non-perishables? Is your pantry and backup pantry all set up? Have you been thinking about long-term food stability?

It’s a bi-weekly topic around here; food issues. I’m probably making a mountain out of a big hill; but I think it’s a good idea that we all watch the news and become more food aware and food secure before we are forced to choose between food and fuel.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Union Gas is run by Republicans

Duke Energy – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

With the purchase of Cinergy Corporation announced in 2005 and completed on April 3, 2006, Duke Energy Corporation’s customer base now includes the Midwestern United States as well. The company operates nuclear power plants, coal-fired plants, conventional hydroelectric plants, natural-gas turbines to handle peak demand, and pumped hydro storage. During 2006, Duke Energy also acquired Chatham, Ontario-based Union Gas, which is regulated under the Ontario Energy Board Act (1998)
….

In 2002, researchers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst have identified Duke Energy as the 46th-largest corporate producer of air pollution in the United States, with roughly 36 million pounds of toxic chemicals released annually into the air.[8] Major pollutants indicated by the study include sulfuric and hydrochloric acid, chromium compounds, and hydrogen fluoride.[9] In 2008 Duke Energy rose to the 13th position in the list, more than doubling its release of toxic chemicals to 80 million pounds per year.[10]

I was reading about Patrick McCrory, a Republican candidate for Governor in North Carolina, who gained my eye by using CSI and Law and Order as a metric as to how the local legal system should work. Two things: One, does he know that those shows are almost overwhelmingly liberal and does he know that on TV stuff kinda happens via “the magic of television”. However, that is just sort of side entertainment, it was his relationship to Duke Energy and Duke’s link to London that caught my eye.

Deregulation was one of those magical panaceas that we keep getting fed by the hardcore capitalists as the ultimate solution to high prices and lack of competition; but in practice we get super high bills and collusion (if you don’t believe that deregulation leads to problems you must have missed the past 10 years in Ontario or the whole Enron debacle).

My point, when I get there, is that Duke Energy bought out Union Gas; which may have been to the benefit to the employees of Union Gas. Will Union Gas, as a Canadian firm owned by an American (of dubious responsibilities) going to be dragged into the morass that is Duke Energy’s poor environmental record? Will we see skyrocketing gas costs when the EPA’s own Banhammer comes down on Duke? What remedy do we have, they are the only game in town. Open markets my ass.

A Nice plate of Fish and Chips

A Nice plate of Fish and Chips, originally uploaded by NiteMayr.

Yes! A great lunch that wasn’t from “King’s”

Went to “Walker’s Fish and Chips” for lunch, had the Halibut and Chips.

The Fish was great, tasty and flavorful. The batter wasn’t all the taste, the fish was meaty and strong, a pleasure to eat. The Chips were also great, obviously real cut potato, soaked overnight to make sure that they are not too starchy. Great!

I didn’t care for the coleslaw, but I’m not a fan of the slaw anyway.

PLUS Beer on tap (not GOOD beer, but on TAP) and other beer selections on hand.

I can’t recommend Walker’s more.

Roasted

Close Meat-ing, originally uploaded by NiteMayr.

This is not my roast, Jen made this fine repast. I don’t make my roast the same way she does, she’s a bit heavy on onions and lets the meat dry out a bit sometimes.

When I make a roast it’s a simple affair:

Defrost roast
Place roast in roasting vessel with a mixture of several cups of water, a few tablespoons of garlic powder, generous helpings of white and black pepper and a helping of generic steak spice.

Ensure that you drench the meat in said mixture and that said mixture is mixed into water. Turn meat “Fattiest side up” and generously coat with black and white pepper on fat.

If you are feeling adventurous, add instant coffee to the water, enough for two cups of coffee to your taste.

Start to heat the meat (covered) at 300 degrees in the center of your oven.

After about 2 hours remove from heat, increase oven temperature to 350 degrees. Replace any lost water and add 1/2 cup of vinegar.

Return vessel to oven and let cook, check meat after about 1 hour and ensure that it has not dried, add water as needed.

At the 3 and a half hour mark (since you started) add potatoes and vegetables. Cover with water and let cook. [Again, if you are into trying new things, add hot peppers and spiced vinegar]

Allow the water to boil down (until the vegetables are mostly uncovered) in vessel, meat should pull apart easily with fork.

When the meat is ready and potatoes are soft enough, pull from oven and serve.

The meat should be tender and moist, you may turn the leavings in the vessel into soup or gravy.