Who's the March Hare?

Today I read something that I wish to share. From "Obama's Strong Marriage Produces White House Drama, Dysfunction":

The Tea Party and all its Mad Hatters emerge to bedevil him.

The Tea Party, as far as I know, takes their name from the historical Boston Tea Party. It's an iconic image of the common man fighting for his rights against oppressive tyranny that has pervasively wound itself into even the most minute aspects of everyday life. Twisting it an re-associating it with the surreal afternoon ritual from Alice in Wonderland pretty much made my day.

Civilised

Recently, I've been involved in a conversation with a group of people who are white-hot furious with the President for not taking immediate and decisive action regarding the 9/11 attack in Libya this year. They have taken the phrase "bump in the road" as a grievous insult.

I just can't. So many people have made stupid metaphorical references to the "Road to peace in the Middle East" and the "bumps along the way" that I'm numb to it. It's an awful phrase, and it minimizes the importance of human life, and at this point, it's overused, as well, but it just doesn't fan the flames of anger in my soul.

When speaking directly of those that lost their lives this September 11th, the president was somber and respectful. He spoke calmly and politely at their funeral. he stood at attention while their flag-draped bodies were loaded into hearses by Marines.

I didn't want to hear "Oh, no, you don't!" Because we are not the parents of the world. We are not reactionists. We understand that violence is not the answer that we want to give, if we want a less violent world.

From http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/obama-invokes-slain-ambassador-chris-stevens-speech-challenge/story?id=17320388#.UGWy5q7tOIo:

 The strongest weapon against hateful speech, Obama said, is "not repression, it is more speech."

"On this we must agree: there is no speech that justifies mindless violence," he said. "There are no words that excuse the killing of innocents. There is no video that justifies an attack on an embassy. There is no slander that provides an excuse for people to burn a restaurant in Lebanon, or destroy a school in Tunis, or cause death and destruction in Pakistan," he added.

 "It is time to leave the call of violence and the politics of division behind. On so many issues, we face a choice between the promise of the future, or the prisons of the past," he said. "We cannot afford to get it wrong."

When we get it wrong, more people die.

La La Land

Folks, I am living in La La Land. I got an email today about affordable housing being offered in my county.

Condos available
$103,589 - $195,000
Apartments available
$690 - $1,020
Based on income.
Must meet credit and program criteria.

That's right, "affordable" housing costs a minimum of $690 a month, before utilities. I bet my friends that make about $600 a week are so happy to hear it. I wonder if they meet the "program criteria".

I just read this: Obama who? Gay marriage foes seek to extend gains, and I have to say this, again, I just have to.

Stop it. Stop trying to dictate which person can marry which other person. The ONLY person you get to decide whether or not gay marriage is right for is YOURSELF. People marrying each other when neither of them is you is NOT YOUR BUSINESS. Even if it's your kid, or your brother, or your mom, it's NOT YOU.

Your right to flail your arms, buddy, that ends at the nose of others. If you promise not to mess with adults that want to live as a family and mind their own business, I promise to not to force you to marry someone of the same sex. Oh, wait, NO ONE WAS EVER DOING THAT.

Imagine how angry I'd be if I was gay? Honestly, I don't know why there aren't more homosexual violent rampages, they way they get treated most of the time.

Still Down With OCD

Know what bothers me about this ad?



Those aren't cubes.

Abuse/Beholder/Whatever

I just spent a few minutes clicking "report abuse" on Yahoo! comments. I was reading the article about Maher giving Obama's PAC $1 million, and a lot of the people making comments are conservative Obama-haters. That's fine. You think that small government works better than big government, and I disagree, and neither one of us can prove our points to the satisfaction of the other.

The people who made comments about the white comedian being stupid for supporting the black Muslim, though, those guys got reported.

Disagreeing with me is one thing, but being intentionally stupid is abuse. Stop abusing me, idiots.

Unexpected Consuquences

I've started making macaroni & cheese from scratch. I use corn starch or flour, butter, skim milk, spices, cheddar, gruyere, and Dreamfields macaroni. It's lower in fat than the pre-made mixes, higher in protein, and very, very tasty. What surprises me about it is the cost.

A serving of my homemade mac & cheese costs 10 times a comparable serving size of the boxy powdered stuff, and 5 times the cost of the "deluxe" boxed mix that has pre-mixed cheese sauce.

A serving of my mac & cheese is about $2.33. It's pretty cheap, as meals go! I can imagine making a more expensive version with higher quality cheeses, but I cannot imagine cutting the price any lower.

Real food costs 10 times more than things pretending to be food.

Eating healthier turns out to cost more, every time. It's a point that I bring up from time to time, and I thought that I'd just trot it out again, today, for fun.

Go F*** Yourself, South Dakota

From http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifJudge blocks new SD abortion law from taking effect:

In South Dakota, supporters of the three-day waiting period say the Planned Parenthood clinic in Sioux Falls gives women little information or counseling before they have abortions done by doctors flown in from out of state. They say the bill would help make sure women are not being coerced into abortions by boyfriends or relatives.

Leslee Unruh, founder of the Alpha Center pregnancy help center and supporter of the law, said that Schreier's decision was not a surprise and her organization plans to intervene on Friday.

"We're in it for the long haul," Unruh said after the ruling Thursday.

Sarah Stoesz, President and CEO of Planned Parenthood Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, said the law represents a blatant intrusion by politicians into difficult decisions that women and families sometimes need to make.

"We trust women and families in South Dakota to know and do what is best for them, without being coerced by the government. And we stand with them in our efforts to overturn this outrageous law," Stoesz said in a statement.

Discussing the major step of giving birth and raising a child with relatives or boyfriends is a GOOD thing. The boyfriends are most likely the fathers of these unborn babies, and relatives are the people who are your support system when you expand the family. If they express concerns that bringing a baby into the world isn't a good idea at this time, isn't taking their concerns seriously a very reasonable thing to do? One assumes that your family members can't all be against having children, otherwise you wouldn't be here, right? Religious or non, pro-choice or pro-life, your family is your family, and they're pretty likely to know and love you. The odds are higher, at least.

Manditory counseling by strangers that are most likely members of anti-abortion groups isn't counseling - that's coercion. So f*** you and your stupid required counseling law, SD. F*** you.

Tragedy Doesn't Make Me Any Nicer

Floodwaters in South falling, but misery remains

'There wasn't nothing I could do ... I just had to sit up there on that hill and watch my house get more and more underwater'

I'm guessing that the misery starts with their lack of English teachers.

Discovered a Skill

You know what I can do? I can listen to a person say a single sentence that dances around terrible news that they can't bear to say out loud, and get it. Even more than that - when I get it, I am able to say "OK", in a calm, significant way that lets them know that I understood the actual message, and that they do not need to say anything else out loud, risking their tenuous hold on composure.

Nope, you don't have to say anything else - I get it. Also, I'm sorry. I've had enough bad news of my own that I remember how it feels for you. I'm really, really sorry.

Not Actually Going to Kill Anyone

My dad is killing me, again. I was on the phone with him, telling him my schedule, and when I got to the part about being home before 9 because I wanted to get at least one batch of Saturday's cookies baked off, tonight, when he exclaimed, "Again?!".

See, Dad is upset that I'm baking cookies, because I'm fat. He told me so. He also told me that it's a shame that I'm a good cook, because I eat too much of what I make. I'm going to have to euthanize the son of a bitch one of these days.

Especially since he was a fat, fat man all his life, until illness took away his appetite.

Winners

On the Ships & Dip 4 cruise, I met a guy with a banjo. His name was Zach Daniels.

It turns out that he's in the band Oakhurst. I haven't heard them, they appear to play bluegrass, which I mostly like. It's not my bread and butter, but I own some on purpose.

Zach was one of the most fun people I met. He came to karaoke wearing a white luchadore mask that had giant golden horns on it. Kind of like this one, but different colors:



He signed up for a karaoke song as "Zakka Kahn", and sang "That's the Way of the World" by Earth Wind and Fire.

Also, his wife is unreasonably hot. Zach, meeting you on vacation was a total win.

Official Report

Best Cruise Ever.

While I am not thrilled at the idea of being thought of as "The large woman who sings Heart", the fact that I was thought of in the first place is absolutely thrilling.

OMFG!!PONIES!!!!!1!!

I'm going on vacation on Saturday!

Not as Pretty as the Staged One

The inside of my actual cupcake:

Better in a Cupcake

This weekend I attempted pumpkin pie filled cupcakes, a la Bakeitinacake.com.



I didn't bother with the crusts. Crust in the middle of a cupcake feels like a waste to me.

I also made pumpkin muffins with cream cheese filling. I messed with the recipe and came up with this:
(Ingredients are listed in the order used. I pretty much just mixed them in the mixer)

8 oz pumpkin puree
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup barley malt
(This was my contribution, the original recipe called for boiled cider or dark corn syrup. Any dark thick sweet syrupy substance would probably work, like molasses)
1/3 cup skim milk
3 eggs
2 teaspoons (to 1 tablespoon to taste) of pumpkin pie spice
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 1/2 cups flour

preheat oven to 350.

You'll notice that there's no added fat in the recipe. That's fine. The pumpkin is plenty moist, the barley malt is moist, and the eggs have fat in them.

Mix the pumpkin with the sugar. Add the barley malt and mix. Add the milk, mix. Add the eggs one at a time. Add the spice, salt, and powders, mix.
Mix the flour in carefully, so as not to make a mess, I did it in 3 batches.

Cream cheese filling (optional)
1/2 package cream cheese, microwaved for 30 seconds or so
1/4 cup sugar

Grease a muffin pan, or use cupcake papers, or both, I guess. Drop a heaping tablespoonful of batter into the well/paper. Drop a scant teaspoon of filling carefully on top. Cover with more batter (skip the fussy measuring if you're skipping the filling). Bake for 18-20 minutes, until they look good and solid on the top.

These are fantastic warm. I made mine in my fancy new pumpkin muffin pan. Here they are, posing in front of my pan of tiny pumpkin pie fillings:

Idiocracy

I've just heard that there's a plan to put a cafe in the current periodicals reading room at the Alexander Library at Rutgers.

Whomever came up with this plan loves $2 of latte profit more than they love KEEPING FOOD AND DRINKS OFF OF LIBRARY MATERIALS.

Idiots. Replacing the destroyed reading materials will cost more than a cafe could ever bring in.

Facing East

Give it a couple of more years, everyone will understand that China owns the US, and that they have for a long time.

G 20 Issues

Lucky thing for me I like that kind of lifestyle.

Backbones Are Still Invisible

Today I read that "Older Americans" are the backbone of the Tea Party. Maybe they are, but that doesn't change the fact that "Batshit Crazy Americans" are the public face.

Attention All Casting Directors

Someone needs to hire Randy Quaid right now. The man will bring the viewers in to your comedy like lemmings to a cliff.

In case you didn't notice, Quaid and his wife, Evi, are giving interviews, talking about how there's a group of people who exploit and murder movie stars in order to take their money.

There is no such thing as bad publicity.