From Yahoo news:

FORT WORTH, Texas - Fed up with deadly drive-by shootings, incessant drug dealing and graffiti, cities nationwide are trying a different tactic to combat gangs: They’re suing them.

Fort Worth and San Francisco are among the latest to file lawsuits against gang members, asking courts for injunctions barring them from hanging out together on street corners, in cars or anywhere else in certain areas.

The injunctions are aimed at disrupting gang activity before it can escalate. They also give police legal reasons to stop and question gang members, who often are found with drugs or weapons, authorities said. In some cases, they don’t allow gang members to even talk to people passing in cars or to carry spray paint.

“It is another tool,” said Kevin Rousseau, a Tarrant County assistant prosecutor in Fort Worth, which recently filed its first civil injunction against a gang. “This is more of a proactive approach.”

More of a proactive approach. Let’s tackle the logic behind this one. Criminals don’t respect the law or the criminal courts, so we’ll sue them, because everybody respects the civil courts!

Get back to us in about a year and tell us how this more proactive approach worked.

But somehow, it gets — yes — even stupider:

But critics say such lawsuits go too far, limiting otherwise lawful activities and unfairly targeting minority youth.

“If you’re barring people from talking in the streets, it’s difficult to tell if they’re gang members or if they’re people discussing issues,” said Peter Bibring, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California. “And it’s all the more troubling because it doesn’t seem to be effective.”

If the proactive approach logic was lacking, the ACLU logic is downright impenetrable. Suing criminals “targets minority youth” because . . . ? And I’m assuming here the ACLU does not mean “minority youth who are criminals and belong in prison.”

They’re trying to outstupid each other.

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As you no doubt know, Shark Week started last night. I used to really like Shark Week, but over the last couple of years especially, I’ve been getting really sick of this nonsense about making apologies for sharks, you know, like, “Sharks never attack humans intentionally — they just want to be your friend, and biting is how sharks do that!” or “The man was bitten because the shark wanted to see how he tasted,” or “The shark thought the diver was a seal,” that kind of idiocy. I mean, if it’s just being friendly, or tasting, or thinking you’re a seal, then why does the damned shark keep on munching?

I think they call that advocacy, or something like that.

It’s very simple, really. Shark hungry. Shark see food. Shark bite food. Yum! Dinner! Delicious diver dinner!

Or the nonsense about how sharks aren’t eating machines. Really? Let’s see, what do they do on all those shark shows, eh? They eat! Swim and eat! Yum! Bite! Delicious! I admit you have to have a pretty good tolerance for a certain brand of idiocy to like Shark Week, as I have until recently. Like the morons who get two legs eaten off, then go on TV to tell everybody how much they just love sharks now that they had their legs munched off.

I may, however, be done with Shark Week. I just heard the following abomination:

Predation event.

Right. So now getting your leg munched off is a predation event. That’s even worse than signage. I just hate people who can’t bring themselves to speak basic English. I really do.

Carne asada (with guajillo puree), rojas, and guacamole (and tortillas, of course — click the pic to hugeify).

Recipe(s) here.

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I give you Caramel Apple Tarts (click image for full-size):

Here’s the recipe. If you’re not pastry adept, tarts are a good option. They use a short crumb dough, more like cookie dough than crust (just try not to eat it all as you’re working with it), and you can handle it as much as you like. Just divide it into fourths, press it into a ball and flatten it (think play-doh), then put it in the bottom of the tart ring and use your thumbs to press it into the bottom and up the sides. Pinch off any excess along the rim, and that’s it. One thing, though: Grease the ring thoroughly first, then drop the bottom in and grease it, or caramel-y goo could seep in between and make the tart difficult to unmold.

4 4-inch tart rings

1-2-3 dough:
1/2 c. sugar
1 c. butter (room temperature)
1 1/2 c. flour
1 egg

Caramel sauce:
3/4 c. sugar
4 T. unsalted butter
1/4 c. heavy cream, at almost boiling point

Tarts:
3 tart apples
2 T. butter

Streusel:
1 T. brown sugar
1 T. flour
1 T. butter (room temperature)
1 t. cinnamon
1 T. rolled oats

Preheat the oven to 350.

Make the dough. Combine the flour and sugar, then mix in the butter and egg, just until it holds together. Form into a ball, wrap tightly in Saran wrap, and refrigerate for 30 minutes.

Press (do not roll) the dough into buttered tart shells. Prick all over with a fork, and bake for fifteen minutes. If the bottom puffs up, prick again as soon as you remove them from the oven to release the air.

Peel, core, and thinly slice (or chop) the apples. Sautee them in the butter over low heat, stirring frequently, until soft.

Make the caramel sauce. IN A LARGE, HEAVY PAN, place the sugar and turn the heat on medium. Stir the sugar, and it will start to melt. When this happens, turn the heat down to low, and stirring constantly, cook until the sugar is all melted, smooth, and an amber color. Add the butter and mix it in. Now, be careful here. VERY SLOWLY add the near boiling cream, stirring it in, until it is all incorporated — it will bubble, so stand back. Remove the caramel sauce from the heat and let it cool for thirty minutes or so. RESIST THE TEMPTATION TO STICK YOUR FINGER IN AND TASTE IT!

Mix the dry streusel ingredients, then blend in the butter, until the mixture is crumbly.

Mix the apples with the caramel sauce and pile into the tart shells.

Sprinkle the streusel over the tops, and bake until the streusel is brown and the tarts are bubbly, about fifteen minutes.

Let cool on a rack for about 30 minutes, then unmold (there is no reason to remove the bottoms unless you’re going to sell them). To unmold, grab the ring in one hand, and with the fingers of the other, gently push upward on the bottom and push the tart up out of the ring.

Fred on Federalism.

I had some tortellini in the refrigerator I needed to use (I’m making carne asada with rojas and guacamole tomorrow), as well as tomatoes I bought last week at the Amish farmers market (they needed to be used up, like today), so I decided this morning to make soup. Since today was the Pilgrimage to Sam’s Club (and the Wal-Mart Supercenter next door), I picked up a pack of six red bell peppers (I can easily use them all in no time), some carrots, celery, a bag of vidalias and a bag of hot yellow onions, and a few chickens (in addition to coffee, and the other staples we always buy at Sam’s). At Wal-Mart, I picked up some baby spinach and mushrooms, some apples (not for dinner — see below), and a couple of quart cartons of Kitchen Solutions chicken stock.

When I got home, I put one of the chickens in a pan. I took a vidalia and a hot yellow onion and quartered them, then put them around the chicken, then I took a bunch of carrots and celery and put them on top of the onions. I put the pan in a 500 degree oven for an hour, let the chicken rest for 30 minutes, removed as much of the chicken as I could, then tossed it in a stock pot, with all the roasted vegetables. I put a couple of cups of water in the pan and brought it to a boil to get all the good bits out, and poured it over the carcass, then added a quart of stock and a couple of cups of water. I quartered the tomatoes and tossed them in, brought it to a vigorous boil, covered it tightly, and put it on my simmer burner.

When it’s done, I’ll strain it, run the tomatoes through the food mill into the stock, and season it. I’ll bring it to a boil, add one of the red bell peppers (seeded, of course, and minced), the mushrooms and the tortellini, and simmer it about seven minutes, until they’re done. I’ll shred the spinach and add it about a minute before the tortellini are done. Then, we’ll eat the soup with plenty of grated parmagianno.

Oh. The apples. Well, you’ll recall that there was that particularly vile restaurant, Passage to India, but across the street was the Naked Chocolate Cafe. That’s where I had that amazing caramel apple tart. I’m going to re-create it. Tomorrow.

Ah, food. Ya gotta love it.

Courtesy of Going to the Mat, we have Man, 93, shoots violent robber:

An elderly man beaten unconscious by an assailant wielding a soda can awoke and shot the man during an attempted robbery, police said.

Wing-nut! Er wait, I seem to be channeling a Democrat there. Back to the story:

Willie Lee Hill, 93, told police he saw the robber while in his bedroom Wednesday night. Hill confronted the man and was struck at least 50 times, police said. He was knocked unconscious.

Covered in blood, Hill regained consciousness a short time later and pulled a .38-caliber handgun on his attacker. The suspect, Douglas B. Williams Jr., saw the gun and charged the man, who fired a bullet that struck Williams in the throat, police said.

At least the criminal for once seems to have a moral compass:

“I got what I deserved,” Williams, 24, told police when they arrived, officers said. Investigators reported finding, among other items, a Craftsman drill bit set, three pocket knives and two hearing aids inside his pockets.

Of course, if this 93 year-old man who had been beaten unconscious had done this in Illinois, Massachusetts, or some other blue state, he would be facing charges now, and the press would be wringing their hands over the poor, abused criminal.

To judge from the blogosphere, I must be the only human being alive who has never read a Harry Potter book (I’ve seen all the movies). I know I swore off non-fiction for a year, but at Valley Forge, I picked this up, and not only does it look fascinating, but it reads like a novel.

I’m getting ready to start it. But when I picked it up at Valley Forge and thumbed through it, the passages were engrossing.

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If you want to observe the Moronus Americanus in his native habitat, the best place to go are Lowe’s, Circuit City, or Staple’s to watch the idiot employees, or the supermarket to watch the drooling customers and employees. Today, I got the not so rare opportunity to watch two idiots be even more idiotic than usual.

I was in line behind a woman. The cashier was drooling all over her chin when I got into line. Her lack of neurological activity seemed to suppress what little activity was happening in the woman’s brain. The cashier had rung up the woman’s groceries, and the woman had slid her credit card through the reader.

“How can I get ten dollars in cash back?”

“With a credit card?”

“Yes.”

“Is it a debit card?”

“No, it’s a credit card.”

“You can’t. You can write a check, though.”

“Oh, good.”

So the cashier had to void the card, and couldn’t figure out how to do it, so she called a manager. This was while I was not so patiently waiting in line. The manager came. The manager tried five or six times before she finally figured out how to do it. The manager left. I was waiting in line even less patiently than before.

The amount of the purchase was $27.83. I know this because I was right behind this woman, and because the display was turned toward me (for some reason). I also know this because she asked.

“How much again?”

“Twenty-seven eighty-three.”

“Oh, thanks.” She writes the check for $37.83. I know this because all of her groceries were on her right, so she turned toward me to write her check.

You caught that, right? She wrote the check for $37.83, ten dollars over the purchase amount.

So she gave the check to the cashier, who put it in the drawer and handed the woman ten dollars. The woman started to turn away, but then turned back in alarm.

“Oh! I’m sorry! I forgot to write that ten dollars over!”

“Oh! Here,” the cashier tries to open the drawer, but of course, she can’t. So she calls the manager, who keys the register, eventually figures out how to void the check, then struggles with getting the drawer open, and finally, does. By this time, not so patient really doesn’t describe my frame of mind very well.

The cashier hands the check back to the woman — the check for ten dollars over the purchase price. The woman stuffs the check in her purse, then pulls it back out and uncrumples it so she can look at it to see how much it was written for. She then writes another for $47.83, and hands it to the cashier.

“That’s ten over, right?” she asks. The cashier, who has looked dazed since I got in line, nods, and the woman cheerfully leaves the store.

A couple of times during this communion of idiots I thought about mentioning that there wasn’t a problem, but I decided against it. Every moron has a right to be separated from his money. And I probably wouldn’t have been civil.

or as Allahpundit says, “An audience of idiots is a joy forever.”

http://view.break.com/335023 - Watch more free videos

A DNS server must be down somewhere. I can’t get to about two-thirds of the sites I try.

In the Susquehanna Valley, we passed a very seedy, run-down shop with a sign in front that said “Ye Olde Adult Gift Shoppe.”

Never mind. I don’t want to go there.

While touring historical sites, we ran into multiple instances of adults either being idiots or forgetting what it was like to be a kid (take your pick). For example:

• Two boys, probably 10 or 11, were bored to tears in the Valley Forge historical museum. A couple of adults, directly behind my right shoulder, talked about what ungrateful little brats they were.
• At Gettysburg, there was a man dragging his kid (I’d estimate about 14) around to look at monuments. They kid was so bored he was playing with sticks — and swinging from one monument (and his father, who was the one who wanted to be there, apparently didn’t find that a problem).
• Another father was yelling at his kids at Gettysburg because they were bored.

What’s wrong with these people? Have they completely forgotten what it was like to be a kid? Sure, I know how important all of those historical sites are, but I’m not a kid anymore. Why would they bore their kids by dragging them around to see something they’re not capable of appreciating?

Teach kids history in a way they’ll appreciate. Tell them the stories. Get them historical or military strategy games. Buy them action figures, and use them to tell these kids what’s behind them. But don’t drag your kids around to look at memorials. There isn’t a better way to make them hate history.

All of the photos, including Gettysburg, are now posted, arranged in sets by day.

“Peace Eternal in a Nation United”
–Inscibed across the base of the memorial

From the placard:

Veterans of the Union and Confederate armies from across the nation converged on Gettysburg in 1938 — 75 years after the battle — for their last great reunion. All Civil War veterans were invited with expenses paid, and nearly 2,000 attended. The majority were in their 90s, and many were over 100.

At President Roosevelt’s signal, the flag shrouding the monument was lowered into the arms of a Union veteran and a Confederate veteran. It was the last great “hurrah” for the old soldiers.

The Battle of Gettysburg was fought July 1 through July 3, 1863, in the area of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. In this one battle, 7,708 men were killed, 26,856 were wounded, and 10,800 were missing or captured. In this one battle, there were 45,364 casualties on both sides.

In one battle.

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It’s about 70 miles out of the way, but it should be worth it. Gettysburg is, on this route, almost to the mile halfway home (if we weren’t stopping at Gettysburg, we’d just go directly to Harrisburg, then take 322 back over the mountains).

There will be lots of pictures (it’s supposed to be mostly sunny today in Gettysburg), but I’m quite sure I won’t even think of uploading any until tomorrow. I suspect once we get back home, get something to eat, and pick up the dogs I will want to lounge and see what’s on TiVO.

More about the trip in the next few days.

The NRO comes down — hard — on the side of Kos.

While the character of Manhattan is distinctly feminine, Chicago is unabashedly masculine. Chicago has plenty of posh, but stroll down Michigan Avenue, and you’ll see as many people in Bears jerseys as fur coats. Chicago is the city of “da Bears” and Mike Ditka. Chicago is the city of steak and chop houses.

When Chicago does hoity-toity, it’s always a bit uncomfortable, as if it doesn’t fit the local culture. Pinkie-up in Chicago is a little louder, a little brasher, a little more informal than posh in more formal cities.

After a 50% hit rate on restaurants, we played our last meal here safe, and went to Morton’s of Chicago The Steakhouse on Walnut.

Morton’s is one of Chicago’s more pinkie-up steakhouses, on Wacker Drive. Wacker follows the Chicago River and wraps the downtown business district with gleaming white limestone and glass buildings clad with sparkling stainless steel art deco sconces and sculptures. Downtown is posh, but in a way that says Chicagoans are proud of their city and architecture. You won’t find even a fingerprint smudge on one of those sconces. Wacker Drive gleams.

Morton’s of Chicago has expanded, and is now Morton’s The Steakhouse. If you’re a carnivore and you want top-notch steak — and you’re willing to pay for it — this is your restaurant.

The specialty is the Chicago-style (bone-in) ribeye.

Morton’s here is, like the Chicago original, Chicago posh, and not Manhattan posh. You’ll find tables full of businessmen (and women) discussing everything from Wall Street to football. The restaurant here looks very much like the original, with dark walnut walls and a brick wine display.

We knew what to expect, and soon, the cart rolled up to the table. I don’t remember a paper menu from eating at the original (there could have been one), but the waiter rolls a cart up to the table, with all the available main courses. Lobsters. Steaks. Chops. Fish.

I was a bit amused to see the creamed spinach on the menu as one of the sides. Creamed spinach is on the menu of every steakhouse in Chicago. Apparently, when Morton’s expanded they kept it on the menu — and it’s extremely good, by the way.

As expected, the food was reliably top-notch. Be aware that they know what “rare” means at Morton’s. You won’t get medium rare. It’s not even warm inside. Order rare, and that’s exactly what you get.

Pricey, but worth it. Posh, but Chicago posh. If you live in Philadelphia, or one of the cities where there is a Morton’s, you really should check it out sometime, and discover why Chicago is the city of steaks and chops.

are posted here.

1,263 years before Cleopatra and Julius Caesar, but 1,242 years after the Giza pyramids were built.

It’s rather awe-inspiring to realize that less time has passed between the present and Cleopatra than there is between Cleopatra and the Giza pyramids. To Cleopatra the pyramids were far older than she is to us.

King Tut. I strongly suspect they won’t allow pictures, but I’ll take the camera just in case. Tomorrow, Gettysburg, then home.

Since your ad for the principal’s position states that you want, and I quote, "A hands-on principal with significant experience as an educator," I’m your man. Read on.

The writers at Inside Higher Ed just can’t help but squeal and faint. The title really is enough to tell you what morons they are: Beer, Brotherhood, and (oh no!) Guns.

We switched hotels, so we’re several blocks west of where we were and a couple of streets down, not far from Rittenhouse Square. We decided to walk Restaurant Row (Walnut) and find someplace to eat.

We ate at Passage to India, at Juniper. I can sum up the entire eating experience, review, and recommendation in one word.

Don’t.

However, directly across Walnut is the Naked Chocolate Cafe, and who could resist that, particularly after an unpleasant meal?

When you walk in, candies fill the case on your right, but as you walk along it, candies give way first to streusels, cookies, and cupcakes, then to tarts and cakes. I immediately fastened on the Apple Caramel Tart, then turned toward the drink menu.

In addition to coffees, they have chocolate, in five categories. There’s the original, bittersweet, Aztec (with cloves and so forth), spicy (looked like it had some chili in it), and “our richest chocolate,” the sipping chocolate. All were available in three sizes: petit, decadent, and “we’ll never tell.”

I asked for the bittersweet in “we’ll never tell,” and she asked me if I’d ever had it because it was very rich. I downgraded to the decadent size, and that turned out to be a good thing.

This was no silly, half-inch French apple tart. Apples were mounded a good three inches above the top of the shell, and if you love apples, you’ll love this. They were topped with caramel syrup and a streusel topping of brown sugar, cinnamon, and rolled oats.

But the chocolate, topped with a huge mound of whipped cream, was not the cocoa I’d expected. I hadn’t thought anything of the fact she’d given me a spoon, because well, don’t they usually these days? I found, however, that this wasn’t cocoa. The chocolate was almost the consistency of hot fudge. If you melted a bar of 70% Valrhona and poured it into a mug, it would closely approximate what I was served.

In other words, this stuff will throw you into a chocolate coma.

Unpleasant meal, incredible dessert.

Lunch at Geno’s with celebrities. Pics here.

The difference between Fred and Hillary.

The Bush Comeback: How I helped George Win in Iraq.

John Edwards is Esquire’s pick for sexiest woman alive, and the already unhinged dive further into the depths.

You decide: Not just pussies, but puritanical pussies to boot.

It’s 52 right now back home in the mountains. It’s 71 here in Philadelphia now.

Today, we switch hotels, then I head to Geno’s for a gunblogger lunch with Wyatt, Sebastian, and Bitter. After that, no plans yet.

Apparently, we’re missing a big crime wave back in Centre County.

Friday evening

Friday night we were tired, and didn’t have much time to do any research, so we made a serious error and relied on the blurbs in the hotel magazine. We ended up just around the corner at El Vez.

When a “review” of a restaurant includes descriptions such as, “hip, young, brash,” it’s a good idea to stay far away, but like I said, we were tired and hungry.

It was obnoxiously loud, so loud I couldn’t hear the waitress. It was full of people on cell phones, which I couldn’t figure, since I couldn’t hear myself think. But yuppies on cell phones is another good indicator to stay away.

El Vez is supposed to be a Mexican restaurant, and their speciality is supposed to be guacamole. It turns out they do six or seven “specialty guacamoles,” another indicator that we should have left.

We ordered the “original.”

It came in a molcajete, with chips and a red salsa. I give them points for actually making the guacamole when we ordered it. It was cool, not cold, and chunky. It would have been very good, had it had more cilantro and less lime. As it was, the lime overpowered everything, including the avocado.

And folks, this is exactly why I strenuously object to citrus juice in guacamole. Lime was the predominant flavor. Citrus easily cloaks the rich avocado, which is supposed to dominate guacamole. But at least it wasn’t the ice cold, perfectly smooth nastiness most restaurants serve.

The tortilla soup, like the guacamole, easily could have been very good, but for one flaw. It was, for normal palates, inedibly salty. I know this because I like my food saltier than 99% of the population, and the soup teetered right on the upper limit of saltiness for me.

The carne asada was excellent, thinly sliced and done just as I had asked, served over the house version of rojas, sliced roasted poblanos and (there) mushrooms, and drizzled with a guajillo sauce. I grudgingly applaud them for the asada, but everything else, well, not so great.

The final insult came with the check, at just under a hundred bucks, about the same as a meal at the Frontera Grill in Chicago would have cost.

Folks, this ain’t the Frontera, and the chef at El Vez ain’t Rick Bayless. You will never forget a meal you have at Frontera, because everything is memorable, and it’s well worth the expense. El Vez is, in my opinion, a waste of money.

Saturday

We did the historic district, beginning around 8:30 am, and had three places in mind for lunch. We walked past the tapas bar and cuban restaurant and decided to to to Karma, the Indian restaurant for lunch.

All I can say is everything I had off the buffet was extremely good. Karma is on Chestnut, almost all the way to the Delaware, and I recommend it if you’re in the area.

I’ve bitched enough about Chinese in Centre County that it shouldn’t be surprising that we wanted to go to Chinatown (just up the street from the hotel) for dinner. The question was where, given that there are probably over five hundred restaurants in Chinatown. We ruled out anything southeast Asian (Thai, Malaysian, Burmese, Vietnamese), only because we can get pretty good Thai food at home. But that still left hundreds of choices.

We kept seeing the URL for Chinatown splashed all over signs as we walked past the edge, so when we got back to the hotel, I pulled it up.

Somebody really needs to work on this website. The first problem is only about fifteen restaurants are listed. The second problem is that most of the links don’t work. And the third problem is, well, here’s a quotation so you can see for yourself:

Sichuanese cook in lawei pots heaped with chilies and prickly ash. Food cooked a short time in lawei pots is mellow, but as the night wears on and long forgotten entrails are dredged up, mouths numb and patrons sweat.

Good for amusement value, but not every informative. So I used Google and found this review and discussion of Four Rivers. This line in particular caught my eye:

My wife made me bring this dish back to San Francisco every time I went back to Philadelphia.

I don’t know if you know this, but despite all its other flaws and weirdnesses, San Francisco has incredibly good restaurants, particularly Chinese. It also seemed from the reviews that Four Rivers might be a real Szechuan restaurant, one thing they did not have in San Francisco when I have been there (though they have just about everything else, including real Hunanese restaurants). So Four Rivers it was.

The Chinese no more make or eat food from other regions than anyone else on the planet, so why anyone would expect a restaurant staffed by Cantonese to know how to make Szechuan or Hunanese food, I do not understand. My rule for Chinese restaurants is order what they know how to make.

Usually, this is Cantonese. There are quite a few northern Chinese restaurants, but not many western Chinese. Four Rivers is a Szechuan restaurant.

My first clue was that I saw things on the menu I had seen in Szechuan cookbooks, but never on a menu, and no Cantonese or northern Chinese dishes. We ordered Chengdu Chicken, Chicken in basil, and after I asked what it was, Hunan Pork.

The Chengdu was the first to arrive, and it looked deadly, thinly coated with a bright orange sauce, with flecks of bright red chilis everywhere. Looks were deceiving. Oh, it was spicy, but not as spicy as it looked. Chicken, green onions, garlic, chilis, vinegar, and Szechuan peppercorns, no detectable sweetness or cornstarch. It was remarkably delicious, one of those things you’ll remember all your life. The chicken in basil came next, and it was likewise memorable. Chicken with carrots, broccoli, and peppers, with sesame paste and basil leaves. It was not spicy, but it was excellent. The Hunan pork came next, in a rich black bean sauce. It was extremely good, though it was not so much better than what you could get elsewhere that it stood out.

Perhaps the rule for Chinese restaurants applies to Szechuan and Hunan: Don’t order Hunanese at a Szechuan restaurant.

We got a lot of food, far more than we could have eaten. And here’s the zinger: three huge dishes full of three entrees, two of them so amazingly good we’ll never forget them, cost only thirty-four bucks.

Four Rivers is excellent, and I highly recommend it to anyone who finds himself in Philadelphia. It’s just a door on Race Street in Chinatown, and up a flight of stairs. It’s small, there is little decor, the floor is very old linoleum, and only one of the staff when we were there spoke or understood any English. But God, what food.

We’ll definitely eat there the next time we come to Philly.

The room in Independence Hall where the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Federation, and the Constitution were adopted.

Did the historic district. Pics are here. Again, no moonbats demanding reparations for Brits.

Ate lunch at Karma, an Indian restaurant. Very good (better than the place we ate dinner at last night, and shelled out 100 bucks for). Should you find yourself on Chestnut almost to the river in Philadelphia, I highly recommend it.

It’s about the same distance from home to Philadelphia as it is from Bloomington to Chicago, but it’s a very different drive. The glacier line is about twenty miles north of Bloomington, so from that point north, the drive is level — see for miles and miles in all directions level (and boring, a lot like driving across Ohio boring). But driving to Chicago you can make really good time (I once did it in 2 1/2 hours without realizing it).

You can’t really haul ass much from Happy Valley to Philadelphia, unless I suppose you’re used to careening up and down mountains. Between Happy Valley and Harrisburg, there are stretches where the highway runs along the valley, but most of that part of the drive is either climbing or descending a mountain ridge, until you get to the Susquehanna (and Harrisburg, in the Susquehanna Valley).

There’s only one, by the way, that really makes me nervous: Bald Eagle in Centre County, only about fifteen minutes into the trip. You know how I am about heights.

We’ve taken the highway as far as Harrisburg (and Hershey) before, so we knew what to expect. It’s a beautiful drive (except for the highway near Harrisburg, which reminds me of driving around Knoxville).

At Harrisburg, we caught the Turnpike and since it was just before noon and check-in here wasn’t until 3 pm, we went to Valley Forge, just 18 miles north of Philadelphia.

From Harrisburg, for a while the drive is comparatively level (hills, like driving through southern Indiana, but no mountains), but then it starts to descend. It seems like driving downhill almost all the way to Valley Forge (or Philadelphia).

That means, of course, that the first leg of the trip back will be uphill. Once we get out of the Susquehanna Valley, then it will be up the mountain, down the mountain, over and over again, like the trip down here.

The one thing that made the trip annoying was on our way from Valley Forge to Philadelphia on the Turnpike. The traffic was bumper-to-bumper, with almost no movement. It took us 45 minutes to get five miles. It turned out that there had been a wreck in front of us. Anyway, we were on the road for an hour and a half driving the 18 miles from Valley Forge to Philadelphia.

Had we not stopped at Valley Forge, and had there been no wreck on the Turnpike, it should have taken us four hours to get here.

I might add that the Turnpike east of I-99 is in much better condition than the rest — and because it’s not continually climbing or descending the side of a mountain ridge, there is actually a shoulder on the road. Parts of the Turnpike are even smooth.

Today, the historic district. You know, Independence Hall, the Liberty Bell, that sort of thing. If we can get in, that is. Sunday, Geno’s. King Tut, probably Monday. I strongly suspect that cameras will not be allowed in the King Tut exhibit, but I’ll take the camera just in case.

Tuesday, back to Happy Valley.

Valley Forge photos are here.

Disclaimer: The Revolutionary War was over two hundred years ago. This is not meant in any way as an anti-British diatribe. We got over that a long time ago.

I’m quite happy to report that Valley Forge is moonbat-free. You’ll recall that the Ft. Sumter museum (the national park service museum on the mainland, not the museum on Ft. Sumter) was one big guilt-ridden moonbatfest. Well, the closest thing to moonbatty at Valley Forge was one exhibit at the Welcome Center that listed the roles of Catholics, blacks, American Indians, and other groups to the Revolutionary War, and I wouldn’t call that moonbatty at all.

I’m not sure what that means. Perhaps Americans across the political spectrum agree that Patriots good, Tories bad. After all, if the AmeriKKKa-is-EVIL! leftists didn’t agree on that basic premise, then wouldn’t they be agitating for us to join the Commonwealth, or apologize to Britain, or something like that? Or am I attributing too much thought to the left here?

At any rate, there is no disingenuous attempt to be “objective” at Valley Forge. Thank God.

I even documented proof. See these pics (I’ll upload more later). I guess nobody from the Brady Bunch or other gun-control groups has ever been to Valley Forge. Nobody from the DNC either, I guess, or somebody would have demanded “equal time” or “fairness” on the bookshelves, and Howard Zinn or some such bed-wetting author would be represented.

More pics later.