Right Wing Nation

Fried meat.

More specifically, chicken-fried steak. With mashed potatoes and gravy.

Mashed potatoes

If you are one of these urban “comfort food” fans who have no clue how grandmothers actually made this stuff, you won’t like this recipe. Lumps? My grandmother would have died of shame, had her mashed potatoes contained lumps. Lumps, indeed! By the way, you’ll want to time the potatoes so they’re done when everything else is.

4 baking potatoes, peeled
salted water
1 stick (that’s what I said) butter
1-2 T. milk

If you want to cook these quickly, cut the potatoes into 1/2-inch slices. Cover them with salted water, bring to a boil, then simmer until they pierce easily with a fork.

Drain the potatoes, and put them in a mixer bowl (that’s right, a mixer — those potato mashers are for ninnies who have never eaten real mashed potatoes) with the milk and butter. Mix until smooth and creamy, not nasty and lumpy.

Chicken-fried steak

1 lb. chuck eye, top round, or sirloin, cut into pieces
1/2 c. flour, mixed with 1 t. salt and 1 t. black pepper
4 T. bacon fat, suet, or vegetable oil

2 c. milk

Prepare the beef. Beat it with a mallet until no more than a quarter-inch thick, preferably thinner. Melt the fat over high heat, dredge the beef in the flour mixture, and fry until brown on both sides and done. Remove the beef to a hot platter, then make the gravy.

To the fat in the pan, add 2 T. of the flour mixture you used to dredge the beef. Mix it well with a whisk, or if you’ve done this before, a spoon, over high heat. Add the milk (if you’ve never done this, you may want to add it slowly), and stir constantly until the gravy thickens and is smooth — like the mashed potatoes!

Beef and mashed potatoes go on plate. Gravy — which is the real point — goes on everything.

And don’t even say anything about salad. Nasty. How anybody can eat raw weeds is beyond me. Salad isn’t food, unless you’re a rabbit.

Rick Santorum has consistently and energetically supported the war and our troops.

Santorum co-sponsored the “Covering Kids Act of 2005,” which increases health insurance for children.

Santorum helped Pennsylvania’s small businesses provide health insurance to their employees.

Santorum wrote legislation to provide screening for prevention of breast and cervical cancer.

Santorum helped expand access to home health care and worked to expand research for Parkinson’s disease.

Santorum supported the Patients’ Bill of Rights.

Santorum is a leading advocate for a program which funds community health centers.

Santorum fights to cut down frivolous lawsuits that are forcing doctors out of Pennsylvania.

Santorum co-sponsored the bill to increase AIDS funding, both here and abroad; Santorum, working with Durbin, delivered $2 billion to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS. And Santorum couldn’t have cared less how “evil” James Dobson thought the fund or the cause.

Santorum has consistently supported greater accountability in education.

Santorum is an energetic supporter of private property rights.

Santorum has fought to toughen laws on child molesters and is almost solely responsible for passing Aimee’s Law.

Want more? Here are other causes Santorum has supported:

Welfare reform, which has lowered welfare caseloads 58 percent nationally, lifting people out of a culture of poverty and dependency and into school or jobs or both.

The fatherhood initiative (cosponsored with Democrat Evan Bayh of Indiana), a $100 million program to help churches and community groups bring fathers back into the lives of their children.

Securing almost $800 million to help the Philadelphia Housing Authority move the city from high-rise public housing to affordable townhouse communities (a collaboration with PHA director Carl Greene).

Open-space preservation, securing tax incentives that encourage property owners to save land rather than sell out to developers.

Rick Santorum has repeatedly crossed the aisle to work with Democrats on causes in which he believes. Rick Santorum is perhaps the most principled elected politician in Congress — and stands in stark contrast to the unprincipled Arlen Specter. Bob Casey is an empty suit. Not even at debates will he address the issues, and has even waffled on his “pro-life” credentials. Casey is an outsider, and if he is elected, will be ordered around by his handlers. If Santorum is elected, he will continue to fight for the principles in which he believes.

I’ll take principles over “smart” any day of the week. After all, I know all kinds of “smart” people who have no principles, morals, or ethics whatsoever and couldn’t be relied upon to pay back a nickel loan.

From Hog on Ice:

Today a reader sent me a link to a video I am sure George will enjoy. Take a look at Why Macs Suck.

I had no idea Macs had such a range of exasperating problems. But the nature of the problems is not surprising. They all revolve around the Operating System as God and the User as Insignificant Annoyance. Which reflects the Mac’s liberal origins. An operating system is like a government. Windows is like a Republican government. It gives you a tremendous amount of power and lets you run your own life, even if it screws up a lot. And if you screw up, it allows you to fix the problem yourself. The Mac OS is like a liberal government. It gives you very little power and tells you what’s good for you, and when something goes wrong, you have to run to an anointed Mac official to get it fixed.

And the Mac OS takes more of your money, because you’re not qualified to decide what to do with it. You may not realize it, because you’re just a potato-eating, truck-pull-watching User, but this is what’s best for you.

That pretty much sums up why I abhor Macs. And click on the link above to watch the video. It’s hilarious.

Persian Gulf Conflict Veterans’ Compensation Fund Referendum Act No. 29 of 2006

“Do you favor indebtedness by the Commonwealth of up to $20,000,000 for the payment of compensation for service in the Persian Gulf Conflict of 1990-1991?”

Sounds good, doesn’t it? Even the Pittsburgh Trib-Review is for it. But here’s what the referendum doesn’t say up front.

Any Persian Gulf veteran who was a legal resident of Pennsylvania at the time of the Persian Gulf conflict will be eligible for monetary compensation ranging from a minimum of $75 to a maximum of $525.

See that? $75-$525. That’s it. For military service? It’s like throwing these people a bone and saying, “Thanks for your service, and aren’t we great for giving it to you!”

How insulting.

This is nothing more than a feel-good referendum, and the condescension of the small amount of money it would award Veterans doesn’t even qualify it as a symbolic statement of support.

Then there’s the dismal state of the economy here, thanks to Fast Eddie (who we’re going to have to put up with for another four years, it appears). $20 million dollars in debt? I don’t think so, at least not for a referendum just to make non-Veterans feel good about supporting Veterans — and giving them no support in the process. Oh, and the House Appropriations Committee estimates that once consulting fees, overhead, and interest are factored in, the referendum will cost us $30.49 million.

Oh, and did I mention that this is the second time this referendum has been on the ballot? Or that the first time it was on the ballot it was voted down?

So yes, I know, it seems cold-hearted, but no, I will not vote for this idiotic referendum.

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