Archive for 1st September 2007
I got out that apple-cinnamon pie and looked at it . . . well, see for yourselves:
Quick! Tell Pat Buchanan and Mel Gibson! Tell Ron Paul and Richard Viguerie! Tell Kos and Arianna Huffingtoon!
It’s a Jooooo-Amish-Neocon conspiracy! The Amish are going to set up a police state and send us all to camps! Just say NO to the Jooooo-Amish-Neocon New World Order! Support your local madrassa NOW!
“The only moon landing in history is NASA’s Apollo expedition in 1968.â€
Those school districts need to be shut down. Now.
You probably haven’t noticed, but I’m a carnivore. We haven’t eaten beef in the last two years here more than maybe twenty times (not counting eating out) because beef is ridiculously expensive here. I saw today that the store had rib roasts on sale for $6.99 a pound, but they were “boneless” rib roasts. Boneless? What is it with boneless here? And whoever heard of a boneless rib roast?
Since we weren’t at Wegman’s, I asked if they had any boneful rib roasts in the back (you don’t have to be a butcher to cut a roast). He said they did, so I asked for a 3-rib roast. In five minutes, he handed it to me, and said it was $4.99 a pound because it wasn’t boneless.
Uh, okay. $4.99 a pound for rib is damned good anywhere.
Atop the meat counter was a row of Emeril rubs. ‘Scuse me, but why would anyone buy such a thing? There are two herb blends I buy: Poultry seasoning (McCormick only), and chili powder, and I don’t always have either on hand. Why would anybody buy a rub?
I ground up a lot of black peppercorns, a little rosemary, some thyme, a whole lot of dry mustard, and salt, rubbed it into the roast, wrapped it up tightly in saran wrap, and tossed it in the refrigerator. I’ll let it macerate until noon or so on Monday, and then I’ll let it come to room temperature, and pop it into a hot oven.
I’m really suffering from red meat withdrawal, folks. I’ll roast some potatoes along with it, maybe make a Yorkshire pudding.
I got some of those cross-cut beef ribs out of the freezer yesterday and made beef stock. Tonight’s menu: beef and noodles and Hoosier fried corn — that reminds me, I need to shuck the corn.
Oh. And some of that apple-cinnamon pie we got at the Amish farmers’ market.
To welcome back the students, I’m inviting all the PETA and other animal rights nutcases to dinner Monday, for a nice, big, juicy, rare prime rib roast! They will also be welcome to graze in the yard for free-range, organic, fair-trade dandelion greens and delicious poke berries!
R.S.V.P. here. Feel free to wear ridiculous costumes! Dressing up as a cow could get you an extra portion of delicious roast beef!
The Awful Truth. Maybe Harvey, My Man Godfrey, Life with Father, or maybe we’ll watch the BSG mini-series, which we still haven’t seen.
Interesting. Jimmy Stewart and William Powell were both from Pennsylvania (Carole Lombard was from Indiana, of course. That’s why she was known as the Hoosier Tornado.)
And off to the farmers’ market. Back later.
“But what would you do about all this horrible fund-raising and spending that goes on in campaigns?” she asked.
Shut up. That’s what you can do, idiot.
Rendell criticizes Pa. student-loan agency’s finances.
No comment necessary.
Have you seen this “news” story in USA Today?
A spike in murders in many cities is claiming a startling number of victims with criminal records, police say, suggesting that drug and gang wars are behind the escalating violence.
This is news?
In Baltimore, about 91% of murder victims this year had criminal records, up from 74% a decade ago, police reported.
This is news?
Philadelphia police Capt. Ben Naish says the Baltimore numbers are “shocking.” Philadelphia also has seen the number of victims with criminal pasts inch up — to 75% this year from 71% in 2005.
What’s “shocking” about it?
In Milwaukee, local leaders created the homicide commission after a spike in violence led to a 39% increase in murders in 2005. The group compiled statistics on victims’ criminal histories for the first time and found that 77% of homicide victims in the past two years had an average of nearly 12 arrests.
While it was common in the past for murder victims to have criminal records, the current levels are surprising even to analysts who study homicides.
They must be liberals — oh wait. “Local leaders.” They are liberals.
David Kennedy, a professor at New York’s John Jay College of Criminal Justice, says the rise in criminals killing criminals has escaped policymakers’ attention.
“The notion that these (murders) are random bolts of lightning, which is the commonly held image, is not the reality,” says Kennedy, who has examined the backgrounds of murder suspects and victims in multiple U.S. cities. “It happens, but it doesn’t happen often.”
Here’s my cold-hearted statement for the day. I have absolutely no sympathy. Let them kill each other and clean up the city. And all of you “victimized” idiots that first whine about the police, then whine about how much crime there is, you deserve what you get. You want less crime? Take responsibility for your own neighborhoods and lives.
Idiots.
Via Andrew Bolt. The utter stupidity of educrats never gets old (emphasis mine):
CHILDREN will be asked to draw pictures instead of spelling words as part of a new strategy to improve literacy test results in primary school.
The Department of Education is distributing a new teaching resource to schools, encouraging teachers to spend more time helping students develop their oral skills before learning how to spell specific words.
Christine Albans, learning assistance co-ordinator K to 12, said that instead of asking children to write the word describing what a snake does, students who struggled with spelling would instead first draw a picture of the snake.
They would then say the snake “wriggles and squirms”, instead of writing down a less descriptive word, such as “moves”, which may be easier to spell, Ms Albans said. “They draw a picture and use a more sophisticated oral language.”
Teachers would also use cue cards to help children visualise a story being read to them.
Education schools are a disease.
You’ll remember this from the other day, all of the agricultural (cough, cough) subsidies paid out in Manhattan:
I think we can all agree that Manhattan is about as far from an agricultural area as one can get — Manhattan isn’t just not an agricultural area, it’s the antitheses of an agricultural area. So let’s look at an agricultural area, as in a real agricultural area, dominated by, you know, farms, and see how many ag subsidies are being paid out. By the way, I know this is a heavily agricultural area because I live here. Farms. Everywhere. Farms, farms, and more farms, mostly dairy farms.
“Class, what do you notice about the two? Wait, let’s look at them side by side.”
Manhattan:
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Centre County, PA:
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“Okay class, do you see anything odd or interesting here? Yes, you in the back, Miss Stevenson.”
“There are a lot more agricultural subsidies paid out in the non-agricultural area than the agricultural area.”
“Very good. Yes, Mr. Schultz?”
“Are the two maps at the same zoom level?”
“That’s an excellent question. The Manhattan map is at a higher zoom, but it doesn’t make any difference, as it turns out. The red circle sizes are not affected by the zoom, because they represent the amounts of the subsidies. The larger the circle, the more money is paid out. Miss Gonzalez?”
“Why are more agricultural subsidies paid out in Manhattan? That doesn’t make any sense.”
“Well, it does make sense, because like all government entitlement programs, this program is being abused. The money is going to political donors, not farmers. And since there are more rich political donors in Manhattan, they get more subsidies.”
“Isn’t that bribery?”
“Why, yes it is! It’s bribery of the worst sort. Class, this isn’t pork. This is lard.”
Actually, I would never say that in the classroom, and I’m not shouting, “Where’s our subsidies?” The dairy farmers here get plenty of pork in the form of state subsidies and state-mandated minimum pricing (there is no such thing as “the cheapest milk in town” in this state — with the exception of convenience stores, all stores sell milk at the state-mandated minimum price). But this pisses me off a lot more than the bridge to nowhere, just because this is nothing more or less than sheer bribery. Legislative abuse. Corruption. That, and just the idea of some pinkie-up Manhattanite sucking at the government teat to grow rosemary in a chic and trendy little rooftop garden.
Check your own area. The data come from the farm subsidy database.