Posted by Christopher     on 07/05/2014 at 05:54 PM   
Filed Under: • Fun-Stuff •  
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Mad George III never went this far!

But then, George never tried to ban beer!

Posted by Christopher     on 07/05/2014 at 05:22 PM   
Filed Under: • Government •  
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The Thigh’s The Limit

1 7oz can (Goya) Chipotle in adobo sauce

2 tbs kosher salt
2 tbs paprika
1 tbs garlic powder
1 tbs onion powder
1 tbs ground black pepper
1 tsp allspice
1 tsp white sugar
2 tbs brown sugar
2 tsp turmeric
1/4 tsp cayenne
1 tsp ground chipotle

1/4 cup water

Use food processor or Magic Bullet or electric whip whisk to liquify chipotle and sauce. Add water to can to get all the good stuff out. In a cereal sized bowl, pour chipotle, sauce, and water over dried spices. Mix well with a fork. What you get is a spice thickened sauce, not a slightly moistened rub. Take a 9x13 glass baking dish, spread the goop on both sides of the chicken thighs (or any chicken parts, actually). There’s enough here to do 10 big thighs. Cover and refrigerate for an hour or so. Overnight if you feel like it.

Meanwhile, mince 3 or 4 cloves of garlic, and lightly fry them in a quarter cup of olive oil for around a minute. Don’t brown them or toast them, just wake them up. Then add 4 tbl cider vinegar and 3 tbl hotsauce ( I used 2tbl sriracha and 3 tbl Louisiana hot sauce ), to the oil and garlic, and heat them for a minute. Add a little salt and black pepper.

After about an hour, take the chicken out, and shake most of the goop off over the sink. Grill the chicken. Use indirect medium heat for the most part, thighs get about 10-15 minutes per side. Make sure you’ve got a good drip pan to catch the fatty juices. Finish them off with 3 minutes per side on low direct heat. Check for doneness. Lay on the finishing sauce and give them another 5 minutes of high indirect heat to dry the sauce up.

Eat. Blue cheese sauce and celery optional.

This is pretty much the classic wings recipe from Weber.com, but made larger. I added a little sweet, a little depth, and a little heat. As much as I love Buffalo wings, Buffalo thighs taste just as good, cost half as much, and give you 3 times as much meat to eat. Also, having been burned so many times making thighs with the cheap-ass grill we had before, I will always cook them indirectly first and then finish them over direct heat. Starting them out over direct heat is just begging for a savage fat flare-up. Let that crap drip out first, which is why I mentioned having a good drip pan.

UPDATE: the hot sauce is not needed at all. I left a fair amount of the spicy chipolte paste on when I cooked them, and they came out with plenty of zing. Of course, some like it hotter, so go for it if that’s your style. Me, I’m “merely” a 4 spoon Thai food hot instead of the full 5, and this was spicy enough for me to enjoy.

Posted by Drew458     on 07/05/2014 at 02:17 PM   
Filed Under: • Fine-Dining •  
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Something Nice For A Change

I was getting an adjustment at my chiropractor last week, laying there face down on the table while the heat packs and the electric stim pads did their job. He’s got soft music going in the office, and a CD changer up front that holds a couple dozen disks. And me, being half deaf, I’ve got to listen carefully to pick up the tunes. And I’m hearing ... no, it couldn’t be ... it is ... John Denver. Not the typical AM radio hits, but the songs you only ever heard if you were a fan and bought the albums.

So I get my time in with the Doc, and we’re talking about it, and the details of his death on the edge of Pacific Ocean in 1997. And we knew the kind of plane, and that it was a fuel switch, and that Denver didn’t have a valid pilot’s license at the time due to a technicality, but was an otherwise excellent highly experienced pilot. Like it was yesterday, not 17 years ago. [ sometimes I swear my long term memory is far better than my short term. Where are my glasses? What did I have for breakfast? Who knows! But I know exactly what I said to Ellen Traynor in Mr. Lundy’s English class in 8th grade. ]

So when I was done and was at the front desk paying, I mentioned to the young women working there that I thought it was great that they put John Denver in the music rotation. Naturally, they didn’t have a clue. Who’s that? Oh, we just grab disks at random every week when we reload the machine. 
Their loss. They never knew, but I’ll never forget.

As of this March, Take Me Home, Country Roads is now the official state song of West Virginia. That’s nice too. I’m surprised it took them this long.

Posted by Drew458     on 07/05/2014 at 11:26 AM   
Filed Under: • Miscellaneous •  
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Yeah!

Just because…

Posted by Christopher     on 07/05/2014 at 11:36 AM   
Filed Under: • Patriotism •  
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   Friday - July 04, 2014

Freedom Day!

On this day we declared our independence from government. The government at the time being King George III. Today is also a time to rededicate ourselves to advancing freedom from government/Obama.

Remember when our President was an American?

Posted by Christopher     on 07/04/2014 at 12:44 PM   
Filed Under: • FREEDOM •  
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our world today

Much noise being made about Brit born muzzies going to Syria and joining up with Isis and returning here with terror skills learned there.
I don’t mean that in an offhand or snide way.  I think it’s a very real possibility.

As many of you can imagine, this country is on a front line in the sense of being a target. Sure, the USA is (always has been) a target as well. Even without 9/11.
But geographically, undesirables find their way here a lot easier cos we’re so close. Look at the maps. Then too, England to the regret and anger of many, finds itself bound up in treaties and agreements of a noxious nature resulting in open borders and slaves of the human and civil rights industry, and of course,
The European Court of Human Rights.

‘No sign of explosives, sir. But we did find a touch of arthritis in your left hip’

Holiday chaos looms in air terror alert: Hunt for ‘invisible bomb’ maker who has already turned his own brother into a suicide bomber

· Intelligence sources fear Al Qaeda planning to smuggle devices on planes
· The explosives, which have no metal parts, could be hidden in clothes
· Or they could be surgically implanted inside a suicide bomber
· They are the creation of ‘evil genius’ Saudi bomb maker Ibrahim Al-Asiri
By David Williams and Rebecca Evans

This is the ‘invisible bomb’ maker described by US officials as ‘an evil genius’ who could be a key player in looming terror threats to the UK and America.

Chemistry student Ibrahim Al-Asiri, from Saudi Arabia, created devices that can be sewn inside the human body - and are virtually undetectable at airport security.

The master explosives-maker first tried out his chilling tactics on his willing younger brother, Abdullah. Though the 22-year-old was killed, he did not hit his target.

The tightening of security came as a message was posted on a Twitter page purporting to be that of a British jihadi in Iraq, saying the UK was ‘afraid’ he might come back with skills he had learned fighting with terror group ISIS.

Intelligence sources fear Al Qaeda is plotting to smuggle the devices on to planes travelling between Britain and America.

The explosives, which have no metal parts, could be hidden in clothes or surgically implanted inside a suicide bomber.

The technology is already thought to have reached British jihadists fighting in Syria and Iraq. It is feared they will return to target flights leaving the UK.

continue

Posted by peiper     on 07/04/2014 at 04:43 AM   
Filed Under: • REALLY WORTHLESS and PUTRID PEOPLE • Terrorists •  
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   Thursday - July 03, 2014

I almost forgot

Posted by Drew458     on 07/03/2014 at 10:02 PM   
Filed Under: • Eye-Candy •  
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10, 20, 30, 40, 50 Or More*

[07/02/14] TRENTON — Gov. Chris Christie today vetoed a gun control bill that would have reduced the permitted size of ammunition magazines, saying it would do nothing to reduce gun violence.

“This is the very embodiment of reform in name only. It simply defies common sense to believe that imposing a new and entirely arbitrary number of bullets that can be lawfully loaded into a firearm will somehow eradicate, or even reduce, future instances of mass violence,” Christie said. “Nor is it sufficient to claim that a ten-round capacity might spare an eleventh victim.”

The move came less than an hour after gun control advocates — including parents of two children killed in the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting — dropped off at Christie’s office 55,000 signatures of people from around the country, including 10,000 from New Jersey, urging him to sign the measure.

Christie conditionally vetoed the legislation (A2006), but he did more than propose changes. He completely rewrote it, eliminating the ammunition capacity reduction and suggesting in its place several changes to the state’s mental health system that he first proposed more than a year ago.

“I will not support such a trivial approach to the sanctity of human life, because this is not governing. Governing is confronting problems,” Christie said in his veto message.

Well, how about that? A lick of common sense. Maybe somebody even took him to a gun range and had him do a few magazine swaps himself.

Gun control advocates were not happy.

“The very day that grieving parents of children slain in Sandy Hook Elementary School brought 55,000 petitions asking the governor to do the right thing for public safety, he did exactly the wrong thing,” said Bryan Miller, executive director of Heeding God’s Call, a faith-based group that pushes for more gun control measures. “The governor failed in his opportunity to do something simple, effective and instant for the safety of New Jersey’s homes, schools and communities.”

Hey, you know what? Blow me, that’s what. And as for you sanctimonious shitheels from Newtown? Get a fucking life. Gee, really I am sorry that your child was shot to bloody pulp by a madman. It’s horrible. But that same madman could have killed them all just as dead if he’d had a bag full of derringers. Tiny little pistols with just 2 shots each that have to be manually cocked for each shot. Because he was the only person in the building who was armed. So give reality a sniff, find some closure, and leave the rest of us alone. Taking away my freedoms won’t bring your kid back to life. And that’s the raw truth.

* arcane cultural reference to a far more innocent era, but people didn’t know jack about history then either.

Posted by Drew458     on 07/03/2014 at 12:59 PM   
Filed Under: • Guns and Gun Control •  
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10,000 if by land, 5,000 if by sea

The Italian Navy ships, deployed on Operation Mare Nostrum during the past weekend, have rescued over 5,000 migrants.

Frigate Grecale, with 566 people onboard, and corvette Chimera with 353, were scheduled to reach Pozzallo yesterday. On June 29, 30 bodies were found in the hold during the search and rescue and inspection operations onboard a boat. According to the medical staff who examined the bodies, the causes of death were probably due to asphyxia and drowning; while they recommended not to remove them before reaching the port.

Amphibious ship San Giorgio, with 1,170 migrants, was moored at Taranto port yesterday. Patroller Dattilo from the Port Authorities, docked at Augusta port with 1,096 migrants. Tank ship Etna, with 1,044 people aboard, will reach Salerno port during the day.

Patrol ship Orione, with 396 peole, and merchant vessel Mare Atlantic, with 235 migrants, are heading to Messina port. Patrol motorboat 906 Corsi from the Port Authorities with 341 migrants is sailing to Porto Empedocle. Merchant vessels City of Beirut with 105 migrants, and Ticky with 190, were scheduled to arrive in Trapani yesterday.

On Monday, about 30 bodies were found in one of the migrant boats, Italian news agencies reported, citing the navy and coastguard.

The rescuers made the gruesome discovery when they boarded a fishing boat carrying around 590 refugees and migrants.

The immigrants apparently died of asphyxiation, the news agencies said. It is not the first time Italian rescuers have found migrants dead on the overcrowded boats, but never before had they found so many bodies in one boat.

The boat is being towed by the Italian navy and is expected to arrive later on Monday in Pozzallo on the southeast coast of Sicily.

Over the past weekend more than 1,600 migrants were rescued by Italian authorities, bringing the total number of migrants rescued so far this year to above 60,000.

The number is expected to soar past the record 63,000 set in 2011 during the Arab Spring uprisings.

Just what Italy needs ... another army of hungry muslims from Carthage, in dire need of everything. 

Posted by Drew458     on 07/03/2014 at 12:35 PM   
Filed Under: • Democrats-Liberals-Moonbat Leftists •  
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The Other Side Of The Coin

My attempt at being Fair and Balanced.

A couple days ago the VRWC (aka the Conservative blogosphere) was all afire with some “insider” story about doctors being threatened with arrest if they talked to anyone about the medical situation with those illegal alien children being warehoused at Lackland AFB in San Antonio Texas:

Medical staff warned: Keep your mouths shut about illegal immigrants or face arrest

Several prominent bloggers took great umbrance that the “security goons” in question not only were calling themselves “Brown Shirts” like Hitler’s goons back in the 30s, but that the security people were provided by BCFS, the Baptist Children’s and Family Services program, which had been hired by the federal government to handle the whole situation there. BCFS has a long history of public assistance, disaster relief, and emergency management. Plus, they’re located right there in San Antonio.  Hundreds of others posted on the story with more general outrage. The jackbooted thugs of militarized government!!

And while the Fox News article did have some statement from BCFS’s external affairs head, the vast majority of the story was rather frantic.

So instead of jumping on the old blog bandwagon and doing my easy “Samizdat” duty, I hunted down BCFS and contacted them for a statement. Every coin has two sides, right? So here you go. Form your own opinions. I personally am not the kind of person who will leap to lump the generations old outreach program of a major Christian faith in with whatever twisted anarchist politics deliberately caused this catastrophe to happen.

For 70 years, BCFS has provided high-quality care for children, families and communities in, operating with the greatest level of transparency and integrity. Our team is comprised of professional emergency management and health care professionals, and the safety and security of those in our care are protected by off-duty commissioned law enforcement officers.

In response to misinformation reported in the news, here are the facts about the care being provided for children at Lackland Air Force Base:

§ Protection and Privacy of Children. The children at Lackland Air Force Base are under the conservatorship of the federal government and, like any child in foster care, their personal information is private. As a result, all persons involved in providing care and service to the children must agree to protect the identities and health records of the children in our care, just as any hospital or childcare operation requires. Breaching personal health information or professional standards of care or ethics is unacceptable and grounds for dismissal.

Contrary to allegations by anonymous former employees of our temporary staffing agency, none of our Lackland shelter professionals have been arrested or threatened with arrest for any activities related to shelter operations.

§ Health Screenings & Illnesses. The children cared for at Lackland are ALL medically screened and immunized based on CDC guidelines on vaccinations. If a child feels ill, he or she is taken to an on-site clinic, staffed with a pediatric ER physician as well as mid-level providers, nurses, paramedics and a pharmacy tech.

To date, 119 children have been treated for lice, 22 children have been treated for scabies, and 1 child was sent and admitted to a local children’s hospital where they were diagnosed with the H1N1 Flu. The most common illnesses seen at Lackland are fever, headache, upper respiratory colds, and ingrown toenails (another result of the children’s travels from Central America).

§ Multiple Layers of Behavioral Health Resources Consultation. A 16-person team of mental health clinicians are currently assigned to the Lackland shelter and have direct access to a psychologist for consultation 24/7. Clinicians are supervised closely by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services – Office of Refugee Resettlement Federal Field Specialist, who ultimately has decision making authority regarding all health and mental health matters.

The same is the case for medical care. Every illness, whether it is a headache or something more serious, is recorded in a child’s electronic medical record and posted on WebEOC – a real-time, web-based platform providing epidemiological tracking of all clinic visits is visible to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and state health authorities.

At BCFS’ request, Metro Health (the local health authority for San Antonio), Department of State of Health Services, and U.S. Public Health authorities have inspected our facility and had access to freely converse with our medical staff and children.

§ Communication. Similar to standards in crisis centers and schools, staff are not permitted to have their cell phones on the shelter premises in order to protect the safety and privacy of the children we are serving. Additionally, we want our staff’s full focus to be on the children and operational activities while they are on duty. To ensure rapid and effective workplace communication, all staff are given two-way radios and access to land lines throughout the shelter.

§ Professional Security. To protect the children and staff, security is provided by off-duty law enforcement officers. Our incident management team personnel (whose uniform includes khaki shirts and navy pants) have extensive training in the National Incident Management System and all-hazards response. These personnel serve in various roles to support the coordination of the operation and logistical requirements and primarily have first responder backgrounds, such as emergency management, fire service, and medical services. Also, all personnel at the shelter actually wear a colored shirt or vest to denote their particular role and responsibility. For example, child care personnel wear blue shirts, medical personnel wear gold vests, and custodial personnel wear gold shirts. This procedure is common practice not only for emergency response operations, but in many work environments so as to be able to readily identify a person’s role where large numbers of people are present. 

Since operations at Lackland Air Force began on 18 May, numerous officials from the state and federal government, health care agencies, faith-based organizations and the news media have visited the site, including members of Congress and the Texas Legislature; the Secretaries of Homeland Security and Health and Human Services; local, state and public health authorities; medical professionals; the Texas Attorney General; military leaders; Department of Defense officials; child defense attorneys; and the Archbishop of San Antonio and other pastors. Media was also provided a full tour of the facility on 5 June, and reported on their accounts of the clean, safe operations at the Lackland shelter.

Krista Piferrer, MHA Executive Vice President – External Affairs BCFS

Posted by Drew458     on 07/03/2014 at 09:28 AM   
Filed Under: • Health-Medicine • Illegal-Aliens and Immigration •  
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   Wednesday - July 02, 2014

Digging It

Hey, at least it’s not another bowling post


I almost finished off the uppermost cross wall between the center garden bed and the upper shade garden. That piece of the center will become a huge bed of tulips to welcome Spring, but for now I’m going to throw some kind of colorful annuals in there to hold the nice rich soil in place. That bed is dug about 18” down, rocks sifted out and the soil seriously enhanced with top quality organic topsoil and compost and stuff. It ought to grow flowers like mad for the next several years without even fertilizer.

The upper bed is very shady. The uphill end hardly gets any direct sun at all, and the lower end only see about 3 hours of low angle sun in the early mornings. And with all the roots from the hedges and the nicely healing little dogwood (split during the hurricane), I couldn’t dig into the soil much at all. So instead I raked off any surface rocks, went around like a madman stabbing a shovel tip into the ground, and then laid down about 4” of enhanced topsoil mix on top. Scarlet begonias were planted in the dark end. They haven’t done well, but they aren’t dead either. I’ve got a couple dozen more edger stones to lay there for the border, but because they only go a couple inches into the ground they go fast. Plus the base soil there is very poor, powdery, and bone dry once you get past the surface calcification.

I’m putting in maculatums, aka deadnettles, which are a prolific form of wild geranium. They should mat out really well and root that whole 500lb lump of topsoil in place. Actually, that great lump has stayed in place all on it’s own, even without an edge border, so this is probably major overkill. Whatever. It will be pretty, and I won’t have to mess with them hardly ever.

The brighter end of the shade garden is getting New Guinea Impatiens, a colorful tropical annual that kind of reminds me of crotons, but with flowers. They should absolutely thrive in the nice rich soil there.

And then there will be the lower garden to deal with, down below the patio. It gets full, full, full sun, but the soil there is terrible. Subsoil at the best. Solid rocks mostly. Right now it’s a 10x10 patch of dried mud and stones. Bringing that to life is going to be a chore. Hey, when I take on a project, I really take on a project.

Advise for what kind of perennials to plant for next year is welcome. I want flowers, not shrubs. The whole garden is on the North side of the building, and in the Summer is partially shaded every day. The soil is great, I saw to that. And deep. And well watered with good drainage and pretty neutral pH. I don’t mind putting in 4 or 5 flats of annuals every year, but I would like to move towards a “set it and forget it” perennial solution. Mostly.

Whimsy on the edge: it’s tough to have fun with big rectangular blocks of stone, but we tried.
One area has a tapered raised bed, one area’s raised bed is exactly square, one area has stepped crenelations that go both up and out, and the uphill area’s edger stone will be a straight row of stones that stair steps its way up the slope.
The edge for the lowest section will wrap around in a decreasing radius french curve if I can do it. I’m pretty sure I have enough blocks to get as far as the rhododendron bush but I suppose I could always go buy a couple dozen more. 
And because I ran out of stone glue, the uppermost and lowermost blocks are all dry laid, so I can change them around next year if I feel like it. Yeah right. After all the work I did to dig them in? Them suckas ain’t moving, nevah.



This too shall green. Lower garden below patio is about as bad as it can get. There aren’t even weeds growing in most of it. Just rocks. Lots and lots and lots of rocks.
But when this part is done, when everything is done, we’ll have a garden nearly 60 feet long. Our own little private Eden here in the jungle.

Posted by Drew458     on 07/02/2014 at 08:33 AM   
Filed Under: • Miscellaneous •  
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   Tuesday - July 01, 2014

Model Identification

Yes, indeed. A P-47D-40 “Superbolt” to be precise.

more P47-D pics.

Posted by Drew458     on 07/01/2014 at 10:47 PM   
Filed Under: • Eye-Candy • planes, trains, tanks, ships, machines, automobiles •  
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No stronger retrograde force

One From Winnie

Posted by Drew458     on 07/01/2014 at 08:35 AM   
Filed Under: • RoPMA •  
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Not that very many people ever read this far down, but this blog was the creation of Allan Kelly and his friend Vilmar. Vilmar moved on to his own blog some time ago, and Allan ran this place alone until his sudden and unexpected death partway through 2006. We all miss him. A lot. Even though he is gone this site will always still be more than a little bit his. We who are left to carry on the BMEWS tradition owe him a great debt of gratitude, and we hope to be able to pay that back by following his last advice to us all:

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It's been a long strange trip without you Skipper, but thanks for pointing us in the right direction and giving us a swift kick in the behind to get us going. Keep lookin' down on us, will ya? Thanks.

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