Tuesday - March 09, 2010
Bird causes traffic chaos in London after resisting multiple rescue attempts. something different
Yeah, I’ll get back to my usual bitching later I guess. It’s become my natural state seeing things the way they are. But this tickled the funny bone although I doubt others in traffic thought it funny. Mean birds too when they wanna be.
No, I’m not going to swan off! Bird causes traffic chaos in London after resisting multiple rescue attempts
By Daily Mail ReporterAs excuses go, it sounds unlikely - ‘Sorry I’m late, I got held up by a swan’.
But that’s what happened to these drivers after the bird decided to settle down in the middle of a bridge over the Thames.
There was traffic chaos for more than an hour as the creature resisted all attempts to shoo it out of the way.
It had been seen waddling over Kew Bridge in South-West London before sitting down for a rest, forcing police to hold up the traffic and carefully direct cars around it.
An onlooker said: ‘I was very impressed with the way the police cared about the safety of that swan.
‘After one hour the swan managed to fly away and the traffic went back to normal and the police reopened the road.
Posted by peiper
on 03/09/2010 at 10:50 AM
Filed Under: • Humor • News-Briefs • UK •
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Permalink • Harperson on the march again. Vegans to get discrimination rights along with teatotalers & atheists
I had no idea, not even a clue, that this particular grouping of people had problems of discrimination. Vegetarians? Tea drinkers? Atheists? What next?
Naval ship’s captains? Jeesh.
One commenter in The Times wrote, Vegan...an old Native American word meaning poor hunter. LOL
I’m just guessing here but I’d say Ms Harperson deserves a few bats to add to the colony she already has in her belfry.
Gee and to think. All those many youthful years and I was the victim of discrimination without ever knowing I was. Who do I sue? Says here that it’s unlawful for example to have ladies nights where they save money but men do not. So I’m a past victim. You too. Oh what a hard life and oh how unfair. Hey, how about we men demand restitution for all the extra money we spent while the ladies got into clubs for free. There ya go. We demand money and oh yeah. A sincere and heartfelt apology from all women. Oh boy. This should be fun.
From The Sunday Times
Don’t mock my lentils: vegans to get discrimination rightsMarie Woolf, Whitehall Editor
VEGANS and teetotalers are to be given the same protection against discrimination as religious groups, under legislation championed by Harriet Harman, the equalities minister.
Members of cults and “new religions” such as Scientology, whose supporters include the film stars Tom Cruise and John Travolta, would also be offered protection, as would atheists.
A code of practice explaining the legal implications of the equality bill states that religions need not be mainstream or well known for their adherents to gain protection. “A belief need not include faith or worship of a god or gods, but must affect how a person lives their life or perceives the world.”
The code, drawn up by the Equality and Human Rights Commission, singles out vegans, who do not eat any animal products or wear leather, as meriting protection from religious discrimination. It says: “A person who is a vegan chooses not to use or consume animal products of any kind. That person eschews the exploitation of animals for food, clothing, accessories or any other purpose and does so out of an ethical commitment to animal welfare.”
A spokesman from the commission explained: “This is about someone for whom being vegan or vegetarian is central to who they are. This is not something ‘thought up by the commission’. Parliament makes the law, the courts interpret it and the commission offers factual and proportionate guidance to organisations where necessary. We are providing guidance on the implications of the equality bill.”
The legislation also covers “any religious belief or philosophical belief” and even “a lack of belief”.
Philosophical beliefs to be protected could include humanism and pacifism, but a spokesman for Harman said scientific or political beliefs such as Marxism and fascism would not be covered. The commission added that the recently founded International Church of Jediism, with 500,000 followers worldwide who base their philosophy on the Star Wars films, would not qualify. Beliefs had to be heartfelt.
The watchdog also warns that advertisements giving preferential treatment to men or women could be illegal. This could mean the end of “ladies’ nights” at clubs, when women receive cut-price drinks or free entrance but men pay full price.
People for whom abstention from alcohol was a way of life would also be protected. Conversely, the bill would make it unlawful for a shopkeeper to refuse to sell cigarettes to a woman because she was pregnant.
Posted by peiper
on 03/09/2010 at 09:49 AM
Filed Under: • Big Brother • Politically Correct B.S. • UK •
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Permalink • Monday - March 08, 2010
Africa Sucks, Part 4261
I really don’t want to run this story. Not only is it awful, it’s awfully repetitive. How many times have we seen essentially the same thing happen? What is it with the people on this continent? Tribalism? In the modern world? It’s hard to accept that any one person could be this brutal, much less a whole village or tribe full. Or several tribes full.
And yet ... here we go again.
Nigeria’s security forces have been put on high alert after a new burst of sectarian violence left over 500 people dead, most of them women and children hacked to death by machete wielding gangs.
The attack happened before dawn on Sunday morning when gangs of men descended on several mainly Christian villages near the central city of Jos, firing guns as they approached. Witnesses of the attack, which centred on the village of Dogo-Nahawa, described how victims were caught in animal traps and fishing nets as they tried to flee their attackers.
A resident of Dogo-Nahawa said that the attackers had fired guns as they entered the village, to lure their victims out of their houses. “The shooting was just meant to bring people from their houses and then when people came out they started cutting them with machetes,” said Peter Gyang, who lost his wife and two children .
Dan Manjang, a state government advisor, confirmed that 500 people had been killed. “We have been able to make 95 arrests but at the same time over 500 people have been killed in this heinous act ... by Fulani herdsmen,” Mr Manjang said in a telephone interview.
An aid worker with the Christian charity Stefanus Foundation, Mark Lipdo, told the BBC he went to the villages of Zot and Dogo-Nahawa after daylight on Sunday and recorded the names of 77 victims. He said that there were at least two dozen more bodies. “We saw mainly those who are helpless, like small children and then the older men, who cannot run, these were the ones that were slaughtered,” he said, adding that Zot had been almost wiped out.
An unnamed government official said that over 100 people had been killed, mostly women and children. ”Some of the children are less than one year old,” he added.
But analysts said that the attack seemed to be in reprisal for the violent clashes in Jos between Christians and Muslims in January, which claimed the lives of at least 300 people and displaced thousands of others.
...
This central region of Nigeria had been a regular ethnic and religious flashpoint. [ no kidding. I’d call it more of an ongoing fireball. ]
...
In November 2008, the federal government sent in the troops after Christians and Muslims fought each other using firearms and machetes in clashes that followed a contested election in Jos.
Official figures put the death toll [ for that fight then ] at 200, but rights groups Human Rights Watch said it was more than 700.
Lovely place. Lovely locals. Charming culture. Remind me to visit ... on the 12th of NEVER. At least 1000 dead in 3 major incidents in just 16 moths. And who knows how many more died in minor skirmishes, random individual murders, and mysterious disappearances.
Muslims vs. Christians? Or is it that one tribal group is one faith, and their enemy tribal group is another faith, and both tribes just continue to murder in the most heinous ways possible. Keep the vendetta going forever. Because that’s their way, and they’ll never change.
The killings add to the tally of thousands who have already perished in Africa’s most populous country in the last decade due to religious and political frictions. Rioting in September 2001 killed more than 1,000 people. Muslim-Christian battles killed up to 700 people in 2004. More than 300 residents died during a similar uprising in 2008.
“In the last decade”? Please. It never stops. It’s forever. Anybody old enough to remember the genocide in Biafra? That happened when I was a kid. Guess where Biafra is? (or was?) In Nigeria. 1967. 100,000 dead in battle, and 2 million dead by torture, reprisals, and starvation. At the hands of the Fulani. It can’t just be “blood for oil”.
Posted by Drew458
on 03/08/2010 at 10:00 PM
Filed Under: • Africa • Religion •
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Permalink • Too Much Gun
From the Little Big Guns to the Big Big Guns, putting large projectiles on target gets the job done. But the price gets paid on the sending end too. Big ouch. Here are a few links to tails of excessive recoil that ultimately caused failure.
These two failed in the marketplace. Great cartridges that gave the “lowly” lever action rifle extended range and power, but kicked like rabid demons. I own one of these, and without a recoil pad it’s a nasty piece of work. Really pretty rifles. Very well made. Enough power for hunting elk and bison and even polar bears. But awful ergonomics. The .375 and the .356: two levergun cartridges that didn’t survive.
Another levergun, another failure. The 1895 Winchester was probably the best and strongest lever action rifle ever made, possibly surpassing the legendary Savage Model 99. But it had the ergonomics of a brick and was another evil kicking beast. The 1895 is famous for being chambered in .405 Winchester, a cartridge so potent you could hunt elephants and lions with it. Which is exactly what Teddy Roosevelt did with that. Winchester made a short run of these rifles a couple years ago and they sold out in a flash. Hornady still makes the ammunition today. And it still gets the big jobs done. And the brand new 1895’s with the brand new ammo still try to tear your arm off and dislocate your shoulder in a brutal 19th century manner. Professional safari hunter Craig Boddington builds a proper rifle in .405 and finds it works just like it did for old TR in Bully for the .405.
At the other extreme, Rich K sent me a link about the battleship Texas. Hey, happy birthday state of Texas, a little late. And b-day wishes to the USS Texas, which turns 95 this moth. The USS Texas exists today as a floating museum, but she took part in both WWI and WWII. A very old school looking ship. Rich also sent a link to a bit of fiction, one of those military “what if” stories. In this one I gather there are no airplanes, and the biggest naval battle of the Atlantic in WWII is about to start. And Germany has a secret weapon. Check out the recoil on that baby. Form Battle Lines!, and read Anton Savage’s story of a clash between real and mythical Last Dreadnoughts, a 40 minute read in 6 or 7 parts.
Posted by Drew458
on 03/08/2010 at 11:55 AM
Filed Under: • planes, trains, tanks, ships, big machinery, and automobiles •
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Permalink • Woman captain of a US navy guided-missile destroyer was relieved of her command
No offense intended here should the ladies stop by. Maybe it’s my age and generation but I just don’t think women have a place EVERYWHERE. Most especially aboard a US Navy ship. Now the beast who ran this particular ship may look like the butch beast she is. But it wouldn’t matter if she looked like a runway model. In fact that would be even worse. It isn’t that I think women can’t do the job. Course they can. It’s a simple matter of there are some places where they are out of place. A Navy ship is one of them. Women on ships has become a matter of political correctness, like so much else in our lives.
I’m glad I was in and out of the Navy in the 60s.
Good God this beasty is UGLY. Just common decency and an awareness of appearance or a look in a mirror should have her running to a tent she could wear over her head. Wait .... a burka? Yes. Anything so that innocent ppl wouldn’t see that face and those too close together eyes peering out of that deaths skull. Major GAK! I think if she actually looked in a mirror, she might kill herself. Hmmm. Now how can I get her address? We have an extra mirror here somewhere ......
At the military link there’s a photo of the ships in that race, it is claimed.
H/T military corruption (see link. good site)
Captain Holly Graf ‘maltreated’ staff says US navy report
Tony Allen-Mills
EVEN Captain Bligh might have blushed. The first woman captain of a US navy guided-missile destroyer was relieved of her command for using language so foul that it amounted to “cruelty and maltreatment”, it emerged yesterday.
Captain Holly Graf, commander of 400 sailors aboard USS Cowpens, was dubbed “Horrible Holly” by those who felt the lash of her tongue. Officers complained to navy investigators that she humiliated them in front of the crew by showering them with obscenities and calling them “idiots” and “stupid”.
Graf’s behaviour, detailed in a navy report, came to light last week when it emerged she had engaged the Cowpens in a maritime “drag race” with a smaller destroyer, the USS John McCain, near Okinawa, Japan, last year.
The report dismissed allegations that the racing ships had nearly collided but investigators upheld charges that Graf had abused her position for personal gain by forcing sailors to walk her dogs and by ordering a piano-playing junior officer to perform at a Christmas party at her home.
As one of the navy’s most successful sea-going women officers Graf was in line for promotion to rear admiral, but became the target of an internet campaign by former crew members and male former officers contemptuous of what they see as preferential treatment of women at the Pentagon.
Militarycorruption.com, a military website, described Graf as “an incompetent and unstable ‘politically correct’ poster girl for all the super- feminists at the Pentagon and the US Naval Academy”.
Hundreds of posts to internet sites likened Graf to Bligh, the villainous captain ousted by his crew in Mutiny on the Bounty. Graf has not made a public comment, but defended her behaviour to navy investigators. “Many times I raised my tone (and used swear words) to ensure they knew this.
Posted by peiper
on 03/08/2010 at 09:07 AM
Filed Under: • DIVERSITY BS • Jack Booted Thugs • Oppression • PC,BS • USA •
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Permalink • good example of an old gripe. another lying, thieving,cheating gypo scam. take a look at this one.
Anyone interested in yet another long rant from me on this subject? Or have I already said and more then once all I need to say? Yeah. Guess I have.
This gets soooo old after a time. But the thing is, it keeps on coming. Has a life all its own. For sheer hypocrisy and deviousness , this wins it’s own prize.
And the scummy slag doesn’t even have the courtesy to keep her phony sign in English with proper spelling. Not that it would make any difference. These ppl are and have always been about cheating,stealing and running scams. Europe would have been so much better off had this group been eliminated.
Campaigner for gipsy rights ‘ran £2.6m benefit scam’By Dan Newling and Stephen Wright
(a scam artist hard at work and it’s always race, isn’t it?)A campaigner for Roma gipsies’ rights has been charged with helping scores of Romanians illegally claim millions in benefits.
Lavinia Olmazu, 30, and her boyfriend Alin Enachi, 29, are said to have masterminded a scam by which 172 Romanians claimed £2.6million.
Olmazu, who was arrested last week, was working as an ‘inclusivity outreach worker’ to Roma gipsies for both Haringey and Waltham Forest councils in North London.
The academic, who has campaigned for greater understanding of gipsy culture, is accused with Enachi of using a supposedly charitable organisation called Roma Concern to help coordinate the fraud.
The couple appeared at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on Friday alongside six gipsies, each of whom is alleged to have pocketed thousands of pounds from the scam.
Under rules introduced when Romania joined the EU in 2006, Romanian migrants cannot get a National Insurance number - which is the key to getting benefits - unless they can prove they have paid employment lined up.
Olmazu and her boyfriend are accused of giving unemployed Romanians false documentation which purported to offer them work. They are also said to have provided false invoices and references purportedly showing they were working.
Scores then used fraudulently obtained NI numbers to claim child benefit, working tax credit and child tax credit, the court heard.
The fraud was allegedly facilitated by Enachi, who attended Benefits Agency interviews with Romanians as a translator.
While the couple, who moved to Britain in 2007 and live in Woodford Green, Essex, were said to be living here legally, they appeared in court with six jobless Roma gipsies whom District Judge Nicholas Evans said had ‘no right to be here’.
Stelian Dumitru, 23, and his brothers Ardelean, 24, Daniel, 20, and Cristian, 29, appeared alongside Stelian’s girlfriend Leventica Vasile, 24, and Cristian’s girlfriend Paula Mihai, 29. They all live in council properties in Tottenham, North London.
Stelian and Vasile - who is a beggar - were said to have obtained £27,000 from the scam. Cristian, a Big Issue vendor, and his girlfriend - who have six children between the ages of nine months and 11 - allegedly obtained £36,000. Daniel, a father of two, is said to have obtained £12,515. Mr McCabe said:
Posted by peiper
on 03/08/2010 at 08:27 AM
Filed Under: • Crime • Travelers/Gypsies • UK •
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Permalink • burglary victim chases off bad guys but now regrets not shooting them as cops arrive 50 min. later
I go through the papers every morning and grab coffee etc. and generally get worked up even before booting the puter. That reminds me. I really NEED to take a typing course. I’m fast with two or three fingers but wish I could type properly. But that’s not the topic. Burglars and a shotgun and a home owner are.
So then, while going though the first paper I landed on page 13 of The Telegraph and saw this headline.
I WISH I HAD OPENED FIRE, SAYS FATHER WHO CHASED BURGLARS.
Which was alongside this photo, but not on line. So again, this is a scan.
The photo in the hard copy of course is very sharp and clear.
He should have shot the scum. They’ll now go off and find a more helpless target.
Burglars make off as police take 50 minutes to attend emergency callTwo burglars who a pub landlord confronted with a shotgun to protect his family made off after police took 50 minutes to respond to his emergency call.
By Nigel BunyanSimon Thomas, 45, initially pointed his shotgun at the raiders and later pursued them in his Land Rover. By the time police reached The Anchor Inn at Barcombe, east Sussex, the men were nowhere to be seen.
Mr Thomas, whose children, Toby, 14, and Holly, 12, were asleep at the time of the raid, said: “If push came to shove I would have opened fire.
“In some ways I wish I had done – to stop them. Both my children were asleep in the house and protecting them was my priority.“I don’t want people to think I’m some gun nut, but I was prepared to do pretty much whatever it would take. I would not hesitate to do it again to protect my children and my livelihood.”
Mr Thomas, an experienced hunter with a collection of licenced guns, recalled hearing the burglars moving about outside shortly before 2am on Saturday.
“I am a firearms man and have been for 25 years, so I went to my cabinet and got out a shotgun. I couldn’t believe what was happening.“One of them was loading the bikes into his car and the other was breaking into the conservatory. I opened the bedroom window and shouted out `Do not move – I have got a loaded gun on you`.” Mr Thomas conned the burglars into believing he had already dialled 999 and that the police were on their way.
When they saw his shotgun they begged for their lives and started unloading their haul of stolen mountain bikes from their car. They claimed to have thought the premises were empty.The raiders drove off into the night as Mr Thomas lowered his gun and finally went to summon police.
He said: “I called the police and they told me they didn’t have anyone available to come over right away but to put the gun away so I did.”
A few moments later he gave chase in his Land Rover but lost the pair as they drove through Barcombe.Sussex Police confirmed that it took them 50 minutes to get officers to the scene and that there was no trace of the offenders when they arrived despite control room staff having graded the alert as one requiring an “immediate response”.
A police spokesman said: “The call was graded for immediate response. Officers arrived as soon as possible but were responding to other calls at the time.”
The thieves were still at large last night as police continued to investigate the attempted burglary.
Posted by peiper
on 03/08/2010 at 06:38 AM
Filed Under: • Crime • Daily Life • Guns and Gun Control • UK •
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Permalink • Sunday - March 07, 2010
RAF helicoptor pilot shot between the eyes by Taliban flies 20 to safety … England expects ….
I am buried today in work and frustration caused by AT&T. Must change over all addresses and make copies of stuff and, yadda,yadda.
It almost seems as though the kids at ATT don’t seem to be aware that there are folks overseas who have (and pay) for their services. With 50 minute wait times and two weeks already spent trying and failing to get anywhere, I guess I’m about to close my ATT account after 10 years. Hate to do that coz generally their tech support for some things can not be faulted. But I guess all good things must come to an end. My worry now is that they’ll continue to charge us and it’ll be just as tough getting through again. You can’t believe the nightmare. For example, their email tells us we had till the end of march. But someone on the phone said oh no. March 8 is the deadline but someone else said .. NO. March 15 is the deadline. Bah. Grumble. I give up! It just isn’t worth it trying to get anywhere with them anymore. And oh yeah, to make thing worse yet, they have incorrect instructions on their migration site that they aren’t even aware of. And no way to inform them. Tried it. And forget emails. What a bad joke that is. I’ve tried writing every place I could find an email for and have received not one reply in two weeks of trying.
I feel pretty stupid complaining about that considering what this awesome RAF pilot has done. OK he didn’t have many choices it’s true but hey. These guys are to be admired and honored. What they are going through is NO WALK IN THE PARK!
I hadn’t intended to post today due to all the above mentioned stuff, but ran across this. This is my only post for today.
An RAF helicopter pilot who was shot between the eyes by a Taliban bullet still managed to fly all 20 passengers to safety.
The Chinook flown by Flight Lieutenant Ian Fortune, 28, was brought in to pick up casualties during a firefight between American and Afghanistan forces and heavily armed rebels near Garmsir in Helmand Province, said a report in The Sun.
The pilot was told it was too dangerous to land and circled the landing area. The Chinook came under fire after eventually landing - which continued as casualties were loaded on board - and Flt Lt Fortune was hit by a Taliban bullet as he took off.
The shot hit the rail on the front of his helmet which is normally used to attach night vision goggles.
It penetrated his helmet hitting him between the eyes and causing severe bleeding.Further bullets hit the helicopter’s’s controls damaging the stabilisation system. Despite this Flt Lt Fortune was able to fly for eight minutes before landing at Camp Bastion.
This was the first time a pilot has been shot while in the air during the Afghanistan war.
Mike Brewer, a television presenter who was on board filming a documentary at the time, said: “The courage and heroism of the pilot was beyond belief.”
Posted by peiper
on 03/07/2010 at 08:51 AM
Filed Under: • Battling Brits • Heroes • UK • War On Terror • War-Stories •
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Permalink • Florida challenges Britain for most ‘Idiotic’
There’s a reason that Fark.com has a ‘Florida’ tag for its submissions. Per capita there are more weird laws and stupid people in Florida than in Britain or California. This is based on my non-scientific, highly-biased, survey of the news. The only place that has a higher concentration of idiots is the U.S. House, the U.S. Senate, and the Obama White House. But that last fact is well-known.
So, today’s story from Florida:
As authorities nationwide warn motorists of the dangers of driving while texting, Florida Keys law enforcement officers add a new caution: Don’t try to shave your privates, either.
Florida Highway Patrol troopers say a two-vehicle crash Tuesday at Mile Marker 21 on Cudjoe Key was caused by a 37-year-old woman driver who was shaving her bikini area while her ex-husband took the wheel from the passenger seat.
“She said she was meeting her boyfriend in Key West and wanted to be ready for the visit,” Trooper Gary Dunick said. “If I wasn’t there, I wouldn’t have believed it. About 10 years ago I stopped a guy in the exact same spot ... who had three or four syringes sticking out of his arm. It was just surreal and I thought, ‘Nothing will ever beat this.’ Well, this takes it.”
Let’s recap: a 37-yr-old woman is driving to meet her boyfriend. While doing so she is shaving her muff, thereby removing any muffness, while her ex-husband drives from the passenger seat.
I’ve got a problem here, how many ex-husbands would consent to drive the ex-wife to meet her new boyfriend? Or does he get off watching her shave?
But, it gets better…
If that weren’t enough, Megan Mariah Barnes was not supposed to be driving and her 1995 Ford Thunderbird was not supposed to be on the road.
The day before the wreck, Barnes was convicted in an Upper Keys court of DUI with a prior and driving with a suspended license, said Monroe County Assistant State Attorney Colleen Dunne. Barnes was ordered to impound her car, and her driver’s license was revoked for five years, after which time she must have a Breathalyzer ignition interlock device on any vehicle she drives, Dunne said. Barnes also was sentenced to nine months’ probation.
Barnes and Charles Judy were southbound in her Thunderbird at 11 a.m. when they slammed into the back of a 2006 Chevrolet pickup driven by David Schoff of Palm Bay. His passengers were a man and two women; the latter were treated for minor injuries at Lower Keys Medical Center, FHP spokesman Alex Annunziato said.
Schoff had slowed to about 5 mph to make a turn when the Thunderbird hit him, traveling about 45 mph, which was within the speed limit, Dunick said.
Barnes allegedly drove another half-mile, then switched seats with Judy, who allegedly claimed to be driving, Annunziato said.
I’m doing something stupid. I’m putting myself in the ex-husbands shoes. If I were going to drive my ex-wife to meet with her new boyfriend, I would have insisted on driving while sitting in the driver’s seat. Just steering from the passenger side does NOT give me control over accelerator and brakes. Ex-wife could sit in the passenger seat and shave…whatever.
I don’t know why, but I suspect alcohol was involved… again!
Posted by Christopher
on 03/07/2010 at 07:51 AM
Filed Under: • Daily Life • Odd-Strange • wierd stuff •
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Permalink • Saturday - March 06, 2010
same old gripe
I got another Penzey’s spice catalog in the mail today. It’s a great company, they have really good spices, and they ship quickly. Living here in NJ they are my single source for dried chili peppers. But the one thing I just can not stand about their catalogs are their recipes. Oh, I’m sure most of them cook up fine, especially the baked goods. But their chili recipes are for the birds. I guess I have dead taste buds or something. I’ve tried several of them and they come out nearly flavorless. Try them again with triple the amount of spices and they start to become pretty good. Start, m’kay? At best they are bean stew with some meat and a hint of chili flavor. Why bother?
Their latest recipe uses 3 cans of beans, 2 pounds of meat, a big can of tomatoes, and 2 whole tablespoons of chili powder. Oh come on. Chili powder is not ground chili. It’s a mixture of that, and cumin, and garlic, and salt. It’s perhaps half ground chili at best. Recipe sent in by a resident of New Mexico. Shame shame shame.
So I made up a better recipe on the fly. And I only had the dregs of my pepper supply, since my last batch of heavy duty red used the better part of 2 pounds of dried chilis.
This is quick chili, unlike the slow cooked kind I usually makes that takes 6 - 8 hours. It uses ground chilis, which open up their flavor very quickly. This one will feed 4 hungry folks.
1 1/4 lb chuck steak, cut into little bits
2 smallish yellow onions, chopped fine but not minced
2 cloves of garlic, minced
1 can of kidney beans (she insisted. I prefer pintos)
1 large can of diced tomatoes
Cut up the steak and onions and garlic and put them in a wide bowl. Pour the juice from the canned tomatoes over them and let sit while you prepare the dried chilis.
2 ancho peppers
6 guajillo peppers
4 sanaam peppers (Indian hot peppers)
2 tien tsin peppers (Chinese hot peppers)
1 tsp Durkee ground red pepper (similar to cayenne)
3-4 tablespoons fresh ground cumin
1/3 cup Spice Classics Chili Powder (from the Dollar Store)
Tear the anchos and guajillos into medium bits, leaving out the seeds. Break the sanaam and tien tsin peppers up. Put it all in a Magic Bullet or other high speed chopper and grind it up. Add the other dry ingredients to the powdered chili and give them a whir too.
Splash a little “EVOO” in the bottom of a stock pot, heat it up, a lightly brown the meat, onions, and garlic. Reduce heat and add the spice mix. If you’re Drew, add the whole thing. If you like it quite hot, add about 2/3. If you want it rich with a mild amount of heat (most folks would still call this hot!) pour in about 1/2 the mix. Stir it around and coat the meat bits. Let it heat up for about a minute. Add the beans and the diced tomatoes. Stir, cover, and simmer over low heat for at least half an hour, until the beans soften, then remove the lid and let it reduce some. I didn’t have to add any liquid to get it to stew properly, but if you feel like it I guess you could toss in a bottle of dark beer. That will soften the flavors and add about 15 minutes to the stewing time. The meat will be a bit more tender too.
Made with half the ground spices this makes a full bodied chili with a heat level most folks can handle. It’s not bean stew. It’s a good balance between meat, beans, and chilis.
I added a flat teaspoon of the spice mix to my second serving and it boosted the flavor about 200%. Made it a good bit hotter too, but not so hot I had to get out the terry towel turban I keep around for eating Thai food.
Posted by Drew458
on 03/06/2010 at 08:45 PM
Filed Under: • Fine-Dining •
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Permalink • Run For Your Life
A selection of photographs taken by storm chaser Mike Hollingshead that are making the email rounds as being taken in New Orleans LA just before Katrina hit in 2005. More pics online at his page here.
Great pictures, evil weather, wrong event. These are from Kansas and Nebraska. Several years before Katrina.
That last one may be from Katrina. Then again, maybe it’s from the tsunami in Thailand a few years back. Doesn’t matter. The only way I want to see ANY of these pics in real life is in the rearview mirror of a hemi Charger with a full tank of gas heading in the opposite direction at full speed!
Thanks anyway, C.
Posted by Drew458
on 03/06/2010 at 07:35 PM
Filed Under: • Climate-Weather •
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Permalink • job dissatisfaction
I think maybe I need a new business model. I do this handyman stuff. Pretty much whatever you need, from fixing lamps to drywall to painting to installing shelves. If you need it done I can do it. I go out of my way to make it easy and reasonable for folks, and I wind up feeling taken advantage of a lot of the time.
Lots of little old ladies need a little help with this or that once in a while. I live in a condo park with over 300 units, so there are lots of them around. I can walk to any of the buildings here in just a couple minutes. So I’m open for short work if I’m available. We’ll work out a price, I’ll do good work, and you’ll pay me. If I have to go buy parts or paint or whatever for you, then you’ll pay me what they cost plus the tax, and if it’s a whole lot of shopping then you’ll pay me for my time. This approach seems to work fine.
But if I have to drive out to your place, and sometimes that drive is nearly an hour, then I want at least half a day’s work. So have a list of jobs for me to do, or a big one, because it isn’t worth it for me to put in a big drive to do a 45 minute task.
I’ll come and talk to you, see what you want done, and tell you about how long I expect that job to take. You pay me by the half day, but here’s the kicker: if I say that I can do a job in 4 hours (a half day) and it takes me 6, then I only charge you for 4. If you have a big list of work and I say I can do it in a day (8 hours) but it takes me 10, then I eat the extra time. Conversely, if a task goes faster than anticipated, then I make out ... but I’ll do an extra task for no extra cost if you have one, so that you get your full half day’s or full day’s labor from me.
And I work to your satisfaction. I don’t take shortcuts and I don’t do quick and dirty work. Yes, sometimes I go slower than other folks who just want to be finished and gone. I want you to be happy with the result. I’ll even work around your schedule to some extent, but it’s in my best interest to come over early, get to work, and stay late if necessary.
I did another half day for that woman I did the drawer pulls for last week. Installed 4 pieces of baseboard molding for her, because the old molding was such a Putty Disaster it looked like there’d been a food fight down by the floorboards. So that required me to go and buy 2 lengths of molding, matching her style and size from memory, pulling off the old molding without tearing up her walls or her newly laid wood flooring, cutting the pieces to fit perfectly, cut and sometimes re-cut 8 miters by hand, nail them on, fill the small gaps and nail holes with putty, let it dry and then sand things smooth. I did another drywall repair for her, floated another coat of spackle on the big drywall repair from last week, and then took her front door down off it’s hinges to fit a threshold sweep to the underside and then a pretty brass draft catcher to the lower inside edge. Oil the hinge pins, but the door back on, and then adjust things as needed. And all that took me 3 1/2 hours.
She in not happy with the big drywall repair. Oh, it’s smooth, and vertical, and the edges are feathered into invisibility, so it will paint up fine. No, she’s unhappy because when the flooring guys put in her wood flooring, they left the end of the stairs about 3/8” shy of where the wallboard would have been, had there been any wallboard. See, when the builders built her place, one of them put the stairs in and carpeted them before the walls went up. So the guys who put the walls in cut around the carpet! And decades later, when the carpet came out for the wood flooring to go in, surprise! there was a stair shaped hole in the wall. Which is what I fixed. But now she wants the wall to come to the edge of the steps, so now I’ve got to lay on more spackle to fill in the gap. Personally, I think that’s the wrong approach. I think her gripe is with the flooring crew. Whatever. I said I’d stop buy Wednesday evening and try and fill it in with another layer. I have to get there precisely on time because she can only fit me in a 20 minute work window and then she has to go.
Now she’s trying to stiff me with the money. Shouldn’t I be getting less? After all, the amount we agreed to last week was “only an estimate”. (as if anyone else in the history of the planet has ever come in under estimate!) And if you add up the hours from all the days, it comes out to less than 8. By about 20 minutes. Why do people have to do this? I’m already giving them one helluva deal. Try getting in a registered, licensed “professional” for $200 a day. Try. At your convenience too. Keep trying! And try getting all that and TLC quality work from him or his crew. Let me know how that works out for you, m’kay?
I got paid for half a day last week, and the job took exactly as long as I told her it would. Installing 8 double blind pulls on 4 drawers takes a fair amount of measuring, taping, etc. And each pull needed 4 screws because of their strange shape. This is carpentry, and doing it right takes time. Last week she was thrilled with the result. This week she’s complaining that it took so much longer than she thought it would (although it took almost exactly as long as I said it would). Last week I had to start late to begin with because she didn’t want to get up early on a Saturday, then she forgot she had to take her car in to the shop for a brake job so that delayed things another 90 minutes. And then halfway through the afternoon she said she had things to do so I had to go. Surprise! Great. So what was 1 day’s work wound up eating 2 days, and took away my ability to schedule another custom for either day (had I had one). Thanks. Today she was annoyed that the molding was taking me longer than she thought it should. I told her cutting miters by hand was precision work and took time. I used about a teaspoon of putty for all those miters; the guy who had put the old molding in cut 4 of the miters backwards and just filled the gaps with handfuls of the stuff. Which looked like a stale shit sandwich of course, because he never bothered to sand anything down. Again, whatever. So instead of paying me the other half of the money today, she paid me $10 less than half of the half, and I’ll get the other half of the half Wednesday night. I guess she has trust issues.
I think I’m being too nice a guy, and too flexible. While everyone else everywhere loves the work I do for them, big jobs or small, these older single women who all work at the same law office - this is the 5th one of them I’ve done stuff for - all try to screw me over once the work is complete. Maybe I just shouldn’t take their references anymore. They can do their own repairs.
Posted by Drew458
on 03/06/2010 at 02:25 PM
Filed Under: • work and the workplace •
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Permalink • WEEKEND WOMEN … CLARA BOW ….. Denise Milani below the fold
I’ve always been fascinated by the silent screen’s very first IT GIRL. There were stars with sex appeal before her of course. None however with a title and universally accepted as the the very pinnacle of sex appeal. Not like her.
Silent film acting was always exaggerated, taking it’s form from Italian opera. Pretty corny stuff and by the way, I never thought Chaplin was funny. But then, I never cared for Elvis either so I’m no proper judge of what the public loves. But .... I sure do agree with the public of her day, who made her a major star. Even in those awful silent films, she stood out. She was watchable. She was wonderful. She was, sexy. She was ....
CLARA BOW 1905 - 1965
Pretty racy for the day and age. Clara is not wearing a bra here.
OH MY GOSH. WHAT’S THAT BELOW THE FOLD?
THAT’S ALL FOLKS.
Posted by peiper
on 03/06/2010 at 05:41 AM
Filed Under: • WEEKEND WOMEN •
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Permalink • Friday - March 05, 2010
Damn that Al Gore
The ships got into difficulties off Sweden’s east coast, and rescuers were on standby to evacuate them if needed, officials said. It is reportedly the worst Baltic freeze for 15 years. The Swedish Maritime Administration said that ice breakers in the area were trying to free the ships, but gale-force winds were hampering the effort.
”As soon as they break the ice it freezes over again,” sea rescue spokesman Peter Lindquist said.
He said no one was hurt and there were no immediate plans to bring people off the ships, but helicopters and military hovercraft were on standby in case evacuations would become necessary.
The agency said four ships were stuck, including the Amorella, a passenger ferry with 943 people on board. Two other ferries that got stuck in the ice were able to break free.
Dozens of ships stuck in the thick Baltic ice off Stockholm have now been freed.
26 other ships reportedly remain stuck firm in ice in the Baltic Sea off the Bay of Bothnia to the north.
Those broke free included five passenger ferries, carrying more than 1000 passengers, who were trapped half-way-through for several hours in frozen waters.
Amorella, a cruise ship with 943 people on board, the smaller Via Mare ferry carrying 66 people, the passenger ferry Sea Wind with 32 people and the Regal Star, a cargo ship with 56 people on board were freed by rescue teams deployed by Swedish Maritime Administration.
Isabella and the Finnfellow, two other ferries that got stuck in the ice, were able to break free Thursday.
Both Sweden and Finland have deployed ice breakers in the area to help the stranded vessels.
STOCKHOLM (AFP) – Around 50 ships, including large ferries carrying thousands, were stuck in the ice in the Baltic Sea Thursday and many were not likely to be freed for hours, Swedish maritime authorities said.
“Around 50 commercial vessels are waiting for help from ice breakers (and) we have had as many as six large passenger ferries stuck, but have managed to free two of them,” Johny Lindvall of the Swedish Maritime Administration’s ice breaker unit told AFP.
He said all the six ferries besides one were shuttling passengers between Sweden and Finland, while the Regal Star ferry, which had been stuck since midnight (2300 GMT Wednesday)—had been on its way to Estonia.
So maybe nobody is quite sure of the number, but it looks like it’s a whole bunch. Icebreakers are working to free them all just as fast as they can. Worst freeze in the Baltic in 15 years. Guess we know where all that ice from the “melting” North Pole wound up. Time to play Where’s Waldo with Al again.
Posted by Drew458
on 03/05/2010 at 06:53 PM
Filed Under: • Climate-Weather •
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