FYI

Tomorrow on FOX News Sunday With Chris Wallace, Fred Thompson and David Yepsen.

David Yepsen? Who's he?

"If any man knows Iowa politics, it's the Des Moines Register's David Yepsen. We'll ask David who's up, who's down and what surprises we might expect when the caucuses arrive."

~~~~~
LATER: The transcript is here.

Fred notes in the opening paragraphs one of the media's latest hatchet jobs, and provides here what he actually said.

FYI

Almost out of milk, I made a mad dash to the store today and couldn't help but notice that one of this week's supposed sales was bell peppers at $2.69 a pound. For all I know that might be a darned good price, but unless I need them fresh because I'm taking my cucumber salad somewhere, all I have to do is grab a bag from the freezer.

It feels great now (as it always does later) but three months ago I was almost in tears I was so tired. It was 10:30 p.m. before I finished getting that $10 case of bell peppers ready for the freezer, and as always the last part was the worst.

The cups (perfectly shaped for later stuffing) and strips were already in the freezer. The last part, the worst part, as always was dicing all the small or odd-ball shaped bell peppers, and those from which I'd cut out bad spots.

It's worth it in the end, but from now on that dreaded dicing will be an absolute cinch.

~~~~~

Thanksgiving before last was the first time I'd "worked prep" for Sis and Mama — Herself's older sister and their mother — as they were cooking for their annual family gathering. Only a small, intimate group this time (thank goodness), which for them meant just 50 to 75 people expected.

My job was to do whatever they told me. Since they really didn't know whether I'd be a help or hindrance, they sat me at the kitchen table and placed before me mountains of vegetables to chop and dice. I did so well when I repeated my performance for their Christmas dinner, this time they even let me use a sharp knife.

Having proved myself capable, I wasn't just invited to help with Thanksgiving this year. I was expected.

I'd just started dicing ... whut.ever when Sis said, "Wait a second. Mama doesn't like newfangled stuff but try this and see if you like it." She reached in a cabinet and brought out one of those choppers that you often see advertised on TV.

I was skeptical, not that I said anything. I've been suckered into buying a few of these things before and if work at all, they're more trouble than they're worth. (Besides, it was a particularly dangerous time in that kitchen because Mama was rolling out pie crusts. If they don't roll out right she's been known things, starting with her rolling pin.)

But this chopper worked so incredibly well, soon — and to Sis and Mama's horror — I was keeping time with it as I mangling an old Harry Belafonte tune with my own lyrics:

Come little Mama-san and bring me some more celery! <CRUNCH>
Any more peppers ‘cause I'm almost da-UN! <CRUNCH>
Come little Sister-mon, bring me some more celery! <CRUNCH>
Any more onions ‘cause I'm almost done! <CRUNCH>

DAAAAAAAAAAAY-oh! <waving my hands over my head>
DAY-AY-AY-oh! <CRUNCH>
Any more onions ‘cause I'm almost done!

What previously had taken me three hours to do with a knife, I finished in a third of the time.

If I promised not to sing, Sis said she'd let me use it again when it came time to work on the Christmas dinner. And she did.

In fact, for Christmas she gave me my very own Vidalia Chop Wizard.

No link?

Why pay shipping and handling when there's no need! Just pick one up the next time you're in Target, WalMart, CVS Pharmacy, Bed Bath & Beyond ...

You will thank me.

Shhhh! It's a secret!

I guess rich folk like Warren Buffet, Bill and Hillary and others who keep saying we should all pay more taxes because the government really needs the money and they can afford to, don't know that if it's really THAT important, they can take a big chunk of their wealth and make it a Gift to the United States.

Ca-RUNCH

A few weeks ago Sheila, my neighbor, telling me the pecans at her father's place had gone completely nuts this year, said her father had asked if "that Yankee neighbor" of hers would like some.

Not just yes but HELL YES! Not that I'd say the word hell around her father.

Sheila's parents and I have always gotten along, especially "Mister" and me after he decided somewhere along the way I'm not too bad for a Yankee. I think it may have started when I was picking okra in his garden.

For as long as Sheila can remember her father has always planted a huge garden. Growing up that's how his family fed themselves and 80 years later, he's still doing it each and every year. After Mister and his wife, "Lady," can or freeze whatever they figure they'll need for the year, he opens the garden up to Sheila first and then other family members. (Then his neighbors and after that, members of the church they attend. Yes, the garden's that big.) Somewhere along the way he began -- when he calls Sheila -- including me.

Sheila and I had already been "swapping food" for years. If the garden Hubby and I used to keep produced an overage of something, I'd take it over to Sheila. If she had more of something than she thought she needed, she'd bring her overage to me. Over the years it's even evolved to ... like, whenever she makes potato salad she sends a container over to me, or chocolate cake.

Mister wasn't feeling well one year when his garden was coming in, so I went over with Sheila to help pick ... whut.ever he told us to. Which was field peas, okra and peanuts that go 'round. He got the biggest kick out of my discovery that peanuts don't grow on the plants leaves (which is where I'd been looking), but are underground attached to its roots.

("I was born a Yankee! What do I know?")

Anyway, it's pecan time. Sheila will bring me some. No, I suggested. Why not let me help you shell yours . . . and then we'll work on mine together! Nothing new there. We've worked together shelling bushels of field peas from Mister's garden. (For the uninitiated, this is something that should only be done with plenty of cold beer available). Worked together on other massive quantities of vegetables, too. But I'm dreading the pecans.

Picking the meat from the shell isn't too bad, it's cracking the nuts I learned long ago that's the real bitch. After even just a few minutes your hands start getting sore. They only get worse, and then the fingers start in. Next, wrists.

It's agony, with my hands frozen in place like claws long after.

But there's this ... this thing I've seen once or twice that I've been looking for for years. I didn't know what it was called but as soon as I began describing it, several people knew exactly what I was talking about. Few had one and had, themselves, been futilely looking for it for years. Those that did it said they'd finally stumbled across one at a flea market (Sheila) or garage sale, or had gotten theirs from a now deceased family member.

I doubted they -- whut.ever they were -- were even made any longer.

To cut to the chase in this already too-long saga, it turns out they are. Not that I ordered it directly from its manufacturer.

(If I had I would have saved a few bucks.)

Instead, I gasped when the cashier in a store that routinely stocks cherry- and olive-pit-popper-outers and hot pepper seed-taker-outers, but didn't have any "nutcrackers" except one that you can also use on lobster claws -- not believing that what I described even existed --pulled up on the computer screen the images of the chain's entire stock of nutcrackers.

And I saw IT. Thee one I've been looking for for years.

IT REALLY DOES EXIST!

UPS delivered my "Reed's Rocket Nutcracker" Tuesday.


~~~~~


I showed it to Herself Wednesday, making her promise that one day -- when I'm gone and she's through using it -- that she'll pass it on to one my grandchildren.

"Sis" has one," she said nonchalantly.

"And where did she get it from," I asked.

"From Mama . . . who got it from Grannie."

Uh-huh!

FYI

"I'm Jim Broussard," he said, "and I took this flag down in honor of my country with … a knife from the United States Army. I'm a veteran, I'm not going to see this done to my country. If they want to fight us, then they need to be men, and they need to come and fight us. But I want somebody to fight me for this flag. They're not going to get it back." -- WorldNetDaily

The flag Broussard is holding, the one he's daring "somebody" to try to take away from him, is the American Flag.

He also cut down and left on the ground the Mexican flag a shop owner in Reno, Nevada, was flying over it.

The American Crazy Lawyers Union has issued a statement that contrary to media reports covering this story that flying another country's flag over our own is NOT illegal.

Newsbusters disagrees with the ACLU and even provides the citation to back it up.

Not surprisingly, Hispanic leaders in Reno are trying to get the bar's Mexican owner to file charges against Broussard.

I don't think Broussard has anything to worry about, since I just saw him interviewed by Neil Cavuto, with an attorney already at his side, who seems to agree with Newsbusters.

~~~~~
Correction (10-05-07): The person appearing with Broussard was talk radio host Bill Manders.

FYI

Happy Constitution Day and Citizenship Day!

Whazzat?

In 2005 and . . .

. . . pursuant to legislation passed by Congress, educational institutions receiving Federal funding are required to hold an educational program pertaining to the United States Constitution on September 17 of each year.

Meanwhile . . .

Just three months after the Senate immigration bill met its well-deserved end, amnesty advocates in the U.S. Congress resumed their efforts. Recently, Senator Richard Durbin (D–IL) announced on the Senate floor his intention to offer the Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act as an amendment to the defense authorization bill. -- Human Events Online

(I can sure understand how that amendment ties in with the defense authorization bill. Yep! Sure can. That's how the Dems FINALLY got the hike in the minimimum wage passed. By amendment, they tied it to military funding for our troops in Afghanistan and Iraq. But let's not EVER criticize their patriotism, okay?)

Read the Human Events article and as you do, perhaps you can think of a way to help me with a problem.

I've been trying to figure out how Constitution and Citizenship Day is taught in classes filled with illegal aliens, who aren't even asked to learn to speak English.

And I can't.

FYI

Neal Boortz made this the first link in his "Reading Assignments" today saying, "You just have to read this. God bless Martha Cothren."

Yep.

They're out of this world

"Kay" was in the middle of trimming my hair today when she noticed the time. "The news is on," she said flipping on the little portable television next to her station. "Let's see what new things we can feel all depressed about."

Feel the same way?

Then let me invite you to start seeing the news through a . . . uh, a slightly different persective. For example, the latest tape released by Ayman Al-Zawahiri, Al Qaeda's second in command? Instead of the translations already provided by the news, try this one instead. It begins:

I'd like to start with a shout out to all my homies in the international jihad. You go guys, you put the fun in fundamentalist dictatorships.

FOX says that its news coverage is "fair and balanced" because it offers both sides an opportunity to comment. So does The Moxargon Group.

Kinda.

The opinions expressed on this blog are the opinions held by the Overlord of the Ultra-Galactic Empire, Remulak MoxArgon, and his Minions, and, henceforth, are the correct opinions of the Ultra-Galactic Empire. *

*Except for (liberals) Snotglob and Varos, they exist for comic relief.

Keep watching the skies, fellow bloggers, because they're watching us.

FYI

I just want you all to know that GuyK at Charming, Just Charming is going to be in big trouble. From now on we'll get to "hear" the OTHER side of the story.

His wife, Sweetthing, has just started her own blog.

$3.89 a gallon

Gasoline? No. That's what I paid for a gallon of milk today. Expect it to get worse. Much worse.

Fox News is airing a piece right now about how much more groceries are costing and are GOING to cost in the future. The reason, they are explaining, is that the price of corn is going up because it is being diverted to the production of fuels.

Far be it for me to argue with their "experts," but all they're doing is selling advertising time.

~~~~~

Although I've mentioned him numerous times, let me finally introduce you to Dingbat (The Aged Quarter Horse). I've had him since he was a four-year-old and he's now closing in on 25. In equine terms that's very roughly . . . 75.

For his age Dingbat is in good health, but like we'd expect for ourselves IF we get to that age -- may we look as good if we do -- things don't work as well as they used to. Not that horses have a digestive tract that makes sense to start with.

Cattle can eat just about any ol' hay, but horse hay has to be of a particular kind and quality or it (among so many other things) can cause colic. I'm not going to waste your time going into it because this is only background.

I'm down to my last three bales of hay. Horse hay. By the time that's gone, I'll have Dingbat fully swapped over to soaked beet pulp (Doesn't it look just so yummy!) as a substitute.

Why? Because there is no hay.

I don't mean just in my hay shed or even horse hay. Because of the drought, there isn't any hay to be had.

Anywhere.

There's bales here and there of timothy or alfalfa at $20 per square bale, but Dingbat's aged digestive tract couldn't handle it. It would kill him.

Cattle farmers, whether beef or dairy, couldn't afford to pay that even if they could somehow find the quantities each cow would require daily. Cattle do very well with (what I think of as) crap hay. Except, there is no hay of any kind. So, months ago cattle farmers started culling their herds.

There are usually three cuttings of hay each season with the first coming in in April or May. The second, June . . . July. The third and final cut for the season (to get everyone through the winter 'til the next year's first cut) occurs some time in the Fall.

But first cut never occured this year. It didn't exist. Second cut, even with the recent rain, is a month to six weeks away and who knows how much of that there will be. Third cut . . .who knows.

Don't expect a reprieve any time soon. With nothing to fall back on 'cause what was normally stored from the year before already long gone, the lack of hay this year is already affecting next year's supply.

Since there will be nothing socked away from last year, it will be used as soon as it grows.

If next Spring, there's even enough rain for hay to grow.

The first impact (demand / supply) is dairy. We're seeing that now. Next will be the price of beef in the grocery store stores, so if the price of beef looks damned good right now, the market's flooded.

Buy, and sock it away in your freezer.

5...4...3...2...1

Molly Goettsche and Nicole Moin, two student researchers at Connecticut College, decided to find out if "dropped food that spends less than five seconds on the floor - the so-called five-second rule - is still safe to eat because rogue bacteria need more time to taint it."

More here.

FYI

Although Da Kid no longer lives here, I still get phone calls for him periodically.

One came in this afternoon with a recorded message first stating his name, then asking him to call 1-800-830-1925 regarding his debit or credit card.

Yeah, right, I thought. I've gotten calls like this before so I did what I always do. I STAR-69ed sure it would be another one where the number was not available because it was "outside your calling area," or if a phone number HAD been recorded, incoming calls were blocked.

Except not only had a number been recorded, it was the same number Da Kid had been asked to call.

So, I called it and found myself in a menu tree of something called The Risk Management Center.

Yeah, right, I thought. Since I've gotten calls like this before, the next thing I did was google 1-800-830-1925.

Oh oh, I thought as I called Da Kid at the station.

He thought, just as I had and still suspected as a possibility, that it was some skunk trying to extract information from him so they could hijack his debit card.

When he called, though, they didn't want any information. They already had it asking him only to confirm his name, and that he had a debit card with this particular banking institution.

Had he used his debit card today, they then asked, at a Mickey D's in Southeast Georgia.

Da Kid said he had.

Had he used the debit card today, they next asked, to pay for a $64 meal at a restaurant in Canada?

No, he had not.

"Didn't think so," said the person from The Risk Management Center. They'd already put a hold on the suspicious transaction and any further authorizations using Da Kid's debit card number until they heard from him.

Per Da Kid's instructions they reactivated the number just long enough for him to use it at a Wally World to get some cash, and then killed the number. Dead. Permanently.

So, if you receive a recorded message telling you to call 1-800-830-1925 about your credit or debit card, it's not from skunks trying to rip you off.

Call 'em back fast, 'cause they're trying to keep a skunk from doing just that.

FYI

Rather than beating your head against the wall because of busy signals whenever you call or recorded messages on a menu that seem to keep looping you back to where you first started, if you’re a Veteran (or next-of-kin of one) and need verification of military service such as a DD214 (Separation Papers), please try this site.

It's NOT instantaneous. It may not fit your needs, but definitely give it a shot.

FYI

"When I began writing about Oil-for-Food, almost four years ago, I knew next to nothing about the inner workings of the United Nations," writes Claudia Rosett. "I didn’t know the players. I had never been to a U.N. briefing. It was September, 2002, and the U.N. debate over removing Saddam Hussein had just turned hot. I was trying to understand the workings of the U.N.-sanctioned Iraqi economy, which seemed to consist of almost nothing but Oil-for-Food. I began making some phone calls to ask how the program actually worked."

Since then, Rosett has been reporting on the UN's Oil For Food scandal for numerous venues including National Review and Fox News, to name a just a few.

In addition to the news reports she's filing on the New York OFF trial of Tungson Park, she's also blogging it here.

Sunken Treasures

Northeast Florida's shoreline (frequently referred to as Florida's First Coast) is filled with history. Some, like Spain's settlement of St. Augustine, is chronicled and easily accessible today.

Others are there, too, but much harder if not impossible to find, until revealed by this season's hurricanes.

Mark (cough) your calendars ...

. . . for November 19, 2004! Celebrate World Toilet Day!!!

If you would like to attend the summit the World Toilet Organization has planned, information on it is available at its website, including a link to their downloadable file on the planned post-conference tour.

UPDATE: Knowledge Is Power has conference pix!