Short Takes on the Day, 04/27/09

Tags

conspiracy theories, divorce, Health & Human Services, Health care, John McCain, medicine, pandemics, Pope Benedict, swine flu, torture, waterboarding

Well, yesterday’s post must have concerned God, since he went to some efforts to make me feel better about missing church yesterday. Later in the morning, I developed a definite fever, and felt lethargic. Rut-row, was the swine flu coming my way? We had been in a hospital for goodness sakes only Friday, and you know that everybody gets sick when you go near those places!

It didn’t last long. After I ate, I felt quite a bit better and the “symptoms” disappeared. So I started to feel a bit justified in my choice. Turns out though that it was never to be.

Today, which cooking up a storm, I finally got to sit down and turn toward my daily office practices. I happened to gaze out the window, and you guessed it, a solidly flat tire met me. Given that with all the rain, something like four inches total, nothing was getting down the lane but the Bronco, I was never going to church yesterday anyway. So I figure God was telling me it was okay, that I sorta fudged on “not being able to get out.”

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John McCain continues to fascinate me. His daughter has come out in favor of gay rights and is taking plenty of pot shots at Karl (slight of hand) Rove. But the old man continues his shameful crap. He’ s more than willing to accept that waterboarding is torture and we shouldn’t do it, but thinks we should “move on” and not prosecute the slime balls who have ignored the Geneva Conventions and well, defend the practice on unproven claims that “it worked.” McCain remains the candidate who cuts corners on ethics to continue stroking the base. Word is  that he’s getting a real run for his money by an ultra conservative in Arizona, who is beating him over the head about his immigration policy (which of course, McCain no longer wishes to even speak of.)

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Speaking of the new swine flu, and we were, how’s come we keep getting diseases from animals? I mean this seems always the case doesn’t it? Do they ever get sick from us? Other than getting murdered for food and tested for cosmetics and such? I mean that’s enough to be really mad at us I guess. But I haven’t seen any pigs sneezing. Is that a sign? I yell at one of our cats, Kate. She sneezes all the time, and never covers her nose, but that’s another story.

I’m just wondering if this is some massive conspiracy by the animal kingdom to do us in. I can understand why they might think it a good idea, but really our menagerie of spongers are way to lazy to work for their supper or pay any rent. They need us, like it or not. So enough with giving us all this darned illness! (You know this might have something to do with birds committing suicide by flying into jet engines……just thinkin’.)

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Oh and while we are still talking about the flu, and we still are cuz I said so. Just wanted to give a nice shout out to the Rethugs for their help. Not only did they insist that money allotted to “pandemic disease” control be taken out of the stimulus package because it somehow didn’t create jobs, but they are blocking the appointment of Gov. Kathleen Sebelius for HHS. You know, it’s to the point where you almost have to think there is a satanic force at work making sure the GOP is on the exact wrong side of everything these days. (Shall we reload in our circular firing squad boys and girls, and continue to off each other faster than a Democrat can win an election against ya?)

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It seems that all was atwitter for nothing much. Lots of speculation was afoot that things would not go well when Charles and Camilla had a private audience with his Holiness Benedict XVI.

First of all, it was expected that the Pope would be chastising the couple, since both are divorced, which is not kosher in the Vatican (I love mixing religions like that). It was also theorized that Benedict would present the couple with a facsimile of Henry VIII’s request for annulment. Neither one happened.

Apparently the meeting was quite chatty. This of course leads to new speculation that the Vatican is thinking about relaxing the divorce prohibition for its flock. Camilla was married to a Catholic, although Charles was not (actually it’s against the law for a royal to marry a Roman Catholic under current Acts of Secession). The pope we understand did want that dropped.

I’d not place too much emphasis on his meeting the two and not wagging his finger at the couple for “living in the sin of adultery” though. It would take some mighty fancy foot work to change the Church’s stance on divorce without a whole lot of other dogma threatening to collapse. When you make claims that the Church is prevented from error by the Holy Spirit, it is a big no no to suggest said Spirit in error.

Course, there are ways around this, but who is gonna be big enough to say they “misinterpreted” the Spirit? So don’t look for any change soon. So far the willing martyr has not been found. Swords are being readied perhaps for the inevitable falling upon though.

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that’s all folks!

My brain hurts from thinking too much

Tags

brain, cake, chocolate, evolution, fruit, fundamentalism, GOP, jelly, John McCain, Princess Diana, psychology, tart, torture, waterboarding, world history

Today we feature Johannes Vemeer and his “Young Woman with a Water Pitcher.” It was done in 1662, and is at the MMA, NYC.

A late start today, so this post may be a bit on the short side, or it will be posted rather late in the day. The Contrarian walked to the road, picked up the mail. The lane is in pretty good shape, so he’s arranged for a friend to come tomorrow and pull the car out. Hopefully we will be mobile from then on, as the lane looks to be draining quite well. A huge portion of the snow, piled over head high has disappeared he reported.

I did the drawers in the bedroom and unfortunately, have a rather large pile of bags now in the closet of old clothes–I can now open a rag shop should anyone need any. I’m done with the room but for moving furniture so I can vacuum with various of those squirrelly attachments close to the walls and such.

On to the events of the day.

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I’ve long had a serious question about the so-called prosperity gospel that you can find on any number of religious channels around the tube. I find it unsettling that the drawing card for Church is “hey, if you come, we can show you how to make money!” At least that is how it seems to me. This post by Alternet explores how the GOP has used this particular type of evangelical fervor to recruit for their voting block. Indeed, this is the main point and topic of Sarah Posner’s new book “God Politics: Faith, Fraud and the Republican crusade for Values Voters.” I’ve been dying to review this one, but have not received a reply from the publisher unfortunately. You get what you get, and there is not much you can do but ask. Here she is interviewed about the subject.

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Another entry by Alternet asks, how does John McCain remain popular when he supports such disastrous wars? It seems that there is at work here a psychological play on words. The war of course is by all estimates unwinable. That is not however the issue McCain is promoting. His is a subtle call for us to stay the course in the noble sense of being strong, courageous, and not taking our eyes off the mark of the real war–the one on “terrorism.” He stands before us as the warrior, the brave fist-waving, just say “nuts to ’em” Mav. He wants to make us feel proud again. That is the appeal, the ultimate good against evil fight. If McCain can keep us distracted like this, he thinks he can pull it off. I don’t think so, I simply refuse to believe the American people can continue being duped by warmongering rhetoric. We shall see.

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American Revolution Blog has a nice entry on the juxtaposition of the American and French revolutions. Trying to put yourself back into that time period and examining how both we and the French viewed the two events is interesting to say the least. Explore the similarities and differences between the two seminal events.

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Baking Delights offers you the opportunity to make your own wedding cake. Now, perhaps most of you have no need to do such a thing, but some no doubt do, and these instructions would work equally well for a major anniversary party or birthday party for that matter. If you need to feed a lot, here is the beginning of a two-parter which will take you through the entire process, with tons of individual choices for you to consider.

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Oh boy this recipe sounded good, and it’s from Epicurious so you can expect that it’s excellent. This one is from Bon Appetit and is a Chocolate Honey Tart. Now that sounds elegant and delicious.

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Oh it’s always a good day when we have a Garrison Keillor post. Today he tackles a rather pressing point, American soldiers, and what it means and doesn’t mean to support the troops. I say a big thumbs up on this one. Read it!

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Okay, I often present you with science information, and the weirder the better in my opinion. I mean, I love the stuff that makes you go, wow, I don’t have a clue how that could happen but I’m bowled over that it does. I’ll scratch my head for days, and give up with a shrug. I’ll never understand how that happens. Well, it seems that our brains are wired to define left from right. I guess that makes some crude sense, in some kind of way, but that’s not all. We are wired to do so right down to the cellular level. Can you beat that? I’m sure you already knew that zebrafish are good models for the human brain. Why of course! It seems that the left brain neurons have spiral axons, while these are mostly missing in the right brain. They have flat, shallow spirals on the right, and again, there are few of these on the left. Got that straight. What does it mean? I haven’t a clue, but I sure know you can use this ammunition to complain that your other half is simply wired wrong.

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Well, this next one sure was no surprise to me. We are paranoid! Yep. Most all of us, and most of the time. No one has been willing to admit this. Too paranoid it seems. No, I am not thinking that they are monitoring who reads this post, and putting me on a list. I am not prone to such paranoia, that would be the Contrarian. Drat, now I suppose I have to go and tell him he’s normal. And so I lose another edge. . . .sigh. . . Just after I told him he was wrongly wired.

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We have a humongous crabapple tree up on the hill. And I have made crabapple jelly before. It’s a bit tedious but very good. Here is a nice recipe, should you be so endowed with the same good fortune as me.

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Glenn Greenwald gives us all the dirt on the newly released memo by Yoo that sparked the inferno about waterboarding and torture. Mr. Yoo, then employed at the State Department, asserted in his famous writing that the President, under his War Powers, could pretty much do as he wished. He certainly was not required to follow military law. Unbelievable as it may seem, Mr. Yoo is now employed as a professor at Berkeley of all freaking places. So much for morality in America! So much for the Anti-war 60’s at Berkeley!

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If you are addicted to all things Princess Diana, Scandalous Women has a detailed post of the latest goings on at the inquest, latest of several thousand now, about her death. This part deals with her past boyfriend, Hasnat Khan, and his take on what her relationship with Dodi Fayed was. Lots of inside information if you are a royal follower.

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I find it hard to understand but some states know their kids are dumber than the rest of the country and are doing their damnedest to keep it that way. Louisiana has tried plenty of schemes to keep their school children ignorant of any science that might impinge on bible teachings. So far, all have been struck down as unconstitutional. Now they have a new tact: A piece of legislation is now up in the state that would require teachers to “examine all sides” of “controversial” issues, like evolution, climate change, and cloning. (Climate change, in the view of the wacko right is considered an insidious attempt to violate God’s order to “go forth and multiply” in favor of contraception–this is really big with the ultra right Catholic group.) Read all about it at Talk2Action.

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If you like decoupage, and are interested in learning some glazing and texture techniques, then the Artful Crafter has some ideas for you.

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I Can’t cook in that!

Tags

environment, seeds, topiary, Tudors, waterboarding

This is a Picasso. A Pablo Picasso. I forgot to garner the date when this piece was done. It is called “kitchen.” Well, I can’t find the stove or fridge. I can’t find the cabinets either. There seem to be a lot of “eyes” so maybe there are potatoes on the menu. This is the kind of thing that contrains me to suggest that “art” is the in the eye of the beholder. The beholder of course may be nuts, as anyone who calls this art must be. It is undoubtedly worth millions of dollars. I wouldn’t travel across the street to see it, and certainly not to the Met. What do you think? A maze would be a more fitting name in my opinion.

I’m keeping today short folks, blogger seemed to be off line for a goodly long time today. I just got on. Additionally about a third of my feeds didn’t update today, I assume many are blogspot addresses. Things seem to be back to normal now. I’ll give you a bit of fluff today. I’m thinking that I need to take off a day anyway. Saturday seems as good as any. It allows me to catch up on a few things online that I seldom have time for. Back to normal but the spellcheck doesn’t work again. Only had it for about a week. This site is so crummy on maintenance.

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Sally’s Gardening Tips has some fine information if you are into topiary. I personally don’t find it so attractive. I think it looks too formal and I don’t like formal gardens much. If you like it, take a look.

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Most magazines will send you a free copy, albeit along with an invoice you are supposed to return labeled “cancel” but free sample forager has found a deal wherein you can get 3 copies with “no strings”. I leave it to you to determine whether that is true or not. It appears you sign up with “freesampling” to do it. Beware, all these freebies end up flooding your email box unfortunately. I know from experience. I must say, I saw on GMA this morning two people who were cleaning up on sweepstakes stuff. One had won a total of 14 cars, and the other was getting 3-4 free trips a year. This besides all kinds of ther products like big screen tv’s. I’m gonna try it for a while at least, course I never win anything and will undoubtedly quit in frustration. These people are dedicated, which is what you must be, but it does appear to work if you have the patience.

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You know, it really doesn’t matter whether the planet’s ecological distress is man-made or just the normal fluctuations it goes through. We do have a problem and the only people who seem determined to deny that are corporations who have a stake in keeping things the way they are, meaning not making them be more eco-friendly or stopping what they are doing! It turns out that the fossil record can at least inform us as to what we may expect. The record does record its response to previous major climate changes. Life Science has a lovely article as usual explaining it to those of us who are scientifically challenged.

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True to form George Bush has decided to hug waterboarding a bit more. Today he vetoed a bill that would have made it illegal for waterboarding to be used by the CIA. It’s illegal and not a part of the army manual, but George wants the CIA had to have more latitude. Oh this plays so stinking well overseas. Yeah, we are sure the home of justice and truth, and fairness, and decency. Yes indeed.

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The second part of the sisters of Henry VIII is at Scandalous Woman. Don’t miss the second part. The first part was posted yesterday. Enjoy this very very good post.

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I don’t know about you, but school was never like this for me. Teachers when I was a kid, didn’t have much of a sense of humor at all, in fact they could be down right sour. That was back in the days when every below high school teacher had a paddle designed and built by the shop teacher. Wicked items. Having a lot of petticoats helped! The Onion always produces a few chuckles and some down right guffaws if you aren’t careful.

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If you enjoy looking at new blogs, and expecially and only if its food blogs you are interested in, skitter on over to Baking Delights where she gives you a rundown on a number of food blogs. I have little trouble finding food sites, its the crafting sites that really craft and show you stuff that I have trouble finding. Anybody with some foolproof craft blogs or blog communities where I can find some that actually post would be appreciated.

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Calendula and Concrete has a important find. If you are always hunting for exotic or heirloom seeds and want to know of a new place to locate hard to find ones, she has a link for you. It’s to Mother Earth News, and their new search engine which searches like 150 seed catalog sites to find what you are looking for. I’ve linked you direct, but Calendula deserves the credit.

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I figured you would want to post this list on your fridge for everyone in your family to know. These facts are critical if one is to be both informed and ready to cast that ever important vote next November:

Just A Few Things You Probably Didn’t Know

You spend about 3 years of your life in the toilet.
Every day, the average person swallows about a quart of snot.
The slowest growing finger nail is on the thumb nail and the fastest growing is the finger nail on the middle finger.
Scientists say that babies that are breastfed are more likely to be slimmer as adults than those that are not breastfed.
There are more chickens in the world than people.
Pinocchio was made of pine.
One out of 20 people have an extra rib.
Manicuring the nails has been done by people for more than 4,000 years.
People whose mouth has a narrow roof are more likely to snore. This is because they have less oxygen going through their nose. [davesdaily.com]

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Question of the day: what are a confection and a cluster (name of flower)? The answer can be found Here.

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“She got her looks from her father. He’s a plastic surgeon.” ~~Groucho Marx

“He who forgives, ends the quarrel.” ~~African proverb

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