If you take your coffee

If you take your coffee with half and half, keep a spare can of
evaporated milk in the pantry. When you run out of half and half and
are too lazy to change out of your jammies in the morning to go and get
some, pop open that can of evaporated milk and use it. It works
wonderfully.

Posted by: Kathy at 11:49 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 68 words, total size 1 kb.

Please show this post to

Please show this post to
Dad.*
I would be very interested in knowing if he still thinks it was a good
idea to keep Christi's and my shins unbruised, while Mike's were
allowed to take a beating.
*No, my father doesn't read my blog. Mom does, but Dad thinks I'm too left wing for his tastes.

Posted by: Kathy at 11:45 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Brilliant. Just simply brilliant.

Brilliant. Just simply brilliant.

Posted by: Kathy at 11:43 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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MPR is poor, right? There

MPR is poor, right?
There must be a reason why they go on air every quarter with their
beg-a-thon's, right?
This would be why they interrupt perfectly good programming with their
guilt-a-thon's, right?
Ok, so since we've established that MPR is poor, one would wonder why
they've kicked out what I would think is bou-cou bucks to advertise
their election coverage on coffee clutches. I think that's a reasonable
question, don't you?

Posted by: Kathy at 11:41 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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UK's Daily Mirror front

UK's Daily Mirror
front page for today. Sorry it's a bit fuzzy, but I had to resize to
get it to a size where all people wouldn't be reaching for their
readers to see it.
I have one suggestion for the Mirror's editors: why don't you stick with reporting about coke-snorting soccer players and wife beaters and leave the important stuff to other, more reputable newspapers. I may not have agree with them anymore than I do your newspaper, but at least they have the credibility you sorely lack.

Posted by: Kathy at 11:38 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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As in, "We will verily

As in, "We will verily praise the Lord that Qwest finally sorted our DSL issues."
As a side note: the male protagonist in the novel is a Brit, as a
result of channelling him for several hours a day, I start adopting his
accent (not too posh, but not EastEnders either)
and speech patterns. Some words and phrases that sound funny coming out
of an American mouth that I've been saying anyway: Bloody hell
Filthy little bugger
Bollocks!
Don't get your knickers in a twist
Sorted
Knackered
Gagging
Kit
Quid
Sussed
Sacked

Go here if you're in
any doubt about what these phrases actually mean.
Personally, I'm of the opinion that when an American uses any of these
words it's pretentious as hell. We don't use "bloody" as a descriptor.
We just don't. That word, in that usage, is strictly a British thing.
If you do happen to be American and happen to use that word, well, you
sound as if you a. want to become Bridget Jones or b. are watching too
much BBC America. I will admit, they have better slang than we
Americans do, but still...
It's quite pathetic really. Alas, until I can boot Paul from my head
permanently, I don't see a way out.

Posted by: Kathy at 11:23 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 219 words, total size 1 kb.

For the faint of heart,

For the faint of heart, be forewarned that the following is a rant. Skip on by if you so choose.

Oh, for the love of all that is good and holy, Andrew, quit with the speculation about what's happening in Fallujah!

Everyone should quit speculating about what's happening in Fallujah.

And, yes, Wretchard,
that means even you should quit.
To explain, I don't have any issues with anyone spouting off after a
battle is over with. Pull your miniature sand table out of the garage,
throw on your Napoleon waistcoat, slap your three cornered hat on your
head and move your miniature soldiers around as much as you want. Chat
all you want about the results of the battle. I would expect nothing
less from any of you...but do it afterward.
Not during. For God's sake, there are men on the ground in Fallujah
whose lives are on the line. Their lives are wholly dependent upon
there being a proper plan that will not only save them from being
slaughtered, but will also allow them to achieve their objectives.
Worrying and criticizing and rampantly speculating about that plan
while the battle is in process does not do those men any good. While I don't doubt your intelligence or your ability to get things right, I do doubt that---ahem---YOU HAVE ALL THE INFORMATION THAT THEY DO.
Hence, you're automatically off the mark from the get go. Just. Shut.
Up.
Just so I don't get a bevy of replies and emails telling me that I'm
restricting someone's freedom of speech, know that I'd say this to one
of those talking head generals on CNN or FOX. I would have absolutely
no problem with telling some retired four star General to cram his
comments up his arsehole. So, you should know, I really don't have a
problem saying this to a blogger or two.
I come by this opinion honestly, if you were wondering. My mother's
side of the family is very military. In fact, I have a first cousin
who's (currently) a two star General. He may be stationed at the
Pentagon nowadays, but before that he was stationed in Tampa for a few
years, and was also deployed to Qatar for a while. I have copies of
pictures he took of Saddam's Baghdad Palace bathroom---you know, the
one with the golden fixtures that were in the news. In case all of
these CV clues slipped past you, allow me to spell it out for you: he
was on Tommy Franks' CENTCOM staff during the war and he's mentioned on
page 413 of Tommy's book, American Soldier.
One night during the runup to the invasion, the entire family, having
been tipped off, turned on the NBC Nightly News to see Tom Brokaw
interviewing him. Now, my cousin is a smart man. You don't get to be as
high up in the military as he is without being canny as all get out.
Whenever I see him, do I dare pipe up and speculate about the military
and how it's run? No. Not anymore I don't. Why? Because when I did so
in the past, his general response was to smile and then to inform
me---nicely, of course---that I'm full of shit and that no matter how
well informed I thought I might be, I didn't have all the information.
Because he did have all the information. He was in charge
of the information, for God's sake and he would know. As you might
imagine, I have a tendency to keep my mouth shut anymore because I
don't want to look like an ass.
This is what bugs me about anyone's rampant speculation about what is or isn't going on in Iraq. I know Sully, sure as the sun will rise tomorrow, does not have all the information, even if he is reading Stratfor.
Taking a few courses at Harvard that cover Clausewitz does not a
military expert make. Wretchard, while being supportive of the troops
and the war, doesn't have all the information. Even well-informed
speculation is precisely that: speculation. And these are times when
it's dangerous to speculate. There are men and women on the ground in
Iraq; they are beseiged, not by the Iraqis or by the insurgents, but
rather by the media. I would hazard a guess that the attacks that hurt
the most are the ones that come from the American media---of which the
blogosphere, for better or worse, is a part---who do nothing but second
guess their work. While I'm not denying there is a place for legitimate
criticism of the handling of this war, I will stick with my assertion
that until we know the whole story of Iraq (which, dare I mention it,
the media isn't giving us) we have no business speculating on what is
going on over there, let alone making any judgment calls about what
should be done. We don't know. And it hurts our soldiers on the ground
to be second-guessed incessantly by their own media. It doesn't matter
if the respective blogger is pro or anti war: they simply don't have
all the facts to wargame this pig in real time. Hence, all the
hand-wringing over this battle, makes bloggers---and the mainstream
media---sound more like a nervous mother on prom night, waiting for her
kids to return home, imaginging all the horrible things that could
befall them, rather than strategic analysts of the first order. Not
unlike myself when chatting with my cousin, they don't have all the
information. So the best course of action would be to shut the hell up.
Let the soldiers do their job, then when it's all said and done with,
you can throw your rampant speculation out there.
/Rant

Posted by: Kathy at 11:23 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Political correctness at the playground.

Political correctness at the playground.

{...}Deirdre Faegre was suspended for a week after
repeatedly disobeying school officials who told her not to perform
gymnastic stunts during lunchtime. "Our first concern is the safety of
all children," San Jose-Edison Academy Principal Denise Patton told the
San Gabriel Valley Tribune. Patton said Deirdre could accidentally
strike another student, or injure herself, and other children could get
hurt trying to imitate Deirdre, who has been doing gymnastics for five
years.{...}

Sigh.
One must wonder what they think of round-off back handsprings (someone
might get smooshed in the run needed to get the required force) or
somersaults (she might give herself internal injuries)or aerials
(Jesus, Mary and Joseph! She didn't use her hands to land! She could
break a leg!).
When I was in school, we had big steel bars on the playground, placed
there specifically
for the use of gymnastically-minded students. We had this one maneuver
that we called the flip. Basically, you pulled yourself up on the bar,
much like a gymnast would on the parallel bars, by swinging one leg up
through your arms to pull yourself up. When you'd accomplished that
maneuver, you hung upside down from the bars by your knees, your arms
floating free, then you'd start swinging. The ultimate goal of this
exercise was to get enough momentum going so that, at your highest
swinging point, you would release your legs' hold on the bar, and---if
you were lucky--- you'd land on your feet after flying for a small
distance. Every single girl in my class could do this. I eventually got
the hang of it, even after I'd landed facedown, flat on the ground, a
couple of times and managed to knock the wind right out of myself. If
you weren't careful when you were walking around the bars, you'd get a
foot straight to the face. That happened to me a couple of times. And
guess what? I didn't die.
No one told us to stop doing this because we could hurt ourselves or
someone else. They never told us to stop jumping from the swings,
either. If we hurt ourselves, well, we were told to shake it off. I
went to parochial school: our school nurse showed up a few times a
semester to check on ears and eyes and that sort of thing. We had no
full-time medical staff. Maybe, if you were swelling or something like
that, they'd send you to Mrs. Sundell, the school secretary, who'd give
you a bandaid or would send you down to the kitchen or the teacher's
lounge for a bag of ice.
Surprisingly enough, minor injuries aside, no one died and no one sued
the school for not being responsible enough. In case you were
wondering, I have two nieces who currently attend my old grade school.
I know for a fact they still have those bars on the playground, and I
know the girls still use the bars the way we did, almost twenty years
ago. And my nieces, God love them, managed to learn how to do "The
Flip," as it's still called, much earlier than I did. Childhood must
really suck if you can't do stupid stuff.

Posted by: Kathy at 11:16 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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...it all comes down to

...it all comes down to credibility. As in, is the mainstream media credible enough to tell the story of Falljuah?

I don't think they are. Hence, you should go and read this.

Posted by: Kathy at 11:14 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 42 words, total size 1 kb.

Ok, so here's what you

Ok, so here's what you need to know about actually cooking the bird.
Forgive me if this is lacking some of the humor of earlier posts: I
woke up late and I'm afraid someone might
actually be depending upon me for their turkey cooking instructions and
I don't want to leave them hanging while I fret over making it funny.
Not like that's going to happen, but just in case...
First, basting is important, but instead of fussing with the drippings
in the bottom of the pan, get a chicken buillon cube out and mix it
with one cup of boiling water. If you didn't know, this is how you make
quickie chicken broth. Now, some people swear by using the drippings.
That's fine, if
you've got enough. If you have purchased a smaller turkey, chances are
you probably won't. Turkey's are also leaner nowadays and just don't
give off copious amounts of drippings. Hence, the chicken broth. This
way, whatever drippings you have left at the bottom of the pan you will
be able to use for gravy, rather than basting. General rule of thumb:
try and baste once an hour. Second, leave the bird alone for the most
part. You put the thing in the oven to cook. Let it do so. Third, when
you have about forty-five minutes left on the clock, take off the
tinfoil chapeau. The moonbattery your turkey had previously has now
been cured. Think of this as the final stage in the de-brainwashing
process: just think of Mulder when he finally rid himself of his
delusional theories. That's what you're looking for. Now keep an eye on
the skin while the foil is off. If it begins to get too dark, why, slap
that foil back on for the last few minutes of cooking. It just all
depends how crispy you like your turkey skin to be. Fourth, how to tell
when the turkey is done, paricularly since you told me that I didn't
need that handy-dandy pop-up button to inform me of that momentous
occasion? Well, it's quite simple: when you can shake hands with the turkey, it's done.
Take the end of the turkey leg in your fingers and see if you can give
it a shake. If you can, take it out of the oven. If you can't, keep it
in until you can. Pretty simple stuff. If you're hypernervous and don't
trust me, pull out your meat thermometer and insert it deeply into the
place between the leg and the breast: when it reads 180 degrees, your
bird is DONE. And that's it. When you remove the turkey from the oven,
remove the stuffing from both the neck and the main cavity: place it in
a bowl, cover with foil and keep warm for serving. If you're nervous
about the stuffing not being cooked enough, zap it in your microwave
for a minute or longer. That should get it up to temperature and cook
off any nasties that might be lingering in there. Pitch the apple and
the garlic cloves: I'm sure the apple halves are mush and unless one of
your guests will eat up whole garlic cloves, they probably don't want
them in their dressing. If you're making mashed potatoes, you might
want to recycle the garlic cloves by squeezing them out of their skins
(if you can't do this, well, don't bother because they haven't cooked
enough) and beating them into the potatoes. It's up to you if you want
to add a little turkey-garlic flavor into your potatoes. Then, let the
bird sit before you start carving. If you need to know how to carve,
well, go here and watch the video.
This is a pretty low-maintenence turkey. It's not gourmet by any means,
but it will please your guests. When you cook one at Christmas (because
of course your guests will demand that you do, now that you've proved
yourself a reliable turkey provider) you can get adventurous and try
glazes or different spices. But most importantly, enjoy cooking your
bird. Don't stress out. Like Mom said, it's pretty hard to goof up
whilst cooking a turkey. If you have questions, put 'em in the comments
and I'll try to answer. Finally---HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Posted by: Kathy at 11:13 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 719 words, total size 4 kb.

Blogger finally let me post.

Blogger finally let me post.
Don't quite know whether that's a triumph or not. I suppose we'll be
able to judge that when/if this post actually makes it through the
publication stage.

Posted by: Kathy at 11:05 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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...and think it's the greatest

...and think it's the greatest thing since sliced bread, you might want to know that the RIAA and the MPAA are still trying to cram that worthless piece o' legislation---the
Internet Property Protection Act---through the lame duck congress. Why,
are they trying to push it through now, you ask? Well, Orrin Hatch, the
distinguished gentleman from freakin' Utah and a champion of this bill,
is losing his chairmanship of the Judiciary Committee to Arlen Specter,
who has very different views about this sort of thing.

The Senate might vote on HR2391, the Intellectual
Property Protection Act, a comprehensive bill that opponents charge
could make many users of peer-to-peer networks, digital-music players
and other products criminally liable for copyright infringement. The
bill would also undo centuries of "fair use" -- the principle that
gives Americans the right to use small samples of the works of others
without having to ask permission or pay.
The bill lumps together several pending copyright bills including
HR4077, the Piracy Deterrence and Education Act, which would criminally
punish a person who "infringes a copyright by ... offering for
distribution to the public by electronic means, with reckless disregard
of the risk of further infringement." Critics charge the vague language
could apply to a person who uses the popular Apple iTunes music-sharing
application. The bill would also permit people to use technology to skip
objectionable content -- like a gory or sexually explicit scene -- in
films, a right that consumers already have. However, under the proposed
language, viewers would not be allowed to use software or devices to
skip commericals or promotional announcements "that would otherwise be
performed or displayed before, during or after the performance of the
motion picture," like the previews on a DVD. The proposed law also
includes language from the Pirate Act (S2237), which would permit the
Justice Department to file civil lawsuits against alleged copyright
infringers.

Worrisome.
The basic gist of this whole thing: everything we, the technology
users, hold near and dear to our hearts is on the chopping block. As I
understand it, Bloggers could be screwed: no more excerpts of articles
because it would violate fair use. That little bit up there that I
excerpted from the Wired
article wouldn't be there if this bill is passed and signed. Anything
you would purchase on ITunes would be copyright infringement, even
though you legally purchased it, simply because it's a file sharing
service. And for the Tivo users, no more skipping through the commercials.
While I don't own a Tivo, I find the notion that the MPAA and the RIAA
(not my favorite organization)are throwing their entire arsenal to get
this thing passed revolting. Why they don't see they're fighting a
losing battle, I haven't the foggiest. Piracy cuts into their profits,
I know, but damn!
Why don't they realize that the reason this hurts so much is because
their business models suck? They're monoliths. Dinosaurs. They have no
clue. They believe it's more productive in the long run to lobby
congress to ram through Draconian legislation banning this sort of
behavior, rather than being clever and adopting it into their business.
It's not going to work. People will come up with a way around these
laws, like they always do. Enterprising individuals will come up with
hacks for Tivos that will enable the user to skip through the
commercials. I can already get a hack for my DVD player that will make
it region-free, enabling me to work around the movie industry's
worldwide regulation that decrees I can only watch Michael Mann's shitty expanded edition of Last of the Mohicans rather
than the theatrical version that's out in the UK and Australia, why
should Tivo be any different in this regard? The minute this
legislation goes through, I can guarantee you someone, somewhere, will
suss out a way around it. Nothing's foolproof, after all. Look at the
recent history of file-sharing for some clues as to what will happen
with Tivos. The RIAA and the MPAA cracked down on services like Napster
and the Gnutella network, which has enabled the joy (and I really mean
that) that is Bit Torrent, which is virtually impossible to crack. It's not going to work.

For every move the MPAA and RIAA make, the hackers make a countermove that essentially nullifies it. The information wants to be free.
As I see it, it's a losing battle for the MPAA and RIAA: throwing gobs
of money at the problem only makes the lawyers rich. If they were
smart, they'd rework their system entirely and try to figure out
something new. Alas, however, they won't because they're too stupid to
realize they don't have control of the game anymore. The consumer does.
And alienating the people who pay your bills is not a good long-term
strategy, capisce? {h/t: Techdirt}

Posted by: Kathy at 11:03 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 815 words, total size 5 kb.

Despite the WaPo's alarmist take

Despite the WaPo's alarmist take on all the hubbub at the CIA, I agree with the Weekly Standard's Stephen F. Hayes.

ON NOVEMBER 5, 2004, a top aide to new CIA Director Porter
Goss warned the associate deputy director of counterintelligence about
unauthorized leaks to the media. It was an admonition that might be
considered unnecessary: secrecy is a hallmark of the agency and, in any
case, such leaks are often against the law. But several officials
bristled at the forewarning and after a series of confrontations the
deputy director of Operations, Stephen R. Kappes, offered his
resignation as a protest.
How do we know about all of this? The details were leaked and appeared
Saturday on the front page of the Washington Post. Both the Post and
the New York Times ran follow-up stories on Sunday. That evening, CBS
News anchor John Roberts was already suggesting a failure, asking
reporter Joie Chen, "What went wrong?" And so we have, three months
into Porter Goss's tenure at the agency, a full-blown war between the
Bush administration and the CIA. In fact, this war has been underway
for years but only one side--the CIA--has been fighting. The White
House response to this latest assault will be an important sign of its
willingness to gut the rotten bureaucracy at the CIA.
{...}The reporting consists mainly of a one-sided chronology of the
dispute over media leaks and a collection of unsourced and
unsubstantiated personal smears of the Goss team. As for substance, the
Post reported on Saturday that former deputy CIA director John
McLaughlin believes top Goss aide Patrick Murray "was treating senior
officials disrespectfully." The article continues: "Current and retired
senior managers have criticized Goss, former chairman of the House
intelligence committee, for not interacting with senior managers and
for giving Murray too much authority over day-to-day operations."
The Post article from Sunday replowed much of the same ground. It added
one new wrinkle: Goss has not yet made time to meet with four former
senior CIA officials. (These weren't just any officials. According to
the article, "the four senior officials represent nearly two decades of
experience leading the Directorate of Operations under both Republican
and Democratic presidents." The not-so-subtle implication is that Goss
was unreasonable for failing to meet with the leaders. Was he?
According to yet another anonymous source in the Post piece on Sunday,
the group didn't want to talk so much as they wanted to lecture. The
former officials "wanted to talk as old colleagues and tell him to stop
what he was doing the way he was doing it."
After hundreds of words from the Post we still have very little idea of
what, exactly, Goss is doing that has caused so much heartburn at the
agency. But if he's aggressively reforming the bureaucracy, he should
most certainly not stop what he is doing. In fact, the concern among
critics of the agency is that Goss faces a nearly impossible job and
will not do nearly enough to change the dysfunctional culture of the
agency.

While Hayes' critique of the WaPo article once again shows off the
WaPo's inside the beltway bias, as the reporter seems to fret more
about losing valuable leaks if everyone resigns, it confirms the
suspicions I had when I read the piece on Friday: Goss is cleaning
house. And he doesn't really care how he does it, or who gets their
noses out of joint in the meantime. Good. It's about freakin' time
someone showed those entrenched mandarins the door. What's really
amazing about the WaPo piece, however, is that the guys who are
resiging are the same men who dropped the ball on 9/11. They're they
same men who dropped the ball on WMD in Iraq. They're the same men who
apparently can't find their collective ass even when it's handed to
them on a silver platter. Why, I'll even bet a few of them were on
staff when the Soviet Union fell in August of 1991. Why, my devoted
Cake Eater readers, are these resignations a sign of "turbulence" at
the CIA? These guys should have been shown the door ages
ago. If this was any other agency in Washington, the media would have
been calling for their heads eons ago. If any other bureaucrat in
Washington was pitching a fit over being able to leak information, and
resigning over being called on the carpet for their illegal
behavior, the media and Congress would be going after them left and
right. Yet, surprisingly, they're only bugging out now, after their
protector, Tenet, left. And it's supposedly a bad thing that
these jerks are leaving. Hmmmmm. Makes you wonder, doesn't it, if Hayes
is right and the WaPo is more interested in protecting the few sources
at Langley who provide them with information than it is with reporting
the whole story. Which leads to the next question: how is, what I
believe to be, the imminent and monstrous shakeup at the CIA going to
be reported over the coming months? How much is the media going to
hamper the changes that Goss is obviously undertaking simply because
they're afraid of losing what little access they have? Has the WaPo set
the tone for the coverage of this event with this series of articles,
or is Goss going to be given a fair shot at reforming an agency which
the media has done nothing but criticize since 9/11? UPDATE: Jeff G. throws in his two cents.

UPDATE II: Jonathan Last disagrees with his Weekly Standard
compadre about whether all the hubbub is actually an indicator that
Goss is, indeed, cleaning house. Last has some valid insights, but I
completely disagree with his point that Goss need not piss off/clear
out all the entrenched bureaucrats to force the CIA to run efficiently,
citing FBI Director Muller's reform of the FBI as an example of what a
"skilled executive" can accomplish. Ah, nope. Sorry. That one's not
going to fly.
Muller took advantage of 9/11 in a way that Tenet was never forced to
do. He kept his job, and was never made to pay for the agency's
mistakes. Muller, however, took over the FBI in the days before 9/11:
no one in their right mind would ever slam him for the bureau's
mistakes, yet he took responsibility all the same and got to work.
Skill had very little to do with it, I believe, but more a thought that
if he goofed, his ass would be on the chopping block. For some unknown
reason, the CIA is cut more slack than the FBI. The FBI's spectacular
bungles over the past ten years have brought the bureau's vulnerability
to the fore. Muller knew this and acted accordingly.
The CIA and its employees, however, have never been called on the
carpet for all their goofs. They always seem to get away with it
because "they weren't funded well enough," or "their hands were tied
because of operating procedures," etc. The bureaucrats are too well
entrenched, and I truly believe that viper's pit has to be cleared out.
Goss, to my mind, knows this as well and he's using Patrick Murray to
do his dirty work. This way he gets to stay out of the fray and will be
able to lead when his time comes.

Posted by: Kathy at 10:58 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 1230 words, total size 8 kb.

No, I'm not dead. I'm

No, I'm not dead. I'm still alive. And I've actually decided to grace
you with my presence for a little while.
As listed in the post below, I was very busy with the book...until
about Friday. Then the DSL went out. We have no internet access at our
house right now. As you can imagine, this is driving the husband nuts
(Mr. I Spend 15+ hours per day on the internet), and it's working its
voodoo on me as well. Fortunately, however, we live in the city: there
are a few free wi-fi hotspots within walking distance of the house,
which makes life convenient. The only issue I have with the coffee shop
that I'm currrently posting this from is that---ahem---the coffee sucks.
Gack.
It's horrible. Tastes more like the roasted carcass of Juan Valdez than
it does actual coffee. Blech. Not to mention, they roast their coffee
in the store. Mmmmmm. Yummmy. NOT!.
I used to work for a coffee company. There were reasons why we had an
actual roastery, operated by an actual roastmaster, and one of them
that was that we didn't want our customers to smell the fabu smell that
is burnt coffee beans. You'd think roasting coffee would smell good,
right? Brewing coffee smells good, right? Why should the actual
roasting process smell bad? Well, it does. The first reason is that
this place focuses on the French Roast---which as we all know is
designed to bring out the bean to its utmost charred and oily stage.
The second reason is that they have one roaster for all their coffee
and they're not cleaning it between batches of light roast and French Roast.
Hence you have the smell of burning coffee bean oil floating throughout
the shop because to roast your own coffee in the shop is quaint.
Gack. This doesn't smell good. I don't know what the hell they were
thinking when they decided that in-store roasting would be their sales
hook, but it wasn't smart
Anyway, beggars can't be choosers, right? Right. Anyway, while the
smell of roasting coffee is making me gag, and---of course---with this
being the Minneapolis Province of the People's Republic of Minnesota, I
can't smoke to my heart's content in here, there are still some perks
to this gig: one of them being having a good laugh at people trying to
parallel park. It's humorous. Do they not teach people how to do this
in Driver's Ed anymore? There is one spot right in front of my window:
prime coffee shop parking, if
you can maneuver your car into the spot. This spot has gone unoccupied
for about a half hour: three separate cars have tried to park in it,
and all three drivers have failed to back their cars into the spot,
which is actually about the length of a 1976 Cadillac Eldorado sedan. A
volvo wagon didn't crank her wheel hard enough and wound up about a
foot from the curb. Seeing her failure, she just pulled her car back
out in traffic and jammed around the block. Some Japanese SUV did the
same. And a itty bitty Nissan as well. It's pretty funny to see them
slam on the gas after one measly attempt to parallel park. You can tell
just by the way they slam on the gas that they just don't want to
bother with it; that it's too difficult and that they have better
things to spend their time on. Well, that's fine I guess. As long as
you can park in other places where you don't have to back into the
spot, but you live in---dare I say it?---a city, where parking is
scarce. If you can't parallel park by now, kids, you might as well just
start riding the bus. Ah, anyway, if you're in the neighborhood, stop
on by. I'm going to be here for a time, making my purchased coffee last
as long as I possibly can.

Posted by: Kathy at 10:51 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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According to CNN, Kerry has

According to CNN, Kerry has called President Bush and has conceded the
election.
He will be giving his concession speech at Faneuil Hall in Boston
around 1pm EST. After which, President Bush will give his victory
speech!
Thank frickin' God!
UPDATE: Here's the link to the AP story

After a long, tense night of vote counting, the Democrat
called Bush Wednesday to concede Ohio and the presidency, The
Associated Press learned. Kerry ended his quest, concluding one of the
most expensive and bitterly contested races on record, with a call to
the president shortly after 11 a.m. EST, according to two officials
familiar with the conversation.

I tip my hat to Kerry. Well done, sir, and you have proved yourself to
be a classy man. I will admit I was very afraid when I woke up this
morning and it still hadn't been decided that he would listen to the
same factions in his party that convinced Al Gore to bring us into
recount hell in 2000, Bush's massive electoral gains around the country
notwithstanding. I am very happy to see that Kerry will not throw the
country into recount hell on a misguided whim. Perhaps he might have
made a good president after all. I don't know, but he's got his
priorities in the right place on this one.
The thing that interests me is how the Democratic Party will regroup
after this stunning defeat. They lost the presidency and they made
absolutely no gains in the House or the Senate. I haven't paid
attention to the Gubernatorial races, so I have no idea if they made
gains there, but I would think it's obvious that the trend is shifting
right across the board. When are they going to realize this, and adjust
their message accordingly, or are they going to stick their heads in
the sand, play up to the moonbat section of the party, and completely
ignore the message that has been thrown through their window? In other
words, now that their message has been found faulty, will they readjust
their message or will they stick with the cult of personality politics
they've been so fond of since Bill Clinton---trusting that if their
message is delivered by someone the majority of the country finds
palatable they'll succeed.
I don't know. It sounds like a losing strategy to me, but hey, that's
just me.

Posted by: Kathy at 10:32 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Heh.

Heh.

Posted by: Kathy at 10:22 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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The other day when Suha

The other day when Suha Arafat freaked out on Al-Jazeera, I was
wondering what she was playing at. Turns out, she was looking out for
number one: namely, herself. According to DEBKA:

Tuesday, November 11, Suha Arafat̢۪s French lawyers and
former Palestinian prime minister Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen), struck a
deal. It fixed the Palestinian Authority̢۪s financial obligations to
Yasser Arafat̢۪s widow and let him finally die unambiguously and in
peace at the end of a morbid tug of war between his wife and
Palestinian Authority leaders. But this did not happen immediately. The
confusion surrounding Arafat’s condition for eleven days –
officially alive, unofficially dead – was to be sustained a little
longer – mainly to save Mrs Arafat’s face. The settlement allowed a
funeral to be arranged on “Orphan Friday” of Ramadan, November 12
(as DEBKAfile reported earlier) – unless a new crisis pops up. Our
sources have seen some of the principle terms of the Palestinian accord
with Suha Arafat. {...} Last July, Arafat sent his wife $11 million to
cover her living expenses and those of their daughter for six months -
$1.8 million per month. The
new accord guarantees her the same allowance from the Palestinian
Authority as a regular annual remittance, i.e. $22 million per annum,
for the rest of her life. Abu Mazen and prime minister Ahmed Qureia
(Abu Ala) signed on the dotted line, although they have no notion how
the penniless Palestinian Authority faced with a people in dire poverty
can possibly stump up this kind of money.

In other words, Yassir wasn't going to be allowed "to die" until Sufa
got hers. And the Palestinian Authority will be footing her bill until she cacks. Yet, I think there's a little more to it. We get Forbes here at the house and I remembered seeing Yassir on one of those lists that they so enjoy publishing. According to Forbes:

Yassir Arafat, President Palestinian Authority
Net Worth: $200 million Skillfully deflected attempts by the U.S. and
Israel to diminish his power in the Palestinian territories. His access
to funding has been curtailed by Salam Fayyad, the PA's reform-minded
finance minister. Arafat's office still enjoys a $74 million yearly
budget--6% of the PA's annual budget--but funds are closely monitored.
This after the International Monetary Fund estimated that $900 million
had been siphoned out of the PA from 1995 through 2000, much still
unaccounted for. Wife Suha reportedly under investigation by French
authorities regarding $11 million transferred to her bank account from
an unnamed Swiss institution.

So, my question would be, if Yassir's supposedly worth at least$200M,
why isn't his wife being paid off out of that money, instead of having
the PA foot the bill? I realize that amount would only keep her in her
extraordinary lifestyle for ten years or so, but still...$200M isn't
exactly chump change. Especially not with interest tacked on. Now, it's
important to keep in mind that $200M is only what Forbes
thinks Yassir's worth: they don't know for sure. All of their numbers
are, generally speaking, best guesses, (yes, and that even includes how
much they claim Bill Gates and Warren Buffett are worth, too) and often
Forbes gets them wrong. They didn't mention the missing $900M
that was siphoned off from the PA for shits and giggles, either. I
would hazard a guess that they think Yassir's got the loot stashed
away, but they can't prove it. Neither is it insignificant that they
mention Sufa was/is being investigated by the French for receiving a
large chunk of change from an account in Switzerland. Hmmmm. What does
this add up to? Well, I'm not sure, but it does bring up some
interesting questions, doesn't it? It also makes her "Yassir's ALIVE!"
fit seem like, well, a diversionary tactic. I don't know and it's
important to mention that this is all speculation on my part, but I
would like to know how much did Sufa know about the missing $900M and
if she parlayed that into $22M a year for the rest of her life. It
might be unlikely that Sufa, a woman living in Paris, far from
Ramallah, would have any information or doings with the management of
that money, particularly given how Islamic women are treated most of
the time, but it does make some sense, in a limited sort of way.
Someone was needed to look after all those accounts, and that someone
needed to be placed on the continent, for easy access. Swiss banking
rules have tightened up over the years, and while it's still possible
to transfer ungodly amounts of money via a phone call or a fax, you
still need someone there to look after regulatory issues, like keeping
the bank manager happy. Also, if she's receiving wire transfers from
Switzerland, into her personal account, well, that might be an opening
into learning about how much she knows. How many other transfers did
she receive that the French government doesn't know about? The only way
that having the PA foot the bill for her extravagant lifestyle, when
they could have easily told her to piss up a rope given what the world
knows about Yassir's net worth, makes any sort of sense is that she
held out the return of all that loot as incentive for them to play her
game.
I don't know. My mind could be running away with me, but I still think
there's more to it than just keeping Yassir "alive." That's not a big
enough trump card to play, in my humble estimation, to get the PA to
cough up all that loot. That all this is going on while Palestinians
suffer should be unbelievable. Unfortuately, given Yassir's actions in
the past, it's not. Apparently he taught his wife a few tricks on how
to play the game. {hat tip: Fausta. See also: Roger Simon}

UPDATE: 11/01/2004 Steve-o suggests that they can get Stifler's mom to play her in the movie.

Although, if she offers you scotch, I would recommend running the other way.

Posted by: Kathy at 10:16 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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I know everyone's going to

I know everyone's going to link this article, but damn, I cannot help myself. I just flat-out love the way Peggy Noonan writes.

Who was the biggest loser of the 2004 election? It is easy
to say Mr. Kerry: he was a poor candidate with a poor campaign. But I
do think the biggest loser was the mainstream media, the famous MSM,
the initials that became popular in this election cycle. Every time the
big networks and big broadsheet national newspapers tried to pull off a
bit of pro-liberal mischief--CBS and the fabricated Bush National Guard
documents, the New York Times and bombgate, CBS's "60 Minutes"
attempting to coordinate the breaking of bombgate on the Sunday before
the election--the yeomen of the blogosphere and AM radio and the
Internet took them down. It was to me a great historical development in
the history of politics in America. It was Agincourt. It was the yeomen
of King Harry taking down the French aristocracy with new technology
and rough guts. God bless the pajama-clad yeomen of America. Some day,
when America is hit again, and lines go down, and media are hard to
get, these bloggers and site runners and independent Internetters of
all sorts will find a way to file, and get their word out, and it will
be part of the saving of our country.

While I don't believe a word of it, or, at best, think it's a wee bit
exaggerated, I've never been more flattered to be a blogger. And, of
course, I'm currently writing this, a steaming cup of coffee resting
beside the laptop...in my pajamas.

Posted by: Kathy at 10:14 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Did you see that Iowa

Did you see that Iowa State beat Nebraska on Saturday?

Ahem

WOO-FRICKIN'-HOO! GO CLONES!Surprisingly
enough, this win puts them at the top of the Big 12 North. Hmmmph.
Not to diss the boys in Ames, but the Big 12 North must really suck
this year if that's the case.

Posted by: Kathy at 09:18 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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"In time of war, if

"In time of war, if you go through a bad neighborhood, I don't want a little French poodle, I want a rottweiler on my hands."

--- Gene Simmons, on why he voted for Bush, rather than Kerry.

God, I love it when he opens that oversized mouth of his.

Posted by: Kathy at 09:10 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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