Post Wedding Thawing

It was a lovely wedding all except the part where it was 42 degrees and everybody was dressed for about 30 degrees warmer. Madam and I had to bail early as both of us were beginning to shake uncontrollably. The event was held outdoors at the Ornamental Metal Museum here in Memphis which sits on a bluff overlooking the 'Big Muddy' and even though we were under a tent it was wicked cold. The poor bridesmaids were beginning to turn several shades of blue before the service was over. Standing virtually half naked in the wind blowing off the Mississippi in the evening must have been brutal. I was dressed in coat and tie and I was miserable. Madam, who has zero tolerance for cold was brutalized. We finally had to break down and grab a cab back to the hotel before the wedding cake was even cut. Madam's first act when back in the hotel room was to soak her feet in a hot tub. Even though it is now just past nine in Memphis she is wrapped up in the bed and gently snoring after finally getting the deep chill off. I shall follow shortly though I felt the need for a little 'medication' first. At least the rain stopped and there were no tornadoes..at least close by.

Saturday in Memphis

Morning all. More drivel this morning. Going after breakfast to the Peabody next door to watch the duck parade. Every morning and afternoon they roll out the red carpet and the ducks come down the elevator from their rooftop homes and march out to the fountain for the day to the tune of the "King Cotton March". It is quite the sight. Then it is off to the Gibson Guitar Factory on Beale street for the tour which I have never done.

Less than ideal weather today but we have umbrellas so it is off.

Rendezvous BBQ Ribs Report

Ok, I have finally had the ribs at Rendezvous in Memphis. For years I have been challenged when I claimed the ribs from the original Corky's location were some of the best ribs(outside of my own) that I have found. Have you tried Rendezvous they say and I have to admit, no I haven't.

That era is over and I can now definitively say that Rendezvous ribs don't measure up...not even close.

There are two key attributes to a properly cooked BBQ pork rib and if the ribs fail either of these they are not, by definition, BBQ ribs. Being a life long Southern boy and a BBQ aficionado and a BBQ master in my own right, I know ribs.

First of all a properly cooked rib has to be slowly cooked over an open fire that has at least some hardwood as one of the fuels. Hickory is the standard and anything else is just making do. I've used applewood and other hardwoods but hickory is the best. One of the results of cooking the ribs over an actual hardwood fire is that the meat develops a thin red coloration just under exterior called a 'smoke ring'. If your ribs don't have this distinctive thin red coloration just under the crust then they really haven't been cooked over a hardwood fire. Rendezvous ribs have no 'smoke ring' and you can't taste any of the distinctive bite that real smoke from a hickory fire brings to the party. Sorry!

Second, the proteins in the connective tissue surrounding the ribs(and in any Southern BBQ) must spend so much time at just over 117 degrees to break down into that luscious jelly like substance that replaces the need for fat in the meat. Holding the ribs at this temperature requires very slow cooking at temperatures between 200 and 250 degrees for hours and hours. This slow cooking also removes the superfluous fat from the meat and breaks the connection to bone. If the meat on the ribs isn't moist but not greasy and doesn't pull cleanly from the bone then the "low and slow rule" hasn't been followed. Rendezvous failed on this test as well.

It was, overall, a disappointing experience and I can only imagine that they are a victim of their own success. I would suspect that a thousand or more people troop through the place on any given night and the wherewithal is just not there to do it right. Too bad that so many people leave Memphis thinking that these are the standard for Southern BBQ ribs.

The bottom line is that the best ribs I have found in Memphis are at the Corky's out in Germantown (the original). You have to do them yourself if you want them better.

Off and Running

The Mississippi delta was shining
Like a National guitar
I am following the river
Down the highway
Through the cradle of the civil war
I'm going to Graceland
Graceland
In Memphis Tennessee...

Madam and I are off to guess where this morning for a wedding tomorrow and then off for a few days of R&R up on the Arkansas plateau right on the Missouri line. Just a quickie as we'll head back on Thursday. Going to try and play a couple of rounds of golf and got the 'good' news this morning that my golf buddie's handicap is up in the mid teens so I won't be too far off the pace. He is normally a single digit handicap and it makes me look even worse than I am.
I'll try and check in here off and on and may have something fun to report. You folks play nice and stay safe.

And yes I have already promised Madam that we will cruise Elvis Presley Blvd and Graceland. She considers is some kind of high crime and all if you are in Memphis and don't at least drive by.

We're In the ZOO!

Honestly, step back a couple of feet and look at this week's news. It looks like reality is being written by the same gifted folks that produce the Onion.

Bush says it is wrong to not support the troops and fund them thus allowing them to come home on time after 12 months. Before the paint is dry on that lie the Pentagon announces that every lucky son of a bitch in Iraq is going to an extra 3 months in which to get themselves blown up.

Dick 'head' Cheney calls Speaker Pelosi's visit to Syria "bad". Hello Dick...everybody in the free world is calling for the U.S. to open talks with the Syrians. You're just mad because your dog thinks she is smarter than you.

The 'surge' is going so well that for the first time bombs are going off in the Green Zone, Don't worry though they are not killing too many of our children only the brown ones.

Since forever it seems the White House mafia has been using the RNC mail system to avoid disclosure of 'sensitive' documents and the associated White House players. Hey GOP, don't be surprised if they eventually show up. I might be a little picky but this seems an awful lot like obstructing justice not to mention an out and out crime.

I could go on and on but why bother?

Round and round

Ever have one of those days where you keep racing but don't seem to get anywhere? Trying to get ready to head to Memphis tomorrow for a weekend wedding and then on to Arkansas for a few days with friends. Might actually get some golf in as well.
All kinds of chores and errands are getting in the way today. Car serviced, packing, Trader Joe's for a case of 3 buck Chuck for our friends and on and on. It is already 330p and still have things to do.
Really glad I got the Chicago trip done last week as I would have been snowed on 'bigtime' this week. Hope we have some decent weather over the weekend in Memphis as this is going to be an outdoor affair.
Back to the chores. There will be something a little more substantial here tonight right now the sun is shining and all that so off we go.

Looking for an Out

This is too rich for actual words... but via Peter Baker and Tom Ricks at The Washington Post, we learn that

The White House wants to appoint a high-powered czar to oversee the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan with authority to issue directions to the Pentagon, the State Department and other agencies, but it has had trouble finding anyone able and willing to take the job, according to people close to the situation.

Former NATO Commander Marine General John J. "Jack" Sheehan, was among those evidently offered the job and he had this to say about why he and others are spurning the White House advances;

Sheehan said he believes that Vice President Cheney and his hawkish allies remain more powerful within the administration than pragmatists looking for a way out of Iraq. "So rather than go over there, develop an ulcer and eventually leave, I said, 'No, thanks,' " he said.

Ignoring the fact that Bush, who has evidently tired of the CaC role cannot by law delegate that Contituional responsibilty we have the White House actively trying to do so. WTF!

Kurt Campbell, a Clinton administration Pentagon official who heads the Center for a New American Security, said the difficulty in finding someone to take the job shows that Bush has exhausted his ability to sign up top people to help salvage a disastrous war. "Who's sitting on the bench?" he asked. "Who is there to turn to? And who would want to take the job?"

If you're of my generation you probably remember the hippie posters that asked "What If They Started a War and No One Came?"

Well, here we are with not ONE but TWO wars that nobody wants to run. If you ask me, we might be seeing the beginning of the end. Barney is about to lift his leg and anoint his master's shoe. It's about time!

H/T to Firedoglake for the links and stuff.

Wait a Minute!

Just a day after president Bush said that extending the tour for troops in Iraq was unacceptable he goes and extends the tour of troops in Iraq. This is just another in the never ending signs of just how badly the escalation is going, the Pentagon is having to stretch our already-spread-too-thin forces even more.

WASHINGTON, April 11 — All active-duty Army troops now in Iraq or Afghanistan or headed to either country will serve 15-month tours of duty, up from the usual 12-month tours, effective immediately, the Pentagon announced today.

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates called the change "a difficult and necessary interim step" and said it would at least give soldiers and their families more predictability than they have now.... Mr. Gates said the impetus for the increase in Army combat tours had come from the service’s leaders, who saw a demand for "more clarity and fairness."

As strains on the military have increased, some soldiers home from Iraq and Afghanistan have had to go back before a year’s rest. At least now, General Pace said, soldiers will know when they are coming and going. He said they would be able to "sit around a dinner table and know on such-and-such a date," and plan their lives accordingly.

Remember this load of crap the Bush dumped just a day ago? Here is what bunny pants had to say yesterday:

The bottom line is this: Congress’s failure to fund our troops will mean that some of our military families could wait longer for their loved ones to return from the front lines. Others could see their loved ones headed back to war sooner than anticipated. This is unacceptable. It’s unacceptable to me, it’s unacceptable to our veterans, it’s unacceptable to our military families, and it’s unacceptable to many in this country.

Hello, at least get on the same page with your squads of liars. You can't say something one day and then have your minions contradict you the next without at least some of us taking notice. What a maroon!

New Destination

Supposed to go the Braves game tonight but bad weather put the brakes on that. Instead we decided to try a new restaurant in town called "Little Alley". The owner and most of the staff seem to be from South Africa(Durbin) and they have created a wonderful little place here. They focus on "tapas" which I love. We went through a large part of the menu and they were all wonderful. Personally, a much better time than I would have had at the ball game. This is an official endorsement.

King of Something

Update below:

It really isn't just me. I know I am intolerant and whack the boy king a lot but George W. Bush has somehow decided that his lot in life is destroying lives instead of saving them. Once again he has made it clear that he'll veto the stem cell bill once again if it passes the Senate this week. It's already passed in the House. He really is a heartless bastard and it really does seem that he is trying for some record. I guess if you are total failure in everything you try and do then being recognized as the biggest asshole ever to hold high office is something.

Update:

H/T to Bobby at BBWW for the additional info and link.

From the Times of London:

Diabetics using stem-cell therapy have been able to stop taking insulin injections for the first time, after their bodies started to produce the hormone naturally again.

In a breakthrough trial, 15 young patients with newly diagnosed type 1 diabetes were given drugs to suppress their immune systems followed by transfusions of stem cells drawn from their own blood.

The results show that insulin-dependent diabetics can be freed from reliance on needles by an injection of their own stem cells. The therapy could signal a revolution in the treatment of the condition, which affects more than 300,000 Britons.

Secret My Ass!

There is a book flying off the shelves of bookstores around the country. Oprah has covered it at least twice on her show. It is called "The Secret" and claims to hold the answer to life's deepest mysteries. It has sold more than 1.3 million copies in the United States alone. It is written by an Australian TV producer Rhonda Byrne. I haven't read the book but I have read enough about it to understand how dangerous it truly is.

Here is the secret..."The Secret" is, very simply, the "law of attraction." Despite it's claim of revealing hidden wisdom "for the first time in history," the concept dates back more than 3,000 years to early Hindu teachings that "like attracts like." The author writes "Everything that's coming into your life you are attracting into your life, You are the most powerful magnet in the universe . . . so as you think a thought, you are also attracting like thoughts to you."

Even though she has her physics a little backward, when it comes to magnets, it's opposites that attract, it is supposed to be the power behind geniuses such as Plato, Newton, Beethoven and Einstein. It's purported to be the ultimate shortcut to success and the American dream. Anyone who wants it badly enough can be a multi millionaire or even president. It is odd that nothing about hard work, talent, education or even luck is mentioned but if you are to believe "The Secret" all you have to do is "put in your order in with the universe." Ask. Believe. Receive. It's just that easy!

As usual all of the hard core believers fail to remember that every coin has two sides and that there is an ominous implication to accepting Byrnes' promise. If bad things happen to you, it's all your fault. As surely as your thoughts can bring you health, wealth and love your thoughts are also the cause of your illness, poverty and misery.

I am not making this up! This inverse reality is spelled out very clearly: "The only reason why people do not have what they want is because they are thinking more about what they don't want than what they do want." Follow this twisted logic to its end and you find that everything that happens to you is your fault. The soldiers dying in Iraq are to blame for their own deaths, all the people in New Orleans who lost their homes...right again, not thinking the happy thoughts. On the surface this might sound harmless enough but there is something very sinister hiding behind the glitzy self help screed. It is spelled out quite clearly in the book:

"Imperfect thoughts are the cause of humanity's ills."

"The only reason any person does not have enough money is because they are blocking money from coming to them with their thoughts."

Do you see where this is going? It's the age old scam of blaming the victim, of creating the impression that there is some external agency to blame for the condition of the world. The devil is the cause of sin in the world. Accept the truth(AKA Jesus, God, Allah, etc.) and the world will beat a path to your door. You are weak and a sinner and cannot be expected to walk the straight and narrow all the time. That is why Jesus died on the cross, don't you know, so that you could sin without worry and as long as you accept Jesus into your life and acknowledge your wickedness you will rise up to heaven when the trumpet sounds. Hallelujah! This whole misplaced philosophy, while attractive and comforting, excuses the pain and suffering of the world by some abstract excuse that people get what they deserve. This sham allows people to blame the victims for their lot in life and relieves one of any responsibility for anything outside of themselves. This is a bad thing.

This is the philosophy of separation and exclusiveness that, in reality, is the root cause of all the pain and suffering in this world. This is very subtle but very insidious. I can ignore the pain and suffering in Darfur because it is something outside of me and caused by some lack of the people there. They obviously aren't thinking positively. If they were truly good people then God wouldn't let this happen to them.

This thinking is the tragedy of modern religions whether they be Christian, Muslim or whatever. It surely isn't the teaching of Jesus or Buddha. Who realized that as long as we kept ourselves separate from the universe and everything in it we would suffer. "The Secret" is just another excuse to reinforce the ego and separate ourselves further from the peace that is found in accepting our oneness with everything around us. The starving child in Darfur, the dying soldier in Iraq, the homeless man in New Orleans or the drowning polar bear in the Arctic are diminishing the universe and therefore diminishing me for I am not separate from them nor they from me.

The way of the Buddha is to know yourself,
To know yourself is to forget yourself,
To forget yourself is to be awakened by all things.

-Dogen
Genjo Koan

Failing Here, Failing There

You probably know that America has the largest per capita prison population of any civilized country anywhere. You also probably have heard one of the tragedies of incarcerating all these people is that if they weren't hardened criminals when they went in then they are likely to be when they are released. Prisons in America are a very effective training ground for new criminals. Apparently, the same thing is happening in Iraq:

Iraqi officials also struggle with a crowded system where prisoners can languish as long as two years before getting a trial. But they say the Americans have allowed militants to flourish in their facilities.

"It looks like a terrorist academy now," said Saad Sultan, the Iraqi Human Rights Ministry's liaison to U.S. and Iraqi prisons. "There's a huge number of these students. They study how they can kill in their camps. And we protect them, feed them, give them medical care.

"The Americans have no solution to this problem," he said. "This has been going on for a year or two, we have been telling them."

This is just another example why we are better off leaving Iraq immediately and another example of adding to the problems that the people of Iraq are facing that didn't exist before we got there. The longer we stay the worse it is going to be.

Indian Pudding

I offered and MandT took me up on how to prepare a traditional Indian Pudding. I am not sure how much this really has to do with "Native Americans" but I can imagine that when my ancestors were being saved from their folly by the natives they were offered some variation of a slowly cooked cornmeal dish made with suet and possibly dried fruit or berries. The "Indian" version was probably the result of just having corn mush cooked over an open fire for hours and sweetened with what was at hand.
This recipe is very old fashioned and today you find myriad variations. This one is basic and was first published in a cookbook by Lydia Maria Child, The American Frugal Housewife first published in 1829. I got this recipe from Julia Child's book Julia Child and Company published in 1979. Julia says they are from a different line of Childs.

This recipe makes about 6 cups of pudding and makes a simple but wonderful dessert with the addition of a little lightly sweetened whipped cream or even vanilla ice cream. Not too shabby with a traditional cooked English custard sauce either.

Ingredients
1/4 cup of corn meal (stone ground is best)
2 cups of cold milk (you can use low fat)
2 or 3 Tb of butter or beef suet
1 tsp kosher or sea salt
2 tsp powdered ginger (make sure it is still fragrant)
1/2 cup of dark unsulphured molasses
1 tart apple, peeled, cored, coarsely grated (should be about a cup)
1 cup of additional milk

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Put the cornmeal in a heavy bottomed 2 quart sauce pan and gradually whisk in the 2 cups of milk. Put the pot over medium heat, add the butter, salt, ginger and molasses. Gradually bring to a boil stirring with the wire whisk to make sure it is nice and smooth. Once at the boil add the apple and then simmer for about 15 minutes more stirring frequently to keep it from scorching on the bottom. You should wind up with a think porridge like mixture.
Pour your pudding mixture in into a buttered 2 quart baking dish and set it uncovered in the middle of the hot oven and cook for 20 minutes or until it bubbles. Stir it and add 1/2 cup of the additional milk and blend it in. Clean the sides of the dish with a heat proof spatula and return the dish to the oven turning down the temperature to 250 degrees and cook it for another hour and a half to two hours. Remove from the oven and stir as before scraping down the sides as well. This time pour the additional 1/2 cup of milk over the top but don't stir it in. It is going to form a dark skin on the pudding as you cook it for another 3 or 4 hours.
This needs to be served warm so if you are not ready to serve it can be kept covered in a warm oven for a while.
Serve this thick brown sauce like dessert with the whipped cream, ice cream or custard. I imagine in the old days it was just served with some heavy cream and maybe some sugar.
You can make this ahead a day or two and just reheat in a water bath. This is earthy and elemental and a far cry from the sweet desserts we know today.

I know this seems like a long time from beginning to end but actual hands on is small. This is slow food and you cannot get the same result by speeding up the process as many modern recipes try and do. This is way our ancestors cooked, trying to make the best out of some lowly ingredients. It is worth the trouble.

No Miracles

Since this past weekend was unusual in that the Christian and Orthodox Easters coincided I had some glimmer of hope in the back of my mind that that many people all focused on redemption, sacrifice and love might somehow move the universe a little more towards sanity. Maybe not enough of them really have faith in what they profess...whatever, it didn't happen, even after the Pope kicked in.
It was a very deadly weekend:

Thousands of Iraqis streamed to the holy southern city of Najaf on Sunday in response to a call by fiery Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr for a big anti-American protest on Monday.

Sadr, who blames the U.S.-led invasion for Iraq's unrelenting violence, has urged Iraqis to protest on the fourth anniversary of the day American forces swept into central Baghdad.

"In order to end the occupation, you will go out and demonstrate," Sadr, who accuses U.S. forces of deliberately fomenting civil strife in Iraq, said in a statement.

Four American soldiers were killed in attacks south of Baghdad on Sunday while another two died from wounds suffered in operations north of the capital, the U.S. military said.

The toll makes it a deadly weekend for American troops after four soldiers were killed in an explosion near their vehicle in Diyala province north of Baghdad on Saturday.

If you are still counting that is 10 more American lives full of promise that are no more. The hate builds and builds and the Iraqi and American bodies pile higher and higher. The darkness of this tragedy touches another 10 families here in the U.S. and who knows how many more in Iraq. This debacle must end now...today is not soon enough, yesterday was too late. There might be some salvation if we could point to anything at all positive about this mess but we can't. There is nothing, absolutely nothing to temper the pain and horror of what Bush has done in our name.

Milestone Week

This week marked a milestone for the Fallenmonk. We passed the 20,000 site visits mark. The actual mark was probably last month some time since I screwed up sitemeter in the transition to the new blogger but it is at least an official number.

Thanks to all of you who stop by on a regular basis and especially those of you who comment. I'll try and keep it interesting enough here for you to keep calling.

Have a great weekend and don't over eat on the Peeps.

Them are Grits!

The title comes from a very old joke which I will not repeat here. Today's Food Friday topic is the much maligned and misunderstood Southern food staple the lowly grit.

Grits are just coarsely ground dried corn or corn hominy. The are also known in Italy as polenta. Most people outside the South haven't tried them and if they have traveled through the South and eaten breakfast at a typical meat and three place down here and answered yes when queried, "Ya'll want grits with them eggs?" then they probably also don't like them. The regular old Southern breakfast grits is an acquired taste for sure. I personally just mix them in with my over easy cackle berries and give them a good dose of salt and pepper as otherwise they don't really taste like much. This doesn't have to be the case though. The following recipe for Cheese Grits and the Spoon Bread variation are adapted from a recipe from Elizabeth Terry the chef/ owner of Elizabeth's on 37th in Savannah which is must visit if you are ever in that wonderful town.

Soft Cheese Grits
6 cups of water
1 and 1/2 cups of Grits ( I prefer coarse ground yellow grits or cornmeal or if you are looking for a specific brand Bob's Red Mill brand Polenta or you can use just regular Quick Grits which are white)
1/2 teaspoon of salt
1 tablespoon of minced garlic
1 and 1/2 ounces of sharp Cheddar cheese, grated which should be about a half cup
1/3 cup of light cream or half and half

In a large pan over medium heat bring the water to a nice boil and then add the grits slowly to the boiling water while stirring to prevent lumps. Add the garlic and salt. Reduce the heat and simmer covered for about ten minutes, stirring occasionally. The grits should be nice and thick and soft at this point. Now is when you whisk in the cheese and cream. Once the cheese is nicely incorporated you are ready to serve. If you need to keep these them for awhile you can keep them in a water bath for an hour. The grits will thicken as they sit so if need be you can thin them back to the original consistency with a little hot water and a gentle whisk.

These grits are good all by themselves but they truly shine as a backdrop for a spicy shrimp dish. Once classic combo you see on the Georgia coast is BBQ shrimp. This is terribly simple. Take a couple of pounds of shelled and deveined shrimp (this is for six). Take some of your favorite BBQ sauce (homemade or bottled) and put it in a saute pan and thin it with a little white wine so it makes a nice sauce, bring it to a simmer and toss in the shrimp and quickly cook them in the sauce (don't over cook!!!) until they just firm up and curl. You might add a couple of shots of your favorite hot sauce as well (I do). Divide the warm grits into six nice sized shallow bowls and then divide the shrimp as well among the six bowls placing the mixture on top of the grits. Garnish with something fun like red and green pepper confetti and a some parsley and you are ready to go.

Another great way to serve shrimp with these grits is to make a cajun variation of the BBQ Shrimp. Saute 1/2 cup each of celery, green pepper, onion and a minced clove of garlic in a couple of tablespoons of butter in a nice big skillet until they soften. Sprinkle in a Tablespoon of flour or so and cook for a minute. Add a teaspoon of hot sauce, a couple of shakes of Worcestershire sauce and then a cup and a half of dark stock(veal or beef), or cup of chicken or vegetable stock and a half cup Madeira )or even a cup and a half of brown sauce or gravy from the jar or bag, I won't tell). Stir to thicken and then add 2 pounds of peeled and deveined shrimp and cook over medium heat until the shrimp are just done. Serve this the same as with the BBQ shrimp.

The grits make a great background for all kinds of similar dishes and really add a nice mellow harmony to spicy dishes. I won't mention that they can also extend a meager portion of expensive shrimp or meat into a nice filling dish. The recipes above are generous for six and could be extended to 8 and still be a nice meal with a salad thrown into the mix. Use your imagination and you could find all kinds of things to serve atop the grits. Did someone say a melange of sauted assorted mushrooms in a nice thick Madeira sauce? It is spring...how about fiddlehead ferns in a Dijon wine sauce?

Oh Yeah!

The spoon bread variation on this dish is nice as well and will work just as well as the foundation of a dish like the shrimp dishes above. Make the above grits recipe and instead of serving it as is stir in 4 lightly beaten large eggs (make sure you temper the eggs or you'll have scrambled eggs and grits). 1/4 tsp of ground nutmeg. Pour this mixture into an 8 quart buttered casserole or souffle dish and bake for 30 minutes in a 400 degree oven. This needs to be eaten right from the oven. Spoon bread, by the way, is one of my favorite things in the whole world and this is a good and easy variation. Spoon bread is the white man's shortcut for make a traditional native American corn pudding which, if done properly, takes hours. If anyone would like to know how to make the real deal (Indian pudding) let me know.

Enjoy!

Wake Up Lady

My afternoon loll in the Crown Room is just about over. I have managed to catch up with several of the regular blogs and add my two cents into the ether. I was just thinking though about the slip of Hillary and the rise of Edwards and Obama and it comes to me that up until now I think Hillary was just planning to ride into the WH on name recognition and a river of money.

Guess what Hill, you are going to have to show us what you are made of and why you should be President instead of someone else. What makes you different? We need leadership and we need it now and what makes you the person to provide it?

Need I mention...the same questions apply equally to all those who would deign to be the Democratic nominee for President of what's left of the United States of America or should I say what will be left of the United States of America.

Have I nice evening all who stop by...I gotta go catch a plane.

Going From Bad to Worse

I lied..sort of. Things changed and I had to drop a colleague off at O'Hare for an earlier flight which precipitated me have a couple of hours to kill before my 6pm flight. So here I am in the Delta Crown Room and all dug in for the 3 hour wait to fly.
The first thing I did, naturally, was to check the blog and there was PoP of Morning Martini gently chiding be about jumping the gun a little with me previous "Some Good News" post. As usual she was right and I was unaware of the bad news about recess appointments.

While Bush's recess appointment of Sam Fox was pretty offensive, the other two recess appointments the he made are in reality probably worse. I mean seriously, how much damage can Sam Fox do as the ambassador to Belgium except maybe piss them off so much they embargo their glorious beer and chocolate?

First, Bush also appointed Andrew Biggs to serve as the next deputy commissioner of Social Security, despite the fact that Biggs is an aggressive advocate of privatizing the Social Security system. He was nominated in November and immediately ridiculed by Senate Democrats. Basically Bush is now saying, with this appointment, is that he no longer will even consider negotiating the reform of the system. In other words, screw you Dems and screw you America.

If Biggs were not a big enough slap in the face he also appointed Susan Dudley to oversee federal regulatory policy at the Office of Management and Budget. This is a woman famous for her anti-regulatory career at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University.

The Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs holds sway over federal regulatory agencies like the EPA and helps set regulatory policy for a wide range of issues, from workplace safety to water quality….

As the director of regulatory studies at the industry-backed Mercatus Center she has worked to oppose vital public health regulation as a “hidden tax” that hinders profits.

Among her list of targets have been EPA health standards for smog, opposition to lower-polluting cars and air bags, She even opposed stronger regulations for arsenic in drinking water. I am not sure why but the Senate had some concerns about her nomination.This is probably the worst of the recess appointments and will have the greatest potential for immediate harm to the environment and the welfare of the American people. The White House not only doesn’t care about the concerns of the Senate, it has also demonstrated that it doesn’t care about the welfare of the American people or even the constitutional nomination process. I guess that is really no surprise is it?

You were right PoP, now I am really mad. I keep asking myself how much more damage he will do before we rid ourselves of him and he doesn't disappoint. Every week, hell almost daily, he reaches new depths.

Some Good News

Last day in the heartland for a while I think. Going to try and make it back to Atlanta this afternoon. Should be an interesting day for travel on the last day before the Easter weekend.

Been watching CNN this morning as I do my wrap up presentation power points. I bet Bush is really pissed that the Iranians have proven themselves as another country that treats its prisoners better than the U.S. and moved the situation back from giving George an excuse to pick a fight. Now Bush is going to have to find something else to use as an excuse.

It is also neat to note the slapdown Bush got from the Supremes this week. Slowly but surely the tide is turning to favor Mother Earth. Don't get too excited though...Exxon-Mobil still has a lot of money and are still determined to see that our grandchildren get the opportunity to see the death of our planet in a slow and painful way.

Off to the client and airport....see you all later.

Joys of Travel

Good morning all. Here we are in the heartland and facing a radical change for the worst in the weather. Packed for spring and now instead of 50's and 60's I am looking at low 30's and snow flurries. Going to be a cold one today! All you folks in the eastern half of the nation are going to feel it too, so no smirking. They are even predicting the possibility of frost delays for Augusta and the Masters. Very strange weather.

The conference room we are using this week at the client is in the basement and there is absolutely zero cell service and no access to the internet so it is going to be quiet here until late this evening or even longer. Strange how you become used to having access all the time and how isolated you feel when you can't even use the cell phone to get email. I guess I am a "technovictim".

Everybody stay warm today and put a couple of bricks in your pocket if you go out as it is going to windy, windy for the next day or two.