Creative Menu Language

I just love the language some of these places use on their menus. After a very long day and way too tired to do the big night out routine I opted for the restaurant in the hotel. This is a full blown Hilton in downtown Indy so the expectation is there for above average chow especially considering the prices.
Tonight's experience was very typical. The first warning is that you walk into a restaurant that seats 70 or so people and you are number three at 730 in the evening. You ignore the alarm bells going off and take a seat.
Nothing on the 'big' menu seems good especially as most of it is over $20 a pop and you fall back to the 'grill menu'. This is basically the room service menu but whatever.
The first item on the menu strikes you as interesting..Indiana pulled pork BBQ with our homemade mango habenero BBQ sauce. Sounds good! The reality is some pulled pork of unknown origin with some Kraft BBQ sauce on a plastic onion roll with some fries and questionable cole slaw. All this for only $9. I was trying to be penurious but once again I have been punished. I know better but I still try.
I think it all goes back some 20 years or so when I was staying in the Holiday Inn in Williamston, NC. (It's the hometown of Catfish Hunter BTW) and the restaurant attached was run by a couple of older ladies that didn't know from fancy but could put a scald on fried chicken that was memorable. Pot roast, mac and cheese, homemade biscuits and all the good old southern standards. You would have to have at least two full meals to spend ten bucks. Nothing gourmet but they didn't claim it to be. You want a bowl of pinto beans and some cornbread...no problem and it is just as good as if you cooked it at home. I keep thinking that I will find another but so far I have been thwarted.

Perfect Storm

We could very easily be in line for a perfect economic storm if the global response to the plunge in the Chinese stock market today is any indicator. Our boy Bush has been doling out tax cuts for corporations and the wealthiest Americans ever since he stumbled into office. Meanwhile he has been waging two horrifically expensive wars on the Chinese MasterCard. They own us.

The Dow dropped 416 points today and for a time had lost 500 points all in response to the large drop in the Chinese market. When these two economies stumble we are going to be in for some serious trouble. Don't forget that a major part of the engine that drives our economy is hanging on by it's fingernails as well and that is housing. Stand by if that market collapses.

So much for the GOP line of "party of fiscal responsibility". Even Greenspan is saying we could see a recession this year.

In case you might be wondering... this is the largest single day fall in the market since 9/11 just so you can put it into perspective.

Another Way Bush is Making us Unsafe

You will be happy to know that not only is Bush killing your sons and daughters in Iraq he is trying to poison your ass too! Remember to give thanks to Bush as you have your tainted peanut butter sandwich or your bacteria laden spinach salad. Don't forget to give special thanks for your poisonous poultry.

The federal agency that’s been front and center in warning the public about tainted spinach and contaminated peanut butter is conducting just half the food safety inspections it did three years ago.

The cuts by the Food and Drug Administration come despite a barrage of high-profile food recalls.

“We have a food safety crisis on the horizon,” said Michael Doyle, director of the Center for Food Safety at the University of Georgia.

Between 2003 and 2006, FDA food safety inspections dropped 47 percent, according to a database analysis of federal records by The Associated Press.

You can thank Bush's tax cuts and a do nothing Congress for this. Aren't you glad that the top 1% are better off though?

Homegrown Terrorists

If you haven't read this article by Sy Hersh in The New Yorker then you really should. The article is dense and detailed but it is a story that requires some serious detail. It exposes the Bush administration for what it truly is... the takeover of our government by the true enemies of America.

The truth is that it is almost unbelievable and if it is at all true it is much, much bigger than Iran Contra and the impact on the future of our nation and the world are much higher.
If it doesn't doesn't scare you that the Bush Administration is now funding the very Sunni extremists that are not only connected with al-Qaeda, but are also killing American troops in Iraq then it should and it should make you very, very mad.

To undermine Iran, which is predominantly Shiite, the Bush Administration has decided, in effect, to reconfigure its priorities in the Middle East. In Lebanon, the Administration has coöperated with Saudi Arabia’s government, which is Sunni, in clandestine operations that are intended to weaken Hezbollah, the Shiite organization that is backed by Iran. The U.S. has also taken part in clandestine operations aimed at Iran and its ally Syria. A by-product of these activities has been the bolstering of Sunni extremist groups that espouse a militant vision of Islam and are hostile to America and sympathetic to Al Qaeda.

Back up and read that paragraph again. Because the Bush Administration wants to attack Iran, which is Shiite, it is sucking up to the Sunni extremists while they loudly claim that these are the people who attacked the U.S. on 9/11.

In a nutshell...The President and Vice President of the United States are using your tax dollars to fund the very people who attacked us and want to attack us again.

More:

One contradictory aspect of the new strategy is that, in Iraq, most of the insurgent violence directed at the American military has come from Sunni forces, and not from Shiites. But, from the Administration’s perspective, the most profound—and unintended—strategic consequence of the Iraq war is the empowerment of Iran.

[snip]

The key players behind the redirection are Vice-President Dick Cheney, the deputy national-security adviser Elliott Abrams, the departing Ambassador to Iraq (and nominee for United Nations Ambassador), Zalmay Khalilzad, and Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the Saudi national-security adviser.

So when that Bush/Cheney funded al-Qaeda planted and triggered nuclear weapon goes off in New York, Los Angeles, Miami, San Francisco, or Chicago you can rest assured knowing that it was your tax dollars doing the deed.

Makes Sense to Me

From the Washington Post:

Dozens of high-level officials joined in a White House drill yesterday to see how the government would respond if several cities were attacked simultaneously with bombs similar to those used against U.S. troops in Iraq.

White House homeland security adviser Frances Fragos Townsend and the Homeland Security Council that she heads mapped out in advance a massive disaster involving improvised explosive devices, or IEDs. The attack targeted 10 U.S. cities, both large and small, at the same time, said a senior administration official who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Townsend presided over the three-hour exercise, which brought the government's top homeland security officials to the Eisenhower Executive Office Building next to the White House. All Cabinet agencies were represented by their secretaries or other high-ranking officials, with about 90 participants in all, White House spokesman Scott Stanzel said.

[snip]

President Bush went on a bike ride yesterday morning and did not take part in the test.

No comment.

Just One a Day

Somebody wasn't watching Laura's meds carefully and they let her out for an appearance on Larry King last night. It was pretty ugly. C&L has the video. At least it appears she is not in pain.

Here is the choice revelation from the interview:

This is their opportunity to seize the moment—ahhh—to build a really good and stable country. And many parts of Iraq are stable ahh..now. But, of course, what we see on television is the one bombing a day that discourages everybody.

Yeah that one bombing a day is the big problem and if we could just prevent that one bombing everything would be hunky dory.

Swimming Upstream

Whew! Long day yesterday and I just crashed when I got to the hotel last night. Clear but cold here in Indianapolis but no snow. Some progress yesterday with access as I actually have a badge and it will open the door to the work area. Can't get anywhere else yet...not even to the coffee machine on the floor below but some progress. Continue the fight with the IT organization today over network access which is turning out to be the biggest obstacle to getting any work done.

I see the tide continues to turn against Bush's war. More numbers from the Washington Post-ABC News poll show that the American people are way out in front of the politicians on the war. Now two-thirds of Americans oppose the escalation of the Iraq war and 53% of Americans want a hard deadline for withdrawal. It is also interesting that, by a wide margin, Americans are behind Murtha's plan to limit deployment to troops that are actually ready.

There was clear support, however, for the kinds of conditions proposed by Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.), who wants to establish requirements for the training and resting of military units that would have the effect of limiting the number of troops available to send to Iraq.

Murtha's plan has drawn fire in the House, including from some of his Democratic colleagues, after it was unveiled on a liberal Web site. The Post-ABC News poll, which did not associate the plan with Murtha, found that 58 percent of Americans said they support such new rules. Even some Americans, 21 percent, who supported the president's troop surge said they would favor rules for training and resting troops.

The folks in Washington, on both sides of the aisle, better wake up and listen carefully...the American people want this war over and they are losing their patience.

Nature's Warning

Updated below: 2/27

How many of you know how important honeybees are to you everyday. Estimates are that one out of every three bites of food you eat are the result of honeybee activity. While I do not currently have any hives I have been a beekeeper off and on and I come from a long line of them.

Currently in the U.S. and even globally we are witnessing a catastrophic collapse of honeybee populations and the cause is not yet known. We had a honeybee crisis in 2005, which was blamed on the Varoa mite and decimated as much as 50% of honey bee populations in the U.S., but was weathered, overcome, and quickly passed out of most people’s attention. Since that time beekeepers have been recovering, at least until the fall of 2006 when it was discovered that something was again killing off large numbers of colonies. By February of 2007, reports are that that beekeepers from 22 states have reported decimation of hives by as much as 80%, varying in degree of severity. At first glance this may seem trivial but it is going to make a huge impact on your everyday life.

Many of the foodstuffs we depend on daily like fruit, nuts, vegetables, legume, and seed crops depend on pollination by honeybees.

• One-third of the human diet is derived directly or indirectly from insect-pollinated plants.

• 80 percent of insect pollination is accomplished by honey bees.

The current honey bee shortage is going to affect apple growers in Virginia, almond growers in California ( 80% of the global almond supply), cucumber, citrus and watermelon growers in Florida.

These are just some of the crops that require pollination: apples, avocados, blueberries, cherries, cranberries, cucumbers, melons, oranges, grapefruit, pumpkins, squash, sunflowers, tangerines, and watermelon. Also, forage plants like clover and alfalfa need pollination. Where's the beef?

This is going to means higher prices for a lot of our everyday food and it is going to be bad news for families especially those with limited budgets.

There's an old farmer's saying that "Nature gives first warnings." While the lowly honeybee may not be on your daily radar let's hope there is a quick solution to the honeybee shortage. I've got rather used to eating.

Flickr photo by dragonseye

Update: The New York Times has picked up the story finally.

Revolt?

This is very interesting. If there was such a revolt I wonder if it could actually prevent Cheney from whacking Iran or would they just court martial the dissenters and promote some folks stupid enough to do it which has been the pattern so far? It might cause enough of a stink to us from making another strategic mistake in the Middle East. If something like this were to happen I imagine it would be the first time for the American military but I am not a military historian.

From the Sunday Times in London:

US generals ‘will quit’ if Bush orders Iran attack

Some of America’s most senior military commanders are prepared to resign if the White House orders a military strike against Iran, according to highly placed defence and intelligence sources.

Tension in the Gulf region has raised fears that an attack on Iran is becoming increasingly likely before President George Bush leaves office. The Sunday Times has learnt that up to five generals and admirals are willing to resign rather than approve what they consider would be a reckless attack.

"There are four or five generals and admirals we know of who would resign if Bush ordered an attack on Iran," a source with close ties to British intelligence said. "There is simply no stomach for it in the Pentagon, and a lot of people question whether such an attack would be effective or even possible."

A British defence source confirmed that there were deep misgivings inside the Pentagon about a military strike. "All the generals are perfectly clear that they don’t have the military capacity to take Iran on in any meaningful fashion. Nobody wants to do it and it would be a matter of conscience for them.

"There are enough people who feel this would be an error of judgment too far for there to be resignations."

A generals’ revolt on such a scale would be unprecedented.

Defining Moment

Sunday's Oscar program may be a defining moment for the future of the country and, in fact, the world. Sunday is when Al Gore will probably stand and accept an Oscar for Best Documentary and also have a billion people worldwide listening to his every word. What better moment? What more
could one ask for in a moment pregnant with the power to set the world on a new course? I know he has said over and over that he has better things to do than run for President again but the more I see of what we will have to pick from in 2008 the more I see a need for a seasoned, ready to hit the ground running guy like Gore.
This from CNN:

"There's even some speculation that he would use his Oscar as the occasion to announce that he's running," Martin Kaplan, director of the University of Southern California's Norman Lear Center, told CNN. "Imagine that: a billion people worldwide! Take that Jay Leno, as an announcement venue!''

Could it happen? Gore's producer thinks a potential Gore speech would be a historic moment, but not the way Kaplan envisions.

"It's electrifying, not politically, because is Al Gore going to run or not going to run. There's nothing going to happen like that," Bender told CNN. "It's electrifying because the man who is responsible for solidifying the forces around global warming is going to'' be acknowldged.

But could an Oscar start the momentum for a draft-Gore movement? USC's Kaplan thinks it could.

"People think that he's paid his dues, he's had more of an impact on issues that people care about than many people who have been in office and there's a feeling that he's finally lost that student council condescension that was fingernails on a blackboard to a lot of supporters," Kaplan said.

Attack of the Chimpanzees

For the first time chimpanzees in Senegal have been observed making spears and spearing bush babies.

That's right, another example of tool usage has cropped up in primates, but this time they aren't cracking nuts with rocks, or fishing termites out of their mounds with reeds. This time, they've moved ahead to honing their tools to make more efficient hunting weapons.

The chimps are sharpening sticks with their teeth and then jabbing their homemade spears into the dens of bush babies, which they then eat. Jane Goodall had witnessed carnivorous activity in chimps so I knew they ate the occasional meat but the news that they actively hunted was pretty surprising.

Chimpanzees in Senegal have been observed making and using wooden spears to hunt other animals, according to a study in the journal Current Biology. It's the first time primates have been seen using tools to hunt.

Actually the above quote is a little off if you think about it. Using the term 'primates' is technically wrong since humans are primates as well. The article should say non-human primates. Humans are primates after all. Not only do we share the same order (Primate), we are also in the same suborder (Haplorrhini), infraorder (Simiiformes), parvorder (Catarrhini), superfamily (Hominoidea), family (Hominidae) and subfamily (Homininae) as gorillas and chimpanzees. We can even go down to the tribe (Hominini) if we exclude gorillas and only include the chimps.

Chimps have been known to use tools before... but this use of spear-like weapons to attack other animals is completely new.

More At: BBC News: Chimps use spears to hunt and BBC News: Chimpanzees 'hunt using spears'

Another interesting side note in all of this is that most of the tool manufacture and use in hunting was initiated by the females. This little bit of information supports the theory that all through human evolution it has been the female of the species that has been on the forefront of innovation and creativity while the male has been focused on hunting etc.

It is also interesting to note that only about 1 out of 22 of the bush baby "spear-hunts" were successful. This leads one wonder if this is a recently adopted behavior. If you had only 4.5% chance of catching dinner, would you give up and go back tried and true methods? It could be that this is statistically an improvement on catch rates and so the behavior will reenforce itself?

How Does It Know?

Long week of travel and meetings in the office all morning. No rest for the weary. Good news is all my tax refunds have been deposited (not that they were any great shakes). As usual the Goddess of Household Maintenance has obviously been waiting for the little bit of extra money as well because there was a nice puddle of water under the water heater this morning which precipitated a call to Leroy the Plumber. I am now the proud owner of a brand new water heater the cost of which amazingly pretty much equaled the tax refunds. Very interesting coincidence. Easy come easy go.

Just now settling in to figure out what is going on, catch up on the banking, do the expense reports and all that stuff that consumes Fridays after a week on the road. Is the sun over the yardarm yet?

Atlanta Bound

In the client this morning and traveling home this afternoon. Not a greatly productive week as the client is having trouble granting me access to their building and networks. Need a badge to get into the building and on to the network and since I am actually working for the this client's parent company which is foreign I am considered foreign as well. The client does defense work and there is a mountain of red tape before a "foreigner" can have access. It is costing them a fortune as all the time I am on site and waiting I am also billing them for my time and expenses and they are getting nothing for it. Very frustrating two weeks so far. Trying again next week.

Have a great day and we will see you all later. I might even find some time to blog around a bit later while I wait... now that I have a wireless broadband modem. We'll see.

Kill Them with Kindness?

WTF! I can't believe I am actually reading this! This is absolutely the craziest thing I have ever heard. Sending troops into battle without arms?
From today's NYT:

The Pentagon is planning to send more than 14,000 National Guard troops back to Iraq next year, shortening their off-duty time to meet the demands of President Bush’s buildup, Defense Department officials said Wednesday....

“We’re behind the power curve, and we can’t piddle around,” Maj. Gen. Harry M. Wyatt III, commander of the Oklahoma National Guard, said in an interview. He added that one-third of his soldiers lacked the M-4 rifles preferred by active duty soldiers and that there were also shortfalls in night vision goggles and other equipment....

Capt. Christopher Heathscott, a spokesman for the Arkansas National Guard, said the 39th brigade combat team was 600 rifles short for 500 soldiers also lacked its full arsenal of mortars and howitzers.

Is this war really a Monty Python sketch and no one has told us?

He Stands Alone

I bet Bush is glad to hear the Danes and Brits are bailing out of Iraq so that he can take all the credit for this glorious adventure. I am sure he has been straining at the traces...eager to show the rest of the wusses how to get the job done.

Now that the insurgency is reacting to the 'surge' with new tactics and new weapons like chlorine trucks rigged with explosives it just goes to show that they are in their last throws. Meanwhile, we here in the U.S. are assured by the MSM that Anna Nicole Smith is still dead, Britney is still bald, Obama is still black and Hillary is still a bitch.

There has been some mention in the news that we are treating our returning wounded like second class citizens but not to worry because the Army is on it and everything will be 'spit-spot' in no time at all. No real story here.

Have a great day!

Veterans...We should be Ashamed!

Update 2/20 at 10a EST. If you are interested in following this sad story then you should be following it on AmericaBlog which is all over it. Full time blogging has a great advantage over us part timers when a story is developing like this.


I had all intents of spending a nice quiet evening surfing around the WWW and reading blogs and commenting...you know having fun butting in and adding my two cents to various and sundry things. It was going well until I stopped by Shakespeare's Sister and followed the link to the Washington Post story about Walter Reed Army Medical Center.

I knew in the back of my mind somewhere that this was the case but evidently I had been suppressing it. There is enough bad stuff going on that people who wish to remain apparently sane have to ignore or pretend to ignore at least some of it. I am in that category.

I knew things were not a bed of roses for the 23,000 or so American soldiers that Bush and company have run through the meat grinder for shits and giggles over the last five years or so. I knew things were sub-optimal because Bush told me there were great....better everyday.

This story brought home all the fears and frustration I have been holding back on this front for some time. It's bad enough that we are sending these young people into Iraq for no other purpose than to realize the greed driven dream of the neocons to control all of the oil in the Middle East but to basically abandon them after their sacrifice raises the level of this tragedy to hitherto unbelievable heights. I can't get a complete emotional handle on this but I know that it is going to affect me in ways I don't yet know and understand.

There is absolutely no excuse for this, none. It is just another example of the incompetent administration that merrily went to war with no plan to deal with the aftermath in Iraq, Afghanistan or at home. It is a reality too hard to bear that 96% of these poor souls were injured after "Mission Accomplished". Yet here we are with no end in sight and the foolish man who believes himself the "war president" making statements like this;

"We owe them all we can give them," Bush said during his last visit, a few days before Christmas. "Not only for when they're in harm's way, but when they come home to help them adjust if they have wounds, or help them adjust after their time in service."

You know he knows that this is the reality of his war but somehow he has convinced himself and a large part of the country that this is a justifiable cost of war. That it is OK to shortchange these men and women after they have made lifelong sacrifices in his stupid and senseless war. How wrong can a man be? We can never make up for what our government has done to these brave men and women and continues to do but we sure as hell should be trying out best to correct it.

All warfare is based on deception

MandT over at Adgitadiaries has another brilliant post up that is well worth the read. Woven through with the wisdom of Sun Tzu and Santayana it is a well turned summary of the state of our nation and the tragedy of our current misadventure in the Middle East. Give it visit but just to whet your appetite here is just a small quote.

Neoconservatism is a dangerous and unstable ideology and a profoundly anti democratic, anti American phenomena. Fascist in essence the total package is poisonous as a gestalt of radical religious fundamentalism, trans government economics, legal and illegal determinism, and unilateral militarism. Characteristic of the Bush administration is the disastrous and seemingly unstoppable entropy of incompetence that is mandating a certain failure of all the above ventures and the rapid decline of the American State, at least as most of us have always conceived it to be----a true democracy. The Casandra of our age, wailing the judgment, is New Orleans the perfect paradigm of what awaits the country as a whole. When Bush leaves office and bequeaths the next administration a balloon loaded with explosive nails the financial interests that bought us our demise will profit mightily from our collective tragedy. These people plan well. Cheney's retirement fortunes are tied to Haliburton's profits in Iraq and he is but an example how the neocon ideology is fundamentally not about America, but a trans global corporate governance.

Monday Morning in the Heartland

Monday morning and all is well. Feeling better and got a good nights sleep. Off the the client this morning but at least this time I will have some connectivity. I might get some time to make some contributions here today. We shall see. Everyone have a great day and let's put this Monday behind us.

So Far So Good

Well! I must say this trip to Indianapolis is so far going pretty well. Upgraded to first for the flight which is pretty common since I am a platinum medallion with Delta. Hertz gave me a no cost upgrade to a Volvo with NeverLost ( I love playing with the GPS) and the Hilton upgraded my room to a suite...a big ol' suite. Several families could live here...the sitting room is bigger than my den and there is a conference table with six chairs and a TV/conversation area with a sofa and two chairs. There are two baths and a very spacious bedroom as well...class digs. No complaints from this end and the weather is tolerable and supposed to improve over the week. Must be doing something right. Then again maybe all the positive vibes from visitors here made the difference.

I also think I pretty much kicked the cold in the butt with a good day of rest(Madam Monk was very insistent) and several doses of Alka-Seltzer Plus and Airborne.

Every once in while a road trip gets all the breaks and this seems to be one of them. I complain sometime about the travel but these little lagniappes dull the pain. Just checked in so I haven't had time to do any cruising on the blogs but it is early and I may be back tonight after I have some dinner. Later.

Terrible Indictment

UNITED NATIONS - Some 18,000 children die every day because of hunger and malnutrition and 850 million people go to bed every night with empty stomachs, a "terrible indictment of the world in 2007," the head of the U.N. food agency said.

I am not going to climb up on my soapbox here but I just want people to remember that the tragedy of our efforts in Iran and soon Iraq are more than the deaths of Americans and Iraqis and more than the destruction of a way of life for millions.

The treasure and effort we are pouring into Iraq on a daily basis is being diverted from so many other important things. Things that could make life better for millions instead of making life miserable for millions.

I am not suggesting that we could feed the world but we could be using some of our wealth to lessen the tragedies of these 18,000 children. There will always be hunger in the world but it is not right to turn our backs on it and not try and do something about it.

I am against war in all it's shapes and fashions and this is one of the primary drivers. War takes resources that could have a positive effect on our world and doesn't just withhold them but squanders them in such a way as to produce more pain and suffering. Just stopping war, though not enough, would at least be a move in the right direction.