Bits & Pieces (Tuesday Night Open Mic)

Posted on January 17, 2012 by Kevin S. Willis

I a guy who wrote a blog novel got the novel published, there’s going to be a sequel soon, and now the first one has been made into a movie. It’s a weird book, but a great read. Reminded me of Stephen King filtered through tosh.0, in terms of writing style. Fun and imminently readable. It’s called John Dies At the End, and here’s the trailer:

Lionsgate tests simultaneous Facebook rental and DVD release. Is there anyone here who has ever or would ever rent a movie on Facebook? Amazon.com, Netflix, Flixter, sure. But Facebook? Well, maybe.

Dennis Hoff plans to open a sci-fi theme brothel in Nevada. That sounds fun.

I just watched Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory. It was strange to watch Gary Gitchell, the lead West Memphis investigator on the case, talking about the case at the time, and then to come in to work the next day and have him walk by my cubicle (he’s head of security for the district). Didn’t really realize until watching the movie that that’s who he was.

All I could think during most of the movie, with the Johnny Depps and Peter Jacksons coming out to hire the best forensic folks to review the case, is that—while these 3 men were not lucky, given their circumstances–they sure are lucky they’re white. Given the prison population in this country, demographically, they couldn’t find someone non-caucasian who had been railroaded to produce 3 HBO documentaries about, and then an independent film?

Filed under: Bits and Pieces | Tagged: , , | 52 Comments »

Andrew Sullivan & President Obama

Posted on January 17, 2012 by jnc4p

Courtesy Ezra Klein:

Andrew Sullivan’s 2007 profile of candidate Obama in the Atlantic is worth a reread in light of his most recent piece on the case for his reelection.

“Goodbye to All That: Why Obama Matters

Is Iraq Vietnam? Who really won in 2000? Which side are you on in the culture wars? These questions have divided the Baby Boomers and distorted our politics. One candidate could transcend them.
By Andrew Sullivan”

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2007/12/goodbye-to-all-that-why-obama-matters/6445/

“Andrew Sullivan: How Obama’s Long Game Will Outsmart His Critics
Jan 16, 2012 12:00 AM EST
The right calls him a socialist, the left says he sucks up to Wall Street, and independents think he’s a wimp. Andrew Sullivan on how the president may just end up outsmarting them all.”
http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2012/01/15/andrew-sullivan-how-obama-s-long-game-will-outsmart-his-critics.html

Ezra’s take:

“The case for Obama comes by way of Andrew Sullivan. It’s worth reading, if for no other reason than if you run in circles that talk politics, you’ll probably be asked to discuss it sometime this week. It’s an agenda-setting article like that. And, in a sense, it’s one Sullivan has written twice. In 2007, he profiled Obama for The Atlantic, in a piece that did a better job articulating Obama’s postpartisan appeal than even the candidate himself. This year, he has written a defense of Obama’s record that is better than anything the campaign has produced itself. Much as the ideas in Sullivan’s original Atlantic article felt novel early in the 2007 campaign but became the standard case for Obama by the time Americans went to vote, the arguments in Sullivan’s Newsweek article feel unusual now but will soon become standard among, at the least, Obama’s supporters. ”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/wonkbook-the-case-for-obama-and-the-continent-that-stands-in-his-way/2012/01/17/gIQAB0UG5P_blog.html

This is mostly a test to see how top posting works here, including cutting and pasting hypertext links.

Filed under: Obama | Tagged: | 13 Comments »

Morning Report

Posted on January 17, 2012 by Brent Nyitray

Vital Statistics:

Last Change Percent
S&P Futures 1300.9 12 0.93%
Eurostoxx Index 2397 35.460 1.50%
Oil (WTI) 100.77 2.070 2.10%
LIBOR 0.5623 -0.003 -0.46%
US Dollar Index (DXY) 80.821 -0.658 -0.81%
10 Year Govt Bond Yield 1.90% 0.04%
S&P futures are up after a 3 day weekend that started with S&P downgrades in Europe. Markets seem to be taking comfort in the Chinese GDP report last night that came in stronger than expected. Meanwhile Greece continues talks with bondholders regarding its upcoming 3/20 interest payment.
Earnings season gets into full swing this week, with Citigroup and Wells Fargo reporting this morning. Citi missed earnings on a drop in trading revenue, while Wells beat on stronger mortgage lending operations. Citi is down about 3 percent pre-open, while Wells is up about a percent.
In economic data, Empire State Manufacturing came in strong at 13.48 vs 11 expected.

Filed under: Morning Report | Tagged: , , | 49 Comments »

Happy MLK Day

Posted on January 16, 2012 by okiegirl

This was the beginning of my lifelong politicization, along with the MLK and JFK assassinations and, shortly after, the VN war.  I was 11 years old when this march occurred, living in a totally segregated world.  I will never forget how this event frightened my parents.  That was quite puzzling to me at the time.

Oddly, as I later learned, I was raised by parents who were actually quite racist.  But it was a religious and overt decision by them to raise their children in a nonracist home environment.  They did that successfully, but I cannot imagine how difficult that must have been to accomplish.  When I later became actively involved in the civil rights movement, I am certain my mother had moments of regret.

How many here are old enough to actually remember any of this and why we celebrate MLK day?

Filed under: Uncategorized | 92 Comments »

New Admin Post

Posted on January 16, 2012 by lmsinca

I thought I’d put up a new admin post in case there are still questions, suggestions, comments etc. regarding the new and improved All Things in Moderation blog.  I’d like to thank everyone for their diligence, creativity and patience since Friday when Kevin moved us here.  Just to recap, blogger made some changes we couldn’t live with so here we are.  We’re still waiting for a few people to sign in and/or find us so it seems somewhat logical to keep another open thread up for the next day or so.

Kevin should be checking in Tuesday or Wednesday  to add our logo at the top of the page, and possibly make some other changes, so we’re not quite done yet.

Anyway, glad you followed us over here for those of you who have, and welcome to those of you who are just now signing in.

Dropped this photo in just to see if I knew how and because I’m thinking of my garden already.  A Farmer’s Market in Spain.

Filed under: 2012, administrative, Uncategorized | 29 Comments »

Wisconsin Goes At It Again

Posted on January 15, 2012 by msjs0315

The deadline for this year’s crop of recall signature gathering was yesterday.  Something close to 1.5 million signatures will be carted to the Wisconsin Government Accountability Board (GAB) on Tuesday.

And the fun begins again.

Because of a recent court ruling, the GAB will need far longer than its mandated 31-day limit to deal with the paperwork.  A new software system and some 4 dozen extra employees will be needed to scan and verify the signatures, and the best guess for when recall elections may be held is late spring to early summer.

This favors the D’s, who can use the extra time to build name recognition and campaign war chests for their challenger candidates.

But pretty much everything else favors the R’s, which gets me wondering why the D’s decided to go through with it.

First, there is inertia.  Last summer’s recall elections demonstrated that it’s basically impossible to unseat an incumbent who got at least 52% of the vote in the prior election.  Of the four state senators likely to face a recall election this year, all surpassed that threshold.  Even if the incumbent squeaked by in the last election, it’ll be tough (remember Alberta Darling barely won her 2008 state senate race but successfully fought off a strong recall challenger last summer).  BTW, Walker won the governor’s race with 52.25% of the vote, putting him in the ‘inertia will out’ column.

Second, there’s money.  Due to a quirk in the state’s campaign finance laws, those R’s facing possible recall have been able to raise unlimited amounts of cash from individuals since mid-November.   Their D challengers, whomever they may be, can’t.

Third, there’s name recognition.  The R incumbents have it.  The challengers, especially those who enter the 4 state senate recall contests, may well not.

Fourth, the D’s have a depth-of-bench problem.  They need a strong statewide candidate to told onto retiring Herbert Kohl’s US Senate seat.  And a strong statewide candidate to unseat Gov. Walker.  It’s not clear they’ve got one such person, let alone two.  Current sentiment towards D’s from the Milwaukee and Madison areas isn’t high in other parts of the state and the D’s can’t win without rural/small city swing votes.  Every article I read still wistfully mentions former US Senator Russ Feingold, even though he’s been consistent and adamant about not running.   Now that signature gathering is over, voters will inevitably ask, “If not Walker/Kleefisch/Fitzgerald/Moulton/Wanggaard/Galloway, then who?”  The longer the D’s wait to present their answer, the more it hurts them.

Fifth, it seems more strategically important in the short term for the WI D’s to retain Kohl’s US Senate seat and ensure Obama wins Wisconsin in November.  Anything else is a distraction.  The D’s then can focus on developing homegrown talent to unseat Walker and a few state senators in 2014.

Filed under: 2012 | Tagged: , | 6 Comments »

Sunday Morning Political Post

Posted on January 15, 2012 by Michigoose

Because, after all, we are a political blog!

“The State”, South Carolina’s biggest newspaper, has endorsed Jon Huntsman this morning. As they say,

Mr. Huntsman is a true conservative, with a record and platform of bold economic reform straight out of the free-market bible, but he’s a realist, whose goal is likewise to get things done. Under his leadership, Utah led the nation in job creation, and the Pew Center on the States ranked it the best-managed state in the nation.

He also is head and shoulders above the field on foreign policy. He served as President George H.W. Bush’s U.S. ambassador to Singapore and President George W. Bush’s deputy U.S. trade representative and U.S. trade ambassador, and the next entry on that resume is even more impressive: He was a popular and successful governor in an extremely conservative state, well positioned to become a leading 2012 presidential contender, when Mr. Obama asked him to serve in arguably our nation’s most important diplomatic post, U.S. ambassador to China. It could be political suicide, but he didn’t hesitate. As he told our editorial board: “When the president asks you to serve, you serve.”

I would like to test embedded blockquotes, said Kevin Willis, editing this post. This should be removed later.

We don’t agree with all of Mr. Huntsman’s positions; for but one example, he championed one of the nation’s biggest private-school voucher programs. And with George Will calling him the most conservative candidate and The Wall Street Journal editorial page endorsing his tax plan, independent voters might find less to like about his positions than, say, Mr. Romney’s or Newt Gingrich’s.
What makes him attractive are the essential values that drive his candidacy: honor and old-fashioned decency and pragmatism. As he made clear Wednesday to a room packed full of USC students on the first stop of his “Country First” tour, his goal is to rebuild trust in government, and that means abandoning the invective and reestablishing the political center.

As a Utahn, and a liberal who wishes the Republicans would put up a realistic candidate, I’d love to see Jon Huntsman get the nomination. I still don’t think he’ll make it past South Carolina because I don’t the the Republican primary voters are in any mood for anything realistic, but there’s always hope for 2016.

Now the Dems just need to start thinking about 2016!

Filed under: 2012, politics | 91 Comments »

ADMIN & PREFERENCES redux

Posted on January 14, 2012 by okiegirl

It seemed to work well for us for a couple of days when we started on Blogspot, so here’s a post to serve as the place to ask questions, add tidbits for a future faqs page, share your newly acquired wisdom, publish your wish list and sound off on what you do and don’t prefer to see in terms of functionality and appearance.  At least until next Monday.

And I’m oh-so-sure that not one of us will post admin/pref comments on any other thread.

okiegirl

Filed under: administrative | 30 Comments »

Bites & Pieces (Shrimp Scampi)

Posted on January 14, 2012 by lmsinca

Admin Note:  Admin thread up for the weekend….please post questions, comments and observations there.  We want to hear from you.

When I turned 21, two things happened, my son was born and I was able to work as a waitress in a dinner house finally.  You couldn’t get a waitress job in a fine dining establishment until then because of the age requirement for serving alcohol.  I worked at two really up scale restaurants and those two jobs, working three or four long nights a week, are what kept me in school through my Masters.  I used to go in early occasionally at one of them to watch the chefs do their prep work, and that’s where I learned to make shrimp scampi.

As with many of the recipes I post here, the ingredients are approximations and you may need to be a little creative to make the recipe work for you.  I wish I had a picture to show you but I didn’t think of it when I made this dish on Jan. 1.

Shrimp Scamp

Serves 4

Ingredients:

2 lbs jumbo raw shrimp with shell on (about 5 or 6 per person)

1/2 lemon

1/4 cup melted butter

2-3 cloves of crushed garlic

1/4 cup parmesan cheese (I use Kraft not fresh for this recipe)

1/4 cup unseasoned bread crumbs

1 small jar capers

Directions:

Here’s the tricky part.  Cut the shrimp down the back until you’ve almost cut them in half but leave the little leggy things attached as well as the tail and shell.  You’re butterflying them from the back.  Clean the vein out and open them up and rinse and then drain on a paper towel.

Arrange shrimp in one or two shallow baking dishes with the little legs down, the flesh flattened out a little and facing up, and the tail bent a little so it points up.  Combine melted butter, lemon juice and garlic and drizzle over shrimp.  Combine bread crumbs and parmesan and sprinkle over shrimp.  Toss about 6 or 7 capers on top of each shrimp and broil for 7 to 10 minutes in the oven.

Voila!!!!

lmsinca

The World’s Most Ridiculously Easy Steamed Crab Legs

I think that I’ve mentioned before that I’m a big fan of Alton Brown (of “Good Eats” fame on FoodTV); he approaches food from a scientific standpoint and explains why the things happen that you do (and sometimes don’t) want to happen to make it come out right.  This is his method for making wonderful crab legs at home.

Hardware

  • Pliers
  • Large tweezers
  • Wooden or rubber mallet
  • Paper towels
  • Plastic wrap
  • Microwave oven

Software

  • Ghee (yes, you could make it, but you can also buy it in Indian markets)
  • 3 frozen crab legs from the butcher’s case at the store
  • 3 fresh dill sprigs

Tear off a looooong piece of plastic wrap (30 inches or so).  Wet two paper towels and stack them one upon the other on the plastic wrap.  Break the legs into two sections each and lay them on the paper towels along with the dill sprigs.  Wrap the paper towels around the legs, and then the plastic tightly around the paper towels–you shouldn’t be able to see any of the crab shell peeking out.

Microwave on high for two minutes.

Break the shells open with the pliers and/or mallet and pull the meat out with the tweezers. Dunk it in melted ghee and devour.

Serves two (or one, if you’re me).

michigoose

OK, bsimon, do tell about the time you almost gave your girlfriend food poisoning for Valentines Day. . .

Filed under: recipes | 35 Comments »

Am I there yet?

Posted on January 14, 2012 by okiegirl

Turn my back for just a few short days (weeks?), and just look what you folks do without adult supervision!  Everything is changed.  LOL.

I’m testing to see if I’m in or not.

 

okiegirl

Filed under: Uncategorized | 10 Comments »

« Previous Page — Next Page »