Monkeyfister

... is "just a God damned piece of paper."



Nice.

George gets bored, so it's time to disrespect the flag.


To Top Of Main Page

Labels: George Fucking Bush

The peck that I picked and froze earlier this week diced down to about seven fat quart bags. I added fresh-picked and dried basil (I have a large screen on sawhorses up in the unfinished attic, where it gets really hot and dry) to all of them, and to three of those bags, I added chopped bell and hot peppers.

Today, I picked and froze up another four quarts with basil and to two of them, I added some red wine. We'll see how that works out.

Today's batch is especially pretty, as I used a lot of little, yellow pear tomatoes.

I've got enough Roma Tomatoes left over to make a lasagna for this evening.

As I type, I've got two gallons of fresh milk from a cow farmer around the bend on the stove, heating up to make two pounds of fresh mozzarella cheese for the lasagna. The mozz recipe is found in my Sidebar, under Food, and the Cheesemaking link.

I traded the farmer a half-dozen Big Boy Tomatoes, some Cucumbers (bugs killed his Cukes this year), a quart of fresh Strawberries, a huge bunch of Swiss Chard, and four Eggplants for the two gallons of milk. If that crappy white chemical and steroid shit that they sell as "milk" in the supermarkets is worth $4 a gallon, I think that I made one hell of an excellent trade for the real thing. I also bought a bunch of ground beef, steaks and roasts from him. He raises free-range, chemical-free cows, and grows his own organic grains and hay for them.

Once the cheese is done, I'm going to make a bunch of spicy bread and butter pickles, as I cannot keep up with my Cukes this year, and I really like how my last batch of B&B; pickles turned out. Tomorrow, I'm pickling peppers all day, as the harvest is decidedly IN.


To Top Of Main Page

Labels: Food Preservation, Food Security, Rural Barter

Wow.

via Her Kos Diary

Our family has been through a lot. Some caused by nature, some caused by human weakness, and some – most recently – caused by the desire for sensationalism and profit without any regard for the human consequences. None of these has been easy. But we have stood with one another through them all. Although John believes he should stand alone and take the consequences of his action now, when the door closes behind him, he has his family waiting for him.

John made a terrible mistake in 2006. The fact that it is a mistake that many others have made before him did not make it any easier for me to hear when he told me what he had done. But he did tell me. And we began a long and painful process in 2006, a process oddly made somewhat easier with my diagnosis in March of 2007. This was our private matter, and I frankly wanted it to be private because as painful as it was I did not want to have to play it out on a public stage as well. Because of a recent string of hurtful and absurd lies in a tabloid publication, because of a picture falsely suggesting that John was spending time with a child it wrongly alleged he had fathered outside our marriage, our private matter could no longer be wholly private.

The pain of the long journey since 2006 was about to be renewed.

John has spoken in a long on-camera interview I hope you watch. Admitting one’s mistakes is a hard thing for anyone to do, and I am proud of the courage John showed by his honesty in the face of shame. The toll on our family of news helicopters over our house and reporters in our driveway is yet unknown. But now the truth is out, and the repair work that began in 2006 will continue. I ask that the public, who expressed concern about the harm John’s conduct has done to us, think also about the real harm that the present voyeurism does and give me and my family the privacy we need at this time.

Ma'am, we all feel really badly for you all in regard to John's indiscretion. You are one hell of a strong woman, and I hope you all the very best.

Many of us out here really admire you, John and your family, and have supported you through thick and thin.

John's plans, policies and ideas are too good to be thrown down the tubes over this. Too many news outlets-- NPR included-- are saying John's political career is now over. If he never holds a Public Office again, America still needs his and your involvement is securing a sustainable, equitable, and reliable Universal Health Care Policy Change. We also need John's involvement in Domestic Economic and Tax Policy. We need you on the inside. Don't let The Village throw you out. Our leap to that conclusion, , as well as John's failure to you, has sparked our anger.

You've now told us that you have worked it through, and that's good.

Stay strong. Stay together. Stay active.

We out here are saddened, disappointed, but supportive.

In a real way, I am glad that John dropped the race, and that he's not the Presumptive Candidate. For you, and the sake of the Party and Country.

Things will work out. Together, life for you, your family, and all of us will be better.



To Top Of Main Page

Labels: What Life Deals

He says that there are tanks, APCs, and other machines of the elite Russian Army moving from from Russia across the Georgian border, not "volunteers," as Putin has claimed. The Bloomberg interviewer seems very skeptical, and pushes him hard. Right now, I don't know what to think, but, Saakashvili seems truthful and sincere.

Bloomberg Video


But, then again, so did John Edwards.

Update: Surfing around the nets, I am seeing speculation that this might be the start of some sort of proxy war between the US and Russia. We've all been a bit curious about the Bushies' relationship with Georgia, Georgia's NatGas pipeline flow shenanigans, and we know Georgia is a stop in the CIA's Extraordinary Renditions program. I've no real idea anymore of what is happening, or who is the real aggressor. A lot of people are dying, though.



To Top Of Main Page

Labels: War

Just damn you.



To Top Of Main Page

Labels: Democratic Party, Democratic Presidential Candidates 2008

Because Memphis and Shelby County politics are a sordid, corrupt, filthy and embarrassing thing to me, I do my very best to envision a big black hole of nothing there, and try to totally ignore what happens. Memphis is the home of the (Harold) Ford Family Political Machine-- the Tammany Hall of the Mid-South. The Tinker challenge to Steve Cohen for Tennessee's 9 District has been covered for days running on NPR, and I couldn't escape it. Other than that, I wasn't over-enthusiastic about this election day. The Republicans in the Partisan races were pretty-well out-voted in this primary-- Randy Davis (D) has Marsha Blackburn(R/INC.) topped by 9% going into November, for example, and that brings some promise. Nothing unexpected.

The really big news though is that Democratic Incumbent Steve Cohen has beat Nikki Tinker by a huge margin.

via MidSouth Votes

An editorial cartoon in a recent edition of the Memphis Commercial Appeal showed a truck labeled Nikki Tinker dragging (lynching) Steve Cohen. It's this bad down here, still:
















When will November get here?

To Top Of Main Page

Labels: Local Polictics

I-69 is the Interstate that has followed me my entire life. It started in Pt. Huron, Michigan, where I grew up. By the time I graduated High School, and chose Michigan State University in 1986, I-69 was just finishing connection to that area.

22 years later, I live in West Tennessee, and damn me if I-69 is going to be extended to within 1 mile west of my totally bucolic and mostly rural abode. The maps for "Section 8" have just been released. The two roads that I mostly drive to connect me to the little town I live near, and to US-51 are both set to be widened as truck thoroughfares. My own road is going to become an Interchange, and there will be a Weight Station just a 1/2 of a mile from me. We'll finally have SHOULDERS on the road, instead of six-foot deep ditches just one foot off the road, but LOTS more traffic. I'll be two houses away from what is to become a Business Loop. The corner house will be torn down, and my neighbor will be right next to it.

The Environmental Impact studies for the county north of me won't be finished and up for approval until late next year/Spring 2010, and construction won't start in my vicinity until ~2015-2018.

I suddenly wonder how much money I should invest in improvements here. The increased traffic, and having my only connections to US-51 (my only two routes to work) torn up for years during construction WILL force me out of this place. I am suddenly thrown for a loop, as my plans for building outbuildings, such as chicken coop/run, a goat house, pasture, Summer kitchen, are now going to have to be changed to appeal to buyers, instead of to my own aesthetics. Mr. and Mrs. Whitebread Peterson-Jones will need to LIKE what I have built; while just yesterday, I was planning on staying here at least until I retired in 15 years, and my buildings would have time for evolution and improvement. Now, I feel like I all of a sudden need to design and build either in a much more deluxe and expensive way, or not at all. I was planning on finishing the upstairs. Should I now just insulate it and not finish it, or finish it, and hope the bigger road will boost ACTUAL sale value?

The chances of being Eminent Domained are slim to nil.

I actually hate Southwest TN as a place to live. After five years, I know that I will never "grow to love it," like so many people say. My long-term goals right now, only include creating my own US/Western Mother Culture Exclusion Zone on my nearly two acres, and make friends with the neighbors.

I'm a total n00b when it comes to Home-ownership. I don't know what I SHOULD be considering.

So, if YOU knew that within 10 years your neighborhood was going to go from bucolic to chaotic, what plans would YOU make?

Is this an invest-and-hold, or a sell situation?


--mf

To Top Of Main Page

Labels: I-69, My Life As It Is

I've got a peck of beautiful Roma Tomatoes from the garden tonight, and I am going to dice and freeze them.


Here's The Safe And Easy Way To Do It.


To Top Of Main Page

Labels: Food Preservation

On this day in 2001, Preznit George, having heard the Prediential Daily Briefing entitled, "Bin Laden Determined To Strike In US." (transcript at link), told the briefer, "All right. You've covered your ass, now," and stayed on vacation in Crawford, TX. He didn't take a single action to improve security anywhere in the country. Vice President Dick "dick" Cheney, head of the President's Task Force On Terrorism," never bothered to even convene a single meeting.

Also, on this day in 1945, the first atomic bomb ever used in war was dropped on Hiroshima, Japan.

Perhaps, as we have no National Holiday for August, we should declare August 6th a National Day of Mourning, and have it off to reflect upon our position in the world, and our impact on the world at large.


The Hundredth Monkey



To Top Of Main Page

Labels: America's War History

I read this book back in 1982, as a High School Freshman. A girlfriend gave me a copy. Over the years, I've owned and gave away probably a dozen copies-- just like Richard Bach's "Illusions." It's a wonderful book, about a time before Man, when the Animal World was ruled by Law and Order, as dictated by the Rooster of the Land.

The protagonist is the haughty, Rooster Chauntecleer, and he rules his part of the realm with kindness, dignity and in the Light of Righteousness, and in the great traditions of his forebears. Little do any of the Animal Kingdom remember, from times long gone, that they are the keepers of the Great Wyrm-- the ultimate evil imprisoned within the heart of the Earth; and because fact has turned to myth, and myth to legend, and ultimately put out of mind, no one is prepared for when Wyrm turns, and finds a means to free itself via a jealous rival (and presumed barren) Rooster, named Senex.

Senex, it seems, has been mating hens, but all of the hens have been laying leathery eggs, which later hatch into evil basilisks-- nasty reptiles which turn animals to stone at a glance-- instead of proper chicks. It is up to Chauntecleer to rid the Kingdom of this new evil, and it is the arrival of the Dun Cow that levers momentum to the side of Good.

In the vein of C.S. Lewis, this book is a bit of fictional/religious allegory, and is pretty brilliant in its construction, at least as I recall, as it has been 20 years since I read it last. The Dun Cow is a sort of Messianic character that leads the haughty Chauntecleer to finally take action against the basilisks, and along with the Dun Cow, free the land of evil and stop the Wyrm's re-entrance into the world.

Has anyone here read it recently? It is out of print and fairly hard to find. I just found an Ebay seller with a copy, and purchased it.

I DO highly recommend it for young readers, if they should find it at a library or elsewhere. It's a wonder little tale.



To Top Of Main Page

Labels: Books

Melissa at Shakespeare's Sister has a great thread going on "what freaks you out?" The comments are excellent, and I for one have the shivers over some of them.

Me? It's spiders (and bats in the house)... and the reasons why are at the link.

Excellent thread. Fun discussion.


To Top Of Main Page

Labels: GAH

One month ago, I changed the spark plugs, wires, distributor cap and rotor, and aired-up the tires on my 1993 5-speed Honda Civic (134K miles). The mileage went from 25mpg to 33mpg. That's an extra 96 miles on a 12-gallon tank of gas. The whole thing cost less than $35, and took less than an hour.

But, Barack Obama is skinny, and Al Gore is fat, so what do they know?

I think that we should conserve first. But, I'm a skinny bastard, and must not know much, either.

Wire-- "Drill"...




To Top Of Main Page

Labels: DRILLDRILLDRILL, Stoopid Republican Energy Policies

Cool idea. There's a petition at EatTheView.org.




I had a long, hard weekend. I don't want to talk about it. Suffice to say extreme heat, plus very necessary outdoor chores, plus epilepsy = bad things. MadSat was right. I knew it was coming. I lost most of Saturday and Sunday. I'm still not right, but at least I didn't fall anywhere hard.


To Top Of Main Page

Labels: Gardening, Lawns To Gardens