And you want to know why I wanna’ be a rock star in my next life….Tha Ladies don’t faint over Golf Pro’s, that why…He he he.

Hussein Wins Wisconsin. So Did McCain. Aren’t you “Proud”, Michelle?

Fox News

Why Recall Two-Year-Old Ground Beef? Excellent Question…

Surely we ate it already! Why hell yes and don’t call me surely.

Updated Tuesday, Feb. 19, 2008, at 6:44 PM ET

Entrance gate at the Hallmark/Westland Meat Packing company

Hallmark Meat Packing recalled its entire beef supply from the past two years due to the improper slaughtering of sick cattle, the Department of Agriculture announced last weekend. The USDA’s Food Safety Inspection Service was quick to assure consumers that most of the recalled meat poses no health hazard and probably has already been consumed. Why would you recall meat that was sold two years ago?

In case someone hasn’t eaten it yet. Recalls of this kind extend as far back as there is evidence of safety violations. In many cases, this can be limited to meat packaged on a specific day or over the course of a given week, but the evidence of noncompliance at Hallmark was a more consistent problem, dating back at least two years. It’s possible there were even earlier violations—which might merit an even more extensive recall—but the government requires meat packers to maintain records of frozen beef shipments for only two years.

How much of that meat is still around? Not much, in all likelihood. The USDA recommends that uncooked frozen meat be served within four to 12 months of packaging, but there are no rules on how long a package of ground beef can stay on a freezer shelf. Still, it’s unlikely that anyone would be eating two-year-old beef. Ice crystals form on meat that’s been left in the freezer too long, breaking down the cell structure of the muscular tissue and making it soggy. This decrement in quality is so obvious that very few restaurants would bother serving it. Since none of the frozen meat produced by Hallmark was sold directly to grocery stores, consumers don’t have to worry about any contaminated packages tucked away in their home refrigerators. Most of the beef in question was sold directly to the food-service industry and to school lunch programs, which don’t normally keep supplies sitting around for years on end.

Slate

Chicken Piccata…Easy to do and delicious…

Sometimes it amazes me how a simple combination of basic, on-hand ingredients can yield such delightful results. Chicken piccata is nothing more than chicken breast cutlets, dredged in flour, browned, and served with a sauce of butter, lemon juice, capers, and either stock or white wine. It can be prepared in less than 20 minutes and is so easy and delicious it should be part of every home cook’s repertoire. I confess I never even heard of this dish until several of you requested a recipe for it over the course of the last couple months. So, thank you for your suggestions, this is a good one!

Elise.com

Novel Highly Potent Anticancer Drug From The Sea Identified

ScienceDaily (Feb. 20, 2008) — A collaborative team of researchers spearheaded by Dennis Carson M.D., professor of medicine and director of the Rebecca and John Moores UCSD Cancer Center at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) has identified a potent new anti-cancer drug isolated from a toxic blue-green algae found in the South Pacific. The properties of somocystinamide A (ScA) are described in a paper that will be published online in Proceedings of the National Academy of Science the week of February 11 -15.
“We are excited because we have discovered a structurally unique and highly potent cancer-fighting compound,” said Dwayne G. Stupack, associate professor of pathology at the Moores UCSD Cancer Center. “We envision it will be perfect for emerging technology, particularly nanotechnology, which is being developed to target cancerous tumors without toxic side effect’s.”

Science Daily

Let us hope. Enough of this cancer.

My ‘Hood in the News: Hollywood Pays Marfa for Desolation

I’ve mentioned previously that the Academy Award Nominated film, There Will be Blood was filmed in my neighborhood – the “next town over” of Marfa, Texas – and today after my afternoon nap I nearly blew coffee through my nose when I discovered a huge article about Marfa on CNN.

MARFA, Texas (AP) — A thousand feet above a wind-swept, drought-browned valley, a man steps out of a late-70s Ford Granada on a deserted two-lane. He is confronted by a second man, who raises a pneumatic bolt gun to his forehead and deals a fatal blow.

Chip Love — or “Man in Ford,” as Oscar-nominated “No Country For Old Men” would come to credit him — collapses to his knees on the blacktop, where Texas Ranch Road 2810 cuts through the crest of a hill covered in volcanic rock and tall, thick-trunked yuccas.

He gets up. He’s shot again. And again. And again. Eight times altogether he rises and falls.

Getting it right pretty much takes all day.

“It’s not as easy as it looks,” Love, 50, a local rancher and bank manager, laughs about his role as an early victim of psychopathic killer Anton Chigurh, played by Javier Bardem.

On another day, just a few miles to the west of Love’s “death,” a crew of oilfield workers bounds down the stairs of a dusty depot, emptying a train pulled by an early 20th century steam locomotive. But this is a scene that will play out in “There Will Be Blood,” another film up for multiple Academy Awards.

This is no mere coincidence.

When Hollywood needs Western desolation, it comes to Marfa, Texas.

When they say “desolation,” they mean desolation.

I live on 118 north of Alpine.

Here’s where we are in Texas. Perhaps only a Western Australian – among other western nations – could appreciate how sparse the population it is out here. Here’s one of my motorcycles in front of the Marfa courthouse on a day ride I took a while back.

I hate it when they do stories like this. I want to keep the area a secret.

Gee, wonder what Michelle Obama thinks about this. God Damn Lewd and Lascivious, huh? Courtesy, J.M.

via

Mitchieville

All the “dude” needs, is a ciggie. ‘Tell me baby, was it as good for you, as it was for me’?

Um… about those psychologists…

(H/T, the estimable Paco)
Ever hear of “ecopsychology”?

Like traditional therapy, ecopsychology examines personal interactions and family systems, while also encouraging patients to develop a relationship to nature.

“Global warming has added an extra layer of anxiety to what people are already feeling,” said Sandy Shulmire of Portland, Ore., a psychologist and practitioner of ecopsychology.

Sounds like a moneymaker to me.

January was “Wicked Pissah Fuckin’ Cold!”

OK, I exagerated the title juuuuust a little bit, but how cold was it? This cold.

“Anthony Watts reports that the drop from January 2007 to January 2008 “appears to be the largest single year to year January drop for the entire GISS data set.”

Of course, we’re not likely to hear much about record breaking cold, but Watts goes on:

This is yet one more indication of the intensity of planet-wide cooler temperatures seen in January 2008, particularly in the Northern Hemisphere, which has seen record amounts of snow coverage extent as well as new record low surface temperatures in many places.

Which has had the not surprising effect of restoring much of the sea ice lost last summer. The CBC reports:

Satellite images are showing that the cold spell is helping the sea ice expand in coverage by about 2 million square kilometres, compared to the average winter coverage in the previous three years. “It’s nice to know that the ice is recovering,” Josefino Comiso, a senior research scientist with the Cryospheric Sciences Branch of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Centre in Maryland, told CBC News on Thursday. “That means that maybe the perennial ice would not go down as low as last year.”

So what, Al Gore might say. The problem isn’t the extent of the ice, but the thickness. Well… The cold is also making the ice thicker in some areas, compared to recorded thicknesses last year, Lagnis added.

“The ice is about 10 to 20 centimetres thicker than last year, so that’s a significant increase,” he said.

I’m starting to think that the left only pays attention to the Arctic in the summer–when it’s supposed to melt.”

Looks cold as hell to me. This too. 

Brrrrrr!!!  As for Al Gore, he’ll probably respond with something along these lines.

 

USAF Generals Warn of “Geriatric Air Force”

In an article at the Commie News Network Clinton News Network CNN, some USAF officials are quoted as saying the aging USAF inventory of aircraft is not being replaced fast enough. In light of the much heavier demands being placed on the USAF fleet in the recent wars and rumors of wars, this makes perfect sense.

I’m sure many of you are aware of the recent grounding of the entire inventory of F-15 Eagles after a couple of them literally disintegrated in training flights. Fortunately, nothing like that has happened in a combat situation… yet… that we know of.

A couple of key paragraphs I found interesting and worthy of comment:

“An extra $20 billion each year over the next five — beginning with an Air Force budget of about $137 billion in 2009 instead of the $117 billion proposed by the Bush administration — would solve that problem, according to Selva and other senior Air Force officers.”

In this era of ludicrous trillion-dollar budgets, this actually seems like a pittance to me, especially when you put it into the perspective of the value of our freedom, and the lives of our military pilots.

“Yet the prospects for huge infusions of cash seem dim. Congress is expected to boost the 2009 budget, but not to the level urged by the Air Force. In the years that follow, a possible recession, a rising federal deficit and a distaste for higher taxes all portend a decline in defense spending regardless of which party wins the White House in November.”

Note that the egregiously profligate spending of the lawyer-politicians in congress is not mentioned. We could pay for these increases to the Air Force if the shysters in Congress simply stopped earmarking horse shit into the budget. Stop funding feel-good leftoid crap like sensitivity training, diversity education, and women’s studies – the list is nigh endless – and we could outfit all of the military branches with the equipment they need. Start real reforms, like eliminating entire federal agencies that are nothing but a waste of time and money, and we’d never have this problem again.

“The Air Force’s distress is partly self-inflicted, says Steve Kosiak of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments in Washington. The F-22 Raptor and F-35 Lightning, the new jet fighters that will supplant the F-15 Eagle and F-16 Falcon, have drastically higher price tags than their predecessors and require a bigger chunk of the defense budget.

“One of the reasons their equipment has aged so much is because they continue to move ahead with the development and presumed acquisition of new weapon systems that cost two to three times as much as the systems they are replacing,” Kosiak said. “It’s like replacing a Toyota with a Mercedes.”

The only problem I have with that is, we should be replacing the Toyotas with BMW’s.

These are the next generation air supremacy fighters:

This is the F-35 Lightning II, which is also called the JSF (Joint Strike Fighter). This single-engine aircraft is to replace the F-16, which is now over twenty years old. It will be used by US forces, and also sold to our allies.

And this is the F-22 Raptor, a twin-engine air supremacy fighter with stealth capabilities, which is to replace the F-15 Eagle, which is over thirty years old now (No wonder metal stress fatigue is causing them to break apart in the air).

This should be a simple calculation to make: How many would we need in a worst-case scenario? OK, build that many. As Spot would say, “it’s not rocket surgery.”

It’s one thing to have fifty year old B-52’s in the fleet, and quite another to have thirty year old fighters.

“As aircraft age, corrosion eats away at metal parts. Wiring and sealing begin to deteriorate. The fatigue, which can be hard to detect, is most acute in fighters that make turns while going at incredible speeds.

“An hour is not an hour” to an aircraft constantly under the strain of G-forces, Gen. John D.W. Corley, head of Air Combat Command at Langley Air Force Base, Va., said at a news conference last month. “It’s like dog years.””

Of course, a former Clinton Administration cocksucker crony had to weigh in, and he’s against it, of course.

“”There’s no justification for it. Period. End of story,” said Gordon Adams, a former Clinton administration budget official who specializes in defense issues. “Until someone constrains these budget requests, the hunger for more will charge ahead unchecked.””

This is the kind of horse shit you can expect from another Clinton administration, or an Osama Obama administration. McCain was a fucking Marine – Oooyah! – pilot, so I think we ought to let him decide.

Oh, and the appropriate response: Hey Adams, Fuck You, You Stupid Fucking Lefty Twat!

Read the whole thing, of course.

I’m Not Impressed!

 Whoever it was who stole that year 12 maths exam I had to do a few years ago,

I’m not happy! 

Fidel Castro Resigns Cuban Presidency After Half-Century in Power

HAVANA —  Ailing leader Fidel Castro resigned as Cuba’s president early Tuesday after nearly a half-century, saying in a letter published in online official media that he would not accept a new term when the newly elected parliament meets on Sunday.

“I will not aspire nor accept — I repeat I will not aspire or accept, the post of President of the Council of State and Commander in Chief,” read a letter signed by Castro published quietly overnight without advance warning in the online edition of the Communist Party daily Granma.

 God, Fidel plagiarized LBJ’S speech.

Fox News

911 Call Reveals Victim’s Final Moments in Chicago-Area Store Shooting. This is your State, Hussein Obama. What do you and Michelle think should happen to this person, if caught?

 

TINLEY PARK, Ill. —  Rhoda McFarland whispered a final one-word plea to 911 before she was discovered by the gunman robbing her suburban Chicago Lane Bryant store and he opened fire: “Hurry.”

Tinley Park authorities said the 42-year-old store manager, who was among the five women bound and fatally shot on Feb. 2 in a botched robbery, called 911 on her cell phone from inside the women’s clothing store. The recording of the call, released Monday and partially aired on “America’s Most Wanted” on Saturday, offered a glimpse into the ordained minister’s final moments. “Lane Bryant,” McFarland whispers to the dispatcher.“Where at?” the female dispatcher asks.

“Tinley Park,” McFarland replies. “Hurry.”

“Stay on the line. Stay on the line,” the dispatcher instructs. “… Don’t hang up.”

Then the phone goes dead.

The gunman accused of killing the five women and injuring a sixth remained at large Monday evening.

Senator Hussein Obama, excuse me, and Michelle…What do you two think should happen? Now that “for the first time in my adult lifetime, I am really proud of my country. And not just because Barack has done well, but because I think people are hungry for change. I have been desperate to see our country moving in that direction.”….

I’m sure we will hear your answers…Now that you both are “proud“.

Fox News

Brickhouse…Some of this MUST be Photoshopped…but I like the song….sooo.

Commodores – Lady You Bring Me Up

Nightshift

Best American Flag Ever…

Jules Crittenden…Ooppss, slight spelling error…all fixed now…continue on.