Alt-Country?

This is a gas. Or is it diesel?

CWCID: Instapundit

Quote Of The Day

"The absurd is sin without God."
- Albert Camus

More Bread Blogging

Mark Bittman strikes again with more and speedier versions of the original No Knead bread recipe:

Speedy No-Knead Bread
3 cups bread flour
1 packet ( 1/4 ounce) instant yeast
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
Oil as needed.
1. Combine flour, yeast and salt in a large bowl. Add 1 1/2 cups water and stir until blended; dough will be shaggy. Cover bowl with plastic wrap. Let dough rest about 4 hours at warm room temperature, about 70 degrees.
2. Lightly oil a work surface and place dough on it; fold it over on itself once or twice. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rest 30 minutes more.
3. At least a half-hour before dough is ready, heat oven to 450 degrees. Put a 6-to-8-quart heavy covered pot (cast iron, enamel, Pyrex or ceramic) in oven as it heats. When dough is ready, carefully remove pot from oven. Slide your hand under dough and put it into pot, seam side up. Shake pan once or twice if dough is unevenly distributed; it will straighten out as it bakes.
4. Cover with lid and bake 30 minutes, then remove lid and bake another 15 to 30 minutes, until loaf is beautifully browned. Cool on a rack.
Yield: 1 big loaf.

Fast No-Knead Whole Wheat Bread
2 cups whole wheat flour
1/2 cup whole rye flour
1/2 cup coarse cornmeal
1 teaspoon instant yeast
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
Oil as needed.
1. Combine flours, cornmeal, yeast and salt in a large bowl. Add 1 1/2 cups water and stir until blended; dough will be shaggy. Cover bowl with plastic wrap. Let dough rest about 4 hours at warm room temperature, about 70 degrees.
2. Oil a standard loaf pan (8 or 9 inches by 4 inches; nonstick works well). Lightly oil your hands and shape dough into a rough rectangle. Put it in pan, pressing it out to the edges. Brush top with a little more oil. Cover with plastic wrap and let rest 1 hour more.
3. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Bake bread about 45 minutes, or until loaf reaches an internal temperature of 210 degrees. Remove bread from pan and cool on a rack.
Yield: 1 loaf.

We Won

You heard it here first....

Quote Of The Day

"The moment of truth in the nation's automotive bailout debate might have come this week. As the CEOs of GM, Ford and Chrysler begged Congress for federal aid, a Detroit radio talk-show host asked whether Michigan, as well as the car companies, should get assistance. The state is being hit by an economic hurricane, he said, just as New Orleans was hit by a natural hurricane.

Huh? Will the victimology myth never end? Hurricane Katrina was an act of God. The car crisis is an act of man. For the difference, consult the Bible. Any version will do."
- Paul Ingrassia in The Wall Street Journal

Talk About Turkeys

Governor Sarah Palin pardoned a turkey destined for the Thanksgiving Day table on Thursday and then ignited a fire storm by giving a three minute interview while two other turkeys were being dispatched over her left shoulder.

Governor Palin should know better by now than to trust any form of media. While she is being flailed by the "candy asses" at the Huffington Post and MSNBC I don't think any of them have questioned the intentions. motivations or integrity of the camera crew. So score one for the media; Sarah Palin did what any number of politicians have done and will continue to do - say something "off color" into a live microphone or be filmed driving a tank.

This kerfuffle also points out a much deeper issue that becomes apparent when urban Americans encounter realities rural Americans take for granted - which often revolves around "food" and how it gets to the table. We are all hunters in this clan and during a recent birthday feast for yours truly our table was graced with elk and venison - a meal truly fit for a king. We are under no illusions about the efforts involved in bringing that food to table because it most certainly did not come shrink-wrapped in plastic from the grocery store. The unwillingness of so many to show even a basic level of understanding about where their food comes from or take any responsibility for what is being done on their behalf is, at best, hypocritical. But to be outraged by the "reality" of the situation is just intellectually dishonest.

"You Can All Go To Hell - I'm Going To Texas!"

Uncle Ted pulls out all the stops on a radio show in California:

"Your logic, your truth, your good will, your decency, your work ethic -- it still is the guide post of America. You are "We the people."

It is the lunatic fringe that is celebrated by a media bent on socialism, bent on revitalizing the Mao Zedong agenda -- you are not the minority, you are the majority.
You know rush hour? What a pain in the *ss rush hour is? Do you have rush hour in Bakersfield? I bet you have rush hour. You know what that is? You know what that is? Those are people with alarm clocks. Those are people who get up because they have a burning fire in their soul that says, "You must be productive. In order to be a good, decent human being, you must be an asset. You must work hard before you play hard."

So Gary, you are not along. But, what the real curse is, it's not the lying, left-wing, Mao media, it's those of us who know better, but don't speak up. The people of California have backed down. The people who are productive in California have backed down to the pimps, and the whores, and the welfare brats, and their media, and their politically correct representatives, Boxer, Feinstein, Schwarzenegger, who literally will lie through their teeth to benefit some blood sucking constituency while your paycheck is being raped and pillaged to pay for some bling-bling infested punk.

You've got to start raising Hell -- and I am constantly being gunned down by the media; I'm a curse, I'm a dangerous guy, I'm a madman, I'm scary, I have too many guns, I shoot all the deer -- eat me. I stand up and I take the bullets because my name is Davy Crockett. This is the wall of the Alamo. If you can't shoot Santa Anna's men, shut up and load my gun. So get tough and get tougher.

You don't need tough love in America, you need tougher love. Around the water cooler, at the church, at school. At the work place, at the picnic, and the bowling alley. You should be pounding the desk with your fist, raising hell, and take this beautiful state back from the pimps, and the whores, and the welfare brats, and the gang-bangers who seems to have all the rights in the world while the good people, the productive, law abiding people don't have jack squat -- and I think I am going to throw up."

Perspective

Where Does All Our Money Really Go?

In The Know: Should The Government Stop Dumping Money Into A Giant Hole?

Visions Of Obama

Ain't it just like the Left to play tricks when we're tryin' not to riot?

We all say we're not screwed, we're all doin' our best to deny it

As Dems claim a mandate for change, temptin' you to defy it

Hope blossoms on the opposite side

In our camps the flamewars abide

The talk radio station plays nice

But it's got nothing, really nothing, to entice

Just Limbaugh and Hannity so entwined

And these visions of Obama that conquer my mind

In our empty treasury the pols play blindman's bluff with the supply chain

And the leftoid bloggers they whisper of escapades on the Palin Campaign

We can hear Abe Lincoln slap his forehead

Ask himself if it's him or us that's really insane

Neoneocon, she's all right, she's stayed clear

She's delicate as she posts to the 'sphere

But she just makes it all too concise and too clear

That Obama's not here

The ghost of 'lectricity howls in the comments at her blog

Where these visions of Obama have come up from the bog

Now, little boy Ace, he takes himself so seriously

He slags Andrew Sullivan, he likes to post dangerously

And when bringing O's name up

He speaks of a farewell finger to thee

He's sure got a lotta gall to be so scrappy and all

Hosting open thread squawks for recall while America's at the mall
Oh, how can I explain?

It's so hard to rant on

And these visions of Obama, they kept me up past the dawn

Contemplatin' congress, your sanity goes up on trial

Voices blather this is what lobotomy must be like after a while

But Pelosi musta had the Biden Botox blues

You can tell by the way she smiles

See the Little Green Footballs all freeze

When the jelly-faced Kossacks all sleaze

Hear the ones with dementia say, "Jeeze

Find us more killers to appease."

Oh, tax-hikes and deficits swarm in our new head of state

Where these visions of Obama are not up for debate.

This blogger now speaks to the Anchoress who's trying hard to pray for him

Sayin', "Name me a politician who's not a parasite and I'll go out and I'll campaign for him"

But like Michelle always says

"Can't find a decent Dem much, can ya man?"

As she, herself, prepares to napalm them

And the real Messiah, He still has not showed

We see the Cross we emptied now corrode

Where Liberty and belief once had glowed

Mr. Death, he now steps to the road

He writes they're coming for more money than they're owed

On the back of the Jihad truck that loads

While the next 9/11 explodes

The harmonicas play high fading blues for John McCain

And these visions of Obama are now all that remain.


Courtesy of Vanderleun

Welcome!

As a student of Soviet history in my ill spent youth I always found this story to be as illustrative as it was amusing. I happened to remember it just as the Obama's were meeting the Bush's at The White House today.

"On October 14, 1964, after being deposed by his rivals at a Central Committee meeting, primarily for being an "international embarrassment," Nikita Khrushchev, who until only moments earlier was the First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, sat down in his office and wrote two letters.

Later, his successor, Leonid Brezhnev, upon taking office found the two letters and a note Khrushchev had attached:

"To my successor: When you find yourself in a hopeless situation which you cannot escape, open the first letter, and it will save you. Later, when you again find yourself in a hopeless situation from which you cannot escape, open the second letter."

And soon enough, Brezhnev found himself in a situation which he couldn't get himself out of, and in desperation he tore open the first letter. It said simply, "Blame it all on me." This Brezhnev did, blaming Khrushchev for the latest problems, and it worked like a miracle, saving him and extending his career.

However, in due time Brezhnev found himself in another disaster from which he could not extricate himself. Without despairing he eagerly searched his office and found the second letter, which he tore open desperate for its words of salvation. It read thus:

"Sit down, and write two letters."

From 52 To 48 With Love

From TigerHawk:

"Here's a little online community art project that is either a heart-warming affirmation of America or a teeny bit nauseating, depending on your personality.For my part, I think it is a friendly gesture from a bunch of undoubtedly nice people. I just worry that the same folks believe that this might also be the best path to peace in the Middle East."

This one is my favorite. We are definitely at the "actions speak louder than words" stage.

Too Little Too Late

From Deborah Howell, The Washington Post ombudsman:

"The Post provided a lot of good campaign coverage, but readers have been consistently critical of the lack of probing issues coverage and what they saw as a tilt toward Democrat Barack Obama. My surveys, which ended on Election Day, show that they are right on both counts."

Is it just me or would it not have been better to correct the reportage before Election Day since you knew you were providing biased coverage? Only unbridled arrogance can account for this.

If nothing else, this election cycle has proven that the MSM have no credibility left and are most certainly not a source of unbiased information. Coupled that with their current financial difficulties and circulation declines it can only hasten their eventual demise.

How Beautiful We Were

Van der Leun at American Digest:

A short list. In no particular order.

We told our children that any child could grow up to be President. And then we made it come true.

We had car shows, boat shows, beauty shows and dog shows.

We ran robots on the surface of Mars by remote control.

Our women came from all over the world in all shapes and sizes hues and scents.

We actually believed that all men are created equal and tried to make it come true.

Everybody liked our movies and loved our television shows.

We tried to educate everybody, whether they wanted it or not. Sometimes we succeeded.

We did Levis.

We held the torch high and hundreds of millions came. No matter what the cost.

We saved Europe twice and liberated it once.

We believed so deeply and so abidingly in free speech that we protected and even honored and in some cases even elected traitors.

We let you be as freaky as you wanted to be.

We paid you not to plant crops and not to work.

We died in the hundreds of thousands to end slavery here and around the world.

We invented Jazz.

We wrote the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Gettysberg address.

We went to the moon to see how far we could hit a golf ball.

We lifted a telescope into orbit that could see to the edge of the universe.

When people snuck into the country against our laws, we made parking lots and food stands off to the side of the road so they wouldn't get hurt, and we let them use our hospitals for free, and we made their children citizens.

We didn't care what God you worshipped as long as we could worship ours.

We let the People arm themselves at will. Just to make sure.

We gave everybody the vote.

We built Disneyworld. Just for fun.

We had a revolution so successful it was still going strong two and a quarter centuries later.

We had so many heroes, even at the end, that we felt free to hate them and burn them in effigy.

We electrified the guitar.

We invented a music so compelling that it rocked the world.

We had some middling novelists.

We had some interesting painters.

We had some pretty good poets.

We had better songwriters.

We ran our farms so well we fed the globe.

We made the automobile and the airplane.

We let you get rich. Really, really rich. And we didn't care who you were or what you were or where you came from or who your parents were. We just cared about what you made or what you did.

We had poor people who, even at their most wretched, were richer than any other poor people on the face of the planet.

Even towards the end, as we dissolved in petty bickering and the idle entertainments that come with having far too much leisure and money, we were trying to make it higher, finer, brighter, better and more beautiful.

Even towards the end, the best of us declined to give up and pressed on. "Where to? What next?"

Quote Of The Day

"The treatment President Bush has received from this country is nothing less than a disgrace. The attacks launched against him have been cruel and slanderous, proving to the world what little character and resolve we have. The president is not to blame for all these problems. He never lost faith in America or her people, and has tried his hardest to continue leading our nation during a very difficult time.

Our failure to stand by the one person who continued to stand by us has not gone unnoticed by our enemies. It has shown to the world how disloyal we can be when our president needed loyalty -- a shameful display of arrogance and weakness that will haunt this nation long after Mr. Bush has left the White House."
- Jeffrey Scott Shapiro in The Wall Street Journal