Mrs. Cratchet's Greatest Success

The Christmas Pudding, cannon ball shaped and served with flaming brandy and a sprig of holly.

It was ball shaped because it was cooked not in a baking dish but in a tied up piece of cloth like a sack and was boiled in water, not steamed or baked. In reading several Dicken's books you learn that cooking facilities of the common people was the fireplace. This hearth may have had small surface of iron like a small griddle but that is the extent of the kitchen. The Cratchet's dinner included potatoes cooked in a pan on this hearth and applesauce. Yes, the goose was baked, but the only available ovens were the town bakeries, hence the passage in 'A Christmas Carol' describing people carrying home their dinners through the streets. As I said the pudding was boiled, but the only pot large enough was the "copper", being the laundry tub in the backyard.

Christmas Pudding History and Recipes

I KNEW IT!!!

Chemical In Beer May Prevent Prostate Cancer

9:01am UK, Wednesday December 09, 2009
Lewis Dean, Sky News Online

Beer-drinking men may be reducing their chances of developing prostate cancer with every pint, tests by scientists have revealed.


Beer contains a compound that may fight cancer.

Experiments have shown that xanthohumol, a compund derived from the hops in beer, blocks a chemical reaction that can lead to the development of cancer.

The disease is usually treated with drugs that act in a similar way.

Study leader Dr Clarissa Gerhausa, from the German Cancer Research Centre in Heidelberg, said: "We hope that one day we can demonstrate that xanthohumol prevents prostate cancer development, first in animal models and then in humans, but we are just at the beginning."

Xanthohumol is a powerful antioxidant, known to have anti-cancer properties. It is also found in fruits and spices.

It was previously suggested that the compound could reduce the chances of females getting breast cancer.

Scientists now believe a similar reaction could affect men.

Further research involving rats showed that xanthohumol reduced the effects of hormone signalling in prostate tissue.

Gotta love VDH

An analogy to make you go . . . "huh?" and start reaching for the dictionary.

It is sort of like the retiarius throwing his net every which way while stabbing with trident—only to cry foul and “how dare you!” when nicked back by the sica of the Thracian.

-Victor Davis Hanson, from a recent political commentary article.

================================================

retiarius (plural retiari or retiarii)

1. A type of gladiator, who uses a casting net (a rete or iaculum) as a weapon.

sīca (genitive sīcae); f, first declension

1. a poniard, a curved dagger

Thracian

1. an inhabitant of Thrace, regardless of ethnicity (plural Thracians).

Thrace

1. A region in northeastern Greece, much of southern Bulgaria, and parts of northwestern Turkey.

Porky Politician

I was reading an article which at one point talked about the Fed. Just to brush up my knowledge I wiki'd it and skimmed through it a bit. In doing so I came across this little chart in the sidelines and this little tidbit in it's explanation. I found it poignant because I totally agree with the last part.

The generally agreed upon reason independence leads to lower inflation is that politicians have a tendency to create too much money if given the opportunity to do it.

Reefer madness

You know those keyless remote entry fobs that come with cars nowadays. The ones that you thought were a silly idea until you actually started using one and now your opinion is "how did we ever do without them". Well, automatic ice and water in the refrigerator door has become the same way.

This is the water supply connection that comes with the standard kit. It's made for homeowners who want to connect up fast and easy without calling a plumber. They work by puncturing a little hole in the water pipe with a sharp needle and are made water tight with a rubber gasket. However since installation the water flow has always seemed very slow when waiting to fill up your glass, so I went down the other day and ran the needle in (and out) again attempting to make the hole larger and guess what, that's right, no water flow at all. Apparently the rubber gasket has now been squished to the point of cutting off the flow no matter what, even with completely dismantling and reinstalling it.

Here's my solution. Luckily I already owned the blow torch plumbing kit from a previous project and this roughly only cost the price of a new valve.

Apostrophe's test in link

This is a test. If this were a real notice, please proceed to the bomb shelter of your choice.

Update:
Test unsuccessful. Blogger removed the apostrophe from the actual link/page URL. Also Blogger eliminated the space and question marks of the post below also (when viewing the individual post as a separate page).

Hmmmmm, how to test...

Another Article Censored ??

http://frontpagemag.com/2009/12/03/what%E2%80%99s-liberating-about-islam-by-rita-karlsen/

Another article on FrontPageMag, About Islam, From Norway, Translated (I think by the same person). Different original Author. Again the founding link was on Lucianne.

Still the apostrophe in the title, but I don't think that's the problem.

When on FrontPage website I used their google search to search the site; the author and the title show up several places (the search returns several results). But when I go to the listing or reference pages the very phrases that google found are not to found on the page as displayed. They seem to be scrubbed. The search results of the actual article again return a 404.

Flight Attendant Hell

Ladies and gentlemen, may I have your attention, those passengers seated in rows 1 thru 28 will not receive meal and drink service due to a slight obstruction in the aisle-way. In case of an emergency the emergency exit located at seat 27F will be unavailable as it will be wedged full of flesh. Thank you for your attention, have a nice flight, and thank you for flying American Airlines.

Twas the Night before Christmas

*As Targets were hanging their trees upside down*
* At Lowe's the word Christmas - was no where to be found.*
*At K-Mart and Staples and Penny's and Sears*
*You won't hear the word Christmas; it won't touch your ears.*
*Inclusive, sensitive, Di-ver-si-ty*
*Are words that were used to intimidate me.*
*Now Daschle, Now Darden, Now Sharpton, Wolf Blitzen*
*On Boxer, on Rather, on Kerry, on Clinton !*
*At the top of the Senate, there arose such a clatter*
*To eliminate Jesus, in all public matter.*
*And we spoke not a word, as they took away our faith*
* Forbidden to speak of salvation and grace*
*The true Gift of Christmas was exchanged and discarded*
*The reason for the season, stopped before it started.*
*So as you celebrate 'Winter Break' under your 'Dream Tree'*
*Sipping your Starbucks, listen to me.*
*Choose your words carefully, choose what you say*
*Shout MERRY CHRISTMAS ,
not Happy Holiday !*
Please, all Christians join together and
wish everyone you meet during the
holidays a
MERRY CHRISTMAS
Christ is The Reason for the Christ-mas Season!

Over the years whenever I've been confronted with the political correctness of "Cultural Sensitivity" and "Celebrating Diversity", I've always noticed that my culture and my choice to be diverse is either ignored and left out or sometimes slandered as the bad guy. I'll celebrate with them when my culture is included equally and without prejudice.

Yes, I'm a Christian, White, Male, American of Anglo-Saxon European origins who obeys the law, served in our armed forces, and believes in the freedoms, self-reliance, responsibility, and the limited government principals of our nation's founding fathers.

Original Article Blocked??

Please go to this Lucianne article page and link to the original article at FrontPageMag.com.

All I get is a 404: , and I'm wondering what's going on.

I've tried several google searches and links, links from other blogs and even searches on Frontpagemag.com.

The link to the original article in lucianne's site is http://frontpagemag.com/2009/11/30/subduing-women's-sexuality-by-hege-storhaug/

The Cinnamon Bear

Presenting the original 1937 radio show version of "The Cinnamon Bear" (Wikipedia). Twenty-Six nightly episodes (originally aired the day after Thanksgiving and ending on Christmas day, but not on Sundays). I've listed them here in continuous nightly order ending Christmas Eve, which means starting Nov-29th. You can start on Thanksgiving night but you would somehow have to skip the appropriate number of nights (each year is different since Thanksgiving is always Thursday).

Nov29_PaddyOCinnamon.mp3
Nov30_WearyWilly.mp3
Dec01_CrazyQuiltDragon.mp3
Dec02_TheIkaboos.mp3
Dec03_WeasleyWailingWhale.mp3
Dec04_SamuelSeal.mp3
Dec05_PrestoTheMagician.mp3
Dec06_CandyPirates.mp3
Dec07_RollyPollyPoliceman.mp3
Dec08_ProfessorWhiz.mp3
Dec09_FeeFootheGentleGiant.mp3
Dec10_RhymingRabbit.mp3
Dec11_TheWintergreenWitch.mp3
Dec12_QueenMelissa.mp3
Dec13_SnaperStickCrocodile.mp3
Dec14_OliverOstrich.mp3
Dec15_Muddlers.mp3
Dec16_CockleburCowboys.mp3
Dec17_WoodenIndian.mp3
Dec18_FlyingHat.mp3
Dec19_Snowman.mp3
Dec20_SantaClaus.mp3
Dec21_TheBadDolls.mp3
Dec22_TheParade.mp3
Dec23_CaptainTintop.mp3
Dec24_NorthPole.mp3

Recent Reading

Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe.

A good read overall. Bits and pieces of philosophy here and there that make you think and ponder. Ethics, Religion, and cultural issues are occasionally pondered throughout the story. Setting those aside the general story is a good adventure tale and is hard to put down once you get into it.

The primary drawbacks are the writing style and of course the period language/prose. The difference in prose from another time in history is one reason to read classic lit. so this is not a negative, just a difficulty. The writing style takes some effort to get past. First there are no chapters. . . none. You never get a convenient stopping point to set the book down. The plot is not divided in any way. Second, the timeline of the plot is dis-jointed. The author will write of doing something and then much later tell you "by the way that took a year and a half to accomplish, and now back to where we were. . .".

As far as the story itself; I've always heard it to be the story of being stranded on a deserted island, but found there is a considerable amount of story both prior to and after the island. Not a little of here's the setup and here's the happy ending afterwards, but a fair amount of story/plot which has little to do with the central island plot-line. The other part of the story which I found odd was that you expect the story of a castaway to be one of struggle and difficulty but here in this story Crusoe very conveniently recovers most everything he needs from the wreck of the ship (i.e. after 28 years he still has gunpowder (and functioning guns in a humid tropical clime), also he eats bread from the ship for nearly a year). Not to mention his incredible recovery of his money, business, and property after being presumed dead for 29 years.

Overall worth reading.

Hmm. Can't imagine what Major Malik Nadal Hasan's motivation could have been

Telegraph.co.UK story click here.

I'm in the 99.9%

Linux Web-Server Humor.

Brewing more Tea

Went to another Tea Party this afternoon here in Portland. Part of the Tea Party Express. My estimate was 500 to 700 people. Pretty good for 1:00pm on Friday in the Socialist County of Multnomah.

A good Thank You to Michael's for allowing the use of his parking lot.


A side note: There was one counter protester (?). A woman in her 30's went through the crowd at one point screaming at people, calling them "fascists" over and over again. My honest opinion was she may have been a mentally ill person. She got into one guy's face and I thought there might be a confrontation, but she moved on. As she came my direction a woman in front of me looked around and then quickly walked around and got behind me. I was going to simply stand my ground in silence, but nothing happened as the crazy woman moved on.