Michael Moore's latest article which is published in USA Today is topping the list of political (election) blogs right now.
Here's a segment...
I made the following recipe last weekend to the delight of both me and Paul. Thought I'd share. Enjoy.
Ingredients
2 (15 oz) cans of black beans, drained and rinsed
1 cup vegetable or chicken broth
1 cup salsa
1 Tbsp ground cumin
1 Tbsp chili powder
Garnish
sour cream
2 green onions, sliced thin
Directions
1. In a food processor or blender, combine beans, broth, salsa, cumin and chili powder. Blend until fairly smooth.
2. Heat the bean mixture in a medium saucepan over medium heat until heated through, stirring often. Add salt and pepper to taste.
3. Ladle into bowls and garnish with sour cream and green onions.
Variations
Last week the Austin for Kerry and Edwards website posted this video of Ben Barnes, former Lieutenant Governor of Texas explaining how he gave Shrub a free pass during the Viet Nam War (er, I mean police action). Here's an excerpt of what he said:
Fun times in Texas these days!
Yesterday, Paul and I spotted a Yellow-throated Warbler on the suet feeder. It is a gorgeous bird. Warblers are starting their southern migration, so I'm keeping my eyes peeled for other migrants. Happy travels, beautiful one!
The good people over at the ACLU are currently running a campaign to have major corporations take a "no-spy pledge". In doing so, corporations promise to not give over customer information to the government. You can read an article about this campaign or just check out the campaign page for yourself. Consider sending a letter to a company that is not on the list. I've emailed Kroger and Marsh grocery stores since they are the only stores that I visit on a regular basis. I assume that my local co-op is not a government spy :) If you do send a letter, please correct the typo in the letter (intruments should be instruments).
I'm home today, caring for the second bird in as many days. My first died after its first night here. It was a finch or sparrow that had fallen from its nest and probably suffered a head injury. My second is a healthy Carolina Wren whose backstory I don't know. I would guess that it is about 3 or 4 days old. Yesterday, I spent every 10 min of my time at Wildcare carefully prying open its mouth to be able to feed it. After 6 hours of this, he gaped for the first time. Within 45 min of that first gaping she was safely tucked in away in our guest bedroom. Carolina Wrens are known as "high-stress" animals in the world of wildlife rehabilitation. They require quite, dark, warm places to grow up and therefore do not fare well in a captive space full of noise and light. A group of 5 Carolina Wrens were cared for at the home of another volunteer recently and now the 3 that survived their early development stage are at the center, oddly enough, fully adjusted and doing well. I'm hoping that soon the little guy that is here will be able to join her brethren.
He is currently on a 20 minute feeding schedule which is a lot easier than the 10 minute one from yesterday. It doesn't allow me to leave the house, but I have no need to go anywhere. It is still unseasonably cool (61°), so there is a lot of activity at the bird feeders. I've counted 12 house finches at the feeders at one time, not to mention the cardinals, chickadees, tufted titmice, chipping sparrows, downy woodpeckers, mourning doves and nuthatches. This morning when it was a whopping 48°, the hummingbirds looked particularly put out by the autumn temps. They were all puffed out, making them look a lot less like the sleek bullets they normally do. They have been going through the nectar like crazy. I find myself making 4 cups every few days in order to keep up with the demand.
I've been subscribing to all sorts of bird listservs lately. I've set up a couple of email accounts on my server to handle the email and have been using the Opera email client. (If you don't already use Opera as your web browser, what are you waiting for? Get rid of that security hole that is IE and learn how a real browser lets you get so much more out of your time online!) Here are the two most recent sightings that has the birding world aflap:
The Virtue of Idleness (Guardian UK, 7 August '04)
"From the Bible on, moralists and nags have promoted the benefits of hard work and early rising. They are mistaken, argues Tom Hodgkinson. For breathing space to create and time to reflect, indolence is essential. He offers a guide to easy living, pleasurable illness, and effortless sex"
A list of company name etymologies is making its way through the weblogworld. Check it out for yourself. Very interesting.
Granted, Wachovia is an evil, evil company, but one of their subsidiaries (Macroworld) offers a nice service. Check out their list of news providers. To select news by topic, use their navbar on the left.
I really appreciate being able to access the AP Worldstream. Because my account with IU is still active, I can search all their databases online (including the ever useful Lexis-Nexis), but they don't provide a browsing capability. Using it presents a Socratic "don't know what I don't know" sort of situation. Usually, if I find an article I have to pay for (like outdated NY Times articles), I'll head to Lexis-Nexis and do a search. But I really do like this Macroworld site. Keep refreshing the page to see the most current stories that have been published.
McCain condemns anti-Kerry ads, calls on White House to follow suit (by Ron Fournier, AP Political Writer, 5 August 2004)
By now, you've probably heard about the ads being run by the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth which feature Viet Nam vets who claim that Kerry is a liar and isn't a war hero. And while it is not officially supported by the Bush Campaign, it is yet another example of the Bush administration refusing to rise to the level of common decency.
As a former target of this type of underhanded, intentional deceit and a Viet Nam war veteran himself, McCain is taking a stand. He has asked the White House to call for suspension of the ads. The White House has declined the request.
McCain said that's all in the past to him, but he's speaking out against the anti-Kerry ad because "it reopens all the old wounds of the Vietnam War, which I spent the last 35 years trying to heal."
"I deplore this kind of politics," McCain said. "I think the ad is dishonest and dishonorable. As it is, none of these individuals served on the boat (Kerry) commanded. Many of his crew have testified to his courage under fire. I think John Kerry served honorably in Vietnam. I think George Bush served honorably in the Texas Air National Guard during the Vietnam War."...
This article covers the same ground with some additional coverage of Kerry calling for more minorities in journalism.
And finally, here's a great article published in Salon today that gives a broader view of the "relationship" between Kerry and his nemesis Jim O'Neill.
Failure of Leadership (Bob Herbert, New York Times, 6 August 2004)
A debate emerged almost immediately about whether the intelligence on which those disclosures were based was old or new, or a combination of both. Nevertheless, because of the growing sense of alarm, there was an expansion of the already ubiquitous armed, concrete-fortified sites in New York City and Washington.
The pressure may be getting to Mr. Bush. He came up with a gem of a Freudian slip yesterday. At a signing ceremony for a $417 billion military spending bill, the president said: "Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we.....
CIA Asks Bush to Discontinue Blog (The Onion, 4 Aug 2004)
This is currently the most popular topic of webloggers out there according to blogdex.
If you're interested in laughing even more, check out Bush's campaign blog. It's full of tasty morsels like: "In any case, by now a third piece of the record appears clear: the recession President Clinton left behind has turned into prosperity under George W. Bush."
Iraqis on tour banned from Memphis hall
Somehow I doubt that when the terrorists strike, we'll see them coming (up the front steps to register at the guest information desk, as I imagine this case to be). As is evidenced elsewhere, local officials are the last to know about where terrorist threats are coming from and how to deal with them if they happen. I think that keeping local officials in the dark results in the behaviour demonstrated by the Memphis city council.
Pity The Man Who Wins This Election: Given the state of the economy, it would be better for Kerry if he lost by Larry Elliott, Friday July 30, 2004, The Guardian UK
The above is an interesting article, although hardly infallible to scrutiny. I think that he is too focused on purely economic facets of America. Bush is a danger in so many ways beyond economics.
I would adore "seeing Bush cleaning up his own vomit" and having to be held responsible for all his crap while in office. I'd love to see him impeached. But I'd still rather not see him re-appointed in the first place. With no guarantee that either the House or Senate will be controlled by the Dems, I feel that we are far from seeing him impeached or disgraced. If he gets another free pass, he'll just keep on crushing civil liberties, appointing right-wing judges, trampling on pro-environmental policies, robbing the poor to give to the rich, and making our world less safe for everyone. The guy is a menace and needs to be removed.
ap recap :: box score :: game log :: last year
I used to "like" the Blue Jays. They were my "adopted" team back in the '80s. They were good, the Indians sucked and it was a way for my dad to have a baseball fan in the family. It didn't work out too well. I didn't follow them, I didn't really care all that much. My father would say to me periodically "your team won last night" but I didn't really pay attention. What I actually liked was the city of Toronto. We had visited it a couple of times--I was even there sans parents--because we had relatives living there. Of course, they could have sent me to Nome, AK in the middle of winter and I would have loved it there simply based on the fact that I was in the world without my parents.
Now I am most definitely not a fan of the Blue Jays. And I'm becoming less of a fan of umpires these days as well. I used to list the umpires in the old plus column when thinking about baseball compared to other professional sports. I mean, you're not ever going to be a fan of lines people in tennis or referees in football; they make too many mistakes. But umpires, well, I could get behind them. And I still can, for the most part. Perhaps it's just home plate umps that get my goat. Can these guys find the strike zone or at least invent a consistent one for each game? And can they grow up and start understanding that every bit of frustration and anger shown by players is not directed at them? Maybe, just maybe, a player slams his bat down after being called out on strikes because he's frustrated with himself, not the call. Can they hold off on kicking people out of games until after they deserve it, instead of calling them out before they've done anything? By trying to make the game sterile and non-confrontational, they are making it more contentious. Sorry, but I thought that "precogs" were people in the movie Minority Report. As far as I know, its impossible to ascertain future behavior (otherwise, we'd all have made a killing at the track by now).
Yes, the Indians lost last night. I do not place this squarely on the shoulders of the home plate umpire. Sure, he called a strike (3) a ball (4), and by doing so the Jays took the lead. But if the Indians had not gotten themselves into the situation they did, they wouldn't have lost. Let's not forget that bases were loaded with 0 outs when Betancourt left the mound.
So, what's going on with the team? They are now 1 game under .500, having just been 4 games over. Instead of the bullpen rising to the level of the offense and starting pitching, it seems that it is pulling the rest of the team down to its level. Bats are quieting down and starting pitching is in shambles. Cleveland's bullpen has saved just 18 of their 42 opportunities. That means that if the 'pen had done its job and saved just half of those 42 games they lost, the Indians would have a 74-33 record. If they had saved just 1/3 of them, they'd have a 67-40 record. That's Cardinals good. That's Twins (60-45) ass-kicking good. That's just plain good. They lead Major League baseball in key offensive numbers.
But no. It is just a dream that people like David Riske, et al. can hold leads (sometimes BIG leads) given to them. Those leads will be harder to come by now that starting pitching and offense are starting to crack. I still maintain that this team will not be able to keep their excellent offensive numbers going into August--the season is just too long and too strenuous. But it sure would have been nice to be in a position to go on some losing streaks and still stay with the pack!
I'm sitting here listening to the Tribe lose to the Blue Jays and heard a very interesting story told by the announcers. Apparently, an Indians player, Lou Merloni who is a native of Boston and who played for the Red Sox, talked with his good friend Nomar Garciaparra last night. For those of you who don't know the latest in the baseball trade world, Nomar was traded to the Cubs and played his first game for the Immature Bears yesterday. He was drafted by the Red Sox in '94 and by '96 he was playing in a Red Sox uniform. According to Lou Merloni, his friend sounded happier than he's ever sounded, having escaped the "fish bowl" that is Bean Town. Lou told him that he's never had so much fun now that he's playing in Cleveland and that he'll (Nomar) start to enjoy baseball again now that he's in Chicago. There's just too much attention, too much pressure on players out there apparently.
I'm sure that if Manny would agreed to a huge pay cut, he'd be more than welcome back in the happy arms of the Tribe :)
I am the farthest thing from a Reagan supporter, but I like his son. Check out this article by the dead actor's activist son. I'd post it here in full if not for those pesky copyright laws :)
ap recap :: box score :: game log :: last year
"It's embarrassing for me to walk into this clubhouse and look the other guys in the face with the way I've been pitching," said C.C. Sabathia.
I think that if this is how C.C. feels about his pitching, David Riske should voluntarily send himself down to AAA. The man is a nightmare. He's a Burba reincarnate. He needs more help than a day's rest can offer. He needs a break from the bigs. The team needs a break from him. Send him down, Wedgie, please, please, please get rid of this guy! The team is not in contention this year. Might as well bring a young arm up to get him some practice before next season.
There's a new book club in this country, chock full of progressive goodness.