Belgium Woman Raped For Not Wearing Veil

It looks like a Belgium woman was raped in the capital of Europe for not wearing a veil. Wonder how long Europe will remain even semi-free? Will burkas be required dress in America before Barack Hussein Obama leaves office?

Was this rape against the teachings of Islam? Against what the prophet did and taught? Aren’t we told — repeatedly — that Islam is the religion of peace?

Card Game: 7-Point Cut-Throat Pitch With Phantom

Another variation of Pitch derived from 7-Point Cut-Throat Pitch, played with 4 players.

Equipment

• Standard deck of 52 cards with two distinguishable jokers – one considered “high” and one considered “low”.
• Four (4) people
• Something to keep score (paper and pen)

Short Version

The short version is take the rules for 7-Point Cut-Throat Pitch and add a “phantom” player.

The phantom is dealt cards like a regular player but [obviously] doesn’t bid nor play. After the four human players bid and play out the hand by the standard cut-throat rules and scoring begins, the phantom hand is turned over for all to see. The phantom is considered to have captured all six cards in the phantom’s hand and is assigned to a team depending on whether or not it holds the high trump or low trump (or both). The phantom’s points are added to its teams points.

Note that it is usually embarrassing to have the phantom beat you.

Racism on National Public Radio

I was listening to the National Public Radio station out of Las Vegas tonight and they were interviewing Gustavo Arellano. Gustavo Arellano writes a column in the OC Weekly entitled Ask the Mexican. I must admit that it has been a long time since I’ve heard such a flaming racist on the air as Mr. Arellano. (No, I don’t think I can stomach Don Imus).

Mr. Arellano proudly proclaims that he calls whites “gabacho” which he (and Google) claim is a derogatory Spanish term to describe “foreigners”. He justifies his racism by claiming that people are racist to him by calling him “the Mexican” — please note of course that he calls his column Ask the Mexican. He also proudly claimed that he uses racists epithets for blacks and Asians as well.

If he had been a white espousing racism so freely, I doubt that the National Public Radio would have interviewed him in such a positive light.

Garlic White Sauce with Ravioli

I’m not sure where we picked up this recipe … but it’s probably my favorite white sauce recipe.

Ingredients

• 1 stick butter (1/4 pound)
• 25 cloves chopped garlic
• 1/2 cup chopped parsley
• 1/2 cup chopped green onions
• 3 cups chopped mushrooms
• 2 tablespoons flour
• 1/2 cup dry white wine
• 1 pint heavy whipping cream
• 5 ounces grated Parmesan cheese
• 2 packages of ravioli

Get Over It

Newsmax.com is reporting that Obama tells Hillary supporters to ‘get over it’. Caused some Hillary supporters to be offended.  Talk about hypersensitive. Here’s the quote:

“If women take a moment to realize that on every issue important to women, John McCain is not in their corner, that would help them get over it.”

Rep. Diane Watson, D-Calif., a longtime Clinton supporter, did not like those last three words — “Get over it.” Watson said she finds them to be dismissive and off-putting.

If Diane Watson really is so worked up over what Obama said, she should retire from politics and go for binge drinking. Nobody should be that stressed out.

Movie Review: Faith of My Fathers

We rented Faith of My Fathers – a biography / infomercial for John McCain made back in 2005. The setting is the Viet Nam war starting just before McCain gets shot down and tossed into prison and concludes shortly after he is let out of prison. The credits list McCain as a technical consultant for the movie. What I walked away with from the movie is that John McCain is stubborn and stupid. Unlike his modern persona of being the “great compromiser,” the movie portrays him as one who digs in his heals even when he doesn’t have to. His temper also plays a role in the movie.

On a complete tangent, a show on public radio today (Public Radio International?) ran an interview with the camp commander from when McCain was in prison. He stated that he would vote for his “friend” McCain. He also categorically denied that the prisoners were ever tortured (the reporter indicated that this directly contradicted a number of Americans’ testimony).

Card Game: 7-Point Cut-Throat Pitch

This is another variation of the Pitch card game, playable with 5 players.

Equipment

• Standard deck of 52 cards with two distinguishable jokers – one considered “high” and one considered “low”.
• Five (5) people
• Something to keep score (paper and pen)

Short Version

The short version is take the rules for 7-Point Partnership Pitch and keep score for each player individually.

“Teams” are formed on a hand-by-hand basis. The player dealt the high of trump is partnered with the person dealt the low of trump; all other players are on the other team. Until you’ve seen the ace and deuce of trump, you won’t know who is teamed with whom until the last card is played. If the same person has both the high and low of trump, they are a team unto themselves.

All people on the team with the high bidder are responsible for the bid. If the team does not take the required number of points, everyone on the team goes down by the number of points bid. (Bidding 7 just to take as many people down with you as you can is considered poor sportsmanship and is something I discovered that my kids really hate. Not that I’ve done this. Recently anyway).

As in 7-Point Partnership, play continues until someone reaches 21 or more points. In case more than one player goes over 21 then if the bidder was one of the players, they win. If the bidder did not go over 21 then whoever has the highest score wins. If two or more people are tied as the highest over 21 and the bidder did not go over 21, play proceeds until a winner is found (and it may not be one of the people that originally tied).

Applying the Democrats’ 10 Year Investement Strategy

If we apply the Democrat’s 10 Year Rule of Energy Investment to other things (in other words if they don’t pay off within 10 years they should be eliminated), then we should:

• Eliminate any form of retirement savings — it takes longer than 10 years to save for retirement and for most people, its more than 10 years away. So, using the Democratic logic we should eliminate all savings for retirement.
• Eliminate primary and secondary education — it takes more than 10 years to educate kids and it takes a while after they graduate before they’ve paid back the investment. So, using the Democratic logic we should eliminate schools.
• Eliminate home ownership — it takes longer than 10 years to buy the house, usually there’s a 30 year mortgage which is three times longer than the Democrats think investments should be made.
• Eliminate the War on Poverty — it’s been 40 years and the poor are still with us. So, by Democratic logic we should eliminate it.
• Eliminate Social Security — okay, this is a repeat of eliminating retirement savings (ignoring of course that Social Security is not a retirement plan but a pyramid scheme).

Following the Democratic [sic] logic, what other things should be eliminated?

Democrats’ 10 Year Rule of Energy Investment

Well, the bar has been set. The Democratic [sic] leadership of congress has stated that because drilling in ANWR or in deep water won’t be productive for ten years that it shouldn’t be done. How nicely short sighted of them.

Let’s take their insane yardstick and start to apply it to other potential energy solutions. How long will it take to get wind farms to supply all of the electricity for the United States? More than ten years? Then don’t blow money investing in wind farms.

How long will it take to bring another hydroelectric dam online? More than ten years? Don’t flush money down the drain by investing in hydroelectric dams.

Depends On What Your Definition of “Work” Is …

Michelle Malkin has an a video up of Obama trying to change what the definition of “work” is … while at the same time trying to brush under the rug the fact that he’s surrounded himself with people of questionable character. So much for being an agent of change. Seems far more like business as usual.

Cheese Blintzes

Prepare a batch of crêpes first (you can make them before hand and refrigerate over night).

Ingredients

• 2 pounds cream cheese
• 2 pounds farmer’s cheese, shredded (may substitute shredded mozzarella)
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1/4 cup lemon juice
• 4 eggs
• 1/3 cup matzo meal
• A batch of crêpes.

Crêpes

I usually stuff my crêpes with cheese blintzes for Christmas breakfast.

Ingredients

• 3 eggs
• 3/4 cup water
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• dash salt
• 3/4 cup all purpose or unbleached flour
• soft butter

Pakistan to Ask EU to Amend Laws on Freedom of Expression

The Daily Times is reporting

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan will ask the European Union countries to amend laws regarding freedom of expression in order to prevent offensive incidents such as the printing of blasphemous caricatures of Prophet Muhammad (Peace Be Upon Him) and the production of an anti-Islam film by a Dutch legislator, sources in the Interior Ministry told Daily Times on Saturday.

the report goes on to say

They said that the delegation would also tell the EU that if such acts [cartoons] against Islam are not controlled, more attacks on the EU diplomatic missions abroad could not be ruled out.

Sources said that the delegation would also hold discussions on inter-religious harmony during its meetings with the EU leaders.

So an Islamic country [Pakistan] is threatening more violence against diplomatic missions unless Europe surrenders one of the primary foundations of liberal Western thought — freedom of expression. How long before they decide to make the same threat against the U.S.? Will they wait until Barack Hussein Obama is president?

The Obamas: It Smells Like Corruption To Me

From USA Today

Officials at the University of Chicago Hospitals say a promotion and large pay increase given to Sen. Barack Obama’s wife shortly after the Democrat was elected to Congress were well-deserved boosts for an executive who is “worth her weight in gold.”

“She’s terrific,” added Michael Riordan, who was president of the hospital in March 2005, when Michelle Obama was promoted to vice president for external affairs and had her annual salary increased from $121,910 to $316,962.

It would seem that those officials were right, after giving Michelle Obama a 159.95% pay raise Mike Dorning reports

Among the pork-barrel spending requests Barack Obama has made since arriving in the U.S. Senate is $1 million for the hospital where his wife worked at the time and $8 million for weapons technology made by a big defense contractor with close ties to a major fundraiser.

I don’t know (or care) how much she weighs, but it looks like she is worth her weight in gold.

Not For Profit Profits

Looking at the University Of Chicago Hospitals’ Statement of Operations we find that Michelle Obama’s “not for profit” hospital made $87,804,000 profit in fiscal year ending June 30, 2007. That’s on total operating revenue’s of $1,113,836,000 — a profit margin of 7.88%.

Compare this to the “for profit” ExxonMobile’s profit margin of 10.04%.

Seems like “not for profit” doesn’t mean a whole lot. If we are to assume that Exxon is “gouging” us then we should also assume that Michelle Obama’s hospital is gouging us as well.

Frankly, I don’t mind them making a profit … I do mind the hypocrisy of the Obamas. Trying to pretend to be “for the poor working stiff” while stiffing the working man. They are the same sort of corrupt Washington money grubbing politicians that we’ve grown to know and loathe.

Card Game: 7-Point Partnership Pitch

There are more variations of Pitch than I care to think about. Everyone I know who knows this version was ultimately taught by my wife who learned it from some people in the mid-west.

Equipment

• Standard deck of 52 cards with two distinguishable jokers – one considered “high” and one considered “low”.
• Four (4) people
• Something to keep score (paper and pen)

The New Thought Police: Inside the Left’s Assault on Free Speech and Free Minds

I just finished Tammy Bruce’s The New Thought Police: Inside the Left’s Assault on Free Speech and Free Minds. Ms Bruce has an interesting collection of positions and beliefs that sounds completely contradictory. She opens her book with

I am an openly gay, pro-choice, gun-owning, pro-death penalty, liberal, voted-for-Reagan feminist.

She is also a past president of the Los Angeles chapter of NOW (National Organization for Women).

Is she an inconsistent schizophrenic … or is society? The common theme in her positions is individual freedom coupled with individual responsibility. There is more internal consistency within Ms Bruce’s positions than there is in either the Democratic [sic] or Republican parties.

The Democrats want you to be able to smoke drugs but not tobacco; oppose censorship in schools, but ban books; support freedom of speech in flag burning and obscene art but oppose freedom of speech at colleges with speech codes. They claim your body is your own when it comes to abortion, but claim your body is the state’s when it comes to eating fast food. They oppose going to war when women are abused, treated like chattel and there’s a national interest, but advocate war when women are abused, treated like chattel, and there’s no national interest.

The Republicans on the other hand, do the exact opposite. It is almost as if both parties look to the other and choose a position that is the exact opposite. On the plus side, such a method saves one from having to think, but it does lead to ridiculous inconsistencies.

Throughout her book, Tammy Bruce exhibits a consistent philosophy, a consistent mind-set, a consistent belief in individual freedom coupled with individual responsibility. It is perhaps most unfortunate that we are so used to the contradictory schizophrenia of what passes for modern thought that we perceive a consistency of thought as a set of contradictory positions.

The New Thought Police is an easy read and an excellent exposé on how our freedom of speech – and ultimately our freedom to think for ourselves – are under active assault and have been for some time. The book also highlights how one can take action, and how to exercise one’s own freedom of speech without deliberately trampling on another’s.

Taking Credit for Progress, But Still Incompetent

Well, the bozos at my wife’s work who wouldn’t listen to her a month ago — the morons that are putting the entire group at risk through their incompetence — have finally decided to do what she suggested a month ago. Of course they are claiming to have found this solution through intense work and research on their part. What pansies. At least some in management are starting to realize what complete wastes these people are. Of course they won’t be fired … they’ll probably all get sent to more training and then given raises because they went to training.

Racist to Oppose Obama?

The Bookworm has an interesting post up that lists many of the reasons to vote against Obama. It’s interesting because it casts the debate in the vein that one has to admit to being a racist in order to oppose Obama.

To me, this is interesting from two different perspectives: one is Tammy Bruce’s The New Thought Police and the other is personal experience with black hypersensitivity to whatever they perceive may be a racist comment.

In The New Thought Police, Tammy Bruce discusses the eight symptoms of group-think.

4. Out-group stereotypes. “Racist!” “Sexist!” “Homophobe!” “Religious radical!” “Right-wing nut!” Need I go on? Outsiders, or “the enemy,” are stereotyped as either weak or stupid or both and unable to counter the decisions made by the group. …

So basically we’ve gotten to the point that if you don’t vote for Barack Obama, the only possible reason is that you are a racist.

From the files of “personal experience,” a few years ago I worked for a group that invited a white [which is only relevant because of what comes later] woman to join the group. She had had a nice, closed door office, but we had her move up to “cube land” with the rest of the group.

The Big 5 Oil Companies: Profits vs Taxes

In Oil Company Profits we talked about Exxon’s profits per gallon — we also brushed on the amount of taxes that Exxon pays and highlighted the fact that taxes account for a significant larger portion of what we pay at the pump than Exxon’s profits.

The Grouchy Old Cripple (warning, an R-rated site — don’t go there at work or while the kids are watching) let’s people know that Bernie Sanders is advocating additional taxes on oil companies.

The five largest oil companies in this country have made $600 billion in profits since George W. Bush became president. Do we need a windfall profits tax? You bet we do. — Bernie Sanders (Ind-VT)

Instead of researching back to 2001 when George W. Bush took office (my DSL link is painfully slow for some reason), I only researched back to 2003 for the five largest oil companies. There is a debate on which oil companies are really the largest; the ones that I used are: Exxon, Royal Dutch Shell, British Petroleum (BP)¹, Chevron, and ConocoPhillips.

Bottom Line

The bottom line, is that from 2003 to 2007, the five biggest oil companies made 499,617 million dollars in profit. During that same period, the five biggest oil companies paid 1,343,804 million dollars in taxes. The following chart compares the big 5 oil companies profits versus the taxes they paid from 2003 to 2007.

How stupid is Obama?

Obama claims that he’s been in 57 states while campaigning for president. Huh? Just how stupid is this guy? When someone set up Dan Quayle to look like an idiot (by giving him a card with “potatoe” misspelled), the press was all over him for being a complete moron. Barack, on his own, makes such an incredible gaff and we give it a pass?

Okay, worse than not knowing how many states are in the union, the guy doesn’t even know that lowering capital gains taxes increases capital gains tax revenue (due to the change in human behavior caused by the change in taxes). When it’s pointed out to him, he decides he just wants to punish people. Hello? Why are we hailing a sadist that just wants to torment people — at the expense of tax revenue no less — as the greatest hope of mankind?

I’m [sadly] reminded of a one liner delivered by Doc Brown in Back to the Future: “No wonder your president has to be an actor, he’s gotta look good on television.” We as a people no longer vote for issues, but on who is the best speaker. We let the media dictate what we think and what we believe.

One of the women that I know stated that she voted against Reagan because “Nancy was just so ugly.” What?!? Not only was this woman so shallow that she voted against the man because of how he looked, but because of how his wife looked?!? I almost asked her if she voted against John Kerry because his wife is a permanent Halloween costume. (No, she didn’t — she is a Democrat … and they say Republicans are mean spirited and shallow?)

Look, I’m no fan of John McCain. I don’t think he’s the sharpest knife in the drawer. But Barack is a real idiot.

Curry Chicken with Broccoli

A friend of mine used to make a variant of this. When I asked him for the recipe, he gave me his mom’s original recipe without his modifications.

Ingredients

• 2 cups cooked chicken
• 16 oz. frozen broccoli, cooked and drained
• 1 can cream of chicken soup
• 1/2 cup mayonnaise
• 2 tsp lemon juice
• 1/4 tsp curry
• 2 Tbs milk

Card Game: Hurricane

Hurricane

The game Hurricane gets its name from when things start to go wrong, they go wrong fast. Hurricane is a two player game and is played with a standard deck of cards with all of the eights, nines, and tens removed (if you’re playing with little kids — old enough to do arithmetic — then you can remove the face cards (jacks, queens, and kings) instead.)

Aces are considered one (1), jacks eight (8), queens nine (9), and kings ten (10).

Dealing

Lightly shuffle the deck and then deal three cards at a time to each player until each player has six (6) cards. Then deal four (4) cards face up between the two players.

Gay Marriage

It looks like my state (California) is about to get gay marriages. There has been way more than enough written about gay marriages that is complete non-sense and emotional drivel on both sides of the issue. The only article that I’ve read that had any intelligence to it was Thomas Sowell’s ‘Notion of gay marriage’ is product of sloppy thinking which attempts to look at the historical reasons for the state to recognize marriage.

In short, Sowell’s arguments are:

• The state has a vested interest in protecting children that may result from a heterosexual marriage. Gay marriages would not result in children.
• Women bear the children, laws should force equal responsibility for the child.
• Time effects on men and women are different — after raising the kids, the man can run off with a trophy wife. The laws help protect the woman’s investment in the marriage.

And of course none of these reasons for marriage apply when both people are the same gender.

Like I said, Sowell has the only article that I’ve read that wasn’t just a bunch of emotional drivel.

High Noon: An Allegory for American Foreign Policy

The Idiom has an excellent article up comparing the movie High Noon to American foreign policy. It is well worth the read.

World Wants Barack “Jimmy Carter” Obama?

It would appear that someone has taken a poll and decided that the world wants Barak Obama. I remember in 1980 that people were trotting out polls showing that the rest of the world favored Jimmy Carter over Ronald Reagan. In 20/20 hindsight, I’m glad the rest of the world didn’t have a chance to vote in that election.

Card Game: Stupid

Stupid

The game Stupid is so named because in the course of playing, someone nearly always declares “This is a stupid game.” Don’t let that dissuade you. The game can be played with any number of players, for every seven players another standard deck of 52 must be added to the game deck.

The game consists of 13 rounds. The first round, everyone is dealt one card. The second round, everyone is dealt two cards. Third, three. Fourth, four. Up to seven. On the eighth round, six cards are dealt. Ninth, five. Tenth, four. Until on the thirteenth round, one card is dealt.

Getting Stiffed

It looks like this Poor Working Stiff is getting stiffed by an online retailer. On May 25th (or before, the 25th is the oldest e-mail I have on this) I ordered an 850mAh battery for my cell phone, they sent me a 700mAh version (but at least the confirmation e-mail and packing slip said 850mAh). I pointed out the error of their ways, they graciously suggested an exchange.

I took about 45 minutes off work to fight the lines at the post office in order to ship the product back to them. Paid for shipping. And anxiously awaited my new batteries. Here we are mid-June and they finally got around to sending out the replacements. They haven’t arrived yet, but the “Congratulations it’s shipped” e-mail clearly states 700-750mAh battery.

What?!? I’m trying really hard to not use words like fraud, dishonest, and corrupt. I don’t know them well enough to know if their mothers had more than a passing acquaintanceship with their fathers.

I’ll keep you posted.

Update

The replacement batteries showed up today … and despite the confirmation e-mail claiming that they would be the wrong batteries, it looks like they are the correct ones.

Oil Company Profits

Some are claiming the oil companies profits are 29¢, 58¢, or $1.16 per gallon. Using more correct numbers, the answer is closer to 3.78¢ or 7.57¢ or 15.14¢ per gallon.

Being Robbed At The Gas Pump

Every time that I go to the gas pump, I know someone is financially raping me. The question is “Who?” The Democrats and others want me to believe it’s the oil companies, but they take one or two basic facts (Exxon’s world wide profits and number of gallons of gasoline pumped in the US), make up a bunch of other numbers, do a lot of hand waving, and come up with a wild eyed guess at profit per gallon that is completely wrong.

Creating a Culture of Incompetence

Having worked in many different settings with many different management styles, I find it interesting and depressing that there are so many managers out there actively creating cultures of incompetence.

One of the groups that I worked for has a person who had been on the team his entire professional career. He was considered the expert on one of the major products and on the tool that was used to create the product. There was a major modification that needed to be made. The people making the modification went through all the correct steps to ensure that the new and improved product would be a success. The product was put into production and a few months later customers started complaining about problems with the product.

Mr. Genius said, “Oh, I could have told you that you’d hit that problem.” Biting my tongue, I asked him why he didn’t tell us. “Well, no one asked the right question.”