2007 archive
There’s a Reason That It’s Known Locally as the “Sure Kill” 1
When I lived in Narberth, I used to ride this damned road all the time.
IRS 1
I have recently won a dispute with the IRS over a tax deduction.
I knew going in that it was iffy–and, no, I shan’t go into the details.
But I can say this: Throughout, they conducted themselves courteously and in a businesslike manner. Their only goal seemed to be determining the facts.
It is a good thing that Gonzo was not Commissioner of the IRS, or I would have likely been toast.
Drinking Liberally 0
Tomorrow, 6-9 p. m., Tangier Restaurant, 18th and Lombard, Center City, Philadelphia. Just behind Jeff.
Preceded by a rally for SCHIP in Rittenhouse Square:
“Ring Around Rittenhouse”
Vigil for Children’s Health Care
Rittenhouse Square, 1800 Walnut St., Philadelphia
Tuesday, October 16th
5:30 – 7:30 p.m.
Swampwater 0
From Sunday’s Washington Post (emphasis added):
The blunt truth is that while contractors are carrying out valuable roles, their overall effect has been to undermine the Iraq mission and the wider fight against terrorism. Worst of all, we have outsourced the most important core function of our government: to fight and win the nation’s wars.
I’ve said it before: Hiring mercenaries whose loyalty is to whoever signs their paycheck, rather than to the United States of America, is probably not a good idea.
Down on the Farm 0
So, at 9:30 this morning, Second Son’s on his way to Radio Slum to get a new router.
Three hours later and one call to Linksys (the router configuration wouldn’t open in my browser, and the support tech had to try a few tricks before we could get in there and open up Port 80 to get the website back on line), we’re back.
Adventures in Linux: Podcast Edition Follow-Up (Geek Alert!) 0
I mentioned here that all I had left to do is to get Podracer running as a cron job.
I’ve never had any luck setting up cron jobs, so I decided to RTFM.
I opened a terminal and entered the command man crontab (that tranlates into manual for crontab) and brought up the manual.
After reading the manual, I entered the command crontab -e to open my own personal cron file under my user name.
I entered this line in the vi editor (vi is not for the faint of heart; it’s taken me almost a year to feel at home in it).
0 19 * * * podracer
That means at 0 minutes and 19 hours of every day run podracer. The reason I selected 19 hours was to test whether I got it right.
I did. It’s a little after 7 p. m. and Podracer is happily automatically downloading podcasts even as I type.
When it’s done, I’ll edit crontab so that Podracer runs at 4 a. m. and every day’s downloading will be automated.
As it stands now, here are the contents of my signature file, which tells Podracer what to download (the lines preceded by the number sign are ignored by the program–they are to help me remember what the heck I’ve been doing):
#
#News
#
#Radio Times
http://www.npr.org/templates/rss/podcast.php?id=510027
#Diane Rehm Show
http://www.npr.org/rss/podcast.php?id=510071
#Talk of the Nation
http://www.npr.org/rss/podcast.php?id=5
#Voices in the Family
http://www.whyy.org/rss/voices.xml
#Whaddya Know
http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/wyk/.jukebox?action=viewPodcast&podcastId=5243
#
#Linux
#
# Geek News Central
http://www.geeknewscentral.com/podcast.xml
#LQ Podcasts
http://feeds.feedburner.com/linuxquestions/LQPodcast
#LQRadio
http://feeds.feedburner.com/linuxquestions/LQRadioShowOnly
#Linux News
http://linux.quicksurf.com/?feed=rss2&cat=78
I highly recommend Geek News Central for anyone interested in the digital world. Todd Cochrane has a great newscast about geek stuff in plain English.
And he even read my email on the air and linked to Podracer.
Beer Batter Chicken 1
Ingredients:
(Quantities depend on how many pieces of chicken you are cooking. This is based on five boneless, skinless chicken breasts.)
Chicken.
1 cp Flour.
1/2 Can Stale Beer (That’s because I found a half can of stale beer left on the porch by someone who shall remain nameless).
Pepper.
Assorted Spices (I like sage, garlic, basil, pepper, marjoram, and thyme, but sometimes I cheat and use garlic and poultry seasoning).
1 cp. Goose Grease reserved from last year’s Christmas goose.
Heat grease in skillet. While grease is heating,
Put flour in bowl.
Add beer and, if necessary, water, to make a batter the consistency of pancake batter.
Add spices and mix well (as I write this, I realize I should have added a raw egg, too. Yums.)
When grease is hot, dredge chicken in batter.
Gently put chicken in skillet so as not to disturb the batter.
Cover skillet with splash screen, if you have one, but do not cover it with a lid.
Fry until brown on one side.
Turn chicken and fry until brown on the other side.
(Approx. 1/2 hour per side over medium flame.)
Serve over rice.
If you feel really ambitious, make gravy:
Pour off excess grease and reserve a couple of tablespoons in the skillet.
Add water.
Add flour.
Whisk out the lumps (it’s okay if you leave a few lumps–makes it look homemade).
Add a little salt.
Add lots of pepper.
Keep adding stuff till it comes out right.
It’s trial and error, my friends. You make an error, you go on trial.
Bean Soup 0
Ingredients:
1 Medium Onion, chopped.
1 generous pour Garlic Powder (approx. 1 tbs).
(Face it, if you have to measure, you can’t cook.)
2 Cans Red Kidney Beans (may substitute black beans).
1 Can Diced Tomatoes.
4 or 5 Italian Sausages.
1/2 tsp Salt.
Several Grinds Pepper.
Four Shakes Basil.
One Small Shake Thyme.
One Pour Olive Oil.
Some Paprika.
Some Hot Sauce.
Heat olive oil (Extra Virgin, of course. Cthulhu says there are never enough virgins ).
Add onion and saute until golden brown.
Brown sausages in the mixture.
Add beans, diced tomatoes, and some water.
Add remaining spices.
Simmer until you can’t stand it any more.
Add additional herbs and spices to taste.
Wait a little longer for everything to cook down.
Best served with Amoroso rolls, but we didn’t have any of those tonight.
Talk someone else into doing the clean-up.
Guiliani Trips over the Facts. Again 0
Whereas Fred Thompson gets his facts straight. From FactCheck dot org (follow the link for detailed analysis):
- Giuliani claimed Sen. Hillary Clinton once called the free-market economy “the most destructive force in modern America.” She didn’t say that. She quoted another author who said free markets were “disruptive.” She also said free markets bring prosperity.
- The mayor falsely claimed Clinton proposes to give $1,000 to “everybody.” Her proposed subsidies to workers’ retirement accounts would be for couples making up to $60,000 a year and would be $500 for those making up to $100,000.
- Giuliani falsely claimed that more than 2 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product is spent on “frivolous” lawsuits. The figure is from a study about the cost of all lawsuits.
Honestly You Just Can’t Make This Stuff Up 0
The problem was, the demand was written on the suspect’s pay stub. That clue, along with fingerprints retrieved from demand notes from two convenience store robberies on Sept. 30, led to the arrest Tuesday of Robinson Rivera for all three crimes, police said.
HT to Linda.
Public Discourse Has Gone into the Crapper 3
A comment here has implied that Democrats and Republicans both are more or less equally responsible for the decline in the level of public discourse.
I’m not going to take on the comment when Digby has already disposed of that line of reasoning.
Not that I think Democrats are inherently the greatest thing since sliced bread, but I will point this out: Republicans turned me into a Democrat.
Before Bush, I was not a contributing member of the NAACP, the ACLU, the SPLC, Moveon.org, or KOS.
Now I am all those things.
Because I care about the blood that has been shed to create, preserve, and protect the ideals of the Founders.
I care that the government of the United States of America should stand for something other than invading civil liberties and torturing perons whom the Current Federal Executive doesn’t like.
I care that this great experiment not be betrayed, as it is being betrayed by the Current Federal Administration.
I’ve Been to Lake Eola Park 2
Frankly, it ain’t that great:
According to wftv.com, 22-year-old Eric Montanez was in April this year caught on video camera providing nourishment to a group of the less fortunate in Lake Eola Park in contravention of the ban on “mass feeding in one area”. He was duly cuffed for his trouble.
Neither, for that matter, is Orlando.
Near Death Experience 2
I went to the local Radio Slum today and, on my way back, I’m sitting happily in the left turn lane.
The light turns green.
And the bozo in the straight through lane to my right turns left, nearly hitting me. Had I not laid on my horn (and I can count the number of times I hit my horn in a year on two hands–well, maybe two hands and a foot), the oblivious selfish auld phart probably would have hit me. He still managed to cut me off.
Then he proceeds to drive ten miles per hour under the speed limit ahead of me for the next mile and a half until he turns off at the Senior Center or the therapy site or whatever.
But that was nothing like this, what happened a few miles up the road from me.
Difference between ordinary ignorance and wingnut ignorance.
Via Atrios.