mycatharsis.com

The linux admin’s equivalent of surgically removing body parts at random and seeing what happens.

For all the talk I’ve heard from conservatives (including myself at one time) about judges ‘legislating from the bench’, I can’t understand why there’s no outrage about politicians trying to act as judges from the bully pulpit.  Now our new attorney general (a former federal judge himself)  is appealing to Congress to block inmates who have been found by our Supreme Court to have been sentenced to unfairly long terms from getting a chance to appeal their sentences.

Mukasey, who is to testify before the House Judiciary Committee, said releasing all the inmates eligible under the Sentencing Commission’s guidelines could increase violent crime in communities and clog up courts.

COULD is the key word here.  Yes, I’ll grant that it might increase violent crime, and that should be a cause for concern in a percentage of cases, but that is not at all clear.  And in either case, why isn’t the U.S. Sentencing Commission able to make that determination on a case by case basis? Why must Congress pass a blanket law? But clogging up the courts?  That’s gotta be one of the lousiest excuses I’ve ever heard for keeping inmates who’ve already been found to be unconstitutionally sentenced from getting a chance to appeal that sentence!  “Sure, the Supreme Court has found thousands of people were sentenced in ways too harsh to pass constitutional muster.  But we can’t let them appeal their sentences because it’s too much work for us!”

If Congress blocks the new guidelines for all but the nonviolent first offenders, Mukasey repeated past Justice Department pledges to consider “changes to the current statutory differential between crack and powder cocaine offenses.”

Complete and utter horsecrap, and both sides know it.  Basically Mukasey is saying here, “Congress, if you protect us from the implications of this Supreme Court decision, we promise we’ll CONSIDER doing what the Supreme Court is telling us, by this decision, we must do now.  Yes we’ve promised that before  and done nothing, but we really mean it this time!”  I used to feel bad for saying such cynical things about our government.  But quite frankly, the way this Justice Department has acted under this president, I feel like I’m simply stating fact as opposed to irrational blather.

The decision that has our AG up in arms is Kimbrough v. United States, one of a decreasing number of decisions with support from both sides of the court.  A 7-2 decision with liberals such as Ginsburg and Stevens joining with conservatives such as Roberts and Scalia.  And this decision itself is simply an extension of United States v. Booker, another decision that  drew agreement from both sides of the courts left and right wings.  In other words, these are not highly controversial court decisions, the decision that these sentencing guidelines are ADVISORY and not mandatory seemed to be a fairly easy decision for these justices, no matter who they voted for.

Yes, drugs are most certainly bad, mmmkay?  And crack is as bad as they get, destroying lives with just a few uses.  But keeping thousands and thousands of people locked away for nothing more than making an incredibly bad decision about what to put in their own bodies makes no sense. It’s neither constitutional nor compassionate.  And perhaps if we worried about locking up only the truly criminal, we’d have more resources to put towards important and understaffed areas of law enforcement, such as witness protection.

A youtube favorite, I gotta get one of these things.  Puppy and robot, each!

Meaning the number rocks out there that could pose a danger to us just shot way up. I wish we would spend more money on finding and cataloging all the asteroids out there that could hit our planet. It would be such a small investment, money-wise, but could reap such huge returns. True, it’s rather unlikely an asteroid that can do major damage will hit us anytime soon, but the effects if one did would be simply catastrophic, and how shamed should we be (assuming ANY of us are still around) if we had the technology to find it and stop it, but chose not to spend a rather small amount of money to do so?

I hate to try to connect this to politics, but that seems to be what I do, so here goes. The shame is that we’ve embraced such a nasty form of ‘gotcha’ politics that no one dare bring this kind of topic that’s outside the mainstream of public consciousness for fear of being ridiculed. Barack Obama makes one statement praising how Reagan moved the country into a new era, and Hillary Clinton says ‘gotcha’, and runs ads saying he praised Reagan! So politicians learn to keep their unique ideas to themselves, afraid of having their words twisted and careers ruined.

So yes, the small size of the Tunguska asteroid is another example of how we’re harmed by ‘gotcha’ politics! Sorry, I must have gotten up on the wrong side of bed this morning …

Ah, now that Family Guy skit makes a lot more sense!

Back in the days when cocaine and heroin were marketed to children as toothache and cough medicine!

To help feed my burgeoning enjoyment of home cooking, I picked up a combination cast iron dutch oven / skillet last week. Only $24 at Walmart, but you have to remember to look in the camping/outdoors section, not the kitchenware. I was really surprised how hard finding cast iron cookware can be. My conspiratorially leaning mind tends to think that’s because cast iron is a.) cheap, and b.)long lasting. In other words, small profit margins. But that could be nothing more than my own experience, I admit. It could simply be that cast iron is not popular, perhaps due to it being, heavy, VERY hot when cooking, and not dishwasher safe.

As long as you remember to never use soap on cast iron, and to always dry it after washing, cast iron is an amazing value and can give you a lifetime of great use. Even better, it actually gets better with use. It still surprises me finding how heavy it is, but cooking with it can be just plain fun. Lately I’ve been using mine for frittatas, but am going to try it for stews and probably deep frying french fries soon as well. I’ve heard fried chicken can be great in a cast iron pan, too, so that is definitely on my list.

The even heating inherent in cast iron is readily apparent in how long things take to cook. Omelettes and eggs in general cook super quickly, and making my normal spaghetti sauce, I was stunned to see the sauce begin boiling mere seconds after adding it to the skillet. In my non-stick wok/skillet, it normally takes at least a minute or two to bring to boiling. And the cast iron skillet was set squarely on medium heat, not high.

By the way, this is my recipe for beer battered french fries, which I made on Thansgiving because I had to stay in town and was cooking for just myself, so I could cook whatever the heck I wanted.

1 cup all purpose flour

1 cup beer

salt, pepper, and lawries seasoning

potatoes cut into fries

sea salt, to taste

Mix the beer, flour, and seasonings together.  I went easy on the salt since I’ll be salting the fries afterwards anyways.  Be generous enough with the Lawry’s though, or you may not be able to taste it.  Cover and set aside for an hour.  Don’t ask why, I don’t know. :)  I just saw that suggestion on a recipe for beer battered kale or something like that.  So I did it.  Heat about 1/4 to 1/2 inch deep frying oil to 350 degrees.  Then, just roll the potatoes in the batter and deep fry!  Telling when they’re done is fairly easy, the batter will take on a deeper golden color, and your instinct will usually lead you to the right time to remove them.  If you’re doing a lot of fries, transfer the done ones to a pizza pan and place in a 325 degree oven to keep warm.  Season with sea salt when done and enjoy!  I was pleased with how it turned out for me.  The sea salt, especially, added something to the flavor of the fries, I believe …

The latest shock headline on Drudegreport that every one in 20 workers is an illegal alien tells me some very clear things that I don’t think you’ll hear mentioned from the pitchfork wielding pundits tonight:

One, if every one in 20 workers in this country is an illegal, there is no possible way to kick them all out without doing MASSIVE damage to our productivity, and increasing our ever growing trade gap with other nations.

Two, if every one in 20 breadwinners in this country is an illegal, that also means 5 percent of all the breadwinning consumers in this country is also an illegal. How can we possibly remove 5% of the consumers from this country and NOT take a massive hit to our economy, and thus, ultimately, our security?

And finally, the idea of tightening border security is having a very predictable effect that seems completely unanticipated by the nativists. Namely, tighter security on our borders is keeping more people here instead of stopping them from coming.

“The security has done more to keep people from going back to Mexico than it has to keep them from coming in,” said Jeffrey Passel

The idea that we can solve this problem by building a fence and kicking out all the ‘undesirables’ is looking more and more idiotic every single day.

Doesn’t it make a lot more sense that we can do more good for this country by EMBRACING the undocumented workers here? By fully involving them into our economy even moreso than they are now, and allowing them every chance at the American dream? Their spending here will increase, their productivity here will increase, and as both does, so will OUR economy and productivity. They will more fully integrate into our society, procreating more AMERICANS, as opposed to more undocumented foreigners living on the fringes of society.

Let’s see, it makes economic sense, social sense, and patriotic sense as well. It would ensure our continued strength while at the same time embracing the American values of opportunity and compassion for all that have made us the strongest country on earth. President Bush and Senator McCain seem to be the only Republicans who understand this.

It sure seems like a better idea than the ass-backward idea of building a fence and kicking out a butt-load of people who are working hard and trying to make a better life for themselves.

On the plus side, though, this so called ‘crackdown’ will make a bunch of irrationally angry people feel better about themselves. The damage it does to our economy, our country, our security, and millions of hard working people should be no impediment to implementing a ‘feel good’ policy, after all.

THAT’s why i hate listening to Bill O’Reilly. just a couple nights after proselytizing about rejecting the ‘politics of hate’ and supporting the ports deal, he leads off his show by ripping a supporter of immigration rights, a clergyman no less ,as, well, essentially a pervert, trying to draw a connection between the cardinals urging his clergymen to help the poor, regardless of their immigration status, with past allegations that the cardinal was ’soft’ on child molesters.
wtf???

what an idiot.

Today’s decision to unanimously reject the federal governments assertion of authority to stop and prosecute a small New Mexico church that uses a hallucinogen in their ceremonies seems to me to be a surprisingly strong rebuff of the governments case.

It sounds like a huge victory for religious freedom and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, not to mention a defeat for drug warriors who argued, in this case, that the Controlled Substances Act essentially trump all other laws. Reading the decision, written by the Chief Justice, my favorite part would have to be the fact that the court AGREED with the government in that allowing the church use of their tea would probably violate the United Nations Agreement on Psychotropic Substances.

the tea plainly qualifies as a ?preparation? under the Convention.

Nonetheless, they unanimously agreed that compliance with international law was NOT in itself enough to override American law, in this case the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

The fact that hoasca is covered by the Convention,
however, does not automatically mean that the Government
has demonstrated a compelling interest in applying
the Controlled Substances Act, which implements the
Convention, to the UDV?s sacramental use of the tea.

For my taste, you can never poke the UN in the eye enough.