lookin

That's what I was beginning to think - that he's looking for a regime change in the U. S. I'm sure he'd like regime change in Iran, but I think he'll get it by seeing a saber-rattling Republican president elected in 2016. The guy who set up his speech to Congress is Israeli Ambassador to the U. S., Ron Dermer, who is pals with Sheldon Adelson. I think they all share an interest in getting a president elected who would 'advocate' regime change in Iran. Perhaps Netanyahu just wanted to start prising the saber out of the sheath.

Are you sure you're not thinking of Thai? I eat Indian every chance I get and don't recall peanuts. Dal is very common but that's other legumes, usually chickpeas. Sweets sometimes contain pistachios, and cashews are used in certain regions. No doubt there are some dishes with peanuts, but they're nowhere near as common as in Thai food. One of the best dishes I ever ate was an eggplant curry in a small remote Indian village, and I don't particularly like eggplant. But the women started cooking that dish three days ahead. The most time consuming thing they did, so I understand, was preparing the spices. Cardamom seeds, for example, need to be toasted to release the flavor and then blended with other spices, and then everything marinated and cooked with other ingredients for a long time so that the flavors are blended through and through. The way I separate a good Indian restaurant from a bad one is whether or not the spices are suffused throughout the other ingredients. If the inside of the chicken or lamb is flavorful, you've got a good dish. If the flavor coats only the outside, they've seen the last of yours truly. Like many other spicy cuisines, spice does not mean heat. An Indian host is like a Jewish mother when it comes to pushing helping after helping on guests. It's the polite and hospitable thing to do. The more heat a dish has, the likelier a guest will say he's had enough; and that's important when a host is of modest means. I tried cooking Indian at home once, and it was OK, but nowhere close to what a village woman can put on the table.

Oh, Darling, cheer up. Not every cynic will be a fan. He knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.

Unless maybe it's the day you can afford your first health insurance. Or the day you get coverage for a preexisting condition. Or the day you don't get kicked out of the army 'cause you're gay. Or the day you marry your boyfriend. Or the day you can finally understand your credit card bill. Or the day your minimum wage job pays a little better. Or the day you can stop dodging ICE. And maybe another day or two I'm forgetting.

Neither did I, MsGuy. Neither did I. I found it when I went a-googling to see if any other countries had an organization like AIPAC so effective at influencing U. S. foreign policy. I got sidetracked and have not got my answer yet. What I found instead was an example of how 'normal' it now seems for Israel to be actively shaping our policies in the Middle East. You speculated that the purpose of Netanyahu's visit may be to add a few seats for Likud in the Knesset, and I'm wondering if he might also be trying to add a few seats for Likud in the U. S. Congress.

How Gerald Ford did it, forty years ago: In the continuing Arab-Israeli conflict, although the initial cease fire had been implemented to end active conflict in the Yom Kippur War, Kissinger's continuing shuttle diplomacy was showing little progress. Ford considered it "stalling" and wrote, "Their [israeli] tactics frustrated the Egyptians and made me mad as hell." During Kissinger's shuttle to Israel in early March 1975, a last minute reversal to consider further withdrawal, prompted a cable from Ford to Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, which included: "I wish to express my profound disappointment over Israel's attitude in the course of the negotiations ... Failure of the negotiation will have a far reaching impact on the region and on our relations. I have given instructions for a reassessment of United States policy in the region, including our relations with Israel, with the aim of ensuring that overall American interests ... are protected. You will be notified of our decision." On March 24, Ford received congressional leaders of both parties and informed them of the reassessment of the administration policies in the Middle East. "Reassessment", in practical terms, meant to cancel or suspend further aid to Israel. For six months between March and September 1975, the United States refused to conclude any new arms agreements with Israel. Rabin notes it was "an innocent-sounding term that heralded one of the worst periods in American-Israeli relations". As could be expected, the announced reassessments upset the American Jewish community and Israel's well-wishers in Congress. On May 21, Ford "experienced a real shock", seventy-six senators wrote him a letter urging him to be "responsive" to Israel's request for $2.59 billion in military and economic aid. Ford felt truly annoyed and thought the chance for peace was jeopardized. It was, since the September 1974 ban on arms to Turkey, the second major congressional intrusion upon the President's [foreign policy] prerogatives. The following summer months were described by Ford as an American-Israeli "war of nerves" or "test of wills", and after much bargaining, the Sinai Interim Agreement (Sinai II), was formally signed on September 1 and aid resumed.

One more reason Fuckefeller Rockefeller Center keeps its signage out of reach.

Interesting story, and it sounds like this thoughtful little girl is not the only one who has established a mutual gift-giving relationship with crows. I currently have a bunch of these bellicose black-bellied blighters being bothersome around my place and have been looking for something to give them too. They must have sensed my intentions as I came out yesterday morning to find they had beat me to the punch with a few little gifts of their own.

Well, mvan1, I was hoping I was just kidding, but I wouldn't put it past these guys to go rifling through my browsers if they could make a buck off of it. With regard to TabbedOut, their sales pitch to the restaurant owner suggests the only information they collect is about the customer's purchasing history in that particular restaurant. So I wouldn't expect them to start bringing you a Shirley Temple as soon as you sit down. But who knows? I read last year when Snowden was dropping his government snooping bombshell that it's nothing compared with the info private companies are collecting about us. It's pretty creepy to think about. As long as I don't start getting popup ads from Crisco®. And, as far as early bird specials, can't say I do them every day, or even every week, but I can share that I'm not exactly a stranger to tapioca.

Targeted marketing and data mining no doubt. Mine all say "early bird special".

Happy Father's Day from Me, Myself and I

Many thanks for all the good viewpoints guys! I think another lesson we've learned is that the Middle East abhors a power vacuum. For all the things you can say about Saddam Hussein, the man knew how to keep a lid on things. The same hand that held down the Sunnis also held down terrorist groups that weren't working for him. There was no power vacuum in Saddam's Iraq. There's no power vacuum in Saudi Arabia either. State beheadings, yes, but not so much from terrorists. I'm not as knowledgeable as you folks, but there seems to be a pretty good correlation between repressive governments and a lack of terrorist groups. So that makes me wonder if we should be so quick to support the overthrow of tyrants until we have something better in mind. I don't know much about Assad, but I'm wondering how much worse he is than an Islamic Caliphate that's bringing in aimless psychopaths to Syria from all over the world and sending them back to us as committed psychopaths. Should we have thought it through another step before we dropped him like a hot kebab? I don't know the answer, but it seems like maybe we should think twice before we throw the bully out with the Ba'athwater.

If you ask me, Obama is doing the right things, although I wish he had started a bit sooner. I've felt for some years that the answer to defeating Middle East terror groups lies primarily in the Middle East. The fact that there are now a few Middle East boots on the ground and a few Middle East planes in the sky is a good thing. But the best thing is that there are now Middle East clerics actually calling the terrorists out for the sociopaths they are, rather than ignoring them or trying to defend them. In my opinion, this is the most significant step yet in trying to rein in ISIS, and my take is that Obama and Kerry are the ones who got it to happen. A few years ago, I saw a projection that the U. S. would be energy independent within a decade or two. It now appears we are pretty close to that now, and that reduced reliance on business entanglements with the Middle East is another good thing that happened on Obama's watch. While I think it's good that the U. S. maintains a strong identity as a 'leader', I am much more comfortable in sharing that role with other like-minded nations. It's very easy to fall into the trap of being the 'only' country that can solve the world's problems. No doubt other countries would like for the U. S. to do all the heavy lifting while they enjoy the benefits, but I don't think that's fair to us. For one thing, it puts a huge target on our back alone. I like the way that Obama and Kerry have spread the responsibility of leadership among more countries. Of course, that means that our interests will not be the only ones represented, and that will be hard for some to accept. But, overall, I think it's a much more tenable position to share the labor and to also share the fruits of that labor. No doubt, there's a shift involved in going from the 'boss of the world' to being part of a group. In my opinion, it's a necessary shift and there will be discomfort along the way, as there always is with change. It will also happen over months and years, rather than days and weeks. While I would personally like to see that shift sooner rather than later, I believe there's a case to be made for having others ask for our help instead of shoving it down their throats. We already tried that under the Bush administration and we're still cleaning up that mess. In fact, my feeling is that ISIS came about primarily because of the power vacuums left by Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld's misadventures in the Middle East. It will take some time to re-stabilize that part of the world and, if it's to remain stable, it will take a lot more than one country and one president to keep it that way. So, yes, I'm happy with the direction Obama and his team are taking. Even if others may not be.

It would be nice to say "It wasn't me!" with real conviction.

Maple syrup! Maple sugar candy!! I could easily live in Canada, Vancouver in particular. If I could weasel my way in.

Locals accused them of defecating in the citys moat, causing accidents by driving recklessly, and defacing several tourist attractions, according to the Bangkok Post. Apparently, the Chinese have rather more casual views on excretory functions than most Westerners do. From birth, children are taught that taking a whiz or a dump in public is quite acceptable. And, after reading this little blurb on Chinese public toilets, I can see why pooping in a moat in a Thai garden might seem like a welcome upgrade from the typical Chinese loo. Most of them are squat toilets with little, if any, screening, no hooks for coats or packages, and a floor that has not been washed since Chairman Mao put the finishing touches on his Little Red Book.

Now San Francisco has joined Atlanta, Denver, Houston, Philadelphia and Portland in filing friend of the court briefs in support of the Massachusetts lawsuit. I guess I'm a bit unclear on what these folks have in mind for a strategy to curb what they call "sex trafficking", particularly as it relates to minors. If I were serious about tracking down underage prostitutes and their pimps, I think I'd be inclined to use Backpage as a very handy list of the folks I want to track down, along with their current contact info. I'd be setting up appointment after appointment to find these underage, unwilling prostitutes and get them into supportive environments before another week went by. I'd also get them to help me find their pimps and lock them up, again on a very aggressive timetable. It seems that shutting down Backpage before I snared all these folks would take a very useful tool out of my hands before I had a chance to use it. Perhaps these attorneys general think that, by shutting down Backpage, all the underage prostitutes will go back to school and all their pimps will find lawful employment elsewhere; but I'm gonna need some convincin'.

Nowise a surprise. In fact, fairly predictable when food company managers get paid on profit and not on the nutritional value of their products. With no correlation between nutrition and profitability in the food industry - in fact, some may say a reverse correlation - our capitalistic system virtually ensures a steady decline in the healthfulness of our food supply. The past half-century has brought us where we are today and it's a crapshoot where it will bring us in the next fifty years. Not that I'm pimping for the replacement of capitalism, primarily because I can't think of a better system. But what I do advocate is a better allocation of costs within our current capitalistic system. For a long time, cigarette companies found increased profit in pretending their decisions didn't worsen the health of their customers, but they eventually had to factor in more of the costs of their decisions and modified their products and their marketing tactics to be less harmful. And, in my opinion, one of the most helpful outcomes of Obamacare is the deeper discussion and focus on how our healthcare system can be rewarded financially for actually promoting better health rather than merely trying to fix bad health. A small start, no doubt, but it's a start. Eventually, my hope is that the food industry will find more profit in better nourishing their customers and see increased costs in promoting malnutrition. They certainly have the expertise, or at least a good shot at developing the knowhow, to put healthier food on the table. And, while government regulation is another way to get us there, many of our politicians will fight such regulations on principle. I'd very much like to see a system of cost allocation that puts the expense of caring for malnourished folks right back on the companies that feed them chazerai. Once food companies become responsible for the costs of removing nutritional value from their products, it's up to them to deal with these costs better than their competitors and figure out how to make a buck by improving nutrition. If they do, their stock and compensation will go up. If they don't, they'll go out of business. And isn't that what successful capitalism is all about?

I usually take a few extra, just to be sure.

You know, MsGuy, I've been thinking the exact same thing and you have put it much more elegantly than I could express it. I would indeed feel blessed if I could someday write a sentence in which the words carried their own rhythm along with them so that everyone who read it would hear just what I did when I wrote it. Some years ago, I posted another sentence which was a verse strung together and it was so awkward that no one realized what it was. Or, at least, were too kind to mention it.

Well it started out as a verse: He abjured the serial comma And it wasn't hard to see That sooner more than later A frisson would come to be For I had some things to say to him And no doubt he to me But if punctuation had no role It would drive me up a tree. And then I thought I'd take you up on your earlier challenge: So I turned it into a sentence that lacked a serial comma and, since I wasn't sure what a serial comma was, I left out all the commas one after the other. I thought perhaps it would be understandable without any commas at all. Clearly it was unclear. Its awkwardness and lack of intelligibility has given me a new respect for commas so I plan to go back to using them, liberally, serially, and, perhaps, in places, where I did not, before. And thanks for indulging some antics.

He abjured the serial comma and it wasn't hard to see that sooner more than later a frisson would come to be for I had some things to say to him and no doubt he to me but if punctuation had no role it would drive me up a tree.

. . . and seventeen calls from AdamSmith. He says he found your gym bag. He can be reached at the Peabody.

Big you say?

No doubt you are correct. Even today, we have those who snicker at their colleagues who are skittish about setting someone on fire. I'd like to think, though, that they are in the minority. And while your nasty nautical Norsemen got most of the press, my hunch is there wasn't room in the boats for the large majority who stayed at home and led their lives in a somewhat more familiar and convivial manner. Harald, dinner! Go get Bent. Not walrus again! They were out of herring. Here, have some mead. Where's Lars? Outside, tuning his fiddle. Not a duet with Garth, I hope. I never heard such an awful lyre! Did you guys see the way Harald is walking? A little light in the leggings, huh? Pul-leeze! He's gay as a lingonberry!