Tossing Salt Over My Shoulder

I'm heading for bed. Any day in which I have computer problems is a stress producer and I've got a day at the DMV in front of me (not a fun prospect in VA.)

The site is is yours for the duration. And I plan to go out for breakfast in the morning to get my cholesterol up at The Original Pancake House for an Eggs Benny which is better than I can make. I hope it will make the rest of the day a little less awful.

Sunday sucked. I hope Monday won't.

Food Fun

So, I lied. I found a really great recipe and I wanted to share it with you. This is Barbecued Shrimp Paste on Sugar cane. I frequent the Vietnamese restaurants around here, and the food barbecued on sugar cane is amazing. I can't wait to make this, the shrimp paste is not unlike what you would put on shrimp toast.

* 1 tb Roasted rice powder
* Scallion oil
* Crisp-fried shallots
* 1 tb Roasted peanuts, ground
* 1 lb Raw shrimp in the shell
* 1 tb Salt
* 6 Garlic cloves, crushed
* 6 Shallots, crushed
* 2 Ounces rock sugar, crushed -to a powder, or
* 1 tb Granulated sugar
* 4 Ounces pork fat
* 4 ts Nuoc mam
* Freshly ground black pepper
* Peanut Sauce
* Vegetable Platter
* 8 Ounces 6 1/2-inch rice -paper rounds (banh trang)
* 12 Piece fresh sugar cane, or
* 12 oz Sugar cane packed in light -syrup, drained
* 12 8-1/2 ea inch bamboo skewers -soaked in water for 30 -minutes
* Vegetable oil, for shaping -shrimp paste
* 8 Ounces extra-thin rice -vermicelli

Directions
Although this dish can be baked in an oven, I strongly suggest you grill it over charcoal, for the result is far superior. The dish may be prepared over 2 consecutive days. On day one, prepare the dipping sauce and condiments.

The Vegetable Platter and shrimp paste can be assembled the following day. Fresh sugar cane may be obtained at Caribbean markets; canned sugar cane is available at Asian grocery stores. Prepare the roasted rice powder, scallion oil, crisp-fried shallots and roasted peanuts. Set aside. Shell and devein the shrimp. Sprinkle the salt over the shrimp and let stand for 20 minutes. Rinse the shrimp thoroughly with cold water. Drain and squeeze between your hands to remove excess water. Dry thoroughly with paper towels. Coarsely chop the shrimp.

Boil the pork fat for 10 minutes. Drain and finely dice. In a food processor, combine the shrimp, garlic, shallots and sugar. Process until the shrimp paste pulls away from the sides of the container, stopping as necessary to scrape down the sides. The paste should be very fine and sticky. Add the pork fat, roasted rice powder, fish sauce and black pepper to taste to the processor. Pulse briefly, only enough to blend all of the ingredients. Cover and refrigerate.

Meanwhile, prepare the Peanut Sauce and Vegetable Platter. Cover the rice papers with a damp towel and a sheet of plastic wrap; keep at room temperature until needed.

Peel the fresh sugar cane; cut crosswise into 4-inch sections. Split each section lengthwise into quarters. (if using canned sugar cane, split each section lengthwise in half only, then thread 2 pieces lengthwise onto a skewer.) Pour about 1/4 cup of oil into a small bowl. Oil your fingers. Pick up and mold about 2 tablespoons of the shrimp paste around and halfway down a piece of fresh sugar cane. Leave about 1 1/2 inches of the sugar cane exposed to serve as a handle. (If using canned sugar cane, there is no need to leave a handle. The skewers will serve as handles.) Press firmly so that the paste adheres to the cane. Proceed until you have used all the shrimp paste.

Prepare a charcoal grill or preheat the oven to broil. Meanwhile, steam the noodles, then garnish with the scallion oil, crisp-fried shallots and ground roasted peanuts. Keep warm. Pour the peanut sauce into individual bowls and place the Vegetable Platter and rice papers on the table. Grill the shrimp paste on the sugar cane over medium coals, turning frequently. Or Broil, on a baking sheet lined with foil, under the broiler, about 6 inches from the heat, for 3 minutes on each side, or until browned. Transfer to a warm platter.

To serve, each diner dips a rice paper round in a bowl of warm water to make it pliable, then places the paper on a dinner plate. Different ingredients from the Vegetable Platter, some noodles and a piece of the shrimp paste, which has been removed from the sugar cane, are added. The rice paper is then roiled up to form a neat package. The roll is dipped in the Peanut Sauce and eaten out of hand. The remaining sugar cane may be chewed.

Note: If both types of sugar cane are unavailable, use skewers. Shape the shrimp paste into meatballs and thread 3 or 4 on each skewer. Yield: 4 to 6 servings.

This is food as play and I like it a lot, sort of like assembling sukiyaki. I love cooking/assembling at the table.

The Return of Me

pogge didn't lie, but I did get my computer problem fixed. What's the first rule of computer troubleshooting?

Check the simple stuff. IBM laptops have a two part power cord. The part between the transformer and the wall socket got unplugged.

Whew. I was afraid I was going to have to buy a new machine in the morning.

Anyway, I've now gotten used to the idea of taking the night off and watching a little TV. Carry on.

Talk amongst yourselves

Melanie regrets to inform you that she won't be joining you for the rest of the evening. She has a slight computer problem: no power. It sounds like the transformer on her laptop has chosen this evening to pass away rather suddenly and it will be tomorrow before the situation can be remedied.

Meanwhile you can always use this an open thread.

- pogge

Law Breaker

Bush challenges hundreds of laws
President cites powers of his office

By Charlie Savage, Globe Staff | April 30, 2006

WASHINGTON -- President Bush has quietly claimed the authority to disobey more than 750 laws enacted since he took office, asserting that he has the power to set aside any statute passed by Congress when it conflicts with his interpretation of the Constitution. Article Tools

Among the laws Bush said he can ignore are military rules and regulations, affirmative-action provisions, requirements that Congress be told about immigration services problems, ''whistle-blower" protections for nuclear regulatory officials, and safeguards against political interference in federally funded research.

Legal scholars say the scope and aggression of Bush's assertions that he can bypass laws represent a concerted effort to expand his power at the expense of Congress, upsetting the balance between the branches of government. The Constitution is clear in assigning to Congress the power to write the laws and to the president a duty ''to take care that the laws be faithfully executed." Bush, however, has repeatedly declared that he does not need to ''execute" a law he believes is unconstitutional.

Former administration officials contend that just because Bush reserves the right to disobey a law does not mean he is not enforcing it: In many cases, he is simply asserting his belief that a certain requirement encroaches on presidential power.

But with the disclosure of Bush's domestic spying program, in which he ignored a law requiring warrants to tap the phones of Americans, many legal specialists say Bush is hardly reluctant to bypass laws he believes he has the constitutional authority to override.
Pop-up GLOBE GRAPHIC: Number of new statutes challenged
Examples of the president's signing statements

Far more than any predecessor, Bush has been aggressive about declaring his right to ignore vast swaths of laws -- many of which he says infringe on power he believes the Constitution assigns to him alone as the head of the executive branch or the commander in chief of the military.

Many legal scholars say they believe that Bush's theory about his own powers goes too far and that he is seizing for himself some of the law-making role of Congress and the Constitution-interpreting role of the courts.

Phillip Cooper, a Portland State University law professor who has studied the executive power claims Bush made during his first term, said Bush and his legal team have spent the past five years quietly working to concentrate ever more governmental power into the White House.

''There is no question that this administration has been involved in a very carefully thought-out, systematic process of expanding presidential power at the expense of the other branches of government," Cooper said. ''This is really big, very expansive, and very significant."

For the first five years of Bush's presidency, his legal claims attracted little attention in Congress or the media. Then, twice in recent months, Bush drew scrutiny after challenging new laws: a torture ban and a requirement that he give detailed reports to Congress about how he is using the Patriot Act.

Bush administration spokesmen declined to make White House or Justice Department attorneys available to discuss any of Bush's challenges to the laws he has signed.

Instead, they referred a Globe reporter to their response to questions about Bush's position that he could ignore provisions of the Patriot Act. They said at the time that Bush was following a practice that has ''been used for several administrations" and that ''the president will faithfully execute the law in a manner that is consistent with the Constitution."

But the words ''in a manner that is consistent with the Constitution" are the catch, legal scholars say, because Bush is according himself the ultimate interpretation of the Constitution. And he is quietly exercising that authority to a degree that is unprecedented in US history.

Impeach Bush and Cheney now.

Betting on Panflu

Wall Street makes bets on pandemic bird flu

By Bruce Jaspen
Chicago Tribune

Posted April 30, 2006

Leave it to Wall Street to find an investment opportunity in the potential onset of pandemic bird flu.

Although it's unclear whether bird flu's spread around the world will result in a major U.S. public health threat, some in the investment community are beginning to place bets on potential hot stocks--and potential losers--should an outbreak arise.

A report on avian flu by Citigroup, for example, cast as investment losers air travel stocks and public places like malls, pubs and casinos. On the buy side, the specter of people holing up in their homes for days on end makes home entertainment, media and Internet companies potentially good investments, Citigroup said.

"The markets are anticipating it, and there are already investors making bets on the potential that there will be a pandemic," said Paul Heldman, senior health policy analyst for Citigroup in Washington.

Among potential losers listed in the Citigroup report released in March were airlines like American parent AMR Corp., Continental Airlines Inc. and United parent UAL Corp. Other problematic investments would be hotel companies like Hilton Hotels Corp. and Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide Inc., the report indicated.

"The hardest part of this is to create some probability of if and when," Heldman said. "However, nobody can deny that it is an issue and nobody can deny that it's already having an effect in the stock markets."

To be sure, health-care companies are benefiting from worried governments looking to stockpile antiviral drugs and even vaccines that have not yet been commercially approved for wide use in humans.

One commercially available antiviral drug that is seen as effective in treating avian flu after it infects humans has been a sales boon to its maker. Sales of Roche AG's Tamiflu drug quadrupled last year to $1.6 billion, largely thanks to nearly $800 million in what the company calls "pandemic sales."

I'm not a trader so I don't know how to call this play, but the likelihood of Tamiflu actually being useful in the event of a pandemic flu is slim to none. Good luck with your portfolio, however.

CNN Crap

CNN are idiots. Tony Snow is less of a "journalist" than I am. He's been an opinion writer since his first job with the Greensboro News and Record right out of college. He's a pundit, not a "newsman." Sloppy, sloppy.

UNITED 93? Let's try for United 300 Million

A simple Sunday question for your consideration while you think about the film United 93, either as a theater-goer, a theater-avoider, or as someone who is still undecided about seeing the movie:

We're a few months away from the five-year anniversary of 9/11. How has that day made you a better human being, a better neighbor, and a better American?

The WaPo Lies

Insurers Retreat From Coasts
Katrina Losses May Force More Costs on Taxpayers

By Spencer S. Hsu
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, April 30, 2006; A01

Alarmed at the sharply rising cost of hurricanes and other disasters, home insurers are pulling back from some U.S. coastal markets, warning of gathering financial storm clouds over how the United States pays for the damage of catastrophe.

The development is yet another legacy of Hurricane Katrina, whose mounting toll of destruction along the Gulf Coast has crystallized a growing industry debate about the combined effect of climate trends and population growth in coastal areas. Some believe the two are creating a risk of losses so large that insurers could be pushed to the breaking point, leaving the government and taxpayers holding the tab for the next disaster.

Since Aug. 29 -- when the hurricane made landfall along the Gulf Coast -- Allstate Corp., the industry's second-largest company, has ceased writing homeowners policies in Louisiana, Florida and coastal parts of Texas and New York state. The firm has stopped underwriting earthquake coverage in California and elsewhere. Other firms have pulled back from the Gulf Coast to Cape Cod, notifying Florida of plans to cancel 500,000 policies.

Meanwhile, homeowners are moving to state-backed insurer plans of last resort, which tend to be subsidized by taxpayers, and whose costs are also rising.

As companies raise premiums, shed customers and battle homeowner claims in hurricane-damaged states, an overhaul of the industry is being promoted by an unusual coalition. It includes Allstate and State Farm Fire and Casualty Co. as well as a bipartisan group of state regulators, academic experts and former homeland security officials.

They propose establishing a greater role for the federal government in backing up new state catastrophe funds or private insurance firms when losses exceed a certain level, toughening state and local building codes and increasing premiums to accurately price risks. Some also want to potentially pool the high costs of covering perils such as earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes and even floods into regional or national groups to ease consumer cost, and to use some money to help improve first responders and local preparedness.

"There is a potential market failure here, if not already an actual market failure at work," said Robert E. Litan, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution who is working with state regulators in California, Florida, Illinois and New York on a plan to reshape catastrophe insurance. "If we have another hurricane season this year like we had last, I wouldn't be surprised if you see a stampede of insurers trying to get out."

Hurricanes haven't cut into insurance companies' profits

THUMBS DOWN: To the quickening departure of insurance companies from hurricane-ravaged coastal areas throughout Southern portions of the United States.

Insurers that serve Florida recently notified that state they plan to cancel more than 500,000 homeowners policies. Allstate recently announced it will not write new insurance policies for property owners in more than a dozen costal counties in Texas.

And we learned this week that the Mississippi Windstorm Underwriting Association - a state-backed insurance group - will soon ask the state to approve a 400 percent increase in annual premiums for thousands of homeowners insured by the association.

This might give you the impression insurance companies are struggling financially.

However, nothing could be further from the truth.

Yes, hurricanes cost insurers more than $53 billion in 2005.

However, despite these record losses, insurance companies also reported record profits.

According to information compiled by the National Association of Insurance Commissioners - information cited in an April 5 report on the ABC News - "Insurance company filings with all 50 states show an unprecedented $44.8 billion in profits in 2005."

Fuck the WaPo for really, really sloppy reporting. Spencer Hsu just got an email from me.

Leading the Way Down

Waiting for Snow to fall
April 30, 2006
Jonathan Chait

OH, THE HUMILIATION of being John Snow.

In November 2004, the Washington Post's Mike Allen reported the president would replace his widely derided Treasury secretary soon. "One senior administration official said Treasury Secretary John W. Snow can stay as long as he wants, provided it is not very long," reported Allen. "He might stay as long as six months into the term, officials said."

That was a year and a half ago. Snow is still with us. Subsequent reports have made it clear that Snow has kept his job only because the White House cannot entice any qualified candidates to take it. The Wall Street Journal reported that the Treasury Department's diminished role "could make it hard for the administration to replace Mr. Snow with that kind of high-profile Wall Street or corporate executive." The story proceeded to discuss various candidates who had no interest in the job.

I'm not sure which aspect of the situation is weirder. On the one hand, President Bush's inability to lure a Treasury secretary appears puzzling. The job pays well. It comes with a large office in a classic Greco-Roman building in downtown Washington, health benefits, a security detail and other perks. Previous Treasury secretaries have gone on to prestigious posts, such as the presidency of Harvard. And yet no takers. Has Bush tried a classified ad?

On the other hand, you've got Snow staying in the job despite the fact that everybody knows he's not wanted. The only thing keeping him in place is the fact that his position has become so diminished that no candidates of any stature will take it. Imagine your husband lets it be known that he's going to leave you as soon as he can find a date, but it turns out that no woman in town is willing to go out with him. And you're still with him 18 months later.

Snow endured all this degradation with good cheer. What seems to have caused him, finally, to snap is the establishment of the Hamilton Project. The Hamilton Project is a group formed earlier this year by a gaggle of center-left economic worthies, including former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, to promote Clintonesque policy alternatives. The adoption of Hamilton's name, and the inclusion of Snow's infinitely better-regarded predecessor, seems to carry the implicit message that the country would be in better shape if it had a real Treasury secretary.

It was all too much for Snow to bear. He quickly delivered a speech wrapping himself in Hamilton's mantle. "Hamilton, after all, was foremost among the founding fathers in seeing that the new republic's future depended upon the vitality of commerce and the private sector," argued Snow, "while the authors of the Hamilton Project argue for a larger government role."

He then boldly challenged his critics. "For those who criticize the economic policies of President Bush, I simply ask two things: Which of the facts about the current economic picture of growth and job creation do you dispute? And where is your plan for the future?"

The fact that real wages are stagnant or down might have a little something to do with our disillusionment, and might make it harder to find a new secretary who is less willing to lie. The middle class is being pinched. Unlike wealthy cabinet secretaries, they notice it.

The Refuge of Cowards

National security, my ass. This is about power. If you liked the Nixon administration, you'll love Bushco.

In Leak Cases, New Pressure on Journalists

By ADAM LIPTAK
Published: April 30, 2006

Earlier administrations have fired and prosecuted government officials who provided classified information to the press. They have also tried to force reporters to identify their sources.

But the Bush administration is exploring a more radical measure to protect information it says is vital to national security: the criminal prosecution of reporters under the espionage laws.

Such an approach would signal a thorough revision of the informal rules of engagement that have governed the relationship between the press and the government for many decades. Leaking in Washington is commonplace and typically entails tolerable risks for government officials and, at worst, the possibility of subpoenas to journalists seeking the identities of sources.

But the Bush administration is putting pressure on the press as never before, and it is operating in a judicial climate that seems increasingly receptive to constraints on journalists.

In the last year alone, a reporter for The New York Times was jailed for refusing to testify about a confidential source; her source, a White House aide, was prosecuted on charges that he lied about his contacts with reporters; a C.I.A. analyst was dismissed for unauthorized contacts with reporters; and a raft of subpoenas to reporters were largely upheld by the courts.

It is not easy to gauge whether the administration will move beyond these efforts to criminal prosecutions of reporters. In public statements and court papers, administration officials have said the law allows such prosecutions and that they will use their prosecutorial discretion in this area judiciously. But there is no indication that a decision to begin such a prosecution has been made. A Justice Department spokeswoman, Tasia Scolinos, declined to comment on Friday.

Because such prosecutions of reporters are unknown, they are widely thought inconceivable. But legal experts say that existing laws may well allow holding the press to account criminally. Should the administration pursue the matter, these experts say, it could gain a tool that would thoroughly alter the balance of power between the government and the press.

The administration and its allies say that all avenues must be explored to ensure that vital national security information does not fall into the hands of the nation's enemies.

God forbid the people should find out about what's being done on our buck and in our name. You have to wonder what they are afraid of.

The Lessons of History

The Times is a purveyor of bullshit much of the time these days:

Challenge for a New Iraqi Leader

Published: April 30, 2006

A great deal now depends on the wisdom and skills of Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, the man who emerged from relative political obscurity last weekend to become Iraq's prime minister-designate. His actions over the next weeks will determine whether Iraq can reverse the drift toward sectarian civil war and build a national government. If it can, the more than 130,000 American troops now in Iraq will have a definable mission to achieve and a definable exit strategy. If not, America's predicament in Iraq will very likely only grow worse.

That's why Washington was right to use all the leverage it had to encourage the disastrous former prime minister, Ibrahim al-Jaafari, to withdraw his candidacy for a second term. Mr. Maliki comes from the same Shiite fundamentalist milieu as Mr. Jaafari. But there are at least some reasons to hope he can be a more effective leader.

His single biggest challenge will be to break the power of the Shiite party militias operating inside and outside the official security forces. These have terrorized Sunni neighborhoods and tortured Sunni detainees with impunity for much of the past year.

Mr. Maliki has won praise for pledging that only government forces will be allowed to carry arms. But that will do little good if he merely merges militia units into the Iraqi army and police forces as he suggested Thursday in deference to a crucial political ally, Moktada al-Sadr, who happens to head one of the deadliest Shiite militias. If that turns out to be Mr. Maliki's plan, there can be little hope of avoiding civil war.

It seems unlikely that the Sunni and Kurdish parties that welcomed Mr. Maliki's nomination as part of a larger power-sharing arrangement would settle for such an unsatisfactory non-solution to the country's most dangerous problem. The commitments and compromises that lubricated that deal should become clearer when Mr. Maliki unveils his new cabinet, which he now says will be done as soon as next week. It is now more than four months since Iraqis voted for a new government, and while the politicians dickered, the country has been falling apart. Mr. Maliki needs to choose both quickly and wisely.

Let's see: this is an militarily occupied country with an active insurrection going on and the Times buys the Bush bullshit that it can govern itself? Jeebus, did they critique the democratic process in Algeria in 1956?

Americans are notoriously ahistorical. I expected better from the Times.

Bad Gasss

Driving Guzzlers for a Living

Few drivers feel the pain of soaring gas prices as acutely as the New York City cabbie stuck behind the wheel of a Crown Victoria sedan with a thirsty, overworked eight-cylinder engine.

At the entrance to the Checker Management taxi depot in the Long Island City section of Queens is a trio of old, battered pumps where returning cabbies refill their bottomless tanks after their 12-hour shifts.

The old pumps offer only regular unleaded, and for the very modern price of $3.15 and nine-tenths of a cent per gallon. It is still lower than prices in Manhattan, where most of these cabbies go through a full tank of gas lurching and screeching around traffic-clogged streets for 12 hours.

Back at the depot, they replenish their tanks, shaking their heads in disgust as the pumps' rusty digit counters spin.

"We drive 12 hours a day, so we feel it more than anyone," said one driver, Peter Lee, 54, who began driving cabs in New York in 1972. He pointed to the depot's fleet of Fords, mostly Crown Victoria sedans.

"These things get about 10 miles per gallon in the city, 8 miles if the customer wants the air-conditioner on," he said, adding that gas mileage was made worse by the choppy gas-brake-gas-brake driving style required in New York City. "New York people are always late and telling you to drive fast, so you have to keep gunning the engine and then braking, which uses more gas."

The drivers at the depot, just across the East River from Midtown, are almost all immigrants, and all kinds of languages, dialects and accents can be heard in the tight locker room. They wolf down home-cooked meals — whether couscous, curry or rice and beans — before their shifts. With the Manhattan skyline looming to the west, they gather in the parking lot and grouse about gas prices.

Drivers often log 150 miles a shift and spend almost $50 in gas, Mr. Lee said, about $20 more per day than a year ago. He recommended that the city order a 50-cent surcharge for each fare to compensate cabbies for price increases.

Most drivers at the depot rent their cabs for 12 hours at a time, usually paying more than $100. They pay up front in cash and get a key to a cab with a full tank of gas; they must refill it when they return the cab.

"Compared to a year ago, I pay $15 more a day in gas," said Miguel Gonzalez, 67, of Queens. "I only take home $100 a day, so that's my lunch and dinner right there."

Lesly Richardson, 50, a Haitian immigrant from Brooklyn, nodded in agreement.

"That's $100 a week," he said. "That's your grocery bill."

The Blind Leading the Blind

I'm taking the rest of the night and the morning off. Deal with it. I still have to assemble my new chair (where is that screwdriver?) do some laundry and I think I'll take breakfast out. My hands hurt, my back is keeping me awake at night and my cat is still sick. Middle age sucks. What comes next probably sucks even worse, but when you don't have insurance and your glasses are 8 years old, you probably won't be able to read about it.

Oh, Republicans, do you want people with bad glasses on the road? You hadn't thought about that, had you? Morons.

New Food

It's not to everyone's taste, but, once I tasted it, I fell head over heels in love with chevre, goat cheese. A log of the stuff (thank you, Trader Joe's) and a box of Trisquits and I'm a happy camper, but there are more things you can do with it than eat it out of the package over the sink with a box of Ritz's.

This kicks it up a bit:

Coat a small ramekin with extra virgin olive oil and add 4 ounces of herb crusted chevre.

Poke several cloves of roasted garlic into the chevre. Drizzle some olive oil on top and add a sprig of fresh rosemary.

Bake for ten minutes in 400° oven or until chevre is bubbly. Served with a fresh baguette, this will give your breadbasket an unforgettable quality. I like to pass this with drinks before any meal which features lamb.

You can follow the instructions for roasting garlic on the link above, or you can buy a clay/ceramic garlic baker, which is what I use. Cut off the tip of the head (and root, if it is nasty), place in the baker and roast at 350 for 30-40 minutes. When cooled, the roasted cloves will slip out of their skins by simply pressing them. Crushed roasted garlic makes a superb spread for bread, it is milder and sweeter than the raw herb. Softened by roasting, it can be treated like a condiment on sandwich bread. Crush a clove onto a baguette slice, top with some shredded fresh basil and a grating of parmaggiano-reggiano cheese and broil for a minute for instant pesto pizzas. These are addictive, so be warned.

Here's another approach to chevre that will, I hope, take some of the mystery out of this cheese and have us supporting our local goat dairies:

8 ounces Chevre or favorite soft goat cheese, softened
2 tablespoons Crème de Cassis liqueur
3 tablespoons dried currants
3 tablespoons chopped toasted pine nuts
1/2 lemon zested

Mix together the chevre and liqueur until smooth and creamy. Chill for an hour. Roll into a smooth ball. Place the currants and pine nuts on a plate or piece of waxed paper. Roll the chevre ball in the currants and pine nuts. Chill for at least two hours. Serve at room temperature or chilled with a spreading knife and sliced baguette.

This is a novel pairing of the savory flavor of chevre with sweet flavors, and I do love stuff which contrasts flavors.

Makes 6 servings.

The Musical Fruit

I can tell it's time for me to fire up the grill. I can't stop with the grilling menu.

This is a Boston Baked Bean recipe from the Boston Globe, and enhanced by this daughter of the Upper Midwest the way my mom taught me, just in time for barbecue season. The original pretty close to the Fanny Farmer Boston Cooking School recipe and a little bland for me so I updated it.

Serves 6.
1 pound pea beans
1 large onion, chopped
2 tablespoons Dijon mustard
1/4 cup dark brown sugar
1/3 cup light brown sugar
1/4 cup molasses
1 teaspoon salt, or to taste
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
1 tsp salt
pepper to taste
1/4 lb bacon, rendered to near crispy and sliced into 1 inch pieces

1. Discard any discolored beans. In a large bowl, combine the beans with plenty of cold water and soak overnight for 6 to 8 hours.

2. Drain the beans. In a large pot, combine the beans and enough water to cover them by 1 inch. Bring to a boil, lower the heat to simmer, and cook for 45 minutes or until they are just tender (it may take longer if the beans are old or the soaking time was short). Drain the beans and set aside the cooking liquid.

3. Set the oven at 325 degrees. In a bean pot or deep casserole with a lid, combine the beans, onion, mustard, dark and light brown sugars, molasses, and salt. Add enough of the cooking liquid to just cover the beans. Stir to blend them.

4. Bring the liquid to a boil on top of the stove, then transfer to the oven and bake for 2 hours, checking every 30 minutes to make sure the beans don't dry. Add more cooking liquid if necessary.

5. When the beans are tender, uncover the pot and add the vinegar, bacon and additional salt and pepper, stir in gently and cook for 20 to 30 minutes more to make a slightly crusty top.

For those that have trouble digesting beans, add a pinch of baking soda to the soaking water, it will remove the problem. Beano, available nearly everywhere these days, will help with everything from black beans and rice to tofu, for the soy intolerant.

The Smoke of Summer

I'm a long way from being a barbecue expert, although a friend and I head out to hit all the local joints and we're about ready to start researching the backyard-cook-in-a-55-gallon-drum-that-only-the-locals-know-about in Southern Maryland. (In spite of the fact that my friend Tyler Cowen says that there is no decent barbecue to be found in this part of the world, I insist on thinking that there have to be some enterprising North Carolina expats around here.)

I was just poking around the Internets with a little curiosity and Google when I ran into a recipe for 'cued ribs that I think a home cook can make on a trusty Weber kettle without embarrassing themselves. This is kinda similar to the root beer ribs that Emeril made on his show the other night, but it has the smoky goodness of the grill (Emeril baked his) and I think I'm game to give this a try. Steve Raichlen is the chef and he is to 'cue what Bobby Flay is to the grill. Figure on one 13-rib rack per person. It looks like a lot, but there really isn't a lot of meat on most of them.

Method: Indirect grilling
Advance preparation: 4 hours for curing the ribs

Ingredients:
4 racks baby back pork ribs (6 to 8 pounds total)
2 cups firmly packed brown sugar
1/2 cup coarse salt (kosher or sea)
1/4 cup freshly ground black pepper
Dr. Pepper barbecue sauce, for serving

You’ll also need:
2 cups wood chips or chunks (preferably apple), soaked for 1 hour in water to cover, then drained; (cook's note: I hate the flavor of Liquid Smoke, which is included in the sauce above and suggest adding an additional cup of soaked hickory chips instead)
rib rack

Remove the thin, papery membrane from the back of each rack of ribs: Turn a rack meat side down. Insert a sharp implement, such as the tip of a meat thermometer, under the membrane (the best place to start is right next to the first rib bone). Using a dishcloth or pliers to gain a secure grip, pull off the membrane. Repeat with the remaining racks.

Place the ribs on baking sheets.

Place the brown sugar, salt, and pepper in a bowl and stir to mix well. (Actually your fingers work better for mixing a rub than a spoon or whisk does.) Sprinkle this rub all over the ribs on both sides, patting it onto the meat with your fingertips. Cover the ribs with plastic wrap and let cure in the refrigerator for 3 hours

Set up the grill for indirect grilling and preheat to medium.

If using a gas grill, place all of the wood chips or chunks in the smoker box or smoker pouch and run the grill on high until you see smoke, then reduce the heat to medium. If using a charcoal grill, place a large drip pan in the center, preheat the grill to medium, then toss all of the wood chips or chunks on the coals.

When ready to cook, using damp paper towels, wipe the excess rub off the ribs. Place the ribs, preferably on a rib rack, in the center of the hot grate, over the drip pan and away from the heat. Cover the grill and cook the ribs until tender, 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 hours.

When the ribs are done, they’ll be handsomely browned and the meat will have shrunk back about 1/4 inch from the ends of the bones. Transfer the cooked ribs to a platter or cutting board. Serve them as whole racks, cut the racks into pieces, or carve them into individual ribs. Serve them with the St. Louis-style barbecue sauce.

Yield: Serves 4 really hungry people or 8 folks with average appetites.

I don't know how they'd side dish this in St. Louis, but I do know Carolina. Good 'cue needs coleslaw, baked beans and corn on the cob on the side in that part of the world. Do the corn on the grill. Remove as much of the silk as you can without shucking, peel a little of the husk back from the tops of the ears, and then soak them, well covered, in cold water for a half an hour. They can go right on the hottest part of the grill and will steam in the husks. Start them about 5 minutes before the rest of the meal is served. I like to serve unsalted melted butter in a bowl and a pastry brush at the table. Popcorn salt adheres the best.

I've got a branch of Tyler Cowen says that there is no decent barbecue to be found in this part of the world, I insist on thinking that there have to be some enterprising North Carolina expats around here.)

I was just poking around the Internets with a little curiosity and Google when I ran into a recipe for 'cued ribs that I think a home cook can make on a trusty Weber kettle without embarrassing themselves. This is kinda similar to the root beer ribs that Emeril made on his show the other night, but it has the smoky goodness of the grill (Emeril baked his) and I think I'm game to give this a try. Steve Raichlen is the chef and he is to 'cue what Bobby Flay is to the grill. Figure on one 13-rib rack per person. It looks like a lot, but there really isn't a lot of meat on most of them.

Method: Indirect grilling
Advance preparation: 4 hours for curing the ribs

Ingredients:
4 racks baby back pork ribs (6 to 8 pounds total)
2 cups firmly packed brown sugar
1/2 cup coarse salt (kosher or sea)
1/4 cup freshly ground black pepper
Dr. Pepper barbecue sauce, for serving

You’ll also need:
2 cups wood chips or chunks (preferably apple), soaked for 1 hour in water to cover, then drained; (cook's note: I hate the flavor of Liquid Smoke, which is included in the sauce above and suggest adding an additional cup of soaked hickory chips instead)
rib rack

Remove the thin, papery membrane from the back of each rack of ribs: Turn a rack meat side down. Insert a sharp implement, such as the tip of a meat thermometer, under the membrane (the best place to start is right next to the first rib bone). Using a dishcloth or pliers to gain a secure grip, pull off the membrane. Repeat with the remaining racks.

Place the ribs on baking sheets.

Place the brown sugar, salt, and pepper in a bowl and stir to mix well. (Actually your fingers work better for mixing a rub than a spoon or whisk does.) Sprinkle this rub all over the ribs on both sides, patting it onto the meat with your fingertips. Cover the ribs with plastic wrap and let cure in the refrigerator for 3 hours

Set up the grill for indirect grilling and preheat to medium.

If using a gas grill, place all of the wood chips or chunks in the smoker box or smoker pouch and run the grill on high until you see smoke, then reduce the heat to medium. If using a charcoal grill, place a large drip pan in the center, preheat the grill to medium, then toss all of the wood chips or chunks on the coals.

When ready to cook, using damp paper towels, wipe the excess rub off the ribs. Place the ribs, preferably on a rib rack, in the center of the hot grate, over the drip pan and away from the heat. Cover the grill and cook the ribs until tender, 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 hours.

When the ribs are done, they’ll be handsomely browned and the meat will have shrunk back about 1/4 inch from the ends of the bones. Transfer the cooked ribs to a platter or cutting board. Serve them as whole racks, cut the racks into pieces, or carve them into individual ribs. Serve them with the St. Louis-style barbecue sauce.

Yield: Serves 4 really hungry people or 8 folks with average appetites.

I don't know how they'd side dish this in St. Louis, but I do know Carolina. Good 'cue needs coleslaw, baked beans and corn on the cob on the side in that part of the world. Do the corn on the grill. Remove as much of the silk as you can without shucking, peel a little of the husk back from the tops of the ears, and then soak them, well covered, in cold water for a half an hour. They can go right on the hottest part of the grill and will steam in the husks. Start them about 5 minutes before the rest of the meal is served. I like to serve unsalted melted butter in a bowl and a pastry brush at the table. Popcorn salt adheres the best.

I've got a branch of Red, Hot and Blue down the street from me, but those tomato-soaked ribs don't do a thing for me. You get all greasy and sloppy and for what? Not worth the effort.

Breakfast In the Hills of Umbria

I have a thing for foccacia. I like it split for sandwiches, or plain, with olive oil, salt and rosemary warm from the oven for breakfast in the morning (like the pizza bianca I had in the mornings in Umbria the summer I stayed there.) This is a very easy bread to make. Cut it into squares and serve it in your dinner breadbasket with a bottle of herbed olive oil* for dipping.

4 cups flour
1/2 T salt
1 package active dry yeast
1 t sugar
3 T extra-virgin olive oil
1 T coarse kosher salt
2 T dried rosemary

Sift 1 cup of flour into a large mixing bowl. Dissolve yeast and sugar in 3/4 cup of tepid water. Form a well in the flour, add the yeast mixture, and mix well, then kneed for 5 or so minutes until elastic. Set aside in warm place to rise, about 3 hours, until double in bulk.

Add one cup of warm water, mix, add 3 cups sifted flour and the salt, mix, then kneed until combined and elastic. Dust with flour if mixture is too sticky, or add water (sparingly) if too dry. Cover with plastic sheet or dish towel and set aside to rise for another 2 - 3 hours, until double in bulk.

Spread olive oil on the bottom of your baking pan (11 1/2 inches by 15 1/2 inches). Place dough in pan and stretch dough into sheet, pressing down firmly with your fingers to make indentations every 1/2 inch or so. Mix 1 tablespoon coarse kosher (coarse) salt with about 3 tablespoons water and 3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil. When salt has partially dissolved, dribble mixture over dough and gently work into indentations with your fingers. Scatter the rosemary over the surface of the dough and gently press the leaves into the dough with your fingers. It shouldn't sit on top but penetrate the surface to infuse the bread as it bakes.

Preheat oven to 450 degrees.

Allow dough to sit for about 1/2 hour, then bake for 15 to 20 minutes, until focaccia is golden. Serve hot or at room temperature.

* Herbed Olive Oil

6 whole black peppercorns
6 sprigs fresh rosemary
3 cloves garlic, crushed
3 bay leaves
2 sprigs fresh thyme
2 sprigs fresh oregano
1 quart extra virgin olive oil

Place the peppercorns, herbs and garlic in a 1 quart sterilized bottle. Add the olive oil, insuring that all the herbs are completely covered.

Seal, label and store in the refrigerator for 10 days to infuse. Olive oil flavored this way will need to be kept in the refrigerator and will need to be watched for signs of molding. But, damn, it is good on fresh bread and it makes spectacular vinaigrette.

My favorite Italian restaurant serves it this way in their breadbasket. I try to remember not to fill up on the breadbasket everytime I eat there, but I'm usually not successful. Their pastas are made fresh in house but they get their breads from a tiny boutique bakery down the street.

Running Government Like A Business

Pentagon Halts Contractor Clearances

By Renae Merle
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, April 29, 2006; D01

The Pentagon stopped processing security clearances for government contractors this week, potentially exacerbating a shortage of employees authorized to work on the government's most secret programs.

The Defense Security Service blamed overwhelming demand and a budget shortfall for the halt, which caught the government contracting community by surprise. Already, 3,000 applications have been put on hold, said Cindy McGovern, a DSS spokeswoman.

"We're holding them [the applications] now to see if we can resolve the issue. The more drastic step would be not accepting them" at all, McGovern said, a step the agency considered but dropped for now.

The demand for security clearances among private companies has grown dramatically since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks as the government increasingly relies on contractors to do intelligence gathering and work on classified programs. There has been growing frustration with the wait time, which some companies have described as up to a year, to obtain clearances for new employees. Some firms have reverted to gimmicks and large bonuses to attract employees with pre-existing clearances, and industry officials worry that this week's action will increase competition and salary demands.

The move affects not only defense contractors, but also those who work on projects for more than 20 other agencies, including NASA and the Department of Homeland Security.

"We have companies right now that have positions that are funded that they can't find people for," said Stan Soloway, president of the Professional Services Council. "This could completely shut the system down."

The Defense Security Service blames, in part, the sheer volume of requests. Between October and March, more than 100,000 security-clearance applications were submitted.

The service is also struggling with a budget shortfall, McGovern said, noting that its funding was cut by $20 million this year. McGovern said she did not know how much of a shortfall the agency faces.

Isn't it nice to know the grownups are in charge. Jeez, these idiots can't do anything right

Fitzmas

Fitzgerald to Seek Indictment of Rove

By Jason Leopold
t r u t h o u t | Report

Friday 28 April 2006

Despite vehement denials by his attorney who said this week that Karl Rove is neither a "target" nor in danger of being indicted in the CIA leak case, the special counsel leading the investigation has already written up charges against Rove, and a grand jury is expected to vote on whether to indict the Deputy White House Chief of Staff sometime next week, sources knowledgeable about the probe said Friday afternoon.

Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald was in Chicago Friday and did not meet with the grand jury.

Luskin was informed via a target letter that Fitzgerald is prepared to charge Rove for perjury and lying to investigators during Rove’s appearances before the grand jury in 2004 and in interviews with investigators in 2003 when he was asked how and when he discovered that Valerie Plame Wilson worked for the CIA, and whether he shared that information with the media.

If the grand jury returns an indictment Rove would become the second White House official - and one of the most powerful political operatives in the country - charged in the case since the leak investigation began in the fall of 2003.

In the event that an indictment is handed up by the grand jury it would be filed under seal. A press release would then be issued by Fitzgerald’s press office indicating that the special prosecutor will hold a news conference, likely on a Friday afternoon, sources close to the case said. The media would be given more than 24 hours notice of a press conference, sources added.

Luskin was at his office when called for comment but his assistant said he would not take the call or comment on this story.

In recent weeks, sources close to the case said, Fitzgerald's staff has met with Rove's legal team several times to discuss a change in Rove's status in the case - from subject to target - based on numerous inconsistencies in Rove's testimony, whether he discussed Plame Wilson with reporters before her name and CIA status were published in newspaper reports, and whether he participated in a smear campaign against her husband.

The meetings between Luskin and Fitzgerald which took place on several occasions a few weeks ago were called to discuss a timeframe to schedule a return to the grand jury by Rove to testify about, among other things, 250 pages of emails that resurfaced February 6 from Vice President Dick Cheney's office and the Office of President Bush in which Rove wrote to former White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card about strategizing an attack against Wilson, sources familiar with the case said.

An earlier date for Rove's testimony was scheduled, but Fitzgerald canceled the appearance because of matters related to another high-profile case that was coming to close in Chicago, sources said.

The rescheduled grand jury appearance by Rove took place Wednesday afternoon and hinges on whether Rove's testimony about the reasons he did not disclose the emails during his previous testimony will convince Fitzgerald not to add obstruction of justice to the list of charges he intends to file against Rove, sources said.

As of Friday afternoon, sources close to the case said, it appeared likely that charges of obstruction of justice would be added to the prepared list of charges.

This was all over the place as of last night, even MSNBC had it so it has broken out into the MSM. Hubris always brings nemesis, and if you think a little twerp like Rove isn't going to sing like a birdie to protect his own ass, you'd be wrong. This is going to be so big that even Bush apologist CNN won't be able to ignore it.

The TimesShifty Standards

100,000 Families Are Fleeing Violence, Iraq Official Says
By RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr.

BAGHDAD, Iraq, April 29 — A new estimate by one of Iraq's vice presidents has put the number of Iraqi families fleeing sectarian violence at 100,000, far outstripping previous projections and raising the possibility that a total of a half-million people could be displaced.

The estimate, made Friday by Adel Abdul Mahdi, a Shiite leader selected as one of two vice presidents, is much higher than other recent estimates. For example, the national security adviser, Mowaffak al-Rubaie, said in an interview last week that 13,750 families had been displaced, which could mean about 70,000 people.

Yet both statements go far beyond estimates by American military leaders, who have said there is no "widespread movement" of Iraqis fleeing from sectarian fighting.

Even if Mr. Mahdi's estimate proves too high, it suggests how concerned Iraqi leaders have become about the entrenched and vicious sectarian fighting that has reshaped the lives of many Iraqi families, particularly since the Feb. 22 Askariya shrine bombing in Samarra.

Militias — some inside the official Iraqi security forces and some outside — have gained considerable new influence as attacks against civilians have surged, and Iraqis increasingly say that they have more faith in the militias than in the official Iraqi security forces.

"We should stand up against killings and kidnappings and displacement," Mr. Mahdi said in the Shiite holy city of Najaf after a meeting with Iraq's most revered Shiite religious leader, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani.

Estimates of displaced people are notoriously hard to pin down, partly because many people move in with relatives instead of relocating to a camp. The problem is particularly nettlesome in Iraq, because most families fleeing violence are leaving neighborhoods of mixed ethnicity and may have only an hour's drive or less to find shelter with friends or relatives. But at a time when there are concerns that Iraq is moving toward a civil war, such estimates are being sought as a way to chart the scope of the problem.

Excuse me, Oppel? If you have to leave your home, how is it that you aren't "displaced" if you happen to have family to stay with? If you have to leave your home, you are displaced. Period. Are the Katrina refugees from NOLA who had family in Knoxville or Minneapolis not displaced?

Gawd, the Times makes me nuts.

US v. You

U.S.: FBI Sought Info Without Court OK

Friday April 28, 2006 11:31 PM

By MARK SHERMAN

Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - The FBI secretly sought information last year on 3,501 U.S. citizens and legal residents from their banks and credit card, telephone and Internet companies without a court's approval, the Justice Department said Friday.

It was the first time the Bush administration has publicly disclosed how often it uses the administrative subpoena known as a national security letter, which allows the executive branch of government to obtain records about people in terrorism and espionage investigations without court approval.

Friday's disclosure was mandated as part of the renewal of the Patriot Act, the administration's sweeping anti-terror law.

The FBI delivered a total of 9,254 NSLs relating to 3,501 people in 2005, according to a report submitted late Friday to Democratic and Republican leaders in the House and Senate. In some cases, the bureau demanded information about one person from several companies.

The department also reported it received a secret court's approval for 155 warrants to examine business records last year, under a Patriot Act provision that includes library records. However, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has said the department has never used the provision to ask for library records.

The number was a significant jump over past use of the warrant for business records. A year ago, Gonzales told Congress there had been 35 warrants approved between November 2003 and April 2005.

I think I do see a theme setting up here for the day: the Moron King is using the government against the people who elected it.

Bring 'Em Home

Report: Injured Soldiers Drowning In Medical Debt
Military's Pay System Called 'Complex, Cumbersome'

POSTED: 6:21 am PDT April 28, 2006

WASHINGTON -- After suffering paralysis, brain damage, lost limbs and other wounds in war, nearly 900 Army soldiers ran up $1.2 million in debt because of the military's "complex, cumbersome" pay system, congressional investigators said Thursday.

The report from the Government Accountability Office said another 400 who died in the wars had $300,000 in debt but that the Defense Department doesn't pursue collection of people killed in combat.

"We found that hundreds of separated battle-injured soldiers were pursued for collection of military debts incurred through no fault of their own," said the report. It said that included seeking reimbursement for errors in pay or for equipment left on the battlefield.

The problem became known months ago as soldiers began to complain and lawmakers asked for the report.

The Pentagon said it has been working to resolve it.

"My experience is the military ... when these things are reported to them, work aggressively to resolve them," said Defense Department spokesman Bryan Whitman.

"Not by way of trying to make any excuses, it's clear that our ... processes could be shored up to try to prevent some of these ... from happening."

When your own government becomes the enemy, all those Bushian "us v. them" analogies really start to come apart.

Posted by Melanie at 11:04 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

Kicking Up the Can

Add homemade flavor to canned chicken broth by tossing in leftover carrot peelings, onion ends, celery leaves, parsley stems, and/or mushroom stems, along with poultry bones and wings, if you have them, and a clove or two of garlic. Let it simmer for about 1/2 an hour, then strain. The result will taste like you spent hours on it.

Choose the low sodium version of any commercial broth and you have a winner. After you've strained this, pour it into ice cube trays and freeze down the goodness. After you've frozen it, liberate the trays and save the cubes in ziploc bags. One of these cubes added to a sauce or gravy will save you hours of work and add tons of flavor. Word to the wise.

Foreign Food

One of the reasons that I'm headed to a small island in the Bay of Fundy for vacation this summer is that the locals make the best lobster rolls on the planet. I camped in the provincial campground the last time I was there and there was a spectacular lobster roll shack right outside the park entrance and, at the exchange rate at the time, I was dining well on the cheap. There are a a couple of B&B;'s on the island that have superior kitchens.

The exchange rate isn't so hot this year as the dollar tanks, but this is still an affordable place to stay and I'm renting a cottage this year. I'll do my own cooking from the IGA market on the island and sample the local cuisine as I can. Grand Manan is known as one of the premiere birding destinations on the east coast flyway and I'm going for the birding and whaling., and to just pack a bunch of books and read, hang out and sleep for a couple of weeks.

On my last trip, I took a tour in a 52' two-masted schooner that landed in a pod of Atlantic right whales, where we stayed for hours. The experience changed me profoundly and I want to go back now and check in with that.

Lobster Rolls, New England Style

Lobster Salad:
1/2 pound fully cooked lobster meat or 1 (2 1/2 pound) live lobster
1/2 medium cucumber, peeled, seeded and finely diced
1/4 cup bottled mayonnaise
1/2 tablespoon fresh tarragon
2 small scallions, thinly sliced
Kosher or sea salt
Freshly ground pepper
2 to 3 New England-style hot dog buns
2 to 3 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
Pickles and potato chips as accompaniment

Prepare the lobster salad.
If using live lobsters, steam or boil them. Let cool at room temperature. Use a cleaver to crack and remove the meat from the claws, knuckles and tails. Remove the cartilage from the claws and the intestines from the tails of the cooked meat. Cut the meat into 1/2-inch dice. You may pick all the meat from the carcass and add it to the meat or freeze the carcass for soup or broth.

Place the cucumber in a colander for at least 5 minutes to drain the excess liquid. Combine the lobster, cucumber mayonnaise, and tarragon. Add the scallions. Season with salt and pepper. Cover with plastic wrap and chill for 30 minutes to 1 hour. Preheat a large heavy skillet (12 to 14-inches) over medium-low heat (a black cast-iron pan is perfect). Lightly butter both sides of each bun. Place them in the pan and cook for about 2 minutes until golden brown. Turn the buns over and toast the other side. Or toast the buns under a broiler instead. When the buns are ready, stuff them with the chilled lobster salad. Place each roll on a small paper or china plate; garnish with pickles and potato chips. Serve at once.

In New Brunswick, skip the cukes and celery, but add a leaf of butter lettuce, torn finely, to each bun. Those split top New England buns are impossible to find here in the Mid-Atlantic, but you can use a hot dog roll. I do like the addition of the lettuce and can live without the cukes and scallion, the lobstah is front and center in NB. Salt and vinegar chips, please.

I tried to get into the local thing, dulse, a sea weed they export, but it frankly tastes like cardboard. They treat it like chips and toast it in NB.

Also, Kelseigh, if you are reading tonight, I have yet to understand the charms of the donair. I have a great gyro place down the street and your provincial dish is, um, too Canadian tame for me.

To Start the Day

This is another of those B&B; recipes I've collected through the years. My experience with the hosts has been that they are more than happy to share their recipes with you. This will serve 8 generously and is easy to cut down.

This is one of the great egg casserole breakfast dishes that I've found.

Preheat oven to 350°.

Spray or grease a two-quart casserole dish with cooking oil.

Ingredients:
12 eggs
1 cup plain yogurt
1 teaspoon dried chervil
1 teaspoon dried summer savory
1 teaspoon Lawry's seasoned salt (or Jane's Crazy Mixed Up Salt, which I prefer)
3/4 stick butter or margarine
2 cups shredded hash brown potatoes (thawed)
1/4 cup (or less) chopped onion
1 cup grated sharp cheddar cheese
1 lb. center cut bacon, sauteed until just short of crispy and cut into 1 inch dice and drained

Beat eggs, yogurt, and salt together.

Melt butter and lightly sauté onion. Add thawed potatoes. Stir to mix.

Pour in egg mixture, add bacon and lightly stir to blend ingredients.

Pour into casserole dish. Sprinkle grated cheese over casserole.

Bake at 350° for approximately 25 minutes or until knife comes out clean when inserted.

Cut into 8 squares.

For cold winter mornings, this will give you some meat on your ribs before you head out into cold weather activities. I'd want this before digging the car out of the snowbank the plow just placed behind it, for example.

Wandering Around the Butcher Shop

I was at the grocery store this afternoon and, instead of just dashing down the aisles to pick up my usual standards, I actually poked around a little to see what was new (I barely pay attention to commercials on TV, don't read the grocery circulars in the paper.) I was pleasantly surprised to find Bagel Bread, made, I think, by Pepperidge Farm. This got me to thinking about substantial sandwiches. I don't eat them very often, but they make a great quick meal and can be part of a healthy diet if the ingredients are chosen carefully. I call these:

Pay Day Steak Sandwiches

1/2 cup mayonnaise
1/4 cup prepared white horseradish

4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) butter, divided
3 1-inch-thick beef tenderloin steaks

3 red onions, thinly sliced
8 ounces button mushrooms, stemmed, caps thinly sliced (about 5 cups)
1/2 cup beef broth
1/2 cup dry red wine

4 large crusty rolls or 8 large baguette slices
2 cups shredded radicchio

Mix mayonnaise and horseradish in small bowl to blend.

Melt 1 tablespoon butter in heavy large skillet over medium-high heat. Sprinkle tenderloin steaks with salt and pepper. Add steaks to skillet and cook to desired doneness, about 5 minutes per side for medium-rare. Using tongs, transfer steaks to work surface.

Melt 3 tablespoons butter in same skillet over medium-high heat. Add onions; sauté until just caramelized, 5-7 minutes. Add mushrooms; sauté until tender, about 5 minutes. Add broth and red wine; simmer until juices are reduced to glaze, stirring occasionally, about 3-5 minutes. Season onion mixture to taste with salt and pepper.

Place 1 roll bottom, cut side up, on each of 4 plates. Spread each with horseradish mayonnaise and top with 1/2 cup radicchio. Thinly slice steaks and divide among rolls. Top with onion mixture. Spread remaining mayonnaise on cut side of croissant tops. Place tops on sandwiches.

What separates these from your ordinary steak sandwich or even a french dip is the caramelized onions and mushrooms and the way they are sauced. This is also a great way to use up leftover, thinly sliced steak.

Serve this with Paul Deen's warm potato salad and a glass of Merlot, and you are dining.

I picked up the Italian habit when I was first in Italy in 1980: there is always a bottle of water "con gas" on my dining table. I like the fizzy stuff and drink it all day and always with meals.

We have freeze warnings out for here tonight, so I'm not quite ready to pull out the grill yet, but these would be great on the grill, a pay day sub for a burger.

If the grill is out, you can round out this meal with grilled corn on the cob when the first local ears come in. Around here, that means Silver Queen 606 from the Delmarva peninsula, maybe the best sweet corn in America. The early stuff comes in around the 4th of July. If you are in Florida or California, you'll have yours earlier and I'm jealous.

The Farmers' Market opens on May 13 here, and I'm chomping at the bit. I'll buy my herb sets there even tho' there won't be much produce yet. The organic meat and artisanal bread and cheese producers will be there, however, so there will be good things to eat. I've been hearing lots about this domestic Wagyu beef which is grown around here and is supposed to be the North American answer to Kobe beef. The boutique producers usually show up at the Market and I'm dying to try some of this. From what I've seen on the Internet, I'll have to take out a home equity loan to afford it. Maybe I can pick up some tenderloin tips without having to sell one of the cats and make some beef stroganoff this weekend.

My stroganoff recipe is adapted from the Time Life "Good Cook" series of cook books, now long out of print. If you can find them at used book sales or on eBay, they are treasures of classic cooking. Back in the days when I assembled this recipe, I was too poor to buy cookbooks and I borrowed them from the library, so I'm trying to assemble the collection now.

Schadenfreude

Rush Limbaugh Arrested on Prescription Drug Charges

WEST PALM BEACH, FL (AP) -- Law enforcement officials say Rush Limbaugh was arrested today on prescription drug charges.

According to a spokeswoman for the State Attorney's office, Limbaugh turned himself in to authorities on a warrant issued by the State Attorney's Office.

The spokeswoman says the conservative radio commentator came into the jail at about 4 p-m with his attorney Roy Black and bonded out an hour later on a 3,000 dollar bail.

The warrant was for fraud to conceal information to obtain prescription.

Limbaugh's attorney said his client and authorities reached a settlement on a single count charge of doctor shopping filed today by the State Attorney.

Prosecutors seized Limbaugh's records after learning that he received about 2,000 painkillers, prescribed by four doctors in six months, at a pharmacy near his Palm Beach mansion. They contend that Limbaugh engaged in "doctor shopping," or illegally deceived multiple doctors to receive overlapping prescriptions.

Limbaugh has not been charged and maintains he's innocent.

He has acknowledged he became addicted to pain medication, blaming it on severe back pain, and took a five-week leave from his radio show to enter a rehabilitation program in 2003.

CNN is reporting that the plea deal is that the charges will be dropped if he stays clean for eighteen months. Still, it's great to see a hypocrite get a little come-uppance.

Our Booming Economy

Ezra Klein at TAPPED:

WHOSE ECONOMY? There are reports out this morning of some high-powered economic numbers this quarter, including a 4.8% rise in the GDP. It's just so awesome! I'm always a bit impressed -- or maybe depressed -- by the superficiality of economic reporting though. To hear the Washington Post tell it, the economic numbers this quarter are made of sugar and spice, and everything nice. But macro data tells you very little about the economic experience of most folks, which accounts for the massive disconnect between how the Bush administration and the media seem to think the economy is doing (tubularly!) and the 63% of the public who think the situation fair or poor. For some more indicative numbers, head over to the Wall Street Journal, where you learn that wages and salaries grew only 0.7% over this period, while prices for U.S. consumers rose 2.7%. The labor market, which has tightened up, is seeing a weird combination of low unemployment without corresponding wage growth. The WSJ seems pleased, as this'll keep inflation down, but workers may feel otherwise.

Everybody I know is pretty squeezed. The huge run up in gas prices haven't helped.

Feeling No Pain

Chevron Earnings Soar 49 Percent to $4B

By MICHAEL LIEDTKE
The Associated Press
Friday, April 28, 2006; 10:20 AM

SAN RAMON, Calif. -- Chevron Corp.'s first-quarter profit soared 49 percent to $4 billion, joining the procession of U.S. oil companies to report colossal earnings as lawmakers consider ways to pacify motorists agitated about rising gas prices.

Chevron released its results Friday after two of its biggest rivals, ConocoPhillips and Exxon Mobil Corp., already provoked public outrage with similarly large first-quarter profits. Combined, the three oil companies earned $15.7 billion during the first three months of the year.

San Ramon, Calif.-based Chevron's net income for the three months ended in March translated into $1.80 per share, two cents above the average estimate among analysts polled by Thomson Financial. It compared to a profit of $2.7 billion, or $1.28 per share, in the same January-March period last year.

Revenue totaled $54.6 billion, a 31 percent increase from $41.6 billion last year.

Investors cheered the results as Chevron shares gained $1.22, or 2 percent, to $61.20 in early trading on the New York Stock Exchange.

If not for continuing production problems caused by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita last summer, Chevron said it would have made an additional $300 million _ an amount that would have generated the highest quarterly profit in the company's 127-year history.

Regular unleaded is $3.039 at the corner Exxon.

UPDATE: Elsewhere in Northern Virgina, much higher. You can use a href="http://www.gasbuddy.com/gb_index.aspx">this site to compare gas prices anywhere in the US and most of Canada.

Mr. Jefferson's State

Running for Senate, and Against the War
Area's Democratic Candidates Find Support in Calling for U.S. to Leave Iraq

By Robert Barnes
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, April 28, 2006; Page A01

From a cocktail party of liberal contributors in Baltimore to the ball-cap-wearing crowd in a conservative town in southwest Virginia, wherever Democratic loyalists gather, there are five words sure to prompt applause for a Senate candidate:

End the war in Iraq.

Virginia Democrat James H. Webb Jr.'s early warnings about invading Iraq are the main reason he has been so embraced by the liberal bloggers who started a draft movement to get him into the race. Maryland candidate Rep. Benjamin L. Cardin was one of 133 House members who voted against the original resolution authorizing President Bush to take action -- and he might be the most conservative on the issue among Democrats seeking to replace retiring Sen. Paul S. Sarbanes (D).

And Webb's Democratic opponent in the June 13 primary, Harris Miller, called on Bush yesterday to fire Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and mocked Sen. George Allen (R-Va.) for saying on a talk show that "important progress" is being made in Iraq.

"All of George Allen and George Bush's talk can't hide the fact that they have been wrong or unprepared at nearly every step of this war," Harris said in a conference call with reporters. Allen has been one of the president's strongest supporters on Iraq policy.

At this point, the Democratic candidates in Maryland and Virginia are speaking mostly to the kinds of party activists who take an early interest in campaigns and who are sharply suspicious of the Bush administration.

But the most recent Washington Post poll showed that only 37 percent of the country approved of Bush's handling of the Iraq situation, and respondents said it will be among the key issues in deciding their votes in congressional elections this fall.

"Oh, it's everywhere," Webb, a decorated Vietnam War Marine veteran and former secretary of the Navy under President Ronald Reagan, said of the concern about the war. "You heard it in Gate City."

That is the rural southwest Virginia town known for its Republican politics where Webb started his "Operation: Take Back Virginia" tour Tuesday. He explained -- very carefully -- his opposition to the war to a group of supporters and family members, pointing to a 2002 op-ed article he wrote for The Post advising against the invasion.

"My objection to the war is not aimed at my country but at the administration that has chosen to wage this war, an administration that has muddied the truth, made mistake after mistake and refused to accept responsibility," said Webb, whose son is a Marine scheduled to be deployed to Iraq this summer. Cautious to separate his opposition to the war from his views on the military, he is wearing combat boots on the campaign trail as a show of support for his son and others who serve.

A line that Webb used in his stump speech -- "we have a lot of cleaning up to do: Number One is to end the war in Iraq" -- drew applause not only in Gate City but also in front of a battleship in Norfolk, at the Science Museum of Virginia in Richmond and at Courthouse Plaza in Arlington County.

Virginia is going to be a bellweather this year. Outside of the Northern Virginia DC suburbs, the state is conservative, but elected a technocrat centrist Dem in the last gubernatorial election. The state is also heavily military, so the midterms will be a referendum on the Iraq war.

Cakewalk

Iraq war set to be more expensive than Vietnam
By Rupert Cornwell in Washington
Published: 28 April 2006

The Iraq war has already cost the United States $320bn (£180bn), according to an authoritative new report, and even if a troop withdrawal begins this year, the conflict is set to be more expensive in real terms than the Vietnam War, a generation ago.

The estimate, circulated this week by the non-partisan Congressional Research Service (CRS), can only increase unease over the US presence in Iraq, whose direct costs now run at some $6bn a month, or $200m a day, with no end in sight.

The Bush administration has refused to provide any specific overall figure for the war's cost. But the Senate is set to approve another emergency spending bill in May, meaning that Iraq will have consumed $101bn in fiscal 2006 alone, almost double the $51bn of 2003, the year of the invasion itself - and all at a time when the federal budget deficit is running at near record levels.

But these figures pale beside what lies in store, the CRS says in its analysis. The Bush administration is desperate to announce a reduction in the 130,000-strong US force before November's mid-term elections, where public disillusion with the war threatens disaster for the Republicans.

However, even if everything goes relatively smoothly, costs until a phase-out is complete could top $370bn. This would make the Iraq conflict, now into its fourth year, more expensive financially than the Vietnam War, which lasted eight years. Vietnam claimed 58,000 American lives, far more than the almost 2,400 lost in Iraq thus far. But in today's dollars it cost "only" $549bn, much less than the $690bn for Iraq, and a projected combined $811bn bill for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

It is a far cry from the weeks before the war, when a White House official was rapped on the knuckles for suggesting the cost might be between $100bn and $200bn, and Donald Rumsfeld, the Defence Secretary, was touting "a number that's somewhere under $50bn".

Paul Wolfowitz, now president of the World Bank but then Mr Rumsfeld's deputy at the Pentagon, even theorised before Congress that the post-invasion period might pay for itself as Iraq's oil revenues soared.

The financial analysis by the Congressional Research Service lists various "key war cost questions" and "major unknowns", such as future troop levels, but its financial conclusions are restrained compared with other non-official figures.

Scott Wallsten of the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think-tank, has estimated an overall cost of $500bn thus far, with as much again possible. Most, he says, will be paid for by the US (unlike the 1990-91 Gulf War, which the US fought almost for free, thanks to contributions from Saudi Arabia, Japan and other allies).

In January, a study by Joseph Stiglitz, the Columbia University economist and former Nobel Prize winner, and the Harvard lecturer Linda Bilmes reckoned the conflict could ultimately cost $2 trillion, if all factors are taken into account. These include the long-term healthcare costs for the 16,000 US soldiers already wounded in the conflict, and other indirect or hidden costs such as the rise in the price of oil, the need to finance larger budget deficits, higher recruiting costs and losses to the economy caused by the wounded.

The Pentagon has treated such outside estimates with disdain. But it resolutely refused to give a detailed picture of its own. Some experts suggest, however, that the Pentagon may have deliberately inflated its financial needs now, fearing that as the war becomes ever more unpopular, Congress will grow less willing to provide funds in the future.

The Iraq war has already cost the United States $320bn (£180bn), according to an authoritative new report, and even if a troop withdrawal begins this year, the conflict is set to be more expensive in real terms than the Vietnam War, a generation ago.

The estimate, circulated this week by the non-partisan Congressional Research Service (CRS), can only increase unease over the US presence in Iraq, whose direct costs now run at some $6bn a month, or $200m a day, with no end in sight.

The Bush administration has refused to provide any specific overall figure for the war's cost. But the Senate is set to approve another emergency spending bill in May, meaning that Iraq will have consumed $101bn in fiscal 2006 alone, almost double the $51bn of 2003, the year of the invasion itself - and all at a time when the federal budget deficit is running at near record levels.

But these figures pale beside what lies in store, the CRS says in its analysis. The Bush administration is desperate to announce a reduction in the 130,000-strong US force before November's mid-term elections, where public disillusion with the war threatens disaster for the Republicans.

However, even if everything goes relatively smoothly, costs until a phase-out is complete could top $370bn. This would make the Iraq conflict, now into its fourth year, more expensive financially than the Vietnam War, which lasted eight years. Vietnam claimed 58,000 American lives, far more than the almost 2,400 lost in Iraq thus far. But in today's dollars it cost "only" $549bn, much less than the $690bn for Iraq, and a projected combined $811bn bill for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

It is a far cry from the weeks before the war, when a White House official was rapped on the knuckles for suggesting the cost might be between $100bn and $200bn, and Donald Rumsfeld, the Defence Secretary, was touting "a number that's somewhere under $50bn".

Fortunately, there isn't anything else we need the money for....

Cluck, Cluck

Oil and politics don't mix
April 28, 2006

NO DOUBT PRESIDENT BUSH hoped his Tuesday speech to the Renewable Fuels Assn. would mollify grumpy Americans tired of high gas prices. But by proposing dubious policies that — at best — might save a few cents per gallon in the short term, while doing little to address the underlying problem of U.S. oil dependence, the president did something worse than nothing: He ushered in a silly season for wrongheaded, economically ignorant proposals by headline-chasing politicians.

Just a few short months ago, Bush was paying lip service to addressing the country's oil "addiction." On Tuesday, he offered us gas junkies a cheaper, faster fix by deferring new deposits to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. And now, after a week's worth of 1970s-style economic rhetoric, the prospects for successful detox seem all the more distant as public officials scramble to follow the president's lead in dreaming up their own "solutions" to the oil market. Like most insta-legislation rushed to the floor in the wake of controversial news — think Terri Schiavo — the gas-price proposals should be ignored and scorned.

Take the calls to root out alleged misdeeds by oil companies. Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) wants to look at Big Oil's tax returns "to make sure [they] aren't taking a speed pass by the tax man." Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) proposed breaking up the industry altogether. And state officials want their piece of the witch hunt too. On Tuesday, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger announced that he had sicced the California Energy Commission on the case. In Arkansas, a candidate for attorney general also pledged to investigate oil companies, even though that state's anti-gouging law only applies during emergencies.

Everyone likes to see a villain squirm. The problem is, the Federal Trade Commission already has been sniffing out price gouging in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and has yet to uncover one instance of illegal behavior. Election-year investigations into marketwide collusion and gouging are window dressing, nothing more.

Worse are renewed calls to authorize drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and to relax environmental restrictions on polluting refineries. A still-lower circle of populist hell is reserved for embarrassingly baldfaced sops to voters, such as the Senate's $100 taxpayer refund. Or that body's proposal to increase farm energy subsidies by $1.5 billion. Or its push for a 60-day federal gas tax holiday.

All of these proposals would provide scant relief even while encouraging continued fuel overuse. As Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke testified before Congress on Thursday, "Unfortunately, there's nothing, really, that can be done that's going to affect energy prices or gasoline prices in the very short run."

Sensible policy would focus on curbing consumption. Indeed, if politicians were being honest about breaking the addiction, they'd admit that it might make sense to hope that gas prices stay high — which would drive down demand and perhaps spur businesses to get real about alternative fuel technologies and improved auto mileage.

As a Texas governor running for president wisely said in 2000, the "Strategic Reserve should not be used as an attempt to drive down oil prices right before an election."

In short, most of what we are going to be hearing in coming months is bullshit

The Sound and the Fury

Profits, Prices Spur Oil Outrage
Exxon Mobil Posts First-Quarter Rise

By Steven Mufson and Shailagh Murray
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, April 28, 2006; Page A01

Exxon Mobil Corp. reported $8.4 billion in first-quarter profit yesterday, as members of Congress outraged over high gasoline prices hastened to propose measures that would boost taxes on oil firms, open new areas to drilling and provide rebates to taxpayers but would not necessarily alter prices at the pumps.

The earnings outstripped the oil giant's profit in the first quarter of last year. Given current oil market conditions, analysts said, that puts Exxon Mobil on track to break the $36 billion record profit it made last year.

Stock prices, economic forecasts and consumer confidence show that ever-more-volatile oil prices have become a barometer by which consumers, investors, corporate executives and even voters gauge the future.

Meanwhile, President Bush sought to show that he was responding to calls for action in the face of rising gasoline prices. While visiting a gasoline station in Biloxi, Miss., Bush renewed his call for Congress to give him the authority to "raise" mileage standards for all passenger cars. White House officials said later, however, that they didn't know when or how the president would use that authority.

Congress has the authority to approve changes in mileage standards for passenger cars, and the executive branch can set them for light trucks without approval from Congress. But neither Congress nor the administration has shown much interest in raising passenger car standards, which were set in the 1970s and haven't changed since 1985. In March, the Bush administration said it would raise average fuel economy standards by 1.9 miles a gallon for sport-utility vehicles, pickups and vans for models in 2008 through 2011, a long-awaited move that environmentalists said was too modest.

In Congress, anger over gasoline prices brought action in the Senate to a screeching halt yesterday, with Democrats interrupting debate over an emergency military spending bill to protest a key oil company subsidy. In a highly unusual move, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) waged a solo filibuster on the Senate floor in an attempt to force a vote on a provision that would halt support for what Wyden said was about $35 billion for oil and gas companies. "This is the big one, folks, in terms of energy subsidies," Wyden said during the five-hour standoff. "This is the one where there is no logical case . . . when oil is $70 per barrel."

Various committees and individual lawmakers scrambled to offer relief to consumers, punish suppliers and promote favorite energy-related provisions, most of them offering little or no immediate relief at the gas station pumps.

Senate GOP leaders rolled out a fat package of energy measures, including a $100 rebate to most taxpayers, and reaffirmed authority for state and federal officials to fight price gouging. The proposal also would allow drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska; Democrats called the controversial idea a deal-killer for the rest of the package.

Democrats unveiled their own ideas, including various windfall-profit rebates, a temporary suspension of the federal gas tax and alternative energy investments.

For all the criticism from Congress, Exxon Mobil's earnings fell slightly short of analysts' expectations, and company shares fell 68 cents to close at $62.42 a share.

In an attempt to simultaneously impress investors and calm politicians, Exxon Mobil spokesman Ken Cohen stressed that compared with the year-earlier quarter, the company had increased its worldwide oil and gas production by 5 percent, boosted capital spending by 41 percent and paid worldwide taxes that amounted to a 46 percent rate.

But analysts, while impressed by the production numbers, noted that much of the increase in capital spending came from sharply rising costs for oil services and that the high tax rates were a result of high crude oil prices. In many countries, sliding-scale tax rates rise as prices do; Norway taxes some portion of output at rates as high as 70 percent, and Libya's effective tax rates can go as high as 90 percent, analysts said.

I guess this is the "jawboning" W campaigned on.

Open Thread

I'm taking the rest of the day off. Seven day a week blogging for two and half years has left me with very sore hands and wrists and I need to rest them now. UPS brought my new posture chair and I'm going to put it together tonight.

This is your open thread. Use it as you wish.

Fueling Rebellion

Silencing The Squeaky Wheels

By Shane Harris, National Journal
© National Journal Group Inc.
Thursday, April 27, 2006

The CIA has imposed new and tighter restrictions on the books, articles, and opinion pieces published by former employees who are still contractors with the intelligence agency. According to several former CIA officials affected by the new policy, the rules are intended to suppress criticism of the Bush administration and of the CIA. The officials say the restrictions amount to an unprecedented political "appropriateness" test at odds with earlier CIA policies on outside publishing.

The move is a significant departure from the CIA's longtime practice of allowing ex-employees to take critical or contrary positions in public, particularly when they are contractors paid to advise the CIA on important topics and to publish their assessments.

All current and former CIA employees have long been required to submit manuscripts for books, opinion pieces, and even speeches to the agency's Publications Review Board, which ensures that the works don't reveal classified information or intelligence sources and methods. The board has not generally factored political opinions into its decision-making, former CIA officials say. But in recent years, former employees have written memoirs and opinion pieces challenging the CIA and the Bush administration, particularly for its use of prewar intelligence to justify the war in Iraq. The board did not find that any of those pieces revealed secrets, a fact that makes the CIA's new review standards troubling, former officials and intelligence-community analysts said.

Many of those experts believe that public criticism provides an important source of alternative analysis -- something the CIA needs to understand terrorism, global disease, and other emerging threats. But the White House and CIA Director Porter Goss view spies-turned-authors as political liabilities who embarrass an already battered administration, former officials said. The CIA is now aggressively investigating -- using polygraphs in some cases -- employees who are suspected of leaking classified information to journalists, and last week the agency said it fired a senior official, Mary O. McCarthy, reportedly for having unauthorized contact with the news media.

The former CIA officials carefully distinguished leaks of classified information, which they acknowledged can endanger national security, from articles or speeches that challenge policy yet reveal no secrets. But several said that Goss's vigorous pursuit of leakers is philosophically connected to his desire to keep embarrassing comments by former CIA insiders out of the public domain.

"I think the [publications] that are causing the most kickback now are things that look like they're critical of the administration," said one former official who has written about intelligence policies and techniques. "The [career] agency people feel like they are regarded by the White House as the enemy." They "feel like Goss's real job is to decimate the place," said the former official, who, like others contacted for this story, asked for anonymity to avoid reprisal from the CIA.

Full-time agency employees are discouraged from expressing their political opinions, lest they taint the agency as partisan. But contractors traditionally have been free to speak their minds. The new review policy "reflects [Goss's] concern, and his personality, which seems to have minimal tolerance for dissent," said Steven Aftergood, an authority on government secrecy policies with the Federation of American Scientists.

The publications review process "was designed to assure agency personnel that their First Amendment rights would be protected as long as they did not compromise security," Aftergood said. "That relatively enlightened position has now been abandoned."

The CIA acknowledged for the first time last week that the Publications Review Board subjects former officials under contract to a two-part test. "First, material submitted for publication cannot contain classified information," CIA spokesman Paul Gimigliano wrote in an e-mail. "Second, it cannot impair the individual's ability to do his or her job or the CIA's ability to conduct its mission as a nonpartisan, nonpolicy agency of the executive branch."

That new criterion is at odds with the agency's earlier rules. According to a July 2005 unclassified regulation, signed by Goss, "The [Publications Review Board] will review material ... solely to determine whether it contains any classified information. Permission to publish will not be denied solely because the material may be embarrassing to or critical of the agency."

The Bush Administration: Politicizing the Executive Branch One Agency at a Time.

I'm also hearing around town that there is considerable pushback going on from the career employees.

Uncommon Sense

Senate Panel Urge FEMA Dismantling
By ERIC LIPTON

WASHINGTON, April 26 —The Federal Emergency Management Agency was so fundamentally dysfunctional during Hurricane Katrina that Congress should abolish it and create a new disaster response agency from scratch, according to a draft of bipartisan recommendations proposed by a Senate committee.

The new agency, which would still be part of the Department of Homeland Security, should be more powerful, with additional components that would give it a budget twice as big as FEMA's, the report's draft recommendations say.

It would assume functions spread throughout the department, like preparing for disasters or terrorist attacks, protecting the nation's infrastructure and distributing grants to state and local governments.

And during major catastrophes like Hurricane Katrina, the agency's director would report directly to the president.

FEMA today has a budget of $4.8 billion, and 2,600 full-time employees.

Senator Susan Collins, the Maine Republican who is chairwoman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, said the new agency would be "better equipped with the tools to prepare for and respond to a disaster."

The committee's ranking Democrat, Senator Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut, also endorsed creation of what would be called the National Preparedness and Response Authority. But the full committee has not yet debated or voted on the draft recommendations.

The report has also not yet been shared with the Bush administration. But officials at the Department of Homeland Security said that from what they had already heard, they were not impressed.

"It is time to stop rearranging organization charts and start focusing on how governments at all levels are preparing for the fast-approaching storm season," said Russ Knocke, the department press secretary.

Since Hurricane Katrina hit, Michael Chertoff, the secretary of homeland security, has been working on his own alternative to the agency's current structure, which he has described as "retooling" FEMA. That has meant bringing in professional disaster managers to replace the former director Michael D. Brown and other senior officials, many of whom had little emergency management experience.

Mr. Chertoff has also moved to fill hundreds of other vacant jobs, establish a better disaster-resistant communications system and set up a way to ensure that the agency can more rapidly deliver emergency supplies.

The proposal by the Senate committee leaders will join others now before Congress. Bills are pending that would keep FEMA intact, but remove it from the Homeland Security Department and have the director report directly to the president, as was the case before the department was created after the 2001 terrorist attacks.

Um, it worked passable well before it was folded into DHS, so why not just undo that rather than try to reinvent the wheel less than five weeks before the start of hurricane season? Do people get common-sense-ectomies when they are elected to Congress?

Price Gouging

Exxon Mobil 1Q Profit Rises 7 Percent

The Associated Press
Thursday, April 27, 2006; 8:38 AM

IRVING, Texas -- Exxon Mobil Corp., the world's largest oil company, on Thursday said higher oil prices drove first-quarter profit up 7 percent from the prior year.

Net income rose to $8.4 billion, or $1.37 per share, for the January-March period from $7.86 billion, or $1.22 per share, a year ago.

Analysts polled by Thomson Financial were looking for a higher profit of $1.47 per share, and shares fell $1.20, or almost 2 percent, in premarket trading.

Revenue grew to $88.98 billion from $82.05 billion a year earlier. Higher crude oil and natural gas prices and improved marketing margins were partly offset by lower chemical margins.

Worldwide production of oil equivalent in the first quarter of 2006 rose 5 percent.

The report comes amid consumer outcry in the U.S. about soaring gasoline prices. The average retail price of gasoline in the U.S. is now $2.91 a gallon, or 68 cents higher than a year ago.

When was the last time you got a 7% raise?

One Step Ahead of the Man

I've got an ear plugged up by wax and no health insurance, so I'm going to have to dial around to find the cheapest place to get that fixed in the AM. There is no telling what my day is going to look like. If you think being poor means being lazy, boy, you are missing the truth. Being poor means working your tail off to stay one step ahead of the man.

Learning from the Neighbors

This is breakfast for 8 from the Rabbit Hill Inn in Lower Waterford, VT. Bed and Breakfasts keep me nourished.

Oh, this is really good, or it wouldn't be here.

Sausage and Smoked Gouda Baked Egg
with a Spinach Cream Sauce

Ingredients:
8 large eggs
1/4 cup flour
1 cup cooked, chopped sausage
salt and pepper to taste
1 cup half & half
1 cup cottage cheese
1 cup shredded smoked gouda cheese
Spinach Cream Sauce:
1/4 cup butter
1/4 cup of flour
1-1/2 cups half & half
1-1/2 to 2 cups blanched, chopped spinach
2 to 3 drops Tabasco pepper and Worcestershire sauces
grated cheese (optional)

Butter 8 individual ramekins or two 9-inch pie pans.

In a large bowl, combine eggs, flour, gouda, cream, cottage cheese along with salt and pepper. Place equal amounts of chopped sausage in each ramekin or pan. Fill the containers with the egg and cheese batter. Bake at 350 degrees for 40 minutes.

Sauce: In a small sauce pan, melt butter. Add flour to make a roux. Cook and stir for 1 minute. Add in half & half. Add in spinach. Season with sauces and add cheese.

Invite the neighbors.

Snoozer Blogger

The day started in court. That's not the way you want to start your day. The judge was a human being and, since I have no record, the traffic stop for my driving on a suspended was reduced from a misdemeanor to whatever is below that and I won't end up with a record.

I got stopped by the local sheriff for driving with a headlight out back in January. In my car, these things are expensive to replace and I can't do them myself, it takes a trip to the shop. When he ran my license and registration, he discovered that my license had been lifted by the city last year for a traffic stop I don't even remember and I never got the suspension notice. I'm your standard Minnesota girl and don't even get parking tickets, so I'm still not sure how all this happened, my middle aged memory is fogged, but I uttered the words "your honor" at some point this morning, paid a small fine and walked out without a record, I think.

After a trip to the DMV tomorrow to get my license back, I'll once again be driving Rosa, the red Carmelite. BTW, a trip to the DMV here in VA is a major migraine, the trip to court was less of a headache. I have a book to read for the long wait and the number of documents I need to have in order will be assembled in the morning. I need a passport or birth certificate to start over after a license surrender, along with proof of occupancy at my residence. My electric bill will serve.

I'm plumb tuckered after dealing with the morning nerve jag and headed for bed, after a long bath to soak all that nasty salt sweat off my person. I don't even want to think about the amount of nerves you can smell on me.

Summer Cooking

This is a Paula Deen recipe (I love her cooking) that I've tinkered with a little. As much as I love my mom's potato salad, this might be my favorite. The longer days and warmer temps have got me thinking about firing up the grill (I love barbecued chicken) and this is a perfect pairing for anything from burgers to brats. This will serve 8-10.

The Lady's Warm Potato Salad

8 medium red potatoes
1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley leaves
1/4 cup chopped green onion tops
1 cup chopped celery
3 hard boiled eggs, chopped
1/4 cup chopped bell pepper
1/4 cup diced pimento
1 teaspoon lemon-pepper seasoning
1 tablespoon seasoned salt (I use Lawry's, or make your own*)
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
2 tablespoons finely chopped dill
2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh chervil
1/4 cup mayonnaise
1 cup sour cream

In a large pot, boil the potatoes with the skins on for 10 to 15 minutes until tender. Let the potatoes cool just to the touch and cut into cubes.

In a large bowl, combine the remaining ingredients. Add the potatoes and mix gently. Serve at room temperature.

This is better the second day, so if you make it ahead and refrigerate, let it come back to room temp before serving.

*Seasoned Salt

* 6 tablespoons salt
* 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme leaves
* 1/2 teaspoon marjoram
* 2 1/4 teaspoons paprika
* 1 teaspoon dry mustard
* 1/8 teaspoon dill weed
* 1/2 teaspoon celery salt

Put all ingredients into a mini food processor or small blender container and blend on low. You can also use a mortar and pestle.

I used to play in the Charleston Symphony in the pre-Paula Deen days and the food downtown was already pretty amazing. Whatever I made went to hotel and meal bills.

On the Breeze

This first course (for 8) is a great way to show off the bounty of spring: asparagus. Remember to break off the woody ends and discard any stems which are woody. I'm making this for a pot-luck brunch next month.

Aspargus Flan with Cheese Sauce

For flan
2 lb asparagus, trimmed
4 large eggs
1 1/3 cups whole milk
2 tablespoons freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano
1 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon black pepper
1/8 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg, or to taste

For sauce
1/4 lb Italian Fontina, rind discarded and cheese coarsely grated (or cut into 1/4-inch dice if too soft to grate)
1/2 cup whole milk
2 large eggs yolks
1 tablespoon butter

Make flan:
Put oven rack in middle position and preheat oven to 350°F. Butter an 8- by 2-inch round cake pan and line bottom with a round of wax paper, then butter paper. Steam asparagus in a steamer set over boiling water, covered, until very tender, 6 to 8 minutes. Purée asparagus in a food processor until smooth, 1 to 2 minutes. (You will have about 2 cups purée.)

Whisk together eggs, milk, cheese, salt, pepper, and nutmeg in a bowl, then whisk in asparagus purée.

Pour asparagus mixture into pan and bake in a hot water bath until flan is set and a wooden pick or skewer inserted in center comes out clean, 50 minutes to 1 hour.

Transfer pan to a rack to cool slightly, 10 to 15 minutes.

Make sauce while flan cools:
Put all sauce ingredients in a metal bowl, then set bowl over a pan of barely simmering water. Heat sauce, whisking until cheese and butter are melted, and then stirring with a wooden spoon, until sauce is slightly thickened and registers 165°F on an instant-read thermometer, 5 to 8 minutes. You must keep stirring until the sauce is completely mixed. Stop for a moment and you run the risk that it breaks. When it coats the back of a spoon like heavy cream, it is done. Remove bowl from pan.

Run a thin knife around edge of flan to loosen, then invert a serving plate over pan and invert flan onto plate. Remove pan and discard paper. If you have reserved some steamed asparagus tips, you can garnish the top with them after you've placed it on the serving plate, or use a combination of minced parsley and chives. Cut flan into wedges and serve immediately with sauce.

You can make the flan the day before you plan to serve it, but the cheese sauce will need to be made on the spot. This will also delight both carnivores and your ovo-lacto friends.

You can make the cheese sauce (and steam the asparagus) in the microwave. In a glass casserole, place the rinsed asparagus, still wet and nuke on high for about 3 minutes. For the cheese sauce, here's the method:

Melt butter in a 1-quart glass measuring pitcher in microwave oven (about 30 seconds at High).

Add milk gradually, stirring constantly.

Cook uncovered in microwave overn 4 minutes at High, or until thickened; stir vigorously after 2 minutes, then every 30 seconds.

Add salt, pepper and cheese to sauce; stir well. Cook uncovered in microwave oven 1 minute at High; stir.

Swimming Things

As I've mentioned before, my first real contact with seafood was when I was in grad school in Boston. Fresh seafood was still a rarity in my part of the Midwest in those days, so this was a new experience for me. I remember being fascinated by the varieties I could find at the supermarket and didn't really know what to do with much of it. My first cooking experience was with scrod, young cod, but this recipe will work with any firm, white fish, like tilapia.

I learned this recipe from a tearoom which was around the corner from my apartment. Sadly, it no longer exists.

Baked Scrod in Foil
For 6, but this is easy to cut down for one or two

6 Scrod fillets; 1/4 lb each
Salt & pepper to taste
1 Red bell pepper; chopped fine
1 sm Onion, chopped fine
2 tb Tiny capers; drained
6 tb Flat-leaf parsley; chopped
6 tb Lemon juice
2 tb Extra-virgin olive oil

1. Cut six pieces (each 14x12 inches) of foil. Preheat the oven to 400oF. 2. Center a scrod fillet on the lower half of each piece of foil, shiny-side up. 3. Sprinkle each fillet with salt and pepper to taste. Arrange the vegetables equally on top of each piece of fish and sprinkle evenly with the capers and parsley. Drizzle each filllet with 1 tablespoon lemon juice and 1 teaspoon olive oil. 4. Fold the top half of the foil over the fish and seal the packets on all sides. 5. Place the packets on a baking sheet, leaving 2 inches between each one, and bake for 20 minutes. Let rest for 5 minutes. Serve immediately, one packet per person.

If you don't have much experience cooking fish, this is a pretty fool-proof way to start.

I like to serve this with rice to soak up the lemony sauce. Green beans with almonds as a side is a compliment which lets the delicacy of the fish speak. Dress the beans with just a whiff of vinaigrette with pimiento slices before serving.

Wallet Pain

Local expert predicts gas prices will hit $4 a gallon this summer

April 26, 2006

Question: How high will gas prices go?

Answer: Some experts predict the national average price will go higher than $3.50 a gallon for regular unleaded gasoline. One local economist, Northeastern Illinois University professor Edward Stuart, expects it to hit $4 per gallon this summer.

The average price nationwide for a gallon of regular unleaded now stands at $2.92, according to the American Automobile Association. In Chicago, the average is $2.99. Some stations in the city are charging over $3.25 a gallon, with one charging $3.29. Others in the area are charging as little as $2.85.

$3.039 at the corner gas station across from me.

Avian Flu News

U.S. Efforts Might Not Slow Pandemic Flu

By SETH BORENSTEIN, AP Science Writer 13 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - If pandemic influenza hits in the next year or so, the few weapons the United States has to keep it from spreading will do little, a new computer model shows.

A pandemic flu is likely to strike one in three people if nothing is done, according to the results of computer simulation published in Thursday's journal Nature. If the government acts fast enough and has enough antiviral medicine to use as preventive dosings — which the United States does not — that could drop to about 28 percent of the population getting sick, the study found.

"Both cases we came up with were very pessimistic," said lead author Neil Ferguson of the Department of Infectious Disease Epidemiology at Imperial College in London. "There is no single magic bullet for stopping pandemic flu."

So far this year, H5N1 bird flu — which is not yet pandemic flu because it doesn't move easily between people — has infected 204 people and killed 103, according to the
World Health Organization. Most of the human cases and deaths have been in Asia, but birds with the disease have been found in Europe.

Ferguson's computer simulation is the second released this month and is more pessimistic than one led by Timothy Germann of Los Alamos National Laboratory, who said the flu could be less infectious and that efforts could slow it a bit.

Measures such as closing schools to halt breeding grounds and the use of the antiviral Tamiflu could reduce the disease's toll, Ferguson said. But efforts to stop flu from entering American borders — usually on planes with sick passengers — won't work, he said. At most, they can buy a couple of weeks of delay before the disease sets in, he said.

If the United States were like Britain and had enough antiviral medicine for one quarter of the population to be used before people get sick, computer models show that the number of people getting sick would drop from about 102 million to about 84 million in America, Ferguson said.

Bill Hall, spokesman for Department of Health and Human Services, said his agency has 28 million courses of the antiviral (9.3 percent of the U.S. population), but acknowledged that on hand, there's only enough medicine for 5 million people (1.7 percent). The other 23 million courses are on order and should arrive by the end of the year. The plan is to have 81 million courses (27.1 percent) by 2008, he said.

To quote CIDRAP's Mike Osterholm, if anything happens in the next couple of years, we're screwed.

Untreated

Percentage of Uninsured Americans Rising

By THERESA AGOVINO, AP Business Writer 20 minutes ago

NEW YORK - The percentage of working-age Americans with moderate to middle incomes who lacked health insurance for at least part of the year rose to 41 percent in 2005, a dramatic increase from the 28 percent in 2001 without coverage, a study released on Wednesday found.

Moreover, more than half of the uninsured adults said they were having problems paying their medical bills or had incurred debt to cover their expenses, according to a report by the Commonwealth Fund, a New York-based private, health care policy foundation. The study of 4,350 adults also found that people without insurance were more likely to forgo recommended health screenings such as mammograms than those with coverage, and were less likely to have a regular doctor than their insured counterparts.

The report paints a bleak health care picture for the uninsured. "It represents an explosion of the insurance crisis into those with moderate incomes," said Sara Collins, a senior program officer at the Commonwealth Fund.

Collins said the study also illustrates how more employers are dropping coverage or are offering plans that are just too expensive for many people.

About 45.8 million Americans did not have health insurance in 2004, according to the U.S.
Census Bureau.

The percentage of individuals earning less than $20,000 a year without insurance rose to 53 percent, up from 49 percent in 2001. Overall, the percentage of people without insurance rose to 28 percent in 2005 from 24 percent in 2001.

The study also found that 59 percent of uninsured with chronic conditions such as asthma or diabetes either skipped a dose of their medicine or went without it because it was too expensive. One-third of them

One-third of those in that group visited an emergency room or stayed in a hospital overnight or did both, compared to 15 percent of their insured counterparts.

Collins said those statistics are significant because giving up medicines typically leads to more expensive health problems later. Treating people in expensive settings such emergency rooms places a financial burden on the health care system, she added.

"People not being able to take care of themselves should send out a big red flag," said Collins.

I have been among the uninsured for over a year. That means I'm one illness away from bankruptcy.

Up North

In Canada, An Uproar Over Army Casualties

By Doug Struck
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, April 26, 2006; A18

TORONTO, April 25 -- A day after Canada's newspapers carried front-page photos of the flag-draped coffins of four soldiers killed in Afghanistan, the Conservative government slapped a ban on news media coverage of the coffins' return home to Canada on Tuesday.

The order, and an earlier decision by the government not to lower the national flag to half-staff to mark the soldiers' deaths, brought criticisms that Prime Minister Stephen Harper is trying to muffle reaction to Afghanistan casualties.

"What is the prime minister trying to hide by dishonoring fallen soldiers?" Jack Layton, leader of the opposition New Democratic Party, demanded in the House of Commons on Tuesday.

"We should not be trying to hide these things," echoed Bill Graham, leader of the Liberal Party.

Harper insisted the government is protecting the privacy of grieving families, and Conservative officials said the flag has traditionally not been lowered for war casualties. But the debate underlined the public's qualms over Canada's beefed-up role in Afghanistan, and the government's nervousness about uncertain support for that operation.

Canada now has 2,300 troops in Afghanistan, and has recently moved its operation from Kabul to the more dangerous Kandahar region in the south. The four soldiers, killed Saturday in a roadside bomb blast north of Kandahar city, brought the Canadian death toll in Afghanistan to 16, including a diplomat. The nations' papers were filled with stories about the four fallen men. The attack was the deadliest by insurgents against Canadian troops since they deployed to Afghanistan.

Harper, who took office in January, is a strong supporter of the military mission. But the most recent public opinion poll found Canadians evenly split on having troops in Afghanistan.

The redeployment to Kandahar and the casualties have led to "a series of rude awakenings for Canadians," said Rudyard Griffiths, executive director of the Dominion Institute, which runs a veterans' awareness project. That unease is increased by Canadians' strong opposition to the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq and to the Bush administration, he said.

"It's a very fine balancing act the prime minister has to manage, communicating to Canadians that Afghanistan is not Iraq," Griffiths said. As reports of Afghan civilian and Canadian military casualties mount, "it's going to transfer that negative image of a bungled enterprise, of hopelessness, from George Bush to Stephen Harper."

The comparison came quickly Tuesday after the government ordered journalists away from the Trenton, Ontario, air base when the coffins of the four soldiers arrived.

Harper is grabbing entire chapters, not just pages, out of the Bush book. Canada has a parliamentary form of government, however, and a government can fall on a vote of no confidence. I predicted in January that the Harper government wouldn't last more than a year. Now I'm wondering if it will last that long.

Busy Blogger

I have a raft of errands to run this morning. The news will resume when I return.

Tragedy Writ Large

----
If Past Is Prologue, George Bush Is Becoming An Increasingly Dangerous President
By JOHN W. DEAN
----
Friday, Apr. 21, 2006

For Cool Nights

I love red wine reduction sauces. This one is filled with flavor.

2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
2 sprigs rosemary, leaves picked
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
4 (4 ounce) fillet medallions
6 ounces dandelion greens
2 teaspoons minced garlic
6 ounces cippolini onions, chopped
4 ounces reduced barolo wine, for sauce

Heat grill to medium-high to high heat.

Combine 1 tablespoon olive oil, rosemary leaves, salt and pepper and rub over the meat. Place on the grill and crosshatch the meat on both sides. Continue this process until the meat reaches desired temperature.

In a hot saucepan cook the dandelion greens with 1 teaspoon garlic and 1 1/2 teaspoons oil. In a different hot saucepan cook the onions with remaining teaspoon garlic and 1 1/2 teaspoons oil. Warm the Barolo Sauce in a separate saucepan and serve over the medallions.

Light Supper

This is a rich restaurant recipe.

HAM, LEEK, AND THREE-CHEESE QUICHE

round of refrigerated pie dough for a 9-inch pie (from a 15-oz package; not a preshaped frozen pie shell)
3/4 lb leeks (about 3 medium; white and pale green parts only)
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1/4 lb thinly sliced smoked ham or pancetta
3 oz Gruyère, coarsely grated (1 cup)
3 oz Italian Fontina, coarsely grated (1 cup)
3 oz whole-milk mozzarella, coarsely grated (1 cup)
3 large eggs
1/8 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1 3/4 cups crème fraîche (from two 8-oz containers)

Special equipment: a 9-inch pie plate (4-cup capacity)

Prebake pie dough in pie plate according to package instructions, then remove from oven and reduce temperature to 350°F.

Meanwhile, halve leeks lengthwise and cut crosswise into 1/2-inch pieces, then wash well in a bowl of cold water, agitating leeks. Lift out and drain leeks in a colander and pat dry. Melt butter in a 10-inch heavy skillet over moderately low heat and cook leeks, stirring occasionally, until very tender, 8 to 10 minutes.

Line warm pie shell with sliced ham or pancetta, overlapping layers as necessary to cover bottom and side of pie shell completely. Toss cheeses together and sprinkle evenly into pie shell (do not pack cheese), then spread leeks evenly on top of cheese. Whisk together eggs, nutmeg, and pepper until combined well, then whisk in crème fraîche until smooth.

Carefully pour half of custard on top of pie filling, gently moving cheese with a spoon to help custard disperse evenly. Slowly add remaining custard in same manner. Cover pie loosely with foil, gently folding edges over crust (keep foil from touching top of cheese mixture) and transfer to a baking sheet.

Bake until center of filling is puffed and set (center will be slightly wobbly but not liquid), about 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 hours. Cool on a rack at least 20 to 30 minutes before serving (filling will continue to set as it cools). Serve warm or at room temperature.

Cooks' note:
Quiche can be made 3 days ahead and cooled completely, uncovered, then chilled, wrapped in plastic wrap. Reheat quiche (uncovered) in a 350°F oven until warmed through, about 15 minutes.

Makes 8 main-course servings.

Serve with a glass of bubbly and a salad of frisee lettuce dressed with a wine vinaigrette and Enjoy.

The National Embarrassment

America's Second Harvest, because millions of Americans go hungry every night in the richest country in the world.

This is a scandal. Give what you can.

America's Second Harvest says enough.

How many children should go to bed hungry on our watch? George Bush has no answer. How many parents skip meals so they can feed their kids? George Bush has no answer. George Bush has no answer to any of the pressing social needs in our country and his party has no ideas. It is time to fire them and find better management, because starving children in the wealthiest nation on earth is an embarrassment.

When the head of Exxon Mobile earns billions and we have children going hungry, we need to be ashamed. As a nation.

Politics as Usual

The Conventional Wisdom here in DC is that Tony Snow is the new WH communications director, so nothing will change. We'll get the same crap, told by someone who can construct an English sentence. Big deal.

Crunch, Crunch

I don't eat out much, can't afford it, but the local ethnic restaurants are cheap and this is a favorite I pick up from a local Thai place a couple of times a week.

THAI CUCUMBER SALAD WITH ROASTED PEANUTS

1/4 cup fresh lime juice
1 1/2 tablespoons fish sauce (nam pla)*
1 1/2 tablespoons sugar
1 1/2 tablespoons minced seeded jalapeño chili (about 1 large) or one Thai red chile, minced
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 1/2 English hothouse cucumbers, halved, seeded, thinly sliced
3/4 cup sliced red onion
3 tablespoons chopped fresh mint
3 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro
3 tablespoons coarsely chopped lightly salted roasted peanuts

Whisk first 5 ingredients in medium bowl. Place cucumbers, onion, and mint in large bowl. Add dressing and toss to coat. Season salad to taste with salt and pepper. Sprinkle with peanuts and serve.

*Available at Asian markets and in the Asian foods section of many supermarkets.

If you are having friends over for satay, this is the obligatory side dish in Indonesia, Maylaysia and Holland. It's almost grill time here in Virginny.

The Learning Cook

Holidays have their traditional dishes. I have to have turkey at Thanksgiving and usually at Christmas, but I will more than happily tolerate a prime rib beef roast for the latter. I'm not a big ham eater, but my brother's rosemary ham (hint: get a bone-in butt ham, use a boning knife to carve some space around the bone and stuff with copious amounts of fresh rosemary sprigs, carve away the extra fat on the outside, score in the traditional diamond shapes and wash with a honey/dijon glaze. Roast per usual and you and your guests will dine rather than eat) is something I will readily take home from any holiday meal.

But I've become a lamb devotee for Easter in recent years. This is the way I like to cook it and it makes a fine extended family dinner on a spring Sunday afternoon. The Greeks have a way with lamb and I learned a lot of my lamb cooking there.

Boneless Leg of Lamb with Greek Stuffing

3 tablespoons olive oil
6 cloves garlic, sliced thin lengthwise
1/2 cup cured black olives, chopped
1/4 pound feta cheese, crumbled
1/2 cup sundried tomatoes, packed in oil, chopped
4-5 pound boneless leg of lamb
1 1/2 teaspoons crumbled dried rosemary
1 onion sliced
1 cup dry red wine
1 1/2 cups beef broth
1/2 cup water
1 tablespoon cornstarch dissolved in 2 tablespoons cold water

You can substitute a cup of concord grape juice with 2 tablespoons of red wine vinegar for the wine, if you are avoiding alcohol.

Pat the lamb dry, arrange it, boned side up, on a work surface, and season it with salt and pepper. Rub with 2 tablespoons of oil. Spread the lamb evenly with the olive-cheese-tomato mixture, leaving a 1-inch border around the edges. Beginning with a short side, roll it up jelly roll fashion, and tie it tightly with kitchen string. The rolled and tied roast may look ungainly, but it will improve in appearance when cooked.

Transfer the lamb to a roasting pan and rub it all over with the remaining 1 tablespoon of oil, 1 teaspoon rosemary and salt and pepper to taste. Roast the lamb in the middle of a preheated 325 degree oven for 30 minutes, scatter the onion around it in the pan, and roast the lamb for 1 to 1 1/4 hours more (a total of 20 minutes per pound of boneless meat ) or until a meat thermometer registers 140 degrees for medium rare. Transfer the lamb to a cutting board and let it stand for 20 minutes.

While the lamb is standing, skim the fat from the pan drippings and set the roasting pan over moderately high heat. Add the wine, deglaze the pan, scraping up the brown bits, and boil the mixture until it is reduced by half. Strain the mixture through a fine sieve into a saucepan, add the broth, the remaining 1/2 teaspoon rosemary, the water, and any juices on the cutting board. Boil the mixture until it is reduced to about 2 cups. Stir the cornstarch mixture, add it to the wine mixture, whisking, and simmer the sauce for 2 minutes. Season the sauce with salt and pepper and keep it warm.

Discard the lamb strings. Slice and arrange on a heated platter. Strain the sauce into a heated sauceboat and serve with the lamb. Serve with rosemary aioli on the side and your friends will be begging for the recipes.

Serve with orzo and browned butter sauce and a side of green beans with bacon.

Finish with a lemon sorbet and coffee or tea for a thoroughly successful dinner. Pray for leftovers, this is better cold the second day, if you have any. Thinly sliced lamb sandwiches with aioli on a baguette? The thought gives me chills.

Spring, Sprung

If you've been around here for a while, you know I'm an asparagus hound. Asparagus is God's way of apologizing for February, in my humble, theological view. It's still in season and here is a novel way to prepare it. This goes great with any simply prepared meat, like roast chicken or plain pork chops.

'Gus needs a little care in preparation. The bottoms of the stems are woody and chewy and should be broken away. Test each spear by bending it along its length; when you hit the part that doesn't bend, break it off and discard it. This serves 6 as a side and is easy to halve. It will keep well in the fridge for three days and is an easy leftover to take to work.

Asparagus Gratin

2 lb asparagus, trimmed and cut diagonally into 1 1/2-inch pieces
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into bits
1/2 cup finely chopped shallots (about 2 large)
4 slices firm white sandwich bread, cut into 1/4-inch pieces
1/4 cup pine nuts (1 1/4 oz)
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
2 oz finely grated Parmigiano-Reggiano (1 cup)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup mascarpone cheese

Butter a 2- to 2 1/2-quart shallow ceramic flameproof baking dish.

Cook asparagus in a 5- to 6-quart pot of boiling salted water, uncovered, until crisp-tender, about 4 minutes. Drain in a colander, then transfer to baking dish and keep warm, tightly covered with foil.

Meanwhile, heat oil and butter in a 12-inch heavy skillet over high heat until foam subsides, then cook shallots, stirring occasionally, until pale golden, about 3 minutes. Add bread and pine nuts and cook, stirring, until browned in spots, about 5 minutes. Transfer to a bowl and add pepper, 1/2 cup Parmigiano-Reggiano, and 1/4 teaspoon salt, tossing to combine.

Preheat broiler.

Toss warm asparagus with mascarpone, remaining 1/2 cup Parmigiano-Reggiano, and remaining 1/4 teaspoon salt until combined well.

Sprinkle bread-crumb mixture evenly over asparagus. Broil 5 to 7 inches from heat until topping is golden brown, 1 to 2 minutes.

Notes from the cook: you can cut some fat and calories by using asiago in place of the mascarpone. You may find that your kids with an aversion to cooked green vegetables gain a whole new outlook after trying this.

Evening Light

I spent the afternoon breaking my brain on learning a bunch of tech stuff. I have no natural aptitude for this (Ah's a riter, and I'd like to keep it that way, but you do what you have to do.) Thanks to Mike Gardner at Duane David and Associates for walking me through all of it. It's time for a change of pace. If you need mobile communications solutions, these are the guys to talk to. I, on the other hand, have a hard time answering my cell phone correctly. Sigh.

This is an easy weeknight meal that manages to be both light and filling. I learned this from my favorite neighborhood Lebanese restaurant 25 years ago. Even the most meat-and-potatoes guy will enjoy this. It's a great recipe for left-over steak.

Spinach and Fatoush Salad with Sirloin Steak
Serves 4

1 pound sirloin steak
Coarse salt and freshly ground pepper
1/2 cup fresh lemon juice
3/4 teaspoon ground cumin
2 tablespoons olive oil
4 scallions, thinly sliced
1 English cucumber, peeled, seeded and thinly sliced (or 2 regular cukes, similarly treated)
1 pint cherry or grape tomatoes, halved
1/2 cup roughly chopped flat-leaf parsley
1/2 cup roughly chopped mint
1 bag pre-washed baby spinach
16 pieces pita chips, recipe follows

Season the sirloin with salt and pepper. Sear the steak in a heavy-bottomed pan for 4 to 5 minutes on a side until medium rare.

In a large bowl whisk together lemon juice, salt, ground cumin, and olive oil. Add scallions, cucumbers, tomatoes, parsley, and mint. Toss to combine. Add spinach and pita. Toss to combine, taste and adjust seasonings.

Thinly slice the sirloin (portion control the meat according to your needs). Mound the salad onto a large plate. Top with overlapping pieces of the sirloin steak. Serve immediately.

Pita Chips:
2 (6-inch) whole wheat pitas
Olive oil spray
1/4 teaspoon ground cumin
Coarse salt and freshly ground pepper

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Cut each pita into 8 pieces. Lightly spray the pita with olive oil. Sprinkle with cumin and season with salt and pepper, to taste. Place on a baking sheet and bake until crisp, shaking the pan halfway through cooking, about 10 to 15 minutes

Serve spiced hummus and additional pita chips on the side for dipping.

For variations on this theme, you can use those quick-cooking, very thin sandwich steaks, just browned on each side and sliced in one inch strips.

Memo from the cook: the spinach in the pre-washed packages? It still needs a wash. The processing companies don't get all the sand out. Take it from one who learned the hard way. On her teeth.

If you are going to be three for dinner, hold out enough spinach for lunch tomorrow. Box up the spinach, dressing mixture and sliced steak and you'll have a lunch that will make the office green with envy.

My buddy pogge says he is an indifferent cook, but I think even he could handle this.

Shine a Little Light

The weather in Hell today must be exceedingly cold. I find myself agreeing with Arlen Specter.

Hidden Justice(s)

By Arlen Specter
Tuesday, April 25, 2006; Page A23

The U.S. Supreme Court was under siege on Dec. 11, 2000. TV vans and their giant satellite dishes surrounded the courthouse, while inside the election of a president of the United States was about to be decided, in the case of Bush v. Gore . And yet, in a city where the piercing eye of television examines almost everything, there were no cameras covering this momentous event, just as there is no televised coverage of any proceeding before the justices. It's time for that to change.

The Supreme Court itself articulated the rationale for televising its proceedings a generation ago, in 1980, when it stated in Richmond Newspapers v. Virginia that a public trial belongs not only to the accused but to the public and press as well. The court added that people now acquire information on court procedures chiefly through the print and electronic media. Yet, while reporters with pen and pad are admitted to the court's chambers, cameras and microphones continue to be excluded.

So far the justices have steadfastly rebuffed all efforts to get them to open their public proceedings to electronic coverage. But is theirs the final word? Consider: No one has denied Congress's legislative authority to decide key issues governing the Supreme Court, such as: when the court's term begins (the first Monday in October), the number of justices (nine; remember Franklin D. Roosevelt's efforts to raise it to 15?), the number of justices that constitute a quorum (six). Acts of Congress govern the federal courts regarding establishment of jurisdiction in civil and criminal cases, speedy-trial rules and time limits in deciding habeas corpus cases.

Justices Anthony Kennedy and Clarence Thomas, in recent testimony before a House appropriations subcommittee, objected to a bill I have sponsored that mandates television coverage of the Supreme Court unless it is barred by the court on a case-by-case basis on the grounds that it would adversely affect the proceedings. The two justices insisted that Congress should mind its own business and respect the court's autonomy, just as the court has respected Congress's autonomy.

But does the Supreme Court respect Congress? By a 5 to 4 vote the court has declared legislation protecting women against violence unconstitutional because of the congressional "method of reasoning" in passing it, and the insufficiency of the legislative record -- even though Justice David Souter noted in dissent that a "mountain of data" on the subject had been acquired from task forces in 21 states. Similarly, in a 5 to 4 decision, the court struck down a law prohibiting discrimination in employment because of an allegedly insufficient record, even though the legislation was supported by 13 congressional hearings and evidence gathered by special task forces in every state.
....
I agree that our constitutional system is best served by giving the Supreme Court the last word, but there is no doubt that congressional procedures and authority have been severely diminished by the court. And the public needs to be able to assess these issues by shining a televised light on the justices.

As our constitutional system has evolved, the Supreme Court has come to decide the cutting-edge issues of the day: the right to live, the right to die, freedom of speech and religion, war powers, congressional authority, voting rights, affirmative action and the death penalty.

If the public understood the extent of the court's power, perhaps the electorate would insist that Congress do its job on a variety of issues -- including desegregation, Guantanamo Bay detainees, eminent domain and defendants' rights -- instead of punting to the court. Or perhaps the public would insist that our presidents nominate justices with sensitivity to these matters.

While we have come to accept the maxim that the Constitution is what the Supreme Court says it is, it is in the public interest for the public to at least know what the court is doing. By analogy to Justice Louis Brandeis's famous dictum that, "Sunlight is . . . the best disinfectant," television's klieg lights in the Supreme Court would be the public's best informant.

C-Span 4, the Supremes, is long overdue.

Barely Tested Government Approved

FDA Is Criticized Over Drugs' Safety Problems

By Marc Kaufman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, April 24, 2006

The Food and Drug Administration is sometimes too slow in picking up safety problems once drugs are on the market and in responding to emerging danger signals, a federal study concluded in a report to be released today.

The review by the Government Accountability Office found that the FDA does not have clear policies for addressing drug safety issues and that it sometimes excludes its best safety experts from important meetings.

The report also calls on Congress to consider expanding the FDA's authority to require that drug companies conduct studies of already-approved products. The agency's ability to order post-market studies is now limited, and many drug companies have been slow to conduct studies that they had agreed to undertake as a condition of gaining FDA approval.

The GAO inquiry was requested by Congress in 2004 after the sudden withdrawal of the blockbuster painkiller Vioxx, which was found to increase the risk of heart attacks and strokes in long-term users. Several bills that would toughen the FDA's safety oversight were introduced after the Vioxx withdrawal, and the report offers their sponsors new ammunition.

The FDA was widely criticized for moving too slowly in its review of the potential health problems with Vioxx, which was taken by millions, but the GAO report took the criticism a major step forward: It concluded that the agency's entire system for reviewing the safety of drugs already on the market is too limited and broadly flawed.

GAO's examiners studied the agency's handling of four controversial drugs -- the cholesterol-lowering drug Baycol, the painkiller Bextra, the rheumatoid arthritis drug Arava, and the nighttime heartburn medication Propulsid -- and concluded that "there is a lack of criteria for determining what safety actions to take and when to take them."

All but Arava were ultimately taken off the market because of safety concerns, but the GAO found that disputes between two arms of the FDA's Center for Drug Evaluation and Research slowed the process. Since 2000, 10 drugs have been withdrawn by their manufacturers for safety reasons.

The report found that the Office of Drug Safety, which monitors reports of emerging safety risks, at times made recommendations that were ignored by the larger and more influential Office of New Drugs. The GAO also criticized the way experts in the Office of Drug Safety were kept from speaking at important advisory committee meetings on drugs they were studying. The drug safety office has seen considerable turnover, with eight directors in the past 10 years.

The agency has been crippled by political appointees that were more interested in carrying the water for the multinationals than protecting the citizens. The GAO simply states what many of us have suspected for years, it's just a shame that many people had to be injured or killed to get the public's attention.

Teddy must wish he could rise from the grave and wield his "big stick" again to set them straight.

More Incompetence

Rebuilding of Iraqi Pipeline as Disaster Waiting to Happen
By JAMES GLANZ

When Robert Sanders was sent by the Army to inspect the construction work an American company was doing on the banks of the Tigris River, 130 miles north of Baghdad, he expected to see workers drilling holes beneath the riverbed to restore a crucial set of large oil pipelines, which had been bombed during the invasion of Iraq.What he found instead that day in July 2004 looked like some gargantuan heart-bypass operation gone nightmarishly bad. A crew had bulldozed a 300-foot-long trench along a giant drill bit in their desperate attempt to yank it loose from the riverbed. A supervisor later told him that the project's crews knew that drilling the holes was not possible, but that they had been instructed by the company in charge of the project to continue anyway.

A few weeks later, after the project had burned up all of the $75.7 million allocated to it, the work came to a halt.

The project, called the Fatah pipeline crossing, had been a critical element of a $2.4 billion no-bid reconstruction contract that a Halliburton subsidiary had won from the Army in 2003. The spot where about 15 pipelines crossed the Tigris had been the main link between Iraq's rich northern oil fields and the export terminals and refineries that could generate much-needed gasoline, heating fuel and revenue for Iraqis.

For all those reasons, the project's demise would seriously damage the American-led effort to restore Iraq's oil system and enable the country to pay for its own reconstruction. Exactly what portion of Iraq's lost oil revenue can be attributed to one failed project, no matter how critical, is impossible to calculate. But the pipeline at Al Fatah has a wider significance as a metaphor for the entire $45 billion rebuilding effort in Iraq. Although the failures of that effort are routinely attributed to insurgent attacks, an examination of this project shows that troubled decision-making and execution have played equally important roles.

The Fatah project went ahead despite warnings from experts that it could not succeed because the underground terrain was shattered and unstable.

It continued chewing up astonishing amounts of cash when the predicted problems bogged the work down, with a contract that allowed crews to charge as much as $100,000 a day as they waited on standby.

The company in charge engaged in what some American officials saw as a self-serving attempt to limit communications with the government until all the money was gone.

And until Mr. Sanders went to Al Fatah, the Army Corps of Engineers, which administered the project, allowed the show to go on for months, even as individual Corps officials said they repeatedly voiced doubts about its chances of success.

The Halliburton subsidiary, KBR, formerly Kellogg Brown & Root, had commissioned a geotechnical report that warned in August 2003 that it would be courting disaster to drill without extensive underground tests.

"No driller in his right mind would have gone ahead," said Mr. Sanders, a geologist who came across the report when he arrived at the site.

KBR defended its performance on the project, and said that the information in the geotechnical report was too general to serve as a warning.

In the International Radiotelephony Alphabet, this would be a Charlie Foxtrot.

What are they doing?

States not prepared for ’06 hurricanes

04/24/06
By Ethan Butterfield

Eight hurricane-prone states still lack interoperable communications in the face of the 2006 storm season, according to a new report from the First Response Coalition.

The report, titled The Imminent Storm 2006: Vulnerable Emergency Communications in Eight Hurricane Zone States, examined interoperability efforts in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina and Texas. Weather forecasters predict an active and dangerous 2006 hurricane season, so improving communications interoperability is imperative, the coalition said.

FRC found a disparity among the eight states’ interoperability plans. South Carolina and Florida have statewide 800MHz networks available for all jurisdictions to connect to, creating effective interoperable communications, according to the report.

Texas links networks from different departments in areas where the networks overlap but does not have a statewide system. Louisiana has an older statewide analog network that connects state agencies but does not interconnect with local public safety departments, the report stated.

Mississippi has 40 different radio systems, and while its Wireless Communication Commission has met to discuss improvements, nothing has been agreed upon.

Alabama’s Emergency Management Agency provides radios to first responders during disasters but has no statewide network.

The Georgia Homeland Security Office and Emergency Management Agency is deploying an $8 million VOIP interoperability network.

North Carolina has an interoperability plan, but it is not scheduled to be completed until 2010.

Don't you think this would be a priority after last year? We only got nicked by Hurricane Ophelia and it still did $70 million in damage.

The Other

My, Bush's Anti-muslim campaign is working so well.

30 Are Killed in Sinai as Bombs Rock Egyptian Resort City
Aleksander Rabij/Reuters

Police said three explosions hit the central part of Dahab, Egypt, where there are many shops, restaurants, bars and guesthouses.

Blood stained the road Monday night outside a shop in Dahab, after it was wrecked by a bomb. The Sinai resort is popular with budget travelers.

The attack, the third at a popular Sinai resort in two years, once again raised the specter of one of the United States' closest allies in the Arab world facing a homegrown terrorist threat trying to destabilize the government.

There was confusion in the hours after the blasts, but what was clear was that this resort town on the Gulf of Aqaba, a quaint tourist spot frequented by back-packers and scuba divers, was awash in blood on one of the most popular holiday weekends of the Egyptian calendar.

It was the third time that terrorists struck near a national holiday. It is on this day that Egypt celebrates the anniversary of Israel's withdrawal from Sinai in 1982.

"I do not think it is a coincidence that this attack happens amid celebration of Sinai Liberation Day," the interior minister, Habib al-Adli, said on Egyptian television. "The other two attacks in Taba and Sharm el Sheik also took place during celebration of national occasions; that raises question marks.

"We will catch all those responsible very soon."

Egyptian authorities at first said the bombs appeared to have been detonated by remote control. Later a local official said the explosions appeared to be the work of suicide bombers. An investigator at the scene on Tuesday morning said that the bombs were all timed explosive packs, and that there was no evidence of suicide attackers.

The bombs started going off at about 7:15 p.m., in the center of the city, where the streets were packed with tourists also celebrating the Coptic observance of Easter on Sunday and the ancient Egyptian spring festival of Sham el Nessim.

The commerical strip of this tiny resort center stretches along the azure waters of the bay, and those who planted the bombs set their deadly packages from one end of the walkway to the other.

First hit was the Nelson Restaurant, then the Aladdin Cafe and then the Ghazala Supermarket, all within five minutes. The blasts were not huge, but large enough to spread destruction up and down the walks, which were stained with blood.

Hated in the Muslim world for a long time, this is designed to make the US a public pariah. That's working really well.

De long Arm of de Law

Via Suze:

Ex-OSHA Director Settles Lawsuit Over Workplace Death Of His Son

Many of us workplace safety and health oldtimers (geezers) not-so-fondly remember Thorne Auchter, Ronald Reagan's first chief of OSHA. Auchter attempted to undo much of the work of Jimmy Carter's chief, Eula Bingham, who labored to make OSHA into an agency serious about preventing workplace death, injury, and particularly workplace illness, after years of neglect by Richard Nixon.

OSHA's "official" history, recounts Auchter's congressional testimony at his confirmation hearing:

The principal overall change that Auchter sought was the eradication of the "prevailing adversary spirit" among labor, management and government. Specifically, he intended to promote greater labor management cooperation and to involve both sides in the formulation of programs and policies at OSHA.

A week after his arrival, Auchter was shocked to find that the cover of an OSHA publication on Cotton Dust displayed a photograph by Earl Dotter of a cotton dust victim, Louis Harrell. Auchter, believing the cover to be inflammatory, ordered the remaining publications destroyed and reissued the document with no photo on the cover.

OSHA's staff was slashed from 3,015 in 1980 to 2,355 in 1984; one third of its field offices were closed; and its inspection staff reduced by 25 percent. Workplace inspections declined from 63,363 in 1980 to 59,452 in 1986. He was known for unilaterally dismissing citations against companies if he thought OSHA inspectors had been too aggressive. After a tumultuous few years, marked by open warfare between labor and OSHA, Auchter resigned in 1984.
That was about all we heard about Thorne Auchter until tragedy struck on Feb. 24, 2000 when his 22-year-old son, Kevin Campbell Auchter, a culinary student who worked as a demolition laborer, was killed on the job during the demolition of two silos at the Monterey Coal Co. in Missouri.

Auchter, 22, of Glen Arm, Md., was preparing one of the silos for implosion when a 40- to 70-ton chunk of concrete was jarred loose from within the silo and landed on Auchter, who was killed instantly.

On the morning of the accident, RBS Excavating was instructed by Ciminelli to bring in a larger excavating machine to speed up the chipping of a portion of the silo in preparation for implosion, according to the complaint.

The machine operator chipped away, causing the large piece of concrete to fall, the complaint alleged. No demolition engineering survey was prepared prior to the concrete's removal.

OSHA cited the contractor, Ciminelli Services Corp., for two serious citations and fined them $14,000 for the death of Kevin Auchter and another worker who died in the same accident.

A $14,000 OSHA citation isn't much for the loss of your son. Would a more aggressive agency have made a difference, maybe deterring employers from risking their workers' lives? Hmmm.

But in the meantime....

Auchter sued Ciminelli Services and the subcontractor, RBS Excavating. Just before selecting a jury for the trial scheduled to begin on Monday, the case was settled for $2.3 million.

Watcha want to bet that you or me wouldn't get a day in court?

The Pleasures of the Flesh

This is probably a sin. I take that back. This is a sin. As Martin Luther is reputed to have said, "If you must sin, sin with a will."

Artichoke Benedict

4 medium California
artichokes
4 slices (1/4-inch thick)
Canadian bacon
4 eggs
Hollandaise Sauce (recipe
follows)

Prepare and cook artichokes as directed for Whole Artichokes (see Basic Preparation). Brown Canadian bacon slices in skillet. Poach eggs in boiling, salted water. Spread leaves of artichoke open like flower petals. Remove center petals and fuzzy centers from artichokes and discard. Place bacon slices into artichoke centers, covering bottom, and top with poached eggs. Spoon on Hollandaise Sauce and serve immediately.

Makes 4 servings.

HOLLANDAISE SAUCE
3 egg yolks
¼ cup water
2 tablespoons lemon juice
½ cup firm cold butter, cut into eighths
1/8 teaspoon paprika
dash ground red pepper

In small saucepan, heat together egg yolks, water and lemon juice. Cook over very low heat, stirring constantly, until yolk mixture bubbles at edges. Stir in butter, 1 piece at a time, until melted and sauce is thickened. Stir paprika, red pepper and salt to taste. Remove from heat. Serve warm. Cover and chill if not used immediately.

Makes about ¾ cup

Click the link and go look at the pictures, they really help the prep if you are unfamiliar with this fruit. Believe me, you want to get familiar with it as soon as possible. Egad, these are good.

California, Here I Come

I'm heading for a panflu meeting in the East Bay/San Mateo area next month. As with most business travel, I don't get to see or do much that is touristy with these trips. Most business travelers say the same, but I'm making an exception for this trip. I was Googling around this weekend and discovered that the Castroville Artichoke Festival is a couple of days after my meeting. I'm going to take a couple of days off for the first time in six years and go play tourist/foodie. I'll get a couple of free days in the Bay area before I head for Castroville in the Central Valley. Restaurant and museum recommendations are welcome, along with all of the other quirky stuff that only the locals know. I'll go buy a Rough Guide, but the locals know the best. I need accomodations with Wi Fi, but beyond that it's just a clean bed and bath and I don't need luxury.

I've never been to the Bay Area except on business, and I've never had a chance to scope out the things that are interesting to tourists. Have you got suggestions for the things that are "you must not miss?" I've never been to Chinatown, for example, but what other cultural markers are absolutely necessary? Public transit is pretty good in the Bay area, so I don't want to have to rent a car until I take off for the Valley (and I've driven in SF and would just as soon give it a pass.)

Help a girl plan her trip to your city.

A Night on the Border

My absolutely favorite Tex-Mex food is Chiles Rellenos, but I like them vegetarian. This is another easy, Wednesday night family recipe that you can fill out with Mexican rice and canned refritos if you don't have a pot of beans around the house. All recipes are for 4.

You need an outstanding green chile salsa to serve with them and that recipe follows.

4 poblano chiles
1 tablespoon canola oil
1/2 small red onion, diced
2 medium zucchini, coarsely chopped
1/4 teaspoon ground cumin
1/4 teaspoon ground oregano
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
1 (4-ounce) can fire-roasted tomatoes
1 (4-ounce) can green chiles
1 cup frozen corn
1 (2 second) spray nonstick cooking spray
1 cup low-fat Cheddar, shredded
1 cup tomato salsa

Place a wire rack over a burner on the stove. Roast the poblanos on the rack and turn with tongs until blackened evenly. Remove from heat and set aside.

Heat canola oil in a medium heavy nonstick saute pan over medium heat. Add the onion and zucchini and saute until golden, about 5 minutes. Add the cumin, oregano, garlic powder, tomatoes, green chiles and corn. Continue to cook until the mixture is almost dry.

Meanwhile, use a paper towel to rub off the skins from the poblanos. Make an incision on 1 side, and remove seeds and membranes from inside, while making sure to keep the poblano intact.

Heat a medium heavy nonstick saute pan over medium heat. Lightly spray with canola cooking spray for 2 seconds. Evenly stuff the 4 poblanos with the zucchini mixture and the shredded cheese.

Carefully place the stuffed poblanos in the heated saute pan and sear on each side for approximately 2 minutes, or until golden brown. Serve warm with salsa.

Green Chile Salsa

1clove garlic
1 thick slice white onion
1 Roma (plum) tomato
1 tomatillo
3 poblano chiles
1/2 cup water
3 tablespoons fresh cilantro -- roughly chopped
1/8 teaspoon kosher salt
1/4 teaspoon cumin -- toasted and ground

Pan roast garlic until brown and soft, then peel. Pan roast onion until brown and soft, then roughly chop. Pan roast tomato until blistered, deeply browned, and soft. Pan roast tomatillo until blistered, browned, and soft. Pan roast poblano chiles until dark brown, then remove seed cores.

Place the garlic, onion, tomato, tomatillo, and chiles in a food processor and pulse briefly until finely chopped. Add the water, cilantro, salt and cumin and process again until blended. Keeps, tightly covered, about 3 days in the refrigerator.

Makes about 1 1/4 cups.

If you have any left after dinner, the salsa is fabulous with lime flavored tortilla chips.

Cooking as Therapy

If you are looking for a light pasta dish, this is it. Fresh and very pleasing, this will serve 3-4 as a main course (with a salad) or 6-8 as a classic Italian primo piatto (first plate/course.) I've included the instructions for making pasta from scratch. This is something you should try at least once. It's easy and you don't need a pasta machine, just a rolling pan and a bread board. Make the dough as instructed, roll it out very thin and cut it into 1/4-1/2 inch strips. Until you've had fresh pasta, you haven't really had pasta.

Of course you can just buy the pasta at the supermarket.

Fettuccine with Lemon (Paradiso Perduto)

1/2 recipe fresh fettuccine
1/2 recipe fresh green fettuccine
4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
4 shallots, finely chopped
1 head Treviso radicchio, chopped into 1-inch pieces
1 1/2 cups cream
Zest of 4 lemons plus juice of 1 lemon
1/2 cup grated Asiago
To Prepare Fresh Fettuccine:
4 extra large eggs
3 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour plus 1/2 cup for dusting your work surface
1/2 teaspoon olive oil
For the Green Fettuccine:
4 extra large eggs
6 ounces frozen chopped spinach, defrosted and squeezed very dry
3 1/2 cup unbleached all-purpose flour plus 1/2 cup for dusting your work surface
1/2 teaspoon olive oil

Make a mound of the flour in the center of a large wooden cutting board. Make a well in the middle of the flour and add the eggs and oil. Using a fork, beat together the eggs and oil and begin to incorporate the flour starting with the inner rim of the well. As you expand the well, keep pushing the flour up to retain the well shape. Do not worry that this initial phase looks messy. The dough will come together when half of the flour is incorporated.

Start kneading the dough with both hands, using the palms of your hands. Once you have a cohesive mass, remove the dough from the board and scrape up any leftover crusty bits. Discard these bits. Lightly flour the board and continue kneading for 3 more minutes. The dough should be elastic and a little sticky. Continue to knead for another 3 minutes, remembering to dust your board when necessary. Wrap the dough in plastic and allow to rest for 30 minutes at room temperature.

Note: Do not skip the kneading or resting portion of this recipe. They are essential for a light pasta.

Roll out pasta to thinnest setting on pasta machine. Cut pasta into 1/4-inch thick noodles by hand or with machine and set aside under a moist towel.

To Prepare Green Fettuccine: Follow regular fettuccine instructions. Add the drained and squeezed dry spinach after the flour has been incorporated into the egg and oil. You may need to add a little more flour to get the dough to the correct consistency.

To Prepare Dish: Bring 6 quarts water to boil and add 2 tablespoons salt.

In a 12 to 14-inch saute pan, heat oil over the heat. Add shallots and saute until light golden brown, about 5 to 6 minutes. Add radicchio and cook 30 seconds. Add cream, reduce by half and remove from heat. Drop pasta into boiling water and cook until tender yet al dente. Drain pasta well and toss into pan with cream mixture. Return to heat, add lemon zest and juice and toss to coat. Add half the cheese and toss again. Serve immediately in warm bowl, making extra cheese available on the side. Garnish with chopped parsley or chives.

Fresh pasta cooks incredibly quickly. Once you've started cooking it, that is the task you will have to pay immediate attention too. Taste it regularly once it begins to float so that you don't overcook it. It goes from al dente to mush very quickly.

If you are going to serve this as a main course, the zucchini vichyssoise below makes an excellent first course, or for bigger appetites, start with a hearty minestrone with pesto genovese. This is a sophisticated light meal worthy of guests, but easy enough for Wednesday night dinner with the family if the pasta and the soup are ready in advance. I devote free Sunday afternoons to cooking ahead for the coming week so that I've got fresh broths, soups and casseroles frozen down in single serving containers in the freezer. My laundry set-up is in the kitchen, so I cook and do my laundry. If your freezer is set properly (a thermometer should give you a 0 degrees F reading) you can safely keep prepared foods for a month. Fresh pasta freezes well if it is in air proof zip lock bags. If you have the room, you can dry it on pasta dryers that look like miniature laundry dryers.

If you have a food processor, you can mix/need the dough in it:

In a food processor blend flour, eggs, oil, and 1 1/2 tablespoons water
until mixture just begins to form a ball, adding additional water, drop by
drop, if dough is too dry. Dough should be firm and not sticky. Blend dough
15 seconds more to knead and let stand, covered with an inverted bowl, at
room temperature 1 hour.

I have a food processor, but there is something therapeutic to making it from scratch that I miss using my Cuisinart.

Light Fare

I've had a very full day on the job and I'm ready for a change of pace. Here's a recipe to save for later when you are inundated with fresh zucchini from your own garden and from that of friends. This will serve six. Double it and serve it cold for a crowd, it is a refreshing change of pace for a pot luck.

Zucchini Vichyssoise

1 tablespoon unsalted butter
1 tablespoon good olive oil
5 cups chopped leeks, white and light green parts (4 to 8 leeks)
4 cups chopped unpeeled white boiling potatoes (8 small)
3 cups chopped zucchini (2 zucchini)
1/2 cup finely chopped fresh mint
1 1/2 quarts Homemade Chicken Stock or canned broth
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
2 tablespoons heavy cream
Fresh chives or julienned zucchini, for garnish

Heat the butter and oil in a large stockpot, add the leeks, and saute over medium-low heat for 5 minutes. Add the potatoes, zucchini, chicken stock, salt, and pepper; bring to a boil; then lower the heat and simmer for 30 minutes. Cool for a few minutes and then process through a food mill fitted with the medium disc. Add the cream and season to taste. Serve either cold or hot, garnished with chopped chives, mint and/or zucchini.

It's Never Over

KATRINA'S CHILDREN

Amid the ruins, kids affected by Katrina struggle

By RUKMINI CALLIMACHI ,Associated Press Writer
Monday, April 24, 2006

Overwhelmed, child psychologists in New Orleans say case loads have doubled, both because of the heightened need and because so many doctors have not returned. “I used to be able to book a new child within two weeks. Now, I’m booking appointments two months out,” says child psychologist Carlos Reinoso, author of the book “Little Ducky Jr. and the Whirlwind Storm,” which tries to explain the hurricane to children.

What mental health professionals fear most is the impact down the road. The 1988 earthquake in Armenia that killed 25,000 people. Tracking more than 200 children over five years, researchers at the University of California at Los Angeles’ Trauma Psychiatry Program found that those who were given professional help early on fared better and showed fewer symptoms at the end of the study. Those who got no help did not improve.

A child such as 3-year-old Monica _ so traumatized she thinks she’s going to drown in a bathtub _ clearly needs help, says Dr. Bruce Perry, a senior fellow at the Child Trauma Academy in Houston. Without it, he says, she risks a future of drug and alcohol abuse, high blood pressure, crime and child abuse.

“This crisis is foreseeable, and much of its destructive impact is preventable,” Perry says. “Yet our society may not have the wisdom to see that the real crisis of Katrina is the hundreds of thousands of ravaged, displaced and traumatized children.”

Some may already be beyond help.

No one noticed that a 14-year-old girl in Pass Christian _ once a straight-A student _ had stopped reading since Katrina.

The girl, who asked that she not be identified because she felt embarrassed, used to lose herself in books. “I would picture myself as the main character in whatever I was reading. I read so much that I would lose track of time,” she says.

Now, she has a hard time concentrating. Horrible images intrude as she reads.

She remembers the drowned man, impaled on his plywood fence. She pictures her favorite skirt high up in the branches of a tree.

Last month, she locked herself inside the bathroom of her family’s FEMA trailer and lifted a bottle of Lysol to her lips. Her mother found her passed out on the toilet seat, her head leaning against the trailer’s plastic wall, the floor slick with the disinfectant.

The girl recovered from the suicide attempt, but her family doesn’t have the resources to get her professional help, relying instead on teachers and school counselors.

To this girl, the world is a tunnel of darkness. She sees no way out.

“It’s like I can’t see my future anymore,” she says.

How many of these families have health insurance? How many have health insurance which covers more than 3-4 therapy appointments?

Dream On

Should Cheney Be Next?

By Dan Froomkin
Special to washingtonpost.com
Monday, April 24, 2006; 12:39 PM

Even as skittish White House aides brace for another wave of staffing shuffles this week, the bar is being dramatically raised on what sort of personnel move would be needed to actually turn things around for the Bush presidency.

A major newspaper and one of the most pro-Bush voices in punditry are now suggesting that nothing short of removing Vice President Cheney really stands a chance.

The Los Angeles Times editorial board writes: "If President Bush hopes the 'shake-up' of his administration initiated last week will re-energize his listless presidency, he's bound to be disappointed. A far more audacious makeover is needed -- one that sends Vice President Dick Cheney into early retirement."

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld should also go, the Times writes. "Bush has acknowledged that he has spent much of his political capital on Iraq, and the way to replenish the reserves is to replace the officials most associated with the overreaching that led to the tragedy in Iraq -- and with the administration's broader disdain for diplomacy."

Sarah Baxter writes in the Sunday Times of London: "Republicans are urging President George W Bush to dump Dick Cheney as vice-president and replace him with Condoleezza Rice if he is serious about presenting a new face to the jaded American public.

"They believe that only the sacrifice of one or more of the big beasts of the jungle, such as Cheney or Donald Rumsfeld, the defence secretary, will convince voters that Bush understands the need for a fresh start. . . .

"Fred Barnes of the Weekly Standard magazine and author of Rebel in Chief, a sympathetic new biography of Bush, said: 'There are going to have to be sweeping personnel changes if people are going to take a second look at the Bush presidency.'

"The best scenario, Barnes added, would be for Bush to announce that 'Dick Cheney will be around as an outside adviser and I can call him on the phone, but I'd like to anoint somebody who I think will be the next leader of the United States.' "

Meanwhile, the normally all-but-invisible Cheney was in full public view on Friday during the visit of Chinese President Hu Jintao -- and photographers captured images of a vice president who looked disinterested at best.

Later, during the Oval Office meeting of the two presidents, Jim Bourgof Reuters caught Cheney in a protocol violation, putting on his sunglasses for the arrival ceremony. Later, during the Oval Office meeting of the two presidents,Tim Sloan of AFP shot Cheney looking for all the world like he was sound asleep -- although White House aides apparently insisted he was just looking at his notes.

Baxter, of the Sunday Times, called attention to Cheney's apparent somnolence, then drily noted: "It has often been said that he would cite medical reasons should he ever resign."

Ain't gonna happen. Cheney's the puppetmaster.

Pandemic Planning

Analysts: Pandemic could hit insurers hard
If a deadly strain develops the number of claims from deaths will cost billions, group says.
By JERRY W. JACKSON The Orlando Sentinel

ORLANDO, Fla. — In a typical year, 36,000 Americans die from common influenza strains. U.S. life-insurance companies incorporate those projected deaths into their grim calculations to remain profitable.

But if the bird flu starts spreading person to person and sparks a global pandemic, as some experts fear, deaths would soar. And if it gets as bad as the 1918 killer flu, it would cost insurance companies a staggering $133 billion in U.S. claims alone, according to estimates by the Insurance Information Institute, a trade group.

“I don’t want to be alarmist, but it could be worse than that,” Steven Weisbart, chief economist for the New York-based institute, said in a recent interview.

The death rate for the 1918 Spanish flu was not as high as the death rate among the small number of humans who have already contracted bird flu, he said, so modeling on the 1918 experience might understate the insurance industry’s costs.

Many experts say the bird flu’s death rate almost certainly would drop from its apparent rate of about 50 percent if the disease begins spreading from person to person, but no one knows what the rate would eventually prove to be.

Bird flu, in fact, may never become transmissible among humans — most strains of avian influenza never do — but Weisbart said insurance companies should plan for a pandemic just as other businesses and the medical community are doing.

There appear to be many valid reasons why international health experts are sounding alarms, he said, over the current bird flu — type A, H5N1 strain. But life insurers, who are vulnerable to economic hits from catastrophes of all types, do not seem to be buying more reinsurance or adding to their reserves because of the flu, which has spread from Southeast Asia to Europe in recent months, Weisbart said.

“There’s no evidence it’s going up,” Weisbart said of the companies’ reinsurance levels and loss reserves. “From what I can tell, their attention has been on the business-operation side.”

Insurance companies, like most large businesses pondering the awful consequences of a pandemic, which many experts says is statistically overdue, are taking steps to stay in business with a smaller staff.

Many workers will fall ill or remain home to avoid exposure. “They will need someone to keep paying (death) claims,” Weisbart said of insurance companies.

Did anyone see the NBC Dateline program on avian flu last night? I thought it was the best of the major media productions so far because it had an actual narrative which made it much more compelling than a recitation of scientific facts.

The story above is morbid, but one of the business continuity issues that have to be faced. I'm working with several groups involved in continuity planning right now; the biggest difficulty is convincing boards of directors that this is a real problem.

Rinse, Repeat

Inspectors Find More Torture at Iraqi Jails
Top General's Pledge To Protect Prisoners 'Not Being Followed'

By Ellen Knickmeyer
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, April 24, 2006; Page A01

BAGHDAD -- Last Nov. 13, U.S. soldiers found 173 incarcerated men, some of them emaciated and showing signs of torture, in a secret bunker in an Interior Ministry compound in central Baghdad. The soldiers immediately transferred the men to a separate detention facility to protect them from further abuse, the U.S. military reported.

Since then, there have been at least six joint U.S.-Iraqi inspections of detention centers, most of them run by Iraq's Shiite Muslim-dominated Interior Ministry. Two sources involved with the inspections, one Iraqi official and one U.S. official, said abuse of prisoners was found at all the sites visited through February. U.S. military authorities confirmed that signs of severe abuse were observed at two of the detention centers.

But U.S. troops have not responded by removing all the detainees, as they did in November. Instead, according to U.S. and Iraqi officials, only a handful of the most severely abused detainees at a single site were removed for medical treatment. Prisoners at two other sites were removed to alleviate overcrowding. U.S. and Iraqi authorities left the rest where they were.

This practice of leaving the detainees in place has raised concerns that detainees now face additional threats. It has also prompted fresh questions from the inspectors about whether the United States has honored a pledge by Marine Gen. Peter Pace, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, that U.S. troops would attempt to stop inhumane treatment if they saw it.

Pace said at a news conference Nov. 29 with Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, "It is absolutely the responsibility of every U.S. service member, if they see inhumane treatment being conducted, to intervene to stop it." Turning to Pace, Rumsfeld responded: "I don't think you mean they have an obligation to physically stop it; it's to report it."

"If they are physically present when inhumane treatment is taking place, sir, they have an obligation to try to stop it," Pace answered.

The Iraqi official familiar with the joint inspections said detainees who are not moved to other facilities are left vulnerable. "They tell us, 'If you leave us here, they will kill us,' " said the Iraqi official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because, he said, he and other Iraqis involved with inspections had received death threats.

The U.S. official involved in the inspections, who would not be identified by name, described in an e-mail the abuse found during some of the visits since the Nov. 13 raid: "Numerous bruises on the arms, legs and feet. A lot of the Iraqis had separated shoulders and problems with their hands and fingers too. You could also see strap marks on some of their backs."

"I was not in charge of the team who went to the sites. If so, I would have taken them out," the U.S. official wrote, referring to the detainees. "We set a precedent and we were given guidance" from the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, "but for some reason it is not being followed."

Maj. Gen. John D. Gardner, the commander of U.S. detention operations in Iraq, said in an interview, "I would strongly disagree with the statement that Americans are seeing cases of abuse and not doing anything."

The issue goes to the heart of U.S. relations with the Iraqi government, which is led by Shiite religious parties. The Interior Ministry, whose forces are overwhelmingly Shiite, has been accused by Sunni Arabs and U.S. officials of operating death squads that target Sunni men. Increasingly, Interior Ministry forces are being accused of other crimes as well, including kidnapping for ransom. The Interior Ministry forces have also been accused of deferring to militias belonging to the Shiite religious parties, from whose ranks many of Iraq's police commandos and other ministry forces are drawn.

Old patterns are hard to break. This news, of course, is already all over Iraq and most of the rest of the Islamic world.

The Rich Are Different

After Reaching the Shelter at the End of the Line, Evacuees Are Forced to Move On

By SHAILA DEWAN
Published: April 24, 2006

SHREVEPORT, La., April 21 — There is a fine line between shell-shocked and idle, between needing help and milking the system, and in the seven months since Hurricane Katrina, the Rev. Patrick Sanders has seen both sides and then some

Mr. Sanders has seen professional and working-class families, the old, the disabled and the mentally ill, out-of-work oystermen and washed-up hustlers, and, on Thursday, a mother and father who had to leave their 7-year-old son and his dog when sheriff's deputies appeared to arrest them on outstanding warrants.

"It's just been an interesting revolving door," said Mr. Sanders, a dapper man who operates the Pelican Haven shelter in an old, crummy hotel, the Pelican Inn, that was vacant before the storm.

Under the carport in front of the hotel, there are two pelican statues with faded paint. In the courtyard, the swimming pool is an empty concrete chasm. The booths in what was once the restaurant serve as cubicles for crisis counselors and case managers. Some of the rooms emanate an unholy odor not unlike that of the hundreds of refrigerators discarded after the storm.

This is the last shelter for evacuees run by either Louisiana, Mississippi or the Red Cross, and on Monday, it is closing its doors.

Everyone, even the evacuees, seems to think this is a good idea. In the months since the storm, the shelter, a blue-roofed complex near the Shreveport airport, has gone from a bustling respite for families who appreciated the private rooms with real beds instead of cots, to a drug-ridden place where, on occasion, the National Guard has kept the peace.

No one in the shelter has been there for all seven months. After making it out of their flooded apartment in Gulfport, Miss., Robin Rushing and her fiancé, Victor JohnLouis, lived with a sister near Shreveport, a daughter near Baton Rouge and in rooms they rented in a house in Napoleonville, La., until a fire broke out in the living room.

"We was in our car for a while, because I was scared," Ms. Rushing said. "I was really scared." With the help of caseworkers, the couple qualified for Section 8 housing.

Pelican Haven played host to two main waves of evacuees — those fleeing the storm, and those delivered there after the Federal Emergency Management Agency phased out its free hotel room program in February and March. The second wave proved more difficult to help.

"We used no security from September to February," Mr. Sanders said. "That group of people policed their own selves. They watched each other's children."

In the past two months, he said, there have been arrests for drugs and even rape. The 7-year-old whose parents were taken away in handcuffs was picked up by a relative soon after.

"You needed National Guard, you needed Marines," Mr. Sanders said, shaking his head. "They give this program sort of a dark cloud," he said of the second wave of evacuees.

Some of them came after exhausting their rent subsidy or feuding with relatives who had taken them in. Others, like Narciso Cruz, 52, arrived after being evicted. Around noon on Friday, Mr. Cruz reclined on a bed in his room, drinking beer out of a paper bag, his belongings piled in neat stacks around him.

He said he had been evicted from a house in nearby Bossier City after arguing with his landlord over where to park his car. He stayed in hotels until his money ran out, about two weeks ago, when he arrived at the shelter. A friend has offered him a bunk in his FEMA trailer. The two men had been acquainted back home in St. Bernard Parish, east of New Orleans, but had bonded in a shelter in Shreveport after the storm.

Asked his opinion of the view, expressed more and more frequently as welcome mats wear thin, that many evacuees are layabouts trying to take advantage of those who would help them, Mr. Cruz shrugged, saying that his friend, seated in a corner of the room, had brought one beer for each of them before they began to pack.

"Everyone's entitled to have an opinion," said Mr. Cruz, who made his living before the storm as a fisherman. "I know I work. I worked all my life."

On Friday, caseworkers from Volunteers of America North Louisiana said 21 households would be able to move before the closing, into trailers provided by FEMA, apartments financed by federal Section 8 vouchers or even homeless shelters (people who were homeless before Katrina are generally not eligible for the agency's housing assistance). Fourteen refused help, although some were expected to change their minds. There were three whose FEMA status was uncertain.

Some residents said they were not sure where they would go. One, Bryan Hebert, said he had been offered a FEMA trailer in Bunkie, La., but did not think he could find work there. Another evacuee, John Nunnery, said his trailer was not quite ready.

A former choir director, Mr. Nunnery amused caseworkers by singing improvised songs about the storm in an extravagant, churchy voice. "What we went through, no one will ever know," he boomed. "What we saw, no one can ever see."

He said his fellow shelter residents could be discouraging, always complaining instead of supporting one another. "Seemed like we were all trying to pull each other down," he said. "It's like crabs in a barrel."

The Times plays all the familiar myths, but the story they actually tell is that people want to go back to work and the lives they had before. Funny, they can't play that in the lede. This is another welfare bashing story with not much to back it up.

It would be interesting to find out what would happen (stay with me, this is an intellectual exercise) if a NYT reporter actually fell on hard times and reported it.

Nah, it'll never happen. These Westchester County types have too many backups before they have to cancel their country club memberships.

The Dark Star

NYT: New Bush chief of staff stirs up 'fear and moaning'

RAW STORY
Published: Sunday April 23, 2006

The New York Times' Elisabeth Bumiller, in her White House letter Monday, plans to outline internal frustration over Bush's new chief of staff, RAW STORY has learned. Excerpts:
#

"There is fear and moaning in the West Wing these days as Andrew Card Jr., the genial father figure who promoted a family-friendly White House, has been replaced as chief of staff by Joshua Bolten, a Goldman Sachs-trained workaholic who is exposing President George W. Bush's aides to market forces.

In other words, after a big set of staff changes last week - Karl Rove gave up his policy portfolio to focus on the midterm elections and Scott McClellan, the press secretary, resigned - no one is sure who is in and who is out. Aides say they are on edge, and Bolten has promised more housecleaning this week, after Bush returns from a four-day trip to California. Treasury Secretary John Snow is possibly the next to go.

...Bolten, who is single, keeps investment banker hours and is well known for staying at the office until 11 p.m. When he was White House deputy chief of staff in Bush's first term, he was also known for making it to the 7:30 a.m. senior staff meeting with only minutes to spare.

...Bolten also likes a clean hierarchy, and is still said to be looking closely at the White House congressional liaison office and the communications operation to see if he can eliminate some people. "Josh doesn't like these floaters," said one Republican close to Bolten who was granted anonymity to talk about internal White House deliberations. "He prefers a structure so that people have line responsibility and real authority to carry it out."

So Baby Bolton is another control freak. That'll go over well. Snow would already be gone but they can't find anybody willing to take the job who has a resume that provides at least a pasty of cover for their ideological bona fides and they may have the same trouble covering Bolton's housecleaning. This will be interesting. Right now, being able to put 1600 Penn on your resume isn't attracting anybody at high levels.

It's Just Lunch

The baking time will vary with your oven. As with any loaf of bread, knock on the top of the crust. When it sounds hollow, you're done. Remove from the oven and let it cool on a rack. This is so good that it is one of those "hug yourself" recipes. Oh, my god, what this will do for a sandwich and salad or soup. Oh, my god.

ROSEMARY FOCACCIA WITH OLIVES

Over the past few years, the popular Italian flatbread has made its way into bread baskets at home and in restaurants. This version is tender and redolent of rosemary and olive oil. It’s perfect as a snack, served with soup and salad, or split for sandwiches.
click photo to enlarge
1 12- to 16-ounce russet potato

2 1/2 cups (or more) bread flour
3 teaspoons fresh rosemary leaves
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup warm water (105°°F to 115°F)
1/4 teaspoon sugar
1 envelope dry yeast
4 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

12 oil-cured black olives, pitted, halved]
1/2 teaspoon coarse sea salt

Pierce potato several times with fork. Microwave on high until tender, turning once, about 12 minutes. Cut in half. Scoop flesh into small bowl; mash well. Measure 2/3 cup (packed) mashed potato; cool (reserve extra potato for another use).

Combine 2 1/2 cups flour, half of rosemary and 1 teaspoon salt in processor; blend until rosemary is chopped, about 1 minute. Add potato; blend in, using about 25 on/off turns. Combine 1 cup warm water and sugar in 2-cup glass measuring cup; sprinkle yeast over. Let stand until foamy, about 5 minutes. Stir 3 tablespoons oil into yeast mixture. With processor running, pour yeast mixture into flour mixture. Process until smooth, about 1 minute. Scrape dough out onto lightly floured surface. Knead until dough feels silky, sprinkling with more flour as needed, about 1 minute. Place dough in large oiled bowl; turn to coat. Cover with towel; let rise in warm area until doubled in volume, about 1 hour.

Position rack in center of oven and preheat to 450°F. Brush large baking sheet with oil. Punch down dough; knead 30 seconds on lightly floured surface. Stretch or pat out dough to 12-inch round. Transfer round to prepared baking sheet. Press dough all over with fingertips to dimple. Brush with 1 tablespoon oil. Press olive halves, cut side down, into dough. Sprinkle with sea salt. Let rise until just puffy, about 20 minutes.

Bake until golden, about 18 minutes. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Makes one 13-inch round bread.

When the bread has cooled enough to have a good crust, carve a couple of nice slices. On one interior slice, spread Pommery Mustard and slice some brie thin for this sandwich top. On the bottom, some more of the same bread and a healthy handful of roasted beef or beef deli slices, medium rare. Cover with sauce and serve for a quick mid-day treat.

Oh, this is so good it hurts.

Herbs 3.0

I'm putting in the herb garden next weekend. Ya got suggestions? The farmers' market opens next week and I can get anything you suggest. The floor is open.

A Look Ahead

Current Gulf of Mexico temperatures are already above where they Klotzbach and Gray's forecast for the coming year:

PROBABILITIES FOR AT LEAST ONE MAJOR (CATEGORY 3-4-5) HURRICANE LANDFALL ON EACH OF THE FOLLOWING COASTAL AREAS:

1) Entire U.S. coastline - 81% (average for last century is 52%)

2) U.S. East Coast Including Peninsula Florida - 64% (average for last century is 31%)

3) Gulf Coast from the Florida Panhandle westward to Brownsville - 47% (average for last century is 30%)

4) Above-average major hurricane landfall risk in the Caribbean

Prepare for the worst, hope for the best, but, above all, prepare.

Watch the Tube

The afternoon was heavy with work, so I'm behind on posting. Yeah, I work for a startup and you do whatever it takes to get it going, so the hours are nutty. That's life. I'll try to bring in some more recipes this evening, but I will definitely be parked in front of the tube for NBC's Dateline on bird flu at 7 EDT.

Seeing It Real

Forrest Gump's Evil Twin

By Stephen Pizzo, News for Real. Posted April 21, 2006.

America at large is starting to realize -- finally -- that President Bush is exactly as stupid as he looks, sounds and acts.

How extraordinary. Something is happening here that has never happened in America's history. A consensus is sweeping the nation. Not that the war in Iraq is wrong, or that oil companies are screwing us blue, or that the climate is going to hell, or that good-paying jobs are being replaced by low-paying jobs, or that our national health care system is a disgrace, or that that the rich are getting a lot richer while the middle class gets poorer.

While all that's true, and more and more folks are getting it, that's not the consensus of which I speak. Nope. This one is bigger, enormous, huge!

Here it is: The president of the United States is a moron.

Yes, stupid, dumb as common road gravel. And not figuratively, but literally. George W. Bush, president of the world's last remaining superpower, is a moron. Forrest Gump's evil twin.

I broached this possibility one year ago in a post entitled, "Bush: The Worst President Ever?" I was a bit early with that one. But what a difference a year makes! The cover story of this week's Rolling Stone Magazine reads, "The Worst President in History?"

So the jury is in: Bush is a moron. If stupid is as stupid does, he's stupid. A botched war on terror, exploding debt, his "what me worry" response to Katrina -- and the ongoing mismanagement of the recovery, North Korea has the bomb and Iran is on its way to its own nuke. Think about that for a second because it is definitive proof Bush is a moron. First he identifies three nations as his "Axis of Evil" in the world: North Korea, Iran and Iraq. Then he as a chance to whack one of the three, and he picks the only one that had no WMD. The only way he could look worse is if it were only two countries -- a coin flip -- and he still got it wrong.

Yes, Virginia, the current occupant of the Oval Office is no longer a crook or an adulterer. He's a moron.
....
In fact morons get downright testy when someone challenges what they think they know. We saw this trait earlier this week when Bush was asked if he thought Don Rumsfeld should resign. The moron lashed out at the questioner, dashed into his imaginary phone booth and emerged as The Decider. "I'm the decider," he pronounced, with Mussolini-like swagger. You see, scratch a moron and beneath that smirking, ignorance-is-bliss exterior, you discover a fundamental truth: Beauty may be only skin deep, but moron goes right to the bone.

I'm staying close to home until this guy is gone. Keeping my head down, my nose clean, and watching what I say in emails for friends. And I have a piece of advice for the Iranians too -- this guy really is crazy enough to "decide" that bombing the shit out you is a good idea. Yes, Bush is exactly as stupid as he looks, sounds and acts.

Doubt that at your peril. Fifty-one percent of American voters doubted it. And now we're screwed.

Radio Days

I see a new fixed expense in my future.

Hey Mister DJ ...

After decades as music's most enigmatic icon, Bob Dylan has stunned his fans by becoming a DJ for an American station. And The Observer has had an exclusive preview of his first broadcast

David Smith
Sunday April 23, 2006
The Observer

It starts with the sound of rain. A woman's voice tells us it is night in the city, and a nurse is smoking the last cigarette in the pack. Then comes a nasal, gravelly voice, more familiar in song: 'It's time for Theme Time Radio Hour. Dreams, schemes and themes.' The career of Bob Dylan, radio DJ, has begun.

Once the most iconic recluse in the music business, Dylan will spring a surprise on fans next month by broadcasting a weekly music show across America. His debut behind the mic, due to be broadcast on 3 May, has been heard exclusively in advance by The Observer.

As the quaint title, Theme Time Radio Hour, implies, it is a simple format, even old-fashioned. Taking a different theme each week, Dylan introduces his favourite records with a wry line or pithy anecdote, then lets the music do the talking. First is 'weather'. Sounding utterly imperturbable in his new role, he drawls in characteristically rhythmic tones: 'Today's show, all about the weather. Curious about what the weather looks like? Just look out your window, take a walk outside. We're gonna start out with the great Muddy Waters, one of the ancients by now, who all moderns prize.' He has been provided with a digital recording kit so that he can present the hour-long programme from home, studio or tour bus. He sends a playlist to XM Satellite Radio's researchers, who then assemble the music around his narration.

Future shows will be built around themes such as 'cars', 'dance', 'police' and 'whisky' and also feature special guests including songwriter Elvis Costello, film star Charlie Sheen, Penn Jillette, the TV illusionist, and comedians Sarah Silverman and Jimmy Kimmel. Dylan will read and answer selected emails sent by listeners - a thrill for fans who have regarded him as a Messiah-like figure of unreachable mystique.

The playlist for the first show ranges from Muddy Waters's 'Blow, Wind, Blow' to Dean Martin's 'I Don't Care if the Sun Don't Shine', from Jimi Hendrix's 'The Wind Cries Mary' to Judy Garland's 'Come Rain or Come Shine'. The list, much of it from the Fifties, offers a fascinating insight into the sources of Dylan's musical inspiration. But there is no place for the counter-culture hero's own nod to meteorological mischief, 'Blowin' In The Wind'.

Radio is a natural return to Dylan's roots. In his youth, Robert Zimmerman, as he was then called, was an avid listener, first to blues and country music stations broadcasting from New Orleans, then to the first stirrings of rock'n'roll.

It took three years for XM's chief creative programming officer, Lee Abrams, to persuade Dylan, 65 next month, to do the show. He said: 'With Theme Time Radio Hour, Bob redefines "cool radio" by combining a sense of intellect with edginess in a way that hasn't been on radio before. Bob has put a lot of work into his XM show, and it's clear that he's having a good time behind the mic.' XM, whose presenters include Dylan's friend and fellow musician Tom Petty, is America's biggest satellite radio service with more than 6.5m subscribers and 170 digital channels. As subscription-based, ad-free satellite radio grows rapidly in popularity, the Washington-based service is battling for listeners with Sirius, which poached 'shock jock' Howard Stern from terrestrial radio in a £282m five-year deal.

But We Knew That

CIA warned Bush of no WMD in Iraq: retired official

Sat Apr 22, 9:52 PM ET

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The Central Intelligence Agency warned US President George W. Bush before the Iraq war that it had reliable information the government of Saddam Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction, a retired CIA operative disclosed.

But the operative, Tyler Drumheller, said top White House officials simply brushed off the warning, saying they were "no longer interested" in intelligence and that the policy toward Iraq had been already set.

The disclosure, made in an interview with CBS's "60 Minutes" program due to be broadcast late Sunday, adds to earlier accusations that the Bush administration used intelligence selectively as it built its case for the March 2003 invasion of Iraq and the toppling of Saddam's regime.

The administration claimed in the run-up to the war that Baghdad had extensive stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons and was working clandestinely to build a nuclear arsenal, therefore, presenting a threat to the world.

An extensive CIA-led probe undertaken after the US military took control of Iraq failed to turn up any such weapons. But Bush and other members of his administration have blamed the fiasco on a massive intelligence failure and vehemently denied manipulating information they had been provided.

However, Drumheller, who was a top CIA liaison officer in Europe before the war, insisted Bush had been explicitly warned well before an invasion order was given that the United States may not find the suspected weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

The information about the absence of the suspected weapons in Iraq, according to excerpts of Drumheller's remarks, was clandestinely provided to the United States by former Iraqi foreign minister Naji Sabri, who doubled as a covert intelligence agent for Western services.

Then-CIA director George Tenet immediately delivered this report to Bush, Vice President
Dick Cheney and other high-ranking administration officials, but the information was dismissed, Drumheller said.

Bush lied. Yawn. Next?

Confederation of Fools

A deaf ear for America's concerns
By Jim Wright
Special to the Star-Telegram

Only 27 percent of Americans, by the latest accounting, think our national leadership is moving us in the right direction.

President Bush and his congressional followers sank last week to the lowest public approval levels they've registered in the five-plus years since Bush became president.

According to the most recent nationwide Gallup poll, the GOP-led Congress is more unpopular right now than the Democratic Congress was in 1994 when the public unseated the Democrats' 40-year House majority. Today, only 23 percent approve of the job that this Congress is doing. A thundering 70 percent disapprove!

Personnel shuffles won't change anything. That's razzle-dazzle. This goes deeper.

The conclusion seems inescapable: America's mythical "average" person believes that Bush and his GOP cohorts have habitually ignored the public's strongest concerns. Consider these:

For five years Bush has talked sporadically about "fixing" Social Security but steadfastly refuses to do anything to strengthen the trust fund. Whenever challenged to "do something," he trots out that tired, old shibboleth of robbing the trust fund to fatten the private stock market.

Repeatedly -- year after year and in poll after poll -- ordinary people tell the president that's emphatically not what they want. Bush and Dick Cheney, unheeding, persist.

To serve the needs of public education, Bush tirelessly suggests giving tuition vouchers to parents who send their kids to private schools. This fixes nothing.

The same weary formula of talking boldly and carrying a toothpick applies to healthcare.

Occasionally, the president and his tame Congress grow anxious because people are getting restless about the rising loss of health benefits. Instead of offering some system of universal healthcare, Bush and Co. concoct a complicated conglomeration featuring something called "private accounts" that don't do anything for poor, sick folks and just keep pushing a real solution off to some distant successor.

Meanwhile, the number of uninsured grows, and some of America's biggest companies get by with taking bankruptcy and thus shucking off their sworn responsibility to their own faithful employees.
....
The Bush-Cheney attitude has been: It doesn't matter what you say or think. We know what's best for you. On Tuesday, Bush dismissively said, "I'm the decider."

The first two elephants that the Bush-Cheney team crammed so resolutely down the public's collective throat -- the huge feed-the-wealthy tax cut and the hasty, headstrong invasion and occupation of Iraq -- should have sounded an alarm. These two acts, in combination, swiftly devoured an inherited fiscal surplus and unblinkingly piled up history's most monstrous national debt -- close to $8 trillion now, with most of these interest-bearing bonds owned, for the first time, by foreigners.

Our grandchildren's generation will be in hock up to its ears. Any historian or economist could have told our "deciders" that it wasn't prudent to launch a huge tax cut and a costly war at the same time. But Bush and Cheney weren't listening.

Perhaps the greatest disservice that this self-satisfied crowd has visited upon America's working families is the steady erosion of wages, combined with a stubborn opposition to any increase in the minimum wage. On average, a full day's work buys the American wage earner 19 percent less than it did 30 years ago.

Literally hundreds of American factories -- and service and communications jobs -- have closed down, lured to Third World countries by dirt-cheap wages. Now we learn that Wal-Mart, our country's biggest purchaser of goods, is telling its huge network of American suppliers to close and move production units to China or India, or else be replaced by low-wage foreign sweatshops.

All of this downward pressure on wages means downward mobility for the average American working family.

This isn't the way that things were supposed to work in this blessed country. We were built to pursue upward mobility -- for the many, not just the few.

That's why 70 percent of the American people say our current leadership is taking us in the wrong direction.

The mystery to me is what on earth is going on in the minds of those 27%. Maybe they just aren't paying attention.

How to Lose

Young Officers Join the Debate Over Rumsfeld

By THOM SHANKER and ERIC SCHMITT
Published: April 23, 2006

WASHINGTON, April 22 — The revolt by retired generals who publicly criticized Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has opened an extraordinary debate among younger officers, in military academies, in the armed services' staff colleges and even in command posts and mess halls in Iraq.

Junior and midlevel officers are discussing whether the war plans for Iraq reflected unvarnished military advice, whether the retired generals should have spoken out, whether active-duty generals will feel free to state their views in private sessions with the civilian leaders and, most divisive of all, whether Mr. Rumsfeld should resign.

In recent weeks, military correspondents of The Times discussed those issues with dozens of younger officers and cadets in classrooms and with combat units in the field, as well as in informal conversations at the Pentagon and in e-mail exchanges and telephone calls.

To protect their careers, the officers were granted anonymity so they could speak frankly about the debates they have had and have heard. The stances that emerged are anything but uniform, although all seem colored by deep concern over the quality of civil-military relations, and the way ahead in Iraq.

The discussions often flare with anger, particularly among many midlevel officers who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan and face the prospect of additional tours of duty.

"This is about the moral bankruptcy of general officers who lived through the Vietnam era yet refused to advise our civilian leadership properly," said one Army major in the Special Forces who has served two combat tours. "I can only hope that my generation does better someday."

An Army major who is an intelligence specialist said: "The history I will take away from this is that the current crop of generals failed to stand up and say, 'We cannot do this mission.' They confused the cultural can-do attitude with their responsibilities as leaders to delay the start of the war until we had an adequate force. I think the backlash against the general officers will be seen in the resignation of officers" who might otherwise have stayed in uniform.

One Army colonel enrolled in a Defense Department university said an informal poll among his classmates indicated that about 25 percent believed that Mr. Rumsfeld should resign, and 75 percent believed that he should remain. But of the second group, two-thirds thought he should acknowledge errors that were made and "show that he is not the intolerant and inflexible person some paint him to be," the colonel said.

Many officers who blame Mr. Rumsfeld are not faulting President Bush — in contrast to the situation in the 1960's, when both President Lyndon B. Johnson and Defense Secretary Robert S. McNamara drew criticism over Vietnam from the officer corps. (Mr. McNamara, like Mr. Rumsfeld, was also resented from the outset for his attempts to reshape the military itself.)

But some are furiously criticizing both, along with the military leadership, like the Army major in the Special Forces. "I believe that a large number of officers hate Rumsfeld as much as I do, and would like to see him go," he said.

"The Army, however, went gently into that good night of Iraq without saying a word," he added, summarizing conversations with other officers. "For that reason, most of us know that we have to share the burden of responsibility for this tragedy. And at the end of the day, it wasn't Rumsfeld who sent us to war, it was the president. Officers know better than anyone else that the buck stops at the top. I think we are too deep into this for Rumsfeld's resignation to mean much.

"But this is all academic. Most officers would acknowledge that we cannot leave Iraq, regardless of their thoughts on the invasion. We destroyed the internal security of that state, so now we have to restore it. Otherwise, we will just return later, when it is even more terrible."

The debates are fueled by the desire to mete out blame for the situation in Iraq, a drawn-out war that has taken many military lives and has no clear end in sight. A midgrade officer who has served two tours in Iraq said a number of his cohorts were angered last month when Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said that "tactical errors, a thousand of them, I am sure," had been made in Iraq.

"We have not lost a single tactical engagement on the ground in Iraq," the officer said, noting that the definition of tactical missions is specific movements against an enemy target. "The mistakes have all been at the strategic and political levels."

What is clear to me is that Iraq was a mistake at the moral level. One of the things that a student of military history knows is that you cannot win wars which are moral mistakes. One would think that they teach that at the War College, it is one of the keystones of John Boyd's doctrine of Fourth Generation warfare. The Iraqis have turned this conflict into a 4GW, and our strategic idiots insist on fighting a second generation war. This is the recipe for losing and the reason that Steve Gilliard and I have been calling this a lost cause since before the troops hit Kuwait.

Fresh is Best

There is still time to buy a subscription to a community supported agriculture farm near you, and receive fresh produce at or near your door from a farm which is working for you all season long.

You can support organic farmers directly this way and have a box of fresh produce to show for it each week. This is the superior way to a)show that you support organic and b)buy local. And you get a box of superior produce every week. What's not to like?

If you like to cook and love to eat, this is an option you won't read about in the sale pages of your local paper. This is something being spread as a viral meme through our on-line communities. Join the infection and inform your on-line community. Google "community supported agriculture" and find the farms near you. Your local farmer's markets are great, this is better. Happy cooking.

For Love of Funghi

Slice of Heaven

Morel hunting and morel cooking are two different things, but for those who excel at both it is difficult to say which is more fun.

To me the cooking--and dining on morels--may enjoy the slightest of edges in this hypothetical contest. But like the old song goes about "Love and Marriage," you can't have one without the other.

Some come close to waxing poetic about using morels raw in salads, not knowing that many wild mushrooms have the potential for being somewhat toxic--even deadly--if consumed raw, or even cooked.

Thus, it is a good idea to cook the various morel species, notwithstanding the fact that the cooking agent (everything from butter to bacon fryings [grease] to olive oil) enhances their taste. Then, of course, if you use breading on morels, they can get downright delicious.

One morning last winter my tummy started telling me lunch time was coming on and the first thing I saw in the kitchen freezer was a plastic sandwich bag which contained about one cup of frozen small gray morels.

Upon opening the frig door my eye caught a couple of slices of fresh side sliced about 3/16 (three sixteenths) of an inch thick.

The stage was set for a grand lunch.

I poured about three tablespoons of olive oil in my trusty iron skillet (every cook should have an assortment of iron skillets) and added the fresh side (each piece cut into two pieces). Fresh side, you know, is nothing more than uncured bacon so I dusted it with salt and pepper.

When the pieces of side were starting to show signs of browning, I moved them out to the perimeter of the skillet and placed the morels and an equal part of sliced onion in the middle of the skillet. When the morels and onion were starting to brown they were placed atop the pieces of side around the perimeter of a plate, and two eggs were scrambled in the skillet.

Combined, with half a toasted and buttered English muffin, my concoction was a lunch fit for any king.

Although the most popular method of cooking morels probably is breading and frying them to a golden brown on both sides, there are many other ways to prepare this delicacy for the table.

Still, no discussion of preparing morels for the table would be complete without a detailed explanation of frying them.

I would want to be on record as saying that I have never looked with jaundiced eye upon morels fried in any batter. But my methods are the best I have ever seen (tasted).

I like morels that are no more than three or four inches, split in half lengthwise and allowed to rinse in cold running water. As the container overflows, foreign objects and the mites (small insect life) that live in morels will be washed away. Then the morels are drained.

While the morels are being washed and drained, I roll good crackers (wheat or multi-grain crackers are best) into a fine meal which is mixed half-and-half with flour. A good way to roll the crackers into a fine meal is to place them in a plastic bag, squeeze out the air, and roll them with rolling pin or a strong round drinking glass.

With this part of the operation complete, the flour/cracker meal mixture is placed on a large flat dish--a dinner plate or pie pan is fine.

In a cereal bow or a shallow-sided dish, I break eggs--the number to be decided by the amount of morels to be fried. An equal part of milk (or slightly less) is beaten into the eggs.

Then, with the bottom of the skillet well coated with melted butter, olive oil, bacon fryings or a combination of such cooking agents, the morel pieces are dipped one-by-one in the egg-milk mixture, rolled in the cracker meal-flour mixture and placed in the moderately-hot skillet. Every mushroom piece should be flat on the bottom of the skillet. After they are sprinkled liberally with salt and pepper, each morel piece should be gently flattened against the skillet with a spatula. Gently is the key word. All you are doing is making sure each morel piece gets a chance to be cooked.

As the morel pieces brown on the first side they are gently turned with the spatula and the procedure is repeated. It may be necessary to add more butter or oil at this time.

Frying mushrooms requires constant attention by the cook.

With a good green salad or slaw, no other food is necessary for a satisfying meal, although steaks, chops--or even, a burger or fish filet--are not bad companions.

Larger gray morels and "big yallers" come on toward the end of the spring morel season (late in April, or early in May) and they lend themselves to some fancier culinary applications, but the true morel aficionado will find them no more satisfying.

Big morels, thanks to the cavity of the caps, can be filled with a great variety of stuffings and baked or broiled, to be topped when done with a cheese sauce, a simple gravy or a garnish of sauteed onion, crisp bacon chips or even mixed vegetables.

But the big morels also can be sliced lengthwise into strips and fried just as the smaller morels are prepared. Since they can be thicker, they may require more cooking time. But when browned on both sides they are done.

Treat them as a side with eggs or for dinner with pasta. This is as close to heaven as you are likely to get in this life.

The Funghi Farm

Everything you need to know about North American morels.

Find the good ones. Cook them and laugh at those who don't know. Unsalted buter is your friend in small quantities.

Renewing a Favorite

Green Onion New Potato Salad:

1 large egg yolk
1/2 teaspoon Dijon mustard
1 teaspoon minced garlic
3/4 cup olive oil
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground white pepper
1/2 cup chopped green onion tops (green parts only)
2 pounds cooked, unpeeled new potatoes, halved if small, or quartered
1/3 cup finely minced red onions
1 tablespoon chopped fresh cilantro leaves

Place the egg, mustard and garlic in a blender and blend on low speed. While the machine is running, slowly drizzle the olive oil through the feed tube until the oil is incorporated and the mayonnaise is thick and creamy. Add the salt, pepper and green onions to the blender and process briefly to combine.

In a medium bowl, place the potatoes and red onions. Pour the mayonnaise over the potatoes and stir to combine. Season with salt and pepper and garnish with the cilantro.

Yield: 5 generous salad servings

If you've never made mayonaisse from scratch before, this is an easy introduction. A food processor makes it even easier. You've never eaten anything out of a jar that tasted like this.

This green onion version is good for more than salads, it is wonderful on sandwiches. The egg and oil base can be turned into an aioli which is spectacular with lamb and it takes only moments to make with some fresh garlic and herbs.

Note: yes, raw eggs can be a source of salmonella and raw eggs need to be treated carefully. Make sure you are getting your eggs from a reputable producer. And wash them before using, the egg can be contaminated by a dirty shell in the cracking process.

This salad is a fresh treatment for picnics and a great partner for burgers and the usual grill food. Around here, it is already warm enough that I was greeted by smoke and steak grease on the air when I went out for a walk tonight. It's time for me to clean the Weber.

The Thorny Rose

I'm going out for breakfast at Panera tomorrow for this. You can easily make it for a brunch crowd or it makes a super first course for lunch or dinner. Me, I have yet to run into an artichoke I didn't like.

Spinach Artichoke Souffle Recipe

Ingredients:
2 jars (6 oz. each) marinated artichokes
3 pkgs (10 oz each) frozen chopped spinach
3 pkgs (3 oz. each) cream cheese (I use light cr.cheese)
4 T. margarine
6 T. milk
1/3 C. shredded parmesan cheese

Directions:
Drain marinade from artichokes. Set aside a few for garnish. Put remainder over the bottom of 1.5 qt dish. Squeeze moisture from spinach and arrange evenly
over artichokes. With mixer, beat cr. cheese and margarine until smooth and fluffy. Gradually blend in
milk. Spread over spinach, sprinkle with pepper, dustwith parmesan.
Bake at 375 degrees for 40 minutes or until lightly browned.

I have a business meeting in San Francisco on the 17th and 18th of next month. Me thinks I'll stay over a couple of days, rent a car and head to the legendary Artichoke Festival in Castroville. I could use a couple of days off, I haven't had a real vacation since 1998, nor more than one day off in the last two and a half years. The more I think about it, the better this plan sounds....

Sunday Favorite

This is the way I learned to make it. This is a terrific preparation to use in a Roemertopf, it's done and juicy and flavorful in under an hour. Skip the oil and toss everything into a pot that's been prepared in cold water for 15 minutes. Roast at 475.

Family-Style Chicken for Four

Vegetable spray, as needed

Vegetables:
3 ribs celery, cut into thirds
2 medium yellow squash, halved crosswise
2 medium zucchini, halved crosswise
1 medium yellow onion, quartered (about 1 cup)
1 red bell pepper, cored, seeded, and quartered
1 clove garlic, minced
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1 teaspoon paprika
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/8 teaspoon garlic powder

Chicken:
1 (4-pound) chicken, cut into 8 pieces
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon paprika
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/2 teaspoon poultry seasoning
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
1/8 teaspoon garlic powder
4 bay leaves

Garnish:
Lemon zest, for garnish
Chopped parsley, for garnish

Equipment: 1 large roasting pan

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Lightly coat the roasting pan with vegetable spray.

Make the Vegetables: Toss all of the ingredients in a large bowl, and arrange them in the roasting pan, leaving room in the center for the chicken.

Prepare the Chicken: Nestle the chicken pieces in the center of the pan. Combine the remaining ingredients and sprinkle evenly over the chicken. Cover the pan tightly with aluminum foil and bake for 1 hour.

Remove the chicken from the oven and baste with the drippings. Continue baking uncovered until well browned, about 1 hour more. Arrange the chicken on a platter surrounded by the vegetables. Sprinkle with the garnish.

"Honey, I Got the Commission!"

This is a delicious variation on a classic beef bourguignonne that doesn't need the full day of cooking that the historic recipe prefers. It is a stunning dinner party dish served over a bed of egg noodles or mixed white and wild rice. Even here in the big city, I'd want to order the 3 lb. filet in advance: that's a big piece of meat and you can't be certain that you'll find one in the meat case on a casual stroll to the store. Better still: if you've got a particularly fat bank account, buy a whole tenderloin and trim it yourself. Take this roast from the fat end of the cut, use the narrow end for steaks. Have the butcher explain to you how to trim the blue skin. And then freeze the roast, steaks and tenderloin ends for stroganoff, beef with mushrooms and all the other elegant skillets you can make with tenderloin.

Start your meal with a salad of romaine lettuce and skinned, braised pears with a walnut oil vinaigrette. I like using white wine for braising, but white concord grape juice works very well if you are avoiding alcohol.

Fillet of Beef Bourguignonne

1 (3-pound) filet of beef, trimmed
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, for seasoning plus 1 teaspoon salt and 1/2 teaspoon pepper
3 to 4 tablespoons good olive oil
1/4 pound bacon, diced
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 1/2 cups good dry red wine, such as Burgundy or Chianti OR
1/2 cup red wine vinegar diluted in a cup of Concord grape juice
2 cups beef stock
1 tablespoon tomato paste
1 sprig fresh thyme
1/2 pound pearl onions, peeled
8 to 10 carrots, cut diagonally into 1-inch-thick slices
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1/2 pound mushrooms, sliced 1/4-inch thick (domestic or wild)

With a sharp knife, cut the fillet crosswise into 1-inch-thick slices. Salt and pepper the fillets on both sides. In a large, heavy-bottomed pan on medium-high heat, saute the slices of beef in batches with 2 to 3 tablespoons oil until browned on the outside and very rare inside, about 2 to 3 minutes on each side. Remove the fillets from the pan and set aside on a platter.

In the same pan, saute the bacon on medium-low heat for 5 minutes, until browned and crisp. Remove the bacon and set it aside. Drain all the fat, except 2 tablespoons, from the pan. Add the garlic and cook for 30 seconds.

Deglaze the pan with the red wine and cook on high heat for 1 minute, scraping the bottom of the pan. Add the beef stock, tomato paste, thyme, 1 teaspoon salt, and 1/2 teaspoon pepper. Bring to a boil and cook uncovered on medium-high heat for 10 minutes. Strain the sauce and return it to the pan. Add the onions and carrots and simmer uncovered for 20 to 30 minutes, until the sauce is reduced and the vegetables are cooked.

With a fork mash 2 tablespoons butter and the flour into a paste and whisk it gently into the sauce. Simmer for 2 minutes to thicken.

Meanwhile, saute the mushrooms separately in 1 tablespoon butter and 1 tablespoon oil for about 10 minutes, until browned and tender.

Add the fillet of beef slices, the mushrooms, and the bacon to the pan with the vegetables and sauce. Cover and reheat gently for 5 to 10 minutes. Do not over cook. Season, to taste, and serve immediately.

This will serve 6-8, theoretically, but real beef eaters will find that they can't really stop eating it. Since the leftovers are fabulous (put this in the mike in the break room at work and you'll discover friends you didn't know you had) you might want to scale it up.

Eye Opener

This is an update of a classic and it is a heavenly Sunday brunch dish for a crowd. I like light turkey brown 'n' serve sausages with this. Treat yourself to a mimosa with brunch.

I like these prepare the night before dishes that I can stick in the oven with my first cup of coffee. Bleary-eyed me in the AM shouldn't be allowed around sharp knives and measuring cups.

Baked French Toast Casserole with Maple Syrup

1 loaf French bread (13 to 16 ounces)
8 large eggs
2 cups half-and-half
1 cup milk
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
Dash salt
Praline Topping, recipe follows
Maple syrup

Slice French bread into 20 slices, 1-inch each. (Use any extra bread for garlic toast or bread crumbs). Arrange slices in a generously buttered 9 by 13-inch flat baking dish in 2 rows, overlapping the slices. In a large bowl, combine the eggs, half-and-half, milk, sugar, vanilla, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt and beat with a rotary beater or whisk until blended but not too bubbly. Pour mixture over the bread slices, making sure all are covered evenly with the milk-egg mixture. Spoon some of the mixture in between the slices. Cover with foil and refrigerate overnight.

The next day, preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Spread Praline Topping evenly over the bread and bake for 40 minutes, until puffed and lightly golden. Serve with maple syrup.

Praline Topping:
1/2 pound (2 sticks) butter
1 cup packed light brown sugar
1 cup chopped pecans
2 tablespoons light corn syrup
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg

Combine all ingredients in a medium bowl and blend well. Makes enough for Baked French Toast Casserole.

For a variation, cut the corn syrup and use walnuts instead of pecans.

W's Amerika

Overreacting to Protest
Wenyi Wang doesn't belong in jail.

Saturday, April 22, 2006; Page A20

WENYI WANG acted rudely when she yelled and waved a banner at visiting Chinese President Hu Jintao during his White House appearance Thursday. The Secret Service was right to hustle her off the grounds. President Bush was right to apologize. But does Ms. Wang deserve to go to prison for six months? That might be the response to embarrassing and rude speech in Beijing. It shouldn't be in Washington. But yesterday the U.S. government charged Ms. Wang under a law that could bring her that sentence.

Ms. Wang, a member of the Falun Gong sect, which China suppresses, got into the media section at the White House lawn ceremony with credentials from a newspaper run by the spiritual group. According to court documents, she waved a yellow banner and shouted in Chinese: "Stop oppressing the Falun Gong," "Your time is running out," and "Anything you have done will come back to you in this lifetime." She also yelled to Mr. Bush, "Stop him from persecuting Falun Gong!"

For that, Ms. Wang has been charged under a law that makes anyone who "intimidates, coerces, threatens, or harasses a foreign official or an official guest or obstructs a foreign official in the performance of his duties" face up to six months in jail. Such laws are necessary to protect visiting dignitaries from attacks -- and to ensure reciprocal protections for U.S. officials abroad.

But no one alleges that Mr. Hu was ever in danger of anything more serious than irritation or humiliation. According to the court documents, the yelling caused Mr. Hu "to interrupt his speech" and look toward Ms. Wang. There's no question that it also caused Mr. Bush to be embarrassed about a lapse of protocol for a visitor acutely sensitive to diplomatic niceties. Okay, but the United States shouldn't indirectly apologize to the Chinese by means of an action that affronts American values.

I realize that the current administration is no fan of the Bill of Rights, but there is that little thing called the First Amendment which reads: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances." What part of "freedom of speech" does W not understand?

Pop!

Doors Close for Real Estate Speculators
After Pushing Up Prices, Investors Are Left Holding Too Many Homes

By Kirstin Downey
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, April 22, 2006; Page A01

Investors who sought quick profits buying and selling real estate in the Washington region are in full retreat, dampening demand for homes, most notably for condos.

What is becoming apparent, market watchers say, is how big a part speculators played in the region's real estate boom of the past few years. Not just condominiums, but also townhouses and single-family houses, were snapped up by investors using no-money-down financing and non-traditional loans. They helped send prices soaring at unprecedented rates. And now many are trying to sell, or rent at a loss. Some may eventually dump properties at low prices to get rid of them. That could weigh down values for everyone.

Sales of new condos fell 43 percent in the first quarter of the year, compared with the first quarter of 2005, according to one report, and there are almost four times as many existing condos for sale than last year.

"We think the softness of the market is largely due to the pulling out of investors," said Gopal Ahluwalia, staff vice president for research at the National Association of Home Builders. "They have not only pulled back, they are canceling purchases."

David Bath, a retired dentist in Reston, rode the boom up. A condo he bought in Vienna for $97,000 sold for $250,000 in a single day. He was able to sell another condo in Herndon for an even bigger profit.

Now he wants out. He has had no luck finding buyers for two investment houses and a four-unit apartment building he owns in Florida. He has been stuck making mortgage payments on vacant houses that took a lot of time and money to repair.

"It's a lot of work and I don't see the returns anymore," he said. "I'm going to the table to cash my chips in."

While condominiums were the product of choice for investors, luxury neighborhoods also fell prey to real estate speculation, leading to the prospect of price drops even in affluent subdivisions.

"Here we had it even in $1 million homes," said Kenneth Wenhold, Virginia and Maryland director for Metrostudy, a real estate information firm.

Robert Toll, chairman and chief executive of Toll Brothers Inc., which builds luxury homes, said in a recent conference call with analysts that the Washington market was the hardest-hit in the nation by investors who bought properties intending to flip them, and who have put the homes up for sale. "We can feel the impact of speculative play coming back into the market," he said.

Nobody knows exactly how much of the real estate boom was driven by investment and speculation. Experts say that between 15 and 30 percent of all purchases were made by investors, rather than by people who bought homes intending to live in them. Some bought the properties for cash, sometimes with equity they pulled out of their own homes, so there is no loan record. Other buyers pretended on loan applications that they would live in homes they really intended to flip, so that they could qualify for better loan terms or get around developer restrictions on investor-buyers.

Some projects became particular investor magnets, and, more recently, the subject of real estate blogs criticizing speculative excesses. For example, the local Internet blog Bubble Meter focused last month on what it called "the bubblicious bench." At one recently completed condominium called the Halstead at Dunn Loring, a luxury condominium complex in Fairfax County, a park bench outside the building bristles with real estate agent lockboxes to permit vacant units to be shown to prospective buyers or renters. On a recent morning, there were 49 lockboxes there, outside a building that has about 200 units.

Whithin blocks of me are three, large, multi-unit condo project low-rises going up. The market is saturated right now, so I expect lots of vacancies. The retail spaces on the first floors are also filling in very slowly. DC was "supposed" to be bubble-proof. Another myth goes up in smoke.

Kill the Truth Tellers

NBC: CIA officer fired after admitting leak
Officer allegedly failed polygraph, admitted giving reporter information

WASHINGTON - In a rare occurrence, the CIA fired an officer who acknowledged giving classified information to a reporter, NBC News learned Friday.

The officer flunked a polygraph exam before being fired on Thursday and is now under investigation by the Justice Department, NBC has learned.

Intelligence sources tell NBC News the accused officer, Mary McCarthy, worked in the CIA's inspector general's office and had worked for the National Security Council under the Clinton and and George W. Bush administrations.

The leak pertained to stories on the CIA’s rumored secret prisons in Eastern Europe, sources told NBC. The information was allegedly provided to Dana Priest of the Washington Post, who wrote about CIA prisons in November and was awarded a Pulitzer Prize on Monday for her reporting.

Sources said the CIA believes McCarthy had more than a dozen unauthorized contacts with Priest. Information about subjects other than the prisons may have been leaked as well.

The sources spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the firing.

CIA spokeswoman Jennifer Millerwise confirmed the dismissal. Millerwise said she was unsure whether there had ever been a firing before at the agency for leaking to the media.

Citing the Privacy Act, the CIA would not provide any details about the officer’s identity or assignments.

All CIA employees are required to sign a secrecy agreement upon being hired stating they are prohibited from discussing classified information with anyone not cleared to receive the material.

Before going public with her name, NBC News reached McCarthy's husband, Michael. He said he could not confirm that his wife had been fired from her career post. He declined further comment.

Priest said she could not comment on the firing, which she said she learned about from NBC News.

Since it doesn't appear that the US public gives a flying fuck about secret renditions, torture and secret prisons abroad, I think this agent sacrificed her position for no good reason.

"No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people." H.L. Mencken.

Wu Who

Now, here he is, sitting right next to all the other countries at the Big Table, representing America, it's little Dubya Bush, stewing in his own juices, his poll numbers hovering right near Nixon levels, mumbling to himself, smelling vaguely of sawdust and horse manure and dead Social Security overhaul plans.

He is pockmarked by scandal, buffeted by storms of disapproval and infighting and nascent impeachment. He authorized the leak of classified security information merely to smear an Iraq war critic, he lied about WMD and lied about Saddam and lied about making the United States safer and lied about, well, just about everything, on top of launching the worst and most violent and most expensive, unwinnable war since Vietnam.

His pile of betting capital is down to a tiny lump, nothing like back when he had the table rigged and all the pit bosses worked for him and the pile was as big as a roomful of Texas cow pies. But now, fortune is frowning. In fact, fortune is white-hot furious at being so viciously molested, spit upon, raped lo these many years. The truth is coming out: Bush has now lost far, far more bets than he ever won.

What's to be done? Why, do what any grumbling, furious, confused, underqualified alcoholic gambler does: reach down deep and say, "To hell with the nation and to hell with the odds and to hell with the rest of the planet," and pull out one more desperate, crumpled war from deep in your pants, slap it on the table and hear the world moan.

But this time, try to make it serious. Do not rule out the use of tactical nuclear weapons. Do not rule out another massive air strike, ground troops, special forces, a strategy so intense it makes Iraq look like a jog in the park. Think of yourself as creating a masterful legacy, going down in history as the guy who "saved" the world from Iran's nukes while protecting American oil interests. Yes? Can you smell the oily sanctimony in the air? Is God speaking to you again, telling you to damn the torpedoes and kill more Muslims? You are the chosen one, after all.

Sound far-fetched? Don't think even Bush could be capable of using nukes to slap Iran? Perish the thought. All reports from underground White House sources -- most notably by way of Sy Hersh's horrifying report in a recent New Yorker -- indicate that Dubya and his remaining team of war-happy flying monkeys have been secretly laying out plans to attack Iran for months, possibly including the use of tactical nuclear weapons to get at those deep Iranian bunkers, all because Iran just celebrated its entrance into the world's "nuclear club" by finally enriching some uranium for the first time. Cookies all around!

No matter that most analysts say that Iran is far from being a true threat, that a nuclear Iran is at least a good decade away, if not longer. No matter that 10 years is a good long time to work on ways to force Iran out of the game -- via negotiation, diplomacy, sanctions -- without unleashing another river of never-ending violence.

With Bush in power, there is no waiting. There is no thought of avoiding another hideous war at all costs. To the Bush hawks, diplomacy is a failed joke. Negotiation is for intellectuals and tofu pacifists. In the Dubya worldview, the planet is a roiling cauldron of nasty threats, crammed with terrorists and hateful Muslims and foreign demons suddenly growling on our doorstep when, curiously, they really weren't there before he stumbled into power. Amazing how that works.

Let's pray that the endgame doesn't include a nuclear cloud over Tehran. I have no faith that this isn't the final picture and that Rove's October surprise won't be another desert disaster. When looking for competence in the Bush administration, I note that they couldn't even give the Chinese head of state a day without fuckups.

David E. Sanger writes in the New York Times: "Just about every American president since Richard M. Nixon has confronted the fact that his influence over China is far more limited than he once hoped. President Bush is now facing that reality midway through his second term, at a moment when the Chinese clearly sense his weakness."

Sanger writes that "some members of his administration concede when promised anonymity, Mr. Bush needs a breakthrough in the relationship -- on North Korea, where China has the most influence, or Iran, where it is a major oil customer, or on the trade deficit that has grown so large, with no end in sight.

"He appears increasingly unlikely to get that breakthrough."

The Heckler

The most newsworthy aspect of the day came when Hu was heckled by a woman standing in the press area. She stole center stage from both presidents, shouting: "President Hu! Your days are numbered," and "President Bush! Stop him from killing!"

Dana Milbank writes in The Washington Post: "It took so long to silence her -- a full three minutes -- that Bush aides began to wonder if the Secret Service's strategy was to let her scream herself hoarse. The rattled Chinese president haltingly attempted to continue his speech and television coverage went to split screen.

" 'You're okay,' Bush gently reassured Hu.

"But he wasn't okay, not really. The protocol-obsessed Chinese leader suffered a day full of indignities -- some intentional, others just careless. The visit began with a slight when the official announcer said the band would play the 'national anthem of the Republic of China' -- the official name of Taiwan. It continued when Vice President Cheney donned sunglasses for the ceremony, and again when Hu, attempting to leave the stage via the wrong staircase, was yanked back by his jacket. Hu looked down at his sleeve to see the president of the United States tugging at it as if redirecting an errant child."

Adds Milbank: "Then there were the intentional slights. China wanted a formal state visit such as [Hu's predecessor Jiang Zemin] got, but the administration refused, calling it instead an 'official' visit. Bush acquiesced to the 21-gun salute but insisted on a luncheon instead of a formal dinner, in the East Room instead of the State Dining Room. . . .

"The meeting in the Oval Office brought more of the same. In front of the cameras, Bush thanked Hu for his 'frankness' -- diplomatic code for disagreement -- and Hu stood expressionless. The two unexpectedly agreed to take questions from reporters, but Bush grew impatient as Hu gave a long answer about trade, made all the longer by the translation. Bush at one point tapped his foot on the ground. 'It was a very comprehensive answer,' he observed when Hu finished."

Kahn writes in the Times about the effect of the heckling incident: "Chinese Foreign Ministry officials traveling with Mr. Hu canceled an afternoon briefing. One delegation member, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the subject publicly, described his superiors as outraged by the breach."

Kenneth R. Bazinet writes in the New York Daily News: 'Protester Wenyi Wang got within shouting distance -- about 35 yards -- of President Bush and the Chinese leader with the help of a press credential issued by a Falun Gong publication. . . .

" 'The Secret Service response to Wang's shouts at Chinese President Hu Jintao appeared to be slow, but because Wang was standing in a press area, authorities initially thought she was asking a question out of turn, a source explained.

" 'Also, Secret Service tactics first and foremost call for protecting the President and ensuring an incident like Wang's outburst is not a diversion for a real threat against the President.' "

Here are the transcripts from the arrival ceremony and the Oval Office meeting .

In a press briefing , National Security Council staffer Dennis Wilder described how Bush apologized to Hu for the disruption: "At the outset of the meeting in the Oval Office, the President expressed to the Chinese President his regret

that, unfortunately, an individual made the decision that she was going to disrupt the speech given by the Chinese President. . . .

"He just said this was unfortunate, and I'm sorry this happened."

Photographers from Reuters , Agence France Presse and the Associated Press captured the awkward Bush-Hu sleeve grab. Here's a Reuters photo of Cheney's shades. In fact, AFP has several more unflattering pictures from the day's event, including this one of Cheney, shall we say, resting his eyes in the Oval Office.

Jeebus, these are supposed to be the Grownups? I was an invitee to some Clinton state events. They never made these kinds of screwups. They had professionals on the ground to prevent them.

Bush doesn't really give a fuck about anybody. And he shows it everyday. All he wants is power.

For those of you who have not been paying attention, I offer you the observations of an observer of power a century ago, Lord Acton.

Power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely

An observation that a person’s sense of morality lessens as his or her power increases. The statement was made by Lord Acton, a British historian of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Hurricane Screwed

Update 2: FEMA Wants $4.7M Back From Katrina Victims
By RON HARRIST , 04.21.2006, 07:18 PM

Thousands of Gulf Coast residents have been told they must repay millions of dollars in federal Hurricane Katrina benefits that were excessive or, in some cases, fraudulent.

In Mississippi alone, the Federal Emergency Management Agency said it is seeking $4.7 million from 2,044 people, telling them in a form letter that they have four months to repay or set up a payment plan.

Some storm victims got duplicate or extra benefits because of FEMA errors, FEMA spokesman Eugene Brezany said, and others might have received benefits for expenses that later were reimbursed by insurance settlements.

Some others benefited "by intentional misrepresentation" or the mistaken belief that secondary residences qualified for payments, he said.

More people could get repayment notices as more applications are reviewed, Brezany said. Recipients could have received $2,000 to $26,200.

People who get the form letter have 30 days to respond. If they don't meet the four-month deadline, the U.S. Treasury will attempt to collect the money, Brezany said.

James McIntyre, FEMA spokesman for Louisiana, could not immediately provide figures for his state or others hit by Katrina. Aaron Walker, the agency's chief spokesman, said in an e-mail he also could not immediately respond.

The form letter sent to the aid recipients said that they could appeal the charges. Even so, it said, "FEMA strongly encourages" them to pay the debt or set up a repayment plan to avoid being charged penalties or interest in case the appeal fails.

Federal auditors have faulted FEMA for much of the benefit abuse after last fall's hurricanes, citing an inadequate accounting system. The federal Government Accountability Office has said thousands of inappropriate payments were made because people could repeatedly apply for and collect benefits.

In February, audits by the General Accounting Office and the Department of Homeland Security found that as many as 900,000 of the 2.5 million applicants who received aid under FEMA's emergency cash assistance program - which included $2,000 debit cards given to evacuees - were based on duplicate or invalid Social Security numbers, or false addresses and names.

Also in February, the Justice Department said federal prosecutors charged 212 people with fraud, theft and other counts in scams related to Gulf Coast hurricanes.

I'm in negotiations with the IRS for backdebt they owe me and I can't begin to tell you how screwed up they are. Most of these people will see nothing. That's just the way it is, it doesn't have to be that way, but that's what we tolerate.

My boss told me when I hired on, however bad you think it is in the Bush administration, it is really much, much worse. The Fuck You here is of mind-numbing proportions. The level of incompetence and pure partisan payoff will make Brownie look like some sweet amateurnish. These people are evil and ugly and they don't give a damn about you.

Compassionate conservatism is an evil joke while they ransack the rest of the republic. If you doubt, check your gas gauge and the price at the pump. The ransackers are in charge.

Peasants with pitchforks in the streets? It seems the US electorate wants to be fucked.

Welcome to 1984.

Whole Foods

Your local morels will be ready next month. If you haven't experienced your local funghi, it is long past time. These are so good that you won't miss meat if you want to put your bucks toward another kind of protein. The Community Supported Agriculture Movement will bring this good food to your door. Click on the link and investigate.

BRAISED CHICKEN WITH WHITE ASPARAGUS AND MOREL SAUTE WITH CREME FRAICHE

What to drink: Red wine that's both earthy and light — try a northern Rhône Syrah blend like Saint-Joseph.

6 large chicken leg-thigh pieces (about 5 1/2 pounds total)
2 tablespoons finely grated lemon peel
2 tablespoons fresh thyme leaves
2 tablespoons chopped fresh Italian parsley plus 6 sprigs

4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) butter, divided
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
1 cup sliced onion
1 cup sliced leeks (white and pale green parts only)
1/2 cup dried morels (about 3/4 ounce)
2 bay leaves
1 cup dry white wine
1/4 cup dry Sherry
4 cups low-salt chicken broth

White Asparagus, Morels, and Leeks
1/2 cup crème fraîche or sour cream

Toss chicken pieces with peel, thyme, and chopped parsley in large bowl. Cover and refrigerate at least 4 hours or overnight.

Let chicken pieces stand at room temperature 15 minutes. Sprinkle with salt and pepper; let stand 15 minutes more.

Preheat oven to 325°F. Melt 2 tablespoons butter with oil in large skillet over medium-high heat. Working in 2 batches, add chicken pieces, skin side down; cook until deep brown, about 5 minutes. Turn chicken over; reduce heat to medium and cook 2 minutes. Arrange in single layer in large ovenproof pot. Pour off all but 4 tablespoons drippings from skillet. Add onion, leeks, morels, and bay leaves to skillet; sauté over medium heat until vegetables are golden, about 7 minutes. Add wine and Sherry; increase heat to high and boil until liquid is reduced by half, about 2 minutes. Add broth; bring to boil. Add 6 parsley sprigs. Pour vegetables over chicken. Cover pot with plastic wrap, then foil. Bake until chicken is very tender, about 1 1/2 hours.

Increase oven temperature to 400°F. Transfer chicken pieces to rimmed baking sheet; roast in oven until brown, about 15 minutes.

Meanwhile, strain vegetable-broth mixture into medium saucepan. Press on solids to extract as much liquid as possible. Boil liquid until reduced to 3 cups, about 15 minutes. Whisk in remaining 2 tablespoons butter. Season with salt and pepper.

Arrange chicken on large platter. Spoon reduced juices over. Arrange white asparagus, morels, and leeks over and around chicken. Top each chicken leg with dollop of crème fraîche and serve.

Yum.

Internetworking

I'm too tired to do it tonight, but does anyone have a primer on the manners for IMing? It would be a kindness to share it with the family here. I seem to be screwing up on a regular basis.

Elevate

This takes the grilled cheese sandwich to new heights.

Grilled Blue Cheese Pear Sandwich

* 8 slices sourdough bread
* 3 Tbsp. butter, softened
* 1/4 cup sour cream
* 2 ripe pears, thinly sliced
* 1/2 cup crumbled blue cheese
* 1/2 cup shredded Havarti cheese

PREPARATION:
Preheat dual contact indoor grill. Combine cheeses in small bowl. Thinly spread sour cream on one side of each piece of bread. Make sandwiches with the sliced pears and cheese mixture. Spread softened butter on outsides of sandwiches.

Grill for 2-3 minutes until bread is browned and crisp and cheese is melted.

These are hug-yourself good.

Serve with a salad of romaine, torn fine and tossed with sliced cherry tomatoes, english cukes (seeded) and a dressing of extra virgin olive oil, hazelnut oil and Pommery french mustard and celery seed. Grate fresh sea salt and white pepper to taste.

Site News

I'm going to have some big news next week (the details are still in process) but it's Friday night and I'm going to take some downtime. Getting to the "big news" has meant very little sleep for the last month and no free time to speak of. I want to read a book for pleasure, do some laundry and the like, things I haven't done in months.

For your dining and dancing pleasure, here's a recipe that delights me.

Tom Choy's Chow Mein

I grew up in a blue collar suburb of St. Paul. It was one of those Levittown, cookie cutter suburbs and there was one little strip mall attached to the local Red Owl supermarket. It had a Chinese carryout, Tom Moy's chow mein place, and that was about all we knew about Chinese food. Chow Mein is, of course, about as Chinese as hamburgers, but I loved the stuff as a child. Having take out was a big deal for us. The little packages of soy sauce and duck sauce were exotic and the steamed rice was so different from the parboiled Minute Rice I grew up with. I have a little Chinese carryout down the street from me, nothing more than a hole in the wall, which has something similar, real 1950's food. I prefer my own cooking however.

1/4 cup dried shiitake mushrooms
1/2 cup boiling water
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 cup diced onions
1/2 teaspoon minced garlic
1/4 teaspoon celery salt
3 cups low-sodium beef broth or beef stock
3 tablespoons cornstarch
2 teaspoons gravy enhancer, optional, for color only (recommended: Kitchen Bouquet)
2 teaspoons soy sauce
2 teaspoons dark corn syrup
1 cup diagonally sliced celery, about 1/4-inch thick
2 cups shredded, cooked chicken
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Place mushrooms in a small bowl and cover with the boiling water. Allow mushrooms to stand for 5 minutes, or until slightly softened. Remove mushrooms and reserve for another use. Reserve 1/3 cup of the mushroom-soaking liquid.

Heat 1 tablespoon of the vegetable oil in a medium saucepan over medium-high heat. Add 1/2 cup of the onions and cook until slightly softened but not browned, about 2 minutes. Add the garlic and celery salt and cook for 1 minute, stirring constantly. Add 2 1/2 cups of the beef broth and the reserved mushroom-soaking liquid and bring to a boil.

In a small bowl, whisk together the remaining 1/2 cup beef broth, cornstarch, gravy enhancer, and soy sauce. Add the cornstarch mixture and the corn syrup to the saucepan and return the mixture to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer for 5 minutes, or until the gravy is slightly thickened. Keep warm until ready to serve.

In a medium wok, heat the remaining vegetable oil over high heat. Add the remaining onions and the celery and cook until softened, about 1 to 2 minutes. Add the chicken and season with salt and pepper, to taste. Cook until chicken is heated through, about 2 minutes. Ladle 1/4 to 1/2 cup of the reduced gravy mixture into the chicken mixture, tossing to coat well, and remove from the heat. Place Chow Mein Noodles in the bottom of a dish and top with the chicken mixture. Ladle gravy over the chicken and noodles and toss to combine. Serve immediately.

You need those crunchy "Chinese" noodles with this, they come in cans at the supermarket. Or you can get one of those cellotex packets from your local Chinese carryout. Oh, the comfort food of childhood.

On the List

Planning for Flu
Pandemic preparation plans still don't deal with the central question: How will America's hospitals cope?

Friday, April 21, 2006; A22

IN THE next few days, the federal government is expected to release another flu pandemic response plan, this one designed to guide the behavior of federal agencies in case of a disaster. According to a briefing given to Post staff writer Ceci Connolly, preparations include plans to print money abroad if U.S. mints cannot operate; to close cafeterias and cancel meetings; and even to define what, exactly, the federal government's basic functions are. Some agencies at the moment list as many as 400 "essential tasks" in their emergency plans, an unrealistically high number.

This is all very well, as far as it goes. But neither this plan nor any previous one has honestly confronted the central question of any pandemic: what to do with hundreds -- or hundreds of thousands -- of sick people. No one has produced an effective flu vaccine. Until someone does, any contagious flu virus -- or bioengineered virus -- will make many people ill. And neither America's hospitals nor any other part of the medical system is ready to deal with them.

True, there are plans for mobile medical units, and there have been rudimentary attempts to define and measure the nation's "surge capacity." But most of America's 5,000-odd hospitals are unprepared. Nearly half of the nation's emergency rooms report being at or over capacity; 80 percent of emergency doctors say their hospital is unprepared for an epidemic or terrorist disaster, and about a third of hospitals are losing money, meaning they can't invest in spare capacity. Yet models based on the 1918 flu pandemic show that a similarly infectious virus would require, by the fifth week, more than four times the number of existing hospital beds and more than double the number of existing ventilators.

More important than the shortages of equipment, though, is the shortage of medical staffers. In a pandemic it will be impossible to provide traditional hospital care to everyone. But even makeshift military field hospitals will require minimally trained staff. Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt has been traveling the country to warn states and cities, rightly, that they should be doing the hardest thinking about these shortages, but more federal input is needed. Congress and the White House should be improving and expanding the Disaster Medical Assistance Teams -- which were bogged down by logistical problems in the wake of Hurricane Katrina -- and possibly supporting a volunteer corps, including retired medical professionals or students, that could also help out as needed. Until this central question has been dealt with, almost all other federal government "preparations," however impressive-sounding, are of lesser importance.

Actually, the list of things we are unprepared for on the pandemic score is so long that this a ways down the line.

Against All Enemies

Rosa Brooks:
A 4-star defense of the republic

April 21, 2006

On the right, the key talking point in the War Against the Generals quickly emerged: "Civilian control of the military." It was an effective line of attack, and so clever that even many who ought to have known better were suckered. The Washington Post editorial board on Tuesday, for instance, fell for it hook, line and sinker, worrying that the retired generals were threatening "the essential democratic principle of military subordination to civilian control…. If [the generals] are successful in forcing Mr. Rumsfeld's resignation, they will set an ugly precedent."

They even had me nodding along there for a few minutes. After all, every student of recent history knows that if you dilute civilian control of the military, you end up with fascism or a Latin American-style military junta. Because constant security threats are necessary to maintain the power and credibility of a military regime, a nation that lacks civilian control of the military gets ensnared in unending, pointless wars, often against an increasingly vaguely defined threat. Gradually, the broader society becomes militarized. Dissenters are denounced as cowards or traitors, and domestic surveillance becomes common. Secret military courts and detention systems begin to supplant the civilian judicial system. Detainees get tortured, and some end up mysteriously dead after interrogation.

We definitely wouldn't want that kind of regime to control the United States, would we?

IT WAS AT THIS POINT that I got the joke — because, dear reader, we're already well on the way to having that kind of regime. If Rumsfeld thought he could get away with calling himself Il Generalissimo, don't you think he'd do so in a heartbeat?

In the looking-glass world the Bush administration has brought us, it's the civilians in the White House and the Pentagon who have been eager to embrace the values normally exemplified by military juntas, while many uniformed military personnel have struggled to insist on values that are supposed to characterize democratic civil society.

Iraq is only one of the many issues on which military personnel have stood up against foolish or immoral administration policies. In 2003, the three generals and one admiral who collectively head the JAG Corps of the various services wrote strongly worded internal memos opposing the administration's authorization of interrogation techniques that border on or constitute torture. Navy Rear Adm. Michael Lohr, for instance, condemned the techniques as "inconsistent with our most fundamental values." In January 2005, five retired generals filed an amicus brief in a case before the Supreme Court opposing the administration's argument that suspects tried by military commissions are not entitled to the protections of the Geneva Convention. Many more examples could be cited.

The claim that the six dissenting generals are betraying the principle of civilian control over the military is both silly and sinister. It's silly because polite, reasoned criticism from retired generals is just free speech, a very far cry from "forcing" the Defense secretary out. And it's sinister because civilian control is a means of safeguarding democracy, not an end in itself. When that gets forgotten, the phrase becomes just another way to stifle dissent.

Military officers must obey all lawful commands and refrain from using "contemptuous words" about their civilian leaders. But when officers take the military oath, they also pledge to "support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic, [and] bear true faith and allegiance to the same."

That's a hard oath, because bearing "true faith" to the Constitution requires military personnel to speak out, regardless of the cost, when they think our civilian leaders have gone beyond the pale. Both our democracy and the lives of the soldiers who fight in our name depend on it. If officers remain silent when our military policies go terribly wrong, there's little the rest of us can do to set things right again.

The list of Bush offenses against the Constitution is now so long that I can no longer keep track. But what do I see on CNN? How many minutes have been given over to the Duke rape story, which is a purely local story?

What Planet is This Paper On?

Katrina Lessons

Published: April 21, 2006

The lessons of Katrina have highlighted two important ways that the country will need to change its disaster relief before the next hurricane season begins in June. The federal government must do a better job of relocating evacuated families into permanent homes in functional communities instead of into hotels and trailer parks. And the authorities need to provide ongoing medical care for the displaced.

The link between the medical care and housing issues is clearly underscored in an alarming new report from the Children's Health Fund and the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health. Researchers who studied families stranded in hotels and isolated trailer camps found that more than a third of the children suffered from conditions like asthma, anxiety and behavioral problems and that many were going without prescribed medications.

The government's stress on temporary housing has taken a toll on these families, who have moved frequently — the average is 3.5 times — since the storm. About a quarter of the school-age children were either not enrolled in school or had missed huge chunks of school days. Among their parents, about half were managing chronic conditions like diabetes, high blood pressure or cancer. Katrina did not cause these illnesses. But the stressful and chaotic conditions of the relief effort have clearly caused many of them to worsen.

The humanitarian emergency that has recently come to light in the Katrina belt should put the federal government on notice that furnishing medical care — and rebuilding medical services — must be the first priority in disasters like this one.

The Times ed board continues to drink the Koolaid. Nothing has changed since last year, people, and since when is healthcare in this country a priority of anyone? We've got 47 million uninsured in this country and the Times doesn't think THAT is a frickin' emergency? Jeebus, the Times is completely disconnected from the lives of ordinary Americans.

American Attitudes

The current issue of Foreign Affairs has a very interesting survey of American attitudes about US foreign policy.

The Tipping Points By Daniel Yankelovich

From Foreign Affairs, May/June 2006
Summary: A new survey of U.S. public opinion on foreign policy shows that the war in Iraq and terrorism are not the only problems on Americans' minds. Public concern over the United States' dependence on foreign oil may soon force policymakers to change course. And religious Americans are rethinking their support for many of Bush's policies, which has brought them closer in line with the rest of the public.

DANIEL YANKELOVICH is Chair and Co-founder of the organizations Public Agenda, DYG, and Viewpoint Learning.

FROM BAD TO WORSE

Terrorism and the war in Iraq are not the only sources of the American public's anxiety about U.S. Foreign policy. Americans are also concerned about their country's dependence on foreign energy supplies, U.S. jobs moving overseas, Washington's seeming inability to stop illegal immigration, and a wide range of other issues. The public's support for promoting democracy abroad has also seriously eroded.

These are a few of the highlights from the second in a continuing series of surveys monitoring Americans' confidence in U.S. foreign policy conducted by the nonprofit research organization Public Agenda (with support from the Ford Foundation), of which I am chair. The first survey, conducted in June of last year, found that only the war in Iraq had reached the "tipping point" -- the moment at which a large portion of the public begins to demand that the government address its concerns. According to this follow-on survey, conducted among a representative sample of 1,000 American adults in mid-January 2006, a second issue has reached that status. The U.S. public has grown impatient with U.S. dependence on foreign countries for oil, and its impatience could soon translate into a powerful demand that Washington change its policies.

Overall, the public's confidence in U.S. Foreign policy has drifted downward since the first survey. On no issue did the government's policy receive an improved rating from the public in January's survey, and on a few the ratings changed for the worse. The public has become less confident in Washington's ability to achieve its goals in Iraq and Afghanistan, hunt down terrorists, protect U.S. borders, and safeguard U.S. jobs. Fifty-nine percent of those surveyed said they think that U.S. relations with the rest of the world are on the wrong track (compared to 37 percent who think the opposite), and 51 percent said they are disappointed by the country's relations with other countries (compared to 42 percent who are proud of them).

As for the goal of spreading democracy to other countries, only 20 percent of respondents identified it as "very important" -- the lowest support noted for any goal asked about in the survey. Even among Republicans, only three out of ten favored pursuing it strongly. In fact, most of the erosion in confidence in the policy of spreading democracy abroad has occurred among Republicans, especially the more religious wing of the party. People who frequently attend religious services have been among the most ardent supporters of the government's policies, but one of the recent survey's most striking findings is that although these people continue to maintain a high level of trust in the president and his administration, their support for the government's Iraq policy and for the policy of exporting democracy has cooled.

This is a long and interesting article which is worth reading in its entirety. The US electorate is more complex than what we see on CNN, thank God. Blitzer and Company give us a caricature.

Another Failure

The Battle Over the Blame for Gas Prices
Firms Cite Supply Issues, Deny Abuse

By Steven Mufson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, April 21, 2006; Page A01

When Severin Borenstein drove by a Shell station in Orinda, Calif., yesterday morning, the price of unleaded gasoline was $2.99 a gallon. When he drove by five hours later, the price was $3.10 a gallon.

Borenstein has a better grasp of why that happened than most. He's a professor of business and public policy at the University of California at Berkeley and is director of the University of California Energy Institute.

"The oil side is one piece of this. The refining side is another piece of this," he said.

Oil prices are soaring, with the price of crude at more than $70 a barrel on world markets and 37 percent higher than a year ago. That works out to more than $1.7o a gallon, more than half the cost of a gallon of regular unleaded gasoline.

The next biggest chunk of the cost of a gallon of gasoline is the cost of refining, which is now about twice the average levels over the past five years. And that has sparked controversy over whether oil refiners have been gouging consumers by holding back on expanding capacity to gain more power over prices.

The oil companies deny those allegations, but what's not in dispute is what's happening at the gasoline pumps.

"What's going on is just a continued reflection of the worsening supply-and-demand balance, and when you get into a tight market, small changes can cause big price movements," said Borenstein, explaining the rising price of crude oil.

He added that the reasons for fatter refining margins were not so clear. "This is the time of year when that number always goes up, but it has gone up more than usual," Borenstein said. "What we're seeing is that refineries are making huge profits. We have not been building refineries, demand continues to grow, and supply is not keeping up with it."

15 cents in three days isn't supply and demand, it is price gouging. Didn't W campaign on his ability to "jawbone" prices down?

PR, Not Substance

Bush, Hu Produce Summit of Symbols
Protester Screams At Chinese President

By Peter Baker and Glenn Kessler
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, April 21, 2006; Page A01

President Bush pressed China's visiting President Hu Jintao yesterday to open up markets, expand freedom and do more to curb nuclear programs in Iran and North Korea but came away with no specific agreements in a summit emphasizing symbolism over breakthroughs.

Hosting the first White House visit of a Chinese president in nine years, Bush welcomed Hu with pageantry, marching bands and a 21-gun salute in a sun-splashed South Lawn ceremony, then escorted him inside for polite talks on a range of long-standing issues. In return, Hu offered vague assurances that he will address U.S. economic concerns while resisting tougher action on Iran and North Korea.

Chinese President Hu Jintao began wrapping up his U.S. tour with a visit to the White House on Thursday. President Bush encouraged Hu's cooperation to help resolve disputes with Iran and North Korea.

The one off-script moment in an otherwise meticulously choreographed day came when a member of the Falun Gong religious sect that is suppressed in China screamed at Hu for several long minutes as he addressed hundreds of Bush aides and ticketed guests on the lawn. "President Hu! Your days are numbered," she shouted. "President Bush! Stop him from killing!" A startled Hu paused until Bush leaned over and encouraged him to continue. "You're okay," Bush assured Hu.

Such a jarring disruption inside the White House gates is extremely rare and seen as deeply offensive to the protocol-sensitive Chinese leadership. Bush, described as angry by aides who saw him afterward, apologized to Hu when they sat down in the Oval Office. "This was unfortunate, and I'm sorry this happened," Bush said, according to a White House official.

The visit held deep meaning for the Chinese delegation, which broadcast the pomp -- but not the protest -- to its people back home as a sign of the nation's standing in the international community. Bush obliged to a point, serving an Alaska halibut luncheon in the East Room for Hu but not offering the black-tie state dinner Beijing wanted.

A couple of interesting things: Hu met with Bill Gates before he met with Bush; the WaPo thinks that dissent is a "blemish." Gee, a free press, which we used to have, was once part of the dissent instead of being stenographers for the government. Why don't we just get rid of newspapers and just distribute the spewings of the Government Printing Office in our corner newsboxes?

A Look in the Mirror

Democrats Eager to Exploit Anger Over Gas Prices

By MICHAEL JANOFSKY
Published: April 21, 2006

WASHINGTON, April 20 — Democrats running for Congress are moving quickly to use the most recent surge in oil and gasoline prices to bash Republicans over energy policy, and more broadly, the direction of the country.

With oil prices hitting a high this week and prices at the pump topping $3 a gallon in many places, Amy Klobuchar, a Democratic Senate candidate in Minnesota, is making the issue the centerpiece of her campaign. Ms. Klobuchar says it "is one of the first things people bring up" at her campaign stops.

To varying degrees, Democrats around the country are following a similar script that touches on economic anxiety and populist resentment against oil companies.

"It's a metaphor for an economy that keeps biting people despite overall good numbers," said Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York, chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. Mr. Schumer said Democratic candidates in 10 of the 34 Senate races this year had scheduled campaign events this week focusing on gasoline prices.

Officials at the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which advises House candidates, said they sent a memorandum to candidates on Thursday offering guidance on using the issue to their advantage. The memorandum includes a "sample statement" that recommends telling voters, "Americans are tired of giving billion-dollar tax subsidies to energy companies and foreign countries while paying record prices at the pump."

Increasing gasoline prices have put Republicans on the defensive at a time when they are counting on the economy to help offset the myriad other problems they face, starting with the Iraq war.

Republicans say they have spent years advocating policies that would reduce the reliance on imported oil, largely by promoting more domestic energy production, and they point to the energy bill that President Bush signed last August as a step in that direction. They said that the law encouraged conservation and greater use of ethanol in gasoline and that it would have done more for domestic oil supplies if Democrats had not fought so hard against drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

Mr. Bush tried to get ahead of the issue in January in his State of the Union address, saying that the nation is addicted to oil and urging steps to reduce reliance on energy imports.

The White House and Republicans on Capitol Hill have worked closely together for months on a campaign to highlight what they say is the strength of the economy, partly to offset what administration officials acknowledge are the negative psychological effects of high oil and gasoline prices on consumers. A Washington Post/ABC News poll this week found that 59 percent of Americans rated the economy "not good" or "poor," despite solid economic growth and declining unemployment.

"The better we are at getting out the overall message that the economy is growing and the reasons behind it, the better we'll be able to deflect the silly political attacks from the Democrats," said Brian Nick, a spokesman for the National Republican Senatorial Committee.

That "growing economy" is a myth, according to a conservative scholar, and Americans vote their pocketbooks. Gas at my corner station is up 15 cents since Tuesday, $3.019 today. That'll get noticed.

The Next Big One

State Called Unready for Big Quake
Scientists marking 1906 disaster say future toll could be worse because of surging population and development and lack of retrofitting.
By Sharon Bernstein, Times Staff Writer
April 21, 2006

SAN FRANCISCO — New research on earthquakes presented this week to mark the 100th anniversary of this city's great quake paints a disquieting picture of California's preparedness for a major temblor.

The overarching message of scientists gathered here was twofold. First, future quakes could easily do more damage than past ones because the population of California continues to increase and there are more buildings in areas near fault lines on soft ground susceptible to liquefaction. Second, the state must do more to retrofit vulnerable buildings.

ADVERTISEMENT
A landmark study presented Thursday by noted structural engineer Charles Kircher found that 5% of buildings would cause 50% of the deaths in the event of a major temblor.

Those buildings include unreinforced masonry, brittle concrete structures and buildings with open floor plans on the first floor, such as apartments with first-story garages or retail businesses.

Seismologists and state officials have long warned of the danger of such buildings, but regulating them has been difficult. Though some retrofitting has occurred on old brick buildings, relatively little has been done about so-called "nonductile" concrete buildings and "soft" first-story buildings despite their proliferation across the state.

Kircher's research is considered significant because it pulled together several disciplines.

He determined damage estimates by studying areas that earthquake waves would strike if the 1906 temblor occurred now, and then cross-referencing that data with information on where vulnerable buildings are located. Those facts then were combined with insurance industry estimates on the cost of replacing buildings and census data on how many people lived there.

Kircher said that unless thousands of buildings are upgraded to meet the newest earthquake standards, as many as 3,400 people could die if a magnitude 7.9 quake struck Northern California. That's more than twice the number of deaths caused by last year's hurricanes Katrina and Rita combined.

There would be $1.5 trillion worth of damage to buildings and property — far more than the $125 billion estimated so far for the two hurricanes — and up to 13,000 people would require hospitalization, his study found.

Kircher spoke at the first ever convocation of scientists, engineers, disaster preparedness officials and politicians that met in San Francisco this week to commemorate the 1906 temblor.

His report was one of several scientific papers that highlighted the state's quake vulnerabilities as well as efforts to improve preparedness.

Tom Jordan, director of the Southern California Earthquake Center, presented information about a project his group is working on that attempts to predict where earthquake waves would travel when a temblor hits the region.

The group is examining various faults across Southern California and hopes to estimate the areas that would be hit hardest. With such information, safety officials could consider special measures in particularly vulnerable areas.

Contrary to some earlier theories, which posited that there would be less shaking farther away from the epicenter, scientists have learned in recent years that the type of soil can play a greater role than the distance from the rupture.

Another important factor is the direction of the break itself. If the San Andreas fault were to break near Santa Rosa and the rupture traveled south toward San Francisco, the Bay Area would be harder hit than if the break occurred closer to San Francisco but traveled north.

Another study — by several organizations including the U.S. Geological Survey, UC Berkeley and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory — allowed scientists to replicate the seismic wave patterns of the 1906 temblor, pinpointing the areas that would be hit hardest if the quake occurred today.

Peggy Hellweg, director of the Berkeley Seismological Laboratory, said the study showed that the most vulnerable areas would be those built on fill or located in basins, including Emeryville, Berkeley, Richmond, Alameda and several districts in San Francisco, including the marina.

"There are going to be a lot of places where the shaking is unpleasant," Hellweg said. "There will be many places where the shaking will be bad, and there will be a number of places where it will be really terrible."

Policymakers, she said, should use this research — along with similar studies from Southern California — to identify areas where shaking will be the worst and upgrade buildings in those areas first.

And we aren't ready for the next hurricane or a pandemic. So what else is new? Expecting FEMA to be competent at anything went out of fashion on August 29, 2005.

I'm proud of my city

Milwaukee, by rights, should be burning. It isn't.

An all-white jury found a batch of ex-cops not guilty of beating the tar out of some poor bastard named Frank Jude.

White cops, mixed race victim. Not a traffic stop or arrest gone bad, a bunch of drunk cops at a party. They had a lame story about Frank trying to steal a badge, but nobody cares because 1) nobody believes it and 2) the beating wouldn't have made sense no matter what the crime.

People are pissed off enough to be rioting. But they aren't. There have been some marches, but they were orderly.

The mayor and the police chief, amazingly, are handling the situation with skill and passion. The population (myself included) actualy expects problems to be fixed, bad cops to be stopped. One of the cops is trying to get his job back - the police chief (a small woman named Nannette) looked like she was spitting nails when she said she does not expect any of the cops involved will ever work in law enforcement again.

A bit of a twist - Alberto Gonzales is visiting tomorrow. If we had a chief like him, you'd be reading headlines about riots.

My So-Called Life

I complained to my hairdresser last month that the only really nice thing I ever do for myself these days is get a really good haircut once a month. The rest of the time is hairshirt and ashes because I have no money. I have to change this. Living a cramped life guarantees you a cramped life.

So, I went and spent some real money I don't have on a "posture chair" from The Healthy Back Store to relieve the pressure on my neck and back that is killing my arms and wrists as I sit at the computer. They'll deliver in a couple of days. If it makes me more comfortable at the computer I'll get more done. Next up, a better coffee pot and iced tea situation. Technology has some answers.

I don't do a lot of caffeine, but the morning part of the day doesn't work very well without it. I'm all seltzer in the afternoons.

That which matters here is that I'm breaking out of the scarcity model after a phone call with a friend who is in a position to fund the site and I'm starting to think as if I actually had the right to breathe. That's still a novel idea.

When he comes up with the funds, I'll actually start breathing again.

Buy Local

I've been on flu business all afternoon (sorry, it's part of the job) and not around much. I'll try to make it up to you in recipes tonight.

Recipes are only as good as their ingredients. If you haven't yet signed up for your local community supported agriculture producer for spring produce, use the link to find a producer near you. Good, organic produce delivered to your door or a location physically near you weekly is a very good thing. I don't have the space or the sun for a garden beyond my herb patch, so supporting the local growers this way and by shopping the local Farmers' Market each week is what I can do to keep local agriculture and small organic farms viable. You can, too. Click on the link and find a farmer near you.

My local Farmers' Market starts on May 15 and I'll be buying herb sets to start my herb border for my door garden. Keep the local small businesses in business. The market has native buffalo mozarella and fabulous artisan breads, along with produce and great plants for the garden so I get some immediate gratification at dinner.

The hummingbird feeder and associated basket flowers go up on Saturday. You haven't lived until hummers have sat on your fingers and shat in your hair, and you can do this cheaply and easily with some sugar water, a feeder and a couple of baskets of flowers. And have beautiful things to look at all summer.

Employment Depression

Nuking the Economy
Forget Iran—Americans Should be Hysterical About This

By Paul Craig Roberts

Last week the Bureau of Labor Statistics re-benchmarked the payroll jobs data back to 2000. Thanks to Charles McMillion of MBG Information Services, I have the adjusted data from January 2001 through January 2006. If you are worried about terrorists, you don’t know what worry is.

Job growth over the last five years is the weakest on record. The US economy came up more than 7 million jobs short of keeping up with population growth. That’s one good reason for controlling immigration. An economy that cannot keep up with population growth should not be boosting population with heavy rates of legal and illegal immigration.

Over the past five years the US economy experienced a net job loss in goods-producing activities. The entire job growth was in service-providing activities--primarily credit intermediation, health care and social assistance, waiters, waitresses and bartenders, and state and local government.

US manufacturing lost 2.9 million jobs, almost 17% of the manufacturing work force. The wipeout is across the board. Not a single manufacturing payroll classification created a single new job.

The declines in some manufacturing sectors have more in common with a country undergoing saturation bombing during war than with a super-economy that is “the envy of the world.” Communications equipment lost 43% of its workforce. Semiconductors and electronic components lost 37% of its workforce. The workforce in computers and electronic products declined 30%. Electrical equipment and appliances lost 25% of its employees. The workforce in motor vehicles and parts declined 12%. Furniture and related products lost 17% of its jobs. Apparel manufacturers lost almost half of the work force. Employment in textile mills declined 43%. Paper and paper products lost one-fifth of its jobs. The work force in plastics and rubber products declined by 15%. Even manufacturers of beverages and tobacco products experienced a 7% shrinkage in jobs.

The knowledge jobs that were supposed to take the place of lost manufacturing jobs in the globalized “new economy” never appeared. The information sector lost 17% of its jobs, with the telecommunications work force declining by 25%. Even wholesale and retail trade lost jobs. Despite massive new accounting burdens imposed by Sarbanes-Oxley, accounting and bookkeeping employment shrank by 4%. Computer systems design and related lost 9% of its jobs. Today there are 209,000 fewer managerial and supervisory jobs than 5 years ago.

In five years the US economy only created 70,000 jobs in architecture and engineering, many of which are clerical. Little wonder engineering enrollments are shrinking. There are no jobs for graduates. The talk about engineering shortages is absolute ignorance. There are several hundred thousand American engineers who are unemployed and have been for years. No student wants a degree that is nothing but a ticket to a soup line. Many engineers have written to me that they cannot even get Wal-Mart jobs because their education makes them over-qualified.

Offshore outsourcing and offshore production have left the US awash with unemployment among the highly educated. The low measured rate of unemployment does not include discouraged workers. Labor arbitrage has made the unemployment rate less and less a meaningful indicator. In the past unemployment resulted mainly from turnover in the labor force and recession. Recoveries pulled people back into jobs.

Unemployment benefits were intended to help people over the down time in the cycle when workers were laid off. Today the unemployment is permanent, as entire occupations and industries are wiped out by labor arbitrage as corporations replace their American employees with foreign ones.

Economists who look beyond political press releases estimate the US unemployment rate to be between 7% and 8.5%. There are now hundreds of thousands of Americans who will never recover their investment in their university education.

Unless the BLS is falsifying the data or businesses are reporting the opposite of the facts, the US is experiencing a job depression. Most economists refuse to acknowledge the facts, because they endorsed globalization. It was a win-win situation, they said.

They were wrong.

Anybody who has been looking for work in the last five years knows how true this is. Bush has been a net job destroyer.

Maroons

It's really shocking how badly informed CNN White House reporters are about US/China relations. Bush is making nice with Hu Jintao, not to demonstrate that China is not a threat, but because they own the US. They've been buying up all that treasury debt Bush has been racking up for the last 5 years. We're a wholly owned subsidiary of Beijing

Blast from the Past

A Crisis Almost Without Equal
Republicans and Democrats alike are starting to face the prospect of what it means to have George W. Bush as their commander in chief for another 33 months -- in a time of war, terrorism, and nuclear intrigue. How can the press contribute to confronting the crisis? First: recognize it exists.

By Greg Mitchell

(April 19, 2006) -- No matter which party they generally favor or political stripes they wear, newspapers and other media outlets need to confront the fact that America faces a crisis almost without equal in recent decades.

Our president, in a time of war, terrorism and nuclear intrigue, will likely remain in office for another 33 months, with crushingly low approval ratings that are still inching lower. Facing a similar problem, voters had a chance to quickly toss Jimmy Carter out of office, and did so. With a similar lengthy period left on his White House lease, Richard Nixon quit, facing impeachment. Neither outcome is at hand this time.

The alarm should be bi-partisan. Many Republicans fear their president's image as a bumbler will hurt their party for years. The rest may fret about the almost certain paralysis within the administration, or a reversal of certain favorite policies. A Gallup poll this week revealed that 44% of Republicans want some or all troops brought home from Iraq. Do they really believe that their president will do that any time soon, if ever?

Democrats, meanwhile, cross their fingers that Bush doesn’t do something really stupid -- i.e. nuke Iran -- while they try to win control of at least one house in Congress by doing nothing yet somehow earning (they hope) the anti-Bush vote.

Meanwhile, a severely weakened president retains, and has shown he is willing to use, all of his commander-in-chief authority, and then some.

No wonder so many are starting to look for a way to shorten or short-circuit the extended crisis period. Republicans demand a true shake-out at the White House. This week at Vanity Fair online, Carl Bernstein is calling for a Watergate-style congressional probe of possible high crimes and misdemeanors. Even Neil Young is weighing in with a soon-to-be-released song that urges, “Let’s impeach the president -- for lying.”

It's getting to be time for some of the senior Republican solons to go to Cheney/Bush and say , "time to go," the way they did with Nixon. Bushco will take a bunch of them down this fall if they don't.

It Ain't Over

Walking the White House Plank
By Sidney Blumenthal
The Guardian UK

Wednesday 19 April 2006

White House press secretary, Scott McClellan, departs as the investigation into Karl Rove enters into a serious new phase.

The resignation of the White House press secretary, Scott McClellan, is an event of almost complete insignificance except insofar as the beleaguered White House presents it as an important change. Meanwhile, the secretary of defence, Donald Rumsfeld, under siege from dissenting ex-generals demanding his firing for arrogant incompetence, stays.

McClellan is a flea on the windshield of history. On the podium, he performed his duty as a slow-flying object swatted by a frustrated and flustered press corps. Inexpressive, occasionally inarticulate and displaying a limited vocabulary, his virtue was his unwavering discipline in sticking to his uninformative talking points, fending off pesky reporters, and defending the president and all the president's men to the last full measure of his devotion. Inside the Bush White House, he was a non-player, a factotum, the instrument of Karl Rove, Bush's chief political strategist and deputy chief of staff. McClellan played no part in the inner councils of state. He was the blank wall erected in front of the press to obstruct them from seeing what was on the other side. McClellan's stoic façade was unmatched by a stoic interior. He was a vessel for his masters, did whatever he was told, put out disinformation without objection, and was willing to defend any travesty. He is the ultimate dispensable man.

Events that could truly shake the Bush White House to its foundation, however, may be discerned elsewhere. On Monday, in Chicago, a jury found former Republican governor George Ryan guilty of 18 counts of corruption. His trial was the climax of a nine-year investigation that had yielded 75 convictions, including some of the most powerful figures in the Republican party of Illinois. The federal investigation, dubbed Operation Safe Roads, began by looking into bribery for driver's licenses. Over time, prosecutors systematically uncovered broader and deeper patterns of corruption reaching up to the governor's office. Patiently, they built their cases until they reached the top.

The United States attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, who conducted this painstakingly thorough prosecution, Patrick Fitzgerald, is also the special prosecutor in charge of the investigation into the leaking of the identity of the covert CIA operative, Valerie Plame Wilson. So far, he has indicted I. Irving "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, on five counts of perjury and obstruction of justice.

Two weeks ago, Fitzgerald filed a motion before the federal court in the Libby case stating that his investigation had proved that the White House engaged in "concerted action" from "a plan to discredit, punish or seek revenge against" former ambassador Joseph Wilson, who revealed that the rationale of the Iraq war was based on false information that the White House knew was bogus. Fitzgerald declared further that he had gathered "evidence that multiple officials in the White House" had outed his wife's clandestine identity to reporters as an element of revenge.

Last week, on April 12, Libby counter-filed to demand extensive documents in the possession of the prosecutor. His filing, written by his lawyers, reveals that he intends to put Karl Rove on the stand as a witness to question him about his leaking of Plame's name to reporters and presumably his role in the "concerted action" against Wilson.

In his request for documents from Rove's files, Libby dropped mention of Rove's current legal status.

For months, Rove's attorney, Robert Luskin, has assured the press that his client, who was believed to be vulnerable to indictment for perjury, is in the clear. But Libby insisted that he was entitled to "disclosure of such documents" in Rove's files "even if Mr. Rove remains a subject of a continuing grand jury investigation".

Karl Rove is a subject of Fitzgerald's investigation - this is the headline buried in Libby's filing.

Something to look forward to.

White House Shakeup

Shaula Evens over at Tsuredzuregusa pointed this out. Click the link for a good laugh.

Big Pharma's Tentacles

Experts Defining Mental Disorders Are Linked to Drug Firms

By Shankar Vedantam
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, April 20, 2006; Page A07

Every psychiatric expert involved in writing the standard diagnostic criteria for disorders such as depression and schizophrenia has had financial ties to drug companies that sell medications for those illnesses, a new analysis has found.

Of the 170 experts in all who contributed to the manual that defines disorders from personality problems to drug addiction, more than half had such ties, including 100 percent of the experts who served on work groups on mood disorders and psychotic disorders. The analysis did not reveal the extent of their relationships with industry or whether those ties preceded or followed their work on the manual.

"I don't think the public is aware of how egregious the financial ties are in the field of psychiatry," said Lisa Cosgrove, a clinical psychologist at the University of Massachusetts in Boston, who is publishing her analysis today in the peer-reviewed journal Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics.

The analysis comes at a time of growing debate over the rising use of medication as the primary or sole treatment for many psychiatric disorders, a trend driven in part by definitions of mental disorders in the psychiatric manual.

Cosgrove said she began her research after discovering that five of six panel members studying whether certain premenstrual problems are a psychiatric disorder had ties to Eli Lilly & Co., which was seeking to market its drug Prozac to treat those symptoms. The process of defining such disorders is far from scientific, Cosgrove added: "You would be dismayed at how political the process can be."

The American Psychiatric Association, which publishes the guidelines in its bible of disorders, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM), said it is planning to require disclosure of the financial ties of experts who write the next edition of the manual -- due around 2011. The manual carries vast influence over the practice of psychiatry in the United States and around the world.

Darrel Regier, director of the association's division of research, said that concerns over disclosure are a relatively recent phenomenon, which may be why the last edition, published in 1994, did not note them. Regier and John Kane, an expert on schizophrenia who worked on the last edition, agreed with the need for transparency but said financial ties with industry should not undermine public confidence in the conclusions of its experts. Kane has been a consultant to drug companies including Abbott Laboratories, Eli Lilly, Janssen and Pfizer Inc.

"It shouldn't be assumed there is a true conflict of interest," said Kane, who said his panel's conclusions were driven only by science. "To me, a conflict of interest implies that someone's judgment is going to be influenced by this relationship, and that is not necessarily the case. . . ."

The DSM defines disorders in terms of constellations of symptoms. While neuroscience and genetics are revealing biological aspects to many disorders, there has been unease that psychiatry is ignoring social, psychological and cultural factors in its pursuit of biological explanations and treatments.

"As a profession, we have allowed the biopsychosocial model to become the bio-bio-bio model," Steven Sharfstein, president of the American Psychiatric Association, said in an essay last year to his colleagues. He later added, "If we are seen as mere pill pushers and employees of the pharmaceutical industry, our credibility as a profession is compromised."

How hard would it be to find some researchers who don't have extensive ties to big Pharma to write the next edition, hmmm? Whatever happened to the notion that avoiding even the appearance of conflict of interest was the transparency standard? In Bush's America, I guess that idea is no longer operative.

The Preview

Midwest's Epidemic Of Mumps Continues
CDC Rushes Vaccine to Affected States

By Rob Stein
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, April 20, 2006; Page A12

A Midwest mumps epidemic, already the largest U.S. outbreak of the viral infection in decades, shows no signs of slowing and will probably spread farther before being contained, federal health officials said yesterday.

The number of cases has more than doubled in the past week, with at least 1,100 reported in Iowa and seven other states, officials said. Investigators in seven more states also are studying possible cases.

"This is an unstable situation right now," said Julie L. Gerberding, director of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. "We're not reliably able to predict where this will go."

The CDC has dispatched teams to Iowa and Nebraska to help local and state health workers try to contain the puzzling outbreak, mainly by urging people to watch for symptoms so they can be diagnosed and isolated quickly, and by inoculating unvaccinated adults. The epidemic has disproportionately affected young, healthy adults, including many college students. Gerberding said she expect expects the outbreak to worsen before it starts to ease.

"We expect more cases -- definitely," she said, noting that the virus could spread to other parts of the country as college students who are infected but do not have symptoms leave for the summer and come into contact with other people. "We really can't predict at this point of time where the virus will go next."

Mumps is caused by a virus that spreads like the flu: mainly from infected people coughing and sneezing. Common symptoms are sore throat, body aches, fever and swollen glands in the jaw. Most people recover within about a week, but in rare cases complications can occur, including deafness and meningitis, a dangerous swelling in the brain and covering of the spinal cord. Men can suffer a painful swelling of the testicles that can cause sterility. Pregnant women can miscarry.

Intensifying the campaign to contain the outbreak, the CDC is rushing 25,000 additional doses of vaccine from its stockpile to Iowa, the epicenter of the outbreak, and another 25,000 donated by Merck & Co. to Iowa and other states, Gerberding said. Officials said they would use the vaccine to target high-risk groups, such as college students and health-care workers.

This is the trailer for the movie of pandemic flu. Mumps isn't quite as easy to transmit as influenza, but the mode of spread through the respiratory tract is the same. Watch the way Gerberding and company duck and weave.

All the Pretty Horses

Rove Is Giving Up Daily Policy Post to Focus on Vote

By ELISABETH BUMILLER
Published: April 20, 2006

WASHINGTON, April 19 — The overhaul of the White House staff intensified on Wednesday as Karl Rove, one of the president's most powerful and feared advisers, gave up day-to-day control over the administration's domestic policy to concentrate on the midterm elections. Scott McClellan, the White House press secretary, said he was stepping down.

The departure of Mr. McClellan gives President Bush a chance to put a new public face on the White House at a time when it is beset by problems. But Mr. Rove's changed status is the more telling sign of the extent of the shake-up directed by Mr. Bush and his new chief of staff, Joshua B. Bolten.

Mr. Rove has been at Mr. Bush's side since Mr. Bush entered politics, and for years his influence has been unquestioned. The decision to take away his daily control over the White House's policy-making apparatus is the first time his role has shrunk, and it is a stark reversal from the heady aftermath of Mr. Bush's 2004 re-election victory, when Mr. Rove's portfolio was expanded to give him formal control over policy.

In a telephone interview Wednesday night, Mr. Rove brushed aside suggestions that the change was a diminishment of his role.

"It is something different," he said.

"I've got a new boss," he continued, a boss "who says I want you to do more of this and less of that."

Mr. Rove will retain his title as a deputy chief of staff, as well as his catch-all designation as Mr. Bush's senior adviser.

He said he would continue to oversee broad policy issues. "The president and the new chief of staff said they wanted me focused on the big strategic issues facing the administration," he said.

I wanted to sleep on this before venturing an opinion, and I find I have a different take on these moves than the TV pundits. W hasn't taken a piss without direction from Rove since the two of them took over Texas, so this isn't a demotion (other than of McClellen, dismissed by Rove) as much as a strategic re-ordering going into the midterms. Notice that yesterday's news merely moves the players around a little. This was purely cosmetic, like most of what Rove does. PR rather than substance has been his calling card forever and this is more of the same.

Happy Birthday

Today is the anniversary of the birth of artist Joan Mirro. Add some prints to your walls. These are cheap and user friendly.

Curing the Common Cold

If this doesn't cure you, you really need to go to the doctor. For most of us, this will knock the socks off most of the bugs that ail ya. And this is so good that you just might start feeling better because it will knock the crap off your tongue and smeller. That works for me.

Garlic and Bread Soup

This recipe reflects the humble and ancient culinary roots so apparent in the Basque Country. In frugal kitchens, it was considered wasteful to discard even a handful of breadcrumbs.

1/2 cup olive oil
6 garlic cloves, sliced thin
1/2 slightly stale baguette, sliced thin
1 tablespoon paprika
4 cups water or home-made or commercial chicken broth
Salt
1 teaspoon hot red pepper flakes (necessary to clear the sinuses)
6 large eggs

In a clay or other flameproof casserole or skillet, heat the olive oil over medium heat. Add the garlic, and fry it, stirring with a wooden spoon, for 2 to 3 minutes, until it is golden. Take care the garlic does not burn.

Add the bread, and turn it several times so that it absorbs the oil. Sprinkle it with the paprika, and toss well. Add the water or broth, and cook for 10 to 15 minutes, stirring, until the soup is heated through and well blended and the bread has absorbed much of the liquid. Season to taste with salt and, if you like, the pepper flakes.

Just before serving the soup, crack the eggs, and slide them onto the surface of the soup, taking care not to break the yolks. Let the eggs cook for 1 to 2 minutes, until they are set. Serve the soup by spooning it gently into shallow bowls, allowing 1 egg per serving.

Note: Use a slender, European-style baguette. A half baguette is 10 to 12 inches long. Traditionally, the baguette should be a day old. (serves 6)

This may not cure you, but you'll go back to bed feeling much less awful. Add a half tablespoon of lemon juice and it just might cure you. A good nights sleep might do that, too.

When the Fridge is Empty

In the upper Midwest, we called these "denver sandwiches" and they are served in the diners there to this day under the same title. When you need lunch in a hurry, this fills the bill and better bread makes them nice (I grew up on the same white bread you did and the squish down factor for these sandwiches was nice. A crusty sourdough for adults is good, however. This is the only thing I eat ketchup with, and then it has to be on the side for dipping.)

For one

GARDEN FRITTATA ON GRILLED COUNTRY BREAD

Ingredients

* 2 Large eggs
* 1 Tbsp basil, fresh chopped
* 1 Tbsp green onions, chopped
* 1 Tbsp tarragon, chopped
* 2 Tbsp Romano cheese, freshly grated
* 1 clove garlic, minced
* 2 slices Italian country bread, buttered and grilled
1 serving

Preparation Method

Mix eggs with all ingredients except garlic and bread. Place garlic in buttered omelet pan and cook for 30 seconds. Add egg mixture and cook until bottom sets. Place under broiler to set top. Fold in half and place and between buttered, grilled bread slices. Cut in half diagonally.

This is a gussied up version of what my mom made for us when the house was out of time and money, end of the month food, plain egg sandwiches. It's hot and filling when there isn't much else around. I lived on these in college. No, I haven't had my cholesterol checked lately, why do you ask?

Spring is Sprung

This is virtually a perfect dish for the season and goes with everything. It is one of those things that will make you hug yourself and go "mmm....mmm....mmm."

Asparagus & Snap Pea Salad

Lemon Vinaigrette:
Grated zest of 1 lemon
1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil

2 pounds medium-sized asparagus, cut into 1-inch pieces
1 1/2 pounds sugar snap peas, strings removed
2 tablespoons chopped fresh dill
Salt and pepper, to taste
2 hard-cooked eggs, chopped

1. Whisk together the lemon zest and juice, mustard, salt and pepper. Whisking constantly, drizzle in the oil; continue to whisk until thickened. Reserve.

2. Steam the asparagus and peas separately until just tender, 4-5 minutes. Drain, dip in ice water to stop the cooking and pat dry. Combine with the dill, salt, pepper and vinaigrette. Serve in a decorative bowl, sprinkled with the chopped eggs.

For a more complex sauce, sieve the egg and incorporate it into the dressing with the salt and pepper. By the way, prepared this way this makes a terrific sandwich dressing for egg salad or tuna salad sandwiches. Add capers and finely chopped gherkins for even more fun.

Serves 8.

The Silver Fork

Here is a link to the WaPo's restaurant critic digest of good dining in DC from Epicurious.com. I like Tom Sietsema's work a lot and mostly agree with him. I don't eat out much, but I want value when I do and Tom delivers on that in his reviews. He's also very transparent in his method, submitting to reader questions in Post Chats live online twice a month. I admire that. He also tells you when buzz is hype and what the food press is missing. He's an asset around here. Don't spend good money on bad food. If you've got a good food critic in your local paper, write them and support them. It matters, these folks toil with a great deal of abuse from the public and you have the capability to be a bright spot in their day. Critique when you must, but do it with dignity. You'll be appreciated as a reader.

Simple Pleasures

This is a little trip down memory lane: I learned to make this dish when I was in grad school, round one back in 78-80. I was dirt poor, living in a basement studio in Back Bay, Boston, and had a grocery budget which was in the starvation category. I gave up meat until a trip to the student health service revealed that I had developed serious anemia and discovered that iron supplements seriously upset my guts. But while I was eating veggie, I learned to make a lot of wonderful, easy things which have been comfort food for me in the intervening years. This is one such dish and, to this day, this and a glass of pinot grigio will make nearly the worst day recede into ancient history. Even now, making a dish of this takes me back to the long nights of hunching over my ancient and cranky second hand Italian electric typewriter and the smell of carbon paper as I cranked out the papers and theses on my formica dinner table.

My Irish law student neighbor complained everytime I cooked with garlic, a foreign veg to the Worcester, MA, Irish, and that just made me use more to piss Tom off. He was a good guy, though, who helped me out when I had a peeping tom one night.

Spaghetti with Green Olive Sauce: Spaghetti Sugo di Olive Verdi

6 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
3/4 cup bread crumbs, or to taste
3 cloves garlic
3 salted anchovies or 6 oil-packed anchovy fillets, rinsed, drained and chopped
1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes
1 cup chopped, pitted green olives
Salt and pepper
1 pound spaghetti

Bring 6 quarts of water to a boil and add 2 tablespoons salt.

In a small saucepan, heat 3 tablespoons olive oil over medium heat and add bread crumbs. Toss for a few minutes until golden brown, then remove and set aside.

In a 12 to 14-inch saute pa