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Posts
100
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314
Joined
2 yr. ago

  • I have a metal spatula from ... maybe the 80s? that is now falling apart, but every replacement I've tried is too stiff compared to my battered old friend. I like how it bends under pancakes to allow a good, high flip. I love how I can scrape all the crusty bits off my cast iron pan and get them all frying into whatever the dish is. It wasn't a special purchase at the time, but the modern ones are all too thick or stiff. Do not like.

    On wooden spatulas, I have a dead-flat bamboo one I use to stir soups and roux-based sauces. It was dead cheap from my local asian market and I ended up buying 10 of them to give as christmas stocking stuffers. Not sure it if this example is as flat as mine, but it is similar.

  • Oh, I bought it as a live plant. We've had it in the ground for several years now. Even when the rosemary bush died in the cold, the rue lived on. Our thai hot pepper plant is in a pot and has to come in before it frosts. Of course we always have to buy new basil and cilantro seedlings each year. You can't stop mint from coming back -- same goes for perilla. Anyway, sample links to seeds: earthcareseeds and/or seedneeds.

  • Use herbs and spices. Use different spices. I get tired of recipes that use the same 4 flavors over and over, so I look for recipes that use something else. Under-used spices I love: cardamon, rue, sumac. Under-used spices that I can only fit in certain recipes: caraway, mace, fennel seeds.

    Get spice mixes for pre-balanced flavors, like Herbs de Provence, Garam masala or Harrissa paste (you can make this yourself, but you should try a few versions to figure out what you're shooting for).

    Maybe these are al old hat to you, but here are some standard examples:

    • add tarragon to tuna/chicken salad
    • add cardamon and nutmeg to cooked oatmeal and omit cinnamon
    • sprinkle sumac on your scrambled/deviled eggs
    • put some rue in your stew or pot pies
  • If the situation was reversed which Republicans would have been obligated to vote for, say, Pelosi? Because when she had the slimmest of majorities, they all voted McCarthy and left it to her to come up with the votes. That's the gig. Get your party in line if you want to govern. Both sides have had problems with this forever, but this time was the worst.

    P.S. "bare" means naked. You wanted "bear", which means endure/carry the weight.

  • You're blaming the victim. "She wouldn't have been raped if she'd just been nicer." NO.

    McCarthy could have saved himself, but wouldn't.

    https://www.businessinsider.com/kevin-mccarthy-lost-speakership-cbs-interview-angered-democrats-votes-2023-10

    https://time.com/6320202/house-democrats-refused-save-kevin-mccarthy/

    “I think he’s likely the most unprincipled person to ever be Speaker of the House,” Rep. Abigail Spanberger, a Virginia Democrat, told reporters ahead of the vote. “He’s disdainful, he lies about us, he lies about the process of governance. It’s not even a question of whether or not we should take any particular action.”

    How can you blame them for -- when the abusers start in-fighting -- voting to remove an abuser from leadership? How can you blame them for steadfastly voting for a non-abusive leader when the only promise made by the abusive group is that they want to be MORE abusive? The government would have shut down without Democratic help, but the Dems DID help for the sake of the country. Democrats did not create the rule nor make the call to remove McCarthy, but they damned sure had no reason to help any Republicans with all their BS that has nothing to do with moving the country forward and seems solely about posturing for the cameras.

  • Umm... Republicans made the rule that any solitary Representative could call for a vote to remove the Speaker. Dems didn't make that rule. In fact, they could have used that rule at any time, but they didn't. Gaetz(R) called to oust the speaker. Why? Because McCarthy cut a deal with Dems where both sides lost stuff to keep the government open -- and then McCarthy BLAMED the Dems for shutting the government down!

    Anyway, working with Democrats was too much for Gaetz, so he moved to oust the Speaker. Most Republicans voted to keep McCarthy, but not all. Meanwhile, Democrats were pretty mad that McCarthy blamed them for a crisis they'd helped avert by accepting concessions. So? So they vote against the guy who threw them under the bus, then unite to vote for one of their own, Jeffries, to replace him.

    All that is to say that when I hear people blame the Dems -- particularly McCarthy repeatedly saying 'a handful of Republicans worked with Democrats to cause chaos' -- I wonder anyone can think the Dems are to blame. If Republicans were 'working' with Democrats, all they had to do was vote for Jefferies any time in the last 3 weeks and we'd have had a Speaker.

    The problem was NO ONE was working with Democrats. Republicans could have peeled off a handful of Democrats by conceding on some points, but the current (R) party has made cooperation a death sentence. Politics should be about stuff like which road to fix first and not all the BS it has become.

  • Meadows has been creating chaos to fill his coffers for years now, so it hurts to hear he won't face accountability for it.

    ABC News has identified several assertions in the book that appear to be contradicted by what Meadows allegedly told investigators behind closed doors.

    According to Meadows' book, the election was "stolen" and "rigged" with help from "allies in the liberal media," who ignored "actual evidence of fraud, right there in plain sight for anyone to access and analyze."

    ...

    "The people who rigged this election knew that eventually, these irregularities would come to light ... [So] they conducted the operation, then attacked anyone who dared ask questions about what they had done," his book says.

    Meadows went even further while promoting his book on right-wing media in November 2021. When asked by a podcast host if he believes the outcome of the 2020 election was fraudulent, Meadows responded, "I do believe that there are a number of fraudulent states ... I've seen at least illegal activity in Pennsylvania [and] in Georgia" -- referring to two key states that clinched the White House for Biden.

    Under the penalty of perjury, Meadows offered a vastly different assessment to Smith's investigators, telling them he's never seen any evidence of fraud that would undermine the election's outcome, according to what sources told ABC News.

    So he BELIEVES there was fraud despite never seeing evidence -- this side steps the actual proof of accurate counts (hand recounts and the like). He has seen evidence of honestly and he's ignoring it. I guess the man does not believe in honesty.

    ...

    Meadows has not been charged in Smith's federal case, he has been charged -- along with Trump, Giuliani and 16 others -- by authorities in Georgia for allegedly trying to overturn the election results in that state. Four of those charged have already pleaded guilty and agreed to testify for the prosecution, while the others, including Meadows, Trump and Giuliani, have pleaded not guilty and are awaiting trial.

    Meadows sought to have the Georgia case against him moved to federal court, but that effort was denied. He is now appealing that decision.

    From 2013 to 2020, Meadows represented North Carolina in Congress, where he also led the conservative House Freedom Caucus for two years.

    Under the immunity order from Smith's team, the information Meadows provided to the grand jury earlier this year can't be used against him in a federal prosecution.

    I do hope Georgia gets to prosecute him, and I hope the judge and jury see through his posturing about 'belief' in fraud despite evidence of a good count.

  • Rather than taking the blame, she said (in part):

    What I did not do, but should have done, your honor, is to make sure that the facts that the other lawyers alleged to be true were, in fact, true. In the frenetic pace of attempting to raise challenges to the election in several states, including Georgia, I failed to do my due diligence.

  • The apology she read to the judge was blame-shifting BS. The full thing is here, but the relevant chunk that made me furious was:

    What I did not do, but should have done, your honor, is to make sure that the facts that the other lawyers alleged to be true were, in fact, true. In the frenetic pace of attempting to raise challenges to the election in several states, including Georgia, I failed to do my due diligence.

    No. F-U. The specific challenges YOU were making were for ridiculous claims too outrageous for unquestioned acceptance. If you were told unicorns befuddled the vote count, would you believe that, too? If so, you should be immediately disbarred.

  • I think there IS still natural selection in humans, and it is relatively new: birth control.

    I suspect that those with religious/conservative beliefs who will not take morning-after or birth control pills AND those irresponsible people who theoretically might -- but didn't think about it until too late -- will be two groups that increase their numbers while more responsible/fore-thinking people and those without moral objection to the pill (or perhaps WITH moral objection to overpopulating the planet) will be more likely to cap their number of offspring. Yes, this was kinda covered in the movie Idiocracy, but I don't think it was that far off.

  • Please elaborate. I have a vegetarian here and have not found a vegan dashi. The best I can do is use kombu in my ramen/Asian/miso-based soups (but not in Euro-centric soups, like Senate Bean Soup or Cauliflower-Potato). I've got a decent vegan Worcestershire sauce, and would love a link for a good vegan dashi base to add to my cooking toolkit.

  • I might have this wrong, but my understanding is that his plea deal only covers state prosecution, but not federal. It is possible the feds could prosecute him, but I haven't seen nor heard if there is a side-deal to keep that from happening. Surely his lawyers would have tried to secure that, but did they succeed?

  • This effect results in a small number of highly cooperative groups outcompeting other less cooperative groups for resources, enabling them to grow and spread.

    Would someone please explain this to the U.S. Congress??!??

  • Update: CNN says Kevin McCarthy is responsible for moving Pelosi and Hoyer out of their offices and it was done as 'real estate revenge' and Kevin is moving IN to Pelosi's office. They say an anonymous republican source told them, "Kevin is on a revenge tour. Patrick would never do that on his own. This was Kevin's call."

  • I disagree. This is unusual and newsworthy. The 'why' is given in the article: Speaker Pro Tempore McHenry wants it for "speaker office use". It is rare that news CAN contain any more of a 'why' because we rarely know actual reasons. Sometimes we get BS reasons like "I don't pay taxes because I'm smart" when the truth is closer to "I don't pay taxes because I lie to the IRS, but since those docs are private, you'll never know." Sometimes little birds chirp rumors about underlying reasons over drinks, but it would be negligent for reporters to wait until then to give the public notice that something is up.