Laden.

Forgive me, pals, but I had a long day and a long evening and I have very little to show you today. So, open thread? Or perhaps you’d like some cheesecake first.

Posted at 12:30 am in Same ol' same ol' |
 

98 responses to “Laden.”

  1. Dexter said on August 16, 2013 at 1:30 am

    And top off the meal with the best gelato in the midwest:
    http://media.mlive.com/kzgazette/features_impact/photo/paw-paw-gelato-6911d4e686c8072c_large.jpg

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  2. Brandon said on August 16, 2013 at 1:58 am

    Today is also the fifty-fifth birthday of the most famous Michigander in the world, Madonna.

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  3. alex said on August 16, 2013 at 5:33 am

    Barbara Collier’s fluff piece about the Cheesecake Factory doesn’t hold a candle to Sandy Thorn Clark’s reverent tributes to places like KFC and Wendy’s. Too bad Sandy wasn’t doing her thing in the digital age when it could have gone viral and made Fort Wayne a laughingstock for something other than its representatives in Congress.

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  4. Dorothy said on August 16, 2013 at 6:06 am

    Today is six weeks post-op for me, the last physical therapy appointment I have is two hours from now, my sister Diane’s 28th wedding anniversary (her husband his home later this month from his 9 months of a US sponsored camping trip in the Middle East), and our son surprised us with a Facetime session around 9:30 last night, so today is a good day. Or shows promise, anyway, at 6:05 AM already! TGIF

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  5. Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on August 16, 2013 at 7:16 am

    I’m probably revealing some sort of trade secret or something, but since I’m not really a Gannett employee anyhow (even if I have the second longest tenure in the newsroom): of our local daily’s dwindling number of reporters, one has been assigned to about fifty percent food coverage, which means restaurant reviews not terribly different from the PD’s story here since, c’mon — Newark, Ohio and surrounding Licking County. Most of what we’ve got *is* Applebee’s and Red Lobster, and a few bars with attempts at interesting food that’s still bar food and burgers (if that’s not too redundant).

    But the bottom line is, of course, bottom-line related: someone up the food chain noticed that stories that talk about restaurants, what their atmosphere and menu is like, with some amiable chat about the owner and staff, and a general trot through their specialties, easy on the criticism, gets more clicks than stories about “How to improve your sex life.” Waaaaay more. So the instruction goes out saying “hyperlocal means stories praising a Bob Evans for serving hot coffee and biscuits ‘n gravy.”

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  6. Julie Robinson said on August 16, 2013 at 8:00 am

    Who can forget Sandy’s paean to Kraft Macaroni ‘n Cheese, and her own gourmet preparation tip of skipping the milk and using a whole stick of butter instead?

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  7. coozledad said on August 16, 2013 at 8:22 am

    The right to keep others from voting, NC edition:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=k5l1-qHsQdI#at=35

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  8. brian stouder said on August 16, 2013 at 8:25 am

    Well, some of that food described in the Plain Dealer excerpt DID sound “almost mind boggling”.

    (the “almost” kills me! Were her eyes – just for an instant – rolling back? Her breath baited? Her breast heaving…but only for a second! – and then she regained control of herself?)

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  9. nancy said on August 16, 2013 at 8:25 am

    The week I arrived in FW, Sandy was rolling through a long series of reviews of fast-food restaurants. An editor’s note explained that because they had the bulk of the restaurant trade in northeast Indiana, it only seemed right. McDonald’s franchises are identified in-house by number, so the review would be of, say, “McDonald’s No. 452,” followed by the address. As I recall, she found the fries decent.

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  10. brian stouder said on August 16, 2013 at 8:45 am

    My review of eating at northwest McDonald’s locations would commend their menu updates (the wraps are almost mind boggling, so to speak!), and compliment their speed and so on…and then ponder whether ‘tis better to have multiple muted TVs with various news channels on (with captioning), as the Goshen Road one does; or whether a single jumbo-tron with blasting volume, set to Fox News (only) (ever) (ever) is the way to go, as the West Coliseum location does.

    Hmmmmmmm….a genuine head-scratcher…

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  11. alex said on August 16, 2013 at 8:52 am

    As for the Cheesecake Factory, the best thing I ever read about it makes me want to steer clear; it was an article revealing the staggering amounts of sodium, sugar and fat in most of the dishes. You can probably get your full week’s worth of caloric intake in one sitting, and that’s just the entree, no dessert. I used to frequent the one in Skokie years ago and rather liked it at the time, but with cardiac stents it’s not the sort of restaurant I’d seek out today.

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  12. coozledad said on August 16, 2013 at 9:13 am

    Meaty, wool covered insects:
    http://gawker.com/definitive-proof-that-some-sheep-will-protest-anything-1153616644?autoplay=1

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  13. brian stouder said on August 16, 2013 at 9:40 am

    Wake up, sheeple!!

    Alex, I recall when Nancy shared with us the Big Secret as to how restaurant steaks (for example) become so flavorful (SALT!! and MORE SALT!!)…which was akin to finding out there is no Santa Claus

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  14. Scout said on August 16, 2013 at 9:40 am

    My last visit to a Cheesecake Factory was with a group of 12 women for a mutual friend’s birthday. Half of us ordered salads and iced tea and intended to chip in for the birthday girl’s meal. The other half ordered drinks, appetizers, full entrees and dessert and then expected everyone to split the bill 11 ways. We contributed exactly what we owed plus extra for the guest of honor and left. Some people.

    Anyway, I avoid calorieatoriums such as CF like the plague when possible. The birthday girl has since moved to Florida, so I’m probably safe.

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  15. Julie Robinson said on August 16, 2013 at 9:57 am

    I’ve been to the Cheesecake Factory exactly once, while on vacation about 10 years ago, and made the newcomer’s mistake of ordering a full meal. I couldn’t finish it and had no way of taking a box with me, so I wasn’t interested in dessert by the end of the meal. And I love cheesecake, and almost never eat it, and I was on vacation so was throwing out the normal dietary rules, so I had been planning on getting some. If they had made their portions smaller I would have ordered some. It seems to me that it’s a lose-lose for the restaurant; smaller profit on the main dish and no dessert sale. It’s kind of a head-scratcher for me.

    That said, we rarely eat out. We spent a lot of years being too poor, and now that we can afford it, we usually spoil it by calculating how much we could have saved by making the meal at home, as well as how much healthier it would have been. Sometimes less is more.

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  16. adrianne said on August 16, 2013 at 10:18 am

    The Cheesecake Factory and other such joints (TGI Friday’s, anyone?) always remind me of Doonesbury’s hilarious spoof of these establishments. Zonker gets a job as a waiter at McFriendly’s and his description of the menu items is spot on. My kids used to love Friday’s (especially the kids’ mac and cheese). I went along, and ordered frozen drinks that were bigger than my head to pass the time.

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  17. brian stouder said on August 16, 2013 at 10:26 am

    Julie, Wednesday Pam and I broke all of the sensible considerations you outlined above. We went to the annual Red Cross thank you-banquet for platelet donors Wednesday evening; free meal for me, $10 for her, tons of food that’s bad for you, plus dessert and door prizes; you just cannot go wrong!!

    Except when we pulled into the massive Ceruti’s parking lot, it was completely empty! A phonecall later we realized that there’s more than one Ceruti’s in Fort Wayne (who knew?), and the correct one was miles and miles away…so off to Cork & Cleaver we went*!

    So our $10 date (plus door prizes!) became an $80 date (plus doggie bags!), but waddaya gonna do, eh?

    *first time in years (and years) that we went there for anything other than our anniversary

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  18. Charlotte said on August 16, 2013 at 10:28 am

    Not a fan of the chain restaurants, although I’ll be forever grateful to the Olive Garden at the mall outside of Lake Forest for providing my brother and me with one perfect gin and tonic each during a Christmas/Christmas shopping crisis one year. Saved the whole damn holiday. Well, mostly …

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  19. coozledad said on August 16, 2013 at 10:32 am

    Farrow at the tits.
    http://pulse.ncpolicywatch.org/2013/08/16/more-news-on-salary-gate/

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  20. brian stouder said on August 16, 2013 at 10:44 am

    Cooz, I gotta believe that the pendulum has gone just about as far right as it can go, and will have to start coming back toward where most of the people are (unless the folks want to try secession again)…but indeed, your state seems to be increasingly radical. Ms Maddow (who is, I’ve come to realize, not big on finer considerations at the local level, even as she weaves a superbly affecting national narrative around various current events) spent a good 15 minutes on NC’s increasingly restrictive voter suppression laws last night.

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  21. Julie Robinson said on August 16, 2013 at 10:46 am

    Mmm, love that C&C salad bar; it’s all I get when we go there, and the inclusion of those delicious mints means no need to order dessert! We do usually go there for our anniversary but decided to get wild and crazy and go elsewhere this year. I don’t remember the name of the place but it’s Italian food and locally owned, so I think it’s pretty safe. Then again, Olive Garden continues in existence for more than just perfect G&T’s, so I could be proved wrong.

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  22. alex said on August 16, 2013 at 10:48 am

    And here I thought Cooz was linking to a selfie of Woody Allen’s ex.

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  23. brian stouder said on August 16, 2013 at 10:54 am

    I think Alex just became the front-runner for Thread Honors, today!

    Julie – did you go to one of the Casa’s? Or, there’s that Ziano’s, which has two or three locations, and which I can take or leave; or Biaggis – which is interesting (but pricey)…

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  24. alex said on August 16, 2013 at 11:09 am

    Or was it the Italian Connection? That’s one I’ve been wanting to try. It’s by reservation only, a small divy place where the food and service are said to be outstanding.

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  25. brian stouder said on August 16, 2013 at 12:00 pm

    Where’s Italian Connection?

    Leaving that aside, Fort Wayne has very good Mexican/Southwestern with the various Cibolla locations (Don Chava’s on Wells is my fave, although they sometimes get too spicey for me); but if we had an MX or two – they’d take over!

    It’s a local chain in San Diego, and they’re really just a step or two up from a chain of taco stands. You can eat inside, but they each have more outdoor tables* than indoor…and on LA Mary’s sage advice I sought out just such places to eat – and all I can say is – wow!

    Exceptionally good food, fresh cooked, fast, prices comparable with McDonald’s, and – really fresh fixin’s on a bar for you to customize your quesadillas and tacos and so on, to your own tastes.

    *gotta love the birds who hang out at the outdoor tables of any good place to eat. They know they’re gonna get goodies….and they’re picky! There were three sparrows hanging out with me, and I tossed ’em a piece of a taco chip, and they turned the beaks up at it. But they loved bits of the soft shell from the quesadilla…

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  26. Julie Robinson said on August 16, 2013 at 12:12 pm

    Don Chavas is good AND cheap. And I do love Casa’s, but this is some other place, more like Italian Connection but I don’t think that’s it. Full review after we go.

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  27. Judybusy said on August 16, 2013 at 12:17 pm

    Julie, you sound like us. The kind of restaurant food we think is worth eating is expensive, so we don’t go very often to them. We’re most happy when we say “I have no idea how to re-create this in our kitchen.” We had an obscenely expensive but amazing meal to celebrate my partner’s nursing school graduation/passing boards/new job at the best restaurant in town, La Belle Vie. We do go out about once every other week to various smaller places, just for the fun, or to meet friends. Tomorrow, we’ll hit one of the many taprooms around, at which one of the many local foodtrucks will be parked. The friends we’re seeing love beer, so it’s any easy, relatively inexpensive way to get together and enjoy summer.

    Brian, I’ve got homemade quesadillas packed up for lunch, with a side of the best mango I’ve had in years. After I sliced it up, I stood over the sink, getting all the juice and pulp from the pit. That recalibrated the serotonin levels for at least a month.

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  28. Joe K said on August 16, 2013 at 12:24 pm

    Brian,
    Try salsa grill just north of Northrop highschool on the west side of cold water rd.
    Very fresh, very good, great pineapple salsa
    Pilot joe

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  29. Deborah said on August 16, 2013 at 12:27 pm

    There’s a Cheesecake Factory in the lower level of the Hancock building down the street from me in Chicago. I used to see gobs of people eating there and long lines that competed with the line for Hancock’s observation deck. But now it seems to only have less than half capacity and rarely a line at all (when I walk past it, which when I’m in Chicago is often). Why would you eat at a chain restaurant when in Chicago you can eat at lots of great original places?

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  30. brian stouder said on August 16, 2013 at 12:28 pm

    Will do!

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  31. Jakash said on August 16, 2013 at 1:33 pm

    Deborah,

    I often wonder this as I drive by on Lake Shore Dr. The “famous” Mies van der Rohe apartment buildings are the two that look black and white, because of the shades or blinds, or whatever, right? But did he also do the 2 directly north of those that seem similar, but look more plain black? Or are those kind of like knock-offs by somebody else? BTW, the air show is this weekend, so the lakefront is already being strafed by the practice runs…

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  32. alex said on August 16, 2013 at 1:48 pm

    Speaking of the air show:

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  33. alex said on August 16, 2013 at 1:52 pm

    Effing iPhone.

    http://m.chicagoreader.com/chicago/plane-stupid/Content?oid=891255

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  34. Deborah said on August 16, 2013 at 2:17 pm

    Jackash, I’m so glad not to be in Chicago this weekend and also glad that my cat is with me in Santa Fe. I really do not like the air and water show.

    You are referring to the four Mies buildings in a row on Lake Shore Dr. The first two built were 860 and 880, the ones that look black and white. Those are the famous ones because they were the original ones. The other two, the blacker ones are 900 and 910, they were built in 1957. I think they all had the same owner at one time. I live in the 900 building and we used to have another unit in 910. 900 and 910 were probably actually handled by minions in the Mies office rather than completely by Mies himself. However, we think that the spaces in 900 and 910 are better than 860 and
    880, it seems that they learned a lot by the time they got around to the second two, plus construction technology had advanced in the half dozen years between the two sets. 860/880 are coop buildings, and 900/910 are condo buildings.

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  35. Jakash said on August 16, 2013 at 2:41 pm

    Thanks for the response, Deborah. I imagine that being in your building during the air show would be either thrilling, or terrifying, or both. Surely just terrifying for the cat, though.

    alex,

    That article is longer than most books that I read. ; ) It was from 1996 — I’m sure one could compile an article just as long detailing unfortunate incidents since then. I imagine that Pilot Joe would take issue with the premise, and I suppose he’d have a point. It’s all a matter of what is an acceptable level of risk in society and is the risk worth the reward? Automobiles are probably the most dangerous non-military technology, in terms of loss of life, of any in modern life — yet their benefits are deemed well worth the cost. The air show would be a different calculation, for sure.

    What’s ironic to me, though, is that Daley bulldozed Meigs Field based on the supposed rationale that having random folks taking off and landing that close to downtown was dangerous, after 9/11. I always thought that that was transparent BS. (Evidently he didn’t find the air show as dangerous.) I derived no personal benefit from Meigs, but even to me it seemed ridiculous to take out existing, worthwhile infrastucture in order to build more parkland on the lake, where there’s already a lot.

    I’m not a particular fan of the air show, either. But it doesn’t annoy me nearly as much as a prop plane with a bad muffler (do planes have mufflers?) circling Wrigley Field for almost every game, and going up and down the beaches on other days, dragging a banner for a certain insurance company that one can’t avoid seeing advertised in a zillion other media. Air, sound and sight pollution, let alone any element of danger, for that “benefit” should not be allowed, IMHO.

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  36. MarkH said on August 16, 2013 at 2:47 pm

    Question for the nn.c crowd:

    How many of you log on/post from work? And, does your employer have filters for the internet that prevent your activity at times? How strict are they?

    I always know when the foodies here are talking (like today) as the ‘restaurants/dining’ filter kicks in and then I only have 60 minutes of play time the rest of the day. Other times, I know what you all are talking about when I get either a ‘sexual content’ or ‘adult material’ pop-up that blocks me out for the day. And, it’s not Nancy’s content that triggers this, it’s always the comments (!!). No inquiring phone calls from IT yet, but that may be inevitable.

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  37. coozledad said on August 16, 2013 at 2:52 pm

    I wonder if Mia Farrow ever bought herself any boobs.

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  38. Heather said on August 16, 2013 at 3:05 pm

    At work we go to the Cheesecake Factory once in a while for special occasions. The office is in a Chicago office-park suburb where there are very few independently owned options(I can’t even think of one). It’s fine for what it is. The fish tacos are decent. Hate the decor.

    I log on from work a fair amount. I had to sign something when I was hired giving them the right to look at my online activities, but I don’t think they do unless someone is really abusing the bandwidth. Some sites are blocked but not nn.c. For some reason Elle.com is.

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  39. Prospero said on August 16, 2013 at 3:23 pm

    What do Senate GOPers find objectionable about the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities?

    This treaty would encourage other nations around the world to meet our own high standards for protecting individuals with disabilities. This is not your normal GOP objection to UN actions that they claim impose foreign law on the US. This is an attempt to promulgate very good American law in the rest of the world. What was Bushco’s little adventure in Iraq about, after all. You know, the one that paid for itself and didn’t get put on Daddy’s Discover card, and brought American style democracy to the Middle East.

    Having been unfortunate enough to see a Navy jet (F-18 Hornet?) go down in an air show across Port Royal Sound from us a few years ago, I do not ever want to be near an air show again. Of course, we lost sight of the downed plane out of the Marine Air Base before impact, but we saw and heard the results of the crash in the air. Doing something like this over Chicago seems like a definition of stupidity to me. Fairly densely populated. And you aviation buffs, how does anybody justify the cost of, say, the Blue Angels? But I will Gare-awn-tee, GOPers and the Teabanger wing would howl at any suggestions to cut out that symbol of jingoism and military bullying, left over from Adm. Nimitz and VietNam era. We used to make fun of the goose-stepping Soviet May Day marches. I’m not saying the show isn’t spectacular, but what the hell justifies the cost? That plane crashing was like setting fire to $21million, aside from the loss of the pilot’s life.

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  40. Joe K said on August 16, 2013 at 3:41 pm

    Yes airplanes have mufflers, I actually find loud pipes ok motorcycles more annoying,
    Air shows are safe, in the USA their are rules about how far you can be from the spectators, and yes I know all about the crash at Reno, that was a one in a life time accident and preventive measures are in place. Please don’t get me going on “little Dick Dailey, the man should still be in prison for violating federal law on the Meigs field closing, let alone sticking the taxes payers with the fine.
    I love the smell of jet fuel in the morning.
    Airplane noise to me equals freedom, no other country in the world has general aviation like we do here.
    Ad one other thing, do you know that the air traffic control system in the us is payed for out of the taxes I pay on fuel and some of what you pay for a ticket?
    It’s solvent, but the government wants to raid it for other uses and level a user fee on me.
    Pilot Joe

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  41. Joe K said on August 16, 2013 at 3:45 pm

    Pro,
    It’s not over Chicago, it’s over the lake, it illegal to perform over crowds, and if you would pay attention the blues and thunderbird in fact any military act has been shutdown all year due to the sequester.
    Pilot Joe

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  42. brian stouder said on August 16, 2013 at 4:10 pm

    Over the years I’ve been to a couple airshows – including the super-biggie at Dayton, where the stuff on the ground is a large part of the draw; and a particularly nice event at Grissom AFB, when it still existed; and a few here in Fort Wayne.

    The Chicago one strikes me as an odd event at the get-go, given that it takes place right on Chicago’s doorstep.

    It cannot help but affect O’Hare’s operations, yes? And affecting one of the busiest air transportation hubs on Earth is a big deal, yes?

    The long article makes a compelling point, with regard to safety.

    If an aircraft travelling at 5-600 mph (or more) has a catastrophic failure of some sort, whatever your safety buffer was can very quickly become expended, and then what?

    Illinois is a great big state; maybe they could move that show out over the prairie somewhere. (the crowds will still come)

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  43. Prospero said on August 16, 2013 at 4:11 pm

    My mom used to make cheesecake from a recipe that produced a superior result, California Cheesecake. Included egg yolks, but they were whisked in a double boiler, so no baking required. Add sugar, salt, milk, presto custard on which to base the fillling.After that, Philly Cream Cheese, but I don’t know measurements. You can get soft cream cheese with flavors now so it would be even easier.. She taught me how to make the graham cracker crust. I wish I had that recipe, but Alton Brown has a very good one. My mom’s her tour de force was pineapple upside down cake, made with fresh pineapple and pineapple flavore simple syrup. Damn, that was good. That one I do know how to make still.

    Alex Rodriguez is even creepier than everybody already thought he was.

    The olinguito? May look cute, but it’s a raccoon, which vicious, shifty bastards should not be trusted not to try to tear your face off.

    Pete Townshend is under attack by teenygirl 1D fans. Wow, that’s scary as it is hilarious. Run Pete, Run.

    “It’s over the lake. Well the Beaufort show was over a barren Marine airfield and the houses that plane plowed through were three miles away. And I know the flight exhibition teams shut down because of the sequester. My point is that it’s a ridiculous waste of money at any time and a ridiculous risk of life, like that car running NASCAR races with Army advertising all over it, particularly when you crash a $20mill plane and lose a pilot. And the budget sequestration began April 1. And why don’t those guys wear G-suits? Accordng to the Navy, the pilot in the Beaufort crash “grayed out”. I don’t know much about this and never claimed to. But John McCain notwithstanding, nothing good comes from crashing military aircraft. Those suckers are expensive.

    Trucking companies pay for the interstate system too.

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  44. Little Bird said on August 16, 2013 at 4:22 pm

    There’s one run in that Chicago Air Show that takes a fighter jet right up the side and over the top of Deborah’s building. If that pilot ever sneezes during that run, her whole building is toast. I lived in the other all black building and was distinctly uncomfortable during those shows when I could look DOWN on a passing fighter jet. Gave me the willies.

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  45. LAMary said on August 16, 2013 at 4:44 pm

    Pros, I would be careful using the soft cream cheese in recipies. It’s probably going to give you a different result because it’s airier. Baking is not like cooking. You have to work the chemistry and physics issues out.

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  46. brian stouder said on August 16, 2013 at 4:45 pm

    Joe, I hear you about the user fees, on top of taxes already paid.

    It is very much like Our Man Mitch leasing the toll road out, which we’ve already paid for, and which was sustaining itself – for an impressive boatload of ‘cash-NOW’ that Indiana can spend on whatever it wants.

    But the end of the steady stream of money from the toll road to the state meant that, in effect, the government Indiana elected in the early part of the 20th century got to SPEND money that would have been available to Hoosiers at the end of the century, all at once, right now.

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  47. Prospero said on August 16, 2013 at 4:46 pm

    I’ve seen video of the Chicago Air and Water Show, but that’s all I know about it. And I really don’t think I said or even implied anything about its being over the city, but Little Bird would obviously know better than I.

    Had Mies Van Der Rohe been born and grown up to work in the Soviet Union, there would be more buildings by Mies than there are Philip Johnson Palladian arches in the United States, and that is a lot of windows.

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  48. Prospero said on August 16, 2013 at 5:00 pm

    Jack Germond was a great political reporter. I knew him first on the McLaughlin Shoutfest. He could shut the rest of those jackasses up fast. Particularly the weasels Buchanan and Fred Barnes. He delighted in tormenting terminal weenie Rich Lowry when he was on. And he had no problem telling those boorish bastards to shut the hell up and listen to Eleanor.

    LAMary. That is a good point, and why I cook rather than bake. I searched the house for thaat recipe after my mom and dad died and could not find it. It was the best cheesecake I ever ate, and I’m sure part of the creaminess and perfect bite came from the making custard part of the recipe.

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  49. brian stouder said on August 16, 2013 at 5:00 pm

    You know, when I first heard this, I simply didn’t believe it. I thought “Onion”

    http://firstread.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/08/16/20052566-republicans-vote-to-bar-cnn-nbc-news-from-partnering-in-16-debates?lite

    Republicans’ move to shut out two major news networks from its 2016 debates reflects a broader effort by the RNC to seize control of their primary debate process before the next presidential election. The post-2012 election autopsy ordered by Priebus found that “there have been too many debates, and they took place too early.”

    To that end, the “Growth and Opportunity Project” report argued for limiting presidential debates to a dozen or so held no earlier than the fall preceding the presidential primaries. The RNC has also explored limiting debates to those it has sanctioned, and has publicly floated the idea of having conservative pundits like Rush Limbaugh or Mark Levin moderate such a debate.

    Limbaugh? Levin? “Moderate“??

    If I was a bazillionaire Las Vegas casino owner, I’d PAY MILLIONS for this to come to pass!!

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  50. coozledad said on August 16, 2013 at 5:07 pm

    brian stouder: I hope they get Limbaugh to moderate, that way everyone gets a good look at the Republican candidates fighting each other to spelunk up his giant ass.

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  51. Prospero said on August 16, 2013 at 5:22 pm

    Iowa Steve King: Comedy that won’t quit. If you look up buffoon in the dictionary, there’s a thumbnail photo of this clown.

    I think there should be a competition between Iowa and NY: Our Steve King is a more ridiculous know-nothing ninny than your Steve King.

    The GOPer primaries will be sound and fury signifying nothing. Sleazy Rand Paul is going to skeeve his way to the GOPer nomination. Aqua Buddha. Working toilet jokes. Kidnapping charges.

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  52. Prospero said on August 16, 2013 at 5:47 pm

    Isn’t Ain’t Them Bodies Saints a great movie title. And it’s got Rooney Mara and Casey Affleck, so I’m seeing this. And since I’ve never seen a Forrest Whitaker performance that wasn’t very good, The Butler. The Jobs movie is getting reasonably good reviews, but I couldn’t sit through a whole movie of that bitch Ashton Kutcher smirking without smacking somebody. Wy didn’t they get Aaron Paul for the role?

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  53. Deggjr said on August 16, 2013 at 5:53 pm

    I don’t know about the Chicago Air&Water show itself, but the military jets used to publicize the show during the week before by flying very low over the city. I was on the 60th floor when a jet went by several times. I don’t remember whether the jet was higher or lower, but no matter, it was awesome.

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  54. ROGirl said on August 16, 2013 at 6:22 pm

    Given a choice between a chain restaurant and a good local establishment, why would anyone in their right mind go to the chain restaurant?

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  55. beb said on August 16, 2013 at 7:54 pm

    A few years ago the Detroit Boat Races was opened by a one-plane airshow. The plane performed over the river but made it turns over land. I work on the river (water filtration plant) right across from the races. In fact some of the stands on our side of the river. So the jet was making turns right over the administration building during the show. A couple of co-workers and I went out into the parking lot and watched. Towards the end the pilot did a power ascent that eventually directed his exhaust right at us. I had to actually cover my ears because it was so loud! But many of his turns were definitely over inhabited areas and if he had had a malfunction there would have been civilian casualties.

    To Brian Stouder, there is n limit on the crazy coming from the Republican Tea Party. I do not expect that there will be any tempering of tea party zealotry this year or an year.

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  56. Prospero said on August 16, 2013 at 10:16 pm

    On my college trip to Europe, we went to a friend’s parents hous at an Alpine village named Marigny. Every day, we watched French Mirages flying some sourt of maneuvers at a lower altitude. This was very cool.

    I agree with beb on the Teabanger lunacy. They would have to have a mocicum of a capacity for embarrassment for there to be any sort of limit on it. They have none. These are people so fracking dumb and unaware they say things like “legitimate rape. And there are Teabanger women that support this shit they spew. Or, Dr. Paul Broun, running for Senate seat who actually said, in a public statement, that evolution is a theory straight from the pits of hell”. This dick went to Med School, for God’s sake.

    I forget which one of y’all is the George Saunders fan, but get Civilwarland in Bad Repair. The stories are hilarious and extremely stylish, and there is a bonus of a 120 pp. or so novella called Bounty that is spectacular. It’s like a Cormac post apocalyptic tale if Cormac had a sense of humor about things like that. And a good bit like The funniest parts of Russell Hoban’s masterpiece, Riddley Walker.

    My favorite full-time critic, NYT’s Michiko Kakutani describes Saunders as the illegitimate offspring of Nathaniel West and Kurt Vonnegut. Thomas Pynchon is a Saunders fan, describing the writing as “graceful, dark, authentic and funny–just the kinds of stories we need to get through these times.” In the course of one of Saunders’ 15 page stories, I find I average laughing out loud seven or eight times. Sometimes it’s laughing to keep from crying. A brilliant writer.

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  57. Suzanne said on August 16, 2013 at 10:23 pm

    Julie, is it that Italian restaurant in New Haven that is next to a gas station? I’ve been there once and it was very, very good. It doesn’t look like much and I can’t remember the name. The food was great!

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  58. Deborah said on August 16, 2013 at 11:43 pm

    The Saunders fan would be me. Have you read “the Tenth of December”?

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  59. Dexter said on August 17, 2013 at 1:27 am

    Recalling an era that is really long-gone. The rising of the mini-skirt. http://blog.sfgate.com/chronstyle/2013/08/16/miniskirt-styles-of-the-60s-and-70s/#14940-1

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  60. David C. said on August 17, 2013 at 6:50 am

    Is the military participating the the Chicago Air and Water Show this year? We had the Experimental Aircraft Association show here in Oshkosh a couple of weeks ago and the military didn’t send any aircraft. ‘Cause of Obama, dontchaknow. It was a lot quieter than usual, but I think it held the attendance down quite a bit. That’s not a good thing as the EAA is like Christmas in August for the businesses in this town.

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  61. Dave said on August 17, 2013 at 8:32 am

    Suzanne, that’s Salvatori’s in New Haven. The same folks have opened a second location on Illinois Road, in a shopping strip on the south side at the corner of Scott Road. It’s far less like a truck stop.

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  62. alex said on August 17, 2013 at 9:31 am

    I used to both live and work on North Lake Shore Drive, so the rehearsals leading up to the Air & Water Show, and then the show itself, made for one hell of an unnerving week. For me there was simply no escape from the bombastic noise and the constant shock of seeing jets doing stunts close up. Talk about a distraction. The cost to workplace productivity alone probably exceeds any revenues generated by the tourists flocking in.

    I still think they’re courting disaster. One false move and a fighter jet could take out a tall building full of people. I’ve never thought it was worth the risk, and one day when it happens I’m sure it will be the end of any such shows in that location. Ever.

    Regarding filters at work, nothing has ever blocked me from looking at or posting to web sites, but I did once have an outgoing e-mail blocked because of a single word in the body content: Hooker. In that instance, it was somebody’s name.

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  63. brian stouder said on August 17, 2013 at 12:06 pm

    So yesterday evening I was driving home from work, and put on the local wannabe flying-monkey of the right-wing airwaves, Pat Miller, successor to Nancy’s old friend Pat White.

    He was in mid-rant about the effrontery of the president’s decision to (wait for it)….remove the bust of Winston Churchill from the Oval Office…!!??

    The last time I heard this was, what?, maybe four years ago?

    But still, it shows his basic MISUNDERSTANDING…if not his outright REJECTION of American culture and history and all that’s good and right and indeed Godly about America.

    And then a caller called in to agree, and then enlarge on the idea that the president doesn’t understand where America comes from, and what America values…and then the caller went on an anti-Islam(??!!) rant, which the host agreed with! (translation: white European folks = God’s people, while the president = some Islamic usurper?)

    So, by God (or Allah), when I got home I stewed about this awhile longer and then called up WOWO. They were in the last 15 minutes or so of the show, and the screener put me right through to the host.

    I asked ol’ Pat if he knew that the president simply moved that Churchill bust out of the Oval – but that it was still in the White House, last I knew. This caused him to go on the defensive, whereupon he said something like ‘but the Oval Office is a public space, and any president is only a custodian of that office and cannot do such things’…whereupon I said ‘Baloney. It’s his office’ – and then I asked ol’ Pat if he knew what the president replaced ol’ Winnie Churchill’s visage with, and he confessed that he did not, whereupon I said “a bust of his hero, Abraham Lincoln!” – and as he back-pedaled and scrambled, I continued along the lines of “and I’d choose Abe Lincoln every single time, versus Winston Churchill or any other foreign leader, period!” – and this seemed to stymie him.

    And then as I wished him a pleasant weekend, and he said something or other again about Churchill and western civilization – I said to him that I wasn’t a Muslim, but just for the record, people who lionize ‘Western civilization’ ought to go easier on Islam, given that white Christian Europe disintegrated into not one but TWO horrendous wars in the space of 20 years in Europe, and spreading across the world…that really, the so-called blood-lust and barbarity of “Islam” has absolutely NOTHING on Christianity, judging from the last century…. and he countered by blaming the Crusades on Islam!!

    This got me laughing, and I asked if that wasn’t like blaming all the conflict we had with native Americans on the native Americans – given that they were here first….and then I again thanked him for giving me an inning, and bid him goodnight.

    And really, just for the pleasure of answering that guy back, I felt better

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  64. Jakash said on August 17, 2013 at 2:30 pm

    David C.,

    With regard to the air show in Chicago, the Tribune says:

    “There will be no military flyovers this year because of federal budget cuts from sequestration, but the show will have more civilian acts, including some with military jets.”

    While the main “stage” for the show is supposedly North Avenue Beach, and the actual maneuvers are thus over the lake, many of the planes fly well into the city while approaching and reconfiguring for their runs along the lake. As alex and Little Bird pointed out, some of the military jets are remarkably unnerving as they fly over the streets and buildings, and not just right on Lake Shore Drive. Regardless of one’s opinion of the show, there’s a significant segment of the population subjected to this noise that are not actually attending the event. FWIW, there’s certainly a possibility that one of the planes could crash into a neighborhood or high rise; the possibility of a tragedy is not limited to a crash in the lake or on the beach.

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  65. Joe K said on August 17, 2013 at 3:01 pm

    I think the people of Chicago should worry more about the murder rate in the city, along with the corruption in city hall, then 3-4 days of a airshow that has had no fatalitys.
    Pilot Joe

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  66. Prospero said on August 17, 2013 at 3:16 pm

    Scout@14: That is why a large party of all women is the bane of a waiter’s existence. The tips always suffer from the infighting and bad feelings. And that isn’t judgement of any sort, it’s a direct observation of behavior from my own days as a waiter.

    Brian: Nice job. You could have asked him about the tradition going all the way back to Founder G. Washington of having sculpture of Brit PMs in the oval office. The Father of His
    Country with the likeness of Lord North in his office? Yeah, real likely, as a spitoon. Churchill was a blowhard and a demagogue, and a superb orator. He was also a pretty outspoken racist in Kiplingesque “white man’s burden” and prison camps in African colonies fashion:

    http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/not-his-finest-hour-the-dark-side-of-winston-churchill-2118317.html

    Chickenhawk Shrub wanted Churchill in the Oval Office to establish some sort of war heroism by association. That is embarrassing to the entire USA, in my opinion.

    It’s pretty difficult to see how anybody can insist that residents of Chicago near the lake are safe because the maneuvres take place over the water. These planes are going pretty damned fast, and could end up anywhere pretty shortly. The crash down here in Beaufort was three miles away from the site of the show, and the plane plowed through a dozen houses and doublewides. And having heard all the TopGun and Best of the Best stuff for years, the idea of civilians flying military aircraft near heavily populated areas is seriously unsettling.

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  67. Jakash said on August 17, 2013 at 3:44 pm

    Pilot Joe,

    They do. Being more concerned about murders and corruption does not preclude also wondering about the wisdom of holding an air show in such a populated area, however. As I said above, it’s a matter of what is an acceptable level of risk in society and is the risk worth the reward? Obviously, you, the city and the millions who attend the show think the very slight risk is worth the reward. I don’t quite see why others shouldn’t be welcome to express a differing opinion with regard to the matter.

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  68. alex said on August 17, 2013 at 4:00 pm

    Good on you, Brian, for taking some of the wind out of that moron’s sails. He deserves to be brought down a peg or ten in front of the gullible saps who regard him with any seriousness.

    And Joe, I’m not sure what Chicago’s murder rate or corrupt politicians have to do with anything. Are you suggesting that loss of life in a plane disaster would be just another drop in the bucket? A few more liberals off the voter rolls, who could object to that? Okay, I get it.

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  69. Prospero said on August 17, 2013 at 4:20 pm

    GOPers: How’s that minority outreach thing working’ out for ya?

    Traditional marriage in a biblical sense.

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  70. David C. said on August 17, 2013 at 5:39 pm

    I know when the military jets are here in Oshkosh, they don’t do their maneuvers over the crowd at the airport. They do them over the city and over my office. Very nerve wracking.

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  71. Prospero said on August 17, 2013 at 6:01 pm

    Hell. The Blue Angels used to be regulars in the sky over Super bowl stadia. They don’t wear GSuits because they believe they restrict their ability to control the planes in tight formations. Or because it’s some macho thing. One short period of gray out disorientation over the Orange Bowl, and… serious human damage. This basic concept is loony.

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  72. Deborah said on August 17, 2013 at 6:06 pm

    Good for you Brian. That comment made my day.

    And Joe, nobody is ignoring the south side daily murders. It is a major topic of conversation in Chicago and other places. Jeff Borden has commented about it at nn.c very well.

    I am finally up to speed on the Longmire series, have really enjoyed it.

    I just got back from the hugely popular (meaning crowded) Indian Market, yes they still call it that. There is some amazing craft and art and then there is the usual crap, just like everywhere. My favorite part is the roasted corn dipped in “butter” sprinkled with salt, chili powder and parmesan cheese. I sat on the curb, in the shade and munched away.

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  73. Prospero said on August 17, 2013 at 6:39 pm

    I’m planning to read some of the Longmire novels. Great characters, and excellent TeeVee show. Still waiting for the big reveal. Branch is going to end up seriously needing a lawyer. Cady’s a lawyer, right. She’d be better off with Deputy Pudgy, the two dancing at the campaign rally was a great scene.

    When the GOPers start talking about not raising the debt ceiling in a couple of months, here’s something to remember. It was de rigeur (mortis) when St. Raygun was president. Teabangers would despise Ronny if he came around these days. But hell, go ahead and make the USA an international economic laughing-stock and try to blame President Obama.

    Vote fraud run rampant? Where exactly? When Shrub fired those US Attorneys, it was to put a bunch of Regent Law grad loyal Bushies (their term) in place to hunt down vote fraud. The misAdministration spent five years and book bucks and came up with …Zip. Fewer than 50 prosecutable cases nationwide, fewer than ten of which produced convictions.

    A perfect novel for folks that appreciate Kafka: The Curfew, by Jesse Ball. Instead of a novel within a novel (a technique I enjoy, as in Atwood’s The Blind Assassin and John Gardner’s October Light, or The Mad Trist, in Fall of the House of Usher) the author produces a puppet show in prose. Showing off, to some extent, but pyrotechnical nonetheless, thoroughly enchanting, and exceptionally visual. I mean that literally; I stayed up ’til 5am so I wouldn’t interrupt reading it. I’d say this would be a good movie, but I know I’d be disappointed with the puppet show, unless, perhaps, Tim Burton did it in animation, or Benicio Del Toro with his makeup crew from Pan’s Labyrinth.

    The Chicago murder rate was central to the conservative defense of Zimmerman, irrelevant in that discussion as in this one.

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  74. beb said on August 17, 2013 at 7:24 pm

    The Longmire are a notch above the already very good TV series. I’ve read all but the latest and they are so good. A lot deep, a lot funnier, a lot more real. But beware, some of the sub-plots in the TV series do not appear in the books, and vice-versa. I’m slowly growing to like Lou Diamond Philips as Henry Walking Bear. At first I was unhappy because The Cheyenne was supposed to be a big guy, like Sheriff Longmire.

    Friday night Rachel Maddow has a segment on Detroit’s DIA, emphasizing the astonishing quality of the muesum’s collection and showing dozens of the museum’s treasures. Then she switched to an interesting development in the case. After losing in state courts a federal appeals court has sided with challenges to the state’s Emergency Manager act. The court has returned the suit to lower courts to reconsideration. One point the federal court did not like was how the legislature had casually overturned a state-wide referendum four after the voters had over-turned the act. So it will be interesting whether to see whether Orr continues to have power to take Detroit into bakruptcy, or make plans to sell off the DIA,

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  75. Deborah said on August 17, 2013 at 7:41 pm

    I love Lou Diamond Philips as Henry Walking Bear in the Longmire series, especially the way he speaks, he doesn’t use contractions which just resonates as appropriate with me. I liked season 1 of Longmire better than season 2, but that is fairly typical of so many series. They gain in popularity but not necessarily in quality.

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  76. Prospero said on August 17, 2013 at 8:28 pm

    beb@74: If GOPers and conservatives lived in the world they pretend to want, the Emergency Manager law would be anathema to them. More gilded hypocrisy. It is much like the kneejerk rightwing support of the ill-conceived Keystone XL, which will benefit nobody but a multinational consortium that includes Koch Bros. Kriminal Konspiracy and a bunch of foreign oil barons, but will require taking Amdericans’ land by eminent domain. How do these whited sepulchers live with their own rotten stench?

    I’ve liked Lou Diamond Philips since he was Ritchie Valens, and he was the saving grace of those Emilio Estevez Billy the kid movies, along with the hilarious performance of Casey Scziemasko (I have no idea how to spell that name, but I’m sure I’ve got it wrong).

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  77. Dave said on August 17, 2013 at 8:40 pm

    At least, Brian, he didn’t tell you it was his radio show and he’ll talk, as I’ve heard him do when someone was getting the better of him. And then, after ending the call, tell everyone how fair and impartial he could be.

    Wish I had heard you yesterday but I’ve quit listening altogether, couldn’t do it anymore. I used to listen only because it was local but it was getting to be too much and I had to quit.

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  78. Prospero said on August 17, 2013 at 8:45 pm

    Funny if it weren’t so sad: Fox News nitwits claim imaginary Obama tax increases have hurt sales at Walmart. Right. Becaause rich people shop at Sam Walton’s Emporium and 21st Century Plantation.

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  79. Sherri said on August 17, 2013 at 9:12 pm

    The baseball fans among us may enjoy this article about Tomohiro Anraku, a Japanese high school pitcher. The Japanese are as crazy intense about baseball as we are about football.

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  80. brian stouder said on August 17, 2013 at 9:29 pm

    Dave – I can take him in small doses. I live about 7 or 8 minutes from where I work, and I’ll tune in to see what the talking point is. He spent forever on guns/2nd amendment, and for the past week or so he’s been flogging away at Obamacare.

    I cannot stomach when he goes into evangelical-mode, which in fact is why they fired him back in the day, before the higher-ups fired the guy who fired him, and then brought him back.

    The only other time I called him was a couple years ago, when he was attacking the husband of Gabbie Giffords, right after she was nearly assassinated by the heavily armed shooter at the grocery store. He said that Mark Kelly had no business taking a side in the gun control debate*, and should stand quietly beside his tragically injured wife.

    That made me so angry that I got out a piece of paper and jotted down three or four points that I wanted to be SURE to hit him with, specifically including calling him a lip-flapper and a rabble-rouser with no standing to express an opinion on much of anything except possibly unchecked weight-gain, and that if anyone on earth had a right to an opinion on the Gabbie Giffords assassination-attempt, certainly her NASA astronaut husband.

    He argued the point without relent, and I concluded my call with “you are just wrong” – and he went to commercial, and I hung up.

    Anyway – it does a person good to get into one of these people’s grills, even if he is a podunk little guy. One of these times, when he goes onto one of his Constitution-as-Holy-Writ speels, I may have to call and ask him if he’s ever read any United States history, at all. I mean, one would get the impression (if one didn’t know any better) that any idiot with a radio talk show can tell you what the Constitution plainly means…it’s all so very simple. (in fact, I heard Uncle Rush on a similar tangent recently, disingenuously asserting that “one man” certainly should not be deciding what the Constitution means. It was disingenuous because he was specifically reffering to 5-4 decisions such as the one that upheld Obamacare….which was decided by five justices and not by a single “man”. It would be great to ask that cowardly lard-tub how many years of law (let alone math) HE took in college.

    *a meme which Uncle Google tells me still lives: http://www.bizpacreview.com/2013/06/29/what-gabby-giffords-husband-doesnt-want-you-to-know-78887

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  81. Connie said on August 17, 2013 at 9:32 pm

    I am just back from an up North week, where the local news highlight was the pictures my sister-in-law (Ann) took of Mario Batali carrying an American flag at the beginning of the Northport Dog Parade, of which he was Grand Marshall. He and his family spend summers near Northport.

    We kicked off our week with the wedding of my husband’s younger brother, the college friend who introduced me to his older brother all those years ago. The wedding ceremony was perfect, it focused on the thought of finding someone after some years alone, and how happy they both are to have done so. Followed by a live cajun band at the barn dance where they met, on the grounds of the St. Ambrose Winery. Of which I only have this to say: “Mead, ick.” Might as well pour some olive juice into your pink wine according to my sister-in-law (Melinda).

    And on the subject of sisters-in-law, I am now the only one of the three daughters-in-law on my husband’s side that is not named Nancy. We have caught ourselves referring to new Nancy, but have promised the other Nancy not to call her old Nancy.

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  82. Connie said on August 17, 2013 at 9:33 pm

    Oh, and I have tickets to the Tigers’ game tomorrow. Deep down the first base line.

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  83. brian stouder said on August 17, 2013 at 9:53 pm

    Connie – watch for foul balls! I saw a person at the old Riverfront get beaned by a line drive; hit her in the noggin and seemed to knock her out cold*; she was sitting behind the dugout on the firstbase line. (we were way up in the red seats)

    I think they gave her free tix for another game, or something

    *and you’re already a knock-out, in any case!

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  84. Dexter said on August 18, 2013 at 1:41 am

    Connie, Miggy did it again! (Saturday night, bottom of the ninth, tie score…home run. ) Miguel Cabrera and Prince Fielder both cracked home runs. Detroit Tigers baseball. And Kirk, the Reds have lost interest in hitting, I guess.

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  85. Connie said on August 18, 2013 at 10:51 am

    Deadline Detroit does not like Mitch Albom today. http://deadlinedetroit.com/articles/6080/sundays_with_mitch_leave_prince_fielder_alone#.UhDgpD_D-8A

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  86. basset said on August 18, 2013 at 11:10 am

    Connie, don’t know about St. Ambrose’s mead but Oliver’s winery in Bloomington makes a good one, probably not the genuine all honey stuff but close enough… been drinking that since I was at IU and it was a dollar-69 a bottle. Picked some more up yesterday at Wal-Mart in Evansville, on the way back to Tennessee from a funeral in Daviess County.

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  87. Kirk said on August 18, 2013 at 11:41 am

    Very frustrating, Dexter. Need to get the rust knocked off Ryan Ludwick. But I met Tommy Helms and Lee May (among others) at the ballpark in Columbus last night, so that distracted me a little bit.

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  88. Prospero said on August 18, 2013 at 1:32 pm

    All anybody should need to know about the NRA is that the organization insists that an appearance on a terrorist watch list should not disqualify someone from obtaining a gun license. WTF, you whackos? That’s not just cognitive dissonance, that’s nuts.

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  89. Prospero said on August 18, 2013 at 2:19 pm

    Some truth behind GOPers’ irrational transformation of the US House into a wing of government that does nothing whatever but vote to repeal ACA. It goes way back to Clinton in ’93 and the ultimate GOP weasel, the PNAC’s own William Kristol, his father must be so proud of him. In leetuw Biwwy’s own words.

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  90. MarkH said on August 18, 2013 at 2:36 pm

    Longmire Days yesterday in Buffalo, Johnson Co., Wyo., the real-life basis for Absaroka Co. Craig Johnson joined in the celebration.

    http://trib.com/news/gallery-longmire-days-in-buffalo/collection_2005a08a-0782-11e3-8d79-001a4bcf887a.html#9

    Lou Diamond Phillips should have had at least a nomination for Best Supporting Actor for “Courage Under Fire”. In my view his elocution as Henry Standing Bear is his interpretation of the native American’s sly effort to one-up the white man.

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  91. Prospero said on August 18, 2013 at 3:10 pm

    George Duke died earlier this month. This guy could play any style with anybody. Played with Zappa and George Clinton, and Barry Manilow and Miles. Includes a fascinating vid about composing and his wife, who predeceased him by a year and whose death left him bereft. I believe Duke did the crazy, cackling vocal on Zappa’s Zombie Woof, on the Overnight Sensation album. His normal singing voice is a lot like Stevie Wonder’s.

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  92. Prospero said on August 18, 2013 at 5:40 pm

    What sort of reasonable American would find anything objectionable about President Obama’s DACA initiative. Especially GOPer and Teabanger politicians that make great hay of their claims to Christianity. Isn’t this obviously WJWD? Doesn’t it obviously make good economic sense? Isn’t it born out of common human decency? I think it’s that last question that hits the real sticking point. But look at those drug mules with the cantaloupe calves at that link. Iowa Steve King can spot ’em a mile away.

    This photo of Iowa Steve’s anti-immigration-reform would be hilarious if it weren’t so franking pitiful. NY Steve needs to get on the stick in the Doofus Steve King contest though. He’s being left in the dust lately.

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  93. coozledad said on August 18, 2013 at 7:31 pm

    Before anyone listens to too much Republican wankery about Egypt:
    http://www.juancole.com/2013/08/democracy-washington-reluctant.html

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  94. brian stouder said on August 18, 2013 at 7:44 pm

    Cooz – great link.

    John McCain is back on his Mistake!! Mistake!! tour again – which is Clue #1 that things are lots more complex than they might otherwise seem.

    If I didn’t learn anything else from the book The Looming Tower, I learned that al Qaeda – or at least the nuts and bolts of the worst of aQ – is inextricably connected with Egypt and Egypt’s prisons and so on.

    Anything we do there has to be in accord with a coldly relentless assessment of cost/benefit to the civilians in major cities in the United States

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  95. Deborah said on August 18, 2013 at 8:10 pm

    Mark H, how cool is that? Longmire Days and the whole crew showed up including the author. So gracious to do that for a small town in Wyoming. The people in the photos looked thrilled.

    Apparently New Mexico is back in the saddle for movie productions. They had taken tax incentives away and things went downhill, but they’re gearing up again somehow. I met a guy at the community table of my favorite restaurant here, Pasquals. The guy is a movie producer who says they’re on board to shoot 20 movies here, they will all be on the lower budget end, but still. One of the residents in our condo complex works for the movie industry here, not exactly sure what he does, but he works long hours

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  96. Prospero said on August 18, 2013 at 8:19 pm

    Until late last week, GOPers would have had everyone believe that suppressing the Muslim Brotherhood was the most important goal the USA could have in the Middle East. Now that the Administration is acting on that very precept it’s back to: because Obama. And they will continue to claim on the fringes that Obama supports the Muslim Brotherhood. That’s a shibboleth the Teabangers wil never relinquish.

    Regarding McCain, he said during his last big Mistaken Foreign Policy tantrum that he was a citizen of a breakaway republic from a former soviet Republic, so why doesn’t the old fool just shut the hell up.

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  97. Prospero said on August 18, 2013 at 8:28 pm

    There are two reasons no GOPer is going to listen to Professor Cole. First he ridiculed the chickenhawk PNAC warriors in the runup to Shock and Awe for not knowing Shia from Sunni and pointing out the whole Iraq invasion would be one godawful failure of a moronic adventure in imperialism that would turn Iraq into Iran West. Secondly, Juan Cole actually knows what he’s talking about. He actually speaks Arabic languages and Farsi. When real knowledge and facts clash with imperialist daydreams, they choose unreality every time.

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  98. brian stouder said on August 18, 2013 at 8:42 pm

    pros – you got me laughing! I’d have succumbed to the temptation to say “…PNAC warriors in the runup to Shock and Awe for not knowing Shia from Shionola“, but your restraint on that point made the lilt of your comment all the funnier! (and also true, of course!)

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