Persimmon Cookies

I was going to take a picture of one of those for you, but then I realized I'd accidentally eaten the last of them while catching up on some other internet reading. oops What can I say? They're tasty!

We just got back from spending the night with Strider's grandmother in another town. Every year she makes lots of persimmon goodies (a relative of hers has many persimmon trees in their yard). This time she sent me home with a batch of the cookies (see above paragraph) and the recipe she uses for them. It's an older, photocopied newspaper clipping so I am not certain of the original date and source.

Cream together: 1 1/2 c. sugar, 1/2 c. shortening (or butter)

Add:: 1 c. persimmon pulp, 1 egg


Mix Together Separately: 2 c. flour, 1 tsp soda, 1/2 tsp salt, 1/2 tsp nutmeg, 1/2 tsp cinnamon, 1/4 tsp cloves

Combine dry ingredients with moist mixture and mix well. Add: 1 c. raisins ('cept I want to try them with craisins) and 1 c. walnuts or pecans. Drop by teaspoonfuls on cookie sheet. Bake at 375 degrees for fifteen minutes.

The original recipe calls for dipping the cookies in powdered sugar. Strider's grandmother doesn't do this and I don't think I will either. They're moist and rich and the powdered sugar seems like it would be just a bit too much.

Never made persimmon pulp before? There are some good basic instructions here. I am amused by this: "All astringent varieties must be fully ripe to be eaten. Unripe, they possess high enough concentrations of tannins to make an encounter with one an experience of mouth-puckering agony you won't soon forget." When I was a child, an extended family member with a proclivity for intense practical jokes told me to take a bite out of one such persimmon. I had other people there telling me not to listen to him, but I did... and he laughed... and I went through mouth-puckering agony that burned in my mind for years to come.

Not familiar with persimmons: Wiki article here :)

Linked up at Tuesday Tasty Tidbits
What's Cooking Wednesday

BEST Temperature and Climate Change

There's a huge tiff in the Climate Science world- the lead author of some recent papers analyzing BEST temperature data issued some public statements about the results of their research that took the second author by surprise, completely.  She says the statements are not warranted by the data and do not accurately reflect their work.  You can read more about it all here and here (and you should read these two articles as a pair),  here, and here.

BEST stands for Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature.

It's a project devised to put together the "most complete set of historical and modern temperature data yet made publicly available..."   Judith Curry explained it more extensively here.


The papers resulting from BEST are not yet finished- the peer review process had barely started.  The peer reviewers had to sign nondisclosure agreements and promise to keep their comments confidential.  However, Muller, without consulting his co-authors, put the papers out on the internet and then called some hand-picked journalists to eat from his hands on what he said were the results of the papers- surely prematurely.

In short (oops, too late), there's a ton of interesting stuff (love my scientifically accurate terms of measurement?) here. But I want to zero in on one comment from the lead author of the paper, a comment that was probably a throw-away, and think about the larger implications:

Prof Muller also wrote an article for the Wall Street Journal. It was here, under the headline ‘The case against global warming scepticism’, that he proclaimed ‘there were good reasons for doubt until now’.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2055191/Scientists-said-climate-change-sceptics-proved-wrong-accused-hiding-truth-colleague.html#ixzz1cIEhkIhb

There WERE good reasons for doubt until now? Do you know what that means? That means you've been lied to right up until now, but now things are different.  After years of name-calling and dismissing all arguments against the skeptics as crazy talk, now there is an admission that actually, yes, there were good reasons for doubt. Never mind that those good reasons were ignored (at best), kept from you, or deceptively misrepresented in the past, now with a single sentence, you're supposed to take the word of the self same people who have been lying to you about consensus, about the debate being over, about skeptics merely being 'denialists' in the same category as holocaust deniers (which is where the term came from and it was chosen for a reason)- they were not telling you the truth when they told you that skeptics were merely bought and paid for by Big Oil, and they knew it. There were good reasons for doubt until now.
Only policy was being made in the teeth of those 'good reasons for doubt.'

Rob Starkey in the comments here said this:

One group believes they fundamentally understand (a) how much temperatures are going up, (b) what the causes of the temperature rise are and the relative weight of each cause, (c) how the predicted overall temperature rise will continue in the future and the impact of that rise on other conditions that effect human life (rainfall, storm frequency/intensity, etc.) for different regions of the planet and (d) that they understand the long term net results of the positive and negative impacts of a, b, and c sufficiently well to tell people in different parts of the world that they should take specific actions to change their basic forms of producing energy....

So even while the EPA is regulating the life out of us, while coal plants are being shut down, while utility prices go (deliberately) and keeping third world countries firmly third world because of the alleged infallibility of the evidence for man made global warming, NOW we are told, actually, the evidence wasn't as good as we were told and there were good reasons for doubt.

There were good reasons right up until yesterday, reasons the climate change community as a whole ignored or lied about, refused to accept or acknowledge (who are the deniers here?), but NOW I'm supposed to take their word for it and enact the same policies they always wanted?

Oh, and btw- even Muller admits that the BEST temperature data indicates world temperatures haven't risen for 13 years:

Yesterday Prof Muller insisted that neither his claims that there has not been a standstill, nor the graph, were misleading because the project had made its raw data available on its  website, enabling others to draw their own graphs.
However, he admitted it was true that the BEST data suggested that world temperatures have not risen for about 13 years. But in his view, this might not be ‘statistically significant’,  although, he added, it was equally  possible that it was – a statement which left other scientists mystified.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2055191/Scientists-said-climate-change-sceptics-proved-wrong-accused-hiding-truth-colleague.html#ixzz1cIZXzG2l

Frankly, this also means that if you believed that there were NOT any good reasons for skepticism, you were a useful member of the gullible public, and I suspect that if you still want to believe these guys, well, they have another bridge to sell, and, after all, everybody knows we have always been at war with Eastanglia..

Here's what one of the peer reviewers had to say about these shenanigans:

I agreed to serve as a referee back at the beginning of September and submitted my report almost a month ago. In so doing I accepted the journal’s request not to discuss the matter publicly while the paper is under review, and I intend to respect that commitment. It did not occur to me at the time that the BEST authors would fail so spectacularly to respect their corresponding obligations, or that the media, having shown zero interest in the many peer-reviewed and published papers on the topic, would so willingly join the tub-thumping on behalf of an unpublished, unreviewed PDF on someone’s website. I suppose all this should have occurred to me at the time, you’d think I’d have learned by now.”

Judith Curry also notes:

One of the most interesting things about all this IMO is the substantial discrepancies among the 4 datasets during this recent period. BEST agrees fairly well with NOAA, but is quite different from GISS and CRU.

Quite different, eh?  So which is right?


And which of them will be right tomorrow?

The way Muller is playing this out in the media is also fascinating to watch- it makes sense, too, when you remember that the major proponents of crippling the world economy in response to belief in man-made global warming also believe that their really big problem with the public is one of communication.  This is a giant public relations campaign.

Muller insists that the premature publication, circumvention of the peer review process, and the playing footsie with hand-picked media has nothing, nothing at all to do with the UN Climate Conference coming up.

   Muller's wife a few months ago:

Elizabeth Muller, co-founder and Executive Director of Berkeley Earth, said she hopes the Berkeley Earth findings will help “cool the debate over global warming by addressing many of the valid concerns of the skeptics in a clear and rigorous way.” This will be especially important in the run-up to the COP 17 meeting in Durban, South Africa, later this year, where participants will discuss targets for reducing Greenhouse Gas (GHG)emissions for the next commitment period as well as issues such as financing, technology transfer and cooperative action.

It would be smart to question the timing.

Menu Plan

Breakfasts- Omelettes, oatmeal casserole

Lunches:


Peanut butter soup
quiche
leftovers
pea soup
Wisconsin Cheese Soup (to be posted later)
Quesedillas, Sonora/Arizona style


Supper

Spinach lasagna (with squash instead of pasta)

Beef heart enchiladas

Brazilian Quiche

Crockpot Lemon Garlic Chicken

Chop Suey

Leftovers

LInked at Organizing Junkie

Devotional Reading for the Kindle

The Works of John Bunyan, complete, including 58 books (Active Table of Contents) (it's been updated and hyperlinks improved in February)- Pilgrim's Progress and The Holy War are my favorites.

The God of All Comfort- The HG is reading this beautiful book and finding it very helpful

One of the most illuminating names of God is the one especially revealed by our Lord Jesus Christ, the name of Father. I say especially revealed by Christ, because, while God had been called throughout the ages by many other names, expressing other aspects of His character, Christ alone has revealed Him to us under the all-inclusive name of Father--a name that holds within itself all other names of wisdom and power, and above all of love and goodness, a name that embodies for us a perfect supply for all our needs. Christ, who was the only begotten Son in the bosom of the Father, was the only one who could reveal this name, for He alone knew the Father. "As the Father knoweth me," He said, "even so know I the Father" "Not that any man hath seen the Father save he which is of God, he hath seen the Father."

The Attributes of God- A. W. Pink.  You can never know too much about this subject, nor can we ever scale the heights.

God’s holiness is manifested in His works. "The Lord is righteous in all His ways, and holy in all His works" (Ps. 145:17). Nothing but that which is excellent can proceed from Him. Holiness is the rule of all His actions. At the beginning He pronounced all that He made "very good" (Gen. 1:31), which He could not have done had there been anything imperfect or unholy in them. Man was made "upright" (Eccl. 7:29), in the image and likeness of his Creator. The angels that fell were created holy, for we are told that they "kept not their first habitation" (Jude 6). Of Satan it is written, "Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee" (Ezek. 28:15).

The Complete Works of George MacDonald (50+ works with an active table of contents)- There is a table of contents and it's active. You go to the beginning of the book, the 'cover,' and then click forward until you get to the TOC. I'd bookmark it so you can find it again later.  Lighter reading, MacDonald inspired C.S. Lewis.

I took a walk on Spaulding's Farm the other afternoon. I saw the setting sun lighting up the opposite side of a stately pine wood. Its golden rays straggled into the aisles of the wood as into some noble hall. I was impressed as if some ancient and altogether admirable and shining family had settled there in that part of the land called Concord, unknown to me,--to whom the sun was servant,--who had not gone into society in the village,--who had not been called on. I saw their park, their pleasure-ground, beyond through the wood, in Spaulding's cranberry-meadow.

The Rule (With Active Table of Contents) Another way to think of a 'Rule' is as a vision statement of goals, objectives, and your ultimate vision for your family.

The Abbot ought always to remember what he is and what he is called, and to know that to whom much hath been entrusted, from him much will be required; and let him understand what a difficult and arduous task he assumeth in governing souls and accommodating himself to a variety of characters. Let him so adjust and adapt himself to everyone--to one gentleness of speech, to another by reproofs, and to still another by entreaties, to each one according to his bent and understanding--that he not only suffer no loss in his flock, but may rejoice in the increase of a worthy fold. Above all things, that the Abbot may not neglect or undervalue the welfare of the souls entrusted to him, let him not have too great a concern about fleeting, earthly, perishable things; but let him always consider that he hath undertaken the government of souls, of which he must give an account. and to know that to whom much hath been entrusted, from him much will be required; and let him understand what a difficult and arduous task he assumeth in governing souls and accommodating himself to a variety of characters. Let him so adjust and adapt himself to everyone--to one gentleness of speech, to another by reproofs, and to still another by entreaties, to each one according to his bent and understanding--that he not only suffer no loss in his flock, but may rejoice in the increase of a worthy fold. Above all things, that the Abbot may not neglect or undervalue the welfare of the souls entrusted to him, let him not have too great a concern about fleeting, earthly, perishable things; but let him always consider that he hath undertaken the government of souls, of which he must give an account.

The Practice of the Presence of God the Best Rule of a Holy Life(free download)
a classic, deceptively simple.

He discoursed with me very frequently, and with great openness of heart, concerning his manner of going to GOD, whereof some part is related already.He told me...That GOD always gave us light in our doubts, when we had no other design but to please Him.That our sanctification did not depend upon changing our works, but in doing that for GOD’s sake, which we commonly do for our own. That it was lamentable to see how many people mistook the means for the end, addicting themselves to certain works, which they performed very imperfectly, by reason of their human or selfish regards.That the most excellent method he had found of going to GOD, was that of doing our common business without any view of pleasing men, [Gal. i. 10; Eph. vi. 5, 6.] and (as far as we are capable) purely for the love of GOD.

The Imitation of Christ (Optimized for Kindle) Take your time reading this, maybe just a page or two in the morning or before bed:

DO NOT yield to every impulse and suggestion but consider things carefully and patiently in the light of God's will. For very often, sad to say, we are so weak that we believe and speak evil of others rather than good. Perfect men, however, do not readily believe every talebearer, because they know that human frailty is prone to evil and is likely to appear in speech. Not to act rashly or to cling obstinately to one's opinion, not to believe everything people say or to spread abroad the gossip one has heard, is great wisdom.

Abide in Christ

Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life - Enhanced Version:

"DEVOTION is neither private nor public prayer; but prayers, whether private or public, are particular parts or instances of devotion. Devotion signifies a life given, or devoted, to God.
He, therefore, is the devout man, who lives no longer to his own will, or the way and spirit of the world, but to the sole will of God, who considers God in everything, who serves God in everything, who makes all the parts of his common life parts of piety, by doing everything in the Name of God, and under such rules as are conformable to His glory."

Kindle Bible (KJV) (best navigation with Direct Verse Jump; paragraphed) Surely this one needs no introduction.  This is one of the versions that's easier to navigage through on a Kindle.

Food

I've got a food stamp challenge list of meal ideas over at The Common Kitchen, as well as a picture or two (out of focus, but still pretty) of the cranberry pear cobbler the FYG made tonight.  Also have a picture and recipe of a very low carb wheat free pumpkin muffin made with Chia Seeds.  There are two versions- one sweetened with fake stuff, one with Stevia (liquid, so only slightly less fake).  I think they may be GAPS friendly if you sweeten with ground dates or molasses- if you do GAPS, would you might letting me know?

If you like pumpkin drinks and you've not tried the pumpkin shake here, you should. It's tasty.  I think it's a good substitute for ice-cream, too, and it can easily be a dairy free drink.

Of course, we have all that healthy stuff, and the youngest two Progeny had friends over tonight to watch the first half of the last Harry Potter movie because the last half is playing at our 3.00 theater (did you follow that?).  They brought junk food to have along with our home-made popcorn and cranberry pear crisp (they preferred the popcorn so much that four teenaged boys, two men, and one teen-aged girl didn't even eat an entire bag of chips- almost, but not quite).  They've all left for the theater now, and the wicked youngsters left an unopened bag of potato chips and a carton of onion dip.

It's entirely their fault that I am eating the chips.  I couldn't help myself and should not be held responsible for my own actions.

Beanbags and a bucket.  No beanbags?  Put some rice or beans in one of those thousands of unmatched socks, tie a knot in the sock and there you have it. Toss them to each other, into a laundry basket, bucket, or trash can, or spread out a towel with a floral pattern and toss them on the flowers- ten points for large flowers, 20 for small.

Old MacDonald Had a Farm

This one is so funny that I had Pip, Jenny, and Jenny's Swain craning their necks to watch and laughing themselves silly.

What's In Your Hand Tot Entertainment, 4

 Pins and pin cushion. Kids love to stick pins in pin cushions. Obviously, you need some supervision with this one.

For more ideas like this one, entertaining, quick, using what you have in your hand, click on the 'index card files' label below.

Linked at Penny Pinching Wednesdays

The Times, They Are (Not) A-Changin'

We have an extremely limited health care plan through Strider's workplace (a temp agency). Some days, the amount of insurance help it supposedly provides is more of a joke... other days, working with the company is extremely frustrating. They bungled our paperwork for months and routinely dropped our coverage for 2-3 days each pay cycle, making a mess with some of Striderling's medical providers that we're still trying to clean up.

Strider recently brought home this notice from the company (names changed, of course ;)): "Your health insurance coverage, offered by XYZ company, does not meet the minimum standards required by the Affordable Care Act. Instead, it has the following annual limits:

*listing of our limits*

In order to apply the lower limits described above, your health plan requested a waiver of the requirement...That waiver was granted by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services based on your health plan's representation that providing X amount in coverage for key benefits this year would result in a significant increase in your premiums or a significant decrease in access to benefits."

Translation: Your plan is incompatible with the standards set in ObamaCare, but that's not going to change for this year at least, because changing would be too expensive right now.

I laughed when I read this note... it didn't surprise me at all. After the laughing spell was done, though, I had to stop and wonder if there are people at Strider's workplace who will be taken by surprise. Many of them pushed for the new health care plan; they were promised a deal of goods and, for this year at least, it turns out that such goods aren't really feasible. Instead of helping health care costs, the Affordable Health Care Act has cost our insurance company (and thus, us) extra time, money, and staffing. Imagine all the paperwork that had to go into documenting for the waiver... the paperwork that went into applying for the waiver... the paperwork and manpower it took to ensure that we were all notified about the waiver... and all for what? To let us know our insurance coverage will not change right now.

And, as has been said here many times before, forcing the heavier involvement of another party (the government) into health care is really hurtful to costs in the long run. If you're at all interested in how health care costs work, please take the time to read this article. Obamacare must go, but we can't stop there.

Peter Schiff On OWS

This is almost 20 minutes long. Sometimes Peter Schiff is really irritating, sometimes he makes a lot of sense (especially when he says the same stuff I've been saying about how the banks should have been allowed to fail, and government intervention is the problem). Sometimes the people he talks to make a lot of sense, sometimes they don't make any sense at all. Sometimes everybody talking irks me.=) I'd love to hear more from the young man in the greenish hat, or the man he's talking to towards the end of the video. If I never again heard from the woman who whines about what he's driving when some young folks don't have a car, well, I'd be able to bear the deprivation.

You know what? Pip doesn't have a car. Jenny has a car, but it scares me to death. It's 20 years old. The back windows are taped shut, it stutters on the highway, the air conditioning doesn't work (bad, when three of four windows don't roll down), and the last mechanic told her it's just a matter of time before it just dies. Shasta's truck died, and he uses Jenny's car to get to work and school- that's three people, one car, three jobs, plus full time school, and the occasional social outing. Somebody gave the Equuschick a station wagon (yes, gave), except it's in the shop right now, too, and they don't have the money to fix it. I have a 12 passenger van- the kind that I could drive to the airport and people would head out to the curb and start climbing in, thinking I was a shuttle. It's also the kind that gets 12 miles to the gallon on a good day. My husband drives a truck his boss' company owns. And I really don't understand why I should care that Peter Schiff drives something much nicer than any of us do, not even if it's a hundred times nicer. I don't care that Jay Leno probably owns a limo for every day of the month. Why should I care? It's not my money. He worked for it (unlike most politicians).

We live in a very, very nice house. It's huge. We have a pretty piece of property. Before that, we lived in 1200 square feet with one bathroom and not much heat. Before that we lived in a modular. Before that we lived in a rental in a really rough neighborhood. Before that we owned a pretty farm house on a pretty piece of property if you like thistles. I cannot honestly say with complete honesty that I have learned to be content no matter what, but I can say I don't understand how on earth it injures me that some people owned five houses, most of which were empty because they were jet-setting, when my family of four was sharing a two bedroom, one bathroom rental with another family of four.

Anyway, some poor silly woman says that he makes the OWS look really bad, although she can't explain why, and he really doesn't. I think he does a good job showing a wide range of views. Some of them look pretty good, actually, and some of them look pretty much like they've been indoctrinated by Marxist teachers, as they no doubt have been.

If you're able to watch the video all the way through, tell us your favorite comment or comment-maker.

A few news links

Nearly 46 million people are on food stamps - a 74% increase from 2007. The number of discouraged workers - those who've given up looking for a job - is 52% higher today than when Obama took office and 41% higher than when the recession ended way back in June 2009. The unemployment rate among blacks has topped 15% for 24 months - and now stands at 15.9%.
.
...Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack argued that the explosion in food stamps will stimulate growth. "Every dollar of (food stamps) benefits generates $1.84 in the economy," he said.

So Sally and Joe live next door.  I confiscate Sally's grocery money, a tax, to stimulate their family economy.  I give the money I taxed to Joe to spend how he likes, and then claim that I have benefited the economy.

Previously:

White House press secretary Jay Carney argued that extending unemployment insurance is a job creator because "everyplace that that money is spent has added business."

These people seriously do not grasp the most basic economic truths. It's frightening that people with this level of ignorance are in control.  Where did that money for unemployment insurance come from?  It came from businesses, business owners and share-holders, really, and those of us who pay taxes.  So it's really just a shell game.  Government sneaks in the back door and takes your money, and then gives it to somebody else who may, or may not, spend it with you, and that's creating jobs.  Maybe in the government sector (which is precisely where we do not need them), but in the real world, not so much.  That's creating a climate where those who hire hunker down and put off new hires as long as possible, because the cost of a mistake in hiring is just too high (did you know that a business's unemployment insurance payments are calculated based partially on their firing rate?)

Read more here and here.

While Congress was focused on increasing the debt limit and giving Americans the impression that they were actually working towards reducing our debt (which didn't happen), President Obama and his administration quietly piled on $9.5 billion worth of regulations to job creators...in just one month!

"While Washington and Americans have been focused on the debt ceiling, the Obama administration has continued to roll our more crushing red tape," a spokesperson for Senator John Barrasso (R-WY) said.
The new regulatory costs include 229 new rules and the finalization of an additional 379 rules, the majority of which came from (no surprise) the EPA, the new healthcare takeover law, and the Dodd-Frank financial takeover law.

1/2 a million dollars, 1.72 jobs

Friends of ours who aren't even particularly conservative tell us that their adult son got what he thought was great job in Arizona. He packed up his family and moved there for the job. Three months later he was let go (as were other new hires from the same time frame).  That's when he discovered his job was part of the stimulus package. In order to cash in on that, the University he worked for had hired several people who then were counted as 'jobs created." The U never intended to keep them on, they just wanted some stimulus money.  So they hired them with the intent to let them go shortly after hiring them- the jobs remain counted, however, as 'jobs created,' even though the creation was short lived, and the guy with the college degree who moved his family across country for one of those jobs is now waiting tables.


Rich people who claim that the government should raise their taxes are hypocrites. Nothing is stopping them from writing a check to the government themselves, nothing but their own greed:
Buffett's own actions suggest that he knows all this. He could lead by doing – and simply write a check to the federal government in an amount over and above what he has to pay in taxes. But, in fact, he has done just the opposite. Mr. Buffett has sheltered the bulk of his fortune from the federal death tax by putting it into several foundations that, over time, will give the money away.

In a 2007 CNBC interview he provided the following explanation: “I think that on balance the Gates Foundation, my daughter's foundation, my two sons' foundations will do a better job with lower administrative costs and better selection of beneficiaries than the government.” (Emphasis added.)

Exactly.


The Boeing Case:  Without any warning, the rules have changed. Uncertainty has replaced certainty. Other companies have to start wondering what other rules could soon change. It becomes a reason to hold back on hiring.



New York Times idea of what “a range of Americans who don’t labor in politics or the media” looks like- a dozen people, all but one or two liberal activists, who most certainly do labor in one or the other.

And here we have two professors of Journalism at NYU discussing liberal bias in the media. Yeah, of course it exists, but no, of course we can't admit that publicly because, well, then we wouldn't be able to use the media platform to mold public opinion...

The parents who named their son Adolf Hitler and then complained when a bakery wouldn't decorate their son's birthday cake with his name on it have lost custody of their children.

Abortion clinic workers laugh and joke in front of their charnal house as the victim of one of their botched (but oh, so legal) abortions is transported by ambulance to the hospital. It's the third such victim this year, not to mention all the unborn victims.

Choice and Discontentment

My weekly Frugal Hacks post is up.

The topic is snacks, frugalities, and too many choices.

"The great things of life, life itself," wrote Charlotte Mason, "are not easy of definition. The Will, we are told, is 'the sole practical faculty of man.' But who is to define the Will? We are told again that 'the Will is the man'; and yet most men go through life without a single definite act of willing. Habit, convention, the customs of the world have done so much for us that we get up, dress, breakfast, follow our morning's occupations, our later relaxations, without an act of choice. For this much at any rate we know about the will. Its function is to choose, to decide, and there seems to be no doubt that the greater becomes the effort of decision the weaker grows the general will."

Quite often, the effort of choice itself is exhausting, and according to The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less, actually inclined to bring out fractious discontentment and make us more unsatisfied with our lot than otherwise.

Consider:



Does this really make us happy?

Well, actually, I would argue that it might, being mighty fond of all things cheese.

Click through to Frugal Hacks to read the post.=)

Q and A

Don't miss what the other moms have to say:
Raising Olives,
Life in a Shoe,
Smockity Frocks,

and then there's ME, at the Common Room,


This is that time when we answer questions from our readers, and I have some doozies.

Q.  An intrepid soul asks me for: "your thoughts on spanking, as far as which parent does it, with what, what actions deserve it, what ages, conversation surrounding it, your children's thoughts on it, everything. I feel like I need to know the very basics, because I was spanked too young to remember it, my parents are not Christians anyway, and I've spoken to an older woman at my church about it, but I feel dumb asking about the basics, like does it happen once? or more? Thanks for the help in advance! It's just something I feel like I haven't heard discussed much, though obviously the Bible discusses it, yet the prevailing sentiment seems to be so anti-spanking!" A. Isn't the weather nice?  I love autumn, don't you?  Have you a good recipe for pumpkin pie? Okay, seriously, I am going to encourage you to go ahead and feel dumb.  Ask those older women with children you admire.  Tell them what you just told me. They will appreciate being asked. I do spank, of course.  It's not the only tool in the bag, but certainly a useful one.  But you need to discuss it with somebody who knows you and your children, because definitions are tricky.  When I say don't spank as a last resort but as a first one, I mean don't save spanking until you're so mad about something you don't know what else to do- that's abusive. Instead, make it clear to your child that telling you a lie (for example), automatically results in a spanking.  And when I say spanking I mean one thing, a reader on the internet may picture something altogether different.

Anonymous said...

I have a question for the next Q&A Four Moms post. How did you come up with the blog names for everyone? I 've noticed that on many blogs there'll be a theme to what everyone is called (all peter rabbit characters or LOTR related for example). However, as far as I can tell, there's not really much of an underlying theme in your blog names, so I was just curious how you picked them.Also, do you ever call each other by your blog names in real life? Oh, it varied.  Most of the names come from British boarding school terms.  Pip actually is for Pippin, and then Pipsqueak, and yes, sometimes we call her that in real life.  Jenny is from Jenny-Any-Dots, upon whom a well ordered household appears.  The Cherub is- well, you'd know why, if you knew her.   Q. I would like to know about the extent to which their lives become separate from the rest of the family's.  I'm thinking on the one hand of practical issues such as, do they have their own cars or do they negotiate sharing the family car(s), are they expected to eat regular meals with the rest of the family or do they follow their own schedule, do they contribute from their earnings to the household budget? A. This is such a cool question I'm going to ask the Progeny to follow up later.  Meanwhile,  Jenny has her own car and she and Pip share it for work, which works out well since Jenny works days and Pip works evenings and Saturdays.  The HG had her own car.  Sometimes we do have to negotiate for the family car, though my use generally trumps theirs.Happily, I hardly ever want the car. I just don't go many places so this seldom arises, and when it does either I give them a ride to work or Granny Tea does, or Granny Tea lets them borrow her van. Sometimes I have use their car or rely on them for driving, as when I have to take my van into one town for a doctor appointment while one of the adult children uses Jenny's car and drives my youngest two to their orthodontist appt in another town.  We've never made a rule about what is expected of them regarding the eating of meals, though usually they eat with us. the Progeny do all of the cooking as well, and sometimes if they would rather have pizza than cook the heart I put on the menu, they pool their resources and buy pizza for the family.  Muahahahaha.  We haven't charged rent because they do all the cooking and chores.  We have discussed, however, charging them something for utilities.  Actually, I want to work out some plan whereby ALL the progeny, including the minor children, contribute something toward utilities.  I want it to be based on the utility bill itself- either a small percentage, or perhaps tied to labor- a set amount of weeding and dusting for every ten dollars on the electric bill.  This is more for their benefit than for ours, although it would be nice if the lights didn't get left on so much.  Q. But I'm also thinking of the more general question of how decisions get made among adult children and their parents.  I have seen in my family how as the kids get older, we move from the baby being carried where the adult goes, through the child being asked "Would you like to do X?" to the child asking "Could you help me do Y?" to the teenager saying, "I'd like to do Z, is that OK?" Have you found a point beyond that, where the adult child is not asking permission, but neither is she making arrangements with an equal, as the parents do with each other?  A. I think so.  Before she married the HG was making plans to move to Spain.  She did not ask permission to do that.  She did ask for advice and our blessing, but not permission.  But the thing is, I honestly believe that our relationship is such that if we had said, "We do not want you to do this," she wouldn't have done it.  But then, we would not say that without an excellent reason, a reason so sound and so excellent that I cannot envision the situation where it would come to that. . The adult girls now at home generally consult us about their plans, but mainly for the purpose of making sure we don't have conflicting obligations.  Really, for us it's not about the rules but about the relationships.  We don't have to have that many rules because of the relationships.  If we needed lots of rules to make this work, we'd probably prefer to have them move out sooner, and they would probably choose to move out sooner. Basically, I think this just sort of naturally flowed, organically, if you will.

What's In Your Hand Tot Entertainment, 3

Water colored with food coloring, eye dropper or paint brush, coffee filter. Once this is dry, you can iron it. Then cut the center out of a  paper plate.
Glue filter to it for a sun catcher or 'stained glass' decoration.

For other ideas like this- quick, simple, using stuff you most likely have around the house, be sure to click on the lable 'index card files.'  I've been collecting these ideas on index cards for nearly 30 years (our oldest daughter is 28).

Linked at Works for Me

The IPCC

Donna Laframboise, the journalist who blogs at No Frakking Consensus, has finished her book on the IPCC. It's titled The Delinquent Teenager Who Was Mistaken for the World's Top Climate Expert and you can get it on your kindle for 4.99.  It's not really about global warming or climate change at all.  It's about the IPCC, its claims and its actual practices- practices we pay for coming and going.  We pay for them coming when taxpayers are forced to fund the activities of the IPCC, and we pay for it going when government bodies use the flawed work of the IPCC as the basis for laws and regulations which lower our standard of living, impose a heavy burden of regulation on us, and more, on the basis of poorly sourced claims- and often when there is good evidence that even if those claims were true, the heavy burden of increased regulatory oversight and nonsense such as carbon taxes and trading wouldn't do a think about them anyway.

Judith Curry has a review.

The Polar Bears are doing just fine, thank-you very much. Furthermore:

Scottish scientist Dr. Chad Dick, of the Norwegian Polar Institute in Tromso, after researching the log books of Arctic explorers spanning the past 300 years, believes the outer edge of sea ice may expand and contract over regular periods of 60 to 80 years. According to his research findings, he concluded, "the recent worrying changes in Arctic sea ice are simply the result of standard cyclical movements, and not a harbinger of major climate change."

If 300 years of study revealed 60-80 cycles of climate changes, the arctic climate would have presumably undergone many more cycles of drastic changes over the past thousands of years

Gullible reporters continue to pass on unfiltered and unchecked IPCC talking points to their equally gullible readers, taking IPCC head Pauchuri's spin as unbiased truth, when in fact, the IPCC process is neither transparent, peer reviewed, it is riddled by connections with activist organizations such as the WFF and Greenpeace, and a substantial portion of the documentation is what is known as 'gray literature.'

 There is simply no reason to accept this stuff as unbiased science.  It's really the propaganda pronouncements of a Greenpeace activist who might have a Master's degree in wind energy technology, and who definitely has ties with a solar power lobbyist group.  

The IPCC tarnishes its own reputation in other ways, as well- or rather, it would, if we had an honest press.

I've previously shared the story of how, as a child, I was frustrated and baffled by my younger brother constantly accusing me of cheating when we played cards together (we were very small, the card game was Go-fish).  I could not understand why he was so sure I was cheating when it had never even occurred to me, and then one day when I innocently left my cards on the footstool where we played while I ran off to the bathroom, I returned to find my brother being roundly chewed out by our dad, who had caught him... cheating by peeking at my cards.
For decades leftwing environmentalists have been shrilly accusing those who do not buy their schtick about global warming being caused by human beings of being in the pay of nefarious groups such as Big Oil and the Tobacco industry- with little proof and often in the face of strong evidence to the contrary.
One sees why, when pro warming scientists have been accepting activist funding for decades they assumed other people were, too.  Like my cheating brother.  Only less cute.

Links and Thinks

The AP factchecks Obama's speech and finds it wanting in truth

Interesting article on how some people are responding to the economy by doing what people have done for millenia, and still do in many other countries- moving in with relatives. The comments are also interesting. Some of them are surprisingly positive, and some of them aren't. In fact, well- I wondered if this one was a parody:

...why is the assumption always made that family will provide an answer? ...I'd like to read something about how this country is going to meet the needs of young families, young singles, those of us who are single and middle aged in rental housing, and the elderly (some of whom are our aging parents who are running into affordability issues). Family is not the answer. At least it's not when the member in question has been living in his own household for 30 years or more. ...
I keep on seeing McMansions going up in my area, luxury condos and apartments but no decent affordable housing that someone like me can live in. The income levels are set too low and there isn't enough to go around.

I'm not sure it's the country's responsibility rather than that of family members to and together and support each other. It's a better assumption than government always being the answer (I do realize that not everybody has family, and some people have shockingly dysfunctional families).
And one reason for the lack of affordable housing in many areas is rules that restrict new housing, require larger lots, single family housing, and green spaces. I like green spaces. But supply and demand baby, supply and demand. when you set aside a chunk of city property as required designated green space, then you reduce the amount of land available for housing. When you insist that only single unit homes can be built, you again reduce the amount of land available for housing, and when you say no more than one single unit home per acre, half acre, or, in one area we lived, five acres, then you again reduce the amount of land available per family.

Reid changed the Senate rules by a majority vote (because the Democrats still control the Senate). he did this in order to prevent Republicans from bringing President Obama's jobs bill to the table. Now, contrary to previous practice, the minority party can no longer offer amendments to bills without first getting majority approval. The question on most people's minds now is what happens if the Republicans take over the Senate?


Occupy Wallstreet Behavior the leftist media isn't sharing- breaking the sink in a local restaurant, flooding bathrooms in local eateries, cussing out restaurant owners who, after so many problems, restrict bathroom use to paying customers, a handout instructing the activists that using restaurant bathrooms without paying for anything is perfectly fine, and women dancing topless in a park in a residential neighborhood. Duncan Doughnuts isn't complaining though, but then, the Occupy Wallstreet folks are actually buying stuff from them.

The D. word is being bandied about.

Mark Steyn speaks 'poniards and every word stabs,' and whether you think he's as funny as Beatrice or not pretty much depends on whether or not it's your sacred cown he's skewering:

In the old days, the tribunes of the masses demanded an honest wage for honest work. Today, the tribunes of America’s leisured varsity class demand a world that puts “people before profits.” If the specifics of their “program” are somewhat contradictory, the general vibe is consistent: They wish to enjoy an advanced Western lifestyle without earning an advanced Western living. The pampered, elderly children of a fin de civilisation overdeveloped world, they appear to regard life as an unending vacation whose bill never comes due.

Via HotAir, According to the latest CBO report

CBO: Deficit is on track to be $1.3 trillion
The Congressional Budget Office on Friday said that the federal budget deficit is on track to be $1.3 trillion this year, $14 billion more than the deficit CBO predicted in August.
Despite all the wrangling in the spring between Republicans and Democrats about budget cuts, 2011 saw spending outlays increase by 4.2 percent compared to 2010. This included a 1 percent increase in defense spending and 1 percent increase in Medicaid spending.

More on the Occupy Wall Street folk- Jeff Goldstein notes'
the post-ironic, anti-capitalist, big government “anarchists” actively demanding a centralized tyranny of bureaucrats and a permanent political class who promise to control every aspect of their lives.

700 protesters were arrested in a single weekend.  How many Tea Partiers had to be arrested over the course of an entire year?

$10 at CVS for $5

Savemore deal today: a $10 CVS gift card for $5 If you're a new SaveMore member, you'll get $10 in credit... meaning you can get this deal for free! ~ Usually I read the fine print before posting a deal... today I was distracted by the Striderling and his affinity for measuring cups. :-P You cannot use your new member credit for this deal; you must pay the $5. Still an excellent deal if you're combining with coupons and sales ~ just not free. Sorry for the confusion!

CVS is expensive unless you're using coupons or sales... this would be a fantastic way to make those coupons and sales go even further.

Progress Meaning Mommy's Housekeeping Will Regress (Again)

The Striderling figured out how to get into my pantry this morning.


He's very pleased with himself.

Radical Marriage Talk

Link is fixed- sorry about that.

A few years ago I read an interesting article in Backwoods Home Magazine. The main article was bout fjord horses, but there was also some interesting biographical stuff. The woman in the article had been a homeschooling mother of five, and her husband abandoned the family, leaving them high and dry. Later a friend introduced her to a single man with whom she shared many interests. They chose what was essentially a common law marriage because of her experience with no-fault divorce laws.

Here's the pertinent excerpt from the article:

"In 1997 they became husband and wife, but decided not to ask the state for "the right to marry." "The main issue with the marriage license," she says, "is that I believe marriage is a covenant between a man and a woman, and if they believe in God, it's also with God. The state isn't my father or my God or any other sort of spiritual or relational authority. I was also very disillusioned when my first husband left that the state didn't honor or enforce the contract that they had required in the first place. What was the point of having one at all? It instilled a false sense of security that turned out to be very deceptive. It guarantees nothing and may even corrupt the essence of what marriage should be."

The entire article is here.

Discuss amongst yourselves.=)

Applesauce Musings

I've posted about applesauce before, a product I have purchased maybe five times in 29 years.  A lot of people buy it under the impression that it's a healthy food.  But if you read the labels, most of the time, there's no meaningful nutritional value listed (this varies somewhat by brand, so you do have to read the labels).  Also, you should know that if your apple sauce has ascorbic acid, it's probably derived from corn, which matters to some of us with kids with allergies.


If you just want a dessert with no refined sugars but don't care whether or not there's any nutritional value (and I would be the last person to criticize others for having dessert)- then applesauce is probably a good buy for you. Me, I like my desserts to be desserts, which is, sadly, why I've been dessert-free for the most part for a few months now.  Maybe I should have gone for the applesauce.

When I say I've bought applesauce maybe five times, I should add that a couple of those times what I bought was a case of applesauce, on sale thru my food co-op.  And what I noticed is that certain of the Progeny scarfed it down so quickly that without external limits, we went through a jar a day.  So that's another reason I don't get it. It's neither fiscally nor financially prudent.  OTOH, since Thursday last week I've purchased 3 pounds of pears and about the same in plums, and we already had apples on hand, and they are already gone, and if I buy them, my husband and Progeny can and very often do consume 30 pounds of organic raisins in a month (they can consume 30 pounds of conventional raisins in a month, too). I just have a bunch of fruit lovers here, and they don't much care what form it's in.

So maybe I'll change my buying habits and buy a few jars of applesauce once in a while, when it's on sale, free of corn derivatives and sweeteners, and has some level of vitamin content large enough to show up on the label.

My main goal isn't to destroy the applesauce industry and play Carrie Nation with everybody's applesauce jars.=) It's just that a lot of people do not read the labels, and a lot of applesauce brands really are just empty calories, and I think a lot of young mothers concerned about healthy eating would be surprised by that. I will be perfectly content if the only change anybody makes based on reading this post is to read some labels they hadn't been reading before.

I know I talk big, but really, when it comes to food and nutrition, I'm all about informed choices, less about imposing my own choices.  Especially when, obviously, my own choices are so indecisive.

What's In Your Hand Tot Entertainment, 2

Watch a bug ! At the table, at an anthill, wherever.

News, Views, etc

OWSer insists that life in North Korea is better than life in South Korea. A younger, and more informed young OWSer eventually interjects his explanation for why socialism has nothing to do with what's wrong in North Korea, but the woman insisting life is great there never does get a clue. Video here, language warning, and irritation warning. Everybody talks over everybody else, including the maker of the video.

Oh, the sad and bitter irony.  Theft among their ranks is a huge problem for OWSers:

Who’d have thought that a crowd of people demanding the seizure of wealth from banks, corporations, and the wealthy might also have a few thieves?  I’m shocked,shocked to find theft occurring in a group that has hijacked private property it refuses to leave.  I can’t imagine that a crowd that demands free higher education and the forgiveness of tens of thousands in student debt would also think of someone’s Mac or an iPhone as equally as communal as a college education.

Annnd- the bubble that these kids really ought to be screaming about is higher education- again, not Wall Street's doing, but academia, and also their own parents and counselors who did not tell them to stay out of debt.
Also from that link:

As logorrheic leftist Glenn Greenwald notes, Obama raised more money from donors in the financial industry than any other federal candidate in the period 1989-2010, which surely makes him, at least in nominal terms, the biggest recipient of Wall Street bucks in history.
"Would it not be a bit odd for a protest movement to 'Occupy Wall Street' while simultaneously devoting itself to keeping Wall Street's most lavishly funded politician in power?" Greenwald asks. For once he has a point.

The IPCC, UN, and Obama's White House conspired together to circumvent the Freedom of Information Act and hide from the taxpayers what they've been doing with the taxpayer's money.

Why those who objected to Obama in 2008 can say today, "I told you so."  Not that McCain was any better, but I didn't vote for him, either.

Politi....fact?  Really?  more like Politi-ganda.

The OWSers are being evicted in Portland, and chucking bottles at police in the process. Remember when 700 Tea Partiers were arrested in a single day, and they had to write out a statement for their members explaining that while they didn't support involving police in their movement, if a member was raped and wanted to call the police, they should probably do that within 24 hours? Yeah, me, neither.

This is fascinating, not surprising, and also not necessarily proven cause and effect:

"What we found was that there was a strong relationship between how many soft drinks that these inner-city kids consumed and how violent they were, not only in violence against peers but also violence in dating relationships, against siblings," said David Hemenway, a professor at the Harvard School of Public Health."It was shocking to us when we saw how clear the relationship was," he told AFP in an interview.

Anecdotal report: The more sugary junk our 13 year old son has, the more likely he is to find himself in a boatload of trouble for being rude and just downright grumpy with the rest of us.

Meanwhile, Thailand is dealing with massive flooding, God help them.

Elsewhere:

 Swedish prime minister Fredrik Reinfeldt has proposed that Norway’s oil wealth be used to help the Eurozone solve its debt crisis. The Norwegian government is concerned that any loans it makes to the EU might not be collateralized sufficiently, and would thus be risky.
Meanwhile, Mt. Etna in Sicily is in the midst of a spectacular eruption, throwing lava hundreds of feet into the air. The ash plume trailing from the volcano forced the closure of nearby Catania Airport.

Gates of Vienna, as ever, has a fabulous collection of news from around the world suitable for your young scholar's news notebook and for keeping you informed about what's going on in the world.

Groupon: The Body Shop, Culinary Success, Paperwork, More

It is a Week of Paperwork And Phone Calls and my brain is going in a dozen fragmented directions. The Striderling's adorableness is helping to keep me in good spirits, though. ;) And so are deliberate breaks taken throughout the day. You all get to hear from me during one of those breaks... lucky folks that you are.

+ Groupon deal ending today - $20 for $40 worth from The Body Shop... their stuff is excellent ~ and a bit pricey, so this special might make gifts (bridal, birthday, Christmas) of their product feasible. The voucher is only good in stores, so make sure you've got one near you before purchasing. :)

+ I have just finished making, for the first time evah, GrannyTea's much loved giblet gravy (requiring, amongst other things, the use of a jar and the inclusion of a boiled egg). She makes it with the turkey giblets every Thanksgiving (when the Striderling was in the hospital over TG last year, her gravy was one of the things I requested brought in from home); I did it with chicken giblets from a whole chicken I cooked a few days ago... it's delicious and I feel like such a grown-up for making it All By Myself.

+ My mother-in-law has a large assortment of green tomatoes and apples that she is not planning on using. I was going to do fried green tomatoes and then make apple butter... but now I'm thinking that this Green Tomato and Apple Chutney looks fantastic.

+ Reading God Of All Comfort and loving it. Highly recommended for anyone looking at a book about the comfort and joy of the Christian faith.

Transparent as a wall of glass

Only not in the way you'd think. Obama's Justice Department seeks to amend the Freedom of Information so that it would be legal for the Justice Department to lie to citizens invoking it, and tell them the records they seek don't exist.

Specifically, as I understand it, in cases where the information exists but the department is exempt from supplying it, they want to be able to just tell taxpayers and reporters that it does not exist.

Let's have a moment of respectful silence while we quietly picture to ourselves the resulting exploding media heads had G. W. Bush tried this.

If You're Happy and You Know It-

"Say you love fish!"

No, really. This was the Dread Pirate's contribution to this evening's sing-off with his father as they took turns making up lines to this popular song.

Another Rule Mother Never Told Me I'd Need to Make

Two of my children brought 'don't play with your food to a whole new level, and so we had to invent this rule on the spot a few years ago at dinner:

"Don't use your crawdad carcass from dinner as a finger puppet at the table.

No, we don't want to see you make the eyes wiggle."

What's In Your Hand Tot Entertainment

Look through the button box. You _do_ have a button box, right?  If not, check out bargain tables at thrift shops and yard sales.  We buy some very ugly clothing items with plentiful or unusual buttons that have been marked down to a dime or a quarter.  We snip the buttons off and use the ugly clothes for rags.

Standard of Living

This chart adjusts for the varying costs of living in different countries, and it shows that America's poorest citizens are about as well off as... well:

That is, the typical person in the bottom 5 percent of the American income distribution is still richer than 68 percent of the world’s inhabitants.
Now check out the line for India. India’s poorest ventile corresponds with the 4th poorest percentile worldwide. And its richest? The 68th percentile. Yes, that’s right: America’s poorest are, as a group, about as rich as India’s richest.

I think the chart is probably a little off.  I'm thinking India's richest probably have more discretionary spending than America's poor, although one of our problems is that everybody spends like they have more discretionary spending than they actually do.  But I'd bet our poorest have a standard of living not much rougher than India's upper middle class.

Essentially, we have a lot of politics of envy in this country.

 It's not enough to have food on the table, we feel deprived if we can't go out to eat at least once a week and maybe grab a starbucks once (or more) in a week, while we're putting expensive convenience foods and cokes on the table at home.

It's not enough to have hot and cold running water, we want a designer bathroom with a jacuzzi.

It's not enough to have a car, we want one that is not all scratched, whacked, and dinged on the outside.

It's not enough to have a safety net there to make sure nobody has to go without food in this country (and we do have that safety net), we want a safety net to protect us from our own bad decisions, like taking on too much college debt, taking a mortgage larger than we could afford, and putting too much on the credit card.

Instead of looking at the Wall Street Bailouts as a series of really bad decisions by politicians that should not have happened at all, we look at that with a grudging spirit and want to know where's ours, as though we can fix stupidity by compounding it and rewarding it.

My fifteen year old asked us a question a few weeks ago.  We go to church with somewhere between 80 and a hundred college kids, and she observed a puzzling reality.  "Why," she asked, "Do the college kids always complain about how broke they are, and they can't pay for this or that, and then they go out to eat almost every week?"

I don't know.

"Because they put it on the charge card," said one of her older sisters.

How many of young people with these same habits are blaming Wall Street for their unpaid spending sprees right now?

Picture Books, Totebags, and Vista Prints

I just ordered several totebags (14 by 14) for a little over 3.00 each.

I think they'll be good for toddler grandbabies and preschool godsons to carry just enough books, crayons and paper to keep them out of trouble at church, but not enough stuff that the stuff gets them into trouble, you know?

You can put just about anything you want on them, and you can crop the picture once it's on the bag.  It's not perfect- for instance, I couldn't crop the Hey, Diddle Picture to cut the edges and the page number but leave the poem on the page.  So the spoon has lost his legs.  I figure when it gets in I can paint a frame around it with some fabric paint we have in our thrift shop stashes.

I don't know what it is about the colors in this jumping rope picture, but it makes me feel cheerful.  If you did Easter baskets (we don't) Easter totebags would be fun.  Back in the dark ages when we did do Easter baskets, one year instead of baskets, I bought the girls mixing bowls and whisks, measuring cups, and spoons to go in them.  You could do something like that with a totebag.  Or you could give a personalized totebag to a new bride, filling the bag with coupons, coupon organizers, a nice pair of scissors, and maybe a list of your favorite couponing websites or blogs.

 Pip scanned a few cute illustrations from an old picture book for me.  The three bears illustration on the left, properly cropped, makes an adorable notebook cover, but I decided the notebooks were overpriced.  I thought about printing one out with this text:
"Don't be a Goldlilocks.  Learn to be content."

The book most of these came from is Baby Feet, part of a set called Book Trails.  I knew you'd want to know that.

You can do other things at Vista- cards, stickers, magnets, key chains, address labels, car magnets, yard signs, larger and larger totebags, notebooks, business cards... I don't even know what all else they have.  Speaking of key chains:

The illustration to the right, the one of the Wolf and the Seven Little Kids (I always loved that tale), once cropped, fits nicely on a key chain with this line of text:
"Oh, No! Take a dive! You-know-who is gonna drive!"

Not that I recommend that, necessarily, you understand.  I am just passing that as a bit of trivia.  You might have been wondering if just those words would fit just there with that picture on just such an item as a key chain.  Well, mightn't you?  I'm sure much stranger things have happened.

So anyway- if you're interested and were thinking of getting something personalized- coffee cups, they also have coffee cups- this might be a good time.



If you're interested, you might be able to save up to 80% on custom printed products at Vistaprint.
Think over your holiday and birthday gift list, and if you think Vista might have something you want, take a peek!

Whole Foods Reads

The Healthy Home Economist has very useful information and posts, and is currently running a fitness challenge.
She's also got this post about the Judge in the raw milk case, the one who said that no, people had no right to drink from their own cows or decide what food to eat.  You'll never guess who he works for now.

Cheeseslave has a caramel popcorn recipe using raw honey and butter instead of brown sugar and corn syrup.

I still need to try this pumpkin pie Clafoutis from Nurtured and Nourished., honey sweetened, grain free.

Read up on all things apples at Kitchen Stewardship
Also, last summer she did a series on various sweeteners.  I have kind of a test by which I judge the research skills and objectivity of natural food proponents.  If they talk about the generous supply of minerals in sucanat (trademarked), I know they aren't doing their homework.  Sucanat is a brand name for a product that is only slightly better than processed white sugar.  It does taste better, IMO, but I don't think the nutritional difference is significant enough to justify the price difference.  Katie did her homework.

Nourished Kitchen has a recipe for Four Thieves Vinegar you make yourself.

Thought Provoking Reads on Taxes, Cain's Economic Plan, OWS and More

A critique of the consumption tax

Robert Wenzel's criticism of Cain's 9-9-9 plan.

Karl Denninger on what the Tea Party doesn't get.

The Student Loan bubble:
"The amount of student loans taken out last year crossed the $100 billion mark for the first time and total loans outstanding will exceed $1 trillion for the first time this year. Americans now owe more on student loans than on credit cards, reports the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Students are borrowing twice what they did a decade ago after adjusting for inflation, the College Board reports. Total outstanding debt has doubled in the past five years — a sharp contrast to consumers reducing what's owed on home loans and credit cards."


And just for fun- the OWS protestors are learning some of life's little lessons- lessons they should have learned in Kindergarten:

“This is its own city. Within every city there are people who freeload, who make people’s lives miserable.

Not funny; OWS organizers discourage members of their 'community' from reporting rape to the police.