Time on the beach

While I waked along the beach today, a few words of Longfellow came to my mind:

Sit in reverie and watch the changing color of the waves that break upon the idle seashore of the mind

Thought of the day

Of all acts of man, repentance is the most divine. The greatest of all faults is to be conscious of none.

Thomas Carlyle

Next Time You Get Into Your Car..

.. think about what you are doing, or about to do.. the consequence can be tragic..

From Out Of The Mouths..

If ever you want a family secret made public, the one surefire way is to ensure that your kids overhear it. The innocence of youth precludes taking into account 'responsibility' and, in many ways, what kids say can be quite endearing but now and again, it can all go very wrong.

Take the case of the Matriarch and young son seeing off 'Pater'. All has not been well of late, but appearances are there to be kept, so the father gets into his car and backs out of the driveway, the matriarch waves just like everyday and half shouts 'Bye, see you later'. The young son follows up with 'Bye, loser'. No guesses for the source here.

It is a good thing that actions speak louder than words. In the next case, we have a Matriarch and young son who having been visiting grandparents, and are about to be met at the airport by 'Pater'. The final instruction to the young son before disembarking (no pun intended) was this. "Now, remember ... run to Dad first, THEN the dog."

Is it the same family? I am not telling..

The Answer Is Out There..

.. but is it the right answer, the answer we want to hear, or the answer that they want us to believe? The answer could be any combination of the three conditions.

OK. It's quiz time, but before you look at the questions, I would like you to view a video clip. If you live near an airport, or are a frequent flier, you will have seen something similar many times, but still take a look.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tEBNnJSq5KI

I will never cease to be impressed watching stuff like that. Now, you are ready to take the quiz. As with all questions, read them thoroughly, and not just once. Ensure that you understand each question before answering.

http://www.asile.org/citoyens/numero13/pentagone/erreurs_en.htm

So, how did you make out? 5 of 5? If you passed on any, I have some more for you to read and look through.

Some reading for you.. http://www.freedomfiles.org/war/pentagon.htm

.. and another video clip to watch.. http://www.pentagonstrike.co.uk/flash.htm#Main

For more on that day, visit our video bar in the basement, the second of the two.

The events of that day have changed the lives of everybody on the planet. There were events that happened behind the scenes before that day still begging the question "why did they do that?". There were events that happened after the initial strikes that beg the same question. If you come to the conclusion that I did, you are most probably scared too.

If all of the above was staged to get us 'in the mood' to accept the now discredited propaganda that took us to war with Saddam Husseins Iraq, it most surely worked. The worst is that it could work again, and maybe you or somebody you know will be on the next death roll.

Beef Wellington.. fit for a Duke..

An introduction:

Some say it was his favorite meal, and others claim it resembled the boots that he wore. Whatever the case may be, the Duke of Wellington has a grand dish named after him, which became the entertaining extravaganza of the 1960s.

Ingredients:

• a 3 1/2-pound fillet of beef tied with thin sheets of larding fat at room temperature
• 3/4 pound mushrooms, chopped fine
• 2 1/2 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 1/2 pound pâté de foie gras (available at specialty foods shops) at room temperature
• 1 pound puff paste or thawed frozen puff pastry plus additional for garnish if desired
• 1 large egg white beaten to an egg wash made by beating 1 large egg yolk with 1 teaspoon of water
• 1/2 cup Sercial Madeira2 teaspoons arrowroot dissolved in 1 teaspoon cold water
• 1/2 cup beef broth
• 2 tablespoons finely chopped black truffles (available at specialty food shops) if desired
• watercress for garnish if desired

Preparation:

1. Roast the beef in the middle of a preheated 400°F oven for 25 to 30 minutes, or until the thermometer registers 120°F.
2. Let the fillet cool completely and discard the larding fat and the strings.
3. Skim the fat from the pan juices and reserve the pan juices.
4. In a heavy skillet cook the mushrooms in the butter over moderately low heat, stirring, until all the liquid they give off is evaporated and the mixture is dry
5. Season them with salt and pepper, cool completely.
6. Spread the fillet evenly with the pâté de foie gras, covering the top and sides, and spread the mushrooms evenly over the pâté de foie gras.
7. On a floured surface roll 1 pound of the puff paste into a rectangle about 20- by 12- inches, or large enough to enclose the fillet completely, invert the coated fillet carefully under the middle of the dough, and fold up the long sides of the dough to enclose the fillet brushing the edges of the dough with some of the egg white to seal them.
8. Fold ends of the dough over the fillet and seal them with the remaining egg white.
9. Transfer the fillet, seam side down to a jelly-roll pan or shallow roasting pan and brush the dough with some of the egg wash.
10. Roll out the additional dough and cut the shapes with decorative cutters. Arrange the cutouts on the dough decoratively, brush them with the remaining egg wash, and chill the fillet for at least 1 hour and up to 2 hours.
11. Bake the fillet in the middle of a preheated 400°F oven for 30 minutes, reduce the heat to 350°, and bake the fillet for 5 to 10 minutes more, or until the meat thermometer registers 130°F. for medium-rare meat and the pastry is cooked through.
12. Let the fillet stand for 15 minutes.
13. In a saucepan boil the reserved pan juices and the Madeira until the mixture is reduced by one fourth. Add the arrowroot mixture, the broth, the truffles, and salt and pepper to taste.

The recipe is for a party of eight. Bon appetite!

A Maintenance Nightmare..

Next time your power or telephone is not working,

.. spare a thought for the guy who has to fix it..

Thought of the day

When one dreams, it is a dream. When two dream the same, it is the beginning of a reality

A New Look..

What can be nicer than sitting in a park on a warm Sunday afternoon, or a walk in a forest, or watching the sun go down over an azure sea. Well, it's all about to change. As fossil fuel resources run low, and use of them becomes more of a criminal act due to their effect on the world's ecosystem, we have to find new ways to power our world.

Welcome to the new look Central Park and Brazilian Corn Forest. Yes folks, this is how everywhere is going to look. I just hope that yellow is your favorite color. If we can get enough corn planted quickly, our reliance on fossil fuel will be over, and we can worry about converting carbon dioxide to oxygen later. The trees do it now but there will be other ways for sure. Nobody will feel left out either, because there is a nice crop just suited to back yards, window boxes and hanging baskets called rapeseed, and it has the cutest little yellow flowers you ever did see.
For those of you who live near the ocean or desert, your world will not be so yellow, and people in mountainous regions may even get to keep a few trees. Give a big welcome to your new noisy neighbors. If anybody told you that a high pole carrying a generator and three very large variable pitch blades was anything other than noisy, they were having you on, but you have to admit that they do look very high tech.


For the fauna and flora that we have grown to love so much over the centuries, it's a time for a quiet adios. We loved it, but it is just no use to anything anymore. Anyway, all we have to do is subscribe to the History Channel, and we will be able to watch movies of forests and all of the animals in high definition.

So bring on the yellow, whooshing world. We have a gas tank to fill.

The End of Freedom..

If you are not with us, you are against us. Us over here and you over there. Do not worry about the 'like I care' people in the middle. They say to us 'well, you know what the people over there are like'. They probably say it to you too. They can't be trusted.

If you are not with us, you are against us. Yes, we know that you are saying the very same thing, but we count for more than you. Our beliefs are better and more worthy than yours. The 'like I care' people in the middle say anything just to be liked. They can't be trusted.

If you are not with us, you are against us. Our color is more important than your color. The 'like I care' people in the middle are all colors and mixed colors. They can't be trusted.

If you are not with us, you are against us. We have more guns than you have. The 'like I care' people in the middle won't back you up because they don't like guns. They can't be trusted.

If you are not with us, you are against us. We have more people who hate you than you have people who hate us. The 'like I care' people in the middle say that they don't hate anybody, but they hate us and they hate you because you and we try to tell them what to think. They can't be trusted.

If you are not with us, you are against us........

This is what happens to the 'like I care' people in the middle..

Thought of the day

The most beautiful future will always depend on the need for forgetting the past. You will not be able to go from the past in life as long as you will not have overcome the errors of the past and all that hurt you.

We Just Don't Learn, Do We..

Seventy two million people died as a result of World War II. Half of the dead were civilians, killed either directly by being bombed or shot, and indirectly by starvation. Despite history documenting that nobody ever wins, and with each nation attempting to justify 'what happened and why', nations, religions, factions are still propagating war. Up until 1990, the Memorial for Peace in Caen (Normandy, Northern France) had documented a further seventy five events that could be classified as a war, all taking place AFTER WWII.

Recent declassified information amassed by US Intelligence has revealed that a war not unlike what we see now was to be expected.

Some people are not reading their history books. Some people seem to be under the impression that they are above all of their predecessors in history, that somehow they can win where all others have lost. Some people need to re-assess their own abilities before once more millions of people needlessly lose their lives. Many already have.

Are you listening?

The Runner..

A messenger boy was told to relay the following message to HQ by his commanding officer. The message was simple enough.

"Send reinforcements, we are going to advance"

The boy set off into the darkness, eager to do his duty, running almost as fast as the wind. He fell several times along the way, bruising and cutting himself, and finally arrived looking a little the worse for wear. He was offered time to clean up, but he insisted that the message be relayed immediately.

Still somewhat breathless, he was taken to the General. He stood to attention, saluted, and then blurted out the message.

"Send three and fourpence, we are going to a dance"

Sand and Stone..

Two friends were walking through the desert. During some point of the journey, they had an argument; and one friend slapped the other one in the face. The one who got slapped was hurt, but without saying anything, wrote in the sand:

'Today my best friend slapped me in the face.'

They kept on walking, until they found an oasis, where they decided to take a bath.
The one who had been slapped got stuck in the mire and started drowning, but the friend saved him. After he recovered from the near drowning, he wrote on a stone:

'Today my best friend saved my life.'

The friend who had slapped and saved his best friend asked him, "after I hurt you,
you wrote in the sand and now, you write on a stone, why?"

The other friend replied "when someone hurts us we should write it down in sand where winds of forgiveness can erase it away. But, when someone does something good for us, we must engrave it in stone where no wind can ever erase it."

Learn to write your hurts in the sand and to carve your benefits in stone.

They say it takes a minute to find a special person, an hour to appreciate them, a day to love them, but then an entire life to forget them.

Leishmaniasis..

Every day, I get news from an RSS feed. Every day, I see some report about a person or group of people who are needlessly suffering. From the many pictures I could have picked, this one seemed the most poignant. It was taken back in 2002, and shows a seven year old Afghan girl suffering from a disease called Leishmaniasis. It is spread by sand flies, and is a direct result of bad sanitation. Take a good look. This is no freak show picture. This is a seven year old Afghan girl, called Mohboba, sitting against a bullet riddled wall, awaiting treatment at a clinic close by, her face badly disfigured. Even if the disfigurement didn't hurt, can you imagine the psychological damage that she must have?

This could be your little girl, but aren't you glad that your daughter doesn't look like this? Can you see any joy in Mohboba's eyes? Do you think that she has ever had the joy of opening a present, watching a Disney movie, going out on an Easter egg hunt? She doesn't go to sleep at night to the sound of a lullaby sung by her mother. This little girl hears gunfire and bomb blasts. Can you see the wall behind her? She looks this way because some idiots decided that war was more important. She is a casualty of greed and power. She is one of a long line of people who have had to grow up in a war torn hell hole. The people who make the decision to go to war don't live on her street. They make sure of that.

This is what happens when somebody decides that their 'god' is better, more worthy than somebody else's.

By the way, the disease is curable, but much of the disfigurement stays.

What a mess..

The 'surge' in Iraq is looking more like backwash. A town in Kansas was almost entirely wiped out by a tornado. Thirty two people were shot dead on the Virginia Tech campus. A British driver ended up parking a Mercedes SLK in a river, courtesy of directions given by the built in GPS navigation system. Canada was accused of having 'spy' money in circulation, a novelty colorized 'quarter' suspected of having layered nanotechnology affixed to it.

Growing the crop to enable enough Ethanol to replace gasoline will see millions of acres of forest possibly disappear. Global warming will see more than a few animals consigned to extinction, and wholesale changes to the way that millions presently live. Petfood was found to be contaminated to the point where almost all had to be removed from sale, and once again, animal feed used by farmers has come under scrutiny because it too was found to be contaminated, and had most likely found it's way into the human food chain.

France welcomed the newly elected President by rioting in the streets, and a wingless Boeing 737 was left parked on a busy street in Mumbai after the driver lost his way and decided to run off.

Welcome to civilization!!

The Twilight Zone..

The oceans of the world are amazing places, where all kinds of weird forms exist. It is said that all terrestrial life started off in the oceans, some having crawled out a very long time ago, and plant life by virtue of the fact that some got used to being above the surface in air. The color and diversity of sea life is almost beyond comprehension.

We create environments where we can watch and study fish, in bowls, tanks, aquariums and sea-quariums, but we can't see everything in this way because some are too large, and those that aren't require very deep water indeed.

Watching fish can be quite relaxing, as they glide around in three dimensions, and even the not so pretty are fascinating, like Conger eels, Stonefish and the Octopus. The rest we have to see on TV, brought to us by submersibles that can descend way further than any diver with a camera. One has to be prepared though, because some of the real deep sea creatures are just not pretty at all.

Three examples here are the Angler Fish (top left), the ViperFish (middle right), and the Fangtooth (middle left). All three are active predators that either wait for food to fall to their level or rise at night to where live food is more plentiful. You will be pleased to know that they live deeper than 200 metres so don't panic when splashing about where shore meets water, not however applicable to the Stonefish. It doesn't bite, but is armed with highly poisonous spines, and it lurks in the shallows of tropical waters.

For the sea fisherman, rules change a little, and sometimes he may come face to face with a denizon of the deep as in the last picture, where both fisherman and Giant Squid were sharing prey.

Whatever became of Renaissance Man?

This is a town in Tuscany, Italy, and it looks like many other towns in that area. A pretty place, yes? It has a claim to fame that will be more obvious when I tell you the name of the town which is fairly close to Firenze (Florence). This is the town of Vinci. Not far from this place was born (1452) the man we know as Leonardo Da Vinci (Leonardo of Vinci). No, it was not a family name. He is known as Renaissance Man, but he was not the only person with that title. There were one or two others who displayed that same kind of talent across a wide range of subjects, but maybe not to the degree of Leonardo.

He wasn't just multi talented, but regarded as a genius, and not only in his day, but for centuries after. His most famous achievements were in art, he being the procurator of the 'Mona Lisa', and 'The Last Supper', but he was also a skilled engineer among other things. He made drawings of more than a few things, laying down a variety of principles, one being that of the helicopter. Yet this man received little credit for much of his work, albeit mostly unpublished at the time, and left surprisingly little art, despite being one of the all time greats in the same league as Michelangelo.

So what was the 'Renaissance'? Basically, it was a revivalist movement in the period between the 14th and 17th century, primarily in Italy but across Europe generally, dedicated to classical culture, invention, science, and the pursuit of knowledge. Leonardo Da Vinci was a major player almost at the beginning of the period. Notwithstanding the fact that the Renaissance came to something of a stop after the 17th century in favor of going to war for gains that were and still remain in the abstract dimension, is there still such an animal as Renaissance Man?

The 19th century saw the Industrial Revolution take over. This was no renaissance, more a quantum leap in engineering, and it saw the rise of many great men, only this time there was much more a leaning towards specialization in one field. So, did Renaissance Man go the way of the dinosaur, becoming just one more entry in the book of time?

Absolutely NOT!! Renaissance Man is alive and well, and he/she lives in suburbia, relatively unknown, no particular claim to greatness, and he/she can fix the car, the computer, the plumbing, the stove, the hairdryer, the mower and a whole host of other things, and in his/her spare time designs custom mouse traps for the garage, plays stuff on a guitar or keyboard, helps the kids set up all of the Halloween stuff up outside. And unlike Leonardo, he/she also has a full time job, working in an office, foundry, factory, store, park, forest, mine, school, hospital, or Emergency Services.

You can't be much more talented than Renaissance Man/Woman 2000..

Caveat Emptor..

.. or put more simply, 'BUYER, BEWARE'

When you go into a store to buy something, how much do you know about the product you intend to buy? What criteria do you apply to your purchase? Are you looking for the best, or do you think that 'value' is the primary consideration? When faced with a list of features, have you really thought about which are most important to you and which, if any, can be sacrificed?

At the auto dealer showroom, you can look around a vehicle, sit in it, open everything up, go for a test drive. In all probability, you will be looking at the top of the range model on display which has every option and embellishment, and the model you pick may not have the leather seats, GPS mapping, or extra driving lights, but you have a good idea of what you are getting for the outlay. There are some things you simply can't tell by looking, one of them being how you will feel after maybe driving for 500 miles in one session!

You can still get caught out is the point here. If you went into a showroom looking for a Jeep Grand Cherokee, and came out with a Jeep Liberty, I hope you tipped the salesman well because he did a great job on you. When you walked out of the dealer showroom, did you take a look down the side to see how many unsold silver 'great deal' Jeep Libertys were sitting for the last six months in all kinds of weather?

The computer store is also a showroom, but here you will find a range of products for the most part looking very similar in exterior appearance. They will all have the same Operating System installed, and the display on the screen will look the same. Nobody will show you the inside because there is little point really. A circuit board is a circuit board to the uninitiated. So is the 'shouter' card in front of each unit. Most understand what is written on the cards as much as they understand the list of ingredients on the side of a food package. What the hell is all of this crap?

Best talk to a salesperson, eh. They will know. From a management stand point, a great computer salesperson is not judged by what he/she knows about the product. It is all about the ability to talk the potential purchaser into leaving the store with a purchase. Why doesn't it matter that the salesperson knows much? Simply put, there is a 99% chance that the purchaser knows a whole lot less.

I stood in a store one time and heard a salesperson talk a potential purchaser into buying a system that in no way, shape or form would do what the customer wanted, based upon the fact that the customer did not have much to spend and knew less than Jack about computers. He just knew what he wanted the computer to do. The salesperson outright lied about the capability of the machine, and he must have known that he was lying because, if he had been trained or knew anything at all about using computers, he could not have honestly fed the customer with crap.

The salesperson would have gotten commission for the sale, but the customer's woes were only just starting. I have no doubt that there would follow multiple calls to some idiot in a call center, each call generating commission for the operators.

Regardless of what you purchase today, or any day, do your research. Talk to people who really know about stuff, not somebody who is paid just to sell. If you see a 'good deal' or the salesperson keeps trying to steer you to a particular product, ask yourself the following questions.

1. Will the product do what I want and expect it to do for a reasonable period?
2. Is the product about to be replaced by something that I might desire more?
3. Is the store/garage trying to dump a product that is overstocked and has been declared useless by magazine reviews?

Do not rely on the integrity of the salesperson who is most likely under pressure to sell what he is told to sell or face dismissal. Do your homework, and do it well because at the end of the day, it is your responsibility.

Good Luck..

England Expects..

.. that every man will do his duty. This does not appear to apply to the Captain and crew of F99, HMS Cornwall, all of whom seemingly sat and watched 15 members of the ships complement get taken by two small Iranian vessels.

I have to tell you that I am no advocate of war, especially this one being surely the most contrived war ever, but there are limits. We are told that the ship to be searched was 1.7 nautical miles within Iraqi waters. OK, not much of a margin for error, but where was HMS Cornwall? I have yet to see a news item that shows the position of the British Frigate. This ship was built in 1985 for use in the North Atlantic. It is just one ship in a once proud navy that truly did rule the waves. F99 is a commissioned warship of the British Royal Navy, not a cruise ship out for a jaunt in the sunny waters of the Gulf.

If radar can't detect the approach of small vessels, surely the ships watch would have maybe seen something. Radio contact? Helicopter cover? The 15 sailors are now getting bad press for the video shows put on for us all by the Iranians, but the blame for this really lies on board HMS Cornwall.

For the benefit of all, I will remind you of a message hoisted up the mizzen mast of HMS Victory on October 21, 1805, prior to a sea battle where the British Royal Navy, hopelessly outnumbered, managed to rout the combined Naval force of both France and Spain.