The Irascible Chef

We couldn’t have done it without you—had a party senior year without your Thriller album…

I grew up with Micheal Jackson on the radio, live on TV, as well as the cartoon version. He helped us get our groove on when we were children, made us cringe when we were too cool to be a public supporter, but came back and turned our world upside down when we were in HS when it became cool again to love his talent.

You couldn’t have a party when I was in HS unless you had a copy of Thriller.

He did change before our eyes many times over the years, but I like to remember him making us smile inside with his music. A fond memory of Michael Jackson while in College was his Jackson Family Tour back in 1984 (I’m pretty sure that was the year.) He toured the world with his family. It seemed like a way for him to give back to them some glory, success, and money that he was lucky enough to have had over the years.

My friend got like 20 tickets on the floor and I’m not ashamed to admit that it is still one of the best concerts I’ve ever been to. We had our hands in the air, singing ABC with Michael Jackson and his family! Our girls were dancing on the tops of the wooden floor chairs as we held on to prevent them from flying off.

When the several hour concert ended we continued the party in the Meadowlands parking lot waiting for the traffic to clear, the drinks to be finished, the girls and guys to finish whatever it is they were doing in those cars, and the vibe that Michael Jackson brought us to settle down…

Thank you Michael! I don’t care what anybody says when you were good you were sooooo good!

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Remembering Michael Jackson By Michelle Malkin

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Michael Jackson suffers massive heart attack, in critical condition; TMZ: Jackson dead Jun 25, 2009 5:25 PM by Allahpundit

Technorati Tags: Jackson family world tour, Meadowlands, Michael Jackson, Obituary

Farrah you meant more to us than could be expressed in words—we grew up with you… Thanks for going out there and being part of our lives…

Farrah Fawcett Dead at 62...

Technorati Tags: Farrah Fawcett, Obituary

Day One food travel journal…

San Jose Airport:

Brought with me 1 pound of prawn cocktail with homemade cocktail sauce, but could not find a Guinness anywhere—so sad!

Did however find a Burger King and something new and special—especially delicious that is—The Angry Burger!

The Angry Whopper!

Burger King released the Angry Whopper in the US, a version of the Whopper topped with spicy crispy onions, jalapeños, pepper jack cheese, bacon, tomatoes, lettuce, mayonnaise, and spicy Angry Sauce. Visit the burger’s official site Angry-Gram to send the subject of your anger a personalized message screamed forth from an animated Angry Whopper.

Okay, not just good—GREAT!

Now, I knew I had the prawn, and that would be more than enough, but the fact I didn’t have the Guinness was unfulfilling, so nothing like fast food to fill that empty feeling…

But, I didn’t need to eat a whole Whopper, so I asked if they could make it on a Whopper Junior, the woman said sorry, but at this point I needed to know how this burger with spicy onion rings and jalepenoes would taste. When she called my order in over the microphone to my delight ordered it on a Whopper Junior! I guess it being very late and my devilish charm (I didn’t even have my crown on yet…) oh and it was also fathers day…

The burger was perfect, the right amount of heat from the jalepeno balanced with the right amount of sweetness from the onion rings and sauce—on a grilled burger with a nice tomato and lettuce—very good!

I did ask for a crown which she gladly gave me and I have yet to give it to my father whom I’m visiting and he is king… I knew I got him a present!

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On the plane…

Yeah, I ate the shrimp too. Had them first (don’t get crazy on me I only ate 4 with a chardonay) had two beers—both Heinekin, but one light and one regular with the Angry Whopper that left me anything but… All on the house of the very sexy male attendents whom where very attentive on Jet Blue. Yeah, had a bag of blue chips, cashews, and two bags of cookies with the last beer. Nooo, didn’t, but should have thown up!

Did have a hard time eating brunch when I landed though…

Technorati Tags: Angry Whopper, food, journal, travel

Durbin cashed out during big stock collapse

WASHINGTON | Asset sales came after meeting with Fed, Treasury chiefs

As U.S. stock markets plummeted last September, the Senate’s No. 2 Democrat, Dick Durbin, sold more than $115,000 worth of stocks and mutual-fund shares and used much of the money to invest in Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc.

“Durbin was doing what a lot of other people were doing, taking a look at their savings” and seeing it “start to tank and trying to preserve some level of wealth by getting out of the market,” said his spokesman, Joe Shoemaker.

…

And the excuse:

Shoemaker said Durbin didn’t capitalize on anything Paulson and Bernanke told congressional leaders at the Sept. 18 meeting.

Whatever information Paulson gave lawmakers wasn’t secret or classified and was disclosed publicly the next day, Shoemaker said.

The Commentary:

And they get away with it everythime! I heard someone say the other day that when you get elected to Congress you should have to put all investments in a blind trust for the durtion of you stay in Congress—to avoid the temptations of greed that seem to be part of the reason people run for office. Don’t let that bit about wanting what’s best for the country crap get in your head.

I don’t care if you’re a Democrat or Republican or Purple—yes, they all do it and WE COULD stand up and prevent it if we all stood up as ONE! The technology of the day makes it easier than ever before!

Technorati Tags: Congress, greed, hypocrisy, News, Politics as usual

Space.

These are the voyages of the Star Ship Enterprise.

Full Disclosure:

I’m a fan of Star Trek, the original series from the late 60’s. I used to watch the reruns on channel 11 WPIX when I got home from long nights of work and the inability to go to sleep from the dinner rush when I got home. I can do the Vulcan peace sign and raise either eyebrow to signal a myriad of different emotions, questions, or expressions. I own the original series on VHS tape that I recorded with and without commercials. I believe the creator of the series, Gene Roddenberry, is a genius for his vision, his predictions of the future, and dealing with ground breaking (at the time to deal with) subject matter: interracial relations, political opinion, space travel and meddling in other cultures and civilizations, etc.

I’m an original Trekkie, not a costumed fanatic, but a fan who knows and cares a lot about the original series. I couldn’t wait for the Next Generation to come out when it was on the horizon and as I affectionately refer to it as The Degeneration, you know how I feel. I couldn’t have been more disappointed by an old man (french no less) Captain Jean Luc Picard, replacing the coolest, baddest, green girl getting—Captain James T. Kirk (William Shatner.

Lets talk about JJ Abrams and his Star Trek. Lets just say JJ has issues with time and space. Okay I already hate his use of time and space in LOST (and when I say “hate,” I mean I hate it so much I can’t wait for each and every episode to come on so I can try to figure SOMETHING out!) Dude—you have issues with the past, present, and the future!

Things I liked: the characters—they did the original cast proud! James T. Kirk scruffy scrapper with balls of titanium, Spock nicely done and he gets a smoken hot Lieutenant Uhura, Scotty by Simon Peg a surprise to me and I liked it, surprise of surprises was Bones—excellent job with dialog, mannerisms, and swagger. I also liked the more-than-just-a-cameo by Leonard Nimoy. Honorable mention goes to Chekov!

Things I didn’t care for: The story line. What’s with fucking with the original story? This was supposed to be the backstory, not the revised story! Not to mention a very much a convoluted revised story. Overall, I enjoyed the movie for it’s concept, characters, and future potential.

Things I look forward to: the future of the new (old) Star Trek movies series with the (new) original crew. I liked the characters so much and potential future of story lines.

I enjoyed the movie and recommend it!

You’ll know it!  Hypocrisy by any other name is still, well, you know. Be prepared to answer your Liberal friends who conveniently won’t acknowledge that this piece of video tape exists and that it happens from their side too.

Obama flashback: Roberts and Alito are super-qualified but I’m voting no anyway

Prepare for the inevitable media finger-wagging towards Republicans who vote no on Sotomayor by refreshing your memory of how The One treated two eminent jurists while a member of the Senate. The clip of his Alito speech is shorter and more ironic — he worries about a judge who’d side with the executive branch in matters like (gasp!) indefinite detention — but the Roberts clip gives you a better feel for just how stupid and dishonest his litmus test is.

Technorati Tags: confirmation hearing, hypocrisy, Obama, Sotomayor

Has the world ended as I know it?

How do we make a bad situation good? How do we solve our oil dependency? How do we put our own people back to work (here in the US)? How do we make national transportation more affordable? How do we make travel more eco-friendly?

I read the opinion piece and I can go along with the premise—so read!

Monday, June 1st, 2009
Goodbye, GM …by Michael Moore

I write this on the morning of the end of the once-mighty General Motors. By high noon, the President of the United States will have made it official: General Motors, as we know it, has been totaled.

As I sit here in GM’s birthplace, Flint, Michigan, I am surrounded by friends and family who are filled with anxiety about what will happen to them and to the town. Forty percent of the homes and businesses in the city have been abandoned. Imagine what it would be like if you lived in a city where almost every other house is empty. What would be your state of mind?

It is with sad irony that the company which invented “planned obsolescence” — the decision to build cars that would fall apart after a few years so that the customer would then have to buy a new one — has now made itself obsolete. It refused to build automobiles that the public wanted, cars that got great gas mileage, were as safe as they could be, and were exceedingly comfortable to drive. Oh — and that wouldn’t start falling apart after two years. GM stubbornly fought environmental and safety regulations. Its executives arrogantly ignored the “inferior” Japanese and German cars, cars which would become the gold standard for automobile buyers. And it was hell-bent on punishing its unionized workforce, lopping off thousands of workers for no good reason other than to “improve” the short-term bottom line of the corporation. Beginning in the 1980s, when GM was posting record profits, it moved countless jobs to Mexico and elsewhere, thus destroying the lives of tens of thousands of hard-working Americans. The glaring stupidity of this policy was that, when they eliminated the income of so many middle class families, who did they think was going to be able to afford to buy their cars? History will record this blunder in the same way it now writes about the French building the Maginot Line or how the Romans cluelessly poisoned their own water system with lethal lead in its pipes.

But you and I and the rest of America now own a car company! I know, I know — who on earth wants to run a car company? Who among us wants $50 billion of our tax dollars thrown down the rat hole of still trying to save GM? Let’s be clear about this: The only way to save GM is to kill GM. Saving our precious industrial infrastructure, though, is another matter and must be a top priority. If we allow the shutting down and tearing down of our auto plants, we will sorely wish we still had them when we realize that those factories could have built the alternative energy systems we now desperately need. And when we realize that the best way to transport ourselves is on light rail and bullet trains and cleaner buses, how will we do this if we’ve allowed our industrial capacity and its skilled workforce to disappear?

1. Just as President Roosevelt did after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the President must tell the nation that we are at war and we must immediately convert our auto factories to factories that build mass transit vehicles and alternative energy devices. Within months in Flint in 1942, GM halted all car production and immediately used the assembly lines to build planes, tanks and machine guns. The conversion took no time at all. Everyone pitched in. The fascists were defeated.

Technorati Tags: Michael Moore, Oil dependency solution, solution to GM

brazen |?br?z?n|
adjective
1 bold and without shame : he went about his illegal business with a brazen assurance | a brazen hussy! See note at bold .
2 chiefly poetic/literary made of brass.
• harsh in sound : the music’s brazen chords.

Just like the attacks on the twin towers years before 9/11. Just like the US Cole bombing. Just like countless embassy attacks. Etcetera and so on…

Here we go again!

Recruiting Center Gunman Targeted U.S. Military

LITTLE ROCK, Ark —  A man with “political and religious motives” killed a soldier just out of basic training and wounded another Monday in a targeted attack on a military recruiting center in Arkansas, police said. The shootings were not believed to be part of a broader scheme.

A police report based on an interview with the suspect says Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad, 23, told police he observed two soldiers in uniform, drove up to the recruiting center in Little Rock and started shooting.

“He saw them standing there and drove up and shot them,” Lt. Terry Hastings told The Associated Press. “That’s what he said.”

Muhammad had converted to Islam at some point in his life and interviews with police show he “probably had political and religious motives for the attack,” Police Chief Stuart Thomas said.

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Other Voices:

Breaking: Soldier murdered in Arkansas; Update: Shooter a Muslim convert, opponent of military; Update: “Studied” in Yemen? by Ed Morrissey

Technorati Tags: Global War on Terror, Terrorism