I'll be leaving on Monday, March 8th and returning on Saturday, March 20th.  I'll be participating in Project Leogane, which is run by Hands On Disaster Relief.

I'm told that I will be "removing debris".  Hopefully the debris is not human.

Wish me luck, and feel free to click the donate button on the right side to defray some of my costs!

Do you miss him yet?

I just got a lawsuit on my desk filed by a woman who claims she was terminated because of her morbid obesity.  It reminded me of the classic Onion Op-Ed, My Morbidly Obese Wife Said The Most Interesting Thing The Other Day:

It's so important to marry someone you can talk to. Over the course of any relationship, you go through lots of ups and downs. On the good days, you're traveling around and going to dinner parties and everyone's still able to fit through standard doorways, but other days are harder, and you've got to be able to cheer each other up when things get tough and you can no longer share a bed in any real sense of the term. But no matter how bad things get, I can always rely on good old immobile-flesh-mound Kate to make me smile. God, I'm so lucky to have such a fat interesting fat wife.

She really is one of a kind, my Kate. Whenever I see her reading books on treating the various skin disorders that result from chronic obesity or just drowning in her own sweat, I can tell the wheels in her head are spinning. She never stops thinking! Every day, she's thinking and thinking and eating and widening…growing. It's like every part of her is bigger than the next. She's not even a woman anymore, she's just this—this thing I inject insulin into while it consumes stacks of honey-glazed ham like a thresher and says the most adorable things when it isn't wheezing or choking on its own spit and bile.

The insulin and thresher lines are classic.

I think this might be God's way of shutting down a factory that is churning out a bad product.  I'll take anything that shuts that cesspool down for a few days and/or disrupts the daily machinations.

Last night I whipped up a delicious little dinner for me and my lady friend.  I made it almost totally from leftovers.

I sauted a few shitake mushrooms in butter with salt and pepper until soft in my cast iron skillet.  I removed the mushrooms and set them aside.  I took two blocks of cheese that I had leftover from dinner on Sunday.  One was a block of sharp chedder, the other was a creamy and buttery gouda.  I shredded the cheese myself and set it aside.

I added another pad of butter to the pan and placed a torilla in the pan.  I added some of the mushrooms, a few sprigs of thyme, and then sprinkled the shredded cheese to cover the entire torilla.  I let the cheese melt and I folded the quesadilla in half and then browned it on both sides.  Of course, all of these steps were taken while I was drinking a cabernet sauvignon. 

I removed it from the pan and let the cheese set a bit so as not to run, and I ate it.

It was delcious.  I recommend the recipe to anyone who wants a quick treat.

I wonder if watermelon was the desert, or maybe a honey bun and a Tahitian Treat?

These people are really amazing.  I don't necessarily care about the politically correct aspect of it, I care more about the stupidity of the person who made the menu and thought "Yeah, nobody is going to think this menu is riddled with stereotypes at all."

What a bunch of dopes.

That's what Powerline's John Hinderaker calls him:

It's better, from a media standpoint, to be out than in; Olbermann can't rage against Barack Obama the way he did against George Bush. One would hope that it's also better not to be a hysterical oaf, and that Olbermann is finally paying a price for the over-the-top vitriol he spouts nightly on MSNBC.

I think Hinderaker nails it.

It's gonna be chilly in Philly this weekend.  I need to stock up on beer and food so I can entertain myself while staying at home.

This is a great development.

I wonder what Sharia law says about pig lung transplants?  Maybe they will need a Vatican 2 type of conference so they don't let perfectly good suicide bombers die of lung cancer.

The city is on the verge of filing Chapter 9 bankruptcy.  The debt from a trash incinerator could serve to burn up the deficit.

The Tea Party Patriots Coalition of Pennsylvania warned them about this months ago at our rally on the steps of the capitol.

It is always funny when a bunch of angry white people's concerns seem prescient in hindsight.  Maybe our penchant for fiscal responsiblity isn't raced based?  Who woulda thunk?

In Palm Beach, Florida.

I'm still sort of amazed that this stuff doesn't happen more often.

NRO calls the election season with this ad...from CALIFORNIA?

If these are the types of ads we are going to see this election season, we are in for some serious fun.

NRO tells us why people are tuning this creep out.

It is one thing to be liberal, it is a totally different thing to be a rage filled hyperbolic maniac who can't see how others view him.  Olbermann is not watchable, and the general public has begun to understand that.

Can things get any uglier for this guy?  He's a white Chris Brown, whose only discernable talent is his preternatural ability to lie.

In his post, Palin, Emanuel.  Pot, Kettle, Andy Sullivan cites the youthful paragon of credibility, Mr. Levi Johnston, as evidence of Palin's hypocrisy:

Did she really just call for Rahm Emanuel to be fired because he allegedly used the term "fucking retarded" to refer to fellow Democrats in a private meeting? Last summer? Did she really?

I don't like the term myself. I think it is offensive. I think Rahm Emanuel is offensive. But at least he's real. And he has now apologized. And at least he used the term metaphorically.

Palin, in contrast, called her own campaign prop "her retarded baby" in private, according to an eye-witness account from the father of her own grandson who lived in her house for months and knew her intimately. "I was just in shock the first time I heard it," Levi Johnston told CBS. Unlike Sarah Palin, Johnston has not been caught in multiple indisputable lies. I believe him over her. In fact, in any factual dispute, I believe anyone over her.

I suppose we can add Levi Johnston to the list of pop-culture celebrities that Sullivan wants to man-handle.

In terms of ingenuousness, I thought her outrage was meant to score political points, and nothing more.  She certainly succeeded in her goals. 

What I had a problem with is the politically correct outrage that came from Palin.  Conservatives are always beating the drum against liberals for their speech chilling use of political correctness.  

Conservatives lose credibility when they do the same thing to score political points.  As a conservative, I think we should avoid taking stances like this.

Here's more to my point here.

As a political operative, Sarah is doing her job.  I am someone who revels in the school-yard atmosphere of American politics, so I can appreciate this on that level.  Intellectually, I find her stance on this issue distasteful.  Politically, I think it is working out perfectly. 

Anyone care to disagree?

NRO has more.

Das ist gut, meine freunde.

The mayor of Tampa, FL?

At this point Obama's critics are going to have a tough time arguing that his serial bowing is meant to diminish America. 

Seriously, the dude will bow to anyone.  Who's next, the guy at the arugula stand at the organic farmer's market?

I'd love to attend a foodie event like this:

Seattle seafood legend Jon Rowley led a group of 50 head lamp-wearing oyster fans down to the beach on Totten Inlet near Shelton, Wash., last night and said: "Let's eat!" The moonlit, low-tide feast at the oyster beds of Taylor Shellfish is a winter tradition Rowley dreamed up a few years ago. He calls it the "Walrus & Carpenter" picnic, plucked from a Lewis Carroll poem featuring a Walrus and Carpenter who lure oysters for a "lovely walk, a lovely talk upon the briny beach" and then proceed to eat every one. I lost count how many I ate after a slurping more than a dozen Virginicas, Kumamotos, Olympias and Pacifics at four shucking stations.

I'm not even a huge oyster fan, but I'd definitely go to something like this.  The Sav Blanc also helps!

Why is Senator Paul Kirk still voting?

It is hard to tell if he is being sarcastic or not in his latest.

If he isn't being sarcastic, I don't think we were watching the same speech last night.

My one stock holding was SilverCorps Metals (SVM) and it had done very well over the past few months.  At one point, I was up 98%.  In the last two weeks, it started a freefall and lost about 20% in price.  It seemed that every time Obama opened his mouth about the bank tax, the market would take a nosedive, especially in the last week.

I'm not placing all of the blame on Obama because his only real influence is giving investors confidence.  He can't really dictate market machinations. 

He isn't building confidence, he's eroding it.

I sold my shares today.  I still made money on the deal, but I'm going to stay out of the market until I hear rhetoric from the President that makes me want to invest.  Until then, I'll pay my mortgage and keep my profit sharing plan.

This sucks.

But a Dutch court doesn't seem to agree with me:

"The dismissal was too severe a measure," the district court in Leeuwarden, in the north of the Netherlands, said in a written judgment.

"It is just a slice of cheese."

A written warning would have been a more appropriate punishment, said the court, which ordered the fast-food chain to pay the worker the salary for the remaining five months of her contract - a total of 4,265.47 euros (£3,660).

The person was stealing.  It doesn't matter if it is a seed off of a burger bun.  The employer should have the right to take action when an employee is dishonest.  In Britain, they do not.  I think that is a shame.

Additionally, an employee at McDonald's has a "contract"?  What the hell do they need a contract for?  This is probably a function of European socialism or the phony "living wage" or "right to work" meme that is so prevalent in these societies. 

Patterico has some good observations, this being one of them:

What was he doing? I don’t know.

You might look at UPDATE x4 to my initial post about this, and consider the story linked there. Which has to do with Landrieu’s phones being “jammed” over calls coming in regarding her position on health care:

“We were stunned to learn that so many phone calls to Sen. Landrieu have been unanswered and met with continuous busy signals,” Perkins said. “We asked them to call their senators. They could get through to Sen. Vitter, but not Sen. Landrieu.”

“Our lines have been jammed for weeks, and I apologize,” Landrieu said in interview after giving a speech on the Senate floor Tuesday. “But no amount of jamming is going to keep me from supporting a good work for Louisiana and the nation.”

Just sayin’.

In any event, it’s time for people to take a look at what has been presented and what hasn’t with a close, skeptical eye. And then let’s hear O’Keefe’s side of the story. Maybe there is an explanation that makes sense. Maybe.

From The Flip Collective:

Dear Haitians –

First of all, kudos on developing the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. Your commitment to human rights, infrastructure, and birth control should be applauded.

As we prepare to assist you in this difficult time, a polite request: If it’s possible, could you not re-build your island home in the image of its predecessor?

Could you not resort to the creation of flimsy shanty- and shack-towns? And could some of you maybe use a condom once in a while?

Sincerely,

The Rest of the World

I guess I'll use this post to announce my readers that I will be going to Haiti for two weeks to help in the "rebuilding" effort.  Conversely, I somewhat agree with the writer's thesis.  Haiti sucks, and it should not be rebuilt in its former image (corruption, chronic poverty, out of wedlock births, disease, etc.).  They should scrap the entire experiment and start anew.

I'm going to try and get Free To Choose by Milton Frieman translated to French so I can hand it out to everyone I meet in Haiti.  That'll be my donation!

This is hardly surprising.  Arlen Specter should let the little creep Joe Sestak run.  He's dead in the water.