I'm detecting a pattern here

You think maybe even the Progressive believers are starting to get a little tired of The One bloviating?  Based on some recent rallies for Democrat candidates where President Obama spoke, it would appear so. The Weekly Standard gives a little video from a rally this week in Wisconsin:




The Weekly Standard reported:

As President Obama spoke this evening in Wisconsin, the crowd began to file out. . . . Mike Lowe, a political reporter, also made the observation on Twitter. "Some people --not a lot, but some -- are leaving as the President is speaking," wrote Lowe.

The president isn't campaigning for many candidates because his approval ratings are so low that most embattled Democrats appear to believe his help would be no help at all. Even in Wisconsin, a normally blue state, he had folks heading for the exits when he spoke in support of Mary Burke, the habitual liar who is hoping to unseat Gov. Scot Walker. And it wasn't the first time. Last week, in true-blue Maryland, the same thing happened:

President Barack Obama made a rare appearance on the campaign trail on Sunday with a rally to support the Democratic candidate for governor in Maryland, but early departures of crowd members while he spoke underscored his continuing unpopularity. . . . A steady stream of people walked out of the auditorium while he spoke, however, and a heckler interrupted his remarks.

Man, if the president can't hold an audience at a rally for a Democrat candidate in Maryland, he is pretty damn toxic. Maybe he'll give fewer speeches. We can hope.

Stay classy, Obama administration

There is one democracy in the Middle East. One. So how does the Obama administration treat it? Like this:

As the ongoing crisis in U.S.-relations continues, a report by The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg cites a senior U.S. official as saying that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is “a chickenshit prime minister,” who only cares about his political survival.

 I guess officials in this administration definitely know when they see someone only interested in his own political survival, having served under President Present, so I'll let that one pass for the moment. Even if it's true about Netanyahu, though, it's a serious case of the pot calling the kettle black.

Lest you think this is some rogue Obama official talking out of his ass, Goldberg was able to find a second administration official to call Netanyahu a chickenshit, which I think says a lot about the administration:

This official agreed that Netanyahu is a “chickenshit” on matters related to the comatose peace process, but added that he’s also a “coward” on the issue of Iran’s nuclear threat. The official said the Obama administration no longer believes that Netanyahu would launch a preemptive strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities in order to keep the regime in Tehran from building an atomic arsenal. “It’s too late for him to do anything. Two, three years ago, this was a possibility. But ultimately he couldn’t bring himself to pull the trigger. It was a combination of our pressure and his own unwillingness to do anything dramatic. Now it’s too late.”

Let me get this straight. The Obama administration, which was too chickenshit to do anything to stop Iran's nuclear program, calls the leader of Israel a "chickenshit" because he didn't do what they were too chickenshit to do themselves and in fact were pressuring the Israelis not to do?  So because Netanyahu acceded to the wishes of President Chickenshit, Netanyahu's a chickenshit? I'm confused. Besides, where does President Choom Gang get off calling  a former special forces operative who was wounded in action a chickenshit?

Hat tip for the image to Ed Driscoll via Instapundit. Also, Noah Rothman has a great analysis of the policy implications at Hot Air

I don't actually see this as a problem

Apparently, the U.S. Forest Service at a South Lake Tahoe park are having to issue warnings to get people to stop taking "selfies" with bears.

It's not like they're putting their arms around the bears, but the tourists seem to be maneuvering so that bears are visible in the near background.

That's according to officials with the U.S. Forest Service in charge of maintaining the popular Taylor Creek Visitor Center in South Lake Tahoe.
The creek is the site of a spectacular annual run of kokanee salmon, which also attracts hungry bears.
And lately it's also attracting lots of smart phone-wielding photographers desperate for unique social media profile photos.

I'm totally OK with this. If the bears can pick off a few of these morons, it'll be like pouring chlorine in the gene pool. Just a little Darwinism at work, folks. Nothing to see here. Except idiots like this:

Please, please, please be hungry. Hat tip to Hot Air.

Winter is coming

Not to get all "Game of Thrones" on you, but we did a lot of work on the farm last weekend to get ready for winter. Forecast for this weekend looks like it might freeze Saturday night, so we brought in the last of the peppers:

Pretty good haul. Lots of them were still green, but by no means all:

Made about 12 half-pings of hot sauce with a bunch, still busy drying the rest to grind into hot pepper. Because we are relocating the beds next spring to the north end of my farming partner's property, we had to take everything out, including this, the squash and zuchinni enclosure:

Once the stakes and fencing were down, of course the dogs all had to run around in the formerly forbidden bed:

My partner already yanked the tomato plants, but I took a metric shit ton of tomatoes, turned a bunch into several quarts of jarred tomatoes, got a bunch more ripening on the window sill, and a bunch more green tomatoes that I have to turn into relish or chutney or something.

We pulled a bunch of the bed boxes Saturday, using the front-end loader on the tracker to lift the boxes up, then carry them over to be stacked for drying over the weekend:

Once the beds were lifted, we had to tote them to the storage area. Naturally, Farmer Tom drives the tractor, 'cause it's his, while I walk alongside to keep the box from falling off:

We got a bunch of them stacked on Saturday:

Pulled the rest and stacked them on Sunday:

The oldest bed suffered a catastrophic structural failure when we tried to lift it. Pretty rotten, but we should be able to salvage the liner and lag bolts. I think the wood is toast:

After we quit Saturday, Farmer Tom scraped the bed sites and moved the dirt:

All that dirt went into one big-ass pile of dirt:

Of course, that pile is going to get a whole lot bigger when we move the rest of the dirt -- about half is still out there:

We'll let the bed frames dry out over the winter, and come early spring we'll make repairs as needed, probably build a new box or two, then get them positioned in a location with better all-day sun. Plus, I've convinced Farmer Tom to let me put in a few rows of corn. Should be an exciting spring, which, I suppose, is more than we can say for this post. Well, this isn't a gardening blog except when I say it is, so if you don't like it, refer to the title of the blog.

("He can be so nasty," one Eff You reader said to another one.
"I think he's just upset because no Mongolians have come by," said the other. "He does feature the most modern yurt construction techniques, after all."
"Darn," said the first Eff You reader. "I was hoping he just needed to be saved by the love of a good woman."
"No, I think he's hoping for a hot naked babe," said the second reader.)

The things I do to try and drive traffic.

If you've lost Saturday Night Live . . .

. . . and you're a Democrat, you're in deep shit. The SNL folks aren't very funny very often, and I think maybe most Democrats won't find this amusing, but the truth hurts. I actually don't think it's hilarious, but it is worth noting that the stalwart Progressives at SNL are turning on The One. In case you haven't noticed, so is the lamestream media. But check this out. Couldn't embed the video, but it's worth following the link. Hat tip to Hot Air.

A little game food porn for you

I have to admit, the second half was miserable. Damn Saints. Fortunately, we were well fed. Because it was an 8:30 game, we had our brats, the winner in the game food poll, as dinner when Cpl. Wolves got home. It was good:

Once game time rolled around, I did a little light game food. Stuffed skins, of course:

Also did some onion straws:

Love that horseradish sauce.

Packers are on the bye next weekend, then another 8:30 game at home against the Bears. I'll put up a game food poll once I work out a couple new items to add to the mix.

Must be harvest time

Farmer John, whose name may or may not be John, brought in the corn this weekend, mostly while I was not around. The field next to my house was the first to go:

The field behind the school was next. That bin is full of corn, and I don't know where the harvester was at that point -- down the field, pulling in corn, I imagine:

Of course, the field across from my house also is now in. All of this while I was not looking. Something so easy to spot as harvesting corn, you'd think I would catch it. Nope.

Because they just so damn cute

Those kit-tays remain the world's cutest. Prove me wrong:

Yeah, you know I'm right.

All right, you Mongolians, try this

I said I would try to get some Mongolian visitors by posting state-of-the-art instructions on how to build a yurt, and dammit, that's what I'm going to do. If that article doesn't do it for you, try this:




I don't know what else I can do.

President Shit-For-Brains proves how wrong he is

Barry is famously wrong on all kinds of things. The list is far too extensive to detail here, certainly not with links, but even just recently we can include his assessment of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant ("jayvee"), ebola (highly unlikely to come to the U.S.), and the IRS (not a smidgeon of corruption there). Go back to 2007, and we have the gut-buster that Ryan Lizza reported in The New Yorker that Barry said to Patrick Gaspard when he interviewed for the position of political director for Obama in 2007:

I think that I’m a better speechwriter than my speechwriters. I know more about policies on any particular issue than my policy directors. And I’ll tell you right now that I’m gonna think I’m a better political director than my political director.

So, we get it. Barry knows more than everyone about everything. So why is it that he was so eager to cancel weapons programs that he now is relying upon in the air campaign against ISIL?* I've been sitting on this for a month, but it still bears noting: When the U.S. first started hitting ISIL targets in Syria, a primary weapon was Tomahawk cruise missiles. They are powerful, accurate, and difficult to stop, all of which make their use a natural choice. So of course, Barry wants to cancel that program:

The problem, as we reported back in March, is that the Tomahawk was slated by Obama to be phased out of the Navy's inventory, with no timely replacement ready. Under his budget proposals, the Navy, which as recently as last year had plans to buy 980 more Tomahawks, the primary cruise missile used throughout the fleet, would see purchases drop from 196 last year to just 100 in 2015. The number will then drop to zero in 2016.
Doing the math, we see that Obama has already consumed in one night of strikes 47% of next year's planned purchases. The naval inventory will soon be depleted at this rate unless we crank up the arsenal of democracy and stop beating our swords into solar panels. As Thomas Lifson at the American Thinker calculates, the U.S. supply of roughly 4,000 Tomahawks would be exhausted in about 85 days at that rate of use.

Barry used a lot of Tomahawks against Libya a few years ago, too. For a guy who wants to cancel Tomahawk production, he sure uses the fuck out of them, doesn't he? Maybe he got his Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to eliminate the U.S. stocks of Tomahawk cruise missiles.

Anyway, Tomahawks aren't the only weapon Barry wants to cancel but needed to hit ISIL in Syria:

A Syrian campaign is going to be tougher than the effort in Libya, where there was no sophisticated air defense weaponry to worry about, which is why the Air Force chose to use the F-22 Raptor for the first time in combat. Its ability to evade radar detection plus its high-speed maneuverability make it ideal for high-risk environments.

Yeah, we don't need no stinking Raptors. We'll never fight another country that has aircraft to compete with ours, right? Not like China is building up its military.  Or that Russia is building up its military. All we'll need to worry about in the future is a bunch of goat-herders with no airplanes, right? So let's cancel the best fighter aircraft ever built.

I wouldn't worry about all this, though. We'll probably never need the Tomahawk or the Raptor ever again. Barry knows best, right? Why does anyone ever listen to this guy about anything?

* The media and administration usually call the group ISIS -- the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. ISIS calls itself ISIL. The difference is not inconsequential. The key is the Levant -- the Levant historically includes not only Syria, but a good chunk of Turkey, pretty much all of Lebanon, some of Jordan, some of Egypt and, of course, all of Israel. That is what they are claiming as their caliphate, not just Iraq and Syria. Given how ISIL has been killing pretty much everybody in territory it controls who is not a Sunni Muslim who agrees with them, what do you think the survival odds for Israelis are if these assholes win? Or Christians, or Shiites, or anybody else who isn't a nutbag Islamist?

So where the hell are all the Eff You fans from Mongolia?

I know they know about us -- Mongolia is surrounded by nations that are among the most frequent visitors to Eff You, so Mongolia can't claim ignorance. Surely they've heard the talk on the streets about Eff You's comprehensive coverage of hot naked babes, fine food and the most advanced construction techniques for yurts. Surely this should make Eff You required reading in high society in Ulan Bator, don't you think? So do I. So how about it, Mongolia? Or, since no Mongolians have visited yet, how about some members of Eff You Nation in China or Russia tip off some of your Mongolian friends? I promise to get some yurt-building tips up, pronto.

Get those game food votes in!

Looks like everybody wants me eating brats Sunday night, but the second pick is still very much up in the air. Sliders hold a slim lead, but BBQ is right behind. Might have to take that pork shoulder out of the freezer tonight. Get your votes in while there's still time!

It's OK to cry a little over this

In fact, I worry about you if you don't.  The Herald News, a Canadian newspaper, printed a story about the Canadian Army reservist killed Wednesday by the jihadi gunman who attempted to storm Canada's Parliament building. Fortunately, the jihadi died in the attempt before he could harm anyone else. But the big stir isn't about the newspaper's article about the event:.

Watercooler conversations throughout Nova Scotia seemed to be all about the cartoon and the feelings it evoked about the cold-blooded murder of a 24-year-old reservist in front of Canada’s National War Memorial.
Simply stated, for the few who may not have seen it, the cartoon suggests the coming to life of the bronzed First World War soldiers that sit atop the memorial. One soldier is bent over, supporting Cpl. Nathan Cirillo’s body. Others are reaching down as if to help, while still others stare stoically forward.
His feet, complete with Argyll and Sutherland Highland socks and white spats, are the only part of the young soldier showing.

The cartoon is genuinely touching:

For those who wish to order reprints, the Herald News includes this information:

EDITOR'S NOTE: A portion of all sales of Bruce MacKinnon's cartoon about the shooting in Ottawa will be donated to the family of Cpl. Nathan Cirillo. If you would like to order a reprint, please visit herald.ca/cirillo or call our customer care line at 1-800-565-3339 ext 0.

Order a reprint. I did. Hat tip to Ace.

What's a girl to do?

Really, I just want to attract a little attention. Traffic has been atrocious, I've been boring and sporadic, which is why traffic is atrocious. Not much of interest going on in Temp Town, but too busy to post on stuff outside my immediate circle of activity, which fucking nobody really cares about. What to do? Pictures of hot naked babes? (Seriously, that is a popular search term that finds this blog, even though I have never actually posted pictures of hot naked babes. We'll see what this spurious mention of hot naked babes does for traffic.) Anyway, I sigh. What are people doing for Halloween?

Sorry, another Marines in Beirut post, but you should read this

I'm not even going to excerpt this, just go over to Blackfive and read it for yourself. Semper Fi.

31 years after the Beirut barracks bombing, the Marines are back in Beirut

Thirty-one years ago today, Islamic terrorists set off a truck bomb at the Marine barracks in Beirut, killing 241 American servicemen, mostly Marines. The attack prompted the American withdrawal from Lebanon. Well, the Marines are back:

As of early September, Marine security guards are again manning Post One in Beirut. From their perch in the lobby they screen building visitors and, most importantly, safeguard classified information for the first time since the 1980s.
The post holds profound significance for Marines young and old. The embassy there was bombed in 1983 and again in 1984. But the most vicious attack occurred in October 1983 when a suicide bomber in an explosive-laden truck destroyed the Marine Corps barracks at the Beirut airport killing 220 Marines, 18 sailors and three soldiers. Official investigations would later reveal that the explosion was the largest non-nuclear blast in history up to that point — equivalent to 21,000 pounds of TNT.
It was the single biggest loss of Marines since the Battle of Iwo Jima.

You don't see much media coverage of the bombing anniversary these days, but the Marines remember. How do you forget something like this?

Photo credit is Bill Foley of The Associated Press.

OK, so maybe we're still here for a reason

That swordfish must be the Dracula of sportfish, because he's really hard to kill. We're scheduled for training today for a new "workflow," which just means they have some documents for us to look at for some purpose that has not yet been shared with us. I guess we'll find out soon. Maybe it will ramp up the hours for us. The movie of this clusterfuck will be called "The Project That Wouldn't Die."

Game food poll is up, kids

Time to vote on next Sunday's game food. You can pick more than one item, and you can vote once a day between now and when the poll closes Saturday. Vote early, vote often!

We're still here. I don't know why.

After a flurry of activity last week that had us working late on rush projects, we once again are still here but idle. I don't know how long that can go on. Don't really want it to go much longer, as we're getting close to the time of year where you want to land a project that will take you through the first of the year. The last thing a temp wants is to have a project end right about mid-November. The odds of finding another project starting up during the holidays are not good. You could easily find yourself not working again until January. That would suck. Anyway, the swordfish was last heard from trying to find some medical marijuana in D.C. Maybe the swordfish is really sick, or maybe it just wants to get hammered. You never can tell with swordfish.

With friends like these, who needs enemies?

A hat tip to the Weekly Standard here, via Hot Air, for this lovely little tidbit. Barry apparently believed that appearing on Al Sharpton's radio show carried pretty much zero risk of anyone actually hearing what he said, even if Sharpton replayed the clip on his MSNBC TV show (which Sharpton did, and which seven people saw). There are, however, several Democrat Senate incumbents seeking re-election who really wish Barry would keep his mouth shut:



So maybe Mary Landrieu in Lousisiana, Mark Pryor in Arkansas and Mark Begich in Alaska aren't so thrilled to have Barry say they are only pretending to distance themselves from him because their states hate Barry. Try as they might to run away from The One, he won't let them. Bet they were thrilled to hear him deliver this sound bite custom made for Republican attack ads::

“Well, look, here’s the bottom line,” said Obama, “We’ve got a tough map. A lot of the states that are contested this time are states that I didn’t win. And so some of the candidates there, you know, it is difficult for them to have me in the state because the Republicans will use that to try to fan Republican turn-out. The bottom line is, though, these are all folks who vote with me. They have supported my agenda in Congress. They are on the right side of minimum wage. They are on the right side of fair pay. They are on the right side of rebuilding our infrastructure. They’re on the right side of early childhood education.
“So, this isn’t about my feelings being hurt. These are folks who are strong allies and supporters of me. And I tell them, I said, you know what, you do what you need to win. I will be responsible for making sure that our voters turn up.”

As Mary Katharine Ham put it at Hot Air:

Really, though, what is this about? Perhaps on the same day as his lackluster reception in Maryland (Maryland!), he just couldn’t let stand another suggestion that he didn’t hang the moon? There are plenty of ways for the Smartest President Evah to finesse this answer without giving Republicans the exact soundbite they need in a manner so explicit, they could have written it themselves. He can’t be bothered. Remember, this is the stuff he’s supposed to be good at.

I think that "What was he thinking?" is a fair question. He's letting voters in states where Democrats seeking re-election are understandably trying to pretend they don't ever side with him at all -- because they know their constituents oppose his policies -- that those Democrat incumbents do, indeed, side with him all the time. I think it also is interesting that, despite his oft-stated willingness to compromise and work with the other side -- when he isn't demonizing them -- Barry makes clear that his position is always "the right side." Obviously, his idea of compromise is "you agree with me." Interestingly, the constituents of the Barry-avoiding Dems he's talking about obviously don't agree that Barry is on "the right side." That's why those incumbent Dems are pretending they don't agree with the guy ever. Because their constituents don't.

Unfortunately for them, Barry just made that charade harder for the people he's supposed to be helping. Completely predictable, though, once you realize that Barry is touting his own wonderfulness and actually has no interest in helping anyone other than himself.

Food porn triple play, part III

Naturally, the finale is dessert. Nothing elaborate -- just a little apple pie to cap off a food-porn-filled day. And for me, it wasn't just pictures. I got to fix it, then eat it. I think y'all got the dirty end of that stick. Anyway, straight from The Joy of Cooking (my 30-year-old copy, a gift from my mother, is beat to shit but still good), we have apple pie. Alas, I did not make my own pie crust -- that will be a food porn post for another day. I went commercial on the crust. But enough splitting hairs. We begin with 5-6 cups of sliced apples (oddly enough, roughly 5-6 medium apples, cored and sliced). You also begin with 1/2 cup of sugar, 1/8 tsp salt, 1 tbsp corn starch, 1/4 tsp cinnamon and 1/8 tsp nutmeg:

Slice up your apples, and put them in a big mixing bowl:

Mix your dry ingredients, then pour them over your sliced apples.

Mix them up right until the apple slices are nicely coated. Then layer those slices in your pie crust:

Slap some butter on top:

Cover the pie with another pie crust, and puncture that crust to ventilate:

Preheat the oven to 450, bake your pie for 10 minutes at that setting, then reduce to 350 for another 30-35 minutes, until golden brown.

That's some good eating there, even if Mrs. Wolves gets to the pie with a spoon before I get to it with a camera. Enjoy.

Food porn triple play, part II

Today's food porn is chicken Kiev, which we had for dinner last night after the glorious Packers victory. This is a moderately difficult dish to make, mostly because of the meat-beating. But we'll get to that. First, get some white pepper, salt, tarragon leaves and chives, fresh or dried:

Mix 2 tbsps of tarragon, tbsps of chives, 1/8-tsp of white pepper and salt to taste in a bowl. Mix it up right, people. Then get a stick of butter (which happens to be 8 tbsps) and cut it into 8 equal pieces. The wrapper on the butter stick is marked in tablespoon increments for your convenience. Roll each of those hunks of butter in your seasoning mix:

When they are thoroughly coated, stick those bad boys in the refrigerator. You will want them later.

Next, take four boneless, skinless chicken breasts --at least, that is what my recipe calls for. I used eight thin-sliced boneless breasts in hopes of it being easier. Eh. Anyway, if you start with 4 full-sized breasts, cut them in half across the middle (not lengthwise). Next, get a sheet of plastic wrap and fold it over an under a breast, get your meat mallet and beat the shit out of that meat. This is the tricky part. You want to pound your meat to 1/4 inch thickness without making holes in it. Beat your meat carefully. I used thin-sliced breasts this time (not the first time I've made this dish) in hopes that it would simplify the meat-beating process. Maybe not so much. I think my meat was still too thick, which complicates things later. Anyway, wrap your meat thus and beat it:

Once your meat is beaten to the appropriate thickness -- a quarter inch, people -- take a seasoned butter pat, cut it in half so you can set it out lengthwise, like so, and roll the chicken breast tightly. This is why the breast must be thin -- too thick, and it is tough to roll. If it is properly thin, you can tuck the ends in as you roll to help with your seal. Mine was too thick, but I managed to seal it anyway:

You can secure your rolled-up breasts with toothpicks to assist in sealing the butter in.

Once the chicken is rolled, dust each breast with flour:

You will then brush each breast with beaten egg:

Then roll them in breadcrumbs:

You are going to deep fy those suckers at 360 degrees until done. If you have pounded them to the proper thickness, this should happen quickly. Basically, they float.

Drain the finished product on paper towels:

Then serve with stuff like garlic bread, scalloped potatoes, asparagus and what not:

Bon appetit.

I got all the game food porn you can handle

Of course, we had french dip and dirty diapers, as they were the poll winners. We also had stuffed potato skins, because we always do. Thought about adding a fourth element, possibly even a new game food item, but really didn't have time, mostly because we are doing a triple-play food porn post. I was busy in the kitchen from about 9 am right up until game time at 1 pm. So there's that. I'm a day late on the actual posting, but yesterday was quite a day around here. Anyway, here we are. First, of course, we had stuffed potato skins, because that's how we start at Chez Wolves on NFL Sundays:

We featured this next item last week in a first-time game food porn post, with the step-by-step instructions. The dirty diapers were so good, despite the disgusting name, that they made the menu again this week, thanks to reader votes:

We also had mini-French dip sandwiches, the other game food poll winner:

Pretty good stuff, especially coupled with the serious ass-whipping the Packers laid on the Panthers. I have a buddy at work who is a big Panthers fan. He texted me a little smack talk after each of the first three plays of the game (Packers had the ball). The texts were "BS" after a good Eddie Lacey run, "BS" after another such run, then "Hah!" after an Aaron Rodgers sack. Oddly enough, that was it for the rest of the game. I think he was busy measuring rope and practicing his knot-tying.

I expect to get a game food poll up for this week once I work out what will be on the list for folks to vote on. In the meantime, stay tuned for the other two parts of the food porn triple play.

Triple-play food porn coming up

That's right, today (tonight) we're going to have game food porn, in celebration of trouncing the Carolina Panthers, but we also will have regular food porn and dessert food porn. It's all coming soon, so stay tuned.

Is someone pushing Iran as a tourist destination? Why?

No one with any sense, sure, but Mrs. Wolves sent me an email the other day with several Iran tourism links suggesting that Cpl. Wolves could take Marrying Into Wolves on "the honeymoon of her dreams and beyond" in Iran. Mrs. Wolves was kidding, but what the fuck is wrong with these people?

First we have The Washington Post, with their recent story explaining why "Now is the perfect time for a vacation to Iran (sort of)." The Post writer is commenting on an article in The Atlantic that points out that places with high inflation make good tourist destinations, at least as regards the cost to at U.S. tourist. As The Post notes,

High inflation can allow the budget traveler to live like royalty, provided that he or she has plenty of hard currency from a stabler economy; say, for example, U.S. dollars. But that's only if you don't mind conflict tourism of the economic-warfare sort.

That's right, the only problem with a vacation to Iran that the writer for The Post could find was that it is "conflict tourism of the economic-warfare sort, " saying the trip '[c]ould make for a great vacation, if you've got the stomach for it." Wouldn't want to feel bad for exploiting Third World people by providing them with the valuable, appreciating hard currency they so desperately want.

Alas, the Post guy and the guy from The Atlantic he is citing are not alone in their stupidity. A website I've never heard of has put out an article that goes even further, putting forth the argument for "Why Every American Should Take Their Next Vacation in Iran." Not enough to advocate taking advantage of great exchange rates somewhere, now we should all take our vacation in Iran specifically. And you won't believe the first (and, as near as I can tell, primary) reason we should all take an Iranian vacation:

Let's start with its poetry. Hamid Dabashi, a professor of Iranian studies at Columbia University wrote, "If jazz is the cadence of American culture …Persian poetry is the pulse of Iranian culture, the rhyme and rhythm of its collective memory."
On the streets of Tehran, beggars hold small colored envelopes that contain poems by Hafez — the classic medieval Persian poet — fanned out like a deck of cards.
For a small price, pedestrians select one of the envelopes at random to uncover the poem hidden within, which they consider more revealing than the lines that thread a palm or the dregs of an emptied cup of coffee. The practice is called Fal-e Hafez, or "The Fortune of Hafez," and extends into the household, where families keep ornate hardbound copies of the Divan-e Hafez -- a collection of Hafez’s poetry -- alongside their copies of the Koran.

Excuse me for not being sold. This is seriously your first reason everyone should take their next vacation in Iran instead of Hawaii?

A popular travel website likewise touts trips to Iran, with pictures of nice hotels and tourist destinations in the Islamic Republic of Iran. I'm sure it's all legit and a vacation to Iran would be culturally rewarding, relatively inexpensive because of Iran's inflation and just an all-around blast.

Weird how the U.S. State Department is less encouraging in a warning that tripadvisor.com actually put at the top of its page that touts tourism to Iran:

The Department of State warns U.S. citizens to carefully consider the risks of travel to Iran. Dual national Iranian-American citizens may encounter difficulty in departing Iran. U.S. citizens should stay current with media coverage of local events and carefully consider nonessential travel. ...

Couldn't be too bad, right? I'm sure it isn't, unless you read the May 22, 2014 travel warning from the State Department:

Some elements in Iran remain hostile to the United States. As a result, U.S. citizens may be subject to harassment or arrest while traveling or residing in Iran. Since 2009, Iranian authorities have prevented the departure, in some cases for several months, of a number of Iranian-American citizens, including journalists and academics, who traveled to Iran for personal or professional reasons. Iranian authorities also have unjustly detained or imprisoned U.S. citizens on various charges, including espionage and posing a threat to national security. U.S. citizens of Iranian origin should consider the risk of being targeted by authorities before planning travel to Iran. Iranian authorities deny the U.S. Interests Section in Tehran access to imprisoned dual national Iranian-American citizens because Iranian authorities consider them to be solely Iranian citizens; access to U.S. citizens without dual nationality is often denied as well.
The Iranian government continues to repress some minority religious and ethnic groups, including Christians, Baha'i, Arabs, Kurds, Azeris, and others. Consequently, some areas within the country where these minorities reside, including the Baluchistan border area near Pakistan and Afghanistan, the Kurdish northwest of the country, and areas near the Iraqi border, remain unsafe. Iranian authorities have detained and harassed U.S. citizens of Iranian origin. Former Muslims who have converted to other religions, religious activists, and persons who encourage Muslims to convert are subject to arrest and prosecution.

So what could go wrong?  Ask this guy:

Amir Hekmati, a US citizen accused of espionage and jailed in Iran, has said his televised confession was forced and asserted that he is in fact being held hostage for use in a prisoner exchange and mistreated.
In a letter smuggled out of jail and obtained by the Guardian, the 29-year-old former US marine, who was arrested in Tehran two years ago for his alleged links to the CIA, said his confession aired on Iranian state television was made under duress and was used to implicate him in trial.

He's nowhere near the only one, and you don't have to be Iranian-American to have this kind of stuff happen to you. So why the hell would an American take a vacation to Iran? More important, why would American media outlets be promoting such trips?

Time is running out to vote in the game food poll

So, what will we eat next week when the Carolina Panthers come to Green Bay? A fine question, but not one I have to answer . That's up to the people who participate in the poll. You still have a few hours to get your vote in, so hop to it!

Hell, we don't listen to socialists because even socialists don't listen to socialists

Some socialist group in Seattle is not only not listening to socialists, they aren't even listening to themselves. Apparently, the Freedom Socialist Party either doesn't read its own propaganda, or else its leadership realizes how stupid their propaganda actually is. From Pundit Press:

It’s sometimes said that if some people didn’t have double standards, they’d have no standards at all. That applies to the Freedom Socialist Party.
. . .
The people who want people who flip hamburgers for a living to earn $20 an hour to do that are willing to pay an experienced web developer… $13 an hour.

This isn't really surprising, of course. The minimum wage makes no sense, as it is simply an arbitrarily chosen number. Management has to set the price it pays labor at a point that attracts talent able to do the work but stays within the available resources. Apparently even socialists realize this. But because they are socialists, they want to rule everyone with rules for thee but not for me. To which I reply, of course, fuck thee and thy hypocrisy. I hope the rat bastards can't find a web designer who will work for less than $25 an hour. Hat tip to Instapundit.

Hitler wouldn't have fucked around with ebola

This is a great "Downfall' parody (hattip to Ace). It perfectly skewers the Centers for Disease Control's reaction to ebola in this country. What a misnamed outfit:



Too perfect. From American Digest via Ace.

And the new game food poll is up!

Just a few days to vote on this one, so vote early and often. You can vote once a day for two items, top two choices get fixed for game food on Sunday. The last option, dirty diapers, was introduced at the last game and is the subject of a game food porn post on Sunday. Check it out. Vote! It's your civic duty.

This game food recipe looks like a keeper

This is some serious game food porn here. Got it from allrecipes.com, and this one is fucking excellent. It's a Super Bowl contender, and it's really simple. They're called dirty diapers. All you need is a pound of ground beef, a small onion, a can of refrigerated crescent roll dough, some slices of cheddar cheese, and some slices of dill pickle (if you like -- I didn't use them this time).

Naturally, you will chop up the onion and sautee those bad boys, like so:

When the onions get soft, add the ground beef:

Cook those two together until the beef is done and crumbled, and the onions are nice and soft, almost getting crispy:

Now, get out your crescent rolls and separate the triangles. The recipe calls for cutting the triangles in half. I tried it both ways and found it easier to do with a whole triangle:

Put some ground beef in the middle of a roll:

Add some cheese. I used shredded cheese, as I had no cheddar slices, but you can use whatever you want. I did not put a pickle slice in, although I might next time and you certainly can:

I folded up the corners on the short axis first, then folded the long end over:

And it does look like a diaper when you do that:

Put those bad boys on a baking sheet and bake them for 10-12 minutes at 350. They should look like this:

They are seriously good. You can see that I did some with the crescent roll cut in half and some with the whole roll. The small ones are practically bite-sized, the whole-roll ones take two bites. Both are excellent. Enjoy.