Wednesday, November 30, 2011

NFL Week Thirteen Pick 'Em/Why Do You Fire a Coach?

Last week I went 8-8.  I may have to start picking against the Steelers.  I am now 83-85 and in 10th place. 

Why Fire a Coach?
This week the Jaguars fired Jack Del Rio, which is something I will never understand.  I get firing a coach after the first few games of the season.  But, why fire someone when your team is 3-8?  What good does this do anyone?

It is not like the Jaguars are going to become a playoff contender after this.  Why not have Del Rio finish out the season and then part ways?  What is the worst thing that can happen?  They finish 3-13?  Or they win out and finish 8-8.

I understand firing a baseball manager mid-season.  Unfortunately, it would not make sense to fire a manager at the beginning of September.

I guess I am just a fan of Jack Del Rio, since he is a beast and he tried hard to fight for coaches wearing suits.

Maybe Penn State should talk to Del Rio.  Linebacker U would continue it's tradition with him...

SOA: The Truth About J.T.

The episode was pretty good.  I feel like this has been spread out over too many episodes though.  They could have honestly cut this down a little bit.  Allow me to explain in a bit.  First, what I liked.

The Good
-When Unser is there with Clay, I thought for sure that he was going to kill him somehow.  Maybe smother him, or just put another bullet in him.

-Tig.  He turned his back on Clay and now blames himself for being shot.  His running down LaRoy's girl was pretty badass.  I loved the chase scene and then the joining of Jax and the others.  I just have on question:  when Jax is shooting at them, did no one else call the police and report a biker gang shooting at SUVs?

-Also, Tig at the hospital was pretty cool.  I felt bad for him.  I wonder how much he knows about JT?

-Gemma finally comes clean with what happened to JT.  Needless to say, Jax is not too happy.  Tara makes herself useful and provides Jax with a method to kill Clay.

-I also loved Opie's disbelief in Jax's promise to do something once he knows the whole truth.  Apparently, Opie is a little tired of these promises.

The Bad
-Gemma's overall plan.  What the hell is she doing?  At first she does not want Clay killed, then she does, then she wants Jax to know.  I get that she had to find the letters and remove the elements that blamed her, but she could have went about everything in a simpler way.

-Tara.  Her whole "tell me you love me" thing was pretty damn weird.  I will have no problem if she takes a bullet.  Also, just like Gemma, what is her plan?  Did she hide the letters that implicate Gemma?  I was confused during that whole exchange.

-Jax's reaction after shooting Opie.  He wants Unser to say it was some black guys.  He then gets pissed at Tig for going after LaRoy.  What the hell did he think would happen?

Predictions
-Lincoln Potter is not kidding when he told Juice that he does not want the club.  He will get the Irish and the cartel, but leave SAMCRO out of it.  Maybe he has some connection to the club...

-Jax will take over the club, and with the IRA/Cartel out of the way, I think he will decide to stay and help push the club back towards what his father envisioned.  Either that, or Tara will die at the end of the season and force Jax to want revenge.

-There will be a war with the Niners.  Will that be the big thing for next season?

Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Fantasy Football Week Twelve

Kevin's League
I lost to Team Milksteak 105-71.  Thanks Mike Wallace for not trying to score points.  Also, thanks to Drew Brees for putting up 44 points to almost beat me by himself.  What a dickbag...Anyways, this loss dropped me into sixth place with a 6-6 record.  Luckily, I have also clinched the final playoff spot.  I could move up if I win next week, since everyone is 6-6.  I also have scored the lowest amount of points in the league, which is mainly due to the last few weeks.

My best player this week was Percy Harvin, who scored 16 points.  That is pretty sad when your best player only gets 16.  My quarterback situation is seriously messed up, I may need to pick someone up for Freeman.

Steel City League
My sixth win in a row.  I am still in fourth place though.  I beat DC Yinzer 94.74-78.78.  Way to go me! I really do not have a player that did anything amazing.  Pretty much everyone scored what they were supposed to.

I guess I will post a picture of DeMarco Murray.  He had a good week.  Next week I take on one of the bottom teams, so hopefully I will get that 7th win in a row...

Monday, November 28, 2011

Boardwalk Empire: Wife Murdering 101

Allow me to explain something:  if you owe a Jewish butcher $5000, you should probably just pay him.  Jimmy just learned this the hard way.  Manny shows up at Jimmy's house and grabs Angela.  He is holding her hostage while he waits for Jimmy to come out of the bathroom.  As soon as the door opens, Manny shoots, but it is not Jimmy.  It is Angela's girlfriend.  She begs, but Manny still shoots her.

It will be all out war with Philadelphia, but the real question is this:  what will Nucky do when he finds out?  Will he help Jimmy, or will he just stay out of it and not care.  Maybe this could be the thing that helps reconcile their relationship.  Maybe not.

Other awesome things:

-I love the numerous references you can catch if you pay attention.  Like Sacco and Vanzetti in this episode. 
-It was great how Angela and Jimmy had that great moment before she died.  Maybe things were going to get better between them.  Probably not now.
-I wish I had a desk drawer full of Ty Cobb autographed baseballs. 
-I guess sending in the guys with billy-clubs was probably a dumb move on Eli's part.  Also, he is becoming a bit of psychopath.  Nucky should probably have killed him awhile ago.

Sunday, November 27, 2011

Mass Effect 2 is a white supremacist game

To begin, a disclaimer to avoid misunderstanding. I have no knowledge or opinions of the Mass Effect 2 designers' and developers' actual political views, so I'm not talking about them. What I intend to show is that Mass Effect 2 tells a story that shares many characteristics with the way white supremacist movements see themselves, and co-opts the player into sharing that narrative. Contains spoilers.

Despite being a big fan of the first Mass Effect, I really didn't like its sequel. I found ME2 incredibly disappointing in many ways, and I share many of the views put forward in this article. While the gameplay in itself was a big letdown, what made the game actively distasteful for me was the way it not only trampled all over continuity from ME, but it does this to make you participate in a white supremacist story.

In Mass Effect, the player encounters a rogue Alliance black project called Cerberus, which aims to create super-soldiers. During the course of the game, it becomes obvious that they've gone totally insane, fighting Alliance personnel, including the player character, and perpetrating all kinds of atrocities. They're basically Unit 731, only worse. In fact, if your character has the Sole Survivor background option, it turns out that the people responsible for the death of your former unit, who spent years torturing the only other survivor, are in fact Cerberus. Because the first game is quite immersive, I have to admit that by the end I figured my character had a fairly negative opinion of Cerberus, to say the least.

Having said that, it was a bit of a shock for me when the Cerberus we meet in Mass Effect 2 seems to have nothing to do with Cerberus from the previous game. In the second game, Shepard dies and is resurrected by Cerberus to work for them. The Cerberus operatives you meet enthusiastically explain to you that you've got it all wrong: Cerberus isn't a bad organization at all! They're an independent human supremacist group, bankrolled by a reclusive millionaire, and not some horrible terrorist organization that murdered your entire unit!

What makes the game truly shocking, and totally killed the series for me, was that your character is forced to go along with this. Yes, that's right: my character, who's an Alliance military officer and has seen first hand what Cerberus does, who indeed was mainly known before the events of the first game as the only survivor of a Cerberus atrocity, is now gladly putting on a Cerberus uniform.

It gets worse when you're introduced to your new ship, which is exactly like the old ship. There are even some of your old crew members on board, but they all seem to have entered some strange parallel universe, having renounced their former loyalties, if not even their personalities, and gladly joined a paramilitary human supremacist organization. If this smacks rather strongly of rewriting history in general and Holocaust denial in particular, that's because the game does. What's worse is that this isn't just a couple of characters talking. It's not like this is their version of what Cerberus is; instead, this seems to be the common view of everyone you encounter on Cerberus. Back in Mass Effect, Cerberus and its atrocities were headline news; now it seems collective amnesia has set in, to such an extent that the in-game documentation now gives a whole new view of Cerberus. You're also effectively prevented from seriously questioning it; such topics as the Sole Survivor background being pretty much taboo.

The absolute nadir of the game comes when you encounter a former squadmate from ME, who asks you how you can possibly be working with a disgusting terrorist organization like Cerberus. This isn't even lampshading, it's much worse: your character is being called out on the game's retconning. What are you supposed to say? My answer: because the game forced me to. I can't even begin to imagine what my character would say, because I'd pretty much lost all immersion in the world by then.

The jarring continuity problems are so bad that the most sensible explanation for ME2 would seem to be that your character wakes up in a parallel universe. I've been struggling to find a good analogy to how the rebranding and whitewash of Cerberus felt for me. It's rather like if one were to write a story about an Israeli commando who wakes up from a coma to find that his unit has defected en masse to Hamas, and explain to him that Hamas isn't a terrorist organization at all but a pacifist charity. Or a British left-wing pacifist deciding that maybe the SS isn't so bad after all and joining it when he's told that the Holocaust was really just a lie. And Josef Mengele, who would have fit right in at Cerberus, was a good Samaritan.

**

If it was just that Mass Effect 2 is really bad at continuity, I could just chalk it up to the generally juvenile and subpar quality of the writing, which produces memorable scenes like this one:


The "ass" in "Mass Effect" seen in the picture is one of the new characters, whose only real game functions are to explain away your previous notions of Cerberus and, well, that. Speaking of characters, most of the recurring characters are also more like parodies of themselves, from Tali and Garrus both actively ridiculing the previous game and delivering frankly embarrassing fan service, to the totally ludicrous transformation of Liara that reminds me very strongly of the Mad parody of Steven Soderbergh's Traffic. Liara's reinvention as a gangster and "information broker", and Garrus's new personality as a sort of lame Turian Punisher, are not only ridiculous but again, offensive to the previous game. Remember the whole side plot with Garrus, where you investigate an unsolved case from his C-Sec days? Where you can guide him in either the "paragon" or "renegade" direction? Turns out you needn't have bothered, because he's going to go and become the Turian Punisher either way.

One of the new NPCs you recruit is Jack, a powerful biotic who was the victim of cruel Cerberus experiments and, unsurprisingly, hates them. You get the same old propaganda line from Cerberus and their on-board cheerleader: the great leader didn't know about it and so on. That may be an attempt at narrative ambiguity; either you believe them or you don't. But the problem with that is that you're not allowed to act on it in any way.

By the way, biotics have been completely nerfed, so you don't actually need her for anything. She only has special cutscene powers.

More jarring universe-breaking follows when you meet the ship's AI. That's right; in the first installment of the series, everyone completely freaked out when AIs were even mentioned, and now here they are, happily living on a ship with a built-in AI. The only person who even notices is Tali, and even she can just be talked out of it. Then again, you can talk her into happily co-operating with a Geth, too.

But the problem isn't just poor continuity: what's being done with Cerberus is morally distasteful as well. In Mass Effect, Cerberus was an organization dedicated to human supremacy and the creation of a "super-man" in order to defeat the aliens and conquer the galaxy for man's living space. Sound familiar? It should, because Cerberus seems to be rather directly based on the SS.

So in Mass Effect 2, you're revived by the SS, and two cheerful SS officers explain to you that you've got it all wrong! They have nothing against the Jews or Slavs as such, it's just that they're concerned with maintaining Germany's racial purity and standing in the world community. Of course, some individual SS members or member organizations, even, may have undertaken some suspicious activities in the past, but those have probably been misrepresented and anyway, they can't keep track of everyone. (The really atrocious examples are simply ignored, and you're not allowed to ask.) What matters is that their leader is a great man with a great vision for the future of our race. Surely you'll put on this SS uniform and follow his orders!

**

So right at the start of the game, you're forced to go along with rewriting history in a manner that rather too strongly resembles Holocaust denial. It then starts getting worse. Soon enough, you're initiated into the main plot of the game. Evil aliens are abducting thousands of people, and the Alliance government doesn't care. Therefore, it's up to the heroic racist militia of Cerberus to stop the evil aliens and save humanity. You see? It turns out the racists were the good guys! The government is corrupt, and its entanglement in a sinister one-galaxy government means it doesn't care what happens to ordinary folks. Luckily, the racist militia does care, and by defying the government, they save lives from the alien threat.

This is a narrative that could have been cooked up for a video game by a Midwestern racist militia or a European neo-fascist group. The main character is a brave government agent fighting on the side of good. He's resurrected by a racist group he's previously fought against, but finds out that after his death, the government has stopped caring about the people. Some of his former colleagues are now members of the racist group, and talk about their alienation with the goverment and its cover-ups of their heroic deeds and the coming alien menace. Only the enlightened elite that make up this militia group understand that the government's destructive policies of multiculturalism are leading to the destruction of the human race, but for saying this they're branded as racists. So the main character realizes that the racists are, after all, really the good guys, and the corrupt government is evil. He gladly joins a racial supremacist organization and battles the evil aliens.

In sum, Mass Effect 2 is the most disgustingly racist game I've ever played in my life.

Oh, sure, there are aliens on your team. That's not historically inappropriate; there were all sorts of nationalities in the Waffen-SS, too. The plot of the game still is that the government doesn't care if thousands of people are dying, because it's more interested in covering up alien attacks for some senseless nefarious reason, and people need armed anti-government racists to protect them from foreigners. I'm surprised they don't make you plant a truck bomb at an Alliance office building.

From what I've heard, in ME3 Cerberus will once again be your enemy. I wonder how they're going to pull that off. Retcon the retcon? Unless ME2 is rewritten out of existence (it was all a dream!), the fact will still remain that while the Alliance (federal government) stood by and did nothing, Cerberus (white supremacist militia) saved thousands of people from the aliens. Never mind that this whole notion of the Alliance being so corrupt and evil that they don't care about people any more comes out of nowhere.

I'd like to take this opportunity to suggest some more plot points for Mass Effect 3, in line with the new creative direction taken by ME2:

- the Alliance bans firearms and sends squads of aliens to collect them from human patriots
- main character discovers the "Protocols of the Elders of the Volus", proving the Volus are secretly allies of the Reapers
- the Council races join forces to create a New Galactic Order, a socialist one-galaxy government
- the New Galactic Order brands all humans with a barcode and bans the non-coded from buying and selling
- main character finds out that an ultra-secret cult, the Space Masons, secretly controls the Alliance

There's a lot of mileage to be covered here. The game could be called Mass Effect 3: The Shepard Diaries.

**

Mass Effect 2 was an insultingly bad game. If you were a fan of the first Mass Effect, ME2 went out of its way to slap you in the face. Instead of a dynamic, ambitious CRPG, we get a second-rate Gears of War clone that occasionally masquerades as a racist adventure game. Oh, and don't forget the planet-scanning mini-game, which was almost as much fun as stabbing yourself with a rusty knife.

The game also manages to be disgustingly sexist. As part of your crew, you have a sort of SS yeoman, who, of course, is a cute girl. If you get talking with her, it's possible for your character to develop a kind of romantic sub-plot with her. The consummation? A kiss? A sex scene? No.

You get to use her as a cabin ornament.

It's literally sickening. And, of course, there are no more same-sex romance options, because in the Space SS, that's just wrong.

In this hyper-sexist environment, what was merely poorly executed in the first game becomes actively troubling: every alien race is made up of a single gender. The only exception is the quarians, who seem to come in male and female; in neither of the games do we encounter a single krogan, salarian or turian female. On the wiki, we can have some reasons: the salarian "females are cloistered on their worlds out of tradition and respect". The krogan: "Female krogan rarely leave their home worlds, focusing on breeding in an attempt to keep krogan numbers from declining too quickly. The few remaining fertile females who can carry young to term are treated as prizes of war, to be seized, bartered or fought over." And even though there's no "fluff" justification for never meeting a turian female, we just...don't.

In the first game, the stated reason for never seeing a turian female was, as per the wiki, insufficient time and resources. I can believe that, and I'm certainly not saying that every permutation of alien race and gender needs to be represented in every sci-fi game. Still, for every major alien species we meet, the females are cloistered on their homeworlds or kept as chattel, or are just inexplicably absent. The quarians are the only exception, and when it comes to the more exotic aliens, gender isn't even mentioned but the assumption seems to be that everyone is male. The more unusual alien species are confined to brief walk-on roles, so they're not very relevant. Notable among them are, of course, the volus, a mysterious race of merchant profiteers with prominent noses whose race is denied membership in the galactic council because it's inferior.

And then there are the asari. Even though the asari have only one gender, the in-game Codex describes them as an "all-female" race, surely a mindless statement. The Orion slave girls of Mass Effect, the asari look and act like blue-skinned human women. They're promiscuous bisexuals who, despite looking very human, are inexplicably sexually desired by all of the major races of the Mass Effect universe. The asari can be found throughout the galaxy as strippers and prostitutes, and the game makes sure to bring some loose blue women your way for flirtation and more regularly.

So each major race maps nicely onto a gender. The turians, krogans and salarians are all men, and the asari are all women. The former provide NPC soldiers and scientists, while the asari get by on their biotic powers. As a point of note, while ME1 included a female soldier, in Mass Effect 2 your squad members divide neatly along gender lines. The men are soldiers or scientists, or at best semi-biotics, while the women are biotics, plus a thief added in the downloadable content. In other words, in ME2 women need special powers to be useful team members, while men can just pack a gun and come along.

Yes, it's a man's life in the Mass Effect galaxy.



So, if you've always wanted to be a space nazi, heroically rescuing the overwhelmingly white and heterosexual human race from evil space foreigners, this is the game for you. It made me want to vomit.

The Artist's Masterpiece

The Verdict
GO SEE!

REVIEW:

If there's a movie that is deserving of an Oscar in every category (from Best Picture to Costume Design) come 2012, it is Michel Hazanavicius' silent masterpiece The Artist.
The Artist is beautifully rare- not only because it's a silent, intertitle filled black and white film amidst the film age of sound, color and special effects- but because of the innocence of the romance within- which I haven't seen in a movie since 1997's Titanic- and because of the magnificent acting of French stars the equally excellent Jean Dujardin (as Geroge Valentin) and lovable Berenice Bejo (as Peppy Miller)- that puts most acclaimed actors and actresses to shame.
To watch The Artist is like taking an amazing journey back into the glamour of old Hollywood and actually being there. The artist is simply delightful from start to end guaranteed to keep a silly smile on your face after the movie is over. It has love, heartbreak, comedy, action and even dance (a la Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers).
Durjardin (who looks very Clark Gable-ish) stars as a 1920's self-absorbed, charming Charlie Chaplin-esque silent movie star George Valentin whose fame number is up when talkies (movies with spoken dialogue) start making a splash. He meets by a happy accident at an autograph signing, Bejo's Peppy Miller, an adorable charismatic Betty Boop-ish extra who rises quickly to become a sought after lovable star and eventually becomes a bigger star than him. The two have such a wonderful, natural chemistry together. To watch them fall in love with each other without any words is so lovely. Penelope Ann Miller (Carlito's Way) is great as his wife turned ex-wife, who constantly glares at him and doodles mustaches and black eyes all over George's pictures in their home. Surprisingly cast John Goodman (t.v. show Roseanne) is good as a cutthroat big movie head.
It is a treat just seeing all the actors and actresses act with just facial expressions and body language and because they all are so great at it- knowing exactly what they are trying to convey. 
The wonderful, sweeping score (composed by Ludovic Bource) is another treat, setting the tone of scenes and often "speaking" for a character.
The ending may just be the most delightful part of the entire film- *SPOILER* when it turns wonderfully into a talkie.*
It truly is fitting that a French director had the guts to make a silent film today, after all- the founding fathers of film are the French Lumiere Brothers. 
I don't foresee a reemergence of silent films (although how cool and wonderful would that be?) but I do expect The Artist to become a film classic.
Every film lover needs to see this masterpiece of an ode to past cinema.
Let The Artist's George and Peppy, the silence, the music, the black and white- amaze, charm and delight you!




Trailer:



*Fun Film Facts*

~The original title of the film was, Beauty Spot (in reference to the beauty spot George draws on Peppy to make her stand out from the other actresses).
~Recreations of 1920's film cameras were made and used in certain of the film's frames.






***

Stoner Cooking

McDonald's McRib Sandwich Recipe http://www.topsecretrecipes.com/McDonalds-McRib-Sandwich-Recipe.html
Todd Wilbur

Calories: 307
Cook Time: 20 minutes

Have you been fondly missing the guilty pleasure that is the famous boneless pork creation offered only for a limited time at your local McDonald's? If you've got a food processor you'll never have to go without the unmistakably unique taste and texture of the sauced-up sparerib sandwich that's dressed with pickles and onions and served on a soft, warm sandwich roll. The food processor is essential for grinding up the meat that's been cut away from the bones of a large rack of uncooked pork spareribs. The pork in McDonald's sandwich is combined with salt, a little dextrose sugar, plus water and a few preservatives, and then it is pressed into the shape of a small rack of ribs. Your version wont have the same fake bones stamped into the patty, but after shaping the meat and freezing it, you will be able to make cloned McRibs any time you want in your own kitchen in less than 10 minutes. If you follow these steps exactly, you will be shocked at how similar your home version tastes to the real McRib McCoy. I'm a huge McRib fan, and I was blown away by this one.

16 ounces uncooked pork spareribs meat (cut off the bones from 1 rack)
3 tablespoons water
1 teaspoon granulated sugar
3/4 teaspoon salt
4 6-inch center split white sandwich rolls (Sara Lee makes the perfect size)
1 cup Hunt's Original Barbecue Sauce
8 dill pickle slices
1/2 cup sliced yellow onion

1. Combine pork, water, sugar, and salt in a food processor and puree on high speed for 30 to 60 seconds or until completely smooth.

2. Divide pureed pork into 4 equal portions that weigh 4 ounces each. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or nonstick foil. Using your fingers that have been moistened with water form each portion of pork on the lined baking sheet into rectangles that measure 6 1/2 inches by 3 inches. Gently press another sheet of parchment paper or nonstick foil onto the top of the pork patties and then pop the whole pan into the freezer for a couple hours, or until the pork is frozen solid.

3. When you are ready to make your sandwiches preheat a large skillet or griddle over medium heat. Slice the sandwich rolls to separate the top and bottom half, then brown the faces of the top and bottom roll halves (crown and heel).

4. When the rolls are browned, use the same pan to cook the pork. Cook the pork on one side for 3 to 4 minutes or until browned in spots, then flip each pork patty over and cook for another 3 minutes. Remove all the pork patties to a platter to cool just a bit. The barbecue sauce will stick better if the pork cools down for a minute or two.

5. As pork cools pour 1 cup of barbecue sauce into a large shallow bowl. When the pork has cooled some, use tongs to dip each patty into the barbecue sauce until the pork is completely covered with sauce. Place the pork onto the heel of a sandwich roll, then arrange two pickle slices on the pork. Drop about 2 tablespoons of chopped onion on the pork, and then top off each sandwich with the crown.

6. Just before serving, zap each sandwich for 15 seconds in your microwave on the highest setting. This will warm the bread as if it had been wrapped in paper like the original.

Serves 4.

Tidbits

If you want a smokier flavor, add 1/4 teaspoon hickory liquid smoke to the food processor when you puree the meat.

*

Prepare healthier meals with these MSG-free seasoning recipes
http://www.naturalnews.com/034161_seasoning_MSG.html
Christy Pooschke
Wednesday, November 16, 2011

Switching to a natural foods diet sometimes means saying goodbye to some of your favorite recipes because they call for store-bought ingredients (e.g., bouillon) that are full of hidden MSG and other health-depleting additives. However, if you are dedicated enough and willing to experiment a little, it is often possible to find homemade equivalents for such items that will serve your purpose just fine. For example, following are homemade versions of 4 widely-used seasoning mixes, all of which can be prepared ahead of time for added convenience.

TACO SEASONING

Commercially-available taco seasoning mixes generally contain lists of ingredients like the following: "wheat flour, salt, dried garlic, maltodextrin, chili peppers, spice, dried onions, monosodium glutamate (MSG), paprika, sugar, silicon dioxide, soybean oil and malic acid."

It is simple to make your own homemade, additive-free taco seasoning using nothing more than dry seasonings and salt. This recipe is so delicious that you won't even miss the MSG! Combine the following dry spices and store the mix in a sealed container. This amount is equivalent to 1 packet of store-bought taco seasoning, and it can be used accordingly in your regular recipes.

2 tsp chili powder (see recipe below)
1 1/2 tsp paprika
1 1/2 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp onion granules
3 1/4 tsp garlic granules
1/2 tsp sea salt (optional)

CHILI POWDER

You may assume that chili powder is just ground up dried chili peppers, but often this is not the case. Check the ingredients list on the chili powder jar in your cupboard, and you may be in for quite a shock! Many varieties contain MSG, anti-caking agents, and other flavor enhancers and additives. The good news is that it is quick and easy to make your own. Combine the following dry spices, and store the mix in a sealed container.

6 TBSP paprika
2 TBSP turmeric
1 TBSP dried red pepper flakes
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp dried oregano
1/2 tsp ground cayenne
1/2 tsp garlic granules
1/2 tsp sea salt
1/4 tsp ground cloves


DRY ONION SOUP MIX

Dry onion soup mix adds great flavor to recipes like meatloaf and roasts. Unfortunately, commercial varieties contain MSG and other additives. Mix together the following dry spices. Use the mix immediately or store it in an air-tight container for later use. This recipe is equivalent to one packet of store-bought onion soup mix and can be substituted in all of your favorite recipes!

3 TBSP dry onion flakes
4 tsp onion granules
1/2 tsp celery salt
1 1/2 tsp sea salt
1/4 tsp black pepper
1/2 tsp garlic granules

BEEF BOUILLON CUBES

Many cooks rely on bouillon to add a "kick" of flavor to gravies, soups, roasts and other recipes. Unfortunately, most of this "kick" in commercial varieties comes from the MSG they contain! This recipe requires a bit more effort than the seasoning mixes above, but it will last a long time because it yields about 42 cubes!

Combine the following ingredients in a saucepan without any liquid. Cover and cook over the lowest heat setting for 2 hours. Transfer the mixture to a blender and process until smooth. Pour into ice cube trays and freeze. When frozen solid, transfer cubes to freezer bags or air-tight containers, and store them in the freezer for future use. Dilute these cubes at a rate of one cube per half cup of water.

3 cups freshly minced celery, tightly packed
3 cups freshly minced carrots, tightly packed
2 cups freshly minced onions, tightly packed (about 2 medium onions)
2 TBSP sea salt
1/2 pound ground beef (grass-fed is best)

Sources:

Anglesey, D. Battling the MSG Myth: A Survival Guide and Cookbook. Kennewick: Front Porch Productions, 1997.

Blaylock, R.L. Excitotoxins: The Taste that Kills. Santa Fe: Health Press, 1997

About the author

Christy Pooschke is a writer and consumer advocate who is passionate about helping people reduce their reliance on processed food. She specializes in teaching consumers how to shop for and prepare additive-free, natural foods. Check out her educational blog, natural foods cookbook, additive-free grocery guide and personalized services at http://www.grocerygeek.com/.

Her passion for eating REAL food was sparked in 2007 when she eliminated her Fibromyalgia symptoms through diet and lifestyle changes. Until this point, she was ingesting a Standard American Diet of boxed dinners, soda pop, candy and fast food.

Since regaining her health with an additive-free diet, Christy has been on a mission to educate others about the dangers lurking in their cabinets and to help them achieve maximum health by reducing their reliance on processed foods.

In her free time, Christy operates Completely Nourished, Inc., a non-profit organization she founded to educate folks about natural foods, natural health and natural living. Check out the resources, recipes and online community available at http://www.completelynourished.org/. It's free!

*

Asian Pork Kebabs
http://www3.samsclub.com/meals/recipes/asian-pork-kebabs-recipe

Preparation time: 25 Minutes
Servings: 8

These pork kebabs are best when you have time to marinate them overnight, so plan accordingly. Serve with jasmine rice and sautéed spinach or snow peas.

Any firm fruit, like peaches, nectarines or apricots can be used in place of the pineapple.

Dipping Sauce

•2 tsp. minced garlic
•2 fresh Thai or jalapeño chilies, chopped; or 1 teaspoon red chili flakes
•2 Tbsp. teriyaki sauce or soy sauce
•2 Tbsp. lemon juice or rice wine vinegar
•2 Tbsp. honey
•2 Tbsp. sesame oil or toasted sesame seeds
•1/2 cup crunchy peanut butter
•1/2 tsp. each black pepper and salt
•2 lbs. whole boneless pork loin, cut into 1-inch cubes (from the narrow end of the loin)
•2 small onions, peeled and cut into eighths
•2 cups canned or fresh pineapple wedges or mango chunks

Marinade (makes about 1 1/2 cups)

•1 cup dry sherry or dry white wine
•1/3 cup soy sauce
•1/4 cup minced fresh ginger

1.Combine marinade ingredients.
2.Add cubed pork loin and toss to coat. Refrigerate overnight.
3.Meanwhile, combine dipping sauce ingredients in a saucepan and gently heat over low for 3 to 4 minutes just to blend. Let cool, then refrigerate.
4.To serve, thread marinated meat onto kebabs as follows: onion, then pork, then pineapple, repeating in this order once more per kebab.
5.Grill or broil about 7 minutes per side, turning once with tongs, until pork is browned and cooked through.
6.Serve with dipping sauce.

*

Steak Sandwich
http://www.esquire.com/features/guy-food/steak-sandwich-recipe-ll-0308

It doesn't take much more than some nice meat on some nice bread to make an out-of-this-world steak sandwich. Cut steakhouse executive chef Lee Hefter gives us his steak recipe.

A sandwich should be thoughtfully laid out, with components that add up to a complete meal, but the most important thing is that the ingredients should be of excellent quality. They should also be easy to come by: It’s a sandwich, after all. That’s why I start with steak. It’s never been easier to buy great beef. For the perfect steak sandwich, don’t be afraid to buy a nice cut of beef. The three basic cuts I use to make a sandwich without requiring the tenderization process of a marinade are rib eye, New York strip (sirloin), and filet, all available from any butcher. To season it, simply salt and pepper the meat, and that’s it. That’s all you have to do to it.

This open-faced sandwich is a bit more elegant than one you pick up; it’s like a great steak salad on toast. Again, other than salt and pepper, there’s no need for seasoning. You get all the zing you need from glazing the sautéed vegetables with a little steak sauce added right to the pan. Everything you want is already in that bottle — the tomatoes, the spices, the vinegar — and in just the right proportions. It’s a fail-safe way to add flavor; you’re going to look like a genius.

Ingredients

•8-oz prime strip or rib-eye steak or filet
•Coarse salt and ground black pepper
•Unsalted butter
•1/2 cup red onion, sliced into half moons
•1/2 cup pickled cherry peppers (hot and sweet), sliced
•1 cup white mushrooms, sliced thin
•2 tbsp steak sauce (like A1)
•Hoagie-style soft roll, ends trimmed, split horizontally
•Garlic mayonnaise (see below)
•4 slices Vermont white cheddar (about 4 oz)
•Arugula, cleaned and dressed with red-wine or light balsamic vinaigrette
•2-inch piece fresh horseradish root, peeled

Instructions

Grill, broil, or pan-sear steak until medium rare, season with coarse salt and ground black pepper, and let rest before thinly slicing. In sauté pan over medium heat, melt 2 tbsp butter until lightly browned, and caramelize onions. Add peppers and mushrooms and cook, flipping frequently, until well mixed, about 3 minutes. Add steak sauce and simmer to glaze, about 2 minutes. Season with salt and pepper.

Lightly butter roll and lightly toast in skillet (buttered sides down). Spread toasted sides with garlic mayo and place on foil-covered sheet pan. Top with cheese and melt open-faced under preheated broiler. Remove and transfer to serving plate. Arrange steak atop broiled bread, overlapping slices slightly, and evenly distribute vegetable mixture, finishing with dressed arugula salad. Using small-hole side of box grater or microplane zester, shred horseradish root (as when working with raw chiles, do not touch your eyes) over sandwich and serve.

How to Make Garlic Mayo

Place peeled garlic clove on clean work surface. Using broad side of a chef’s knife, crush slightly and macerate, using circular motions, until it becomes paste. Add a pinch of kosher salt and mix. Stir paste into mayonnaise, adding ground black pepper and a pinch of finely chopped flat-leaf parsley. Use about 2 garlic cloves to 1/4 cup mayo, more or less according to your taste.

Lee Hefter is the executive chef at Wolfgang Puck’s steakhouse, Cut, in Los Angeles. His favorite sandwich besides this one is the torta de lengua (beef tongue) from his local taco truck in Los Angeles.

Checking the Fact Checkers on Herman Cain and Godfather’s Pizzas

Jay Rasking 10-14-11

Full Article:

http://jayraskin.wordpress.com/2011/10/14/checking-the-fact-checkers-on-herman-cain-and-godfathers-pizzas

An article printed by PolitiFact.com called Did Herman Cain turn around Godfather’s Pizza? did not check the facts. In fact, it found no facts and therefore printed opinions instead:

Pizza is Cain’s biggest selling point. He says his track record running Godfather’s Pizza, a chain that once billed itself as “the cure for the pizza emergency,” shows he has the ability to run the country. The 620-store chain was on the brink of bankruptcy when he arrived in 1986, he says, and he “turned it around with common-sense business principles.”

A PolitiFact examination of Godfather’s, based on interviews with industry analysts and company officials, shows Cain is largely correct. The chain wasn’t literally preparing paperwork for bankruptcy, but it was widely considered troubled. Cain changed that by uniting the franchisees, overhauling the chain’s advertising, and getting his team focused on its core mission: pizza.


Ms. Holan immediately catches Mr. Cain in a lie. “The chain wasn’t literally preparing paperwork for bankruptcy, but it was widely considered troubled.” There is a big difference between a company widely considered troubled and a company near bankruptcy. Almost every large company in the United States at one point or another has been widely considered troubled. It is not unusual for a company that does not meet financial expectations, to be widely considered troubled. Being widely considered troubled does not mean a company is going bankrupt or anywhere near going bankrupt. Here are the facts about Godfather’s Pizza.

The company had been among the fastest growing pizza chains in America and a great success from its start in 1973 until 1984, two years before Pillsbury appointed Cain as a manager. According to the N.Y. Times (May 19, 1985):

IN 1973, William M. Theisen’s Omaha beer parlor, Wild Willy’s, was doing a booming business with the pizza place next door: Through a passageway between the two establishments, bar patrons were able to order pizza to go with their beer – and even Mr. Theisen became hooked on the thick, rich pies. Soon, he and his neighbor joined forces to form Godfather’s Pizza – and when the 27-year-old Mr. Theisen bought out his partner shortly afterward, he was full of big plans for his favorite pizza.

Within 10 years, he turned Godfather’s into the country’s third-largest pizza operation in sales, behind pizza Hut and Domino’s. It became a chain of nearly 900 company-owned and franchised restaurants with more than $300 million in annual revenues, including $121 million from the company-owned outlets alone. Trade journals ranked it No. 1 in sales growth for fast-food chains in 1977, 1978 and 1979. It had one of the highest returns on investment in the fast-food business between 1979 and 1982. In those years, 641 restaurants were added.


On September 27, 1983, Donald M. Smith and Chart House incorporated purchased 800 Godfather Pizza Restaurants for $306 million dollars.

Two years later, Pillsbury Inc. bought the franchise for an undisclosed amount. Herman Cain was put in charge of Godfather on April 1, 1986. Thus Cain took over a company that had been worth $306 million two and a half years before. Two and half years later on Sept 20, 1988, Cain and his management group bought the company for about $30 million...

The real question that the fact checkers did not discover or investigate is how did a company worth $306 million, 30 months before Herman Cain was put in charge, come to be worth $30 million, 29 months after he was put in charge? The question is how did the company lose 90%, some $276 million, in value during this time and how much of this loss occurred while Cain was running the company? Cain naturally apportions all the blame to his predecessors and claims the company was near bankruptcy when he took over. The real question thus becomes how much Godfather’s Pizza was really worth when Cain started running it.

Until 1984, Godfather’s Pizza was one of the most profitable Pizza Chains in America. It was still making profits in 1984, Although, at that point, the new owners of Godfather’s Pizza, Diversified Foods, made some errors and the financial picture becomes complicated.

As noted, Chart House bought 800 Godfathers Pizzas in Oct 1983. Chart House which already owned 375 Burger King units among its 517 hamburger, steak, barbecue, and Mexican restaurants in 30 states became Diversified Foods Inc. after buying Godfather Pizzas.

While Godfathers did expand to 900 restaurants in 1984 and sales grew to $365 million from $340 million in 1983, profits according to Donald M. Smith, new president of Diversified Foods Inc., plummeted from 121.8 million to $18.6 million. This was due to the disastrous introduction of a pan pizza. The Los Angeles Times reported:

The company blames the earnings drop in part on the costs of product development–especially its multimillion-dollar entry into the pan pizza market, which one restaurant analyst called an “overwhelming disaster.”


Despite the setback, things were not looking that bad for Godfather’s Pizza. On September 14, 1984, the Wall Street Journal reported:

Godfather’s currently is rolling out a new deep-dish pizza that is expected to replace the current variety by next month. Management itself admits the old product, which the company hastily introduced earlier this year, was too costly to prepare, inconsistent from store to store and “too doughy, too buttery and too rich.” In tests, Godfather’s says consumers preferred its new, lighter pizza 4-to-1 over Pizza Hut’s deep-dish version, and the pie is far easier to make. Mr. Smith says advertising expenditures to promote the new pizza will rise, as the company tries to woo back customers.

If Diversifoods succeeds in overcoming its difficulties with Godfather’s, the company hopes to go after Pizza Hut and other competitors with a vengeance. To compete over the long term, Godfather’s must increase the number of markets where it has as many or more stores as its competitors, Mr. Smith says.

That potential is very attractive to some investors. Michael Culp, an analyst at Prudential-Bache, notes that while Pizza Hut currently has more than 4,000 stores in this country, Godfather’s has fewer than 1,000. “They can open a couple thousand of these restaurants over the next few years” if they can raise volume and get profit margins in line, he says. Mr. Culp thinks 75% to 80% of Godfather’s annual growth will come from physical expansion...


This is an investor’s analyst saying in the Wall Street Journal that Godfather’s Pizza could be competing with the largest Pizza company in America Pizza Hut over the next few years. This is 18 months before Cain took over. It is a month before David M. Smith offers a management buyout to stock holders, a $525 million dollar offer to buy the nearly 900 Godfather Pizzas plus 525 other restaurants held by Diversified Inc. The offer was terminated soon thereafter and the board of directors got rid of Smith on Jan 3, 1985.

Moving ahead about six months, problems continue, but the outlook for Godfather’s Pizza is still optimistic about ten months before Cain takes over. A May 19th, 1985 New York Times article describes the troubles:

Its operating earnings plunged 94 percent in 1984, to $978,000. Late that year, some franchisees, rebelling against management, started withholding royalty fees. In February 1985, Concept Development Inc., the chain’s largest franchisee with 125 restaurants, filed a $44 million suit against Diversifoods, charging that it “diminished Godfather’s name and market recognition,” causing “the chain to splinter into a noncohesive group of independents.”


Despite this, the assessment for the future is positive and there is no talk of bankruptcy. The article notes that things were getting back on track:

Despite its problems, however, Godfather’s is now trying to regain its wings as a highflier. John M. Creed, who replaced Mr. Smith as Diversifoods’ president in January, says that the chain has shelved any expansion. It has dismissed about 25 percent of Godfather’s corporate staff and is closing unprofitable stores. It is introducing new products, such as thin-crust pizza and pizza by the slice, and it is starting to offer home delivery.

Diversifoods has hired a new president for Godfather’s – its third since January – and under Henry V. Pettis, Godfather’s is now trying to foster the kind of strong ties with franchisees that Mr. Theisen used to build the company. And that seems to be working. Mr. Creed said that many franchisees were beginning to pay royalty fees again.

These actions, Mr. Creed said, should enable Godfather’s to break even by the end of the year, “with the potential to make money.”


In other words, Godfather’s Pizzas had record profits in 1983, a small profit in 1984, and according to the company president in May of 1985 would break even in 1985 “with the potential to make money”.

In August of 1985, Pillsbury bought Diversified Foods Inc., including 873 Godfather’s Pizzas plus 375 Burger Kings and some other smaller restaurant chains, for $390 million dollars. It is difficult to say how much Pillsbury paid for the Godfather’s Pizzas and how much they paid for the other restaurants. In 1983, Godfather’s had done $340 million in sales and had sold for $306 million, in 1984, it did 365 million in sales, and in 1985, it did $325 million in sales. While sales had dropped 5% from 1983 to 1985, it is hard to see why this should have caused a drastic change in the company’s value.

Most importantly Pillsbury was showing commitment to the franchises’ future According to an August 20, 1985, N.Y. Times article, “Pillsbury Keeping Godfather’s Pizza”:

Sales at Godfather’s, the nation’s third-largest pizza chain, after Pizza Hut and Domino’s, slipped badly last year as the company tried unsuccessfully to roll out a deep-dish pan pizza. A Pillsbury spokesman said: “We understand the pizza business. We have the nation’s No. 1 frozen pizza in Totino’s and we’ll bring the resources to Godfather’s to make substantial improvement there.” Godfather’s owns 209 restaurants and franchises an additional 664 restaurants.


They had cause for optimism. In official filings, Diversified Foods had done these projections for the future of Godfather’s Pizza:

For the years 1986 through 1990, the strategies developed figures for three different scenarios: an aggressive plan, a moderate one and an aggressive one without Godfather’s.


In 1986, Diversifoods would have earned about $59 million with Godfather’s and $47 million without it in cash flow. Fifty-nine million dollars yields a 15% pretax return. The $12 million difference between keeping and dumping Godfather’s expands from there.

By 1990, Diversifoods could have been grossing cash flow of $146 million under the best circumstances with Godfather’s, $116 million with Godfather’s under moderate conditions and only $116 million in the best case without Godfather’s.

In terms of cash flow, Pillsbury could make back its investment by the end of the decade.

Earnings per share make a similarly convincing case to keep Godfather’s. Based on a best-case scenario including Godfather’s, Pillsbury paid about 10.6 times next year’s earnings. But without Godfather’s, Pillsbury’s purchase price would be a far less economical 13.2 times.

But it is pretax cash flow that really matters in an acquisition. And in those terms, Pillsbury should be getting more than 20% returns on its invested capital in three years.


Not only was Godfather’s Pizza not anywhere near bankruptcy when Pillsbury Inc took it over, but they had projections showing that the company would be making profits of up to $12 million (59 – 47 million) in 1986 and expanding profits up to $30 million (146 – 116 million) in 1990.

Within five months there was more reason for optimism. Pillsbury settled the lawsuit with Concept Development Inc., the franchise owner that had sued Diversified Foods for mismanagement for $44 million dollars. Pillsbury agreed to buy 18 more Godfather’s Pizzas from Concept Development for $2 million dollars.

Godfather Pizzas was never in danger of bankruptcy, but it did have serious management problems in 1984 and 1985. However it made a small profit in 1984, probably had a small loss in 1985 and was expected to return to making good profits from 1986 to 1990. Then Herman Cain took over.

While we cannot precisely tell the value of Godfather’s Pizza at the time Cain took over, we can give a ballpark estimate based on facts presented in Rick Telberg’s Sept 15, 1985 article, How Pillsbury ‘stole’ Diversifoods for just $390 million, published in National Restaurant News. He writes:

If projections developed by Diversifoods Inc. executives prove true, then Pillsbury Co.’s $390 million payment for the Burger King franchisee and Godfather’s Pizza franchisor will look like a firesale bargain in a few years.

According to internal business plans Diversifoods furnished Pillsbury during secret negotiations, the big packaged-foods marketer acquired the ailing restaurant conglomerate for about six times next year’s gross cash flow.

The norm, if there is any in the restaurant business, is about seven times cash flow, a price established, more or less, by Denny’s Inc.’s $734 million management buyout in January.

In addition, the projections suggest that Pillsbury would have been foolish to dump Godfather’s. In each of three possible scenarios, a Godfather’s divestiture would have reduced Pillsbury’s returns on the deal.

Besides, there are few companies capable of acquiring Godfather’s that would also have the deep pockets needed to wait for a turnaround. And, if Pillsbury sold Godfather’s, the company could have armed a potential enemy, blocking its long-stated desire to enter the pizza business.

Pillsbury’s acquisition ended one of the saddest sagas in the restaurant business–the brief life and painful death of Diversifoods.

Diversifoods was formed in January 1984 through the merger of Burger King franchisee Chart House Inc. of Lafayette, La., and Godfather’s Pizza Inc. of Omaha.

But almost as soon as the ink was dry on the deal, valued at about $700 million...


If just after buying Godfather’s Pizzas for $309 million, the company was worth 700 million, Godfather’s Pizza represented 309/700 of the worth of the company, about 44%. Taking 44% of the purchase price of $390 million by Pillsbury, we get 171.6 million. However, we do have to take into account that Godfather’s Pizzas revenues dropped 5% from 1983 to 1985 and profits were marginal in 1984 and 1985. We can take away another 10% to account for that, bringing us to a value of about $155 million. We should also take into account the loss of around 100 out of 873 stores when Pillsbury settled its lawsuit with the renegade franchise owners Concept Development Inc. While this represents 12% of the franchise, we may assume they had slightly better than average units and take away another 15%. This still leaves us with a value of roughly $130 million as the value of Godfather’s Pizzas when Herman Cain took over in April 1986. The figure $130 million also seems about right for a company projected to potentially make $12 million in profits the following year, rising to $30 million five years later.

In a January 2, 1985 article in Nation’s Restaurant News we read, “Analyst Tami Preston said that Alex. Brown & Co. has valued the Burger King division of Diversifoods at $150-$155 million.” Even if we assume a huge 15% increase in value eight months later, at the time Pillsbury bought Diversified, that brings the value of the Burger Kings up to a maximum of $180 million. Substract the $180 million for the Burger Kings from the $390 million total price, we get $210 million for all the non-Burger King restaurants. Godfather’s represented over 900 of the 1100 remaining units at Diversified. Besides Godfather’s, there were 65 Luther’s barbecue restaurants, 55 Chart Houses and Moxie’s gourmet Burger restaurants. If we assume that the 900 Godfather’s were only worth half as much as the other 200 restaurants, that still gives us around $140 million for the Godfather’s and $70 million for the others...

Significa

Damn you, Bradley Cooper! We don't care what People Magazine says, Ryan Gosling is the man who stole our hearts!!!
http://www.people.com/people/package/0,,20315920,00.html

*

YouTube Movie of the Week: Lord of the Rings
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJZPJrbGgEc

Lord Of The Rings - 1978
JRR Tolkien - Animated

*

Kool Website: Mad Magazine Blog
The Idiotical:

http://mad.blog.dccomics.com/

*

Reopened: The curious case of Natalie Wood's drowning death. Officials insist her husband, actor Robert Wagner, isn't a suspect, but the captain of the yacht the death happened on "blames" him nonetheless. Cristopher Walken was also on the boat, and shortly before the death, Wagner and Wood had an argument, allegedly about an affair she was having with Walken. In any case, Wagner was the man who got Dr. Evil to invest in Starbucks, so nothing can be put past him...

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2011/11/yacht-captain-blames-wagner-for-natalie-wood-death.html

*

Changes in MLB: It's official, the Houston Astros will move to the AL West. The postseason will also expand to five teams, with the two wild cards in each league facing each off in a one-game playoff, making winning the division more important for World Series victory:

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2011/writers/tom_verducci/11/18/astros.wild.cards.interleague

*

From ESPN: The 2011 Sprint Cup Series title came down to Carl Edwards vs. Tony Stewart, and it lived up to the hype. Stewart won the race, Edwards finished second and they tied on points. The tie-breaker? Total wins, and Stewart won that -- and the championship -- five to one for the season...

http://espn.go.com/racing/nascar/cup/story/_/id/7262762/nascar-tony-stewart-wins-best-nascar-finale

*


Comic Book Series of the Month: IDW release Godzilla Legends, with issue 2 written by Konformist pal Jonathan Vankin:

http://www.theouthousers.com/index.php/news/comics-news/17264-the-legends-begin-here.html

*

A second experiment has resulted with reports of faster-than-light neutrinos:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/19/science/space/neutrino-finding-is-confirmed-in-second-experiment-opera-scientists-say.html

*


SoCal scientist have created the world's lightest material, so light it can rest on a dandelion:

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2396633,00.asp

*


2012 Motor Trend Car of The Year: Volkswagen Passat:

http://www.motortrend.com/oftheyear/car/1201_2012_motor_trend_car_of_the_year_volkswagen_passat/viewall.html
*

Duke's Coach K breaks record for wins in men's college basketball with his 903rd victory:

http://articles.cnn.com/2011-11-15/us/us_sport-basketball-krzyzewski_1_duke-s-krzyzewski-tom-butters-mike-krzyzewski

*

Farewell: Regis Philbin, leaving his morning co-host job at the age of 80:

http://www.usatoday.com/life/people/story/2011-11-21/regis-philbin-farewell/51298514/1

Russians & North Koreans in Iran: Collateral Damage?

From OilPrice.com:
As the drums for direct military intervention to derail Iran’s purported covert military nuclear weapons program beat louder in both Jerusalem and Washington, an overlooked issue is the possibility of international “collateral damage,” to use the Pentagon’s favourite euphemism for civilian casualties.

On 14 November South Korea’s Chosun Ilbo stated, "Hundreds of North Korean scientists and engineers are working at about 10 nuclear and missile facilities in Iran, including Natanz, The North Koreans are apparently rotated every six months." Russian technicians also remain at Iran’s first nuclear electrical energy facility, Bushehr. So, any aerial strikes against Iran’s nuclear facilities could result in significant numbers of dead Russian and North Korean specialists as “collateral damage,” with all the diplomatic uncertainties that might ensue from Moscow and Pyongyang as the body bags start arriving home.

The https://www.cia.gov/ website, which listed the report, describes the Chosun Ilbo website as “conservative in editorial orientation -- strongly nationalistic, anti-North Korea, and generally pro-U.S.”

For those looking for more smoking guns, Japan’s Sankei Shimbun reports that among the Iranian sites the North Koreans have been involved in are three research centres carrying out simulations of how to trigger nuclear weapons.

The news complicates the situation for advocates of a “clean” surgical strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities.

Airstrike Against Iranian Nuclear Facilities Could Kill 100s of North Koreans and Russians John Daly
Wednesday, 16 November 2011
http://oilprice.com/Geo-Politics/Middle-East/Airstrike-Against-Iranian-Nuclear-Facilities-Could-Kill-100s-of-North-Koreans-and-Russians.html

Though CME Group Guarantees, There are No Guarantees

KINGSTON, NY, 19 November 2011 — The Trends Journal has uncovered critical information that – in light of the MF Global bankruptcy – casts doubt on the fitness of CME Group to serve as a trustworthy derivatives and commodities exchange, and on the credibility of its Executive Chairman, Terence Duffy.

Not only has the scandalous MF Global bankruptcy (the eighth-largest in US history) wreaked financial havoc on thousands of individuals, it has single-handedly destroyed faith in the commodity markets. CME’s reputation as the financial Rock of Gibraltar, upon which the commodity markets are anchored, has now been undermined. By its recent actions, CME’s claim of being committed to guaranteeing the transactions undertaken by its members has been called into question.

As recently as 2010, Terrence Duffy boasted, “No customer has ever lost a penny as a result of a clearing member default.” Moreover, in the same press conference, Duffy stated unequivocally, "Since we are the guarantor of every transaction that happens in our markets, we have to guarantee the performance of each and every one of these contracts … To do this, we hold more than $100 billion of collateral to support the transactions that are being done on our markets.”

The evidence is irrefutable:

Mr. Duffy affirms that the CME Group is “guarantor.”

CME has a $100 billion reserve to make good any possible default by a member.

The MF Global meltdown, big as it is, is not “just another” major bankruptcy – another Lehman Brothers. It provides irrefutable proof of the tactics employed by top financial players in a prelude to the unraveling of the world’s financial system.

The Trends Journal has come up with a key, perhaps THE key. It is up to the Fourth Estate to publicize and expose CME Group, Terence Duffy, and MF’s former CEO, John Corzine, for what they are: not so much canaries, but the vultures in the mine shaft.

To schedule an interview with Gerald Celente, Trends Journal publisher, please contact: Zeke West, Media Relations, zwest@trendsresearch.com 845 331.3500 ext. 1

©MMXI The Trends Research Institute®

Architect of Reactor 3 warns of massive hydrovolcanic explosion

11/19/11

Dear Readers,

I've been following nuclear issues for more than 40 years -- since I was about fourteen years old. I watched as Three Mile Island unfolded, and then Chernobyl, the loss of the Russian submarine Kursk, and a thousand other events. I'd guess I've testified at over 100 nuke hearings (10 more, and I get a free pizza!) and written over a thousand essays (we'll call this one #1,167, though it may not be). A phone call in the middle of the night on 3/11 from Harvey Wasserman alerted me to Fukushima. (So now I owe Harvey a pizza.)

Suffice it to say, it's not often I read a headline about nuclear dangers that scares the daylights out of me. They all distress me, but I don't lose my daylights (wherever they happen to be) very often. However, here's a headline that DOES scare the daylights out of me:

"Architect of Reactor 3 warns of massive hydrovolcanic explosion."

(Full article and links, below).

Here's my take on it (with a little history to set the scene):

In the fall of 1945 Vern Partlow was a reporter for the Los Angeles Daily News.

After interviewing scientists about the atomic bombs that were used on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, he became so alarmed that he wrote a song about the dangers, called Old Man Atom.

The song was an enormous hit among folksingers of the time (Pete Seeger among them) but was (famously) banned during the McCarthy Era. (Even the New York Times editorialized that the song's ban was "a threat to freedom.")

The song has a line that describes "the atom" as: "...the thing that Einstein says he's scared of" then goes on to say: "And when Einstein's scared, brother, I'M SCARED!"

If Einstein were alive today, I think he'd be VERY scared.

Of Fukushima.

Professor Haruo Uehara is a former president of Saga University and the primary architect of Fukushima Dai-ichi Reactor 3. Professor Haruo is scared. So I think we should ALL be scared. Not that Professor Uehara is saying anything significantly different from what I -- and others -- have been saying we thought happened in Fukushima, or is happening, or will happen. But now it's coming from someone with very heavy credentials AND close ties to Fukushima Dai-ichi itself.

There may be nothing we can do about Fukushima, but ADDITIONAL nuclear catastrophes can be relatively easy to prevent: Shut the reactors down. Shut 'em ALL down.

Sincerely,

Ace Hoffman
Carlsbad, CA

The author was born during atmospheric weapons testing (1956, to be exact) and is an educational software developer. He witnessed the breakup of the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) into the NRC and the DOE (1974). He was working at a college news department as Three Mile Island unfolded (1979). He was a computer programmer by the time of Chernobyl (1986). His older brother died of leukemia (1994), then he had bladder cancer himself (2005). Then Fukushima started raining radioactive poisons down on us all (2011). What's next? San Onofre? Indian Point? Or any of a hundred others?
-------------------------------------------------
Architect of Reactor 3 warns of massive hydrovolcanic explosion:
http://fukushima-diary.com/2011/11/architect-of-reactor-3-warns-massive-hydrovolcanic-explosion/?mid=531

Posted by Mochizuki on November 19th, 2011

Architect of Fukushima Daiichi Reactor 3, Uehara Haruo, the former president of Saga University had an interview on 11/17/2011.

In this interview, he admitted Tepco’s explanation does not make sense, and that the China syndrome is inevitable.

He stated that considering 8 months have passed since 311 without any improvement, it is inevitable that melted fuel went out of the container vessel and sank underground, which is called China syndrome.

He added, if fuel has reaches a underground water vein, it will cause contamination of underground water, soil contamination and sea contamination. Moreover, if the underground water vein keeps being heated for long time, a massive hydrovolcanic explosion will be caused.

He also warned radioactive debris is spreading in Pacific Ocean. Tons of the debris has reached the Marshall Islands as of 11/15/2011.

Original source: http://news.livedoor.com/article/detail/6041353/
-----------------------------------------
Ace Hoffman
Author, The Code Killers:
An Expose of the Nuclear Industry
Free download: acehoffman.org
Blog: acehoffman.blogspot.com
YouTube: youtube.com/user/AceHoffman
Phone: (760) 720-7261
Address: PO Box 1936, Carlsbad, CA 92018
Subscribe to my free newsletter today!
Email: ace@acehoffman.org

BabeWatch


Sarah Michelle Gellar



Sofia Vergara


Rose McGowan



Kendra Wilkinson


Jennifer Hudson


Jennifer Love Hewitt


Gwyneth Paltrow

How Well Did Herman Cain Know Lawrence King?

Herman Cain isn't the only African-American conservative who spent time in Omaha, Nebraska during the mid-eighties. From DownWithTyranny.blogspot.com:

Omaha is tornado country, so when I say it's a great big small town, I'm talking acreage versus gossipy connectivity. It's flat and spread out with few tall buildings, but everyone is a whisper away from everyone else's business. It's not so big as to be home to two up-and-coming black Republicans with strong ties with the bigwigs in the Republican Party who could never cross paths. Restaurant people of all colors make it a point to know each other. To know what secrets wandering waiters and chefs may have taken with them as they move from job to job, etc... Wealthy Republicans are an even tighter clique. Wealthy black Republican restaurateurs in Omaha Nebraska in the late '80s were more likely to have been twins than not to have social if not business ties.

Lawrence E. King was a fixture in the Omaha black community. He had seen his opportunity gathering up black folks' money in a credit union known as the Franklin Credit Union, which he'd taken over in 1970. By 1976 there where whispers about this 300-pound socialite living large. There were minor stabs at investigating him, but the police did not want to be seen as the big bad white guys picking on the little ol' great big black man.

Tales of King entertaining guests with cocaine, hookers and hustlers were pervasive, but Omaha has some strange code of silence. It had been for many years a sort of mob neutral zone. "Tony might whack Vinnie in Chicago," but in Omaha their kids and wives would peacefully shop, play and picnic together. Drawing attention is not acceptable. Bush flew to Omaha on 9/11 in a very standard emergency protocol, and not one in ten Americans ever knew. Lily Tomlin and her partner Jane Wagner were a known couple around "The Big O" long before Lily came out. Omaha had lots of stories and still does, but none of them are news.

King -- who had been recruited by the RNC to get out the black Republican vote -- in his rise through the Republican ranks, was able to be the sum of their black best friends, as it were. He sang the national anthem at the 1984 and 1988 Republican conventions. In 1986, the Franklin Federal Credit Union moved into brand-new digs that also served as headquarters for King's burgeoning catering and food-service empire. King began making donations to the Omaha Press Club, the Republican Party and even gay rights organizations (especially those funding area youth programs). Upon being told he had no style by a ten-year-old boy, he went shopping and became a clothes junkie, big-time-- thus earning the nickname "Reverend Alice." People really began talking. Franklin Federal Credit Union seemed to be all right until an audit of King's taxes revealed what appeared to be some missing funds. A phony "certificates of deposit" scheme. Initially it was thought that $400,000 had disappeared. Then $4 million. Ultimately $40 million was determined to have vanished.

The FBI raid of the credit union sparked rumors that drugs and child pornography were discovered in the lower levels of the facility. It had been whispered that King had used the basement of the credit union as a "waiter academy" to train young men (twinks and blinks) in the fine art of waiting tables for what was hopefully to become his restaurant empire. In an Omaha World Herald interview, he spoke about how he wanted his places to be real elegant; the waiters would wear white dinner jackets. But King's deeper desires were rumored to be something quite different.

There was a lot of recruiting going on for guys to come be part of King's catering business. Many teens and young men talked of being expected to "put out," and rumors of pornographic video shoots circulated in the gay and black communities. After the raid there was an investigation into what had become of the missing funds. Eventually a private investigator was hired by the state legislature to look into stories of an international child prostitution ring. He interviewed dozens of waiters and folks around Omaha who had been curious about King's lavish gifts and extravagant ways. But things seemed tempered by the fact that King hung out with presidents, and area journalists. And owned a bank, and a sushi bar and...

The investigator is said to have flown to Chicago to meet with a person who had damning photographic evidence as to what was going on in the bowels of Franklin. That investigator never made it back to Omaha. His plane mysteriously blew up on the return flight. Primary witnesses suddenly changed their stories, and those who did not were convicted of perjury. One rent boy who testified that he was farmed out to several closeted power brokers in and around Omaha died mysteriously in New Mexico.

King was convicted of bank fraud and served nearly 10 out of the 15 years to which he was sentenced, but the grand jury concluded that all of the salacious allegations were merely "a big hoax" (wtf!) These allegations included supplying children for satanic blood rituals in Spain and supplying teens to a sex party in Washington, D.C., where some of those teens claimed they saw George W. Bush in attendance.

The story is larger and dirtier than what is within the scope of a DWT guest blog, and in fact was the subject of a Discovery Channel investigative report. Alas, that program was "purchased" a week before it was to air by some anonymous party...

Full Article:
http://downwithtyranny.blogspot.com/2011/07/does-herman-cain-have-40-million.html

And that is WHY WE OCCUPY

Greg Palast and the Palast investigations team at Zuccotti Park Wall Street, Occupy Portland, Occupy Oakland, and Kinshasa, Congo exclusive for OpedNews.com
Wed, 16 Nov 2011

So big deal. They evicted us. That just means we are among five million Americans evicted from their homes this year.

Our photographer, Zach Roberts, had his camera cracked and his head whacked.

Go ahead, kick us and evict us. That won't stop us. Because it's not about the real estate. Wall Street's just an address.

Time to remind The One Percent why we occupy.

We occupy for Stanlee Ann Mattingly.

Mattingly, an Osage Indian, saw a tanker truck poaching oil from the reservation stripper wells. Our investigators tracked the truck back to a man on a platform exhorting his company truckers to steal more of the Osage's oil. The man is named Charles Koch.

And that is why we occupy.

We occupy for Jason Anderson.

Anderson worked on BP's Deepwater Horizon rig. Through bribery and beatings, BP concealed this fact: two years before the Deepwater exploded, another BP well blew out in Central Asia--and BP execs withheld the info from the US Congress to get the Gulf drilling permit. If BP hadn't lied, Anderson would not have been incinerated.

The Deepwater Horizon wasn't an accident. It was a homicide.

And that is why we occupy.

We occupy for Robert Pratt.

Pratt, a United Auto Workers member in Detroit, has a mortgage payment that tripled because of a sub-prime mortgage scam by Bank of America's Countrywide unit. Countrywide's CEO got a half billion dollar bonus, Bank of America got a $10 billion bail-out from taxpayers--and Pratt, with five kids, got a foreclosure notice.

And that is why we occupy.

We occupy for Janessa Greig.

Greig, 13-years old, and her mom, Jacqueline, were burnt to death when a gas pipeline exploded under their home in San Bruno, California. Our investigation reveals that "PIGs," pipeline inspection robots, were deliberately mis-programmed to under-report dangerous pipeline cracks ...all so gas and oil companies can save a couple bucks on repairs. The Greigs died because pipeline companies lied. And now the PIG-jackers want to build a new pipeline from Canada to Houston.

And that is why we occupy.

We occupy for Vaggelis Petrakis.

For a decade, Goldman Sachs worked a scheme with Greek politicians to manipulate currency reserves to hide big deficits. The fraud netted Goldman a secret fee of over a quarter billion dollars; and netted the Greek people, when the scam blew up, a destroyed economy and a debt--to Goldman and cronies--of $14,000 per year per family. When the debts bankrupted fruit-seller Petrakis, he committed suicide.

And that is why we occupy.

We occupy for our nation and our kids and this wounded planet.

It's not about the real estate, the tents or tarps.

It's about Them, the 1%, and Us, the 99%.

THEY get homes bigger than Disneyland, WE get foreclosure notices.

THEY get private jets to private islands, WE get tar balls and lost futures, and pay their gambling debts with our pensions.

THEY get the third trophy wife and a tax break, WE get sub-primed.

THEY get two candidates on the ballot and WE are told to choose.

THEY get the gold mine, WE get the shaft.

And that is why we occupy.

These investigative findings, the evidence and the story of the cover-ups of the evidence are all contained in Vultures' Picnic, an investigation of The One Percent, Greg Palast's new book, released this week. Go to VulturesPicnic.org to download the first chapter.

Palast's investigation of finance vultures is featured on the front page of today's Guardian (London) and tonight on BBC Television Newsnight.
A report from Congo, Bosnia and New York.
- UK urged to prevent vulture funds preying on world's poorest countries
- Vultures feed when economies are turned into rotting carcasses

Vultures' Picnic: in Pursuit of Petroleum Pigs, Power Pirates and High-Finance Fraudsters.

Subscribe to Palast's Newsletter and podcasts.
Follow Palast on Facebook and Twitter.

GregPalast.com

Saturday, November 26, 2011