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Fox News MAY Be Biased…

I have been thinking that the word NEWS has an interesting connotation. We expect it to mean UNBIASED news. Fox news is NOT unbiased by a long shot. I just don’t know how they can even pretend otherwise it is so blatant.

Now granted, every news source has a bent. We all know the Wall Street Journal has a slightly built in capitalistic, but not too politically so, bent. The New York Times is more *liberal* than the Deseret News (okay, the Deseret News doesn’t really do much real investigative journalism, but if they did…). Le Monde is more liberal (said socialist — liberal can mean a lot of things really, more on that mis-use later) than Le Figaro and both are to the right of Le Petit Canard.

Fox “News” Channel, however, always gives me the willies by the way they pundit pound and snipe. This isn’t news with carefully obscured leanings put aside for the sake of good journalism. It is outright call to arms with extreme viewpoints with an aim to incite the hoi poloi into fighting (and viewing) mode. Other than it makes Fox News look like illegitimate inbred cousins short of the 70 IQ points needed to be released on their own cognizance, it reveals the channels disrespect for the concept of ‘NEWS’ and any responsibility to the community it is no longer SERVING but RAPING. Yes, I said RAPING. They are RAPING the remaining intelligence and dollars from the milling masses who are ready to do anything to forget about the sad position the last 8 years of Republican pillaging of its own people has left.

Why are people so mad and willing to believe this completely bigoted and biased garbage heap? Because we spent a CRAP load of money on wars and government and special interest, redirected greater profits to the top 3% of the richest Americans in hopes of ‘trickle down theory’ and reduced real wages and earnings for 75% of Americans. The average Joe is in a bad spot right now with little to NO HOPE. At least the average Joe doesn’t feel much like they can do anything about the current predicament in any large scale meaningful way.  Corporate deregulation and special interest groups have taken over our political system and Cheney-Haliburton legacy will take a LOT of undoing. I am not saying it was created by Cheney, but he perfected it, entrenched, and RAPED America at the expense of the common man. It is actually a bit unfortunate Obama has been given this stink-heap to ‘fix’ because most people, especially the GOP (by design), have convenient short memories. They hope Obama cannot fix this mess (who could, really) in 4 years or even 8. Then they can swoop in with the tea-baggers (corporate America has already started funding the tea-baggers for purely economic reasons) and RAPE some more. Great. No matter what happens, it does not appear that America, the People, will be better off for it. Even if Obama ‘fixes’ things, the fixing is just as painful as sitting in the stinking heap. But maybe we will feel better about it? Hum….

The US Government Is Broken?

What this ultimately boils down to is in fact that the teabaggers are partially correct. But it is something we have always known. If we haven’t, we have been extremely naive. If you think our government was ever perfect and purport such, you are being naive. Our government and political system is NOT and has never been perfect. And as our population grows, it is inevitable our government will grow. As technology and the ability of humans expand in nefarious  ways as well as in good, it will cause us to want more regulation in some areas, less in others, more protection for some things, less for others.  But it is the same problem as sticky wages (at least in nominal terms), once something is established, it is pretty hard to undo. Easy to ratchet up, but hard to ratchet down. You could make a pretty good claim in this economy we are ratcheting down the wage level a bit though. It can be done, but you need a pretty good impetus.

So could our government use fixing? Absolutely. Are the democrats going to do it? Not terribly likely? Are the republicans going to fix it? Just as unlikely. I don’t think the entrenched lobbying/corporate/special interest system, with the two parties both kow towing to the de facto true American voice (because it has enough money, cohesion, and will power) of Corporate America, can do much to really change things unless it is a change that large corporations (including the health care industry) are willing to undergo or want.

Don’t ge me wrong. I believe in the power of capitalism. Enlightened capitalism. Corporate America can be a beautiful thing. Capitalism that is constructed to only look at 3 month windows on a consistent basis? Not so much. No one functions best in that scenario.

Can We Fix It?

But it is clear throughout history that by and large, what is good for corporate America is NOT always what is good for America.  And moreover, corporate America should not be ‘voting’ or controlling the political system. Individuals, with single corporal bodies (not corporate boards) should be voting and controlling America. Until we figure out how to do that, we will always have this artificial Dem vs Rep facade behind which big lobbies and corporate funding really pull the strings.

Traffic backing up on Gentile & Flint

Traffic backing up on Gentile & Flint - This is on a GOOD day.

The T-intersection of Flint & Gentile has just been given a stop light. This was in anticipation of a few things: Gentile has picked up a lot traffic over the past few years, there is Layton Elementary very nearby, and a new I-15 interchange is going in on Flint. So more traffic is anticipated, safer for elementary kids to have a light, and theoretically a stop light would let people turn west on to Gentile from Flint and south onto Flint from Gentile.

The one thing that irks me to death everytime I go by the new stoplight is they effectively wiped out the *understood* right hand turning lane that everyone used to turn south onto Flint from Gentile.  With the new light design, there is only one lane and if a single car goes straight and gets stopped at the light, EVERY right turning car has to wait wait wait. It is already a problem and gets backed up 3o to 40 cars in the mornings and the interchange is not completed (which means a large part of daily traffic is using some other route, especially given that Gentile and Main is under construction right now as well). What’s MORE inane is the fact there is a HUGE swath of land that could have been used to make the turn lane. All they need is 3 more feet to make it work.

Once the interchange to I-15 is done, this is going to be STOOPID. I just can’t imagine increasing traffic, of whom a majority will want to turn right onto Flint, is going to make this STOOPID STUPID STOOOOOOPID intersection work better. I want to throttle someone at Layton City for allowing this.  GRRRRRRR.

We were watching Eureka and in the episode they were testing a new Super Collider. There was a big catastraophé (at least one per episode de rigeur) and it was going to tear itself apart and perhaps take Eureka with it…. At some point someone said, “This Super Collider makes the Hadron Super Collider look like a sling-shot.” Then Shaylee asked me, “What’s a Super Clutter?” To which I snorted and giggled and said, “Your room.”

I was glad to see the Boy Scouts in our neighbourhood put up the flag for 9/11. I thought it was not an official holiday but it feels like one. I noticed it is “Patriot Day” on the US Holidays listed in Google Calendar.

A qick wiki lookup shows that it was originally “Prayer and Remembrance for the Victims of the Terrorist Attacks on September 11, 2001” which is REALLY REALLY LONG. Maybe just too long to put on a little calendar square. It was officially designated as “Patriot Day” by Joint Resolution 71 (407-0 votes) and then proclaimed officially by George Whacker Bush on September 11, 2002.  It also suggests flags be at half mast.

In any case, it feels more poignant than Memorial Day or Veterans Day to me, probably because it is an experience that I  lived through and it felt like it affected me directly.

Other than Desert Shield and Desert storm, and I guess Vietnam when I was baby, and now the Afghan ongoing military conflict, there hasn’t been any poignant event like 9/11.

I know that sounds almost trite after just listing all those other conflicts. But I think of 9/11 as something a class apart. It affected me more internally, more viscerally, changed my world view more dramatically, caused me to evaluate what life on Planet Earth is all about. Perhaps because it was not a military conflict, but a terrorist act; it was closer to home. I had friends and family in New York that day, literally blocks from the event. It was emotionally draining. It came out of the blue.

Anyway, I am glad they put up the flags to remind us all that we have not forgotten. That we should re-evaluate why we are here, what really matters, if what we are doing has any meaning.

Smiths cookies with crappy ingredients. Not a bargain.

Smiths cookies with crappy ingredients. Not a bargain.

I got lunch today at the deli at Smiths and saw they had a bunch of cookies on sale. Like $1.29 for a dozen or so. I got a box of chocolate chip and oatmeal raisin. After giving some to coworkers, I tried them myself and quickly realized these were not cookies on sale because Smiths liked its customers. They were on sale because they were undercooked in what was probably a microwave hunting accident,  a baking soda labour strike, and the only thing that showed up working hard was bad taste from the Saltaholics Undercook-me Club.

Something bad must have happened over the Labour Day holiday. For real. Like too many people not working (it was Labour Day Weekend). No one was watching the cookie production machine, and these pieces of crap came out.

Now they are trying to dump them on the unsuspecting public instead of throwing them away and starting over.

The thing that really gets me is Smiths cookies are not that great when they are done correctly. They are better than Chips Ahoy and some other packaged stale cookies because at least they seem fresh.

But these are just crappy flat undercooked cookies. Maybe they could label them “Smiths Cookie Crappers” so you know what you are getting.
If they were not so inexpensive (10 bits or so), I would waste my time to go take them back. I am sure that is exactly what they are counting on people to do; if people figure it’s not worth their time to take them back, they can cover their loss for being idiot cookie makers.

Blehhh…..

The burgers on the left use the WBQ Burger recipe.

WBQ BBQ Burgers. YUM!

I hope you all had a great weekend. Our fam enjoyed a Luau, a Chile Verde Fest, and an evening at my house with extended family featuring my own special recipe for spicy WBQ Burgers. I  will  give you the recipe as best I can, but I always make it to taste with what I have on hand. I can tell you it almost always includes oatmeal, Dakota sauce, chile powder and/or cayenne, Worcestershire sauce, and sometimes cold pressed whole flaxseed. Sounds good and healthy, right? I don’t know about healthy, but it sure is good, and you get a little more fibre than usual. One of the main reasons for adding the oatmeal, in addition to pretending to be better for you, is that it helps the meat stick together better. If you try omitting it and then add all that sauce and stuff, you will have a tough time keeping your burgers in one piece on your grill.

Here is my best guess at a recipe for these burgers:

WBQ Burgers

Makes 16-18 1/4 to 1/3 lb burgers

  • 4lbs 85 -90% lean hamburger
  • 1.5 cups old fashioned oats
  • 1/4 cup cold pressed flaxseed
  • 1/4 cup Dakota sauce (sub with Hickory Smoke Flavour + more Chile/Cayenne if you can’t find this)
  • 1tbsp chipotle powder
  • 1 to 2 tbsp chile and/or cayenne powder
  • 1/2 cup Worcestershire sauce

Mush this up real good. I use a little aluminium burger press to make slightly larger than 1/4 lb burgers by not squeezing it completely shut. Then I round it up a bit by hand. I get my grill up to about 400 and throw the burgers on so they get good sear marks. I turn the grill down to about 275-300 and let cook 2 or three minutes and then flip for another 3 to 4 minutes with the grill on low so the temperature drops (at the hood thermostat, your grill may vary) to about 225 and they are usually done by then. I usually squish them a bit to get some of the fat out. Remove from grill and let sit for about 6 to 7 minutes while I toast the buns on the grill and then serve. Delicious!

Prairie Schooner Is What It Is

Generally, we all love the Prairie Schooner for what it is: A slightly overpriced steak house with a cool old west night time theme. However, the last couple of times we have been and/or TRIED to go, we have been mildly dissappointed. Mostly (for me) the value proposition is lacking  just a bit. I think the food is pretty good, but the choices are a little limited or start to get a little crazy spendy more in the ilk of what  Spencer’s or Ruth’s Chris in Salt Lake serves. Is the the steak THAT good? Um…. well…. probably not quite. Not quite. But not bad. Of course. I am speaking for ME. My wife is pretty upset. I do a more formal review of the food on my main site: http://www.williambroadhead.com/.

Mad Wife, Sad Life

She wanted to go for the weekend brunch with the girls this Labour Day Weekend and she tried checking out the menu on the website. No brunch menu, and only painful PDF’s for Lunch and Dinner to download from the Flash Based icky website. Not ugly-icky, just navigational stupid-icky.  She also tried calling several times the day of going and could only get  a prerecorded message with general info.

Village Inn It!

So she went to the Prairie Schooner, got out of the car, went to the door, read the posting on the door, and then went to Village Inn. The reason? They are closed for renovations until September 13th, 2010. So of course, you have to wonder what kind of idiot doesn’t put that on their website or at the very least on their pre-recorded message on the main phone line. Oh, Prairie Schooner idiots. That’s who!

Woke up. Got out of bed. Dragged a comb… Hey, not across MY head. Ate some quick food. Down to the  beach to boogie board. Lay in the sun.

Then off to a 90 minute cateraman cruise on the Mai-Tai for $36 total. If you call in with a coupon from one of the may activity books all over in advance and you get $5 off per person. Great ride, very fun, great crew, and if you do drink, they have drinks for $2 which is notedly a good deal.

If you don’t drink, $2 water or OJ is not so great. No drinking at all is a great price and allows you to take more photos and enjoy the view without interruption. We didn’t see any whales, but what a beautiful day, beautiful views, and it was just incredibly relaxing. Gigorgious!

We had early dinner at the Nakamura Noodle Saimen place, per tradition. It was very good as usual for about $12 each, but it really put in perspective how really good the little noodle place in Lihue was. It was comparitively awesome! And their most expensive shrimp tempura saimen was only $6! They were not too happy about us continually asking and calling about fried noodles though! “No fried noodles today!” Click… Bzzzzzzzzz.. “Um… Okay, Thanks. Hey! They hung up on me!”

Sunset at Waikiki, lots of photos. Again no torchlighting on Monday. Oh well. A bit of All-Blocks-Covered (ABC) shopping, elsewhere and then back to hotel where they were holding our bags, taxi was already arranged and loaded when we got there. Jumped in and we were off to the airport. We were immediately greeted by a sky cap. For six bucks gratuity, he got us checked in, took our bags through agriculture and to security for us and us off to our gate in about 360 seconds. That took so little time, we just plopped down for a about an hour before we even went through security. I forget how quickly you get done if you use a skycap.

The flight back was uneventful, just like it should be. We got good exit row seats with plenty of room for our legs and both fell asleep shortly after takeoff. We both actually slept most of the trip. Regardless, we were both still a bit groggy in Salt Lake trying to get our bags and find the car….

Go! Airlines lost our luggage on a 20 minute flight. Annoying, but they got it to our room by the time we got back after dinner and strolling. We went to the beach after checking in, lay in the sun, boogie boarded a little. Back to room for shower. We watched the sunset on Waikiki before heading east for food. Because it was Easter, no torch lighting. Then we went to To Dai Sushi in Honolulu over by the Hilton Hawaiian Village. Pretty good, if you stick to what you like, but it did not seem as good as last year. Snow Crab was good, tempura was great, the sushi, poke, sashimi were all pretty good. The walnut shrimp was also pretty good but not as good as at the Panda in Hanalei. We will probably try some different places next time. Maybe some dim sum places.

Today we went to Hanalei, had some walnut shrimp, fried noodles, shave ice, and then went to Tunnels beach. Great snorkeling! I’ll put this place up and maybe beyond Shark’s Cove on Oahu. A pretty large circular reef with lots of fish that swarm you if you give them a little food. The outer edge of the reef drops off preciptously and looks like it would be great for scuba, but is good for snorkeling too if it is a bright and sunny day.  Huge Humuhumu’s!