Go for the news. Stay for the hilarity.

Veeshir over at DOUBLEPLUSUNDEAD  has an over-the-top funny post today rounding up all the insane hilarity on the political scene. I could sum it up for you by saying:

Israel is getting ready to bitch-slap Syria again while our Senators are mulling over ways to make us more safe and less free, but they don't really understand the difference between "scary looking" and "lethal" when it comes to guns so they figure to ban everything for good measure - even ski masks, and just when we thought politics might become too boring and predictable, Jerry Rivers is considering a run for Senate which may have caused a massive explosion of fireworks in China in celebration but who can know since the press is only reporting on their boyfriend in such slavish and obsequious deference that it is nauseating to anyone who doesn't have a cast-iron stomach.

 But I won't.  I'll let veeshir tell you.  He's funnier. 

Speak up. Now.

Joan of Argghh! at Primordial Slack hits it out of the ballpark with this post. Of late there have been too many chest-thumping, full-throated roars about the injustices and overreach of our government. I have even lent my squeak to the chorus. But an open revolt is not in the cards, I believe. We will lose this country slowly, as we have been doing for over 100 years. Like a handful of sand that you slowly allow to slip through your fingers, at some point, the sand is gone, no matter how impossible this may seem when you hold it full and heavy in your cupped palms and only the barest few grains are slipping through.

At some point, it's all gone.

However, ALL OF US are already being made examples. Daily we comply with all sorts of indignities and insults to our sovereign sense of human rights. We answer intrusive questions, we suffer molestation in public by the TSA, we sigh at bureaucratic sand in our economic gears.

But here’s the thing: Obama won’t send an army, he’ll send your neighbor, the one with the IRS job. Or you’ll try to travel and a local NHS satrap will show up to investigate you, express serious doubts about your online comments, and ask you to get in his car, quietly please, as your wife and kids look on– and your neighbors whisper, “I always thought something was strange about him.” Some municipal quisling will bring four or five officers and arrest you for making a video, or for refusing a smart-meter on your home. You will be shamed in the local paper, not the New York Times.

 Read it all. It's very, very good. And it's worth some thought.


H/T: Primordial Slack

I've always got matches.

The Descent

Remember when the left sniffed temperamentally that there was such a thing as "fake but accurate"? It was simply a matter of misunderstanding, they pointed out, that documents which had been falsified were, in fact, falsified. The plebeian protests against this creation of "truth" only served to illustrate how the rarefied intellectual heights inhabited by the left and from which this "truth" emanated clouded the little people's ability to understand "truth". "Fake but accurate" was an attempt to convey to you idjits that there are times when it is not just permitted but when it is a moral imperative to make up facts in order to convey the "truth". Bitter clingers, right-wingers, extremists, absolutists, and idjits can not understand this. Y'all are too rigid. Y'all believe the truth demands that you yield to it -- not the other way around. But the left, in its infinite superior wisdom, in its intellectual agility, is free to mold the truth, shaping it to conform to their immediate needs.

Now they have added the additional subtle twist of making up facts to help their guy.  The left swings both ways, doncha know.

President Obama recently announced that he goes skeet shooting, like, all the time. Uncharitably many of you questioned this assertion, so the press jumped into action to back up our beloved.

Just a man and his gun. Skeet shooting at Camp David. All the time.

 

Are those shells in his pocket?

Instantly this picture was tweeted out by the New Republic to prove our beloved's bona fides as an avid hunter because y'all didn't believe him. Even a girl called his bluff.

Representative Marsha Blackburn was having none of it.

“If he’s a skeet shooter, why have we not heard of this? Why have we not seen photos? Why hasn’t he referenced this at any point in time?” 

Not content with questioning our beloved's hunting prowess, she racistly challenged him to a duel, of sorts.

Ms. Blackburn upped the ante of proof for Mr. Obama: “I think he should invite me to Camp David, and I’ll go skeet shooting with him and I bet I’ll beat him,” she said, in a Newser report.

Mr. Obama’s self-professed love of the shooting game came via a Sunday report in The New Republic, in which he addressed concerns that his gun control push would hurt hunters. In the report, and by way of reassuring hunters, Mr. Obama claimed that at Camp David, “we do skeet shooting all the time.”

Well, Miss Smarty Pants, there's your photo, courtesy of the New Republic. As crack reporters of The Truth, they quickly found a photo to tweet out across the Twitterverse to prove -- PROVE -- that our beloved shoots skeet, like, all the time at Camp David.

Do you doubt this? Can you not see the evidence with your own stupid eyes? Look at that stance, that cool, level gaze, that masterful handling of a dangerous, potentially illegal shotgun (potentially illegal for you little people, anyway). This man shoots skeet!

If you still doubt the evidence OF YOUR OWN EYES because of your rigid ideological racist hatred of our beloved, the picture was found right here:

Parody site of the White House which fooled the smartest guys on the team.

Right there it is, on the internet and everything. And we all know, or at least the very, very smart New Republic knows, that if it's on the internet, it's TRUE! Or true enough, anyway. True enough to fool all you idjits.

Well, it certainly fooled some people.

But you idjit right-wingers were not fooled?  RAAAAAACISTS! 


And so the descent. Mark my words. If you question our beloved's hunting skills and love of the sport, it is only because you are a racist. This is a HUGE dog whistle. Remember the old phrase, "great white hunter"?

RAAAAAAACISTS!

So shut up, you racists.

I think the press has really pegged it this time.

HAHAHAHA!

Proof positive. Only a racist would question this.

Spiritual vs. Realistic

First, the more spiritual take...

Now, the same idea, only more realistic...

Same song; different words. And I'm just a lot more likely to stick my tongue out. Besides, serene isn't a good look for me.

Excellent Advice.

Conspiracies are for real.

Truther.
Birther.
Hooker,
Herder.

HAHAHAHA!

Honoring the Ancient Ways

Assault Goat

I'm pretty sure he's not going to shoot deer.

If you outlaw guns, only goats will have guns.

A little pep talk.

Remember to be awesome!

Probably the directions were just too involved.

Apparently this 1964 attempt at "instant" bacon did not meet with success.

Decades later, we are still struggling with the recipe for "instant" bacon, it would seem.

I give up. There is a point where "stupid" intersects with "must die." Rachel Lucas has found it.

Don't ask if you don't want an honest answer.

I would give my eye teeth to sit down with this woman and have a drink. I'll bet she is a HOOT!

Game Changer

Best Roast Chicken Ever

Barbara is a wizard! Magical roast chicken.

This is not hyperbole. I have this cookbook and have been cooking this roast chicken for probably about 15 years. Barbara Kafka is a genius. Her recipe for roast chicken is the most fabulous-no-holds-barred-get-out-of-the-way-Katie-bar-the-door amazing thing you've ever had. (That isn't even hyperbole...trust me.) If you think you have the best roast chicken recipe and it's not this one - you don't.

Roast potatoes along side to serve with the sauce. Divine!

UPDATE!!! I should have written "cooking roast chicken this way" instead of "cooking this roast chicken". My inattentive writing has already been noted. Damn! I have smart readers. Thanks, FrankC, for keeping me on my toes! HAHAHAA!



Barbara Kafka's Simplest Roast Chicken

Adapted from Roasting: A Simple Art (William Morrow, 1995)
Serves 2 to 4

 

Photo by Nicole Franzen

5- to 6-pound chicken at room temperature, wing tips removed
1 lemon, halved
4 whole garlic cloves
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, optional
Kosher salt, to taste
Freshly ground black pepper, to taste
1 cup chicken stock, water, fruit juice, or wine for optional deglazing

 
1. Place rack on second level from bottom of oven. Heat oven to 500°F (or for convection, reduce to 450°F).
2. Remove the fat from the tail and crop end of the chicken. Freeze the neck and giblets for stock. Reserve chicken livers for another use.
3. Stuff the cavity of the chicken with the lemon, garlic, and butter, if using. Season the cavity and skin with salt and pepper.
4. Place the chicken in a 12 x 8 x 1 1/2-inch roasting pan breast side up. Put in the oven legs first and roast 50 to 60 minutes, or until the juices run clear. After the first 10 minutes, move the chicken with a wooden spoon or spatula to keep it from sticking.
5. Remove the chicken to a platter by placing a large wooden spoon into the tail end and balancing the chicken with a kitchen spoon pressed against the crop end. As you lift the chicken, carefully tilt it over the roasting pan so that all the juices run out and into the pan.
6. Optional: Pour off or spoon out excess fat from the roasting pan and put the roasting pan on top of the stove. Add the stock or other liquid and bring the contents of the pan to a boil, while scraping the bottom vigorously with a wooden spoon. Let reduce by half. Serve the sauce over the chicken or, for crisp skin, in a sauceboat.


Okay...so I've made a few changes over the years. Jacques Pepin makes a roast chicken that he serves with a sauce that is heavenly.

Do. This.

About halfway through cooking, add more garlic cloves (3 to 4 - skins and all. This is simple, folks. Don't make it hard.) in the pan with the chicken. When the chicken is done and you've removed it to a platter, saving all the juices in the pan, deglaze with liquid to scrape up the lovely lovely crusty drippings. Then transfer the drippings WITH the roasted garlic cloves to a blender and blend into a creamy, garlic sauce. Strain well into a gravy boat. OMG! This is good.

To make the roast potatoes:

Peel and cut in half, then cut each half in quarters lengthwise, as many potatoes as you want. I typically use two for a family of four. Put them all in a glass roasting pan and add a couple of tablespoons of vegetable oil, making sure it covers all the potatoes well. Add a couple of tablespoons of butter in small dabs over the top of the potatoes and then salt and pepper well. Add to oven alongside the chicken about 10 minutes into the cooking time of the chicken. The potatoes need to roast about 45 to 50 minutes, so adjust time accordingly. Don't mess with them AT ALL as they roast. When they are sufficiently crusted with roasted deliciousness, they will come out of the pan easily. If you mess with them before they have roasted to perfection, they will stick.

Serve the carved chicken and roasted potatoes with the sauce.

Die and go to heaven.

Sometimes you just gotta dance.

This horse decides to go "off course" and jazz things up a bit when he hears the music. He's got the moves...like Jagger.

What a naughty pony.