Clipmarks | Bodark's clips

Mashed Potatoes

Thu, 15 Nov 2007 06:07:20 GMT

clipped by: Bodark
clipper's remarks: Mashed potatoes are my favorite vegetable.

Having recently mashed 32 pounds of potatoes over a three-day period, I can say that they are good cooked in plain water, in salted water and in water mixed with milk, wine or chicken stock.

They are good made with yellow-fleshed, red-skinned, all-purpose, fingerling, organic, new-dug and supermarket potatoes.

Potatoes mashed the easy way (in a stand mixer) and the hard way (in a ricer) were more or less equally delicious.

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

It should take no more than two minutes to reach the fluffy mountains stage. A brief, efficient mashing keeps the potatoes from turning gummy.

Stop mixing, though, as soon as the potatoes are creamy enough. Beating the potatoes into submission does not make them any smoother; they can quickly edge into the dreaded library-paste style.

“But you certainly don’t have to know the science to make mashed potatoes. You just have to know what people ate when they were growing up: that’s what they like.”

Tags: mashed potatoes

Subliminal Ads: A Hoax

Tue, 06 Nov 2007 06:25:19 GMT

clipped by: Bodark
clipper's remarks: This may be old news to some. It IS old news. I've heard/read about subliminal advertising for years, but never came across the fact that it was a hoax. Duh!!!

Clip Source: scienceblogs.com

At a New York press conference 50 years ago, a market researcher, James Vicary, announced he had invented a way to make people buy things whether they wanted them or not. It was called subliminal advertising.
He had tested the process at a New Jersey movie theater, he said, where he had flashed the words "Eat Popcorn" or "Coca-Cola" on the screen every five seconds as the films played. The words came and went so fast -- in three-thousandths of a second -- that the audience didn't know they'd seen them. Yet sales of popcorn and Coke increased significantly.

While this caused some hysteria and promises by networks to not engage in subliminal advertising, eventually testing undermined Vicary's claims of efficacy:

In 1962, Mr. Vicary, in an interview, admitted that he had fabricated the results of the popcorn test to drum up business for his market-research firm. Subliminal ads were tossed into the invention junkyard.

Tags: advertising, subliminal

Floating Nukes

Sat, 03 Nov 2007 07:22:29 GMT

clipped by: Bodark
clipper's remarks: This doesn't seem like such a good idea to me.

Clip Source: www.cnn.com

While the U.S. hems and haws over reviving nuclear energy as a less expensive alternative to oil, Russia has dug back 30 years in our nuclear history to find a solution for some of its own energy woes: the floating nuclear power plant.

The Russian nuclear-energy company Rosenergoatom is planning a mobile plant to deliver electricity to hard-to-reach northern territories near the White Sea, where harsh weather makes regular coal and oil fuel deliveries unreliable and expensive.

The Russian plan is to mount two reactors on a football-field-size barge, float it to a port, connect power lines to the mainland, and turn on the reactors, providing communities with affordable electricity.

Yet because the safety of the Russian facility is still unknown, the prospect of resurrecting the Westinghouse idea in the White Sea has drawn protest from environmental groups such as Greenpeace and the Norwegian foundation Bellona.

Tags: nuclear power plant, barge, nuclear energy

US Healthcare: Most Expensive; Least Effective

Sat, 03 Nov 2007 07:12:40 GMT

clipped by: Bodark
clipper's remarks: Aren't we in the U. S. so fortunate that the rightwing politicians and big insurance companies have protected us against "socialized medicine".

Clip Source: www.reuters.com

Americans spend double what people in other industrialized countries do on health care, but have more trouble seeing doctors, are the victims of more errors and go without treatment more often, according to a report released on Thursday.

The report said Americans spent $6,697 per capita on healthcare in 2005, or 16 percent of gross domestic product. All the other countries spent less than half of that -- $3,128 in Australia or 9.5 percent of GDP, $3,326 in Canada or 9.8 percent of GDP, down to a low of $2,343 in New Zealand or 9 percent of GDP.

The report found that the United States stands out because of its expense and people's dissatisfaction.

"As in previous surveys, U.S. adults were most likely to have gone without care because of cost and to have high out-of-pocket costs," the report reads.

"The survey shows that in the U.S., we pay the price for having a fragmented health care system," Davis told reporters in a telephone briefing.

Tags: medicine, healthcare

Mega-Bunker In Baghdad

Sat, 03 Nov 2007 06:38:23 GMT

clipped by: Bodark
clipper's remarks: Our tax dollars at work.

Clip Source: www.vanityfair.com

The new American Embassy in Baghdad will be the largest, least welcoming, and most lavish embassy in the world: a $600 million massively fortified compound with 619 blast-resistant apartments and a food court fit for a shopping mall. Unfortunately, like other similarly constructed U.S. Embassies, it may already be obsolete.

The compound, which will be completed by late fall, is the largest and most expensive embassy in the world, a walled expanse the size of Vatican City, containing 21 reinforced buildings on a 104-acre site along the Tigris River, enclosed within an extension of the Green Zone which stretches toward the airport road. The new embassy cost $600 million to build, and is expected to cost another $1.2 billion a year to run

they seem to have held off

reluctant to slow the completion of such an enticing target

reasonable to assume that insurgents will soon sit in the privacy of rooms overlooking the site, and use cell phones or radios to adjust the rocket and mortar fire

Tags: embassy, baghdad, iraq, bunker

"Curve Ball" Identified

Sat, 03 Nov 2007 06:00:31 GMT

clipped by: Bodark
clipper's remarks: Would you buy a used car from this man?

Clip Source: agonist.org

60 Minutes has identified the man whose fabricated story of Iraqi biological weapons drove the U.S. argument for invading Iraq. It has also obtained video of "Curve Ball," as he was known in intelligence circles, and discovered he was not only a liar, but also a thief and a poor student instead of the chemical engineering whiz he claimed to be.

Curve Ball is an Iraqi defector named Rafid Ahmed Alwan, who arrived at a German refugee center in 1999. To bolster his asylum case and increase his importance, he told officials he was a star chemical engineer who had been in charge of a facility at Djerf al Nadaf that was making mobile biological weapons.

60 Minutes has learned that Alwan’s university records indicate he did study chemical engineering but earned nearly all low marks, mostly 50s. Simon’s investigation also uncovered an arrest warrant for theft from the Babel television production company in Baghdad where he once worked.

Tags: curve ball, iraq, intelligence

Democracy & Voting In The U.S. - A Commentary

Fri, 02 Nov 2007 18:32:39 GMT

clipped by: BartendingBear
clipper's remarks: Thought provoking commentary, to say the least. Read the linked source for the full perspective.

Clip Source: www.informationclearinghouse.info

Voting – especially lesser-evil voting – sustains our fake democracy more than any other citizen action. It lets politicians claim that they represent the sovereign people. It tells the world that our elected government has public support. Voting sends the wrong message to everyone. No matter who you vote for, voting says the political system is fair. It is not.

In our drugged fake democracy, Americans replace objective reality with illusions. The US does not excel in nearly any statistical measure of democracies. Our voter turnout is a disgrace. We imprison more people than all other nations combined. We do not provide universal health care or affordable prescription drugs. Our primary education system is mostly awful. Economic inequality is incredible

In a nation that supposedly prizes competitiveness there is no real political competition. The two major parties maintain a collusive stranglehold on our government. Third party candidates are purposefully disadvantaged.

Tags: rights, government, voting

Throw The Bums Out

Fri, 02 Nov 2007 08:15:12 GMT

clipped by: Bodark
clipper's remarks: And why shouldn't the voters be angry?

Clip Source: www.politico.com

Congressional Democrats certainly know the power of a throw-the-bums-out message. It vaulted them to power a year ago this week. Little wonder anxiety is boiling over inside the new majority as lawmakers ponder a succession of polls and reach an inescapable conclusion: Lots of people think they are bums, too.

The anti-Washington mood in the country — aimed at both a Republican president and a Democrat-controlled Congress — has reached breathtaking levels. One has to reach back almost 30 years, to the low points of Jimmy Carter’s presidency, to find a time when there was such simultaneous disdain for both the executive and the legislative branches, as measured by Gallup approval ratings.

Amid the bloodshed and flawed execution of the Iraq war, there is no question why Bush is unpopular.

public had a negative perception of congressional Democrats by four points, and a negative perception of congressional Republicans by 17 points.

Tags: anti-washington mood, voter dissatisfaction

10 Steps To Fascism

Fri, 02 Nov 2007 07:55:19 GMT

clipped by: Bodark
clipper's remarks: How far down the road is the U. S.?

Clip Source: www.therandirhodesshow.com

Clip Source: www.guardian.co.uk

George Bush and his administration are using time-tested tactics to close down an open society.

1. Invoke a terrifying internal and external enemy

2. Create a gulag

3. Develop a thug caste

4. Set up an internal surveillance system

5. Harass citizens' groups

6. Engage in arbitrary detention and release

7. Target key individuals

8. Control the press

9. Dissent equals treason

10. Suspend the rule of law

"The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands ... is the definition of tyranny," wrote James Madison. We still have the choice to stop going down this road; we can stand our ground and fight for our nation, and take up the banner the founders asked us to carry.

Tags: rule of law, dissent, press control, internal surveillance, gulag, freedom, fear mongering, terror

Karen Hughes Says "Adios"

Fri, 02 Nov 2007 07:44:31 GMT

clipped by: Bodark
clipper's remarks: Talk about an impossible job!!!

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

Karen P. Hughes, one of the few remaining members of President Bush’s circle of longtime Texas advisers, said today that she will return to private life, stepping down as the head of public diplomacy at the State Department sometime in December.

Opinion polls indicate that the image of the United States in Muslim countries — the chief target of Ms. Hughes’s labors — has not improved, and in some cases has deteriorated, since she took office two years ago.

“Over the course of her term, the image of the United States has not improved among Muslim countries and, in fact, in some Muslim countries, particularly Turkey, it has become markedly less positive,” said Andrew Kohut, director of the Pew Research Center. “This may not be a measure of her lack of competence, but how little, in the end, public diplomacy can do when the issue, in the end, is big events.”

Tags: karen hughes, state department, us image

Diplomats Say "No" To Iraq

Fri, 02 Nov 2007 07:31:54 GMT

clipped by: Bodark
clipper's remarks: An all-volunteer diplomatic corps doesn't seem to be working.

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

Career Foreign Service officers at the State Department reacted angrily at a town hall

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice announced just a few days earlier that the State Department would require some diplomats to serve at the American Embassy in Baghdad or on reconstruction teams in some of the country’s volatile provinces. Only those who can cite compelling reasons, like medical problems or extreme personal hardship, will be exempt from disciplinary action, including dismissal, if they turn down the assignment.

one Foreign Service officer likened the Iraq order to a “potential death sentence,” The Associated Press reported.

Many federal employees have refused repeated requests that they go to Iraq, while others have demanded that they be assigned only to Baghdad and not be sent outside its fortified Green Zone, which includes the American Embassy and Iraqi government ministries.

Tags: diplomats, iraq, state department, condoleezza rice

Risking Kids To Sell Fish

Fri, 02 Nov 2007 06:56:00 GMT

clipped by: Bodark
clipper's remarks: In addition, as reported by National Public Radio, the effort to publicize the report was subsidized by a $60,000 grant from the National Fisheries Institute. Further, Bloomberg News reported that the institute is a client of public relations giant Burson-Marsteller, and one of the firm's employees serves as vice chairman of the coalition.

Such facts suggest ethical lapses in financing the report; worse, material used in its preparation was flawed.

The misleading report is a classic example of industry-driven marketing under the cloak of scientific research.

Clip Source: www.latimes.com

was so disturbing when a group called the National Healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies Coalition released a report recently encouraging pregnant women to increase their consumption of fish despite the well-known risk of mercury and other contaminants commonly found in certain seafoods.

For years, the Food and Drug Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency have advised women who are pregnant, might become pregnant or are breast-feeding to eat no more than 12 ounces weekly of any type of fish or shellfish that could be high in mercury, a potent neurotoxin.

But it's hard to stop a powerful, if troubling, marketing strategy once commercial interests take over. The National Fisheries Institute, the main trade association for the fishing industry, paid the travel expenses of the researchers who generated the report for the National Healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies Coalition and gave each of them honorariums of $1,000 to $1,500.

Tags: tuna, mercury, fish

Bush to Democrats "We are at War"

Thu, 01 Nov 2007 23:30:30 GMT

clipped by: pokkets
clipper's remarks: Bush blames the democrats for poor veterans programs, due to their unwillingness to rubber stamp military spending.
He talks about allowing the likes of Hitler, and "Lenin, and the consequences. The dictator is here, and the consequences are patently obvious, and immediate. The War is the Second American Civil War. The Aristocracy vs The People. Just look at the real defense of the U.S. homeland. There hasn't been a whit. Katrina, California, The National guard, the poverty that is consuming more, and more people who thought they had a secure lifestyle and income. The absolute assumption of power despite the will of the majority, the preparedness to act in a criminal manner.
A) Because the laws that are enacted particularly absolve them, or
B) Because there is confidence of enough reasonable doubt to avoid conviction,
The absolute disregard for the constitution that endowed them with power, corrupt election practices, genocide, prejudice.....
FALSE FLAG ATTACKS.
The people are A

Clip Source: www.mail.com

By JENNIFER LOVEN

President Bush compared Congress' Democratic leaders Thursday to people who ignored the rise of Lenin and Hitler early in the last century, saying "the world paid a terrible price" then and risks similar consequences for inaction today.

Bush accused Congress of stalling important pieces of the fight to prevent new terrorist attacks

possibly jeopardizing confirmation of Michael Mukasey as attorney general, a key part of his national security team; failing to act on a bill governing eavesdropping on terrorist suspects; and moving too slowly to approve spending measures for the Iraq war, Pentagon and veterans programs.

"Unfortunately,

on too many issues, some in Congress are behaving as if America is not at war," Bush said

"This is no time for Congress to weaken the Department of Justice by denying it a strong and effective leader

And this is no time for Congress to hold back vital funding for our troops as they fight al-Qaida terrorists and radicals in Afghanistan and Iraq."

Tags: bush, war, politics, demoicrat, congress

We Are All The Enemy

Thu, 01 Nov 2007 09:55:51 GMT

clipped by: thisnamecantbetaken
clipper's remarks:

"For every killed child, woman or man, for all the permanent destruction and looting, hundreds of thousands of new people join the resistance everywhere."

"People do not forget. They do not forget the death of their fellows, they do not forget torture and mutilation, they do not forget injustice, they do not forget oppression, they do not forget the terrorism of mighty powers. They not only don't forget: they also strike back."

Clip Source: dc.indymedia.org

We all are the enemy

In Washington's warmongering circles the Pentagon's junta as the tail, wags the by propaganda blinded American dog of war. But in all 190 countries surrounding the US, normal people hate war and the warmongers: it's not only the muslims in the 'Arab world'.

Zinn and many others often write about the 'hatred', the resistance and growing anger 'in the Arab World' - or among the up to one-and-a-half billion muslims. But they 'forget' to state that even in the rest of the world, developing or developed, in the north and south, in the east and the west, by non-Arabs and non-muslims, the Washington Junta and it's managers is seen as the worst plague ever to pester mankind.

And do not listen to their propaganda filled with claims and lies.

Resistance is getting global, and there's more growing inside the US than the mainstream media dare or are allowed to report.

every human being with a functioning brain

is totally disgusted and appalled

''JUST FOLLOW THE MONEY''

Tags: how do you create a terrorist?, just export, democracy and freedom, american style

Waterboarding Is Torture

Thu, 01 Nov 2007 01:39:30 GMT

clipped by: Bodark
clipper's remarks:

Waterboarding is a torture technique. Period.

The next U. S. Attorney General should say those same words, and it's not going to the Michael Mukasey.

Clip Source: smallwarsjournal.com

As a former Master Instructor and Chief of Training at the US Navy Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape School (SERE) in San Diego, California I know the waterboard personally and intimately. SERE staff were required undergo the waterboard at its fullest. I was no exception. I have personally led, witnessed and supervised waterboarding of hundreds of people. It has been reported that both the Army and Navy SERE school’s interrogation manuals were used to form the interrogation techniques used by the US army and the CIA for its terror suspects. What was not mentioned in most articles was that SERE was designed to show how an evil totalitarian, enemy would use torture at the slightest whim. If this is the case, then waterboarding is unquestionably being used as torture technique.

Waterboarding is a torture technique. Period.

Waterboarding is not a simulation

If you support the use of waterboarding on enemy captives, you support the use of that torture on any future American captives

Tags: torture, waterboarding