holy crap! coyote!

Holy crap! Coyote!

annathepiper spotted it in the north garden; I didn't get a picture until it ran out into the street in front of the house; this is mostly a raw image, just resized to 640x and smaller:


Holy Crap! Coyote!

Here's a close-up at full resolution, which tells you how much of a picture I actually got - specifically, not much of one, but clear enough. I CAN HAS BIG EARS!


Big Ears!

Hopefully everybody has their cats inside...

Today's Miniature Cultural Warfare Update

Sorry, getting behind again. Here's my atypical-sources collection at the moment; a real one will come in a bit, I've been busy with work and with flailing.

United Kingdom throws Intelligent Design out of science classes;

Spotted on mojave_wolf's LJ: The Christian Civil League of Maine attacks Rita Moran (Chair of the Kennebec County Democratic Committee, not a holder of public office) over her religion (neopagan), condemning her specifically for being pagan, and for selling (as a bookseller) books intended to help neopagan parents raise their children in their own faith; they've published a fleet of her email addresses, her phone numbers, her address, and are urging their membership to let her know what they think of her evil ways;

brigidsblest has a series of comments on the CCL of Maine's article against Ms. Moran; several people on this thread state that their comments in response to the article have been edited, that material has been added to "out" commentors as neopagans, and so on; one interesting note is that the CCL of Maine's domain is owned by one Peter LaHaye, which happens to be the name of the son of Beverly ("Concerned Women for America") and Timothy ("Left Behind" book series) LaHaye;

Ex-ex-gay ministry leaders apologise;

A set of Church of England bishops go the Pat Robertson route, blame acceptance of GBLT people for flooding in England; I have to say, I managed to be surprised - not easy these days, I simply assume that Abrahamic religious figures will be vile and nasty fucktards - and actively appalled;

Ken Hutcherson's continuing failure to break through as a fundamentalist leader, um, fails again; he tried his own anti-gay initiative signature raising and couldn't get anywhere - as in, couldn't even get the other theoconservatives like Faith and Freedom Network to go along. They don't like him. I suspect they'll want to do something in 2008, to time with the main elections; they schedule these next to Congressional elections to churn up the anti-queer hate vote, which goes to the Republican party overwhelmingly;

Found via Andrew Sullivan, Mitt Romney is facing a Republican base that cares much more about his religion than his positions, and that popped up in Iowa this weekend;

From kathrynt, it turns out that "Hobby Lobby" and affiliated brands, which is apparently a large midwestern craft store chain, gets linked to by the American Family association approvingly - their July 4th message is Dominionist "ministry" themed; religion as politics as religion, and so forth; it's not as explicit as many, but it's pretty clear if you're used to reading the language.

( Articles and excerpts below )

Paris Hilton did more time than Scooter Libby

DC is the Court at Versailles:

"Under Bush, some people are imprisoned forever without due process of law while others who receive due process of law and are found guilty are set free. Do I have that right?" - a commenter on TPM.

Yes, you have that right. And these discrepancies often happen in a monarchy where the elite is above the law and decide, based on their own interests, who is and is not subject to the criminal justice system. Paris Hilton did more time than Scooter Libby.

--Andrew Sullivan

And the DC press corps is as useless and enabling as the fawning nobles seeking Kingly favour in pre-revolutionary France:

And over the last six years, that "principle" has been extended to its most extreme though logical conclusions. This administration expressly adopted theories -- right out in the open -- which, as it its central premise, states that the President is greater than the law, that his "obligation" to protect the nation means that nothing and nobody can limit what he does, including -- especially -- the laws enacted by our Congress, no matter how radical and extreme that conduct is.

In response to this most audacious declaration of Presidential Omnipotence, our Sober Guardians of Political Wisdom shrugged. Those who objected too strenuously, who used terms such as "criminal" and "lawlessness" or who raised the specter of impeachment -- the tool created by the Founders to redress executive lawbreaking -- were branded as radicals or impetuous, unserious partisan hysterics. The only crime recognized by official Washington is using impetuous or excessively irreverent language to object to the lawbreaking and radicalism of the Leader, or acting too aggressively to investigate it. That is the only crime that triggers their outrage.

--Glenn Greenwald

I don't even care about the pardon itself. (And before anybody says it: no, it wasn't illegal. Wrong, but not illegal. I particularly like how commuting the sentence rather than issuing a complete pardon allows Mr. Libby to know he's not going to jail, yet preserves his ability to protect the administration himself by taking the 5th. Plus, by specifically not ruling out a later pardon, Mr. Bush is telling Mr. Libby to relax; it doesn't matter what the courts do.) I care about the raw accumulation of lawless power. I care about the ending of habeas corpus - the ability to seize anyone, at any time, and hold them forever. I care about the overtly illegal domestic spying and the overt overruling of Congressional law, on a massive scale, by the Executive branch. I care about the raw use of raw torture. I care about the invention of new branches of government responsible to no one at all. And I care very, very much that somehow, all the defenders of this insanity, so many of the people who screamed RULE OF LAW! RULE OF LAW! about former President Clinton, are apparently somehow convinced that this is just fine now, because it's done by one of theirs. And I am made breathless by the sheer stupidity of the apparent idea that none of their political opponents will use this lawless, unchecked power in ways they don't like, ever.

I mean, I just want to slap these people. Do they think President Hillary Clinton would undo this damage? How about President Rudy Guliani? President Fred Thompson? Anyone? If you're reading this and you do, you are out of your fucking mind. Impeachment is only the beginning of the solution, not the end of it. The Democrats are thus far showing (yet again) that they are certainly not up to it; so at least two new parties are apparently needed. The Press Corps are degenerate in their worthlessness, so new media are, apparently, also needed, and bloggers - though useful - are not enough. And, as much as anything, it must be realised that the DC establishment - the Beltway Class - has made itself irrelevant except as a cheerleader for power for its own sake, and as a defender of its own, separate, political class interests. Their commentaries are worthless, and those elected to power must be told what these voices are and that they should be ignored.

[White House Press Spokesman Tony] Snow was asked by a reporter if anyone in the administration would ever apologize for what prompted the entire investigation - public disclosure that Valerie Plame, the wife of sharp anti-war critic Joseph Wilson, was an undercover CIA officer.

"Yeah, it's improper to be leaking those names," Snow said. Pressed on whether someone in the administration owed the American public an apology, Snow said, "I'll apologize. Done."

-- reported by The Guardian

Mmmm, naked contempt.

ETA: Click through to the comments; risu makes an interesting point that I think is valid about the political situation this commutation reveals.

Cooking; also, Today's Organic Cereal Report

Last night I made a beef dish that started out as teriyaki beef based on a sauce recipe I found on the web, but which veered sharply towards sukiyaki as I improvised a tiny bit. I liked what came out of it, so I'm posting it here. The sauce is a modified teriyaki sauce; most of the stuff I used are things I always have around anyway.

INGREDIENTS:

Sauce:
1/2 cup mirin
1/3 cup soy sauce
2 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon rice vinegar
1 tablespoon grated fresh ginger
2 cloves garlic, minced
2/3rds cup dashi stock
Dash of furikake (around 1t, but really to taste)
To revert this to a base teriyaki sauce, remove 1 clove garlic, all dashi, furikake, and rice vinegar, and add 1T sake. If you have no mirin, use sake instead, and add honey - but I don't know how much. I'd guess 2-3T. You need to sweeten the sake a lot, as mirin is just sweet cooking sake and you're trying to replicate that.

Everything else:
1lb beef
8 baby red potatoes (or one large regular potato)
Green onions

PREPARATION:

Mix all sauce ingredients together; stir well to insure that sugar dissolves. Set aside. Slice beef thinly (about 3mm slices is good) and cut slices into segments. Baste beef in sauce for about 10 minutes. While basting, cut potatoes up into small pieces - about, hum, 15mm wide. (A large baby red would be cut into eight pieces.) Slice green onions by cutting off roots, then cutting the dense white base section to make many small rings; cut the stalks into 5cm tubular sections. Then two options, one of which is slower but less complex:

Slower method: Put sauce, beef, and potatoes into a large pan; pepper and cook slowly on medium. The potatoes will take a while. About halfway through, add finely-cut onions; when closer to finish, add 5cm onion sections.

Faster method (saves about, oh, 15 minutes of simmering): Put sauce and beef into large pan, pepper, and cook on medium-high; simultaneously, put cut potatoes into microwave on high for 4 minutes. When beef is browned, add potatoes and reduce heat to medium; simmer for a bit, add finely-cut onions; when closer to finish, add 5cm onion sections.

The resulting broth is similar to sukiyaki in flavour and (I'm pretty sure) can be re-used like sukiyaki sauce. It's missing some of the flavours - particularly the chrysanthemum and yam noodle tastes - but is still very satisfying with much less work. Maybe you could call it Simplified Sukiyaki. ^_^ As prepared, serves four with some leftovers. Serve with rice and salad.

( Also, Today's Organic Cereal Report )