Welcome to ...

The place where the world comes together in honesty and mirth.
Windmills Tilted, Scared Cows Butchered, Lies Skewered on the Lance of Reality ... or something to that effect.


Saturday, December 27, 2008

It's A Ziggy World

For Your Health

Sometimes simple changes can bring about big results. When it comes to losing weight, more often than not, it's all about numbers.

It takes 3,500 calories to build a pound. If you have a deficit of 100 calories every day for a year – either by eating less or exercising more – you can lose 10 pounds in a year.

Here are 25 ways to pull it off.

1. Switch from whole-milk products to skim milk products. If you consume three servings a day, you can save up to 200 calories a day. That's 20 pounds you can lose next year.

2. When you go to a restaurant, ask for half of your portion to be put in a doggie bag right away. If you go out twice a week, that will work.

3. Reduce the use of butter and margarine. Use applesauce in recipes instead of oil. Try fat-free, butter-flavored spreads or sprinkles (unless you're watching your salt). Just eliminating a pat of butter on your morning toast gets you there.

4. Chilling soups, gravies and stews and skimming the fat can save you up to 100 calories.

5. Use extra-lean ground beef, ground chicken or ground turkey. Instead of bacon, use Canadian bacon.

6. Is a tall glass of juice your morning ritual? Swap that 20-ounce OJ for a real orange.

7. Meatless products, such as imitation hot dogs, bacon, burgers and sausage, often have half the calories.

8. Switch from a 16-ounce cappuccino to regular coffee with artificial sweetener.

9. Switch from fried potato chips to the baked ones.

10. Add 10 minutes of exercise a day. The goal is 30 minutes a day. If you walk for just 30 minutes – even just three 10-minute walks a day – you will lose 13 pounds.

11. Switch from sandwich bread with 100-plus calories to light whole-wheat bread.

12. Replace the 11/2 ounces of cheddar or American cheese on your sandwich with 1 ounce of nonfat mozzarella.

13. Switch to low-fat mayonnaise on sandwiches.

14. Cut back on egg yolks, which contain virtually all of the fat and cholesterol. Try using egg substitutes. In most recipes you can use two egg whites instead of one whole egg.

15. If you love microwave popcorn, switch to the light kind and save tons of fat and calories, enough to lose 10 pounds if you've been eating it every night.

16. Use sugar substitute instead of sugar in all your baking. If you use a couple of teaspoons in your iced tea and a couple on your cereal, you could lose 10 pounds by switching to a substitute.

17. Switch your afternoon soda to a diet soda to save 150 calories per 12-ounce can.

18. If you don't like diet soda, just downsize your soda portions. If you usually pick up a 44-ounce soda in the morning, switch to a 24-ounce size and save about 200 calories a day.

19. A portion of meat is 3 ounces – the size of a deck of cards. Most people eat two to three times this.

20. Replace your regular beer with light beer and save about 50 calories per bottle.

21. Take the stairs every day at work. If you go up and down often enough (say up and down five flights three or four times a day) you've got your 100 calories.

22. Forgo regular bottled salad dressing (2 tablespoons, about 150 calories) for an equal portion of fat-free dressing (about 40 calories) or a spritz of lemon juice.

23. Don't supersize anything. Switching from the 6-ounce fries at McDonald's to the 2-ounce size saves you about 300 calories. Do that just twice a week and lose weight.

24. Remove the skin from a chicken breast after cooking and save 100 calories.

25. Instead of topping ice cream with crumbled cookies or hot fudge, top it with 2 tablespoons of fresh berries and save about 100 calories.

Carolina Naturally readers

Some of today's readers hail from:

Brisbane, Paris, Berlin, Halifax, Ljubljana, Gatineau, Venice, Lincoln, Mumbai, Toronto, Bangkok, Huntingdon, Seoul, Dehli, London, and Portsmouth.

Maria


Blondie proving it still has the chops to make it as a band twenty years after their debut and this was ten years ago!

And for the purists out there here is one from Blondie in the beginning - thirty years ago!
Dreaming

Blondie

And I Quote

Sex is God's joke on human beings.

~ Bette Davis

Pennsylvania man shot for making noise during movie

It's time to get real people ...

A man enraged by a noisy family sitting near him in a movie theater on Christmas night shot the father of the family in the arm.

James Joseph Cialella, 29, of Philadelphia, told the man's family to be quiet, then threw popcorn at the man's son.

The victim told police that Cialella was walking toward his family when he stood up and was shot.

Detectives called to the United Artists Riverview Stadium theater in South Philadelphia found Cialella carrying the weapon, a .380-caliber handgun, in his waistband.

Cialella faces six charges that include attempted murder and aggravated assault.

He remained in custody Saturday.

Lt. Frank Vanore called the incident "scary that it gets to that level of violence from being too noisy during a movie."

Vanore said the 31-year-old victim from suburban Yeadon was hospitalized in stable condition after the shooting.

*****

Noisy people at the theater is annoying to be sure, but it is never cause for such stupidity as shooting someone because of it ... the thought may cross your mind - but you don't act on it, sheeesh.

America Can't Handle the Truth; But it's Coming Anyway

Leonce Gaiter posted this on OpEd News on December 16, 2008:


Unemployment benefit payouts hit a 26-year high. Foreclosures up 30% from a year ago. Layoffs abound. 43 states face budget deficits, forcing them to cut jobs, programs, and funds for education and social services.

A major story on CNN.com is, "'Mad Men' star's hair is "-bane of my existence.'"- The Fox News front page promises Glenn Beck on the "Washington State Christmas Scandal."-

Economists fear deflation, and depression. Two of the Big Three automakers may not survive through the end of the year.

The Washington Post's Kathleen Parker writes about a 27 year-old, Facebook, and a Hillary Clinton cardboard cutout. Jackson Diehl luxuriates in a bubble bath of quid pro quo and self-congratulations for his attendance at a Bush photo-op.

Food stamp usage nears an all-time high with more than 31.5 million Americans using the program. Americans are losing their livelihoods and having trouble buying food to eat.

I sense a disconnect.

The country is in serious trouble and a significant segment of the mainstream press hasn't got a clue how to handle it. They appear tone-deaf and increasingly trivial. During the bubble years, the press learned to hawk self-promotion, triviality and political boosterism as "journalism."- They became insiders, members of a ruling court, not detached observers or, heaven forbid, muckrakers. They shed the ink-stained wretch image and became privileged, cosmetically altered insiders, intimate with power and happy to knead that intimacy into power of their own.

A lot of journalism became a gossipy exercise in snark and sniffy outrage during the Clinton years. With 9/11 and The Bush ascension, the profession morphed into a jingoistic orgy of access amplification--who knew the highest ranking who from whom to get the latest, probably deceptive administration spin.

The rest of us put up with it. During the Bubble Years, weren't we all destined to be rich? Just watch that high-tech 401k grow 27% a year; get that "liar"- loan and watch your home value double. We all identified with wealth and power; we dreamt we'd have it. We weaned a whole generation on that illusion. Politics reduced to celebrity gossip and international affairs to jingoistic sound bites--it suited us fine. We were untouchable.

Even 9/11, through which we might have examined our place in the world and our exercise of power within it, instead led us to pull further inward, to howl not only at the guilty, but at the whole world. We were like kings insulted by peasants, desperate to re-establish might. So we broke things.

Now, suddenly, the prospect of plenty disappears; government actions have actual consequences--and not just for anonymous foreigners in godforsaken deserts. One congressional bill might mean the difference between having a job and not--between keeping your house and homelessness. But much of the mainstream press--particularly the television press from which most of us get our news--don't adequately address this. They don't do the hard work of explaining why this is happening or how it might be stopped or where it might end. They shake and shimmy to the gossip and the spin. They are so obsessed with their roles as insiders and removed from the lives we lead that they continue to partner with the powerful as spin conduits (The Washington Post's Frank Ahrens rehashed the old right wing wish for Mitt Romney as "car czar"- because "he has autos in his DNA,"- since his father was chairman of American Motors. Obviously, it's his birthright, like a throne), or desperately clutch a sensational local story like the Blagojevich affair and construct hypothetical Rube Goldberg-like connections to the president-elect to justify their excessive, prurient interest.

The press doesn't know how to handle our descent into darkness; and neither do we. We're still in denial. Just as the financial kings Ben Bernanke and Henry Paulson have attacked this crisis piecemeal---let's throw a little money here to handle this part, a little interest rate adjustment there to handle that part--we're not acknowledging the big picture. Our eyes have been so blinded by 20 years of bright and shiny things that we can't fathom an America generally re-cast in sepia and gray.

But yes, the next job on the chopping block might be mine or yours. Your credit cards might readjust to 26% for no reason. Next year's health insurance bill might rise 30%. The fire department might not come when you call due to crisis-induced layoffs. How many of us acknowledge that we might be sustaining ourselves with food stamps?

We haven't seen the worst of this. We hear that again and again. Obama keeps telling us, but gas prices fall and we convince ourselves that all will be well. Blagojevich kindly distracts us with sleaze. The Fox News dancing girls dazzle us with smiles and the pundits gossip and chatter at one another as if there's nothing more substantive to say or do.

Our dreams, along with our toys, are vanishing. The press and the public pretend not to notice. The first stage of grieving is denial. We're doing such a damned good job of it, I dread the day we get to anger.

As the economy collapses, expect the worst

Another one from the "Well, Duh!" Department:

As the economy collapses, expect the worst. "In the coming months, mental health experts expect a rise in theft, depression, drug use, anxiety and even violence as consumers confront a harsh new reality and must live within diminished means."

More at CNBC News.

Have Silencers Will (not)Travel

A couple of British tourists are vowing never to return to America, after spending nearly a month in the custody of American officials.

Their crime was bringing a couple of 'silencers' in their luggage -- apparently a common and even required gun appliance in England, but illegal as hell in America.

These Brits, of course, have a right to their indignation -- there's no common sense reason they couldn't have been released almost instantly.

But let's look at the bright side: under cabal policies they're lucky they weren't tortured, and you can bet they would have been if they hadn't been white with charming British accents.

More in the Associated Press.

Well, Duh!

From the "Well, Duh!" Department:

Reporters are starting to notice that the $700-billion bailout hasn't helped much of anyone except the giant finance institutions that are splitting the loot.

More at Salon.

Legal Schnauzer

Legal Schnauzer, suspects that the three-judge (and three repugican) panel considering former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman's appeal will bend over backwards to avoid criticizing the corrupt judge who first heard the case.
Siegelman's prosecution, if you're catching up, was an obvious railroading for political purposes, and it would be outright criminal and downright embarrassing if the verdict is not overturned.

Details at Legal Schnauzer.

Better late than never

Better late than never, more and more voices in mainstream media are calling for actual investigations and prosecutions of the shrub, the cabal, and their misanthropic troglodytes and sycophants .

Read more at Salon.

Panthers Running Back can catch Hall of Famer in long run

Carolina's DeAngelo Williams is one long touchdown away from tying a 50-year-old record set by the man still widely considered the greatest running back in NFL history.

Williams has six touchdown runs of 30 yards or longer this season, one shy of the record set in 1958 by Hall of Famer Jim Brown of the Cleveland Browns

Williams' six touchdowns this season has him tied with Brown who achieved the same total in 1963 to hold the record most and the second most touchdowns of 30 yards or more in a season by himself ... well at least second most until now that is.

Israel demolishes Hamas compounds

Israeli warplanes retaliating for rocket fire from the Gaza Strip pounded dozens of security compounds across the Hamas-ruled territory in unprecedented waves of airstrikes Saturday, killing more than 200 people and wounding nearly 400 in the single bloodiest day of fighting in years.

Most of those killed were security men, but an unknown number of civilians were also among the dead. Hamas said all of its security installations were hit, threatened to resume suicide attacks, and sent at least 70 rockets and mortar shells crashing into Israeli border communities, according to the Israeli military. One Israeli was killed and at least six people were hurt.

Read the rest here.

Cash-strapped states weigh idea of selling roads, parks

Minnesota is deep in the hole financially, but the state still owns a premier golf resort, a sprawling amateur sports complex, a big airport, a major zoo and land holdings the size of the Central American country of Belize.

Valuables like these are in for a closer look as 44 states cope with deficits.

Like families pawning the silver to get through a tight spot, states such as Minnesota, New York, Massachusetts and Illinois are thinking of selling or leasing toll roads, parks, lotteries and other assets to raise desperately needed cash.

Mexico detains presidential guard in drug case

Mexico's drug corruption scandals reached into the presidential guard as authorities identified one officer as a possible spy for the country's violent drug cartels.
An official of the federal prosecutor's office who was not authorized to be quoted by name identified Arturo Gonzalez Rodriguez today (Saturday, December 27, 2008) as an army major who was assigned to the unit that guards the president.

Prosecutors announced on Friday that Gonzalez Rodriguez had been placed under hour arrest for 40 days while he is investigated.
The prosecution official said there are allegations that the officer passed information to the Beltran Leyva drug cartel in exchange for payments of as much as $100,000.
The official could not confirm what type of information the major purportedly passed to drug traffickers, but the newspaper El Universal cited testimony indicating that Gonzalez Rodriguez may have informed traffickers about the activities of President Felipe Calderon.

In 2007, Calderon said members of the federal government have received threats from traffickers.
"There have been a lot of threats - whether they have been false or real - but they won't stop us from taking action," Calderon said.
More than a dozen high-ranking police and prosecution officials have been detained on similar allegations of spying for cartels in recent months, but none has been linked so closely to the president's office.

Soon after Calderon took office two years ago, he launched a nationwide offensive to take back territory controlled by drug gangs, deploying more than 20,000 soldiers.
In recent months, his administration has also launched Operation Clean House, to combat corruption in the nation's law enforcement agencies.

Big Game


Magilla Gorilla

Ohio centenarian to celebrate 105th Birthday at inauguration

Ella Mae Johnson hasn't just paid attention to American history, she's lived it.
And come Jan. 20, she'll be part of the crowd to witness president Barack Obama make history.

At 104 years young, the black woman from Cleveland plans to celebrate her 105th birthday by attending Obama's inauguration a week later.
Johnson was invited by Senator Sherrod Brown, a Democrat from Cleveland, at the suggestion of Johnson's retirement home.
"It is fitting that she should mark her 105th birthday this January by witnessing the swearing in of our nation's first African-American president," Brown said in a statement.
"I am honored to be part of her journey and humbled by her legacy."

Johnson, who was born in Dallas, experienced and overcame racial prejudice in America throughout the last century.
She graduated from Nashville's Fisk University in 1925 and went on to get a master's degree at Western Reserve University School of Applied Social Sciences in 1928.
The school is now known as Case Western Reserve University.

She said Wednesday that while she admired the incoming president, she was more impressed with Obama's young family, his willingness to show affection to wife Michelle and daughters, and with his roots to Kenya.
"This affects young people in a way that's different," Johnson said.
"I think it's good for us all. He's leading the country in the direction of taking care of each other."

The event will be the first inauguration for Johnson and for Iris Williams, her nurse at retirement home Judson at University Circle who is flying with her to Washington and staying with her at an assisted care facility in Georgetown.
"To know I'm going to see it with Mrs. Johnson, to see it through the eyes of a centenarian, is just fabulous," said Williams, 50.
"Her perspective on this is going to be very insightful for me."

Johnson, who raised about $3,000 in donations to aid organizations in Kenya for her 100th birthday, said she would like to see everyone benefit from Obama's rise to power.
"I don't mean just every American," she said. "There are other people, like those from whom he came in Africa."

How History Sees the shrub


Keith tells it like it is!

Just a reminder, mind you

Just a reminder to the repugicans out there:

U.S. Bill of Rights

The preamble

Congress of the United States begun and held at the City of New York, on Wednesday the fourth of March, one thousand seven hundred and eighty-nine. The Conventions of a number of the States, having at the time of their adopting the Constitution expressed a desire in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added: And as extending the ground of public confidence in the Government will best ensure the beneficent ends of its institution.

Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, two thirds of both Houses concurring that the following Articles be proposed to the Legislatures of the several states as Amendments to the Constitution of the United States, all or any of which articles, when ratified by three fourths of the said Legislatures to be valid to all intents and purposes as part of the said Constitution. viz: Articles in addition to, and Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America, proposed by Congress and Ratified by the Legislatures of the several States, pursuant to the fifth Article of the original Constitution.

Amendment I

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

Amendment II

A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.

Amendment III

No soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.

Amendment IV

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Amendment V

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

Amendment VI

In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense.

Amendment VII

In suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise reexamined in any court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.

Amendment VIII

Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.

Amendment IX

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

Amendment X

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.

Can dolphins survive winter in Jersey?

A group of bottlenose dolphins have been confounding humans since they took up residence in two rivers near the Jersey shore six months ago.
Now that it's winter, some people are worried they'll never make it out.
Three dolphins have died out of the original group of about 15 that spent the summer and fall in the Shrewsbury and Navesink rivers, waterways just north of Asbury Park.

Federal wildlife experts say the remaining dolphins are healthy, and should be able to make it through the winter if they choose to stay.
They cite the cases of dolphins that successfully spent winters in Massachusetts, Virginia and even northern Scotland.

But some animal advocates worry the dolphins will meet the same fate as four that drowned in the Shrewsbury River in 1993 when ice closed in on them, or the 26 dolphins killed by a sudden freeze in 1990 in Texas' Matagorda Bay.

*****

A better question is ... Can anything survive winter in Jersey?! Or, even better yet ... Can anything survive in Jersey?!

And it is no surprise that ...


Actually the numbers are higher, but the corporate media are trying to keep up appearances.

Leadership

The very essence of leadership is that you have to have a vision.

~ Theodore Hesburgh.

Drunk Driving and Presidential Elections


Gabriel Iglesias

MP3 player lights rescuers' way

Swiss rescue officials say they have found two missing skiers after spotting the light from their MP3 music player.
The Swiss air rescue association Rega says it received a distress call from the French tourists late Friday but the skiers' phone battery went dead before they could be reached.
Rega spokesman Gery Baumann says the two men were eventually found after midnight in steep, wooded terrain by a helicopter crew that spotted the light from their digital music player.
Baumann said Saturday that the two 22-year-olds suffered only mild hypothermia despite enduring temperatures as low as 5 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 15 degrees Celsius).
The incident happened near the town of Savognin in southeastern Switzerland.

*****

And they said Rock'n'Roll would would be the death of us all. As usual, they got it wrong - Rock'n'Roll saves lives!

Married Life

Bob was in trouble. He forgot his wedding anniversary. His wife was really pissed.

She told him “Tomorrow morning, I expect to find a gift in the driveway that goes from 0 to 200 in 6 seconds AND IT BETTER BE THERE !!”

The next morning he got up early and left for work.

When his wife woke up, she looked out the window and sure enough there was a box gift-wrapped in the middle of the driveway.

Confused, the wife put on her robe and ran out to the driveway, brought the box back in the house.

She opened it and found a brand new bathroom scale.

Bob has been missing since Friday.

Just for laughs


John Pinette

Smile ... You're Under Arrest!

In Arizona, seeing Joe Arpaio on TV is nothing new.
But, now he has a national platform to pursue lawbreakers that stretches beyond the 5 o'clock news.

The Maricopa County Sheriff's Office, which oversees the state's most populous county, has a starring role in "Smile ... You're Under Arrest!," a new reality show debuting today on Fox Reality Channel.

A cross between "Punk'd" and "Cops," the program sets up elaborate sting operations to snare people wanted on outstanding warrants.
Actors and undercover deputies play along in faux scenarios where scofflaws are enticed to have a good time; the drama comes when cast members reveal the prank and waiting deputies slap on handcuffs.