Props to Pelosi

I usually can't stand the woman, but, thank you Pelosi for this:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi shut the door Thursday to a resolution honoring Michael Jackson because debate on the symbolic measure could raise "contrary views" about the pop star's life.

But I object to this:
Lawmakers are free to use House speeches "to express their sympathy or their praise any time that they wish," said Pelosi, D-Calif. "I don't think it's necessary for us to have a resolution."

It just reminds me of when legislators in California wanted to ban the personal use of ultrasound machines after they found out that Tom Cruise had purchased one to use at home while Katie Holmes was pregnant. Or after the Octomom had her babies, how there is some representative who wants to limit the number of embryos that can be implanted.

It's like, seriously? You really think that these are the biggest issues facing our nation today? You are going to take away precious legislative time to talk about these (non)-issues just because that is what is getting the public's attention? You are looking to tabloids to see what to legislate on? You guys are supposed to be the smart ones (yeah, right...). Or let me rephrase that: tax payers are paying you to discuss those issues instead of, oh, I don't know, more pressing issues like the budget crisis?

*Sigh*

The US' Afghanistan Strategy

This is something I have been wanting to post about myself, but never got around to it. And now I don't think I need to, because Sarah hit the nail on the head with my thoughts about the whole situation (actually she did it way better than I would have been able to.)

I am really worried about how things are going to develop there, and I think that Afghanistan could easily develop into the quagmire that many feared Iraq would become.

Unbelievable

But then again…I don’t know why I am surprised at this:

So the government wants to make a memorial to Flight 93 on the land where it crashed. Many landowners are amenable to selling their property to the government, but a few aren’t…or perhaps they have set their prices so high as to make it basically prohibitive for the government to purchase. In my opinion: their prerogative.

So what’s the solution?:

"We always prefer to get that land from a willing seller. And sometimes you can just not come to an agreement on certain things," park service spokesman Phil Sheridan said.
"Basically, at this point, we have not been able to acquire all the land we need," he said.
[…]

The next step will be for the U.S. Justice Department to file a complaint in federal court. A court would have to decide the matter and would set a value on the land.

Two owners account for about 420 acres the park service plans to condemn, including Svonavec Inc. — which owns 275 acres, including the impact site where 40 passengers and crew died. About 150 acres are owned by a family that operates a scrap yard.

Most of rest of the land to be condemned are small parcels, two of which include cabins.

Tony Kordell said the park service visited him late Friday afternoon and made him an offer for his 150 acres. He declined to give the price, but said his attorney requested the appraisal used to determine the value on Monday.

He's not gotten that appraisal, he said Thursday. On Wednesday, he was told the park service would condemn the land.

[…]
Randall Musser owns about 62 acres that the park service wants to acquire.

"They apologized about the way it's come together, but what's sad is they had all these years to put this together and they haven't," he said.

Musser served on the committee that helped establish the park's boundaries and said landowners were promised in 2002 that eminent domain would not be used.

"It's absolutely a surprise. I'm shocked by it. I'm disappointed by it," said Tim Lambert, who owns nearly 164 acres that his grandfather bought in the 1930s. The park service plans to condemn two parcels totaling about five acres — land, he said, he had always intended to donate for the memorial.

"To the best of my knowledge and my lawyer, absolutely no negotiations have taken place with the park service where we've sat down and discussed this," Lambert said.

Obviously there are two sides to every story and this one seems to heavily quote the land owners, but I really don't like the idea of eminent domain being used in this situation.

I heart Craigslist

Not just because I just recently bought enough boys clothes on there to outfit my baby until he is 4 1/2 (and spent the whole weekend washing, sorting and finally packing them away into 9 storage containers, but because of the Best of Craigslist. This one is truly a gem.

Very telling

I just read this article where it was stated that since the media ban on coverage of fallen soldiers returning to the US has been lifted, that the majority of families have agreed (14 out of 19), which I find really surprising. I didn't expect there to be such willingness on the parts of families to share that moment with others...it shows a great generosity on the part of the families of the fallen soldiers.

But it was this paragraph that was most telling for me:

Media interest has fallen off sharply since almost 40 reporters, photographers and camera operators turned out to document the arrival of Myers' body. At a more recent casualty arrivals, the only media representative was a lone photographer from The Associated Press.

So much for showing the human cost of the war to the US...

I did think that this was a nice idea:

Even if no one from the media shows up, the Department of Defense films each casualty arrival for which consent is given and presents a recording to the family.

I would be thankful for something like that...although I would almost wish that you could choose that option without allowing other media.

My furry baby

So yesterday was PetSmart's annual pet birthday party. So we went and took Susie along...so guess who won in her size group for Musical Sits (like musical chairs, minus the chairs...last dog to sit and stay seated loses) and the over all competition? If you guessed Miss Susie, you're right!

So she brought us home a PetSmart gift card (I think it was for $5) and $50 dollars worth of free dogfood coupons...what a star! I totally felt like a pageant mother...makes me want to get into agility training with her...lols...setting my sights high...she wins two games of musical sits and I am dreaming of agility trophies...;-)

Homemade baby food recipe

Just thought I would share this recipe, since it was easy to make and I was stumped for ideas before I made it.

I have been making our baby homemade food since he started eating solids. Don’t get me wrong, he still eats Cheerios and other pre-made baby appropriate finger foods, however I will make up some pureed sweet potatoes, peas, beans, etc, and freeze them in ice cubes for him to accompany some meatloaf or whatever other table food he would be able to eat.

But I had gotten into a kind of slump, because he is now in the meat phase, and sometimes we just don’t have table food meat that is appropriate for him (too difficult to chew for a molar-less baby).

So I went to the supermarket and got a few jars of pre-made baby food for inspiration. And one was Turkey with rice and vegetables. So I got home, opened it, and figured out it would be pretty easy to make…and it came out so well, that I thought I would share this online, in case anyone else was looking for an easy baby food recipe.

Homemade Chicken, Rice and Vegetable Baby Food

3 pieces of chicken (I used drumsticks, but small chicken breasts would work well)
1/2 a bag of frozen peas and carrots (the small chopped carrots) (about 8oz)
½ cup of rice
1 large sweet potato, already baked and peeled

Put the chicken, frozen vegetables and rice in a crockpot with about 3 cups of water.
Cook on high for about 3 hours (or until the chicken is done). Turn off crock pot and let cool until chicken is cool enough to handle.
Remove the chicken from crock pot and puree in a food processor. Add the sweet potato to the chicken in the food processor and puree some more.
Return the pureed mixture to the crock pot and stir with pea and rice mixture until combined.
Voilà…done! Now all you have to do is package and freeze.

The measurements aren’t an exact science. You can probably add another baked sweet potato, change the amount of chicken and maybe have some more liquid…it’s up to you.
The peas are so soft after all those hours of cooking that they are close to mush, but will still retain their form. And the rice is very well cooked. The baked sweet potato is something I usually do when the oven is already on for something else…in this case I was making dinner in the over the night before, and threw a foil wrapped large sweet potato in as well. It can keep in the fridge a few days, so you could make that part in advance. Alternately, you could probably throw large uncooked slices into the crock pot and fish them out with the chicken to puree, but I thought this was the easier way.

I think I am going to use this same technique to make something with ham next time. Another ode to my crock pot!