Finestkind Clinic and fish market

Colombia update

2008-07-07T14:43:00.001+08:00

you don't just go in and rescue hostages...you turn the country around economically, slowly upgrade the military (getting rid of the "bad cop"types) and do a lot of teaching on intelligence gathering first.

InFromTheColdBlog has the background of the Colombia rescue raid.

Recipe of the day

2008-07-07T14:10:00.002+08:00

If you have to feed a bunch of kids breakfast, here is the recipe for you...

have the kids tear up the onion rolls and cut the butter and break the eggs...

Next morning, stick in oven...

(headsup tipnut blog)

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Actually, when I was a mom, I used to do a variation that used Bisquick, eggs, and fried onions and bacon and cheddar cheese.

This is a similar recipe.

And when I was really lazy, I used bacon bits or bacon that I had precooked and froze and preshredded cheddar cheese and microwaved it...you have to watch the center (which stays raw)...the trick is to place a glass in the middle of a round dish when you microwave...

Music interlude of the day

2008-07-07T11:08:00.000+08:00

Pinay musician on youtube...check link above for story

Headlines below the fold

2008-07-07T10:12:00.002+08:00

NYTimes magazine has an interesting article on Rush Limbaugh...I haven't listened to him since the early 1990's...sounds like he hasn't changed...

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Brendan Frasier in a new movie...it's 3D and rotten tomatoes liked it...but Hellboy 2 seems to be getting a bigger buzz...

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You know that yellow cake that Saddam didn't have? Well, 550 tons of it are being moved to Canada to reprocess into nuclear fuel for civilian reactors. My take HERE.

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The "we're all gonna die" link of the day (viaInstapundit):

Maybe Chicken Little Wasn’t Paranoid After All

everyone worries about big asteroids, but a small one that hit the right place would be pretty bad too...

musical interlude for the holiday

2008-07-05T13:26:00.000+08:00

Caveman music and Barbara

2008-07-05T11:30:00.003+08:00

The prior link (below) is about cavemen and music.
In the comedy "What's up Doc", the Ryan O'Neil character was a musicologist who was examining the source of music in ancient stones.

So here is your real musical video for the day:

The CaveMan boogie

2008-07-05T11:22:00.003+08:00

Ancient hunters painted the sections of their cave dwellings where singing, humming and music sounded best, a new study suggests.

Analyzing the famous, ochre-splashed cave walls of France, the most densely painted areas were also those with the best acoustics, the scientists found. Humming into some bends in the wall even produced sounds mimicking the animals painted there.

And Neanderthals sang like Sopranos FRLINK HERE with discussion.

Key sentence:

In a recent University College London seminar, Mithen explained that Neanderthal anatomy suggests the early hominins had the physical ability to communicate with pitch and melody.

Yum! Pickled Watermelon Rind

2008-07-05T10:15:00.002+08:00

With all the brownouts, I finally got around to reading the entire article on the Viagra effects of watermelon:

"Watermelon may not be as organ-specific as Viagra, but it's a great way to relax blood vessels without any drug side effects," says Bhimu Patil, a researcher and director of Texas A&M's Fruit and Vegetable Improvement Center.

But here's the bad news buzz kill: You'll probably need to eat about six cups of watermelon to get enough of the key ingredient -- citrulline -- for it to have any effect.

Powerline (from Minnesota) points out that the chemical in question is highest in the rind, not the pink area...

If you didn't grow up in the Midwest, this may not have meant much to you. But if, like me, you came of age in an environment in which nearly every middle-aged and elderly lady made watermelon pickles from the fruit's rind, and such pickles were a staple at every church picnic and similar social event, today's news may have suggested, not for the first time, that those ladies knew what they were about...

Actually it is probably a German thing rather than Midwestern in origin...here is a recipe from SouthernFoods on About.com
And Chest of Books has another recipe.

Stuff below the fold

2008-07-05T08:45:00.002+08:00

Like to listen to chant? no money?
The Monastery podcast is for you.
The bad news? The first hymn they sing is modern. UGH.
the rest is chant. Semi ugh...I hate chant myself...puts me to sleep.

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If you prefer choral music, try BBC3's choral evensong...alas like most of the Beeb it's streaming realplayer...

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Bluewyvern won the Arte y pico award...go to the blog and give a congratulations to her...

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Understanding China... Stangemaps suggests you think of central China as an island, and then you can understand the need for trade and expansion of the heartland in Chinese history.

Agata Mroz

2008-07-05T07:20:00.001+08:00

from the Corner: The daughter of basketball and volleyball coaches, Agata became a superstar in her home country when she led the Polish national volleyball team to European championships in 2003 and 2005. When she wasn’t competing in international competition, she was leading her Polish-league team to championships in 2003, 2004 and 2006 and guiding a Spanish-based team to victory in 2007. Once nicknamed the “great wall of China” for her excellence as a blocker, she had a knack for turning what seemed to be opponents’ advantages into points for her side. Her fame was magnified by her beauty, which helped to make the stunning six-foot-three-inch slender blonde a regular fixture in newspapers, magazines and on television...

But when pregnant, she postponed her bone marrow transplant in order to give life...alas, dying after the birth of her daughter and after the postponed bone marrow transplant.

Agata Mroz learned the lessons of sports and applied them in life. Accustomed to giving all she had on the court, Agata indeed gave the best of herself to her husband and every last ounce of herself to her daughter. She learned that there were things more important than herself, ...