Search Results for 'cU'

[redblack]

rich: i don’t underestimate those radical fundamentalist criminals who happened to be islamic. they could have just as easily been IRA. or jewish separatists. or ELF. or buddhists.

by bringing religion into it in an us-versus-them debate, you are helping perpetuate what “bin laden” – sponsored by corporate media – has been selling. (and business is fine, thank you very much.)

israel has committed a lot of brutality, (supposedly in the name of self-defense) but just because i believe their government is insane doesn’t make me anti-semitic. and as much as i’d like to, i don’t accuse christians of being criminals just because of nonsense-in-the-name-of-christ like the spanish inquisition. or fred “god hates fags” phelps.

you can’t broadbush – what? – a quarter of the world’s population as bomb-throwing criminals simply because they’re islamic. that’s like dismissing the entire catholic religion as pedophiles.

if that’s the intent of you and jiggers, then you’re either purposely fomenting religious war or you’re completely bent by what corporate media is shoveling you.

your dismissive “ahem” notwithstanding, of course.

in conclusion, though, have you ever considered that bin laden was more pissed off about american corporate hegemony – enforced by our miltary and financial might – than by our constitution, our freedom, or our religious views? if not, i can recommend ghost wars by steve coll, a former washington post editor. very illuminating.

[DOC]

Bin Laden was not planning on creating a depression when he planned 9/11. He was trying to destroy buildings that he thought a financial system could not exist without (I think at least). Agreed that the recession is happening, but I think he was planning on destroying the American idea of currency, not just devaluing it a little. And frankly, it’s our own stupidity that got us into this financial mess, not his plan or trap.

[voodoo]

Mea culpa. As you were, then.

[cjboffoli]

After reading weeks of raves here, and hearing endorsements from another local chef who told me he liked it, we finally made it in to Blackboard Bistro for dinner last week. But I have to say that it was surprisingly uneven, both in terms of service and food.

Admittedly, it was a Friday night and every table was full except for a couple of “two tops.” But no one was at the door and it took a while for someone to even make eye contact with us. I noticed that the servers were busy and one was clearing and resetting the empty tables. Waiting a few minutes for a table on a weekend night is totally reasonable. But it might have been better for someone to at least acknowledge us before resetting the tables. A minor quibble but more than five minutes standing at the door feels long. Not a strong start but hardly a felony.

As soon as we were seated I ordered a glass of wine. But it never materialized until much later in the meal only when I reminded our waiter about it.

They first brought out some bread with almost a dipping sauce of clarified butter, herbs and toasted squash or pumpkin seeds. It was really wonderful. I’m often surprised at how many good restaurants can’t get bread right. These guys do get it right.

We were excited to dive into what looked like a very interesting and compelling menu. Of course I HAD to order the beer battered okra with the watermelon rind ketchup. We decided to share an eggplant dish that was served over sort of a mash of roasted red peppers. And after deliberating over about six dishes that looked really interesting, I ultimately went with the slow-cooked lamb with gnocchi and summer squash.

Unlike any fried okra dish you order in the South, this okra was served in whole pieces (as opposed to cross sectioned cubes). The trick with okra is for it not to get slimy and the chef pulled it off successfully. The light batter was perfect and the okra was nicely cooked. However, the dish was somewhat under-seasoned and the ketchup was bland and in definite need of some acid.

The eggplant was similarly underwhelming in terms of flavor and texture though the roasted red peppers underneath were wonderful.

After we were finished with the eggplant dish, and sitting there for a good while, our waiter asked us if we wanted to order anything else. And we were like, “Um, no..but it might be nice if you brought out the lamb dish that we ordered.” For the second time in the meal he totally forgot something. He covered pretty well though. No apologies but an assurance that it it was on the way. By the length of time it look to come out, it was clear that the kitchen only fired it after he left our table and put the order in.

(Note to servers who forget things: You’re busy. Mistakes and oversights will happen. But it is always better to tell the truth about it and correct it ASAP. Trust me. We’re people who love good food and you’re the nice young person working your ass off to bring it out to us. We’re on your side. So don’t lie to us because we’ll know.)

The lamb dish wasn’t worth the wait. It is hard to go wrong with a shredded, slow-cooked lamb. And there WAS great flavor there in the meat. But the gnocchi was under-seasoned, bland and too fluffy. Some of the squash was too crunchy and under-cooked. But the most troubling aspect of the dish was two large pools of oil. If they hadn’t been rushing to get it out to us, I wonder if the chef would have stopped this dish at the slide. Having had multiple dishes by that point that were under-seasoned, I wondered if enough tasting was happening back in the kitchen.

Just when we had lost hope, we shared a dessert of an eggy brioche French toast with honey ice cream and grilled figs. All I can say about that is WOW! Definitely in my top five desserts of the past year. The texture of the bread was heavenly. Buttery, eggy, delicate. The figs were grilled perfectly. And the honey ice cream just tied it all together. A brilliant dessert. I really need to find out who the pastry chef is there because that person is a star.

I definitely will be going back in to give it another shot, especially as their menu continues to evolve. But I just didn’t find the first experience to be all that rave-worthy.

[dhg]

I really want to like the Heartland. I like the people who work there. I find the restaurant environment to be depressing: low end tacky. The food was just not very good. Execution is important, even if it is Midwest fare. If their burgers can compete with Zippys, then we’d have something.

[wsgolfer]

Wow, surprised to return to such a lively thread!

I did look at all my options pretty closely. Ultimately the reasons I decided to purchase a Kindle were price and readability outdoors.

I’m a pretty big Apple fan. We have a MacBook, a HP Mini Hackintosh, and a pair of iPhones. Try as I can, I just can’t come up with a compelling reason why the iPad would be a better “simple book replacement”, which is what I’m looking for. Most of the other things the iPad can do (email, web browsing), I can do with either of our laptops, or iPhones. If I was going to buy a ‘couch’ computer, I’d at least want it to support multiple user accounts, a surprising and glaring omission in iOS4, IMO.

Thanks for the lively discussion.

wsgolfer

(also an AAPL shareholder).

[anonyme]

They’ll continue to pop out now & then when the sun comes out, even in winter. However, the really huge ones are now laying their egg sacs, then dying. The immature ones will overwinter in leaf litter and vegetation. The young of this species usually hatch out in spring, but they’re so tiny you don’t notice them until later in the year.

Rarelyever, I created my own program. It began with reading and learning about spiders. At first I couldn’t even look at a drawing of a circle with eight legs coming out of it. When my BFF got a tarantula, I couldn’t enter his home. Finally, I could be in the same room & eventually got curious enough for a closer look. I actually think tarantulas are less scary than house spiders – they look more like small animals, which is what they are.

In retrospect, reading was the most important aspect of my desensitization. Knowledge does truly vanquish fear. The programs you describe don’t sound very helpful, especially the tickling stuff.

[maplesyrup]

I thought the name of the place in SODO was Circus Arts but whatever it’s called, that’s the place I was thinking of.

My kids go to so many parties it’s hard for me to keep that stuff straight.

[luckymom30]

Thanks everyone for your suggestions! I found SANCA School of Acrobatic and New Circus Arts, anyone have any reviews or recommendations on this place? What is the name of the Circus School in SODO? Gameworks is good too but they are downtown and the parking is a nightmare, Bullwinkles I checked out but we just went to a party there several months ago. Too bad Color Me Mine went out of business here in Seattle. I will look up Circus Arts, thanks again!

[cleat]

Hi .. We are taking a little break in a cottage West of Vancouver BC one of these days and can’t seem to find the rules on what food can be taken into Canada … Can anyone provide a current accurate link or know the rules? Nothing exotic… just lunch munchie kinds of things…

thanks!!

cleat

[Andy]

Chris, I would say something about the difficult economic times, but then it would switch from an iPad/Kindle debate to a “you damned liberals/no, you damned conservatives” throwdown, and wsgolfer would be no closer to his/her kindle.

Which is not to say that these forums ever get off-topic…

[maplesyrup]

My kids have enjoyed:

Circus Arts

some gymnastics place down in Kent/Renton (sorry I don’t know the name)

Bullwinkle’s

Gameworks

And the good old group sleepover

[Jiggers]

The latest report by HarborView is that TB is up sharply among the homeless community this year because they are forced to sleep in cramped quarters in a shelter and breathe the same oxygenated air. There is a mandatory quaranteened period if one is symptomatic and will undergo numerous blood cultures in a 4 day holding period. Once determined if the individual has contracted T.B, they are given a prescripted medication(not A cure), to help combat their virus and let back out into the public. Most carriers of TB don’t give a damn about giving it to other people around them. The scary thing is that you don’t know who has it around you and hopes no one sneezes within fifteen feet from you. You can get TB just by breathing it in.

I personally have a rare auto-imnnuno deficiency illness which requires life-long infusions which isn’t A cure. I am very nervous being around dirty individuals with nasty habits. Thank gawd I am not on medicaid and have better insurance to pay for my $2,500 an infusion treatments. But one day soon, it will be cut too I’m afraid.

[inactive]

Has anyone ever tried to put a tiny bit of H202 in with the enviro-liquds? I haven’t tried it cuz I’m not sure it won’t eat up cotton, but it is in the “oxygen” products, right?

And, I had not heard about vinegar for static. I’ll try it along with the not-over-drying strategy. I’m guilty of that no doubt, because, good gawd, who has the time to baby sit dryer loads. ugh.

thanks gals for all the Heloise tips! ;)

Edit: B-squared – like the list. thx!

[Smitty]

Curious as to why you wouldn’t just get an ipad. It’s a kindle plus a LOT more.

Not a slam on your decision – just an AAPL investor curious about consumer choices.

[NicNDuB]

Ok I know I’m preaching to the choir, but as someone who worked at Harborview with the uninsured and later assisting HIV+ individuals to obtain insurance, I feel the need to point out that too often we frame the health coverage issue as an individual problem, instead of the public health issue it actually is. While I agree that we should be concerned about the most vulnerable populations in our society, not everyone shares this belief, but I haven’t met too many individuals who aren’t concerned about their own health and safety.

And this is where I believe the conversation needs to move away from “the most vulnerable” to “our collective well being”. Viruses and other communicable diseases love densely populated areas because their ability to live and “procreate” is dependent on hosts. When communities have a high percentage of individuals with compromised immune systems (e.g. children, elderly, and the disabled), diseases will setup residence in these hosts as they learn how to get around the immune systems of the healthy. If contagious individuals do not have access to healthcare, they essentially become a carrier which impacts everyone in the community.

This is where I like to use an actually case to illustrate. At Harborview I worked with an individual who was the sole supporter of their family of 4 (them-self, a spouse and two children). This individual worked as a cook in a nice restaurant that didn’t offer health benefits. Therefore, when they got sick, they continued to go to work since they couldn’t afford medical care or to take time off and still feed and shelter their family. This individual also expressed a strong value of being self sufficient versus being a “welfare family”. I met this individual when they were admitted to the hospital after being immobilized by tuberculosis. Moral of the story: If you think healthcare is an individual’s responsibility ask yourself how many others you encounter in your daily life and how strong your immune system really is.

Finally, this is how the proposed Medicaid cuts could impact all of us:

• Cuts to outpatient Rx benefits: MRSA and other diseases that are “highly resistant” have developed in big part because of a lack of adherence that allows disease strains to become immune to existing treatments. So we can expect to see a rise in “super-viruses” if individuals can’t afford to complete some Rx treatments

• On average Medicare takes two years to make a disability determination. In WA the Disability Lifeline (or GAU as I knew it) offered medical coverage during this determination process. So even if you’ve worked your whole life and believe you have a safety net should you develop a chronic condition or get seriously injured, ask yourself if you have saved enough to cover medical and living costs for 2 years while waiting for the government to process your claim.

• Hospice services and emergency medical funding: do we really want to stop providing emergency and end of life care? Because if so we’d all better get accustomed to watching individuals die on our streets.

Thanks for reading and now I’ll step off my soap box.

[brew]

Bringing up the Patriot Act and privacy issues….

The Below can and will have hugh implications on private communications….

By ASSOCIATED PRESS

Published: Sep 28, 2010 01:38 Updated: Sep 28, 2010 01:38

WASHINGTON: Broad new regulations being drafted by the Obama administration would make it easier for law enforcement and national security officials to eavesdrop on Internet and e-mail communications like social networking websites and BlackBerry phones, The New York Times reported Monday.

The newspaper said the White House plans to submit a bill next year that would require all online services that enable communications to be technically equipped to comply with a wiretap order. That would include providers of encrypted e-mail, such as BlackBerry, networking sites like Facebook and direct communication services like Skype.

Federal law enforcement and national security officials say new the regulations are needed because terrorists and criminals are increasingly giving up their phones to communicate online.

“We’re talking about lawfully authorized intercepts,” said FBI lawyer Valerie E. Caproni. “We’re not talking about expanding authority. We’re talking about preserving our ability to execute our existing authority in order to protect the public safety and national security.” The White House plans to submit the proposed legislation to Congress next year.

The new regulations would raise new questions about protecting people’s privacy while balancing national security concerns.

James Dempsey, the vice president of the Center for Democracy and Technology, an Internet policy group, said the new regulations would have “huge implications.”

“They basically want to turn back the clock and make Internet services function the way that the telephone system used to function,” he told the Times.

The Times said the Obama proposal would likely include several requires:

Any service that provides encrypted messages must be capable of unscrambling them.

Any foreign communications providers that do business in the US would have to have an office in the United States that’s capable of providing intercepts.

Software developers of peer-to-peer communications services would be required to redesign their products to allow interception.

The Times said that some privacy and technology advocates say the regulations would create weaknesses in the technology that hackers could more easily exploit.

[JoB]

Smitty…

“The “inherited” (nice, huh?) national security that W “inherited”(get it?) has been corrected and improved because of the act.”

LOL.. I am sure you believe that..

but the Bush administration was briefed on Osama Bin Laden and the threat he posed and chose to focus on other security issues.. like how to justify a war with Iraq.

9/11 gave them a way to frame justification.. so they invaded Iraq and made Osama’s point for him… thereby inflaming the rest of the fundamental Islamic world… while managing to pretty much ignore Osama and Afghanistan. Sweet, huh.

Yup. the bad guys are still out there..

including some new enemies we created for ourselves :(

but that doesn’t answer the question of whether security has actually been improved by the patriot act.

did you actually look at what the patriot act dollars were spent on?

You might not want to look too closely at those expenditures…

that warm fuzzy feeling the patriot act gave you could dissipate pretty quickly:(

[Sue]

The first time I went I found the food to be very good, but a limited menu (with pretty much no vegetable on the menu) and overpriced. I tried it again a while later and was reminded of my original opinion and we did not return for a while. I got one of those groupon-clone deals recently for Heartland and went back. I was surprised to see that the menu had changed, had more offerings, and actually had vegetables and salads available as sides, which I was happy to see. But I still think it’s overpriced for what it is. I haven’t been there for brunch because of the prices.

I probably won’t be back, but simply because I no longer eat red meat or dairy/cheese – which cuts out a great deal of the menu – and as I switch to a more heavily vegan diet, their menu does not serve me. That’s not a complaint to Heartland – I do not expect midwestern comfort food to be vegan. :) It’s just that my needs have changed, so I choose to go elsewhere.

[villagegreen]

I’ve walked by a couple of times recently and the place looks empty. People were so excited for this place to open (me included). I remember a thread with something like 150 comments from people on menu suggestions back before they opened. Not to mention all the excitement surrounding the revival of the storied Benbow.

Any ideas why it’s not more popular? I’ve eaten there a couple of times and the food is good, if not spectacular – but how could midwest food be spectacular? What do you think could be improved that would entice you in more often. If there’s one new place in West Seattle I want to succeed, this is it. The Benbow is so awesome I can’t believe it’s not packed every night. And now I think they’ve opened a second bar area with games and live music on weekends. I stopped in last weekend and it was completely dead. What’s up? It would be a travesty if this place closed again (especially the Benbow)!

[Smitty]

It’s been quite awhile since 9/11 and I don’t think the bad guys have stopped trying.

The “inherited” (nice, huh?) national security that W “inherited”(get it?) has been corrected and improved because of the act.

[Carson]

Don’t forget. Stupid people can have stupid ideas. The theory has been proven time and again. Example, lets cut taxes and start 2 wars. That was a dumb idea, by a dumb person.

[Smitty]

Agree completely.

“Chimpo” comes to mind as just one example.

I just hope after the Fall landslide that “voters are stupid” doesn’t become the theme again – especially since we were all so enlightened just two short years ago. It only seems to rear its ugly head when the “R’s” win. Funny that.

The media is just now beginning to set the table for the primary excuse. It’s either going to be A) People are stupid or B) The smart people didn’t vote.

Let’s revisit this thread in November and see how consistent we all are.

[JustSarah]

Yes, dryer balls are great! Liquid fabric softeners also accelerate fading and fabric degradation. My mom never used fabric softeners (much to my dismay, as that Snuggle Bear really sold me on the idea as a kid!), but now I understand why. Why pay extra money for a product that’s bad for the environment and wears out your clothing faster? I kind of understand dryer sheets, if static is really an issue, but again dryer balls or even a cloth soaked in white vinegar does the trick (add a few drops of lavender essential oil if you feel you realllly need a scent boost).

Edit: herongrrrl’s post below reminded me that overdrying is a big static culprit as well. Let the dryer run only until the load is just barely dry. This may mean setting it for a shorter cycle than you think it needs, then resetting it for a bit longer if the laundry is still damp. If the laundry is left to tumble for too long after it’s dried, it will definitely build static – especially in the dry winter months.

[pennidogg]

I don’t use fabric softener any more since my husband told me it can make your clothes flammable, it can also make your bath towels less absorbent. I now use Nellie’s Dryer Balls (www.nelliesallnatural.com) instead. They not only reduce static cling and help soften but they also cut my drying time as well. I also second SarahScoot on the Seventh Generation Free & Clear.