One nice thing about my gig is that I talk to folks from all over the country. Once you get to know them a bit, you can drop some code words on them, and find out whether they are in your camp or not. One such find was my buddy Jerry from the East Coast. He is a good guy, a member of the VRWC, and really good at his job. Which makes my life a better place to be.

Casa D’Ice is in Pa. and has been shaking up the conversation with their signage. If I was anywhere close to there, I’d be there dropping some dough across their counters. If you are out on the East Coast, drop by there and send me a review.

As a wanna-be chef, and journeyman cook, I like good tools. I’ve been accumulating a kitchen full of cool stuff over the last couple of years, so much so that last time Dad was over, he asked me if I was going to be starting a diner.

That ain’t gonna happen for a couple of reasons.

1. You should never do what ya love for money. I have some small experience with this.

2. I hate cleaning up the kitchen.

I make beef jerky, a lot of beef jerky. And while I love my butcher, I wanted to take a crack at doing some carving of my own. Shortly before Christmas I got a call from my brother, pumping me for gift info. So I did some quick searching and came up with this:

Now that’s a knife!

18 inches long, scimitar blade, and a really skinny edge. Like less than 20 degrees. I will determine the real angle when it’s time to sharpen it.

That’s 12 inches of butterflying, carving, butchering goodness.
Cuts like butter through a chicken breast, easily cutting them into 3 thin quick cooking pieces.
I’ll let you know how it works when I get me a big ol’ roast to cut up for jerky.

Thanks Bro!!!

Got up this morning after sleeping way late for me, 9:00 AM.

Diggin through my morning reading, I ran across this on The Blaze

Some personal history. In 1998, the Mn. Governors race is on. We had the same old same old choices available. Norm Coleman, recent Dem turned Republican vs. Skip Humphrey (Hubert’s Kid).  and those choices sucked.

Enter Jesse Ventura, local boy made good in the wrestling biz, ex-mayor of Brooklyn Park (aka Crooklyn Dark, due to massive movement in the Section 8 population from North Minneapolis), local radio talk-show host on 2 different local talkers, KSTP (news) and KFAN (sports). Member of the precursor to the current SEALs the UDT, and if you believe it, a Sargent at Arms with a national M/C chapter.

As Mayor, Jesse gave the City such stirring legislation as the “Ventura Rule” which allowed no one to take more than an 8 when playing the local golf courses. and showed up for Council meetings riding a bike and conducting the City’s business wearing a doo-rag.

After a nomination by the Reform Party, (see Ross Perot 1992) Jesse turned the general populations dissatisfaction with the business as usual candidates into a groundswell of support for an “outsider”. I was one of those who supported Jesse because I had been listening to his radio shows, and had been watching the feeds from his time as BP Mayor back in the day. It seemed like it was a time for someone to shake up the status quo, and this guy was brash enough to do it.

Jesse’s platform was Fiscally Conservative, Socially Liberal. That resonated with the disaffected, mostly because Mn has always been a Blue State, propelled by big Democratic support in the population centers, with more conservative folks in the outlying areas trying to keep the balance within the State Government, with varying degrees of success.

During the campaign, I had the chance to talk to Jesse directly, and I had but one question for him. Would he abolish the Metropolitan Council, which was, and is, an unelected group which has the power to tax, with no recourse by the People to hold them responsible? Absolutely, he said to me. Good enough, I thought, I am on board.

Jesse went on to win that race, and those of us who thought we were in the know, waited to see what our boy would do with the responsibility we gave him. He started out like any out of the blue Governor would, lots of media attention, many interviews. While watching it all, I began to see what I had hoped wouldn’t be the case, Jesse being more concerned with being Jesse, rather than moving towards the goal of getting the State moving forward in a more limited fashion. I’m not going to say that Jesse didn’t get some things done, He rebated the existing surplus back to the taxpayers, and did manage to get some laws repealed. The “apehanger law” was one that was sent away, so we could all put the big-boy apes back on our scooters.

But he failed in his promise to me, and even went so far as to not abolish the Met Council, but to install Walter Mondale’s kid, Ted as the Head of the Council. So why would I be so pissed about a broken promise to one guy in 1998? Well, I’ll tell ya why.  The Met Council handles mass transit here in the Twin Cities. Under Jesse’s administration, large amounts of residential property was purchased on Hiawatha Ave in South Mpls. This was for the express purpose of creating a light rail line from Bloomington to Downtown Mpls. Or as I like to call it, Ventura’s Folly.  This project was to usher in a better way to move people around, and alleviate traffic congestion in and out of Downtown.

What really happened? Scores of private residences were razed, traffic was snarled for the duration of the project, (the traffic didn’t get better by the way, in some ways it’s worse) and when completed urban crime, now with the chance to become mobile moved out to the suburbs. Within 5 years of the projects completion, commuters at the far end of the line, in Bloomington were treated to leaflets on their cars in the lots where they parked to catch the train, stating they (the lot owners) could not guarantee  their safety any more. During a recent transportation strike (thanks unions!) shoplifting at the Mall of America was reduced by 85%. And I am sure you all have read about the recent flash mob semi-riot at the Mall in the last couple of weeks. those were not Bloomington residents doing that.

The failure by the Met Council to recognize that simple fact that when you make it easier to criminals to move around, they will choose to do so is one of the great shames of the last 20 years. And they haven’t learned anything yet, they created the North Star line from the outlaying suburbs to Downtown Mpls. They are in currently the midst of connecting Mpls and St Paul by another corridor going right down University Ave. Yep, progress, mighty progress will drag us back to the days of the streetcar, allowing scum and riffraff to easily move from spot to spot.

As time progresses, we will see that businesses along the rail lines will become affected and will move away as it becomes less possible to keep them secure, making those areas more run down than before. Easy pickins for gang and criminal takeovers. I’m sure that most of you have seen films of the decaying parts of New York along the train lines. That, my friends is what the glorious future planning of the Met Council will bring to the Twin Cities.

So, you may quite rightly ask, what the hell does have to do with Jesse Ventura? To me it was a broken promise that set into motion a series of events that will have the good citizens of the Twin Cities paying for the Met Council’s vision of urban transportation control. That vision, carried out to it’s logical end will change the University Avenue corridor into a deteriorating morass of crime and squalor. Likewise will go the Hiawatha Corridor, and out to the northern suburbs down the North Star line.

Hell of a legacy for our hometown hero, yes?

Jesse as time has passed, has collapsed under the weight of his own ego, and become a cartoon image of himself. As illustrated below, he lost touch with what was important, true and right. He had what he got coming to him, and it’s just sad.

One of the advantages to not being married, and being gainfully employed, is that you can pretty do whatever the hell you want. What we have here is another piece of my keeping the home fires burning plan.

It’s the Powerhorse 9000!! 9000 watts peak,  7250 watts sustained.

Enough to run the freezers, kitchen, furnace, and the computers in the event of a power outage. It will also run my welder and everything in the garage.

Rubber mounted engine, 8 1/2 hours run time at 1/2 load.
Next? Gas cans and fuel stabilizer.
It’s a good day.

I’ve got Fox News on, I’m halfway through my first cup of coffee, and I am still pissed about the “debate” on Tuesday.

What a clusterfuck that was. I don’t know about you, but I think that it’s time For the RNC to shut down this entire sorry circus and do a little re-thinking about the way they are presenting the candidates.

Anderson Cooper, Charlie Rose and a bunch of other lefties moderating the debates? Really? Why not just let Rahm and Axlerod do it? The result will be the same, just more honestly arrived at.

Our candidates? Holy Crap! What I saw on Tuesday was nothing more than a elementary school attempt at a debate. I saw people, alleged adults whining and crying that they weren’t getting their turn. WTF!

I’m looking at you Mitt. Anyone who would stand at a podium, and saying ” Anderson, Anderson, Anderson” deserves to be slapped like the little bitch that you are acting like.

No slack for Perry or the rest, either. You people were disgraceful before the electorate you are trying to impress. How soon you all have forgotten the 11th Commandment, “we don’t speak ill of another Conservative”

Is this the best the RNC can do? I hope not.

Therefore, I am offering myself as the next Republican Debate moderator. If I get the nod, I will reign in this group, and change the rules of the game so everyone gets heard, AND I will not tolerate misbehavior on the dais. Candidates will receive ONE warning about being jerks, and if they continue, they will be removed from the stage to the spin room where they can whine and cry out of sight of people who are actually watching to hear solutions, not slogans, and I will not tolerate a question that is not answered directly.

It’s time to get some truth out of someone who wants to be the President, not just vague policy ramblings.

Time to stand up GOP, and let one of the people do what you don’t seem to be able to do.

Gene Simmons rockin’ the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines Themes

And a big finish.

Props to Auntie Bev for the link!

Watched the debate last night.

I prepped hard for it. Pulled out a 2 inch thick ribeye, injected it with secret marinade, and slow grilled it to a just turned to med rare state. Coarse ground salt and pepper to taste, splash of Lea and Perrins’, and you have a dinner fit for a hungry guy.

On to the debate, I had hope that the Fox panel would not be a bunch of douches like the two prior sets of moderators had been. And they weren’t for the most part. Where they, and everyone else has failed so far is to not let Perry and Romney dominate the debate.
It’s just pandering to the GOP establishment, and it’s bullshit.

This is the set up to the ordination of Romney as the candidate who is vanilla enough to not offend most voters, but still represents the base enough so we will hold our noses and pull the lever for him, like we did with McCain. That is old school thinking, and will be the death of the GOP. Not to mention it puts candidates like Santorum, Cain and Bachmann on the back burner waiting for their chance when and if the kingmakers deign they are ready for primetime.
Perry and Romney spent their time smacking each other around and ignoring the others on the stage, and that does not speak well of them, or the GOP brass.

On to the others on stage, (which are far more interesting to me, anyway).

Newt: Still dogging the moderators, and proving that anyone who would not include him in their Administration would be fools. He will not be the nominee, and rightly so for he is disconnected from the real world, and virtually unelectable given the current anti-establishment bent of the country.

Gary Johnson: A Libertarian, in the mold of Ron Paul, who has no chance of winning the nomination at this time.

Ron Paul: The Godfather of Libertarians, putting the flag out there, but his defense and foreign policy stands do not translate into viability for the nomination. We do owe Ron a debt of gratitude for bringing the tenets of Libertarianism into the mainstream, but often he is undermined by his rabid base of supporters.

Michelle Bachmann: The rookie in the crowd, and being plagued by rookie mistakes. Continuing to drag out the Gardisil play to whack on Perry is a non-starter. She does best when defining herself as an alternative to the same old RINO foisted on us by the power brokers in the GOP.

Jon Huntsman: I don’t know, this guy just strikes me as slime. Too slick, smarmy, and glib. Reminds me of a used car sales manager.

Rick Santorum: Coming on stronger as time passes. Would love to see him go one on one w/ Perry and Romney separately for an hour apiece.

Herman Cain: Herman continues to impress as the guy who gives answers to questions, not just general policy positions. Gets better every time he is up there. Out of the available candidates Herman is the outsider, and deserves equal time on the stage.

From @freetherepublic Tea Partier, and all around truth seeker.

Watch this more than once. Realize that we are winning the battle for hearts and minds.

We will own the GOP, and we cannot allow the old guard to foist yet another RINO on the country. We need the existing structure that the GOP has to further the cause of limited Government.

Watching the debate last night, I saw weakness and strengths shown by all the candidates.

My personal favorite, Herman Cain scored hard with the 9-9-9 plan, and was the clearest, solution oriented candidate on the stage.

John Huntsman was easily the most smarmy presence there. You felt like you were in a used car sales office listening to him speak.

Newt scored some good points against the moderators, refuting their barely veiled attempts toward getting the candidates to fight each other.

Mitt is triangulating towards the Tea Party, but seems like he will abandon us as soon as it’s no longer a factor in achieving victory.

Perry was easily the upstart owing to his remarks on Social Security and the Death Penalty in Texas.

Bachmann struggles to keep up, and will have trouble unless she can get more face time, and start engaging the big dogs, who have till this point even refused to acknowledge her presence on the stage. I fear she will be done soon.

Rick Santorum will be gone in short order unless he can find a way to push his way into the main crossfire.

Ron Paul, whose ideas that have been firmly out there for years, are finally taking hold in the general population is being dismissed out of hand as a serious contender. which is a shame. His ideas are timeless, and are just getting the publicity they are due. He will be unfortunately passed by because He has been branded unelectable by the GOP and the public at large. I think that Rand may be the best hope for the continuation of his ideals.

Props to gabeslaw for capturing this.