If you ever played NationStates, there is another game out there that looks to be pretty cool, if enough people get involved. Senate Seeker is an online game where you run for office and, if elected, debate and vote on bills.

It will be reset after beta stage is over — which is soon — but I’m hoping it picks up in popularity, as it seems like it might be fun!

At the risk of sounding like a metrosexual, where are all the good flannel and knit plaids this year? I went into four or five stores at the mall yesterday, and the only halfway decent one I saw was by Izod of all things (I didn’t get it).

On the other hand, maybe it’s the companies that are marketing towards ubersexuals whereas I want something a little more traditional.

I don’t want a flannel shirt that makes me look like a yuppie Barney the Dinosaur, or a transsexual creamsicle. Even the more “earthy” shirts look like some weekend warrior trying to get in touch with his feminine side.

As a follow-up… here ya go. Fantastic stuff. My modifications/changes are in italics. An addition I might make to this soup would be a few bacon crumbles, which probably would’ve tasted really good. Maybe next time. I’ve put underscores next to the recipe for your shopping list.

Spicy Chipotle Pumpkin Soup
Prep time: 45m
Ready: 1h 15m
Yields: 4 servings

Ingredients:

__ 2 T oil
__ 2 medium onions, thinly sliced
__ 1 t minced garlic, fresh
__ 1 t minced ginger, fresh
__ 1 15 oz can pureed pumpkin
__ 4-5 C chicken/vegetable broth
__ 1-2 chipotle chiles in adobo sauce, chopped roughly. I used three and it was pretty spicy. Prepare accordingly.
__ 1/2 C half and half
__ 2 T lemon juice
__ 1 T brown sugar
__ salt, pepper
__ 1/2 C creme fraiche (garnish) * I just used sour cream
__ Fresh cilantro (garnish)

Preparation:

1. Heat oil in large pot over medium heat.
2. Saute onion for about 30 minutes, stirring frequently, until tender and golden. Remove about 1/2 cup of the caramelised onion and set aside for garnish.
3. Add garlic and ginger to the pot and stir for 2-3 minutes
4. Stir in canned pumpkin, 2 cups stock and chipotles, simmer for 5 minutes.
5. Puree soup in blender until smooth. Return soup to pot I didn’t do this. I did mince the onions in a mini veggie chopper, however, before adding everything else. Probably a good thing.
6. Add the remaining stock (to desired thickness), half and half, lemon juice and brown sugar. Season to taste w/ salt and pepper. I added neither salt nor pepper. Used about 4 cups of stock overall and it was still thinner than I’d expected).
7. Simmer for 15 minutes. Adjust seasonings as needed.
8. Garnish each serving with a dollop of creme fraiche*, a spoonful of caramelised onions and a sprinkling of cilantro leaves.

Last night we went with a local coworker to eat at The Moose Preserve last night. Kinda half log cabin feel, half regular local pub, but without a seedy atmosphere.

We all split an appetizer plate — duck tenders, rabbit ravioli, venison sausage, whitefish pate and buffalo (meat)balls. We each then ordered the Road Kill Platter, which wasn’t actually as much food as might imply, but was still tasty and plenty filling. Quail, bacon-wrapped venison skewers, and wild boar sausage on a bed of wild rice.

Was as good a night as any to enjoy a nice glass of Laphroaig, as far as I was concerned.

I then teamed up with said coworker versus my other two fellow travellers to play pool on some lackluster tables. The cues weren’t all that great either. Regardless, we won 4-0 which came as a mild shock.

(Title comes from a cartoon attached to this article from The Economist):

My response to a DKos post entitled ‘A Redder Shade of Blue‘:

If you look at the right, it’s moving further and further from centre towards its extreme. GOP players like McCain, Chafee and Specter attempt to bridge divides and make calls for a more normalised stance on things, and they are called splitters, RINOs, what have you.

By that rational, it seems only obvious to me that as today’s neocon controlled GOP shifts more and more to the right that the alienated moderates and indeed, those “middle of the road”ers that exist — even though the “middle” has shifted far to the right — will make a move towards identifying with the Democratic party.

People can talk with derision about the DLC and bemoan the shifting face of the Democratic party, but until the Democratic party starts winning elections again, it doesn’t seem to me that the prerogative should be pushing a 100% blue-blooded agenda.

This doesn’t mean someone has to necessarily be a fan of the DLC, but perhaps efforts should be made to at least take advantage of new blood into the party before shooing them off.

You’re right, in one aspect, illustrating the dangers a party takes when bringing on a new faction, a la the Christian Right. However, it’s something of a false analogy. The Christian right is an ideological sect, which can’t truly be compared to a more middle of the road, populist block.

The guy through whom I did my financing for my old townhouse sends out bi-monthly-ish “Hey, I’m still here for all your loan needs!” postcards. They’re still making their way to my new house because the post office is still forwarding on stuff to the new address, 8-10 months or so later.

The postcards this guy sends out — and I’ve seen others do the same thing — are something akin to this, each one having a recipe on it. This is done for obvious reasons of course — “Ooh, that looks good, I’ll hold on to this!”

Well, now that I live over 300+ miles away, it’s not likely I’ll be using his services anymore, but regardless, the recipe on a recent card we received, for a chipotle pumpkin soup, was attempted last night at our house… and it was good.

We tried it out, to see if we thought it would be a good idea to make at the yearly Thanksgiving beach excursion. Wife thought it was slightly too spicy. But that’s because I put three chipotles in, rather than the two for which the recipe called. Also used dollops of sour cream instead of creme fraiche because I couldn’t find the latter in any stores around here (I miss you, Wegmans), and that worked just fine. Also, it called for putting everything in the blender on puree. I don’t have a blender, but chopping the caramelised onions up in a veggie dicer was good enough.

I’ll post the recipe here sometime. Fantastic stuff! Until then, you’ll just have to be tortured, awaiting the recipe — I couldn’t find it anywhere online.

Congratulations to Tim Kaine for winning the Virginia Governor’s race. It’s good to see that, for once, dirty politics in Virginia didn’t succeed.

As for you Detroit, it’s too early to call, but if you re-elect Kwame Kilpatrick, you deserve to keep going down the drain.

So to recap 2005:

The case for war in Iraq begins to smell fishy. Although this is a matter of national security, the GOP Senate stonewalls investigations.

Plame’s name gets leaked. Although this is a matter of national security, the GOP Senate stonewalls investigations.

Then the WaPo publishes an article about secret US military prisons in Europe!

“Well, behold! How did this get revealed?? This is an issue of national security! Whodunit??”, bleat GOP Senator Frist and House Speaker Hastert. “Commence the investigations!!”

…that is, until it starts to look like it came from within the GOP itself…

I knew it would happen eventually… a simple request would’ve likely sufficed.

Ironically enough, they sell their stuff at DC area farmers’ markets.

Hello,

I encountered your website today and noticed that you have used a photo of mine — resized but nonetheless the same picture and same filename — on the site without my permission.

The page and image in question:

http://www.redbudorganicfarm.com/african.aspx

http://www.redbudorganicfarm.com/images/ripe-habaneros-800×600.jpg

The original location of said photo:

http://wiw.org/~corey/visions/

Please note the copyright notice on the aforementioned page:

“All images contained herein are contained under copyrights owned by me. Permission may be granted to use them, in some circumstances, pending my approval. ”

While it is not normally a great concern to me whether or not these pictures are used by others, I have never received a request, nor granted permission to you for the use of this copyrighted content, and this is of greater concern to me on general principle.

Please consider removing the photo or arrange to pay me royalties on its use, lest other arrangements not excluding legal remedies be sought.

Thanks,

Corey Welton.