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Why not help your pal become a charming deceitful older gay man? One more quickie, then I'm off to the bank!

π = 3.141592653 Twice today, morning and evening, the date and time will be: 3/14/15 9:26:53 Hope this special day finds you all rolling merrily along!

Hopefully a small price to pay. What's so bad about not using your insurance? It cost me thousands and I can't even catch a cold!

That's not defecating, that's diarrhea if not dysentery.

Speaking of truths we rarely question.

What should we give the Americans to invade Iran? . . . . . . . . I'll give 'em aggravation! It can't miss.

Probably even now spending some quality time with números dos, tres, cinco, siete, ocho, doce, trece, quince, dieciocho, veintiuno, veintidòs, veintitrès, veintiocho, y veintinueve. Then, after a suitable siesta, a caliente three-way with números cinco y dieciocho. And then a final magnifico with número cincuenta.

A bit embarrassed to admit that, when I saw the thread title, I thought the cook was using his grandmother's liver. Big as a dinner plate when she passed, and enough to feed a small army . . .

LinkedIn can be a pain in the ass. I keep getting "personalized invitations" from people I worked with long ago or from acquaintances who have me on some kind of email list. Apparently, when a new user signs up, they ask him not only for his email address but for his email password as well! Then LinkedIn goes into his email address book and sends out "personalized invitations" to "selected" folks inviting them to join their "old pal" on LinkedIn. I find it irritating as hell to get one of these "invitations". I used to feel guilty ignoring them thinking perhaps the person was inviting me personally and might feel rejected if I didn't "accept" the invitation. When I found out how LinkedIn did it, I started wondering about the judgement of the person who would open up his or her entire email address list to a company like that. LinkedIn doesn't stop if I ignore the first "authorized" invitation. A few days later, they send out a second invitation that makes it sound like the person is really waiting to hear from me, and then a third invitation making it sound like I'm really letting my "pal" down if I don't sign up. Apparently, they got sued for it too. But they're still doing it.

That's what I was beginning to think - that he's looking for a regime change in the U. S. I'm sure he'd like regime change in Iran, but I think he'll get it by seeing a saber-rattling Republican president elected in 2016. The guy who set up his speech to Congress is Israeli Ambassador to the U. S., Ron Dermer, who is pals with Sheldon Adelson. I think they all share an interest in getting a president elected who would 'advocate' regime change in Iran. Perhaps Netanyahu just wanted to start prising the saber out of the sheath.

Are you sure you're not thinking of Thai? I eat Indian every chance I get and don't recall peanuts. Dal is very common but that's other legumes, usually chickpeas. Sweets sometimes contain pistachios, and cashews are used in certain regions. No doubt there are some dishes with peanuts, but they're nowhere near as common as in Thai food. One of the best dishes I ever ate was an eggplant curry in a small remote Indian village, and I don't particularly like eggplant. But the women started cooking that dish three days ahead. The most time consuming thing they did, so I understand, was preparing the spices. Cardamom seeds, for example, need to be toasted to release the flavor and then blended with other spices, and then everything marinated and cooked with other ingredients for a long time so that the flavors are blended through and through. The way I separate a good Indian restaurant from a bad one is whether or not the spices are suffused throughout the other ingredients. If the inside of the chicken or lamb is flavorful, you've got a good dish. If the flavor coats only the outside, they've seen the last of yours truly. Like many other spicy cuisines, spice does not mean heat. An Indian host is like a Jewish mother when it comes to pushing helping after helping on guests. It's the polite and hospitable thing to do. The more heat a dish has, the likelier a guest will say he's had enough; and that's important when a host is of modest means. I tried cooking Indian at home once, and it was OK, but nowhere close to what a village woman can put on the table.

Oh, Darling, cheer up. Not every cynic will be a fan. He knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.

Unless maybe it's the day you can afford your first health insurance. Or the day you get coverage for a preexisting condition. Or the day you don't get kicked out of the army 'cause you're gay. Or the day you marry your boyfriend. Or the day you can finally understand your credit card bill. Or the day your minimum wage job pays a little better. Or the day you can stop dodging ICE. And maybe another day or two I'm forgetting.

Neither did I, MsGuy. Neither did I. I found it when I went a-googling to see if any other countries had an organization like AIPAC so effective at influencing U. S. foreign policy. I got sidetracked and have not got my answer yet. What I found instead was an example of how 'normal' it now seems for Israel to be actively shaping our policies in the Middle East. You speculated that the purpose of Netanyahu's visit may be to add a few seats for Likud in the Knesset, and I'm wondering if he might also be trying to add a few seats for Likud in the U. S. Congress.

How Gerald Ford did it, forty years ago: In the continuing Arab-Israeli conflict, although the initial cease fire had been implemented to end active conflict in the Yom Kippur War, Kissinger's continuing shuttle diplomacy was showing little progress. Ford considered it "stalling" and wrote, "Their [israeli] tactics frustrated the Egyptians and made me mad as hell." During Kissinger's shuttle to Israel in early March 1975, a last minute reversal to consider further withdrawal, prompted a cable from Ford to Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, which included: "I wish to express my profound disappointment over Israel's attitude in the course of the negotiations ... Failure of the negotiation will have a far reaching impact on the region and on our relations. I have given instructions for a reassessment of United States policy in the region, including our relations with Israel, with the aim of ensuring that overall American interests ... are protected. You will be notified of our decision." On March 24, Ford received congressional leaders of both parties and informed them of the reassessment of the administration policies in the Middle East. "Reassessment", in practical terms, meant to cancel or suspend further aid to Israel. For six months between March and September 1975, the United States refused to conclude any new arms agreements with Israel. Rabin notes it was "an innocent-sounding term that heralded one of the worst periods in American-Israeli relations". As could be expected, the announced reassessments upset the American Jewish community and Israel's well-wishers in Congress. On May 21, Ford "experienced a real shock", seventy-six senators wrote him a letter urging him to be "responsive" to Israel's request for $2.59 billion in military and economic aid. Ford felt truly annoyed and thought the chance for peace was jeopardized. It was, since the September 1974 ban on arms to Turkey, the second major congressional intrusion upon the President's [foreign policy] prerogatives. The following summer months were described by Ford as an American-Israeli "war of nerves" or "test of wills", and after much bargaining, the Sinai Interim Agreement (Sinai II), was formally signed on September 1 and aid resumed.

One more reason Fuckefeller Rockefeller Center keeps its signage out of reach.

Interesting story, and it sounds like this thoughtful little girl is not the only one who has established a mutual gift-giving relationship with crows. I currently have a bunch of these bellicose black-bellied blighters being bothersome around my place and have been looking for something to give them too. They must have sensed my intentions as I came out yesterday morning to find they had beat me to the punch with a few little gifts of their own.

Well, mvan1, I was hoping I was just kidding, but I wouldn't put it past these guys to go rifling through my browsers if they could make a buck off of it. With regard to TabbedOut, their sales pitch to the restaurant owner suggests the only information they collect is about the customer's purchasing history in that particular restaurant. So I wouldn't expect them to start bringing you a Shirley Temple as soon as you sit down. But who knows? I read last year when Snowden was dropping his government snooping bombshell that it's nothing compared with the info private companies are collecting about us. It's pretty creepy to think about. As long as I don't start getting popup ads from Crisco®. And, as far as early bird specials, can't say I do them every day, or even every week, but I can share that I'm not exactly a stranger to tapioca.

Targeted marketing and data mining no doubt. Mine all say "early bird special".

Happy Father's Day from Me, Myself and I

Many thanks for all the good viewpoints guys! I think another lesson we've learned is that the Middle East abhors a power vacuum. For all the things you can say about Saddam Hussein, the man knew how to keep a lid on things. The same hand that held down the Sunnis also held down terrorist groups that weren't working for him. There was no power vacuum in Saddam's Iraq. There's no power vacuum in Saudi Arabia either. State beheadings, yes, but not so much from terrorists. I'm not as knowledgeable as you folks, but there seems to be a pretty good correlation between repressive governments and a lack of terrorist groups. So that makes me wonder if we should be so quick to support the overthrow of tyrants until we have something better in mind. I don't know much about Assad, but I'm wondering how much worse he is than an Islamic Caliphate that's bringing in aimless psychopaths to Syria from all over the world and sending them back to us as committed psychopaths. Should we have thought it through another step before we dropped him like a hot kebab? I don't know the answer, but it seems like maybe we should think twice before we throw the bully out with the Ba'athwater.

If you ask me, Obama is doing the right things, although I wish he had started a bit sooner. I've felt for some years that the answer to defeating Middle East terror groups lies primarily in the Middle East. The fact that there are now a few Middle East boots on the ground and a few Middle East planes in the sky is a good thing. But the best thing is that there are now Middle East clerics actually calling the terrorists out for the sociopaths they are, rather than ignoring them or trying to defend them. In my opinion, this is the most significant step yet in trying to rein in ISIS, and my take is that Obama and Kerry are the ones who got it to happen. A few years ago, I saw a projection that the U. S. would be energy independent within a decade or two. It now appears we are pretty close to that now, and that reduced reliance on business entanglements with the Middle East is another good thing that happened on Obama's watch. While I think it's good that the U. S. maintains a strong identity as a 'leader', I am much more comfortable in sharing that role with other like-minded nations. It's very easy to fall into the trap of being the 'only' country that can solve the world's problems. No doubt other countries would like for the U. S. to do all the heavy lifting while they enjoy the benefits, but I don't think that's fair to us. For one thing, it puts a huge target on our back alone. I like the way that Obama and Kerry have spread the responsibility of leadership among more countries. Of course, that means that our interests will not be the only ones represented, and that will be hard for some to accept. But, overall, I think it's a much more tenable position to share the labor and to also share the fruits of that labor. No doubt, there's a shift involved in going from the 'boss of the world' to being part of a group. In my opinion, it's a necessary shift and there will be discomfort along the way, as there always is with change. It will also happen over months and years, rather than days and weeks. While I would personally like to see that shift sooner rather than later, I believe there's a case to be made for having others ask for our help instead of shoving it down their throats. We already tried that under the Bush administration and we're still cleaning up that mess. In fact, my feeling is that ISIS came about primarily because of the power vacuums left by Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld's misadventures in the Middle East. It will take some time to re-stabilize that part of the world and, if it's to remain stable, it will take a lot more than one country and one president to keep it that way. So, yes, I'm happy with the direction Obama and his team are taking. Even if others may not be.

It would be nice to say "It wasn't me!" with real conviction.

Maple syrup! Maple sugar candy!! I could easily live in Canada, Vancouver in particular. If I could weasel my way in.