More Recommended Reading

Twice in one day I'm recommending that you read excellent things written by people who don't exactly see eye to eye with me.

If you've read my Blog for a while, you'll recall that I on occasion take respectful exception to things written by Smallholder over at Naked Villainy, but that at the end of the day, I respect him highly.

Well, he's gone and done it. He's written something I agree with.

Dammit, man, you're going to take all the fun out of Blogging. But I do thank you for the moral support.

Now, I must confess there are a few details on which I disagree with you. I do believe that abortion is the taking of a human life. I do believe that there are some basic doctrines of the faith which are the truth, and must be accepted as such on informed faith in order to be classified as an orthodox believer. But I also agree that there is plenty on which we can agree to disagree -- In all things charity, isn't that how it goes? And I also agree with your assessment that theism and atheism require similar measures of faith.

To Air(Power) Is Human

Thanks for the Memory to The Maximum Leader at Naked Villainy. And yes, the quiz questions amused me too.

What military aircraft are you? EA-6B Prowler You are an EA-6B. You are sinister, preferring not to get into confrontations, but extract revenge through mind games and technological interference. You also love to make noise and couldn't care less about pollution.

Click Here to Take This Quiz Brought to you by YouThink.com quizzes and personality tests.

Grill Thrill

It's that time of year -- the sun is out (most of thetime), the air is fresh and fragrant, and there's warmth to be felt. Therefore, it's time for men (and women) to exercize their inalienable right to burn meat in their back yard, under the open sky as God intended.

A while back I managed to find a charcoal smoker at a garage sale for five bucks. This weekend, I cleaned it up, and tried my hand for the first time at "real" barbecue. as a novice, I started with a small piece of meat, a 1-pound beef brisket, dry rubbed with a rub I made from scratch. It came out nicely, so I will try some pork BBQ next. However, I still consider myself a learner, so for now I'll be reading barbecue recipes, not writing them.

However, I am still very confident in my outdoor grilling skills, as evidenced by my steelhead recipe. So today I decided to share with you all the very first recipe I ever invented for cooking on a grill. While it's not barbecue, the recipe does benefit if you incorporate one element of bbq -- wood smoke. However, I'd recommend a wood like apple or oak or alder, not mesquite, though hickory would probably do fine.

So, without further ado:

Inside Out Grilled Chicken Sorta Blue

4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
4 slices smoked Swiss cheese
8 slices smoked ham
1 cup white wine (Pinot Gris, Riesling, or Gewürztraminer)
2 sprig thyme
Salt
Pepper
1 tbsp honey

Preparation:
Marinade the chicken breasts overnight in the white wine and one of the thyme sprigs. Place the ham slices, the honey, and the other thyme sprig in a sealed aluminum foil packet. While grilling the chicken, place the foil packet to the side of the grill where the heat is lower. Salt and pepper the chicken and grill over medium heat. About 5-10 minutes before the chicken is done, remove the ham from the foil packet and place 2 slices on top of each chicken breast. Cover each breast with a slice of Swiss cheese; continue to grill until the cheese melts. Remove the chicken breasts and plate. Drizzle with honey mustard sauce, garnish with more thyme.

Honey Mustard Sauce:
½ cup yellow mustard
¼ cup honey
1 tsp garlic powder
¼ tsp onion powder
¼ tsp paprika
Dash cayenne
Dash chili powder
Dash powdered ginger


Place the mustard in a small bowl and pour in the honey. Mix in all spices, refrigerate.

Who Left Whom?

Many thanks to my good friend DAR for sending me the following link. Quite often it's easy to merely link to a well-written article by one of the many conservative pundits who are out there and say, "This is good, read it." But in this case, I'm linking to a liberal pundit, and saying the same thing. In Sunday's San Francisco Chronicle, columnist Keith Thompson wrote an excellent piece on why he's leaving the Left:

Leaving the left
I can no longer abide the simpering voices of self-styled progressives -- people who once championed solidarity

Not suprisingly, many of the reasons this man, who still considers himself a Liberal, is "Leaving the Left", are the very same reason that those of us who are unabashedly Conservative are so disdainful of it:

My estrangement hasn't happened overnight. Out of the corner of my eye I watched what was coming for more than three decades, yet refused to truly see. Now it's all too obvious. Leading voices in America's "peace" movement are actually cheering against self-determination for a long-suffering Third World country because they hate George W. Bush more than they love freedom.

But when I read comments like this:

I look back on that experience as the beginning of my departure from a left already well on its way to losing its bearings.

I have to respond with a comment that Thompson seems to already know in his heart, and implies throughout his artcile. He didn't leave the Left. The Left left him. Indeed, you can read it between the lines when he says,

I smile when friends tell me I've "moved right." I laugh out loud at what now passes for progressive on the main lines of the cultural left.

All of which is why I have come to believe, and gladly join with others who have discovered for themselves, that the single most important thing a genuinely liberal person can do now is walk away from the house the left has built. The renewal of any tradition that deserves the name "progressive" becomes more likely with each step in a better direction.

Welcome, Keith. Now your journey to the Dark Side is complete.