Obama Forecast: More Bowing And Scraping Ahead

Tam had presciently noted that the Obama administration is in many ways the most transparent ever.

Obama, as has been widely reported that after he failed to join the French March in Paris that he would also not take part in the 70th Year commemoration at Auswitz, ostensibly because he had already a planned trip to India that was locked in per the White House.

Well, gee, Obama just changed his schedule and cut that very same can't miss trip to India short to ensure he can go bow to the new king of Saudi Arabia:

The Detroit News: Obama to cut short India trip to visit Saudi Arabia

Cold Flame

We're having Rocky and his human family over for dinner tonight for some fun and socializing, and it called for something special.

Tash suggested something smoked, and of course I couldn't refuse.

So here I am, out in the snow adding charcoal and wood to the smoker trying to get it up to heat to make some 10 pounds of smoked country-style ribs.

The ribs have been marinating all night, and have spent the morning covered in a nice rub waiting to be placed in the smoker until I began the cook at noon.

While it's not freezing cold out, the smoker's thermometer is showing me it is struggling to get up to heat, and I need to keep adding wood and charcoal more often than usual.  Also the lighter is being a real pain in the cold and wind making it an extra pleasant struggle to start the charcoal in the chimney.

On the upside the smell is awesome and, worst comes to worst, we can always finish the cooking off in the oven at a nice low 240 degrees inside where its warm.

Did I mention I need to make these in two batches as the smoker won't fit 'em all?

First batch should be done by 3, with the second batch done by when the guests arrive.  This should work.

Update at 3:19 pm: First batch is done and Wow! is it great - they're tender, perfectly cooked with a great flavor that doesn't even need some BBQ sauce on top to improve, but I'll likely add some sauce anyways.  Somebody stop me before I eat all of them before company arrives.
Batch #2 is underway.

Why We Don't Leave Nice Things With Idiots

Courtesy of The Telegraph, we learn that: King Tut's beard 'hastily glued back on with epoxy and that this priceless artifact may be irreversibly damaged at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.

You see, this is why Europeans used to take such discoveries back to their home countries with them, to safeguard and display them so they're not left in the hands of complete morons.

Somehow, King Tutankhamen's beard was broken off the funeral mask, apparently during cleaning but no there seems to be owning up to it.  But that was only the beginning.

Instead of affixing it properly and doing the appropriate repair, they just shoved some epoxy in, which is really not how you're supposed to do it.

Yes, some "conservator" at the museum Bubba-Ho-Tepped King Tut's burial mask.

Not content with that level of damage, they then got some epoxy on the face itself and then scraped it away with a spatula.   This caused scratches to the gold face mask.

Here's the before.

Check out the Telegraph's article for after.

Unbelievable, to survive for thousands of years only to suffer at the hands of modern day incompetent Egyptian conservators.

It is to weep.

As If You Didn't See That Coming In Southeastern Michigan

The Detroit Water and Sewage Department, now with the suburbs paying an even larger share of the bill in return for  few seats at the table is announcing some heavy rate increases to cover the deferred maintenance that occurred under the prior corrupt regime.

The Detroit Free Press: Suburbs warned: Double-digit water rate hikes possible

The projected increases come as the region prepares to launch the new Great Lakes Water Authority, a regional entity that will manage the department, which the City of Detroit owns. The authority was created as part of Detroit's bankruptcy and included a promise that it would limit budget increases to 4% annually.

But that doesn't mean rates can't rise more than that, officials said today.

That promise "was always that we would not move forward with a budget request that was more than 4% from the prior year," water department Director Sue McCormick said. "But that was a budget that contained a lot of unknowns, and some estimates, and some contingences, so by the time we got the bond documents for planning purposes, we had changed our projections."

Yeah, 4% doesn't mean 4%.  Yet again, the suburbs were sold a bill of goods on this deal, actually the suburbs did exactly buy the deal, instead they suffered getting the "goods" rammed down their throats in the Detroit bankruptcy and grand bargain extravaganza.

Interestingly enough, according to the article, at least some of those that knew this was coming when this was being promoted as a great deal were under a gag order and not allowed to talk about it.

Regionalism apparently having the suburbs bailout and pay for the corruption and ineptitude of the city of the designated region, after the city has run out of its own money to waste and divert to politician's and crony's pockets.

Probably Not The Experience He Was Seeking

The Islamic State is demanding that Japan pay $200 million to free two Japanese nationals now being held hostage.

It's been reported that one of the Japanese hostages being threatened with beheading had in fact traveled to the area to train with the "militants".

The Detroit Free Press:  Japanese hostage wanted to train with militants

Somehow, I don't think his vision of training with militants was to be used as a beheading dummy.

More Shiny Stuff From Magpul

Say Uncle blogs that Magpul has just come out with a new line of tint-able mags, where starting with the sand base you then can tint them however you wish.  Check out the video he embedded on his blog to see more.

In their native sand color, they could almost be called "Ghost Mags" and cause antis to break out in cold sweats.

Yes, Magpul has made PMags to dye for.

Such a Small Man Taking Up So Much Room And Air

Michael Moore sure likes drawing attention to himself, even as he comes off as a very small and petty fat man.

In an effort to put a little shine on his progressive street cred, which is rather hard to do living as  large (some would even say super-sized) and in luxury as he is, he had to open his pie hole and shourt "Hey! Look at me!" and be-clown himself regarding the success of the movie American Sniper:

Daily News: 'American Sniper' has a record-breaking opening weekend — but liberal filmmaker Michael Moore takes aim 

This couldn't have anything to do with the fact that American Sniper grossed in one weekend more than all but one of Michael more's films grossed in their entire run combined, and more than quadrupled the gross of any of even his best grossing his film's opening weekend, now could it?

A rather petulant effort from a failed "look at me" progressive.

This is of course, lest anyone forget, the same Michael Moore that was cheering for a defeat of America in Iraq and called terrorists there "minutemen", the very same terrorists that hero Chris Kyle was bagging by the score.

No wonder he's chapped at his failure compared to the success of Chris Kyle's legacy.

I Don't Know That....

Siri says the darndest things sometimes......

A Good Sunday Morning Of Service

Today was a social action day at our synagogue.

It consisted of volunteering for various activities to help the homeless in Detroit.

The activity our family did, along with quite a number of other families, as it was a big production, was to make 600 bagged lunches for some of the homeless shelters to be delivered tomorrow.

This consisted of packing each paper sack with a juice box, pudding and animal crackers, a spoon, a napkin, and a sandwich.  Sandwiches were made by teams in the kitchen and were either egg, tuna or cheese.

I started with unpacking the animal crackers and then unboxing and separating the pudding cups.

We then setup an assembly line. After all, the synagogue is in the Detroit area, so you must have an assembly line! Each sack then had each item put in at each station where each item was dropped in the bag, the bag checked to make sure everything was in it, and the sacks were then lined up awaiting sandwiches.  This was pretty fast and efficient.

Since we had no union to slow us down, we jumped around to various tasks as needed.  I variously loaded pudding and spoons into the bags, packed sandwiches into bags, labelled each bag as to the sandwich inside it, packed the bags into their shipping containers and labelled them, kept count of how many tuna sandwich bag packs were made, and then helped in the kitchen making egg sandwiches.

Other teams made blankets, packed toiletry/overnight bags for kids at homeless shelters and many other useful activities.

All the kids participating were awesome in how they helped out enthusiastically and without complaint.  A very good bunch of kids ranging from the small kindergartners to tall teenagers all working to get the tasks done.

There was lots of good fellowship and it was a worthwhile way to spend a Sunday morning and early afternoon.

Afterwards, we went with a few of the families we know out to lunch and had a nice time with them and had some great food and conversation to end the afternoon on a very positive note.