Burger Vote 2008

As much as it pains me to say it, I think I prefer Obama over McCain in this match up. News flash, McCain: a chicken sandwich does not a burger make. I haven't heard anything from the VP candidates on their burgers of choice, but I still I'd side with the Dems. I don't like eating moose.

Barack Obama Pizza Burger
Recipe Courtesy the M Street Bar and Grill, Washington, DC for Food Network Magazine

Ingredients

For the Garlic Butter:
* 1 head garlic
* 1 stick unsalted butter, softened
* 2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley
* 1 teaspoon champagne vinegar
* Kosher salt

For the Burgers:
* 6 8-ounce Angus beef patties
* Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper
* 1/2 cup marinara sauce, plus more for serving
* 12 thin slices fresh mozzarella cheese (about 8 ounces)
* 6 crusty rolls, such as ciabatta, kaiser or Portuguese, halved
* 1/2 cup chopped fresh basil

Directions
Preheat the oven to 350.

Make the butter:

Remove the papery outer layer from the head of garlic and slice off the top to expose the cloves slightly. Wrap the garlic in foil and roast in the oven until soft, about 45 minutes. Cool slightly, then squeeze the roasted pulp into a bowl. Whip with the butter, parsley, vinegar and 1/2 teaspoon salt; set aside.
Make the burgers:

Preheat a grill or grill pan to medium-high. Season the beef patties generously with salt and pepper and grill, about 3 minutes per side for medium-rare, turning once.

Move the burgers to the cooler side of the grill (or reduce the heat on the stove) and top each with some marinara sauce and 2 slices cheese. Spread the cut sides of each roll with some of the garlic butter and place facedown on the grill. Cover and cook until the cheese melts and the buns are toasted, 1 to 2 minutes. Place a burger on each roll bottom; add some chopped basil and the roll top. Serve with more marinara sauce, if desired.


John McCain Chicken Queso Burger
Recipe Courtesy the M Street Bar and Grill, Washington, DC for Food Network Magazine

Ingredients

* 1 lemon
* 1 lime
* 1 orange
* 1/2 teaspoon chili powder
* 1/2 teaspoon adobo all-purpose seasoning
* 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
* 6 6-ounce skinless, boneless chicken breasts
* 3/4 cup fresh tomato salsa, plus more for serving
* 6 slices pepper jack cheese (about 8 ounces)
* 6 challah rolls or other soft rolls, halved
* 1 Hass avocado, sliced

Directions

Finely grate the zest of the lemon, lime and orange into a medium bowl. Squeeze in the juice of each fruit. Add the chili powder, adobo seasoning and olive oil; whisk to combine. Add the chicken and coat well with the marinade; cover and refrigerate for at least 1 hour or overnight.

Preheat a grill or grill pan to medium-high. Grill the chicken breasts until cooked through, about 8 minutes per side, turning once. Move the chicken to the cooler side of the grill (or reduce the heat on the stove) and top each piece with 1 tablespoon salsa and 1 slice cheese. Cover and cook until the cheese melts, 1 to 2 minutes. Place a chicken breast on each roll bottom; add a few slices of avocado and cover with the roll top. Serve with more salsa, if desired.

We Love The Dear Leader

No exaggeration, chills of sheer terror are running down my spine.

Gosh, You're Purdy

Well played, McCain. Well played.

BTW, were Sarah Palin and Tina Fey separated at birth?

Save it for Posterity

This is the kind of thing we need to be putting in time capsules.

Thank you, Michael Phelps

This makes me ashamed to be a man. It's not so much that John Edwards had an affair (I've never been exactly emotionally invested in his political career), but it's the attitude that nobody seems to care. "Everybody does it." If everybody thinks this way, then I'm also ashamed to be an American. If I had an affair, much less had my affair exposed on national television, I'd hide under a rock and die.

I'd better watch some Olympic swimming to restore my faith in humanity, my gender and my country. Thank you, Michael Phelps. God bless you and your refusal to visit an orthodontist.

(Why I was reading the Huffington Post is irrelevant.)

SBC 2008 Day 2, continued – Bud, not Buddy, Lee for President

The cold hard truth is that Southern Baptists are a pretty monochromatic group of folks. To put it another way, there aren’t many chocolate chips in the cookie and, for better or worse, those few that are present stand out.

That’s how I’m able see the back of the head of a massive black man across the hall and know it’s Bud Lee. No, not Buddy Lee. Bud Lee. Actually, Bud does sort of look like Buddy with his big round head. But I sincerely doubt Buddy Lee could ROCK “His Eye is On the Sparrow” like Bud.

A traveling evangelist/musician with a mountain of a lisp, Bud is one of the few black men to ever set foot into my local church (twice, once in Missouri and once in Oklahoma) and one of even fewer to take the pulpit. Either way, Bud and his wife Barbara have an uncanny ability to walk into a 99.9 percent white congregation and not only do they feel at home, but the white folks don’t feel any residual guilt for the sins of our fathers. That’s a pretty amazing feat, considering the denomination’s past.

It isn’t hard to see that racism played a role in Southern Baptist history. I mean, it’s the Southern Baptist Convention. There’s got to be a reason it’s not the Northern Baptist Convention and slavery seems likely culprit.

In the years before the Civil War Baptists in the South began to break away from the national group (although it was a significantly looser group that anything existing today) over the issue of whether or not their missionaries should own slaves. After all, it’s in the Bible, therefore it must be OK. Of course, the Bible also preaches that God loves the whole world, regardless of race, and sent His son to die for their sins, but never mind that.

Even after the war, when Southern Baptists acknowledged they couldn’t own slaves, there was of course still widespread racism and segregation (although to be fair, this was a problem far beyond just Southern Baptists... including northern abolitionists).

(Southern) Baptists more or less followed the overall societal feelings on racial equality (I'm sure the SBC was fairly represented among the protesters at Little Rock Central High in 1957). This journey culminated in 1995 when the Convention overwhelmingly passed as resolution officially apologizing for the role racism and bigotry played in our history. (Fun note: I was actually there, in Atlanta, when it passed. OK, actually I slept late that day and was awoken only when the hotel caught fire… it’s a long story.) Fittingly, this happened on the 150th anniversary of the SBC. A few excerpts:

WHEREAS, Our relationship to African-Americans has been hindered from the beginning by the role that slavery played in the formation of the Southern Baptist Convention; and…

WHEREAS, Many of our Southern Baptist forbears defended the right to own slaves, and either participated in, supported, or acquiesced in the particularly inhumane nature of American slavery; and…

WHEREAS, In later years Southern Baptists failed, in many cases, to support, and in some cases opposed, legitimate initiatives to secure the civil rights of African-Americans; and…

WHEREAS, Racism has led to discrimination, oppression, injustice, and violence, both in the Civil War and throughout the history of our nation; and ...

WHEREAS, Racism has divided the body of Christ and Southern Baptists in particular, and separated us from our African-American brothers and sisters; and…

WHEREAS, Many of our congregations have intentionally and/or unintentionally excluded African-Americans from worship, membership, and leadership; and…

WHEREAS, Racism profoundly distorts our understanding of Christian morality, leading some Southern Baptists to believe that racial prejudice and discrimination are compatible with the Gospel; and…

Therefore, be it RESOLVED, That we, the messengers to the Sesquicentennial meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention, assembled in Atlanta, Georgia, June 20-22, 1995, unwaveringly denounce racism, in all its forms, as deplorable sin; and…

Be it further RESOLVED, That we apologize to all African-Americans for condoning and/or perpetuating individual and systemic racism in our lifetime; and we genuinely repent of racism of which we have been guilty, whether consciously (Psalm 19:13) or unconsciously (Leviticus 4:27); and…

Be it further RESOLVED, That we ask forgiveness from our African-American brothers and sisters, acknowledging that our own healing is at stake; and…

Be it further RESOLVED, That we hereby commit ourselves to eradicate racism in all its forms from Southern Baptist life and ministry; and…

Be it finally RESOLVED, That we pledge our commitment to the Great Commission task of making disciples of all people (Matthew 28:19), confessing that in the church God is calling together one people from every tribe and nation (Revelation 5:9), and proclaiming that the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ is the only certain and sufficient ground upon which redeemed persons will stand together in restored family union as joint-heirs with Christ (Romans 8:17).

Yeah, it IS just a bunch of words and as we all learned in Sunday School, one’s walk says a lot more than it’s talk. As a demographic group, I’m not sure how we’re walking, because as a white guy in a white church in a white town in a white state, it really doesn’t affect me. Convention-wide, nearly 10 percent of SBC churches (by congregation, not membership) are a majority of minorities. That actually seems pretty good for a group formed specifically because it wanted to keep a minority in chains. The modern KKK can’t really say they've "grown" that way.

Personally, I must admit that regardless of my faith, I have a few prejudiced and racists threads running through my body. I don’t like it, but there it is. If I avoid a certain side of the street because I see five young black men in downtown KC, I tell myself that my racism is perfectly justified and based in fact or at least probability. Still, that isn’t anywhere near right and that attitude (even if it were justified... heck, it is downtown KC) only serves to perpetuate racial segregation.

I don’t think I’m that bad on the racism scale. The first black person I ever remember seeing was LaVarr Burton on Reading Rainbow, a positive representative any race would be proud to claim. During my two trips to Africa, there were many times I was surrounded by hundreds of Africans while I was the only white within miles and I felt perfectly at home. Of course, slight inklings of racism began to creep in as soon as we landed in Atlanta, so maybe my prejudice is based on something other than pure race. Not that that makes it a positive behavior.

All that to say this: I speak for all Southern Baptists when I say, we're seriously not OK with Barack Obama.

Bud Lee for President!

The Man, the Genius, the Quotes.

"Here's my strategy on the Cold War: We win, they lose."

"The most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the government and I'm here to help."

"The trouble with our liberal friends is not that they're ignorant: It's just that they know so much that isn't so."

"Of the four wars in my lifetime none came about because the U.S. was too strong."

"I have wondered at times about what the Ten Commandments would have looked like if Moses had run them through the U.S. Congress."

"The taxpayer: That's someone who works for the federal government but doesn't have to take the civil service examination."

"Government is like a baby: An alimentary canal with a big appetite at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other."

"The nearest thing to eternal life we will ever see on this earth is a government program."

"I've laid down the law, though, to everyone from now on about anything that happens: No matter what time it is, wake me, even if it's in the middle of a Cabinet meeting."

"It has been said that politics is the second oldest profession. I have learned that it bears a striking resemblance to the first."

"Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it."

"Politics is not a bad profession. If you succeed there are many rewards, if you disgrace yourself you can always write a book."

"No arsenal, or no weapon in the arsenals of the world, is so formidable as the will and moral courage of free men and women."

"If we ever forget that we're one nation under God, then we will be a nation gone under."

"All great change in America begins at the dinner table."

"Before I refuse to answer your questions, I have an opening statement."

"Entrepreneurs and their small enterprises are responsible for almost all the economic growth in the United States."

"Facts are stubborn things."

"Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same."

"Heroes may not be braver than anyone else. They're just braver five minutes longer."

"How do you tell a communist? Well, it's someone who reads Marx and Lenin. And how do you tell an anti-Communist? It's someone who understands Marx and Lenin."

"Abortion is advocated only by persons who have themselves been born."

Say it isn't so!

It’s official. The issue of climate of climate change can be ignored no longer. Why? Because hell has frozen over, that’s why.

It was bad enough that The Academy saw fit to give him an Oscar, but now Al Gore, the patron saint of Global Warming and the Democrat whiners everywhere, is a Nobel Laureate (along with the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change).

Then again, this is only to be expected, considering the committee has given the award to Jimmy “Kill the Wabbit!” Carter and Yasser Arafat. That kind of company does tend to take the sheen off any honor. Do we really want to hold these people up next to the likes of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Doctors Without Borders, The Dalai Lama, Elie Wiesel or Mother Teresa? To quote a Canadian newspaper: "Aung Suu Kyi, who won the peace prize in 1991, is under house arrest in Myanmar (Burma) for daring to ask for democracy in a murderous military state; and now she finds herself in the company of a possible, maybe, potential looming politician who flies around in a jet making presentations to ready-made audiences, then films it and goes to the Academy Awards and hangs out with movie stars."
What about the nominees who actually worked toward peace on this earth? What about the Vietnamese monk, Thich Quang Do? He has spent a lifetime fighting for peace and freedom in Vietnam. He is currently under house arrest for protesting human rights abuses, and has been jailed previously for helping his country’s poor. What about Lida Yusupova,who has devoted her life to human rights? Her work in Chechnya has shed light on human rights abuses committed by both Russian armed forces and Chechen rebels. What about Irena Sendler? She rescued babies during the Holocaust. Screw them and their petty, self-serving little projects, Gore and his movie are obvious choice.

Still, I can deal with Gore being honored. I’m an adult and I will readily admit when the “other guy” wins (something Gore isn’t capable of... you don't see Ms. Sendler or Mr. Do demanding recounts). What really bothers me is that the former VP is being honored for promoting global warming, NOT peace! There is no such thing as the Nobel Global Warming Prize! I’d like to think I would be able to make this obvious distinction, even if I was a fan of Al. Even his mother should be able to admit that it doesn’t make a lick of sense. Call it "an inconvenient truth" if you want, but it's still truth. For the record, the five other awards went something like this:

Medicine: To Mario Capecchi, Martin Evans and Oliver Smithies for producing genetic alterations in mice.

Chemistry: To Gerhard Ertl for opening up the hidden world of surface chemistry to investigation.

Physics: To Albert Fert and Peter Grunberg for discovering the effect underlying data storage on most hard disks.

Literature: To Doris Lessing, whose prolific writing extends from the realistic to the fabulous.

Economics: To Leonid Hurwicz, Eric Maskin and Roger Myerson for extending the range of tools for economic analysis.

You might notice a pattern here. All of these scholars' accomplishments somehow relate to their award! To quote Alfred Nobel on the Peace Prize bearing his name, the award should go to "the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between the nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses." Re-read this paragraph and tell me Al Gore's victory makes any sense whatsover. I dare you.

If you read the linked article above (or right here), it features “man on the street” reaction quotes. Even of those who are pleased Gore won say nothing of any efforts to promote peace. In fact, one could argue that he has promoted discord by shoving his questionable documentary down the throats of school children across America and the world. (Heck, even the Brits have declared it a political film with significant errors and is "distinctly alarmist. This is what the BRITS are saying!"