Howard Dean Reaches Out

Howard Dean wrote us a letter.

Recipe Update

The chicken baskets were okay, but not great. It was chicken and peas in a creamy sauce and then poured into ceramic cups lined with hash browns. Came out a little starchy tasting and bland.

Does not need as much butter and I've decided that canned chicken is not the way to go. Fresh chicken breasts seasoned and cooked first is probably going to be better. Maybe adding a little cheese will give it a kick as well. I'm going to experiment a bit and see if I can make it better.

I did make a new soup called French Onion Tomato Soup. Totally yummy! Tomato sauce, onion, garlic, beef bouillon, butter, brown sugar - served with cheese-covered garlic bread. Oh my goodness - it's a keeper!!

I just saw on Fox News that the crime rate on the border in Texas has dropped MORE THAN 60% since Texas started aggressively enforcing illegal immigration laws. Gee. Is this a surprise?

I'm currently working on an immigration essay (well it's actually a MANIFESTO) which I'll post soon.

As an aside, E.D. Hill just had to comment to the Aggie in the Governor's mansion that the Longhorns will be winning at the big game. Well, we'll just see about that.

HO.

Recipe Day!!

It's recipe day today in Abby's World, so I thought I would post my version of the old Texas Stand-by...King Ranch Chicken. It's actually, well, fabulous.

Here 'tis:

1 lb boneless, skinless chicken breasts - diced
1 pkg 12 ct. yellow or white corn tortillas (do not use red!)
1 small onion, finely chopped
2 small cloves of garlic finely chopped
1/2 c. butter
1 T. olive oil
1 T. Bolner's Fiesta brand fajita seasoning
1 c. cheese (any kind. I like Monterrey Jack)
2 cans of Cream of Chicken soup
1 can of Ro-tel tomatoes with green chilies

In a deep saucepan, drizzle olive oil and melt butter (olive oil is to keep butter from burning). Add onion and garlic and lightly saute' until carmelized. Add chicken and season with fajita seasoning, salt & pepper. Make sure chicken is thoroughly cooked.

In a separate bowl, drain Ro-tel. Make sure excess juice is gone.

Add to chicken, both cans of Cream of Chicken soup and 1/3 of the cheese. If mixture is too thick, add a little water.

In a casserole dish spread a thin layer of chicken mixture on the bottom and then layer with corn tortillas, chicken, Ro-tel, cheese. Repeat. Cover with foil and bake at 375 until tortillas are soft, about 25 mins.

MMMMMMM...enjoy


Tonight I'm making something new called chicken baskets - seems like a new version of chicken pot pie. I'll post the results tomorrow.

Monday Mornin' Football Roundup

OK, so it's Tuesday and I haven't posted for a week. Well, I have a day job, and I just haven't quite figured out how to balance all this yet. But I will.

Aggies Win! I couldn't believe it! I'm still not sure that Coach Fran is the right guy, but he's still on the payroll this week. OSU next week - can't wait!

And lookee here - the Ags are finally ranked again. Hope this is the begining of another era.

in other news... Texas Tech lost to Colorado and Baylor got a shellacking from t.u. (actually Baylor stayed in the game quite well for a while.)

But wait just a darn minute. Gotta talk about the NFL. The boyfriend was at a seminar with no internet access (you believe that?) and so he had to call in the bet without discussing with me the picks. and he picked Philly to win (we're are about to have a fight about this) So, although I'm normally estatic when Philly loses, not this time, because we lost money. Damn him.

On the other hand, the 'boys won and the Giants won, so I'm happy about that. I'll just be making the picks for the pool this week. I'm banning the boyfriend from picking.

I suppose since I'm talking about football, I have to comment on the Footbrawl. Well, here's a dirty little secret - it was kinda exciting to see. You never see all out barroom brawls in sports - they're broken up too soon, and it was kind of like a little guilty pleasure. But I suppose I should be appalled like everyone else. I'm not. There's more important things to be apalled about. But here's the video anyway.

Right, and Lightning's Going to Shoot out My Ass...

the hat tip of course goes to Dave Barry.
Where does he find them?

Bridge Over Troubled Water

Oh gimme a break - again via Drudge there's this regarding the proposed border fence between the U.S. and Mexico. If I thought the 700 mile fence would actually do any good to stemming the tide of illegal aliens (not immigrants) swarming across our borders, I might get annoyed with this blather. It's comical really. There's no way that puny fence is going to deter anyone.

So Mexico is going to go crying to the UN that the big, bad U.S. is going to build a fence on our own property.

Well, maybe Mexico can get the UN to, I don't know, sanction us?

I especially like this quote from Mexico's foreign secretary Luis Derbez: "What should be constructed is a bridge in relations between the two countries."

Puh-lease.

Oh Yeah, Like This is Going to Work

via Drudge

The U.S. is just not going to stand for any of this nuclear testing nonsense from the Norks. Nope we're not going to take it lying down. So the U.S. is using the old standby... sanctions.

I mean, it only took Saddam how many years of sanctions before he started to toe the line?

Oh....right.

Of course, it's possible that the Norks had a dud. If it was a dud, or a big fake out from Kim Duck Dong-Il will we still impose sanctions?

I suppose it depends on what the meaning of the word "is" is.

Yay!!! Someone's reading me!!!

Everyone look down! I got my first comment from some handsome fella named Tom Blogical. (I guess that's just you, Tom) I'll be linking you straightaway as soon as I remember how to do it. Check out this guy's blog. The most important thing to note is that he is a Buckeye, which, I of course love as they overpowered t.u. at the start of the season.

I was in Austin that night, congratulating every Buckeye fan I could find on behalf of the Aggies. I choose not to think about the time they outscored us in the Sugar Bowl back a few years ago. I was at that game as well and all I really remember is that I wondered why Ohio State has Hang On Sloopy as a fight song.

I guess it'll have to just be logged in my book of why's (Why is Notre Dame called the Fighting Irish, when the church is in France?, etc.)

Gayness

Say it ain't so!

(ht to Dave Barry)

I have the urge to type an Instapundit "heh". So I will.

heh.

(It's not as if anyone's actually reading my blog.)

Monday Mornin' Football Roundup

Well, the Aggies pulled it off. I know they weren't favored to win, but, really, I expected better of them. Terrible showing. Except for the last pass, of course.

I am so disappointed in Coach Fran. He has not lived up to the hype and at least with Slocum, we won regular season games. I wanted Slocum gone since 1993 - took about 10 years. Wonder how long I'll have to wait for Fran to go.

Texas A&M 21 - Kansas 18

Hope they can get their butts in gear for next weeks game against Missouri. Mizzou is 6-0 and is coming off a win over Texas Tech last Saturday.

In other news...

Damn t.u. longhorns beat Oklahoma 28-10 in the Red River Shootout. 'nother reason to be annoyed on Saturday.

And from the West Coast...

I didn't watch the game, but I love this guy's name. Wonder if he's got a good one?

And in the NFL on Sunday:

Go Tiki!! This also means that I won the bet with the boyfriend. He'll be paying up this week.

Sadly, though, the 'boys lost to their arch nemesis. I don't even want to write about it, or I'll cry.

In football pool news, we hit the Carolina game exactly. So we're up $2k. Gotta hope Baltimore wins tonight.

Some General Thoughts on War

Although the War on Terror has been going on for at least 5 years now, this blog is new and so I'm going to throw in my two cents. This post is mostly about war in general, but is, I believe, relevant to the current conflict.

But first, the all-important disclaimers, lest someone should stumble upon this unread blog.

1) I'm no expert on War or military tactics, except in a very general sense. (shoot first, ask questions of the body - things like that)

2) Since I am a citizen of this country who regularly exercises her Constitutional Right to Vote, I will also be exercising my Constitutional Right of Free Speech by giving what I can only say is my opinion on current events. You may disagree with me, if you wish. (But you shouldn't - I like to be right.)

What I mostly have a problem with, in this conflict, is the way we seem to be walking around on eggshells. There is no such thing as a compassionate war. War is War. It is ugly and dirty, and the quicker it is over with a clear-cut winner, the better off everyone will be. In the words of Sun-Tzu "When doing battle, seek a quick victory".

The United States clearly has (or had, as the case may be) more manpower, more money, better weapons, better technology, and better intelligence gathering methods. We should have blown them to smithereens immediately. To those who scoff, saying that a man defending his home will always prevail, I say, you're right. But I believe that the insurgents are not men defending their homes, they are paid mercenaries.

You may also say that these men are fighting for a cause greater than themselves. They are fighting the ultimate fight. They fight for Islam. I say to you, very true. But here's the kicker...wait for it...the plain and simple truth is that we are right and they are wrong. I'll probably be branded an intolerant racist for saying that. Pshaw - I don't care. The fact is that this war is about good and evil. It's not for territory, or spoils, whatever the lefty oil conspirists say.

I repeat, War is an ugly thing. No one likes the thought of innocent civilians being thrown in the middle of a conflict between men with guns. The reality is, though, that the other side uses the civilians because they think that Americans don't have the stomach for that kind of bloodshed. We'll never bomb a mosque on purpose, so that's where they hide. We'll never shoot up an elementary school, so they'll use it as a shield. I don't want anyone to die, but this world we live in is ugly and unfair.

I know I'm playing Monday morning quarterback, but I think that if we had bombed the hell out the entire mountain region where Osama is rumored to have been hiding from the get-go, we would have either a) killed him, or b) killed enough people that he would have been turned in by those who knew where he was, to stop the bombing. That's a simplistic way of looking at warfare, but, see my disclaimer.

If that strategy worked, then the next thing I would do is give a World Wide press conference and list the countries on our shit list in the Middle East and tell those countries with the world listening that we will not put up with this terrorist nonsense anymore. Some countries would do what Libya has done, which I call progress. Some countries would enable groups like Hezbollah and Hamas to continue. At which point, all aid and economic favors stop immediately. All loans called in. It is our right as a nation to give our money and aid and charity as we see fit. The people in those nations will rise up in defiance of their government, or they will live under the yoke of tyranny. Not our problem anymore. There would have been no need for a war in Iraq.

Unless of course, a country on the shit list, like Iraq was doing something naughty, like, say, funding and planning terrorist plots against the U.S. or maybe not following U.N. sanctions, of which we are a member (the U.N. - what a complete and total waste of time. sigh). At which point, we go in, guns blazing, for the shock and awe that we were promised. I guarantee you, one or two countries levelled, and the rest will fall into line.

Part 3 of my brilliant plan involves the moral relativist nations and surrender monkeys from sundry parts of the globe. They are either openly with us or openly against us. The plain fact is, the US truly is the most powerful nation on Earth. We either invoke it when necessary or lose respect. We became fat, dumb and happy after the Cold War, and numerous military actions in the late part of the 20th century showed our reluctance to follow through.

They fight the good fight with us, or stay home and watch it on TV, but we cut off their allowance. Again, a simplistic view, but cut and dry.

Part 4 is the PR campaign. If the Middle East "fell in line" as a result of our kicking ass and taking names, we'd have a bunch of pouting, rage-filled muslim jihadists planning the next sneak attack. So we do what we did in Germany and Japan. Give them back their self-respect, help rebuild, but put some bases here and there as a reminder of what we'll do if they step out of line. I know that's what we're trying to do now in Iraq, but it ain't working. Why? Because we didn't get all the bad guys first, and we tried to set up a government too soon.

First, kill as many bad guys as possible with no regard for where they're hiding. If the citizens know you won't hesitate to blow up anywhere or anyone harboring terrorists, they're more likely to turn them in. Second, set up bases and bring in folks to rebuild. Turn on the PR machine and get the folks to love Americans and all the things that make this country great. Then help them set up their government.

Update: 10/9/06

Little Green Footballs reports on Waging War With Sensitivity. Our soldiers DO NOT need this kind of crap. They need to be given the tools to WIN and COME HOME ALIVE. That's it. End of Story.

This week's Football Pool

The boyfriend and I are not in mutual accord on what teams to pick for our pool. He actually thinks that Washington is going to win over New York. Well, clearly, he is mistaken. We now have a side bet on that one. (I cannot discuss the terms) We settled for Carolina over Cleveland (what is a Brown, anyway?) and Baltimore over Denver (however, I'm not thrilled with this pick). He thinks Philly is going to beat Dallas and while that may be popular opinion in the rest of the nation, I feel compelled to point out to the boyfriend that it is my opinion that matters here. I must remember to mention to him that if he insists on betting against my 'boys, the love machine may go offline for him for awhile. Especially against my arch enemy...the Randall Cunningham effing Eagles!!!!

This could get ugly

Someone Call LULAC

So Justice Scalia questions whether a deported Mexican national would violate his probation by drinking tequila. I know that the PC police are pissy because Justice Scalia assumed that the messy-can would naturally drink tequila, but what I don't get, and maybe I'm just the idiot picking his nose, but why does a Mexican National have "US parole terms" in the first place.

I don't know the whole story I guess. But what is clear to me, is that we are not talking about an American citizen - native or naturalized. This guy is either a resident alien, here on a visa, or here illegally (my money on the latter). Both guys were convicted on drug charges. COCAINE drug charges. So they're deported, right?

If it was an American citizen, he should be tried and sentenced (and then he'll appeal ad nauseum), but we're not talking about American citizens. How is this even a case for the Supreme Court?

See what HotAir has to say on the subject.

and check out the annoyed commenters on alcohol racism.

I think I'll blog about something less gross.

Football. How about football. The impending game this weekend that I have my eye on is the big game between Dallas & Philly.

You can guess who I'm for. I detest Philly (damn that Randall Cunningham). Of course, given that the game is in Philadelphia, most are picking the Eagles for the win. Well, I'm nothing if not loyal, so I'll be sticking with my 'boys.

I will not, however, be betting on them in my weekly football pool. Speaking of the weekly football pool, the boyfriend and I got our butts handed to us on a platter last week. We were doing so well, and now, we're close to being out of money. I must spend some time researching this week if I want to triumph over the douchebags that are winning now.

I don't know what to say about the whole Mark Foley thing. I'm too disgusted. I can't even bring myself to look at the IM's - not that the ones online are graphic, but the thought. ewwww

La Shawn Barber has quickly become my most favorite blogger in the whole world. I especially loved this post about a woman becoming the President of the United States. I'm in agreement with her (as are most of the commenters). Check it out and read for yourself.

via Right Wing News, we get this. Warning: you might spew on your computer from laughing.

Yikes!

I'm all for models being more like the everyday woman, but this is a little much.

Still figuring it out...

As soon as I figure out how, I'm going to get my profile up so you can read about me. Boy do I feel retarded right about now.

Here I Am!

Ok, so it is my first post - once I figure this out, then I have something very important to say...