by dave granlund - political cartoons.com

Earlier this month, Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell (R) signed legislation allowing “concealed carry permit holders to bring loaded handguns” into establishments that serve alcohol. The law allows permit holders to carry guns in restaurants, “as long as the holders do not consume alcohol.” A leading Virginia gun lobby is now arguing that the law unfairly stigmatizes gun carriers as second-class citizens because there is an exception that “allows law-enforcement officers and commonwealth’s attorneys to carry concealed weapons and consume alcohol.” Philip Van Cleave, leader of the Virginia Citizens Defense League, complained, “We’re not allowed to drink, but they (law enforcement officials) can. … That’s two classes of citizens.” But Van Cleave has a solution:
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Al weer een beslissend offensief in de ruim acht jaar durende oorlog in Afghanistan. Nu is de regio Kandahar aan de beurt. Twee maanden geleden vond dat ‘make or break’ offensief overigens plaats in Marjah, herinnert Glenn Greenwald zich.

War propaganda from Afghanistan

The New York Times yesterday excitedly declared that the imminent Battle of Kandahar “has become the make-or-break offensive of the eight-and-half-year [Afghanistan] war” and is “the pivotal test of President Obama’s Afghanistan strategy.” As Atrios suggests, there never is any such thing as “make-or-break” because we never leave no matter how completely our war and occupation efforts fail. That’s what led to the countless Friedman Units of the Iraq War: the endless proclamations that The Next Six Months will be Decisive, only to be repeated at the end of the six-month period of failure as though the prior one never happened. read on>> (more…)

Senate hopeful Republican Sue Lowden’s plan for Healthcare reform is to barter or trade chickens for medical procedures. For people who are unsure how many chickens are required for your medical care. This handy calculator converts many common procedures into chickens so you won’t look like an idiot at your next doctor’s appointment.

Chickens for Checkups, continued
DailyKos - Now Sue Lowden says the reaction to her Chickens for Checkups barter scheme proves how out of touch Harry Reid is:

I want to say that I know that bartering takes place here in Nevada. It takes place throughout the country and that Harry Reid has been attacking me for saying something like that and the truth is it is happening and that’s how out of touch he is.

And, Lowden adds, Reid took her out of context. (Emphasis added.)

Harry Reid has a paid operative who follows me everywhere with a camera and the one-hour conversation… The only thing that was taken out of that one-hour conversation was about thirty seconds was about bartering. They took it way out of context.

So…Harry Reid took her out of context, and that proves how out of touch he is? Sounds like she’s trying to have it both ways. Let’s look at what Lowden originally said (emphasis mine): read on>> (more…)

Eschaton - Some day I hope more people realize that large segments of our economy don’t actually do anything (health insurance, much of finance/real estate), they simply position themselves in the middle of transactions and take their cut. That isn’t to say there are no transactions which legitimately require skilled middlemen, or that there is no legitimate function for the finance and banking industries, but to a great degree the skimmers just don’t do anything productive at all. Except take our money.
Fabulous Fab’s Fee Fees:
Some skimmers provide the illusion of expertise, but it’s just a scam.

het weer nu

Reageren op ikjes. Hier kunt u reageren op het ‘ikje’ dat vandaag is gepubliceerd op de Achterpagina van het NRC Handelsblad. Op de NRC-site kan niet meer worden gereageerd op het stukje dat door de lezers zelf wordt ingezonden.
Het alternatief op drasties. Is uw ikje niet geplaatst door het NRC dan kunt u het publiceren op drasties in de categorie Trots Op Ikje. Opsturen via ‘contact us’.

Leeuwarder Courant, Kootstertille - Een 22-jarige man uit Harkema kwam gisteravond niet met lege handen op de verjaardag van zijn broer. Hij gaf zijn broer, die erg van de natuur houdt, twee mooie plantjes.
Getuigen hadden echter gezien dat hij de planten net daarvoor van de begraafplaats aan de Tillebuorren in Kootstertille had gestolen. Ze belden de politie. De agenten wisten de man op de Klaproasstrjitte aan te houden. Het familielid had geen idee dat de plantjes rechtstreeks van de begraafplaats kwamen. De dief werd na verhoor op het politiebureau vrijgelaten.

gorilla

Ingredients:
•1 pig foot, well cleaned
•6 cups water
•3 cups dried split peas, rinsed
•1 smoked pork hock
•2 potatoes, peeled and diced
•2 leeks, sliced
•2 stalks of celery, finely sliced
•1 onion, sliced
•5ml dried thyme
•Pinch of nutmeg
•15ml lemon juice
•Salt and pepper
•A couple of smoked sausages, sliced

Times Live, Hilary Biller - It became a post-Christmas ritual. The family always lamented the end of the large festive ham. For my mother - who would never think of discarding the bone, not even to the family dog - it became the foundation of her favourite Dutch pea soup. It was a tasty, wholesome broth, but on a balmy summer’s evening it was our least favourite: a stodgy porridge flecked with bits of leftover ham.
The soup’s humble origins are typical of many Dutch dishes - subsistence in character, using cheap and plentiful products in the best possible way.
Split peas are the most popular of all legumes and can be traced back to 500BC when the Greeks and Romans were cultivating them and vendors would sell hot pea soup on the streets of Athens.
For the Dutch, whose diet centred around potatoes, vegetables and meat, pea soup became a winter staple almost as famous as another cold-weather favourite - bruinebonensoep (brown bean soup). The Dutch say a good pea soup (also known as snert ) is one in which you should be able to stand a spoon upright. In fact, on cooling, it thickens so much you cannot even ladle it out.
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by cardow - the ottawa citizen

by joe heller - green bay press-gazette

Seth Meyers, on Saturday Night Live’s:
“This week Arizona signed the toughest illegal immigration law in the country, which would allow the police to demand identification papers from anyone they suspect is in the country illegally. I know there are some people in Arizona worried that Obama is acting like Hitler, but can we all agree that there’s nothing more Nazi than saying, `Show me your papers?’ There’s never been a WWII movie that didn’t include the line, `Show me your papers.’ It’s their catchphrase. Every time someone says `Show me your papers,’ Hitler’s family gets a residual check. So heads up Arizona, that’s fascism. I know, I know, it’s a dry fascism, but it’s still fascism.”

A USA Today survey of 46 leading economists finds that most believe the economy is “shaping up to be stronger than expected and there is little risk the economy will slip back into a recession.” The experts predict growth of 3 percent this year, up from forecasts of 2.8 percent in January.

Bill Maher, on threats to the creators of ’South Park’:
“What is it with radical Muslims and cartoons? They watch more cartoons than pot-heads.”
Glenn Greenwald:
[..]I abhor the threats of violence coming from fanatical Muslims over the expression of ideas they find offensive, as well as the cowardly institutions which acquiesce to the accompanying demands for censorship. I’ve vigorously condemned efforts to haul anti-Muslim polemicists before Canadian and European “human rights” (i.e., censorship) tribunals. But the very idea that such conduct is remotely unique to Muslims is delusional, the by-product of Douthat’s ongoing use of his New York Times column for his anti-Muslim crusade and sectarian religious promotion.[..]
[..]The various forms of religious-based, intimidation-driven censorship and taboo ideas in the U.S. — what Douthat claims are non-existent except when it involves Muslims — are too numerous to chronicle. One has to be deeply ignorant, deeply dishonest or consumed with petulant self-victimization and anti-Muslim bigotry to pretend they don’t exist. I opt (primarily) for the latter explanation in Douthat’s case. [..]
[..]Several people are insisting that the problem of violence and threats by Muslims is far greater than, and thus not comparable to, those posed by Christians and Jews. This is just the same form of triabalistic, my-side-is-always-better blindness afflicting Douthat. Who could possibly look at the U.S. and conclude that brutal, inhumane, politically-motivated, designed-to-intimidate violence is a particular problem among Muslims, or that Muslims receive special, unfairly favorable treatment as a result of their intimidation? Do you mean except for the tens of thousands of Muslims whom the U.S. has imprisoned without charges for years, and the hundreds of thousands our wars and invasions and bombings have killed this decade alone, and the ones from around the world subjected to racial and ethnic profiling, and the ones we’ve tortured and shot up at checkpoints and are targeting for state-sponsored assassination?[..]

The New York Times’ Muslim problem

Ross Douthat, The New York Times, today:
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het weer nu

Dat is het voorstel van Jen McCreight - ‘a liberal, geeky, nerdy, scientific, perverted atheist feminist trapped in Indiana’. Zij wil dat alle vrouwen met een beetje hart voor de wetenschap vandaag een duidelijk zichtbaar decolleté tonen. Op zijn minst! Met BQD2010 wil deze Amerikaanse onderzoeken of de Iraanse geestelijke Hojatoleslam Kazem Sedighi gelijk heeft dat aardbevingen worden veroorzaakt doordat vrouwen zich schaars kleden.

Hojatoleslam Kazem Sedighi, Tehran’s acting Friday prayer leader:
“Many women who do not dress modestly… lead young men astray, corrupt their chastity and spread adultery in society, which (consequently) increases earthquakes.”

Time for a Boobquake.
Blag Hag, Jen McCreight - On Monday, April 26th, I will wear the most cleavage-showing shirt I own. I encourage other female skeptics to join me and embrace the supposed supernatural power of their breasts. Or short shorts, if that’s your preferred form of immodesty. With the power of our scandalous bodies combined, we should surely produce an earthquake. If not, I’m sure Sedighi can come up with a rational explanation for why the ground didn’t rumble. And if we really get through to him, maybe it’ll be one involving plate tectonics. So, who’s with me? I may be a D cup, but that will probably only produce a slight tremor on its own. Join the facebook event

Reageren op ikjes. Hier kunt u reageren op het ‘ikje’ dat vandaag is gepubliceerd op de Achterpagina van het NRC Handelsblad. Op de NRC-site kan niet meer worden gereageerd op het stukje dat door de lezers zelf wordt ingezonden.
Het alternatief op drasties. Is uw ikje niet geplaatst door het NRC dan kunt u het publiceren op drasties in de categorie Trots Op Ikje. Opsturen via ‘contact us’.

JdeW (februari 15th, 2010) over de Sire campagne - ’Aardige mensen’:
Zie hier de wanhopige pogingen van Nederland om asociale mensen sociaal te maken.
Geloof me, het werkt niet. Asociale mensen zijn asociaal omdat ze asociaal willen zijn. Net zoals sociale mensen sociaal zijn omdat ze sociaal willen zijn. Daar verandert een filmpje of een site zoals deze niets aan. Het enige wat helpt is straffen en belonen. JdeW stelt dan ook voor om asociale mensen op te sluiten en sociale mensen geen belasting te laten betalen.

Update: Yvonne Jaspers en Frans Bauer zijn door SIRE uitgeroepen tot ‘de aardigste Nederlanders van 2010′. En daar staat drasties honderd procent achter. Neem Yvonne Jaspers, figuurlijk gesproken dan. Met die vrouw kan toch niemand ruzie krijgen? Nou… niemand… Herinnert u zich deze nog: Pieter Lakeman!
En Frans Bauer, onze nationale knuffel-kamper. Hetzelfde laken een pak. Wie kan er nu ruzie krijgen met een Bauer: Politie Moerdijk!
Verder Wendy van Dijk en Guus Meeuwis op twee; Linda de Mol en Jochem van Gelder op drie.

Nieuw opgericht: de partij voor mensen die welke taal dan ook verschrikkelijk fout bezigen.
De DPVMDWTDOVFB dus.

Eerste kandidaat: de man die op radio 1 elke dag 200 keer de files meldt.
Kilemajtus zijn het, kilemajtus en kilemajtus, eindeloze kilemajtus, maar wel gebruikelijk, want het is maandag, of welke dag dan ook, en dan zijn d’r altijd kilemajtus file!

Ruim driehonderd jaar geleden al is de plantenwereld van India in kaart gebracht. De toenmalige gouverneur van Kochi, Hendrik Adriaan van Rheede tot Draakenstein, nam het initiatief om de flora van de westkust van India in twaalf delen te publiceren in Amsterdam in de periode van 1678 tot 1703.
Zo zie je maar: Balkenende had gelijk, de VOC deed ook goede dingen. Het boek is nu uitgebracht in de lokale taal. Mooi op tijd dus. Renee Ridgway en Rick Van Amersfoort gaan een documentaire maken over de Nederlandse kolonisatie van India.

Back on the Dutch trail

The Hindu - When Vaidyar Itty Achudan and the Dutch governor of Cochin, Hendrik Adriaan Van Rheede tot Drakestein collaborated and collated the voluminous and detailed book on botanical taxonomy and traditional healing system of Malabar, Hortus Malabaricus, 1678, little would they have thought that centuries later it would still remain a huge reference point in history and medicine. But with 742 plant identifications and Ayurvedic cures the book continues to inspire research.
This time the research is a fascinating journey being re-traversed by Renee Ridgway, a visual artist and Rick Van Amersfoort, a documentary film maker who are in the city researching and filming new age perceptions about Dutch colonisation in India. Their story begins with the alleged burning of the Portuguese Library by the Dutch and the subsequent authoring of the ‘Hortus Malabaricus’. The tale begins in 1663, Kerala.
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Motocross Action Magazine - Jeffrey Herlings, the 15 year old Dutch wundekinde, swept both motos in the sand at Valkenswaard, with last year’s new kid on the block Ken Roczen going 2-2. He beats the 15-year-old that won a Grand Prix last year.

by brian fairrington - cagle cartoons

Arizona governor Jan Brewer (R) signed a draconian immigration bill into law, which aims to “identify, prosecute and deport” undocumented immigrants.

Stephen Colbert - “My great grandfather didn’t travel 4,000 miles across the ocean to see this country overrun by immigrants.”
Eschaton - I’m not always for boycotts, but boycotting Arizona isn’t simply about expressing displeasure, it’s about the fact that large numbers of people in this country have good reason to believe there’s a good chance they would not be safe from a law enforcement nightmare if they went there.