Daily Archives: 9/9/2005

General, Humor, Recipes and Food

Judging a chili contest

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The notes are from an inexperienced chili taster named Frank, who was visiting from Springfield, IL.

Frank: “Recently, I was honored to be selected as a judge at a chili cook-off. The original person called in sick at the last moment, and I happened to be standing there at the judge’s table asking for directions to the Coors Light truck, when the call came in. I was assured by the other two judges (native Texans) that the chili wouldn’t be all that spicy and, besides, they told me I could have free beer during the tasting, so I accepted.”

Here are the scorecards: (Frank is Judge #3)

Chili # 1 Eddie’s Maniac Monster Chili…
Judge # 1 — A little too heavy on the tomato. Amusing kick.
Judge # 2 — Nice, smooth tomato flavor. Very mild.
Judge # 3 — (Frank) What the hell is this stuff?! You could remove dried paint from your driveway with it. Took me two beers to put out the flames. I hope that’s the worst one. These Texans are crazy!

Chili # 2 Austin ‘s Afterburner Chili…
Judge # 1 — Smoky, with a hint of pork. Slight jalapeno tang.
Judge # 2 — Exciting BBQ flavor; needs more peppers to be taken eriously.
Judge # 3 — Keep this out of the reach of children. I’m not sure what I’m supposed to taste besides pain. I had to wave off two people who wanted to give me the Heimlich maneuver. They had to rush in more beer when they saw the look on my face.

Chili # 3 Ronny’s Famous Burn Down the Barn Chili…
Judge # 1 — Excellent firehouse chili. Great kick. Needs more beans.
Judge # 2 — A beanless chili, a bit salty, good use of peppers.
Judge # 3 — Call the EPA. I’ve located a uranium spill. My nose feels like I have been snorting Drano. Everyone knows the routine by now. Get me more beer before I ignite. The barmaid pounded me on the back, now my backbone is in the front part of my chest. I’m getting pie-eyed from all of the beer…

Chili # 4 Dave’s Black Magic…
Judge # 1 — Black bean chili with almost no spice. Disappointing.
Judge # 2 — Hint of lime in the black beans. Good side dish for fish, or other mild foods; not much of a chili.
Judge # 3 — I felt something scraping across my tongue, but was unable to taste it. Is it possible to burn out taste buds? Sally, the barmaid, was standing behind me with fresh refills. That 300-lb woman is starting to look HOT…just like this nuclear waste I’m eating! Is chili an aphrodisiac?

Chili # 5 Lisa’s Legal Lip Remover…
Judge # 1 — Meaty, strong chili. Cayenne peppers freshly ground, adding considerable kick. Very impressive.
Judge # 2 — Chili using shredded beef, could use more tomato. Must admit the cayenne peppers make a strong statement.
Judge # 3 — My ears are ringing, sweat is pouring off my forehead, and I can no longer focus my eyes. I farted and four people behind me needed paramedics. The contestant seemed offended when I told her that her chili had given me brain damage. Sally saved my tongue from bleeding by pouring beer directly on it from the pitcher. I wonder if I’m burning my lips off. It really pisses me off that the other judges asked me to stop screaming. Screw those rednecks.

Chili # 6 Pam’s Very Vegetarian Variety…
Judge # 1 — Thin, yet bold vegetarian variety chili. Good balance of spices and peppers.
Judge # 2 — The best yet. Aggressive use of peppers, onions, and garlic. Superb.
Judge # 3 — My intestines are now a straight pipe filled with gaseous, sulfuric flames. I pooped on myself when I farted, and I’m worried it will eat through the chair! No one seems inclined to stand behind me except that Sally. Can’t feel my lips anymore. I need to wipe my ass with a snow cone.

Chili # 7 Carla’s Screaming Sensation Chili…
Judge # 1 — A mediocre chili with too much reliance on canned peppers.
Judge # 2 — Ho-hum; tastes as if the chef literally threw in a can of chili peppers at the last moment. **I should take note that I am worried about Judge # 3. He appears to be in a bit of distress, as he is cursing uncontrollably.
Judge # 3 — You could put a grenade in my mouth, pull the pin, and I wouldn’t feel a thing. I’ve lost sight in one eye, and the world sounds like it is made of rushing water. My shirt is covered with chili, which slid unnoticed out of my mouth. My pants are full of lava to match my shirt. At least during the autopsy, they’ll know what killed me. I’ve decided to stop breathing; it’s too painful. Screw it; I’m not getting any oxygen anyway. If I need air, I’ll just suck it in through the 4-inch hole in my stomach.

Chili # 8 Karen’s Toenail Curling Chili…
Judge # 1 — The perfect ending, this is a nice blend chili. Not too bold, but spicy enough to declare its existence.
Judge # 2 — This final entry is a good, balanced chili. Neither mild, nor hot. Sorry to see that most of it was lost when Judge # 3 farted, passed out, fell over, and pulled the chili pot down on top of himself. Not sure if he’s going to make it. Poor fella, wonder how he’d have reacted to really hot chili?

(Lifted from CSP Gun Talk’s Political Page where it was posted by “Bob – the Beagle Master” a regular poster)

General, Politics

New Orleans as Utopia

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It should have been. Really. It should have been freakin’ utopia.

The Left always says that the reason America isn’t Utopia is that they’re not sufficiently in charge.

Well, in New Orleans, like NO other American city, the Left was in charge. Dimmocratic mayor. Dimmocratic political machine ran freakin’ EVERYTHING. Police department. School board. EVERYTHING.

There were enough votes in New Orleans to where only the strongest of political campaigns could write off New Orleans. That’s why we ended up with such luminaries as our governess, Miz Blanco, and our dimmocratic senator, Miz Landrieu. Their Republican opponents just couldn’t overcome the dimmocratic bloc of New Orleans. A Republican mayor? You’ll see Osama bin Ladin selected as Pope first…

Because of this, New Orleans always managed to get a disproportionate share of state tax dollars. New Orleans also got a disproportionate amount of Federal tax dollars.

New Orleans taxes the living daylights out of anyone who can pay at the local level, 9% sales tax. Property tax is 171+ mills. Think Boston is “Taxachusetts”? New Orleans property taxes are higher than Boston. Of course, Louisiana’s homestead exemption keeps lower and middle class homeowners from paying. Businesses get the crap taxed out of them. Lots of businesses moved out of New Orleans.

New Orleans taxes the crap out of the tourists. Hotel rooms are taxed at 13% plus a fee of from one to three dollars depending on the size of the hotel.

A lot of tax dollars flow into New Orleans, tax dollars that aren’t raised from New Orleans citizens.

But New Orleans had what the lefty libs say is necessary to become Utopia: Dimmocrats in charge. Solidly in charge. From top to bottom.

So what did they get instead of utopia?

Graft of Biblical proportion. Corruption that rocketed them to the heights of corruption statistics in a state that wrote the book on political corruption. A labyrinth of regulatory agencies, each which must be satisfied with fees and inspections before any real work can be done on any project.

A school system that soaks up money like a sponge while buildings fall down and students score at the bottom of everybody’s scale on standardized tests. Double-digit dropout rates. Teacher qualifications are a joke. But then you don’t need much education to exist in the next thing New Orleans has.

A welfare class. In the city that likes to talk about itself being the example of diversity, they have a poor, very poor black underclass. Generation after generation come and go, living the same hopeless, goalless existence, fed by tax dollars, run through that rubber-stamp education system, and turned back loose on the streets equipped only to perform menial tasks in the tourism industry or to sit at home waiting for another government check. And vote. Dimmocratic. A New Orleans voting precinct might be 98 or 98% for a dimmocrat running against a Republican. Orleans Parish was 77% for Kerry in the last presidential campaign.

New Orleans should be perfect. Instead, a liberal columnist for the New York Times says this:

New Orleans has had high rates of illiteracy and high rates of poverty, and long before the hurricane blew in, high rates of children and families with extraordinarily low expectations. In short, much of the city was a mess, and no one was marshaling the considerable resources necessary to help pull its stricken residents out of the trouble of their daily lives.

But the dimmocrats ARE IN CHARGE in New Orleans. If there’s ANY city in the country where the number of poor black families should be declining, it should be New Orleans. African-Americans are not a minority in New Orleans. The city is 68% African-American.

Dimmocrats are in charge in New Orleans. They control the purse-strings. We;ve already talked about the tax dollars available to the city, so you’d think that with the “right people” in charge, the future would be bright for the poor underclass.

Do you think that maybe, just maybe, dimmocratic plans for running a big city just might be wrong. Becaus eif they were right, New Orleans would be Utopia…

Current events - national, General

Did New Orleans Cops Shame Their Uniform?

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I have two comments:

1. Does a bear shit in the woods?

2. They might not have shamed an NOPD uniform, but nobody ever expected much from NOPD anyway… Bringing shame on cops in general? Judge NOPD against NYPD…

But that’s just me, and I’m a Louisiana citizen who never liked New Orleans much anyway. New Orleans cops were great for dealing with crises like rousting drunks at Mardi Gras…

Here’s a column you need to read. A good chunk, but go read the rest, too…

For all I care they can stay in Vegas.

It’s not like they were doing New Orleans any good.

Did you hear about the vacations? After letting looters run rampant in their city for a week, after having massive desertions from duty, after leaving the people in the Superdome to be raped and brutalized, the officers of the New Orleans Police Department were sent on vacation.

All expenses paid.

To Las Vegas. Or Atlanta. Or wherever they wanted to go.

Half go this week, half go next week.

The cops and the firefighters and other city emergency workers.

Including the police commissioner.

While his city is still underwater, while some of his citizens are still stuck in their flooded homes, while bands of criminals are still free, the city’s top cop has gone on vacation.

That would be Superintendent Eddie Compass. Of his officers he said, “In the annals of history, no police department in the history of the world was asked to do what we was asked.�

Which is insane. The guy’s an idiot or a liar. Not to diminish the incredible task his department was given, but to say this was the most difficult policing challenge faced in the history of mankind – or even the United States – is preposterous.

And it’s worth noting that it doesn’t matter what you are asked to do, it matters how you respond. And the New Orleans Police Department responded in a disgraceful manner.

Certainly, not all of its officers. Possibly not even a majority. Undoubtedly there was nobility and valor on the part of many officers, and some may have even paid with their lives.

But the department overall dropped the ball. During its city’s hour of need, it simply did not rise to the occasion.

Current events - national, General, Local politics

Spending on the New Orleans Levees

Why didn’t thaty spend money on the levees in New Orleans? It’s George Bush’s fault. De fed’ul gubmit doan’ care ’bout Nawlins’…

Yeah, right. Read this. New Orleans did its traditional thing in prioritizing the use of funds.

By 1998, Louisiana’s state government had a $2 billion construction budget, but less than one tenth of one percent of that — $1.98 million — was dedicated to levee improvements in the New Orleans area. State appropriators were able to find $22 million that year to renovate a new home for the Louisiana Supreme Court and $35 million for one phase of an expansion to the New Orleans convention center.

Levees weren’t gonna get the votes to keep the politicians in office.

Earlier this year, the levee board did complete a $2.5 million restoration project. After months of delays, officials rolled away fencing to reveal the restored 1962 Mardi Gras fountain in a four-acre park featuring a new 600-foot plaza between famous Lakeshore Drive and the sea wall.

Financing for the renovation came from a property tax passed by New Orleans voters in 1983. The tax, which generates more than $6 million each year for the levee board, is dedicated to capital projects. Levee board officials defended more than $600,000 in cost overruns for the Mardi Gras fountain project, according to the Times-Picayune, “citing their responsibility to maintain the vast green space they have jurisdiction over along the lakefront.”

You can bet that fountain is a real centerpiece now. And there’ll be PLENTY of “green space”. Maybe enough room for the cemetary to bury all the dead…

Current events - national, General, Local politics

New Orleans Guarantees Criminal Safety

New Orleans is confiscating guns. Yep! I’d laugh out loud is I thought for ONE MINUTE that these people might be joking, but this is what passes for a bright idea in New Orleans.

NEW ORLEANS, Sept. 8 – Waters were receding across this flood-beaten city today as police officers began confiscating weapons, including legally registered firearms, from civilians in preparation for a mass forced evacuation of the residents still living here.

No civilians in New Orleans will be allowed to carry pistols, shotguns or other firearms, said P. Edwin Compass III, the superintendent of police. “Only law enforcement are allowed to have weapons,” he said.

Yeah, man! That’s the ticket! Give guns to the NOPD! More than 20% deserted. Numbers of the NOPD were caught on video, looting!

But that order apparently does not apply to hundreds of security guards hired by businesses and some wealthy individuals to protect property. The guards, employees of private security companies like Blackwater, openly carry M-16’s and other assault rifles. Mr. Compass said that he was aware of the private guards, but that the police had no plans to make them give up their weapons.

Nearly two weeks after the floods began, New Orleans has turned into an armed camp, patrolled by thousands of local, state, and federal law enforcement officers, as well as National Guard troops and active-duty soldiers. While armed looters roamed unchecked last week, the city is now calm. No arrests were made on Wednesday night or this morning, and the police received only 10 calls for service, a police spokesman said.

Only ten calls? That’s easy to understand. Phones are out. Even if you DO get through, how are you to know that the NOPD officer who shows up isn’t going to cap your unfortunate ass and TAKE your stuff for himself?

As has been said many times in the gun control debate, when guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns. In the case of the situation in New Orleans now, an honest, law-abiding citizen is now forced to give up his personal means of protection in an enviroment where rampant criminal behavior is a nationally-televised fact. In that situation, I guess it would be the time that **I** personally stepped over the line from an armed citizen to a criminal myself, by virtue of the fact that I would NOT give up my gun. that makes me an “outlaw”. Then it will take a cop with a sense of justice, who can differentiate between an honest man trying to protect himself and his own, and a criminal… Do you want to trust what’s left of NOPD with that?

The city of New Orleans: I thought for years that it’d hit bottom on institutionalizing corruption and stupidity, a place that sane people avoid, but I see that the city has not only hit bottom, but it’s starting to dig down further.

There are probably MANY honorable law enforcement officers in New Orleans, but there are also a sufficient number who range from useless to totally criminal, and these have forever contaminatee what little reputation the NOPD had left…