Now Obama, NATO are targeting, murdering children

    It's come to this. President Obama, who was given the Nobel Peace Prize for reasons unknown, has stooped to targeting and murdering children and blowing up schools for the disabled.
    NATO has targeted and blown up the residence of one of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi's sons. It was not a military target. In the process they murdered Gaddafi's youngest son, Saif al-Arab Gaddafi and three of his children. NATO also bombed and essentially destroyed a school for children with Downs Syndrome.
    NATO's actions fall far outside of any UN mandate. They are what is known as war crimes. This whole military action against Libya defies any logic.
    America is supposedly engaged in a War on Terror. Some of our motivations have been good. But tell me this: What is the difference in dropping bombs on an innocent man's house and killing his family and in hijacking a plane and flying it into a building? There isn't any. People who hijack planes and murder people are terrorists. People who order the bombing of private residences and little children are terrorists. People who attempt to assassinate the leaders of foreign countries are terrorists.
    Gaddafi had long ago paid reparations for his past crimes, and was in fact cooperating in the war effort against al-Qaeda until NATO stabbed him in the back. Now it's time for to end this war, join Gaddafi in wiping out the Rebels, and pay reparations to Libya and Gaddafi for the tens of billions in damages our leaders have done to that innocent country.
    And it's time for Obama to leave office. Murder is an impeachable offense.

Recipe: Pecan Pie Ice Cream

    It's recipe time! My friend Lisa Liddy recently mentioned ice cream on Facebook, and I promised to share what I consider to be the best ice cream recipe in the world.
    I decided to look on the Internet for a Pecan Pie ice cream recipe and I found one that had won a ribbon at a county fair. My reason for looking was my fond memories of Texas Gold brand Fudge Pecan Pie ice cream, which apparently isn't made any more.
    We have a Cuisinart Ice Cream Maker
that we've really enjoyed. You put the canister in the freezer and when you are ready to make ice cream you just pour it in and turn it on. No muss, no fuss, and it really works and gets the ice cream good and frozen. After we get through churning it we put it in a container and stick it in the freezer so it will get good and hard. I highly recommend these, and if you want to get one click here to buy one and I'll make a dollar!
    Okay, that's enough self-promotion. On to the recipe. This is a custard ice cream, very rich. You can use a little less heavy cream and a little more half-and-half if you wish. The pie you use should be well cooked so that the sugar on top is caramelized. Also, after you chop up the pie, be sure to chill it; otherwise it will melt the ice cream when you add it. Here's the recipe:

PECAN PIE ICE CREAM

7 large egg yolks, beaten
1 Cup sugar
1/4 tsp. salt
1 ½ cups half-and-half
1 cup heavy cream
2 3/4 tsp. vanilla extract
1/4 tsp. maple extract
2 cups of Pecan pie, chopped

In a medium mixing bowl, beat the sugar and salt into the egg yolks until thickened and pale yellow. Set aside.

Bring the half-and-half to a simmer in a heavy medium saucepan. Slowly beat the hot half-and-half into the eggs and sugar. Pour the entire mixture back into the pan and place over very low heat or in a double boiler. Stir constantly with a whisk or wooden spoon until the custard thickens slightly. Be careful not to let the mixture boil or the eggs will scramble. Remove from the heat and pour the hot custard through a strainer into a large, clean bowl. Allow the custard to cool slightly; then stir in the cream and vanilla. Cover and refrigerate until cool or overnight.

Fill cylinder of ice cream freezer two-thirds full; freeze according to manufacturer's directions. Add the CHILLED crumbled pecan pie when mixture is semi-frozen. Swirl milk chocolate fudge (optional) into the finished ice cream.

Expensive Hilton stay ahead? Here's how to make it cheap(er)

    If you have some high-priced Hilton stays in your future, Discover America is offering Hilton points at a good price as part of their deal-a-day web promotion.
    Some of these deals haven't been too impressive. For example, they offered 60 discounted tickets to Universal Studios in Florida. They also offered a few discounted Seaworld tickets. Even if you were there at the stoke on noon Eastern time you were unlikely to be the "winner" of the discounted items. For a nation of 300 million, 60 theme park tickets just ain't going very far.
    Today, in addition to the discounted Universal tickets, which were impossible to buy, they offered eight vacation packages that included airfare, hotel and tickets. These were a good deal, but took longer to sell out. It was just a bigger commitment.
    I'm not at all impressed with the offers over the next three days, but on Monday, May 2, DailyGetaways is selling Hilton points and lots of them for just over one-half cent each. If you buy these from Hilton they cost a penny each. If you use your Amex card you get an additional 10 percent off, reducing your purchase price to less than one-half cent per point. These points are being sold as "nights," but you are really just buying points.
    Hilton is offering packages of 100,000, 150,000 and 250,000 points, with 150 to 200 of each package being offered. So there's a real chance of actually being able to buy some points, and if available one could buy one of each package for a total of 500,000 points. Since Hilton normally limits point purchases to 40,000 per year, so this is an unusual chance to buy points.
    But can you save money? Well, only if you are planning to stay at higher-end Hiltons. But here's a couple of examples. I assume at least Silver status (four nights per year) which gets eligibility for the VIP awards.
    The Sandestin Hilton again hosts the Mississippi Bar Convention this year. A six-night room booked on the hotel website costs $254 per night (or $269 if you ask for the special bar rate!). Add 11 percent tax and the cost for six nights is $1,691.64. You can purchase 250,000 points on the DailyGetaways special for $1,375 less 10 percent for Amex, or $1,237.50. Six nights at the Sandestin Hilton will cost you 225,000 points, or $1,113.75 worth of points. So if you buy these points and use them on the Sandestin Hilton, you save $454.14, plus you have 25,000 point left over to use somewhere else.
    In Europe these points are even more valuable. For the same dates as above, the Paris Hilton Arc de Triomphe costs almost $500 per night. So getting the room via the DailyGetaway points pretty much brings a Paris luxury hotel down to bargain hotel prices. And of course if you are a Hilton Gold or Diamond member you will get a complementary lavish breakfast and some nice cocktails in the evening. I would never pay $50 for a breakfast buffet, but it sure is nice to get one for free!
    I can't recommend just buying Hilton points to hold them. With the dollar tanking, there is a chance that it may become harder to cash in points for the expensive European hotels. But if some expensive Hiltons are in your future, now you know a way to make them a lot cheaper. With these points you should be able to book almost any Hilton in the world for six nights for about $185 per night.
www.dailygetaways.com

Time Magazine Liberal? You can judge a magazine by its cover

    A couple of friends recently took issue with my description of Time magazine as the official magazine of the establishment left. Now, to be sure, I don't suppose the establishment left has an "official" magazine, but it is hard to imagine a magazine that works harder to peddle the current left-of-center message that the liberal mainstream media is trying to cram down America's throat.
    Certainly the "true" magazines of the left are publications such as The Nation, Mother Jones, The New Republic, American Prospect and so on. I sometimes enjoy reading articles from these magazines. One can find good ideas, even from those one usually disagrees with. But these are not what I would call the "establishment left" magazines, as their views tend to fall far to the left of the establishment liberals.
    At one time Newsweek would have carried the title of the mouthpiece of the establishment left, but its circulation and influence have dropped to the point that it can no longer carry the crown. And there was a time when Time was a conservative magazine, back in the day of Henry Luce. This conservatism lasted through the 1970s and moderated in the 1980s. But for the past 15 years or so, Time has worked hard at being liberal, and has succeeded.
    Nothing illustrates its status as cheerleader for the left than its own covers over the past few years, and its role as a high priest of the Cult of Obama. In the 2008 election year, Obama was featured as part of the cover photo of the magazine 15 times. If you count the skybox, Obama was featured on the cover in almost half the issues. John McCain's photo appeared on the cover of Time five times; three of those were shared with Obama. So McCain got two solo shots without Obama while Obama got 12 without McCain, 10 being solo shots.
    Oprah Winfre appears on the cover of every single issue of her monthly "O" magazine So she appeared on the cover 12 times in 2008. Obama appeared on the cover of weekly Time 15 times. Maybe Time should change its name to "O: The Obama Magazine."
    Following the election, Time kept it up. Of course, Time wasn't the only magazine to slobber all over Obama, just the most obvious. I sometimes wonder how long it will be before they start referring to him as Moammar Gadhafi refers to himself, as our "Brother Leader.
    America is a slightly right of center country. Obama is an extreme, radical liberal. To get elected he had to hide his true political beliefs from the electorate, which his unofficial campaign staff -- also known as the press corps -- helped him to do. Americans loved the idea of a moderate black president who could perhaps put some of our nation's past behind us.
    As Americans have realized that they bought a pig in a poke, they've become a little irritated. They don't want the government to take over health care. They don't want higher taxes and bigger government. They don't want unlimited illegal immigration. They don't want reverse discrimination, or for Black Panthers to be allowed to beat up whites who try to vote. The Obama administration supports all of these things and the American public doesn't.
    And so Obama is becoming increasingly unpopular with most Americans. Time magazine, aware of this, decides to pull out their photo archive and put Obama on the cover yet again, this time with a Photoshopped image of Ronald Reagan with his arm around the uber-liberal president and a message that Obama "HEARTS" Reagan.
    Pulease!
    Time a magazine of the establishement Left? You Betcha!

They took your toilet and your shower, now they want your icemaker

    Time magazine has a story headlined: How the Ice in Your Drink is Imperiling the Planet. I promise it isn't The Onion; it's Time magazine, official publication of the establishment left. The gist of the story is that an icemaker causes a refrigerator to use between 12 and 20 percent more energy per year, and is therefore a major contributor to global warming.
    Time insists we should all use ice trays instead. No joke! This is why liberals can't be trusted to make our decisions for us.
    A modern refrigerator costs about $50 per year to operate. Add 20 percent to that and it turns out that the American consumer can get all the ice he wants, whenever he wants, for less than a buck a month. And he never has to bother with those pesky, time-consuming ice trays. Has there ever been a better bargain?
    I'm all for saving energy, but have the liberals ever heard of helping people winterize their homes? Have they ever heard of buying people wood stoves? Nothing is saved if you take away people's ice machines and they have to spend hours every month filling them and putting them in the freezer, and twice that amount of time arguing with each other over who didn't fill the ice tray.
    Instead of saving energy, getting rid of ice machines is likely to dramatically increase energy consumption as the divorce rate goes up. More couples will be forced to live in separate households, using twice as much energy, because the ice tray arguments were just the straw that broke the camel's back.
    First the liberals took our toilets, so that when we flush the poop just stays there staring right back up at us. Then they took our showers, so that we get so little water that it takes 20 minutes to wash the soap off. Now they want to come after our ice makers.
    And they wonder what we Tea Party types seem so angry about.

Three sweepstakes: Reasonable odds beat lottery tickets

    If the free travel department, Viking River Cruises is giving away three Rhine River cruises for two valued at $10,000 to contestants who "Like" their company on Facebook. The company already has over 46,000 "Likes" and the drawing will be held as soon as they hit 50,000 contestants.
    As contests go, a 1 in 16,666 chance to win a $10,000 prize is pretty good. In reality they are paying you about 50 cents to press the "Like" button. Nobody says you can't unlike them in the future, though. Fifty cents isn't much, but pressing the "Like button is cheaper than buying a lottery ticket.
To enter, visit the Viking River Cruises website and press the Facebook logo down on the bottom scroll menu. You can then go to the Facebook page and enter the contest. Good luck!

    In the more free stuff department, if you "Like" the Hilton Garden Inn on Facebook you get a free 250 HHonors points. If you're saving for a free 225,000-point reward at a top hotel, that makes the points worth a little over $3. It may take you a while to get to 225,000, but remember the story of the tortoise and the hare.
    Here's the link to the signup page: http://apps.facebook.com/promosapp/146873/. Oh, and they're also having a drawing to give five people 10,000 HHonors points. That's worth just over $100, so no big deal, but it's free. The 10,000-point sweepstakes adds about 1.5 cents in value, so the value is in the sure 250 points, not the bird in the far distant bush. Somehow, even though the Hilton deal is a better value, the Viking deal is more exciting!

    Meanwhile, American Airlines is giving away a million airline miles. To enter, download their Android app. Except the deal is, you really don't have to have an Android or download the app to enter. Just read the small print. http://fly.aa.com/androidpromo/default.aspx?cc=1. You can enter this contest twice per email address, by the way. Not sure how they came up with that.
    Finally, American is offering a giveaway every day for 30 days. Just go to AA.com/AAdvantage30th and sign up. American miles are the best there are, so I sure hope I win some!
    Now we all know the odds are that you won't win any of these. But maybe I saved you five bucks on lottery tickets!

Libya's real question: Who benefits from Mid-East turmoil and skyrocketing oil prices?

    I've noted before that America's unprovoked attacks on Libya are destabilizing the entire Middle East. Those who would overthrow the governments of Egypt (both old and new), Yemen, Syria, Iran, and yes, Saudi Arabia, look at the world's support for Libya's criminal rebels as a sign that they, too, shoud try to overthrow their governments. Much of the world's oil supply is in danger of disruption.
    These people want new governments, not necessarily democracy. And if you listen to what they tell reporters, the reason they want new governments is that the prices of food and energy are too high and economic opportunities are frequently limited. Does anyone really believe that pouring more money into fuel and food subsidies will create a more vibrant economy?
    It's begun to seep out that the United States has been actively supporting efforts to destabilize Syria for several years. Americans played a big role in the overthrow of the Egyptian government. I suspect America is working to destabilize the entire region.
    Nations act out of self-interest. For France, Britain and the United States to make the decision so quickly to seek sanctions and to attack Libya suggest some motive other than concern for that country's citizens. NATO's decision to use just enough force to keep the government from restoring order suggests a desire to forment a long-term civil war, which should keep the entire region in turmoil for some time, thus endangering the region's oil production.
    Here's the bottom line: The United States and its allies seem remarkably willing to take actions that put the entire Middle East oil supply at risk. The question the cynical observer should ask is "How does the United States and Western Europe benefit from the disruption of the world oil supply and dramatically higher oil prices?"
    Europe is well-prepared for higher oil prices. Britain gets most of its oil from Norway and the North Sea; only two percent comes from the Middle East. Only small fraction of American oil consumption comes from the Mid-East.
    Although the United States currently imports 60 percent of its oil, almost 40 percent of that comes from Canada and Mexico. Hostile Venezuela provides 12 percent, but its crude is of such low quality that only a few refineries in the U.S. can use it. Thus a small drop in consumption will go a long way towards eliminating much of the U.S. need for imported oil.
    Add to this the fact that America has lots of oil, particularly oil which can be recovered in "stripper" wells producing two to 20 barrels per day. When oil hits $200 per barrel, look for these wells to start producing. And the liberals will have to "give in" and allow production in the Alaska wasteland and offshore.
    This huge price jump is going to create "obscene" profits for the oil companies, so look for some type of Jimmy-Carter-type windfall profits tax on old oil production. Thus high oil prices will generate real revenue for the government. A $50 per barrel tax on old oil production, for example, would produce about $200 billion per year in tax revenue, which covers a good chunk of the budget deficit. A gasoline tax would do the same thing, but that would be seen as a tax on the middle class. Pushing oil prices higher and then taxing the oil companies is seen as a tax on the "rich."
    This oil shock, should it happen, is likely to be extremely painful. Even though the United States oil supply isn't in much danger, high prices certainly will do harm to the American standard of living, at least on a short-term basis. So now the question is, who gets hurt worse? Why are we willing to do this to ourselves?
    Aha! China currently gets 50 percent of its oil from the Mid-East. By 2015 that figure is expected to rise to 70 percent, assuming the Mid-East is still pumping. China has few oil reserves and only half as much coal as the U.S. It has no oil shale while the U.S. has by far the world's largest oil shale reserves. Cutting off China's oil and skyrocketing prices will bring its economy to a grinding and crashing halt and allow the United States to maintain its position as the world's leading economy.
    There's an old story about the character of the Russian people in which a farmer finds a magic lamp, rubs it, and out pops a genie. The genie tells the farmer he can have anything he wishes for, but his neighbor will get double. After much agony, the farmer blurts out, "Poke out one of my eyes."
    Our Mid-East policy right now doesn't seem very wise. We're likely to take a poke in the eye from it. But count on this: Whatever bad thing happens to the United States and the West from all of this turmoil, China will get double. And don't kid yourself; this is by design.