Keyless lime Pie

Mark's modified "Key" lime potluck pie recipe.

The key is using Bears limes instead of those tiny little Florida Keys limes.  Baked in a 13 x 9 inch Pyrex baking pan instead of a pie pan, and then cut into rectangles.  Works better for potlucks than pie shaped pies.

Graham Cracker Crust:
16 Graham crackers, smashed into bits (use a zip lock bag and a rolling pin)
2 Tablespoons sugar
5 oz melted butter

Mix together dry ingredients, add butter, stir together with a fork and press into the bottom a 9 x 13 pan.  Don't bother with the sides, just the bottom.  Pro tip: use a 1 cup dry measure cup to flatten the crust.

Bake for 13 minutes at 350 F.

Filling:
4 egg yolks
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 cans sweetened condensed milk (14 or 15 oz)
1 cup lime juice (about 4-5 normal limes)

Mix together the first three ingredients then mix in the lime juice.  Stir until it starts to coagulate. (acid reduction reaction between the milk and citric acid)

If you really want to add a 1/2 tsp of grated lime rind you can do so, but personally I think flakes of rind are yucky.

Pour on top of the graham cracker crust once it is ready.

Top with Meringue:

Beat 6 egg whites until foamy.  Then beat some more.
Add 1/2 tsp cream of tarter and beat some more.
Beat in 3/4 cup sugar
Finally beat in 1 tsp vanilla.

Bake 13-15 minutes or until meringue is just starting to brown.
Chill several hours before serving.

Taco Trucks on Every Corner

Taco Trucks on every corner?  Taco Trucks?

That's not a threat, that's America.

I like Taco Trucks. Americans like taco trucks. We like tacos.  We also like Chinese food, and Indian, and Thai. Irish pubs, German Biergartens, Japanese, Korean, Italian, Greek... America will know you and love you for your cuisine.

We might not be able to find your nation of origin on a map. We have no clue what 2-bit dictator made your former life so miserable you moved halfway across the world. We can't tell the difference between a Syrian and a Sikh for goodness sake. But bring us your cuisine... 

Bring us your tacos and tamales, your shawurma, your schnitzel, your perogies, and ravioli, and dumplings of all types. Your Naan. Dear god above all else, bring us your nann.

Because this is America, and in America we don't care where you are from. Just bring something tasty to the Pot Luck.

Foreign Policy Naïveté

But the Libertarians are so naïve on foreign policy...

Oh really? Really?

Let me tell you about naïveté.

It was the neo-conservatives who were naïve enough to think that nation building in the middle east would actually work. That overthrowing a strongman like Saddam would somehow miraculously end up with a result fundamentally different than Yugoslavia.

It was the neo-conservatives who were naïve enough to think that lines on a map drawn by the British Admiralty actually meant something, and that Iraq was actually a country and not disparate groups of peoples only held together by force.

It was the neo-conservatives who were naïve enough to think that a bombing campaign in Libya would result in anything BUT a giant power vacuum to be filled by psychotic death cultists.

The Libertarian reaction to 9/11? Declare War. No nationbuilding. No "resolution to use force." Certainly no "invading nations that had nothing to do with it". No. The Libertarians wanted a proper declaration of war by the Congress of these United States on Al Queda and nations harboring them. We said "issue Letters of Marque and Reprisal" to private entities and hunt them down like pirates because that is how you deal with non nation state actors.

Because Libertarians are not pacifists. Don't believe me? Go look in their gun closets. No. They simply think that adventurism across the world is neither constitutional, nor actually productive in the long term.

Naïve? You are thinking about the neo-conservative "spread Democracy at the Point of Bayonets" wings of the Republican and Democratic parties.

Godspeed STS-107

1-February-2003. I inexplicably turned on the TV, only to see streaks of smoke and flame across the Texas Sky. I knew immediately what it was, and my only though was Damn-it, not Again!

I wrote this immediately after. (slightly different from the album version)