Arkansas Blog

Enjoy your last minute shopping Max and the eggnog, hopefully with Jack Daniels.
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Huckster cartoon. Click on................

Love Cato's cartoons and egg nog with JD, black label.

"Mike Huckabee, that winsome combination of Mr. Rogers and Lonesome Rhodes..."...

credit: Jessie Walker at Reason online

Just a heads up. At my name Wes Clark is still chatting about his book now. I asked about his support of Mark Pryor. Not holding my breath but maybe this time he will answer.

The wind is blowing so hard here we cant go out for our nightly walk. numerous complaints have been filed from the k9 section but, alas, to no avail. we already have a few pine limbs down. Everything was fine when we went to take a nap. no storm warnings that I could find.

great cartoon Cato.

Huckabee in Iowa and on Lou Dobb's show, starts talking about pardons in future-tense.

one would think that pardons/clemencies would be the last thing MH would want to bring up.

makes me wonder if he doesn't have one of those guarantees inside a matchbook cover that reads "you lose" ? so he can say any damn thing he wants.

especially considering that until the past week, MH 's poll numbers have done nothing but go up for two months, but money isn't exactly pouring in.

LINES OF WISDOM

The nicest thing about the future is that it always starts tomorrow.

Money will buy a fine dog, but only kindness will make him wag his tail.

If you don't have a sense of humor, you probably don't have any sense at all.

Seat belts are not as confining as wheelchairs.

A good time to keep your mouth shut is when you're in deep water.

Why does it take so little time for a child who is afraid of the dark to become a teenager who wants to stay out all night?

Business conventions are important because they demonstrate how many people a company can operate without.

Why is it that at class reunions you feel younger than everyone else looks?

Scratch a dog and you'll find a permanent job.

No one has more driving ambition than the boy who wants to buy a car.

There are no new sins. The old ones just get more publicity.

There are worse things than getting a wrong number call at 4 a.m.; it could be a right number.

No one ever says, "It's only a game" when his team is winning.

We eventually reach the age where the happy hour is a nap.

There's no way you're going to like what's in the fine print.

The trouble with bucket seats is that not everybody has the same size bucket.

In 40 years there'll thousands of old ladies running around with tattoos, and rap music will be the Golden Oldies.

Money can't buy happiness, but it's more comfortable to cry in a Corvette than a Yugo.

After a certain age, you're probably dead if you don't wake up aching in every joint.

Get that egg nog and find an easy chair. Sit back and listen (about 10 minutes) to the late John Henry Faulk's Christmas story. Click on the link.

Merry Christmas
Happy Holidays

"Christmas at my house is always at least six or seven times more pleasant than anywhere else. We start drinking early. And while everyone else is seeing only one Santa Claus, we'll be seeing six or seven. "

w.c.fields (forevah:)

Christmas Eve in south Louisiana; bonfires on the levee, to light the way for Santa,
midnight mass and afterward, at home, full gumbo and rice pots, crusty french bread,
lots of Dixie beer, music makers and dancing till dawn.
Mmmmmmm I can taste that seafood gumbo now.

Since it's an open line I thought perhaps some might be interested in a local (Polk County) connection to Halliburton/Cheney.

Dales Jones was a 1954 Mena High School graduate. A very nice guy and a swell person. I considered him a friend. He became a top executive at Halliburton but was pushed down in 1998 to make room for Cheney when he left the Bush administration as Sec. of Defense and had funneled billions of war money to Halliburton without competitive bids.

About three years ago, Dale was walking out of his garage and the door fell on his head. He thought he was ok and went on to his daughter's house where he collapsed and died. He was a very benevolent benefactor for our local community college.

Click on Cato for a document relating to his leaving Halliburton and notice the signature of the document....if you are interested in Arkansas trivia.

How do you get all this good 'stuff', Cato, and the cartoons?????????
Whenever I see name, D. Cheney or a Bush, forgive me,,,,I want to PUKE.
Did I say that plain enough??????????????

I am, as always, the milk of human frigging kindness. As are all us blog commentators here.

Just made cookies, one of my favorite things. Molasses Spice cookies from America's Test Kitchen (same folks who do Cook's Illustrated) and the chocolate chip cookies I grew up on. House smells incredible. I don't think I even need to eat one....I can just sit here and breathe!

Baking is what we should all be doing, EY. I've mixed up the ingredients for five loaves of no-knead dutch oven bread which I'll bake tomorrow. Recipe and short instructional video at my name, brought to you by Mother Earth News. So easy a four year old can do it.

I'm 53 years old and I cry like a baby each year when I listen to John Henry Faulk's Christmas story. My father was one of those poor white farm children who thought an orange was a big deal. I loved him and I love John Henry for that story.

How about another cartoon.....click on Cato

Don't wanna start anything here, but JD in 'nog? I don't think so; only 1/2 Rum 1/2 Brandy for our family tradition...and it's all good! ;>)

hugh that faulk story was wonkerful. i have been reading about the black lists a little this year and it was fascinating. i also want to wish a merry christmas to the enough group. you made this a special year. i am sorry i got sick but i feel like we did a little to help what we could and it was fun. we made new friends who feel the same way and enjoyed what we did. merry christmas to all.

"However, what Article VI does not do, and was never intended to do, is deny me the right to say, as loudly as I may choose, that I will on no account vote for a smirking hick like Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, who is an unusually stupid primate but who does not have the elementary intelligence to recognize the fact that this is what he is. My right to say and believe that is already guaranteed to me by the First Amendment."
Christopher Hitchens
SLATE MAGAZINE

entire rant here : http://www.nwarktimes.com/adg/Editorial/211385/
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Hey! There is no need for name-calling. Mr. Huckabee is no hick.

Bonfires on the levee

youtube has posted the 90 minutes West Memphis PD video taped interrogation 6/21/07 of
Terry Hobbs who has become a person of interest in the slaying 5/5/93 of his stepson and that child's two playmates. I watched the entire surreal proceedings and describe it below:
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http://www.youtube. com/watch? v=MYjOTENDBsI&feature=related

I watched the 90+ minute youtube tapes of the 6/21/07 interview of Terry Hobbs by the West Memphis,AR Police Department Detectives and feel like a survivor from a Twilight Zone episode. Surely Rod Serling will appear momentarily.
Terry Hobbs presents as a Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood type mild-mannered, soft spoken working class everyman. Most of the tape depicts Mr. Hobbs description of typical lower class suburban life from boredom hell except when the soft spoken ' whispering Hobbs' is describing his ' pretty good marriage lessin Pam not being able to keep her drawers on when she was around fellers at work or around their house'..... or when he was having to beat the dogshit out of some guy he'd caught one too many times locked up with wife Pam in their kitchen .....or when he and Pam would fight and she'd accuse him of breaking her jaws...or when he'd accidentally shot a relative during a brawl at the house with his hollow point loaded 45; conveniently stored under his shirt....or when Pam and her sister was planting drugs on him while the local WMPD gendarmes were at the house restoring peace and traquility.. ..or when Pam was accusing him of murdering the three neighborhood children, only one of which was his own stepson, in May,1993.... .or when the friendly neighborhood ' servers and protectors' were being asked to rescue Mr. Hobbs from the hurtful insults of marauding family banshees.
80 minutes into the 90 minute interview and in response to the investigators casual inquiry of Hobbs regarding anything else he could tell them, Hobbs just as casually asked the detectives if they'd seen " them pitchers of Damien Echols sitting on his couch with the three little boys." When told they knew of no such pictures, Terry Hobbs then revealed he wasn't sure if he'd actually seen the pictures or if Mark Byers had told him about the pictures. A few minutes later Hobbs explained Gary Gitchell, lead investigator for the WMPD detective division at the time of the murders, was the " one that had the pitchers ". Hobbs then described a photo(s) allegedly depicting Damien Echols sitting on Hobbs' couch with " either Chris and Michael or maybe Chris and Stevie. I can't remember exactly." Later he confessed he couldn't remember if he'd actually " seen the pitcher or if Mark Byers told him about it or it might have been Gary Gitchell had 'em". He couldn't remember if he'd actually seen a picture of a beaming Damien Echols sitting on a couch with the children!!!!
The innocuous Mr. Hobbs was not asked any pointed questions regarding his own past criminal record aside from those he blithely discussed centering around domestic disputes.
I sat transfixed by the detached, almost disinterested response by the detectives and the total lack of any efforts to get beneath Hobbs Mr.Rogers demeanor and the lack of aggressive inquiry into the bizarre story of Damien sitting on a couch" with either Stevie and Chris or maybe Michael and Chris or I don't remember exactly." What the f**k !?
Hobbs doesn't remember whether he actually saw the picture(s) of Damien sitting on a couch in his home with the three murdered children or which two of the three were sitting with him or whether the picture had only been described to him by Mark Byers or by Gary Gitchell !
Was I out in the lobby getting popcorn and missed something!!! ! Do not these tapes absolutely prove even Barney Fife would walk away the WMPD and Terry Hobbs' elevator stops way below the top floor. .....Or was this tape a clever hoax perpetrated by the Hollywood writers on strike with way too much time on their hands??

Re the article about Richard Mason's book sure stirred up memories for me. My Dad was
born and raised in Mount Holly and I spent many summer weeks in Norphlet with an aunt 'n
uncle and cousin my same age. Two little girls roaming the oil fields, climbing derrecks,
coming home with oil all over our bare feet, swimming in "the crater",,,which was suppose to
be bottomless, picking muskadines, for jelly not wine, running from old crazy Tom, who
wanted to feel, if not worse, little girls....the feed store in town and the empty sacks were
used to sew beautiful dresses, trips to El Dorado, and, yes, I remember Samples....
lazy days perched up in a big old cottonwood tree, summer lightning in the dark sky....I had
my first kiss from a boy, other than kin, in my aunt's garage playing "Hide and Seek." and
wondered if I would have a baby, his name was Carrol.
Chocolate milk shook up in a fruit jar with ice cubes and ohhhhh so good
Buttermilk with big bits of butter....having the mumps, and my aunt caring for me....
I could go on..........wonder if I knew Richard those lovely summer days long ago?

You know, Hugh, you just can't hate your fellow man, Dem or Rep if you're baking. Heck, I have 2 Maple Bourbon Pecan Pies in the oven right now and I'm watching my Miami Dolphins play the Patriots and I'm calm as a cucumber.

On the 'nog.....you know, I like most kinds of booze and I love eggnog (Horizon Lowfat Organic....seriously, doesn't taste low-anything), but I just can't do spiked eggnog. Maybe it's from drinking it "unleaded" all these years.

Yup. Egg nog is delicious (to me) until you put booze in it. It's like drinking melted ice cream. I'll have my hootch on the side, thank you very much.

Maple Bourbon Pecan Pie...........recipe please.
I love egg nog, spiked or not,,,,its the spices.

Anyone know the story on the lost tomato poster spotted around town?
I saw one at at a pole near the Barnes and Noble out in West Little Rock.
Said they had lost a ripe, red tomato with a green stem. It had a number to call, but I couldn't catch it.
Hilarious stuff

well well well does anyone know or care that our state is becoming more and more communistic.
I mean going communism. Well it is and we should not worry about who is gonna be elected president because we, Arkansas, has a huge problem. Our constitution is nothing now but paper if you print it out on your computer's printer.
In 2005 the ignorant boys in the legislature pass the worst piece of work they have ever done. It allows each county to enact what I call a beautification and so called clean up and sanitary bill. It is pointed at the citizens who live out in the country; not in the city limits.
Anyone can turn in his neighbor to the county judge if they have any ugly thing on their land. Then the judge can send an order to that citizen to clean up their property so it will look pretty. IF they don't in sixty days the judge will fine them 500 dollars; then send a crew of workers out to your property to do the clean up or whatever they think needs to be done and charge the property owner the cost of the labor. Then they'll get a lawyer to do a title search thus charging the property owner with that cost. Then if the owner can't pay the fine they'll put a lien on the property and if not paid by then they'll foreclose on the property thus taking it away from the owner.
Damn if that's not communism I'll kiss you foot.
A bunch of monkeys could represent up much better than those turkeys in the legislature.
What do you people know about that and what do you think about it being communism.
Either we are democratic or we are nothing.

well well well does anyone know or care that our state is becoming more and more communistic.
I mean going communism. Well it is and we should not worry about who is gonna be elected president because we, Arkansas, has a huge problem. Our constitution is nothing now but paper if you print it out on your computer's printer.
In 2005 the ignorant boys in the legislature pass the worst piece of work they have ever done. It allows each county to enact what I call a beautification and so called clean up and sanitary bill. It is pointed at the citizens who live out in the country; not in the city limits.
Anyone can turn in his neighbor to the county judge if they have any ugly thing on their land. Then the judge can send an order to that citizen to clean up their property so it will look pretty. IF they don't in sixty days the judge will fine them 500 dollars; then send a crew of workers out to your property to do the clean up or whatever they think needs to be done and charge the property owner the cost of the labor. Then they'll get a lawyer to do a title search thus charging the property owner with that cost. Then if the owner can't pay the fine they'll put a lien on the property and if not paid by then they'll foreclose on the property thus taking it away from the owner.
Damn if that's not communism I'll kiss your foot.
A bunch of monkeys could represent up much better than those turkeys in the legislature.
What do you people know about that and what do you think about it being communism.
Either we are democratic or we are nothing.

"...about it being communism. Either we are democratic or we are nothing."

Chasv, you are confused. You have fallen into the old booger bear of illusions. Communism is an economic system, democracy is a political system. You have to contrast/compare political systems with political systems and economic systems with economic systems.

That's right and that's what we are becoming. Damn economics is exactly what is happening here is America and Arkansas. Ain't that the reason everybody hates bush? His ecominics?
The economy is controlling too much of our government. The gov. should be about the system and not so much about the economy.. don't you think.
Thanks, tell me more,

Jazzy, it's so easy, you'll be tempted to throw flour on your face like the woman in the Rice Krispie commercials used to do to prove that she was "slaving" for her family making RK treats....
It's essentially the Maple pecan pie recipe from epicurious.com with 3 tbs of bourbon thrown in. Their instructions call for you to whisk everything together except the nuts, put the nuts in the pie shell and pur the filling on. I forgot to do that one day, threw everything in together and it worked fine. So that's what I do now.
Maple Bourbon Pecan Pie
1 cup pure maple syrup
3/4 cup (packed) golden brown sugar
3 large eggs
1/4 cup sugar
3 tablespoons butter, melted
1 tablespoon all purpose flour
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 9-inch frozen deep-dish pie crust
1 1/2 cups coarsely chopped pecans
3 Tbs good bourbon (I use Maker's Mark because it's typically what we have onhand...I'm not going out and buying "pie bourbon" and "drinking bourbon")
Preheat oven to 350°F. Whisk ingredients in bowl to blend. Place unbaked crust on baking sheet. Pour filling in. If you're feeling fancy, make a decorative pattern with whole pecan halves on top. Bake until filling is set and slightly puffed, about 1 hour. Transfer pie to rack and cool completely.

Now a funny story about the pie. First time I made it was for Thanksgiving at Mr. EY's Dad's house. Grandad (who was VERY "old school") had a piece of pie and loved it. Thought his wife made it. Mr. EY's stepmother, B said "No, your wife didn't send the pie". Grandad thought B made it. B says "No, EY made the pie". He never looks at me, but turns to Mr. EY and says "Now boy, you gotta keep a woman who makes pie THAT good". It was the highest compliment I could have received. I still remind him that Grandad said he can't get rid of me because of my pie making ability! What's even funnier to me is that the pie is SOOO easy and it's the only one I make.

Well, chasv, the basic shape of our economy is capitalism. It is true it's not the capitalism of 1929 but the Great Collapse of 1929 showed the old style of capitalism would not function anymore. What came out of the Great Depression and the New Deal was what is called Modern Capitalism or 20th century capitalism, which is another way of saying an economy that is controlled and regulated by government. I cannot think of a single phase of our economy today that is not controlled by government. Can you?

We have a President, a Vice President, 535 members of Congress, and nine Justices on the Supreme Court. Of that 546 people, there might be one or two avowed socialists. The others are all capitalists, determined to use government to promote, protect and to encourage capitalism.

And chasv, you can have capitalism and have democratic government or have totalitarianism.
You can have socialism and have democratic government or totalitarianism.
You can have commmunism and have democratic government or totalitarianism.

Economic systems are different from political systems. Thus, you have Sweden with a socialist economy and a democratic government. You have Vietnam with a socialist economy and a totalitarian government. You have the USA with at capitalist economy and a democratic system and Mussolini's Italy have a capitalist economy and a totalitarian regime. Economic systems have nothing to do with political systems.

. Economic systems have nothing to do with political systems.<<

When I was earning a degree in economics a few experts opined that economics, per se, should be changed to "political economy." I recall John Kenneth Galbraith as one and Paul Samuelson (MIT) as another who advocated this change or new designation. Each system is so intertwined you cannot separate them. We have a regulated market type of capitalism that depends , for the most part, upon government expenditures for innovations and new or expanding markets. Government often acts in partnership with capitalists.
The internet, cellular phones, satellite technologies were all outcomes of government programs. Had it not been for government's requirement for a national consensus Charles Babbage may not have invented the first mechanical computers back in the 19th century. Likewise Eisenhower's Interstate Highway system gave rise to explosion of suburbia and the ensuing massive trucking-transportation industry to serve it which grew along with shopping centers.

There is no denying that capitalists, socialists and communists seek political power/systems so as to use government to promote, protect, encourage their particular economic philosophies. They use the power of government to wage war against each other because of the ideological conflicts and the notion their particular creed is superior to the others.

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