Amazing quote

"People the world over have always been more impressed by the power of our example than by the example of our power."

~Former President William Jefferson Clinton, DNC Aug. 27, 2008

That was up there with "right makes might, not might makes right" from King Aurthur for me.
The dominant Republican culture for the last 40 years has been the opposite, more Machiavellian than Christlike. I don't care what you think about Bill Clinton or whether you're a Democrat or a Republican, this statement is not only applicable to American foreign policy, but good words to live by in all of one's life.

People our age

When you’re past your prime, younger people will be sure to let you know.

The other day at cheerleading practice my cheer squad recited a cadence that did just that-

“I don’t know, but I’ve been told…”

“That Mr. Mallory’s really OLD!”

Sure, you have people like Dara Torres, 41, becoming the oldest swimming medalist in Olympic history. You’d think she’d make me see how young I still am and how much potential I still have, but instead, she just makes me feel overweight and unmotivated.

It starts off with psoriasis and mild arthritis in the knees. The next thing you know, you’re calling people in their mid to late twenties “kids.” That could come from teaching. It’s hard to think of anyone who’s young enough to be one of my former students as a full fledged adult. Of course, now that I’ve been teaching more than fifteen years, that means that there are people in their thirties that are just mere kids.

Next came the heartburn and the chronic dry eye. Then comes the gray. It never bothered me too much. My hope was that it would make me look more distinguished. I was just glad to still have my hair, a lot of guys my age aren’t so privileged. So I still have the corny Alfalfa cowlick I had at ten, only now it’s grey.

It’s one thing to get to keep the hair on your head, but why did God decide I needed so much hair in my nose and on my ears?

I’ve endured ridicule from my wife and children about my snoring for years and students and colleagues are always concerned that I’m sick or need to quit smoking. I don’t’ smoke. So this summer I had an appointment with a specialist. He listened to my breathing and ruled out asthma. Then he forced me to endure a battery of tests involving needles on my back that revealed that the only things I’m allergic to are cockroaches and needles.

Next thing I know I’m getting a CaT scan. They inserted me into the science-fiction looking tube and before long had an interactive digital x-ray of my head. It’s a little unnerving to look at your own skull.

Fortunately I didn’t have a chronic sinus infection or a deviated septum. Rather, I’m just a meat-head. Basically these spongy bone things called turbinates in the middle of my nose are too big. The doctor called them sausage looking things and my little sausages are just as big as the big sausages so my nasal passages are too small. Since my sinuses have to work harder, they produce way too much snot. “It’s like an escalator with too many people on it,” he explained.

Bottom line is, I cough all the time because I’m a meat-head.

After a year or two of “borderline high blood pressure,” I decided I had to give up regular coffee. As traumatic as that was, it wasn’t going to be enough. A health screening revealed that all of my cholesterol levels were fine except for triglycerides.

“Do you have a history of diabetes in your family?” the nurse asked. The blood drained out of me as the realization sank in. (Which is ironic because I had to track my blood sugar levels every morning for the next month.) Triglycerides are kind of a sugar/fat thing where your body has broken down the food and needs to deliver it to your cells.

As Doctor Crabb explained it (different doctor, more analogies), insulin is the button that opens the elevator doors so that triglycerides can enter the cells. He said that we used to think that fat was just stored energy, but come to find out it can act like a gland that produces insulin-blockers that prevent your cells from absorbing what they need to, leaving the triglycerides out in the blood stream. In other words, I didn’t have high blood pressure because of clogged or narrow arteries, but because I was too thick blooded. Not to mention just too darn sweet.

By eating better and eating less and hauling by carcass out of bed at an ungodly hour to walk every morning, both the blood sugar and blood pressure are under control.

Dr. Crabb, bless his heart, told me with empathy that “people our age” just have to work harder to take care of ourselves. I could’ve swore I wasn’t his age. I’m obviously much older than I thought. I’m also a very sweet, thick blooded, meathead who’s allergic to needles.

Opposition to Ethanol a bunch of manure

Food costs are up and some people seem to want to blame corn farmers. The blame is probably coming from the petroleum lobby, because people who know a lot more about corn and markets than me can tell you that if anything, there is a surplus of corn. If the price of corn isn’t high because of unnatural market manipulation or speculation, than it’s high because the price of diesel and gas that corn growers need for tractors and trucking.

One of the things that the oil companies don’t want us to understand. Corn ethanol/alcohol is made from the starch and sugar in corn. Cows are biologically and anatomically incapable of digesting those corns and sugars. A Cow’s 4-part stomach is specifically designed to design fiber or cellulose.

The starch and sugar goes in one end and out the other. Crap! What a waste of potential energy!

I am less worried about Iowa farmers sending too much corn to ethanol plants than I am about Brazilian farmers plowing under the Amazon rainforest to plant corn that competes with Americans for market share. Less rainforest means less oxygen producing trees and more carbon dioxide, less ozone, more climate change etc. etc. etc. Not to mention less money for Iowa farmers, and more Brazilians driving more cars etc. etc.

But if we’re still worried about sending too much corn to ethanol instead of food products, animal feeds, and the myriad of other industrial uses, there’s always switch grass.

According to the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, switch grass “grows fast, capturing lots of solar energy and turning it into lots of chemical energy— cellulose—that can be liquefied, gasified, or burned directly. It also reaches deep into the soil for water, and uses the water it finds very efficiently.” They say it is one of the best crops for protecting the soil and preventing erosion AND, it filters more carbon dioxide out of the air than most crops.

But corn and switch grass are not the only plants that could be used as oil alternatives. Cattails, that’s right, cattails, also known as bullrush or reedmace has all kinds of environmentally friendly uses. Many cities use cattails to process their sewage. Cattails filter out nitrates not only from human waste, but from fertilizer run off. I think that cattails might be a great landscaping idea for big hog operations.

They’re also incredibly valuable as wild life habitat. Hunters have to love that. Cattails are a high starch plant, so once they’ve done their job cleaning the water, they can be harvested and processed into ethanol just like corn and switch grass. What makes it even better is that it’s a perennial, so farmers wouldn’t have to keep buying seed and replanting it every year.

One of the problems that waste water and runoff is causing is something you may have heard about in the news called “dead zones.” Dead zones are large areas of ocean where plants and fish and other life forms can no longer survive, either from pollution to that area, or from rising average water temperatures. A great solution could be kelp. Kelp is an amazing plant, basically a type of algae that can grow several stories tall under sea.

Like cattails, kelp cleans the water it’s in. Like the rainforest, kelp uses tons of carbon dioxide while producing tons of oxygen. Like corn, switch grass, and cattails, kelp provides incredible habitat for animals, which commercial fishermen would benefit from. Deliberately planted or farmed kelp can bring life back to dead zones. And what very few people realize is that, like corn, switch grass, and cattails, kelp can be made into ethanol.

Republicans are demanding that Congress open more coastlines to off shore oil exploration, but the oil companies already lease 90 million acres to do that and they are not doing it on 70 million of those acres. Why should they be allowed to risk more ecological damage when they refuse to drill where they are?

Could it be because it’s in their best interest to keep supplies low so that prices remain high, insuring their continued record profits? Who would want to scare us into believing that inflation of food prices is the corn farmers fault? People who want us to remain dependant on oil.

Especially when new drilling would only reduce the price of gas by a couple of cents a gallon and not for a decade or more anyway, more off shore drilling is not the answer. Turning to environmentally friendly fuel alternatives including ethanol, geo-thermal, solar and wind would not only be better stewardship of the environment, it would create millions of jobs- just like the New Deal, WWI, the railroads, or the internet all did. That would mean that green fuels would benefit the whole economy for at least twenty to forty years. Most importantly it would reduce our reliance on foreign oil, making Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Russia and Venezuela far less important. Best of all, it would benefit Iowa agriculture if we’re smart enough to pursue it aggressively.

Even if you think that global warming and climate change are nothing more than Chicken Little panicking about the sky caving in, “green energy” like corn ethanol is still a great idea.

Fwd: A message from Rob Hubler

---------- Forwarded message ----------

From: Rob Hubler <rob_hubler@hublercongress.com>
Date: Wed, Aug 20, 2008 at 9:51 PM
Subject: A message from Rob Hubler
To: ted.mallory

Dear Friend,

Thanks to all of you who have helped the campaign in the last week. We knocked on over 2,000 doors last Sunday with the Obama campaign, we are now running full time in our Carroll office, and everywhere I go people are excited about the campaign.

If you haven't taken a minute to vote on the Progressive Patriots site yet, please do so. It's a way to vote for me right now and it helps bring the national attention we need to our campaign. The link is below:

http://www.progressivepatriotsfund.com/pickapatriot/vote-house-v.html

After you vote, make sure to forward this email on to 5 friends.

In the coming weeks we will be out knocking on doors and making phone calls every day. If you haven't signed up to volunteer yet, please jump on the website to tell us how you want to help us win in November:

http://www.hublercongress.com/take_action.php

Steve King is still refusing to debate me, but we're going to be out at town halls throughout the district talking about real solutions to America's energy crisis, fulfilling our promise to our Veterans, and answering the questions and concerns that you have. I'll make sure to let you know when we are in your neck of the woods.

Peace and Justice,

Rob L Hubler

P.S. Your continued support makes this campaign what it is. Please consider making a contribution today.

Paid for by Hubler for Congress

P.O. Box 2041
Council Bluffs, IA 51502

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Mort Sahl on NPR

Mort Sahl is one of my heroes. There wouldn't be a Jon Stewart or a Stephen Corbet, let alone a Lewis Black or a Bill Mahr if there hadn't been a Mort Sahl!

"Mort Sahl has skewered presidents from Eisenhower through George W. Bush. The political comedian broke ground back in the late 1950s and early 1960s as a stand-up who looked to the day's headlines for his routines rather than relying on one-liners."

Adventures in language

Life with a three year old is never boring. Just eating supper can be a learning experience.
“Dad, the fish doesn't know we're eating it!” I was told, I suppose I have Spongebob to blame for that.

Fortunately my three year old is very competitive. The eight year old claimed that she felt sick and needed to eat only chicken soup instead. The six year old agreed to eat salad, green beans, and French fries, but boycotted the fish. These displays of civil disobedience only pured on the youngest of three sisters. She raced through her tilapia with uncommon gusto.

“I'm going to eat you now, fishy, okay?” Apparently even though the fish are unaware they were being eaten, Annamarie wanted to make sure hers knew.

She's just as proud of how she is the only of the three girls who likes deluxe pizza, as opposed to just hamburger. Although I'm not sure why she thinks this is an important way to win her parent's attention and approval. “Daddy, Daddy, I LIKE MUNCHrooms!”

While we're working on it, she doesn't know many of her letters yet, she can just about recognize her name. She found a bicycle license plate that I'd gotten her and knew it was hers. When we asked her how she knew it was hers, hoping that she'd recognize the abbreviation of her name, “Anna,” she explained, “because it has two 'A's in it!”

A little over a month ago, in a concerted effort to lose weight and get healthy, I gave up regular coffee and Diet Dr. Pepper. Caffeine stimulates your appetite. But I recently read that if you really want a soda, you should stick to clear ones, rather than colas because they have less phosphoric acid. So after lunch, I cracked a diet 7UP and had it in a glass of ice.

This seemed to unnerve Annamarie, because she began asking me if I felt okay. “No, I'm not sick, I feel fine, why are you so worried, sweetie?”

“Because you're drinking 7UP” In our house, tiny amounts of 7UP is the only thing you're allowed to have in our house when you're trying to recover from stomach flu.

“Oh no, honey, I'm okay” I tried to reassure her.

“Then don't dwink that, it will MAKE you sick!”

Then there are those times when it's your job as a parent to teach your children important lessons. When the sweet corn came in at my in-laws, the whole family chips in to pick, shuck, cut, cook, and can. It's quite a process. The magnitude of the volume of produce is more than enough to impress any three year old. When her grandpa parked his pickup in the shade for us to all sit down and get shucking, she surveyed the payload in awe and exclaimed “Oh my GAWD, what a lot of CORN!”

I tried to calmly admonish her that we choose not to take the Lord's name in vain in our family.

“Don't ever say that, Annamarie, that's like saying a bad word.”

“Why”

“Well, because God doesn't want us to use His name that way.”

“Oh, okay, well, um, what CAN we say? Can we say 'holy cow,' is that okay?”

“I suppose so, that or something like 'holy buckets,' you mom used to use that one a lot.”

So for the rest of the weekend, whenever anything was the least bit impressive, she'd exclaim “Holy buckets-of-COWS!”

Swimming out

I'm trying to compile editorial cartoons, Maladjusted cartoons, and columns and composing a cover letter to send to a number of major syndicates. Wish me luck, I don't handle rejection well. This is a big step since I've claimed to have this be my dream my entire life- yet I've never bothered to put myself out there like this.

But as comedian Johnathan Winters once said, "If your ship doesn't come in, swim out to it!"

Who knows what will happen. Maybe I'm still not ready, but then, I've waited more than 25 years to take this step- how much longer can I put it off?

See TONS of cartoons, or even consider joining my mal•toons group on Facebook

See a new editorial cartoon every Thursday on my cartoon blog

I've been cartooning since the fifth grade. Nearly 4260 readers have seen my political cartoons week in the Mapleton PRESS in western Iowa since 2006. I also post all kinds of cartoons at http://tedstoons.blogspot.com every week, from the absurd to the inane, there's something for almost everybody, from simply cute and funny, to social, religious, and philosophical commentary.

See the PDF of Editorial cartoons that I'm sending out.

See the PDF of the 'Maladjusted' and some other cartoons that I'm sending out.

See the PDF of Columns that I'm sending out.

Add forgery to the list of high crimes and misdemeanors

From http://www.impeachbush.org (Aug 7, 2008)

Another smoking gun is not needed to proceed with the impeachment of George W. Bush.

But new evidence of criminal wrongdoing provided by Pulitzer-winning journalist Ron Suskind, is so explosive, that if true, impeachment and the criminal indictment of President Bush and other senior officials is required by U.S. and international law.

This story has become big news with major stories in the Washington Post, major television networks and elsewhere.

Suskind, in his new book: The Way of the World, asserts that the Bush White House ordered the CIA to forge a letter from Saddam Hussein’s Chief of Intelligence, Tahir Jalil Habbush, stating that alleged September 11 hijacker, Mohamed Atta, had received his training in Iraq.

The Bush White House and the CIA were getting secret, direct reports from Saddam’s Chief of Intelligence in January 2003 that stated that Iraq had no nuclear weapons program since 1991. When the U.S. invasion started in March 2003, the Bush administration “resettled” the Iraqi Intelligence Chief in Jordan and paid him $5 million dollars in what could be considered “hush money.”

After the Joseph Wilson and Valerie Plame expose in July 2003, that proved that Bush and Cheney were trying to destroy those who were uncovering their lies about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction and so-called links to the September 11 attacks, a new plot was hatched to cover-up Bush’s bold-faced lies.

Suskind explains the plot:

"In the fall of 2003, after the world learned there were no WMD — as Habbush had foretold — the White House ordered the CIA to carry out a deception. The mission: create a handwritten letter, dated July, 2001, from Habbush to Saddam saying that Atta trained in Iraq before the attacks and the Saddam was buying yellow cake for Niger with help from a “small team from the al Qaeda organization.”

"The mission was carried out, the letter was created, popped up in Baghdad, and roiled the global newcycles in December, 2003 (conning even venerable journalists with Tom Brokaw). The mission is a statutory violation of the charter of CIA, and amendments added in 1991, prohibiting CIA from conducting disinformation campaigns on U.S. soil."

John W. Dean, who served as Richard Nixon’s White House Counsel, drew the connection on MSNBC between the new allegations and those that brought down Richard Nixon in 1974 just weeks after the House Judiciary Committee voted in favor of Articles of Impeachment.

John W. Dean being interviewed by Keith Olberman stated:

"I don‘t think people are looking at it too narrowly or Suskind is when I read his book. What happens when you tie that with a criminal conspiracy statute, 18 USC 371, which nailed countless people in Watergate for misusing the agencies and departments of government—that‘s where they‘ve got a problem.

"That‘s where Nixon had a problem for telling the CIA to block the FBI for part of the Watergate investigation. Yes, it was obstruction but it was also defrauding the government. This is their real problem with that statute. ... "

Pork Chop on a stick

Category:

Barbecue & Grilling

Ingredients:
8 6-ounce boneless pork loin chops, about 1 inch thick
1/2 cup bottled Italian dressing
Peanut oil
8 8 x 1/4-inch-thick wooden skewers or dowels
Honey mustard or BBQ sauce

Directions:
Place chops in a resealable plastic bag set in a shallow dish. Pour salad dressing over chops.; seal bag. Marinate in the refrigerator for 1 hour, turning bag occasionally. Preheat oil to 350° F. Drain chops, discarding marinade. Insert a wooden skewer into a short side of each chop. Fry the chops, half at a time, for 5 to 8 minutes or until 160° F. Maintain oil temperature around 350° F. Remove chops from hot oil and drain on wire racks. Serve chops with honey mustard.

Iowa Beef Sundae

Category:

Meat & Seafood

Ingredients:
1 package (17 ounces) refrigerated fully-cooked beef tips with gravy ( can substitute left over pot roast or browned hamburger)
1 package (24 ounces) refrigerated mashed potatoes

Toppings: Shredded cheddar cheese, dairy sour cream, cherry or grape tomatoes

Directions:
Heat beef tips with gravy according to package directions. Heat mashed potatoes according to package directions. Using ice cream scoop, place 2 scoops (about 1/3 cup each) mashed potatoes in each of 4 individual sundae cups or serving bowls. Divide beef tips evenly over potatoes in each dish. Sprinkle with cheese and top with dollop of sour cream, as desired. Place 1 tomato in center of each serving for a “cherry.”

Why be afraid to debate?

In less than three months voters will go to the polls and make important decisions about how they are represented in government.

Recently Congressman Steve King declined an invitation to the debate Rob Hubler October 9 at Sioux City North High School, sponsored by the League of Women Voters and the Sioux City Journal. King complained that in a June 29 article, the Journal let Monona County Democratic Party chairman Ken Mertes say that some things King has said seem racist.

What kind of racist comments?

Like when he announced that he was running for re-election and said that terrorists will dance in the streets if America elects Barack Obama president.

Or when he compared Mexicans to cattle while promoting a $3,000,000 per mile wall along the border that people around the world, including the Vatican and former Soviet leaders have compared to the Berlin Wall. And by the way, he offered to have his family construction business do much of the work. (No doubt with no-bid contracts just like we gave to Haliburton and Balckwater in Iraq).

It is a little odd that he voted Against Renewing the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

I suspect that King doesn’t just feel persecuted by the press. The Sioux City Journal is a FAR cry from the Greenwich Village Voice or the Mother Earth News, we’re not talking about some kind of Liberal media conspiracy here. I think that King is afraid to face an intelligent, reasonable, rational opponent.

Who is his opponent this time? Rob Hubler is a retired Presbyterian minister, a Vietnam veteran, and a teacher for severely disabled children.

Hubler received a Good Conduct Medal for his time in the Navy, and when he got home, he worked for peace. He served as a legislative assistant for transportation and military issues in Des Moines. In 1989 he entered the University of Dubuqe's Theological Seminary to become a pastor.
Hubler lives his faith, instead of just using it to sell an agenda or to scare people with wedge issues. He’s shepherded Presbyterian churches in Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska
and been a teacher for severely disabled children.

He believes that Iowa's 5th District deserves a Congressman who is informed, educated, thoughtful, and who will be a positive voice toward creating a more perfect union.

King on the other hand, shamelessly defends the dishonesty of the Bush administration and has lined his pockets with special-interest group and lobbyist money. Like Bush and Cheney, and other "chickenhawks," he never served in the military himself.

He wants to deport the widows and orphans of legal immigrants and is a chief proponent of building an actual wall along the US-Mexican border, of course offering contracts to build it to his son's construction company.

King voted Against Children's Health Insurance, even though most Republicans including Senator Grassley supported it.

King said the events of the Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse "amounts to hazing."
Last month he disrupted House Judiciary committee meetings on torture and the politicization of the Justice Department.

He's even voted AGAINST Strengthening Flood Levees in Iowa's flooded towns.

King refused to sign a letter asking Congress' Armed Services Committees that the head of the National Guard Bureau become part of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. King is the only Iowa lawmaker in Washington whose name is not on the request.

When Scott McClellan, Bush’s former spokesman, testified before Congress about Bush lying about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and about there being some kind of link between Iraq and 9/11, Steve King asked McClellen, “Couldn’t you have taken this to the grave with you and done this country a favor?”

King once told the Sioux City Journal that ‘red scare’ Senator Joseph McCarthy as "a great American hero." Joe McCarthy, the demagogue who inspired black lists and witch hunts, who the Army, President Eisenhower, and the Republican party all denounced, who was finally censured by the Senate and drank himself to death? That Joe McCarthy?

He’s one of Steve King’s heroes? “Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?”

Conservative-Christian, an oxymoron?

"Nixon had asked me why, as the son of immigrants who had been treated so well by Americans, as a man who had been treated like a son and been sent to Harvard by an American capitalist, I had been so ungrateful to the American economic system.
The answer I gave him was not original. Nothing about me has ever been original...
My stolen answer to Nixon was this: '? The Sermon on the Mount, sir.'" ~Kurt Vonnegut

"Freedom of speech isn't something somebody else gives you. That's something you give to yourself." ~Kurt Vonnegut

Wildflowers

NEw Douglas Adams Book

U.S. Rep. Steve King, a western Iowa Republican who has long inhabited the fringes within his own party, seems to be hurtling into insanity, and is undoubtedly the biggest freak show going these days in Iowa politics. Whether "designing" his own plans for a wall with Mexico or analogizing prison abuse in Iraq to frat-row hazing or comparing supporters of certain stem-cell research with Nazis or questioning journalist Helen Thomas' sex appeal or running around taking photos of war protesters or bringing up unicorns when talking about lesbians King is an increasingly embarassing ambassador for western Iowa. The short book, "King Kong Krazy" chronicles some the congressman's outrageous comments and approach to public service.

Find out more here