Budget Busters…
Let’s see if I have this right… Obama is blaming the Republicans for inheirting a $1.3 trillion dollar deficit. Did Bush spend way to much. Yep. Are there lots of things I disagreed with Bush about? Yep. However last I looked the Constitution gives the authority to pass budgets to the Congress and NOT the President. Bush should have used his ability to veto. Especially, in 2008 when he had bascially nothing to lose as far as popular support in running for re-election.
When Bush came into office in Jan of 2001 we had a budget surplus and Republican control of the House and Senate. Then a little thing referred to as 9/11 happened and threw the country into an economic tailspin for a while. We then had to refund the military that had been defunded and reduced in size during the previous Administration (the bogus “peace dividend”). That increased the annual deficits and the debt. But note from the graph above that even while the military was seeing increased levels of funding and two wars were being fought as well as the increase in domestic spending that Bush was doing (no-child, persciptions for seniors, etc…) the deficits began to subside. Then in January of 07 Nancy and Harry along with their cohorts in the Democratic party came to power in the Congress. The branch of government that controls spending. Note the dramatic swing in spending for 08 when they got the first budget they completely controlled. Hmmmmm.
Check out the Budget for 09 with the Spenders controlling both ends of Washington! Sure Obama says that by the end of his first term he will have cut the deficit in half. Pretty easy to do when you first blow it out by quadrupling it. Half of that is still double what it is today!
How many licks?
There is the old commercial about how many licks it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop well I can now report on how many bites you can get out of an M&M.
Lori bought a bag of Penut Butter M&M. She and Allison were enjoying some last night as we watched an episode of “Chopped” on FoodTV.
I wanted to try one and figured that eating a single M&M would do no harm to my diet. Of course I did not want ot just pop it into my mouth and have that single piece of candy disappear in a flash. No I wanted to savor it.
After taking three nibbles off the candy I thought “I wonder how many bites I can get out of it?”
The answer is 9.
Moral:Â A Diet can make you do strange things!
Week 4 – PSMF Diet and Resulting Weight Loss
Protein Sparing Modified Fast
The following table lists the meals I had on this diet and the weight that the scale showed in the AM (before breakfast). 03/14/09 – 03/20/09
[table “4” not found /]
PSMF Recipe – Chicken Alfredo
Protein Sparing Modified Fast
1 boneless/skinless Chicken Breast
1 large Zucchini
3.5 oz sliced Mushrooms
1 t crushed Garlic
3Â T Walden Farms Alfredo Sauce
Use a vegetable peeler to peel 3.5 oz of strips from the zucchini.
Heat a sauce pan with water. Season with Salt and pepper and bring water to a simmer
Heat a frying pan. Spray with Pam and add the crushed garlic.
Add the Chicken breast (cut into strips). When the Chicken begins to brown add the mushroom slices and the Alfredo sauce
Blanch the zucchini strips in the seasoned water (just to warm them) then drain and plate. Place the Chicken, mushrooms and Alfredo sauce over the zucchini as if they were pasta.
Fixing a Flat…
Prety cool trick. One reason to keep a lighter and some flammable spray in your tool kit. Of course a tire working itself off the rim is not going to be your typical reason for a flat tire.
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The week from HELL
First up…
I normally get up about 7-7:30am. On Tuesday I woke up at 4am and could not get back to sleep. Got up and planned my day, read on-line news sites, etc… At 7:15am my phone rings. It’s an employee at my largest client calling. They can’t login to the server. I tried to remote in. Couldn’t. Walked her through checking the server. Appeared to be down – black screen w/ blinking cursor. Had her reboot it. Same thing.
Got down there about 8am Tuesday morning. The RAID had crashed (RAID 10 with Drives 0 and 1 reported missing and Drives 2 and 3 still being members of the now failed RAID! Discussed options and plan of a attack.
Left the site to get new drives for the RAID and to bring a shop system in to assist with data recovery.
The server had crashed either before or after the planned nightly tape backup.
The disk image backup (to enable a bare metal recovery) that runs on Sunday had failed too (maybe because there was something pending bad with the RAID). Last good backup was Friday nights tape.
Pulled the RAID drives and replaced. Used some RAID Reconstruction software to try and recovery the data from two of the RAID drives. Imaging one of the RAID drives (4 hr process), Then mounting via the software that image and one of the other RAID drives to analyze for data (another 4 hr process) then pulling the discovered data (2.5 hr process).
Most of that data was damaged
During this time loaded the Server OS and apps (Backup Software to recover Friday’s tape, antivirus, etc…)
Restored Friday’s data backup tape (86GB) to an alternate location on the server. Used the backup software to recover the Exchange message store (73GB).
Had to rejoin the +30 client workstations to the domain, shares and printers.
Left the site at 6pm on Wednesday evening. 34 Hours on site
Then while still dealing with residual issues (Outlook Address book replication, slow printers, etc…) this hit our Hosting server on Friday
 We experienced a profound system failure this morning.
At around 1am on the 13th we installed some pending Windows updates to the server and abound restarting it to activate the updates the operating system of the server failed.
After spending considerable time trying to resurrect the OS and bring the server back on line we were forced to replace the drive to save the data that was on the drive in the event that a system restore from backup proved ineffective.
Whatever was causing the issue (corruption or a compromise) was included in the backup because bringing the system on line after the restore we saw the same problem.
We ended up having to rebuild the server from scratch and then copying the data from the saved original drive and modifying the configuration of the software to access the saved data.
The server started accepting mail again around 7pm. The web server was brought back on line around 8pm and with most of the additional services back to function around 9pm.
Within about 45 minutes of the mail server coming on line we could see that there were almost 800 inbound emails sitting in the queue waiting to be processed.
Week 3 – PSMF Diet and Resulting Weight Loss
Protein Sparing Modified Fast
The following table lists the meals I had on this diet and the weight that the scale showed in the AM (before breakfast). 03/07/09 – 03/13/09
[table “3” not found /]
PSMF Recipe – Broiled Scampi-Style Fish
Protein Sparing Modified Fast
Fish Fillets (Sea Bass, Cod, etc…) cut into 4 oz portions
4 cloves roasted minced Garlic
2 t “I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter” spray
2 t Lemon Juice
1/2 t Salt
Minced Cilantro
1/4 t Paprika
Mix the Butter and Lemon juice and lightly baste the fish. Sprinkle the salt, garlic and paprica over the fish. Place in oven 2-3″ away from the brolier (10-12 minutes)
Sprinkle the fish with the minced Cilantro
Serve with a vegetable medley.
1 C sliced Summer Squash
1 C sliced Zucchini
1/2 med Onion, chopped
5Â med mushrooms, sliced
Heat in frying pan on medium until the onions are translucent.
“Mormon” video from Harvard
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“…A 20-year-old Harvard junior from Idaho has captured the attention of Mormondom with the slow viral spread of a six-month-old video (above) in which she explains her faith to journalist Sally Quinn.”
PSMF Recipe – Spaghetti Sauce
Protein Sparing Modified Fast
Serve the Sauce over Vegetables or Chicken Breasts
1Â lb ground Turkey
1 large Onion, chopped
2 cloves Garlic, minced
2 (1 lb) cans whole Tomatoes (chopped)
1 (8 oz) can Tomato sauce
1 (12 oz) can Tomato paste
1 cup beef bouillon
2 T minced Parsley
1 package Artifical Sweetener (Natra Sweet, Sugar Twin, etc…)
2 t Italian Seasoning
1 t Salt
1/4 t Pepper
Cook meat, onion and garlic in a large frying pan
Combine meat mixture and the other ingredients in a slow cooker. Cover and cook 6-8 hours
Serve over steamed Italian vegetables (broccoli, zucchini & squash). Also good with a grilled or baked Chicken breast.
Week 2 – PSMF Diet and Resulting Weight Loss
Protein Sparing Modified Fast
The following table lists the meals I had on this diet and the weight that the scale showed in the AM (before breakfast). 2/28/09 – 03/06/09
[table “2” not found /]
PSMF Recipe – Mexican Lettuce Wraps
Protein Sparing Modified Fast
Filling
1/2 C lemon flavored tea
1 lb extra lean ground Turkey (I like to use 1/2 lb Turkey & 1/2 lb Pork)
1/2 t ground Cumin
1/4 C Lemon Juice
1/2 C chopped Green Onions
1 t Chili Powder
1 T chopped Parsley
1 T Apple Cinder Vinegar
2 cloves minced Garlic
Salt & Pepper to taste
Tabasco to taste
Wrap
Fresh/crisp Lettuce leaves
Chopped Tomato
Prepare a cup of Hot tea. Measure 1/2 C of the Tea and place in a skillet. Heat until simmering
Add the ground meat. Tossing frequently
Add the remaining filling ingredients and continue turning until the meat is fully cooked
Continue to simmer until most of the juices in the pan are evaporated (5-10 min.)
Place meat mixture in a food processor and pulse until finely minced
Additional seasoning to taste
Add about 2 T of the mixture to a a lettuce leaf with some chopped tomatoes and wrap into a roll.
PSMF Recipe – Seafood Soup
Protein Sparing Modified Fast
Green Onion Broth
3 C Water
6 Green Onions
1 t Worcestershire Sause
1/4 t Butter Flavor Extract
1/4 t Salt
Simmer for 15 minutes. Drain and discard the green onions. Return to heat and add
1/2 lb raw Shrimp
1 C (6.5 oz) Chopped (or minced)Â Clams & Juice
1 C (6 oz) Crab
1 t Dried Parsely Flakes
1 t Chives
1/2 t Garlic Powder
1/2 t Onion Powder
1/4 t Old Bay
1/8 t ground Pepper
1 t Butter flavor extract
Simmer 20 minutes.
This should be interesting
At least he reveals his bias at the beginning. The bill is just buinsess as usual – there is nothing out of ordinary about it – the bill was neccessary but did not go far enough but I’ll still be skeptical about it. Yeah, sure…
I should disclose some assumptions as I start. The stimulus vote generated a great deal of hand-wringing about the persistence of the partisan divide in Congress. That was mostly theatre born of the Republican Party’s need—and the opportunity that the bill presented—to find a voice in opposition. As a piece of law, and as economics, the stimulus cannot be seen as very controversial; in fact, it is more or less conventional. A Republican President would have enacted something very similar, no matter the partisan lineup in Congress. Probably, a McCain version would have had more tax cuts in it and less spending on energy, technology and health-care infrastructure (although it would likely have had some of those things), but broadly, as an intellectual or policy project, this is a product of consensus, not radicalism. Obama is pushing toward a transformational
Presidency on health-care reform and climate change—those are the unconventional, risk-taking aspects of his early Presidency, not this. So while I do expect there will be some absurd-sounding spending provisions, and I don’t intend to censor my skepticism about the federal bureaucracy, none of this should be interpreted as opposition to the bill, which is necessary if insufficient. It might have been a better bill, with fewer tax cuts and bolder investments in a new economy, but I am accepting of Rahm Emmanuel’s defense, citing the doctrine of the politically possible, as delivered in my colleague Ryan Lizza’s terrific profile last week.
PSMF Recipe – Sweet & Sour Pork (or Chicken…)
Protein Sparing Modified Fast
Meat
1/2 lb Pork loin (or Chicken, Turkey…) cut into bitesize pieces
Vegetable Base
1/2 CÂ Cabbage – Shredded
1/2Â Medium Onion – Shredded/Chopped
1/2 Tomato – Chopped
5 Medium Mushrooms – Sliced
1 Medium Carrot – Shredded
Handful of Bean Sprouts
1/2 C Apple Cider Vinegar
5 Dashes of Chinese 5 Spice
1/2 C Diet Cola
Sauce Base
1/4 C Chicken Broth
1Â T Soy Sauce
1/2 T Arrowroot
Grill or pan sear the meat and set aside. Lightly saute the Vegetable base until hot. Add the Meat. Stir the Sauce base over the meat and vegetables. Simmer until heated through.
PSMF Recipe – Mock Hash Browns
Protein Sparing Modified Fast
Hash Browns (2 servings)
1 C cup grated zucchini
2 eggs — beaten
1 Tablespoon grated onion
1 dash onion powder
1 dash garlic powder
salt and pepper to taste
Combine all ingredients in a medium bowl. Stir until well combined.
Spread hash mixture in skillet. When brown on one side, turn and cook the other side.
PSMF Recipe – Meat Loaf
Protein Sparing Modified Fast
Meat Loaf
1/2 Lb Ground Pork
1/2 Lb Ground Turkey
1 C Spinach, chopped
1 C Onion diced
4 cloves roasted minced garlic
1/2 t Cayenne pepper
4 t fresh Parsley, chopped
4 T Tomato Sauce
1/4 C PSMF BBQ Sauce
Preheat oven to 400F. Mix ingredients together. Press into loaf pan. Glaze with Tomato Sauce or PSMF BBQ Sauce . Bake approx. 1 hr
Serve with a side salad
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