Yes for Breakfast - Porridge & Cookies!

Raisin Buckwheat PorridgeSo in the past month we've jumped on the wagon and just agreed to make new traditions. We've been having Rawesome Sunday lunches with buckwheat porridge, biscuits or pancakes for Saturday or Sunday breakfasts, and a weekly/frequent Breakfast Cookie Snack. Also Rice Bowl Wednesdays, but that's not breakfast :)For our raw Sunday lunch, we often have Buckwheat porridge, and then something else raw to go with it (such as raw vegetable soups, salads, and raw 'tuna' salad collard wraps).Blueberry Porridge with Raw Creamy Tomato Soup'Oatmeal' Raisin Buckwheat Porridge (using raw wheat germ as 'oats')served with a Carrot Radish Salad(shredded carrots, diced radish, fresh anise herb, sesame seeds, and avocado dressing!)We also had an apricot buckwheat porridge (with dried apricots). SOO many variations that you can do (banana pudding, mango, apple spice, strawberry, fig...)! Definitely try the buckwheat porridge - it's so creamy, sweet, flavorful, filling, raw, and healthy!LK's Buckwheat Porridge (Adapted from Gone Raw)2/3 - 3/4 cup raw buckwheat groats, soaked in water overnight (or for a few hours), then rinsed and drained2 Tb raw buckwheat groats unsoaked (for crunch)1-2 fresh bananas2-4 dried dates (or other dried fruit)pinch of cinnamon or other spicesserve with - fresh berries, apples, raisins/currants, 1/4 cup shredded carrots, hemp seeds, sesame seeds, nuts, flaxmeal, and/or raw wheat germ.Prep your buckwheat (once soaked, rinse and drain).Cut up dried fruit into sizes more manageable for blending.Blend the soaked buckwheat groats, bananas, dried fruit, and spices (in Vitamix or other blender/food processor) to a creamy consistency - you may need to add water if necessary.Then add your toppings and the unsoaked buckwheat groats, and devour!Of course for an unraw version, use your choice of grains instead of buckwheat (ex - triticale meal, steel cut oats, quinoa, rice), add 1 cup non-dairy milk, and cook the grains or soak overnight. Then blend, along with the spices, banana, dried fruit, and more milk if necessary. You can serve with any toppings (including maple syrup, oat bran, nut butters, sweet potato or pumpkin puree).Along with many other breakfast enthusiasts, we are hooked on the Breakfast Cookie. So easy to whip up. Again sooo many possibilities for flavors. When we do use a 'nut butter', we use tahini, otherwise we sometimes leave it out and add a mashed date or dried fruit. We just prep it overnight and have it sit in the fridge, then breakfast is ready in the morning!Tahini Breakfast Cookie - Makes 2 Servings2/3 cup spelt flakes, rye flakes, barley flakes, or other 'oat' type flakes3 Tb tahini1 Tb hemp powder3/8 cup non-dairy milk1/2 tsp vanillabanana to serveoptional - 2 Tb wheat germ or flaxmealCranberry Orange Breakfast Cookie - Makes 2 servings1/2 cup grain cereal (such as Bob's Spice n' Nice Cereal or triticalle meal, kamut cereal...)1/2 cup spelt flakes1/4 cup oat bran1/4 cup non-dairy milk1/4 cup or more cranberry juice1 fresh date, mashed1-2 tsp orange zest2 tsp dried cranberries, choppedberries or more dried cranberries to serveBanana Cocoa Breakfast Cookie - Makes 2 servings2/3 cup spelt flakes, rye flakes, barley flakes, or other 'oat' type flakes3 Tb mashed banana1 Tb cocoa powder3/8 cup non-dairy milk - try chocolate!1/2 tsp vanillabanana slices to serveoptional - 2 Tb wheat germ or flaxmealWe are 100% in love with breakfast! For breakfast, lunch, dinner, and in between!

Psychology, Crime & Law

The latest issue of Psychology, Crime & Law (Volume 14 Issue 3) is one of those issues where almost all the articles look tempting. Given my particular interest in deception Ill be starting with Granhag and Hartwigs intriguing offering on mind-reading and deception detection, but the articles on how TV affects legal decision making and linking crimes in serial homicide will be next on the list.
Heres the line-up:
What judges know about eyewitness testimony: A comparison of Norwegian and US judges (Svein Magnussen; Richard A. Wise; Abid Q. Raja; Martin A. Safer; Nell Pawlenko; Ulf Stridbeck)
A new theoretical perspective on deception detection: On the psychology of instrumental mind-reading (Pär Anders Granhag; Maria Hartwig)
Perceptions of children during a police interrogation: Guilt, confessions, and interview fairness (Allison D. Redlich; Jodi A. Quas; Simona Ghetti)
Objection, Your Honor! Television is not the relevant authority. Crime drama portrayals of eyewitness issues (Sarah L. Desmarais; Heather L. Price; J. Don Read)
Behavioural crime linking in serial homicide (Pekka Santtila; Tom Pakkanen; Angelo Zappalà; Dario Bosco; Maria Valkama; Andreas Mokros)
What do prisoners want? Current concerns of adult male prisoners (Mary McMurran; Eleni Theodosi; Anna Sweeney; Joselyn Sellen)

Don’t Be Fooled by Inflation

By: Peter Schiff
Strike up the band, boys, happy days are here again! Recently released short-term economic data, including unemployment claims, non-farm payrolls, home sales, and business spending, which had been so unambiguously horrific in February and March, are now just garden-variety awful. With the Wicked Witch of Depression now apparently crushed under the house of Obamanomics, the Munchkins of Wall Street have sounded the all clear, pushing the Dow Jones up 25% from its lows. But the premature conclusion of their Lollipop Guild economists, that the crash of 2008/2009 is now a fading memory, is just as delusional as their failure to see it coming in the first place.
Once again, the facts do not support the euphoria. Over the past few months, the government has literally blasted the economy with trillions of new dollars conjured from the ether. The fact that this stimulus has blown some air back into our deflating consumer-based bubble economy, and given a boost to an oversold stock market, is hardly evidence that the problems have been solved. It is simply an illusion, and not a very good one at that. By throwing money at the problem, all the government is creating is inflation. Although this can often look like growth, it is no more capable of creating wealth than a hall of mirrors is capable of creating people.
We are currently suffering from an overdose of past stimulus. A larger dose now will only worsen the condition. The Greenspan/Bush stimulus of 2001 prevented a much needed recession and bought us seven years of artificial growth. The multi-trillion dollar tab for that episode of federally-engineered economic bullet-dodging came due in 2008. The 2001 stimulus had kicked off a debt-fueled consumption binge that resulted in economic weakness, not strength. So now, even though the recent stimulus administered a much larger dose, we will likely experience a much smaller bounce. One can only speculate as to how much time this stimulus will buy and what it will cost when the bill arrives.
My guess is that, at most, the Bernanke/Obama stimulus will buy two years before the hangover sets in. However, since this dose is so massive, the comedown will be equally horrific. My fear is that when the drug wears off, we will reach for that monetary syringe one last time. At that point, the dosage may be lethal, and the economy will die of hyperinflation.
As always, the bulls fail to understand that investors can lose wealth even as nominal stock prices rise. As a corollary, the bearish case is not discredited by rising stock prices. While there are some bears that mistakenly cling to the idea that deflation will cause the dollar to rise, those of us in the inflation camp understand that the opposite will occur.
In the meantime, stocks are not rising because the long-term fundamentals of our economy are improving. If anything, the rise in global stock prices is due to investors realizing that cash is even riskier then stocks. The massive inflation that is the source of the stimulus is essentially punishment for those holding cash. To preserve purchasing power, investors must seek alternative stores of value, such as common stock.
It is important to point out that despite an impressive rally, U.S. stocks have substantially underperformed foreign stocks. In the past two months, while the Dow Jones has risen 30%, the Hang Seng and the German DAX have risen by over 50% in U.S. dollars. Commodity prices are also rising, with oil hitting a five-month high. And gold is shining as well, with the HUI index of gold stocks up 30% during the past two months, and 2/3 of those gains occurring in the past month. If this rally really were about improving economic fundamentals, gold stocks would not be among the leaders. Further, during those two months, the U.S. dollar index fell by 7%, with commodity-sensitive currencies such as the Australian and New Zealand dollars surging 20%.
To me, the relative strength of foreign stocks and currencies indicates that perhaps the global economy is not as impaired as many have feared. It has been my view all along that after the initial shock wears off, the world will be better off - once it no longer subsidizes the American economy. The shrinking U.S. current account deficit is evidence of this trend in action. Renewed strength in foreign stocks and weakness in the dollar may indicate that not only is the world decoupling from the U.S., but benefitting as a result.
So let the Munchkins dance for now. But remember, the Witch is not dead, only temporarily stunned by an avalanche of fake money.
GoldSeek.com

The Black Gestapo

This is one of the more startling titles and posters in movie history. Let's take a look at the poster in question:Well! That's something you don't see every day.The movie is pretty bland, except for the occasional shot of the militant black army chanting "VENGEANCE! VENGEANCE! VENGEANCE!" with a soundtrack overlay of "SIEG HEIL! SIEG HEIL! SIEG HEIL!" At the beginning of the movie, Watts is under the sway of beefy, sunglasses-wearing white thugs, who force businesses to push drugs and gambling. So we get a round of scenes in which the business owners are roughed up for not having enough money to give to the white mob. Then we meet the People's Army, which is not really military. It's sort of a black Salvation Army. Except for the second-in-command, who wants to get real guns and start fighting whitey for real. The leader of the People's Army, General Ahmed, doesn't go along with it until his girlfriend gets raped by the beefiest and most sunglasses-wearing-est of the thugs. So Colonel Kojah gets the go-ahead to train a small group to fight back.So the next scenes involve Kojah's army shooting up the white guys when they try to pick up their ill-gotten gains. There's a fairly short war and the head of the white mob shrugs and decides to get the hell out of town and maybe try his luck in Harlem. And as soon as that happens, Colonel Kojah (who has renamed himself General Kiongozi) takes over the rackets, leaning on the local shopkeepers to sell heroin and push the gambling and so on. So you've got an Animal Farm situation, where the revolutionaries have become the new tyrannical masters, although it happens a lot faster here.So now General Ahmed has to invade General Kiongozi's compound, which is suspiciously like a country club, and take out the entire army by himself. First he liberates the tennis courts, then he tricks a squad into running down the road until they collapse, then he kills about forty people. Finally, he takes out Kiongozi and the movie's over. Pretty straightforward sleazy stuff.Now, it turns out there's a novelization from Holloway House, better known (if at all) for the Iceberg Slim books. Check it:This novelization is an attempt to make the story mean something. It follows the movie precisely, but it fills in a lot of inner details that the director and actors were unable to do:Kojah couldn't help but wonder if all great men felt as he did when they made their first stride toward greatness. He wiped his sweating brow and then slipped quickly across the carpeted bedroom to the doorway that led to the rest of the house. His team followed closely at his heels.Was it possible that Henri Christophe, L'Overture, and Nat Turner felt as he felt? He could hear a distant drum beating out a marching beat, the cadence for his army of liberation of conquest. They must have felt as he did as they set out to destroy the dreaded honkie. The beast that had cowered peoples throughout the world. But he would not run in fear. He would fight and win. Win and become a legend, a hero.The book is still pretty sleazy. I don't think it has a choice with this title. But it's much, much better than the movie it's based on.

Slate-ish Recycled Interior Design Tiles

If you're searching for something new -- maybe as a back splash, wall accent, or decorative element -- give Slate-ish a look. Slate-ish tiles come in seven colors and are made from reclaimed scrap from the fabrication of Richlite and PaperStone countertops. This is 100% post-industrial waste paper laminate cut into strips, squares, bars, and cubes. Slate-ish tiles are light, non-porous, and provide an interesting alternative to stone applications. 5-6-09 Update: Slate-ish tells us most tiles are under $20 psf loose, with a range of $15-40 psf. Backed tiles on pre-mounted panels run about $20 psf extra. Read more about Slate-ish ...
Photo credits: Slate-ish.

Planning a Caravan

Ok, now that CBR is over with, my next big Airstream outing will be our WDCU Caravan out to Madison, Wisconsin for the WBCCI International Rally that starts on 27 June and goes through July 4th. For that, I'll be leading a Caravan out and Frank Yensan will be my Wagon Boss making sure our stay-overs are good. I am looking for someone to work at bringing up the rear of the Caravan each day ensuring that all Caravanners on the route make it to each way point / layover and to collaborate with me and the WagonBoss. Our plan is to meet somewhere near Pittsburgh, Pa on the afternoon / early evening of the 23rd to have a check in around 530pm at a site soon to be identified. We will then travel on the 24th to Jackson Center to the Airstream Factory and the plan is to be there by 1pm to make the Factory tour. We will stayover at the factory that night and then get up and head for Elkhart, Indiana on the 25th where we will be staying at the RV/Motor Home Hall of Fame on the night fo the 25th, to get up and roll to Jefferson County Fairgrounds on the 26th to meet up with the VAC Rhendevous for the Parade of Vintage into the International on the 27th. I'm working on my CB installation for the Caravan as well as working up a roster of who is coming. I need to know if you are participating by the 15th of May to have good numbers of who is participating. It will be a good time. If you are looking at just caravanning out to the factory with us, you are more than welcome, or even if you want to Caravan out the hole way and turn around for a neat trip. Either let myself of Frank know if you are coming. My email is airstreamnut@gmail.com if you want to participate.

Milwaukee Brewers Team Report

INSIDE PITCH The Brewers on Sunday finished a stretch of playing 20 games in 20 days. Over that span, they went 14-6 to boost their record from 4-8 to 18-14. During that 20-game gauntlet, the Brewers went 5-0-2 in series play. Before that stretch, they lost their first four series of the season. "That was a nice run in that stretch," said manager Ken Macha. "I'm sure a lot of the guys will enjoy a day off (Monday) and come back and get 'em Tuesday." The Brewers had a chance to sweep the archrival Cubs over the weekend at home but lost the series finale, 4-2. They had plenty of chances to win the game but went 1-for-10 with runners in scoring position. "You get spoiled a little bit," admitted second baseman Rickie Weeks. "It was just one of those days." Winning series remains the club's goal, so the players were only mildly disappointed with the Sunday loss. "You're not going to sweep every team, every time," said third baseman Bill Hall. "We're focused on winning series, and that's what we did. That's the main thing we want to do."NOTES, QUOTESThe running game has not been a priority under new manager Ken Macha. The Brewers have stolen only 10 bases, ranking them only ahead of Atlanta in the National League. The Brewers have been caught nine times attempting steals.C Mike Rivera was scheduled to play with Class AAA Nashville for three games Monday-Wednesday as the final steps in his return from a sprained left ankle. Rivera is eligible to come off the 15-day DL Thursday and the scheduled pitcher that day is RHP Dave Bush, whom Rivera caught before getting injured.LHP Mitch Stetter appeared in 16 of the Brewers' first 31 games. Stetter is the only left-hander in the Brewers' bullpen, and manager Ken Macha said he is worried about over-using him. LHP R.J. Swindle provided a second lefty in the bullpen for a week in April before being returned to Class AAA Nashville.BY THE NUMBERS: 14-6 The Brewers' record in playing 20 games in 20 days before getting an off day Monday.QUOTE TO NOTE: "What a professional. He's putting his name in the lineup." Manager Ken Macha, on the contributions he has received off the bench from INF Craig Counsell.ROSTER REPORTLF Ryan Braun has been on an extended period of strong offensive production. Over his last 18 games, Braun is batting .431 (28-for-65) with seven home runs and 23 RBI. He ranks among the league leaders with 69 total bases.1B Prince Fielder, who was swinging a hot bat on the Brewers' last road trip, drew a blank over the weekend in a three-game home series against the Cubs. Fielder went 0-for-10, dropping his average from .280 to .255.C Jason Kendall is three hits shy of 2,000 for his career. He ranks eighth all-time among players who have appeared in at least 1,000 games as a catcher.LHP Manny Parra, who starts Tuesday against the Marlins, pitched much better in his last three outings than in his first three of the season. After going 0-3 with an 8.16 ERA in his first three starts, Parra is 1-1 with a 2.12 ERA in his last three starts. MEDICAL WATCH: C Mike Rivera (sprained left ankle) went on the 15-day disabled list April 29. He is expected to begin a rehab assignment as soon as May 11, and he could be activated May 14. RHP David Riske (right elbow tightness) went on the 15-day disabled list retroactive to April 10. He will attempt to rehab the elbow through mid-May, but if he is unsuccessful, he might need Tommy John surgery. ROTATION: RHP Jeff Suppan RHP Yovani Gallardo LHP Manny Parra RHP Braden Looper RHP Dave Bush BULLPEN: RHP Trevor Hoffman (closer) RHP Todd Coffey RHP Carlos Villanueva RHP Seth McClung LHP Mitch Stetter RHP Jorge Julio RHP Mark DiFelice CATCHERS: Jason Kendall Carlos Corporan INFIELDERS: 1B Prince Fielder 2B Rickie Weeks SS J.J. Hardy 3B Bill Hall INF Craig Counsell INF Casey McGehee OUTFIELDERS: LF Ryan Braun CF Mike Cameron RF Corey Hart OF Chris Duffy OF Brad Nelson