WTF-Beta

@wtg Best wishes for Mr. WTG that he recovers quickly and his health stabilizes. Best wishes for Mrs. WTG too.

I don't know if I can describe what I'm thinking, but I'll try anyway.

What if you made a box with a hinged pedal in it, and weighted, to rest on the floor to the left of the piano's pedals. The pedal would need to be long enough to create sufficient movement to move the real pedal. Attach a very strong type of thin cord to the pedal so that when you push down on the pedal the cord is pulled down. This next bit is where you may have reservations: You'd have to screw two eyelets into the bottom of the keyboard--one of each side of the piano's pedal unit. The cord from the boxed pedal would run up to the eyelet on the left, across the underside of the keyboard, through the eyelet on the right, and down to the real pedal where it would be attached to the back of the pedal. When you pressed the boxed pedal, the cord--traveling up, across, and down to the real pedal would lift the back of it as if you were pressing your foot on the front of it.

Maybe it's an unrealistic design. It depends on strong cordage and the willingness to screw eyelets into the piano's underside. And, I don't know if you'd be able to get enough power from it to actually lift the back of the real pedal.

Maybe this makes sense, maybe not. I hope so.

I bought this knife decades ago at a street fair in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. I don't know who made it or where it's from, but the cost was somewhere between $20 and $40... I can't recall exactly, but it wasn't more than $40.

It is a fantastic kitchen knife. I will reach for it, over the Wusthof chef's knife, 99% of the time. The blade is thin, sharpens really well and keeps it's edge. One tiny improvement would be a redesign of the handle, but it's the blade that makes this knife so good for me.

All my knives hang from a magnetic rail. I use a Chef's Choice 300 electric sharpener. Sharp is important.

Could be beautiful, lots of room. But I don't think I could live in a place that was a juvenile detention center for 40 years. Also, being on the Nat'l Register... doesn't that mean needing approval for a lot of things?

Not my cup of tea either. Not for classical music, anyway; too much of a distraction. I could see Elton John playing it onstage. Appreciate that it's an artistic expression, but that would work far better as a fabric print, imo.

LOL. The author took it down after complaints about the promotion. He's now reposted it without the ad. New link below.

This guy has a fascinating YouTube channel, UsefulCharrts, where he explains complexity in flow charts. His latest is about media consolidation and it's good. (Contains a slightly obnoxious Crypto sponsorship ad) eta: The ad is now gone.

Very pretty house and gardens.

... the recipe.

I made only a quarter of the recipe. It looks complicated but it's not. Basically: mise-en-place, make the sauce, add the scallops and bake. Easy.

This is the full recipe:

1/4 cup butter
1 medium green pepper finely chopped(I omitted this)
1 cup finely chopped onion
1/2 lb fresh button mushrooms (chopped if they are large)
2 Tablespoons butter
1/4 cup all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon lemon pepper
2-1/2 cups half-and-half
3 Tablespoons grated parmesan
1/4 teaspoon paprika
1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 lb fresh scallops (frozen works in need be)
2/3 cup dry white wine
1/2 cup fine dry breadcrumbs
1/2 teaspoon Italian seasoning
2 Tablespoons butter, melted

Preheat oven to 450 F.
Saute green pepper and onion in butter for 3 minutes. Add mushrooms for another 3 minutes. Add 2 tablespoons butter and the four, salt, and lemon pepper. Cook on low heat for 3 more minutes stirring constantly.

Remove from heat and add half-an-half, cheese, paprika, and nutmeg. Bring to boil stirring constantly, reduce heat to low and cook until thick and smooth. Remove from heat, stir in scallops and wine.

Spoon into scallop shells (great for first course), or ramekins, etc. Mix bread crumbs with Italian seasoning and 2 Tablespoons butter. Sprinkle over scallops. Bake at 450 F for 12 to 15 minutes.

Most delectable!

I just heard about this "discretionary grant of citizenship" in Canada. All four of my grandparents are from Canada which makes me elligible. Good to know.

https://cadimmigration.com/?p=3503

Dinner tonight, Coquille Saint-Jacques. I haven't made it in years. It was heavenly.

Hello, Dwain! Nice to see you. Nice article. Congrats on the visibility! Glad to see you speaking out about the travesty of christian nationalism.

There is that word again: fundamentalist.

From The Cradle:

US troops report commanders framing Iran war as ‘God’s plan’
——
As first reported by independent journalist Jonathan Larsen, a US combat-unit commander told non-commissioned officers that the war on Iran is part of “God’s divine plan,” allegedly claiming President Donald Trump was “anointed by Jesus” to ignite Armageddon. The complaint, filed with the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, is one of more than 110 logged within 48 hours from over 40 units across at least 30 installations. Complainants, including Christians, a Muslim, and a Jew, have requested anonymity to avoid retaliation. The Pentagon has yet to respond.

According to MRFF President Mikey Weinstein, service members report “unrestricted euphoria” among segments of the chain of command portraying the assault on Iran as biblically sanctioned and tied to end-times prophecy in the Book of Revelation. One NCO wrote that such rhetoric is eroding morale and violating constitutional oaths, particularly for troops in Ready-Support status who could be deployed at any moment.

The controversy unfolds as Secretary of War Pete Hegseth expands overt evangelical programming within the Pentagon, including prayer sessions and Bible studies aligned with staunch pro-Israel theology. Weinstein reports that many US commanders appear particularly enthused by the prospect of an intensely violent confrontation, emphasizing how much bloodshed they believe is necessary to align events with a fundamentalist Christian end-times narrative.

@Mik:

It doesn't matter how one musician might write paragraph upon biased paragraph to press the point that the Iranian regime is bad. And how ancient history is applicable to today's problem remains a mystery to me. Most people are well aware of this. And if Israel was led not by a thug named Netanyahu, and America by a bully named Trump (who has bombed 8 countries in one year)--fast becoming an autocrat--some of this author's arguments would make more sense in the real world.

That what Israel and the United States have done is somehow equivalent to what the Iranian regime itself has done.

As things now stand in the world, Netanyahu, Trump, and the Supreme Leader make up an axis of evil. America has fallen and so has Israel. Too bad, but neither country enjoys the moral high ground these days. Trump has trampled the Constitution and all that is holy about America with the aid of the republican party bathing in evangelical christian nationalism. Christian nationalism, militant Judaism, and Islamic terrorism. That's it in a nutshell. The isms that cause so much trouble in the world. None can claim the moral high ground these days.

There was no justification for bombing Iran. This is the consensus. Hopefully Congress will do its job tomorrow and put a stop to it.

but we've been screwing around with these bastards and their nuclear ambitions for 25 years.

The US, self-appointed gatekeepers and the only nation ever to obliterate entire cities of civilians with nuclear bombs. How, exactly, does having the secret codes in the hands of someone like Trump give us any authority on who or who shouldn't have nuclear ambitions?

What we must do is avoid trying to dictate what Iran looks like after this, and I certainly hope there has been groundwork laid for a replacement government.

Surely, you can't be serious.

To add to the comment about 'several generations', this latest action only heaps more resentment upon resentment upon resentment.

And not to mention--a big one--the increased risk of nuclear war. Iran isn't going to take this sitting down, and Trump is throwing out some damned scary language, which will in turn, no doubt, be met with retaliation. This could very quickly escalate to the level of unimaginable horror. Trump is not a stable man. (For that matter, none of these players are very stable.) A war of madmen.

@Steve-Miller She has indeed made a spectacle of herself and she still holds views that boggle the mind. But I am glad she's speaking out against Trump; she's one of the few from that pack of magats to be doing so. I give her credit for calling out the blatant lies and hypocrisy of Trump, Vance, et. al.

@Daniel Not to mention the increased risk of terrorism.

@AndyD There is little disputing the ugliness of the regime, but the solution is not having two megalomaniac criminals attacking a sovereign state to save their skins. Netanyahu is a war criminal+, and Trump is tanking at home and the Epstein files are getting closer and closer to the inner circle.

I have read that the Iranian regime has 7 levels of contingency for every major office. They will not be thrown into disarray over the murder of the Supreme Leader. There is someone right behind him to take his place.

What we are doing is promoting more violence as an answer to violence. More hate as an answer to hate. It will not work. And Americans will again, be asked to pay, innocent Iranians will be asked to pay. Both with money and lives. It's gross. And a violation of our constitution to continue without Congressional support.

18 years ago. . .

Major General (Ret.) Paul D. Eaton, an Army commander during Operation Iraqi Freedom, and senior adviser to VoteVets PAC, said in a statement:

Men who know more about war than Donald Trump ever will warned him repeatedly about the risks to American lives by starting a war with Iran. Indeed, Trump himself predicted casualties in his speech to America. The Constitution could not be more clear. When launching wars of choice, especially with American lives in the balance, the president goes to Congress and Congress authorizes it. That did not happen, and these operations are blatantly unconstitutional.

More to the point, these operations seem to have no focus. Trump says they’re to keep Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, but just last year he said we ‘obliterated’ that program. It seems to be targeting missile sites, but Trump says it is to stoke regime change. A war without focus is a war with no tangible goals. And a war with no goals ends up a Forever War.