Cooking a Fruit Clafouti-Take One

http://www.dishmaps.com/cherry-clafouti/23764

After a lifetime-or so it seems-spent collecting recipes newspapers from the West Coast to the Mid West and back again, it was time to utilize them.  Where they worth the paper they were printed on-and the hassle of packing and moving them.

It would take hours, perhaps days even to sift through the 3, or so boxes of clippings, magazines, and even entire Food Sections of various publications, collected over the years. Yet this project was too important personally to put it off, or delay it, even if I got sucked into the minutiae of which recipe is best.  

Luckily there were a few that hadn't been tossed into the vortex-the cardboard vortex that is my filing/packing cabinet.

Since this was the first effort of the plan, I went for something completely different-a dessert.  Desserts are not in my wheelhouse-unless I am eating them. There were several reasons for stretching beyond my wheelhouse:there was a lot of fruit in the freezer that needed to be used, more importantly leave the comfort zone.

Desserts can be tricky and temperamental, just like people and ovens.  Sides and main dishes can be easier to master-I find.  Desserts offered a bit of mystery, and danger.  They offered a place where I very well would make a mistake, where the dish would suck and be less than tasty. (Making a dish that wasn't tasty hadn't happened since I put dill in spaghetti sauce. In my defence, I envisioned a red seafood sauce Italian style, instead of a creamy dill seafood sauce. It was an epic fail).

The chosen recipe came from the May 2017 Costco Connection magazine;Berry Clafouti.  Originally from the Book Food Swings by Jessica Seinfeld.

Berry Clafouti
Serves 6 | Active Time: 10 min | Total Time: 1 hour

Ingredients:
Unsalted butter, for the baking dish
1/2 cup plus 3 tablespoons sugar, plus more for the baking dish
4 cups mixed raspberries and blackberries
11/4 cups whole milk
3 large eggs
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup almond meal/flour
1/2 teaspoon grated lemon zest
1/8 teaspoon kosher salt

Directions:
Preheat the oven (with the oven rack in the middle) to 350°F. Butter a 2-quart shallow baking dish. Sprinkle a little sugar in the dish and shake to coat the bottom and up the sides.

Arrange the berries in a single layer over the bottom of the dish.

In a blender, combine the milk, eggs, 1⁄2 cup of the sugar, the vanilla, flour, almond meal, lemon zest, and salt. Blend for 1 minute. Skim off the foam. Pour over the berries in the bottom of the dish and sprinkle with the remaining 3 tablespoons sugar.

Bake for 50 to 55 minutes, until puffed and a paring knife inserted into the center comes out clean. Serve warm.

It looked like a pretty easy recipe to follow and I had most of the ingredients.  My shopping list shows I didn't have almond meal/flour, a lemon, a zester, unsalted butter, or shallow 2 qt. baking dish.  

After acquiring these items it was Cook Time.

Now I made a small change instead of raspberries or blackberries, I used blueberries and mango chunks.  Both were frozen and I didn't thaw them out before putting into the baking dish.  

I mixed, and coated, and placed, and prepared as directed.  

However, the oven was off.  The cooking time was extended beyond 55 minutes, by another 12 minutes.  Even then the inside wasn't quite as solid as I would have liked.  The top was getting a little too dark for my liking and was preparing to cover with aluminum foil when my mother appeared fork(s)? in hand.

I was unable to hold her off from storming the kitchen and the just about done clafouti.  I wish I had been able to take a picture but it didn't last long enough to be immortalize in digital form.  However, despite my misgivings as to its solidified state, it was delicious.  Creamy, but not heavy. Sweet but not overly so.  It reminded me and my mother of flan. 

I don't know for sure why it didn't firm up as it should have.  But I suspect the oven, mostly.  And I wonder if the fruit had excess moisture.  Even though the recipe allows for frozen fruit, perhaps thawing and removing excess moisture would have helped.  

I plan to bake this again.  I still have frozen fruit-quite a bit.  I am thinking of using one fruit, instead of two, in order to lessen the moisture.  If still having issues with firmness then I will thaw the fruit and wrap in paper towels overnight.  

Enjoy the recipe.  Have fun.  And keep cooking.

Mystery at Ft. Vancouver

I found myself at Old Ft. Vancouver for the Atlas Obscura Day tour.  It was a tour designed to show of little known and/or seldom accessed parts of the Fort.   All in all it was a great tour.  We saw where the gardens had been, rebuilt homes, the area where the workers lived, and  where the old wharf had been.
It was here at the edge of the Columbia River that our guide (insert name) mentioned that a huge anchor had been dredged up in the area of the wharf.  And interestingly the anchor probably came from a ship-of-the-line, and more interestingly there was no record of any ship that large being at Ft. Vancouver during the Hudson Bay area, or afterwards.  I love the discovery of a mystery.
The guide indicated the anchor was stored in a building within the old fort.  So I made my way there. Along the way I was momentarily distracted by another possible mystery.
In front of the former Governor’s House sit two cannon.  At least one is marked with the year 1804 and this same cannon is stamped with a royal type seal.  In looking at the seal it appears to contain the Fleur-de-lis.

1

This is often a symbol for the French Monarch. As soon as I see this cannon and symbol coupled with the story of the anchor, I go into history connection overdrive.
Is this a French Royal cannon which passed on to the French Revolutionist and finally to Napoleon and his Imperial troops?  What if 1804 is not the year it was cast, but rather the year the British Navy captured it? What if a forgotten battle of the Napoleonic era took place here on the Columbia?  Did someone sabotage the British vessel, causing it to lose the anchor?

2

As my brother, nephew, and I wandered about the fort, I was captured by the idea of this anchor and the cannons.  And I was impatient to get to the building the guide indicated the anchor was stored.  It was slow going with a four year old nephew easily entranced by whatever is around the next corner, or in the next building.  It was little surprise to find my brother and nephew in the Fort’s reconstructed kitchen.  It took some effort to get them to leave the delicious looking plates of food laid out for the re-enactors lunch.

3

According to the National Park Service the Fort was established in 1825 by the Hudson Bay Company, as the headquarters for its trading operations.  An area, according to our guide, which extended north to Alaska, down to San Francisco, east to the Rockies and then stretching west all the way to the Hawaiian Islands. It was operational until 1860, when the Company left and moved operations north.
Once we made it to the large wooden building with red doors holding the fort’s archaeological finds, as well as, a reconstructed fur storage area, with bales of fur, old wooden barrels, tin candle holders, mounted on the wall, and a massive scale to weigh the furs, I discovered the anchor was nowhere to be seen. No worries.  It could easily be found online.

4

5

And so we continued our slow tour around the fort.  Climbing the corner tower, to lookout over the plain.  Imagining we were looking out for the yearly ship arrival, or a trapping party trudging in from the vast Northwest interior with a season’s bounty of pelts, we peered through the firing slits. We pretended to fire a salute to visiting ships, carrying dignitaries, and brimming with news and trading goods.
It was in the counting house that any romantic idea of the cannons being French Royal ones came crashing to an end.  For it was here, while inspecting Capt. Baillie’s room that I discovered the very same symbol from the cannons on his naval headgear.  These are British Royal cannons.  It was a bit of a let down.  But at least the mystery of the anchor remained.
So how did this anchor end up in the Columbia River?
What if Napoleon realizing he needed more ships sent a party here to secretly build them? What if the British discovered his plans and sent a secret mission to stop it?
What if a British ship was exploring the world, made its way up the Columbia and before news of any discoveries could be sent out, the ship was lost?
What if the ship(which lost the anchor) was on a secret mission to survey before the US and British governments signed the treaty establishing boundaries between the countries?  And getting caught would be an international incident.
Perhaps the answer of how the anchor was lost will never be known, but it is great fun playing the What if….game.

Picture 1 Google search for Fleur de Lis.
A very royal image of the Fleur de Lis.

Picture 2 https://www.yelp.com/user_details?userid=gkXe8AFLU-XyYGhnubuAgQ
The cannons marked 1804 outside the governor’s house Ft. Vancouver.

Picture 3 Yahoo search for Ft. Vancouver
The kitchen area of Ft. Vancouver.

Picture 4 Yahoo search for Ft. Vancouver
The building where the guide indicated the anchor was housed.

Picture 5 Yahoo search for Ft. Vancouver
Inside one part of the building where the anchor is suppose to be

Sources
https://www.nps.gov/fova/index.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Vancouver_National_Historic_Site
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hudson%27s_Bay_Company
https://www.nps.gov/fova/learn/historyculture/upload/countinghouse01b.pdf
Footnote 1
Note:Ship-of-the-line according to Wikipedia is “a type of naval warship constructed from the 17th through to the mid-19th century to take part in the naval tactic known as the line of battle, in which two columns of opposing warships would manoeuvre to bring the greatest weight of broadside firepower to bear.”

UPDATE:  So as I wrote this I was playing with the idea of whether to track down the anchor or not.  Obviously I posted without tracking down the anchor.  But after I posted I thought maybe I should.  Just in case someone asked.  So I called Ft. Vancouver and asked about this anchor.  And lo and behold the anchor is not in the building.  It is at the east end of the parking lot up by the visitor center and Officers' Row.  I plan to visit it and get a picture.

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Soccer Hall of Fame in US to Close

This is a sad day for soccer fans.  The US Soccer Hall is closing.  Of course that the hall is in Oneonta, New York did not help matters. 

Reading about the closing I began to wonder why isn't it in a place associated with soccer like, oh I don't know, Portland, Or. (Disclaimer I lived there for 11 years).  Portland is billed as Soccer City, USA.   If the Hall didn't want to go that route, why not locate in a major city.  It is bad enough-at least to those of us who played and are fans-that soccer gets the short shift as a fan favorite here in the States.  Being in Oneonta, I am sure it is a fine city with fine people, does not contribute to the development of soccer or a fan base in the US.  That they spent millions on new buildings and fields is a shame.  The money would have better spend hiring moving vans. 

The sad thing is the Hall knew that being in Oneonta wasn't the best place for it.  How else to explain the Why Oneonta? link on the About Us page.

The story about fan exuberance leading to someone asking about the location of the US Soccer Hall of Fame after Oneonta State University won the 1977 NCAA Division I National Championship, is emblamatic of soccer's place in America.  A big game is won and much excitment surrounds the celebration.  Big talk about how great the game was, and how it will lead to great things for US soccer, or Oneonta, as the case may be, begins.  Soon plans are under way and yet, the great things never materialize.  Sure a grand musuem was built and is surrounded by pitches, or fields, but how many people showed up?  Obvisiously not enough people showed up. 

It is a shame that the Hall is being closed.  But until I read the news of its closing, I wasn't even aware of the existance of the Hall.  The sad part of that is I am a fan of soccer. While I am not a super fan like my cousin, I am not a band-wagonner, either.   I played for years and played some in high school and junior college.  I watch matches all the time. And yet I was unaware of the US Soccer Hall of Fame.  Perhaps instead of a grand building in an out of the way place, a little PR would have been in order.  That and locating in a more soccer friendly place could have done wonders for attendence. 

 

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The Socalist Are Here! The Socalist Are Here!

Are you concerned about the Socialist direction this country is taking? Then here is the perfect letter to sign and send to members of Congress, and local media.

Though from the look of things I think it is too late.

I, ________________________, do solemnly swear to uphold the principles of a socialism-free society and heretofore pledge my word that I shall strictly adhere to the following:

I will complain about the destruction of 1st Amendment Rights in this country, while I am duly being allowed to exercise my 1st Amendment Rights.

I will complain about the destruction of my 2nd Amendment Rights in this country, while I am duly being allowed to exercise my 2nd Amendment rights by legally but brazenly brandishing unconcealed firearms in public.

I will foreswear the time-honored principles of fairness, decency, and respect by screaming unintelligible platitudes regarding tyranny, Nazi-ism, and socialism at public town halls. Also.

I pledge to eliminate all government intervention in my life. I will abstain from the use of and participation in any socialist goods and services including but not limited to the following:

* Social Security

* Medicare/Medicaid

* State Children’s Health Insurance Programs (SCHIP)

* Police, Fire, and Emergency Services

* US Postal Service

* Roads and Highways

* Air Travel (regulated by the socialist FAA)

* The US Railway System

* Public Subways and Metro Systems

* Public Bus and Lightrail Systems

* Rest Areas on Highways

* Sidewalks

* All Government-Funded Local/State Projects (e.g., see Iowa 2009 federal senate appropriations)

* Public Water and Sewer Services (goodbye socialist toilet, shower, dishwasher, kitchen sink, outdoor hose!)

* Public and State Universities and Colleges

* Public Primary and Secondary Schools

* Sesame Street

* Publicly Funded Anti-Drug Use Education for Children

* Public Museums

* Libraries

* Public Parks and Beaches

* State and National Parks

* Public Zoos

* Unemployment Insurance

* Municipal Garbage and Recycling Services

* Treatment at Any Hospital or Clinic That Ever Received Funding From Local, State or Federal Government (pretty much all of them)

* Medical Services and Medications That Were Created or Derived From Any Government Grant or Research Funding (again, pretty much all of them)

* Socialist Byproducts of Government Investment Such as Duct Tape and Velcro (Nazi-NASA Inventions)

* Use of the Internets, email, and networked computers, as the DoD's ARPANET was the basis for subsequent computer networking

* Foodstuffs, Meats, Produce and Crops That Were Grown With, Fed With, Raised With or That Contain Inputs From Crops Grown With Government Subsidies

* Clothing Made from Crops (e.g. cotton) That Were Grown With or That Contain Inputs From Government Subsidies

If a veteran of the government-run socialist US military, I will forego my VA benefits and insist on paying for my own medical care

I will not tour socialist government buildings like the Capitol in Washington, D.C.

I pledge to never take myself, my family, or my children on a tour of the following types of socialist locations, including but not limited to:

* Smithsonian Museums such as the Air and Space Museum or Museum of American History

* The socialist Washington, Lincoln, and Jefferson Monuments

* The government-operated Statue of Liberty

* The Grand Canyon

* The socialist World War II and Vietnam Veterans Memorials

* The government-run socialist-propaganda location known as Arlington National Cemetery

* All other public-funded socialist sites, whether it be in my state or in Washington, DC

I will urge my Member of Congress and Senators to forego their government salary and government-provided healthcare.

I will oppose and condemn the government-funded and therefore socialist military of the United States of America.

I will boycott the products of socialist defense contractors such as GE, Lockheed-Martin, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, General Dynamics, Raytheon, Humana, FedEx, General Motors, Honeywell, and hundreds of others that are paid by our socialist government to produce goods for our socialist army.

I will protest socialist security departments such as the Pentagon, FBI, CIA, Department of Homeland Security, TSA, Department of Justice and their socialist employees.

Upon reaching eligible retirement age, I will tear up my socialist Social Security checks.

Upon reaching age 65, I will forego Medicare and pay for my own private health insurance until I die.

SWORN ON A BIBLE AND SIGNED THIS DAY OF __________ IN THE YEAR ___.

_____________ _________________________

Signed Printed Name/Town and State

So please copy, sign and send to your family and friends. Perhaps there is still time to turn back the tide of Socialist programs, and entities which seem to permeate this great Country.

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Corporations! What are they good for?

Here is an article from Devilstower at dailykos.com. It is an interesting look at corporations, Wal-Mart in particular and how the business model of corporations has placed us in a race to the bottom. While at the same time exploiting natural resources and leaving most of us not the masters of the universe in a sort of modern equivalent of serfdom. Interesting read. I look forward to reading the book

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Monopoly not just a kids game.

Monopoly's Hidden Maps Help World War II POWs Escape - ABC News
I came across this story and thought it was a good diversion from actually sitting down to my morning writing. Also, I love obscure historical events and trivia. This story delivers.

For me the best part is towards the end of the article. The writer quotes someone from the British producer of Monopoly as saying about 10,000 prisoners used maps, tools, and local currencies hidden in the games in their successful escapes to allied lines.

Of course this tidbit of info leads me to wonder how many allied prisoners were unsuccessful in their escape attempts?

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Coming Home

I don't know who said a person "can never go home again", but I am about to find out the truth of this claim.

I had been gearing up to go to India. I longed to see the Red Fort, and ride camels through the desert of Rajasthan. I was excited by the idea of exploring abandoned cities, temples dedicate to monkeys, rats and sex. The curries called to me across the Pacific. I practiced eating Indian style. Slowly, I steeled my mind to find a place where I could ride any train in the Subcontinent, without losing my mind, nor my luggage.
I made plans to get an India Rail Pass. I wrote out places to see and calculated travel times and days touring the sites.

Originally I planned to meet many beautiful India ladies but then I taught ESL in China and meet the beautiful Fanbin
we made plans to marry. I moved back to the states to earn better money and start a business. The business fell through, and for a time I was crushed.

Then last year, just before summer my step-mother went into coma. She has been sick for many years, but this was something new. The doctors were not sure if it was diabetic coma, or a dehydration induced coma due to the flu she had at the time. She came out of it after a week or so. But it really seemed to shake my father.

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Perhaps the Pants Piddlers Should Have Read This List

Over at lyved.com they have a list of 9 ways to deal with fear.  Now if only the NeoCons, and other officals of the former administration had read this, perhaps we wouldn't have had all the fear driven piddling in our officals pants.  In turn we may not have had all the law breaking.  Nor would we have had all the spying on innocent citizens and peaceful groups.  Maybe, just maybe, there might not be a problem of what to do with the current involuntary inhabitants of Gitmo. 

See without fear we, as a nation, might have treated the people currently in custody as criminals.  Instead, fear drove our leaders to make them in to martyers and heroes of what madness they espouse, and fear drove us citizens to allow our leaders to do this.  I think we as a nation need to take the advice of item number three which is to Face Fear Directly, to heart.  One of the ways to do this is for us 'to stare (fear) right in the face and smell its stinky breath.'  The other action I might suggest, we as a nation do, is realize that the problems we face today are no worse than problems we, as a nation, have faced in the past. 

Our grandparents dealt with the Great Depression, the rise of Fascism and Communism, relativily at the same time.  Our parents dealt with Vietnam, the struggle for Civil Rights, and Riots in Watts, and Chicago, relativily at the same time. 

We are Americans.  We meet changes with grit, humor, love, tears, strength of character, moral courage, and with the belief that the ideals our Founding Fathers gave to us are right.  They are ideals worth fighting for.  They are worth dying for.  They are worth holding on to, no matter what the world brings to our door.

So here is not being afraid anymore.  Here is to standing up for our Nation's ideals.   

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How Many Strange Foods Have You Eaten?

The folks over at independenttraveler.com have a list of their top seven strangest foods. 



Here is a picture of one of them: blood pudding.  A favorite of the Irish for breakfast.  Now I have tried some of the items on the list, such as, the blood pudding.  A little trick I used to make it taste better was to cook it longer and pepper the hell out of it.  Of course, we were staying with relatives and they let me jump into the kitchen.  All the Americans visiting were quite thankful for my "improvements."  Though Father Aaron, the relative we were staying with, didn't seen too keen on having the pudding overcooked. 

I have also had the head cheese.  My mother use to have it around whenever my Grandfather, her father, visited.  I had it once and puked it up.  Of course when ever he visited we also had pickled pigs feet and pig knuckles.  Which were both hard as hell to eat with any sort of decorum.  On the plus side, I didn't have a huge shock while living in China. 

Often friends would order pig's feet, or pigs knuckles to see what I would do.  The only trouble I had was with the nail, of course I had trouble with the toe nails on the chicken claws, as well.  It didn't matter how the claws were prepared, bbq'ed, fried, boiled, pickled, roasted, seasoned, or vacuum packed and sold by Walmart; I had trouble with the nail.  Surprisingly the claws didn't taste like chicken.  I don't know what the nail tasted like, as I never ate one.  I just bit it off and spit it out, like a lugee.  In my defense the Chinese people did the same thing, perhaps with a little more grace and a more pleasant facial continence than I could muster.

Also living in China gave opportunity to eat, fish head, fish cheecks-very tasty, pig brains, cow stomachs, pig and cow intestines, pig ears, pig noses, cow tongue, camel-ka-bob, dog soup, fried star fish, and fried crickets, ants, grubs, worms, spiders, as well as scorpion-with the stinger on, no less.  None these foods were particularily painful to eat, though many of the fried ones tasted like burnt french fries.  This was especially true for the star fish which i ended up throwing away after three bites.

So what strange exoctic foods have you eaten, or would eat, if given the chance?  Eat on.       

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Is This the End of Big Software Companies?

Now I am not the most technologically advanced guy.  I have never rushed out for the gadget or application du jour.  But I am tired of sub-standard Windows' products, the crashing of my computer due to said product, as well as being vulnerable to computer hacks, phishing attacks, viruses, and malware.  Yet, lacking the savvy to venture into Linux land, I am stuck with whatever fiendish operating system the boys from Seattle put out. 

I know that Linux is more stable; but I am not comfortable using it.  Or attempting to install it.  I know how to work with XP and Vista.  And with all the open software out there I have upgraded to better products.  For all that, I would love to try Linux.  Now maybe I can.

Matt Asay over at cnet news has written about Novell's Suse Studio which allows "both standardization and customization of a Linux distribution."  If I am reading this right, what I believe this to mean is that people around the world can basically make their own operation system using Suse Studio and Linux and distribute it.  Now I won't be one of the multitude who will untake such a project.  But I am one that, as time goes by and the problems are hashed out and super smart people put super great products on the market, will try it.

Perhaps the behemoth software companies won't go the way of the North American Passenger Pigeon, however I believe this make them put out better products and maybe lower their prices.  Also, I believe it will lead to more people, at least, trying out Linux.  As my parents taught me trying new things is almost never a bad thing.

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I Am Not Sure Which Fool to Suffer First.

First there is Chris Hitchens blaming regular, everyday American citizens for any, and all torture that may have been carried out by the Bush Administration (Hat tip to Eli at HuffingtonPost).

Second up is Phil Bronstein bemoaning how mean everyone has been to former President Bush and we should all just leave him alone to ride off into the Texas sunset.

As Eli points out if We citizens were demanding that terrorists be tortured, why did the Bush administration deny the US tortured over and over.  Why did the Bush administration jump through such tortured linguistic, pretzel shaped hoops when it came to the issue of prisoner treatment?  They called it "putting them in stress positions", or enhanced interrogation techniques or "rough interrogation" or "alternative set of procedures."  Paging Mr. Orwell.  Your dictionary of of "Double Speak" can now be updated for the 21st Century.  Well at least the examples for today's readers could be illustrated with headlines and journalistic copy from the last 8 years or so. 

I am certain that some Americans supported the use of torture, probably many could be found in the 20+ percent which hold the former president is high esteem.  But more of us spoke out against it and, or supported efforts to end it. 

I hope the thing Hitchens pulls from his nether region next is not an affront to those of us who didn't piddle our pants after 9/11.  I hope it is not an affront to those of us who thought we should treat the master minds, supporters, agents, and others as the criminals they are, and not turn them into war heroes and martyrs.  Perhaps with this first step Hitch can eventually work his way to actually speaking and writing with some intelligence.  I am sure we will have a new President before some thing like this actually taking place.

Then there is the curious column Phil Bronstein posted on huffintonpost.com; in it he castigates those individuals, who took glee in the repudiation Prez 44 laid on former prez 43.  Of course that repudiation hurt some feelings as Bronstein tells us.  He quotes Bush loyalist and former aide Karen Hughes as saying, "[T]here were a few sharp elbows that really rankled and. . . (the incoming Prez was) not as magnanimous as the occasion called for . . ." 

Well Boo F-ing Hoo Karen.  As we heard from your corner after the 2004 match-up "elections have consequences." This election, like the one in 2006, was a strong repudiation of Bush and most of his policies. 

And then after Bronstein goes into a back and forth between the two sides, before declaring, [T]he Bush dynasty is probably done. Let it go."  We, the people should just forget all the torture committed, all the illegal spying, the politicization of the Justice Department, and that is just the stuff we know about. 

As some one pointed out in the comments and I am paraphrasing, we were suppose to forget Prescott Bush trading with the Nazi's after Dec. 11th 1941-hint Germany declared war on the US that day.  Then the nation was suppose to forget the destruction rought by Joe McCarthy and his show trials.  We are then suppose to forget Nixon and Watergate and all the other illegal activites, such as spying on American citizens without cause or warrent.  Of course then we got Iran-Contra, and once more the leaders implored us, the American people, to forget it ever happened.  Pardons were issued in order to better help us, the American people, move forward and to look ahead.  Then many of the minor players from Nixon/Ford White House go on to orchestrate the grand tragedy which we now find ourselves emeshed in.

As I am writing this I just noticed that every single item involves a Republican or Republican Administration.  I know the Dems are not Saint.  But why does America consistantly finding it must move on for the good of the country after Republican Administrations?  Perhaps the Republicans should clean up their act before they can govern.  But I digress.

I for one do not want "to move on for the good of the Nation."  The Nation will not be better off if we move forward.  The Constitution and our laws will not mean anything if we don't stand up for them, and hold those who harm them accountable.  Our Founder's efforts and sacrifices to build a Nation of laws will not be honored, if we walk away.  Nor will this Nation stand long for those ideals for the next generation, or for the world, if we allow people to walk away with out answering for what they have done.  For the good of the Nation, we must persue all illegal activities and war crimes; we must have a full accounting of those activities and those who perpetrating them on this Nation and the World.  It won't be easy and it won't be pleasant, but it is the best thing for the Nation.

Well I guess I figured out which fool I will not suffer.    

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