CHRISTMAS CHERRY CAKE

1 c. butter or margarine, soft
2 c. sugar
1 tsp. almond extract
8 eggs
15 oz. pkg. golden raisins
8 oz. jar candied cherries
8 oz. jar candied citron
4 c. unsifted all purpose flour

In a large bowl (electric mixer, medium speed) beat butter, 
sugar and almond extract until light and fluffy. Add eggs, 
one at a time, beating well after each addition. At low 
speed, gradually beat in flour. Add raisins, cherries, and 
citron and mix with a spoon until well combined. Turn into 
10 inch tube pan, which has been greased, lined on the 
bottom and sides with brown paper, and the paper greased. 
Bake in a preheated 300 degree oven for 2 hours and 25 
minutes or until cake tester comes out clean. Let cool in 
pan on rack for 30 minutes. Turn out on rack and cool 
completely. 

Giving thanks for no more Clinton

One day in 1998, I was invited to have an off-the-record 
chat with an important staff person on the Clinton 
administration's National Security Council. We met, at the 
important person's suggestion, at the important person's 
important club, where the major domo was kind enough to 
lend me a tie. We sat in important old chairs and drank 
important old whiskey and had a made-for-TV version of an 
important old Washington conversation--the personage from 
the White House setting me right, one important man to 
another, on the real and complex forces at work behind our 
government's seemingly mindless, but actually deep and 
subtle and clever, actions. And me trying to nod in a way 
that suggested a fine blend of Kissingerian cunning and 
Lippmannesque wisdom, which is hard to do in a borrowed 
tie. 

The whole experience was terrific fun, although I never 
could shake the feeling that it was all a mistake--that I 
was supposed to be someone else entirely, someone who 
actually mattered, Tom Friedman or Bob Woodward probably. 
Right up to the end, I half-expected the important person 
to suddenly say, with a mildly puzzled smile, ``You know, 
you're a damned sight better looking on television, Bob." 

At any rate, the encounter ended in a perfect straight-to-
video moment, the two of us men of import standing on the 
corner, in a drizzle, backlit by a street lamp, having that 
cinematically crucial last word. It seemed to be my line, 
so I said something about how things didn't seem to be 
working too well with the Iraq policy. I can't remember at 
which point of collapse the Clinton approach was precisely 
at that week, whether Saddam had actually gotten around to 
throwing out the U.N. weapons inspectors or was still 
enjoying the long defiance and humiliation of an impotent 
America too much to bid that last goodbye--but it doesn't 
really matter. 

The important person leaned forward, his eyes even more 
than usually ablaze with deep and subtle and clever 
thoughts, and he said, in a confiding demi-whisper: No, you 
don't understand. As long as Saddam behaves like this, the 
U.N. sanctions will stay in effect, and as long as the 
sanctions stay in effect, Saddam will stay weak. If Saddam 
obeys the U.N. mandates, then the sanctions will disappear, 
and he will become strong again. We've got him just where 
we want him. 

This Thanksgiving, I am thankful that this person, and all 
the other deep and subtle and clever people of the Clinton 
White House, and all the thoughts they thought, and all the 
damage they wrought, are history. Or to be more precise, I 
am thankful that we live in a reality defined by the actual 
consequences of policies, rather than what columnists and 
correspondents and editors can be gulled into thinking are 
consequences--gulled at least for long enough to skate 
through that day's news cycle and this season's electoral 
cycle. 

Liberals, in the Democratic Party and in their media and 
academic institutional bases, persist in seeing the 
accruing foreign policy triumphs of the Bush administration 
as accidents of history occurring within an aberration of 
history. This could not be more basically wrong. The 
accidents, and the larger aberration, belonged to the years 
this administration has led us out of, the long years of 
suspension of disbelief that comprised Clinton foreign 
policy in practice. 

This was a policy accidental at its core--essentially, ad 
hoc reaction to, and street-corner justification of, 
actions that simply happened as they happened, under the 
management (well, more like stage-management) of president 
whose only enduring belief was that nothing was true but 
that poll ratings made it so. 

But some things are actually true. It is true that Iraq, 
during the Clinton years, waged a war of attrition against 
the United States, massively violated the cease-fire it 
agreed to in 1991 and a long series of U.N. resolutions, 
almost daily firing on warplanes assigned to patrol the 
peace, even going so far as to attempt the assassination of 
an American president. And it is true that Clinton pretty 
much let Iraq get away with all of this, and ultimately 
walked away from all of this. And it is true that men like 
Osama bin Laden saw in Clinton's great aberrational 
abdication of American responsibility a wonderful shining 
hope: With just a bit more of a push, just one really big 
murder, America the paper tiger could be induced to walk 
away from all of the Middle East. 

But, as it turned out, this last bit wasn't true at all. 
There are some things that no amount of wishing, and no 
amount of deep and subtle and clever dreaming, can make 
true. For which I am thankful. 

From: Glint Breightly ([email protected])
Subject: Charter Skeptic (was re: What did Judas Betray?) 
Date: 1992-12-24 22:08:20 PST 

>>[email protected] (Glint Breightly) writes:
>[email protected] (Carl J Lydick) writes: 

>>This doesn't sound narrow minded, does it? 
>No, it just sounds about as stupid as most of the other bullshit from Jesus
freaks.

Looks like the discussion on this thread has run its course.

Glint

From: Carl J Lydick ([email protected])
Subject: re: Help with debate, re:Mars face 
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic
Date: 1994-04-01 09:32:33 PST 
 
In [email protected] (Glint Breightly) writes:

=>I have a copy of DiPietro's book and can provide Viking image ID's for
=>both "faces".  All you have to do is ask, and I will look them up.
=
=
=Well, people have been asking, so I'll post it here...
=
=These are from the book "Unusual Mars Surface Features", 4th Edition,
=(c) 1988, by Vincent DiPietro of Mars Research.
=
=
=        Feature         Image   Res.    Book Ref.
=
=        Cydonia Face    35A72   High    Figure 2 p. 14
=        Cydonia Face    70A13   High    Figure 22 p. 37
=        Cydonia Face    753A33  Low     Figure 31 p. 48
=        Cydonia Face    753A34  Low     Figure 32 p. 49
=        Cydonia Face    673B54  Low     Figure 33 p. 50
=        Cydonia Face    673B56  Low     Figure 34 p. 51
=        Utopia Face     86A10   High    Figures 60 p. 99; 61 p. 100
=        Utopia Face     243S01  Low     Figure 64, p. 104
=        Utopia Face     541A14  Low     Figure 65, p. 105

Now, if only we had a source of the raw data for each of these images so
everyone could see just how creative DiPietro was in "enhancing" the images. 
Along with a description of the techniques DiPietro used for his
"enhancements."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Carl J Lydick | INTERnet: [email protected] | NSI/HEPnet: SOL1::CARL

Disclaimer:  Hey, I understand VAXen and VMS.  That's what I get paid for.  My
understanding of astronomy is purely at the amateur level (or below).  So
unless what I'm saying is directly related to VAX/VMS, don't hold me or my
organization responsible for it.  If it IS related to VAX/VMS, you can try to
hold me responsible for it, but my organization had nothing to do with it.

The Clinton Drag 
This Election Day, he hurt Democrats more than he helped. 
hursday, November 21 

Did Bill Clinton help or hurt the candidates he stumped for 
this year? Some commentators argue that the former 
president has lost his appeal since most of the candidates 
he campaigned for lost. "The stumpers got stomped," says 
Newsweek political writer Howard Fineman, referring to the 
Clintons. "This election was the official end of the 
Clinton-Gore era." 

Richard Blow, a former editor of George magazine, 
disagrees. Writing for the liberal Web site TomPaine.com, 
he says "there's no evidence that [Democratic candidates] 
lost because of a Clinton visit, and lots of evidence that 
they lost for entirely different reasons." 

The truth lies closer to Mr. Fineman's view than to Mr. 
Blow's. Conservatives who say the election was a 
repudiation of Bill or Hillary Clinton are overreaching, 
but Mr. Blow and others are also stretching a point when 
they cite victories by several candidates Mr. Clinton 
campaigned for. 

The ex-president did stump for Jennifer Granholm, who was 
elected Michigan's first female governor. But she won by 
only three percentage points, a much smaller margin than 
any poll forecast. Similarly, Arkansas Attorney General 
Mark Pryor, the only Democrat to defeat a GOP Senate 
incumbent, did finally allow himself to appear with his 
state's most well known political figure at a small rally 
in Pine Bluff in late October. But the Memphis Commercial-
Appeal noted that "Pryor has previously shunned campaign 
appearances with Clinton in the former president's visits 
to his home state this year."

Surely Mr. Pryor's reluctance was prompted by something 
other than scheduling problems.

Where Mr. Clinton was a clear benefit to Democrats was in 
fund-raising. He and Mrs. Clinton are the party's most 
sought-after speakers at gatherings where cash is separated 
from Democratic donors. "He's always been a good provider," 
Rep. Gary Ackerman of New York once told me. But he 
acknowledged that Mr. Clinton had to be selectively used on 
the campaign trail for fear of alienating independent 
voters or stimulating GOP turnout.

Contrary to Mr. Blow, there is some evidence that Mr. 
Clinton was a liability even where Democrats thought his 
campaign appearances wouldn't be controversial. Hawaii is a 
staunchly Democratic state, having gone for Mr. Clinton by 
19 points in 1992 and 25 points in 1996, and even backing 
Jimmy Carter in 1980 and Michael Dukakis in 1988. But this 
year, the state Democratic Party's 40-year grip on the 
governor's mansion was in jeopardy when Republican Linda 
Lingle, a former mayor of Maui, was tied in the polls with 
Democratic Lt. Gov. Mazie Hirono in late-October. Local 
unions decided to spend $100,000 to fly Mr. Clinton to the 
state in a private jet for a series of get-out-the-vote 
rallies. 

Mr. Clinton arrived in Hawaii on Oct. 29, flying all night 
after attending the infamous "memorial service" in 
Minneapolis for the late Sen. Paul Wellstone. In Hawaii, 
Mr. Clinton made appearances at rallies on all the state's 
major islands: Hawaii, Kauai, Maui and Oahu.

In Honolulu, he appeared at an event that had been marketed 
as a "memorial service" for Rep. Patsy Mink, who died on 
Sept. 28. It was Minnesota writ small: Mr. Clinton used the 
occasion to exhort the crowd to elect a Democratic 
governor. While criticism of the event was not nearly as 
intense as in Minnesota, and it got little national 
attention, many callers to talk shows felt that Mr. 
Clinton's politicking was inappropriate.

At his Kauai rally, Mr. Clinton responded to a heckler who 
yelled out "Liar!" with yet another one of his trademark 
whoppers: "Newt Gingrich once told me, 'I'm sorry we have 
to be so mean to you, but if we fought fairly, we'd lose 
every time.' " Mr. Gingrich says this tale is "completely 
untrue." Does anyone believe that a seasoned politician 
like Mr. Gingrich would have told his chief adversary such 
a thing?

Mr. Clinton drew enthusiastic crowds to his rallies, but
the election results were devastating for the Democrats. 
Ms. Lingle won, 52% to 47%, ending the Democrats' one-party 
monopoly rule of the executive branch. Republicans won 
upset wins in mayoral races in Maui and Kauai, and gained 
seats in the state Senate while losing some ground in the 
state House. 

The Clinton visit played a role in the Democratic defeat. 
Polls showed a sharp turn away from Democrats after Mr. 
Clinton's visit, Democratic pollster Don Clegg told the 
Honolulu Advertiser after the election. Ms. Hirono held a 
slight lead over Ms. Lingle through the Thursday before 
Election Day. Then the polls show an upswing on Friday and 
Saturday for Ms. Lingle. Suddenly, Ms. Hirono was 10 points 
behind. After reviewing the campaigns, Mr. Clegg "concluded 
some undecided voters were troubled by President Clinton's 
visit last week on behalf of Democrats," the Advertiser 
reported.

Of course, many other factors played into the Democrats' 
historic loss in Hawaii. However, you can bet that 
regardless of what Democrats say publicly, they will 
privately be even more selective about deploying Mr. 
Clinton in future campaigns. Leave Mr. Clinton to fund-
raising in small groups of the party faithful. A more 
dignified ex-president, Nobel Peace Prize winner Jimmy 
Carter, may look more appealing to Democratic candidates.