Month: February 2021

Finnish Pecan Balls

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Winter has fully set in here in flyover country and we are in the midst of our first and hopefully only polar vortex of the season. This gives plenty of inside time, and time for me to dive into my grandmother’s recipe box.

Today we have Finnish Pecan Balls. I have no idea why the are Finnish, and honestly didn’t know what I was getting into when I started this one. When they were finished I said to myself “oh thooooose” when I realized that these where the dry, crumbly, sugary, tasty things that were on every single Christmas cookie platter I had ever seen since I was a wee lad.

1/2 lb. butter
4 tbsp sugar
2 cups pastry flour (I used regular flour and it worked just fine)
1 tbsp vanilla
2 cup pecans cut coarse (I used almonds as my spousal unit overbought and they turned out great)

Cream butter and sugar. Add flour, vanilla and nuts. Roll in hands size of butter balls (I went around an inch to an inch and a half). Bake 15 to 20 minutes in hot oven (come on grandma). I went 18 minutes at 350. Roll in powdered sugar while hot. Makes 3 doz.

I ended up with 29. Super easy and delicious. Have a napkin handy or eat over garbage can.

First, clear the stage for a one party state

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In August, I posted an old Firing Line with Richard Pipes. Before Buckley and Pipes discussed particulars, Kinsley summed up Pipes’ argument that the Russian revolution was arguably the most important event of the 20th century, setting a pattern copied by Hitler, Mao, etc. and unfortunately etc. First, clear the stage for a one party state, then give omnipotent power within the state to the political police, and finally enforce that power with deadly terror and “re-education” camps.

Now, a couple of elections and more months of Covid, we seem farther down the path. The “political police” with help from the tech giants have made almost everything political and then started pruning, “cancelling.” Standing our military down to facilitate self-inspection and self-awareness training, fear-mongering about white nationalist extremists all intensify “white fragility” courses. The mainstream news celebrates the appropriateness of Biden’s speech at the Prayer Breakfast, but to others his speech of dark times and enemies within is worrisome. By “within,” despite the occasion, he didn’t mean ever present temptation but rather the “other” – white nationalist insurrectionists. Re-education for that “other,” re-education in the 1619 project, in federal fragility workshops, and now, the military, standing down to spend time in self-flagellation.

Tight-knit associations of family or interests or faiths keep total politicization at bay as does our tradition, “Don’t tread on me” flags remain in many homes. Independence is stronger in red states. Still. That televised discussion from decades ago moved in the back of my head this fall: the election came, Covid waxed and waned, and I wondered if Republicans could ever win elections with new rules, new states, new judges. We were, it is clear, the brush to be cleared away and not the ruler in the one-party state. My fears may be hyperbolic. I hope and in my calmer moments think so. But then we need frustrate the Democrat’s dream.

And that means, as some of the sharper knives in the Congressional drawer have noted, making election laws clear and just.

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The Cat Who Reformed

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We inherited her from my mother – the last in a series of pedigreed ‘apple-head’ Siamese cats owned by my parents – when Mom fell catastrophically one morning in the kitchen of her house in Valley Center, California, and fractured sufficient bones in her upper spine to render her essentially a paraplegic. The house which Mom and Dad had built (the second on that site in Northern San Diego County), in which Mom had lived alone after Dad passed in 2010, had to be sold. There was practically nothing left of the original family relics, after the first house burned in the Paradise Mountain Fire in 2003, so all the furnishings went without a pang of regret from us. Ancestral bits and scraps which meant anything to us all had already been parceled out before the fire anyway.

But that left Mom’s pets; the dogs, which went to my sister Pip – and two cats, Davy and Isabelle, whom my daughter obediently hauled back to Texas from California. Davy was a stray, a bridle and white specimen, fairly elderly at the time when we took him in. He had been dumped in Mom and Dad’s remote neighborhood, escaped being eaten by coyotes, and scraped sufficient acquaintance with Mom and Dad and their next nearest neighbors to be considered for addition to either household. There may have been a coin-toss involved. Anyway, Davy was added to Mom and Dad’s pet collection – I don’t know whether they won or lost the coin-toss. Davy, having remembered starvation and escape/evasion was determined never to be hungry again, and was a hefty chunk-o-cat by the time he passed away of natural old age a year or so ago.

But this is about the other cat-inheritance, Isabelle.

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Have we ever seen anything like the Biden administration and China?

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The Roosevelt administration was significantly infiltrated with Soviet spies. Harry Dexter White was assistant Secretary of the Treasury and played an important role in the Bretton Woods Conference.

After the war, White was closely involved with setting up what were called the Bretton Woods institutions—the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank. These institutions were intended to prevent some of the economic problems that had occurred after World War I. As late as November 1945, White continued to argue for improved relations with the Soviet Union.[21] White later became a director and U.S. representative of the IMF. On June 19, 1947, White abruptly resigned from the International Monetary Fund, vacating his office the same day.

The Wikipedia article is quite defensive about White’s role vis a vis the Soviet Union.

This codename was confirmed by the notes of KGB archivist Vasili Nikitich Mitrokhin, in which six key Soviet agents are named. Harry Dexter White is listed as being first “KASSIR” and later “JURIST”.[65]

Another example of White acting as an agent of influence for the Soviet Union was his obstruction of a proposed $200 million loan to Nationalist China in 1943, which he had been officially instructed to execute,[66] at a time when inflation was spiraling out of control.[67]

Other Venona decrypts revealed further damaging evidence against White, including White’s suggestions on how to meet and pass information on to his Soviet handler. Venona Document #71 contains decryptions of White’s discussions on being paid for his work for the Soviet Union

The Venona transcripts make it clear that White was a Soviet asset.

What of Biden? We have the Hunter Biden laptop revelations, which have been largely suppressed. Hunter was paid millions by China, even though he is an addict and weak link to his father. Other Biden family members are deeply corrupt in other areas.

Biden appointees are pro China if anything. and a significant matter.

Biden’s appointees won’t be weak on China, they will be pro-China. The geopolitical implications of Biden coming to office are going to have long-term repercussions. Even before the election China was threatening the US military, crossing the sea boundary into Taiwan’s territory with invasion forces 2-3 times each week, threatening other neighbors, attacking diplomats of other countries, and attempting to destroy Australia’s economy. Given Pres. Trump’s opposition to Chinese communist bullying of other countries vs. Biden’s pro-China stance, it was understandable that China has supported Biden from the beginning. Having worked in several countries neighbors to China, I can say that many people overseas are not happy with the idea of Biden as president.

China is not shy about asserting its opinion

February 2021 reprises a red-line drama, not yet as tragedy and not as farce but definitely as a threat to world peace. The repetition tests the will of President Joe Biden’s administration to defend American security and a common-sense understanding of human freedom.

On Feb. 1, communist China’s top foreign policy guru, Yang Jiechi, gave a speech to a virtual audience hosted by the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations.

Yang reportedly told his audience, “The United States should stop interfering in Hong Kong, Tibet, Xinjiang” — western China where Uighurs live — “and other issues.” Yang said these three regions are Chinese “internal affairs.”

Then Yang added the most nuanced phrase: “They” — the so-called internal affairs — “constitute a red line that must not be crossed. Any trespassing would end up undermining China-U.S. relations, and the United States’ own interests.”

“Red line” meaning China’s rules.

What is behind this ?

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