One Less Axis of Evil State?

North Korea to Close Reactor in Exchange for Raft of Aid

The NYT headline lacks gravitas, in my opinion. Gave me a mental image of rafts of food and fuel be floated over to North Korea.

Anyway...

The partner nations agreed to provide roughly $400 million in various kinds of aid in return for the North starting a permanent disabling of its nuclear facilities and allowing inspectors into the country.

Perhaps equally important, the United States and Japan agreed to discuss normalizing relations with Pyongyang. The United States will begin the process of removing North Korea from its designation as a terror-sponsoring state and also on ending U.S. trade and financial sanctions.

Among the negotiators, Japan did not agree to the aid package, however, saying it first needs to work out further bilateral issues regarding abductions by the North.

The accord sets a 60-day deadline for North Korea to accomplish the first steps toward disarmament, and leaves until an undefined moment — and to another negotiation — the actual removal of North Korea's nuclear weapons and the fuel manufactured to produce them.

Under the agreement, the first part of the aid -- 50,000 tons of fuel oil, or an equivalent value of economic or humanitarian aid -- would be provided by South Korea, Russia, China and the United States; in the case of the United States, that would require congressional approval, which is likely to be difficult to get.

For disabling the reactor and declaring all nuclear programs, the North will eventually receive another 950,000 tons in aid. Further negotiations are to begin on March 19 in Beijing.

I've got my fingers crossed. I hope it works.

But North Korea has sidestepped previous agreements, and is thought to have many mountainside tunnels where it can hide projects.

It's the first time I'll give props to the Bush Administration. Negotiation over annihilation is a good thing boys. Now work on fixing the nightmare you've created in Iraq.

~ ~ ~

We're waiting for the storm currently blanketing the mid-West to arrive on the East Coast. Some fool weather-person will give the storm a name no doubt. Maybe if the National Weather Center didn't issue its warning in all caps people wouldn't get all worked up:

/O.NEW.KOKX.WS.W.0001.070213T2300Z- 070215T0300Z/ NORTHERN FAIRFIELD- 503 AM EST TUE FEB 13 2007

...WINTER STORM WARNING IN EFFECT FROM 6 PM THIS EVENING TO 10 PM EST WEDNESDAY...

THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN UPTON HAS ISSUED A WINTER STORM WARNING... WHICH IS IN EFFECT FROM 6 PM THIS EVENING TO 10 PM EST WEDNESDAY.

LIGHT SNOW IS EXPECTED TO BEGIN LATE THIS AFTERNOON...BECOMING STEADIER AND HEAVIER TONIGHT. AS WARMER AIR MOVES INTO THE REGION WEDNESDAY...THE SNOW WILL LIKELY MIX WITH SLEET DURING THE DAY...POSSIBLY CHANGING ENTIRELY TO SLEET OR FREEZING RAIN FOR A BRIEF PERIOD OF TIME. AS THE STORM MOVES TO THE NORTHEAST LATE WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON AND COLDER AIR FLOWS BACK INTO THE AREA...THE PRECIPITATION WILL CHANGE BACK TO ALL SNOW BEFORE TAPERING OFF AND ENDING WEDNESDAY NIGHT. TOTAL SNOW AND SLEET ACCUMULATIONS BY THE TIME THE PRECIPITATION ENDS COULD RANGE FROM 8 TO 14 INCHES...WITH ABOUT A TENTH OF AN INCH OF ICE ACCRETION POSSIBLE DURING PERIODS OF FREEZING RAIN.

THERE CONTINUES TO BE SOME UNCERTAINTY AS TO THE EXACT TRACK OF THE LOW... WHICH WILL HAVE AN IMPACT ON PRECIPITATION TYPE AND SNOW AMOUNTS.

A WINTER STORM WARNING MEANS SIGNIFICANT AMOUNTS OF SNOW... SLEET... AND ICE ARE EXPECTED OR OCCURRING. STRONG WINDS ARE ALSO POSSIBLE. THIS WILL MAKE TRAVEL VERY HAZARDOUS OR IMPOSSIBLE.

Looks really bad, doesn't it? I have to admit ice is not my idea of a good time but snow really isn't an issue. The YaYa's Valentine's dinner maybe in jeopardy, however. We'll just have to wait and see.

~ ~ ~

Because deep inside of me lurks a seven year old boy.

Happy Groundhog's Day

Did the rodent see his shadow? We've got flurries today, so I'm guessing our resident CT groundhog, whose name I never remember, isn't seeing his shadow and we've got six more weeks of winter on tap.

Surprised? No, me neither.

But that's not what I'm on about today. Today is about Valentine's Day.




I hate, loathe, despise Valentine's Day. Stupid, stupid day. People getting all worked up over not having someone. Or they get overly pseudohappy about the one they are with. Or being hyper over getting the "right" thing for/or from their "significant other" or spouse or whatever.

Gack!

Bah! Humbug!

I hate the colors red and pink. Stupid colors. I like greens and blues. Soft, soothing, mellow, comfy. Red is so harsh and bold and pink is just... well, icky. Reminds me of Pepto Bismol, which I need in massive quantities just to get through this phony romance season.




Stupid, stupid day. I Hate Valentine's Day.

Want to say I Love You? Then just fuckin' say it and spare me the fake schmaltz and fugly cards, okay?




Anyway...

The Ya Ya's are going out on Valentine's Day. I said I'll only go if I get to throw things, sharp and pointy things, at the Valentiners. The Ya Ya's think I have the wrong attitude about Valentine's Day -- I think it's the rest of the world with the wrong attitude, but, whatever. So, we're going to The Fat Cat Pie Company in SoNo. Google it. It looks like a fun place. I'll be the one throwing things at the snogging patrons.

I Hate Valentine's Day. I once had a guy tell me I was as romantic as athlete's foot. That's the nicest thing a guy's ever said to me.

No, not really. But I still like it.

Peanut Butter Cookies

For YaYa poker night my sister has asked me to bring my infamous heart attack on a plate cookies. I'm cheating and uploading my recipe (and story) from another site I posted it to a while back.

This recipe originally came to me from my maternal grandmother. Back in the day, she mixed this by hand, with a wooden spoon, in the large yellow bowl I inherited from her. The first time I made the recipe by myself I marveled at upper arm strength of that little lady. I couldn't make the dough budge! I needed a electric handmixer, which burned out by the time I got the dough together. As a result, I didn't make these cookies very often. Having to buy a new handmixer everytime I made these cookies made them too expensive.

Three years ago my parents gave me a Kitchen-Aide standmixer for Christmas. I was floored! I couldn't believe they would get me such a cool, and expensive, gift. The first thing I made in that mixer were these cookies. My stepfamily had never had them because they were just too expensive to make. Everyone loved them and they've become a staple of our Christmas cookie baking tradition.

Ingredients:

2 cups shortening
2 cups white sugar
2 cups brown sugar
4 eggs, well beaten
1 jar of peanut butter, 18 ounces **
5 cups flour, well sifted
4 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon of salt
2 teaspoons of vanilla extract

** Find the cheapest peanut butter you can. Generic works well. The brand name peanut butters on the market do not give you enough peanut butter flavor, in my opinion. Organic peanut butters work well, if you don't mind mixing the peanut butter together first. Don't skimp on the vanilla extract. If you can afford it, get the best extract you can find.

Pre-heat your oven to 375 degrees. Line up your baking sheets and, if you have Silpats, line your baking sheets with them. With the amount of fat and oil in this recipe, the cookies don't usually stick to the baking sheets, but using Silpat just makes clean up easier.

In a small bowl, crack your four eggs. Beat them well and then set them aside. In the largest bowl you have (five quarts is just big enough for this recipe) put in the shortening, sugar, peanut butter, extract and then add the eggs. Mix these ingredients together until creamy smooth. In a sifter, place the flour, baking soda and salt; slowly sift in the dry ingredients to the creamy mixture. Sift in about a cup at a time, mixing the dry into the creamy between cups. By the time you get the last cup of dry ingredients into the bowl, you will have either a sore arm or a burned out mixer.

I don't usually chill the dough before I begin baking. The choice is yours. I use a measured tablespoon to place the dough on the baking sheets. They are half round and I then use a fork to flatten them out, making the traditional cross-hatch pattern on the dough. I can get 16 cookies on a baking sheet this way. The entire recipe makes roughly 90 cookies. I say roughly because we eat the raw dough as we go, so I don't know, exactly, how many cookies this recipe is supposed to make. Bake the cookies for 12 to 15 minutes and place on a rack to cool.

If you have a heart condition and eat these cookies, I will not be held responsible.

Art Appreciation Friday

For Art Appreciation Friday I thought I'd share some of my favorite works of Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio.



St. Francis in Ecstasy




The Musicians




Bacchus




The Cardsharps

~ ~ ~

Another YaYa Poker Night tomorrow. Looks like we're only going to have five people this time.

YaYa

Dinner was at the Red Barn last night. We combined Gretchen's birthday with our YaYa night out.

The Red Barn has been around since the Grant administration. Okay, I lie... Truman, possibly. In any event, it's been around for a while. The prices are steep, as in $290 pre-tip for five people with only one bottle of wine. The food is usually excellent and, for the most part, last night was no exception. Their version of chicken marsala, which my sister Gretchen had was... different. Can't quite explain what was so unusual, but that it also didn't work well was a bit of a downer as she was the birthday girl. My stuffed shrimp with pilaf and asparagus was fantastic - I nearly licked the plate - and I hate asparagus!

I'm something of a foodie (oooh looks so dirty, doesn't it?), as my BMI will attest to. This got me to thinking about blogging a list of favorite food blogs (and yeah, I've done this before. Sue me.):

Chezpim: makes me pea-green with envy. I want her life. I would weigh 900 pounds, but I would be happy.

dcfud: I now want to eat my way through DC.

Cooking with Amy: recipes, reviews, good looking foodporn - who needs more?

The wine makers wife: her photographs border on the pornographic. Love looking at and reading her site.

Chocolate adn Zucchini: she has a cookbook coming out - give it some loving!

The Food Section: beybeys and food and the occassional snark - a good time!

The girl who ate everything: girl after my own heart.

101 cookbooks: I almost never make any recipe showcased here, but I read this site nearly every day. I should cook more and read less.

As Mercury is retrograde in Scorpio (scandals! election fraud! recount!), I'll confess yet another dirty little secret:

I watch Top Chef.

Yeah, I know... there's something wrong with me. But at least it's not Dancing with the Stars!

Apparently the YaYa's are huge fans of this insanity. Dancing with the Stars now has some sort of road-trip thing and their "Stars" are coming to our area early next year and the YaYa's want me to go. A YaYa trip, they say.

Kill.

Me.

Now.

The YaYa's are not happy that I picked on their choice of reality television so in good old sisterly fashion Gret just had to let out my deep, dark, sorted secret:

"Well you watch Top Chef!"

Silence descended. It was painful. I wanted to hide. But, in my usual fuck you fashion I sallied forth with a brilliant retort:

Yeah, so?!

Yes, I'm five. But my sister's four! And, and, and... she chews her hair!

So there.