So now we’ve eliminated a few hundred billion of spending on missile defense shields that don’t work. There’s a reason we called ballistic missile defense “Star Wars” back in the 1980s: it’s never been more than science fiction. At least Newsweek is getting it right – it may look good on a TV news graphic, but that’s not the same as working in the Real World.

I’m glad that President Obama has the courage to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the the real war fighters in the Pentagon against the chicken hawks of Congress and the right wing media.

Somewhere along the line the general public bought into the notion that war is profitable on a national level. It’s like the economic “broken window fallacy” – everyone profits from a broken window, since it makes work for the window repairer and draws attention to the victim, possibly improving the victim’s own business. In fact, the money spent paying for the broken window (or the pork barrel defense spending) is less money spent paying for productive economic activity (or paying down debt).

The economy never could afford to give the Pentagon a bottomless piggy bank. We tried to do it during the Reagan era and ran up record deficits. We did the same thing during Bush II, and now we’re paying for it, in addition to paying for careless, unregulated speculation on Wall Street.

One side effect in Gulf War II was that we spent extra money hiring mercenaries instead of increasing the size of our military forces. This dramatically increases costs while putting our defense in the hands of high-priced and poorly managed “contractors.” The focus on mercenaries (oops, I should say “contractors”) reduced the pressure on military personnel, since that’s been a political hot button. On the other hand, it introduced us to the hideous circus of trusting these unreliable and unaccountable contractors to defend our embassies and interrogate suspects. Boy, has that been a failure.

We had a salad like this at the St. Paul Hotel many years ago, and Lesley created her own version at home. She has substituted fat free Rasberry dressing nicely.

• 1 package fresh spinach – washed, stemmed
• 1 quart strawberries,  stemmed, washed and halved
• 1 wedge brie cheese (approx 4 inch wide)  ? 8 oz. cut into 3/4 inch pieces

Raspberry vinaigrette:

• 1/2 cup olive oil
• 1 cup rasberry vinegar
• 1 T dijon mustard
• 1 clove garlic,  minced
• black pepper to taste
• 1 T. poppyseeds
• 2 T. raspberry jam

Whisk ingredients of vinaigrette together.

Mix the salad ingredients and toss with the dressing.

Mix ingredients for salad toss with dressing.

This work by Lesley Atwood is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License.

This originated with our friend Joanne Luciano. We’ve modified it a bit over the years and it’s now one of Lesley’s signature dishes.

• 1 frying chicken cut up (1.5 lbs.) boiled, skinned, and meat off bone and shredded(hacked)

Marinade:

• • 4 T soy sauce(at least)
  • 1 tsp minced ginger
  • 1 T minced garlic
  • 2 T crunchy peanut butter (or more)
  • 1 T Hot red pepper oil (or Chili paste with garlic)
  • 2 T vinegar(at least)
  • 1/2 tsp bl pepper
  • 1 tsp sugar
  • 1 T sesame oil (chinese dark sesame oil)

• 1 large bunch scallions cut 2″ pieces, then shredded to match the chicken

Mix marinade and adjust the taste – it will taste hotter (spicier) than it tastes when mixed with the chicken.

Arrange the scallions on plate, arrange the chicken atop the scallions, and pour sauce over the chicken.

Note:  Sliced cucumber is also good with this. I have made this a holiday pot luck dish by putting the scallions in a tree or wreath shape and  decorating with pieces of red bell pepper etc.

In a moment of hyperbole, Karl Rove claimed that Wasilla is the second largest city in Alaska. This seems unlikely – Anchorage and Juneau, the state capital, should both be substantially larger. In fact, there are only a few thousand people in Wasilla. The popular statistic of 9,000 could even be an overstatement, since city estimates are in fact less.

Wasilla does, however, provide a bit of perspective on the “bridge to nowhere” argument in Congress a few years back. Wasilla is said to be about an hour from Anchorage, though it’s much closer ‘as the crow flies.’ The “Knick Arm” off of the Cook Inlet provides a water barrier between Anchorage and various destinations.The cabin we visited was perhaps 10 miles from Anchorage, but the short trip involved crossing the mile-wide Arm. And in fact, the land across from Anchorage is undeveloped wilderness with a scattering of tiny settlements. Nonetheless, there’s a Knick Arm Bridge Authority that’s been trying to find money to build a bridge. Recent estimates suggest the bridge will cost at least $1.5 billion.

Here’s a map of the area with the cabin:

The map actually comes from an interesting sign that appears in another post.

The Little Susitna River flows into the Knick Arm (bottom of map), and Anchorage is across the Arm (about where the “Port” appears in the lower right). The mighty metropolis of Wasilla is off the map to the upper right. This whole area is essentially wilderness. The Little Susitna is a good place to fish for Alaskan salmon, and in fact that’s where Biscuit caught her salmon:

Getting back to the VP…

An article in The Economist last week reported that as mayor of tiny Wasilla, Sarah Palin made annual, official visits to Washington, DC, in search of government funding. Our city is over twice as large, and I doubt our mayor has ever made an official visit to DC. I expect he’s made a few official visits to St. Paul, but he works there.

On some level, it’s nice to think that any citizen could serve as the American President in a pinch. But is that realistic? We had a Wrestler-In-Chief for governor here and I can’t say it was good for the state. If anything, it ushered in the period of budget cutting that has led to overcrowded classrooms and collapsing bridges.

There is no way to predict what the former Mayor of Wasilla would do in an international crisis. We haven’t even been able to see her run a major election campaign, since she’s a latecomer to this election.