Questions...

I haven't written any main posts for a couple of days and did a lot of thinking about the blog during this break. My original idea was to start campaigning for Obama as soon as Sarah Palin made her announcement about not running. I would have turned Palingates into a satire blog, with Sarah Palin as Obama's most enthusiastic cheerleader.

But after a couple of days away, I realized that I have reached my limit and that I can't be a slave to the computer anymore. Following Sarah Palin in recent months wasn't the most arduous of tasks, the posts wrote themselves. If I tried to turn my attentions to Obama, it would be a very different ball game, as I would have to spend much more of my time doing research about him than I did about Sarah Palin. There are many excellent blogs covering general politics and they do a better job of it than I could ever hope to achieve.

Another added factor is that our Billy is coming back from Australia in a couple of weeks. We haven't seen him in two years, so I doubt I would find the time to write many in-depth posts about anything in the coming weeks.

I would love to continue posting the daily open threads, though. I enjoy them too much! They would give the community their usual meeting place and you could still send in your contributions, exchange views, ideas and links, discuss politics or whatever took your fancy.

After two and a half years of a daily dose of Sarah Palin, I'm more than ready to take a breather from the topic. I'll continue to follow the events and if anything worth commenting comes up, I'll write a post, but I simply can't find the energy to do it on a daily basis anymore.

Sarah Palin has always been irrelevant because of who she is, because she has nothing important to say, but for three years she was a dangerous irrelevance. Now that the immediate threat has passed, I think I've earned a bit of downtime.

That's how I feel at this very moment, but you never know, I may miss it too much, make a full comeback and resume business as usual, especially if Sarah Palin proves to be too much of a nuisance, albeit without a "title."

Please let me know how you feel about having only the open threads. Would you find Palingates still worthwhile? Would you continue to visit and have a chat? Do you think Palingates has run its course? If you decide* you don't want a blog without the regular "meat" I'll call it a day. I would miss the community, but I wouldn't miss Sarah Palin, that's for sure!

[*I would not delete the blog, it would stay as it is and become a reference blog, with all the Palingates and other resources intact.]

Here's a bonus photo, she looks really hot:

Open Thread - Sunday

Hey Linda1961, this is for you!

Open Thread - Saturday

Today is Peter's birthday (that's why I've been busy these the past few days). We're having a birthday lunch tomorrow (we had to wait for some friends to return from a trip to Barcelona) and I had to plan and shop for it. The menu won't include his favourite dish because it's too hot for most tastes, but the least I can do is share the recipe, courtesy of Jamie Oliver:

CHICKEN MADRAS

Ingredients

* 4 chicken breasts
* 2 large onions
* 4 cloves of garlic
* 1 jar of tomato puree
* 3 teaspoons of garam masala
* 2 teaspoons of ground cayenne pepper
* 1 teaspoon of ground cumin
* 1 teaspoon of ground turmeric
* 8 cardamom pods
* 1/2 teaspoon of ground ginger
* 1/2 teaspoon of ground coriander
* juice of 1/2 a lemon

Directions

1. Find a large saucepan or frying pan which has a lid. Place on a medium heat and add a liberal amount of cooking oil and then when at temperature add the two onions finely chopped, cook the onions for a couple of minutes until they start to brown slightly.

2. Now add the garlic (finely chopped), ground Cayenne pepper and Garam masala and stir for 2 to 3 minutes.

3. Now add the ground cumin, ground turmeric, ground ginger and ground coriander and stir in for about 30 seconds.

4. Add the diced chicken and stir until the chicken is cooked through.

5. Now add the tomato puree which you will have diluted down 1:1 with water and the seeds from the 8 cardommon pods, stir and then lower the heat and place a lid on the saucepan. Simmer for 30 minutes stirring occasionaly (if the sauce starts to stick to the pan add some water)

6. After 30 minutes remove the lid and squeeze the juice of half a lemon into the pan along with a pinch of salt, stir and let simmer uncovered for 10 to 15 minutes.

7. Serve

Hot curries are best accompanied by a nicely chilled Indian beer:

But as we're in France and won't be having curry, Peter's favourite wine will be served:

Finally, here's one of his favourite songs:



Happy birthday, pet. I love you heaps.

Sarah Palin, taking the money and...

Reader Meena asked me to post a couple of videos. I'm happy to oblige. The discussion about Sarah Palin taking the money and running (not for president) is fascinating.

The Colbert Report
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The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
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Open Thread - Friday

There are women who really lead remarkable lives... (unlike a certain manufactured last frontier myth)

From the UK Daily Mail:

From the birdseye vantage of her helicopter, police pilot Kathryn Chapman saw disaster unfolding. An abandoned car sat on a level crossing with police chasing the driver on foot while a passenger train hurtled towards the vehicle at 50mph.

Then, in a scene that could have come from a Hollywood movie, Mrs Chapman swooped to the rescue.

Flying at three times the speed of the train, she dropped to little more than 60ft above the ground and managed to get ‘ahead and just above’ it.

She signalled to the driver to stop by swinging the aircraft round to face the train and flashing the landing lights. Realising there was an emergency, the driver slammed on the brakes and brought the train to a halt just 30 yards from the crossing.

Mrs Chapman knew exactly what to do because she was also a qualified train driver and briefly had a job driving the same type of train four years ago. This meant she knew what signals to use to get the driver to stop.

Yesterday the mother-of-two, 51, said: ‘My stomach churned a little bit when I looked across and saw the train heading towards the vehicle and the officers on the line. It was probably less than a mile away and there was no time to spare.’

The pilot, who is also a Royal Navy Gulf War veteran, estimated the train was travelling at around 50mph before she intervened and the helicopter swooped down at around 150mph to catch up.