Tag: com

Listen to yourselves sometimes…

Dear Close-Minded Woman that pissed me off this week,

Perception is reality. 22% of the worlds population believes in Islam. It’s the worship of a single deity, with that deity’s word outlined in the Qur’an, and the teachings of a prophet named Mohammed. I could just as easily compare it to the Bible, God, and Moses just like my buddy did, and be quite satisfied in being correct…at least until we get into a more detailed description of the religion.

SO…maybe…just maybe…the next time someone greets you with a blessing you should be gracious enough not to act like someone just put a hex on you.

There is this knee-jerk reaction people have when engaging religions not their own that is usually uninformed, uneducated, and almost purely instinctual…almost fight or flight. That is explainable. The possibility that one may be right and the other wrong triggers a fight or flight reaction, most of the time verbally where a person spouts off whatever they can come up with in a few seconds and hide behind their faith in the argument…or worse. When in reality (personally I think religion is a horrible burden on spirituality, being now a tool for business and politic), they are both mutually destructive to one another and will continue to teach at least a small portion of their congregation that the other is the evil one.

The only end to this was to remove religious rule, and we did it.

What scares me most is that some people actually think that adapting the US government into any degree of Christian theocracy would actually protect us.

Separation of Church and State protects us. It has allowed our country to flourish where many other nations have fallen or been turned over in civil war nightmares. The First Amendment to the United States Constitution provides that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof ….” and Article VI specifies that “no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.”

I completely understand feeling threatened by belief systems other than your own. I actually understand the feeling more than most. I just don’t understand the need to attack others beliefs to justify your own. Disproving someone else’s religion doesn’t make you right, it makes you a judge where none is necessary.

-Tony

NO…I am NOT a Muslim. I just cant stand religious bullies.




I’ll walk away from Facebook for supporting CISPA.

You all know I am incredibly big on freedom of information and the U.S. government really seems to be drinking some cybercrackpot’s kool-aid again. Because here we are again and it hasnt even been a year.

As it happens, the next incarnation of SOPA, called CISPA (the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act) is slowly creeping up on Capitol Hill.

…and once again, only a fraction of the proposed legislation has the interests of the American people behind it.

The rest of that legislation is geared toward holding companies blameless and granting them permission to submit personal data to the government without court order. This includes texts, email, private messages via social media…essentially most of the communications mediums we use privately are now suddenly available to the big business to use.

The Young Turks presented a very good explanation of the legislation and point out some incredibly important details that you should be aware of.

http://cyberspying.eff.org/

If you want to read an overabundance of views and peoples’ reactions and opinions on the matter, I STRONGLY suggest you check out The Debate Club because of the raw amount of information present. I will also point out that for some inexplicable reason the only people promoting this are those representing big business.

Essentially it comes down to this. Facebook doesn’t want to get in trouble for giving the government carte blanc to their information. Neither does Twitter. Now any other corporation. However that’s apparently where that sense of importance ends. As long as they arent held liable for invading our privacy, they simply stop considering it an invasion of privacy.

And thus we come to this little tidbit…

Nothing you say or do online should ever be considered secure, safe, or private. You can take all the precautions you want, but the bottom line is that the government will never back down from making online activity fully trackable and accessible. A worse turn will be it impact this has on free speech. Too many people have been conditioned to fear first and question freedoms after their lost. This legislation will allow companies to attempt to silence individuals without proof or due process.

Lame.

So, that’s basically where I draw the line. I will publish 100% from my blog and own my own information and only promote forums where privacy is respected, not just alluded to.

Here’s my idea. Omit the 60% of the bill that allows private companies to be privy to our information and remove the guarantees of non-liability. I bet these companies work one hell of a lot harder to clean up their content rather than simply saying “not my fault!”

-Tony




Shrooms! (Mushrooms Stuffed Full of Yum)

I’ve been REALLY craptastic about posting to the blog, I know it. No excuses here…luckily this blog was never a part of my livelyhood and the only people to yell at me about it are on twitter (and Amazon – apparently they have some sort of *rule* about their paid authors actually writing…go figure).

Anyhow…it’s time for some really awesome foodstuff, I’ve been coming up with more and more really original recipes lately. I’ve gotten some pretty awesome reviews of my mushrooms, straight out of Tony’s Kitchen!

Real Simple.

So Simple this almost isn’t a real blog post, but here it goes.

INGREDIENTS

Fresh white (champaign) Mushrooms - Stuffed Mushrooms - Tonytown.comMushrooms (8-16oz)
These are those regular white mushrooms you find int the produce areas of the grocery store, you can find better ones if you really want to go all the way, and if you really want to impress your favorite vegetarian, you can opt to go with portabellas and top them with the stuffing, tastes frickin AWESOME.



Black and Green Olives - Stuffed Mushrooms - Tonytown.comBlack Olives (6oz)
If you want cheap and fast, just get black minced olives in a can. If you prefer fresher (I do – always) find yourself a decent olive bar (usually only found in decent grocery stores) and get your fill. Be prepared to pay far too much for fresh olives though..it’s almost silly.



A fresh white onion - Stuffed Mushrooms - Tonytown.com1 Large White Onion (6-10ounces at least)
Green onion really won’t work too well in this, and purple onions don’t mince as well, as I like, so I usually opt for the white onions on this. I’ve run into a couple people that didn’t like onions, but didn’t even bat an eyelash at chowing down on these stuffed mushrooms, so unless they are allergic, I encourage people to try them before acting like you’re asking them to try castor oil ๐Ÿ˜‰


Balls of Mozzarella Chesse - Stuffed Mushrooms - Tonytown.comMozzarella Cheese (8-16oz)
Finely shredded Moz is awesome. If you get fresher blocks it will make an incredible difference on the taste. If you have a Vegan in the group, you can substitute real Moz for Dairy-Free Mozzarella by Daiya Foods.

PREP

1. Preheat your oven to about 400 degrees (Fahrenheit).

2. Break the stems out of the mushrooms. I usually slice the stems for use in other sauces etc. No use in wasting good ingredients!

3. Mince the onion, the olives and the Moz. If you have a good processor you can mince this all at the same time until you have a fine paste. Otherwise, mince until you are comfy with the consistencies and mix them thoroughly together.

4. Treat the mushrooms like little bowls and you want to fill them up with the mixed stuffing. until they are overflowing by about 1/8 of an inch.

5. Place the mushrooms in a non-stick roasting pan. You only need to give them about a half inch space between so you should be able to fit quite a few in the pan.

COOKINS

Place the pan full of goodness into the preheated oven, and set your timer for 25 minutes.

NOTES
1. If you like your mushrooms’ texture to be more steamed than baked, you can easily pour a thin layer of water into the bottom of the roasting pan. About 1/4-3/8 of an inch of water will serve to effectively give you more juicy mushrooms.
2. If you opt for the Vegan Friendly version, please note that the Dairy-Free Mozzarella by Daiya Foods takes longer to melt so you may have to leave the Shrooms in the oven a bit longer. ๐Ÿ˜‰