Some days I am in a flat spin and when I collect the milk and bread at my local P&P I grab a roasted chicken, for the price of R24 odd you get a chicken of reasonable size all cooked and quite tasty. I can't cook one for that price quite frankly!
Now after one or two of these days one collects a few odd chicken leftovers... what to do? what to do?
I came up with this bashed together recipe...
Bashed Chicken Leftovers.
Pre heat oven to 250/300 C
Ingredients:
Chicken leftovers or one whole chicken pre cooked/roasted.
Packet of bacon
3 med. potatoes
4/5 tomatoes or a can of tomatoes
Packet veggie soup.
Veggie seasoning/sprinkle.
Method:
Slice and dice the bacon and chicken, place in seperate bowls.
Peel and slice potatoes into rounds about 6mm thick.
Peel tomatoes with boiling water and dice.
Place a layer of potatoes on the bottom of a casserole, followed by chicken then bacon then tomato and do it again, sprinkling veggie sasoning over the potato and tomato layers.
Mix the veggie soup with 250 ml water and pour over the top and stick the covered casserole in the oven... as soon as you get the smell of the bacon reduce heat to 200C for another 30 min. by then it should be done with the potatoes firm but soft.
Serve with a tossed salad.
Sunday, August 13, 2006
Saturday, August 12, 2006
This is what a Rally car should look like...
This is Gugu Zulu's car after final controll at the Windmill Casino in Bloemfontein... his was the dirtiest car and one of the last finishers of 25 out of the field of 45 entries in this years Osram Rally!
The Subaru of Salie du Toit and Gert Janse van Rensburg, Number 68 was left in the veld as a burnt out hulk after pulling off with a flat... ingnoring rule 2 of rallying (Never pull off in long grass.) can be terminal! Fortunately the occupants were able to tell the tale of woe afterwards.
Dave Ledbitter one of the photgraphers from Motorpics had two narrow shaves as well, first narrowly missing the signboards at a T junction and then getting tattered and torn when he and a barbed wire fence were taken out by one of the competitors who had a brake pedal failure! His clothes looked like a tramp's after this... Here is Klaas Geswindt dashing off to find the next spot for photos... More on the fence episode and the rally at Rally Star. Picture from Motorpics site. 
This is the winning Polo of Jan Habig and Douglas Judd. Scarcly dirty... I suppose being lead car has it's advantages!
I had the honour of being asked to assist on the Scrutineering team.
To Fred Vroomen and the other organisers I want to say job well done! It was great fun and I will be there to assist again next year! Hopefully I will be able to go out on the route as well as an observer.
I missed the Bloemfontein Air Show at Tempe Airfield though... but the Sasol Tigers made a pass at the final controll... although I did not get such a good picture... check the two L29's in close formation at the top of the picture.Friday, August 11, 2006
Amaizing...
Maize maze a hit down on the farm
This can only be fun and seems like it turned into quite a cash crop on it's own!
This can only be fun and seems like it turned into quite a cash crop on it's own!
Sunday, August 06, 2006
The opponent Ishmael
I think this needs to be said in toto, I hope Avi Schneider and YNet do not mind me putting this excellent peice up here as well...
"The difficulty in confronting Ishmael lies first in the tendency to underestimate him. A unique look at the Torah’s blueprint for fighting Hizbullah and Hamas" Avi Schneider
"From the dawn of Jewish history, the Bible understood what it was that would make Ishmael the most persistent and dangerous rival for the Land of Israel the Jews would ever have. It was not Ishmael’s willingness to wage all-out war. It was his refusal to do so.
The opponent Ishmael is not what you would normally call “passive” in the traditional sense of the word. In the Bible he is even described as “wild”. Yet wild as he may have been, it doesn’t change his “passivity” as far as combat is concerned. He is passive in that his attacks, taken individually, are fleeting, without great substance.
In the Bible, Ishmael never commits himself to take a solid stance against his more committed brother, Isaac, the future Jewish Patriarch. So his attacks lack the gravity of an existential threat. However, they prove to be bothersome enough to infringe upon Isaac’s development.
Such an opponent is dangerous because if he is not dealt with early you will see an accumulation of damage over time. After a long period of allowing Ishmael to play his game you will look back and find that he has impeded your progress to a surprising degree and that you are far behind where you thought you’d be.
The tendency to underestimate the enemy
The difficulty in confronting Ishmael lies first in the tendency to underestimate him. Given that his attacks lack real substance, you may not feel it’s not worth spending the time and energy to stop them. Even if you do decide to take action it cannot be a long drawn out donnybrook for which many people feel obliged to prepare at length whenever they anticipate conflict.
The very character trait which prevents Ishmael’s attacks from being lethal also prevents an elaborate, powerful counterattack from being leveled at him; by the time you establish a strong basis for launching an attack, Ishmael has already uprooted himself and moved to another area from which to renew his harassment.
Ishmael’s strategy, in other words, is that of guerrilla warfare. Generally a guerrilla war is conducted by a small, ill-equipped force against a far larger and more powerful one. The guerrilla understands or rather believes he would be no match for such an opponent in a face-to-face battle so he aims to harass him instead. But this approach has serious deficiencies which we will soon delineate.
The guerrilla strategy is predicated on the calculation that the larger opponent will never decide that it is worth committing the necessary energy to seek and destroy the guerrilla for good. This apathy will allow the guerrilla to slowly wear his larger opponent down over time to the point where the larger opponent will come to believe he lacks the ability to stop the harassment and he will, sooner or later, give up. This guerrilla strategy requires a buffer between the guerilla and the opponent. Face to face, the guerrilla applying his strategy will surely lose. He needs space to maneuver from target to target.
The passive fighter
In martial arts, for the “passive” fighter, this lack of commitment translates as distance. It means the passive fighter, at any given time, has multiple options for an attack and if one avenue seems too well defended he can immediately shift to another. Keeping distance and not taking the time to gather significant energy/substance for each blow affords him greater speed for shifting his orientation.
This form of attack, this guerrilla threat, is one of restraining. And that is the Opponent Ishmael’s ultimate goal. Ishmael doesn’t need to defeat you with a knockout blow. Instead he needs only to harass you and thereby keep you at bay long enough for you to see your goals pass you by. This is the major mistake people make when fighting an Ishmael-like opponent.
You might feel it is not worth the effort. You might feel that fighting him is even questionable from a moral standpoint; after all, he is weaker and his attacks - you’ve convinced yourself - are not existentially threatening. Ishmael, on the other hand, is relying on the slow deterioration of your deterrent capacity (and in particular your will to deter him) leading to your total defeat.
Therefore even one goal lost to this type of opponent, one harassment that goes unanswered, should be considered unacceptable.
The solution
There's a need to attack this opponent spontaneously, ferociously and continuously with a mind toward random attacks aimed at multiple targets. Here it is quantity that is key with the aim of overwhelming your opponent, as apposed to more focused, surgical attacks on designated weak points.
The reason being: Ishmael’s lack of commitment. This is his true weak point. His refusal and/or inability to commit, to take a stand, his lack of discipline, in other words his lack of precisely those characteristics required repelling a continuing and random barrage, is what will leave him helpless before it.
Ishmael’s most prized asset – elusiveness - becomes ineffectual when he is no longer at leisure to choose the timing and ever-shifting targets of his harassing attacks so as to inflict just enough damage to avoid a severe response and to be able to retreat in time to avoid whatever response might be forthcoming.
Keeping his distance allowed Ishmael to see the big picture and know when his target was too busy to respond to minor attacks or too far off in a different direction to respond in time. A nonspecific barrage of threats to multiple targets on Ishmael thereby negates his ability to calculate.
If executed with the proper amount of ferocity and consistently leveled against Ishmael with no respite, such attacks will eventually force him to scrutinize his convictions and decide whether he truly is willing to sacrifice for them. In other words you force him to either take a stand or yield.
At this point, for Ishmael to defend himself, he will have to both find the confidence to stand against you and invest what it takes to oppose you, two things he is unlikely to find and do.
Adapt relevant strategy
So, if he does yield, you win. If, on the other hand he takes a stand, if he somehow finds the confidence and commits the energy needed to try to oppose you, than you have destroyed the characteristics that make Ishmael who he is along with his repetitive small scale attacks and everything else that accompanies an Ishmael opponent. You now face a different personality on the passive aggressive scale and your strategy must adapt accordingly.
Either way the Opponent Ishmael is destroyed.
Historically, both terrorists and genuine guerillas have employed Ishmael-like tactics. But there is a difference between the two. Terrorists specifically target noncombatants. Guerrillas do not. This is a night and day difference and should be clear to any civilized and mentally fit human being.
Unfortunately, today too many people get caught in the trap of feeling it is morally incorrect to apply the proper vigor to defeat terrorist opponents and instead invest their energy in cataloguing grievances and dissatisfactions that might justify the terrorists’ behavior. In our view this approach is both dangerously negligent and morally devoid of all merit."
Avraham Schneider is the author of the forthcoming book, Social Combat Theory, a Unique Conflict Management Tool for Business Professionals and a blackbelt candidate in Tora Dojo. He can be reached at Avi_Schneider@yahoo.com
This sums up what I recently posted on the e-mail group I belong to, got shot down by some but maybe they will start thinking... here is my view;
"Coming back to extremism...
Yes I am an extremist when it comes to war... war is not engaged lightly and as such should not be fought lightly as we in the west have tended to do since WW2, it is always "what will the press say" or "what will the UN" say... war is a fight to the death as far as I am concerned and we in the "west" have become scared to wage war. Negotiation and diplomacy is the way to go about it, untill you see it is too late.
This could become our undoing I fear for the enemy we face at present does not fear death or war or anything else because his "religion" enthrones violence, terror, deciet and mayhem as a means to kill and enslave those that do not wish bow to their way of thinking. The only way to fight this is to eradicate it roots and all...
If anyone does not see this then I wash my hands as I have no other way of opening your eyes to the truth that is happening in all countries of the world."
"The difficulty in confronting Ishmael lies first in the tendency to underestimate him. A unique look at the Torah’s blueprint for fighting Hizbullah and Hamas" Avi Schneider
"From the dawn of Jewish history, the Bible understood what it was that would make Ishmael the most persistent and dangerous rival for the Land of Israel the Jews would ever have. It was not Ishmael’s willingness to wage all-out war. It was his refusal to do so.
The opponent Ishmael is not what you would normally call “passive” in the traditional sense of the word. In the Bible he is even described as “wild”. Yet wild as he may have been, it doesn’t change his “passivity” as far as combat is concerned. He is passive in that his attacks, taken individually, are fleeting, without great substance.
In the Bible, Ishmael never commits himself to take a solid stance against his more committed brother, Isaac, the future Jewish Patriarch. So his attacks lack the gravity of an existential threat. However, they prove to be bothersome enough to infringe upon Isaac’s development.
Such an opponent is dangerous because if he is not dealt with early you will see an accumulation of damage over time. After a long period of allowing Ishmael to play his game you will look back and find that he has impeded your progress to a surprising degree and that you are far behind where you thought you’d be.
The tendency to underestimate the enemy
The difficulty in confronting Ishmael lies first in the tendency to underestimate him. Given that his attacks lack real substance, you may not feel it’s not worth spending the time and energy to stop them. Even if you do decide to take action it cannot be a long drawn out donnybrook for which many people feel obliged to prepare at length whenever they anticipate conflict.
The very character trait which prevents Ishmael’s attacks from being lethal also prevents an elaborate, powerful counterattack from being leveled at him; by the time you establish a strong basis for launching an attack, Ishmael has already uprooted himself and moved to another area from which to renew his harassment.
Ishmael’s strategy, in other words, is that of guerrilla warfare. Generally a guerrilla war is conducted by a small, ill-equipped force against a far larger and more powerful one. The guerrilla understands or rather believes he would be no match for such an opponent in a face-to-face battle so he aims to harass him instead. But this approach has serious deficiencies which we will soon delineate.
The guerrilla strategy is predicated on the calculation that the larger opponent will never decide that it is worth committing the necessary energy to seek and destroy the guerrilla for good. This apathy will allow the guerrilla to slowly wear his larger opponent down over time to the point where the larger opponent will come to believe he lacks the ability to stop the harassment and he will, sooner or later, give up. This guerrilla strategy requires a buffer between the guerilla and the opponent. Face to face, the guerrilla applying his strategy will surely lose. He needs space to maneuver from target to target.
The passive fighter
In martial arts, for the “passive” fighter, this lack of commitment translates as distance. It means the passive fighter, at any given time, has multiple options for an attack and if one avenue seems too well defended he can immediately shift to another. Keeping distance and not taking the time to gather significant energy/substance for each blow affords him greater speed for shifting his orientation.
This form of attack, this guerrilla threat, is one of restraining. And that is the Opponent Ishmael’s ultimate goal. Ishmael doesn’t need to defeat you with a knockout blow. Instead he needs only to harass you and thereby keep you at bay long enough for you to see your goals pass you by. This is the major mistake people make when fighting an Ishmael-like opponent.
You might feel it is not worth the effort. You might feel that fighting him is even questionable from a moral standpoint; after all, he is weaker and his attacks - you’ve convinced yourself - are not existentially threatening. Ishmael, on the other hand, is relying on the slow deterioration of your deterrent capacity (and in particular your will to deter him) leading to your total defeat.
Therefore even one goal lost to this type of opponent, one harassment that goes unanswered, should be considered unacceptable.
The solution
There's a need to attack this opponent spontaneously, ferociously and continuously with a mind toward random attacks aimed at multiple targets. Here it is quantity that is key with the aim of overwhelming your opponent, as apposed to more focused, surgical attacks on designated weak points.
The reason being: Ishmael’s lack of commitment. This is his true weak point. His refusal and/or inability to commit, to take a stand, his lack of discipline, in other words his lack of precisely those characteristics required repelling a continuing and random barrage, is what will leave him helpless before it.
Ishmael’s most prized asset – elusiveness - becomes ineffectual when he is no longer at leisure to choose the timing and ever-shifting targets of his harassing attacks so as to inflict just enough damage to avoid a severe response and to be able to retreat in time to avoid whatever response might be forthcoming.
Keeping his distance allowed Ishmael to see the big picture and know when his target was too busy to respond to minor attacks or too far off in a different direction to respond in time. A nonspecific barrage of threats to multiple targets on Ishmael thereby negates his ability to calculate.
If executed with the proper amount of ferocity and consistently leveled against Ishmael with no respite, such attacks will eventually force him to scrutinize his convictions and decide whether he truly is willing to sacrifice for them. In other words you force him to either take a stand or yield.
At this point, for Ishmael to defend himself, he will have to both find the confidence to stand against you and invest what it takes to oppose you, two things he is unlikely to find and do.
Adapt relevant strategy
So, if he does yield, you win. If, on the other hand he takes a stand, if he somehow finds the confidence and commits the energy needed to try to oppose you, than you have destroyed the characteristics that make Ishmael who he is along with his repetitive small scale attacks and everything else that accompanies an Ishmael opponent. You now face a different personality on the passive aggressive scale and your strategy must adapt accordingly.
Either way the Opponent Ishmael is destroyed.
Historically, both terrorists and genuine guerillas have employed Ishmael-like tactics. But there is a difference between the two. Terrorists specifically target noncombatants. Guerrillas do not. This is a night and day difference and should be clear to any civilized and mentally fit human being.
Unfortunately, today too many people get caught in the trap of feeling it is morally incorrect to apply the proper vigor to defeat terrorist opponents and instead invest their energy in cataloguing grievances and dissatisfactions that might justify the terrorists’ behavior. In our view this approach is both dangerously negligent and morally devoid of all merit."
Avraham Schneider is the author of the forthcoming book, Social Combat Theory, a Unique Conflict Management Tool for Business Professionals and a blackbelt candidate in Tora Dojo. He can be reached at Avi_Schneider@yahoo.com
This sums up what I recently posted on the e-mail group I belong to, got shot down by some but maybe they will start thinking... here is my view;
"Coming back to extremism...
Yes I am an extremist when it comes to war... war is not engaged lightly and as such should not be fought lightly as we in the west have tended to do since WW2, it is always "what will the press say" or "what will the UN" say... war is a fight to the death as far as I am concerned and we in the "west" have become scared to wage war. Negotiation and diplomacy is the way to go about it, untill you see it is too late.
This could become our undoing I fear for the enemy we face at present does not fear death or war or anything else because his "religion" enthrones violence, terror, deciet and mayhem as a means to kill and enslave those that do not wish bow to their way of thinking. The only way to fight this is to eradicate it roots and all...
If anyone does not see this then I wash my hands as I have no other way of opening your eyes to the truth that is happening in all countries of the world."
Saturday, August 05, 2006
Even better if it was a Bike!
| Your Summer Ride is a Jeep |
 For you, summer is all about having no responsibilities. You prefer to hang with old friends - and make some new ones. |
Roll on Summer! This freaking cold is not hot...
Thursday, August 03, 2006
Sam sez it as it is
Everything You Need to Know about Al Qaeda well worth a read. Actually the words should be framed!
Dominee geddalife!
Virgin angels' wings clipped
"The television advertisement, showing a man dying and then returning from heaven to earth because he was still tied to his cellphone contract, upset some Christians deeply because they interpreted it as blasphemous."
It is views like this from some conservatives that get all the rest labled as religous fanatics! We are in the 21'st Century Dominee! Geddalife!
"The television advertisement, showing a man dying and then returning from heaven to earth because he was still tied to his cellphone contract, upset some Christians deeply because they interpreted it as blasphemous."
It is views like this from some conservatives that get all the rest labled as religous fanatics! We are in the 21'st Century Dominee! Geddalife!
White stuff... yuuuuuck
The Man showed us this stuff that was falling outside... it is white, fluffy, cold and wet! I'm staying inside...
We also want to sip coffee and play backgammon.
The article is amazing;
"Today, I am convinced that Israel is fighting a justified war. Far from being an "optional war," this conflict was forced upon us. There is a feeling that every positive step taken in recent years has been answered by punishment. Now we are prepared to do whatever it takes to turn Israel into a safe place, even if this means invading Lebanon once again. We also want to sip coffee and play backgammon. We've had enough of rockets from the north and south and suicide bombers from everywhere. We also want to lead a normal life, just like the people in New York, Berlin or Rome who don't have to look up every time a stranger enters their favorite cafe."
I quess that sums the present conflict up and all I can add is Go Israel!
"Today, I am convinced that Israel is fighting a justified war. Far from being an "optional war," this conflict was forced upon us. There is a feeling that every positive step taken in recent years has been answered by punishment. Now we are prepared to do whatever it takes to turn Israel into a safe place, even if this means invading Lebanon once again. We also want to sip coffee and play backgammon. We've had enough of rockets from the north and south and suicide bombers from everywhere. We also want to lead a normal life, just like the people in New York, Berlin or Rome who don't have to look up every time a stranger enters their favorite cafe."
I quess that sums the present conflict up and all I can add is Go Israel!
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