Under pressure

Five years ago this month the Farm Manager bought herself an Instant Pot. That made her an "early adaptor" of what's since become the biggest selling kitchen gadget on Amazon.

The gizmo sat in the pantry waiting for its inaugural test drive, and then a couple of months later the Boston Marathon thing happened. That totally put the FM off pressure cookers. It's sat in the pantry, unopened, ever since.

On hearing that tale my pal Mac observed that she should be OK as long as she's not cooking with nails.

Anyway, it sat in the pantry for years, unopened. Until today.

First she did up a turn of rice. Took twenty minutes and turned out super fluffy. The best-cooked rice I ever tasted.

Then she took a stab at hard-boiled eggs. We've been helping the local economy by buying eggs from free-ranging hens from one of the neighbours. Hell, if they ranged a little further they could just drop the eggs right in our barn and we wouldn't even have to pay for them!

This arrangement has gifted us an abundance of eggs. I'll whip up a batch of my killer egg salad once a week or so, and we're getting into pickled eggs. If that works out you may find a jar of Farm Manager brand pickled eggs at a farmer's market near you in the near future.

If that's not enough, she then turned out the tastiest chicken vindaloo you can imagine. From into the pot to down the gullet in no more than half an hour. I swear, this gizmo is a genius invention!

It's led to a rethink of our retirement plans. We're gonna give Hoonan the Iranian a run for his money on the food truck scene. Give the FM three or four of these Instant Pots in a food truck and we'll be rocking the Toronto street-food landscape in no time!

Chicken vindaloo on a bun. Lamb vindaloo on a bun. Chilli on a bun. Seafood chowder... on a bun?

We'll have to work out the details, but I think we've got a winning plan here.

Making Tsarnaev a martyr invites blow-back

There's more than a few unanswered questions about the Boston Bombing, and none of them were answered in the trial of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.

How did a "terror attack" that approximated the damage of a bad car accident instantly lead to a shock and awe siege of Boston? More went on in Boston than meets the eye, and DT is the fall-guy.

His conviction and subsequent death penalty are erroneously assumed to provide "closure."

It won't.

Instead, it will provoke more people to ask more questions.

For starters, how did these guys who were on FBI/CIA/FSA radar manage to pull this off?

And how did their terror attack happen to coincide with a FBI/CIA/FSA anti-terror exercise?

You can't make these questions go away just by hanging Tsarnaev.

Washington Post confirms Boston-bomber linked suspect was unarmed when executed

When Ibragim Todeshev was dispatched during interrogation by the FBI a week ago, there were eyebrows raised all over the place.

The official story was that the suspect attacked his interrogators with a knife, thereby provoking the lethal response.

The Washington Post just came out with this story.

Quoting two sources on the scene, the WP is reporting that Todeshev was unarmed.

This is significant because everybody understands that given a choice, the Post would far rather spin a story in favor of the FBI than in favor of a young Muslim implicated in a domestic terror attack.

There is obviously far more to this story than has met our eyes as of yet.

FBI snuffs 3rd Boston Marathon suspect during interogation

Well, I guess that guy isn't going to be standing in a courtroom telling stories!

How convenient!

At least one FBI agent and two cops are in the room, when their high-value guest suddenly turns on them, leaving them no option but to dispatch him to his reward. Right there. Right then.

Not even the dignity of a burial at sea!

This is sure to fan the flames of the Boston Conspiracy, and rightfully so.

From Boston to Baghdad; terror here and there

CNN has been pretty much 24/7 all over the Boston Marathon bombs for the past couple of days.

Three dead. That is a vile defilement of America's innocence.

They've barely had time to cover today's Baghdad bombing.

Twenty-seven dead and counting.

Not to mention yesterday's Baghdad bombings. Or those of the day before. Or the day before that.

Crazy thing is, Baghdad didn't have random terror bombings before we liberated those people from themselves.

Which is not to suggest that Boston is in any way justifiable or excusable. It most definitely is not.

But neither is Baghdad. 

The Boston bombing; who would want to harm America?

You can see where the folks at Fox are going to have a field day with this one.

"The enemy within."

And a thousand variations of that trope.

Who would want to harm America?

Who has America harmed in the last generation or two? Mind you, the folks "over there,"  the "other," the "Towelheads," our victims... all those folks have been known to hang on to a grudge for much longer than a generation or two.

So whether this is another case of America's chickens coming home to roost, or just generic blow-back for a poisonous American foreign policy that has terrorized much of the world for the last fifty-plus years, only liars and stupid people can claim they didn't see it coming.

What will America's reaction be?