October 4, 2003 by s.z.

Now, a Word From Our Sponsor. . . As soon as the acorn squash finishes cooking (hey, I have to do something with it, and eating it seems like the most ecologically sound destruction method), I'm baking up a Pineapple Parfait Cake.  I thought I'd provide you with the recipe, so you can Bake Along at Home. But first, an announcement.  Many blogs feature advertisments, or messages saying that spots on their blog are available to advertisers.  We will not be doing this.  Mainly, because we don't know how to add ANYTHING extra to the site, including advertisements.  It took us countless hours of effort to just get the navigator links to work (so if you don't see your excellent site there on the left, it's just because we are too technologically incompetent to add it). And many Bloggers subtly request money or stuff from Amazon from their readers.  We won't be doing that either.  Because we figure that if you're reading this blog, you're probably too poor to afford a TV set (or else otherwise you'd be watching "Temptation Island 4: Laura Bush Goes to France" or something like that right now).  We just wouldn't feel right taking your money, and also wouldn't feel comfortable telling anybody the cheesy or weird stuff we want from Amazon. But could we use more money?  Sure, we all could!  So, we've gone directly to the people who HAVE the money and gotten bribes from them, in exchange for inconspicuous product placements or casual mentions in our content.  So, yes, we are being remunerated by Spry for our endorsement of their fine product (Buy Spry!  S-P-R-Y!  Available in 1-lb, and 3-lb cans, but we suggest you just go for the economical 6-lb can).  And yes, the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy did pay us include a link to Ann Coulter's Treason on this site.  They are also funding our efforts to make this country a religious nation again by assiging each state its own religion, paving the way for states to make their own morality-based laws and to wage war on infidels.  We have a deal in the works with Richard Scaife Mellon to expose Hillary Clinton's alien baby's role in the Plame Affair, but that's still pending. So, if you are a shortening company or a right-wing foundation funded by rich eccentrics, please let us know how we can help YOU!  I think you will be pleased with both our prices and our quality. Anyway, Spry Theater now presents: Pineapple Parfait Cake"A delicate 'party' cake with such a temptin' fruity flavor." 1/2 cup Spry 3/4 teaspoon salt 1/2 teaspoon grated lemon rind 1 egg yolk 1-1/2 cup sugar 3 teaspoons baking powder 3 cups sifted flour 3/4 cup canned pineapple juice 1/2 cup water 4 egg whites Combine Spry, salt, lemon rind, and egg yolk and blend...Add sugar gradually and cream until light and fluffy. . . Add baking powder to flour and sift 3 times. Add small amounts of flour to creamed mixture, alternately with combined pineapple juice and water, mixing after each addition until smooth. . . Beat egg whites until stiff but not dry and fold carefully into mixture until well blended. . . Pour batter into two deep 9-inch layer pans greased with Spry Pan-coat (page 13). . . Bake in moderate oven (350 F) 25 to 30 minutes. . . Frost with Pineapple Parfait Frosting.  Use recipe for Snow Whirl Frosting (page 19), substituting canned pineapple juice for water and 1/2 teaspoon grated lemon rind for vanilla. Spry Pan-coat 1/2 cup Spry 1/4 cup flour Mix Spry with flour to form a smooth mixture.  Keep in covered dish in pantry shelf.  Spry Pan-coat will keep indefinitely. [Like all inorganic compounds.] Snow Whirl Frosting  (MST fans, please don't make any jokes from the "Winter Sports" or "Carnival on Ice" shorts while making this frosting.) 2 egg whites, unbeaten 1-1/2 cups sugar 5 tablespoons cold water [but we're using pineapple juice, remember] 1/8 teaspoon cream of tartar OR    1 teaspoon light corn syrup 1 teaspoon vanilla [or, in our case 1/2 teaspoon grated lemon rind] Put egg whites, sugar, water, and cream of tartar (or corn syrup) in top of double boiler and mix thoroughly.  Place over rapidly boiling water and beat constantly with a rotary egg-beater . . .Remove from fire, add vanilla, and beat until cool and thick enough to spread. . . Makes enough frosting for tops and sides of two 9-inch layers. 9:17:30 PM

Bob Novak: Consider Him for All Your Pawn Needs      Well, the Salon blog servers are back up, but a lot has happened in the interim:  A Las Vegas tiger finally realized that "Hey, humans don't have claws OR fangs, and we clearly have the edge in muscle: why are we taking orders from them?"  Roy has our sincere wishes for a quick recovery. Coca Cola has come out with an orange juice that fights cholesterol, so now you can order a Big Mac and a Coke, and let them duke it out in your stomach. Ann Coulter got $20,000 to tell University of North Carolina students that, among other things, "Liberals don't think of themselves as Americans. They aren't betraying America because they don't think of America as their own country."  (We think this deserves further investigation, and so, in our in-depth weekend report on Official State Religions, we will cover this breaking news too.) And, of course, Bob Novak, in an effort to prove that he is NOT just a tool of the Republican Party, reported in his latest column (The Wilsons for Gore) basically the same thing that he had said on TV, to whit: On the same day in 1999 that retired diplomat Joseph Wilson was returned $1,000 of $2,000 he contributed to Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore a month earlier because it exceeded the federal limit, his CIA-employee wife gave $1,000 to Gore using a fictitious identification for herself. In making her April 22, 1999, contribution, Valerie E. Wilson identified herself as an "analyst" with "Brewster-Jennings & Associates." No such firm is listed anywhere, but the late Brewster Jennings was president of Socony-Vacuum oil company a half-century ago. Any CIA employee working under "non-official cover" always is listed with a real firm, but never an imaginary one. Here's part of the Wash Post story on Novak's latest revelation: The leak of a CIA operative's name has also exposed the identity of a CIA front company, potentially expanding the damage caused by the original disclosure, Bush administration officials said yesterday. The company's identity, Brewster-Jennings & Associates, became public because it appeared in Federal Election Commission records on a form filled out in 1999 by Valerie Plame, the case officer at the center of the controversy, when she contributed $1,000 to Al Gore's presidential primary campaign. After the name of the company was broadcast yesterday, administration officials confirmed that it was a CIA front. They said the obscure and possibly defunct firm was listed as Plame's employer on her W-2 tax forms in 1999 when she was working undercover for the CIA.   [snip] The name of the CIA front company was broadcast yesterday by Novak, the syndicated journalist who originally identified Plame. Novak, highlighting Wilson's ties to Democrats, said on CNN that Wilson's "wife, the CIA employee, gave $1,000 to Gore and she listed herself as an employee of Brewster-Jennings & Associates." "There is no such firm, I'm convinced," he continued. "CIA people are not supposed to list themselves with fictitious firms if they're under a deep cover -- they're supposed to be real firms, or so I'm told. Sort of adds to the little mystery." In fact, it appears the firm did exist, at least on paper. The Dun & Bradstreet database of company names lists a firm that is called both Brewster Jennings & Associates and Jennings Brewster & Associates. So, apparently Brewster-Jennings & Associates WAS Plame's CIA-assigned Non-Official Cover.  It may be a real company that listed her on its rolls as a favor to the CIA, but more likely is a company that exists only on paper, set up just to provide cover to CIA officers working without a net (if any of them are caught or captured as a result of this disclosure, Bob Novak will deny all knowledge of their activities, making everything okay).  So, Plame did just what she was SUPPOSED to have done by listing it when she donated money to Gore.  And Bob blew ANOTHER CIA cover -- this time for the greater good of pointing out that Joseph Wilson was . . . gasp . . . somebody who donated money to AL GORE! And now we're back to leaks and motives.  The truth is, anybody could have found out who Plame donated money to, and consequently, also have found out the name of her cover employer, once her name was out there.  This is not a new leak, just part of the fallout from the original leak.  But surely the great Robert Novak didn't go through campaign donation records himself, in order to find this tidbit.  No, it seems likely that eager Republican party operatives, frantically looking for "dirt" to throw at Wilson, found this item, thought that it showed that Wilson and Plame had violated campaign donation laws, and eagerly offered it to Novak to prove that there was no White House Leak of a CIA undercover officer's name and affiliation because . . .well, don't ask why this makes the leak go away, just believe that it does.  And Novak used their info because now that he's known to be a pawn and has no reputation worth saving, he decied that he might as well be the best darned pawn that the RNC ever had! But who is telling Novak that "CIA people are not supposed to be list themselves with fictitious firms" and "any CIA employee working under 'non-official cover' is always listed with a real firm, never with an imaginary one"?  Surely no REAL CIA employee would ever say that, because they'd know it wasn't the case.  Unless they were trying to set up Novak, in a stunning double-cross operation, right out of Robert Ludlums's latest posthumous thriller, The Estroy-day Ovak-Nay Operation! But I don't think that actually happened.  It is possible that Novak's "CIA snitch" Huggybear, the non-CIA employee who gave him that great scoop about Plame just being an analyst, came through for him again with this latest inaccuracy.  But wouldn't Bob be a little distrustful of Huggybear at this point, and vet his info with somebody else? So, the only thing that makes sense to me is that this info about how the cover of CIA NOCs work came from the GOP too, from somebody who had once talked to somebody who claimed to have worked for the CIA.  And this little knowledge became a dangerous thing, both for the CIA (and its efforts to provide intelligence on weapons proliferation) and for Novak (who is once again revealed as an idiot and a pawn of the GOP). The moral of this story is clear: Novak is a tool, and whoever is feeding him this information DOESN'T CARE about the country (since he or she isn't giving any thought as to what these revelations could do to National Security), and is only trying to score petty partisan points by blackening the name of Joseph Wilson for having dared to question his master.  Any administration that claims to be moral must demand that this be stopped immediately.  Unless they want to add this to the newsletter as an example of "What President Bush and Republicans are doing to make America stronger, safer, and better." 5:07:01 PM