Later On

This seems typical of Obama: extending the powers of the Executive regardless of the Constitution, and even attempting to keep secret his decisions: not open, not transparent, and (I think) not even legal. The US continues to move in a very bad direction. From McClatchy:

The Obama administration’s Justice Department has asserted that the FBI can obtain telephone records of international calls made from the U.S. without any formal legal process or court oversight, according to a document obtained by McClatchy.

That assertion was revealed — perhaps inadvertently — by the department in its response to a McClatchy request for a copy of a secret Justice Department memo.

Critics say the legal position is flawed and creates a potential loophole that could lead to a repeat of FBI abuses that were supposed to have been stopped in 2006.

The controversy over the telephone records is a legacy of the Bush administration’s war on terror. Critics say the Obama administration appears to be continuing many of the most controversial tactics of that strategy, including the assertion of sweeping executive powers.

For years after the Sept. 11 attacks, the FBI sought and obtained thousands of telephone records for international calls in an attempt to thwart potential terrorists.

The bureau devised an informal system of requesting the records from three telecommunications firms to create what one agent called a "phone database on steroids" that included names, addresses, length of service and billing information.

A federal watchdog later said a "casual" environment developed in which FBI agents and employees of the telecom companies treated Americans’ telephone records so cavalierly that one senior FBI counter-terrorism official said getting access to them was as easy as "having an ATM in your living room."

In January 2010, McClatchy asked for a copy of the Office of Legal Counsel memo under open records laws after a reference to it appeared in a heavily excised section of a report on how the FBI abused its powers when seeking telephone records.

In the report, the Justice Department’s inspector general said "the OLC agreed with the FBI that under certain circumstances (word or words redacted) allows the FBI to ask for and obtain these records on a voluntary basis from the providers, without legal process or a qualifying emergency."

In its cover letter to McClatchy, however, the OLC disclosed more detail about its legal position, specifying a section of a 1978 federal wiretapping law that the Justice Department believes gives the FBI the authority. That section of the law appears to be what was redacted from the inspector general’s report and reveals the type of records the FBI would be seeking, experts said.

"This is the answer to a mystery that has puzzled us for more than a year now," said Kevin Bankston, a senior staff attorney and expert on electronic surveillance and national security laws for the nonprofit Electronic Frontier Foundation.

"Now, 30 years later, the FBI has looked at this provision again and decided that it is an enormous loophole that allows them to ask for, and the phone companies to hand over, records related to international or foreign communications," he said. "Apparently, they’ve decided that this provision means that your international communications are a privacy-free zone and that they can get records of those communications without any legal process."

That interpretation could be stretched to apply to e-mails as well, he said.

However, Bankston said, even if the law allows the FBI to ask for the records — an assertion he disagrees with — it would prohibit the telecommunication companies from handing them over. [And, as we know, Obama the candidate voted while he was a Senator in favor of giving telecomms blanket immunity for breaking the law---a vote he cast even though he had promised to vote against immunity. From that moment on, I have given Obama all the trust he deserves: zero. – LG]

Meanwhile, the refusal to provide to McClatchy a copy of the memo is noteworthy because the Obama administration — in particular the OLC — has sought to portray itself as more open than the Bush administration. The decision not to release the memo means the details of the Justice Department’s legal arguments in support of the FBI’s controversial and discredited efforts to obtain telephone records will be kept from the public.

The FBI and Justice Department have refused to comment on the matter. . .

Continue reading.

Formerly I began each day with the shaving post. As my mornings become more crowded and I am up longer before showering and shaving, that habit must fall. I now arise, check email, start breakfast (which I let simmer at low heat for 45 minutes), write letters, and do 30 minutes on the Nordic Track before I shower and shave. That’s a long time. (I don’t have to get to work in the mornings, and my schedule obviously reflects that.)

So now I will blog at whatever time, and the first post of the day will likely be well before the shaving post.

I highly recommend On the Riviera, with Danny Kaye, Gene Tierney, and Corinne Calvet. It’s an entertaining movie with some terrific dance numbers—including Danny Kaye’s superb rendition of Ballin’ the Jack. And the special features, giving the background and context of the movie. Darryl Zanuck backed a Broadway musical in 1934, The Red Cat, that closed after 10 performances—but what he wanted was the film rights, and he liked the story so much he made three movies from the same story. The feature shows how the story’s emphasis changed with the times and the lead actor.

And one of the special features outlines Danny Kaye’s career and manifold talents. I had no idea. Amazing.

Well worth watching, IMHO. Here’s a sample:

I find the Greenwald column I earlier blogged quite worrisome, and here’s why: The government has privatized quite a few functions across various Executive departments, from custodial work to armed military combat work (Blackwater and others). And God knows what the CIA has hired private contractors to do.

I can think of quite a few reasons for this privatization, which has gone far beyond what I believe was originally expected (when you have privatized military and intelligence functions, including torture, then what’s left?). In no particular order, reasons that occur to me:

To act in accordance with a belief that government should be small and that private industry can do things more efficiently.

To gain deniability: “it wasn’t us, it was those damn private contractors!”

To avoid legal restrictions (including record-keeping requirements) that apply to governmental activities.

To create a lucrative position in private industry that one can move to when one leaves the government—or (more likely) to create a lucrative business (and, sometimes, industry) that one can move to.

To do illegal things.

And you can probably think of more reasons.

At any rate, the situation exists now where many functions previously done by (and restricted to) governmental agencies are now performed by private businesses, many of which are, of course, staffed by the same people who did those functions in the government: those people have relevant direct experience and are happy to do the same work for more money and less red tape.

So now we have (in effect) governmental agencies with governmental powers operating as a private industry. So, naturally, this industry wants more customers than just the government—to make more money and to broaden their financial base. So they start calling on other private companies to see what services they might sell.

So, private companies can now pay what in effect (in terms of capabilities and even staff) are government agencies to do what the private companies want them to do. That is, the governmental powers are now being turned over to private companies to do with as they want. Private industry is (or has) taken over the US. I would say “has” in looking at what Big Business (including Big Finance) can get away with no, with no repercussions.

This seems to me to be a very serious development. And the unhinged reaction of the US government to Wikileaks makes me think that there are some very bad things that the government is afraid might surface.

This is extremely interesting:

There’s been a very strange episode being written about the past couple of days involving numerous parties, including me, that I now want to comment on.  The story, first reported by The Tech Herald, has been been written about in numerous places (see Marcy Wheeler, Forbes, The Huffington Post, BoingBoing, Matt Yglesias, Reason, Tech Dirt, and others), so I’ll provide just the summary.

Last week, Aaron Barr, a top executive at computer security firm HB Gary, boasted to the Financial Times that his firm had infiltrated and begun to expose Anonymous, the group of pro-WikiLeaks hackers that had launched cyber attacks on companies terminating services to the whistleblowing site (such as Paypal, MasterCard, Visa, Amazon and others).  In retaliation, Anonymous hacked into the email accounts of HB Gary, published 50,000 of their emails online, and also hacked Barr’s Twitter and other online accounts.

Among the emails that were published was a report prepared by HB Gary — in conjunction with several other top online security firms, including Palantir Technologies — on how to destroy WikiLeaks.  The emails indicated the report was part of a proposal to be submitted to Bank of America through its outside law firm, Hunton & Williams.  News reports have indicated that WikiLeaks is planning to publish highly incriminating documents showing possible corruption and fraud at that bank, and The New York Times detailed last month how seriously top bank officials are taking that threat.  The NYT article described that the bank’s ”counterespionage work” against WikiLeaks entailed constant briefings for top executives on the whistle-blower site, along with the hiring of “several top law firms” and Booz Allen (the long-time firm of former Bush DNI Adm. Michael McConnell and numerous other top intelligence and defense officials).  The report prepared by these firms was designed to be part of the Bank of America’s highly funded anti-WikiLeaks campaign.

The leaked report suggested numerous ways to destroy WikiLeaks, some of them likely illegal — including planting fake documents with the group and then attacking them when published; “creat[ing] concern over the security” of the site; “cyber attacks against the infrastructure to get data on document submitters”; and a “media campaign to push the radical and reckless nature of wikileaks activities.”  Many of those proposals were also featured prongs of a secret 2008 Pentagon plan to destroy WikiLeaks.

One section of the leaked report focused on attacking WikiLeaks’ supporters and it featured a discussion of me.  A graph purporting to be an “organizational chart” identified several other targets, including former New York Times reporter Jennifer 8 Lee, Guardian reporter James Ball, and Manning supporter David House.  The report claimed I was ”critical” to WikiLeaks’ public support after its website was removed by Amazon and that “it is this level of support that needs to be disrupted”; absurdly speculated that “without the support of people like Glenn, WikiLeaks would fold”; and darkly suggested that “these are established professionals that have a liberal bent, but ultimately most of them if pushed will choose professional preservation over cause.”  As The Tech Herald noted, “earlier drafts of the proposal and an email from Aaron Barr used the word ‘attacked’ over ‘disrupted’ when discussing the level of support.”

In the wake of the ensuing controversy caused by publication of these documents, the co-founder and CEO of Palantir Tech, Alex Karp, has now issued a statement stating that he ”directed the company to sever any and all contacts with HB Gary.”  The full statement — which can be read here — also includes this sentence:  ”personally and on behalf of the entire company, I want to publicly apologize to progressive organizations in general, and Mr. Greenwald in particular, for any involvement that we may have had in these matters.”  Palantir has also contacted me by email to arrange for Dr. Karp to call me to personally convey the apology.  My primary interest is in knowing whether Bank of America retained these firms to execute this proposal and if any steps were taken to do so; if Karp’s apology is genuine, that information ought to be forthcoming (as I was finishing writing this, Karp called me, seemed sincere enough in his apology, vowed that any Palantir employees involved in this would dealt with the way they dealt with HB Gary, and commendably committed to telling me by the end of the week whether Bank of America or Hunton & Williams actually retained these firms to carry out this proposal).

* * * * *

My initial reaction to all of this was to scoff at its absurdity.  Not being familiar with the private-sector world of internet security, I hadn’t heard of these firms before and, based on the quality of the proposal, assumed they were just some self-promoting, fly-by-night entities of little significance.  Moreover, for the reasons I detailed in my interview with The Tech Herald — and for reasons Digby elaborated on here — the very notion that I could be forced to choose “professional preservation over cause” is ludicrous on multiple levels.  Obviously, I wouldn’t have spent the last year vehemently supporting WikiLeaks — to say nothing of aggressively criticizing virtually every large media outlet and many of their leading stars, as well as the most beloved political leaders of both parties — if I were willing to choose ”career preservation over cause.”

But after learning a lot more over the last couple of days, I now take this more seriously — not in terms of my involvement but the broader implications this story highlights.  For one thing, it turns out that the firms involved here are large, legitimate and serious, and do substantial amounts of work for both the U.S. Government and the nation’s largest private corporations (as but one example, see this email from a Stanford computer science student about Palantir).  Moreover,

Continue reading.

DHS could also stand to study up on the 4th Amendment, given their proclivity to take people’s cellphones and computers and not give them back—in some cases, they do return them, presumably after copying the contents. But the Atlanta police department seems willfully ignorant—also dishonest, bigoted, and stupid. The story:

Some Atlanta police officers and ranking members of the force seem to be unfamiliar with law and constitutional protections that limit what they can do during a raid, according to a Citizen Review Board report released Friday.

The CRB director reviewed interviews and records the board collected during the investigation of 12 complaints filed by patrons and employees of the Atlanta Eagle after APD vice officers and members of the Red Dog unit raided it in September 2009.

The report questioned claims by officers that they remembered little from that night and said some of the tactics the officers used violated state law and the U.S. Constitution.

The board, created in 2007 after the fatal shooting of an Atlanta woman in her home during a botched drug raid, recommended in a letter to APD Chief George Turner that officers be given more training, especially in the area of Fourth Amendment protections from unreasonable searches.

“They genuinely believed that it was proper to place all of the patrons on the floor and frisk them because of officer safety considerations,” director Cristina Beamud wrote in the report to the board. “This is simply not the law… Officers need reminders about the limits of their authority.”

APD declined to comment on the report because the internal investigation is “still ongoing. The Atlanta Police Department continues to be guided by a court-ordered settlement in the case, and we will abide by its requirements in the 180-day timeline [to complete the internal investigation that is] set forth within it. Further comment would be inappropriate.”

The raid of the Midtown Atlanta gay bar has dogged the department for 17 months  as the Citizen Review Board investigated claims and patrons pursued a federal lawsuit.

Dozens of police officers from APD’s vice and Red Dog drug units swarmed into the Ponce de Leon nightclub on Sept. 10, 2009, based on undercover officers reports that they had witnessed  men having sex while other patrons watched.

During the raid, 62 patrons were forced to lie down on the bar’s floor. No search warrant was served, and no charges were ever filed against any of them. Police did arrest eight Eagle employees on permit violations but those charges were either dismissed or dropped.

Last month the Atlanta City Council agreed to pay $1.2 million to 19 patrons who sued APD on grounds that police offices had violated their federal and state constitutional rights. The patrons said the officers directed obscenities, slurs about their sexuality and threats at the men lying on the floor of the bar.

Initially when the board tried to investigate claims, officers refused to answer questions. Eventually, they agreed to be interviewed but some insisted they remembered little from that night.

“The denials from both the officers and supervisors are not credible,” the report said. “All of the complainants heard at least the use of the ‘f’ word. Not all heard the slurs but all heard the patrons being ordered to the floor. The failure of the supervisors to acknowledge this violation reflects on their overall honesty and taints their credibility.”

Last fall, before the lawsuit was resolved, an attorney filed documents in court that said officers and police officials erased e-mails, text messages and photographs that may offer details of the raid.

Vice unit Sgt. Kelley Collier, who was involved in the undercover investigations before the raid was planned, received a significant amount of criticism for his lack of memory, according to the report and letter to the chief.

“During the interview [the board] conducted with Sgt. Collier, it became clear that he could not remember important details concerning what occurred on the night of the raid,” Chairwoman Joy Morrissey wrote in a letter to the chief.

According to the report, he told the board he did not hear any officers use profanity during the raid and he did not see “ any officers place a foot on a person who was lying on the floor. He lacks memory about many activities, including the briefing on that night.”

According to the report, Collier didn’t recall when his shift started that night and “he could not remember exactly what he saw …. He was assigned to observe the bar. He then said that there were two, three or four bartenders working.” . . .

Continue reading. It sounds as though Officer Collier is either lying through his teeth and should be expelled from the department (and prosecuted), or that he is mentally incapable of fulfilling the requirements of the job.

Interesting, and more power to them. And, of course, Barack Obama is in violation of the law for failure to investigate (which the law requires on credible allegations of torture), and also guilty of obstruction of justice, I imagine. But in the US powerful people are not obliged to follow the law (unless they offend other powerful people—cf. Bernie Madoff, who of course got a free pass for many years from the SEC, even when the SEC was specifically told that he was running a fraud). The US has become quite corrupt, it seems to me.

Here’s the story:

Today, two torture victims were to have filed  criminal complaints, with more than 2,500-pages of supporting material, in Geneva against former U.S. President George W. Bush, who was due to speak at an event there on 12 February. Swiss law requires the presence of the torturer on Swiss soil before a preliminary investigation can be opened.  When Bush cancelled his trip to avoid prosecution, the human rights groups who prepared the complaints made it public and announced that the Bush Torture Indictment would be waiting wherever he travels next. The Indictment serves as the basis on which to prepare country-specific, plaintiff-specific indictments, with additional evidence and updated information. According to international law experts at the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) and the Berlin-based European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR), former presidents do not enjoy special immunity under the Convention Against Torture (CAT).

“Waterboarding is torture, and Bush has admitted, without any sign of remorse, that he approved its use,” said Katherine Gallagher, Senior Staff Attorney at CCR and Vice President of the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH). “The reach of the Convention Against Torture is wide – this case is prepared and will be waiting for him wherever he travels next. Torturers – even if they are former presidents of the United States – must be held to account and prosecuted. Impunity for Bush must end.”

While the U.S. has thus far failed to comply with its obligations under the Convention Against Torture to prosecute and punish those who commit torture [due to President Obama's decision, for which I hope he will be prosecuted - LG], all other signatories, too, are obligated to prosecute or extradite for prosecution anyone present in their territory they have a reasonable basis for believing has committed torture. If the evidence warrants, as the Bush Torture Indictment contends it does, and the U.S. fails to request the extradition of Bush and others to face charges of torture there, CAT signatories must, under law, prosecute them for torture.

In a statement this weekend, the groups who organized the complaints said, “Whatever Bush or his hosts say, we have no doubt he cancelled his trip to avoid our case. The message from civil society is clear – If you’re a torturer, be careful in your travel plans.”

The complaints that had been scheduled to be filed on Monday asked that the General Prosecutor of the Canton of Geneva investigate allegations that men were tortured as part of the Bush administration’s well-documented torture program. Bush proudly recounted in his recently published memoir that when asked in 2002 to if it was permissible to waterboard a detainee – a recognized act of torture – he replied “damn right.”

Monday, February 7, is the ninth anniversary of the day Bush decided the Geneva Conventions did not apply to ‘enemy combatants.’

According to the Bush Indictment, . . .

Continue reading. Of course, if Bush had had a consensual affair with a woman not his wife, the full force and majesty of the law would be publicly brought against him, but since he merely ordered the torture of hundreds, some of whom died during torture, why that’s nothing—at least not in the eyes of President Obama and Eric Holder.

Various little glitches:

Mail: Window cannot be resized; wordwrap doesn’t work and Help offers no help. (Apple Help in general draws a blank on things I need help on.)

Evernote: Can’t get it to install

Calendar: Does it have to be active for alarms to work? (I would imagine so.)

Today is not Boxing Day, but rather Bottling Day: the day I strain and bottle my homemade Worcestershire sauce, which has been aging in the fridge for the past 3 weeks. I thought about waiting until tomorrow so that it could bear the proud label "Aged For More Than 3 Weeks," but I’m too eager to start using it.

It is definitely Worcestershire sauce, but (as the Saveur article says) "bigger and bolder" than store-bought. A good project.

Another use of the Otoko Organics shaving soap, today with the Omega 643167. This soap has a mild fragrance, which The Son would like since he (like many) hates strong fragrances first thing in the morning, and it produces loads o’ lather. It does also seem to be pleasant to the skin. Three smooth passes from the Eclipse Red Ring, a splash of TOBS Shaving Shop, and I’m off for the day.

Late start due to various things, but: including 30′ nonstop on the Nordic Track.

I believe that I can stop running scared in the Spanish class. OTOH, there’s an awful lot of Spanish to learn, and I feel that I had better hop to it. The main thing now is to build vocabulary, so I’m learning every word I come across, and gradually working my way through the list of 250 most useful words in Teach Yourself to Learn a Language.

Still, I was much more relaxed today than last class day. For one thing, I woke up at a good time (6:00 a.m.) instead of a bad time (4:00 a.m.). For another, I found parking and took care to remember the exact path back to the car. And, in general, I was more relaxed. I realized that the real work in the course will be done outside of class.

I’m very eager to get on to the verbs, and la profesora showed us the coolest thing—and I have to admit that paper dictionaries are dead. Take a look at this Spanish definition of the English word “master.” The first meaning given is the noun, and the second is the verb. Note the little superscript “conj.==>“next to the verb “llegar” in the definition. Click it and ¡he aquí! you see the verb conjugated completely.

AND I just discovered that the site has a Spanish-language dictionary (i.e., not Spanish-English). That’s wonderful because in Polyglot: How I Learn Languages Kató Lomb suggests moving to a dictionary in the target language as soon as possible, so when you learn new vocabulary it is learned in Spanish rather than as a translation of an English word (for much the same reason that the photo-based flashcards are so desirable).

I did make the Greek-themed GOPM: it’s done and out of the oven and I am being overcome by the alluring aroma.

The GOP today lives in a fantasy world more or less untouched by reality: entire conspiracies are imagined and held in spite of obvious evidence to the contrary. Reason has been abandoned in the service of political enthusiasm. Very strange.

Read here about the silly conspiracy Right-wingers in Texas have dreamed up and now hold as incontrovertible fact.

Sarah Palin is famous for her over-the-top rhetoric and her full-throated attacks on anyone whose position fails to agree with hers (whatever her position is—it’s generally not clear except in the most general terms, such as “Crackpot conservative good, everything else bad.” But she does like to live on the attack, including the sniper sights placed on locations where Democrats were running. And she insists (with words) that her attack-dog rhetoric has no influence on the various acts of violence that have occurred.

That’s her words. Her actions:

Former Alaska governor and Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin was scheduled to speak at an event for a Colorado nonprofit group May 2, but the event was canceled the day after it was announced due to “an onslaught of personal attacks” against Palin.

Palin was to speak at the Patriots & Warriors Gala at the Infinity Park Event Center in Glendale, Colo., which was billed as an awards banquet and fundraiser for military families in need and for a grief camp for children who had lost loved ones in combat.

But the event, sponsored by the Sharon K. Pacheco Foundation, was canceled Saturday, a day after it had been announced to the media. A press release posted on the sponsoring organization’s Facebook page reads, “Due to an onslaught of personal attacks against Gov. Palin and others associated with her appearance, it is with deep sadness and disappointment that, in the best interest of all, we cancel the event for safety concerns.”

The press release goes on to say that no direct threats were made against Palin, nor were any made against members of the organization’s staff, but in light of the shooting rampage in Arizona last month, the negative rhetoric “raises concern for her safety and the safety of others despite the call for civility in America.”

“The organization deeply respects Sarah Palin,” reads the release, “and appreciates her willingness to come and honor our military. The organization plans to host the event at some point in the future, featuring another speaker.”

Continue reading.

Good post by Ed Brayton on police displeasure at having to obey the law. See, they’re police, for God’s sake—the law doesn’t apply to them.

I’m at the MPC library, using their Wi-Fi with my new MacBook Pro, feeling very au courant. My current vocabulary is falling into place, but many more words remain to be learned.

I have to say that the MacBook is pretty slick. TYD was right.

Bruce Everiss had the idea for the three-razor shave: using the best razor for each pass (e.g., first Slant Bar, then Fat Boy, then Super Speed). So here’s the two-lather shave. But it’s really just to answer a question from a commenter: what is the fragrance of Floris JF and Floris Elite?

Alas, I still can’t analyze the fragrance—I have no trained ability along those lines—but I was able to tell that (a) I prefer Elite to JF by a small margin, and (b) they both make a terrific lather. But from the Floris London site, I glean, first:

The mellow woody notes [of the Elite fragrance] are enlivened with a cool citrus twist of bergamot, lemon and orange punctuated with the green resinous notes of cedar leaf and spicy juniper berry. Lavender and fir balsam with a touch of bay are key to the character of the heart and are reinforced by the woody notes of patchouli and vetiver. Mossy notes then play a leading role as the fragrance evolves with amber, musks and a hint of leather in the base.

Top Notes: bergamot, cedar leaf, grapefruit, juniper berry, lemon, petitgrain
Heart Notes: bay, fir balsam, lavender
Base Notes: amber, cedarwood, leather, moss, musk, patchouli, vetiver

And, segundo:

JF begins with an invigorating burst of bergamot, lemon, lime and mandarin in combination with an intensely aromatic blend with armoise, coriander and clary sage. Juniper berry, cypress and petitgrain at the heart give the fragrance its unmistakable masculine character which is underscored by amber, cedarwood and a mossy, musky base.

Top Notes: bergamot, coriander, green, herbal, lemon, lime, mandarin
Heart Notes: cypress, jasmine, petitgrain
Base Notes: amber, cedarwood, moss, musk

Hope that helps. The iKon delivered its usual comfortable and flawless shave, a splash of JF, and I’m studying Spanish now before class.

I just ordered three Spanish novels for the Kindle (and now have them, of course), including Cajas de cartón, which I also have as an audiobook. I plan to listen to the book a few times, but then listen while reading to disambiguate any pronunciations with which I’m having problems. And I got from Netflix today Y tu mamá también.

And again I really like these photo-based flashcards.

I’ve got to be careful about drifting off into Spanish. BTW, found this great flashcard site for Spanish, which enables the student to associate Spanish nouns with the objects they name (by using photographs: mouse over the photo, see the Spanish word and hear it pronounced) rather than with the English word (which is the drawback of my homemade flashcards).

First, TYD pointed out that when I think of slow-cooker recipes as being stews, soups, and the like, I often am thinking of a bad slow-cooker recipe. The slow cooker’s advantage is that it requires VERY LITTLE liquid: with the very low temperature, you can even cook meat with no liquid at all—and once she mentioned it, I do recall (for example) putting beef short-ribs into a slow cooker along with potato, onion, and carrot and some seasonings and very little liquid. I did that before I left for work, and when I returned home, the house was filled with the aroma of dinner. And it was great.

So: slow-cooker recipes do not have to have much liquid at all. Still, cooking something at a very low temperature for a very long time has a different effect than cooking something at a high temperature for a short time: the two methods are not simply interchangeable, and they affect the food differently.

That said, let me describe another GOPM (glorious one-pot meal: 2-qt cast iron Dutch oven filled with two meals—two servings starch, two servings protein, and the pot then filled with veggies—and then covered and put into a 450-degree F oven for 45 minutes. (Not at all like a slow cooker, you’ll notice.)

I had tried eggplant with good success, and The Eldest, when I told her, immediately suggested a Greek-themed meal. The layers, from the bottom:

1 onion about the size of baseball, chopped coarsely
2 servings starch: rice, potato (cut up), pasta (cut pasta works best), egg noodles, etc.
8 oz lamb, and I’m thinking I’ll buy some nice lamb chops and use that meat: tender
salt, pepper, a little crushed red pepper, and an herb (thyme, say, or lavender)
minced garlic
sliced or coarsely chopped bell peppers
sliced eggplant brushed with 2 tsp olive oil
coarsely chopped kalamata olives
chopped fresh or frozen spinach
crumbled feta
slice tomatoes
1 Meyer lemon cut into little chunks (including skin)

Whisk together and pour over:

2 Tbsp vinaigrette
1 Tbsp red wine
1 tsp Dijon mustard
1 tsp horseradish

I’m sure this can be improved, and I haven’t even made it. But that’s the starting point I’ll be using.

Just out of curiosity, have any of you tried cooking a dinner using the GOPM technique (cover cast-iron dutch oven, high heat, 45 minutes)—and, if so, what do you think of it? It’s pretty clear that much of the cooking is done by the trapped steam (so your want the lid sitting directly on the pot, not lifted above by the stack of veg—and that’s hard for me, which is why I appreciate the discipline of the pot: 2 quarts and no more).

One other thing I just remembered: I’m gradually using up my miso collection in GOPMs. Today’s, for example, was a pork and rice GOPM, with onion, mushrooms, green bell pepper, parsley, yellow crookneck squash, and asparagus. On the mushroom layer I put several little spoonfuls of garlic-red pepper miso. For the pour-over I used vinaigrette and a good dash of soy sauce.

The Younger Daughter points out this useful article. I’m downloading the app now.

UPDATE: It took a while because I also had to download a bunch of software updates—it looks as though the Apple doesn’t do those automatically. No problem.

But the point I want to make: terrific application! Really well done and has explained several things that were puzzling. Plus, for the first time in my experience, the instructor in the video is truly engaging and charming. For 99 cents, you can’t beat it. (No cent sign because my Apple doesn’t yet have an equivalent of Phrase Express installed: something to look for in the App Store—aha! here’s one: TypeIt4Me.)

UPDATE 2: TypeIt4Me is working and seems pretty good. I have 30 days of free use before the nagger starts. And that Mac instructional program (above link) is quite nice. I just worked on my widgets and got the translation widget in place, English to Spanish being the default. To see whether it works, I typed in “fork,” but the “translation” it gave was “fork,” So I tried “knife,” and I did get “cuchillo.” According to our text, the Spanish word for “fork” is “tenedor,” but when I put that in for a Spanish->English translation, it translates it as “possesor,” obviously reading it as some form of “tener.” So the translator might not be so useful after all. Hope the dictionary’s better.