Tilapia our tasty fish friend!!

Those of you who know me, know that NoWifeofConsequence can throw it together in the kitchen. Even when up against the wall with no real prep time we end up eating well because of her vast culinary skills. She puts together delicious recipes off the cuff, trying out different mixes of spices and trimmings and is really creative. We have a Kosher style hime so this really restricts her when it comes to what I will and will not eat and despite my complicated needs she still cooks things that make you say, "YUM!"

To that end I convinced her to share a couple of recipes with you.






Tales from No Kitchen of Consequence

by No Wife of Consequence

Tilapia Two Ways

For those of you who have not yet discovered Tilapia, it is a great fish. Very mild, nice and flakey, and reasonably priced. You can get it in most grocery stores, so you don't need to make a special trip to the fish monger. I have two recipes that I created for this fish. The first, Parmesan Crusted Tilapia, is a real family friendly dish. Kids love it and even my father, who does NOT eat fish, eats this recipe. The second, 'Crab' Stuffed Tilapia, is a bit fancier and makes a great dinner party recipe. One nice thing about this recipe is you can make it up ahead of time and just pop it in the oven whenever, which is nice if you have guests so you spend time with them instead of prepping dinner. I make this recipe with imitation crab meat because No1ofConsequence keeps Kosher and crab is not Kosher. If you don't have any shellfish issues you can use real crab.

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Parmesan Crusted Tilapia

You will need 6 Tilapia fillets for this recipe
Lay the tilapia in one layer in a baking pan sprayed with Pam
Drizzle the fish with Lea & Perrins Marinade for Chicken (This used to be called White Wine Worcestershire)
In a small bowl combine, 1/2 cup of fresh grated Parmesan Cheese, 1/2 cup of bread crumbs, 1 tablespoon of dill, 1 teaspoon of Tarragon, and 1 teaspoon of Thyme (you can use whatever herbs you like)
Sprinkle the cheese mixture over the top of the fish
Bake at 350 for about 30 minutes
Before you remove it from the oven, put it under the broiler for a couple of minutes to crisp up the cheese topping.

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'Crab' Stuffed Tilapia

You need 4 Tilapia Fillets for this recipe
In a small bowl combine 2 cups of chopped imitation crab meat and 1 cup of spreadable garlic and herb cheese (you can use the light version of the cheese to cut calories)
Spray a baking pan with Pam
Take each fish fillet and top it with baby spinach. Then spread 1/4 of the crab mixture onto each piece of fish. Roll the fish up as best as you can and secure with a toothpick.
Place fish rolls in the baking pan and drizzle with lemon juice
Sprinkle each roll with Paprika
Bake at 350 for about 30 minutes

No Wife of Consequence

Georgia gay marriage ban, struck down.

Well, let's hear it for Fulton County Superior Court Judge Constance C. Russell who struck down the 2004 ballot measure that banned gay marriage in the State of Georgia. I would say give her a standing ovation if it had been struck down because it is inherently racist and discriminatory. Unforutnately she struck it down because there was some sort of Constitutional technicality involved that forced her hand.

Freedom and equality for all Americans, including gay Americans. Read my thoughts on homosexuality here.

No 1 of Consequence

Telecommunications, The Fourth Amendment, The Death of Freedom

U.S. Constitution: Fourth Amendment

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.





The National Security Agency is and has been building a database of records of phone calls made and by whom. In order to achieve this they have demanded and received millions upon millions of phone records from the major telecommunications providers in the US. Most of the providers turned over the records. Qwest Communications refused & Bellsouth now denies they provided records.

Before we get in to the horrifying invasiveness of this let us first acknowledge that the NSA is currently operation outside the law. The Justice Department was trying to investigate domestic wiretapping being conducted by the NSA and were forced to shut down the inquiry because the NSA would not grant the Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility security clearances to view the files of the wiretapping program. When you have government agencies operating extra-legally, without oversight, you are living in a tyrannical state. Checks and balances were built in to The Constitution to prevent exactly these kinds of abuses. When we break our own laws we are nowhere. They have a word for that kind of government, Facist.

The problem as I see it is not that the NSA wants to have this data. The problem is that they feel they have no need to go through Due Process of Law to obtain the information they believe they need. They threatened Qwest's government contracts when Qwest failed to capitulate. This sort of brazen coercive tactic reeks of an agency that has gotten too powerful for its own good, as did the F.B.I. under J. Edgar Hoover. The Fourteenth Amendment says, "No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." What this means in the context of law enforcement requesting information from companies is, THEY HAVE TO GET A WARRANT TO LEGALLY OBTAIN THIS INFORMATION. The NSA wouldn't go before a judge and request a warrant, they just demanded the info. They wouldn't even go before the secret FISA courts. There is a word for that, facism.

Any evidence gleaned from this data that produces a domestic arrest would be thrown out of court because if the beginning of your investigation happens because of illegally obtained data that illegal act taints your entire investigation. The legal concept is called "fruit of the poisonous tree." Theoretically the information obtained through this program is legally valueless because it is unusable in a court of law. This leads one to believe that the information is not to be used in a court. Domestically obtained evidence to possibly be used against people living within the borders of the US, possibly its own citizenry. The word for that, my fine friends, is facism.

If you read this story, or this one, or this one, you will get a general understanding of what is happening with the telecommunications companies and our government right now.

They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security.

-Benjamin Franklin

The sacrifice of freedom, even in an age of terrorism, is not a viable option for the self determination of the American people. Our government must work within our own laws to fight the evils that threaten us.

To those of you who say, "Freedom isn't free," I say it shouldn't be lazy either. Work differently, work smarter, work legally. Do not oppress the very people you are charged with protecting by violating their Constitutionally protected rights.


No 1 of Consequence

Guest Blog: No Best Man of Consequence

While I was head down today, pounding out work product I engaged in a back and forth with my best man about a variety of things. I have been working on a post about wire tapping and the major telecommunications companies, but it isn't ready yet. With all the news today about putting troops on the southern border something he wrote was especially poignant. He essentially laid out the GOP strategy for the mid term elections, step by step.

Here it is:

Here's my take on Bush's stupid idea to put NationalGuardsmen on the border with Mexico:

1) Bush proposes stupid idea knowing full well it hasnumerous obvious flaws. Are the Guardsmen gettingn approval to shoot illegal immigrants? No, of course not. So what are they going to do? "Stop, or I'll say stop again!" Are there going to be enough Guardsmen to cover the entire border? No, they're all in Iraq. So, aren't the immigrants going to just find another way to get across? Of course. Wouldn't it make more sense to spend money beefing up the Border Patrol? Yes. But will we? No.

2) Media correctly reports this as a stupid idea with obvious flaws. Democrats get on board.

3) Bush defends plan, says he will not kill it despite this fierce opposition.

4) Bush kills plan.

5) Republicans campaign in November on illegal immigration, blame media/Democrats for Bush's plan failing.

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Watch the coming days, weeks and months. If it doesn't play out exactly this way. I will be shocked. If you have any question at all about it, look at what happened with the gay marriage issue and the last presidential election. It is the Karl Rove playbook being run all over again.

Look for a post on the death of freedom later this week.

No 1 of Consequence

Follow up on the Jets draft day follies.

I know most people don't care about the Jets, but I just wanted to follow up with this little tid bit of information. Sportsbook.com has released their odds for the Rookie of the Year award in the NFL. Look who is one of the favorites. If you read my draft day recap. You will see that I believe passing on Mr. White was a HUGE error in judgement.

WHO WILL WIN 2006-07 AP NFL OFFENSIVE ROOKIE OF THE YEAR
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Reggie Bush 2-1
Joseph Addai 5-1
LenDale White 5-1
Santonio Holmes 5-1
Laurence Maroney 7-1
Greg Jennings 12-1
Jason Avant 12-1
Vernon Davis 20-1
Maurice Drew 22-1
DeAngelo Williams 25-1
Mercedes Lewis 25-1
Joe Klopfenstein 25-1
Vince Young 25-1
Matt Leinart 30-1
Derek Hagan 30-1
Brian Calhoun 35-1
Jerious Norwood 35-1
PJ Daniels 35-1
Leon Washington 35-1
Jerome Harrison 35-1
Wali Lundy 35-1
Quinton Ganther 35-1
Cedric Humes 35-1
Jeremy Bloom 40-1
Sinorice Moss 40-1
D Brickashaw Ferguson 50-1
Jay Cutler 50-1
Devin Hester 50-1
Chad Jackson 50-1
Willie Reid 50-1
Maurice Stovall 50-1
Brandon Williams 50-1
Travis Wilson 50-1

For complete NFL odds please visit sportsbook.com

No 1 of Consequence

Muddled Meanderings

I haven't had even a second to write lately. I hate that. I love that I have this outlet open to me and at the same time I hate looking at it as time slides by and I neglect it. I love that some of my loyal few come and check it every day, waiting and hoping that I write something. That means a lot to me. I want to make a commitment to write every day, at least a small amount, but the 60-80 hour work weeks I have been enduring don't seem to be slowing down anytime soon.

I am heading home to the Garden State at the end of the month. I am excited about it in some ways and not in others. No Best Man of Consequence and his wife had a baby girl, so I am really looking forward to meeting her. Seeing friends and family will be pleasant, but at the same time sad. I have been a fish out of water my whole life, in almost every situation I have ever been in. Now, the trend continues, except I will be a fish out of water in NJ, the only place I ever felt any sort of comfort at all. It is a strange feeling, like you don't truly belong anywhere outside of your house. Now, that house is in Georgia, a small blue island in a sea of red.

I am incredibly excited about the possibility of playing poker live in a casino. I haven't felt the heavy casino quality chips in a long time, coming up on two years. We have been hosting a live game in our sub-division pretty regularly as of late, but there is nothing like the feeling of staring down a stranger over the felt and turning over a better hand when he calls you. You feel bad beating your neighbors out of twenty, thirty bucks every time they come over to your house. Well, I don't feel bad, because I have pretty much broken even, but No Wife of Consequence feels bad. She has been kicking their collective teeth in.

I was going to write about George Bush endorsing his brother for President of the United States and saying Jeb would make a great candidate, but the task is too daunting to even consider.

Then I figured I would take a shot at David Blaine for passing almost drowning off as magic. Is he a curiosity for abusing himself like that? I guess. There are people who cut themselves with razor blades too, but I am not interested in watching them on TV. Either way, Annoyed summed it up pretty well, so I won't go into it further.

The US showed up near the bottom of the infant mortality charts for industrialized nations, again. I will say this, a black life continues to be worth less than a white one in the US. We really need to evaluate why that is. The infant mortality rate in this country is absolutely staggering. Too many Americans without health insurance. Too many of them children.

On that significantly depressing note, I will return to the grind.

No 1 of Consequence

I only live 4 hours away from Nashville, TN

Maybe I can be a Titans fan. Being a Jets fan is an exercise in futility. They have opportunity after opportunity to do the right thing for their fans but in the end, they screw us. In my opinion drafting D'Brickashaw Ferguson instead of Matt Leinart is a mistake. It is a mistake from a football perspective and a mistake from a PR perspective as well as a mistake from a fan perspective. The Jets are really second class citizens in NY. They actually play their games in Giants Stadium. Matt Leinart would have propelled them to the back page. He raises their stature by the sheer force of his stardom. He is a better player than Eli Manning right now as well as a bigger star. On top of which they have two quarterbacks that if fused together might be something interesting, but on their own, suck.

Patrick Ramsey can throw the ball a mile, but you really have no idea where it is going to land. Chad Pennington is very accurate but his shoulder is held together by angel hair pasta and wishful thinking. Chad is smart, Ramsey, well, not so much. Neither one could be considered mobile.

When the Jets passed on Leinart I flipped. I know The Brick is going to be a stud and he was the safe pick, but I knew that about Blair Thomas too and look at how that turned out. The "BT Express" was derailed before it ever got out of the station. By the time the Jets second first round pick came around I had calmed down and rationalized that if the Jets drafted LenDale White (the other running back from USC , meaning not Reggie Bush, and the only power back in the draft) I would forgive them for passing on Leinart. In my opinion White has Eddie George, Larry Johnson type ability and could be that significant an addition to the team. What do they do? The draft a center, Nick Mangold, to replace Kevin Mawae who was a salary cap casualty and was aging anyway. Now, for a moment, I am livid, but in the back of my mind I know the Jets draft again in just a few picks and there is a better than average chance they can get LenDale White with their next pick, high in the second round. So now I actually start to feel encouraged. I think to myself, yes, this makes sense, rebuild the offensive line to protect the mediocre quarterbacks we have and then draft a stud running back to follow them into the end zone. I feel that warm sensation that Jets fans feel occasionally, hope. Yes, I say to myself, this CAN work... Chad won't make mistakes and if they give him a a lot of protection it won't matter so much his arm sucks. White will bash defenses and make crucial first downs and we have two young offensive lineman to protect them,

YES, THIS CAN WORK!!!

J-E-T-S JETS JETS JETS

What happens now?

The inevitable.

Crushing despair.

The Jets trade the pick. THEY TRADE IT AWAY!! For what? An extra pick in this draft and a 2nd rounder next year. They don't draft LenDale White. (rookie of the year in my mind at this point) They draft a quarterback from Oregon. A school whose mascot is a duck.

Quack! Quack! Quack!

What does this do?

This, aside from adding insult to injury, unleashes a raging bile soaked rant from me at the television. Roars of pain and anguish spew forth from me.

"IF YOU ARE GOING TO DRAFT A (expletive deleted)ING QB, WHY NOT DRAFT THE (expletive deleted)ING QB THAT IS A (expletive deleted)ING ROCK STAR!?!?! YES, YOU STUPID MOTHER (expletive deleted)ERS PASS ON THE ONLY POWER BACK IN THE (expletive deleted)ING DRAFT AFTER NOT HAVING THE BALLS TO DRAFT LEINART AND DRAFT A MOTHER (expletive deleted)ING QB FROM WHERE?? (expletive deleted)ING OREGON!!! OREGON??!!??? QUACK (expletive deleted)ING QUACK YOU STUPID MOTHER (expletive deleted)ERS"

I turn off the TV at this point and refuse to even look at the rest of the player they drafted until this morning. (They drafted a running back from Florida State that has 12 total touchdowns in college. LenDale White had 59 FIFTY NINE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

I left a series of enraged messages on my brother's answering machine ensuring that his new girlfriend thinks I am a raving lunatic. Some people think I am a reasonably well informed and intelligent individual. Listening to me after watching the Jets draft would lead someone to believe I was a completely insane person. Honestly, reliving it now has caused my blood pressure to spike and for me to start seeing spots.

Why not be a Falcons fan, you say? I mean, after all, I am in Atlanta now. I have a good reason. Falcons fans are about the rudest fans I have ever come across in sports history. They absolutely have no fan etiqutte whatsoever. I attended the Jets-Falcons game last year at the Georgia Dome. The fans stand up the whole game. I mean the ENTIRE game, from opening kick until we left. It was ludicrous.

Say what you want about New York fans, we understand the concept of fan eitquette. Long pass down the sideline, everyone stands up and screams. Play over? We sit our asses back in the seats until the next exciting thing happens. 2 and 8 and a two yard run up the middle we remain seated. We get excited when there is something to get excited about. We act as if we have been to a game before. The people here have no concept of how to behave at an NFL game. So I can't be a Falcon fan because there is almost no chance I will ever attend another game or have a desire to.

After this entire debacle I now have to consider whether I will get the NFL Sunday ticket again. Currently. the thought of paying a couple of hundred dollars to watch the Jets this season makes me physically ill.

No 1 of Consequence