Soup and chickpeas

I'm in search of some good winter soup recipes, and also recipes that use chickpeas, especially salads. Anyone have any suggestions?

Obvious casuistry

I came across a new word in a book I borrowed from Lisa. The word is casuistry. Never heard of it. Here's the context in which I came across it:

[Oil executives] tend to believe the economists in their employ, who are violently opposed to economic models that are not based on continual growth. Because the oil peak phenomenon essentially cancels out further industrial growth of the kind we are used to, its implications lie radically outside their economic paradigm. So the oil peak phenomenon has been discounted to about zero among conventional economists, who assume that "market signals" about oil supplies will inevitably trigger innovation, which, in turn, will cause new technology to materialize and enable further growth. If the market signals are not triggering innovation, then the problem must be overstated and growth under the oil regime will resume... This is obvious casuistry, but casuistry can be a great comfort when a problem has no real solution. (From The Long Emergency: Surviving the Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-First Century)

Nothing obvious about it. There's a complicated Wikipedia definition, but basically it means "rationalization."

Casuistry (argument by cases) is an attempt to determine the correct response to a moral problem, often a moral dilemma, by drawing conclusions based on parallels with agreed responses to pure cases, also called paradigms.

There's that p word again.

Please vote for charity to donate to...

What charity should the Chix donate to in lieu of holiday gifts for each other?
	ASPCA
	Common Cause
	Daily Kos
	National Resources Defense Council
	Other (please specify via a comment to this post)
Free polls from Pollhost.com

Chix charitable options

Kudos to Rose for the wonderful idea to give to charity this year. Some chix suggested posting options on the blog, so here goes ... some suggestions to get the ball rolling.

• ASPCA -- Ok, yes, I've been watching too much Animal Planet, especially the Katrina coverage, but they saved an awful lot of animals after the hurricane. They're also pushing for new federal emergency response policies that will make provisions for the evacuation of domestic pets.
  
• Common Cause -- except that I think several of us are already members.
• Daily Kos or another worthy blog -- help an individual who could use the dough to show the mainstream media what real investigative journalism is.
• National Resources Defense Council -- because they're willing to go after Exxon's "what global warming?" marketing machine, among other things.

What are some other suggestions?