2013 archive
Peeping Toms Come to a Party 2
Has there been any organization since the Inquisition that has been as fascinated with the private parts of others as the Republican Party? Dick Polman:
“Watch a sonogram of a 15-week baby, and they have movements that are purposeful. They stroke their face. If they’re a male baby, they may have their hand between their legs. If they feel pleasure, why is it so hard to believe that they could feel pain?”
By suggesting that teensy male fetuses spank the monkey, Burgess was apparently trying to make a case for the pain canard.
Read the rest.
The Galt and the Lamers 4
In the course of discussing criticism he has received for a column he wrote on Ayn Rand, Jonathan Chait dances around his own feeling about that lady:
Read the rest.
Intellectual Propriety 0
Patent, trademark, and copyright law right now is a mess, filled with trolls and extortionists. The term “patent troll” exists for a reason.
Nothing To Do, Nowhere To Go 0
The only constant is that Bloomberg’s “experts” were off the mark.
Again.
(snip)
The four-week moving average, a less-volatile measure than the weekly figures, climbed to 348,250 last week from 345,750.
(snip)
The number of job seekers who have exhausted their traditional benefits and now are collecting emergency and extended aid fell by about 19,550 to 1.68 million in the week ended June 1.
News, Ripped from the Ticker 0
The usual warning: Language.
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
When you are waiting, pass the time politely:
The pair was waiting to meet the buyer of some merchandise they had been selling online, Crump said.
The man in the black vehicle got out, began talking to the couple and the conversation turned aggressive. The man then pulled out a firearm on the couple and one of the people in the white Toyota fired at him, authorities said.
We Need Single Payer 0
Alan Grayson once famously said that the Republican health care plan consisted of “Don’t get sick. If you do, die quickly.”
That seems a fitting lead in to this.
TSA Security Theatre, Miss Grundy Dept. 2
Mark Frauenfelder reports:
Frauenfelder says that he is pursuing this incident with TSA management.
There’s a picture at the link. I can be as much a dirty old man as the next guy, but I can’t see anything improper about the young lady’s outfit.
I have quoted my Freshman roommate before and it’s still true:
Give some people a flat hat and they think they rule the world.
Via AmericaBlog.
Update from the Foreclosure-Based Economy 0
No surprise here.
Steak and Kidney Pie 0
British cooking is not known for highness of its cuisine.
When I spent my junior year in England, lo! these many moons ago, I fell in love with Indian restaurants, which were as common there as Chinese restaurants were here. The one strictly English dish I really liked was steak and kidney pie.
Recently, I found a beef kidney at a local market, and I made a steak and kidney pie, using one of the recipes from Craig Claiborne’s New York Times International Coookbook.
Be forewarned: the result is very rich.
Ingredients:
- 2 1/2 lbs. beef, preferably top sirloin
- 4 veal kidneys (I had one beef kidney weighing about 2 1/2 lbs.)
- salt and pepper
- nutmeg
- 1/4 cp. butter
- 1/2 lb. mushrooms, sliced thin
- 1/4 cp. chopped shallots (I used spring onions)
- 1 tbs. minced garlic
- 1 tbs. dried tarragon
- 1 cp. drained canned tomatoes, quartered (you could also use diced tomatoes)
- 1 cp. dried white wind (I used dry sherry)
- 1 1/2 cps. brown sauce or 1 10 3/4 oz. can beef gravy
- 1 tsp. chopped thyme
- 5 hard-boiled eggs
- Pastry for crust
- 1 egg, beaten
- 1 tbs. water
Procedure:
1. Cut beef into 1″ cubes. Sprinkle lightly with salt, pepper, and nutmeg.
2. Cut kidneys similarly.
3. Saute beef in approx. 1/2 the butter. Remove when browned.
4. Saute kidney in the same skillet. Remove when browned.
5. Add remaining butter to the skillet, then add mushrooms. When the mushrooms are limp, add shallots, tarragon, tomatoes, garlic, and wine. Stir in brown sauce and thyme. Bring to a boil, stirring, then simmer for ten minutes or until the meat is tender.
6. Pour the mixture into a 2 1/2 qt. casserole and allow to cool to lukewarm. (I used two 1 1/2 qt. casseroles so I could freeze one.)
7. Preheat the oven to 450 degrees. Meanwhile, slice the eggs in quarters lengthwise and place them on top of the mixture. Cover with the pie crust, being sure to make a slash so the steam can escape. (My pie crust skills are sorely lacking–the crust broke in a couple of spots.) Brush with beaten egg and water.
8. Bake for 15 minutes at 450 degrees, then reduce heat to 350 degrees for half an hour or until the crust is nicely browned.
The Republican War against Women 0
Republicans getting skeevier and skeevier.
The Surveillance State 2
I have not been flipping out over the recent NSA stories because, as I mentioned, it’s old news. If you didn’t know this was going on, you haven’t been paying attention.
In this video, Alan Grayson falls into the trap of believing some of the more fantastic inferences in some of the news stories (as has most everybody else who doesn’t understand how networks work), particularly the one of confusing SFTP with a “backdoor into a server”; nevertheless, I think that his comments on the the entwining of domestic surveillance and the military establishment are worth a listen.
On Linux Outlaws this week, Fab, whose university training was in Political Science (and whose rants are legendary in the Linux podcasting world), went off on this topic. He had a good handle on the facts, international law, and the implications of this practice, if not on his language.
The relevant portion of the show starts at the 55 minute mark and lasts about half an hour (follow the link to listen; if you do, remember that the language is NSFW and that the standards for “acceptable” profanity in the UK, where Fab resides, differ significantly from those in the US–in particular, the list of the most forbidden words in the UK does not include the most forbidden swear word in the US).
Video via AmericaBlog.
Dis Coarse Discourse 0
When confronted with the truth, slur the messenger.
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
As through your life you wend your way,
Scatter politeness throughout the day.
“Dad,” the 9-year-old said. “There’s a gun.”
(snip)
There, perched atop a toilet paper dispenser inside a busy bathroom inside a busy movie theater, he discovered the loaded Glock 26, a small semiautomatic weapon.