March, 2016 archive
The Party of the Hairy Palms 0
The North Carolina Republican Party wants to look at your genitals.
Twits on Twitter 0
For all that it’s been throwing its weight around since the earliest days of the browser wars, Microsoft has never really gotten a handle on how this internet thingy works.
Tips on Terrorism 0
Michael Herriot submits The Caucasian’s Guide to Living under a Terrorist Threat. Here’s one of his hints:
Irish Soda Bread 0
This is a CC-SA image from the internet. We started eating before I thought of a picture.
What distinguishes soda bread from other breads is that baking soda, not baking powder or yeast, is the rising agent. No rising time is required before baking.
There are dozens of recipes across the innerwebs, some very simple, some not so much. Here’s the one I made yesterday, adapted and simplified from this one, which has a silly reliance on electrical appliances so as to seem much more complex than it is.
Ingredients:
- 2 cps. white flour
- 2 cps. white whole wheat flour
- 1/8 cp. maple syrup (I’m guessing here. I used my mother’s old measuring standard: “one pour.”)
- 1 tbs. baking soda (Again, I used “one pour.”)
- 1/2 stick butter, softened and cut into pats
- 1 3/4 cps. cultured buttermilk, approx. (read the label, make sure it’s “cultured” and not ersatz)
- 1 egg
Procedure:
1. Combine dry ingredients in a mixing bowl and mix.
2. Cut in butter until it is thoroughly mixed in.
3. Add egg to buttermilk and beat slightly with a fork or whisk.
4. Stir buttermilk mixture into dry ingredients a bit at a time. (Note: The dough will not mix up into a nice spongy ball like a yeast dough. Rather, it will be wet and a bit sticky. Coat your hands with flour before handling it. Be ready to add a little more flour or buttermilk if needed to produce the required consistency.)
4, As soon as it sticks together, dump it out on a floured board and knead until it consents to holding itself in shape of a loaf, about four or five times. The loaf will be craggy, not smooth like a yeast bread.
6. Place on a greased cookie sheet and bake in an oven preheated to 375 Fahrenheits for approximately 50 minutes or until a knife inserted in it comes out clean.
Nothing To Do, Nowhere To Go 0
Still not bad; it would be better if the jobs were better jobs (emphasis added):
(snip)
Initial filings have been below 300,000 for 55 weeks, the longest stretch since 1973 and a level economists say is consistent with a healthy labor market.
The four-week average of claims, a less-volatile measure than the weekly figure, was little changed at 259,750 compared with 259,500 in the prior week. . . .
The number of people continuing to receive jobless benefits declined by 39,000 to 2.18 million in the week ended March 12. The unemployment rate among people eligible for benefits held at 1.6 percent. These data are reported with a one-week lag.
English is a language of word order. The order of words matters.
Bloomberg’s headline emphasizes that the rise was less than forecast. Why does it not say that their forecasts were higher than the reality?
Stray Thought 0
A syntax error in your ~/.procmailrc can just ruin your whole day.
The Long and Short of It 0
Jessica Valenti takes the measure of the men and concludes they come up short.
More at the link.
The Snaring Economy 0
It’s a con and a scam.
The massive back-pay estimate is based on a federal standard for per-mile reimbursements, but the alleged underpayment really centers on a much more fundamental and complicated question: Are people who drive for companies like Lyft and Uber employees, independent contractors, or something in between?
The cab-killer apps treat their drivers as contractors to save tremendous amounts of money by evading the legal protections that employees enjoy.
Follow the link for a detailed analysis of the mechanics of the con.
“The Lost Cause” 0
Buried deep in a story about another subject in my local rag–almost an aside–are two sentences that in their off-handed casualness highlight just exactly what cause was lost.
Owners treated the workers* better after an 1808 law prohibiting new slave importation, McGill said.
“You wanted to get the longest service you could out of the ones you owned,” he said.
__________________
*Did he really refer to them as “workers”?
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 1
Children should treat adults with politeness.
Anderson County Sheriff Greg Taylor says the boy picked up a rifle while in a room with the woman’s husband, who was cleaning weapons Saturday at a home in Palestine. The bullet hit 23-year-old Carmen Danielle Morris, who was in another room.
“Beatings Will Continue until Morale Improves” 1
Elie Mystal sums up the Republican reaction to the bombings in Brussels.
