Owlish Mutterings

You Say You Want a Revolution?

I'm guessing most, if not all in the Life Liberty Property group believe that the Second Amendment talks about an individual right to own guns, rather than a state-sponsored militia owning guns. If you disagree with this, why not go over to Eric's gun posts and scroll down, starting with the Tianmen Square pic? Thanks.

So, anyway, my thought is that the Second Amendment speaks to an individual right to own guns, and this right expands to a right to armed revolution in the event our government gets completely out of whack. Implicit, of course, the possible consequence of painful death for you and your loved ones in the event you fail.

So my evil mind starts thinking, what would it take to stop a widespread, armed revolt? Not a pitiful little "high school students take to the hills" revolt like Red Dawn, nor a "greedy crooks try to hold on to power with outside support" revolt. But a true, from the ground up, "Congress just passed a law requiring sperm collection and castration of any male over 15???" revolt.

You start with trying to spread the idea that any law the government passes must be followed, and those who don't are evil criminals. Check. You push the "it's all for your own good" idea, and "The Government knows what's best." Check.

You starve your populace because a group of people just at the edge of dying of starvation can't revolt. They're too busy trying to find food, and too susceptible to bribes. Hmm, not there yet. So, you want to take as much food production away from Mom and Pop operations as possible, and giving the responsibility to corporations or better yet the government. So you need land grabs. Kelo. You need to stop as much individual food production as possible, so you require people to have green lawns instead of crops growing on their house plot. This country has some of the most productive land on Earth, so you either need to reduce productivity [stop insecticide use, stop fertilizer use, stop better crops use] [working on it] or you need to export food, saying it's "excess" or "required for humanitarian purposes." Better yet, get the UN to say it's required for humanitarian purposes.

You need information. You need to know who has argued in support of the rebels publicly. You need to know what households are buying more food, that might be supporting more people than they are telling. You need to be able to monitor not only landline telephones, but also cell phones, email, and other forms of Information Age communication [getting there] [or you block Information Age devices entirely]. And blogs? Either try to reduce their influence by dismissing them as rightwing reactionaries, or monitor them, block certain words from being used, and immediately take into custody or kill anyone who goes over the line. This will reduce the rebels' ability to organize, and reduce or eliminate popular support.

And those pesky guns. Well, you need to reduce gun ownership as much as possible. You need to be able to confiscate as many guns as possible, and to do that you need to know where they are. So have strong registration laws. Make it difficult for people to have access to guns, so ban concealed carry laws [not there yet], and have requirements that make it impossible for a person to defend his /her family when our troops break into his house [like, the firearm must be locked up, with the ammo locked up in a different location]. [needs work]. If a rebel takes out one of your men once in a while that's no big deal, but you really don't want one guy taking out ten of your men, so try to call anything more powerful than a BB gun an assault rifle and ban it.

Of course, even if the rebels have some guns it's no big deal if you have armor able to stop the bullets.

You need good weapons for crowd control for the inevidable food riots, if nothing else. Tear gas is always a good standby, but wouldn't it be nice to have something that was more certain and more painful? They may riot once, but not twice.

You need the military, or at least a large fraction of it, on your side. Wouldn't it be nice if your opposition party started making comments seemingly designed to piss off the military?

So, what am I missing?

Hat tip to the inspiring countries of North Korea, Zimbabwe, Iran, and China.

Pumpkin Pie

Another of my grandmother's recipes, this time written out in the blank pages of a cookbook:

Pumpkin Pie
9" pastry shell with high fluted edge.
2 slightly beaten eggs with 1 pound can of Del Monte pumpkin
Combine: 1/4 cup light brown sugar, 1/2 cup white sugar, 1 tsp vanilla, 1/2 tsp salt, 1 tsp cinnamon, 1/4 tsp nutmeg, 1/4 tsp cloves.

Blend into pumpkin mixture. Stir in 1 can (1 2/3 cup) of evaporated milk.
Bake 450 for 15 min
reduce oven to 350 and bake 25 to 35 min more, or until knife comes out clean 2 inches from edge

For pecan ring: take pie from oven 10 min before done. Spoon a mixture of 1.2 cup chopped pecans, 2 tablespoons brown sugar, 1 tablespoon butter. Add 1 1/2 tsp grated orange rind around edge of pie. Bake 10 min more.

Don't Ask, Don't Tell

Robert commented on my gay marriage post, incidentally noting his post on DADT.

I agree. DADT is a horrible policy.
(1) A (straight, married) friend is an Air Force officer. He has done a bit of a historical review, and the same things people were saying about having mixed race units before integration, people are saying about having gays openly serving.
(2) If the military is having recruiting problems, why turn away or fire a population willing to serve?
(3) I have known one military psychiatrist. His job got messy sometimes with DADT, he would have to tell his patient [if it looked like the guy was getting ready to tell him something he didn't really want to hear] that if his patient came out to him, he would have to tell the guy's commanding officer, and if the guy wanted possibly to talk about those kinds of issues, he could make a referral to the civilian world.

So, yeah, I think there's a rights issue there.

On the other hand, what really pisses me off is people being thrown out of their families when they come out, or kids being sent to ex-gay camp. And there is no rights issue there (except maybe child abuse).

Groups

Ok, so now I'm part of 2 TTLB groups, MuNuvia and Life Liberty Property. The somewhat surprising thing is how high up in the various rankings this blog is. I assumed most of my ranking came from people's MuNu list, but if so how'd I get so high up. Not that I'm complaining, mind.

I do need to do some more housekeeping: sitemeter, transfer the blogspot archive, etc.

Oh, and this is one of the best PvP strips. Doesn't have anything to do with the normal story, but it made me laugh.

Gay Marriage

Angry in the Great White North has been writing a lot on gay marriage in Canada, most recently here. Several other posts under it are required reading to understand.

Now, I'm not Canadian, and I don't have a clear understanding of their laws or their legal system. But basically, he's worried [if I understand correctly] tax-exempt churches will end up being required to permit same sex marriages on their property, some churches will refuse, and bad things will happen, at the urging of an anti-religious minority of the population.

For the record, my preference would be to get the government completely out of the business of saying who is married and who is not. Since that would require governments to give up power it'll never happen.

Matt and Tom

No Government Cheese has a fun post, with an interview between Tom Cruise and Matt Lauer.

Well, ok, not a real interview. But still, as someone on Scientology's hit list, I enjoy making fun of them as often as possible.

Animaniacs Therapy

The LlamaButchers link to Operation Respect: Don't Laugh at Me with more "juicy bits" at Michelle Malkin.

Two thoughts: (1) Look, the real problem is kids who can and want to beat up other kids, not poor communication skills. If the administrations at the schools did something useful rather than suspending kids who take butter knives to school, this wouldn't be as much of a problem. Then of course there's the state governments passing laws that tie the hands of the schools, to the point of not being able to restrain out of control kids without a police presence.
(2) The Animaniacs have a cartoon in which the little squirrel is being beaten daily by a bully. His aunt wants to do something about it, but the kid wants to do the right thing so he keeps following the let's all be friends advice of the school counselor. Of course, every time he does he gets another injury. This lasts until he asks for help from his aunt, who helps with cartoon bombs, hand grenades, and pie.

My basic philosophy: treat everyone nicely, until they screw with you, or until it's obvious they are going to screw with you. Then do something to make sure it never happens again.

Porn Star

Note: This Quiz ends up going to a Not Safe for Work Site.

So, which gay porn star are you?

Hat tip: It's Good to be a Guy.

The Colossus Astride the Blogosphere

The Colossus has a great post on what he thinks President Bush should have said in his speech.

And a fun post linking to all things Bond

It's a shame we can't combine the two.

By the way

Just so people know, my permalinks are screwed in some weird way, so since I wanted to push the Carnival of Music, I havn't been publishing anything else. I've been writing drafts, though, and will have at least one article for the Carnival of Liberty.

Meanwhile:
Pixy! Misa! He's our man,
If he can't do it... we're really screwed.

If worse comes to worse, I'll post temporarily at my old Blogspot digs.

It's a Gas

With a Hat Tip to Searchlight Crusade:

You Are From Saturn

You're steady, organizes, and determined to achieve your dreams. You tend to play it conservative, going by the rules (at least the practical ones). You'll likely reach the top. And when you do, you'll be honorable and responsible. Focus on happiness. Don't let your goals distract you from fun! Don't be too set in your ways, and you'll be more of a success than you ever dreamed of.

Carnival of Music #4

Welcome to the Carnival of Music. Thanks go to JohnL at TexasBestGrok for getting things started, hopefully it will take on some energy of it's own. The Carnival of Music Archive Page has links to previous carnivals, and links to upcoming hosts [hint: And What Next... is hosting next week.]

Andrew Ian Dodge at Growing Old Disgracefully is feeling Calm Reflection: "The feeling you get when you realise you have just heard the final mix to your new album's first single."

Next, Sissy at And What Next has bought a digital piano, and is enjoying it.

And Rachel Ann at Willow Tree has thoughts on her own singing, both from a religious perspective and on her bird-like singing voice.

Let's go to CD's Semi-Intelligent Thoughts, where he's working on starting a band. They've got a name, Suspended Agitation, a logo, and have started on a couple of songs. "Suspended Agitation combines elements of metal and grunge to create a sound that's both brutally heavy and pleasantly melodic." He asks for feedback on the songs, so go help him.

Don at Mixolydian Mode puts together a CD of various music here, decides it may be too mellow. But that's ok, because he can always go listen to Japanese "visual rock."

The FredoSphere has some thoughts on the Texas Music Educators Association and a countertenor.

And I've got some thoughts on music in my life here.

That's it for this week. Remember, if you want to host or recommend a post email JohnL through john.lanius-at-comcast.net. Thanks!

A New Pledge

Is it just me, or have public schools gone completely crazy?

An 8 year old boy says his own pledge, instead of the Pledge of Allegiance, and gets suspended?

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United Federation of Planets, and to the galaxy for which it stands, one universe, under everybody, with liberty and justice for all species.

I don't think the United Federation of Planets is the greatest possible government, but come on.

Hat tip: Also to Nodwick.

Give in to the Dark Side

Darth Cruise? Darth Hubbard? I don't know to what, but Tom Cruise clearly needs to change his name.

Music

I thought I would write a little on music in my life. I don't know if this is going to be interesting to anyone. If not, skip ahead.

I come from a fairly musically oriented family. My dad played the trumpet in his college marching band, my mother played the piano [mostly for family]. My sister makes a living with the violin. My brother likes the guitar, and hangs out with a local band.

Growing up, I had a lot of piano lessons. Classes from the local university, looking back on it, that were aimed at teaching college students how to teach the piano to kids [me]. I got pretty good at individual pieces, but always had trouble with improvising or working out of a fake book [melody in right hand, chords in left, you decide how fancy you want to make both].

Around 9th or 10th grade I went to a different teacher, to try to learn some more skills, but I wasn't practicing enough to learn much. And about that time my parents got me an electronic keyboard for Christmas. The intent was good, they hoped it would be a way for me to get more excited about playing and practicing. And it sort of worked, for a while. But: (1) there was other stuff I was much more interested in (2) my younger sister was better with the violin than I was with the piano, which was pretty discouraging (3) the keyboard itself was complicated enough that I couldn't use it to its full range, which didn't really help.

So, if I had been in a band, or working towards it, and was a little bit better, the keyboard would have been a great present. As it was, it didn't really do the job, and was probably way more expensive than the use I got out of it.

Now, I've still got the keyboard, and I still have the music, and I still have some of the old skill, so every now and then I think about restarting playing. Maybe I will. Someday.

House Cleaning

Puttering around, fixing things. Put up a motto, thanks to a suggestion by Rachel Ann.

One of these days I'll transfer my blogspot archives.

The Life Liberty Property group- it makes sense for me to join, but my blogging style [if I have one] clashes wildly. If you look at the page for the group at TLB, we have various posts on Kelo, then my post on Willy Wonka vs Mary Poppins. We'll see.

Pride Houston

So, I didn't go. Walked around The Strand this morning, felt much more tired than I should have. Still a little sick, I guess.

Willy Wonka vs Mary Poppins

What is Flig has a post wondering who would win in a fight, Willy Wonka or Mary Poppins?

My thought, of course, is that in every superhero comic, when you have superheros fighting, they usually end up joining together to fight off some horrible threat.

So: Willy Wonka, playboy CEO of a large company by day, crusader for justice by night. Mary Poppins, governness to small children and repairer of rifts in the space/time continuum leading to alternate realities.

Teamed up to defeat a giant chocolate stealing demon.

Kevin Smith directs and plays the part of the demon. We'll see how Johnny Depp does, we might want him back for Wonka again. Mary Poppins? Angelina Jolie: somewhat exotic, well able to handle a couple of snotty nosed brats.

Hey, it could happen.

Tom Cruise

I haven't talked much about wild breeder in love TC, but Kathy of The Cake Eater Chronicles has.

Scientology, one of the slickest cults around.

Goodbye, Liberty

Land Grab starting. Your business has been operating since 1946? Too bad.

Another hat tip to Fark.

Goodbye, New Jersey

Breaking News: New York City to claim New Jersey for landfill by eminent domain.

H/T: Fark.

GeekSlut

Is posting again. And he's got hair. And he's getting tired of World of Warcraft.

Government Best that Governs Least? Or More?

aTypical Joe says: "If you took all the countries in the world, all the places on earth, and measured those with more government versus those with less government, you'd find that those with more government have a higher standard of living and greater human liberty."

He's gotten 2 responses, posted here and here.

A couple of thoughts: there are some services that the govenrment provides, that I wish were not provided at all. And there are some services that our government provides that I think would be better if they were provided privately. And there are some services that our government provides, like air travel safety, in which I think our government is doing a horrible job, and providing a very poor return for our dollar.

So, it's not that I want to pay fewer taxes. It's that I get damn little for the taxes I do pay. National defense? Ok, that's directly useful to me and important to me. Roads? Yeah, they're useful, but there are at least a few porkbarrel bridges and "construction" projects that seem to go on forever. Education? Indirectly useful, I guess. Vouchers all the way, if we want publicly funded education. Fire protection? Never needed it, but useful. But, we have a significantly more aggressive and expensive system than the rest of the world. Safe and effective meds? I guess, although I would prefer going back to the FDA just certifying "safe." Way too much time and money [IMO] gets spent on stage 3 trials, that if consumers were better able to take control of their own health care, could be unnecessary. Police? Hmm. How many billions of dollars are we spending on the drug war? Back in college, in a discussion with a friend, I made the comment that I wasn't sure police were a vital service. And I'm still not. Various things have been stolen from my family, only once has anything been retrieved. I'm presumably benefiting from an increase in law abiding citizens due to cops being around, but I see way too many examples of cops going after what makes various governments money rather than making us safer [meter maids constantly checking parked cars on the street, while ignoring cars blocking the driveway behind my apartment, traffic cops enforcing silly speed limits rather than doing the work required to identify unsafe drivers, parents being jailed for serving alcohol to 16 year olds, etc.]

And that's just the obvious services that reasonable people could want. Much less the nanny-state, pork barrel crap.

And yeah, there are people out there who got screwed over by life, who can't possibly make it in the "real world." But there arn't many. And there are people getting disability who don't fit that category.

And yeah, given infinite resources I can do some amazing things in mental health. But I don't think that's the best use of our resources.

*pant, pant*

So, questions?

Sick?

It's clear I had a virus earlier this week. Runny nose, didn't feel well, not much else. Now, the nasal crap is doing better, but I still don't feel like doing much.

No fever, no aches, don't feel sleepy, don't feel depressed. Just feel more like it's a Saturday morning after a busy week, and I don't want to do anything.

This year's Pride celebration in Houston is tomorrow. I've never been to one before. So, the real question is, am I feeling afteraffects of a stupid cold, or am I more anxious about going than I consciously know?

I don't want to drive for an hour, wander around for 30 minutes, feel tired enough that I'm not enjoying anything, and drive back. But I don't want to be a complete veg either.

Not sure, but I bet I'm not going.

Oh, and driving today some suicidal bird dove under my tire. Cloud of feathers in my rear view mirror. My truck is now blooded.

Blog Nekkid

Don't forget, today is the Official Blog Nekkid Day!

Well, as official as anything on the net can be, anyway.

Let Freedom Reign.

H/T: Yourish

Carnivals

This week's Carnival of Recipes is up. As is The Carnival of Gamers. And don't forget the cats taking over the Carnival of Vanities.

Also, get in your posts for the Carnival of Music, that I'm hosting this week.

Recipes for red onion cilantro salsa and margaritas. Mmm.

Onion dip coated Ramen noodles?

Drunken Chicken Suppositories

Chocolate and Guinness Brownies. Yet another recipe on the list of things to make, that I really shouldn't eat.

Next Harry Potter Movie

Trailer here.
H/T: Red Sugar Muse.

Could be cool. Trailer says November.

Pisses Me Off

From A Small Victory, who hates zombies:

*looks at the current world's population* You must have a lot of frustration then.

What pisses you off?

Created by ptocheia

Dark Conspiracy/Traveller Crossover

A diary of a campaign, that reads more like a book. Cool ending, don't skip ahead.

Kelo

Rundown on Kelo here, here, and here.

And here.

Of course, IANAL. But when I think about the whole situation, I think about a roleplaying game, Dark Conspiracy. [kinda old, I can't find a current publisher's webpage].

In Dark Conspiracy, it's a near future Earth, and all sorts of horrible things have happened. Ecological nightmares, another great depression, megacorps have the real political power, and vampires, werewolves, and aliens haunt the streets and the boardrooms. Not a fun place to be.

One change from the real world is that at some point, it became legal for a citizen to sell his or her vote to a corporation, so the corps provide "welfare", more or less [mostly less] in exchange for the votes. So the corps can elect whoever they want, and get pretty much any law passed they want.

Now, the rules specifically state that the Constitution and the Bill of Rights are in force, so even if an outlandish law is passed, it will be ruled unconstitutional by the court system.

So, congratulations, SCOTUS. You've managed to give more power to the government than was considered possible in the worst dystopian RPGs of 10-15 years ago.

Flag Burning

Various comments on Flag Burning: Alder on the Corner : "I think a constitutional amendment to prohibit flag burning is an abomination." Captain's Quarters: "what we will have will be hundreds of amendments addressing narrow issues that will create massive confusion and complications for legislatures and law-enforcement efforts. We will have the EU Constitution instead of the compact framework that has served us so well for the last two centuries."
Plus The Anchoress and Eugene Volokh's post and article.

Various hat tips to Instapundit.

Stryker has the definitive word: "Given the events of September 11th, I could get behind an anti-people burning amendment....But not the flag burning, though. Anytime you use the Constitution to limit freedom instead of expanding it, I think that can be considered a bad thing. I always thought the Constitution was the means through which the People told the government what it could and could not do, not the other way around. But I guess I’m weird that way."

Count me weird too.

Zombies and the End Times

Via Conspiracy of the Month, comes Exit Mundi, with various ways the Earth and/or Humans will be destroyed. It points to a Zombie Simulator.

More Religious Quizes

So, bouncing off a comment, via Deep Calls to Deep, I find this quiz:

More Religion

Saw this quiz first on TexasBestGrok. Still wonder about some of these. 69% Orthodox Quaker? 50% Scientologist?

1. Mainline to Liberal Christian Protestants (100%)
2. Reform Judaism (78%)
3. Liberal Quakers (75%)
4. Unitarian Universalism (73%)
5. Mainline to Conservative Christian/Protestant (72%)
6. Orthodox Quaker (69%)
7. Seventh Day Adventist (62%)
8. Eastern Orthodox (59%)
9. Roman Catholic (59%)
10. New Thought (56%)
11. Bah�'� Faith (55%)
12. Orthodox Judaism (52%)
13. Sikhism (51%)
14. Scientology (50%)
15. Christian Science (Church of Christ, Scientist) (47%)
16. Islam (47%)
17. New Age (43%)
18. Neo-Pagan (43%)
19. Hinduism (42%)
20. Secular Humanism (34%)
21. Mahayana Buddhism (34%)
22. Theravada Buddhism (34%)
23. Taoism (32%)
24. Nontheist (32%)
25. Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) (31%)
26. Jainism (23%)
27. Jehovah's Witness (13%)

Would you like to take a survey?

Noted on Lies and Statistics.

Took a wild guess on how many people read this blog, since I don't have sitemeter up yet.

Pride

Houston's Pride Celebration is this weekend. I'm probably going, if this cold doesn't get worse.

Heather Gold has a fun essay on Pride.

H/T: Boing Boing

Flying Spaghetti Monster

Yes, it's true, the Flying Spaghetti Monster created the universe, and is causing scientists to believe carbon-14 dating shows the world is much older than it really is.

Hat tip: Boing Boing

Bad Magic

This book comes highly recommended by a friend. Anyone read it?

Programmer or Serial Killer

Fun quiz, I scored 8 out of 10.

Hat tip: Doc Searles

MilBlogger down

Chuck, the author of From My Position.... On the Way, has been injured [sounds like no life treatening wounds]. We wish him and his family well.

Hat tip: Instapundit.

Christian Quiz, take 2

The LlamaButchers found this quiz. There are a couple of questions that are not even close to what I believe.

Rank Item Percent
1: Congregational/United Church of Christ (100%)
2: Baptist (Reformed/Particular/Calvinistic) (97%)
3: Church of Christ/Campbellite (96%)
4: Lutheran (94%)
5: Methodist/Wesleyan/Nazarene (94%)
6: Anglican/Episcopal/Church of England (92%)
7: Presbyterian/Reformed (84%)
8: Eastern Orthodox (74%)
9: Baptist (non-Calvinistic)/Plymouth Brethren/Fundamentalist (66%)
10: Roman Catholic (66%)
11: Pentecostal/Charismatic/Assemblies of God (61%)
12: Seventh-Day Adventist (61%)
13: Anabaptist (Mennonite/Quaker etc.) (53%)

The Opinionated Bastard

The Opinionated Bastard has a long post on a couple of myths floating around the blogosphere, and rather completely demolishes them. With an interesting diversion into the end of WW1.

So, what would the world be like if Woodrow Wilson hadn't had a stroke, or had died?

Found via the Carnival of Vanities #144 [great job, by the way].

Cucumber Salad

This recipe comes from Dad Cooks up a Party, a fun cookbook.

2 cucumbers, rinsed and thinly sliced [the book recommended seedless cucumbers, which I ignored]
1/2 red onion, thinly sliced
1/4 cup white wine vinegar
2 tablespoons lemon juice
2 tablespoons chopped fresh dill
1 teaspoon salt

Mix everything together. Chill for at least a couple of hours.
After a couple of days the color will begin to seep out of the red onion and into the liquid. Doesn't change the taste, just the presentation.

Quick to make, and tasty. And perfect for a summer picnic.

Reactions to recipes

I made this cheese dip for the party Saturday [with the modifier of leaving out the taco sauce, which possibly made the dip too dry] [oh, and I didn't use any fresh jalapenos, just a couple of chipolte peppers in adobo sauce]. A large success, the crockpot was nearly empty by the end of the evening.

Next time though, I might leave out the mushrooms - they're bland enough that I don't think they added much. The olives were good though.

I also made this cucumber salad. I liked it, although I think people were worried about eating the fresh red onion - at the end of the party, about half of the salad was gone, with a lot of onions left.

It went really well with my mother's peas, though.

Carnival of Music #3

The Third carnival is up at TexasBestGrok. Some interesting posts, a fair number focused on the production of music in some way or another. For example, this post from Of Music and Men on the stage presence of the classical performer.

I'm hosting the Carnival this week, so send in your posts. As far as I'm concerned, anything having to do with music is fair game.

Pocky

Via Pixy Misa, comes this quiz [one of these days I'm going to have to try some Pocky]:

what flavor pocky are you?

[c] sugardew

Eek

Holy crap, Instapundit can write a lot in 3 days.

Has he been replaced by a computer yet?

Omnicode

So, did the now obsolete Geek Code before, now there's the Omnicode! [H/T: LDH]

Sheesh, what a mess. Version 1.6 [skipping all codes requiring me to post colors in hex]

sxy esO sp< Ag1966 AnC hdd Zos ZoH [if I remember correctly] rlC LAEN(9) & DE(1) & SP(3) Crh(8)&$(2) Edh(8) HbTurn_Based_Strategy_Games Pll^! MvD.Truck Rl! Kd! PeP Fh!^g&m IN* AdC-&I PRBASIC&C++&HTML-

Hello again

Hey, it's been a busy couple of days, and I couldn't remember the right website to post from my parents', so I've been slacking.

Summary: Went to a friend's party on Saturday, went to see Moses Guest that night at The Continental Club. [review: decent band, nothing really stuck with me]. Then went up to my parents' place for fathers day, helped my dad build a perpetual motion machine, caught a cold, and came back a little earlier than I had planned.

So, now I'm hoping this stupid cold goes away quickly. Probably got it from one of the rugrats at the party.

Boar killing with a .38

From the Carnival of Cordite comes this story of a man and his pig.

Flappy Bird

Hey, how cool is that? Owlish Mutterings is a flappy bird.

And you know what? It's also cool getting more than one comment a fortnight. :)

Other Batman takes

Idle Mendacity has a long, positive review. Lots of spoilers.

Doesn't anyone like the girl? I mean, rumor has it she's having to deal with crazy Tom to try to promote Batman, and she sucks most of all. How sad is that?

Carnival of recipes

The latest carnival is up.

Salsa Potato Salad sounds interesting.

Thai pork salad is probably good, and has some interesting steps [turning rice into powder, for instance.

Skillet chicken, kinda italian, tomatoey.

Burritos, pan fried or baked.

And finally, this recipe for frozen blackberry pie looks really good, although it's got several steps.

Does it come in black?

Just saw Batman Begins. Cool. Dark.

It plays around with the origin story in some interesting ways. Nothing too odd.

If everyone is using cell phones, why the heck do the cops need a batsignal?

And of course, what's the political message? People who try to save the world by giving alms get killed. Unbridled greed in corporations is bad. Batman has to fight both evil and people who want to completely destroy evil, not caring if good people get killed along the way.

It somewhat bothered me that the doomsday plan is based on a machine that just wouldn't work. Yup, a general broadcast microwave machine that boils water in pipes 100 ft away, underground, but does nothing to people standing next to it. Right.

Also, for those geeks out there, there's this essay at Soundacious [H/T: Geek Philosophy]

Oh, and this Batman isn't a geek, a nerd, or a dork. He's the crazy quiet kid whom everyone ignores until he threatens the school bullies with a gun.

Update: Hmm. The Galveston Daily News has a pretty good article on the Dark Knight.

Update 2: double hmm. Scott Kurtz has some comments, some spoiler free and some not. My reactions to his spoilered comments in extended entry.

1) The whole kill/ don't kill thing is weird, not just in the battle with the League of Shadows. I can see not wanting to lead an army of ninjas into your hometown. But, at the end, the best way he can stop Ra's plan is to have Gordon drive the batmobile and derail the monorail? Why not just do something to break the machine? Plus, I'm not going to kill you, but I'm going to leave you to die instead is an extremely fine line.

2) I don't read the comics, I don't have as much trouble with the League of Shadow's plan to destroy the largest, most decadent cities in the world. It's a stupid goal, but I can accept it.

3) Everyone being connected: Gordon I can deal with [Wayne remembers him from childhood, investigates him, discovers he's an honest, lowlevel cop, decides to use him as the police contact; there might be other honest cops, but no particular reason to choose another over Gordon], the kid is a bit much.

4) Yeah, ok, revealing your secret id when you don't have to is a no-no.

5) Fights: having most of the action take place offcamera didn't really bother me. But there were times when I was thinking "Why isn't he using a gun?" He's fighting 10 or so people at a time, they're shooting at him, time is of the essence, why isn't he shooting them, or at least using a gas grenade or something?

Moo

I need to show this to my dad.

Hat tip: Carnival of comedy.

People are Stupid

Then we have Sean Penn:

But he told a film student during a visit to Iran's Film Museum in Tehran on Monday that the "Death to America" slogan chanted each week at Friday Prayers hurt Iran-U.S. relations.

"I understand the nature of where it comes from and what its intention is," he said. "But I don't think it's productive because I think the message goes to the American people and it is interpreted very literally."

Hat tip: Fark

More Dreams

"Gay sex is going to talk to your parents, not knowing if you'll ever talk to them again."

Said by me, in a dream last night. I was getting ready for my wedding, a la The Fifth Element. My groomsmen were wearing mime makeup; the turkey which we planned to serve to the guests was still raw.

I wasn't trying to convince someone gay sex was wrong; I was trying to convince them it was serious.

I need a new dream scriptwriter.

People are Crazy

I've got a friend whose generic reaction to people's actions is "People are stupid." My counter usually is "No, people are crazy."

The head guy at DailyKos posts about torture, equating Saddam's rapists on the payroll and women and children being tortured to death in front of their husbands and father with someone being hogtied and left in that position for maybe a day.

Specifically, he says: "The torture that was so bad under Saddam, is equally bad under U.S. command."

I agree with TexasBestGrok. This is BULLSHIT. And it is so offensive that the "People are crazy" meme is in force. For most practical purposes, The DailyKos is delusional. One doesn't try to argue with delusional people, one ignores what they say, watches what they do, and tries to stop any harm from happening.

I don't usually read left-leaning political blogs, I get enough of that mindset from the media and acquaintances. Now I know why.

Other fun articles found here.

Codes

I was looking at Impenetrable Prose and Poetry and noticed his Blogger Code.

Mine is:
B5 d- t- k+ s- u-- f+ i o x e- l++ c+

While we're at it, my Geek Code is currently

GMD d- s+:++ a C++ U--- L E W++ N w+ M- PS+++ PE++ Y+ PGP+ 5+ X- R>+ tv+ b+++ DI+ D+ G e++++ h r- y?

By the way, the Geek Code itself is seriously out of date. Anyone know of a newer one?

And I might as well put up my bearcode: B0 c--d f g- k q- r s- t w+

Christian Worldview

Via TexasBestGrok comes an interesting quiz. I'm not sure about some of the questions:

You scored as Emergent/Postmodern. You are Emergent/Postmodern in your theology. You feel alienated from older forms of church, you don't think they connect to modern culture very well. No one knows the whole truth about God, and we have much to learn from each other, and so learning takes place in dialogue. Evangelism should take place in relationships rather than through crusades and altar-calls. People are interested in spirituality and want to ask questions, so the church should help them to do this. Emergent/Postmodern 75% Classical Liberal 54% Modern Liberal 46% Evangelical Holiness/Wesleyan 43% Neo orthodox 43% Roman Catholic 39% Reformed Evangelical 14% Charismatic/Pentecostal 11% Fundamentalist 4% What's your theological worldview? created with QuizFarm.com

Alpha Alpha mom

I know this is non-PC, but: this person has no business becoming a mother. If you can't do it without hiring several other helpers, why do it at all?

Hat tip: LlamaButchers.

Spinach Stuffed Meat Squares

Another of the recipes given to my friend by her mother.

Try at your own risk, although it might not be too bad, sort of meatloaf with spinach inside. Maybe it could be turned low carb?

10 oz pkg frozen spinach
1 c mozzarella or mont jack cheese
1 lb extra lean ground beef
3/4 cup oatmeal
2/3 c ketchup
1 egg beaten
1/4 c chopped onion
1 tsp garlic salt
1 tsp oregano
1/2 tsp basil

Cook spinach; drain well. Shred cheese. In small bowl mix spinach and 1/2 c cheese; set aside. In large bowl combine beef, oats, ketchip, egg, onion, garlic salt, oregano and basil. Press 1/2 of meat mixture into an 8" square baking dish. Top with spinach mixture, then remaining meat mixture. Bake uncovered 30-45 min or until meat shrinks away from sides of dish. Drain off any extra fat from dish [how this would work, I have no clue. good luck]. Sprinkle with remaining cheese. Bake uncovered 5 min or until cheese is melted. Let stand 15 min before cutting into 6 squares.

David Sutherland dies

Illustrator of early Dungeons and Dragons items. Obituary here.

Sounds like a sad life, actually.

Hat tip: Fark.

The Pryhills

A cool gay blog, primarily focused on gay issues, but includes some more fun stuff, like beer. And he's even tried his hand at brewing.

Hat Tip: Downtown Lad.

Well, make that Downtown Lad's guest blogger, KipEsquire of A Stitch in Haste.

Update: Sorry, that should be She's tried her hand at brewing [yeah, brewing with a kit still is brewing, like riding a bicycle with training wheels].

Motto

So, I'm looking for a new motto for this blog.

Anyone like: If I've told you once, I have told you a hundred times: You have to clean up after yourself or it will attract more of those giant red demon-roaches. [Order of the stick, #82]

Or: I am here to use my frabjulitulity to mictfarcate your gilltooney! [OOTS #127]

Or the gibberish from the site JohnL found: Our feature set is unmatched in the industry, but our holistic, blog-based, bleeding-edge web-readiness and easy use is always considered a terrific achievement.

The old one, for comparison: It's a floor topping and a dessert wax! No, wait... It's an online diary and a linkfest; one man's thoughts about life, liberty, and the pursuit of a boyfriend.

Odd Recipes

A friend was going through a recipe file that her mother had given her. Specifically, her mother typed them into a computer, printed them out on individual cards, then put them in a file and gave them to her daughter.

Which is nice except for some of the recipes, which look completely inedible. Some of the worst:

Sweet 'N' Sour Hot Dogs
1 lb. cocktail hot dogs
2/3 c chili sauce
2/3 c currant jelly

Combine chili sauce and jelly. Pour over hot dogs. Heat stirring occasionallly till jelly is melted. Simmer about 10 min till sauce has thickened; baste occasionally.

Hot Dogs Sweet and Sour II
3/4 c. ketchup
1 c. grape jelly
1 lb hot dogs

Slice hot dogs in pieces and add to sauce. Heat thru.

Mmm. That's sum good eats right there.

I don't think I've got the courage to try it.

Young Adult Book Meme

Via A Small Victory we have another book meme:

So, what fiction did you read as a teen/young adult that you have re-read as an adult (or would like to)? What pieces of fiction meant something to you? Put up your list, and pass it on to 2-3 people.

She has a great list. The Chronicles of Narnia would be on my list also, although it's been a while since I've read them. I still have my 7 book set, though. I will read at least The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe before the movie comes out.

Edgar Eager would also have to be on my list. In elementary school [2nd grade maybe?] as a class everyone wrote a letter to an author. I wrote mine to him. I got back a form letter with a bibliography and a biography telling me he'd been dead for a while.

A book I would have to add, that I liked but havn't read in a while is Black and Blue Magic, by Zilpha Keatley Snyder. I have to reread it one of these days.

SciFi Babes

TexasBestGrok has a new SciFi babes poll up: the women of The Incredibles.

Vote early, vote often.

Dreams

Jeez, who needs shrooms? 2 long, realistic dreams, one my only version of a recurring nightmare, [I'm back in college, it's finals week and I havn't studied- took a test on Shakespeare and then geology], the second felt like a Buffy episode with no monster [or maybe Angel, when they're living in the old hotel; lots of rooms, lots of people, I think Rush premiered a new song, my friends were thinking about moving].

I must be pretty darn anxious about something.

Sith Apprentice

On Atom Films, we have Sith Apprentice.

Who will be hired, and who will be destroyed by force lightning?

The real apprentice is much more evil, though.

Blog Missing?

Has A Perfectly Cromulent Blog gone poof? It's been a couple of days since I could go to it. Bummer.

Update: He's back. And having way too much fun in Vegas.

Rocket Jones' Introduction

This is probably the best introduction I've seen to a blog, for someone who has no idea of what a blog is.

I'm going to try to import my blogspot files, then I'll try to write an updated introduction for my blog.

That's Smurfy!

I don't do drugs, but:

You scored as Mushrooms. Shrooms! You're still goin for one of the most natural drugs. You'd like to visit a whole other world, and see things you've never seen before. Fucking trippy. What's your ideal drug? created with QuizFarm.com

IQ (sort of)

I doubt this is that accurate a test, but hey, it's another quiz: [via Small Dead Animals]

Your IQ Is 135

Your Logical Intelligence is Genius Your Verbal Intelligence is Genius Your Mathematical Intelligence is Genius Your General Knowledge is Exceptional

Carnival of Music

Don't miss JohnL's second Carnival of Music.

I can think of one usefulish thing I can write about music, but I don't know if I want to. Part of the problem is it involves JohnL somewhat.

Words about Alcohol

Courtesy of Modern Drunkard ezine, [H/T: AntiQuark] comes this list of most words associated with drinking, their meaning, and possible origins.

And I found Antiquark via AEBrain, who has a list of some of the geekiest chemistry jokes I've ever seen.

A sample: Why do white bears dissolve in water? Because they're polar.

Fashion in Protestors

Utter Wonder critiques the stylings of a "God Hates Fags" group.

Hat tip: Boing Boing

Is your llama missing?

Wondering where Steve the Llamabutcher is? Now you know.

Houston Jaywalking

blogHOUSTON has a post on METROs plan to stop the evil of jaywalking.

Which brings the news to the world: yes, people are walking around downtown Houston in the summer.

And, I agree, this is money driven, not safety driven.

Michael Jackson

He has been found not guilty, on all counts.

I predicted this outcome to some friends a couple of weeks ago, they thought it was unlikely. Yay me.

So, anyway, is he really guilty of molesting kids? I have no idea. I do know two things, though: (1) He's really weird. (2) I bet someone who didn't have millions of dollars to throw at defense attorneys would be in jail right now.

How long till he moves to Europe? Africa? I'm betting Africa.

Mr and Ms Smith

Saw the movie Mr and Ms Smith this evening. I thought it was fairly clever, and if you can get past the basic assumptions of the movie, realistic.

In other words, I think the characters react like humans would in an odd situation.

Lots of fun, stuff blows up. And, since the characters are talking about their "relationship," maybe you can convince your significant other it's a chick flick.

Chewie Rocks

Someone went to a heck of a lot of trouble to make this. Pretty damn cool.

H/T: A Small Victory,

Evil Overlord List

Just so I can find it again, here is the Evil Overlord List.

Butterfinger Cookies

So my friends were having a gettogether at their house, and I wanted to bring some cookies. Looked at some past Carnivals of Recipes, and found this recipe for Butterfinger cookies.

Relatively easy to make, except for breaking up the silly butterfingers. I left some medium sized pieces, maybe the size of my little finger.

Quite yummy, and quite a few people really liked them. They turned out thin and chewy.I may have to make them again.

Star Wars

Just one more silly walkthrough of the movie.

EVERYONE: God, Anakin, you are one hot piece of ass.
ANAKIN: Well, yeah, I've been lifting weights... Oh, hey. There's my secret wife, to whom I am secretly married. I have to go passionately embrace her behind a pillar a couple feet away from the Senate leaders right about now, because it's a secret.
PADME: Anakin! Good to see you! Here is some great news.
ANAKIN: You're going to wear that costume I bought you?
PADME: I'm pregnant and it is going to ruin our lives!
ANAKIN: EXCUSE ME I NEED TO VOMIT WITH PANIC NOW.
PADME: ...
ANAKIN: WE HAVE SPACESHIPS AND WE DON'T HAVE EFFECTIVE CONTRACEPTION? WTF!
PADME: ...
ANAKIN: Oooh, what great news!

Hat tip: Peeve Farm

Argh

This article pisses me off. A 12 year old girl has chemotherapy for Hodgkin's lymphoma, the doctors strongly recommend radiation therapy, which the parents refuse because they think the girl is cured. Now the kid is in state custody, and her cancer has come back due to not having had the radiation therapy [of course, you don't know if it would have been successful, but still].

It's like taking half of a course of antibiotics: you might have killed the disease, or might not.

I don't know if it's worse or better than a couple who just want to treat their kid with prayer. At least there would be some principle involved, rather than rank stupidity.

Update: Doctor says girl's cancer back because of parents. Hmm.

Carnival of Recipes

#43 is up. And our delightful hostess went the extra mile and linked to another post from each submitter.

A tasty sounding Thai pork tenderloin and green beans. I need a wok.

A basic crockpot BBQ chicken.

King ranch chicken.

Fresh Blueberry White Chocolate Cheesecake. mmmm.

Target Practice

AnarchAngel and his buds indulge in a little target practice. I would have to say they are less respectful towards a certain book than a certain group of prisoners.

Looks like fun.

Puppies!

Found via AnarchAngel:

You Are a Dachshund Puppy

Loyal and playful - with a good hunting instinct. You sometimes go a little crazy and need to chase down a rabbit or two.

Gamer

Puttering around, found the Carnival of Gamers on Instapundit, which led me to Dubious Quality.

A great blog, talks about games, his life, and his 3 year old son:

I used to think that the phrase "Oops! I'm going to clean that up!" was the most alarming thing Eli 3.9 could say.

He topped it today, though.

The new "most alarming phrase" is "Daddy! I gave myself a haircut!"

Lileks' Comments on Star Wars

Lileks gets it. Completely. And with beautiful phrases:

Not enough Wookies. And I don’t see them as the kind of guys who’d use a bowcaster, frankly; they seem more like shotgun types. You would not want to fight an army of a pissed off Wookies with shotguns. I bet they drink, too. They’re probably always drunk all the time, which is why their language seems so incoherent; for all we know they’re not saying anything at all, just yelling. Because they’re all hammered.

Read the rest, or else Yoda will haunt you forever.

Movies

From the Carnival of the Vanities we have Part 1 and Part 2 of a post from Notes and Meditations about his thoughts on how to improve the whole movie experience.

In general, he asks for a quieter audience, better films, more locally produced with local talent. He also has an interesting idea:

7. Get involved in film education

Offer some classes. Teach people how to watch and give them guidance about what's worth watching. Any local multiplex could convert one of its theaters into a classroom one night a week for a lecture in film appreciation. People would pay for this, especially if it involved getting to see great films for a single price with the added benefit of expert instruction

In general though, the most fun I've had going to movies was in college. The film society showed films Friday, Saturday, and Sunday nights, usually some sort of action or scifi Fri and Sat, Sunday got a chick flick. The audience wasn't silent, they interacted with the film as a group ["The Force is what binds us together" audience member shouts "Duct tape."]

Basically, while there may be a niche market for more classy entertainment [think going to a classical concert or opera], that's not really my preferred movie experience. Of course, anything's better than some crying kid or an idiot talking on his cell phone.

Quiche

Saw this recipe on the last carnival, decided to try it. I bought ingredients without making a list before; a deep dish shell would have worked better, but the regular pie shell did ok. Used pepperoni instead of bacon; bacon or ham [or even SPAM] probably would be better. Maybe a little salt and pepper too.

But it was easy, and fairly tasty.

Look This Good You Will Not

You scored as Yoda. Which Revenge of the Sith Character are you? created with QuizFarm.com

Hat Tip: Assumption of Command

MSM vs Blogs

Yet another "blogs don't really have that much impact" article coming from the mainstream media, this time from The Guardian.

Oh Brother

Yesterday was my brother's birthday. Our mother called to remind me, and make sure I would call him. So I did.

He would like to come down and visit sometime. Which wouldn't be that bad, except (1) I don't have a spare bed any more, just a sofa sleeper. (2) The last time he came down it was at the very least inconvenient if not downright annoying (3) I would end up doing crap I don't want to do.

And (4) I'm jealous. Which sucks, because his life hasn't been a bowl of cherries. So I feel guilty, so I'm more likely to try to find some clubs he would like up in Houston and invite him down.

Or I can do my usual passive aggressive thing, and ignore it. Or I can tell him off and piss off everyone in my family.

Bah. I was feeling good yesterday.

Airports and Terrorism

This article in Slate discusses the stupidity of the various things the airports do to "make us safe." It also refers to this article in the NYT, which seems to continue the NYT's policy of reports designed to make terrorists' job easier.

I can deal with giving up some convenience to make things safer. This isn't it.

Hat tip: Beautiful Atrocities

Invader Zim

Hey, man, Invader Zim rocks.

Quiz: H/T: Not Exactly Rocket Science

So you went crazy. And stuff. And now you're
capturing cops for meat testing. Tsk.


What random GIR quote are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

Changes

I've been puttering around, trying to figure out how to change the style sheet. Or, more precisely, how to change it without screwing everything up.

It helps to use MT2 style sheets rather than 3. Hmm. I'm an idiot. My webpage says Movable Type 2.64. Oh well.

Style name: Trendy.

Readable, links stand out from page. Not sure if I like a dark background though. We'll see.

Any thoughts?

Tom Cruise

More Hollywood rumors than you ever wanted to know on Defamer.

Ok, so no one is saying publicly that Tom's gay. If he's such a great actor, though, why couldn't he give a more realistic performance on Oprah?

Confidentially, though, my sister claims he's gay and likes the surfer dude type.

Oh, and Scientology is a freakish cult. Aimed directly at brain dead movie stars.

Dishwasher Salmon

Yes, it's a recipe for Salmon cooked in your dishwasher.Sounds crazy and fun.

Hat tip: Ghost of a Flea.

The Black Knight

Looking for a time waster? The Black Knight is perfect.

Hat Tip: Ghost of a Flea

Alton Brown

APCB may have given up on Rachel Ray, but Alton Brown is still worth watching on Food Network.

Richwhiteboy

I should probably stop reading blogs that are complete downers, but richwhiteboy lives in Dallas, so it makes it more interesting.

He said this week he's going to stop blogging. We'll see.

H/T: Will Brady

Compare, Contrast Take 2

Bill on the INDC Journal has a post comparing a post from LaShawn Barber and an article in the NRO from Jim Geraghty.

LaShawn Barber's post has 4 updates, and the INDC Journal's post has 32 comments at this point.

Read at least the posts, then come back here - I don't think I can summarize everything accurately.

There's a problem with the comparisons between the Bible and the Qur'an, and Islam and Christianity. The Bible contains the Old and New Testaments, and it is clear that the New takes precedence over the Old when there is a conflict. Which parts conflict is not clear, and can be interpreted differently by different sects and individuals. This is, as far as I can tell as an outsider, not the case with Islam. As far as I can tell, Islam, the religion itself, has goals that are inconsistent with my existence. There are individual Muslims who undoubtedly feel differently. However, they cannot publicly proclaim that the Qur'an is wrong in certain passages without opening themselves up to charges of apostasy and an at least theoretical death in some countries run under sharia.

As Bill says, Words matter. Distinctions matter. Little Green Footballs documents words coming from sources within Islam, that seem to be supported, not downgraded, by Muslims worldwide.

I want a world where Muslim kids don't play Jews and Arabs, in which the goal is to be an Arabic martyr, and which is then praised on Arabic TV. I want a world in which psychiatric residents from Arab nations don't tell me that there are no homosexuals in their home country. [yeah, just transexuals]. I want a world in which the Arab nations produce something besides a culture of death, and have something besides solid gold toilets for tyrants paid for through dollars for oil pumped with western technology.

I want a world in which we don't nuke Mecca in response to a crater in New York. I want a world without some idiot releasing a homegrown, weaponized version of rabies, smallpox, or the black plague.

Freeing 2 countries is a start, and has made other changes in the world. Where it will end, I don't know.

By the way, to change Bill's question: Just how many Muslims does Owlish know? Over the years I've known a fair number. None of them were evil. None of them were saints. They were just human, like the vast majority of the rest of us.

Update: see also One HAnd Clapping. [H/T: Mudville Gazette].

Cowboy up

From The Daily Brief:

a Man with No Name You scored 8 Honor, 3 Justice, 7 Adventure, and 6 Individuality!

It's one thing to be a gunslinger. It's another to wander into town, leave nothing but a trail of those who'd try your skill and take the town's gratitude and cash with you. Hero or villan? It's all in how you look at it and whose side you're on. Cigar in your teeth and colt on your hip, you are ready to step into the hazy desert horizon. You'll do just fine.

Carnival

Yippee! It's the Blawg Review #9!

Why exactly The Right Side of the Rainbow wants to support this isn't clear, but what the heck.

There's a fun post from The Suburban Ecstasies: Twenty Truths about the American Justice System.

And while we're at it, here's a post on Overlawyered on drink temperatures in the UK.

Dreams

I've had a weird set of dreams recently. A few nights ago I was talking to a gene-engineered dolphin next to the lamppost in the Chronicles of Narnia, and last night I was a prisoner in a death camp.

No clue what it means, if anything.

Your Life as an Infocom Game

Heh. Fun bit:

You and the family are seated around the dinner table. The absence of music or lively conversation accentuates the sounds of chewing and scraping forks. There are several exits, but you've lost the will to notice them.

> COMPLIMENT JAN ON HOW GOOD THE HAM IS

You do so, then realize you have yet to take a bite.

> QUICKLY SCARF DOWN A PIECE

You do so, and choke. Emily slaps you on the back until you cough it up onto your lap.

> INVENTORY

You are carrying:

A cell phone with a message from your friends Dave and Paul telling you what a fun time they're having in the Bahamas

A slowly coalescing escape plan

A piece of ham

Resentment toward Emily for persuading you that visiting her parents at Christmas would be "totally fun"

Hat tip: D.F.Moore

Pulp Fiction

And another from LlamaButchers:

You are the king of smooth -- enough said. Take the What Pulp Fiction Character Are You? quiz.

Hazzard County

From the Llamaboys, comes:

You are Luke Duke. You are sensible and charming.
You rarely get to drive, but you are okay with
that. You are hard-working and honest.


What Dukes of Hazzard Character are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

Medical Marijuana

The Supreme Court has decided the medical marijuana case in favor of the federal government. The Volokh conspiracy has more, and points to this roundup.

Brands

Puttering around, found various things that seem to be converging:

Via Instapundit: This article in Wired which might be summarized by - now that we've got computers and communications that make Information Age type jobs too expensive for Americans to do, the next spurt of job growth is going to be in presenting the Information Age products to the consumer in individualized, empathic, design oriented ways. Virginia Postrel should be pleased.

Via Instapundit, through the Carnival of Capitalists: Coyote Blog has a post titled "Why do So Many Libertarians Blog?" Answer: libertarians like chaos, the internet resists all forms of organization, it's a match made in heaven. He also has a line that got me thinking:" ...libertarianism resists organization. Libertarianism tends to be a big tent that attracts everything from anarcho-capitalists to Cheech-and-chong-esque hempfest organizers to Larry-Flint style pornographers. For this reason, libertarianism defies efforts to brand it, which is a critical shortcoming since the two major political parties nowadays are much closer to brands than ideologically consistent philosophical alternatives. "

Various other thoughts on home buying, medical practice, and an abundance economy, but not sure how to fit them in. Will sleep on it.

Google Image Meme

There's a meme going around I thought I would try, more to try out putting pics in a post than anything else. Here is one person doing it [Suzanne McMinn], although she wasn't the first person I saw [can't find him now, sorry.]

The meme: “Visit: images.google.com and search: the place you grew up, the place you live now, your name, your Grandmother’s name, your favorite food, your favorite drink, your favorite song, your favorite smell and your favorite shoes. Then, post the first (or your favorite) postable results for each.”

City you were born in:

City you currently live in:

Your Name

Your Grandmother's name

Favorite food

Favorite Drink

Favorite song

Favorite smell

Favorite Shoes [?, you're kidding, right? I mean, I am gay, but that doesn't mean I have a pair of favorite shoes.]

Words searched for in extended entry.

Words googled:
Dallas
Galveston Texas
owlish [interesting, it's from another blog with a username of owlish. It's in a language requiring an addon, so I don't think there will be much identity theft.]
dorothy
margarita
operation mindcrime
pine
cowboy boots ostrich

Male vs Female Brain?

There have been some people, like The LlamaButchers, playing with these Empathy Quotient and Systemizing Quotient tests.

My Empathy Quotient: 42
My Systemizing Quotient: 17

One interesting question:
17. When I am relating a story, I often leave out details and just give the gist of what happened.
I'm a terrible storyteller. I wonder if this is the reason.

Other thoughts: Rob the LlamaButcher scored high on Systemizing, and now wonders if he's got Asperger's Syndrome. Dude, you're a lawyer. The kinds of things they are asking about are likely trained into you in law school, and would be helpful, if not survival skills. At the same time, as a mental health professional I suspect the average person with Asperger's would be more likely to have a low Empathy score than a high Systemizing score.

Oh, and there are parts in my empathy score that were trained into me. I'm less than impressed with this male/female brain crap.

Military Bloggers

Blackfive has a great list of military bloggers.

Randomly hunting through a couple, Life in X minor has a great writer but infrequent posting. Where else do you have someone trying to practice Jedi Mind tricks on a Colonel?

In the same manner, Citizen Smash links to From My Position's article on the the top 5 dumb things he did this week.

For example: "When you have to get out of the truck in a hurry, having something attached to your head that is also tethered to the truck is not so good. You end up wrapped up in the cord, lying on the ground with a very sore neck."

Food Meme

I've been tagged by Shinobi at Lies and Statistics, so let's do this:

1) What is the nastiest thing you've ever eaten?
Probably some crap during a boy scouts cookout. When you have a group of guys who have no idea how to cook on a stove trying to cook over an open fire, it fails quite often. Probably either badly undercooked chicken or burnt blackberry cobbler with little sugar.

2) What is one food that you ate when a kid that you absolutely refuse to now, since you're on your own and don't have to?
Boiled Spinach. HATE IT. Although, if I'm at my parents and my mom cooks it, I'll still try to choke it down.

3. Have you ever eaten an endangered critter? If not, what was the best thing you've ever eaten (and I sure hope nobody answers 'April Guthrie' here)?
Never eaten an endangered critter. No one meal strikes me as the absolute best, although it would probably involve filet mignion with a mushroom sauce.

4. What food can you never get enough of?
Ice cream, particularly chocolate ice cream with stuff in it. Blue Bell Fudge Brownie Nut ice cream fits the bill nicely.

5. Have you ever eaten any critter's testicles? Why?
I think I've had rocky mountain oysters [bull testicles] when I was in the boy scouts, but I don't really remember.

6. Who is the better cook, your significant other or your mom?
Not sure how to answer this, since I don't have a significant other, but I'm not wild about my mother's cooking either. I've grown accustomed to much spicier foods since moving out.

And I'll tag TexasBestGrok , Eric's Grumbles Before the Grave, Lysander of Alexandria, and The Llamabutchers, since everyone has been doing memes lately.

Frank Lloyd Wright vs Zombies

And from Rocket Jones we have a pointer to a fun discussion on the suitability of Frank Lloyd Wright's house in the event of a zombie invasion.

Good field of fire, poorly defensible with lots of large windows.

My apartment would be decent - good field of vision from roof, you could shoot down the stairwell at the invading zombie hoard. Once water service goes, though, you're doomed.

Cool or Scary?

Some guy modded his computer into a Tie Fighter desk. The actual desk is cool, the amount of work it must have taken is kind of scary.

H/T Fark.

Bear Creek Soup

So, to further my quest for the ultimate chicken tortilla soup, I bought a box of Bear Creek Chicken Tortilla Soup from Costco.

Quite easy to make, tastes pretty good. Very little heat, a relatively thick soup compared to mine but with less "stuff."

Probably better than something from a can. And not hugely more expensive.

Bread and Butter Pickles

Another of my late grandmother's recipes.

Bread and Butter Pickles
25 medium cucumbers sliced
12 onions sliced
1/2 cup salt
2 cups sugar
2 tsp each of tumeric, mustartd seed, celery seed, cassia buds (optional) (may use whole cloves instead) [her notes]
1 qt vinegar

(1) Soak cucumbers and onions with salt in icewater for 3 hours.
(2) Combine remaining ingredients and heat to boiling.
(3) Add cucumbers and onions and heat for 2 minutes. Do Not allow to boil.
(4) Fill clean jars and seal at once. Pickles are ready in two weeks.

Try at your own risk. I don't know if she planned on keeping them constantly refrigerated or not.

Camp Camp

Ok, so blogging does end up showing you new things. Got an email from a guy named Richard Fogaley, pointing me to a summer camp in Maine for GLBT adults, named Camp Camp. Looks like lots of fun things to do, a fair number of things that make sense from my point of view [as a psychiatrist] - looks like people are grouped in groups of 8-10 for some things, probably a good size for group process kinds of things to act. They wouldn't put it that way, but are clearly hoping for those kinds of things to occur.

They had a review in OutSmart, reproduced here.

Be a Drummer

Ken's virtual drum kit is way cool, for the wannabe drummer.

Hat tip: JohnE

Carnival

Carnival of Recipes #42 is up, at Conservative Friends.

There's a bunch of breakfast recipes this time, including a pancake souffle.

A quick quiche.

Grilled Pizza?

A slightly jazzed up version of my usual hot cheese dip.

And for more really unusual recipes we have Taco Cheesecake. I may have to make this, just to see what it tastes like.

Crazy Frog

It's Crazy Frog! Possibly NSFW

H/T: She Who Will Be Obeyed.

Banana Cake

My grandmother has several recipes writen out on 3x5 cards, scattered in her old recipe books. Here's one:

Banana Cake
1/2 cup butter
2 cups sugar
3 bananas
3 eggs
2 tsp vanilla
3/4 tsp salt
2 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 cup nuts
1 cup thick, old sour buttermilk [hey, it's what she wrote out!] [possible substitution noted in extended entry]
2 tsp baking powder

Grease and flour a 13x9x2 inch pan. Beat butter or margarine until fluffy in a large bowl. Gradually add sugar; continue beating until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs, one at a time. Add vanilla. Sift flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Add to sugar mixture alternately with sour cream [her words for the buttermilk?]. Add bananas and pecans; mix until blended. Turn into pan. Bake in moderate oven (350 degrees) 40 min. Cool in pan 10 min. Frost with caramel frosting.

Fairly similar to this recipe, which suggests substituting 1 tsp vinager and plain milk for buttermilk, if necessary.

Hmm, having trouble adding link in Movable Type. Link here:

http://www.cs.queensu.ca/home/phillips/banana-cake.html

St Arnolds Pub Crawl

I was confused. I thought the pub crawl was last weekend, instead it's this Friday night. Directions are in this newsletter [it's illegal for them to advertise specific bars, so get the general idea and go wherever you see a herd of St Arnold's drinking folks].

A one time offer, in celebration of my blogaversary: find me there, and maybe I'll buy you a beer.

The Sith Explained

So, you've seen the Star Wars movies, and are wondering just what is the deal with the Sith? HowStuffWorks explains the entire history of that universe.

Thanks, JohnE

Happy Blogaversary

Yup. this blog is both one day old and one year old.

I still want a Hallmark card for blogaversaries.

Human vs Bear

Sometimes, the best defense is a good offense. Sometimes.

Via Fark.

Hi!

Welcome, I just flew over from Blogspot and boy are my arms tired.

Transferred over my sidebar, [need to add some more links], and added the MuNuvian list from Ellis Island. Puttering around a little, I can already tell I'm going to need to figure out how to do spellchecking on my posts. Not to mention changing my exceedingly generic template.

I'd like to thank Pixy Misa for having me. Um, my blog. Um, yeah.

I'd also like to thank JohnL for recommending me, and for inspiring me to blog.

Coming Out

Downtownlad had his one year anniversary of coming out as a gay man yesterday. Which surprised me, since his writings come off as someone who is confident in his sexuality. He explains more here.

There are some interesting similarities with my life, although my family took it better than his did.

I dated girls some during high school and beyond. In high school, it was at most 3-4 dates, with women either from my church youth group or arranged by various debutant parties. I went out with a girl from my college junior year [I think] for several months - she was more than a bit strange and a vegetarian. And, I went out with a nurse during part of residency.

Please note: none of that went beyond second base. During high school and college I could tell myself I was saving myself for marriage. I kept telling myself that I just needed to find the right woman. As years went by, that became less convincing.

About 5-6 years ago I came to the conscious realization that I was turned on by guys, not girls, and this meant that I was gay. This rocked my world. My basic life plan involved getting married and having 2.5 children and various pets, with me working and my wife might or might not be working. My plan needed retooling.

I came out to some close friends about 4 years ago - a married couple, she was pregnant and they wanted to name me godparent. Coming out to them was hard; I don't know how long I would have delayed if there wasn't a time constraint. After that I came out to my parents, and then various other people. My parents didn't disown me, didn't say "We've always known and there's this cute guy who lives down the street..." It was difficult for them for the same kinds of reasons it was difficult for me - they weren't going to have grandkids.

Still trying to wrap my head around the whole concept [which is probably the whole mistake - thinking, not doing].

For someone thinking about coming out, the advice I got was to do it in person. I think this was wise. And don't do it during a major event - no blurting out "I'm gay" at the Thanksgiving dinner table.