Saturday, January 30, 2010
Food and Beverage.
For about 3 weeks this seasonal Japanese soda was my liquid crack cocaine.
 |
| From 2010-01-23 |
I do miss my stateside Canfield's Diet Chocolate Fudge...
Avocado Deviled Eggs - taken from a recipe over at Mark's Daily Apple - Fat Guacamole Devils. Mine aren't nearly as pretty as the others I've seen online, maybe I should've used more avocado? Plus I added a bit more hot sauce, some mayo and some wasabi. Delicious. Only problem is whenever I make up a batch of eggs like this, I make a lot - efficiency! - and then proceed to devour them. Tasty though.
 |
| From 2010-01-30 |
Friday, January 29, 2010
'The Losers' looks damn awesome.
"I would love John Edwards to be greeted with loud boos wherever he goes, for the rest of his life. Preferably, by children." - Matt Welch
Now that's funny. Ah, NC politicians.
From a book review [The Politician: An Insider's Account of John Edwards's Pursuit of the Presidency and the Scandal That Brought Him Down by Andrew Young] - over here - The Human Filth of Politics, as Conveyed in Two Book Reviews - Hit & Run : Reason Magazine
New head of the DEA - raves are "like violent crack houses set to music."
The level of disingenuousness and stupidity is just jaw dropping.
"The Drug War Chronicle cites more reasons to worry about President Obama's appointment of Michele Leonhart to head the DEA... Leonhart not only oversaw medical marijuana raids as acting administrator; she 'stood beside US Attorney Michael Yamaguchi when he announced in a January 1998 press conference that the government would take action against medical marijuana clubs' and 'as SAC [special agent in charge] in Los Angeles up until 2004, she was the ranking DEA agent responsible for the numerous Bush administration raids against patients and providers.' She was also enthusiastic about the federal government's crackdown on raves, telling The New York Times in 2001 that 'some of the dances in the desert are no longer just dances, they're like violent crack houses set to music.' But the most disturbing detail mentioned by the Chronicle is Leonhart's steadfast defense of Andrew Chambers, 'who earned an astounding $2.2 million for his work as a DEA informant between 1984 and 2000' but 'was caught perjuring himself repeatedly.' Leonhart's reaction to Chambers' perjury is troubling, to say the least..."
I have no idea what they're talking about.
Texts From Last Night:
"the only bad part about drinking alone is that in the morning there's nobody who can tell you what you did"
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Becoming more and more true.
Your Quiz Score: Libertarian:
"LIBERTARIANS support maximum liberty in both personal and
economic matters. They advocate a much smaller government; one
that is limited to protecting individuals from coercion and violence.
Libertarians tend to embrace individual responsibility, oppose
government bureaucracy and taxes, promote private charity, tolerate
diverse lifestyles, support the free market, and defend civil liberties."
"A People's History of the United States" was extremely instructive. Howard Zinn, RIP.
Ditto the article. Definitely and indeed.
"...I'll say this for the very popular historian among the progressive left: when I, as a youngish libertarian around age 19 or so, read his million-selling A People's History of the United States, I had zero problem seeing in it enormous amounts of education and intellectual ammunition for my then and now general view of government as a historical criminal.
...He helped remind me that when it comes to history, politics, and knowledge in general, it's foolish to think that only the ideologically sympatico have valuable things to teach.."
Virginia ABC stores did remind me of what I'd heard of shopping in communist Russia.
Poor service, generic products and layouts...
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
People lose respect for the law when it makes no fucking sense.*
*See Also - Prohibition.
"Minnesota Supreme Court upholds DWI conviction in which was sleeping in vehicle with cold engine, keys were on the console, and the vehicle was likely inoperable. Up next, Minnesota Supreme Court upholds DWI conviction of man who passes out while clutching a Matchbox car. "
The efficacy of that brilliant, religiously inspired 'abstinence education.'
Yep, keep using your magic book to stem the procreative drive developed throughout all of human history. You idiots.
"The teen pregnancy rate in the USA rose 3% in 2006, the first increase in more than a decade, according to data out today. The data also show higher rates of births and abortions among girls 15-19.
The numbers, calculated by the Guttmacher Institute, a non-profit group that studies reproductive and sexual health, show a clear reversal from the downward trend that began in the 1990s"
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Despite how paranoid America has become, at least we're not as bad as Britain.
Kids' TV hosts terrorism-stopped for pew-pewing with sparkly hair-dryers Boing Boing:
"Andrew sez, 'The presenters from British TV channel ITV's Toonatik were filming in London wearing safety gear and brandishing hairdryers. Of course, this presents a danger to Queen and Country, so the ever-vigilant Met held them and issued them a warning under the anti-terrorism act. And Londoners survive another day!'"
Training.
Atlas Lesson 1 + Milo x2
Neck Mobility work
5 rounds for time - 4 pullups/12 pushups/20 asomov squats - 13:51
See, they have to burn the village in order to save it.
The village is, of course, these kids lives. My metaphors suck, true.
The more law ignores reality, the less respect people have for the law.
"That the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals would even need to hear oral arguments in the case of Miller, et al. v. Skumanick last week is a pretty good indication that law enforcement officials in Wyoming County, Pennsylvania have lost their collective minds.
At issue in the case: Whether the U.S. Constitution permits prosecutors to charge minors who pose for nude or risque photos with child pornography. You read that correctly. In order to protect children from predators and child pornographers, the local district attorney is threatening to prosecute minors who pose for racy photos as if they were child pornographers.
Even within the context of the already hysterical overreaction to the "sexting" phenomenon, the facts in Miller are jaw-dropping. Of the three girls bringing suit, two were photographed at a slumber party wearing training bras. The third photographed herself baring her breasts, then sent the photo to a boy she'd hoped to make jealous. The girls aren't in trouble for distributing the photos, or even for taking them. They've been introduced to the criminal justice system merely for appearing in them.
Wyoming County District Attorney George Skumanick, Jr. gave the girls a choice. The first option was to face felony child pornography charges, punishable by up to 10 years in prison. The second was to attend a series of Skumanick-chosen classes, which according to the Pennsylvania ACLUincluded topics such as "what it means to be a girl in today's society" and "non-traditional societal and job roles." The girls would also be put on probation, subject to random drug tests, and would have to write essays explaining why appearing in photos while wearing their bras is wrong.
Skumanick would later tell a gathering of students and parents that he had the authority to prosecute girls photographed on the beach in bikinis, because the minors would be dressed "provocatively." He told the Wall Street Journal that by offering the girls the classes and probation instead of immediately hitting them with felony charges, "We thought we were being progressive."
Of the 19 minors Skumanick targeted, 16 chose the classes. The other three took Skumanick to court, where they won a restraining order. Skumanick appealed. To the credit of the people of Wyoming County, after 20 years in office Skumanick lost his bid for reelection last November. But his office continues to fight.
But this isn't just an isolated case of a renegade D.A. There have now been several cases across the country where young people who either pose for, snap, or forward provocative or nude photos of other minors are being charged or threatened with felony child pornography...
...The root disconnect, here, is that the law treats pre-pubescent sex crimes on par with crimes related to teenagers who are sexually mature. Fact is, teenagers become sexually mature years before it's socially or legally permissible to think about them that way. That they're then having sex is nothing new. Nor is the fact that teens make rash, emotional, spur-of-the-moment decisions. What's new is that they're able to document it all in ways that can quickly escape their control. What they need after the fact are responsible adults who can walk them through a poor decision, appropriately reprimand or punish them if necessary, but all while keeping things in perspective, and minimizing the long-term consequences for the teen. Dumping the kid into the criminal justice system has all the subtlety and precision of dropping an anvil on the problem from 40 stories above."
There is nothing worse than willful ignorance.
Except passing it on to your children. Idiots, I swear to god.
"Given the headline, you'd be forgiven for thinking the offending entries were an affront to political correctness. Nope. Just good old-fashioned prudery.After a parent complained about an elementary school student stumbling across "oral sex" in a classroom dictionary, Menifee Union School District officials decided to pull Merriam Webster's 10th edition from all school shelves earlier this week.
School officials will review the dictionary to decide if it should be permanently banned because of the "sexually graphic" entry, said district spokeswoman Betti Cadmus. The dictionaries were initially purchased a few years ago for fourth- and fifth-grade classrooms districtwide, according to a memo to the superintendent.
Monday, January 25, 2010
The best hip-hop video discussing the differences between Keynesian and Austrian economics ever.
This was pretty funny. Educational too.Via Hayek vs. Keynes, The Rap Throwdown - Hit & Run : Reason Magazine
Training.
Okay, so the last time I worked out was New Year's Day - a light workout to "set the tone" for the new year that I didn't even bother logging on the 'net. And then my Mrs left a couple days later and, well...
So we'll just say that after 3 weeks of laziness, self-pity, constant junk food and too much alcohol, I've pretty much hit the "it's really time to get yourself together" wall. Light today, knock off the rust workout.
[Multiple sets throughout the day]
Atlas Lesson 1 - x3 + Milo [10 reps]
Pushups + Deep Breathing - 4x10
Pullups - 2x5
Neck DSR/ISO
[Evening PT]
Max Rounds for 20m of: 2 pullups/4 pushups/6 asomov squats - 18 rounds completed
Thoroughly kick ass/inspirational pullup wkout - by a 44 year woman. Which is just awesome.
Sunday, January 24, 2010
Watched - TV this week.
Stossel, Friday Night Lights, Castle, Modern Family, Batman: The Brave and the Bold, Parks and Recreation, Community, Archer, Jersey Shore, PBS Frontline - A Death in Tehran, Leverage, 30 Rock, Bill Moyers, SNL
Men of a Certain Age - a guy's guy show. Excellently done. Totally and completely recommended. Blew through all six episodes in a week.
Burn Notice - is BACK! Which is awesome. Super-extra-bonus-points for Cagney & Lacey. Honestly, Cagney & Lacey. C'mon, that's cool.