Dead-Tree Opinions

Right after I give up looking at TV commercials, I'm gonna stop reading the Ed and Op-Ed pages of the local garbage-wrap.

Froma Harrop -- who can be relied up to follow the more-or-less American Left's Party line as reliably and smartly as Soviet troops in a May Day parade -- this mornin' uses her column-inches to bemoan the horrid awfulness of both Presidential candidates endorsing drilling off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts. Don't those poor fools know, she frets, that DOE says we couldn't get enough from those sources to make a difference until 2030? --Forgetting two salient truths: A) we're unlikely to have replaced hydrocarbon fuels with pink unicorn flatulence in 27.5 years and B) oil prices are not straight-up supply-and-demand driven. Like any really big-money commodity, news about readily-available supply and new-found possibilities affect crude-oil prices. (At the consumer end, our usage does impact prices; this is one reason why prices dipped a bit in recent weeks, as people changed their use to accommodate $4-a-gallon gas; but it's not the whole story).

She puts on a stylin' Rachael Carson hat and goes on to cite a geniunely bad spill off California -- nearly 40 years ago -- as another reason not to drill. Yeppers, 'cos A) it'd be too, too much to think biz has learned one or two things since then about preventing spills and cleaning up the few that still happen (in Froma's world, all technology is static unless she approves of it). And B) she must not care what happens those icky rednecks and worse in Texas and Louisiana, where offshore drillin' is okay; of course, they never get any bad weather in the Gulf and would know nothing of the hazards of a real ocean, right, Froma?

She rounds out the hand by draggin' the global warming boogyman out from under the bed -- Ooogabooga! Fire BAD!* -- then coming up with a fifth ace in the form of how "it feeds the public's delusions," which is to say that news of possible new supplies would never possibly affect prices. (Tell all the commodity-futures traders to pack up and come home, The Harrop Hath Spake). --I guess when the only economics you know are those of a command economy, that would look like sense.

Give it up, kid. That ship has done sailed -- and your Presidential candidate hopped aboard as the gangplank was going up.


Meanwhile, over on the other page, Jonah Goldberg takes time out to talk sense, using the recent death of Alexander Solzhenitsyn and Peter Rodman as a springboard to channel George Santayana to point out communism's harrowing death toll and working from there to the way the American Left continued to snuggle up to 'em even as the USSR and its satrapies went to bits -- but now looks back and credits their own supposed hand-holding, togetherness and positive thinking with the win, citing Senator Obama's recent speech in Berlin. --Yeah, geez, thanks for nothin'. Thanks for turning "human rights" into a codeword for "ignoring the bad stuff the commies do." Thanks for looking shocked and horrified when President Reagan called a wicked hegemony "The Evil Empire" while you glossed over their millions of victims in the name of international chumship. That was good of yez, y'slimy weasels.

Yeah, once I get the TVs Elvised, I'm gonna start buying blank newsprint in bulk for the catboxes. Any day now. ...Just let me read this one last article...?
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* Hey! Dag-gone it, you're supposed to cower when Authorized Journalists do that. C'mon -- Cower! And stop snickering. Geez. I'm so proud.

Why Roberta Can't Watch Commercials

You think you see or hear too many of them? The bulk of my working life, I've been places where commercials are our lifeblood; where my fellow employees were quick-witted and cynical. It rubs off.

So -- a major pizza-delivery chain is touting its latest offering, hot bread with a chocolate dipping sauce, by having a cute actress stand in front of a bakery, dressed like a baker, and offer 'em up to passers-by in a fake-Continental accent (probably supposed to be French. Fail). Once they've commented favorably, she whips off the baker's apron to reveal -- consternation! -- the logo'd uniform of the drive-by pizzeria and drops the accent. "...But they're really from [name of pizza chain here] and I just delivered them." Oh, wowsers. Gack.

...But in my mind's eye? Off comes the baker's apron and under it, the benevolent purveyor of starchy, treaclely glop wears the stained rags of a bag lady. "Heh heh," she cackles, "They're not from the bakery, I dug 'em outta a dumpster across town, scraped the green off, and made the sauce by adding plenty of sugar to some stuff I found in an old beer bottle along hthe freeway. Seeya, suckers!"

Srsly: don't take candy from strangers.
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But there's depths to which I have not yet admitted to sinking. A major soap and lotion company (and it is good stuff) has been running a series of painfully earnest ads aimed at the admittedly preposterous body image advertising tries to sell women.*

The latest one opens with a fresh-faced tween-ager looking at a poster that dissolves into a barrage of overwrought, Barbie-doll images, then stops on another shot of her with a phrase, "Girls today face more pressure than ever," before proceeding with the usual well-meaning stuff.

The Mean Roberta, though, sees the supered line and mutters, "Not the skinny ones!" (What, like you weren't thinking it, or worse?).

Hey, really, soap-people? E for effort but you don't get self-esteem just by deciding to have it. True beauty may come from within but self-esteem calls for accomplishing something. It sure doesn't need to be losing those last ten pounds you really shouldn't, or even making the cheer squad. But lacking alternatives, it somehow always gets back to that. Y'might want to mention Marie Curie or Grace Hopper every once in a awhile, hey? Florence Nightingale? Maybe even C. L. Moore?
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* I have no problem with "pretty;" you don't sell look good/feel good stuff with ugly people. But the degree of Photoshopping, tweaking and all-round lily-gilding that goes into most of it results in looks that are not merely at the far end of the bell curve but actually unreal. WARNING: THINGS SEEN ON THE TUBE APPEAR BETTER-LOOKING THAN THEY ARE. Use only as directed. Or less.

Speaking Of Fair Food

The Funnel Cake[1] received passing mention in my last. Have I mentioned I like them so much that when a narrow-spout, stoneware "funnel cake funnel" with recipe card included showed up in a potter's tent at Feast of the Hunter's Moon, it went from the shelf to my rucksack as quickly as payment could change hands?[2] Yep.

While the fast-talking food vendor at your State or County Fair fries these goodies up in a deeeeep and sizzling vat of hot oil (probably lard. Mmmmm, lard), all it really takes is just enough vegetable oil in a skillet to float the batter. I've done it in less than an inch of oil. Perhaps because they cook up so quickly, I can't tell a difference between the lard and vegetable oil versions -- except the latter are still pretty good when cold.

It's too much work to have more than rarely but when it's funnel cake time at home, usually in the darkest days of Winter, yum, what a treat!
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1. The first link's recipe sounds a little thicker than what I'm used to; the second one is more funnel-friendly.
2. A nice extra is that an old-type funnel has got a handle similar to the one on a coffee mug. This is a lot handier than the flimsy tab-thing found on space-age plastic funnels. Literally.

In Re Food And Yankees

Tam, in one of her recent dispatches from The Volunteer State,[1] commented, "My cholesterol had dropped to dangerously healthy levels since moving to big, flat, square, cold Yankeeland, but it's all better now."

Some of you will be picturing arty, undersized portions of rank greens and praising[2] Hoosiers with faint damns and I'll have you know that's entirely unfair; Indiana bulks right up there among the big-eating states, a mere point-and-a-half behind Tennessee. And no small portion of it is fried up and served with gravy. (You can't get decent red-eye gravy here, I admit, and a good many of 'em are skeert of okra, the fools, but hey, nobody's perfect).

Nope, it's my fault. Lost too many aunts, uncles and fathers to heart disease and/or strokes, for one thing; and I have a positive lust for big, complex salads,[3] for another, and would have 'em for dinner each and every night if I could. Last but not least, I'm still within 15 pounds of my weight at High School graduation and I am in no hurry to change that. Having wrecked one knee and stressed the other while recovering, I can't afford to carry any extra. Is there no end to my wickedness and culinary perfidy? (Clutches at chest and falls over dramatically, sobbing or at least faking it. Poorly). It's a burden.

Elsewhere in the same, Indiana stands accused of being a "flat cold, square Northern State." Two outta three (I'm counting "cold, Northern" as one), roomie and if we're comparing, let's go back to this link and look at the map. Indiana, up there, under the glacier. See the Wabash and Ohio rivers, comprising, with Lake Michigan, at least half the borders of Hoosierland?[4] Now Tennessee, a bit closer to the warmth with, gee, two very short wiggly borders and one teensy hitch in the getalong of one of the looong straight ones. Which state is the most rectilinear?

I shall not even touch on the affront offered denizens of Idaho and Wisconsin, or at least the mad cartographers who drew their respective borders. The way I figure, between her and them, it's just about an even match. Who's for popcorn?

All in good fun, roomie, and you'd better hurry back if you're after the best in deep-fried goodies:[5] the Indiana State Fair starts day after tomorrow!
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1. In addition to the other, famous volunteering, let it be noted they'll volunteer seconds without even having to hint!
2. It may not seem especially praiselike to persons living elsewhere but believe me, we'll take what we can get.
3. Tonight's, baby mixed greens with herbs, diced red and orange exotic sweet peppers and cornichons, topped with shredded mixed Italian cheese and a balsamic vinegarette dressing. Pay no attention to the base calumny in the linked page, the tiny frog-pickles are plenty salty-garlicky. Oh, yeah, and a Pastrami/Muenster/Rye sammich 'cos I didn't get much lunch. So there!
4. Among Blogger's spellcheck suggestions, "Houseplant." Now that's just mean.
5. Deep-fried bananas foster cheesecake -- on a stick. Oh. My. Dear. $DEITY. Can I just stick with one of these or one of those? Maybe both.

Synchronicity

It's been a good time for German bunkers of late: untouched WW II bunkers showed up in Denmark, after having been buried in the dunes for more than 60 years. (Denmark's got a surfeit of bunkers but salvaged them all -- they thought! -- soon after the war ended).

Elsewhere -- but not very else -- the Honecker Bunker, former doomsday capsule for the former East German leadership, is Open To The Public for Three Months Only! (See Teh Egress, only DM 100!)

Man, don't I feel like a piker. Better get diggin'! Or not!

(Sure, it all seems so over the top; OTOH, I grew up in tornado country, in a house with a 1950s bomb shelter out back. When the sky turns green and goes in circles, there's something comforting about reinforced concrete, earth berms and blast doors between you and Nature-in-all-her-glory).

Yes, Tam Is On Vacation

Vide. ...But I'm still right here at Roseholme Cottage, catching up on my laundry and correspondence and cat-sitting. About time; I've either worked or had some social engagement at least one day of just about every weekend for the last few months.

I like the money and it's fun to get out of the house but every so often, I've got to stop and recharge. Also stop and clear off the dining-room table. Books just build up like magic!

Fun Stuff!

Ever see MAKE magazine? They have an interesting shopping-type website! (I added this to my wishlist).

The various electrtronics kits and projects there remind me that I've yet to set up my hamshack and clear the workbench. Our various floods didn't help. If I can ever get that going, I'll set up a blog for radio stuff.

So That's What Happened

Seems a Sitemeter change "improvement" found a bug in Internet Ex-plodder. All right then.

This is one of the problems with complex systems: they break in places nobody's looking. All the more money and power for us geeks.

China

Just like Hitler's Germany, Yugoslavia or the old Soviet Union, they've got their Olympics -- and it's obvious how well that worked out for the other three nations.

     Some see China as an emerging threat.  Mike Kole's not too worried....

     Me, I dunno.  I remember only too well a documentary about that nation on one of the cable channels in which a small-town mayor chortled at the inefficiency of the the way things are done in the 'States compared to "here in China, a Mayor gets his instructions from above and does as he's told!"

     Can you have capitalism without freedom?  Won't some of us look a right bunch of ghits when they manage the trick?

Pantsed Or De-pantsed?

Which term do you use?

It had not really dawned on me until today, when some of my co-workers were reliving their High School days, but the terms aren't literally equivalent.

Or, to quote C. Jay, "The first time I ever heard a guy say, 'We hauled him to the far side of the practice field and pantsed 'im!' I thought, What, your buddies lifted him up and and you pulled a pair of clown pants on him? Maybe the floppy shoes, too? Yeah, lets see the guy walk back into the building in that!"

I had the giggles off and on for the next hour. Pantsed!?

Safari?

For whatever reason -- I blame the eclipse -- Internet Exploder is h-o-s-e-d tonight.  Crash crash crash.  Finally gave up and opened Safari.  Hey-la, it works.

     What a su-prise all round.  Uh huh.

     Gimme a Western Union TTY.

Cooler Than Your Wristwatch

It appears the Antikytheria Mechanism had an "Olympics Time" hand. (Not to mention a built-in manual). And here I thought having an extra hand on my watch for Greenwich Mean Time in 24-format was nifty.