Racing form ready, TV tuned up, ready to go!
Makes no sense, so it’s the Conservative POV, alright
In light of the howling about the court decision that access to Plan B contraception (the so-called Morning After pill) should be available to women and girls of all ages, and in light of the accidental killing of a two-year-old in Kentucky by her five-year-old brother with his own gun, this seems suitably sarcastic.
Update: Oh man. Look what was on sale at the annual NRA convention today.
Yes, it’s silly, but it’s compulsive
Today at Safeway I paid $10.67 for my exceedingly unhealthy foods (not a veggie in sight!). I heard the total and immediately thought “Aha! William the Conqueror was consolidating his realm that year!” You’ll remember, class, that William defeated Harold II at Hastings in October of 1066 and was crowned William I of England, the first Norman king, in December of the same year.
I do this all the time. I get a dollar total for my purchase and it immediately triggers my brain to find an event in that year. Obviously this only works from about 714 CE until the present. I’m best at 20th century events, for reasons that should be obvious, but I still remember some other historical dates too.
Am I alone here, or do others do this too?
Cannibalism?
Archaeologists occasionally find things the rest of us would rather not know about. The early Jamestown colony has been romanticized in our histories, not as much as The Lost Colony at Roanoke, but pretty widely just the same. The Pilgrims at Plymouth got more ink, but the Virginians and their plight were also covered in the texts I had in school. None of those texts mentioned that during the “starving time” of 1609 – 1610 there was a likelihood that some of the colonists resorted to cannibalism to try to stay alive. This despite contemporaneous evidence in letters from one of the Presidents of the colony, George Percy:
And now famin beginneinge to Looke gastely and pale in every face, thatt notheinge was Spared to mainteyne Lyfe and to doe those things which seame incredible, as to digge upp deade corpes outt of graves and to eate them. And some have Licked upp the Bloode which hathe fallen from their weake fellowes.
An anthropologist at the Natural History Museum in Washington has determined that the skull of a young girl from the Jamestown site shows signs of her flesh and brain being removed after death.
It’s terribly sad, but it’s not surprising. Desperation drives humans to do things they would normally never do.
Goombah Gohmert
Eric Holder is on the terrorists’ side, doncha know? Gohmert (R-TX) said the following on Glenn Beck’s radio show:
“Think about it, when your attorney general spent more of his legal career helping terrorists than defending the country, then you know we all have certain biases and lean certain ways.”Gohmert then went on to reiterate his belief that the Obama administration is guided by the Muslim Brotherhood. “[The administration] know who’s in there advising them,” Gohmert said, “either they lie under oath or they do know the extent of Muslim Brotherhood infiltration into our government.”
Charlie Pierce reminds us that Gohmert got 72 percent of the vote when he ran for re-election in 2012.
Is it any wonder many of us think Texas has more than its share of village idiots?
Family house guests
If you think you’re a reasonably good cook, it’s fun to have the company. You get an entirely new audience to show off for. We’ve had Crumb-topped Swordfish, Mediterranean Pizza, Oven-baked Chicken, and a picnic kind of dinner with grilled tri-tip. Then Saturday night our guest made her famous enchiladas, known far and wide within the family.
Tonight it’s Meat Loaf with Garlic Mashed potatoes and French-cut Green Beans.
Offline, online, all around the town
When I got up this morning someone or something had switched the cables from my cable modem to my wireless router overnight. I have no other explanation for how it was that I was unable to connect to the internet until after I’d gone down to Radio Shack at about 3:00pm to buy a new router, having given up on the old one.
I got the new one (same as the old one, a Netgear N300), opened the box, and looked at the installation instructions. Thought “why don’t I try this same configuration with the old router first?” So I did. It worked like a charm.
I have no idea how or why the cabling got out of whack, but now I can take the new one down to the store and get my $47.11 back.
Don’t hog the covers!
Until the last week or so it’s been chilly at night (for Hawai’i, that is). You want proof? This was about two weeks ago.
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| From Events |
Air Traffic Controllers rejoice
What I don’t get at all is how the Dems could vote for this FAA deal without realizing how bad it would look. In the immortal words of Casey Stengel, “Can’t anyone here play this game?”
They had to know caving on this would give the Republicans a win, and they had to know caving on something which was hurting the business class and the 1%-ers while continuing to do nothing for the poor would look horrid, yet they did it anyway. What the hell is wrong with their political sense?
As collected by the Huffington Post three weeks ago, there are Head Start employees being laid off, housing agency employees being laid off, other less-visible Federal employees being furloughed, and yet at the first yelp from the flying public (which is at least middle-to-upper-middle class), the Senate and House figured out a way to get those air traffic controllers back on the job. The Senate passed it by unanimous consent; the so-called fiscal conservatives in the Republican Party made no objection. The Democrats, to their shame, didn’t object to this piecemeal reversal of the (intended) across-the-board expense reduction either.
He who has the gold makes the rules, huh?
Mediterranean Pizza
I have recently heard a certain amount of audible . . . discontent, let’s say, about tomato-sauced pizza, and a desire to have something else.
Being the agreeable sort, I looked for an alternative.
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| From Bread |
If you’ve got a pizza stone, put it in the oven. Preheat your oven to 450 degrees.
6 oz. Mozzarella cheese
3 cups fresh spinach, chopped
8 oz. crumbled Feta cheese (yeah, well, in this case it’s shredded Parmesan, which I had on hand)
1/2 cup chopped black olives
3 slices red onion
2 plum tomatoes, seeded and chopped
Spread the Mozzarella on the dough (either homemade or pre-formed).
Add the spinach and the other cheese.
Sprinkle on the olives and tomatoes.
Separate the onion into rings and add those on top.
Drizzle the whole shooting match with olive oil.
Put the pizza on the stone or cookie sheet or pizza pan or rack. Cook for 14-18 minutes or until crust is golden brown.
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| From Bread |