Breakfast

By way of variety, I got a bagel and a muffin from Starbucks this morning instead of my usual sandwich. Aside from being lower fat, this is cheaper, has no protein aside from the cream cheese and is higher in processed carbohydrates. I really need to get back to granola, oatmeal or "Twigs and berries Cereal" for breakfast.

Dinner

Having skipped lunch, I swung by Wendy's for dinner, grabbing a Spicy Chicken value meal and a cheeseburger off the dollar value menu. Sprite as a drink, as I didn't want to take in any caffeine after noontime.

Breakfast

I seem to be spending a lot of mornings eating Starbucks for breakfast. While the sandwiches are good, it's too expensive to keep up for long. I need to be better about eating breakfast at home or bringing something to eat to the office.

Beanbag loves Echo

Lunch

Breakfast

My wife calls this "Twigs and Berries" cereal. High fiber, and moisturized with rice milk so I can avoid having to take Lactaid. I don't know WHY she dislikes the cereal so much, as it's quite flavorful.

Dinner

Lunch

Mmmmm. Hot dogs and mustard with a side of baked beans.

Breakfast

This was actually tastier than it looks. The much in the mixing bowl is some granola cereal in rice milk. It had crushed almonds, dried fruit and a host of other tasty things.

The coffee, consisting of more Folgers "Gourmet Chocolate Truffle" remained lackluster. I'm looking forward to using the crap up.

Dinner

Dinner consisted of leftovers, but they weren't MY leftovers. My wife came home with some leftover hummus and and Indian chicken dish that she'd had for dinner, and offered me the rest. Being a fan of Indian food (Assuming it contains no Cilantro) I was good to go.

Breakfast (Lunch not Pictured)

Yes, I went to Starbucks for breakfast again.

Lunch however was free. The company bought pizza for the office to entice folks to sit through a demo for a new video archive product that's in development.

Dinner

Dinner was, how shall I put this, unfortunate.

I was preparing a fish and rice dish when my pager went off. I called the customer who'd paged and ended up on the phone for most of the evening. I realized early on in the call that this was going to take a while, so I continued making dinner. I knew if I didn't get dinner underway I wouldn't be eating until midnight.

Unfortunately, I was a bit distracted by talking the customer through diagnosing a down server and I ended up grabbing and using a few spices I hadn't intended. The result was an odd flavor that was far too spiced for my wife.

Of course I now have a host of leftovers for which I need to find a use. If the stove were in working order I'd be tempted to try a savory rice pudding.

Lunch, Mostly Leftovers

Leftovers galore. The rather translucent noodles on the left ended up not being eaten, as they had grown a bit sour in the fridge. They weren't unsafe in any way, but the spices had mellowed in an odd way, resulting in an entirely inedible mash with a slimy texture.

The bread contained a few slices of Salami.

Breakfast

Breakfast was a big 'ole cup of Red Barn Peaberry Coffee, with a whiole grain waffle which my wife topped with a single dried date.

Dinner

Dinner was a salad and some pumpkin bread pudding. there was a slight miscalculation in the salad however. In my haste to assemble the salad, I grabbed a few large chunks of what I thought was tofu, only to earn when I popped the first one into my mouth it was inf fact Feta Cheese. Fortunately I like Feta cheese, so this was more of a minor inconvenience than anything else.

Unfortunately for my waist line however, I was at a friend's house and several people brought baked goods, including Macaroon Bars, frosted vanilla cookies and some chocolate chip cake. Atkins would be horrified, as would most respectable dietitians.

Lunch

Yes, it's Pizza, yes I took Lactaid, but hey, at least the soda was diet...

As you can probably guess by now, I forgot to grab lunch on my way out the door this morning.

Breakfast

Yeah, yeah, I know. A breakfast sandwich is hardly healthy, but I was in a rush this morning and forgot about the cereal and rice milk I have at home.

On the bright side, the prospect of posting the food to this Blog kept me from adding a donut to the mix.

Dinner

Dinner was simple, easy and as you can see, poorly lit. Some rice, some Tilapia and some citrus sauce tossed into the rice cooker, with some asparagus set up in the steamer basket. By the time the rice was done, everything else was cooked nicely.

The asparagus came out a bit tough and stringy, having sat in the fridge a few days longer than is ideal.

Lunch, Mostly Leftovers

Let's see, I've got some of the chicken and rice dish, mixed with some Stop & Shop meatballs, and I munched on the last of the leftover grilled steak from last week.

All told, the chicken ended up a bit tough, having been grilled, then cooked with the rice and finally microwaved, with a day or two of refrigeration between cooking stages, but the rest of it came out nicely.

I've also got the last of the Asian "Jelly" snacks, Apple flavor this time. Some more licorice and some Ginger Chews round out my snacking for the rest of the day.

To drink, unsweetened tea, and some Poland Spring orange flavored seltzer.

All told, a lot of meat, some starches, and no vegetables other than some corn. (Despite what the Reagan Administration said, Tomato sauce is NOT a vegetable.)

Breakfast

I know, I know, a breakfast sandwich is hardly a healthy (or inexpensive) meal, but I was in a rush this morning, and we are out of bagels, so I ended up going on a Charbucks run after I got to work. I needed me some coffee and food!

Dinner and putting bunnies in new cages

Dinner consisted of some sausage, steak and corn on the cob (Not pictured) grilled by some friends. My wife and I are still renovating our kitchen, so we do not yet have a functional stove, kitchen sink or much in the way of counter space.

Yesterday however was dedicated to dismantling the rabbit cages and giving them a through scrubbing, also know as the annual "traumatize the rabbits with all the spring cleaning noise" event. We also set up Cheyenne with a much larger cage.

As you can see from the picture above, Cheyenne's new cage used to be a dog crate. This is substantially more space than she used to have. Unfortunately, the floor flexes a bit, which makes it rather noisy when she moves about. Any recommendations on how to resolve this conundrum would be appreciated.

The black and white bunny in the pen on the right is Holly, and the goal is to bond the two of them. Moving Cheyenne into the floor level cage (Her former cage was on legs) is part of a plan to get the two of them more accustomed to one another. By placing them next to each other they can grow accustomed to each other's presence.

Jasper

Jasper is a foster bunny, staying with my wife and I until he's adopted. Jasper isn't up for adoption YET, because he suffered from a nasty bout with malnutrition While his weight has stabilized, he still needs to gain a few ounces, and he still isn't eating rabbit pellets on his own. He needs daily syringe feeding as a result.

We brought both the foster rabbits upstairs this past weekend to given them a little more sun than they get in the basement. They enjoyed the out time and the romp time in the pen.

Now if only we could get Jasper to EAT on his own, and end the need for the syringe feeding.

Breakfast

Dinner after a Saturday at work

This was both Lunch and Dinner, as I spent the day at the office. A nice pastrami sandwich, with a few extra slices of pastrami and cheese on a bit of lettuce.

Breakfast (Photo missing)

I was tired this morning, and forgot to photograph breakfast, which consisted of a bagel, veggie cream cheese, some coffee and two lumps of sugar.

Dinner

My wife and I were eating at Tony's Clam Shack in Quincy and I ordered the Buffalo Clam Strip sandwich. Sadly, it ended up tasting just like a Buffalo Chicken sandwich. I also had a Raspberry Lime Ricky. Not pictured was the slice of birthday cake I noshed, as we were there for the birthday party of a friend's six year old daughter. I would have taken a photo of the cake, but my cell phone giving me a low battery message and put the camera on standby.

Lunch 4-27-2007

Lunch consisted of leftovers from last night, and some tea.

You are no doubt are wondering why there are two small plates of rice as opposed to one larger one. The reason is simple. I didn't bring my own plate, and those small plates are the largest microwave safe plates in the office kitchen. There USED to be real plates, but now it's just plastic and paper.

we have larger plates, but they melt if you out a piece of toasted bread on them, and do some rather unsettling things when microwaved.

I really need to remember to bring some a microwave safe plate from home.

Welcome to the Police State, Assuming they Let You in

Andrew Feldmar has been bared for life from entering the Untied States of America.

He is a Holocaust survivor, psychologist and respected academic. He'd been entering the United Stated five to six times a year on business and to visit his children, both of whom live in the USA.

"Why?" you may ask, "What did he do?"

He dropped Acid 30+ years ago. It was LEGAL at the time, and it was provided to him as part of government sponsored research. Not only that, but he wasn't even in the USA when he dropped acid.

And because of this he is now banned form entering the United Stated of America. He has the option of appealing the ban, but it would cost a minimum of $3,500 n legal fees for each visit, and even then, his lawyers say he'd only have a 90% chance of being granted entry.

Anyone who doesn't think we're living in a police state really needs to get their heads out of the sand. This IS a police state. Habeas corpus is history, we have people being "disappeared" without any rights, secret courts, torture and people being barred from entry for absurd reasons. Just because we aren't having Soviet style parades in the streets doesn't mean we're any less of a police state.

"I never thought I'd live to see the Magna Carta revoked." -Rep. Jerry Nadler, House Judiciary Committee

Breakfast, and more disappointing coffee

Breakfast was a bit late this morning. An everything bagel toped with light cream cheese, as well as some coffee and some chai (separate cups, not mixed) sweetened with equal. I also added a dash of milk to each.

I don't normally use artificial sweetener, but the only sugar we have at the office is the rather hard to dissolve "Sugar in the Raw."

Lo and behold, as I'm typing this, I remembered the bit of Stevia in my desk drawer, so I'll likely use that to sweeten my chai at work.

I expect I'll keep sweetening my coffee until I use up the current bag. I'd picked up some Chocolate flavored Folgers coffee to drink at work, and I must confess it's a bit disappointing. I'd been blaming it on the unfavorable brewing conditions, but today I used boiling water from a tea kettle and a French press, a combination that normally produces very satisfactory coffee. Despite having used twice the label's recommended quantity of coffee grounds, the cup is still weak and devoid of any flavor beyond a vague chocolate. I suspect I'll just use it up next week and buy some better coffee.

Dessert

Last night's Dessert consisted of some chocolate cookies I bought at the Super 88.

Dinner

Dinner was a lovely rice dish my wife put together using some left over chicken and some canned artichoke hearts, along with the corn from a leftover cob we'd grilled a few days ago.

Lunch 4-26-2007

Today I had leftovers for Lunch. The bowl contains something I cooked up in our rice cooker a few days ago. I took some Edamame left over from Sushi a few days before, shelled them and put the beans in with some Tofus, mushrooms, Sweet Potato Noodles, cranberries and red peppers. I also included some light soy sauce, hot sauce and sesame oil.

After mixing everything with some water, I turned on the rice Cooker mode, waited 15 minutes and ate up. I noticed that the cranberries, having been in the fridge a bit, largely dissolved into part of the broth. This caused them to add a bit of fruity tartness to the dish while helping thicken the broth just a bit. I could have added a dash of arrow root to thicken ti some more, but I was tired, hungry and it tasted good as it was.

Sadly, the hot pepper sauce made it a bit spicy for my wife, and to tell the truth, it made my own lips tingle a bit. Fortunately, it mellowed in the fridge, so today it was actually a bit mild. It could have used a dash of salt the second time around.

The moral? Hot sauce can cover up the need for more salt.

The packet in the photo is the last of the Fennel tea I bought a while back. I actually ended up making some English Teatime instead, saving the caffeine free fennel seed tea for the afternoon.

I've also grabbed a Poland Spring Raspberry-Lime . I tend to prefer Poland Spring favored waters over Fruit2O, largely because Poland has no extra sweetener, artificial or otherwise.

Start of a Food Blog

The above photo represents my first attempt at a Food Blog. Basically, I, like many before me, plan to post pictures of all my food.

I'm doing this for a number of reasons:

• I need to lose weight, and I figure paying more attention to WHAT I eat will help with that goal.
• Having photos of my food online should discourage me form "cheating" and sneaking a snack here and there.
• Using Blogger means I can snap the photo with my cell phone, send the photo to my Blog and not have to worry about things like image resizing, getting photos off a camera or memory card and that sort of thing.

The above photo represents breakfast. The box is licorice and I had six pieces. A "serving" is 15 pieces, worth about 130 calories. The fruit cup is because I bought a mix pack not realizing it included the flavor, and I figured I'd polish them off, as they aren't THAT bad.

The Equal is for my cup of coffee. Not pictured is the coffee and the once or two of 2% milk in contains, and the bottle of Fruit2O I'm drinking.

The coffee is sadly, a disappointment. I brewed it in the kitchen with a drop brewer, using the hottest watter the sink could muster. The water cooler, which included hot water is out of water, and the coffee pot in the kitchen is something of a leaky joke. Being flat broke until payday, a run to a coffee shop was not the best option. My wife and I have a couple of travel mugs with an integrated French Press. I need to bring one of these to work.

Meet the Meat

Animals that WANT to be killed and eaten.

Some advertising is just plain disturbing.

Please tell me this is a joke

This is a gag, right? The person who wrote the letter below is pulling our leg right? It's supposed to be satire, right???


Arkansas Democrat Gazette, Letters to the Editor
Daylight exacerbates warning

You may have noticed that March of this year was particularly hot. As a matter of fact, I understand that it was the hottest March since the beginning of the last century. All of the trees were fully leafed out and legions of bugs and snakes were crawling around during a time in Arkansas when, on a normal year, we might see a snowflake or two. This should come as no surprise to any reasonable person. As you know, Daylight Saving Time started almost a month early this year. You would think that members of Congress would have considered the warming effect that an extra hour of daylight would have on our climate. Or did they ? Perhaps this is another plot by a liberal Congress to make us believe that global warming is a real threat. Perhaps next time there should be serious studies performed before Congress passes laws with such far-reaching effects.
CONNIE M. MESKIMEN / Hot Springs

UPDATE:

Fark.com has a thread about this "Letter to the Editor" and one of the posters there points out the letter is eerily similar to an April Fool's Day post on another site.

My new Niece!

Baby Ruth!

A Marine Comments on the War in Iraq

If anyone has a right to talk about the war and it's supporters, it's the soldiers and their families.
http://www.craigslist.org/about/best/sfo/309485032.html

From an Angry Soldier
Date: 2007-04-10, 1:00PM PDT


I'm having the worst damn week of my whole damn life so I'm going to write this while I'm pissed off enough to do it right.

I am SICK of all this bullshit people are writing about the Iraq war. I am abso-fucking-lutely sick to death of it. What the fuck do most of you know about it? You watch it on TV and read the commentaries in the newspaper or Newsweek or whatever god damn yuppie news rag you subscribe to and think you're all such fucking experts that you can scream at each other like five year old about whether you're right or not. Let me tell you something: unless you've been there, you don't know a god damn thing about it. It you haven't been shot at in that fucking hell hole, SHUT THE FUCK UP!

How do I dare say this to you moronic war supporters who are "Supporting our Troops" and waving the flag and all that happy horse shit? I'll tell you why. I'm a Marine and I served my tour in Iraq. My husband, also a Marine, served several. I left the service six months ago because I got pregnant while he was home on leave and three days ago I get a visit from two men in uniform who hand me a letter and tell me my husband died in that fucking festering sand-pit. He should have been home a month ago but they extended his tour and now he's coming home in a box.

You fuckers and that god-damn lying sack of shit they call a president are the reason my husband will never see his baby and my kid will never meet his dad.

And you know what the most fucked up thing about this Iraq shit is? They don't want us there. They're not happy we came and they want us out NOW. We fucked up their lives even worse than they already were and they're pissed off. We didn't help them and we're not helping them now. That's what our soldiers are dying for.

Oh while I'm good and worked up, the government doesn't even have the decency to help out the soldiers whos lives they ruined. If you really believe the military and the government had no idea the veterans' hospitals were so fucked up, you are a god-damn retard. They don't care about us. We're disposable. We're numbers on a page and they'd rather forget we exist so they don't have to be reminded about the families and lives they ruined while they're sipping their cocktails at another fund raiser dinner. If they were really concerned about supporting the troops, they'd bring them home so their families wouldn't have to cry at a graveside and explain to their children why mommy or daddy isn't coming home. Because you can't explain it. We're not fighting for our country, we're not fighting for the good of Iraq's people, we're fighting for Bush's personal agenda. Patriotism my ass. You know what? My dad served in Vietnam and NOTHING HAS CHANGED.

So I'm pissed. I'm beyond pissed. And I'm going to go to my husband funeral and recieve that flag and hang it up on the wall for my baby to see when he's older. But I'm not going to tell him that his father died for the stupidty of the American government. I'm going to tell him that his father was a hero and the best man I ever met and that he loved his country enough to die for it, because that's all true and nothing will be solved by telling my son that his father was sent to die by people who didn't care about him at all.

Fuck you, war supporters, George W. Bush, and all the god damn mother fuckers who made the war possible. I hope you burn in hell.

Tim Henson has passed away

Many folks know Tim Henson as the host of Distorted View. Sadly, Tim recently lost his battle and has passed on, leaving behind a great and significant online legacy.

He will be missed.

I've created an online memorial to Tim Henson, and hope people will visit it and contribute to its content.

Replace, Rebuild or just give up?

My venerable IBM Thinkpad A20M has served me well over the years. It's still a reliable machine, and despite it's 700mhz processor, fairly zippy when the right software is installed. Sadly, the batter is toast. Years of abuse have left it with a life span of less than half an hour when using the wireless card. I've been thinking of getting a replacement battery, but buying a used one on ebay means I have a substantial risk of getting something that's just as worn out as what I have now. I've been researching other options for Laptop Batteries. Digital Camera Batteries are easy to come by, but Laptop batteries are a bit harder.

There are online directions for rebuilding your own laptop batteries, reconditioned batteries and external battery packs.

The question I now face is do I save up the cash for a new laptop, rebuild the batter pack myself or just order a used internal pack or a new external one.

This would all be easier if I had another digit on my salary.

Could Iran be the West's next source of Mail Order Brides?

Justified by strict interpretations of Islamic law, Iran has a bustling sex trade in Muslim women. Iranian women from impoverished areas are traded like cattle, sold to neighboring nations. Women of all ages are bought and sold like slabs of meat. Iran's ruling clerics not only know about the trade, but are often customers.

The question becomes, what is their stance is on selling women to western nations?

If women are just chattel to them, and they sell OIL to western nations, why not sell us their women as well? Think about it. American men get a new source of Mail Order Brides (Buying Russian women is SO 1990's), and these women get to leave lives of repression and prostitution to become American Citizens!

The men selling them clearly care more about their oil than their women, so why not start making offers?

I know, I know, the argument can be made that using Iran as a source of Mail Order Brides only fuels the sex industry abroad, but the additional "business" comes in the form of women leaving the country for a better life! Not only that, but the women will by and large, be treated with more respect and dignity than they would in Iran, not to mention the extensive freedoms women have in the West. Imagine going from a place where you're not allowed to leave the house without a male relative, to one where you can get a job, buy a car, hell, buy whatever you want without even TELLING your husband as long as it's your own damn money. Yes, most women discuss things like jobs and car purchases with their husbands, but it's not a legal requirement.

I can see the ad campaign now:

"Iran, America's new, best source for Mail Order Brides."

The only major problem is the current upswing in the popularity of Indonesian Mail Order Brides.

Processing Tragedy

Everyone has their own take on how to process the most recent school shooting. I've chosen to myopically focus on a side issue that is, in the face of human death, a relatively inconsequential problem despite the Censorship Implications.

The dead were still warm when Dr Phil and the infamous Jack Thompson started crowing about how "Video Games" and all their evil were to blame for the VA Tech Shootings.

Let's set aside the fact that millions of people play video games and DON'T run out and start shooting people. Let's not discuss the fact that yours truly used to be a wicked pissa Quake II and III player, and could dominate an online game even with a high ping and a slow computer, yet I spend my free time nursing underweight foster rabbits back to health.

Let's set aside the fact that most the gamers I know see video games as a harmless way to blow off some steam, and would never so much as hurt a fly in real life. While we're at it, we can ignore the complete lack of any credible research connecting computer games to real life violence.

We'll even ignore the fact that even Rush Limbaugh discounts the notion of a Video Game / Mass Murder connection

Let's instead look at the one piece of information that may actually embarrass Dr Phil and Jack Thompson. After searching the home of Cho Seung Hui, the shooter responsible for the rampage, police have found no sign of video games in Cho Seung Hui's home. The killer didn't own them, and according to his former roommate he didn't even play them.

Dr Phil and Jack Thompson would have had more credibility if they'd joined FOX News in asking if Cho Seung Hui was possessed by the Devil.

Jack Thompson is unlikely to apologize for his fabricated claims, but Dr Phil might actually have the guts to stand up and admit he was wrong, so I'm asking folks to go to Dr Phil's feedback page and tell him what they think. Please be respectful, as the last thing Video Game players need is Dr Phil reading a bunch of death threats on his TV show.

I think I had this teacher in 7th grade Science

Apparently conformity is more important than truth.

Fortunately, this may be a fake. I hope it is.

Everyone loves Oolong

A brief Introduction to Oolong the bunny

(Click the image for the big version)




Oolong's Official web Site.

On becoming a woman, a 1940's guide to sex for "Good Girls"

The young person who has been so unfortunate as to develop the habit of masturbation feels constantly let down and fatigued. She adopts an attitude of stupidity simply because she cannot muster sufficient energy to remain alert. Study no longer appeals to her. Thus her mental development lags.



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Tom Delay attacks Rosie over Imus???

From the Blog of Tom Delay

And for the contextual icing on the cake, where are the repercussions for Rosie O’Donnell’s hateful, idiotic accusations that President Bush was behind the 9/11 attacks? And her ignorant parody of the Chinese language? Or her comparison of conservative Christians to Islamo-fascist terrorists? Why has ABC not suspended her from The View? Why has she not been frog-marched up to some radio show to apologize to 9/11 victims/Chinese-American activists/evangelical Christians?

Going after Rosie strikes me as a rather random target. Al Sharpton has a long history of attacking whites on racial grounds, and others are already taking him to task over the hypocrisy of his criticizing Imus.

Mr. Delay's desire to go after a talk show host is a fairly random act. Imus has more powerful and more outspoken critics on this issue, and attacking one of the talking heads on "The View" is a misfire. It fails to address the real issue, and smacks of "Acting for the sake of acting." What's more, he's taking her to task over claims about 9/11. O’Donnell wasn't even quoted on anything related to Imus. What in the WORLD do her comments have to do with Imus and his racist remarks?

More to the point, the linked post by Tom Delay makes him look like he's making a desperate plea for attention.

Is Fred Phelps Gay?

Reverend Fred Phelps, of godhatesfags.com came on the show and, for the second time, refused to directly answer a question about whether or not there was any homosexuality in his own background.



read more

Watch a madman foam at the mouth!

Logic? Rational Thought? Compassion? These are foreign concepts to Fred Phelps the repressed Homosexual behind the Westboro Baptist Church. Listen and delight in the raw insanity that comes from decades of repressed homosexual desire. Hated by even the right wing anti-gay-rights activists it's a riot to watch his mind degrade before your very eyes



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Chitty Chitty Bang Bang is now REAL!!!

Brit Turns Land Rover Into Chitty Chitty Bang Bang

Before:


After:

UK Citizens can't find dentists, the jokes write themselves folks

The British government introduced reform last year to only pay Dentists an annual stipend based on the business they did in 2006. If their costs run over that stipend they have to swallow the costs. The result: dentists can't accept new patients or perform more procedures than in 2006.  I first learned of this from the BBC Newspod Podcast

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to resume fretting over the new crown I'm getting in the morning.

Dueling Covers, three versions of "Hurt"

Johnny Cash



Kermit the Frog



NIN, the original but as you can see, not the best.

Fluffy Bunny used as news story distraction

To prove I didn't make this up, I'm also posting the link to the original website.

When white Christians Rap: "I LIKE BIG BIBLES"

Please tell me this is supposed to be parody. Please tell me this is supposed to be a joke...

Useful Utilities for you Computer Repairmen

There are a few programs here I hadn't heard of before.



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Scrapple

I've been hankering for some scrapple, but the lack of a functional stove means I can't cook any up if I even found some!

Anyone know of restaurants near Boston that serve good scrapple?

"There's two kinds of Scrapple. The good kind is made from the parts they won't put in hot dogs. The bad stuff, the stuff not worth eating, well hot dogs are made from the parts they won't put in that scrapple."

McCain gets caught stealing Bandwidth

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Integrity Balls, where Oedipus Rex meets Fundamentalist Christians

Chastity Balls are all over the news these days. People are abuzz with both pro and con commentary on these ceremonies designed to emulate a wedding ceremony, so a Father can pledge to keep his daughter a virgin while she pledges to keep her legs locked at the knees.

I'll admit my post about Purity Balls was a bit disorganized, largely because I was left somewhat speechless by the perverse nature of the balls. Not only were women being treated as property to be safeguarded by their father, but this was being done in a manner that might as well be a case study for the Electra complex.

I'm a bit more level relaxed now, as I've seen that in it's own way, sexual equality has peeked into Fundamentalist Christian households and introduced the Integrity Ball.

"The sons get to take their mothers out for an evening of fine dining and fun, while reinforcing that young men should remain abstinent until marriage. The evening was coat and tie minimum, so it wasn't slouchy at all, but was very classy."

-- Dakota Voice Blog

You'll notice right off the bat a big difference between Purity Balls and Integrity Balls. In all the "Pro Ball" write ups I've seen, the Father was the one who took his Daughter to the ball. Here, the Son is taking his Mother out.

Why isn't the Mother taking the Son out to the ball?

The Blog cbeinternational goes into more detail about the difference between the two balls, but I'll summarize it as follows:

The Mothers never make a pledge. The boys however pledge to remain "pure". The Dakota Voice article on Integrity Balls explains the logic boys are supposed to use:

“So you’re dating someone else’s future wife,” he told them. He also told them that someone else may be dating their future wife.

Notice the difference? If you've done any reading about Purity Balls, you'll notice how it was all about protecting the virtue of the Daughter. Integrity balls however are all about not messing with someone else's future wife.

Despite the effort to create a comparable "ceremony" the sexual bias is only strengthened by Integrity Balls. The women are property. Women aren't supposed to have sex because they're their Father's Property and then their Husband's Property. men aren't supposed to have extramarital sex because in doing so they would be messing with someone else's property.

All of these efforts to preserve a child's virginity ignore a simple fact:

Teens who pledge to remain virgins until marriage are more likely to take chances with other kinds of sex that increase the risk of sexually transmitted diseases, a study of 12,000 adolescents suggests.

"Purity Balls", AKA "Chasity Balls"

Abstinence only Sex Education increases teen pregnancy rates. This is according to the American Academy of Paediatrics (AAP). Providing contraception information results in reduced teen pregnancy rates. Despite the research proving this, many Conservatives insist in believing the opposite, and insisting upon fear mongering abstinence only sex education.

Now, conservatives have created "Chastity Balls" also known as "Purity Balls." The general idea is to have the father vow to protect his daughter's chastity in a wedding like ceremony, where the daughter similarly vows to remain a virgin until her marriage. They dress up, he wears a tux, there's a ring exchange, he feeds her wedding cake and the ceremony goes on to make the whole event resemble "Marrying your father" as much as possible.

Even nine year olds are participating.

There's even an Oedipal version for sons and mothers called an "Integrity Ball" that involves "telling boys to abstain from sex is so they won't defile someone's "future wife.""

The pledge read by the fathers:

I, [daughter's name]'s father, choose before God to cover my daughter as her authority and protection in the area of purity. I will be pure in my own life as a man, husband and father. I will be a man of integrity and accountability as I lead, guide and pray over my daughter and as the high priest in my home. This covering will be used by God to influence generations to come.

I guess seeing women as property is perfectly natural to many even in this day and age.

Glamor Magazine has an exhaustive article on Purity Balls.

Bill Maher on the practice:



As pointed out in the Glamor Magazine article, kids who take "purity pledges" are more likely to have unprotected sex and get pregnant out of wedlock. Sadly, Conservatives choose to pretend this can't be the case.

Below is a promotional video advertising one of the firms who put on Purity Balls. Watch it, and decide for yourself.

Theodore Roosevelt Quotes

From the online Quote Database:

"To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that we are to stand by the president right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public."

"Courtesy is as much a mark of a gentleman as courage."

"The American people are slow to wrath, but when their wrath is once kindled it burns like a consuming flame."

"The things that will destroy America are prosperity at any price, peace at any price, safety first instead of duty first, the love of soft living and the get rich quick theory of life."

"Avoid the base hypocrisy of condemning in one man what you pass over in silence when committed by another."

"Success, the real success, does not depend upon the position you hold but upon how you carry yourself in that position."

"It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat." - Speech at the Sorbonne, Paris, April 23, 1910

"Criticism is necessary and useful; it is often indispensable; but it can never take the place of action, or be even a poor substitute for it. The function of the mere critic is of very subordinate usefulness. It is the doer of deeds who actually counts in the battle for life, and not the man who looks on and says how the fight ought to be fought, without himself sharing the stress and the danger." (1894)

Hillary vs Obama

Of course, the above has been tracked to the Obama campaign.

Myspace, full of spammers or just plain pathetic?

On a whim, I signed up for a Myspace profile. I listen to a few podcasts that have a myspace page and I thought I might as well create one of my own.

All of a sudden, I started getting innodated with "Friend" requests. I found this odd, because I hadn't told any of my friends about the page, and most my friends use LiveJournal as their primary social networking site anyway. I'd even used an obscure, somewhat mangled name which few if any of my friends even know about.

I looked through the messages and predictably found that none of them were from people I know. Some of the messages were clearly dating site come ons. "I hope you're still available" was one line, despite the fact that my profile was only 24 hours old and I listed myself as married. There was the friend request from a Los Angeles dance troop , despite the fact that I listed my location as Massachusetts and gave NO indication of any "Dance" interests in my profile.

I joined the Any Sedaris, David Sedaris and Distorted View groups. The Distorted View group was the only one where I already knew anyone, but as I didn't use the same username as I'd use on the Distorted view Forum, no one knew who I was, and as a result, had no way of knowing I was someone they'd even WANT to friend. I got still more friend requests and messages, and none of them were from accounts that were already members of the three groups I'd joined.

I friended Hometown Tales and Margaret Cho, but still, none of the friend requests or messages were related to those profiles. I began to wonder why I was getting all these requests. Having largely ignored myspace I knew little about it. I knew it was prone to attack by various hackers, many myspace pages are painfully ugly, it's full of hideous graphics, it's owned by a large media corporation, is worth 6 Billion and likes to threaten other web sites with lawsuits but that was about it.

The dating and porn site spam made sense. After all, Myspace was founded by a spammer. Why then were random people, many of whom had no obvious connection to something that they were advertising, wasting their time pinging random strangers?

I decided to do some research into the benefits of myspace.com but found noting to enlighten me. The friend requests from the LA dance troop made sense, as the were advertising something, engaging in a form of spam. That still left the people with nothing to sell, nothing to advertise who were sending out friend requests and messages to random strangers.

I've seen a little of this behavior on LiveJournal. People friend dozens of other folks in an attempt to bulk up their friends page, despite not actually reading any of those journals. I know most the people on my LiveJournal friends list in person. The few whom I don't know from real life (AKA meat space) are people I've met online with whom I actually interact. Myspace seems to have the same problem, but on a much larger scale. At first glance, it looks like half of myspace is full of people who are desperately trying to validate their existence by collecting as many virtual friends as possible.

The question then becomes, is Myspace full of pathetic, lonely people, or are more of them myspace spam profiles than I suspect?

I ignored the account for a few days. When I logged back in today, I noticed that most of the messages and friend requests were replaced with text advising me that the profile that sent them had been deleted. Could they ALL have been from people who threw a sissy fit and deleted their profile, or were they myspace spam profiles, deleted by the moderators? Given the spam soaked origins of myspace, can they be trusted to ferret out the spammers on their own service?

To use a tired old chestnut, "Only time will tell."

Researchers misquoted by Focus on the Family fight back

With fake or discredited scientists proving to be an embarrassment, the right wing sought a new tactic. It would try to bolster its shaky credentials by co-opting the work of renowned researchers, professors and authors. To counter this effort, Truth Wins Out recently began informing researchers when their work had been twisted...



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Bambie III: Out for Justice

This is Disney's latest foray into action movies. Here's what I found on the dust jacket of the Pirate DVD a friend bought in Hong Kong:

Bambie III: Out for Justice

The forest is under attack, and Bambi's father is dead. Every night is spent tormented by nightmares of the man who killed both his mother and father. Every day is spent fleeing the hunters who wade into the underbrush, killing everything that moves.

Then comes the day when his lifelong companion Thumper is gunned down. While cradling his dying friend in his hooves, Bambi vows vengeance.

Armed only with his new antlers and his thirst for justice, Bambi sets out to foil the murderers who, he learns, are planning a final attack on to kill every rabbit, deer, skunk and four legged creature in the forest.

Can Bambie and his rag tag band of forest creatures triumph against the guns, bows and traps of the enemy? Can they even survive, let alone find victory?

And who is the small, mysterious creature speaking words of encouragement from the shadows? Is it a friend trying to help, a foe leading him into a trap or is Bambi simply being driven mad by the terror of war?

Ohio cops steal woman's identity, hand it over to stripper, and it's legal

Ohio liquor-control agents took her identity and gave it to a 22-year-old recruited to work undercover as a nude dancer. Her father David Dawson: "It certainly looks like identity theft." "But it’s not," said Miami County Prosecutor Gary Nasal. It is unclear how liquor-control agents obtained Haley Dawson’s License and Social Security Number.



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Phrase of the Day

Get CIA on your A**

A play on "get medieval" it refers to torturing someone using modern methods as opposed to medieval. For example, Water Boarding and Thumb Screws are used instead of Blacksmith Tools and the Iron Maiden. The emphasis of "Getting CIA on your Ass" is less putative and more focused on attempts at information extraction. Death is considered an unfortunate error as opposed to the ultimate goal.

The CIA reference is derived from the "alternative interrogation methods" authorized by the Bush Administration for use in the Guantanamo Bay Naval base and other locations. The typical use of the term to date has been in reference to documented US Torture techniques used in the "War on Terror."

Example:

"If this suspect doesn't start telling us what we want to know, I say we get CIA on his ass!"

I'm Banned in China!

Ever wonder if your web site was banned in China?

Now you can test to see if China blocks your URL.

Go on and test your site. You know you're curious.

A "Gay" reporter flirts with a male Westboro Baptist Church member

Bukkake Brand Milk (Oddly, SFW)

Jasper chilling after a feeding

I've been giving Jasper about 100ml of Critical care a day via syringe feeding. This picture was taken a few minutes after a recent feeding. He was laying back, rather relaxed in my wife's lap.

Mac Software Links

Resources are always a good thing. In this case, resources for Mac software are a good thing, as my primary home machine is a Mac.

This is posted mainly for my own reference.

Sites to peruse:

coolmacapps.com This site lets users vote on their favorite Mac apps. Hopefully it will remain in that lovely sweet spot. Popular enough for the results to be useful, but not so popular that greedy Spammers game the site to pimp their wares.

macupdate.com

pure-mac.com A simple categorized list of applications. The link is to their Graphics Section.

DarwinPorts

macsoftwareguide.com "Only the best will survive, we promise"

Here's a list of applications I really should get around to trying for myself.

Quicksilver: http://quicksilver.blacktree.com/
Textwrangler: http://www.barebones.com/products/textwrangler/index.shtml
Silverkeeper: http://www.lacie.com/silverkeeper/ (I personally prefer iBackup)
Adium: http://www.adiumx.com/
Handbrake: http://handbrake.m0k.org/
iSquint: http://homepage.mac.com/tylerl82/
VirtueDesktops: http://virtuedesktops.info/
Unarchiver: http://wakaba.c3.cx/s/apps/unarchiver.html
VLC Media Player: http://www.videolan.org/vlc/
iTerm: http://iterm.sourceforge.net/
http://journler.com/
Loro (Tiger only)
SimpleImage has been recommended as an Irfanview replacement.

This Digg discussion is interesting mainly because of the alternative applications discussed in the comments.

Remove misspelled words from your Firefox dictionary

We ain't none of us perfect, so if you've ever accidentally added a misspelled word to your Firefox dictionary, here's how to remove the misspelling to avoid looking like a fool in front of your friends, family, and coworkers

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Truffle munching away on some hay

Truffle munching away on some hay

"No, I be concubining,"

The Cincinnati Enquirer tells the story of Ricky Lackey. A man expecting six children by six different women "expected to deliver in August, September and October."

Ricky Lackey has six children on the way.

Don't call them sextuplets - they're each with different women.

When Hamilton County Common Pleas Judge Melba Marsh asked Lackey during sentencing Friday on a charge of attempted theft how many children he had, the 25-year-old said, "None, but I have six on the way."

A stunned Marsh tried to clarify. "Are you marrying a woman with six children?" she asked.

"No, I be concubining," he said.

Prosecutors said Lackey is the expectant father of six children with six different women. The women all are expected to deliver in August, September and October.

Lackey's lawyer, Stephen Wenke, stopped his client from saying more.

Marsh said she wasn't sure how to respond, so she let the issue drop since it wasn't relevant to the proceedings.

Lackey, a music producer who told Marsh he was on the cusp of a $2 million deal that would net him $300,000 upfront, was convicted Friday on a reduced charge of attempted theft.

Prosecutors say the Avondale man defrauded U.S. Bank out of $3,975 by depositing empty envelopes into ATM machines, claiming they contained cash, and depositing bad checks before withdrawing cash on the falsely inflated balances.

Lackey has repaid the money, according to court records.

Marsh ordered no other sentence, because restitution had been paid.

As Lackey left the courtroom, a group of teenage girls there for another case appeared to know Lackey.

"Oh, there's Ricky Lackey!" one swooned.

Lackey shrugged the attention off with one word and a wave of his hand.

"Fans," he said.

Church of the SubGenius membership costs woman her son

Summary:

A woman has a son. She and the child's father part ways, but she retains custody.

She remarries.

At some point she starts participating in Church of the SubGenius events.

Years go by.

The ex decides he wants custody, so he starts the legal proceedings to declare the woman an "unfit mother." As evidence, he submits pictures of the woman at a SubGenius X-Day event.

The judge is so morally outraged by the pictures, which include a parody of the crucification with Jesus in clown makeup being beaten with, among other things, a Dildo, that he not only grants the ex full custody, but orders that the woman have NO contact with her son. The Judge confuses the SubGenius with a real religion, and refers to the "Art performances" as "Orgies."

Legal battles ensue. At this point, the custody battle has cost the woman over $73,000 USD and she still doesn't have her son back. The current judge continues to confuse SubGenius with a real religion and does things like order her to remove all SubGenius materials from her home.

The full story, complete with up to the minute information can be found at modemac.com

The Cleveland Free Times article is a bit easier to parse than modemac.com's write up.

When Rachel took Kohl to the airport on December 18, she had no idea that a few days later Jary would tell a judge in Orleans County, New York that Rachel was homeless. No idea that without checking on the claim — without even sending a perfunctory notice of a hearing — the court would grant her son's father sole, temporary custody.