Rich and Strange Aeons

Cheeses

Wed, 06 Jan 2010 03:47:12 GMT

Just went on a shopping spree at Bloomingfood's.
What's better than a soft cheese like Brie or Camember, or a blue cheese? One that combines them: Cambozola, a soft-ripened cheese with blue veins.

Actually whether it's better could be debated; the blueness is a lot milder than full blue cheeses. OTOH, it's spreadable, not crumbly.

Also picked up was a petit munster, which seems decent, and a very expensive Red Hawk brine-washed-rind cheese, which stinks quite a lot (at least up close) but seems mild in flavor. Though all the cheeses are still cool.

Links:
* Comparison of the House and Senate health bills (PDF, despite the URL)
* CIA helping with climate monitoring
* Average faces beautiful
* Full-body scanners run afoul of child porn laws
* (from shiver) American Law Institute abandons support for the death penalty; they'd been the main legal arguer in the US.
* More on the Big Zero decade in the US
* Pakistanis may like our drones? I don't know if I should jokingly compare to Culture drones or Berserker goodlife.
* Is Indonesia's democracy shallow?
* Nate Silver's harrowing flight home, and more terror statistics.

links

Mon, 04 Jan 2010 01:25:09 GMT

It's too cold. Roof my cities, damn it!

* Nate Silver on Rasmussen polling bias.
* Willpower as limited muscle and why your New Year's resolutions will fail -- especially the one to lose weight. Starved brains don't have good willpower.
* Economists are cheapskates
* Fixing California -- oh, please let it pass!

* Divisions in the parties. GOP as uneasy alliance of neocons, libertarians, and the religious right (itself with divisons, e.g. Mormon vs. evangelical), having expelled the Rockefeller (or Roosevelt) Republicans; Democrats as uneasy alliance of neoliberals, New Dealers, and Greens, with different opinions about means if not goals.
* Democrats likely to drop superdelegates, continuing their trend of being, ahem, more democratic. (Previous major item is state delegates being allocates proportionally, in something like proxy or asset voting, whereas the GOP primaries are still winner-take-all.)
* Same author of the previous two, Michael Lind, rants about the failure of government, or what are we paying them for anyway?

* Movie of Pre-Columbian America, Kings of the Sun. Probably flawed but notable for subject matter. Haven't seen it, just heard about it.
* Iowa and New Hampshire both have gay marriage; will this affect the next presidential campaign?

* Horrible chemistry blog. ClF3 burns sand and produces HF in reaction with water. *Produces* HF, WTF. Dimethyl mercury is horrible.
* Blasphemy law in ~~Islam~~ Ireland.

* Religiosity by state.
* Pink science for girls

The Hills Are Alive With The Sound Of Childbirth

Fri, 01 Jan 2010 07:55:09 GMT

The oldest Von Trapp child is 16, the youngest seems to be about 5. So the late Mrs. Von Trapp had 7 children in 11 years. No wonder she's the late Mrs. Poor Maria, soon she'll be producing her own choir!

Coincidentally, I've been re-reading Jo Walton's first books, The King's Peace and such, Arthuriana in an alternate universe with different names and more ubiquitious gods and magic. That unmarried women almost never have children, and do so only if the gods have Plans, was beaten into obviousness in a couple of books. That even married women rarely have more than four children was a detail I'd missed on previous readings. But someone -- Masarn? -- says he'd like to have a fifth child, "if it were possible", and is reminded of a Vincan Quintus, who was a fifth child. And later someone with three children then has twins, "a miracle".

Also of note was a goddess predicting that Morwen's great-grandson, who I'm sure didn't exist yet (I'm not sure Morwen even had grandchildren yet, though Angas might have produced some), would inherit Urdo's throne. That's some impressive farseeing for a world where human oracles can only see the futures of alternate worlds, and where a witch wants to kill off a random factor for unpredictability, while by my reading the Odin equivalent wants to preserve the same factor for the same reasons.

"Hmm, in every other world I get my theological butt kicked by Christianity. Wait, a significant unique random factor. Dedicated to me! MINE MINE MINE GO AWAY YOU CAN'T TOUCH HER I don't know what she'll do but she can't make things worse."

Followed later by a raven-borne "YES! SCOOORE!" when said random factor makes a key change to the Arthurian plotline.

Though, come to think of it, a promise this god made someone would seem to indicate more prescience than I assume here.

Travel notes

Thu, 24 Dec 2009 23:19:44 GMT

Predicted ice at O'Hare was scary, but I went through without a hitch. Of course I'm still in Seattle, not Spokane yet, so something could go wrong.

I've noted a lot in the past that different airports seem to have different... textures of people is the only way I can put it. Never been able to analyze it. But at a guess: O'Hare is full of dapper business people; Seattle (and Portland) are full of white people.

Sea-Tac bathrooms have signs tell us to wash our hands to prevent the spread of germs, but are too cheap to provide hot water, or enough paper towels. A different bathroom managed warm water.

There are way more people waiting here than seats for them to wait in.

I'm tempted by the fish bars in the airport, but airport prices and the two Subways in my backpack from Bloomington deter me. Well, two Subways in my guts, now.

The Bloomington Shuttle guy told us how important it was to make reservations a day beforehand, so the bus would be big enough and everyone could get a seat. I noted that the website only seems to have credit card purchases, not the old free reservation for with passes. "Tell them!" he said. So management to drivers is one-way communication? How big can this company be? And I was the only to not have a printed voucher, were they all last minute like me, or does their website not turn purchases into reservations?

BTW: anima_mecanique, your "No Guild" email from last Friday just showed up.

photos, evil plants, links

Thu, 24 Dec 2009 03:19:36 GMT

Not-fun travel tomorrow.
Hasty selection of summer photos. Yes I know a couple aren't rotated.

Plant links
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azolla_event
duckweed invasion
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=4654
http://www.swarthmore.edu/NatSci/cpurrin1/dodder.htm
plant behavior
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/22/science/22angi.html
plant carnivory might be more common
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34333178/ns/technology_and_science-science/

I calculated that the smallest 21 states, controlling 41-42 Senators, have 34 million people, or 11% of the population. You need half the people in those states to control the Senators, so in theory 6% of the population could shut down Congress via filibuster. Vs. needing an ideal 26% to control the House.

Politics links
* Krugman on Obama's non-progressiveness
* and on simulating single-payer
* "Most valuable Democrats"
* The deficit: Mostly Bush
* Gay marriage legalized in Mexico city
* Fringe? GOPer jokes about Obama hunting tags; schoolchildren in his area had chanted "assassinate Obama".
* This is sadly true in some purist regions.
* Ben Nelson is a reasonable compromising conservative; Lieberman is an unpredictable rogue.
* The pre-existing Democratic consensus on health-care reform.
* Needle exchange funding ban repealed by Congressional Democrats
* Soldier's family denied entry to the US

* "I'll just add that I understand the model in which you don't agree that this bill will expand and improve as it develops its constituency over time. But I don't understand the model by which you believe this bill won't be improved over time but you simultaneously believe reformers can get something better in the foreseeable future."

Iran, travel, PR, health

Mon, 21 Dec 2009 20:42:21 GMT

* Dissident Iranian cleric Grand Ayatollah Montazeri has died, and this is proving a focus for protests. Retrospective on his life; blog on his funeral and protests.
* Israel used to take organs without asking. Bit foolish given the blood libel history.
* SCOTUS law clerks increasingly polarized. Apparently law schools are seen as "overwhelmingly liberal".

I'm going to take my chances flying to Spokane this year. Hopefully this flu-like thing (third sickness this term, wtf) will blow over soon. Anyone want to drive me to a 10:10am flight Thursday the 24th, for $25? The shuttles are suboptimal.

* Quotes in favor of proportional representation
"[legislatures in the United States] should be an exact portrait, in
miniature, of the people at large, as it should think, feel, reason, and
act like them." -- John Adams
"... the portrait is excellent in proportion to its being a good
likeness,...the legislature ought to be the most exact transcript of the
whole society... the faithful echo of the voices of the people." --
James Wilson at the Constitutional Convention

* Editor of libertarian magazine Reason prefers French health care.
* US health reform timeline over the decades

When people (Jared Diamond) talk about the Americas not having had many domesticable species, why don't bison and wild rice count?

Related developments, cheese

Thu, 17 Dec 2009 00:37:04 GMT

I haven't had blue cheese in a while. Got some 'cheap' Danish at Bloomingfood's, and it's quite tasty at room temperature (though getting greasy), by itself or as a garnish on salad.

Apple or Asian pear slices go well on salad too, bringing sweetness, crunchiness, tartness, and moisture. I think the apple worked better than the Asian pear. What kind of apple? Don't know.

Getting salad dressing in one's eye is NOT fun.

In less related news, I grew up with Brick cheese, a bland soft white cheese, shredded or sliced for sandwiches. Always wondered a bit about the name. Confused it with Monterey Jack. Never saw it outside my father's grocery purchases.

Until last week, when I found it at Bloomingfood's. Bought it, tasted it, liked it especially warm, looked it up. Cheddar variant, hey. Brought it around to all the social events last week to give samples, not because it's the best cheese ever -- it's not -- but because it's a nice cheese that literally no one had heard of and most probably wouldn't think to try. There may be a less sexy name for cheese out there but I can't think of it right now. Brick.

The entry on American cheese is perhaps more interesting than the cheese.

Ex-jihadis

Tue, 08 Dec 2009 05:26:10 GMT

jsnead summarizes an article about various British ex-Jihadis and how they got that way. Good stuff. A few quotes:

{But there was an inhibiting sympathy for the victims of 9/11 -- until
the Bush administration began to respond with Guantanamo Bay and bombs.
"That made it much easier. After that, I could persuade people a lot
faster." }
{"Nobody ever said " you're equal to us, you're one of us, and we'll
hold you to the same standards," says Husain. "Nobody had the courage to
stand up for liberal democracy without qualms. When people like us at
[Newham] College were holding events against women and against gay
people, where were our college principals and teachers, challenging us?"
}
{Every one of them said the Bush administration's response to 9/11
-- from Guantanamo to Iraq -- made jihadism seem more like an accurate
description of the world.}
{But the converse was -- they stressed -- also true. When they saw
ordinary Westerners trying to uphold human rights, their jihadism began
to stutter. Almost all of them said that they doubted their Islamism
when they saw a million non-Muslims march in London to oppose the Iraq
War}

links: parenting, terror, Palin, sabotage, compost, plasma econ, silly

Mon, 07 Dec 2009 22:31:07 GMT

* Is overparenting peaking?
* For all the helicopter parenting, sex talks tend to be too little, too late.
* Outrage over teaching masturbation in Spain; article mentions what other sex-ed programs do. Makes the USA sound stuck in the Dark Ages.

* The anti-statism obsession in America
* Cake vs. screamers: increasing marginal utility of 'reliever' goods and the persistence of poverty.

* Obama aims to shrink the war on terror from "terrorism" to "Al-Qaeda", on the grounds that only A-Q is targetting us, plus movements like Hamas and Hezbollah and even the Taliban have nationalistic roots in the people, and can't simply be stomped.
* Palin's fake bus tour, call for the US to dedicate itself to God, and flirtation with the Birthers
* Manual for GOP obstructionism.

*composting toilets progress.
* Christmas defined
* Blood plasma from border Mexicans. US is one of the only countries to allow paying for blood and plasma, and a massive exporter of plasma since other countries don't collect enough. I smell a causal connection, there...

* Ada Lovelace: the Origin
* Evolution of Nintendo controllers

Anime

Sun, 06 Dec 2009 09:15:44 GMT

Macross Frontier finished in club. I approve, it was pretty good. The ending was either rushed or densely packed, depending on taste -- a bit like Twelve Kingdoms Youko arcs. I was surprised at how many key elements I'd read on the Wikipedia page showed up in the last 15 minutes.

Which compares rather favorably to Akagi, which I have now dubbed Mahjongball Z, where we spent two episodes watching a few turns within a single hand of mahjong. Very repetitive, with Wachizu cackling and drawing tiles.

links

Wed, 02 Dec 2009 09:08:47 GMT

* Simple majority rule as best safeguard of minorities? Though the argument works best for a proportional representation legislature, not ballot initiatives.

* Robert Fisk on the Armenian genocide
* Tony Judt on social democracy, past present and future.
* North Korea sabotages self more.
* Uganda attacks gays. With US Christian support.

* Migration trends in the US. Wonder whether people are leaving a state and how many? Now you can find out easily -- well, for the 2005-2007 period.
* WWJD?
* Protectionism and the Great Depression

links: the blessings of colonialism

Sun, 29 Nov 2009 21:22:52 GMT

From James_Nicoll:

Great Hedge of India
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Hedge_of_India
maps
http://www.rmoxham.freeserve.co.uk/maps.htm
salt tax in India, health effect of deficiencies
http://www.rmoxham.freeserve.co.uk/salt%20starvation.htm
"The official figure for famine induced deaths in the 14 months from
November 1877 to December 1878 was 1,266,420" Like Pol Pot!
discussion
http://james-nicoll.livejournal.com/2156773.html

The British set up a hedge-fence down the middle of India for 100 years, to control opium trade and enforce their self-declared salt monopoly; salt taxes continued right up to independence, being one of Gandhi's issues, even after the Hedge burned down. The third link talks about how people *need* salt, especially people who sweat a lot in hot tropical climates. Like... India.

Ah, colonialism/British capitalism. A megadeath here, a megadeath there, soon it's like Communism!

In other cheerful news, Canadian customs stopped and questioned NPR journalist Amy Goodman.

Rapid expansion of the food stamp program, as honest hardworking American families continue to assume that *other* recipients are mooching off the system but they're just on hard times themselves and it's a great relief to be able to feed the kids in this time of unemployment. Says the Bush administration worked to reduce stigma, which surprised me.

Link from last month and mlc23 on General Stanley McChrystal in Afghanistan. Plus this one that I haven't read yet. First one has him arguing that we should either pull out or commit a lot more forces if we want to accomplish something. He's been doing good work trying to protect the population from ourselves as well as the Taliban, but you need more troops to actually protect everyone vs. playing whack-a-mole.

Speaking of which, calls to make the wars on budget and deficit-neutral.

Thanksgiving anime and comics

Sun, 29 Nov 2009 04:47:14 GMT

1) Armitage III. Sounded promising on Wikipedia, which did not prepare me for a character who rivals Major Kusanagi in "inappropriate clothing for a law enforcement officer". Perhaps it's meant to distract criminals? Was interesting, but the robot science got rubbery, and the ending skipped a lot of details or explanation.

2) Voices of a Distant Star. Poignant. Poignancy ruined when I realized that FTL travel means FTL courier mail, ruining a key premise. Though you can rationalize it with the right assumptions, kind of. Someone printed out a summary of the last 50 pages of the novel, which has a happier ending but doesn't make sense unless the aliens blew up the last-used jump point... in the manga, the ship seems just too damaged to move, though the news of that seemed to go back and forth via FTL.

3) The Place Promised in Our Early Days. Might be good? But another heart-wringing relationship with rubbery science (Now with Extra Quantum!) tonight was too much for me, especially tired, so I bailed out halfway through.

In Manga news, I bought and read Ghost in the Shell. Major's a lot different, with emotions and facial expressions and boyfriends. Still lots of fanservice. Got a lot more mystical at the end, at least compared to the series, don't recall the movie that well. With mention of ESP and a psychic.

James introduced me to Girlfriends, light yuri-ish shoujo. I liked it, though I don't claim there's anything deep there. I didn't find a better way of going between chapter than editing the URL. Not manga, but I also re-read the As If webcomic archive, something I'd forgotten about.

Astro City: the Dark Age was pretty good. Dark Phoenix Saga was decent. I hadn't known it introduced Kitty Pryde and Dazzler! That was cute.

Thanksgiving

Thu, 26 Nov 2009 02:05:54 GMT

Anyone in town have open plans this year?

links: economy, zeppelins

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 23:13:06 GMT

A bunch of Krugman blog posts today on the economy; they're all pretty short though, his column at the end is the longest.
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/24/a-bizarre-complacency/
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/24/a-familiar-feeling/
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/24/money-mouth/
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/24/gee-thats-de-pressing/
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/24/notes-on-the-dollar-panic/
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/23/deficit-hysteria/
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/22/joke-europeans/

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/23/opinion/23krugman.html

The general messages: unemployment is disastrously high and there's no sign it's going to get better and no one's doing anything about it. Instead, they, including Obama, are whining or worrying about the debt and inflation, even though the debt isn't that high comparatively, there's no more sign of inflation than there is of employment, and it all seems like a herd effect of conventional wisdom stupidity like the runup to the Iraq invasion, where if you go against the herd you're a crazy person even if you're right.

Inflation: rates are low, people with money like Pimco are moving *into* government bonds, and Japan has been in its recession for the past 20 years, with high debt, and... 1.x% interest rates. It's a phantom menace. But people are worrying about it more than 10% or 17% of the workforce being un- or under-employed, local governments not being able to hold on to their teachers or repair roads.

* Salary gender gap in engineering
* A quarter of US teen girls get STDs, many from their first partner.

On happier or funnier notes:
* Zeppelins over LA
* Unauthorized index of Palin's book

sentence, actual
________"As the soles of my shoes hit the soft ground, I pushed past the tall cottonwood trees in a euphoric cadence, and meandered through willow branches that the moose munched on," 102

buffet surprise

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 20:53:37 GMT

It's been 11 days since I posted? Oy.

I wanted to try Taste of India's buffet, but people were *waiting to be seated*. The place was full! Mandalay doesn't have a buffet any more, just $9 entrees. So I went to Siam House. I'd never been thrilled by their lunch buffet, mostly going when lyceum dragged me to it, but this was long before the post-Valentine's day reboot of their menu and kitchen, when I now really like their entrees. And I liked the buffet, too. Chicken curry was okay, pork curry was great, pad thai noodles were nice, other noodles were good though the meat with them wasn't quite to my taste, but I forget why. Tofu curry decent too. $9 including tax.

Bought the Dark Phoenix Saga collection, so I can finally read something I've known about and been intrigued since borrowing someone's Marvel RPG on the school bus in elementary school.

Yu Yu Hakushou 1 was catchy. Astro Boy 1 was ok.

Indian food surprise

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 05:46:53 GMT

Dinner at Bombay House tonight; they're still good at that. I avoid their non-tandoori chicken -- giant lumps of tastesless breast meat -- for their lamb; had lamb karahi tonight and it was quite good. Some garlic ginger onion dish. But! when we asked for extra rice, we got told it'd be $3.95. We've never been told that before. They claim they've done it all along. This seems suspicious, as we've always split our bills, and no one's ever asked "who gets the charge for the extra rice." They suggested it was spread around the party before, but you know, that takes a fair bit of math on the fly.

Totally unrelatedly, Kroger doesn't have corn tortillas -- not real ones, just pre-cooked shells. Bloomingfood's West does though, possibly their cheapest starch -- $1.89 for 36 tortillas, 1800 calories. Well, raw grain is probably cheaper.

We have a Thursday Doctor Who night, watching Doctor Who, Torchwood, Sarah Jane... Red Dwarf for a while. Tonight we branched into Leverage, off DVR instead of DVD or Netflix online. We got exposed to commercials! I haven't seen commercials in years, except for ones in movies.

links:
* Facebook application scams: one, two. Maybe you shouldn't have been playing so much Mafia Wars.

* Better school lunches mean better student performance. Which implies most of us should be eating more vegetables, too.

* Divisions among American Muslims. It's almost as if they're normal people, with class, culture, and race differences!

* Health care: it's subsidies that cost, not the public option per se? Why is Lieberman nattering about blocking the public option to save the budget? Well, lots of insurers in his state...

* Krugman can't watch Fox Business.

* Europe's lessons on unemloyment, and India's job guarantee. (From Randy)

* Ten year old boy in Arkansas sits down for gay rights

* Lindsey Graham, highly conservative Senator, is censored by his state for being too compromising with liberals. One, two.

* AMA says marijuana could have medical use, should get more research

Catholic shenanigans: threatening to stop charity in DC over benefits for gay employees; fighting for anti-gay discrimination in adoption in Britain, a battle they already lost in Boston.

Irony
* The Republican National Committee has offered employees a health plan covering abortion since 1991. They say they'll stop though, now that Politico pointed this out.

hard SF watch: Earthlight

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 03:06:37 GMT

I just checked out and read the first two volumes of Earthlight, a manga-format comic by Stuart Moore. I liked it... one reviewer called it a mix of teen drama and space action SF, which seems right, and thought it was too fast and heavy on the action, which I can see. The year is 2068, the place is the Earthlight colony on the Moon, whose main function is supporting (and presumably building) power satellites. Panels on the Moon collect power, beam it to satellites, which focus it for beaming to Earth -- which needs 25 terawatts of electricity (today: 1.5 TW) but still has lots of social divisions: "7 billion in poverty", England decaying, Russia and China not places to be. Launch costs aren't mentioned, hopefully much lower. Politics are big: the colony is supported by a 54-country coalition, with many countries being happy to sneak out of paying. "Enburton Corporation" gets mentioned briefly, as a source of new funding. I got a faint whiff of libertarianism early on but it seems to have dispersed; right now I'd call the politics on the grim side of realistic, with no perceivable authorial bias. Well, maybe liberal, given Enburton and what it'll do.

Fridge logic: I just wondered why solar panels would be on the Moon, where they'd get 14-day nights.

There's a mass driver, presumably for launching stuff for satellites.

The characterization seems good, esp. most of the teens. Oh, right! The protagonist, male, has a black father -- who is administrator of the colony, and not a "bull Negro" aesthetic and a white mother. Though come to think of it, the 15 year old protag himself has a shaved head.

So, imperfect but intriguing, and I know some people (James) are desperate for near-future space SF that doesn't totally suck. Lack of libertarianism and He3 should be a plus.

Positive review.
Mixed review.
TOKYOPOP page for the book, with Flash-delivered preview pages. Illegible as is, but you can zoom in.

Interview, which tells me that it's a 3 volume thing but the 3rd hasn't been in print and will be online free in January. Also claims there are mecha, though there haven't been so far, just utility bots. Huh, the artist is involved with Barack the Barbarian.

links

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 22:17:10 GMT

* Stewart Brand of Whole Earth Whatever fame discovers the feminist and environmentalist joys of cities. James is reading through Whole Earth Discipline with comments.

Ever wonder what a rehabilitation-oriented prison system would look like? Norway gives a small clue.
* Visit to a high security prison, which includes Internet access.
* Photos of a low-security prison
* Eco-prison, actually modifications to an existing open prison
* More on what open prison means. It looks luxurious, but it's actually rehab for prisoners nearing the end of their sentence; they start in a more traditional closed prison. (With Internet.) They retain the vote, even in prison, and there was a teleconferenced political debate between politicians and prisoners. 21 years is the maximum sentence. More
* Stats on who ends up in prison. Unsurprisingly: low education, unemployment, mental problems.

* For Fanw: a secular German coming of age rite.

* the missing Republican women legislators

* Anonymous whistleblower says IEA has been lying about oil production, peak oil is nigh.

* Pro-choice Democrats voting for the Stupak amendment
* Failure breeds failure, success breeds success

* Long essay on US high-speed rail. China's pulling well ahead of us. Amtrak's Acela is "high-speed" only by our primitive standards.

* Dangers of the paranoid takeover of the GOP.

Truth in food labelling

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 06:46:39 GMT

One thing I purchased at Bfoods East was PHEASANT & ROSEMARY PATE with Pork and Duck. The actual ingredient list is Duck, Pork, Pork Fate, Pheasant, Onion, Water, Pork Liver, Duck Liver, Spies, Pecans, Port, Salt. I think a false impression was conveyed. Still tastes good, and didn't cost more than the other pate. But still.

Evening links:
* Rosy memories of Communist Hungary. See comments as well.
* Libertarians and climate change denialism

Older links:
* Heroic blacks on TV: bald head and goatee
* Female urination device
* GOP as group therapy for fear? Though it often seems like they feed on fear. Fear the Muslim/liberal/socialist/PC/feminist...
* Sexism in Holmes (author, not Sherlock) D&D supplements
* glass armonica
* The lost generation of growth
* "All Christian" prison
* Is New England like Europe? Nationalism vs. piety.
* Does exercise work for weight loss?

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 23:56:57 GMT

Post-pneumonia: my voice still sounds odd to me; others haven't noticed but akashiver did. But I otherwise feel healthier, and went for a bike ride today since it was so nice. 15 minutes to Bloomingfood East, 16 back from Border's. A couple of curbs along 3rd seem to have been made wheelchair accessible since I last went that way. Bfood East has dill seed and ground rosemary, unlike the other brances; also nice plump raisins. Spent a lot of money at Border's: Ghost in the Shell movie, 2nd Gig, Unseen Academicals, Jhegaala, Algebraist, Spirited Away, Haruhi Suzumiya novels. Almost bought the Nausicaa manga but they were missing #6 of the 7-volume edition and I don't even know which edition I want. There are Haruhi Suzumiya manga too, allegedly by the same author, and there seemed to be a couple of stories I didn't recognize -- something about Kyon's grandmother and data lifeforms. I didn't buy them.

Biking into the sunset provided new experience of the usefulness of headlights. I could see cars coming at me, but they were dim... easy to miss if your attention drifted. Which it shouldn't while on the road, but we're all imperfect, ne? Headlights are a lot more attention grabbing. I hope mine helped, though given the directions my taillight was probably more useful.

I had the Runcible Spoon's coffee straight for once, without sugar or cream. It was nice, and not bitter.

Links since yesterday:
* US growth before and after Reagan
* Thomas Paine's Agrarian Justice, weirdly edited, an essay to a post-Terror French Revolutionary government on the equal right of humanity to natural property, and the justice of an inheritance tax to fund starter funds for those turning 21 and a pension for those over 50. (When people talk about how liberal/left/right/whatever past people were, and not judging them by modern standards... Paine is one Founding Father who'd come comfortably on the left even today, though I think he's weak on feminist advocacy. Not necessarily openly sexist, but not something he wrote about.)

BTW, his opinion of conservatism, in the sense of arguing from tradition, in The Rights of Man:

"The error of those who reason by precedents drawn from antiquity, respecting the rights of man, is that they do not go far enough into antiquity. They do not go the whole way. They stop in some of the intermediate stages of an hundred or a thousand years, and produce what was then done, as a rule for the present day. This is no authority at all. If we travel still farther into antiquity, we shall find a direct contrary opinion and practice prevailing; and if antiquity is to be authority, a thousand such authorities may be produced, successively contradicting each other; but if we proceed on, we shall at last come out right; we shall come to the time when man came from the hand of his Maker. What was he then? Man. Man was his high and only title, and a higher cannot be given him."

* Justices weigh life in prison for juveniles who never killed. Whole bunch of them in Florida.

links: health care and economy dump

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 21:34:47 GMT

* CBO rates the Republican "plan", finds that the ranks of the uninsured would increase, and furthermore that the GOP leaders would be unlikely to find insurance under their own plan, were they to blow off their government health care and seek coverage as individuals. Their plan would make things worse, removing protections and encouraging a corporate race to the bottom, like the credit card industry. Links 1, 2, 3. Ezra Klein is another blogger I've taken to following regularly -- at the moment, mostly him and Krugman.

* "Entitlement reform" is health care reform. Social Security is in good shape and any problems are easy to fix; the budget problem is the exponential explosion of Medicare and Medicaid, mirroring the explosion of private premiums and US general health care costs. Link.

* Photo of current or near-term Medicare patients objecting to government health care.

* Ben Nelson joins the ranks of those who don't understand macroeconomics.

o Related thought: I wonder how many Americans can tell the difference between the bailout and the stimulus? Both happened around the same time and cost about $700 billion. The bank bailout started under Bush, cost $700 billion flat (at least initially), was probably both necessary (the credit must flow) and bungled (the proper way is debt-for-equity, but even Obama was terrified of "nationalization"), and being bungled yes led to giving lots of money to rich people who caused the problems, causing populist ire. The stimulus is Obama's, "cost" about $800 billion spread over two years, so actually $400 billion a year, and does things like extend unemployment, give credits for car trade-ins, help states not layoff schoolteachers, fund infrastructure programs, and such. Basic though inadequate Keynesian spending.

Speaking of costs: Congress passed and Obama signed a $680 billion defense bill. That's for this year, and may not include special appropriations for Iraq and Afghanistan. Nary a peep. The $400 billion for avoiding a Great Depression 2.0 is the cause of much handwringing. Health care reform even more so, and it's reported as $900 billion -- over the next decade! So, actually $90 billion a year, before taxes on millionaires or employer health insurance get raised to offset the cost.

$680 billion for defense. $90 billion for insuring 40 million Americans. But the latter is the end of the world.

* Stimulus: Obama's Anzio, Why not a WPA?, Obama's trap -- having done too little for the economy, he may have discredited doing more.

* Junk food is addictive in rats

* Alan Grayson reads the tolls and names of the uninsured dead in Congress; GOP tries to stop him.

* Klein interviews the head of Kaiser Permanente, who talks a lot about competition among private insurers but undermines himself by running what's effectively a little single-payer system (Kaiser leads in integrated health care, HMOs done right) and noting that while many European countries have private (non-profit) insurers, the premiums are set by the government -- insurers can compete at most on service. Part 1, part 2, look how expensive we are -- this isn't total spending, this is how much basic services cost compared to other countries -- and PDF source of the preceding.

* America's pro-flu labor laws.

* Even a hamstrung public option may do good as an honest pricer. Or as distraction from the bigger issue of subsidies for the poor.

Euro sandwiches and dark chicken meat

Sat, 31 Oct 2009 08:47:03 GMT

Yeah, I'm still a slacker. Also I had a flu? last month, and seem to have pneumonia now.

Scholar's Inn on 6th and College has a new offering, "Euro sandwiches" on baguettes, for $3.50. I tried two today: the basil tomato mozzarella, and the ham and swiss. Both were hot, with melted cheese. I'm sorry to say I wasn't thrilled by either. They weren't horrible, but the former was nothing compared to a insalata di Caprese, and the latter... well, probably wasn't helped by (a) my not being the biggest fan of Swiss cheese and (b) coming right after the mozzarella. I couldn't tell (or didn't attend) if the mozz was whole fresh or part-skim low-moisture pizza cheese.

Still, a $3.50 sandwich is something to keep in mind. There's a third variety, but I don't remember what.

Also they seem to have half-priced bread on Tuesdays.

When it comes to chicken, I prefer dark meat. When my parents made fried chicken, I went for the drumsticks. Probably originally because it was easier finger food, but also because it was juicier and tastier than dull white breast meat. When I make fried chicken, I just get a package of drumsticks. Lots of restaurants specialize in breast meat though, not to mention fast food. Happily, not all. Siam House, which to my fallible memory seems to have acquired a much more interesting menu since Valentine's Day, uses a mix of white and dark meat in its dishes. I've enjoyed pad thai, mussamum, some sort of curry, and #42 garlic stir-fry. Though the cook refused to mix the rice and curry for me when I ordered take out for anime club, where I wouldn't have plates; the hostess gave me a big extra styrofoam box so I could mix in that. I didn't like their chai but then I've never liked chai, I was just looking for a hot drink for the sickness.

Z&C, the little Japanese place on Kirkwood, has I'm pretty sure dark meat in its chicken udon; as I got sick I turned to the udon+eel roll special a lot.

Chow Bar's potstickers were enh, not that tasty and pretty thick pastry. Pork and garlic wasn't bad. Chicken satay was good; chinese pork rice was goodish but short on sauce so the rice was bland.

Obama's Peace Prize

Fri, 09 Oct 2009 15:19:22 GMT

I was rather surprised and skeptical too. But see http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/10/obamas-prize-for-peace.html

* Non-proliferation work (he had a life before the Presidency)
* EPA regulating CO2 as a pollutant (Al Gore and the IPCC were previous winners.)
* Elevating diplomacy over military action, respecting the UN
* Stopping our torture programs

And while Obama himself would never bring this up, being a black man elected President in the US counts for a lot by itself. And not just among American blacks, a whole of the rest of the world's majority peoples went "!!!" The "leader of the free world" is no longer just white dudes. Given that the point is to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses it's not such a bad fit: worked to reduce nukes, promoted the UN, promoting fraternity by being himself at this time.

http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/011728.html#374066
is a bit interesting too.

Pizza and breadsticks

Fri, 02 Oct 2009 01:41:43 GMT

If you order pizza here in Bloomington, breadsticks generally come too. I'm not used to this. Of course, my parents would order from foofy places like Eduardo's in Chicago. I don't remember breadsticks being standard at Caltech or in San Francisco. Is this a new thing, a Midwest thing, or a "Damien doesn't order specials with drinks and breadsticks" thing?