Month: September 2005

First day of Fall.  

And for a wonder, it’s actually cooler today. Decided to get some early a.m. walk time in. Cool.  Really. Warmer now, but I’ll put some more real miles on the virtual pedometer this afternoon on my way to “adjudicating” an “honors choir” tryout session.  (heh, as if the director didn’t already have her picks set in stone.)

Rope. Tree. Some assembly required.

Tons of British aid donated to help Hurricane Katrina victims to be BURNED by Americans

Here’s a pic of the FDA Bureaucrap who made the call:

Just read Walter Williams’ latest article.  Here’s the nut of the piece:

“There’s such a broad ignorance or contempt for constitutional principles among the American people that any politician who bore truth faith and allegiance to the Constitution would commit political suicide.”

Read the whole thing.

Chiles Rellenos, Third World Countyâ„¢ Style           

6 (green) anaheim or poblano peppers
2 lg. eggs
1/2 tsp. salt, if you want
Monterey Jack cheese, sliced or grated
Flour
Oil

Broil the peppers until their skins are bubbly (you can see them char a bit and even hear them pop sometimes). You’ll need to turn them at least once, so watch ’em! Remove the peppers from the oven, and put ’em in a plastic bag. Set ’em aside and let ’em, cool for a while (this would be a good time to start heating your pan, eh?). Peel the outer layer of skin. Slice down one side and remove seeds. Stuff the peppers with cheese (see note below). Beat the eggs with 1/8-1/8 c flour. Add salt. Dip the stuffed peppers into egg mixture. Dredge ’em in flour. Fry them in hot oil until they’re golden brown all over.

Sauce:

Take a can of green chiles (or broil and peel some extra green anaheims, then steam, add water, etc.) and puree it. OR just use some canned green enchilada sauce.  Nummies.

Notes:

• I like the lil extra spiciness of the poblanos as against the milder anaheims. Nice change of pace. YMMV (Poblanos taste kinda like a spicier version of your garden variety bell pepper.)
• I like to brown some hamburger with LOTS of freshly-ground cumin as seasoning and add that to the pepper stuffing.
• If you were especially vigorous removing seeds *a-hem*, you may find that pinning the slit on the peppers with some wooden toothpicks then frying and removing the toothpicks will help keep the slits closed.
• Note the usual warnings about handling peppers apply.  Anaheims and poblanos are both relatively mild peppers, but some folks are more sensitive than others. Keep your hands away from your face until after they’ve been washed and if you’re particularly sensitive, well, why are you making this recipe, anyway?
• Also, pick peppers with nice, long, sturdy stems, so you can use the stems when dipping/dredging, turning the peppers, etc. Handy.
• Some like a tomato-based sauce. If you wanna go that way, just about any generic tomato-based pasta sauce will do, if you add some green anaheim chiles to it. Heck, you can even add the browned ground beef/cumin I suggest to that.
• Also note that for frying these I prefer (in descending order)     

Corn oil
Olive oil (watch it! Olive oil won’t take the higher heat corn oil will!)
Vegetable oil that does NOT contain soybean oil

Serve this as a part of a Tex-Mex Border-style meal. Rice, refried beans, etc.

The FairTax Book

Opera 8.5!

Up until yesterday (yeh, I checked all the download sites), I was using the latest beta of the Opera Browser, version 8.2 (the latest release version was in the 8.0x range). Betaware from Opera has always been, in my experience, better than most beta software, usually more stable than most “final version” MessySoft software.  Heh

But when I saw a coupla squibs at NIF, I figured I’d toodle on over and download the latest Opera build. First, of course, was the info that version 8.5 was available (a day after I’d last checked-heh).  And then there was this lil taunt of Mozilla by Symantec: “Mozilla browsers more vulnerable than IE”  Oops. :~)

Yeh, well, I don’t much use either Internet Exploder or Firedfox.  A brief changelog of features from Opera 8.02 (the latest release version before yesterday) to 8.5 is available here.  I don’t see a note saying they’ve kept the great Bittorrent support that was improved in 8.2beta, but I’ll check that out later.

Something new? No ads. I don’t notice it so much, cos I had simple text ads configured for the upper right-hand corner, but I’m sure I can find use for that tiny lil space.  Otherwise, I’m sure I’ll appreciate the ability to “fix” broken websites’ java on the fly and “User JavaScript, which allows you to apply your own enhancements and fixes to Web pages.” Promises to make visiting some sites less irritating. Heh

h.t. GM’s Corner for the graphic.

Via Outside the Beltway(via a detour offa NIF, I think)

Hurricane Center May Run Out of Names

Yeh, right.  Too snooty (or too dumb) to even use the whole alphabet.  I mean, maybe the ACLU oughta get in the act and sue the Hurricane Center for sumthin’ er other , ya think? What’s this about not using q, u, x, y and z? What’s that all about, anyway?

Gee, it’s such a shame that because the folks in the Hurricane Center (whatever the heck that is) are subliterate goons that we’ll never have a hurricane name Quentin or one named Queenie or Quiana (cousin to Lakeesha, with the big fat butt).

And why can’t a hurricane be name Xerxes or Xavier or Xanthus?  And why no Ubu or Uma? What’sa madda, can’t they spell or pronounce Yates or Yardley or even Yoko, Yuki, Yvette or Yvonne?

Yeh, and I’ll sure bet that Zarina, Zena or Zenobia (not to mention Zachariah, Zachary or Zane) would simply blow some small-minded fuses somewhere—probably in the heads of some Mass Media Podpeope called upon to attempt reading such names.

Feh. They say if they run outa names from their list of names starting with letters they’ve allowed, they’ll what, “go to the Greek alphabet”?

Come on.  How many of y’all have the Greek alphabet on your computers (Symbol font doesn’t count–it’s crappy)? How many of y’all can hardly wait to hear some blow-dried airhead Mass Media Podperson attempt, Deianira or Erytheia or Ixion, Jorisr or Kirillosr? (And yeh, I’d pay to see lackwit Mass Media Podpeople attempting to read Greek text in Greek lettering, preferably all uncials… *sigh*).

A pox on them all.

Via Red Hot Cuppa Politics

Red State has the details.

Form follows function

Keep that in mind. I’m going to apply it in several different ways, but the connection to things, events, processes around you is something you’ll need to make on your own.

Form follows function.  It’s a central principle of good design.  For example, if a car body is designed without taking into account wheel travel and range of motion, there’s a good chance that, while it may look cool, it won’t drive right.

Simple, eh?  But it’s more than that, of course. Once mechanical aspects are taken into account, the form will affect the way something is used or interacted with by people in different ways. A minivan and a sports car are both designed to transport people, but that lil 2-seater Miata has its form designed for its function as fun transport, a playtoy, the same as the minivan’s form follows it’s designed function—getting a carload of kids to soccer practice and back safely.

The Bauhaus style of architecture was designed to suit a philosophy that viewed people as interchangeable cogs in an industrial society, and its blank, boxy, depersonalized look is well suited to inhabitation by blank, depersonalized cogs in an industrialized society (which is why it’s so damned ugly). See in apposition the gothic architecture that was designed around an entirely different philosophy: designed to inspire, to draw the eye, the heart, the mind upwards.

Form follows function: slutty womens/girls fashions (“Yeh, baby!”) designed to say loudly and clearly: “Here I am, nothing but a sex object.  Grab some ass, honey!”  It’s not just displays of flesh. No, it’s the crude display of secondary sex characteristics in a way designed to encourage men to think the least of the wearer, to see them as nothing but hookups for letting off a little sexual tension.

Yeh, baby, you’ve come a long way… Wanna come on back?  

Go ahead.  Apply the form… function principle to politics. Entertainment. Work. Family. Language.

Haphazard or not; designed for and by ourselves or not, our lives are strictured, pushed, tugged and stalled by the design of many, many elements that we normally don’t even think about.

Count on it.  Someone(s) is(are) thinking about the designs that influence your life. Wouldn’t it be a good idea to look into those designs for yourself?  Maybe you can make some modifications that would be more to your taste and suit who you are.

Sand in the gears…