Random Thinking

I mentioned earlier that I am now a vegetarian thanks to Beth. One of the tricks of being a vegetarian is to find good food that keeps you from missing meat. I was at Whole Foods earlier this week when I spotted beautiful eggplants so I grabbed one although I had no idea how to cook it. I ended up improvising a recipe so I thought I would share it.

I decided on eggplant parmesan but all the recipes I found called for frying the eggplant. First, I am trying to avoid fried food and second, eggplant absorbs everything so if you don’t do it right you end up with an oily, soggy mess. So I decided to try just baking it in sauce and seeing how that ended up.

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You probably read the headlines a couple of days ago about the supposed terrorist cheese bombs that were found by airport security around the nation. The U.S. Transportation Security Administration even released the picture at right showing a recovered cheese bomb. The story was that terrorists were using the cheese bombs to do dry runs to see if they could get bombs through airport security.

As it turns out, the whole thing was a fake by the Bush administration. Even the picture is fake. There were no cheese bombs… no suspicious packages. The closest thing was a woman who taped two freezer packs together for her bad back. That caused airport security to hold Sara Weiss for three hours and accuse her of knowing Osama bin Laden!!!

Now don’t you feel so much safer knowing that the Bush administration is willing to lie to scare you into obedience?

Update: Here is a picture of Sara Weiss, the grandmother from Long Island, whose ice packs caused airport security in San Diego to assume that she was a terrorist.

“I’m not a terrorist. I’m just a 66-year-old woman who’s coming back from visiting her son and I have a bad back, so I carry these things,” Weiss told ABC News’ Lisa Stark.

Tags: George W Bush, cheese bombs, stupidity

While browsing around the web, I ran into a mention of a question from the book, The Book of Horrible Questions. The question was, “Push the red button in front of you and you will be given $10 million. But 100 random people under age 30 from around the world will die of natural causes. You are guaranteed not to know any of the people or ever hear about their deaths. Will you push the button?”

As soon as I read this I recognized it as having been based on an episode of The Twilight Zone. The episode called, “Button, Button” starts with a couple in financial trouble. A stranger comes to their door and hands them a special box. He says that if they press the button, they will receive a large sum of money – but someone they don’t know will die. Eventually, the wife pushes the button over her husband’s objections. The next day the stranger returns, takes back the box and gives them the money. The wife asks him what will happen next. The stranger ominously replies that the button will be reprogrammed and given to someone else – the last line being “It will be offered to someone you do not know.”

According to the book, 55% of those offered this proposition stated that they would push the button. Although you might think that the implausibility of the situation makes this figure hard to believe, it probably is too low. In fact, given the right scenario it is quite easy to believe that many people would push the button. How about this for a little more plausible version:

Suppose that you were offered a job that would pay you millions of dollars but the job required you to create and promote a product that you know would kill a very large percentage of those who used it. Would you still take the job? What if the product had a catchy name like Marlboro?

Thanks to Wikipedia for the description of the episode.

Tags: The Twilight Zone, cigarettes, horrible questions, Marlboro

National Milk Chocolate Day!!! Make sure you have plenty of the wonderful tasty treat on hand.

Tags: chocolate, food, heaven

From Stephen Colbert of The Colbert Report:

“Sean Hannity knows that there is no greater threat to America today than Bill Clinton 15 years ago.”

Bill O’Reilly: [Daily Kos is] like the Ku Klux Klan. It’s like the Nazi party.
Stephen Colbert: Exactly! The Ku Klux Klan and the Nazis were both notorious for allowing people to express unpopular views in an open and free forum.

With thanks to the Daily Kos for being an open and free forum.

Tags: Daily Kos, Steven Colbert, Friday Humor

It’s a sad day for all Americans as the paper that advertises itself as, “The World’s Only Reliable Newspaper” has announced that it is closing up shop and ceasing publication. The weekly newspaper, which has been in business since 1979, has announced that the August 27th issue will be the final issue.

Original reports had suggested that there was something nefarious going on (perhaps alien intervention) but it turns out to be simply an issue of money. Creating the print version of the Weekly World News is apparently an expensive proposition. Anyway, waiting on line to pay for groceries will never be the same. Goodbye, Weekly World News! We will miss you.

Tags: Weekly World News, bat boy, grocery shopping

Finally, I have my very own iPod. I had the ROKR phone but that only held 100 songs but and it wasn’t even a very good phone. So I got the 30GB video iPod and it is very cool. I was able to get a discount because I turned in Beth’s old iPod, the one she accidentally dropped in a sink full of water while she was on her trip to Quebec. It never worked after that but the people at the Apple Store didn’t care.

I was really amazed at how small the Shuffle is… I would lose that thing in less than a week!

Anyway, in celebration of having a new iPod, I did something I haven’t done in about five years… I made myself a gin and tonic.

Tags: iPod, ego boost, gin

The new issue of The Nation arrived today and although I mostly concentrated on the puzzle, I did glance at some of the articles. The editorials are right on target but Alexander Cockburn has lost his mind. The feature article is a report of attacks on civilians in Iraq featuring military veterans speaking on-the-record. This is a must read article.

Anyway, here are a couple of puzzle clues and answers with an explanation of the answer.

12 across – You can make a bad list upon what you hope the kids are! – “Bad” is the hint that this is a scrambled word clue. Take “list upon” and turn it into something that you hope the kids are and you get UNSPOILT.

20 across – Homes, one hears, where the girl has the right thing that might need a key. – “One hears” hints that we might be looking for a homonym of “Homes,” in this case it is “Holmes.” “Where the girl” – SHE. “Has the right thing” – R. “Might need a key” – LOCK. Put it all together: SHERLOCK.

24 across – Earl, that’s the name of the book! – This is a double definition. “Earl” and “name of the book” are both definitions for TITLE.

1 down – When walking the floor, lift your hat, and end up with a gin sling. – “Lift your hat” hints that since this is a down clue, that the “hat” will be backwards. So we get “cap” turned over to become PAC. “Gin sling” tells us that “gin” is going to be slung around and turn in to ING. Putting them together gives us PACING which is “walking the floor.”

7 down – Listing and a mite crazy – giving one a real quick charge. – “mite crazy” means “mite” will be scrambled giving us ITEM. “Giving one” gives us I. “A real quick charge” is ZING. Putting them together gives us ITEMIZING.

19 down – How some people are seen at a nudist colony to be hardly this. – This is a double definition. “People at a nudist colony” and “hardly” are two definitions for BARELY.

22 down – Yours’ til love shows the source of moonshine. The word “shows” hints the solution is contained in part of the clue. Start at the “s” at the end of “yours” and you get STILL which is the source of moonshine.

Next puzzle in two weeks.

Tags: cryptic crossword, The Nation

On this date in 1929, the Kellogg-Briand Pact went into effect. The treaty, which is still law in the USA, renounced “war as an instrument of national policy.” The pact established the international norm that the threat or use of military force, as well as the territorial acquisitions resulting from it, are unlawful. The Kellogg-Briand Pact was used to establish the concept of “crimes against peace” at the Nuremberg trials.

The question is, does the current administration think that this is some sort of quaint anachronism and no longer applies to the “world’s only superpower”? The other question is, should George W. Bush be charged at the World Court with crimes against peace after his term has expired?

Tags: Iraq, Geroge W Bush, peace, treaties

With a hat tip to Bryan Appleyard:

Doctor: You have an unusual combination of typhoid, smallpox and ebola.
Patient: Ohmygod! Is there anything you can do?
Doctor: (Chuckling) Of course, we keep you in a special room on a diet of pizzas, pancakes and papadoms.
Patient: Does that work?
Doctor: No, but those are the only things we can slide under the door.

Update: Beth thought this joke was evil! tee-hee.

Tags: Bryan Appleyard, jokes