My Culture War
I’m staging a War on New Year’s.
That’s right. I don’t believe in the year 2018. Hell, they lie about everything else — why should we believe they’re telling us the truth about the new year?
Want proof? The New York Times and others of their ilk are insisting the year after this will be 2018.
Fake news.
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Consenting Adults
There exists some pretty strong evidence — you might even call it incontrovertible evidence — that a crime was committed yesterday afternoon in the Rose Garden outside the White House:
Transcript Of Sen. Orrin Hatch’s Speech.
No citizens called authorities, alerting them to what I would have assumed to be a crime. No police officers tried to stop the act. In fact, the act was witnessed by countless members of the news media, with cameras rolling and audio recorders running.
Yes, Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch performed fellatio upon the President of the United States yesterday in broad daylight, in full view of the public.
I guess two grown men engaging in sex out in the open is not frowned upon — at least in Washington, DC.
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Their Hero
White Makes Right. Image: AP/Evan Vucci
For a little while, a few Republicans seemed to be expressing disgust with the fuckery of President Gag. Every once in a while, some senator or member of the House would let loose a slam in reaction to Li’l Duce‘s latest insult or ignorant statement.
No more.
Now that the Republicans and their tsar have apparently passed the most blatant legislation yet to ensure that wealth will continue to flow, ever more true, upward into the wallets of the haves, P. Gag has carte blanche to, as he has so accurately alluded, shoot somebody and get away with it. So happy are the Republicans with this “triumph” that I doubt any of them — even the rare ones who occasionally exhibit evidence of a soul — will be panning the Dick-in-Chief any time soon.
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Hot Tub Hot Water
I dunno about you but every time I drive past those hot tub love palaces on SR 46 just west of Nashville, I start feeling a little itchy.
Click For The Full Story.
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Yesterday’s Lasagna
Search me as to why Cook’s Illustrated thought it had to conduct a scientific experiment to determine whether soups and stews and sauces and other multi-ingredient concoctions actually taste better the next day.
Those of us who cook — hell, those of us who eat — know leftovers are pretty dependably better reheated.
CI‘s experiments did reveal some important gustatory intelligence, though. To wit (from Atlas Obscura’s piece on the tests):
Following the experiment, the magazine concluded that the soups and stews that had milk or cream experienced a breakdown of lactose into glucose, which tasted sweeter with time. Meanwhile, proteins in the meat converted into individual amino acids that acted as “flavor enhancers,” and the starches present in both flour and potatoes broke down into compounds that people reported as more flavorful. Another key to great leftovers may lie in aromatic flavors, such as garlic and ginger, which develop more fully over time.
I usually cook things well in advance so that I can chill them in the fridge and eat them days later.
BTW: Just saying the word lasagna tastes good.
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Neighbors
Artist’s Conception: JPL-Caltech/NASA
Science News has released its Top Ten Science Stories of 2017 and number five on the list is the discovery, in one fell swoop, of seven Earth-sized exoplanets. These rocky spheres all are orbiting a nearby small star called TRAPPIST-1. At least three of them look likely to have water somewhere on them or in them. Water, incase you’ve forgotten, is a necessity for life as we know it.
The three that seem to have water exist in what’s called the Goldilocks Zone, that area both near and far enough from a star for life to potentially arise.
The planets, acc’d’g to Wired mag, were discovered by researchers using Artificial Intelligence. It seems we’re being so inundated with data from our telescopes and receivers that plain old people simply can’t keep up. So, some astronomers are turning to AI to decipher the data. That’s how TRAPPIST-1’s brood was discovered.
Cool, huh?
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