Turducken?

Now, I'm going to pretend for a moment that I'm not a vegetarian, so that I won't have to waste much time asking questions like "Why would anyone stuff a 3 lb chicken inside a 7 lb duck, and then stuff that inside a 17 lb turkey?" We'll just assume that this recipe is your idea of food, and you've got enough family over for the holidays to need 27 lbs of birdflesh.

Instead of quibbling over that, I'll ask the more urgent and important question:

• If you're going to put this thing in your mouth, why did you name it something that starts with "Turd"?

I mean seriously, "chiduckey" sounds a lot more appetizing to me.

Viking Gypsy Rock

Can't understand a goddamned word of it yet I still enjoy the Norwegian Gypsy sound of Kaizers Orchestra.

AWPC: V is for Vacant

One of the machine operators thought I would really like the new sci-fi show V, and she told me why.

So there's like these aliens and they come down to Earth to make peace and stuff but you can tell there's totally something else going on. And there's all these actors and stuff. You should totally check it out. It's super tight.

I can't believe someone capable of this much eloquence hasn't found that better job she always says she is looking for.

Car Troubles

Our car won't start today. It's the second time in less than a week - which admittedly, is about 200% more often than we use it in a typical week. We rarely need the darned thing, so it's debatable as to whether or not it's worth repairing.

The Constitution Doesn't Just Apply to Citizens

Via USA Today:

"I don't have a clear understanding about why it has to be in New York," Peter Regan, 28, whose father, New York City firefighter Donald Regan, 57, was killed in the attacks, said before the hearing. "There is no reason it has to be in New York. It gives them the biggest stage to do what they want to do.

"They are being given the rights of American citizens. They aren't American citizens. They never will be American citizens."

Alice Hoagland, whose son, Mark Bingham, was killed on Flight 93, said she was "sorry our attorney general was not brave enough" to try the Sept. 11 planners in military court. "The logical place is a military venue," Hoagland says.

I'm really sorry to say this, but these people's opinions make no more sense than the ones Jay Leno gets when he asks trivia of random people on the street in those Tonight Show clips. In other words, though it's really sad and awful to say this to people who lost family during 9/11, I think they need to hear this: "Quit being idiots", and "read the Constitution".

Whether you're a U.S. citizen, or a foreigner on our soil, you still have rights given you by the U.S. Constitution. From article three of the Constitution: "The Trial of all Crimes...shall be by Jury; and such Trial shall be held in the State where the said Crimes shall have been committed." Therefore, mass murder committed in New York must be tried in New York.

The various protections of the Constitution apply to anyone in the U.S., or arrested by the U.S Government, and they pretty much have to. If they didn't, we'd all be subject to unlawful searches at any time for no reason beyond the police claiming they "kinda thought there might have been an illegal alien in your house, and if so, that alien didn't have any rights, so we didn't do anything wrong". It would be the ultimate abuse-able loophole.

I Almost Feel Like Shopping

Never thought I'd find a reason to shop at the Gap or think positively about McDonalds.

AFA Naughty or Nice Christmas List 2009

Love that they put "Christmas" in quotations.

I could support those places that the AFA has called anti-"Christmas", or I could continue to say fuck you to the whole "Christmas" consumer culture. I'll opt for the latter.

LSD No-No

Soggy Cheese

via NASA

LCROSS Impact Data Indicates Water on Moon

The argument that the moon is a dry, desolate place no longer holds water.

Secrets the moon has been holding, for perhaps billions of years, are now being revealed to the delight of scientists and space enthusiasts alike.

NASA today opened a new chapter in our understanding of the moon. Preliminary data from the Lunar CRater Observation and Sensing Satellite, or LCROSS, indicates that the mission successfully uncovered water during the Oct. 9, 2009 impacts into the permanently shadowed region of Cabeus cater near the moon’s south pole.

That is some awesome news! I'm hoping this is a shot-in-the-arm for space exploration, serve as reason to land on the moon again soon. Either we'll find life on the moon, or we won't. Either way, we stand to learn a lot about our galaxy in the process. Here on earth, where there is water, there is life. And as they used to say at the start of every episode of the old BSG: "There are those who believe that life down here started out there..."

AWPC: On the Same Page

For mandatory Saturday overtime, I don't think my coworkers on day shift got their stories straight before I came in fifteen minutes before the start of my shift and found all of them sitting around the work bench doing nothing.

Pukey: It's been an easy day. We've had nothin' to do. Either the machines are running great, or the operators don't care. Long day, but easy.

Jake: Cool.

Supervisor (walking up five seconds later): Hey, they had an oil spill on grave yard and had to remove the (floor) mats on three and four and clean 'em. We didn't have time to put 'em back so you guys will have to do that tonight.

Three guys and their supervisor had all day to do it, plus they all stood around doing nothing for the last fifteen minutes (or more) of the day. Two of us got it done in less than ten minutes at the beginning of our shift while sharing the story and laughing with every single operator in the plant.

What The FUCK!?

The Bad Landlord

Imagine for a moment, a hypothetical landlord. He owns an apartment building with 50 tenants.

One day, this landlord hears the the government is remodeling the Food Pyramid. The new pyramid specifically says people can eat pork. Nothing in the law being passed forces anyone to eat pork, it just specifically calls out that eating pork would fulfill your needs for items from the "meat group". Eating pork is okay, it says, implying there's no shame in it.

But this landlord, he feels that eating pork is not okay. It's against his religion. So he decides to protest it. His protest is, however, a little odd. He calls up the government and says "if you officially say pork is okay, I'm going to lock all my tenants out of the building. I will turn them out on the street."

Leaving the legality aside for a moment (If we must, we can assume all his tenants were on month-to-month, so he's within his legal rights, but still certainly disrupting 50 lives.)

• Would that seem reasonable to you?
• Does that feel like he's protesting, ...or threatening/blackmailing?

Don't get me wrong - I think the guy has every right to not eat pork himself, and to discourage others in any socially acceptable way. (I am a vegetarian, after all.) I just don't think that kicking out tenants for this bizarre reason is justified. He's turning people out on the street because the government is doing something he doesn't like, something that is totally unrelated to those people. So, no, it doesn't seem reasonable to me, and I'd certainly think a lot less of that landlord after that.

In fact, I'd have to question his motives. Perhaps he's just sick of being a landlord, and wants to do something else with that property. So, he's grabbing at this "convenient" excuse to push everyone out of his building. I think whether or not he's going to keep being a landlord to these people is unrelated to some government food pyramid. And if I were one of his tenants, I'd be angry as hell. Even if the government bowed to his coercion, I'd start looking for a new place to live. I'd lose my ability to trust that landlord.

Would it make any difference if a few details were altered?

• If instead of 50 tenants, he had 68,000?
• If instead of a landlord, he were the head of the Catholic Church in Washington DC, and the "tenants" were the homeless and ill people the church charities were taking care of?
• If the local government paid the church over 2 million dollars a year to care for them, and had been doing so for years?
• If instead of it being "eating pork is okay" that he's so upset about, the message were "gays and lesbians getting married is okay"? (Eating pork and gay sex are equally "abominations before the eyes of the lord" in the old testament, after all.)

To me, none of that would excuse any of it, in fact, every point there seems to argue that church is acting more disgracefully than the bad landlord.

US Catholic Church now playing political hardball, critics say

The church's role in politics came into sharp relief this week when the Washington Post reported on Wednesday that the Washington, D.C., diocese threatened to cease its charitable activities if the D.C. city council went ahead with a plan to allow same-sex marriages.

I don't have any sympathy for the church in this one. No one's trying to force the Catholic church to perform gay and lesbian weddings. If they were, then the church could argue that it's religious freedom was being imperiled. Under the new DC city council decision, any given church can still refuse to marry anyone, for any reason. If they don't like your politics, your sex life, your public statements, if you aren't part of their church, they can refuse to marry you.

Marriage is a thing shared by many religions, and even atheists can be married, so I don't see why any one religion should be able to set a general rule that excludes some group of people from being married by the other religions, or by a justice of the peace.

The Church is just behaving like the bad landlord in my example, threatening to disrupt the lives of thousands of people, if the church doesn't get it's way. Nothing would drive me away from religion faster than the church playing games with my life. Well, except perhaps the church using the threat of intentionally making my life worse as a way to coerce the government into keeping someone else's life from getting better. I would feel used. I would feel like all the church tells me about salvation and righteousness and loving your fellow man was a big fat lie. I don't live in D.C., and I'm not Catholic nor homeless nor gay, and I feel sickened by this.

New warning on 'perfect vaginas'

From the BBC

Researchers from University College London reviewed all the existing studies on cosmetic labial surgery - which generally involves reducing the amount of tissue that protrudes from the lips which cover the vagina. They found there had been little work to document any longer-term side effects.

Labioplasty, as it is known, costs about £3,000 privately and is offered for a variety of reasons: some women complain that wearing tight clothes or riding a bike is uncomfortable, while others say they are embarrassed in front of a sexual partner.

Women, men look at a hell of a lot of pussy. They view it in videos, on-line, at strip clubs, and basically any other time they can get a look at it. If your current partner thinks your pussy doesn't look right, they have a problem. You should immediately kick their ass to the curb and find someone who appreciates real vaginas.

Stop thinking you have to look like some pre-pubescent manga girl. Or are you trying to look like that slick piece of plastic on the Barbie? I don't care, just stop it! Labia are awesome and if a guy or gal can't suck them into his or her mouth while giving you oral pleasure then you need to fuck more so they protrude more so you can try it out some time.

Just my opinion, of course. Perhaps the majority of men and women out there prefer pre-pubescent pussy because their brains never developed past the fourth grade level.

Holding Human Brains In My Hands

A couple days ago, we went to the Bodies exhibition. Waves of awe and shock and wonder passed over me.

We are lucky and privileged to live here and now. For the vast majority of history, to learn so much about human anatomy up close you'd have to commit a crime. But here we are, in an age and culture where we can pop down to a museum and see the intricate majesty of the human form, in all it's glorious layers. It was breathtaking.

Zeppelin Rules

Today I realized that I have never listened to a Led Zeppelin album from start to finish. It just struck me as odd.

If I were to decide I needed to do this I already have:

• unnaturally darkened room
• lava lamp
• black light

Which means I would still need:

• black light posters
• bean bag
• massive bag of weed