Saturday, September 7, 2019

Chickens Are Trans-People Too

What to expect if your town opens a Chick-Fil-A:

Image result for chick fil a toronto Blaze

Everyone with a gripe against the imperfect world - drag queens, animal rights “activists” and pretty much every other leftist identity group –

Image result for “End Speciesism  Animal Liberation Now!”

will show up with “Cluck Off” signs, make a spectacle of themselves while marching and lying on the ground  shouting "Shame! Shame! Shame!"

Toronto’s die-in – which somebody pointed out was just a huge fake, as every single one of them got up and walked away unharmed at the end of the protest - was led by drag queens and animal activists.

“Get a closeup already, I’ve got another gig at the library.”

I find that a bit ironic as every fan of Friends knows, chickens are trans too: 

Chandler and Joey's chicken is transitioning…

Friday, September 6, 2019

Who Wouldn’t Vote For That?

On Wednesday CNN assembled the largest group on record of people suffering from delusions of adequacy.

Image result for democrat 7 hour climate change town hall

Each demonstrated at length their unique facility for expressing this dangerous form of mediocrity. 

Congratulations, 7 hours dedicated to the Democrats’ plan to tax, regulate, ban and confiscate all things fossil fuel and/or carbon related - gas and oil companies, cars, planes, meat and plastic straws - in the interest of something called “environmental justice.” And nearly every one of the candidates declared their willingness to use totalitarian means to implement their plans.

Well done. And I understand Ms.NBC is holding another 2 day Climate Change Townhall on September 20-21 to further elaborate on their plans for de-carbonizing America by fiat.

I think this is Mother Nature’s way of illustrating the “climate change” that’s currently taking place in the Democratic Party:

A shelf cloud rolling in over Rehoboth Beach last month gets sucked up into the updraft of another storm. The organized shelf cloud falls apart leaving the disorganized, but noisy, thunderstorm to dump on everyone at the beach, spoiling their holiday and leaving a mess behind. 

Who wouldn’t vote for that?

Thursday, September 5, 2019

Throwback Thursday, Evil Twin Edition

For Throwback Thursday I thought we’d do a little cool midcentury jazz, the iconic theme song from NBC’s 1958 Peter Gunn series.

You probably remember it, Craig Stevens played a suave, debonair private eye. From Wiki:

Peter Gunn is a sophisticate with expensive tastes…Gunn has a reputation for integrity and being among the best investigators; He has many reliable informants and is extremely well-connected. His reputation is so good, the police occasionally ask him for help or advice.

Wow! What a sterling character! No wonder James Comey channeled him as he went about crafting his own equally fictitious reputation. Either that or they are twin sons of different mothers.

I think we can all agree on which one is the evil twin.

I’m attending a funeral today across state so do behave.

Wednesday, September 4, 2019

Is It Finally Time To Panic?

The low-pressure system that became Dorian formed on Aug. 23, strengthened to a tropical storm on Aug. 25, and became a hurricane on Aug. 28; 13 days of tracking and worrying so far. That it seems like months is a credit to the vigilance of our churn with concern media. A bit of worry is useful to get us focused on what needs to be done in the here and now, but excessive worry quickly becomes counterproductive.

It may even turn into an obsession, as it has for Swedish teen Greta Thunberg.

Image result for time to panic

I don’t know about you but I don’t think it wise to take your “time to panic” cue from a self-described  child climate activist whose enlightened views are the sum total of 16 years of cultural propaganda.

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In a speech to a packed committee of the European Parliament, Thunberg, 16, warned time is running out to stop the ravages of global warming.

"I want you to panic, I want you to act as if the house was on fire," Thunberg told the environment committee…Citing scientific reports endorsed by the United Nations and holding back her tears, she warned of accelerating disasters like mass species extinction, erosion of top soil, deforestation, air pollution, loss of insects and the acidification of oceans. - Yahoo

Ms. Thunberg, who sailed rather than flew to the U.S. in order to minimize her carbon footprint, has no more concept of the rules of nature at play in the creation of ‘global climate’ than do the United Nations representatives who idiotically ‘endorse scientific reports’ for a living.

And while I’m glad Greta found a cause that brought her out of her Asperger's shell, that does not mean she knows anything beyond her indoctrination.

Cute kid, glad she’s left her eating disorder behind in favor of fighting global warming; but shut up.

And having Asperger’s does not give you superpowers, you still have to work at it like everyone else. I’ve worked with people who were high functioning Asperger’s. They were very competent but they got that way the old fashioned way: they went to college and/or grad school and studied hard. Because whatever skills and abilities they may have been born with, coding and performing complex financial calculations still required instruction and learning.

So shut up Greta, and I don’t say that because you have Asperger’s, I say that because you don’t know what you’re talking about.

And may God help the people in Dorian’s path, because climate activists aren’t going to.

Tuesday, September 3, 2019

And That’s Why We Have Windows

I know it’s nice to have warning in order to prepare, but for our friends in Florida, Georgia, South – and now North – Carolina, along with their anxious relatives elsewhere, in must seem as if they’ve been waiting on Dorian for a month now. Being caught in a real life Groundhog Day is exhausting. To all who find themselves in the path of the storm, I’m certain your fellow MOTI will keep you in their prayers.

So for today’s diversion I’m just going to assemble my panzanella salad for you. I made this last Friday, when the weather was perfect and deck dining at its peak. I’m glad I didn’t wait for Labor Day as it began to rain at precisely the time we fired up the grill. Wouldn’t be a holiday weekend without rain, and the rest of it had been beautiful so we were due.

Anyway, here’s my panzanella: very simple, all you have to do is procure fresh, preferably homegrown ingredients and get your chopping board out. I don’t have a recipe, just a list of ingredients.

Start with tomatoes; I used pear, cherry and half of a beefsteak, left over from lunch:

Slivered red onions:

cucumbers:

basil:

which is growing with reckless abandon on my deck right now.

Then the key ingredient, day old, really good bread, torn or cubed, as you may remember from my Ann Arbor rant last week, this is Zingerman’s Paesano:

Next, I just drizzle it with a bit of vinegar and toss of bit. Red wine vinegar is traditional but I use Fini balsamic, which I forgot to get a picture of, but you can see it there in the shadows if you squint and look carefully. You don’t need much, but bring the bottle to the table in case somebody wants more. Ditto the olive oil.

Now add extra virgin olive oil, salt, pepper to taste and toss again.

If you want, add a handful of arugula,

it’s good, not withstanding Barry.

arugula snob

Serve immediately, here with corn fresh off the cob and grilled gravlax ala Raj (lightly cured salmon, just warmed through on the grill).

Panzanella - it’s not the prettiest salad - that would be my Nicoise

- but it’s definitely one of the tastiest you’ll ever have. And very forgiving. Some people add bell peppers, make a vinaigrette, even toast the bread, none of that is necessary in my humble opinion. Keep it simple, stupid. The world would be a much better place if people just remembered that simple axiom from early IT code writing days.

Of course even the programmers quickly abandoned the principle and that’s why we have Windows 10 today.

Monday, September 2, 2019

It’s Labor Day, Are Your Pucks Frozen?

Even over a holiday weekend the Wall Street Journal delivers a little something rant worthy, even if it’s only a drink recipe. Now you would think that something as prosaic as a daiquiri would be non-controversial. And you’re probably thinking that, like a liberal, I’m going out of my way to be offended. You be the judge.

It doesn’t bother me that the recipe is not for the classic daiquiri,

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but rather one that Jimmy Buffet would call a “frozen concoction.”

Image result for classic daiquiri

The fact that it is made with an immersion blender instead of the standard bar issue Waring blender is also an irrelevant fact for this discussion.

At the Streamliner in L.A., Mikki Kristola reveals her frozen-cocktail hack: the immersion blender

Nor do I don’t care that author Kevin Sintumuang (Culture & Lifestyle Director @esquire) prefers a frozen concoction over any sort of manly drink:

The trouble with making frozen drinks at home? You have to make them. Perhaps that’s why, whenever I come across a frozen drink on a cocktail menu, I order it…So naturally, when I visited the Streamliner bar in Los Angeles’s Union Station, the first drink I ordered was not its dirty Martini or old-fashioned but its frozen daiquiri.

The fact that his recipe starts with a decidedly non-classic “pre-frozen puck”  is likewise no concern to me. I forgive all these things with a nod to our modernity, life racing rapidly towards the third decade of the 21st century. No, to be clear, my gripe is with the recipe itself.

First, Kevin advises us that in order to use this recipe technique you will need to acquire “a food-grade rubber mold made for large cubes, such as Cocktail Kingdom’s Cylindrical Ice Tray.”

Image result for Cocktail Kingdom Cylindrical Ice Tray

I always balk at recipes that require the acquisition of yet another piece of kitchen ephemerabilia. Still, I can be chill with that as well. But the actual recipe for the frozen Daiquiri? No, it just will not do.

Make the daiquiri pucks: In a pitcher, combine 310 grams fresh lime juice, strained through a fine-mesh sieve, and 410 grams water, then whisk in 130 grams sugar, preferably superfine. Very carefully measure 65-67 grams of mix into each into each compartment of a food-grade rubber mold. Wrap mold with plastic and freeze overnight.

Make a mint daiquiri: In a large cocktail shaker, blend 50 ml rum and 2-3 small mint leaves with 1 daiquiri puck until mint is pulverized and drink has a texture closer to a shaken cocktail than a slushy. Serve in a frozen stem glass.

Apparently you need much more than a silicone ice cube tray, you’ll need and entire metric chemistry lab set.

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Where the legislative branch of the U.S. government has failed to convert the country to the superior metric system, the Wall Street Journal weekend Culture & Lifestyle Director has taken it on himself to do so. And apparently all of the editors, who should have insisted on measurements using equipment that parched readers might actually own, were on vacation, probably at Burning Man.

So if you want a frozen daiquiri this Labor Day might I suggest you go to the local supermarket – don’t worry, they’ll all be open, it’s only a holiday - and purchase some of the premade packets and toss them in your freezer for a few hours where they are guaranteed to turn into slushy pucks.

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And when you squeeze it into your glass, don’t forget to serve it with a paper straw – we’ve got to make the planet safe for globalism!

Seagram's Escapes Cocktails: Sangria Spritzer and Beer margaritas #seagrams #cocktails

P.S. I’m sure the plastic and aluminum sack your frozen daiquiri comes in is recyclable, or at least biodegradable.

Sunday, September 1, 2019

If It’s Labor Day Weekend It Must Be Burning Man

Here it is Sunday on the last holiday weekend of the summer and it looks like we are going to enjoy another 6 weeks of summer as the Wolverines won their opener against the Middle Tennessee Blue Raiders. If the way they won is any indication though it could well be an ugly 6 weeks.

Image result for torrential rainstorm

Indeed, as I speak, Dorian continues its march to wreak havoc on landfall somewhere yet to be determined.

And slowly I’m coming to the realization that, once again, I forgot all about Burning Man, the week-long hedonistic celebration dedicated to anti-consumerism and self-expression. Sadly for “Burners” the super rich seem to be taking the festival for their own, with more Wall Street and Silicon Valley capitalists turning it into their version of nirvana, which requires the burning of a lot of money and drugs.

The man burns in the Black Rock City on near Gerlach, Nev. on August 31, 2019.“The Man” burns in temporary Black Rock City, Nevada on August 31, 2019

In case you too have overlooked the cultural significance of this annual event, allow me to explain:

Burning Man’s mission is to produce an annual event in the middle of the Nevada dessert in order to guide, nurture and protect the more permanent community created by its culture. It describes itself as a "temporary metropolis dedicated to community, art, self-expression, and self-reliance."

I have no idea what that means or how to interpret it. But here are Burning Man's 10 principles:

  • Radical inclusion
  • Gifting
  • Decommodification
  • Radical self-reliance
  • Radical self-expression
  • Communal effort
  • Civic responsibility
  • Leaving no trace
  • Participation
  • Immediacy

Again, I note that I either don’t comprehend or condone any of them with the possible exception of “civic responsibility” – although I’m willing to bet that in the context of Burning Man it doesn’t mean what I think it means.  But my goodness, it looks creative!

I don’t know though, Labor Day just really isn’t what it used to be.

I prefer the old fashioned variety.