Harris Smith is no Ron Mexicoh/t Tim Starks who shared this on the Google Reader.
The funniest bit may very well be that Plaxico Burress thought that it would be plausible that he was shot at an Applebee’s, the saddiest bit is that in a world of Ron Mexicos the best nom de masque he could come up with was “Harris Smith.”
 It must be lateSince it’s nearly 1:30 and I don’t have a blog for ya’ll, I send you to SBS who as always, talks sensibly about security issues. He doesn’t leave us much hope for not dying via terrorist bullet, but, nevertheless, we would be wise to listen to what he has to say and not toss many good millions into imagined security, but should better spend our moneys on things that matter–which means, at the least coordinated rapid response.
 ChristmakuhHappy Thanksgiving, ya’ll. I’m thankful for my lovely girlfriend, friends, family, the internt, Christmakuh, beer, Scorcese films, nog (yeah, nog), squash, dark flow, Makers Mark, Cormac McCarthy, and Blog.
 Cooking: Yer Doin it WrongI’ve only blogged about food a few times here or on Hoosierati (which you should totally be reading because I blog there and stuff) but that is not because I don’t love food. I do. A lot. And I like to cook food. A lot. I don’t blog about food because I don’t normally have anything to add to the conversation. But Thanksgiving provides a unique opportunity for would-be food bloggers–a nearly identical opportunity that Election Time offers to would-be political bloggers (an opportunity I was also able to take mild advantage of) namely, there’s a lot of naive blog readers who have a sudden interest in this topic. So here’s my advice for people who find themselves in the kitchen irregularly and are scared to death at ruining food in front of a crew of people not afraid to soak your head in a toilet:
First. Turn down the heat. Yes, we all love the pop and sizzle of things-in-grease, but you can get that with a slightly less hot burner but a more completely warmed pan/skillet/griddle/pot etc.
Second. Hot pan, cold oil. In other words, thoroughly heat your cooking apparatus and then, just before you add whatever you’re cooking, add the oil. This helps prevent the sticking.
Third. Stop playing with your food. Heat cooks your food, not all that incessant stirring and flipping you’re doing. As a matter of fact, and this drives me up the damned wall, constant flipping will ruin your food. The heat in a pan comes from the bottom only (or in the case of lidded pots and pans, from the bottom mostly). So, if you add heat to the bottom of your food and then flip it, you cook the outside but not the inside. Once flipped, you cook the other outside but not the inside. When you flip it AGAIN you cook the outside AGAIN and not the inside. People do this on grills all the time too. GAH! Why?
Anything that needs to be flipped needs to be flipped once. ONCE. I’m not kidding about this. I know flipping is fun and it makes you feel like a Benihana chef, but seriously, you’re just drying out and burning the outside of your food and lengthening how long it takes to get done. The rule of thumb is that you should cook the burger, chop, breast etc about three fourths of the way through, then flip it and finish cooking it through the rest of the way. This way you don’t sizzle away all that precious moisture. (And I reiterate point #1, lower heat helps you accomplish this. If the heat is high enough to brown and blacken the flesh on contact you will turn the outside of whatever into ash before you get any heat to penetrate the center).
Four. Stop playing with your food. All that crap above about not playing with your food also applies to the stuff in your oven. Have you noticed that you’re supposed to pre-heat your oven? What we’re going for here is a nice even heat distribution that you destroy EVERY TIME you open that damned door to “check on it” or “baste it to keep it moist” or whatever. Stop it. There are very few reasons to open an oven door between putting in the food and removing it for resting and eating. Know your cooking time/temperature and don’t keep mucking about with it.
Five. Don’t stress out about this. Most newbie cooks are convinced that “cooking is hard work” and when they find out that most cooking is really applying heat and waiting, they freak out. That’s when they start stirring constantly and lifting lids, and tasting this or that, and sprinking in shit and flipping things and opening the oven door. Suddenly cooking is very hard and to prove it they have never once not ruined a dish.
Chill out. Heat cooks your food not you.
Now, with that said, food does need to be stirred, flipped, and checked on. Temperatures need to be adjusted; salt needs to be added. Know when those times are (read your instructions) and act accordingly. Make sure you have the ingredients when you need them and add them.
 Palin and that Stupid Bird VideoI think on two important point Ezra’s comments here are wrong.
On the lesser point he quotes Aaron Kagan and agrees with him when he says, “If Palin had been standing in front of a nicely browned and stuffed bird with those little frilly things on its drumsticks, there would have been no controversy.” That’s true, but that’s because so much of this video’s viral success is based on the irony. It isn’t just that she’s standing in front of a turkey-slaughtering machine. It’s that she was standing in front of a turkey-slaughtering machine while she was at a photo-op granting Turkey Day Clemency for a condemned bird. Delicious, savory irony ignited this “controversy.”
But I grant there is an element of faux outrage based on the slaughtering of the bird. Having volunteered at a few events where Meet your Meat was being shown (not safe for anywhere; starts automagically) I can tell you that passers-by, meat eaters, especially do not like to see or hear animals being slaughtered.
However, it is also true that as a people we used to personally kill a lot more of our own meat than we do now and there used to be a lot less vegetarians than there are now. The neat (or disappointing) thing about the human psyche is that it learns to suppress uncomfortable thoughts and feelings and even explain them away. So, if we suddenly made people start watching Meet your Meat before allowing them to eat turkeys, cows, and pigs et. al its effect on our dietary choices would likely be small. Rather it would just serve to make the initially disgusting and sad process less alien and less repugnant.
 Danzig at Top Cabinet PostMike Allen of Politico states that Richard Danzig+ will be Robert Gates’ deputy at the Depart of War…er…Defense.
+I know, I was disappointed too m/
 Your Friendly Neighborhood…Osama?Ladies and gentlemen, you are truly living in a postmodern world.
 Status QuoYeah, seriously. The Obama I voted for was going to put Noam Chomsky in the Department of Treasury. What’s will all these ho-hum free marketeers? I mean, c’mon! This is not socialism I can believe in.
Oh that’s right! Obama is a Democrat, a slightly more left version of a genuinely centrist version of governance that has predominated in this country since 1787. With all the talk of socialism, Marxism, wealth redistribution, etc etc, I must have just gotten confused.+
Oh wait! No I didn’t.
 Be Friends with My BlogIf you are facebooking, go here and befriend my blog.
I don’t have any ideas what this will mean to or to me. But Teh Facebook sez it’s good. And I believe them.
 CEOs and their PlanesI’ve heard a few self-proclaimed conservatives say that liberals are wrong to criticize the top three automakers for flying private jets to Washington to ask Congress for bailout moneys. The reasoning is that they are very rich people who earned money and therefore “earned the right” to fly private jets to their begging session.
No. That is incorrect. Let me explain this is simply as I can.
1. These jackaninnies have earned literally nothing. That is why they are begging American taxpayers for money. I’m not coming out for or against the bailout but for the luvvachrist already. The government could put all manners of strings on how this money is doled out but let’s be as frank as we can about this: anything that the Big Three does for the next several generations will be attributable to the generosity of the American taxpayer and a government not afraid to hand that out as they see fit. So, no, they did not “earn” the right to fly around in jets they can’t afford.
Depending on who you are and what your sense of decency is this second argument may appeal to you less or more than the previous one, but for me the second one is the stronger one.
2. Let’s presume that the jackass automobile CEOs did “earn the right” to fly around in private jets. Does it immediately follow that they should do it? Does it immediately follow that when one exercises one’s rights one is also exempt from any criticism?
No and No.
First of all we are free to do whatever we want provided there is not legislation preventing us from doing it. But freedom is not an imperative to act. That is the first thing. But the second and larger thing is that there are a variety of social constructs: concepts of justice, fairness, decency, tact, politeness that help to govern our actions and in their various forms this comes as praise and condemnation–which as social creatures–we seek or seek to avoid.
You may be correct in your assessment that the man walking down the street looks fat in his choice of shirt and pants combo. But, seeing as how you don’t know him and he didn’t ask for your opinion, it is almost certainly rude to tell him such. The man may yell at you, the man may even threaten physical violence. Perhaps he’ll break down and cry which might make you feel bad. Later, when you tell your friends what happened they will judge you as a tactless buffoon. Their assessment and your own feelings may keep you from making the same mistake again.
You have the right to be a tactless jackass. But that doesn’t mean you should be, and it certainly doesn’t mean that you will escape the condemnation of your peers if you are.
This is pretty freaking simple. I’m sure that in the span of time it took you to read these words you’ve already (or could have) thought of four or five other examples of things you shouldn’t do even though it’s legal to do so.
So, should CEO douchecocks from Detroit been allowed to fly their planes to Washington? Yes. Should they have? Certainly not. What they did was an insult to the people who’s money they were asking for.
But that only follows from Argument 2. Argument 1, where my heart lies says that I think there is some question over whether they have “earned” those planes to start with. If they had, why are they asking for money? What they earned was the right to sell those planes to keep those companies running and to not incur the additional cost of flying them anywhere.
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