Yep, I’m back.
I’m not sure what bias this is, but my experience (and that of those I know) does not match this.
This. This is being a role model.
The local clown show continues. I was approached by some people looking for signatures on the recall petition last weekend, too bad for them I live in a different suburb. Pretty sure it wasn’t any of these people.
I don’t recall hearing about this book, but here’s a long form piece talking about someone trying a Black Like Me with men.
Stop making me like Fetterman!
Some good news in the world.
This. This is how you sell it to men.
At least they have enough lead time to wrap things up.
He was just about to turn his life around!
Protectionism isn’t anything new.
We’re still in some nice weather here, so let’s keep rolling with some warmer weather drinks. Today, instead of a drink itself, let’s talk about a way to preserve those fresh fruits and berries that should be available at your local farmer’s markets.
Shrubs – Drinking Vinegar
- 1 part fruit (bruised/damaged are perfectly fine)
- 1 part vinegar (white works, but is boring, I generally go with red wine or apple cider)
- 1 part sugar (usually, I go for demerara, but in this case, I stick to plain white sugar usually)
I’ve brought up shrubs before, and use them quite a bit. They’re a way that was used to preserve fruits near the end of their life to be used later. You can either cold process or hot process them. Cold process is easier, but won’t last as long (unless you pasteurize); hot process takes more active time, but less overall time and are more shelf stable. Personally, I do this with berries most frequently, and I freeze the fruit overnight before starting (to break down the fruit more, and allow more flavor extraction).
COLD METHOD
Start by taking a clean glass jar, and adding an equal part (by weight) of your ingredients. Shake and stir to combine (until the sugar dissolves), and let sit for a week or so. Strain out the fruit and pour into a clean jar, label and stick in the fridge.
HOT METHOD
Start by adding your sugar and vinegar into a saucepan, and putting it on low heat. Without getting it to a simmer or boil (you’ll know if you do) gently heat while stirring until the sugar dissolves (congratulations, you made a vinegar simple syrup). Then add the fruit, and keep on low heat for 10-20 minutes. Strain out the fruit, and pour into a clean jar, let cool, and then put it in the fridge.
WHAT THE HELL DO I DO WITH THIS?
Think of a shrub as a syrup or accent that you can use to punch up flavors. I’m very partial to a red wine vinegar strawberry shrub, which works amazing when paired with lemonade or some gin and sparkling water. You can adjust the flavors by adding more vinegar or sugar to adjust if you want acidic or sweet.
With that, I hope you all enjoy this weekend.
Many states today would like to ban ICE.
California, certainly. And they’re actively trying to ban the automotive ICE.
Just take it further and ban *all* movement. That way, ya get two birds stoned at once.
(I actively use that TPB in regular speech, but in mixed company “Worst case Ontario” gets more play.)
I don’t know what Randy’s snorting, but he needs an intervention.
I saw videos about the experiment and the author’s shock at how nothing matched her preconceptions.
I saw a link elsewhere (probably FB) today about it too.
At least gamers can universally agree the movie was stellar though.
Not All Gamers ™.
(“There was a movie?” Of course… I don’t care about the games either, so it isn’t surprising I never noticed…)
That’s the joke. To say the movie was panned would be an understatement.
I recently saw a show about a guy who took ice from the US Northeast in the winter, packed it in a ship with straw, and sailed it to the Caribbean to sell to people. The first trip went great and he made a thriving business out of it.
One item in the house here is an old, no fooling, icebox that the girlfriend got from her grandparents. I have a feeling that if I put a block of ice in it, I would wind up with water all over the floor below it though.
There is a fascinating ice museum near me with ice boxes on display that look like fine furniture. Ice boxes had drip pans that you needed to empty periodically. And you never put pond ice in your drinks or food unless you wanted fish and duck shit and all sorts of other pathogens in your gut.
Need a drip pan or hole in the floor and a basement drain. The Fourscores didn’t get a refrig ’til about ’55 and it was a gas model. As little kids we’d chase the iceman down the street and get a chip of ice when he stopped to make a delivery
Don’t worry, you probably still signed it.
Not likely, this is to recall the first mayor the city has ever had. I was approached to sign two other petitions for ballot issues, both of which I passed on.
Still don’t really care, sorry. Lower Decks was amusing at times, but otherwise nothing since Enterprise has really caught my interest. The Kelvin-verse was just stupid (and Into Darkness finally beat Nemesis for crappy Trek movie), Picard burned any interest I had with the gory, stupid (sheer fucking hubris) first season… the ‘Member Berries Season 3 isn’t going to pull me back) and Discovery was pure crap. Since Strange New Worlds as far as I knew spun out of said crap… never had the interest.
While Strange New Worlds spun out of Discovery, it (wisely) doesn’t touch a single bit of that shit show going forward. It runs with it’s own story, and outside of some minor gripes, I would recommend giving it a shot.
I’ll consider it… seems like for most of these (barring Disney that never releases anything outside of their platform from what I can tell), eventually a box set is done and is discounted. Probably do it that way if/when they release it after the last season. Thanks for the feedback.
Nothing since Enterprise is available to watch without a pay subscription, so yeah. Could not care less.
I generally enjoyed Lower Decks. I like they added essentially a Pokemon to the ST universe.
I did as well. I enjoyed the lighter take on the universe.
If you have an economic problem — yo, he’ll solve it. Check out the fridge while the compressor revolves it.
I wrote this in the last comment section then realized the time. I’m no Carter fan, but the shitshow in Iran started way before him.
Iran as neutral in WWII but the Soviets and Brits invaded anyway because fuck you or something.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Soviet_invasion_of_Iran
In ’53 the CIA and MI6 staged a coup that made the Shah a dictator. Things got nasty afterwards and set the stage for a revolution.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat
After years in exile and flirting with western diplomats, Air France was nice enough to charter a flight for Khomeini back to Iran. A move I always thought similar to Germany putting Lenin on a train to Russia.
Anyway – they know why they hate us.
I’m pretty sure the Brits and Russia were meddling in Iran as part of the Great Game as well.
Hu-yup. Anytime those two countries are up to something, it is part of the Great Game.
The Russians ejected thousands of Muslims from the Caucasus and dumped them in Iran during the 19th Century.
Now explain their hatred of the Jews beyond religion. What great connection do they have with the people of Palestine?
The same connection every other country in the world has: they don’t want anything to do with them unless they can be used as geopolitical pawns.
The Persian emperor Cyrus the Great allowed the exiled Jews to return to Jerusalem. Cyrus was the only non-Hebrew ruler routinely called “anointed” by the ancient Israelites.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyrus_the_Great
Massiach means anointed in Hebrew and later got garbled into the word Messiah. In Modern Arabic, masih means messiah. It comes from a verb that means to rub, as in to rub oil on someone’s head as a blessing. Masihi means Christian, that is, one of the messiah.
Also, although most Iranians are Shia, they and other Islamic countries often feel a kinship with Muslims of any sect in the world.
Hamas is Sunni, Hezbollah is the same kind of Shia as Iran, the Houthis are a different sect of Shia, and the Assad regime is syncretic religion that got mulliganed into Shia by fatwa because Syria was such a convenient ally.
Bottom line, religion is not much of an obstacle to becoming an Iranian ally. They even support ultra Orthodox Jews because they oppose Zionism.
Iran has no real reason to give a fuck about Zionism outside of religion. They have such kinship with other Muslims that they fucking hate the Saudis and vice versa.
Iran should just stay in their own little shithole and mind their own business frankly. They aren’t a major power, pretending to be is the biggest threat to their safety and security. Not the US or the West and certainly not Israel. But they just can’t help themselves. Not that they’re alone in that regard.
Revenge is a powerful motivator, and the thought that Iran spent decades as the helpless puppet of the US is a bottomless well of hatred. It makes no difference that Khomeini killed more people in 2 weeks than the shah did in 20 years.
In a similar way, what the Chinese call “the century of humiliation” has had an enormous effect on their worldview.
The Chinese have already been giving us a taste of our own opium medicine, so to say.
Maybe someday this song will be played before a UN meeting:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sH0Qda32IKM
***
[fill in the blank] should just stay in their own little shithole and mind their own business frankly.
***
good advice for everybody
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HVX80UpMPDI
I caught that. The first thing it made me think of is the Chinese sending us Fentanyl.
You have shrubbery? – Knights of Ni
I’ll have to try the shrub recipe; I’ve seen those made on the Tasting History and Townsends channels.
I have some pomegranate molasses I bought for an Iranian recipe (*sigh* hope that’s not considered “enemy food” in the future) but it might work in a beverage. An olive oil shop near me also sells some fruit-infused vinegars, which are great in a salad dressing but probably an interesting twist on cocktails as well.
Switchel is another great vinegar-based drink (chiefly apple cider vinegar and molasses). I’m also partial to a chilled glass of posca; the ancient Roman drink for soldiers. I use red vinegar, coriander, thyme, and – I know I’m not a true Roman legionary for this – honey. It hits the spot after a long run in hot weather.
Of our favorite local restaurants one is Afghan and one if Persian (which sounds better than Iranian). Traitor food works well when your wife is gluten free.
I’m told Persian is the preferred nomenclature.
Mmm, Persian food…
Until you find out it’s made from Persian cats.
I’ve got some pomegranate molasses as well, I’ve seen some homemade grenadine recipes that call for it. The issue is going to be getting it to integrate into the drink. It’ll definitely need a healthy shake.
Just call it Freedom molasses. Just like when we were mad at the French.
100 Students in a School Meant for 1,000: Inside Chicago’s Refusal to Deal With Its Nearly Empty Schools
$93K
Yikes!
This is where the argument about school vouchers comes in. That’s plenty for a private school.
And college students don’t want to pay up that trivial 50K loan. Kids today…
It sucks that humans have never devised a system for allocating resources where they’re in demand and taking them away from where they’re not in demand… Like if something had fallen almost completely out of use, it might be demolished or repurposed for some other use. Oh well. We’ll have to go with “more funding for Chicago schools” since there’s no alternative.
Each of those schools probably needs a principal, three vice-principals, counselors, office staff, etc. All fully unionized.
Commies do what commies always do. The teachers unions have destroyed the hand that feeds.
Also, these 93K/yr students…when they graduate can they read or do simple arithmetic?
Doubtful.
Feminist critique of the book: Bowling leagues, strip clubs, and first dates are interesting places to explore versions of masculinity, but it’s not as if these can hold the truth about what it means to be a man across time and space.
I love how a woman can decide what it means to be a man across time and space. I wonder how that would have been received if stated in the reverse?
That’s touched upon in the piece as well:
Um… trannies do exactly this and we are expected to celebrate.
So… imagine the Dylan Mulvaney kerfuffle?
No, trannies masquerade as a woman for five minutes and pretend they’re better at being women than actual women.
Already been done
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Like_Me_(film)
We get the Jodie Whittaker seasons?
Norah Vincent?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXHYV_H7owI
She self-terminated in 2022.
I presume Raytheon executives and stockholders are enjoying champagne right now.
Iranian missiles and drones hit Tel Aviv
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PT3ecFQzZNE
And there’s plenty more where that came from:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xrvGpOLBFz0
Raytheon stock up $4.71 per share today.
I respond thusly:
https://platedlizard.blogspot.com/2024/04/war-whores-raytheon-lockheed-and.html
Ah, open-source intelligence, the lazy spy’s friend.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X7diNubFUDs
Neph, in honor of Newcastle Brown Ale and the King. From a band with great punk name and an album t-shirt was never able to find.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=GkOiV1wxGX4&pp=0gcJCf0Ao7VqN5tD
Rule of law
Immediately after President Donald Trump signed a congressional bill overturning California’s 2035 gasoline-powered car ban, Gov. Gavin Newsom ordered the state to continue with the phased-in ban. And California Attorney General Rob Bonta filed a lawsuit to stop the ban from being overturned.
“We won’t let this illegal action by Trump and Republicans in the pockets of polluters stand in the way of commonsense policy to clean our air, protect the health of our kids and compete on the global stage,” said Newsom in a statement. “I’m signing an executive order to keep California on track with our world-leading transition to cleaner cars.”
What a clown show.
Gender, bans, it’s all about the reaffirming with this guy.
Let’s tour an Iranian air defense base:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ACD1ucA9Qts
I would expect their air defense to be a bunch of ZSU-23s and SA6 Gainful missiles.
Still good for shooting down passenger planes by accident!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukraine_International_Airlines_Flight_752
Though that one was shot down by a Tor M-1.
That was a hot night at NSA. The Iranian messages were amusing to read.
Newcastle Brown Ale?
Just say Nocastle brown ale. Never liked that crap.
De gustibus, etc.
Not sure if this has been posted yet, but apparently Greta has a sister:
https://x.com/OliLondonTV/status/1933358551080317102
Someone packed 20 lbs of crazy into a 10 lb sack.
The apple does not fall far from the tree. Here, their mom sings(?) Flight of the Bumblebee:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbQwQetKm2g
It’s a shame that Greta didn’t just take over for Madonna. Everyone would be a lot happier.
A bit John Waters.
How retarded would you have to be to need this pointed out to you? When your dick isn’t buried under 2 inches of FUPA you see more of it.
I suppose this is also proof of the childhood obesity epidemic if you’ve literally never seen your entire dick before.
Sir Neph of Ilium,
Thanks for pulling a double shift today.
Tonight, I have some Jim Beam Rye and some classic lemonade sparkling water.
You’re welcome. If nothing else, at least the links ran on time today. 🙂
Enjoy your evening.
You know who else made things run on time?
Obligatory: https://youtu.be/l_LeJfn_qW0?si=kfv30ltXqlONHA5o
I was expecting this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1c1F0PpbHdg
Not this? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38gAX4GysTg
Federal Government is prepared for this weekend.
https://babylonbee.com/news/trump-to-release-one-gorilla-to-fight-every-100-rioters
That’s racist!
Overheard once: if monkeys and apes remind you of black people, then maybe you’re the one who’s racist.
Japanese struggle to capture escaped zoo chimp:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dyad9TMA2SI
And the lamentations of their bureaucrats
Environmental advocates criticized the Trump administration’s move.
“The Trump administration is turning its back on an unprecedented opportunity to support a thriving Columbia Basin—and ignoring the extinction crisis facing our salmon,” Earthjustice senior attorney Amanda Goodin said in a written statement. “Unfortunately, this short-sighted decision to renege on this important agreement is just the latest in a series of anti-government and anti-science actions coming from the Trump administration.”
Trump is causing irreparable harm to the regulatory ecosystem. Those people have worked tirelessly to bring down those dams and Trump wants to let all that effort and money go to waste, just for a few kilowatts of electricity and some speedboats.
It’s all so tedious.
Stossel had a good video on this brouhaha:
Environmentalist Calls to Tear Down Dams Won’t Save Salmon But Will Waste Your Money
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S6FWV5wg17g
Of course, to find this video, I had to metaphorically go into the basement of an abandoned building and retrieve it from the bottom drawer of a locked filing cabinet which had been stashed in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door that said “BEWARE OF THE LEOPARD”.
Heckling from the peanut gallery
Former Mayor Bill de Blasio fired off a series ofgleeful postson X that reveled in the broadsides against Cuomo and lauded the performances of Comptroller Brad Lander, City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams and state Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani, the democratic socialist who is polling second behind Cuomo.
“Wow, @andrewcuomo is REALLY scared of @ZohranKMamdani! He’s not even faking it…” de Blasio wrote. “And Andrew is REALLY disrespecting all the New Yorkers who support Zohran.”
City Comptroller Brad Lander was “attacking consistently and really rattling Cuomo,” wrote de Blasio, who said the former governor’s self-proclaimed executive experience consisted of harassing female employees and making decisions that resulted in the death of nursing home residents during Covid.
Two titans of American politics.
Some Jap translated Chris Rock. Lord help us.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_w-hqwNWd6A
Japan vs Christianity
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VNI6movTCuQ
They liked to batch them.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martyrs_of_Japan
https://digi.vatlib.it/mss/detail/Vat.estr.or.33
Andrew is REALLY disrespecting all the New Yorkers who support Zohran
Did he call them deplorable?
😭
My flippant fears proved founded. The optic popped off the Shadow 2 at 19 shots fired in trying to zero it, landing in my shirt pocket and losing one screw entirely. I’m going to need longer screws, because the real issue is that there were too few threads connecting it to the adapter plate.
Now if only I knew what diameter and pitch these screws are.
6-32.
Unless it is cheap metric junk.
It is Czech, so it might be metric junk.
I have a couple Walther rifles, and finding sight mount screws in the proper size and finish is a bit of a hassle. If ACE doesn’t have them, then this is what you might need to look into https://www.amazon.com/Metric-Gunsmithing-Screws/s?k=Screws&ref=es_sbs_fst_scr&pid=Ufqc9jP&page=1&rh=n%3A16310091%2Cn%3A383599011%2Cn%3A17290023011&pf_rd_p=918a99dd-4826-4c0a-be33-a6705d69c4cf&pf_rd_r=GYFGFDB9EN7RRRMNMXXW&pd_rd_wg=olO6V&pd_rd_w=uDD3x&content-id=amzn1.sym.918a99dd-4826-4c0a-be33-a6705d69c4cf%3Aamzn1.sym.918a99dd-4826-4c0a-be33-a6705d69c4cf&pd_rd_r=52d134c3-8edf-443f-af53-2df720b050b9
That page never works, it incessantly forgets filter values and even when it has any, it ignores them when serving up products.
Amazon searches in general seem to be shit. I have typed in a specific brand name like “Cubavera men’s shirt”, and I have to ignore the first dozen or so results of made-up Chinese brands to get to the ones I actually want.
No. Stop. CZ Shadow 2 optic screws are M3-0.5, 8mm long. If you try to thread 6-32 screws into the screw holes you’ll strip them out.
That’s a bitch – I hope you can find one.
My brother was taking apart his 10/22 on my kitchen table one time, and some tiny screw went flying somewhere. We scoured the whole floor, and I was suggesting he should just get online and order a replacement when he started going through the trash can. He found the fucking thing inside a crumpled up beer can that was in the trash.
One Smokey to rule them all
President Donald Trump on Thursday ordered government officials to consolidate wildland firefighting into a single program, despite warnings from former federal officials that it could be costly and increase the risk of catastrophic blazes.
The order aims to centralize firefighting efforts now split among five agencies and two Cabinet departments. Trump’s proposed budget for next year calls for the creation of a new Federal Wildland Fire Service under the U.S. Interior Department.
——-
The order makes no mention of climate change, which Trump has downplayed even as warming temperatures help stoke bigger and more destructive wildfires that churn out massive amounts of harmful pollution.
More than 65,000 wildfires across the U.S. burned almost 9 million acres (3.6 million hectares) last year.
Organizations representing firefighters and former Forest Service officials say it would be costly to restructure firefighting efforts and cause major disruptions in the midst of fire season. They also say it could put more focus on trying to extinguish fires — a futile endeavor when blazes get too big — instead of preventing them. That could set the stage for more severe fires as forests get overgrown.
Stick with the proven losers. Because the previous organization chart has done such a crackerjack job of preventing fires.
I don’t even want to know why we ended up with five separate federal firefighting services across various agencies. Seems common sense to me to have one. But what do I know.
Does the postal office have a firefighting service?
Remember how many times they have tried to open as a bank?
Trump’s proposed budget for next year calls for the creation of a new Federal Wildland Fire Service under the U.S. Interior Department.
Gonna have to remember that one for the next time I hear someone hyperventilating about Trump slashing the budget down to half a shoestring and destroying every single department he can get his orange hands on.
“warming temperatures help stoke bigger and more destructive wildfires”
We have ten Katrina’s every years now. You should listen to these people.
Uncivil-
Try Ace Hardware.
That was where I was going to head tomorrow. There’s one about a mile away from me.
They usually have a box of gun screws specifically. You might need to ask on of the helpfuls.
A group that includes several former Forest Service chiefs said in a recent letter to lawmakers that consolidation of firefighting work could “actually increase the likelihood of more large catastrophic fires, putting more communities, firefighters and resources at risk.”
I’m certain they provided detailed empirical arguments to substantiate this claim.
Wait.
There is a new Star Trek series?
And it’s already four years old?!