Lucky us

Lucky Strike 
3862 SE Hawthorne Blvd
Portland , OR 97214
(503) 206-8292
(http://luckystrikepdx.com/ )

Last Friday night, the gang went to Lucky Strike in search of delicious Chinese food. This was my second time, but the first for the rest of the group. The entrance, at the SW corner of SW 39th and Hawthorne, is not obvious; only a menu under glass indicates the presence of the restaurant. One of us was lost outside and had to be rescued. A good thing, too, because the evening turned out well.

My first time, I had been willing to try some more Americanized food on the menu. The less said about that, the better. This time, I was adamant about sticking to the more traditional menu. And we were in luck – our waiter was the young woman from Chengdu , so I got to chat with her in Mandarin a bit. Her accent sounded like someone from the South, but it became quite obvious she was Sichuan ; I had given a scientific lecture at the nuclear lab in 绵阳 (Miányáng), about 60 km NE of Chengdu; she knew the lab and had been there for a high school science fair!

Our dishes arrived promptly and were presented with a little flourish. We started out with 鍋貼 (guōtiē - potstickers). They were freshly made, with wrappers that were not too thick but still substantial, brimming with juicy morsels of pork, green onions, and white cabbage. 

We followed that with another appetizer, a plate of 炸春卷 (zhàchūnjuǎn - fried spring rolls). These were light in texture, crispy, flavorful, served with a flavorful sauce. Just a little on the small side for four people. There are also 紅油餃子 (hóngyóu jiǎozi - red oil dumplings) on the menu, but they will have to wait for another visit.

The main dishes quickly followed. 擔擔麵 (dàndanmiàn - dan dan noodles), The name refers to a type of carrying pole (a dan dan) that was used by walking vendors who sold the dish on the streets. The noodle sauce was quite delicious, with a little aged rice vinegar in it. Everyone in our party enjoyed this dish, even the more cautious among us. I asked our waiter about the vinegar and she said it was not 山西老陈醋 ( shānxī lǎochéncù - Shanxi mature vinegar), but bǎolìngcù. I looked this up later and found the correct name, 保宁醋 (bǎonìngcù - Sichuan special vinegar made from rice, corn, and bran); but I was not mistaken – she had said bǎolìngcù as clear as a bell. I later remembered this curiosity about Sichuanese – they often mispronounce the “L” sound as “N”. I had a couple of Sichuan friends in Beijing; one always complained about her “loisy leighbors”, another asked for liúlǎi whenever she wanted to order 牛奶 (niúnǎi - cow's milk). So our waiter really was Sichuanese!

Our next dish was 四川涼麵 (Sìchuān liángmiàn - Sichuan cold noodle), noodles laced with a spicy sesame sauce. The level of heat was more than a couple of the group could take, but the rest thought it was quite exquisite. The cool creamy texture of the noodle was a great complement to the spice in the sauce.

We entered serious meat territory with our next dish, 土豆烧排骨 (tǔdòu shāo páigǔ - potato rib stew). This was so much like Beijing food I was as overcome by nostalgia as I was by the wonderful flavors of pork ribs, a little oil, and a thick sauce redolent of 五香粉 (wǔxiāngfěn - five spice powder, a mixture of star anise, cloves, cinnamon, 花椒(huājiāo - Sichuan pepper), and ground fennel). We all sucked the pieces of rib off the bone, getting every last morsel of sauce. 

Our next dish satisfied the tastes of those seeking a refuge from the heat - 糖醋脆皮鸡 (tángcù cuìpí jī - sweet and sour crispy skin chicken), which was unlike most sweet and sour chicken one finds in the USA . No cloying oversweet and mucous-like sauce and soggy chicken; this was crunchy chicken, hot, well-coated with sauce but delicately seasoned with a sweet and sour sauce (糖醋 - tángcù - means “sweet vinegar”) that was complex and interesting. The texture of the chicken was delightful; the 脆皮(cuìpí – crispy skin) was crunchy but not hard, and the flesh underneath was tender and moist.

Our last dish was 尖椒肥肠 (jiānjiāo féicháng - spicy pig's large intestine), pieces of stewed meat buried under a mountain of three different kinds of red peppers. This was as hot as anything I had in Beijing , and approached the level of heat I had tasted in Chengdu , but to taste it here in this country made my heart ache for China . My first approach to the dish almost took my breath away. I was the only one of our party to try it, and it was magnificent – it was hot, even overwhelmingly hot, but a complex mix of peppers and spices underneath gave this dish its appeal. I think I ate half of it before reaching the boiling point. 

Eating very spicy food has health benefits – including a reduction in blood pressure (capsaicin is a vaso-dilator). A lesser known effect is the overwhelming sense of well-being one gets from the rush of endorphins produced, similar to runner's high. Twenty minutes after our food arrived, we were all euphoric. By the end of the meal, we were delighted and stuffed; somehow almost two hours had slipped away. We will be going back. There is more to explore. And I was delighted to exchange pleasantries in Mandarin with our waiter.

Excellent food, excellent service, and a pleasant atmosphere. 很好吃 (hěn hǎochī - delicious to eat)!

Onymous Guy Lives!

We never left, but we were posting elsewhere.

We are back.

We've Moved!

Herr Doktor is now in the Middle Kingdom, where access to the blogger.com domain can be sketchy.

I've taken the liberty of relocating things over to a much cooler server. The Onymous Guy 2.0 can be found here.

McCain advisor: "We're fucked."

The Carpetbagger Report says it all in this lede:

Maliki’s game-changer; GOP says, ‘We’re f**ked’
Posted July 20th, 2008 at 8:30 am

By any reasonable measure, the debate over U.S. policy towards Iraq changed in a fundamental way yesterday. Just as importantly, the presidential campaign has experienced a game-changing moment, from which John McCain may struggle to recover...

Josh Marshall explained, “Maliki has now handed Obama the trump card of all trump cards with which to parry all of McCain’s attacks.”

Or, as a prominent Republican strategist who occasionally provides advice to the McCain campaign told the Atlantic’s Marc Ambinder, “We’re fucked."

Is there any VP candidate who will make Iraq go away? I don't think so.

If you need to vote Republican ...

Très amusant.

Una perla anzi porci

This story in the Times prompted these letters. The last caught my eye:



I love the author's words: "No reputable college or university will teach the “strengths and weaknesses” of atomic theory or the theory of gravity."

Again: "No reputable college or university will teach the “strengths and weaknesses” of atomic theory or the theory of gravity."

Again: "No reputable college or university will teach the “strengths and weaknesses” of atomic theory or the theory of gravity."

I am ashamed to say that I am affiliated with an institution at which "the “strengths and weaknesses of scientific theory" was part of the general education science requirement, until the most recent revision of the curriculum.

What made this situation even more unbearable is that the institution regarded itself as relatively enlightened.

Compared to what? The Inquisition?

I wish that there were members of the faculty outside of our science division who were as vocal as

Michael King at the Austin chronicle, who wrote this last December 14:

DECEMBER 14, 2007:

Point Austin: God Knows

Mitt Romney, Christine Comer, and the political uses of religion

BY MICHAEL KING

Today's homily might as well begin with a borrowing from the Rev. Mitt Romney, who recently visited Texas to explain to us the relationship between religious belief and political freedom. "Freedom requires religion just as religion requires freedom," Romney pronounced. "Freedom opens the windows of the soul so that man can discover his most profound beliefs and commune with God. Freedom and religion endure together or perish alone." ...

---

Pray for Freedom

There is plenty of corollary foolishness. New SBOE Chair Don McLeroy, a Bryan dentist and an amiable boob in the pure-dee Texas tradition, is an avowed creationist who has adopted the new intelligent-design lingo and says all he wants for the schools is to teach the "strengths and weaknesses" of scientific theory – the latest cant, echoed by his creationist brethren on the board. He also insisted last week that TEA employees "can say what they want. They have freedom of speech." McLeroy apparently hasn't communicated that elementary constitutional principle to staffers at the agency, who explicitly cower in fear that anything they say that violates the science/anti-science "neutrality" doctrine will result in their sharing the fate of Christine Comer. They may be timorous, but they're not stupid.

There you have it: the current state of intellectual and political freedom in Texas, where a small group of fundamentalist fanatics drives public education policy, and an utterly cynical governor – who this week endorsed the brazenly unfundamentalist Rudy Giuliani for president because he's "electable" – panders to the worst sort of religious fanaticism (emphasis mine - OG) as a working principle of governance. Yet the Rev. Romney solemnly declares, "Freedom requires religion just as religion requires freedom."

I'm perfectly aware that religious faith can form the ground of community engagement and social activism. But in this time and in this place, religious sentiment is most often used as an ideological bludgeon to enforce conformity and obedience to authority. So it is that Mitt the Mormon journeys to Texas and pleads, "I'm just like everybody else," and Christine Comer and her colleagues receive a rather different sacred message: "Do as your told, if you know what's good for you."

If this is religion, I'll choose freedom from it, every single time.

---

See the TEA's justification for terminating Christine Comer, and Comer's resignation letter .

Send your prayers, curses, and news tips to mking@austinchronicle.com.

I will drink a toast to you tonight, Michael King.

Pour les musiciens entre nous

If you find four musicians, you're sure to find a fifth.

A fine Irish joke it is indeed

This old but fyne bit of Irish humor comes from a colleague.

John O’Reilly hoisted his beer and said, “Here’s to spending the rest of me life, between the legs of me wife!”

That won him the top prize at the pub for the best toast of the night.

He went home and told his wife, Mary, “I won the prize for the Best toast of the night”.

She said, “Aye, did ye now. And what was your toast?”

John said, "Here’s to spending the rest of me life, sitting in church beside me wife.”

“Oh, that is very nice indeed, John!” Mary said.

The next day, Mary ran into one of John’s drinking buddies on the street corner. The man chuckled leeringly and said, “John won the prize the other night at the pub with a toast about you, Mary.”

She said, “Aye, he told me, and I was a bit surprised myself. You know, he’s only been there twice in the last four years. Once he fell asleep and the other time I had to pull him by the ears to make him come.”

Ah, you're full of shyte!

USB devices we wish we had

Incroyable!

USB Wine, telechargez vos vins en direct des domaines !
Uploaded by zs2creative

Animator versus Animation

Very amusing. Click here to animate.

More Tales from Academia

Part of our occasional series, "Tales from Academia", a vital service for our readers.

InsideHigherEd reports today

June 11
Not Our Best and Brightest?

The missteps in Iraq are well documented by now.

Library shelves could be lined with books that criticize the poorly constructed endgame, the insufficient troop levels and the disbanding of the Iraqi military. There have, however, been glimmers of promise that have gotten a share of ink as well. Among those success stories is the American University of Iraq, a Western-style institution in the war-torn country’s northern region that promises to “lead the transformation of Iraq into a liberal and democratic society.”

The university’s lofty aspirations, as espoused on its Web site, make the selection of its first chancellor all the more puzzling. Owen Cargol, who took the helm at AU-Iraq in 2007 and resigned in late April of this year, had a checkered past that could have been revealed to university organizers with a simple Google search. The sexual harassment scandal that brought down Cargol at Northern Arizona University in 2001 was well publicized, in all of its explicit detail, but apparently never came to the attention of the U.S. officials who trusted Cargol to help reshape the Middle East.

...Cargol’s 2001 resignation stemmed from allegations made by a Northern Arizona employee who alleged that Cargol, while naked in a locker room, grabbed the employee’s genitals, the Arizona Republic reported. In a subsequent e-mail to the employee, Cargol described himself as “a rub-your-belly, grab-your-balls, give-you-a-hug, slap-your-back, pull-your-dick, squeeze-your-hand, cheek-your-face, and pat-your-thigh kind of guy.”

Postscript: Kevin Drum mentions Cargol in his Quote Of The Day in The Washington Monthly

Uh huh. You'll be unsurprised to know that Cargol was considered an ideal choice by the Coalition Provisional Authority to become the first chancellor of the American University of Iraq last year. Via Henry Farrell.

Well, as I have written elsewhere, "shit shit shit shit shit."

Shit shit shit shit shit!

Is "Shit shit shit shit shit!" a grammatially correct sentence?

Krugman's blog referred today ("Post Post post post post") to

a grammatical but incomprehensible sentence:

Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.

Thanks to the web, you can easily learn both the explanation and the history.

The wiki entry is amusing. So what about "Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck"?

IMNSHO, "Shit shit shit shit shit!" is a grammatially correct sentence, but "Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck" cannot be. We can discuss this at beer:30!

Here is a good image for "Shit shit shit shit shit!" ( plenty more of these here) .

Sleeping with the enemy?

The image and the video are from Truth Through Action.org

Kasparov vs. Megalon?

Russian political press conferences are much more interesting than ours.

Please stop it! I'm gagging.

CBS aired - "erred" is probably th better verb - an interview with one of the henchmen responsible for our 7+ years of torture, rape of the environment, pillaging of the treasury, and trashing of the constitution.

I have a new name for this particular sphincter muscle: Antonin Smegma.

New Steve Novick Ad

Steve Novick's ads have been clever and smart. Here is another one.

Cheeses of Nazareth!

This is very funny up to the 1:35 mark. After that, it is painfully dull. But it is a great lead-in.

Have a good time, and keep your eye on the devil!

This video loads VERY sssslllloooowwwwlllllyyyy, so I recommend that you turn off the sound in You-tube, load the movie in entirety, then replay it with sound. Otherwise you'll be thinking "WTF?" a lot.

Someone didn't check with a native speaker...

The "LUMINE" chain of shopping complexes are adding new stores to several Tokyo area locations.


Take a look at these additions to the "LUMINE-ESUTO" shopping mall in Shinjuku (one of the special wards that make up the core of Tokyo).


Oops.

important legal news from japan

"Big breasts win verdict for Japanese pin-up"

The bikini model... was cleared after a court decided she was too well-endowed to squeeze into a room through a hole...

I actually saw this on the news last night while I was at the gym. The cameramen kept panning down to her breasts during the interview.

The Monastery Help Desk

I love this. It's in Norwegian!

Phillies Pitcher in Japan Trade Prank

The Phillies have been having fun during spring training. I was especially amused since the Japanese team the kid was supposedly being sent to is the one I'll be seeing next month when they host Boston.

hmmmmm...

Take a look at this partial tracklisting from a CD of "Nice English Songs".



I don't think they sing track 11 in American schools anymore. To be fair, the Japanese does just say "I like my tiny cat". Still, I think I'll leave this one off the list of songs to be sung next year.

keep it classy, comrades

(part of) A conversation between several gentlemen over at FuckedGaijin, my favorite Japan-based English-speaking message board.

American A: Are you from Alberta?

Canadian B: Naw, my town name rhymes with vagina...yeah, we really do say it that way in Canada.

Canadian C: I had no idea you were from Mussy Lake, Ontario!

The Republican Myth of the Ownership Society

From Calculated Risk:
"The homeownership rate has plunged back to the levels of the summer of 2001."

Nice going, George.

365 Days and counting

Bush's Last Day. The Reign of Error will end in less than a year.

Global Climate De-stabilization

Here is a terrific video introducing the idea of risk management and the response to global warming. Well worth the whole time (9:58!).

S hits the F in 2009

I've just been reading a few posts by Stirling Newbury over at The Agonist

• The Coming Double Dip Recession
  

  ... Unfortunately for the US, it has replaced a personally corrupt evil stupid congress run by Republicans, with merely a corrupt cowardly evil stupid congress.run by Republicans with Bush Dogs as cosigners. It is that they aren't personally corrupt. The catastrophic failure of Democratic leadership will be masked by the good conditions of 2008 for Democrats, but unless dramatically changed, will lead to their losing Congress right back in 2010, especially if there is a Democratic President being hammered for the recession.
  
  This means that instead of Americans taking paper losses on the houses and retirements, they are goint to wake up and find a bi-partisan consensus, meaning Republicans plus Bush Dogs, to shave more off their entitlements. The Republican way to do this may well be double taxation: a national sales tax means that people who paid income taxes earning money, will then have to pay sales taxes spending it. The Democratic way will be nibbling away at benefits and technocratic shell games, as "hedonic adjustments' were used to nibble away at Social Security.
  
  Neither party is stating the obvious, that the various sticky fingers of the financial system, which have deprived Americans of the benefits of lower costs, now add up to over 10% of GDP. Plus the prison-security-military-industrial complex, this comes closer to 20 cents of every dollar boiling away into projects that do not improve the fundamentals of the American economy, but shift money directly from those who work, to those whose job it is to delay the day of reckoning.

  
  
• Dancing On a Volcano

  ...the present expansion, even if it were to continue, would not produce the burst of robust wage growth which would allow Americans to put their financial houses in order, nor for the country as a whole to do so. Now is the worst time to be spending money: prices are high, and the time to recoup those prices is short.
  
  The present continued inflation volatility, and increasing general level of prices, is an indicator of the extreme financial mismanagement of the economy by the Republicans, and a sign of how morally bankrupt, and simply economically blind, as well as politically inept, the present Democratic Congress is. The public hates this economy, it would be politically, a great time to simply oppose an out of control executive, and take the path of fiscal rectitude. Instead, the Republicans are starting to reclaim that mantle on the cheap by opposing a few projects here and there, while still dropping the GDP of Iraq into Iraq.
  
  Absent this sweet spot, the public is never going to see a recouping moment of wages, and when the recession hits, it will be deeper and wider than the previous recession. The bad news is that there is another, larger, recession coming after this one, as we continue to scale a new inflationary mountain.
  
  Think of this as the 1975 recession: bad, but only the opening act for the destabilization of a massive dollar glut.

It is fairly depressing reading, but well worth twenty minutes of your time. Go read, then think about the things we need to do to get Democrats to act - and vote - like Democrats.

William Kristol: Still Stupid, Still Wrong

If William Kristol were alone in a forest, and he said something correct, would anyone hear it? Wonkette says (This Must Be Embarassing)

Though they backpedaled a bit on their website this morning, this stupid Weekly Standard cover is sitting on a shelf right now at a newsstand near you. It will be there for the rest of the week, in fact. This is exactly the kind of political astuteness that earned editor Bill Kristol a spot in the pages of the New York Times. We can’t read the story because it’s behind a subscriber wall, but we imagine it’s full of the same kind of masturbatory wishful thinking the headline suggests. If you do have access to this thing for whatever reason, please send it to us so that we might mock it further.

Here is what the paper of record has to say.

Borger blows a line

CNN political analyst - so to speak - Gloria Borger, with enough makeup to paint a chorus line, flubs her lines; "hard fought" somehow becomes "hard fart" (aka "shart"). Gawker has it all. No Shit. KEYWORD breaking news.

Why I will never vote for Fuckabee

This fine effort by Max Blumenthal was reported by Steve Clemons here today in The Washington Note. Even though it is nicely anti-Fuckabee, have a bucket to throw up into.

Even More Eye-Catching Phrases From Bowels of The Academy

Last year, we reported on the chatter surrounding upcoming MLA convention, especially one surrounding the talk "Is the Rectum a Text?".

Once again, InsideHigherEd- usually stodgy and completely humorless - has the poop:

Hook-ups at the Modern Language Association meeting are legendary — and, many say, frequently belong in the study of fiction. Whether this Craigslist posting is serious or parody, we don’t know (we haven’t heard back, although clearly the person posting wasn’t seeking a journalistic question about his intentions). But the posting, spotted by a source who asked not to be credited for the find, has prompted some hallway jokes at the meeting. If you want to read a pick-up proposal involving tweed, bondage, Alexander Pope and eBay, the link is worth following.

Here is the Craigslist posting:

I am looking for someone with an interest in 18th C British literature, preferably a recent Ph.D. or assistant professor. Here’s how the scenario goes:

I show up at your hotel room. I remove my tweed blazer and tie, fold them neatly, and place them next to your bed. You are already naked.

I carefully secure your wrists and ankles to the bed frame, using quarter-inch nylon rope. I place a copy of Alexander Pope’s “The Rape of the Lock” on the smooth, cool skin of your stomach. I begin to read as I work you with a vibrator.

The soaring rhythm produced by the aural melding of Pope’s heroic couplets with the low thrum of the Hitachi Magic Wand is drowned out as you orgasm loudly and repeatedly.

When you are spent, I very carefully shave off all your pubic hair. I place it in a Ziploc bag.

I wash and moisturize your vagina, untie the rope on your wrists and ankles, and put on my coat and tie.

I leave with your public hair in my pocket. I keep your muff with me for one full week. Each night, I open the bag and smell your hair.

After one full week, I return your public hair to you, by mail. You then put your muff up for sale on E-bay, along with this story.

We split any profits 50/50.

• Location: Chicago
• it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests

NSFW: Smell your favorite porn star!

Gawker reported this juicy morsel (Germany Is Exporting Its Ladies One Drop At a Time).

Yes, it says what you think it says. I'm not sure who was driving the bus here, German ingenuity or German sense of humor. Here is the site (VERY NSFW).

Peace through Ecstasy is Coming!

The clock is ticking...

What will you be doing at 10:08 PM tonight?
Will you be doing your share?

merry christmas

I've been here in Japan for so long that sometimes I have to describe things to people back home before I realize how fucked up they are. That's sort of how I first overlooked this:


Now, Santa on the crucifix is good, but for my money I think the Santa-themed no-tell-motel (with by-the-hour rates) and the Christmas-themed parties at the Yokohama whorehouses really take the cake.

Them fast-talking Canadiens

A friend in Yachats told me this one.

A man in a supermarket tries to buy half a head of lettuce.

A very young produce assistant tells him that they sell only whole heads of lettuce.

The man persists and asks to see the manager. The boy says he'll ask his manager about it.

Walking into the back room, the boy said to his manager, "Some asshole wants to buy half a head of lettuce." As he finished his sentence, he turned to find the man standing right behind him, so he added, "And this gentleman has kindly offered to buy the other half."

The manager approved the deal, and the man went on his way.

Later the manager said to the boy, "I was impressed with the way you got yourself out of that situation earlier. We like people who think on their feet here. Where are you from, son?"

"Canada, sir," the boy replied.

"Well, why did you leave Canada ?" the manager asked.

The boy said, "Sir, there's nothing but whores and hockey players up there."

"Really?" said the manager. "My wife is from Canada."

"No shit?" replied the boy. "Who'd she play for?"

Tell us something that we don't already know

unlike Beer:30.

The Helsinki Complaints Choir

It started in Helsinki.

Now it is worldwide.

Cow Plunge!

Yes, we admit we have a fascination with things that plunge.

Reuters reports:

Cow plunges off cliff onto moving minivan
Wed Nov 7, 2007 8:17am EST
SPOKANE, Washington (Reuters) - A cow plunged from a 200-foot (61-metre) cliff onto the hood of a minivan on a highway in central Washington state, according to police.

The car's occupants, Charles and Linda Everson, were not hurt in Sunday's accident, but the cow was euthanized at the scene.

"If the cow had fallen a split second later, the animal would have landed right in their laps," said Jeff Middleton, criminal deputy of the Chelan County Sheriff's Department.

Middleton estimated the animal weighed 600 lbs (272 kilograms), or the average size of a mature cow. It had been missing for two days and wandered 5 miles from home near the popular Lake Chelan tourist area.

Ummmm... beer

morons

The House Judiciary committee passed the RESTORE Act on Friday, in an effort to partially clean up the mess they made in August with the Protect America Act (what is it with loaded legislation titles). Thankfully, the House version didn't include immunity for law-breaking telecommunication firms that helped the Bush administration spy on us all. Unfortunately, it looks like the Senate version still might. I wrote my senior Senator to let him know how I feel:

Senator,

Shortly after the administration withdrew its nomination of John Rizzo for CIA General Counsel, I wrote to thank you for your efforts in that matter. I also implored you to reject administration efforts to pass into law ex post facto immunity for telecommunications firms that participated in illegal spying efforts.

In the interim, the RESTORE Act has been passed by the House judiciary committee, thankfully without the odious immunity provisions. However, it is my understanding, from reading reports in the New York Times and elsewhere, that Senator Rockefeller's Intelligence Committee may include the provisions in the Senate version of the legislation.

Sir, please do not let this happen. Talk to your colleagues. Let them know that voters oppose protecting firms that broke the law. If the bill makes it to the Senate floor with the immunity provisions intact, vote no. If such a bill seems destined for passage, filibuster.

Your constituents will shed no tears for AT&T. Thank you for your time, Senator.

Sincerely,
Greg Diamond

The Scottish Play

As if I needed another reason to be jealous of my friends living in the UK, I found out today that there's a new production of Macbeth now playing in the West End. The reviewer from the Telegraph calls the production "the greatest production of Macbeth (he has) ever seen." The leading man is "so charismatic... that he can make the simple act of preparing a ham sandwich one of the scariest things you've ever seen."

Who is this magician of stagecraft? Why, none other than Captain Picard!

More Bacon

(Image via the Bacon Salt Blog)
In a follow-up to the bacon chocolate bar, a friend has alerted us to a new product on the market: Bacon Salt. The product tagline is, "because everything should taste like bacon."

Not Safe for Work

Readers of Greg and Sam's Adventures may recall an odd Japanese game show, wherein the contestants had to flawlessly recite several lines of text, or get a spring-loaded paddle to the balls. We've long wondered if Japanese women have ever been subject to the same sort of mistreatment on broadcast television.

Thanks to the good people at Fucked Gaijin, we find that indeed they were, at least back in the 90s. Long-timers have been telling me for awhile that Japanese television was cleaned up considerably in the late 90s and early 00s. I just hadn't believed it until I saw this:



If you're squeamish about clicking that play button, it's basically a contest on a game show where the contestants had to guess which woman wasn't faking her orgasm. There's nothing too risque in the video itself, just don't turn the volume up too loud.

bacon chocolate bar

Via Atrios, we find that some wise entrepreneur has finally seen fit to combine the two greatest foods on earth, chocolate and bacon.

I feel motivated already

I had too much free time on my hands and played around with the motivational poster generating tool that was discussed here back in June. The slogan is shamelessly taken from these people. I just thought their product could be improved upon with a new picture.

Democrats find a backbone

I wish I could whine that this was unfair. Unfortunately, since the Senate seems determined to give Mr. 25% all the money he wants, it seems pretty right on. From Harpers:

Washington Post Editor Apparently on Mind-Bending Drugs

This was in today's online Post.

I spent several hours laughing at the editors.

It took them nearly four hours - half a work day!- to figure out that not only is "compaure" not a word, neither is "Pollutionion."

I love that construct. What would "Pollutionion" be?

• Pollution from The Onion?
• Ionized Pollution?
• Pollution that doesn't know when to quit?

Fabulous. Here is the "after" page.

Wow.

From a friend who's a fellow teacher. He looks a little young to be a Dead Kennedys fan...

America's Finest News Source

The Onion delivers some insightful commentary on the Larry Craig episode. From a guest commentator who, just like Senator "Wide Stance", is most definitely "not gay":

Why Do All These Homosexuals Keep Sucking My Cock?

dispatches from japan

I thought this story deserved a wider audience. I would very much like to know exactly what constitutes a "violent" bout of diarrhea. It doesn't sound pretty.

Train cancelled after conductor succumbs to diarrhea

OSAKA -- About 300 passengers were forced to leave a train at JR Tsukaguchi Station in Amagasaki after the conductor suffered a violent bout of diarrhea in the driver's cabin early on Friday, West Japan Railway Co. (JR West) said.

The evacuation took place after the conductor fell ill just before the train pulled in at Tsukaguchi Station. The driver scheduled to take over the train entered the cabin at about 6.15 a.m. to find the floor covered in feces.

Station workers immediately cleaned the floor of the driver's room, but decided to cancel the train due to the lingering aroma.

Passengers were merely told that the train would be delayed, and were asked to board the next one. (Mainichi)

Captain Dan, the Demon Dwarf, re-membered

Agence France-Press, currently my favorite wire service, is now reporting this story from the Edinburgh fringe festival:

British dwarf's penis gets stuck to hoover
AFP
Published: Monday August 20, 2007

A dwarf performer at the Edinburgh fringe festival had to be rushed to hospital after his penis got stuck to a vacuum cleaner during an act that went horribly awry.

Daniel Blackner, or "Captain Dan the Demon Dwarf", was due to perform at the Circus of Horrors at the festival known for its oddball, offbeat performances.

The main part of his act saw him appear on stage with a vacuum cleaner attached to his member through a special attachment.

The attachment broke before the performance and Blackner tried to fix it using extra-strong glue, but unfortunately only let it dry for 20 seconds instead of the 20 minutes required.

He then joined it directly to his organ. The end result? A solid attachment, laughter, mortification and ... hospitalisation.

"It was the most embarrassing moment of my life when I got wheeled into a packed AE with a vacuum attached to me," Blackner said.

"I just wished the ground could swallow me up. Luckily, they saw me quickly so the embarrassment was short-lived."

The world's strangest laws

The Times reports these oddities. Important safety tip: no self-pleasuring (that's wanking to you sods) in Indonesia.

From Times Online
August 15, 2007
The world's strangest laws

Did you know it's illegal in France to name a pig Napoleon? Or that in Ohio you're not allowed to get a fish drunk? Alex Wade celebrates the spirit of the silly season with a list of the world's most ridiculous laws.

Did you know that in France it is forbidden to call your pig Napoleon?

(photo: Kham/Reuters)

Did you know that in France it is forbidden to call your pig Napoleon?
Alex Wade

25. It is illegal for a cab in the City of London to carry rabid dogs or corpses.

24. It is illegal to die in the Houses of Parliament.

23. It is an act of treason to place a postage stamp bearing the British monarch upside down.

22. In France, it is forbidden to call a pig Napoleon.

21. Under the UK’s Tax Avoidance Schemes Regulations 2006, it is illegal not to tell the taxman anything you don’t want him to know, though you don’t have to tell him anything you don’t mind him knowing.

20. In Alabama, it is illegal for a driver to be blindfolded while driving a vehicle.

19. In Ohio, it is against state law to get a fish drunk.

18. Royal Navy ships that enter the Port of London must provide a barrel of rum to the Constable of the Tower of London.

17. In the UK, a pregnant woman can legally relieve herself anywhere she wants – even, if she so requests, in a policeman’s helmet.

16. In Lancashire, no person is permitted after being asked to stop by a constable on the seashore to incite a dog to bark.

15. In Miami, Florida, it is illegal to skateboard in a police station.

14. In Indonesia, the penalty for masturbation is decapitation.

13. In England, all men over the age of 14 must carry out two hours of longbow practice a day.

12. In London, Freemen are allowed to take a flock of sheep across London Bridge without being charged a toll; they are also allowed to drive geese down Cheapside.

11. In San Salvador, drunk drivers can be punished by death before a firing squad.

10. In the UK, a man who feels compelled to urinate in public can do so only if he aims for his rear wheel and keeps his right hand on his vehicle.

9. In Florida, unmarried women who parachute on Sundays can be jailed.

8. In Kentucky, it is illegal to carry a concealed weapon more than six-feet long.

7. In Chester, Welshmen are banned from entering the city before sunrise and from staying after sunset.

6. In the city of York, it is legal to murder a Scotsman within the ancient city walls, but only if he is carrying a bow and arrow.

5. In Boulder, Colorado, it is illegal to kill a bird within the city limits and also to “own” a pet – the town’s citizens, legally speaking, are merely “pet minders”.

4. In Vermont, women must obtain written permission from their husbands to wear false teeth.

3. In London, it is illegal to flag down a taxi if you have the plague.

2. In Bahrain, a male doctor may legally examine a woman’s genitals but is forbidden from looking directly at them during the examination; he may only see their reflection in a mirror.

1. The head of any dead whale found on the British coast is legally the property of the King; the tail, on the other hand, belongs to the Queen - in case she needs the bones for her corset.

With thanks to: Donald Stewart at Faegre & Benson; John Barnett at Burges Salmon; Robert Crossley at Walker Morris; James Odds at Matthew Arnold & Baldwin; and Dan Kieran, author of I Fought The Law (Bantam Press).

US fatalities in Iraq are surging

I took the most recent casualty data (US deaths in Iraq per month, through end of July '07) and calculated a 12 month moving average. The surge is working - but only to increase US fatalities. These data come from icasualties.org/oif

What if...?

What if FDR had been like GWB? See here.

Matt Groening: " Fox viewer might confuse our cartoon with actual news"

Jon Stewart interviews Matt Groening. From the Carpetbagger.

Good Question

According to David Frost, quoted in the New York fishwrap:

Richard Milhous Nixon, the socially awkward 37th president, tried being jocular with David Frost as they prepared for their famous 1977 TV interviews, which inspired the smash Broadway show. "Mr. Nixon turned to me and quite casually asked, 'Well, did you do any fornicating this weekend?' For a moment I could not believe the evidence of my own ears. Richard Nixon didn't say that, did he? He couldn't have," Frost writes in "Frost/Nixon - Behind the Scenes of the Nixon Interviews," out this October. "I had indeed heard right . . . I suppose Nixon liked to fancy himself one of the boys."

Image from Wikipedia.

FISA Judge Nixes Plame Suit

The WaPo reports

Judge Dismisses Plame Lawsuit

By Carol Leonnig
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, July 19, 2007; 3:30 PM

A federal judge today dismissed a lawsuit filed by former CIA officer Valerie Plame and her husband against Vice President Cheney and top administration officials over the disclosure of Plame's name and covert status to the media.

U.S. District Judge John D. Bates said that Cheney and White House aides cannot be held liable for the disclosure of information about Plame in the summer of 2003 while they were trying to rebut criticism of the administration's war efforts levied by her husband, former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV. The judge said such efforts were certainly part of the officials' scope of normal duties.

"The alleged tortious conduct, namely the disclosure of Mrs. Wilson's status as a covert operative, was incidental to the kind of conduct that defendants were employed to perform," Bates wrote in an opinion released this afternoon...

So who is U.S. District Judge John D. Bates?

... Judge Bates was on detail as Deputy Independent Counsel for the Whitewater investigation from 1995 to mid-1997...

... In February 2006, he was appointed by Chief Justice Roberts to serve as a judge of the United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.

Go figure.

Let Us Not Forget David Almond

Mother Jones reports

In the Midst Of Vitter Scandal, Let Us Not Forget David Almond

Republican David Almond, vice chairman of the House Committee on Children, Youth and Families for the North Carolina state legislature, resigned last week after the state's GOP caucus said it was investigating allegations against him of "serious, improper behavior."

According to DownWithTyranny!, Almond exposed his penis to a female staff member, chased her around the room, and commanded her to "suck it, baby, suck it." The employee filed a personnel complaint against Almond. State Republican leaders asked Almond to resign if there was any truth to the allegation, but, they said, "He did it [resigned] himself." I'm not sure what that means, but that is what they said.

One of the pieces of legistlation introduced by Almond was a bill to monitor sex offenders, which was recently signed into law by the governor, and which could come back to bite Almond on the--well, wherever he is most likely to be bitten. In the meantime, he says that intends to defend himself against the charges.

Iraq hasn't even begun

Timothy Garton Ash, a frequent contributor to The Guardian, writes in the Los Angeles fishwrap:

Iraq hasn't even begun
Consequences from the disaster we could have avoided will plague the world long into the future.
By Timothy Garton Ash
TIMOTHY GARTON ASH, a contributing editor to Opinion, is professor of European studies at Oxford University and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.

July 19, 2007

IRAQ IS OVER. Iraq has not yet begun. These are two conclusions from the American debate about Iraq...

So Iraq is over. But Iraq has not yet begun. Not yet begun in terms of the consequences for Iraq itself, the Middle East, the United States' own foreign policy and its reputation in the world. The most probable consequence of rapid U.S. withdrawal from Iraq in its present condition is a further bloodbath, with even larger refugee flows and the effective dismemberment of the country. Already, about 2 million Iraqis have fled across the borders, and more than 2 million are internally displaced...

In history, the most important consequences are often the unintended ones. We do not yet know the longer-term unintended consequences of Iraq. Maybe there is a silver lining hidden somewhere in this cloud. But as far as the human eye can see, the likely consequences of Iraq range from the bad to the catastrophic.

Looking back over a quarter of a century of chronicling current affairs, I cannot recall a more comprehensive and avoidable man-made disaster.

Read the whole thing here.

Virginia unveils $1000 speeding ticket

Jesus Christ. The Commonwealth is now charging $1025 just for going 20 miles per hour over the speed limit. 20 miles? Is that it?

Hell, compare that to my all-time high award in Oregon. Driving 88 in a 55 (good thing that's all he clocked me at, because I'd been going more like 105 a bit earlier), passing in a no-passing zone, defective brake lights, and driving without proof of insurance. Grand total: $445.

Oh, in case this worried my immediate family, this was years ago, and no, I haven't done anything that stupid since.