i assume this needs no introduction.

And now, a break from our regularly scheduled programming to diminish my already dwindling credibility.

edit: the trailer took too long to load. go here if you want to see it. :)

Planet Earth needs a big hug.

Most of the time, when people ask me why I drive a truck, I tell them it's because I hate the environment. I dodge the question, we have a good laugh, everybody moves on.

But I don't. I actually really like it. Being a native of planet Earth and all. I like animals, especially some big endangered ones. I really like whales, for example.


I'd like to save the whales, that would be cool. I'm down with that. But I would hate for people to get the wrong impression and think that I agree with most global warming policy. Or any of it.

The truth is, I just think most environmentalists are either completely stupid or completely misguided. There are a number of reasons for this, some of which I'm sure will appear on this blog at a later date, but here are a couple big ones.

My carbon emissions are not going to kill Galapagos penguins. Cats are. That's right, house cats. The single greatest cause of land-animal extinction is species migration caused by humans. We like to travel, but we also like to bring our bugs and mammals with us. 30 new species are introduced to the Hawaiian Islands every year, and they are decimating native populations which have no evolutionary defense against them. I mean really, how the hell is a flightless baby bird going to defend itself against a hungry house cat?

(Om nom nom.)

I don't have any numbers here other than for Hawaii, but I have read time and time again that this unnatural migration is killing hundreds of species all over the world every year, moreso than destruction of habitat or a slight increase in temperature. Teeth, claws, and bug infestations win over weather.

Here in Minnesota the most obvious example is the Zebra mussel. Apart from being a damned nuisance to everyone with an outboard motor, they are completely changing the nature of our 10,000+ lakes. They latch onto and kill native mussels, and filter plankton, increasing water clarity and therefore the depth at which vegetation can grow, and therefore the kind of vegetation we have in our lakes. Which changes everything. And we all know how they got here.


As for the ocean, we all know that the large fishing operations are ridiculous. They decimate miles and miles of healthy fish populations to feed hungry mouths that live thousands of miles from those fish. (Mostly in Asia, but I don't like to point fingers. Unless it helps my point or makes me feel better. Here it does neither, so I can pretend to be lofty.) It's gotten to the point where indigenous populations of Humans in the South Pacific, who exist there only because of subsistence fishing, can barely scrape by. Many nearly starve after the Asian fishing vessels clean out the fish around their islands, and it takes months to return to normal. Despite international law, the crazies at Greenpeace and Peta, and various UN Resolutions, the Pacific is too grand a wilderness to monitor everything. International eyes are elsewhere, and more importantly, there is money to be made.

There are enough people writing about this that I don't feel the need to elaborate further. Robert Gillett has an excellent and concise text on the matter available online, A Short History of Industrial Fishing in the Pacific Islands. For more information on attempts to re-stock fish in many oceans and seas, I recommend this article, with an easy-to-read and very prettily illustrated abstract here.

And what is the point of all of this information, you ask?

We're not doing anything about it.

We're supposed to turn down our heat, I'm supposed to get a Prius and get rid of my truck. We need Wind Turbines (even though nobody realizes they ONLY WORK WHEN THE WIND IS BLOWING), and solar panels (which ONLY WORK WHEN THE SUN IS SHINING). We're supposed to feel bad about every ounce of fossil fuel we use.

But Al Gore hasn't said a damn word about house cats eating penguin babies. Or giant Japanese fishing vessels catching sharks for shark-fin soup, cutting their fins off, and throwing them back into the water, still alive but unable to swim, so that they can die on their way to the abyssal plain. Tens of thousands of sharks each year. He doesn't care, he's just a guy on a power trip (and possibly acid) who wants to tell you how much electricity you can use.


In reality, while carbon emissions are a problem that we have to face, our priorties are mixed up, and our ideal solutions are misplaced. Al Gore's most recent speech about Cap and Trade and the first steps toward World Government strikes me as completely ridiculous. It's a power grab with too many obvious omissions, even more hidden inclusions, and the speech has all the earmarks of fanaticism. I have a separate beef with Al Gore, possibly because I enjoy non-organic beef, but that's a rant for another day.

This is, as so many of my rants are, really about people who just aren't thinking things through. They are not sitting down with a whiteboard and saying, "okay, what is our biggest problem right now, and how do we fix it for the future?" They are rushing headfirst, like our President, our Congress, and the United Nations, into things that no one fully understands, and no one is willing to think through. All that matters is that legislation is passed and people get re-elected. It offends me deeply.

All we need, for anything in life, is a little common sense. It's been a long time since I've seen any of that. Thomas Paine, where are you?

Dear Internet,

two of my photos are apparently on schmaps of berlin and budapest, though i haven't bothered to see if they're actually posted. still, it's kind of cool.

it's the kind of thing that reminds me that i should really work on and post the rest of my photos from... oh... four years ago now?

eesh.

also, i'm having trouble letting go of deviantart. true, it's way less grown-up than flickr, and true, there are a lot of creepers on deviantart, but... it's been so good to me. sigh.

also, out of the three people who will read this blog post (probably on facebook, alas!), if anyone is planning a wedding or needs portraits, head on over to Pam J Photos. she's awesome. she's available. she's artsy.

aaaand i ran out of alliterative adjectives. (oh wait, there was one!)

a photo from berlin:

New Photos from Tehran

Because you may have missed it (because NBC doesn't seem to care, and also because it's been nice outside).

photos

Also, take a look at how the U.S. administration is handling this. Or... not.

warm-hearted killers.

This is not a new story, but recently an abortion doctor in Kansas was shot in an act of domestic terrorism. If you're feeling morbid, you can read about it here. In addition, the suspect has warned of more planned shootings "as long as abortion remains legal." Read that story here.

So... wait. Killing babies is bad. But killing grownups is... okay?

knitting blind?

so here's a question with potentially unkind overtones.

i know a lot of talented knitters. seriously skilled ladies who can do things with yarn and needles that would make athena blush, and tailor the hell out of any piece of clothing you can think of. the kind of people that make those homey, female-type activities true art forms.

i've also met some knitters who... well, don't. the kind that make me wonder why, despite their enormous amount of patience for detail and painstaking care with every stitch, many knitters completely forget to make sure that their handmade clothes fit them? it doesn't seem as though it would be difficult to see that your sweater is 4 inches too short, 3 inches too big around the arms, and a completely awful color for your skin tone. and horizontal stripes, while easy to add to knitting, are none too flattering for us knitters, who spend most of our time on couches. pink fluffy yarn, while fun and delicious for kitties everywhere, merely expands motherly bosoms and makes it impossible to look at anything else.

this is not to say that i am an expert sweater-maker. my first sweater, while a tasteful black, immediately decided to fall apart due to its cheap synthetic material, and i also had to add several inches to the pattern to make it fit. by the time i made my second sweater, i still had not learned about the dangers of cheap acrylic yarn, and the strands are now so frazzled and fluffy it looks like it comes with a feather boa. the difference, however, is that i do not wear either garment in public. or indeed, in private.

perhaps the fault is with the pattern makers. i've found that these ladies, while well-meaning, are generally unable to see beyond their petite 4'3" frame, bless them, and have decided that the only adjustments needed are for width. this would explain the plethora of ultra-wide, midriff-bearing winter sweaters one can find on the internet. seriously. don't their tummies get cold? how hard is it to keep knitting for that extra hour or so to make sure that your wrists don't get frostbite? also... don't they have mirrors? or spouses? or people in grocery stores who look at them funny?

i just... can't stop judging. *headdesk*

more kitchen adventures, and a musical mystery!

so my family really loves garlic mashed potatoes. i mean, we love potatoes in any variety, really. baked, mashed, deep fried, boiled, microwaved, spiced up, cooled down, on top of eggs, in potato salad, raw, whatever. we love potatoes. but adding garlic makes them extra special and fancy, just like in the restaurants! and i wanted to try it.

and so, as i do whenever i want to learn something completely foreign and new, i googled.

and i got recipes. ooooh i got recipes. from alton brown, from emeril, from users like you. each one had its own brand of fanciness, its own particular sparkle power involving some herb or cream or special whipping process. and every single one required about ten too many steps than i was willing to take to make some freakin potatoes. so, a couple of weeks ago, i threw everything into a pot in a grand experiment. i peeled the garlic and the potatoes, boiled them together with a little sea salt, and mixed them with the mixer. and voila! garlic mashed potatoes. i repeated the process tonight. call me crazy, but...

that was really easy. and AWESOME.

meanwhile, back at the ranch, itunes has been left to its own devices on shuffle. it seems that my computer has an affinity for the dance of the sugarplum fairy, which it plays about every five songs. i believe this to be an attempt at mockery in my general direction, but i'm not sure how or why. it's particularly disturbing when i try to think of when i would have put any sugarplums or fairies on my hard drive, and can't remember ever doing so. clearly there is something more sinister at work.

and now for something completely different:

i love kitchens.

one of the great pleasures i take in life is the late-night snack. i'm sure this will come back to bite me in the ass (literally) someday, but for the moment i'm going to thoroughly enjoy my cold chicken straight out of the deli container.

maybe it's a hangover from my teenage years, but there's something strangely thrilling about swiping a snack this late at night. everything is so quiet, except here there's a huge racket from the frogs in the pond out back. every floorboard creaks at a volume that you're sure is going to wake the whole house, and when you finally make it up the stairs and to the kitchen you realize your bare feet make almost as much noise on the linoleum as they did on the creaky stairs. opening the fridge is a blinding experience, but once your eyes adjust, they behold a wonderland of previously unclaimed food items. half-eaten chicken, mostly empty take-out boxes, lunchmeat, pickles, and many other things that in daylight would be completely ignored suddenly seem like delicacies. why yes, i would love a single sweet pickle. three bites of chicken sounds delicious. and, wonder of wonders, a lone cream cheese wonton lays completely forgotten at the back of the fridge. (score!)

now, it should be noted that in this house no food is left alone for long. there are enough people, and one in particular who quietly grazes on anything in sight, that food almost never goes bad in our fridge. that delicious cream cheese wonton was only a few days old. i still cannot believe that it had gone unnoticed that long. and oh, was it delicious.

and then there's the odd pleasure of simply sitting at the counter. the kitchen is the center of any home, as many a pillow and apron proudly declares. here one feels close to the action. i can't possibly miss any important events from this perch. this is possibly because our house revolves around the preparation and consumption of food, but also because of its prominent location. tactically, i have a clear view of any activities the neighborhood kids are planning outside, including mysteriously moving around the firepit chairs (i believe they're secretly constructing a fort from which to bombard the enemy ducks and geese with our landscaping rocks). i can count how many times the little bro comes in to stare at the contents of the pantry, and of that number how many times he decides on cereal. i can tell the lady of the house where she put her keys in her frenzy to get out the door. and, more importantly, i can access the all-important internet while brewing coffee and watching tv AT THE SAME TIME.

truly, this kitchen is a magical, magical place.

spontaneous combustion

huzzah! for never updating le blog! now behold! a CONTENT-FREE! and ANGRY! update late at night:

if one more person asks me with an innocent/blank face: "but what do you have to be mad about? what's wrong with washington?"

... i may actually self-combust. i'm not sure how that happens, but mythbusters says it does, so it must be true.

i get asked this question ALL THE TIME. and i think it's pushing me over the edge (short trip, i know). but i've come to a conclusion: i think people are suffering in our country. suffering from a LACK OF NEWS.

this is a serious condition, folks. there's even a bumper sticker out about it. i believe it reads: "if you're not angry, you're just not paying attention." i'm sure it was first issued for bush-haters, but frankly, it doesn't matter. everyone should be pissed about something (because that's how incompetent our congress is).

maybe we're suffering from over-exposure. we have... how many? 24-hour news channels plus countless radio programs (though those are mostly conservative since liberals don't pay attention past the pretty posters) and an endless parade of emails, if you have the misfortune to have signed up for them.

sidenote:

dear nbc,
yes, i am a right-wing extremist, and yes, i do hate you all, though you do occasionally give me a good chuckle, like this week. in any case, please say hello to my digitus tertius.
love,
me.

continuing:

does anybody watch the news anymore? or are they all just watching nbc, which is pretty much the same thing?

why do i even have to explain myself? i pay attention, and therefore i am royally pissed. i may even start to use the royal 'we' soon, but that might get weird.

so please, if you don't know what your brand new fancy sparkling holy congress and your brand new hero president is doing with all of your tax money and political time, and if you don't know why the tea party participants were all carrying signs, just...

ask me about the weather. or the yankees. please, i beg you. and so does my blood pressure.

Tonight's issue...

And oh there are so many to pick from. This one is small, but on the scale of zero to crazy gets about a 7.5, so I'm running with it.

A rather large chunk, around five billion (with a 'b'), of the money Congress has set aside for education out of our fancy new stimulus package (part two of forty-seven) will go to funding education programs for children ages 1-3.

Yes. One-year-olds, two-year-olds, and three-year-olds.

Um. Well this makes sense, I mean in 15 years or so they might get a job... er... as a cashier at target... or washing dishes... for about a year. Now, this is important work, to be sure. We would be miserable without them. And if they learn to wash dishes at an early age, and maybe if we get them those toy checkout counters with plastic fruit and vegetables, perhaps we can FINALLY have those highly trained cashiers we've always needed!

Is personal responsibility really this out of style? Are parents now assumed to be so stupid that the government has to step in to teach their kids to speak English and use spoons? Are day care providers so incompetent that they can't keep little Jimmy from shoving that toy firetruck up his nose?

Apparently so.

But fear not! An army of laid-off accountants will be sent in to wipe up the snot in the most cost-effective way possible, and prepare meals with organic, locally grown ingredients (kids in Minnesota during the Winter should consider packing a lunch from elsewhere on the planet). Previously out-of-work bricklayers will be hired by the federal and state governments, carefully trained in the intricacies of Lego skyscrapers, and sent to organize the the Lego city planning commissions during nap time to be implemented during the scheduled 15 minutes of play (before the Union-required hour-long break, in which the kids are on their own, presumably to play Godzilla with Legotown and trick poor Jimmy into getting yet another six-wheeled vehicle lodged in his left nostril). And, as a Gesture of Love and a Demonstration of her Supreme Goodness, Hillary Clinton will Personally extract that fire truck from the screaming kid's nasal cavity.

Well good.

So between this and the fact that the rest of the money will get swallowed up in bureaucracy, my high school will still have no paper to print tests, worksheets, and study guides for students.

No paper. But hey, those little ones are going to be sooo well behaved. And medicated.