(This isn’t an actual F-16 cockpit, but a “cockpit egress trainer”.)
(We would also have accepted “You ever been in a cockpit before?”)
The further on the edge, the hotter the intensity.
February 13th, 2013Banana republicans on trial: February 12, 2013.
February 12th, 2013Teresa Jacobo wrapped up her testimony yesterday in the Bell trial, and indicted former council member George Mirabal is testifying now.
Mirabel is pretty much echoing Jacobo: I didn’t know I was doing anything wrong, I thought it was okay because the city attorney said so, and I did a lot of work outside of meetings for the city.
Random notes: February 12, 2013.
February 12th, 2013This Statesman story is notable because it avoids answering the key question: how does it smell?
Followup on the Tesla story: Elon Musk claims that the story is fake, and that the vehicle logs show something different than the NYT writer claims. The NYT vigorously denies this claim. Summary of the back and forth, with links, at Jimbo’s site.
The International Olympic Committee has decided to keep modern pentathlon in the 2020 Olympics. This makes me happy, as I have a fondness for modern pentathlon, the sport George S. Patton competed in. It strikes me as being a true test of all-around athleticism; the sort of sport true gentlemen compete in.
But wait, there’s more to the story: the IOC is keeping modern pentathlon…and dropping wrestling as a “core sport”. Yes, wrestling, a sport that was part of the first modern Olympics in 1896, and one that dates back to the ancient Greeks. I’m not a big wrestling fan, but this decision seems strange to me. Especially since the 2020 Olympics are also keeping taekwondo and field hockey.
The only thing we learn from history is that we learn nothing from history, continued:
Sounds like a great guy, right? 105 years old, charismatic teacher, hangs with Leonard Cohen?
More:
Kübelwagen!
February 12th, 2013
(I have a short list of cars that I wouldn’t want as a primary daily driver, but would love to have as a second car just to knock around in. On that list: a VW Thing. Which I know isn’t strictly the same thing as the Kübelwagen, but close enough for a Nobel Peace Prize winner to order a drone strike.)
A quick movie review for Valentine’s Day.
February 11th, 2013This post over at Andy Ihnatko’s site reminded me of something I’ve been wanting to blog about. I’m going to put that after a jump, and politely suggest that you read Mr. Ihnatko’s post first, because what I’m going to discuss will ruin his elaborately set up punch line.
S’awright? S’awright?. S’awright? S’okay.
(You know, as a kid, I didn’t get Señor Wences. As an adult, I miss him.)
Random notes: February 11, 2013.
February 11th, 2013Benny’s stepping down from the Papacy is going to be one of the biggest news stories of the year. I wanted to note it here because it gives me a chance to plug a book I really liked: Thomas J. Reese’s Inside the Vatican: The Politics and Organization of the Catholic Church
Reese devotes a fair amount of space to discussing questions about the papacy, such as: what happens if the Pope develops Alzheimer’s? What happens if he becomes totally incapacitated, say by a stroke? Or if he goes crazy? What happens if the Pope is in a coma (I know it’s serious)? And, can the Pope resign? I guess we have an answer to that last question: “Yes”.
I missed the 70th anniversary of the sinking of the troop transport Dorchester on February 3, 1943. You remember the story of the Dorchester, right? Or if you don’t remember the name of the ship…
They were:
- John Washington, a Catholic priest. (“…Washington was asked by one player to bless his hand.
‘What?’ the father asked in mock outrage. ‘You want me to waste a blessing on a lousy pair of treys?'”) - Rabbi Alexander Goode.
- Dutch Reformed minister Clark Poling.
- Methodist minster George Fox.
I didn’t get a chance to post an update from Friday’s Bell trial, so let me do that now: Teresa Jacobo is still on the stand, and they’re still going over the “working full time for the city” thing.
In addition, nobody told Jacobo that “a certain number of meetings of those authorities” needed to be conducted at city council meetings, or that the meetings needed to last for a certain amount of time. Jacobo also claims that she gave out business cards with her home and cell numbers to her constituents; “Residents would often call her at all hours, she testified, for help with city issues.”
As I’ve said previously, a lot of the defense seems to be “it was all Rizzo”, as well as “nobody told me”, and “I assumed it was okay because the city attorney didn’t say it wasn’t”. I’m still thinking we’re going to end up with acquittals for the council members, and the bus is going to run over Rizzo, back up, and run over him again.
Important reminder.
February 11th, 2013The ejection seat is not a toy.
(Top: my sister’s youngest boy. Bottom: the middle boy, who you may remember from here. Not shown: the oldest boy, Sir NotAppearingInThisSketch, who had a band thing going on and didn’t make the trip with us.)
Weasels ripped my flesh!
February 10th, 2013
Random notes in haste: February 9, 2013.
February 9th, 2013I’m a little tied up at the moment: my sister and brother-in-law are away, and my mother and I are riding herd on my three nephews. Today’s agenda included a field trip to the Texas Military Forces Museum. (Photos to come.)
Thing one: The LA County Sheriff’s Department had a program called “Friends of the Sheriff”. No, really. (It still exists, but the name has changed.) The basic idea was that applications to LACSD from people who knew the sheriff, or other department officials, would be reviewed through this program.
Among the people hired through this program: Justin Bravo, Sheriff Lee Baca’s nephew.
He was hired anyway. Wanna take a guess as to why this coming up now?
A while back, I wrote about the case of Reverend John J. Hunter, who was transferred to the Bethel AME church, except Bethel didn’t want him for good and sufficient reasons.
Shoes are now dropping. Bethel AME officially fired Hunter. His petition to go back to his previous church, First AME in LA, has been rejected. And…
And First AME, in turn, is suing Hunter, “alleging that Hunter, his wife and a small ‘cabal’ of church leaders misappropriated millions of dollars in church and nonprofit funds.”
Not ready for prime time motors.
February 9th, 2013I’m with Tam: I don’t care that much about a car’s power source, as long as it can do what I want it to do.
That said, I find this pretty amusing: a NYT reporter sets out to drive a Tesla Model S from Washington to Boston. Hilarity ensues.
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Administrative update.
February 8th, 2013In the approximately 24 hours I’ve had WP-Ban in place:
- It has blocked 874 IP addresses associated with spam. One specific IP address associated with spam attempted to access my blog 211 times, and there are two others that made well over 100 attempts.
- I am still getting some spam comments, but the total in the past 24 hours was probably just under 100, as opposed to the 600+ I had yesterday. I can manage that. I’m also still actively adding spam IPs to the WP-Ban list, so I am hopeful that the count will go down.
- I have not had anyone complain that I am illegitimately blocking them from accessing the site.
Emu meat!
February 8th, 2013The one thing we learn from history is that we learn nothing from history:
…
Banana republicans on trial: February 8, 2013.
February 8th, 2013Yesterday’s developments:
Former councilman and assistant to the food bank administrator, Victor Bello, wasn’t just a rat. He’s also crazy, at least according to his lawyer.
It has been mentioned previously that Bello was banned from City Hall. But the reasons haven’t been discussed until now:
It could also have had something to do with the condom incident. Moving along, the first witness for the defense was Teresa Jacobo, one of the indicted council members.
And then one magic day, according to Jacobo, Robert “Ratso” Rizzo and Edward Lee, the city attorney, called her in and told her…
But Jacobo testifies that Ratso didn’t tell her how much she’d be making. I’m sorry, but if someone told me I could devote all my time and effort to the community and I’d be making a full-time salary, I’d freaking ask what that salary would be.
Who would have thought it?
February 7th, 2013You can get botulism from prison wine, aka “pruno“, aka “that stuff that’s frequently fermented in a cell block toilet or other places just as disgusting”.
(You know where else you can get alcohol from, with less risk of botulism? Sourdough starter. No, really; the liquid that separates out and rises to the top if you leave it sit is somewhere between 12% and 14% alcohol. I haven’t tried drinking any of it, but I suspect it tastes a little better than pruno.)
Let my people eat bread.
February 7th, 2013My mother sent along an article from the WP that I had missed, “Better bread starts with a sponge“, which discusses some sourdough techniques for home bakers.
I appreciate her sending that along, and have already sent her some comments. But since they’re easy blog fodder, I’ll repeat them here. I don’t really have any problems with Marcy Goldman, or her article; I want to try her “Favorite French Bread“. But there are some questions I have and comments to make.
- Goldman quotes Cook’s Illustrated as saying home bakers should “forgo a starter to save time and simply add vinegar for that characteristic acidic taste”. This is, so far, the dumbest thing I’ve read in 2013. To her credit, Goldman does not endorse this, but I expect better from CI and that tweedy little bow-tied jackass.
- Why is this dumb? Because anyone can make a starter. It is not the nuclear rocket brain surgery. It isn’t hard. I have made starters and baked with them, and I’m not Thomas Freaking Keller in the kitchen. All you need is flour, water, and time; that’s how the original Alaskan sourdoughs were made. Yeast is a possible addition, but isn’t strictly needed. (I’ll touch on that in a minute.) As far as time goes, you can get a starter going in 72 hours, and it will keep indefinitely with reasonable care.
- Goldman’s stater recipe calls for a cup of spring water, 1 1/4 cups of unbleached bread flour, 2 tablespoons each of whole-wheat and rye flour, and 1/2 teaspoon of instant yeast. The starter recipe I’ve been using calls for 3/4 cup of milk, “heated to a simmer and cooled to 100°F”, 1 cup flour (white, whole-wheat, or rye) and 1 1/2 teaspoons of yeast. Both make enough starter for one loaf in their respective recipes; I’ve doubled the recipe amount for my starter, and am feeding it with 1 cup heated milk and 1 cup rye or whole-wheat flour whenever I pull some starter out. That way, I always have enough starter. (I keep it in a crock on the back of my stove.)
- Here’s the thing, though: if you’re starting your starter with yeast, aren’t you just…growing more of the same yeast? I mean, if I want Fleischman’s, I can go buy that stuff all day long at the HEB. Or do the natural yeasts in the air eventually overwhelm your starter yeast? I have heard it said that’s what happens with packaged sourdough starter, like you might get as a souvenir in San Francisco or Alaska; you may get it home and bake some bread, but eventually the original strain will get overwhelmed by your wild local yeasts. (That doesn’t mean I don’t want to try baking with one of those starters; I do.)
- The one starter I’ve found that doesn’t call for added yeast is Nancy Silverton’s in Breads from the La Brea Bakery
. I’d like to try that, but it takes 14 days to get to the point where you’re ready to bake with it, and it seems very fussy. While I was looking up Silverton’s starter, I found this starter recipe from Michael Ruhlman, which doesn’t take 14 days, doesn’t call for added yeast, and also looks like something worth trying.
- Speaking of Ruhlman, he’s probably worth a post of his own at some point. (I’ve been reading Ratio: The Simple Codes Behind the Craft of Everyday Cooking
and The Making of a Chef: Mastering Heat at the Culinary Institute of America
, the latter of which I paid $1 for at the Austin Public Library bookstore. At one point in Making, Ruhlman mentions a CIA chef who has a starter he’s kept going since 1985; the book came out in 1997, so that was at least a ten-year-old starter.)