Best Apricots I've Ever Tasted

Heck, the best dried fruit I've ever had the privilege of tasting, ever. Last Sunday, I was in Decatur Georgia (pronounced, "dick hater" due to the significant numbers of women who live an alternative same-sex lifestyle who reside there), and my buddy Ryan took me to the "Dekalb Farmer's Market". Previously, I had assumed this Farmer's Market was the traditional dozen or several dozen local farmers, in a cordoned off city block, selling their locally grown produce. Au contraire!

The place was the size of a Super Walmart, with entire sections dedicated to dried fruit, nuts, fresh fruit, fresh vegetables, breads (Naan, pitas, tortillas, etc), and gigantic counters of sea food, meats, salads, hummus, you name it - all bustling with shoppers of varied classes and ethnicities. It was a wonderful food store, with employs who represented much of the United Nation's variety of membership.

Anyways, I was there to look for dried apricots, banana chips, dried mango for my business trip snacks, if I could find them, as well as some cucumbers, pitas, and hummus as appetizers before dinner. Most of the dried fruit they had was sulphurized or made with oils or sugar, which I really don't need or want. But they had these World Direct Turkish Organic Apricots, in 1 lb bags. DAMN! These are THE BEST, most flavorful, sweetest, succulent fruit I've ever tasted. Concentrated flavor, excellent texture, , full of fiber, amazing all around. Dark as dates, sweeter than pineapples and addictive. Organic, and no additional sulphur - all fruit has a tiny bit of sulphur in it, naturally, but too many food suppliers ADD sulphur for preservatives to compensate for inefficient distribution networks. I am trying not to eat more than 3 or 4 a day, as they can act like prunes to the human digestive tract.

And to think, I used to eat granola bars with high fructose corn syrup while I was traveling... Massive Tip O the Hat to my buddy Ryan for this fantastic gastronomic delight!

Anti-Oxidants Infiltrated By Cheap Chinese Ingredients

For many many years, I've been taking L-ascorbic acid (Vitamin C) as a dietary supplement. Before moving to AZ getting fresh, delicious citrus was somewhat hard to do, and since moving here, I've just been in the habit. Most all living things need Vitamin C (in the current carbon based life form paradigm we have), and yes, taking lots (greater than 500mg/day) of Vitamin C laughably produces acidic & relatively expensive urine, but I have this theory that it also helps to dissolve the calcites that drive painful kidney stones, boosts the immune system, and is not really "bad for you" in any way that I can figure out - if anyone has some factual evidence of why taking large doses of Vitamin C is bad for you, please let me know.

So I ran out of my fat-soluble "Ester-C" this week, and thought about my earlier blog posting (Nov2008) of how China dominates raw material chemical production for industrial food stuffs. I called the toll free number (1-866-417-0739) on the bottle and got a very helpful operator, who was not at all offended by my inquiry about Chinese component ingredients in their product. Given the product number (next to the bar code), the Ester-C operator was able to quickly indexed her database - set up proactively, in case of re-calls, with recent food safety concerns globally, the operator stated. She admitted that the bottle I had just finished, did indeed contain some Chinese sourced ingredients. She re-assured me, that Ester-C does extensive quality testing to standards that are higher than industry and government requirements of all their ingredients, suppliers, and processes. She also stated, that not all of Ester-C's products contain Chinese ingredients, but she would need to have the product number to assure me if another bottle did, or did not.

That comforted me a lil bit, but my stomach is still turning - yeah, and I suck at Poker too, not very good at subduing autonomic & endocrine reactions to inputs that my logical brain knows are only infinitesimally harmful at best. So, in a larger perspective... if a name brand, "premium" supplier of vitamin supplements uses the cheapest of Chinese ingredients, then the generic, store brand products are certainly rife with them as well.

When I find a replacement bottle at a store (Costco had none 2 weeks ago), I will call the toll free number and inquire before buying it. Maybe I'll get lucky. My past trips to China have instilled a firm belief that having a kidney stone would be better than dieing of pancreatic cancer or some other trace contamination induced malady. Until then, it is fresh citrus, as often as possible, organic and local hopefully.

She wore pants!?!?!

Pharyngula has a nice piece here about a Sudanese woman wearing pants to dinner, and receiving 40 lashes as punishment for doing so. I heard today on the radio that a retired Air Force general who is heading up the US relief efforts in Khartoum was stating that the US embargoes are making things worse, and that the genocide is over - contrary to the United States' UN Ambassador's position. I don't have an official position pro or anti embargo or relief, but I do appreciate when people wear pants to dinner, hiding their naked butts, or their stained under wear, and allowing me to sit down without having to bring my own towel to sit upon.

She wore pants!?!?! Did she "Plow on Sunday" as well?

Bill Kristol Believes The US Federal Government Can Provide the World's Best Health Care

More Right Wing hypocrisy - no surprise, as they're a gigantic herd of hypocrites generally, but the editor of the Weekly Standard stated emphatically on TDS Monday night, that US soldiers get great health care (he's never been to my brother-in-law's local VA hospital evidently) and they deserve the best health care. Jon Stewart calls him on it, and Weasel Kristol tries to squirm out of what he just stated, but it's impossible. the extended, un-cut interview is here.

I cannot stand people who are So Convinced and Absolutely Sure of their extremely biased opinion, as Kristol is (and Goldberg, Tracinski, Hush Dimbulb, and Olbermann, and other extremists on both sides) - those who believe there is so very little gray anywhere, and their way is the only way. I do love how Jon Stewart makes this weasel squirm, and "ugh, ugh, ugh {nervous smile}, heh heh {more nervous smiling}" whenever he is on.

Intense Rendering

Courtesy of my friend Jason, here's an intense example of extremely detailed embedded rendering. The entire sequence takes about 15 minutes to run. My pathetically low memory ZT systems XP machine ran it smoothly without staggering, so as long as you're not on an ancient mini-memory computer, your computer should run it also.

The time that must've gone into detailing and perfecting each of the scenes, I cannot imagine. I found the audio slightly intriguing, and the video, almost mesmerizing. (I ran it in the back ground while answering Bangalore emails, and the audio acts somewhat, like punctuation marks, to get the distracted viewer's attention).

Literally Presented

My buddy Zim has this hilarious posting of a ridiculously amusing video. I cannot stop laughing. thank you Zim!

TDS Explains Toothless Cap & Trade

I saw TDS Tuesday night on the hotel cable. Advance to the 40 second mark, for the details of how impotent the passed legislation really is. As Steven Chu says, "it's a start" ... a late, poor, lack luster one.. but something is slightly better than nothing. Cap'n Trade, is one sorry S.O.B.

Lindsey Graham - M.W.L.L.O.L.

Thanks to The Daily Show for pointing out that Senator Lindsey Graham (R - South Carolina) is featured on the website "Men Who Look Like Old Lesbians". Too damn funny! Dr Desert Flower and I could not stop laughing last night!

[Yes, the same Lindsey, who bought my buddy Matt's mint condition '94 Mustang and then transferred the title to a 25 yr old boy toy to whom he was unrelated. Don't worry Log Cabin Republicans, we won't tell anyone.]

Non Believers, suck on these facts!

To all the incredibly dedicated and delusional conspiracy theorists who believe we never actually went to the moon (here, here, here, and here), take a long hard look at these photos here. Oh, I forgot, those are made up too, right? LOL!

Thank You Dick Lugar

Dick Lugar, the senior republican U.S. senator represented my native state of Indiana for more than 20 years - when I was an 8 year old Hoosier he got elected, and has remained in that seat ever since. Today, he was the first one of the republicans to endorse Sonia Sotormayor for the SCOTUS. Yeah, judge Sotormayer barely stands up to legal giants like Harriet Miers (clueless). She's more similar to the empathetic & proclaimed moderate temperament of Samuel Alito (though she'll probably not buddy up with Scalia on as many opinions as Alito does), and sort of the antithesis of every major corporation's friend, John Roberts (just try, try really hard, to find any ruling he's ever made, that went against a corporation).

So an expensive, useless, no-value-added 4 day circus of confirmation hearings has ended, that certainly could have lasted 1 day, tops. Get on with it ladies and gentlemen. There's lots of work to be done!

Out of pocket for some time

I have a funeral next week I have to go to for my cousin who died this week, and then to the buckle of the bible belt, Greenville SC, followed by Tool at the Gwinnette Performing Arts Center with my buddy Ryan the week after. Not sure how much time for blogging there will be. Il faut voir.

Sessions, you're way out-matched

"SESSIONS: Do you stand by your statement that my experiences affect the facts I choose to see?

SOTOMAYOR: No, sir. I don't stand by the understanding of that statement that I will ignore other facts or other experiences because I haven't had them. I do believe that life experiences are important to the process of judging. They help you to understand and listen but that the law requires a result. And it would command you to the facts that are relevant to the disposition of the case. "

Jeff, if you're gonna try and pick a fight with a highly qualified, extremely experienced, wise Latina Federal Appeals Court Judge, be ready to admit defeat and eat crow when she calmly, sweetly, with a smile, deconstructs your accusations to reveal you sir, for the ignorant cracker you really are. Compared to the unqualified racist buffoon that you were when you were nominated by Reagan for a Federal Judgeship, Sotomayor's replies to your pathetic attacks is like her bringing a mini-gun to a knife fight.

Obama corrects his previous mistake for Surgeon General pick

Let Sanjay Gupta go look for 'patient zero' sensationally in Mexico. I'm very happy that CNN's 'medical correspondent' declined. Dr. Regina Benjamin hopefully will be confirmed soon. This crusader for the indigent and under-served rural & poor communities should bring a superb perspective to the SG position. Even Fox has nice things to say about her! As does AP/Yahoo, and the Washington Post and of course, Huffington.

It'll be interesting to see how Glen Beck, Dimbulb, InsanityHannity, and other mouth pieces criticize this choice.

Book Cart Drill Teams? LOL

Heard this on the radio yesterday. Too damn funny! Perhaps my love of libraries is not very healthy, if I think such silliness is hilarious. Juxtapositions are very good things.

The Hurt Locker = Visceral

After the hilarious Brüno movie going experience Friday night, I drove across metro Phoenix Saturday night to the only arts movie theater in this city of 4 million denizens to see The Hurt Locker. I thought I might have a beer or stop by a club after the 10:30pm showing of the movie ended (130 min run time).

Children of Men, Schindler's List, Hotel Rwanda, all sucked the evening's jovial energy out of me, and my buddy Ryan (when he and I went to see Schindler's in ATL years ago), and Dr Desert Flower back in 2006 in Greenville. Kathryn Bigelow has directed an intense, visceral, consuming window into daily life in Iraq. Mark Boal's (who spent time embedded in Iraq) script is pretty good, but in places, drops into movie-going impossible fictionality that didn't really 'test believable boundaries', as much as it trounced them with Hollywood emotional characterizations in the extreme. Had Boal and Bigelow toned down the 'unconventional rebel' aspects of the protagonist, just a few percentage points, I'd say this was an incredible movie experience. As it was, it is a good movie going experience, that opens up the eyes of the viewer. I require healthy doses of realism, in my paradigm, to fully embed myself into the movie.

Should be required viewing for every Chicken Hawk who votes to send troops into war zones.

SBC is funnier when he's unscripted

I saw Brüno Friday night. The Theater was packed for the 9:50pm show. It was a funny movie - but Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, in comparison, was funnier. Sacha Baron Cohen is a genius guerrilla comedian, duping Congressmen into eating cheese made from his sister's breast milk, or extolling potassium to rodeo fans, or running naked through a convention center, or revealing the stupidity & racism of some drunken SC college students. Most of Borat "seemed" unscripted, spontaneous people speaking what they really think, not from queue cards.

A great deal of Brüno came across as contrived, scripted, almost 'rehearsed'. Richard Bey used to have a talk show, but that ended more than 8 years ago. I wanted to believe the talent agency interviews were unscripted, but it was very hard to make that leap. The Alabama hunter scenes were hilarious and massively pushed boundaries, but did not get to the authenticity of the visceral hatred revealed in the Arkansas cage match.

I heard one NPR reviewer (Mondello) say he liked it and appauld SBC's ability to "remake himself", and another (Edelstein) laud it for how it promoted gay awareness, even if it sort of beat it into your head - Edelstein also detested Borat.

Catch stooges saying stupid, racist, greedy, ignorant, xenophobic, fundamentalist, Idiocracy-type things, and it is comic gold. Have them read it off a teleprompter, and it loses it's punch. I liked Brüno, ut it was not as good as Borat.

American Hand Tools & Home Defense

Ever find yourself in the hand tool aisle at a hardware store, and try to find the few remaining Made In USA tools that are offered? I love the hardware aisle as almost as much as Dr Desert Flower loves a shoe store sale. In my search for functioning replacement carbon monoxide detector (required by AZ residential building code) I found myself at Home Depot. So there I was, looking at literally 30 different types of hammers, made by 7 different branded manufacturers, and only Estwing (Rockford IL) is made in the USA. I'd bought a nice 22 inch Estwing clam hammer several years ago, and love it. Not only does it pound nails handily, but I keep it on my office shelf as an expedient means of home defense as well. One Japanese wrecking hammer, 2 Mexican framing hammers, and the rest of the massive display, Chinese.

Ever find yourself looking at hand tools (hammers, crowbars, pry bars, awls, screw drivers, et al) and thinking, 'which of these would be best for defending against / braining / brandishing / wielding against a home invader?' It's not paranoia when 1 out of 3 homes are vacant & foreclosed here in my neighborhood on the west side of the nation's kidnapping capital. So I selected the 16 inch claw hammer (3413962381), proudly made in the USA - I don't want to rely on a Chinese tool for defense, it just doesn't work in my head.

Maybe I'm the only one who has these kinds of thoughts at the hardware store...

BTW - FireX COQ-8 120V AC "wired-in" CO detectors are total crap. They fail, en masse, exactly at the 5 year warranty - all 3 of them within 2 months of each other (manufacturing dates are even stamped into the back of the plastic casing, from 2003). The Kidde 900-0120 is an adequate replacement (4787100120), but being made in China, only 2 of the 3 replacements actually worked, forcing me to return to HD to exchange for a 4th. At $30 each, you'd think they would be a little more reliable, but hey, America loves to market cheap Chinese garbage.

Why our recession will last at least 10 years

Bill Moyers' interview with former regulator, now professor at University of Missouri KC, William K Black, is solid gold, infuriating, illuminating, captivating. 100 to 1000X worse than the S&L crisis that McCain helped to bring us in the 80s, with 1/5 the number of Federal agents as watchdogs now, compared to what we had then. Fraud on a massive scale. "AIG alone was at least as big as the S&L crisis". AAA ratings issued on derivatives that were assembled 'liars loans', sub-prime toxicity - the total destruction of global trust in the banking system. The Japanese 'lost decade' will look meager and tame compared to how deeply the American banking system, and our lack of effective regulation have gotten us all into. Geithner's finger-prints are all over this mess as former head of the NY Fed where he was supposed to be over-seeing and REGULATING, throttling back, subduing, the evils of Goldman-Sachs and other massive banks.

I need another drink.
Tip of the hat to Ron and to Mike S for the links to this interesting (and depressing) financial blog.

Candidate Obama vs. President Obama. Hypocrisy in action.

Back in 2003, The Daily Show started running a "Bush vs Bush" segment - man, Jon Stewart aged alot in the last 6 years! It's always acerbic and amusing to see a politician skewered on his own words and blatant hypocrisy, when you didn't vote for the plutocrat.

I've been holding my breath, hoping that the hypocrisy and plutocratic evil tendencies that President Obama's administration has started to exhibit would pass... but they seem to be growing, not diminishing.
Candidate Obama railed against the secretiveness of Bush & Cheney meeting with Oil Executives to write energy policy.
President Obama won't disclose which Coal Executives met at the White House.

Candidate Obama wanted to close Guantanamo - we can't imprison people forever afterall!
President Obama states that some people will be held without trial indefinitely, possibly forever [now granted, I don't think they should be released. I think, if they are seething, vicious, admitted America haters, let them meet their maker]

Candidate Obama spoke clearly and succinctly against warrantless wire tapping.
"There is also little doubt that the Bush Administration, with the cooperation of major telecommunications companies, has abused that authority and undermined the Constitution by intercepting the communications of innocent Americans without their knowledge or the required court orders." [That's pretty damn clear, to me, that he was against it]
President Obama wants to continue the program.

Candidate Obama deeply criticized McCain's vastly unpopular idea of taxing employer provided health insurance to pay for medical coverage for the uninsured.
President Obama won't rule out using that option? WTF? [Now, I would not object to paying $100 or $200 more dollars a year in some kind of tax out of my paycheck to help finance such a plan, but not thousands of dollar a year].

Yes, President Obama IS changing some things - Science is no longer considered a societal evil by the Executive Branch; Inspectors Generals have begun once again to do their jobs; America's reputation abroad is slowly starting to recover; Some level of Competency is being restored to the Federal Government... but damnit, why can't he make a clean break from his bubbling, misguided, incompetent, ignorant, plutocratic predecessor??

My "spidey sense" is not giving me a good feeling about this trend. I hope I am wrong.

What's your connection speed?

I recently had my company reimbursed internet connect bumped up from 3 meg a second to 20 meg a second. It's of course, never REALLY 20 meg a second, but I check it from time to time at Internetfrog. It seems to be a pretty good evaluation engine. Anyone have a better speed evaluation site they can recommend? I average 13 Meg mid-day most days, from the fiber-optic node 2 blocks away, and 3 or 4 Meg when everyone else gets home from work and starts checking their emails and such.

And yes, the price went from like $29/month (fixed for life) to $69/month from Qwest. Kind of a rip off, but while the company is reimbursing, I'll take advantage of it. A router is still a router.