- Wine for remembering: http://tinyurl.com/6fv8e2 #
- Thinking about getting some beer… but the fridge is full… oh well. #
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#WritingFromIsolationWard
Month: June 2008
Record corn prices mean more expensive meat, dairy: Financial News – Yahoo! Finance
In the latest bout of food inflation, beef, pork, poultry and even eggs, cheese and milk are expected to get more expensive as livestock owners go out of business or are forced to slaughter more cattle, hogs, turkeys and chickens to cope with rocketing costs for corn-based animal feed.
How are your food stock plans going? Have to stocked up on your non-perishables? Is your pantry and backup pantry all set up? Have you been thinking about long-term food stability?
It’s a bi-weekly topic around here; food issues. I’m probably making a mountain out of a big hill; but I think it’s a good idea that we all watch the news and become more food aware and food secure before we are forced to choose between food and fuel.
Duke Energy – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
With the purchase of Cinergy Corporation announced in 2005 and completed on April 3, 2006, Duke Energy Corporation’s customer base now includes the Midwestern United States as well. The company operates nuclear power plants, coal-fired plants, conventional hydroelectric plants, natural-gas turbines to handle peak demand, and pumped hydro storage. During 2006, Duke Energy also acquired Chatham, Ontario-based Union Gas, which is regulated under the Ontario Energy Board Act (1998)
….In 2002, researchers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst have identified Duke Energy as the 46th-largest corporate producer of air pollution in the United States, with roughly 36 million pounds of toxic chemicals released annually into the air.[8] Major pollutants indicated by the study include sulfuric and hydrochloric acid, chromium compounds, and hydrogen fluoride.[9] In 2008 Duke Energy rose to the 13th position in the list, more than doubling its release of toxic chemicals to 80 million pounds per year.[10]
I was reading about Patrick McCrory, a Republican candidate for Governor in North Carolina, who gained my eye by using CSI and Law and Order as a metric as to how the local legal system should work. Two things: One, does he know that those shows are almost overwhelmingly liberal and does he know that on TV stuff kinda happens via “the magic of television”. However, that is just sort of side entertainment, it was his relationship to Duke Energy and Duke’s link to London that caught my eye.
Deregulation was one of those magical panaceas that we keep getting fed by the hardcore capitalists as the ultimate solution to high prices and lack of competition; but in practice we get super high bills and collusion (if you don’t believe that deregulation leads to problems you must have missed the past 10 years in Ontario or the whole Enron debacle).
My point, when I get there, is that Duke Energy bought out Union Gas; which may have been to the benefit to the employees of Union Gas. Will Union Gas, as a Canadian firm owned by an American (of dubious responsibilities) going to be dragged into the morass that is Duke Energy’s poor environmental record? Will we see skyrocketing gas costs when the EPA’s own Banhammer comes down on Duke? What remedy do we have, they are the only game in town. Open markets my ass.
Camera that watches clouds, originally uploaded by NiteMayr.
Please enjoy this fanciful idea, a security camera that watches a single cloud that hovers above a tree in the distance.
A Nice plate of Fish and Chips, originally uploaded by NiteMayr.
Yes! A great lunch that wasn’t from “King’s”
Went to “Walker’s Fish and Chips” for lunch, had the Halibut and Chips.
The Fish was great, tasty and flavorful. The batter wasn’t all the taste, the fish was meaty and strong, a pleasure to eat. The Chips were also great, obviously real cut potato, soaked overnight to make sure that they are not too starchy. Great!
I didn’t care for the coleslaw, but I’m not a fan of the slaw anyway.
PLUS Beer on tap (not GOOD beer, but on TAP) and other beer selections on hand.
I can’t recommend Walker’s more.
Close Meat-ing, originally uploaded by NiteMayr.
This is not my roast, Jen made this fine repast. I don’t make my roast the same way she does, she’s a bit heavy on onions and lets the meat dry out a bit sometimes.
When I make a roast it’s a simple affair:
Defrost roast
Place roast in roasting vessel with a mixture of several cups of water, a few tablespoons of garlic powder, generous helpings of white and black pepper and a helping of generic steak spice.
Ensure that you drench the meat in said mixture and that said mixture is mixed into water. Turn meat “Fattiest side up” and generously coat with black and white pepper on fat.
If you are feeling adventurous, add instant coffee to the water, enough for two cups of coffee to your taste.
Start to heat the meat (covered) at 300 degrees in the center of your oven.
After about 2 hours remove from heat, increase oven temperature to 350 degrees. Replace any lost water and add 1/2 cup of vinegar.
Return vessel to oven and let cook, check meat after about 1 hour and ensure that it has not dried, add water as needed.
At the 3 and a half hour mark (since you started) add potatoes and vegetables. Cover with water and let cook. [Again, if you are into trying new things, add hot peppers and spiced vinegar]
Allow the water to boil down (until the vegetables are mostly uncovered) in vessel, meat should pull apart easily with fork.
When the meat is ready and potatoes are soft enough, pull from oven and serve.
The meat should be tender and moist, you may turn the leavings in the vessel into soup or gravy.
- @JCDean “Wave of Mutiliation (UK Surf)” by the Pixies or “Your Touch” by the Black Keys #
- Hmmm, quick breakfast today #
- @warrenellis I HAD 51 followers until my blog spam the other day there, now it’s down to a paltry 48. #
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Investigte 911!!! Yah Boo!, originally uploaded by NiteMayr.
Of all the pointless crap, this is Canada you shower of assholes. No one in Canada needs to investigate anything in New York. Okay? The guys in the USA aren’t going to start doing what you want when you deface buildings in downtown London, Ontario, Canada!
(Yes I know that I’m giving publicity to it, but bear with me)
George Carlin was Alive and now He is Dead
Published by NiteMayr on June 23, 2008Few Comedians will have the balls and chutzpah that George Carlin carried around in his pants, his stuff was portable and palatable. At times he seethed with loathing for the trappings of society, struggling to suffocate the failings of others in prosaic language and invective. Other times you could see that he wanted so much for us to understand his world view that he was a wits end trying to use crude language (crude in the sense of imprecise for the task, not crude as in vulgar) to express his point of view.
George Carlin was a man of the monologue, streaming hours of precise and cutting commentary or just sputtering vituperation at his audience. The only real tradgedy of Carlin’s work is that the people who stood the gain the most from it, his targets, were likely to be the selfsame people who would ignore or overlook it as brash, uncooth or un-pc.
I think we might see, over the coming days a number of groups trying to claim Mr. Carlin’s Corpse for their own, whatever stripe they may wear. They will look at his death as an opportunity to say that he was in in their Camp, shaman of their particular tribe as it were. I think George would have said it best, “go fuck yourself!” he was his own man and walked his own path, wearing only his own stripes and speaking only his own words.
Good-bye, you crazy hippy. May you rot in the earth and fertilize a lawn or two.