Thursday, May 20, 2010

The Importance of EDMD

Everybody Draw Muhammed Day is upon us. I've sort of thought it to be an amusing happening that would aid in creating long run tolerance in the Islamic world by needling the religion as Christianity is so very often needled.

Until I saw this video. Courtesy of atheismo, this video really drives home just why EDMD is so important.

Thursday, May 13, 2010

Reasons to keep kosher


So Burger King has a new 'Country Pork' sandwich. As your loyal servant in experimenting with the unknown and inherently dangerous, I decided to try it.
This was not planned, it was a whim while out running errands. It was about 8 pm and I hadn't eaten since noon, so the concept of a breaded pork sandwich from a fast food restaurant somehow seemed appealing.
I had yet to see any ads for this heavyweight hog-slice, and only knew about it from the window signs they had up on the way to the drive thru. I'd normally have a promo pic here for you but I can't seem to find it, so here's a photo I took of the thing before attempting to eat it.




The sandwich its self is sizable to say the least, but given the steakhouse line of sandwiches this was no suprise. Removing the top revealed that most of the bulk of my purchase was apparently a solid chunk of lettuce... slathered in mayo. And onions.



This should be fun.

First bite.



Odd... The flavor is... subdued. I was expecting more than this. It's like when a sneeze gets stuck. It's unsatisfying and oddly disconcerting. One is expecting a release, or an experience of some kind, and then - nothing. Maybe it will get better as I have some more...



Nope. That stuck sneeze sense of dissatisfaction compels you to keep eating, but after about 2/3 of the item has been consumed the compulsion to keep going is directly contested by the knowledge and sensation of having eaten a giant fried pork cutlet slathered in mayo.


By the end there were leavings, as all sandwiches will produce. However even these remnants were basted in the all pervasive mayonnaise, and ever-so-surprisingly consisted almost exclusively of lettuce. In retrospect the sandwich tastes mostly of grease and mayo.

Final verdict. 4/10. I don't feel as paralyzed as the Double Down made me feel, but I assuredly feel full. The most notable aspect of this is that my eyes actually feel odd. And at 1040 calories and 48 g of fat (15 saturated) I'm not all that surprised.

Monday, May 10, 2010

Elena Kagen: Incompetence Rewarded

Incompetence. Though Ace makes a good point that it should be "cronyism," incompetence is the name of the game in today's appointment of Elena Kagen to the Supreme Court. Hot Air has the story of exactly why I say that, and it's because of her ludicrously incompetent knowlege of actual facts in the recent Citizens United case:

ORAL ARGUMENT OF ELENA KAGAN

ON BEHALF OF THE APPELLEE GENERAL KAGAN: Mr. Chief Justice and may it please the Court: I have three very quick points to make about the government position. The first is that this issue has a long history. For over 100 years Congress has made a judgment that corporations must be subject to special rules when they participate in elections and this Court has never questioned that judgment. Number two -

JUSTICE SCALIA: Wait, wait, wait, wait. We never questioned it, but we never approved it, either. And we gave some really weird interpretations to the Taft-Hartley Act in order to avoid confronting the question.

GENERAL KAGAN: I will repeat what I said, Justice Scalia: For 100 years this Court, faced with many opportunities to do so, left standing the legislation that is at issue in this case — first the contribution limits, then the expenditure limits that came in by way of Taft-Hartley — and then of course in Austin specifically approved
those limits.

JUSTICE SCALIA: I don’t understand what you are saying. I mean, we are not a self — self-starting institution here. We only disapprove of something when somebody asks us to. And if there was no occasion for us to approve or disapprove, it proves nothing whatever that we didn’t disapprove it.

GENERAL KAGAN: Well, you are not a self-starting institution. But many litigants brought many cases to you in 1907 and onwards and in each case this Court turns down, declined the opportunity, to invalidate or otherwise interfere with this legislation.

JUSTICE KENNEDY: But that judgment was validated by Buckley’s contribution-expenditure line. And you’re correct if you look at contributions, but this is an expenditure case. And I think that it doesn’t clarify the situation to say that for100 years — to suggest that for 100 years we would have allowed expenditure limitations, which in order to work at all have to have a speaker-based distinction, exemption from media, content-based distinction, time-based distinction. We’ve never allowed that.

The last time I can remember someone screwing up the facts in a courtroom this badly, he sparked a revolution in Poker.





Let's just hope we never have to catch a glimpse of Elena Kagen's poker face.