AdamSmith

In advance of a busy holiday season, the FAA has offered helpful tips to deal with the fact that any airplane can crash and kill you at any time. http://www.theonion.com/video/faa-issues-holiday-reminder-that-planes-can-crash,34701/

I did the Clarke bit from memory, BTW. A decent memory is handy cover for not being that smart.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/02/turing-snowden-transatlantic-pact-modern-surveillance

Apt. Remember one of the reasons she gave for wanting to be VP: "to be in charge of the Senate."

Dear Sir: The locus of the contravariant tensor has noncommutative divergence in the region of the transfinite singularity. A simple extension of your theory leads at once to the obviously fallacious conclusion that the polarized proton flux will result in a heuristic phase imbalance of the hypergeometric catenary, so that... The standard nonsense reply that Arthur Clarke would send whenever some crackpot mailed him their "solution" to some scientific problem.

Nobody here but us sophomores.

Do try the recipe! It is an entirely different animal than American-style very sweet, tender-crumb pound cakes. Physically it is a robust thing that you can imagine coming out well in 19th-century ovens with very dubious heat control (however ovens actually worked back then). And the flavor pattern is different too -- the marrying of the mace, those fruit zests, and the currant flavor as it ages is the magic. As for the sweet potato hint, thankee. Never thought to use mace there, though I have found several other places (can't recall them right now) where replacing nutmeg with mace makes a big improvement in subtlety. Which makes sense with the two being related, mace being the covering of the seed which is nutmeg. My sweet potato innovation is to serve it as a savory side vegetable: Peel, quarter, boil, then mash with butter and thyme. This genius idea found on the back of the McCormick bottle of dried thyme of course! Delish.

That was what a Bechtel person told me about the Hanford tanks. Not exactly a surprise to them, but still an extreme vexation. The spent uranium and the other fission products mixed in with it are not just radioactive but also highly chemically reactive, on account of having huge electron shells to go with their large atomic number. Sitting in water, warmed by their own heat, has driven chains of chemical reactions over the decades that are proving very hard to characterize now. Thus the difficulties in devising methods of vitrification or other very-long-term stabilization techniques that we can be sure the nasty stuff won't eat its way out of. Not to mention its already leaking out of those tanks, which were never designed for the 60+ years they've been in service now. One might hope the situation in the commercial power industry wouldn't be quite as bad as in the get-'er-done damn-the-consequences military weapons complex, though I have no knowledge one way or the other.

I would love to see a recipe that you used and liked. An aunt of mine made an unbelievably good fruitcake each Christmas but we could never pry the recipe out of her. Alas, it went with her to the great beyond. She also made the only ambrosia I've ever really enjoyed. If anybody has a good recipe for that, the check will be in the mail.

PS Make that 12 ounces currants, not 1 lb.

Wonder if this might be the reason not to try that?

Anyone have favorite Christmas recipes to share? This is one of mine, an old-fashioned English recipe that makes a dense yellow fruited pound cake. Great holiday alternative if you don't like the dark batter and funny green things in traditional fruitcake. Gets better if you have the willpower to let it sit and age for at least a week. English Pound Cake 3 sticks butter 2+1/2 cups sugar 6 beaten eggs 1 tsp grated orange rind 1 tsp grated lemon rind 1 tsp lemon juice 1 tsp vanilla extract 4 cups plain flour 1+1/2 tsp baking powder 1+1/2 tsp mace 1 lb currants (macerated in brandy optional) Cream butter and sugar. Add eggs, rind, juice, vanilla. Mix. Sift flour with baking powder and mace. Fold into batter (reserve 1 Tbsp. to dredge currants). Dredge currants in 1 Tbsp flour mixture, fold into batter. Grease large tube pan, line with wax paper, grease paper. Spoon batter into pan; batter will be very stiff. Bake at 325 deg. 1+1/4 hours or a little longer, until tester comes out clean. Cool. Store in cool place without removing wax paper. Keeps indefinitely.

Now, you know that which was perilously distilled through radiator coils is not going right back into the gas tank.

The change is described in the company press release that NCBored linked to. The side note to the recipe is my own untested speculation -- neither mama nor I have made these cookies since Crisco changed. In fact I haven't baked anything with the "new" Crisco. Cook's Illustrated published test results showing no difference in baking performance. But enough cooking forums contain complaints about it that I took note. Several posters said they found a small amount of water would fix the problem, thus my guess that some butter could right the balance here. We have a bag of English walnuts lying around (poor substitute, but at hand) that I may use to test this out.

Update on the ongoing Yucca Mountain follies. The $38 billion nuclear waste fiasco Congress chose the site in 1987 as the country’s sole permanent nuclear repository. | AP Photo By DARIUS DIXON | 11/30/13 12:29 PM EST politico.com Doing nothing often has a cost — and when it comes to storing the nation’s nuclear waste, the price is $38 billion and rising. That’s just the low-ball estimate for how much taxpayers will wind up spending because of the government’s decades of dithering about how to handle the radioactive leftovers sitting at dozens of sites in 38 states. The final price will be higher unless the government starts collecting the waste by 2020, which almost nobody who tracks the issue expects. The first $15 billion is what the government spent on a controversial nuclear waste repository at Nevada’s Yucca Mountain until the Obama administration scrapped the project. The other $23 billion is the Energy Department’s estimate of the damages the government will have to pay to nuclear power utilities, which for the past 30 years have paid a fee to DOE on the promise that the feds would begin collecting their waste in 1998. Industry argues that the damages are closer to $50 billion — which raises the bottom line to $65 billion including the money spent on Yucca. The cost of the refunds is little known to the public, but it’s such a huge liability that DOE tracks the figure closely. The government is still fighting the utilities’ claims in court, but utilities have been racking up a string of wins. The costs of inaction don’t just include dollars. The lack of a final resting place for the waste means that each nuclear plant has to stockpile its own. Thousands of tons of waste are stranded at sites around the country, including at plants that have shut down. “I’m trying to think of some fancy words but at the end of the day it’s just a massive consumer rip-off,” said Greg White, a regulator on the Michigan Public Service Commission who also heads the nuclear waste panel for the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners. NARUC, which represents state-level regulators, won a legal victory this month when the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ordered DOE to stop collecting the fee. Salo Zelermyer, a former George W. Bush-era DOE attorney who works at the law firm Bracewell & Giuliani, says the waste program has “plainly broken down” and that the government had made “no discernable progress towards its commitments.” Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz also expressed frustration this month, calling the system of storing nuclear waste at reactors sites “politically unsustainable.” “For nuclear energy to be competitive here in the U.S. and ensure its safety and security abroad, we have to address the problem of disposition of used nuclear fuel and high-level waste,” Moniz said during a panel discussion at an American Nuclear Society meeting. He previously served on a blue-ribbon commission that advised Obama on changes to the nation’s nuclear waste policy. But like others in the Obama administration, Moniz maintains that Yucca Mountain is not “a workable option.” Congress chose the Nevada site in 1987 as the country’s sole permanent nuclear repository, but it continues to draw fierce opposition from many of the state’s residents and elected officials. One of its most powerful opponents is Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), who blocked funding for the project and pushed the Obama administration to kill it — something DOE did in 2010. Reid and Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) have long argued that the studies supporting the project were discredited because Congress short-circuited the site-selection process to focus solely on Yucca. The administration says the government needs to start over with a new waste site — and this time, the selection process must be “consent based” to win public acceptance. “When this Administration took office, the timeline for opening Yucca Mountain had already been pushed back by two decades, stalled by public protest and legal opposition, with no end in sight,” DOE spokeswoman Niketa Kumar said in an email. The end is still far off. DOE’s latest plan calls for a repository to open in 2048, although the department would try to open a temporary storage site by 2021. Even Yucca couldn’t be finished until at least 2027 if the government were to revive it immediately, the Government Accountability Office estimated last year. Meanwhile, DOE’s Nuclear Waste Fund has amassed more than $25 billion after utilities — and their customers — have paid $750 million a year since 1983 through a 0.1-cent charge for each nuclear-generated kilowatt-hour of electricity. The fund will continue to generate about $1 billion in interest each year, even though the appeals court zeroed out DOE’s further collection of the fee until Congress passes a new nuclear waste program or the agency dusts off Yucca Mountain. When it became clear DOE wasn’t fulfilling its end of the bargain, utilities began demanding that the government repay them for the costs they’ve incurred to store the waste on their own. They include the costs for reconfiguring the increasingly crowded spent-fuel pools, moving and packaging the used fuel rods and providing maintenance services such as on-site security. Utilities have filed at least 61 lawsuits in the past 15 years over the broken promise. And bills have ramped up quickly. Payments to utilities totaled $567 million by the end of September 2009, during Obama’s first year in office. Three years later, they amount to more than $2.6 billion, according to DOE financial reports. The Justice Department is pushing back hard against the utilities, but one lawyer who follows the cases said DOJ is no longer using the “scorched earth” approach it once had. The lawyer said that’s mainly because courts have agreed with many of the utilities’ claims, giving government attorneys fewer legal options to stanch the flow of cash. In another win for the utility side, the Court of Federal Claims on Nov. 14 ordered Treasury to pay $235 million to the owners of three decommissioned nuclear plants in the Northeast — Yankee, Maine Yankee and Connecticut Yankee — on top of a $160 million payment they extracted in February. Those sums cover the utilities’ expenses only through 2008. The costs for storing waste at plants with longer lifespans will undoubtedly be even higher because the utilities will have to move more spent fuel from cooling pools into longer-term dry casks. Each cask costs about $1 million plus handling. Seeking to head off future payments, the government has made some little-noticed changes to DOE’s waste contract with companies building new power reactors. Southern Co. and SCANA, which are building four reactors in Georgia and South Carolina respectively, essentially had to give up the major leverage points that power companies historically used to sue the government over waste storage. The new contract has a more flexible waste pickup schedule, limits the kinds of costs DOE is willing to compensate utilities for and caps certain damage claims. Still, Moniz said this summer that DOE projects the damages will total as much as $23 billion in the next 50 years — assuming the government can haul the waste to either a temporary or permanent site beginning in 2020. Just two years ago, DOE’s estimate was $15 billion. After 2020, the federal government will hand over an average of $500 million a year as a result of the lawsuits. The real twist of the knife for some DOE critics is that the agency doesn’t supply the money it’s losing in nuclear waste lawsuits. Payments to utilities are coming from every taxpayer through an indefinite Treasury account that pays for general litigation against the government. Some critics say this has amounted to a double tax for taxpayers who also happen to get their power from a nuclear plant. DOE has continued to justify the fee based on its latest nuclear waste strategy — the one that envisions opening a repository in 2048. But the appeals court mocked the agency’s defense and called some of DOE’s positions “obviously disingenuous.” DOE’s new plan came partly from the recommendations of the 15-member panel that Moniz participated in, which was led by former Rep. Lee Hamilton (D-Ind.) and former National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft. Critics like White say they respect the commission’s work but doubt the administration’s sincerity. “I’m not convinced, right at the moment, that the Department of Energy, under this current administration, has any interest in doing anything related to this program,” White said. “They’re basically biding time until the current president is no longer in office.” Meanwhile, attempted fixes in Congress have moved at a snail’s pace. Two years ago, Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, the top Republican on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, introduced a bill with Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) to fast-track the approval of interim storage sites by offering large financial incentives for the communities hosting them. But the sizable price tag would have been peanuts compared with the liability taxpayers are facing. Since then, Murkowski has worked with Senate energy panel Chairman Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Sens. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) and Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) to address the price tag while acknowledging the political reality of Reid’s opposition to Yucca. But their bill has stalled this year amid other congressional crises. “Sen. Murkowski still believes that Yucca should still be on the table and that a permanent repository is necessary,” said her spokesman Robert Dillon. “But in the interim, while there are political roadblocks to that, that doesn’t mean you quit working on the liability issue.” Their legislation would create a new agency to handle nuclear waste and allow it to set up temporary storage locations, while requiring utilities to settle their lawsuits against the government in exchange using the storage sites. Former South Carolina regulator David Wright objected to that tradeoff. Forcing utilities to settle would “perpetuate the untenable situation of prolonged on-site dry cask storage,” he wrote the energy committee. White also found the requirement hard to swallow, saying it could damage hopes for DOE to act on a permanent repository. “If utilities have to waive their rights to damage claims then where is there any kind of impetus for the department to do anything?” he asked. http://www.politico.com/story/2013/11/nuclear-waste-fiasco-100450.html

MAMA'S BLACK WALNUT COOKIES 2/3 cup Crisco (says original recipe, but I would use half Crisco and half butter, after they recently changed the Crisco formula) 1/2 cup granulated white sugar 1/2 cup brown sugar (packed) 1 egg Mix above thoroughly, then blend in: 1 tsp vanilla 1/2 tsp baking soda 1/2 tsp salt 1+1/2 cup plain flour Stir in 1 cup chopped nuts. Preheat oven to 375 deg. Drop dough by teaspoonful 2 inches apart on ungreased baking sheet. Bake 8-10 minutes until delicately browned. Cool slightly before removing from pan. Cookies will become crisp when cool. Yields 4-5 dozen cookies.

Not my strong suit, you know. See C2H5OH. Then too, vox populi. Voting right now is 50% Too Much, 50% Just Right. So, a compromise? Just as Oz created the Pornification forum in response to Lucky's complaint that porn posts were crowding out others in the General forum, how about a new forum: Scat, Farts, and Stupid Butt Jokes That would leave only the need for a Television forum to corral what Lucky rightly termed "TV Guide stuff," a form of posting detritus on which he and I are in heated agreement.

Touché. Super Monkey Poop Fight http://www.freeonlinegames.com/embed/2523 Description Super Monkey Poop Fight is a retro style platform game. You're an escaped monkey. trying to get home, but you will encounter numerous enemies along the way, including gorillas, hunters, tribal people and other monkeys. Use the A key to throw your poop and the S key to jump. Eat the bananas to fill your poop meter and climb the vines to avoid the enemies. Shoot all the enemies to proceed further and avoid getting hit at all cost or you will die. Instructions � Move Left / Right or Duck = Left / Right or Down Arrow Keys � Jump = S Key � Throw Poop = A Key � Run = Left or Right Arrow Keys + A Key � Climb Vines = S Key + Up Arrow Key http://www.freeonlinegames.com/game/super-monkey-poop-fight

Kindly cut out the crap, chaps People have been talking "crap" in parliament. Literally. The Speaker, John Bercow, has spoken about the usage of the word in the House of Commons. Labour MP Bill Esterson used the word in reference to what David Cameron said about dropping environmental policies or, as Cameron is said to have put it, "green crap". Esterson wanted the prime minister to explain what he meant by "green crap". Then Tory MP Alok Sharma tweeted about "EUredtapecrap". Suddenly, crap was getting out of hand. Crap was flying everywhere. What could be done about all this crap? Enter Bercow, who said that "crap" was not a parliamentary word and it would not be tolerated under normal circumstances in the Commons. People could not call each other crap or start raging that policies were crap. All that crap had to go. However, crap could be used if quoting something said elsewhere, as in Cameron and his "green crap". That crap could stay. Please brace yourself as I'm going to use my more in sorrow than anger tone. It's as if Bercow were in a headmaster's study, addressing a bunch of uncouth 14-year-olds who'd been caught by matron smelling strongly of homebrewed cider and Golden Virginia. How old are these people, these elected political representatives, that they need it to be clarified that spouting crap should be considered unnecessary unless, of course, it becomes absolutely necessary? Some might say that the fact that the Speaker of the Commons had to "offer guidance" to a bunch of parliamentarians on the right and wrongs of "crap" is in itself more than a bit, well, crap. I'm sorry to report that there are no winners here. http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/dec/01/women-same-sex-experimenting

Hey! Who you calling Bert Lahr?

Actually I would see several wild turkeys in densely suburban Cambridge, MA in any given year. Always one at a time, never more.

When hito and I celebrate our first holiday season as a couple: And for truly catholic tastes: http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_wb8bAl1P-N0/TOPpVn0K1UI/AAAAAAAAR0g/htdPVgoaOJA/s400/the_labia_menorah___small.jpeg

A bit of good news from the U.K., advancing same-sex rights over the claim that religious freedom should trump civil rights. Hazelmary And Peter Bull, Christian Hotel Owners Who Turned Away Gay Couple, Lose AppealReuters | Posted: 11/27/2013 7:17 am EST * Case highlights shift in British views on homosexuality * Christians said wanted only married couples at hotel By Estelle Shirbon LONDON, Nov 27 (Reuters) - Britain's Supreme Court rejected on Wednesday an appeal from a devoutly Christian couple who denied two gay men a room at their hotel, saying this constituted discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation. In its judgment, the court said the high-profile case and the legal issues it had raised were "a measure of how far we have come in the recognition of same-sex relationships". The Christian couple had argued that they should not be forced to facilitate what they regard as a sin by allowing unmarried couples to share a bed. They argued they were discriminating against homosexuals only "indirectly" because they would also have refused a room to unmarried heterosexuals. The court rejected their argument, noting that the gay couple were in a civil partnership, a union for same-sex couples recognised under British law which gives very similar rights to those enjoyed by heterosexual married couples. "Marriage and civil partnership exist both to recognise and to encourage stable, committed, long-term relationships. It is very much in the public interest that intimate relationships be conducted in this way," the court ruled. "Now that, at long last, same-sex couples can enter into a mutual commitment which is the equivalent of marriage, the suppliers of goods, facilities and services should treat them in the same way." "MARRIED HETEROSEXUALS ONLY" The Christian couple, Hazelmary and Peter Bull, refused to let Steven Preddy and Martyn Hall stay in a double room at the Chymorvah House hotel in Cornwall, southwest England, in 2008. The hotel's online booking form stated at the time that the owners were devout Christians who preferred to let double rooms to "heterosexual married couples only". However, Preddy booked the room by telephone and was not made aware of the policy until he and his partner arrived at the hotel and were rebuffed. Reported in the media, the incident caused widespread outrage in Britain. Preddy and Hall took legal action against the Bulls, supported by the Equality and Human Rights Commission. A county court and the Court of Appeal both ruled that the Bulls had discriminated against the gay couple. The Bulls then asked the Supreme Court to overturn the Court of Appeal ruling, but the Supreme Court justices unanimously dismissed their appeal. Same-sex couples will be able to marry from 2014 in England and Wales under a new law passed by the British parliament in July this year. (Editing by Gareth Jones) http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/27/christian-gay-hotel-appeal-loss_n_4349105.html?utm_source=concierge&utm_medium=onsite&utm_campaign=sailthru%2Bslider%2B

http://www.boytoy.com/forums/index.php?/topic/2449-zany-brits/ http://www.boytoy.com/forums/index.php?/topic/14663-scratchy-bottom-beats-brokenwind-but-shitterton-takes-the-prizefor-unfortunate-place-names/