Quotulatiousness

October 30, 2010

“North Americans have gotten used to ‘licorice’ that tastes like strips of laminated DQ menus”

Filed under: Europe, Food, Randomness — Tags: — Nicholas @ 11:28

A. Brouwer and A. Wilson lament the so-called “licorice” that benighted North Americans put up with:

A Twizzler is to genuine licorice what Edward Cullen is to Vlad The Impaler: empty calories. The real thing is an unmistakable, reverberant, compellingly Gothic experience, older than a crumbling castle and just a little bit spooky (Tutankhamen’s tomb was stocked with copious amounts of licorice). The tenacious, pale-flowered licorice shrub is related to the pea family, and is found in Southern Europe and Asia. Its long yellow-brown roots contain the distinctive licorice ingredient in addition to a compound that is 30 times more powerful than cane sugar. Boiling the roots produces infusions and extracts; crushing and drying them yields sticks for chewing. Like marshmallow, licorice root was originally used medicinally (to treat bronchial ailments, reduce pain from ulcers and arthritis, and relieve anxiety), long before it evolved into a sweet treat. Licorice confectionery is created by adding sugar and a binding agent to the extract, often with added anise (although their flavours are similar, anise is not related to the licorice plant — but it is cheaper). Other ingredients in traditional licorice candy may include molasses, honey, menthol, fruits and berries. The pulped block licorice sold to manufacturers often absorbs flavour from bay leaves used for packing.

The largest exporter of licorice extract is Spain, followed by Russia and Italy; their products range in taste from mild to sharply peppery. The Dutch in particular are crazy for the dark stuff, selling zoet drops in market bins in the shapes of animals, coins and lucky charms. European licorice confectionery tends to be hard and salty, as distinct from the soft, sweet U.S. type. Which brings us back to Halloween here at home, and — sigh — the bogusness of those shiny black ropes. Genuine licorice tastes like a cross between a wizard’s apothecary and the best sugar ever; sadly, North Americans have gotten used to “licorice” that tastes like strips of laminated DQ menus.

“People, when faced with a choice, will inevitably choose the Dick-Measuring Device over molestation”

Filed under: Bureaucracy, Liberty, Technology, USA — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 11:01

Air travel, already burdened with far too many special Security Theatre Extravaganzas, is about to get even more awful:

This past Wednesday, I showed up at Baltimore-Washington International for a flight to Providence, R.I. I had a choice of two TSA screening checkpoints. I picked mine based on the number of people waiting in line, not because I am impatient, but because the coiled, closely packed lines at TSA screening sites are the most dangerous places in airports, completely unprotected from a terrorist attack — a terrorist attack that would serve the same purpose (shutting down air travel) as an attack on board an aircraft.

[. . .]

At BWI, I told the officer who directed me to the back-scatter that I preferred a pat-down. I did this in order to see how effective the manual search would be. When I made this request, a number of TSA officers, to my surprise, began laughing. I asked why. One of them — the one who would eventually conduct my pat-down — said that the rules were changing shortly, and that I would soon understand why the back-scatter was preferable to the manual search. I asked him if the new guidelines included a cavity search. “No way. You think Congress would allow that?”

I answered, “If you’re a terrorist, you’re going to hide your weapons in your anus or your vagina.” He blushed when I said “vagina.”

“Yes, but starting tomorrow, we’re going to start searching your crotchal area” — this is the word he used, “crotchal” — and you’re not going to like it.”

In other words, enough people are refusing to go through the “Dick Measuring Device” that TSA is deliberately going to make the alternative so invasive and degrading that people will have to go through the back-scatter imager. Not that it will actually improve anyone’s safety, but it will increase the compliance ratio for the next stupid policy to come down from the security theatre directors.

H/T to BoingBoing for the link.

Shakespeare in the original pronunciation

Filed under: Britain, History, Media — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 10:18

It doesn’t sound much like your traditional Shakespeare production does it?

Like an archeologist reconstructing the fossilized skeleton of an ancient species, a University of Kansas theatre professor has pieced together the bones of a form of English that has never been heard in North America in modern times — the original pronunciation of Shakespeare.

Thanks to the work of Paul Meier, audiences can get a sense of what it might have been like to eavesdrop on opening night of “Hamlet” or “Romeo and Juliet” at the Globe Theater in London or to listen in on a shipboard conversation on the Mayflower as it approaches the shores of the New World.

“What did English sound like back then?” Meier said. “Was it posh or down to earth? Was it anything like today’s British or American English? Would we understand it?”

H/T to A Blog About History for the link.

Another way to exasperate your customers

Filed under: Technology — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 10:12

Clive sent me a snippet from Thom Hogan’s Nikon Field Guide (no direct linking to the article, apparently):

I’ve never been a big fan of complicated DRM systems, and I’m not sure that they actually work to prevent real theft of software any better than loose or no systems do. This argument started back in the 70’s. I remember having a conversation with Seymour Rubenstein about DRM vis-a-vis WordStar (Seymour was the founder and owner of MicroPro, the producers of WordStar). Seymour’s take was that you couldn’t prevent illegal copying and that some of that illegal copying eventually led to sales that you wouldn’t have otherwise gotten (usually at an update cycle back then, as we didn’t have the Internet to provide instant access). My own experience with DRM in Silicon Valley was similar. Indeed, I’d say that all heavy-handed DRM does is increase your Customer Support costs. But all this just masks the real problem: Nikon’s software costs too much, does too little, and is poorly updated and maintained. So adding tight DRM to the product just pisses the customer off even more when they get hit with it incorrectly.

October 29, 2010

Why some vintage dates matter more than others

Filed under: Australia, Cancon, Environment, France, Randomness, Wine — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 12:36

If you’re not a wine fan, you may wonder why wine snobs pay so much attention to vintage dates. If you drink the occasional bottle of “Raunchy ‘Roo Red” or “Zesty Zebra Shiraz”, the vintage dates matter very little: by the name, you’d guess they’d be from Australia or South Africa, both hot climate wine countries. Vintage dates are much less important for hot climate wines: the variation from year to year is relatively small. As Michael Pinkus points out, however, it matters a great deal for cool climate wine countries:

Many wine drinkers never notice the vintage date on the wine they are drinking — they just blindly go off buying wine. I talk to many people and very few know what year they’re drinking, just the producer. In a wine region like Ontario that’s a odd way to be drinking your wine. We’re a cool climate region after all and if you don’t understand the difference between a good vintage wine a mediocre vintage wine you could be stuck with a lot of 2003s in your cellar for 10 years or more. The key is to know their drink-ability (2003) or conversely, know how long you should be holding onto wines like [these], a few extra years of aging will give these wines time to mature and integrate, drink them too early and you’ll miss out on all the fun.

In a cool climate region (Ontario, Bordeaux, New Zealand) Vintage date means more than in a hot climate region (Australia, Argentina, Chile) — there temps are always beautiful (read: warm and sunny) and vintage variation plays little part in the finished wine; while in a cool climate region harvest is a waiting game and in many years prayer is a grape farmers best friend.

Take 2010 for instance, this year has the likelihood and pedigree to be even better than the much lauded 2007. What makes 2010 better? Glad you asked. While 2007 had lots of heat and little rain (which grapes love), 2010 has been a longer growing season, with lots of heat and rain has come at the “appropriate” times. If you’ll recall our winter was very mild and bud break occured in April, at that time the prayer for farmers was the ‘Psalm of No Frost’. A longer growing season with lots of heat means good grapes — but that does not always apply to all grapes, but that’s really a discussion for another time.

Most determine a good season by how well the red grapes are going to be — in a cool region white grapes grow well year-after-year — but many of the Bordeaux red grapes struggle (Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc). 2007 was a great year for the usual Bordeaux varietals as well as others reds that don’t often ripen fully under the Ontario skies.

Would KFC’s Double Down have been a hit without the Food Police panic?

Filed under: Bureaucracy, Cancon, Food, Health, Liberty — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 12:13

Lorne Gunter salutes KFC and their surprise hit menu item:

Way to go KFC! Your Double Down sandwich has the health police in a tizzy. Those preachy, prancing, eat-your-peas pokenoses can’t decide whether to tax you, shield their children’s eyes from you or send you to re-education camp — or perhaps all three at once.

I’m am happy to hear your new bun-less concoction is your most successful new-product launch in company history. May the marketing mastermind who came up with the Double-D get an unhealthy bonus.

To be honest, I can’t even imagine trying one — two deep-fried chicken breasts wrapped around two strips of bacon, two slices of processed cheese and some sauce doesn’t appeal to me — except maybe as a dare; a Double Down Dare. Still, I am genuinely pleased that you have had the chicken balls to come out with an item that thumbs its nose so completely at conventional public-health wisdom.

I’ll never eat one myself, but I cheer on the spirit of those who tell the Nanny State’s food police where to go.

The Two Scotts disagree over Vikings-Patriots

Filed under: Football — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 09:47

Scott Feschuk and Scott Reid each pick the other team in their weekly football column:

Feschuk: Like sands through the hourglass, so are the days of the Minnesota Vikings. Welcome to the NFL’s hottest soap opera, where tensions are running so high between Brett Favre and Brad Childress that it’s only a matter of time until they get in a fistfight or start making out. Favre has described his injury as a “broke foot” because he’s from Mississippi and words like “fractured” and “ankle” done got too many dem fancy “syllbulls” in ’em. Will Favre’s ankle be healthy enough for him to play but painful enough that he can limp around engendering our collective sympathy? We sure hope and also know so. Meanwhile, Childress keeps taking shots at his own players — most recently by saying he hopes he that “one of these days” he gets to coach a team as mentally tough as the Patriots. If the Vikings somehow turn this around, Childress may be the first NFL coach to be doused with Gatorade, then sealed inside the empty jug and rolled down a hill onto the interstate. Pick: Minnesota.

Reid: According to some reports, Brett Favre admits to sending suggestive texts to Jenn Sterger but denies he forwarded photographs of his wang chung. This is the beginning of the tried and true male tradition of the ‘half-lie.’ Confess to some sins (it’s generally smart to pick the lesser crimes that will prove to be eventually undeniable anyhow) in an effort to bolster your credibility as you reject the remaining — and usually more damaging — allegations. “Alright honey, I’ll admit: I gave that girl a ride in the car. Frankly, she looked a bit cold and I was already planning on driving by that spot under the bridge so it wasn’t even out of my way. But God as my witness, I did not let her touch me with her feet. She just made that part up to make me look bad in the eyes of my family, friends and law enforcement.” Of course, there are two vital steps to successfully pulling off the half-lie. First, you must volunteer the confession part early in order to pre-empt and create doubt about the really bad stuff. Second, yo, Kim Philby — have you ever heard of hotmail? Pick: New England.

An alarming argument against DNA testing

Filed under: Health, Law, Science — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 09:31

The actual article is behind a paywall (“Who’s the Daddy?” by Melanie McDonagh), so I haven’t read all of it. Andrew Stuttaford quotes a most disturbing paragraph, however:

DNA tests are an anti-feminist appliance of science, a change in the balance of power between the sexes that we’ve hardly come to terms with. And that holds true even though many women have the economic potential to provide for their children themselves . . . Uncertainty allows mothers to select for their children the father who would be best for them. The point is that paternity was ambiguous and it was effectively up to the mother to name her child’s father, or not . . . Many men have, of course, ended up raising children who were not genetically their own, but really, does it matter . . . in making paternity conditional on a test rather than the say-so of the mother, it has removed from women a powerful instrument of choice.

So, she’s against DNA testing to determine paternity because it reveals the truth? I’ve always discounted stories about women deliberately choosing to lie about who the father of a child is, but if this opinion is common, I’ve been mighty naive.

“When I was taking dope, I was fully convinced that my body is my temple”

Filed under: Health, Liberty, Media — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 09:28

The longevity of Keith Richards is a point of bafflement for drug warriors and rock groupies alike:

The Rolling Stone’s autobiography reveals a lifetime of substance abuse. Why on earth hasn’t it killed him?

His name is synonymous with rock ‘n’ roll excess, his memoirs detail a lifetime spent ingesting a Herculean quantity of illegal drugs and he only gave up cocaine, aged 62, after he split his head open falling from a tree while foraging for coconuts.

At 66, Keith Richards’ continued survival is a source of widespread bafflement.

According to addiction expert Dr Robert Lefever, director of the Promis recovery centre in Richards’ native Kent, there is only one possible explanation for his longevity: “He must have the constitution of an ox.”

October 28, 2010

It’s “like asking an alcoholic to run a distillery”

Filed under: Cancon, Economics, Military, Politics — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 13:26

The dissent on the announced purchase of F-35 fighter jets continues to gain traction:

In an interview on CBC’s Power and Politics last night, Industry Minister Tony Clement admitted we are buying the F-35s because the military wants them. “It is the best plane on the market. I will say on your program, I’m not the expert. The military are the experts. Why don’t the Liberals take the word of the Canadian military on that?” he asked.

Let me count the ways. A brief read of the A-G’s report on the purchase of military helicopters suggests a host of reasons why allowing the Department of National Defence to dictate procurement is like asking an alcoholic to run a distillery.

Sheila Fraser’s report concluded that National Defence knew, but did not tell the politicians, that the helicopter it wanted was not an “off-the-shelf “ model, with a relatively low risk of cost and time overruns.

In the event, the total cost for the 15 Chinook heavy lift helicopters more than doubled to $4.9-billion from the $2-billion price tag when the project was presented to the Conservative government and approved. Helicopters that were initially scheduled to be delivered last July, now won’t be ready until June 2013 — a state of affairs Ms. Fraser decried as “totally inappropriate”.

I’m not convinced that the F-35 is the aircraft Canada actually needs, and the DND’s track record on equipment purchases combined with the ultra-spendy pricetag on the F-35 make me concerned that they’re going to put themselves in the same state as the British armed forces by over-committing to kit that they (that is, we) can’t afford.

Clothing designers now in rumble with motorcycle gang

Filed under: Law, Randomness — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 12:09

Fight! Fight! Trademark case! Trademark case!

The Hells Angels are apparently going to war with British fashion house Alexander McQueen after accusing the couturiers of infringing on their trademarks.

The California-based motorcycle club, whose fearsome reputation includes the sudden and brutal application of trademark lawyers, believes the dressmakers, and its retailers, have overstepped the mark with a series of clothes and accessories featuring a skull and wings death head design.

Alexander McQueen, whose eponymous founder committed suicide earlier this year, allegedly sold items including a $495 Hells Four Finger Ring and a $1595 Hells Angels Jaquard Box Dress, the Hells Angels charge.

A significant indicator of social decline

Filed under: Economics, Government, Politics, USA — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 12:04

Monty puts his finger on the biggest social change since the 1960’s and posits the likely results:

The recipe for the decline and fall of the American republic: most people who receive government benefits will not willingly give them up, or even allow them to be reduced. They’ve been told that these benefits are a right so often by the so-called “progressives” that they’ve come to believe it, and any attempt to reduce their benefits amounts, in their eyes, to a civil-rights violation. This is what the welfare state leads to — an entire class of dependents who insist upon receiving the sweat of your brow not as charity or payment for services rendered, but as a birthright not to be denied them. Class warfare (between public-sector workers and taxpayers) and generational warfare (between the recipients of Medicare and Social Security and those who must fund it) is the only possible outcome if things do not change soon. And I don’t mean that in rhetorical or symbolic terms; I mean in actual, bloody, street-fighting terms. It’s the culture of grievance, of victimhood, of moral equivalence playing out in real time. As I wrote in an essay a while back, look at what’s happening in England and France right now. That is our future — only more violent — if we don’t change our ways.

Help some Canadian bloggers against “lawfare”

Filed under: Cancon, Law, Liberty, Media — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 08:03

Richard Warman is suing several Canadian bloggers (among many, many suits he’s launched), including Kathy Shaidle:

As many of you know, I — along with Ezra Levant and others — are already being sued by former Canadian “Human Rights” Commission employee Richard Warman.

Now my husband Arnie — a.k.a. the blogger BlazingCatFur — is also being sued by Warman, also for criticizing his activities at the CHRC.

Warman is suing for $500,000.

Arnie has already spent $10,000 in legal fees. We’ve put off asking for help for more than a year, but we now are coming to you for assistance.

Among the issues in the latest suit is the claim that merely linking to a “far right website” (in this case, SteynOnline) can be considered actionable.

New Orleans to abandon “crime camera” network

Filed under: Law, Liberty, USA — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 07:53

New Orleans installed a multi-million dollar camera network to try to reduce crime. It hasn’t been a good investment:

In seven years, New Orleans’ crime camera program has yielded six indictments: three for crimes caught on video and three for bribes and kickbacks a vendor is accused of paying a former city official to sell the cameras to City Hall.

Given that ignominious track record and the millions the city has paid for a camera network that rarely worked, Mayor Mitch Landrieu unceremoniously pulled the plug on the project Thursday.

“Most of us can agree that based on the way that they were installed, based on the way that they operated and the way that they were not maintained, that they were not a good investment,” Landrieu said as he announced his proposal to scratch the program from the city budget. The budget requires City Council approval.

For now, the cameras will stay in place, but won’t be maintained. Landrieu said he wants to wait to see if they are ever something they could use again before taking them down.

H/T to Bruce Schneier for the link.

October 27, 2010

Why can’t Chuck get his business off the ground?

Filed under: Bureaucracy, Economics, Government, Law, Liberty — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 13:13

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