By Chad on 2/8/2008
Some of the brouhaha recently with Al Gore winning the Nobel Prize got me thinking. Scientists recently have taken to raising alarms in political circles and the public arena, no longer content to simply publish their findings in a journal and let our elected officials do the right thing with the results. There’s one main reason for this: the politicos (especially the morally bankrupt sophists in the Bush administration) refuse to acknowledge the science, let alone do the right thing.
Continue reading “Political Activism in Science”
Posted in Politics, Religion, Science | Tagged Al Gore, Bill Nye, Creationism, evolution, global heating, global warming, Science |
By Chad on 2/8/2008
Fair warning: if you don’t like to hear about anybody’s bodily functions, skip this one.
Anybody with half a brain could tell you this, but you need to know the names of the medications you take, even those you only use occasionally – especially if you buy store-brand generics. I thought I remembered the generic name for Immodium (it’s loperamide HCl, btw), so when I was sick with some stomach bug yesterday, I popped two loratadine tablets and waited for the diarrhea to pass. After about 2 hours, I took another one when it hadn’t gone away. Then by 8PM I was suffering a brutal sinus headache, barely able to move my head. If I sneezed or tried to blow my nose, it felt like I was bashing my skull against the wall. When I complained to Jennie that my sinuses were killing me, she asked if I had taken any Sudafed yet. I replied that I hadn’t, and went to see if we had any in the bathroom.
Continue reading “Why It’s Important to Know Your Medications”
Posted in Personal | Tagged Claritin, Immodium, loperamide, loratadine, medicine |
By Chad on 10/14/2007
Click here to skip directly to the directions.
I have a confession: I really like Hamburger Helper. When I was in college, it was a cheap way to make a filling meal. Now that I’m a father, it’s an easy way to throw together dinner when I’m home alone with the girls or when it’s my turn to cook dinner. They also reheat very well – you can make some for dinner and then take the rest for lunch the next day with no trouble. There’s some I like quite a bit better than others – the ones with noodles or rice are usually pretty good, but the ones with dried potatoes are not quite so good.
A few months ago, Betty Crocker started marketing their Hamburger Helper Microwave Singles. They’re terrible. Part of what makes Hamburger Helper good is the fact that you still use fresh meat. The reconstituted beef in the Microwave Singles has a lousy texture and overall the flavor is pretty sub-par. I think Betty Crocker realizes this, because recently they started taking the microwave directions off the regular Hamburger Helper boxes!
Since the microwave is my preferred way to prepare it (it takes far less time and doesn’t splatter all over my stove), I went looking for directions online. Betty Crocker has directions for their 4 best-selling flavors in a FAQ, but the only one they have that I like is Lasagna. Since there doesn’t appear to be a single place online with microwave directions, I decided to grab the directions from the product descriptions on Amazon.com before they disappear there, too. I’ve included all of the Hamburger Helper brands, including Tuna Helper. Chicken Helper has never, to my knowledge, included microwave directions, and Pork Helper appears to be no more; my hunch is it was always just Chicken Helper with directions on how to cook the pork anyway. This list is not complete – if I couldn’t find it on Amazon.com or in the Betty Crocker FAQ, it isn’t here. If you have the directions for one I don’t, just leave a comment below!
Continue reading “Hamburger Helper Microwave Directions”
Posted in Food | Tagged Betty Crocker, Hamburger Helper, microwave, recipes |
By Chad on 10/12/2007
Fucking New York know-it-alls. Some smart ass on the New York Times website writes in a comment that Matt Holliday doesn’t deserve the MVP even though he led 2 out of 3 Triple Crown categories, because his home-road splits are .376/123/82/1.157 vs. .301/93/55/.859 (Avg./H/RBI/OPS). His supposed MVP? Jimmy Rollins, who was 20th in average with a total batting average of .296 (.301 at home). That’s right – this East Coast genius thinks a guy who didn’t hit as well overall as Holliday did on the road, and who could only match Holliday’s road average when he was home, deserves the award. Boy, that’s sure a convincing argument. Come back when you have a real candidate, you moron.
As for the original article, “Where Did Kazuo Matsui Come From?”, how about this: he’s playing for a fan base that appreciates him, and doesn’t boo him at every turn, as you oh-so-kind New Yorkers do whenever a player doesn’t meet your unrealistic expectations. Maybe if you actually supported your teams, instead of concentrating on every mistake and disrespecting every other team (especially teams that go 6-0 in back-to-back series against the Yankees and Mets, as the Rockies did this year), you would gain some satisfaction from the game.
Posted in MLB | Tagged baseball, Jimmy Rollins, Kaz Matsui, Matt Holliday, MVP, New York Times, Phillies, Rockies |
By Chad on 9/21/2007
Every time I read another article or column about Republican schemes to cheat their way into the White House, I get steamed. This time, I was reading Bob Herbert’s pair of columns from the New York Times (Sept. 18, Sept. 22). What’s sad is that nobody even cares anymore – we all just shrug and say, “that’s what Republicans do.”
Continue reading “Poisoning the Well”
Posted in Politics | Tagged Bush, criminal behavior, Democrats, dirty tricks, Lincoln, Nixon, recount, republicans, Swift Boat, teddy roosevelt, White House |
By Chad on 5/19/2007
Mark Helprin writes a rather disingenuous piece in the New York Times op-ed today, arguing that Congress needs to extend copyrights again, beyond the already-obscene author’s life plus 70 years.
What if, after you had paid the taxes on earnings with which you built a house, sales taxes on the materials, real estate taxes during your life, and inheritance taxes at your death, the government would eventually commandeer it entirely? This does not happen in our society … to houses. Or to businesses.
Once the state has dipped its enormous beak into the stream of your wealth and possessions they are allowed to flow from one generation to the next. Though they may be divided and diminished by inflation, imperfect investment, a proliferation of descendants and the government taking its share, they are not simply expropriated.
That is, unless you own a copyright.
Continue reading ““Intellectual Property” is not Real Property”
Posted in Politics, Software Libré | Tagged copyright, Disney, intellectual property, orphaned works, Project Gutenberg, public domain, Shakespeare |
By Chad on 12/18/2006
I’m calling B.S. on Commissioner Stern when he commented on Carmelo Anthony’s suspension. Yes, I agree that ‘Melo deserved a suspension, but suspending him longer than any other player involved in the fracas is ridiculous, especially when the whole mess was instigated by a hard foul at Coach Isiah Thomas’ direction.
“We judged him on his actions on the court, period,” Stern said. “And they deserved a harsh penalty.”
Bullshit. The fact is that ‘Melo is getting singled out for exceptional treatment because he is the best-known player involved. Stern is trying to send a message, and he’s using one of the league’s most visible (and admired) players to do it. Never mind that the mere fact that their leading scorer is getting suspended for any length of time already punishes the Nuggets disproportionately to the Knicks, who are terrible but staying afloat in a lousy conference. A 15-game suspension probably dooms the Nuggets to miss the playoffs in the West (unless they can still engineer a trade for Allen Iverson, but that seems unlikely). The Knicks might very well make the playoffs anyway.
Posted in NBA | Tagged Allen Iverson, Carmelo Anthony, David Stern, NBA, Nuggets, suspension |
