To my readers (both of you) - posting has been light lately, as I’ve been working on a project coding a new site for a friend’s business. This has meant teaching myself Joomla, which I had never used on a live site, as well as a bunch of PHP and CSS hacking. Hopefully I can post a bit later today.
For you fatbloggers, 218.1!
This will be a weekly feature from here on - a playlist of songs centered around a theme. This week includes ten songs from One to Ten. Artists include Metallica, Slackjaw, Astronaut, Miles Davis, Chab, Rhythm Pigs, Darling New Neighbors, The Scooters, Black Eye and Mobtown.
Yesterday was the first day I wanted to eat my stress, so to speak. No luck on the job front, the kids being kids, and so forth and all of a sudden a sleeve of thin mints sounded pretty good. But fatbloggers have to stick together, so I didn’t. Thus only a tenth of a pound, and I’m still on track to end the week at 21x.
Today’s recipe is for a lower-cal recipe for beef fajitas:
12 oz. boneless beef round steak
1/2 c. nonfat italian salad dressing
1/2 c. salsa
2 T. lime or lemon juice
1 t. Worcestershire sauce
4 10 inch flour tortillas, warmed
nonstick cooking spray
1 medium onion, thinly sliced and separated into rings
1 medium sweet pepper, cut into thin strips
3/4 c. chopped tomato
1/4 of a small avocado, peeled and cut into 4 slices
1/4 c. shredded reduced-fat monterey jack or cheddar cheese
1/4 c. salsa
Trim fat from beef. Partially freeze beef; thinly slice across the grain into bite size strips. Place beef strips in a plastic bag set in a deep bowl. For marinade, in a small mixing bowl stir together the salad dressing, the 1/2 cup salsa, the lime or lemon juice and the Worcestershire sauce. Pour over beef in bag. Seal bag and turn beef to coat well. Marinate beef in the refrigerator for 6 to 24 hours, turning the bag occasionally.
Spray large skillet with cooking spray and preheat over medium heat. Add the onion to the skillet and stir-fry for 1-2 minutes. Add the sweet pepper and cook for 1-2 minutes more or until vegetables are crisp-tender. Remove vegetables from skillet.
Add undrained beef strips to skillet; stir-fry for 2-3 minutes. Return vegetables to skillet. Add chopped tomato and cook 1 minute more or until hot.
To serve, immediately spoon the beef-vegetable mixture onto warm tortillas. Top each with an avocado slice, cheese and remaining salsa. Roll tortillas around filling.
4 servings. Each serving provides 341 calories, 13 g total fat, 24 g protein, 32 g carbohydrate and 2 g dietary fiber.
A victory of sorts - the Girl Scout cookie (or on, egad, MySpace) order came home last night, including Thin Mints, Tagalongs, Samoas and All Abouts. Obviously, we ordered these before deciding to make a lifestyle change. The kids have been downing them like crazy, but I abstained for now. But the Thin Mints are calling to me even now…
Another night, another recipe from BH&G’s Family Favorites Made Lighter. This time, a version of Coq au Vin.
4 small chicken breast halves (1 1/2 pounds total)
Nonstick cooking spray
2 c. small whole mushrooms
1 c. thinly sliced carrots
1 c. burgundy (I actually used Two Buck Chuck cab)
16 pearl onions, peeled
1 T. cooked and crumbled bacon
1 T. snipped parsley
2 cloves garlic, minced
3/4 t. dried marjoram
3/4 t. dried thyme
1/2 t. instant chicken bouillon granules
1/8 t. pepper
1 bay leaf
1/4 c. cold water
4 t. all-purpose flour
Remove skin from chicken. Rinse chicken; pat dry. Spray a cold large nonstick skillet or dutch oven with nonstick coating. Preheat over medium heat. Cook chicken in the hot skillet about 15 minutes or until lightly browned, turning to brown evenly.
Add the mushrooms, carrots, burgundy, onions, bacon, parsley, garlic, marjoram, thyme, bouillon, pepper and bay leaf. Bring to boiling; reduce heat. Cover and simmer 25 minutes or until the chicken is tender and no longer pink.
Use a slotted spoon to transfer the chicken and vegetables to dinner plates; cover and keep warm. Discard bay leaf. In a small bowl gradually stir the water into the flour until smooth. Stir into mixture in skillet. Cook until thickened and bubbly. Cook one minute more. Pour sauce of chicken and vegetables.
4 servings. Each serving contains 225 calories, 6 g total fat, 21 g protein, 12 g carbohydrate, 2 g dietary fiber.
If you’re like me and love caffeine but hate “energy drinks”, it’s good news that Pepsi plans to introduce Pepsi Max, which will include extra caffeine and ginseng. Apparently, one-third more caffeine than in Diet Mountain Dew (which has 55 mg). This would put Pepsi Max on par with Jolt and Red Bull, but still significantly below coffee (115 - 175 mg).
Q: When is a missile not a missile?
A: When it’s actually a cup of soda from McDonalds.
Earlier yesterday, a weeping Hall, 25, thanked Judge Frank A. Hoss Jr. in Stafford Circuit Court after he reduced a jury’s recommended two-year sentence to the seven weeks she has spent in jail and ordered she serve probation.
Hall, a mother of three young children who lives at Camp Lejeune, N.C., was convicted in January of maliciously throwing a missile into an occupied vehicle. The jury’s recommended sentence was the minimum for the felony charge.
No one was injured in the July 2 incident on Interstate 95 in Stafford, in which Hall threw a cup of ice and soda at another car while in a traffic backup. Eliza Fowle, 28, was a passenger in that vehicle, driven by her boyfriend, Pete Ballin, 36.
The prosecutor, of course, was undeterred by arguments that Hall’s actions were relatively harmless.
Prosecutor George Elsasser argued for imposing the sentence, saying actions such as Hall’s pose a danger. He cited a Stafford case from 2000 in which three teenagers were killed when a teen tossed an egg at their car, leading to a chase.
“The alternative is a free-for-all out on the road,” Elsasser said.
No, the alternative is prosecutors who actually apply reason when deciding whether, and with what, to charge a criminal defendant. Does Elsasser really believe motorists are going to start chucking Dr. Pepper at each other just because they’ll only spend seven weeks in jail instead of two years? Maybe he’s just worried that someone will mess up his best suit.
In all seriousness, this case points out the problems with mandatory minimum sentences. If the judge hadn’t had the opportunity to reduce the sentence, you’d have someone in prison for two years for chucking a beverage.
If you are a conservative, then Conservapedia should be embarrassing to you. Formed ostensibly to counteract perceived anti-Christian and anti-American bias in Wikipedia, the effort wouldn’t pass muster in a reasonably-challenging public middle school. Take, for example, the entry that came up for me when I asked for a random page:
Pilgrims were people (mostly puritans) in the 1600’s that traveled to the American Colonies because of persecution in England. These settlers started the very first settlement in the American colonies, Jamestown.
It’s amazing you can get that much wrong in only two sentences. The pilgrims were mostly puritans, but they came as part of the Plymouth Company in 1620 to Massachusetts. Jamestown was established in 1607 by the Virginia Company of London, not by pilgrims. The 144 settlers did not flee Anglican persecution when traveling to Virginia. And Jamestown, while the first permanent English colony in the New World to survive, was not the first attempt. It was the 19th.
Try it for yourself - Random Conservapedia page.
Since the site’s existence hit the blogs, there have been some efforts to improve the inanity. Compare the current page on faith to what it originally said:
Faith is a uniquely Christian concept that means trust or complete confidence in something unseen. The term lacks a precise definition. In English the word comes from the Latin word “fidere”, meaning “to trust”.
The concept of faith does not exist in other major religions. While faith is mentioned 229 in the New Testament, faith is mentioned only twice in the Old Testament (KJV). In an English translation of the Koran (Islam), the concept of submission to Allah is mentioned 11 times, but faith in Allah is only mentioned once.
The term “faith” is often misused to describe the belief systems of other religions.[1]
There are clearly problems with Wikipedia. It is generally, but clearly not always, accurate. Pages on controversial topics are often riddled with bias, leading to lockdowns to prevent edit wars. It keeps the learning curve intentionally high to prevent the unwashed masses from participating. But the Conservapedia is ridiculous.
[via Pharyngula]
The aptly named, simple yet addictive Flash game Virus 2. To win, you “infect” neighboring cells to get the entire grid the same color. Damn you, Kottke!
Doc Searls points out some problems with the XM-Sirius merger.
1) Antitrust. There are too few companies — just two — in satellite radio here in the U.S.; and soon there will be only one. Imagine if one company owned the whole FM band. It’s like that. (Yes, I know Clear Channel sort-of does in many places, but what’s dead about terrestrial radio is not on the table here.) The only thing keeping this merger out of antitrust territory is the still experimental nature of the whole medium, and the fact that neither company as it stands is known for its profitability. (Sirius reported positive cash flow only late last year.)
All true to a certain extent, but the key with new technologies is that while they compete with one another, the most important competition is with the existing technology. Thus, even though you are reducing the number of competitors to one, the usual antitrust concerns don’t apply. Xirius can’t raise the price of a satellite radio receiver to $500 or increase the monthly rate to $50, because subscribers would just return to terrestrial radio or CDs or iPods. Consolidation might mean less innovation, but it won’t lead to any abuse of market power. It’s the same reason a merger of Dish Network and DirecTV wouldn’t really harm consumers (at least not economically). And to a certain extent such a consolidation helps consumers if it makes satellite radio a more effective competitor to Clear Channel.
2) Program quality. The new company will presumably encourage production of radios that receive both services, which will be nice. But what will lack of competition between Sirius and XM do for programming on either of the former sides? There may be more money to buy better quality talent or whatever; but I find it hard to imagine how a drop in competition will improve anything. Which brings us to…
Here Doc has a point. If XM and Sirius aren’t competing against each other, there will be a chance that programming will deteriorate (or at least stagnate). Thus far, however, the companies have only differentiated through exclusive deals. Want Howard Stern or NPR or the NFL? Get Sirius. Bob Edwards or MLB? Only on XM. As long as that is the case, consumers could still be helped by the merger. I like NPR and football, but hate Stern. So I get XM for the baseball and give up on the other two. With Xirius, I can get what I want. And if they introduce a la carte programming, I really get what I want. And the satrad company won’t cut back on programming; they need it to compete against terrestrial radio.
3) Monoculture. I don’t care how diverse the programming becomes, it’s still coming from too few companies. When the choice gets down to one, I guarantee that programming will have a homogenous quality to it. There’s already a self-sameness to both Sirius and XM, and that’s sure to be the case with Xirius or whatever they call the new company. And I say this as a generally pleased Sirius customer. At some point Xirius’ homogeneity will not compete against the absolute heterogeneity that listeners already find outside the walled garden(s) of satellite radio.
Maybe. I haven’t noticed the same homogeneity on XM, but maybe it’s just me. I listen to a lot of the news channels, sports radio, and a handful of music channels. If your listening habits are different, your experience may be different. Also, satellite radio homogeneity is nothing compared to terrestrial radio homogeneity. At least with XM, I can find a station playing something other than the latest American Idol wannabe and Justin Timberlake.
4) Obsolescence. When the two services started (around a decade ago), a total of 300 different “channels” (around 150 apiece) seemed like a lot. The program choices for listeners on either XM or Sirius far exceeded the sum of available sources from terrestrial radio. But now the sum of all program choices runs into the thousands or perhaps even millions. Yes, satellite radio is live while most of the other choices are just stored files; but files are easier to distribute and lend themselves to iPod-style listening. (On the “T” this morning here in Boston, I noted that a quarter of all the commuters in my subway car were listening to something on earphones. I’m sure it wasn’t radio — satellite or otherwise.) As Dave says, listeners want to program their own “stations”. Many listeners, which we used to call “consumers” are now also producers, for themselves and others. Where does satellite radio fit in that picture? I don’t think even Mel Karmazin knows. Meanwhile, the whole system continues to leverage an understanding of How Radio Works that is, to say the least, not current — much less future-proof.
This will be true someday, but I don’t think it’s true yet. Sure, I can use iTunes to subscribe to thousands of different podcasts, but frankly most of them are crap. And even the better podcasts don’t (to my ear at least) have the production quality of XM. Again, we’ll get there, but we’re not there yet. And podcasts and other digital media will never replace live news broadcasts or live sports programming. So there will be a place for satellite radio. Now, if WiFi or WiMax or whatever became so ubiquitous that I could use an internet-enabled radio to play live streams, then satellite radio would be obsolete.
Overall, I don’t necessarily disagree with Doc, but as an XM subscriber, I tend to think the merger will be a net benefit unless the merged company has to substantially increase rates to cover costs, at which point the industry will be dead and selling off satellites cheap.
Yesterday’s rundown of the Democratic candidates didn’t look much at foreign policy. That’s a subject for a different post. But John Edwards keeps showing that as bad as his healthcare plan is, he’s better off talking about new taxes for health insurance than trying to wrap his bubble head around foreign policy. Speaking in Hollywood, Edwards says that Israel is the real threat to Middle East peace.
The aggressively photogenic John Edwards was cruising along, detailing his litany of liberal causes last week until, during question time, he invoked the “I” word — Israel. Perhaps the greatest short-term threat to world peace, Edwards remarked, was the possibility that Israel would bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities. As a chill descended on the gathering, the Edwards event was brought to a polite close.
Ah. So the problem is not giving nuclear weapons to the homicidal cult leader in Iran, the one who declared his intention to destroy another nation. The real problem is the threatened country trying to get rid of the nuclear weapons. Got it.
Aggressively photogenic is about right.
[via Powerline]
