Later On

I have a head of Savoy cabbage, and I think I’ll make this recipe today, perhaps with some bacon added. The recipe is from Eggs on Sunday, a blog new to me that looks quite good. Go do a bit of browsing and you’ll see what I mean. Here’s the recipe:

Crunchy Lime Cabbage Slaw

1/2 head green cabbage, core removed and sliced very thinly (about 4 cups)
2 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
zest of 1 lime (about 1 tsp)
juice of 1 lime (about 2 tbsp)
1/4 cup chopped cilantro
coarse salt and pepper, to taste

Place the thinly sliced cabbage in a large bowl.

In a smaller bowl, whisk together the olive oil, lime zest, and lime juice. Pour over the cabbage and toss to combine. Add the chopped cilantro and toss until it’s distributed throughout. Season with coarse salt and pepper (you really do need to season it with salt) — start with about 1/4 tsp salt and work your way up from there if it needs it, according to your taste.

Let the cabbage sit at room temperature for about 30 minutes, to allow the flavors to meld.

Serves about 4.

UPDATE: Excellent. I’m using the other half head of the Savoy cabbage to make the recipe again. It was good even without bacon. How many dishes can say that? (Ans: None. Dishes can’t talk.)

Sometimes you find an excellent classic safety razor on eBay, in fine condition except for the finish. Although the finish is cosmetic, still it would be nice to have that same razor looking brand new. I recently learned that the guy behind SafetyRazors.co.uk, which I blogged about, also can replate nickel-plated razors. The difference in appearance once the razor’s been replated is amazing: take a look at the photos in this thread.

The article in the New Yorker on new weapons for warfare is fascinating. I highly recommend the article. What Jerry Baber has done is to create a lightweight fully automatic 12-gauge recoilless weapon, the AA-12. It fires 5 rounds/second and the 12-gauge shells can be loaded as need requires: solid slug, pellets (each around .20 caliber), mini-grenades, or non-lethal loads. The only thing missing that I can see is a suppressor. You can see it in action here.

Because the weapon is a) lightweight, b) recoilless, and c) is incredibly powerful, he came up with the idea of mounting it on small (about the size of a Radio Flyer wagon) unmanned robots and helicopters along with controls and a camera. In fact, the little robot carries dual AA-12s. With a remote control that includes a viewscreen, the robot (ground or helicopter) can provide surveillance and firepower without exposing a soldier to the enemy. The article talks about a larger ground robot, armed and carrying six of the smaller models. The larger robot could breach the enemy’s defenses (e.g., break through a wall), and then the smaller robots roll off into action and suddenly there are six highly armed and controlled robots wreaking havoc behind lines. The helicopter could be enlarged so that it, too, could transport round robots behind enemy lines and let them loose, under the control of soldiers safely behind their own lines.

The AA-12 is made of stainless steel and requires little cleaning or maintenance. If the gun gets blocked with mud, for example, you just rinse it off with water, including sloshing water down the barrel to clean it out.

One immediately thinks how this could change warfare and what would drive it. First, it would be fantastic in urban warfare, allowing our Marines and soldiers to check out—and clear out—buildings without exposing them. The machines are not terribly costly (though the Army is likely to change that), so that if one is destroyed, it is not like losing a soldier. Moreover, the arms industry would love to keep selling replacements as units are destroyed in battle. So, first: more ways to transfer money to arms firms.

In addition, with lower casualties among our troops, it’s possible that our military actions would find more support among the public, though that depends on re-establishing some trust in the government’s decisions and actions.

However, the Army is not enthusiastic. First, the Army really doesn’t know how to handle tactically innovative weapons—that takes time and must overcome resistance. The greater resistance will be because the Army did not invent it. The AR-15 is a great example: a fine weapon for the war we were fighting (Vietnam), but the Army hated it because it was not invented there, and the Army made changes to make it an unreliable and ineffective weapon, whereupon the Army said, “I told you so.” (The most serious change was changing the powder in the cartridge, which led to the weapon jamming in action. Lots of deaths can be laid at the feet of Army Ordnance developers who insisted on the changes. James Fallows tells about this sordid story in National Defense, as I recall.)

So the Army’s first reaction will be denial: test the weapon, point out all flaws, and do nothing. If forced to adopt the weapon, the Army will then insist on modifications (to try to make it “invented here”), which (if history is a guide) will reduce the weapon’s reliability and effectiveness. It’s likely that the Marine Corps will do a better job (the Marine Corps is a better learning organization, as described by Tom Ricks in his exceptionally fine book Making the Corps).

If the State Department would allow it, foreign governments have already shown considerable interest and seem ready to buy and deploy—Israel is one. But the lethality of the weapon means it probably won’t be approved for export, so the Army will probably continue to fight it.

Extremely interesting article, well worth buying the magazine for.

UPDATE: It occurs to me that running one of those little robots would, from the controller’s viewpoint, be more or less the same as a video shootemup game. Indeed, if the Army does field such a unit, one would expect videogame simulations to appear on the market within months if not weeks. The result, of course, is a tremendous pool of already-trained potential operators who have honed their skills in simulations and networked combats. Thus, when the units start to appear on the black market, as they inevitably will, anyone will be able to operate them. Hmm.

UPDATE 2: I highly recommend that you read National Defense, by James Fallows. It’s old, but fascinating, and every American should know the grim story of how the Army ruined the AR-15 and sacrificed the lives of hundreds if not thousands of American soldiers just to protect some internal turf. At the link, you can find copies for $1.

UPDATE 3: I wonder what a Gatling shotgun would be like.

Very good article on how investigative reporting can actually work:

A Sacramento TV station is reporting that Chandra Levy’s parents received a call from authorities Friday afternoon notifying them that an arrest would be coming soon in the 2001 murder of their daughter.

A Washington, D.C., station says D.C. police "submitted evidence to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in an effort to get an arrest warrant" for Ingmar Guandique, identified in a 13-part Washington Post series as a suspect whose possible role in the crime was given less attention by law enforcement than the possible role of then-California representative Gary Condit. 

In published notes about the series, the Post says, "The reporters discovered that the police investigation was overwhelmed with the white-hot media coverage fueled by the possible involvement of Rep. Gary Condit, a congressman from California."

Condit granted his first interview about the Chandra Levy case to Post reporters Sari Horwitz and Scott Higham for their series, published July 13-27, 2008.

The reporters also spoke with officials involved in the original investigation, two women attacked by Guandique, and Guandique himself.

In their Reporters’ Notebook, they list all the new information published in their series, including that as of July 27, "D.C. police and the prosecutors working on the Chandra Levy case have never interviewed the two women who were attacked in the park by Guandique."

The Washington Post reports that the investigation has recently focused on Guandique:

Continue reading. When reporters don’t simply accept and print "official views," their work can be very powerful.

I just learned about SafetyRazors.co.uk, which has a nice line-up of new, new old stock, and refurbished safety razors for the guy who wants a shave that’s both good and enjoyable. They also carry a complete line of traditional shaving equipment and supplies: brushes (Simpsons and Salter); shaving soap and cream (Taylor of Old Bond Street); Merkur, Wilkinson, and Derby blades; and new Merkur and Parker safety razors. Take a look, especially if you live in the UK.

UPDATE: He can also replate nickel-plated razors to make them look like new. Take a look at his work.

Very interesting post by Stephen Greenstreet:

Who decides what our children are eating? To a large degree, it is the Federal Government. Congress and the Department of Agriculture approve what foods can (and can’t) be served to over 30 million American school children who get daily meals from the National School Lunch Program. The government gets a ton of pressure from a food and beverage industry frantic to keep kids hooked on a diet of sodas, snacks and hot dogs. The competition for a piece of this $10 billion market is particularly fierce right now because this year the School Lunch Program is being reviewed and revised. Despite the enormous nutritional and financial stakes at play, ANP was the only media to cover a recent panel set up to discuss the school menu [see video above – LG]. While nutritionists outnumbered the press, corporate lobbyists outnumbered everyone.

Coincidentally, this op-ed by Alice Waters and Katrina Heron appeared in The New York Times today.

That op-ed begins:

This new era of government bailouts and widespread concern over wasteful spending offers an opportunity to take a hard look at the National School Lunch Program. Launched in 1946 as a public safety net, it has turned out to be a poor investment. It should be redesigned to make our children healthier.

Under the program, the United States Department of Agriculture gives public schools cash for every meal they serve — $2.57 for a free lunch, $2.17 for a reduced-price lunch and 24 cents for a paid lunch. In 2007, the program cost around $9 billion, a figure widely acknowledged as inadequate to cover food costs. But what most people don’t realize is that very little of this money even goes toward food. Schools have to use it to pay for everything from custodial services to heating in the cafeteria.

On top of these reimbursements, schools are entitled to receive commodity foods that are valued at a little over 20 cents per meal. The long list of options includes high-fat, low-grade meats and cheeses and processed foods like chicken nuggets and pizza. Many of the items selected are ready to be thawed, heated or just unwrapped — a necessity for schools without kitchens. Schools also get periodic, additional “bonus” commodities from the U.S.D.A., which pays good money for what are essentially leftovers from big American food producers.

When school districts allow fast-food snacks in the lunchroom they provoke widespread ire, and rightfully so. But food distributed by the National School Lunch Program contains some of the same ingredients found in fast food, and the resulting meals routinely fail to meet basic nutritional standards. Yet this is how the government continues to “help” feed millions of American schoolchildren, a great many of them from low-income households.

Some Americans are demanding better…

Continue reading.

The Simple Dollar has an excellent post on fixing the week’s breakfast burritos on Sunday, to freeze and then microwave each morning before going out the door:

I’m a big believer in eating a good breakfast to start your day. A healthy, high-protein, low-fat breakfast provides the fuel you need to get going in the morning.

The problem is that most mornings are really busy. When your alarm goes off, you have to take a shower, get dressed, find your stuff, complete a little task or two, and if you have kids, help them get ready for the day as well. To put it simply, most mornings we don’t have time to prepare such a breakfast.

Of course, one could stop by a fast food place or a coffee shop for a quick breakfast, but that eats five or ten minutes during the commute – and is ridiculously expensive, too. A tiny breakfast burrito from a fast food restaurant costs two bucks, is pretty unhealthy, and doesn’t taste all that great, either. A cup of coffee and a pastry from Starbucks might hit the spot, but is it really worth five or six bucks every day?

My solution to all of these problems is pretty simple: just make a big batch of healthy breakfast burritos during the weekend and freeze them up. Not only are the burritos really healthy, they’re also very cheap to prepare, and they’re very convenient in the morning since you can microwave them as you’re getting ready and eat them on the go.

You can make a big pile of healthy, tasty breakfast burritos for less than seventy five cents a pop in less than an hour. In fact, I recently did it myself and I’ll walk you through the whole process…

Continue reading for the entire illustrated process, step by step.

It felt very traditional this morning, for some reason. The old reliable Simpsons Emperor 3 Super, the D.R. Harris soap in the bowl, my fine Gillette NEW with a Wilkinson Sword blade: very smooth, very nice shave. And the Arlington aftershave was quite a nice finish.

The New Yorker occasionally has an issue in which every article is excellent, which is why I keep subscribing. The current issue (with the cartoon Al Rodriguez on the cover autographing baseballs for oddly buff boys) includes:

• Jane Mayer’s article on Obama’s upcoming decisions on various terrorist issues munged by Bush
• Hendrik Hertzberg on the bipartisanship situation
• A short story by Italo Calvino
• Fascinating article on the future technology of warfare
• Fascinating article on literary postmodernism (in the Donald Barthelme sense) and what Barthelme was doing

And there’s more. If you don’t subscribe, this is an issue good to buy.

I’ll blog tomorrow on the future technology of warfare issue, after I’ve finished the article and thought about it.

This is worth reading. It begins:

It cannot be emphasized enough that those who are arguing against criminal investigations for Bush officials are — whether consciously or implicitly — arguing that the U.S., alone in the world, is exempt from the laws and principles which we’ve been advocating and imposing on other countries for decades.  There is simply no way to argue that our leaders should be immunized from criminal investigations for torture and other war crimes without believing that (a) the U.S. is and should be immune from the principles we’ve long demanded other nations obey and (b) we are free to ignore our treaty obligations any time it suits us.

It’s just as simple as that:  one must embrace both of those premises in order to argue for a bar against criminal investigations.  And that’s particularly true for those who argue that Bush officials should not be held liable for what they did either because (a) DOJ lawyers said it was legal and/or (b) Congress provided retroactive immunity to the torturers.  As documented below, those are two of the most common and most universally discredited excuses in Western justice.

That fact may not lead anyone to change their minds about investigations and prosecutions, but those who are arguing for immunity for Bush officials ought to at least be honest and admit that they don’t care about our treaty obligations and the principles we spent decades advocating for others because those rules — for whatever reasons (e.g., we’re special; we have too many other important things to do; we’re the strongest and so nobody can make us do anything) — don’t apply to us.  Those who oppose criminal investigations and prosecutions should acknowledge that this is what they believe (or at least are willing implicitly to embrace).  Why pretend otherwise?

* * * * *

Few episodes illustrate those facts as compellingly as the truly amazing case of Binyam Mohamed, one that is creating great political controversy in Britain (though virtually none in the U.S.).  Standing alone, the summary of facts behind this controversy is quite striking:

Mohamed is an Ethiopian citizen and British resident who was arrested in Pakistan in 2002 and then "rendered" by the U.S. to multiple countries (such as Morocco); held incommunicado (no access to lawyers, the International Red Cross or anyone else) and interrogated by U.S. agents until 2004; and then shipped off to Guantanamo, where he has remained ever since.  Mohamed alleges — and (as British courts have ruled) there is substantial evidence to confirm — that he was brutally tortured during this time period, including having his genitals sliced, being severely beaten, and having guns aimed at his head and threatened with death if he did not confess.

In May, 2008, Mohamed was accused in a Guantanamo military commission with various acts of Terrorism that carry the death penalty if he’s convicted.  The key evidence against him are …

Continue reading.

Definitely worth reading. It begins:

My Atlantic colleague Mark Bowden has produced another of his riveting narratives in the new issue of the magazine. His article is about the former US Air Force fighter pilot who is among the last to have encountered — and beaten — enemy airplanes in action. As Bowden points out, American pilots rarely have a chance to demonstrate their prowess any more, because no one is crazy enough to challenge them.

As a narrative and portrait of fascinating characters, this story is great. But for the record, I disagree with its implication that if the US doesn’t build more F-22 fighter planes, it will pay the price in pilots’ blood. Mark’s case for the plane is more sophisticated than what the Air Force has typically claimed. His story doesn’t say that we don’t build the F-22 we can’t defend the nation. He says it’s a choice between paying the price for defense in money — or in pilots’ lives.

Perhaps. I’m glad Mark wrote the story, because what to do about the F-22 is one of the next big defense decisions the Obama Administration must make. But as you consider his argument, you might also consider some of the material below, which offers other ways to think about the trade-offs this airplane represents…

Continue reading. Many good links and much good information.

I do like Evernote, as do many people, and now MakeUseOf has a good post on getting the most out of it. It’s free, you know.

Here’s the menu:

Appetizer:

Pacific Coast tuna with a Chilli and Citrus Vinaigrette

Entree:

Maple and Miso Cured Nunavut Arctic Char

Sides:

Lightly Pickled Vegetables and an Organic Beet Relish
Applewood Smoked Plains Bison
Winter Root Veg and Local Mushrooms
Cauliflower and Rosemary Purée, Juniper and Niagara Red Wine Jus

Desserts:

Saugeen Yogurt Pot de Crème with a Lemon and Lavender Syrup
Wild Blueberry and Partridgeberry Compote
Acadian Buckwheat Honey and Sumac Tuile

Then /film is for you: a blog of all that’s going on with movies. And apparently Watchmen is moving ahead.

Take a look (and more photos at the link):

Beautiful, exquisite pure Staunton design. The option of different finials for the King is common in expensive sets. Muslims, for example, prefer that the finial not be a cross, for obvious reasons. I think if you really want to buy and call them, you could get a 20% discount.

Michael Pollan wrote in In Defense of Food (highly recommended) about how modern vegetables, products of industrialized farming, lack the micronutrients that vegetables had in the old days, when we didn’t depend on anhydrous ammonia as our chief fertilizer (which is why people are buying organic vegetables.) And now a review of a paper on the topic (h/t to The Eldest):

“Declining Fruit and Vegetable Nutrient Composition: What Is the Evidence?”
By Donald R. Davis
Journal of HortScience; February 2009, 5 pp.

The Gist:

If the economy isn’t grim enough for you, just check out the February issue of the Journal of HortScience, which contains a report on the sorry state of American fruits and veggies. Apparently produce in the U.S. not only tastes worse than it did in your grandparents’ days, it also contains fewer nutrients – at least according to Donald R. Davis, a former research associate with the Biochemical Institute at the University of Texas, Austin. Davis claims the average vegetable found in today’s supermarket is anywhere from 5% to 40% lower in minerals (including magnesium, iron, calcium and zinc) than those harvested just 50 years ago. (Read about Americans’ Incredible, Edible Front Lawns.)

Highlight Reel:

1. On the Difficulty of Comparing “Then” and “Now:” Davis is quick to note that historical data can sometimes be misleading, if not altogether inaccurate. Take early measurements of iron in foods: because scientists failed to sufficiently remove clinging soil, iron levels appeared unusually high in certain vegetables like spinach, (which gave rise to the myth that it contained exorbitant amounts of the mineral – a myth further propagated by the popular cartoon character, Popeye). Then again, good historical data provides the only real-world evidence of changes in foods over time, and such data does exist – one farm in Hertfordshire, England, for example, has archived its wheat samples since 1843.

2. On the So-Called “Dilution Effect:” Today’s vegetables might be larger, but if you think that means they contain more nutrients, you’d be wrong. Davis writes that jumbo-sized produce contains more “dry matter” than anything else, which dilutes mineral concentrations. In other words, when it comes to growing food, less is more. Scientific papers have cited one of the first reports of this effect, a 1981 study by W.M. Jarrell and R.B. Beverly in Advances in Agronomy, more than 180 times since its publication, “suggesting that the effect is widely regarded as common knowledge.” (See pictures of fruit.)

Less studied, though, is the “genetic dilution effect,” in which selective breeding to increase crop yield has led to declines in protein, amino acids, and as many as six minerals in one study of commercial broccoli grown in 1996 and ’97 in South Carolina. Because nearly 90% of dry matter is carbohydrates, “when breeders select for high yield, they are, in effect, selecting mostly for high carbohydrate with no assurance that dozens of other nutrients and thousands of phytochemicals will all increase in proportion to yield.”

2. On the “Industrialization” of Agriculture: …

Continue reading. And while we’re on the topic, check out this article in The Scientist:

In Where Our Food Comes From: Retracing Nikolay Vavilov’s Quest to End Famine, noted ethnobiologist and writer Gary Nabhan sets out to determine what, if anything, persists of traditional seeds and farmer knowledge; …

Read the rest of this entry »

If so, good: Murtha is massively corrupt—and a Democrat, but corruption is corruption. CQ Politics reports:

More than 100 House members secured earmarks in a major spending bill for clients of a single lobbying firm — The PMA Group — known for its close ties to John P. Murtha , the congressman in charge of Pentagon appropriations.

“It shows you how good they were,” said Keith Ashdown, chief investigator at the watchdog group Taxpayers for Common Sense. “The sheer coordination of that would take an army to finish.”

PMA’s offices have been raided, and the firm closed its political action committee last week amid reports that the FBI is investigating possibly illegal campaign contributions to Murtha and other lawmakers.

No matter what the outcome of the federal investigation, PMA’s earmark success illustrates how a well-connected lobbying firm operates on Capitol Hill. And earmark accountability rules imposed by the Democrats in 2007 make it possible to see how extensively PMA worked the Hill for its clients.

In the spending bill managed by Murtha, the fiscal 2008 Defense appropriation, 104 House members got earmarks for projects sought by PMA clients, according to Congressional Quarterly’s analysis of a database constructed by Ashdown’s group.

See CQ’s list of House members who secured earmarks for clients of The PMA Group in the fiscal 2008 defense appropriations law.

Those House members, plus a handful of senators, combined to route nearly $300 million in public money to clients of PMA through that one law (PL 110-116).

And when the lawmakers were in need — as they all are to finance their campaigns — PMA came through for them…

Continue reading.

Probably a new state constitution as well. Rachel Maddow talks about our latest problem, now temporarily solved:

Yet Another Ponzi Scheme: Besides Bernard Madoff ($50,000,000,000) and the Allen Stanford thing ($8,000,000,000), we now have this, via TPMMuckraker:

The SEC yesterday froze the assets of a $4.4 million Ponzi scheme that targeted deaf investors. The Hawaii-based Billion Coupons and its chief executive Marvin Cooper had raised money from personal contacts and visits to deaf community centers since September 2007. Investors were told that their money would be invested in foreign exchange markets and they would receive returns of up to 25 percent. (Reuters)

I think we should enact legislation requiring that Ponzi schemes be specifically labeled as such, maybe with a little Ponzi logo.

From TPMMuckraker:

A report by the Associated Press reveals that jobless workers have to pay fees on the benefits they collect. 30 states have made deals with large banks, many of which are taking bailout funds, like Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, Citigroup and US Bancorp that require the unemployed to pay bank fees just to get access to their money. In some cases, those collecting benefits have no choice but to use bank issued debit cards, which run the risk of incurring overdraft fees. "It’s a racket. It’s a scam," said one unemployed woman.