Told you so

Cooking is a big deal. Makes your brain big (if you're a pre-Sapiens Hominin, that is (or was)).

Two really bad ideas and a good summation

The bad ideas:

Cloud computing for your government.

Newt Gingrich boosts Six Sigma for your government.

Maybe there really is a conspiracy to destroy America from within.

And a good analysis of the GOP 2012 field. Couldn't have said it better myself.

"When will they ever learn? When will they ... ever learn?" -- P. Seeger

Whack-a-mole begins

The law of conservation of idiots is showing itself as Pawlenty gives up and Perry (apparently) steps in. One candidate with no ideas replaces another.

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2011 08 16: And our local political nonentity newcomer, Thad McCotter, did either better or worse than expected in Iowa, depending on your point of view. Since he wasn't invited to take part in the GOP festivities, and is essentially being ignored by all and sundry, the fact that he got 35 votes could be seen as exceeding expectations. On the other hand, the top finisher, Michelle "Space Cadet" Bachmann got more than 4000, so perhaps McCotter didn't do all that well. In any case, his candidacy is essentially no different in its strategy than that of someone who sets out for a weekend at one of Michigan's fine Native American casinos: spend a bunch of money, hopefully most of it your own, and get nothing for it except a hangover.

Job creation

9:00 AM on a bright Friday morning, we drove past the entramce to a development or a very large house or something. It had just been paved with with shiny black asphalt Most organizations would fling a few orange cones around and call it good enough. But in this case, the cones were replaced by a proud American worker, in a tank top, with a beer, and sitting on a cooler. UsA, USA, USA!

Food Delivery in Ann Arbor

For a long time, I've been cranky about the limited delivery food in town -- some nights, even your humble food snob Editor is too tired, grumpy, or medicated to cook or drive someplace. Like a good progressive, the answer is to throw money at the problem, but I was living under the impression that essentially all you could get was Pizza or maybe a sub. But I see by the simple means of browsing around in allmenus.com that we do, in fact, have more options than I thought. Here's a selection, based on nothing at all except my prejudices and some limited experience. I've just listed a few, and left off all but one of our other favorite spots from which you can get carry-out but not delivery. Suggestions and comments welcome.

Cuisine	Restaurant	Delivery or Pickup Menu	Comments	Food	Speediness
Chinese	San Fu	Delivery	Basic Mandarin; the twice cooked pork is great about half the time, good the rest of the time.	Good	Excellent!
Pizza	Anthony's Pizza	Delivery (not on allmenus.com)	Ann Arbor's finest, in my opinion, deep-dish.	Excellent!	Good
Pizza	Cottage Inn	Delivery	Our current preferred provider for straight-up, college-town style pizza.	Good	Good
Pizza, Pasta, Sandwiches, Desserts	Silvio's	Delivery	Very nice eat-in Italian place on North University, and they apparently deliver as well.	Very good	Unsampled
Pizza, Subs, Deli, Burger	NY Pizza Depot	Delivery	We haven't tried these guys, but their menu is extensive. Will give them a shot soon, just for variety.	Unsampled	Unsampled
Pizza, Subs, Deli, Burger	Pizza House	Delivery	Big menu, not all that great.	Ok	Good
Gyros, Subs, Burgers, Breakfast	Ahmo's Gyros and Deli	Delivery	Many flavors of gyros, subs (they distinguish among subs, hoagies, and grinders, oddly, since they're essentially synonymous or should be,) and even diner-style breakfasts. Have not yet tried them.	Unsampled	Unsampled
Pizza, Burgers	Fraser's Pub	Delivery, Pickup Not on allmenus.com	Fraser's will deliver you a pizza; not clear if they'll deliver their bar menu or not, but due to the deafening noise levels in the place, we sometimes order burgers to go and pick 'em up.	Pizza: good / Burgers: Very good	Good
Mainstream Indian	Raja Rani	Delivery	allmenus.com claims that the old standby Indian place on William will deliver. Who knew? Haven't tried delivery (nor in fact been there for dinner in a while,) but it's on the list.	Ok to good	Unsampled
Thai	Siam Square	Delivery	Not a place I know, but its menu lists many of the same dishes, especially in the curry department, as our current favorite, Lotus Thai / Marnee Thai. Might give this one a shot on a night when I'm adamant about not leaving the house.	Unsampled	Unsampled
Jamaican	Jamacian Jerk Pit	Delivery	Tiny, long-established place that I walk right by everytime we go to Mercy's or Hill or somewhere in that vicinity. They say they deliver; will give then a try when the mood strikes.	Unsampled	Unsampled
Sushi, Japanese in general	Miki	Delivery	Miki is under new management, and we have not been there in years (being devoted to our regular place, Yotsuba,) but allmenus.com says they deliver.	Unsampled lately	Unsampled

As is always the case with the Internet, some of this may be out of date. But nevertheless, I was gratified to see even this much availability. The only thing missing is the long-lost DeLong's BBQ, who were for a time willing to bring you the best goddam barbequed half a chicken I've had. Granted, a friend of mine used to describe their ribs as "goat," but the sauced bird was my favorite. Alas for the sticky old days.

Savage ducks

Sitting at our picnic table on the shores of Black Lake, watching the local gang of mallards getting fed cheesey poofs or something by one of the neighboring campsites - a seagull swooped in to take part, and the ducks mobbed him. He couldn't even take off again.  I've never seen aggressive ducks before.

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Makes you think (I hope)

Of course, we know virtually nothing about the Oslo incident yet - It'll be interesting, in fact, to see how long it takes for even an official, let alone an accurate account of motives and scope emerges.

But whatever was going on, you gotta remember: this apparent blend of extreme religion and extreme politics isn't an isolated position. It's the far end of a range along which lie gradations of the same points of view, less festered, less obscene, but still on the same road.  Think about it when you vote -- or even when you pick a news show or buy a paper.

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Heirogliphics of a sort

We did our obligatory quick run through the State Street Art Fair last night, and over by Rackham, there was a large, sparsely staffed set of tables from Applegate Farms. They were doing nothing at all that I could see except giving away free samples of their hot dogs, along with brochures and the pin shown here.

The translation they were trying for, I assume, is "I love meat," a marketing cliche in which "love" is represented by a heart shape. But by replacing it with an apple, I suppose they were trying to link it to their name, Applegate. But then, in the inevitable back and forth with the CEO, I imagine the following dialog went on.

CEO: I apple meat? What does that mean?
Marketing Creep: Well, it still means I heart meat, but the Apple is for Applegate, you know, tying it to us.
CEO: I don't get it. How much do these pins cost?
Marketing Creep: Well, maybe we need to strengthen the imagery -- what do you think, artist?
Artist: Uh, how about if there's an arrow through the apple? Like what's his name shooting an apple off somebody's head? That would strengthen the apple-ness of it.
CEO: What? Paul Revere or somebody like that?
Marketing Creep: Yeah, or Ted Nugent -- he's hot right now.
CEO: Couldn't we get Ted Nugent to do an ad for us?
Marketing Creep: You think the pins are expensive?
Artist: And there's all this feral pig thing, tied to Ted right now. We might want to hold off on that until we see who comes out on top.
CEO: On top of what? Ted Nugent is in favor of feral pigs?
CFO: (Popping in) Are you winding up? I need the conference room.
CEO: Oh, hell, I don't care. Put an arrow in and run with it.
Artist: Actually, you know, it would make a pretty good logo. We should put it on everything.
CEO: Fine, fine. Just don't go nuts with the budget.

I have long wanted to create and copyright a heiro-phrase like this myself, in which the characters would be:

I X-a-(drawing of a shipping container) (topic)

Which would be read as I execrate New York or Michelle Bachmann or something. But it would just cause traffic accidents, I suppose.

And by the way, they were terrible hot dogs.

One down

Ron Paul, the Libertarian wacko from Texas, has announced that he will leave Congress in order to focus on a run for the Presidency, Since he has less chance of being nominated, let alone elected, than I do, that means effectively one fewer incumbent jackass in Washington, giving TX an opportunity to elect a new one.

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For your entertainment, here's a classic piece of Ron Paul nonsense. The man should be institutionalized. Perhaps in the same room as Rick Perry.

Spank Newscorp while the spanking is good

2011 07 14: Yay! The FBI took my advice! Or they're operating independently. Whichever.

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As a long time believer in the efficacy of kicking a man while he's down, this strikes me as a really great time to open investigations into any potential coziness between Rupert Murdoch's US enterprises (can you say Fox News?) and our own gummint. Whether there's anything to be found is hardly the issue -- if just a few congress critters call for hearings, the fun on Wall Street will be immense.

If he was willing to just shut down The News of the World as a sacrifice to criticism, what would he do if Roger Ailes were found to have approved something moderately despicable? Something that touched on the lives of, say, the families of US soldiers killed overseas? Ah, the schadenfreude. I can taste it now.