Stimulus

The stimulus bill costs $900 billion dollars. How much is that? Enough to give every single American (babies included) $3000 each. Yes, you're going to have to pay that money back. Do you think you're getting $3000 of value for it?

Marriage advice

In my previous post I spread the news about my sister's engagement. Very exciting. But my sister found that post boring, so I invite you, readers, so share your advice on marriage -- based on your own experience or of seeing others' marriages. Please, share the wisdom, and help make hers as perfect as possible.

More on Calorie Restriction

Hey guys, yet another article about the reduced calorie diet -- remember that eating 30% less calories than normal but still getting all the nutrients can make you live 40% longer, including aging slower, no wrinkles and diseases and stuff? A new study found that seniors who adopted this reduced calorie diet showed a 20% improvement in memory! To me this is not only more evidence for the benefits of the diet, but shows that you don't have to do it for your entire life -- there are short term benefits too! [Source: Washington Post]

Congratulations Shirley!!!

My sister is engaged! Her longtime boyfriend Victor Henry proposed in Puerto Rico! Congratulations to her, this is so exciting!

恭喜發財!

Happy Year of the Cow!!!

TORTURE ALERT: the nightmare ends

I have been posting torture alerts here since 2005, when in the wake of Abu Ghraib I was ashamed that people considered this an isolate incident and not a consistent part of US policy. As I said at the time, it made me ashamed to be an American. With our new president, I hope this running segment is gone.

President Obama signed executive orders today ending the CIA’s secret overseas prisons, banning coercive interrogation methods, and closing the Guantánamo Bay detention camp within a year.

Innocent people released from Guantanamo Bay

I hope this isn't getting pedantic, but more on Guantanamo in the New York Times:

In the last three months, at least 24 detainees (10% of the population at Guantanamo Bay) have been declared improperly held by courts or a tribunal. ... While hundreds of suspects have been released from the detention camp in the seven years it has been operating, the recent decisions came after the Bush administration said it had reduced the population to the most dangerous terrorists.

That means, even among the subset of detainees called the most dangerous, ten percent have already been released after years languishing there because they were completely innocent and held illegally! In fact, since the Supreme Court decided that detainees have a right to a hearing to determine if there's a reason to detain them or not, only the Bush administration has prevailed in only three cases. If it can happen to them, it can happen to any of us.

Respectively

Last night I saw Steve and Jordan, Respectively, a great show at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater. Unlike silly improv shows, this was just as much theater as it was humor. Funny and smart, I recommend it -- and for only $5, what's not to like? Only one more show scheduled for Monday, if you're looking for something to do, check it out.

Also, I tried the new Village restaurant Soy and Sake. This vegetarian Japanese restaurant was a winner. I got the Philadelphia roll -- which wasn't bad, tasted like cream cheese mostly -- and the Hawaiian roll, which was a deliciously sweet combination of mango, pear, avocado, and tempura. Going by my companions' choices as well, reviews ranged from average to yummy, so it depends what you get, but nothing was bad. Plus, if you're veg, where else can you get such a selection of sushi choices? A welcome change from the good but so overdone standard selection.

Colors!

Color test: how many colors can you identify?

carmine
chartreuse
cornflower
fuschia
mauve
ochre
periwinkle
puce
russet
taupe
teal
vermillion

How did you do? Honestly, I knew none of these -- I might have guessed some, but I didn't know. Any other color names you know that are hard to identify?

TORTURE ALERT: Top Bush official admits to torture

Check out The Washington Post. Remember, Bush asserted, "The United States does not torture. It's against our laws, and it's against our values." And Cheney said, "And I think on the left wing of the Democratic Party, there are some people who believe that we really tortured."

According to Susan Crawford, convening authority of military commissions, in Guantanamo Bay Qahtani was subject to methods "so intense that Qahtani had to be hospitalized twice at Guantanamo with bradycardia... At one point Qahtani's heart rate dropped to 35 beats per minute."

In addition to physical abuse, for 160 days Qahtani was kept in isolation but for "54 consecutive days of 18-to-20-hour interrogations. Standing naked in front of a female agent. Subject to strip searches. And insults to his mother and sister." Qahtani "was forced to wear a woman's bra and had a thong placed on his head during the course of his interrogation" and "was told that his mother and sister were whores." With a leash tied to his chains, he was led around the room "and forced to perform a series of dog tricks."

Go USA.

Insects for dinner

Do you like eating bugs? Well, like it or not, a common red food coloring is made from crushed cochineals, a flat wingless female beetle native to Mexico and South America. Because of some serious allergic reactions, this ingredient will now have to be included on labels (as "cochineal" or "carmine"). It's used, for example, in Dannon and Yoplait yogurts, Tropicana Ruby Red Grapefruit Juice, and Estee Lauder lipsticks. Yum!

Tidbits

Unless you've been reading this blog for two years and have a good memory, you probably won't remember this Grey's Anatomy reference, but I've come to realize that I don't have a "person".

The movie Doubt: skip it. It's only ok.

I love Google Chrome. Not at first, but it clearly comes out on top when you get used to it. The only problem -- and it's a major one -- is that it doesn't have add-ons. Not even Google Toolbar. And not Adblock, Leechblock, and other such unbelievably useful additions. Also, a lot of sites don't support Chrome yet. Hopefully that will soon be corrected, until then it's understandable to keep using Firefox. (But not IE. Why, why would you?)

Hamas mindset

[From the New York Times:]

GAZA CITY — Dr. Awni al-Jaru, 37, a surgeon at the hospital, rushed in from his home [to the emergency room in Shifa Hospital], dressed in his scrubs. But he came not to work. His head was bleeding, and his daughter’s jaw was broken.

He said Hamas militants next to his apartment building had fired mortar and rocket rounds. Israel fired back with force, and his apartment was hit. His wife, Albina, originally from Ukraine, and his 1-year-old son were killed.

“My son has been turned into pieces,” he cried. “My wife was cut in half. I had to leave her body at home.” Because Albina was a foreigner, she could have left Gaza with her children. But, Dr. Jaru lamented, she would not leave him behind.

A car arrived with more patients. One was a 21-year-old man with shrapnel in his left leg who demanded quick treatment. He turned out to be a militant with Islamic Jihad. He was smiling a big smile.

“Hurry, I must get back so I can keep fighting,” he told the doctors.

He was told that there were more serious cases than his, that he needed to wait. But he insisted. “We are fighting the Israelis,” he said. “When we fire we run, but they hit back so fast. We run into the houses to get away.” He continued smiling.

“Why are you so happy?” he was asked. “Look around you.”

A girl who looked about 18 screamed as a surgeon removed shrapnel from her leg. An elderly man was soaked in blood. A baby a few weeks old and slightly wounded looked around helplessly. A man lay with parts of his brain coming out. His family wailed at his side.

“Don’t you see that these people are hurting?” the militant was asked.

“But I am from the people, too,” he said, his smile incandescent. “They lost their loved ones as martyrs. They should be happy. I want to be a martyr, too.”

Miracle Fruit

Have you heard about miracle fruit? You can read about it in that link to a New York Times article, but basically eating a berry rewires the way your tastebuds work for an hour afterwards (generally making acids sweet), so that lemons taste like candy, beer tastes like chocolate shake, tabasco sauce tastes like doughnut glaze, and goat cheese tastes like cheesecake. The berries are $2.50 each at specialty stores.

Christianity and Abortion

Following up on my question in an earlier post, I looked into why Christians oppose abortion, even though it is mentioned nowhere in the Bible. To my surprise, I found this is not the Christian position. It is the position of Catholic, Orthodox, and Evangelical Christians, but not of many Protestants -- including Episcopal, Presbyterian, Methodist, and Lutheran churches -- do not take this position. So it was unfair for me to lump Christians together, I suppose. 

The Jewish view, incidentally, is that abortion is wrong but not equivalent to killing a born person.

Maybe you have insight on another question I've had: why do people who oppose abortion commonly support exceptions for rape or incest? I mean, if abortion is murder, what difference does it make whether the baby was conceived by rape or incest? She or he is still an innocent baby. If mental anguish on the part of the mother outweighs the fetus's right to life, then wouldn't that apply to many non-criminal conceptions of unwanted children? I just don't get it as a consistent position.

Your thoughts are welcome.

In Maryland, Big Brother is watching

From the Washington Post, where your Maryland tax dollars are going in today's Republican police state:

The Maryland State Police surveillance of advocacy groups was far more extensive than previously acknowledged, with records showing that troopers monitored -- and labeled as terrorists -- activists devoted to such wide-ranging causes as promoting human rights and establishing bike lanes.

Intelligence officers created a voluminous file on Norfolk-based People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, calling the group a "security threat" because of concerns that members would disrupt the circus. Angry consumers fighting a 72 percent electricity rate increase in 2006 were targeted. The DC Anti-War Network, which opposes the Iraq war, was designated a white supremacist group, without explanation.

One of the possible "crimes" in the file police opened on Amnesty International: "civil rights."

The Princess Bride

Damn, I feel like a dupe.

I'm sure you've all seen the movie The Princess Bride. If you haven't, go see it.

Have you read the book? (If so, and if you prefer to believe a pretty lie to the truth, then stop reading now.) Written by William Goldman, it is presented as an abridged version of the original by S. Morgenstern, in which Goldman kept the parts he remembered as a kid when his father read it to him, and cut out all the boring political satire bits. Interspersed with the narrative, he tells about how he came to write the book, about buying it for his overweight son, issues with his psychologist wife, how life wasn't fair, and so on. In later editions, he added a forward in which he talked about his subsequent legal battles with the Morgenstern estate, and about his experience on the film set where, among other things, he talked about Andre the Giant learning his lines and visiting the museum in Florin.

Well, that's what got me. There really is a Florin? So I looked it up and... it's all part of the fiction! Goldman has no son, no psychologist wife, there exists no Morgenstern and no original that had to be abridged. There was no lawsuit. No museum. All utter fiction.

This so disappoints me, and I'm not sure why. All that stuff was just unnecessary -- the movie was perfect without it. I'm not sure why it was done, except as some elaborate practical joke, and so I feel tricked, I suppose.

Anyway, great book, word-for-word like the movie. But you should know the truth. Don't believe a word of it.

(If you're bored enough to want to see what the original actors look like twenty years later, take a look.)