There is just nothing that can be said about this article, let alone the topic. I’m still cleaning the grease off my monitor that oozed through from the pictures. The Worst Breakfast Ever
This is just wrong. I can see no justification for this kind of excess; we are already the fattest nation in the world. Having one meal that exceeds 100% of what you should eat in a WHOLE DAY is just unconscionable.
shudder.
I read this article with some interest before realizing who wrote it; then I had to go back and give it more thought. I won’t spoil the surprise for you.
Comments below. It is an interesting scenario; I don’t know if I agree with it. I certainly don’t like it, even if it is true. The idea of preserving peace by convincing everyone else you are so nuts that it is better to fall in line with our wishes just seems morally wrong to me. And thinking back to my childhood when being incinerated in a nuclear blast was a serious worry is not something I enjoy being reminded of.
So what do you think? Is there a method to the madness, or is it just madness?
This quote is shamelessly stolen from another blog that stole it from another article. But it is great anyway (or even because of).
The US is a country that believes passionately in freedom, ingenuity and free enterprise. It has produced only two dozen kinds of cheese (some of which are excellent copies of French and British cheeses). However, if you walk into any American supermarket, you will see that the US has produced more than 50 kinds of peanut butter. They all taste the same but they have radically different labels.
France is a country that is overtaxed and over-administered by a suffocating bureaucracy. It has somehow managed to create 176 (or 258 or 1,000) different kinds of cheese, all of which are subtly different from one another. A lait cru (raw milk) camembert, eaten at just the right moment (when there is only a thin layer of dry cheese in the centre) is one of the great achievements of humanity. Ditto roquefort; and St-Nectaire; and cantal; and chaource; and so on and on (and on).
According to the Wall Street Journal book of political and economic orthodoxy, the American Way produces enterprise, variety and choice. The French Way produces stultification. Cheese defies that ideology. No wonder that cheese-eating is a term of insult for American right-wingers.
If we are being offered a choice between a cheese-eating civilisation and a peanut-butter-eating civilisation, I am with the cheese-eaters. Post-September 11, US politics ? and even US journalism ? seems to be going the way of peanut butter. There is room for endless freedom of choice between labels. The contents of the ideas are not allowed to vary.
OK, I’ll stipulate that I am in a massive bad mood (iced driveway late video phone line in office dead and probably more), but I still think that this rant delivered as a footnote on a discussion of whether browser sniffing is a good or bad thing is just a freaking riot.
There’s plenty of “we need to deploy technology X, which only works in MSIE6/Win at 1024x768 on a Dell computer with a flatscreen 17” monitor, a colour depth of 32million and a colour temperature thingy of 9300k, after being freshly degaused and blessed by a Catholic priest, while the memory of chanting at a tabby cat is fresh in the user’s mind.” But the reason is usually /not/ that technology X is vital, but rather that technology X is some stupid, ill-advised abomination concocted of so much unnecessary small text, JavaScript and Flash to the point where the average user has an epileptic fit and dials Jakob Nielsen’s phone number involuntarily. Ahem. Issues… many issues…
Ok, we tried this once before with no winner. Here is the deal. The war is basically inevitable now. So when will it start? You can pick one day, only one, so make it good.
Dan Quayle: “Mars is essentially in the same orbit… Mars is somewhat the same distance from the Sun, which is very important. We have seen pictures where there are canals, we believe, and water. If there is water, that means there is oxygen. If oxygen, that means we can breathe.”
George W. Bush: Bush backs alien evidence
Once again Senator Robert Byrd tries to talk some sense into his fellow senators. I find it quite sad that he is getting so little attention.
I love it when things like this happen. Click for more.
In a bout of masochism, I’m pulling together a list of “accomplishments” of the Bush administration. Feel free to add.
- Worst job market in 20 years
- PATRIOT Act
- PATRIOT II proposal
- Threatening the future of NATO
- Destroying trans-atlantic relations
- Economic policy criticized by economists
Ok, that’s enough for now. There are obviously more things to be thankful for. Add your own.