Brains: "This is bad comedy!"

Cult Members Issue Death Threats Over Stolen Magic Muffin

( Aw, but sir, it's wafer thin! )

Girls: Your Body Is Like A Lollipop

( Islamicists and Christians agree on something... )

Jonah, Jonah, Jonah, Jonah...

( So over the top! )

What is a recession?

Have you ever wondered what the heck "a recession" really was? We hear all kinds of definitions, the most common of which is the official one: "two annual quarters in which the Gross Domestic Product of a region-- usually a country, but can refer to larger or smaller geographical regions-- declined."

In a 1998 article (back before he was über-shrill), Paul Krugman wrote a brilliant article called Babysitting the Economy, in which he describes how patterns of behavior in a baby-sitting co-op caused a recession, showing how the economic patterns of who owed whom babysitting time, influenced by the rise and fall of need versus availability caused by seasonal changes, resulted in a lock-up, "a recession."

Krugman explains in a few paragraphs everything you need to know about how recessions work, and how to dig your way out, and what this meant in 1998 for Japan as it dug its own way out of its decade-long slump.

Irony Not On The Menu

Quick, can you tell me where this was served?

Before Dinner:

• Corn-stuffed caviar
• Smoked salmon and sea urchin "pain surprise" style
• Hot onion tart
• Winter lily bulb and summer savoury

Appetizer Tray:

• Kelp-flavoured cold Kyoto beef "shabu-shabu", asparagus dressed with sesame cream
• Diced fatty flesh of tuna fish, avocado and jellied soy sauce and Japanese herb "shiso"
• Boiled clam, tomato, "shiso" in jellied clear soup of clam
• Water shield and pickled conger dressed with vinegar soy sauce
• Boiled prawn with jellied tosazu vinegar
• Grilled eel rolled around burdock strip
• Sweet potato
• Fried and seasoned Goby with soy sauce and sugar

Soup: Hairy Crab "Kegani" bisque soup

Main Dish, one of:

• Salt-grilled bighand thornyhead with vinegary water pepper sauce
• Milk fed "shiranuka" lamb flavoured with aromatic herbs and mustard
• Roasted lamb and cepes and black truffle with emulsion sauce of lamb's stock and pine seed oil

And the wine:

• Le Reve grand cru champagne
• Corton Charlemagne 2005
• Chateau Latour burgundy
• Ridge California Monte Bello 1997
• Tokaji Essencia 1999

Sounds yummy, don't it? ( The Answer is... )

Craven, Cowardly Lying in the New York Times

In an op-ed called The Audacity of Listening, Washington Post writer Gail Collins demonstrates what I find most infuriating bout the second ring of Obama punditocracy: excuse making.

Let me say off the top that I don't believe that Obama has flip-flopped as much as the Rovian-led attack dogs at Fox would have us believe. The Republican talking points are trying very hard to pin the flip-flop thing on Obama because it's McCain's greatest weakness, but I don't buy it. Obama's been pretty damned consistent on his statements about Iran, Iraq, the economy, gay marriage, gun control, and so forth. I even understand the public financing thing, which would take more inches than you've got time for.

But Collins makes the unexcusable and revolting sin of lying to spin when she says of Obama's FISA vote: "Putting some restrictions on the government's ability to wiretap is better than nothing, even though he would rather have gone further."

No, Ms. Collins, No! There already were restrictions! It was called The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and it already had appropriate restrictions in place. The 2008 FISA Amendment didn't provide for more restrictions: instead, it removed all viable restrictions imaginable from the executive's power. Obama didn't vote to add restrictions. There are no notable new restrictions.

What we have here is not "new restrictions," it's an admission that Congress in too fucking craven and cowardly to enforce its own laws, to do what must be done, and to bring those who have broken the laws of the land to justice. That process is called impeachment. But Congressfools don't want to set precedent because many of them think about running for president someday and don't want this threat, or do want this power.

And Obama voted for it so John McCain (who didn't even bother to show) doesn't have something with which to beat him over the head in the event an unpleasant October Surprise comes along. It's that simple. It's pure politics.

And I'm revolted: both by Obama's vote, and by the sycophants like Ms. Collins sucking up to him this way.

(Even worse: I found this article via Andrew Sullivan, who gives it a postive "must read" advocacy.)

Camping, Day 4: Teh Good And Teh Suck

I didn't sleep well last night. My back hurts and the pillow I brought is too soft and doesn't support my head well in comparison to the hard ground-pad and sleeping bag.

Fried underwear

Kouryou-chan had washed her one pair of underwear in the river last night, but it was so humid and cool last night that the cloth wasn't dry. Omaha tried to speed up the process by gently frying the underwear over low heat to drive the moisture out and it mostly worked.

Lena Lake

Breakfast was a nutrition bar and milk, not filling but quick, which was good because we were getting out at our typically late rate and we needed to get out to the Lena Lake trail-head as early as possible. It was the longest hike of our trip so far, almost six miles total, and much of it promised to be uphill heading inward.

The map lies about the number of switchbacks it takes to get up to the main ridge: it shows only five, but there are more like thirteen, all uphill, all interminably dull. I mean, sure, there are chipmunks and birds and it's beautiful forest country, but it's still just switchbacks, walking back and forth up a steep hillside, slow ridge by ridge, until you reach the one high enough to get through the gap that holds in Lena Lake.

Lena Lake, Campsite

The lake itself was very beautiful, and we walked all the way around to the north end, crossing over the creek that feeds it on your typical scary fallen-log bridge, until we stopped at a little unoccupied campsite on the far side with some relatively still water. The campsite was packed full of driftwood and the girls found great joy in pushing themselves out onto the lake on these huge, fallen logs like lumberjacks, only to have the wind blow them back to us. We ate PB&J sandwiches and trail mix and enjoyed the stillness.

Trail mix thief

While I was watching the girls, this little chipmunk broke into my bag and stole my trail mix. He's cute, but he's a thief.

Omaha and Y-chan.

We headed back while the girls chatted incessantly, making up stories based on the books they'd brought with them. It's cute, but really there's only so much parents can take at one time.

I have no idea what Omaha and Yamaraashi-chan are talking about in this picture, but it's a lovely picture of the two of them and I could hear the giggling from fifty yards away.

Dog-head rock.

We stopped at a little wooden bridge crossing a dry creek and I spotted this rock shaped like a dog's head. The girls agreed, but Omaha thought it looked more like a pig.

When we got back to my car, we found a nasty surprise. Kouryou-chan was so happy to see the forest road after all those darned switchbacks, even going downhill, that she ran out to the car, then came running back shouting, "Daddy! Someone broke into our car!" And yeah, some punk kid smashed one of my windows and stole Omaha's iPod. They left everything else: two wallets, two cellphones (including Omaha's iPhone), Omaha's PDA, all the credit cards were still there. (They left my copy of Iain M. Banks's Matter! Don't they realize the book hasn't been released in the US yet? There are fans on this side of the ocean who'd give their right arm to have a copy!) We figured that had to be kids. One of the other people parked near the trail said that a window on their RV had been opened and whatever was in reach rifled through, but nothing was missing. Oh, and his windows were all turned. Damned kids. And I had worried about the chipmunk.

We called the sheriff and left a message. We also spoke with a park ranger who expressed surprise, since that was the first incident this year, and it wasn't supposed to be a problem area anymore. I did not point out that the weather had been less than helpful since Memorial Day and the season had started late.

Omaha spent much of the day in a funk, berating herself for leaving her iPod and pack in plain view to tempt the thieves.

We went home and made hamburgers, and then as the darkness fell we made s'mores. Yamaraashi-chan may have brought fourteen pairs of pants, but she didn't bring a single sweater. I loaned her one of my three warm shirts that evening, which was beneficial as it protected her when she set fire to a marshmallow and then immediately dropped it into her lap while trying to blow it out. She put it out fast enough and without injury. So my shirt earned a small patch of charred melted marshmallowy goodness, and she became cold again. She put on three layers of t-shirt instead.

Deep in the night, it began to rain, so Omaha and I had to do a quick toss of the rain-fly over the tent in the cold and the wet, but it worked well enough and we were dry until morning.

( More pictures... )