"Where else would you go when you have an ax to grind?"

Thursday, August 11, 2011

Somebody get Mike Wallace to look into this


We eat a lot of instant ramen noodles here at the Woodshed. I wish to the FSM they would stop calling these little packets of instant noodles "ramen" since they bear little or no resemblance to the wonderful steaming bowls of marvellous broth piled high with pork and vegetables and fresh-made noodles that I miss so much from Japan. 
While shopping the other day, a thought occured to me. These noodles always come with a little packet of powdered soup mix and there are various flavours. The beef, while it contains no actual meat, is supposed to taste like the meat of a cow. The chicken is flavoured to taste like like broth made from boiling pieces and bones of chicken, the pork tastes like pork, the shrimp tastes like shrimp, the vegetable tastes like broth made from vegetables. Simple, right?

So exactly how do you explain this?





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Tuesday, August 09, 2011

Anarchy in the U.K.

Some thoughts and links on the riots across England:



"Most of the people who will be writing, speaking and pontificating about the disorder this weekend have absolutely no idea what it is like to grow up in a community where there are no jobs, no space to live or move, and the police are on the streets stopping-and-searching you as you come home from school. The people who do will be waking up this week in the sure and certain knowledge that after decades of being ignored and marginalised and harassed by the police, after months of seeing any conceivable hope of a better future confiscated, they are finally on the news. In one NBC report, a young man in Tottenham was asked if rioting really achieved anything: 

"Yes," said the young man. "You wouldn't be talking to me now if we didn't riot, would you?"


"Two months ago we marched to Scotland Yard, more than 2,000 of us, all blacks, and it was peaceful and calm and you know what? Not a word in the press. Last night a bit of rioting and looting and look around you."
Eavesdropping from among the onlookers, I looked around. A dozen TV crews and newspaper reporters interviewing the young men everywhere ‘’’

Everyone will quite rightfully decry the violence, looting and mayhem washing over the U.K., and they are right to be shocked. But anyone who is surprised that there is suddenly social unrest in a developed country in which the disparities in wealth distribution and opportunities have  been steadily growing while youth culture has become centered around consumerism, heavy binge drinking and enforced idleness among vast swathes the underclass, where the moral authority of the police has been steadily eroded by the constant drip of corruption, racism, brutality and abuse of power, where the wealthy political class has coddled the upper middle class and thrown the rest of the population to the dogs --- anyone who is surprised simply hasn't been paying attention.

crossposted to the Galloping Beaver







 
http://www.wikio.com

Sometimes they just make this too easy



Yesterday, the Toronto Sun asked readers to suggest three "quick fix" ideas for things that Toronto Mayor Rob Ford could do right away to make Toronto a better city. Well, they asked...
I think the fastest way for Rob Ford to improve the city of Toronto would be for him to:
1. Move to Calgary.
2. Take his idiot brother with him.
3. Before he leaves, send Giorgio Mammoliti on a five year fact-finding mission to the South Pole.

By the way your worship, how's that promise not to cut services working out for ya?

http://www.wikio.com

Pompous and wrong as always

 Shorter Conrad Black: A gentleman such as oneself is apt to miss the comforts of the fairer sex when unjustly incarcerated by one's inferiors and one's good lady wife declines to pay a conjugal visit citing the discomforts of the unfashionable accomodations of the Bastille's prefabricated structure reserved for such assignations. In such circumstances, one's earthly desires must be satiated in the mind's eye as it soars over these dingy walls on the wings of imagination. An indispensible aid in just such periods of need are the images gracing the covers of  the very latest volumes by those mischevious coquettes of conservatism, Ann  Coulter and Laura Ingraham. Lo, as my co-incarcerated brethern in the yard might brutishly put it: Verily, would I tap tap that!

Sure, he may have been thrown out of the House of Lords for his various crimes, just as he was thrown out of Upper Canada College for stealing exams as a boy, but Lord Tubby of Fleet Street continues to demonstrate that as King of the Douchebags, he is still one of the world's true aristocrats.

And you know how I feel about aristocrats...


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Monday, August 08, 2011

Help Japan and support your local bookstore


2:46 aka #Quakebook has finally hit the shelves in bookstores around the world, and is selling well.
All the proceeds go to the Japan Red Cross for earthquake relief work - which  four months after the massive quake and tsunami is still going on. So far Our Man in Abiko's project has raised more than $40,000 for the Japan Red Cross.
Sure you could get it as an ebook for free, if you were the kind of douchebag who'd steal the coins out of a blind beggar's cup, but you could redeem yourself for getting a free download by making a nice fat donation to the Red Cross or other earthquake charity of your choice.
Go buy it now.

http://www.wikio.com

Sunday, August 07, 2011

America's new national anthem

Not sure how the pictures connect with the music, but I look forward to hearing this played before sporting events.




http://www.wikio.com