Impolite Company

Cocaine's A Helluva Drug

Every once in a while something will snap in my head and I'll have to go find Charlie Murphy's True Hollywood Stories (Rick James) from Chappelle's Show and watch it.  And I've probably posted it around here before too but I can't resist.  I never watched the show all that much but this shit almost makes me cry it's so funny (4:37):

Chappelle's Show

Charlie Murphy's True Hollywood Stories - Rick James, Pt 2

Charlie Murphy Videos
Buy Chappelle's Show DVDs

Black Comedy
True Hollywood Story

Speaking of Backyard Gardening

In my case, it's actually front yard gardening because the soil in my backyard is even worse than that in my front yard, and the sun exposure back there's pretty bad.  I'm slowly turning the backyard into more of a back meadow, with field grasses rather than turf and a lot of wildflowers.  Plus, I don't care about having a lawn, especially because of the drought.  It seems ridiculous to water grass a couple of times a week.  I currently have one raised bed in place in the front yard and plan to dig another one in the next week or so--I have the blocks that I use stacked and waiting. 

Anyhoo, the Statesman has an article on backyard gardening today that's worth reading, Austin Joins Backyard Garden Boom:

What's behind this gardening fever? That depends on which local garden expert you ask: It's about the economy. It's about the desire for fresher, safer food with a smaller carbon footprint. It's about reconnecting with a heritage of homegrown food. And it's about being culturally chic.

Slaughter is hearing from gardening friends and neighbors that they're trying to cope with job insecurities and concerns about food safety.

"People feel like they have little control over their lives," she says. "By gardening and raising (some of) their own food, they feel they can control a small portion of their own lives."

The Garden So Far

I took a gamble.  Slightly under the influence of a wily gardening friend of mine, I took a chance and put a few plants in the ground, a gamble that will either start producing fruit for me a week or two earlier than otherwise or will leave me with a few empty spots in my bed to fill.  I'm holding off on the main planting push for another week or two--the "safe date" for Austin is anywhere between March 15th and 31st, though I think the Farmer's Almanac is saying March 7th this year.  I'm also going to hold off posting any pictures of the plants in the ground as I don't want them to feel any performance pressure until they're better established.  Here's what I've planted:

Celebrity Hybrid Tomato:  This seemed to be a relatively safe choice, one that might be better suited to surviving my gardening shortcomings.
Early Girl Hybrid Tomato:  This plant seemed to be a good choice to get things moving quickly, as it's supposed to start producing within a couple of months.  However, the little guy I set out seems to have not done too well overnight, so it might be the first casualty.
La Roma Heirloom:  Along with all the slicing tomatoes, I definitely want to get some paste tomatoes going, both for fresh cooking over the summer and in order to store some for the off season. 
Serrano Pepper:  When I went shopping yesterday, I couldn't find any scotch bonnet peppers, my new favorite.  I do have a habanero plant waiting to go into the ground--it seemed somehow sacrilegious to put something so hot into the ground when it was still going to get cold at night.  The serranos have good heat and I'm looking forward to seeing how they do.

I'll also be putting out my potatoes within the next few days.  I think the two varieties were the white kennebec potatoes and red la sodas, both of which I got from The Natural Gardener, cut them and dusted them with sulfur to prevent rot.

Oops, almost forgot.  I put some lantana in the front yard too--a couple of New Gold and another one, I think it was Landmark Bandana Orange Sunrise.

Austin Restaurant Week

It's coming!  Starting Sunday, Austin Restaurant Week begins and will run March 1-4th and 8-11th.  Restaurant Week is a chance to focus on some of the best Austin restaurants, with each of them offering a three-course meal for either $25 or $35.  Looking at the restaurant list, "best" restaurants seems to largely mean expensive high style joints, places that are generally out of my budget.  But if you you've got some extra cash lying around and there's one of these places that you'd like to try for a change, the fixed price might bring some of them a little bit more down to earth.  There are a couple of more reasonably priced spots on the list, such as The Woodland and Botticelli's (though they've gone with the $35 menu for this event, I've eaten there before without breaking the bank).

If you're interested, check out the restaurant list here and you can click on their Restaurant Week menu:  participants.

Clean Coal--The Cleanest Clean There Is!

Thanks to This is Reality by way of a tip-off from Conscious Consuming, we have today's 30-second spot created by the Coen Brothers:  Clean Coal Air Freshener:

Science and Obama's Budget

Now that we have Pres. Obama's preliminary budget in hand, we should start hearing from various stakeholders as they get a feel for how they're being treated by the new administration.  It looks like the initial reaction from science folks is positive, though, as it's a preliminary budget, the numbers are too general to say for sure.  Here's what Wired Science says, in Obama Budget Strong in Science:

President Barack Obama unveiled his fiscal year 2010 budget Wednesday — and it's full of good news for scientific research.

Funding for the National Institutes of Health, Department of Energy, NASA, and the Environmental Protection Agency will all increase substantially, although details remain scarce. Combined with the billions doled out in the stimulus package, government scientific agencies will be better funded than they have been in recent memory, if Congress doesn't change Obama's plans too much.

Newflower Farmers Market Update

When I wrote my original "review" of the Newflower Farmers Market grand opening a few weeks back, I said I'd revisit and see if my opinion changed at all (Newflower Farmers Market Opens in Austin).  As I was going out to buy some plants this morning, I figured I'd kill two birds with one stone (I'm such an animal-hater) and hit Newflower on the way back.  And I can confidently say that my opinion hasn't changed  and that I don't see much advantage to shopping there over HEB or Central Market (when I need to find the good stuff).  I did check out their bulk items this time and the prices are slightly better than Central Market though the selection isn't as extensive (and they were out of several items altogether).  The quality isn't as high as Central Market, the prices aren't as low as HEB and from what I can tell, the environmental advatage over HEB is pretty much negligible. 

They tout their grain-fed beef.  Most of their in-store brands appear to be out of California.  They don't have that many more organic options in produce and meat and I'm not convinced that organic processed foods have any real advantages.  I haven't been able to verify that their version of all natural, sustainably farmed chicken is any better than the HEB version.  They don't have any emphasis whatsoever on locally produced food, whereas you can always find some local stuff at Central Market.  And HEB/CM has the slight advantage of being a San Antonio-based store and so more of their income goes back into the Texas economy and more of their community action is Texas-oriented. 

Like I said, I might go there in a pinch for some things but I don't see any real advantage in shopping there.

PETA Likes to Get Naked

PETA does some interesting things to promote it's message that vegetarianism is the way to go.  Along with some of their moralizing approaches, they seem to like to get naked (or sometimes some good old fashioned vegeroticism).  The following Docublogger video comes from a demonstration exposing the resources necessary to raise a pound of meat.  Makes sense--raising a pound of beef requires enough water to provide showers for six months, so to raise consciousness you take a shower in front of The Alamo:

Sex is Even Older than 350 Million Years

Okay, so this is probably more along the lines of an expansion than a correction or a retraction, but sexual reproduction in plants and single-celled organisms long before the fish referred to in an earlier post figured out how to do it.  As Pharyngula points out, the real change shown by the fossil evidence is internal fertilization or mating, rather than sexual reproduction.  I stand corrected more fully informed than before, Exposing the Intimate Details of the Sex Lives of Placoderms:

Let's get it right. These fossils tells us about the origin of fu…uh, errm, mating in vertebrates.

Shrinkage: 6.2% Economic Contraction

Zoinks.  The Obama Administration released the revised economic numbers for the last quarter of 2008 and they show a 6.2% annualized contraction in GDP, the worst numbers since 1982.  That's harsh, In Revision, GDP Shrank 6.2% at End of 2008:

The downward revisions came primarily because of a larger-than-anticipated contraction in inventories of unsold goods. A wider trade gap than previously reported — that is, fewer American goods being purchased abroad — also pushed G.D.P. downward. Lower consumer sales sliced off some of the previously reported economic output, as well.

Friday’s revision, which will be followed by a final number from the Bureau of Economic Analysis next month, usually garners little attention from analysts. But because the contraction was more severe than previously reported, and because the government has been grappling with how to determine how serious the recession is and how to remedy it, many will be citing data as a sign that the economy is on a dismal trajectory.

Common Sense Study: Food Deserts=Poor Diet

A "food desert" is an area where there are no grocery stores or other sources of healthy food, though there may be sources of food like fast food restaurants and convenience stores.  They are often urban areas where white flight and other socio-economic changes have coincided with food retailers moving out.  A pair of new studies have shown the link between the availability of nutritious food and diet--it seems like a pretty obvious connection but many folks assume that with public transit and personal transportation, being able to get to the grocery store isn't a problem.  But it can be a huge problem and a major undertaking requiring several hours and a lot of effort if there are no grocery stores in a neighborhood and there aren't direct bus lines to stores outside of the area. 

Not only did the studies show that poor availability can lead directly to poor diet, they also showed that predominantly black communities and low income areas are much more likely to face this problem than white majority neighborhoods and higher income areas, Healthy Food Availability Could Depend on Where You Live--So Does the Quality of Your Diet:

In the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, Franco, along with colleagues from the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and the University of Michigan, examined the differences in the availability of healthy foods across 159 neighborhoods and 226 neighborhood stores in Baltimore City and Baltimore County. Researchers found that 43 percent of predominantly black neighborhoods and 46 percent of lower-income neighborhoods fell under the category of low availability of healthy foods versus 4 percent and 13 percent, respectively, in predominantly white and higher-income neighborhoods. In addition, supermarkets in predominantly white and higher-income neighborhoods had higher levels of healthy food availability compared to supermarkets located in lower-income neighborhoods and predominantly black neighborhoods.

More from the White House on the Budget

Before I get to the White House handouts, let me begin by offering you a link to Dan Froomkin's excellent index of the reactions to the budget so far.  Froomkin is far more than an aggregator, he gets good articles from across the political spectrum and produces a representative summary of what each is about.  He provides a great one-stop location to get the scoop.  For his work on the budget, check out The Robin Hood Budget:

Obama's budget would dramatically increase taxes on the wealthy, while cutting payments and subsidies to insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies, agribusiness and defense contractors -- and mandating a system to charge polluters for their carbon emissions.

It would, in short, reverse the redistribution of wealth that took place during the Bush era. This time, the rich will be subsidizing the poor, not the other way around.

The complete collection of budget documents is available at FY 2010 President's Budget.  This includes about 44 pages of introductory material, addressing the misplaced priorities of past budgets and policy and the policy goals and programs laid out in the 2010 budget (including the steps toward transparency and fiscal discipline outlined in this budget).  Beyond the introductory material linked to above, the budget page includes links to the portions of the budget for each department of the government, with individual links to each of them (I forgot this is government material!  I'll just include those links below as well):

• Department of Agriculture (6 pages, 174 KB)
• Department of Commerce (2 pages, 99 KB)
• Department of Defense (4 pages, 86 KB)
• National Intelligence Program (2 pages, 75 KB)
• Department of Education (4 pages, 109 KB)
• Department of Energy (4 pages, 80 KB)
• Department of Health and Human Services (4 pages, 108 KB)
• Department of Homeland Security (2 pages, 78 KB)
• Department of Housing and Urban Development (4 pages, 89 KB)
• Department of the Interior (4 pages, 96 KB)
• Department of Justice (2 pages, 210 KB)
• Department of Labor (4 pages, 98 KB)
• Department of State and Other International Programs (4 pages, 134 KB)
• Department of Transportation (2 pages, 87 KB)
• Department of the Treasury (2 pages, 72 KB)
• Department of Veterans Affairs (2 pages, 111 KB)
• Corps of Engineers – Civil Works (2 pages, 98 KB)
• Environmental Protection Agency (4 pages, 91 KB)
• National Aeronautics and Space Administration (2 pages, 88 KB)
• National Science Foundation (2 pages, 80 KB)
• Small Business Administration (2 pages, 92 KB)
• Social Security Administration (2 pages, 72 KB)
• Corporation for National Community Service (2 pages, 78 KB)

If you'd like to read the conclusion to the introductory material, it will be reproduced in full after the fold.

Weird, Tasty Vegetable Combination

I think I should insert here at the beginning that the combo seemed weird to me because I'd never seen it before.  Maybe you guys eat it all the time?

I generally stick to the tried and true combinations when it comes to cooking around the house:  spinach, tomatoes and kalamata olives love to hang out together, you bring out the best in leafy greens by adding some bacon and onion to the mix, you know, that kind of thing.  But a little while ago I was hungry (and feeling kind of stupid for want of food) and wandered downstairs to the kitchen to see what I could see. 

What I could see was a whole lot of vegetables on the lower shelf of my fridge, plus more veggies in the crisper drawers.  And no apparent theme to tie anything together, no real classic fall-back combinations.  For want of anything better to do, I julienned some carrots, sliced up the white portion of some green onions longways, and chopped up some collards.  I sauteed them in some butter (first the carrots, then the onions and then threw the collards in at the end) and a little salt and pepper.  After the carrots and onions were just a little bit brown, I threw in some cooked penne pasta that was sitting around in the fridge with nothing to do and as soon as that was heated thru, I ate lunch.  It was surprisingly tasty for such an ad hoc combination. 

Loving the Weirdness: Carole Keeton Strayhorn

Burnt Orange Report  (Carole Strayhorn Skips Debates, Has a Sidwalk Press Conference) posted the following video from the Chronicle's City Hall Hustle (Bucking the Budget) and, I have to admit, it's one of the strangest and most random bits of political theatre I've seen.  Strayhorn did a press conference outside City Hall, on the sidewalk, on a windy day, with a lot of traffic and many pesky questions.  If this is the kind of performance she's going to put in and if she's going to continue to skip mayoral debates in favor of other "more important" things, she might as well pack it in.  While I'll admit that debates can often be flawed and not terribly informative, they are a good way to get the major players together and hear what they have to say.  Ad hoc press conferences on the street corner are no substitute (7:00):

How to Halve the Budget Deficit in Four Years

Step One:  Increase the budget deficit to $1.75 trillion

Step Two:  End recession.

Step Three:  Reduce budget deficit to $875 billion.

Done.

Obama Sending Congress "Hard Choices"
Remarks by the President on the Fiscal Year 2010 Budget:

But while we must add to our deficits in the short term to provide immediate relief to families and get our economy moving, it is only by restoring fiscal discipline over the long run that we can produce sustained growth and shared prosperity.  And that is precisely the purpose of the budget I'm submitting to Congress today.

In keeping with my commitment to make our government more open and transparent, this budget is an honest accounting of where we are and where we intend to go.  For too long, our budget has not told the whole truth about how precious tax dollars are spent.  Large sums have been left off the books, including the true cost of fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan.  And that kind of dishonest accounting is not how you run your family budgets at home; it's not how your government should run its budgets, either.  We need to be honest with ourselves about what costs are being racked up -- because that's how we'll come to grips with the hard choices that lie ahead.  And there are some hard choices that lie ahead.

The numbers are startling but as I've said far too many times for it to still be even remotely interesting for you to read, I think they're necessary.  And they look even worse because he's putting items like the war funding in the budget rather than hiding them off the books.  We really have to remember how much of our current problems are hangovers from the Bush Administration.

The End of Harry Potter

Daniel Radcliffe will be 35 years old by the time the final installment of the Harry Potter film series is released in July of 2011.  Yes, that's an exaggeration but it feels like it.  Radcliffe is almost twenty now and will probably be close to  21 by the time they finish shooting The Deathly Hallows, Part II.  I guess it's okay since those wizards come of age at seventeen and apparently age a little bit faster than the rest of us.  I'm really curious to see how the box office goes for the last three movies without the built-in marketing of the normal book release not too long before or after each movie was released.  And yes, I'm still bitter that the release of The Halfblood Prince was pushed back till this summer.

Fighting for Justice Speaker Series: Sera Bonds

Event press release on the other side of the fold.

 

My Album--Knuckling Under to Facebook Pressures

Gov. Rick Perry on the Stimulus for Builders

Gov. Rick Perry addressed Texas homebuilders yesterday and said something that wasn't so bright, Perry Rails Against Stimulus, but Builders Will Take it Anyway:

“Is there anybody out there that’s going to get one of them bailout checks?” he asked several hundred Texas homebuilders gathered outside the Capitol.

If the homebuilders had been in a more talkative mood and felt like telling the truth, they would have had to have responded with a good, loud, "Yes!"  The answer is yes for two reasons, direct and indirect.  The stimulus package has about $9 billion for housing, both to make sure that credit is available for qualifying home buyers and to make sure that we keep building housing, particularly for low and moderate income buyers.  That's money that will find its way into the pockets of builders across the nation, including Texas. 

Jubilee and Debt

Some time in the past month or two, I was watching a PBS show about the growth of the modern economic system and the part I watched was focused on how the incredible economic expansion of the past couple of hundred years occurred because of the growth of credit.  Debt.  Loans.  Without freely accessible credit, I probably wouldn't have a computer right now because they most likely wouldn't have been developed.  I most likely wouldn't be living in this house and I wouldn't have a car (though if that person hadn't t-boned and totaled my old Civic,which was paid in full, I wouldn't have had to have bought another one.  grrrrrrr.).  And yet for so much of history, lending money for interest was regarded as sinful by the Church and was relegated to back alleys and led to the prominence of Jews in banking because their rules on lending money were a little more flexible.