Dan's Cheesy Garlic Mash

No secret or surprise ingredients here. You'll need:

• eight potatoes


• one stick butter (8 tbsp)


• one tbsp minced garlic


• a cup or so of shredded or finely cut up cheese


• about a tbsp oil


• dash salt

1. Wash potatoes off.


2. In large pan, cut potatoes in to 8ths or smaller and boil in water with oil and salt.
   
3. Microwave or heat butter until mostly liquefied.


4. Strain potatoes and combine hot with cheese, butter and garlic in large mixing bowl. Beat on slowest setting until thoroughly combined and creamy.


5. Eat!

Notes: The salt and oil in the boiling water is family tradition, never tried without. We don't peel the potatoes here, we like the occasional texture bits but if you want em smooth you'll probably want to utilize the peeler. Cheese is optional. I've been thinking about trying swapping out some of the butter with milk... but you just know that won't taste as good.

Of course, I still make them but don't eat them often these days but I'm told they still taste wonderfully good! But really, now could they not with a table spoon of butter per potato...

Fitness and Health

Methinks I'll embark on the couch to 5k journey. Sadly, with the extra weight I'm lugging around, it'll be a while before I can complete week one. It's back to working out and calorie discipline for me.

I mentioned this before on FB to one guy but I'd like to shout out to Jon and Dave for their frequent workout related posts guilting me in to getting my ass moving and minding my cals again.

This post automatically originally made at http://danslotd.blogspot.com. I mention this because I'll probably start posting health and fitness stuff at http://200pounds.blogspot.com again which doesn't automagically show up on the FaceBook. So if you care to follow along, then you'll probably want to point a feed reader over there.

Fake Political Postings

I don't think this is real. My BS detector went off at, "Look, we suckered all those nutjob Christian fundies out of their votes and their money." That just looks to me like a lamely obvious attempt at trying to drive a wedge.

It seems to me that Rove is absolutely willing to tell half truths to motivate agreeable voters and demotivate opposition supporters. The memo starts out as a believable astroturf voter supression campaign but Rove is way, way too savvy to put a line like that in writing. Much less an email apparently distributed this wide...

That said, the memo could actually have been written by a staffer on Rove's behalf. If some idiot within American Crossroads actually wrote this I predict that there will be a firing that only the "nutjob Christian fundies" will hear about.

On a more local front, we have a tit for tat between spinmeisters Media Trackers and One Wisconsin Now. Seriously, both of you are a part of the problem. When we only have two parties, each side will grow organs whose purpose is to attack the opposition and, while they do raise the profile of important facts from time to time, most of what they publish serves no good purpose.

It's like we went from, "If you don't have anything good to say, then don't say anything." to "...then make sure someone else tries to make em look bad publicly for you."

Politics should be about ideas and solutions. All energy wasted on offensive positioning and half truths on both sides make me sad. Party proportional democracy anyone? I say it's worth a try.

Caring for Your Newborn

The delivery and breast feeding classes were good.

Caring For Your Newborn was the first class I didn't think was worth the time or money. It went a half hour over. It covered stuff that grandparents are supposed to teach (if you didn't help with younger siblings) like bathing and diapers. The video about "the period of PURPLE" was interesting. I guess I knew that some babies sometimes cry for no apparent reason but this was good reinforcement. The CPR part of the 3.5 hours we sat in class was barely a half hour. Our needs would have been better served by taking a CPR class at the Red Cross, I'm thinkin'.

Fighting Racism

A part of me wishes that something like this would happen in Green Bay.

Another part of me doesn't want it to happen because it's not the racist official that pays the price... it's the taxpayers.

Now, if you could make the people to voted for the racist pay... now that's starting to sound good but, of course, not possible with a secret ballot.

Sounds about right, scientifically speaking.

“Aristotle … argued, you know, there sort of has to be a God. Of course that’s nonsense,” Corbett said according to a transcript of his lecture. “I mean, that’s what you call deductive reasoning, you know. And you hear it all the time with people who say, ‘Well, if all this stuff that makes up the universe is here, something must have created it.’ Faulty logic. Very faulty logic.”

He continued: “The other possibility is, it’s always been there.… Your call as to which one of those notions is scientific and which one is magic.”

“All I’m saying is that, you know, the people who want to make the argument that God did it, there is as much evidence that God did it as there is that there is a giant spaghetti monster living behind the moon who did it,” the transcript says.

Corbett told his students that “real” scientists try to disprove the theory of evolution. “Contrast that with creationists,” he told his students. “They never try to disprove creationism. They’re all running around trying to prove it. That’s deduction. It’s not science. Scientifically, it’s nonsense.”

It seems to me that James Corbett was spot on with these remarks in a classroom, especially if it was science class. If I were on that school board, I'd vote to fight.

Dan's Quick White Chile

Sometimes you throw a hail mary om the kitchen and get lucky. When a pregnant woman tells you she wants white chili now, you find a way to make chili in a hurry.

- What you need -

46 oz Northern Beans
1 lb ground chicken
1 tsp chili powder
1 tsp onion powder
1 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp cumin

- What to do -

1) Take the lid off the jar and microwave the northern beans for 6-8 minutes. (Obviously, if you are worried about using the jar in the microwave, put beans in microwave safe container. I was in a hurry, OK?)

2) While the beans are in the microwave, brown the ground chicken in a sauce pan or frying pan, break apart as much as possible. Add a dash of vegetable oil if the meat is lean.

3) Dump it all in a crock pot and stir until thoroughly mixed so it looks like it took all day.

- What's next? -

Well, I'm going to keep northern beans in the cupboard. This was too quick and good to not have it ready to go as needed. I will try it with half burger and half chicken and no oil when browning the meat. I'll also try swapping the onion or garlic powder with onion or garlic salt. Finally, if I'm up for cleaning the blender, I'm going to try liquifying 1/4 or 1/3 of the beans too.

Labor, Birth and Beyond Class

It was long, but good.

The nurse leading the class mentioned early on to us that we should all have our bags for the hospital ready already. During the next break I asked the folks at our table if anyone had their bag ready. No one else did.

Next up, Breast Feeding Class.

Patents and Jobs

Mark Cuban is right: patents hurt companies and hiring. I suspect patents currently negatively impact our economy much more than 20% plus of our GDP going to taxes. Patents are supposed to be about creating incentive for research and development thereby making the world a better place for everyone and publicly documenting the invention so it's available for anyone to produce once the government granted monopoly runs out. Too often that is not what they do anymore...

"Patent trolls" are companies whose sole purpose is to acquire ownership of patents and "monitize" them either via licensing agreement or lawsuit. Legitimate companies that actually produce useful things are spending tons on lawyer hours and payoffs to defend themselves against these vampires. Money that could go toward hiring people, producing more stuff, inventing better stuff or just paying out bigger profits.

Even normal companies that do actually invent, create, and/or sell stuff use patents patents as weapons. These weapons are used for both aggressive and defensive business strategies. For example, technology in Google's Android phone platform is under attack by both Google and Microsoft right now. Google just bid on a bunch of patents from Nortel for 900 million dollars.

Monsanto is totally abusive in using the courts to crush farmers who don't want to pay for waht they don't want.. Others are doing the same evil but not on as large a scale. Monsanto has successfully prosecuted a farmer because the farmer's corn was cross pollinated by wind/bees/whatever carrying genetic information from neighboring fields. That's right, he didn't plant monsanto corn but the next generation included monsanto genes when he planted his own seeds. Pretty absurd.

A few general observations from my perspective:

* The processes software defines are also expressible in mathematics. They, like any process, shouldn't be patentable.

* Software is a work of art. We already have a protection for that, it's called copyright.

* Living things should not be patentable. Seriously. Congratulations on your discovery. However, it was already there. It was invented by evolutionary pressure and/or God. Think this isn't a big deal? Just wait until the first court case where someone can't sell puppies or cows or bees. And what happens when someone isn't allowed to have children or has to pay royalties on their children because they were treated with a patented gene replacement therapy?

* Someone who holds a patent has a monopoly they can choose not to use. They are used to continue business models that should go out of business. Think about the oil companies allegedly buying fuel efficiency patents to make sure they don't get used.

* They are used and abused limiting supply in order to raise prices. Think about pharma selling new life-saving medications at high high prices and low volume. That's the most controversial example but there are others.

* Patents and the general class of laws called "intellectual property" are one place where the developed world is allowing laws and law enforcement to act across international boundaries. It weakens the sovereignty of all countries to join these treaties.


A few theoretical solutions:

* Make process patenting out of bounds. Invalidate all prior process patents.

* Add abandonment to patent law. If the product the patent covers isn't available at market for two years after initially offered or within five years of the patent grant date then terminate the patent allowing anyone to produce the covered invention.

* Patents should cover inventions not discoveries. Or, at least, if your patented item self propagates, your patent rights only cover the first generation.

* Pick a protection class. A patented thing shouldn't be copyrightable and vice-versa.

Perhaps if congress would take up reforming this broken system we could get some people back to work in this country. Sure, there would be severe disruptions in the patent troll business model as well as businesses who use patents as weapons. You know what? I'm OK with that. If done right the abusers who are the drag on the economy would cease to exist and companies producing invented items covered by patents would chug along unimpacted. Patents should make the world a better place in the now and in the future as was originally intended.

3/4 of the way there by medical reconning

The first two weeks are just prep-time to fertilization-- pregnancy is actually 38 weeks. As far as weights and measures, the second ultrasound showed she's almost totally average. As far as Daddy is concerned, she rolled perfect 18s in intelligence, wisdom, strength, dexterity, stamina, and charaisma.

I can't wait to meet Nugeeta. I don't want to wait 10 more weeks and I'm quite sure momma doesn't want to wait 10 more weeks either. But I am quite sure we want her to finish cooking before coming out in to the world. So, Nugs, please take your time no matter how much we gripe at you to hurry up.

Funny thing is when momma is away for work and daddy isn't around she kicks like hell. When daddy's around, she is so restful that momma wonders if there is anything wrong. Then daddy leaves again and momma's tummy starts bouncing around on it's own again. Apparently it's become a spectator sport among the co-workers and volunteers. Don't worry Nugs, unless there is a recount you'll be home permanently Wed night and Daddy will come visit in the meantime.

Protest through humor...

can be so effective. Thanks to my old friend Heidi for passing along these fabulous examples.