Prior to today, I had never eaten a bad cookie. I’ve eaten cookies that weren’t very good, cookies that were substandard, cookies that were so-so. But in the end, they were cookies. And I ate them, because a cookie is good, even if it’s not the best cookie. This spring, on a whim, I bought a store brand tube of pre-made sugar cookie dough, and while it probably wasn’t the best food I could have eaten, it was still pretty good. The cookies you buy at the gas station in the foil bag-again, not the best food, but not bad. At Wal-Mart you can get a pound of orange-pineapple creme sandwich cookies for $1, and they’re actually quite nice. In short, there’s a whole realm of cookies out there, and my experience was such that I had tacitly presumed, short of burning them or doing the old I-thought-it-was-sugar-but-it-was-salt trick, there was no way to have a bad cookie.
No more. There is a cookie store here in Austin, Tiff’s Treats, about whose cookies Dorothy and I have heard rave reviews. Somebody brought some to a meeting today, and I can unhesitatingly say that the sugar cookie I picked up was the worst cookie I’ve ever had. It was greasy and flavorless, it had but the tiniest smattering of sugar on top (which provided the only flavor), and the damned thing was so ill-constructed that it fell apart in my hand, causing both of my hands and my desk to be unseemly greasy. It gave the impression of eating slightly textured shortening. Had I baked such a mess, I would have thrown it away; that a company had the audacity to sell it makes me question the wisdom of free markets.
Apollo posted this at 6:44 PM HKT on Wednesday, October 24th, 2007 as Grumblin Mumblins
The only way to turn off the anti-U.S. war machine is to end the radical Shiite revolution against the Sunni Muslim world and the West. Accomplishing such a goal requires a change of regime, and the institution of democracy. We have seen what has happened in other areas around the world through a combination of economic and political pressure on a regime.
A democratic regime in Iran will create more political freedom and human rights for women, religious minorities, and homosexuals in Iran. And it will go a long way toward ending the war in Iraq, eliminating the nuclear threat, and reducing terrorist attacks. It will not come without great sacrifice among the freedom fighters in Iran. They should not be alone in the fight.
I did not know this: In 1862, General Grant expelled all Jews from the military district he commanded. The book linked to is an interesting read. At the time, Grant was having a serious problem with Confederate sympathizers behind his lines conducting trade with Confederates in front of his lines. Kicking out Jews, however, probably wasn’t the best solution to this problem. As with my recentrants about misusing Lincoln and Grant comparisons, I think it’s important to keep in mind the serious errors made by those we today justly consider heroes who saved the Union.
There is a small error in the first link I provided. At the time, General Grant commanded the Department of the Tennessee, which only included those portions of Tennessee and Kentucky that were west of the Tennessee River, and such portions of northern Mississippi as were under Union control. He did not (if for no other reason than he could not) “…expel[l] all Jews from Kentucky, Tennessee, and Mississippi…”
Apollo posted this at 11:21 PM HKT on Tuesday, October 23rd, 2007 as Uncategorized
Lee is one of the most undervalued voices in the right-of-center blogosphere. He’s a committed libertarian, not afraid of a robust American foreign policy, and a staunch anti-populist. And even with the course language, he’s one of the best, most thoughtful, and most persuasive political writers I’ve encountered.
It’s also worth saying that Lee has been Andrew Sullivan’s best defender. While most of the blogosphere — including this blog and this blogger — are quick to criticize Sullivan for his hyperbole and gracelessness, Lee has always gone out of his way to stick-up for Sullivan when it was the unpopular thing to do. On issues like torture and executive power, Andrew has been the wrong messenger with the right message; Lee’s been instrumental in making sure the message gets out.
Best of luck in China, Lee. We’ll miss you. Don’t let the Chi-Coms get to you.
Tom posted this at 8:02 PM HKT on Tuesday, October 23rd, 2007 as Buffoon Watch
This piece on Jean-Claude Van Damme is amusing, if only for this:
In Jean-Claude Van Damme movies, USA Today is the paper of record and foreign countries are where the police are corrupt and you get hassled by immigration. He may be from Belgium, but in his movies, he’s an All-American Guy.
And it’s not just an act he puts on for his movies. Faced with international fame and earnings in the millions before he was 30 years old, Van Damme acted exactly the way any average person would act when confronted with sudden wealth and fame: like a jackass. He snorted a mountain of coke, he got married five times, he was caught on tape drunk and stripping on a public street. He’s disarmingly frank about all this, going on talk shows and saying that he can’t remember being in Hong Kong to shoot Knock Off with Rob Schneider because he was coked to the gills. He makes it seem normal.
And there’s this bit of thought-provokery from JCVD himself:
A cookie has no spirit because it is just a cookie. But before that it was milk and eggs. And in the eggs there is a potential life.
Speaking at Carnegie Hall on Friday night, Rowling confirmed what some fans had always suspected – that she “always thought Dumbledore was gay”.
Responding to a question from the audience, she said Dumbledore fell in love with the charming wizard Gellert Grindelwald but when Grindelwald turned out to be more interested in the dark arts than good, Dumbledore was “terribly let down” and went on to destroy his rival.
That love, she said, was Dumbledore’s “great tragedy”.
“Falling in love can blind us to an extent,” she said.
[McCain] said that should he have the opportunity to debate Mrs. Clinton it would be a “respectful” encounter. Then he went on to point out her support for a recent bill to get $1 million in federal money to help build a museum to commemorate the Woodstock concert.
“I am sure it was a cultural and pharmaceutical event,” Mr. McCain said, explaining that he was not there. “I was tied up at the time.”
Tom posted this at 2:34 PM HKT on Monday, October 22nd, 2007 as Audacity of Hype
There are a lot of interesting, intelligent things that one could say about the recent debate over the Armenian Genocide, long a touchy topic in Turkey, and one that raises questions for all of us. Questions of memory and responsibility, of the balance between seeking truth and maintaining diplomatic ties, questions of “why now?” and “why is Turkey so pathologically unable to deal with this question when so many Turks have lived for years in Germany?”
This article, however, does not say anything intelligent. The title itself is enough to raise eyebrows: Did The Resolution Condemning Turkey Create A Constitutional Crisis?
No matter how good Wikipedia will ever get, there will always be backwater pages that don’t get edited. From “Opposition and Controversy”[!] section of the Interstate 69 entry:
This story about cities in California turning lights off for an hour seems acceptable enough, if a little goofy, until you get to this part:
Much of the Golden Gate Bridge, Alcatraz, and Los Angeles International Airport will go dark between 8:00 p.m. and 9:00 p.m., apart from essential safety lighting.
Whoa there! There are going to be lots of people still in the airport at that time. Surely there’s a better way to save the planet than turning the lights out on travelers standing at baggage claim trying to figure out which black rolling suitcase is theirs. LAX sux enough as is; in the dark it must be horrifying. Maybe they could just recycle these things instead?
Apollo posted this at 7:37 PM HKT on Saturday, October 20th, 2007 as Convenient Truth
I see that the Hollywood writers’ guild may soon go on strike. Check out the number of sequels and other unoriginal material on this list. Of the 21 movies that have grossed $100 million, I count 6 that are original (Ratatouille, Wild Hogs, Knocked Up, Superbad, I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry, and Blades of Glory). And it’s not as though there were a bunch of original movies that didn’t do well; if you keep moving down the list, there are still a lot of sequels, remakes, and movies from TV shows.
So I have a request: Instead of just striking, why don’t all the writers just quit? We can start over with new ones, since these ones suck. Sorta like the baseball umpires strike of a few years ago.
Apollo posted this at 6:52 PM HKT on Saturday, October 20th, 2007 as Pop Culture Is Filth
